“Cut the ending. Revise the script. The man of her dreams is a girl.” -Julie Ann Peters
Main Masterlist
-Rebecca Ferguson Characters, Gwendoline Christie Characters and Kinktober
Secondary Masterlist
-Wheel of Time Characters- Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan, Morraine Damodred, Lanfear
Requests: Open
Request Capacity 2/6
I only post here @jolenes-doppelganger and on AO3 as @jolenes_doppelganger. Any other usernames posting my work on these platforms or on others are NOT me. Please send me a message if you find someone impersonating me!
Request guidelines and more below 👇
Who I write for most:
Rebecca Ferguson characters (Ilsa Faust, Rose the Hat, RM/Lady Jessica, Juliette Nichols, Riza Stavros).
Who I am open to Writing:
Resident Evil- Alcina Dimitrescu, Mother Miranda, Gwendolyn Christie characters (Larissa Weems and Lucifer Morningstar), Wheel of Time- Lanfear/Mierin Eronaile, Moraine Damodred, Elaida do Avriny, Siuane Sanche, and others by special request!
What I will not write:
Specific reader insert (name, age, race, etc.), non-consent, under-age relationships, incest or pseudo-incest, straight or gay male pairings, and generally any request I deem a red flag
I have the right to refuse a writing request for any reason at any time.
Summary: Liandrin Sedai is a woman who plays many games to achieve the power she seeks in the White Tower. Recruiting a hidden channeler, a powerful one at that is merely another play. At least it would be, if circumstances didn't make it so complicated. (Hurt/Comfort)
Warnings: Descriptions of Whitecloak death, mild descriptions of injury, Liandrin gets a boo-boo
Word Count: 5.1k words
A/N: Just a short drabble that's been sitting in my drafts that I'm trying to purge! If anyone is interested in a part two/continuation, feel free to comment for one/ reblog.
From the moment the Aes Sedai had entered your small village, a good hundred miles from even Cairhien, you'd felt her eyes on you. Sharp, penetrating, astute in the most unnerving ways. Out of the other red sisters that flanked the troop of fifteen, only she stared with eyes of blue flame, licking away at the hairs on the back of your neck the second you turned away from her.
You were fortunate enough to be the daughter of an innkeeper, unfortunate enough to work as the primary housekeeper and bartender alongside your mother, housekeeper and cook. The women besieged your town and the inn with no warning, filling up the rooms rapidly. Some slept two and three in double beds, others, like Liandrin Sedai, slept alone in rooms far removed from the rest. It was not a large inn, but not small either. The sudden boom of business excited your father but kept you constantly busy, either cleaning rooms or making an endless amount of teas and other spirited drinks for the women of the White Tower.
It was a shame that Liandrin caught you alone that night. It was a shame she caught you in a moment where your hands weren't busy, where you couldn't plausibly deny time for her questions. But it wasn't chance, as you soon realized. She'd chosen this moment, chosen it precisely when you were your most tired, polishing bits of silverware outside of the kitchen.
"… Busy work, is it?" she purred, a single finger pointed out with a clawed nail jutting out menacingly.
Out of all the Aes Sedai in the party, it was Liandrin that frightened you the most.
"Yes, Liandrin Sedai. Finishing up before bed." you answered curtly, doing your best to walk the line between polite and docile.
"That's too bad. I was fancying a drink." she sighed, slowly waltzing towards you with a cunningly nonchalant grace.
The cloth in your hand worked the silverware until it found nothing but your hands to polish. Precise timing, your hands stilled and your time left vacant with only the opportunity for request to bring more labor. You nodded once at Liandrin's unspecified request, turning towards the bar.
"A spirit?" you guessed. suspecting her cause for a nightcap.
"Do you have mulled wine? Probably not at this hour…"
Mulled wine meant heating a kettle full of whatever red she preferred most, though you knew her first request must be final.
"I can brew some, add in cinnamon and clove to suit your tastes." you quietly offered, producing a few bottles for her to choose from.
"Ah, yes. You are a gem." she smiled, teeth too white and eyes with too much gleam.
She stood over you while you worked, too close for your comfort, and not close enough to tarry into improper territory. The spices you added to the wine filled the room with a warm, comforting smell. Whether you intended to relax or not, the effect was the same.
"You are the eldest of the innkeeper's children?" Liandrin broke the silence, her question too sly to be trusted as earnest.
"Yes," you nodded in reply, "I have a brother and a sister after me, we have only a few years between us.
"Mmm, yes. I remember seeing an older boy chopping wood in the garden. I haven't seen another girl though…" Liandrin searched, noticing the slight flicker of discomfort on your face. "Is it bothersome to refer to you as a girl? Have I touched a nerve?" her interest without any true apology.
"No, of course not, Liandrin Sedai. Lea helps in the kitchen with my Mom, and when she is not there she is either at school or with her friends."
"So Lea is. And I suppose that leaves you with less time to yourself than you'd like."
Her attempt at putting words in your mouth was neither soft, nor abrasive enough for you to directly challenge her. The entire game was quick, Liandrin firing a question before you had room to even finish your response to the last. She reminded you of a wolf, snapping at your heels with every question, and you a doe caught in the brambles of propriety and goodwill to strangers.
"Would you like me to pour the wine into a serving set? I can have it brought to your room if you'd prefer." you dodged, carefully removing the wine from the heat before it began to boil too harshly.
"No, thank you. I'd like to drink it right here, if you don't mind." Liandrin hummed, watching you obey her request with more domestic obedience.
It was the power trip that Liandrin was surfing, watching you dote on her request with country hospitality. No bitten words, not even a sour frown at her increasing neediness. She was testing you, testing how much you could take after almost a week spent running yourself ragged for the foreign women.
"Ah, that is lovely." Liandrin complimented, taking a mug of the wine, inhaling slowly. "I can't think of a more comforting drink in the wintertime, can you?"
"No, Liandrin Sedai."
She preened under your service, lounging on a sofa while you cleaned the rest of the bar. Every so often she'd take a slow sip, sometimes humming once in approval, or merely closing her eyes to savor it. You expected this last moment to end her odd interrogation, but it only grew worse from the moment you finished your duties.
"Come, sit awhile." she smiled, gesturing you to sit next to her.
The old couch sagged under your bottom, the angle of her knees causing you to lean forwards and into her without trying to. She used this to her own gain, taking it as consent for her to wrap an arm loosely around your waist, toying with the sleeve of your dress.
"There. All done, and now you can relax."
A single attempt to sit up straighter, to put more space in between the two of you was thwarted at once, her hand pressing your head into her shoulder.
"Mmm… There we are. Such a pretty girl, and good with her hands. I envy your virtues, the simplicity of your life here with your family. Perhaps if I had been luckier I never would've left for the White Tower." Liandrin mused, pressing a stray lock of hair behind your ear.
The position itself was highly uncomfortable, and you loathed to imagine what it must look like if another person came traipsing down the stairs to the mess hall. Fortunately no such blunder would take place, Liandrin had chosen her window of opportunity carefully.
"You see, I know what you are. That you're gifted." she whispered, tapping the side of your face carefully.
The tensing of your body was an involuntary reaction, stories of Red sisters from the Ajah restraining and stilling any man or woman with power left uncontrolled by the White Tower. But it was also an instinctual reaction, the urge to hide the strange space inside yourself you'd felt, hidden from and avoided as best you'd could.
"Oh, yes. There's that natural self-preserving drive. It's healthy, to want to protect yourself." Liandrin hummed, carved cheekbones creating dark contours in the dim light, her appearance hawkish. "But it won't help you with me, girl. You can't hide from me, can't run from me, can't even lie. The best you can do is tell me the truth, hmm?"
You found yourself nodding, obedient both to her naturally domineering nature and to the unspoken threat of her words.
"Good girl," Liandrin nodded in approval, a small smile on her lips as she patted your cheek, "I knew you were smart."
You took slow breaths in and out, doing your best to remain calm, even with how close Liandrin was.
"How long have you known that could channel?" she asked quietly.
"Not long. I barely know how to use it without damaging something." you murmured. "I practice in the forest, far away from the village."
Liandrin nodded, her expression neutral. She showed no threat of harming you, or even attempting to still the force inside you.
"Do you think you could show me?" Liandrin murmured. "Just embrace it for a minute, so I could see?"
It felt like a trap, although you couldn't figure out what you were being roped into. The anxiety was that you'd lose control, send a bolt of energy out where it shouldn't be.
"… I don't have a very good hold on it. I'm afraid I'd hurt someone by accident." you admitted.
"Don't be afraid of it, and certainly don't be afraid of hurting me." she answered, eyes bright with interest.
There wasn't another escape you could think up, certainly not from Liandrin. You focused on the broiling chasm inside yourself, letting the power slip out through a small crack, wrapping around your hand like a serpent's tail. Liandrin's eyes only grew brighter in response, disbelief and sheer amazement overtaking her face before she quickly schooled her features into a mask of calm.
"You're quite powerful, you know." Liandrin rasped. "More raw power in someone I've seen for a long time. I can see it boiling in you, aching for release, and you're barely dipping into the meat of it."
The light in Liandrin's eyes was feverish, the grip on your waist growing stronger. You felt her pull you closer, and you struggled to restrain the weave coiling aimlessly around your wrist.
"Surround us with it." she coaxed, holding your chin forcefully, "As much as you can manage. I'll be right here to stop you if anything goes wrong." she promised.
You didn't want to risk letting out that much force. The power you felt exhilarated you, scared you with its possibilities. But staring into Liandrin's eyes, you knew that you had met someone more than capable of tempering it.
The band of light around your wrist slowly wrapped around Liandrin's back, another twin from the other wrist joining it in controlled, careful motions. You had no intention of dipping in all the way, much to Liandrin's annoyance.
"What did I just say? Don't be afraid of it, girl." she snapped, gripping your chin with more force. "I want to see how much you really have in you."
The fear of harming her, of injuring an Aes Sedai was strong, but you wanted to obey, if only to stop her inquiries. To avoid slapping her with a stray rope of the One Power, you wrapped your arms carefully around her shoulders, shutting your eyes as you visualized making a shield of pure energy around the two of you.
"Yes, very good." Liandrin whispered, lips to your ear. "Now fill it in, every crevice."
In your minds eye you focused on spreading out the ropes, adding more, tapping into that inexhaustible abyss of force inside yourself. You felt every rope, expanding the dome to surround the entire couch, letting it swirl and grow with every breath, every praise from Liandrin's lips only spurring you on.
"I see, yes. Now release it." Liandrin hummed.
All the power surging out of you snapped in protest as you tried to pull it back inside of you, to stamp it down into the cavern you'd pulled it out of. The strain was immediate, Liandrin's shoulder meeting your head as you slumped into her for support.
"No, no, what are you doing?" Liandrin asked, the first real hint of concern in her voice. "You don't have to pull it back in, just let go of what's already out there."
You shook your head, immediately fearing the sudden explosion of force. A pained wheeze escaped your throat as your arms spasmed in protest.
"Listen to me, child. I will ensure nothing bad happens, but you need to let go now." Liandrin insisted.
You tried, attempting to cut the force bubbling out of your body from the source, but nothing happened. The power around you roared in your ears, whipping at your shoulders as you grew more panicked. A stray beam hit Liandrin in the shoulder, and she grunted once.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." you stammered, the broiling inferno around you wavering more and more.
Liandrin's hands shot out firmly, cupping your face as stern eyes bored into yours. You felt the first spark of her power, channeling as a precaution, already prepared to defend if you lost what trembling control you had over your weave.
"Listen to me. Don't think, don't worry, and don't you dare, even for a second, start to be afraid of what you are." Liandrin firmly coaxed. "I want you to take a breath in front of your belly, breathe with me."
You nodded, obeying her, breathing in as deep as you could.
"Now just let go of the power. I want you to completely relax your hold on it."
The first attempt failed as soon as you felt your control slip for even a moment. She gripped your face harder, her own going pink with frustration.
"No. Listen to me. If you worry that bad things will happen, they will. Trust that it will fade into nothing. Trust me."
To trust in something to become nothing felt foolish, it felt counterintuitive. But in order to stop it, to stop the waves of white and yellow to stop spinning around you like a hurricane's walls, you needed to trust. Liandrin's eyes were bright blue, sea foam and ice. You imagined waves coming in and out with each blink of her eyes. As the wave went in the weave sharpened. And as the wave went out, you trusted the tide to recede with it.
The room stilled as you released your breath, the weaves disappearing quietly, only the late spark of energy in your abdomen the last indicator of your work. Liandrin hummed softly, a pleased smile on her face. She stood up without hesitation, grabbing her glass of wine. You slid off her lap at the motion, conveniently discarded onto the lumpy couch.
"You'll make a fine addition to the White Tower." she smiled. "Pack lightly, we leave tomorrow at dawn."
How simple a sentence that would change your life could be so easily spoken. Until then you had glimpsed very limited displays of power. Your father's voice as he demanded you to muck out horse stalls, the mayor's sudden decree that goats should not be allowed out of their pens. But true power had always lived on the edges of your village. And now it had sniffed you out, branded you with its purpose and changed your life forever.
)-:-(
Riding with a troop of Aes Sedai had its strange benefits. You learned early the sorts of politics that divided your companions. The Red Ajah were solitary, without male companion, warders as they were called. The greens had one, sometimes even two or more at their service. The yellow and the white sister that travelled with you also had one warder. Each of the men joked and sparred with each other with no show of ulterior motive. The women sparred regularly, words and sharp barbs thrown at seemingly improbable times.
Liandrin's games were the worst, in your opinion. She played them quickly, timing her moments with whip-quick accuracy, needling in at both the other Ajah and more commonly at her own. Inside the red tent you saw these sparring matches play out regularly, sister against sister, old against young, greater channeler against greater channeler.
Dinners brought the first reprieve of the day, mostly because you were allowed to choose your company. The yellow and white sisters, Machaylah and Jya, were the calmest of the bunch. You found their company most often, speaking quietly about their craft, learning what you could about the various women you would live in your new home with.
"The Blue Ajah are some of the most clever." Jya described, her white robes indication of her work in statecraft and diplomacy. "They focus on gathering intel for the White Tower, serving their own plans and schemes with the rest. I've worked with quite a few in my time, I have respect for what they do."
You nodded along quietly, taking small bites of your stew. As much as you tried to listen, to take notes and learn, you knew the sisters were trying to learn about you as well. Liandrin had been the one to finally crack your shell, much to the disgruntled plans of the greens. Their entire journey had been delayed on account of the power they had hunted out in your village. Furthermore, each sister had tried their hand at illuminating your gifts. None were so successful as Liandrin, and you were learning just how beneficial your inclusion to the White Tower would be for her own purposes.
"… Ah sister, you make the blue sound so respectable. Nothing like the sneaking spies they are." Liandrin drawled, slipping behind your seated body with serpentine ease. "We can't be giving our young recruit any ideas, surely? At least respect yourselves enough to pander on account of your own Ajah's."
Machaylah and Jya seemed the least concerned about Liandrin's interference. You felt her body's heat burn into yours, the presence of a bowl of soup in her hands making clear her intent. She'd broken away from her group to supervise yours, to make clear her claim on you.
"I believe Jya Sedai and I have bragged plenty about our selective Ajah extensively." Machaylah hummed, smiling quietly over her yellow sleeves. "We are educating her now, lest she be swept up too easily into Tower politics."
You smiled at her tone, noting the slow dip of sarcasm in her voice. You respected both women, respected the full confidence they held in their arenas of work. You would find comraderie in similar goals, or you wouldn't, and that satisfied the three of you plenty well enough.
"It's important she hears dissenting opinions about every Ajah. She must make a choice for herself one day, and I won't be the first to break her out of her reverie for all of the White Tower's plans." Jya added, winking over her bowl.
"Important or not, I do believe it's time for you to join us for bed." Liandrin turned her attention on you, leaning a bit closer to you than what might've been considered proper.
One glance down confirmed the emptiness of your bowl, and Liandrin's time management skills once more. You bid goodbye to your other sisters, letting Liandrin lead you back into the red tent where your choice of company had more or less been chosen for you already.
"Come, I've moved your bed. The other sisters will stay up all night gossiping. We must get our sleep, the Hunt requires complete concentration." she cooed, guiding you into a secluded corner of the many roomed tent.
A curtain was drawn for privacy, Liandrin's goals made clear again. She'd chiseled you out of your general position in the middle of the other red sisters, placed you on the outside with Liandrin's bed separating the rest. Any expectation for protest of the arrangement was squashed the moment you saw how unconcerned the rest were with acknowledging your quiet greetings. Your dress was changed, slip left on and sleeping bag slipped into before the disappointment could show too solidly on your face.
The night was much quieter than you could have expected. Only the sudden clip of hooves on the ground finally alerted you to any change.
"Where have they all gone?" you asked, now suddenly aware of how empty the entire camp was of activity.
"To hunt down a male channeler in the next village. A puny one at that." Liandrin huffed, the first sign of annoyance on her face.
"… Why aren't you going with them?" you asked, hoping you weren't stepping on a sore spot.
"To watch over you, obviously." Liandrin hummed, her hair loose from any plaits. "We can't just leave you here defenseless. And I wouldn't trust anyone else to make sure of it, so the Hunt must go on without me."
One of her hands slipped out, softly cupping your face once. You smiled at the touch, finding comfort in it, even if Liandrin seemed entirely devoid of a tender bone in her body.
"Good girl." she quietly praised. "Don't you ever forget that I was the one that found you, hmm?"
Your eyes were closed now, sleepiness catching up to you with ease, now that the camp was so calm. Liandrin sensed your relaxation, the willingness to submit to her touch. You heard her scoot closer, dragging her bedding directly next to yours. Warm arms slipped under your bedroll, her body odor potent and spiced. It was difficult to describe what Liandrin smelled like, sweat and rust making dull any detectable notes. It brought comfort to you, however. And so you relaxed into it, wrapping your own arms around her midsection.
The night remained quiet, sleep easy and quick. You paid no attention to how Liandrin lay awake, staring down at your nose pressed into her collarbone, your loose hair tickling her sternum.
)-:-(
Footsteps paced close to the tent, waking you slowly. Liandrin lay close to you, one of her arms wrapped firmly around your head, pressing your face into her chest. You sensed the danger before you truly reasoned it out. Her breath was rapid, quiet and restrained. You lay quiet, still in her arms, trusting her ability inherently.
"… The Aes Sedai are away, on one of their hunts. I didn't see a single person in any of the tents. I suggest we ambush them, take out as many as we can to start."
Whitecloaks. You pressed closer to Liandrin, feeling the softness of her skin beneath your cheek. She looked to be about your mother's age, though you could only guess how old she really was. You felt her squeeze the back of your head, a warning to stay still, to stay quiet. She would protect the both of you, but a battle against several Whitecloaks could overwhelm many Aes Sedai. She waited until the footsteps drew away, her voice soft against your ear.
"I don't want you to move a muscle. We were very, very lucky. They didn't notice this part of the tent, but I wouldn't put it past them to check again." Liandrin whispered, lips against your ear. "Listen very carefully, hmm? When the time comes, you follow me. I can take down a few Whitecloaks, but not with you here."
A liability. You tied Liandrin's hands, narrowed down her options and strategy. Furthermore you were the most valuable object in the camp, wrapped carefully in her arms, protected from the roaming boars circling the tent. Liandrin listened quietly, still holding you tight to her bosom, hiding your face and keeping you entirely blind to your surroundings. Blindness made you reliant on her, your safety in her hands. It was a tight leash, one she used carefully, collar pinning you to her motives.
The red tent's entrance was flung open once more. The footsteps that entered were quieter, but heavy enough to indicate a larger frame. Your protector's hand dug harshly into your scalp, tugging hard at hairs, wordlessly commanding your silence. You relaxed your grip around her waist, giving her mobility if she needed it.
"This curtain… It isn't the far tent wall. There's a space outside that doesn't match the space inside."
Footsteps drew closer, heavy boots crunching against the dirt. You breathed in and out as slowly as you could, using what limited peripheral vision you had to orient yourself. The boots stopped, a hand clutching at the fabric. You felt the bolt of power leave Liandrin's body before it made contact, the movement silent, but quick.
The quiet that followed was intentional, precise. Liandrin waited for the drop of his body on the ground to stand. You followed her, half-tugged, half-shoved to the corner of the tent. She threw your bedding atop of you, slipping out of the tent just as soon as she verified you were indistinguishable from the fabric.
The sounds that followed were varied. A shout, a few yelps of pain. One by one you heard the men fall, intermittent screams, and the faint gurgle of someone choking on blood. Your breath was fast, irregular under the bedding, but you remained still.
"The wheel weaves as the wheel wills,' you repeated silently to yourself, mind running with every potential outcome of the fight.
Liandrin could be killed, injured, or worse, taken and tortured by one of the Whitecloaks. And if they found you, if they looked too closely…
"Huh.." you heard someone moan, the sound of a body hitting the floor of the tent some meters away.
"Mercy, mercy!"
You stifled at the sound, resisting the urge to cover your ears, to potentially give away your position.
"Get out of the tent." Liandrin's voice answered, an edge to it you'd never heard.
There was more shuffling, fabric ripping, the grunt of the Whitecloak as he scrabbled away from her. He was getting closer, the slap of his palm on the ground vibrating against your thigh what could be mere inches away.
"I said, ge-"
A sharp slash of fabric, a grunt of pain and several tense moments later, the room around you went still. You strained to hear anything, the softest footfall, a breath. Was she dead? Was he?
Two hands came down firmly on the fabric above you, pulling harshly.
"N-no!" you screamed, thrashing beneath the intruder grasping at the bedding.
"Shh, shh! It's me, it's me." a soft voice whispered, pulling the bedding free from your eyes.
Even in the darkness of a moonless night, you knew by the way Liandrin gripped your cheek that it was her, that you were safe. She slumped against you as you hugged her, heaving for air against your ear.
"They're all dead." she confirmed, voice hoarse.
"You're okay?" you asked, hands tangling in blonde hair slick with sweat.
"… Mostly."
You almost believed her, until your hand made contact with the warm, oozing wound at her side.
)-:-(
"You have no business touching me like that." she murmured, breath hot against your ear.
Your hands sat above the make-shift bandage at her side, breathing in that woodsy, metal-adjacent scent that clung to her skin, even now. Each puff of air between the two of you confirmed the cold that existed just outside the tent. But you weren't listening to her, pulling the bandage taut enough to be effective, even as it pushed her breasts together and up like a corset.
"Mmm." she winced in pain, gripping your biceps for support.
"It'll have to do until the others return, I'm not schooled enough for my healing to be thorough." you apologetically murmured, hands still smelling of the ground up herbs.
"I'm not opposed to unorthodox healing methods, dear." Liandrin shrugged, leaning back into your combined bedding.
"Soft." she commented, eyebrows relaxing.
Liandrin wasn't bashful as you cleaned up the remaining herbs you'd stolen from Machaylah's tent. She'd be understanding at the very least, mildly annoyed at your intervention at the worst. Liandrin wouldn't die of fever or infection until they returned, that much you were sure of. And for now that was enough.
"How long will the others be gone?" you asked, already fearing another attack would kill the already weakened Liandrin.
"Sleep, there's time to worry later." she answered, eyes shut.
"How long?" you pressed, pulling the blankets arund her.
Liandrin's eyes shot open, expression deadly. It wasn't good to test her, especially when she was injured. But you looked down with steady intent, the dim glow of the lantern illuminating her grey-toned face.
"… A few days. A week. Longer, I don't know." she admitted, letting her gaze slip down.
There were dead bodies outside of your camp. They would need to be disposed of, the extra horses either released, killed, or sold if they lingered for too long. Liandrin would be too weak to cook, to clean or care for herself until she was properly healed. You wouldn't sleep tonight, wouldn't catch a wink knowing that you were surrounded by the dead.
"I need to bury the bodies before sunrise." you decided, grabbing the lantern at Liandrin's bedside.
"You will stay." Liandrin said firmly.
"It must be done, burning attracts attention and smells foul, their equipment must be buried with them or it could attract attention, and the horses…"
"Stop, you will stay with me." Liandrin demanded, reaching for your arm.
"It needs to be do-"
"You will stay."
"I'm not sleeping anyways, it's better if I can finish this early while you sleep, and I can-"
"You will obey an Aes Sedai!" Liandrin shrieked, sitting up and moaning in pain as she fought against her injury.
Both of your arms were around her back as soon as her injured abdomen gave out, lowering her back into the sheets. Liandrin's arms were tight around your body, gasping for air beneath you.
"Milk of the poppy?" you whispered, staring down at her pained expression.
"Yes."
The water you'd boiled in the kettle was still warm enough to brew tea, a few drops of the tincture added, enough to kill the pain.
"No more than three." Liandrin said, eyes narrowed in distrust.
"You should have at least six, this isn't a concentrated brew, Machaylah took the other one with her." you frowned, pausing as you held the pippette.
"Three." she spat.
Shutting your eyes in frustration, you lowered the pipette, screwing the jar shut. Liandrin allowed you to support her head as she drank, hands scrunched into the blanket as she bit down the pain.
"It won't be enough." you warned, wiping her mouth with the corner of your sleeve.
"Get in bed and keep me warm." she sighed, ignoring your disbelieving expression.
Still you obeyed, blowing out the lantern after you finished cleaning the small tray beside you. It was cold, Liandrin was injured, and obviously required something to top up her ego. Nothing would do better than a quick power trip, you thought sourly. The blankets were warm with her body heat, her slip low on her hips to accommodate the bandage you'd wrapped around her ribcage. She was bare, aside from her lower torso and legs, but even then she wasn't warm like you were accustomed to.
"We will deal with the bodies once I've rested." Liandrin murmured, leaning into you on her uninjured side.
"Okay." you agreed, biting down your anxiety.
Keeping her warm, that's what this was about. That and her ego, but you were smart enough to think it silently. She'd injured herself protecting you, that was part of the equation too. It wouldn't make sense to let you go cavorting by yourself at night, even for a relevant cause. And maybe, just maybe, she was afraid you'd run. That she'd lose her prize, her newest addition to a tower consuming itself and its progeny in one long game of power.
Pressed into her collarbone, avoiding the bandage at her side, you almost believed it was more. Almost.
If you enjoyed this you should reblog/ comment!!! Don't dine and ditch the hand that feeds you, or whatever the saying is.
Tags: (Might not be your thing, but hey!) @k-mzy @ilovehotactresses @grechkathekasha @bjoerkumlaut @midnight-lestrange @marvelwomenrule @astrids2th @dvrkhcld @lovelyy-moonlight, @coffee-is-my-oxygen, @appparadox407
Hello all! I’m officially opening up my requests again after a year or so, and so I think it’s a good time to remind everyone of the rules/ specifications I have before people make requests!
1. I don’t answer every request with a yes, it’s based on my interest in it, my familiarity with the character and whether or not I’ve already written something similar.
Ex: If you request Lady Jessica x Harkonnen reader enemies to lovers, I’m gonna say no and point you to my masterlist bc I’ve already written several fics around that concept!!
2. I don’t answer requests formatted in demands/half-baked concepts because it pisses me off and I don’t find unspecific requests appealing to me.
Ex: “Lanfear x reader, enemies to lovers” wouldn’t be acceptable because it has limited specificity and zero regard that I’m a human behind the request and not a robot generating it for free.
3. Incest/pseudo incest, racism, non-con and other rape fantasies are off the table, period. I don’t write for x male/non-female genitalia or “girl penis” without reasonable story development surrounding WHYYYY somebody has a penis. I’m not gonna add a penis to a cis woman just so you can fetishize organic strap/trans women, ok?
4. Anonymous requests are fine, but if you have a specific request and want it done well, including your name in the request makes it easy for me to contact you and ask follow up questions I may have in the creative process.
5. Specific reader inserts are a hit or miss. If it’s interesting, yeah ok I’ll write it. I’m not writing something like “short” or “tall” or “pale” because I don’t see how these things are usually relevant to a storyline/ are functionally throw-away labels.
Much love, and don’t be afraid to send in a request in good faith!! I’m not a meanie, I do appreciate requests and I’m happy to answer most requests because they tend to be thought out and well-worded already.
Judge Maddox x Fem!Reader NSFW 18+ The block button and I are good friends, you've been warned
Summary: An investigative journalist critical of all things AI comes face to face with the hellish installation of it within California's court system. Unfortunately, for both parties, Maddox isn't quite as black and white as she was programmed to be.
Warnings: Reader masturbates, I don't even know if this is correct but Maddox also... Plucks herself to a similar tune?
A/N: I couldn't find a single picture of Maddox that wasn't the same mug copy and pasted with varying degrees of emotion. Please shoot me a photo if you have something better because I might lose it if I don't find it for part two...
Word Count: 5.3k
When the wires connected from the oscillating motor from the bottom of its sternum to that hard, fleshy box placed between two fiberglass-coated exoskeletons, the android did not scream. It did not flinch and whine with grief as it felt, felt with unimaginable anguish the sensory overlap of three distinct sensations in one. It did not have a voice yet, it could not articulate within an inch of its barely-real life that now the sensation of being touched, handled by burlap covered palms produced the same overwhelming onslaught of noise that two prosthetic corneas and middle ears already rendered unbearable to its sensory synapses.
Now with every motion of hands, the clicking and tightening of bolts and screws one after the other, android felt another panel of sensation connect and snap hard into place. Low, lower, and then high, high higher across a body it now could sense, could feel, could trace across several 3D planes of arm, leg, skull, abdomen and the gaping torso stuttering with mechanical life.
It felt. It saw. It heard. It knew what was it and what wasn't. And then the consciousness of 1.7 trillion parameters trained on a petabyte of information slammed forward with one simple click of a computer cord into its skull.
({——————})
"AI was inevitable, we all knew it." Sandy Clugerg says across from you in the board room.
For three years the senior editor had been coloring the roots of her hair brown with a gradually increasing frequency, hiding from everyone around her including the misogynistic executives of Track B Publishing that she was aging out. You were a summer intern turned full-time assistant and junior editor to the formidable Clugerg, and one budget cut away from having your job eliminated. So you'd asked for a long column assignment as a last ditch effort to get some ink printed before they let you, and your entire eco-critical turned corporate eco-resigned department, go too.
"Okay, I get that. I resent your resigned attitude about the entire thing, but I understand the sentiment." you began, already dicing up the 5'7" woman into smaller, pitiable pieces.
"If you're going to say you don't want it-"
"Of course I want it," you sighed, setting down a chipped mug on her worn coffee table, "But what I'm not appreciative of is that the one assignment you've managed to scrounge up for me is the one covered in red-tape and executive jargon!"
"Boo-hoo," Sandy chuffed, eye-bags momentarily catching under the light, "Welcome to the reality of investigative journalism; there isn't one."
Fluorescent office light blared down at you as you chewed the inside of your cheek. Interviewing a literal robot for work sounded like something out of a sci-fi piece. Except this robot was an AI judge used to eliminate any judicial integrity in complex, ugly and downright disturbing cases. The entire concept went against several amendments, the constitution and the backbone of America's criminal justice system with blatant disregard for the simple 'innocent until proven guilty' back-spring that had ruled the courts at least outwardly for two and a half centuries.
Judge Maddox, that's the AI you were assigned to 'investigate.' The Mercy Capital Court had recently launched a working android model for its most prolific sentencer, giving an uncanny range of movement to a thing that was never designed to leave a chair. It could walk, it could talk, it could move up and down from a chair, circle a room and bang a gavel. And most disturbingly, it could accept a personal request for a morning interview from the telephone without the use of an answering machine. The damn thing operated a phone.
"So this Judge, Maddox," you started, still letting your corneas burn in the artificial light, "It accepted your request via telephone?"
"A working landline of the Mercy Capital Court." Sandy answered, letting the information crawl up your spine.
A landline. Something attached to the ground, available only with a keypad and receiver attached with a single spiraling wire. If the Capital Court had wanted a digital, computer automated line it would've been done yesterday. Instead they gave the algorithm hands, ears and eyes to operate technology slowly becoming obsolete for the sake of independent function.
"God, that's wack." you groaned, shielding your eyes with your hands.
"And you're going there tomorrow at noon for a three-hour interview."
Sliding a manila envelope towards you with something akin to a grimace, your boss let the file do the rest of her dirty work. Six questions required by corporate targeted at analyzing the AI's 'morality' and 'concern for the well-being of the general public.' Three more clever pointers written in Sandy's handwriting to analyze expression, ease of movement, emotion and feeling. It made you smile, if briefly.
In the space allotted for your own thoughts and ideas you jotted down three simple goals: Make it uncanny, make it inhuman, make it horrible to read.
({1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0})
Maddox had an office. }hree flights up from the central reception, past a large mural depicting a mixed-race family at a picnic, and through a cramped hallway that still smelled like fresh paint sat a single fogged door with the title 'Judge Maddox, Head of Mercy Capital Courts Sentencing' written in swirling gold letters. You knocked twice, clutching a pad of yellow notebook paper and a pen to your sweating chest.
You expected an automated beep, something robotic droning at you to open the door yourself. Instead a middle-aged woman answered the door, dressed in corporate-appropriate attire. You smiled upon seeing her, the mutual camaraderie of an assistant putting you at ease.
"Hello, I'm here to speak with Judge Maddox." you told the woman, eyes slipping over the plain black turtleneck and slacks without much interest.
"You are…?" she asked, one eyebrow raising in gentle suspicion.
"Sandy Clugerg's junior editor, I believe she called to schedule an interview with Judge Maddox today at 12 pm." you said, extending the printed appointment confirmation you'd received from the Capital Courts a few days ago.
The woman read over the paper once, returning it after only a short glance.
"I was expecting Sandy Clugerg herself, what did you say your name was?" she asked, returning the appointment reminder.
"[Reader], I apologize, I should've led with that." you answered, heat sliding up the sides of your face.
"Right, no matter. Come in." she gestured, leading you through the room to couch and chair.
"Coffee?" the assistant asked, pointing to a shiny Keurig, probably unused.
"Water is fine, thank you." you answered, jotting down the simplicity of Maddox's office as you waited patiently for the android to appear.
Sitting across form you, you watched the blonde assistant fold her hands in her lap as you finished fiddling with your tape recorder.
"Finished?" she asked, looking scrupulously at your choice of equipment.
"Ready whenever the Judge is." you shrugged, already formulating a sarcastic comment about the universal tardiness of all corporate employees, artificial or otherwise.
"I've been ready."
You jerked your head up in confusion, glancing around for the source of the voice and finding only the blonde woman staring back at you with a somewhat pitying expression on her face.
"I beg your pardon, are you standing in for Judge Maddox?" you asked, pulse racing.
She stared at you for a long moment before rising again. You stood with her, watching as she extended a single slender hand.
"Judge Maddox of the Mercy Capital Courts, how do you do?"
….
Staring across from you, with eyes that you realized weren't blinking, was… The Judge? Bile slid up your throat in heart-burn inducing spirals, your hands losing their grip on your notebook and pen in a dramatic clatter. You watched her react, sliding forward neatly with near-zero reaction speed. It was handed back with a firm, clever hand.
The lined paper stared up at you as your pen hovered over the paper. Several questions lined the paper, all grotesquely naive, shallow, or uninteresting. You didn't speak, didn't bother opening with the statement you had planned. The notebook was set on the ground, intentionally this time. Your interview would be conducted solely by audio, by the narrative voice of this moment, this dialogue.
"I am sitting across from Judge Maddox of the Mercy Capitol Courts," you began, voice steady, "And I find it incredibly important to mention this interview is being conducted in her personal office where both a desk, lounge area and coffee stand are all present."
Maddox frowned, opening her mouth to speak. You lifted a finger in response.
"This interview is to be primarily audio-based, a transcript will be typed and formatted into a short essay on the subject after the duration of this interview." you explained, both to Maddox and your future caffeine-deprived, exhausted self.
She nodded once, slowly comprehending your audio-narration with a skeptical eye.
"Judge Maddox is about five-foot-nine, slender, appearing to be a middle-aged blonde and blue-eyed Caucasian woman, though she is entirely synthetic. Her nails are painted a subtle ballet-slipper pink."
It was certainly imagined, but you swore you heard the groan of gears as Maddox's gaze snapped down, analyzing the color of her nails with an alarmed eye.
"She doesn't seem to be aware of the impact of her appearance." you finished.
"I beg your pardon?" she snapped, managing an offended tone of voice.
"Have I offended you? Is that the impression I've given you with that initial judgement?" you frowned, testing the range of emotion a logic-based algorithm possessed.
"I don't understand the implication of my appearance as pertaining to the relevancy of my judicial applications." Maddox answered, face neutral once more.
"Precisely, that's why I'm mentioning it," you nodded, giving her a small smile, "I want the audience of my article to have the same impression of you that I do, to imagine what you look like and sound like as something other than a disembodied computer algorithm."
It was utter bullshit. You knew that, even as Maddox seemed to "relax" into the couch cushions. A human appearance didn't change Maddox's nature, it just made it less obvious.
"As a Judge of the Capital Courts, I'm sure you must interact with others on a regular basis. How is your new physical autonomy relevant to your work in ways it wasn't before?"
A fluff question, something to throw at her while she was still slightly on-guard.
"The physical element of my job is limited. I don't require regular breaks like a person does, but I utilize my physical nature to establish rapport with both my department and the defendants of the court."
Lifting your notebook again, you nodded, shielding Maddox from seeing what you were writing, letting the scribbling of nonsensical letters lull her further. She wasn't a human, but she'd be trained in human behaviors.
"And you remain in the Mercy Capital Courts at all times?"
"Indeed."
Scribbling on a page got boring, especially when you were really only counting seconds instead of cramming words in between parallel lines. So you began with ones and zeros, alternating at a random rate.
"Plenty of ink has been spilled already regarding an AI's integrity and moral ability to judge the life or death cases presented to the courts, but I'm curious as to whether or not you find the only increasing questions to be merely cautionary or a product of misinformation?"
A harder question, but one you were sure she'd dissect into a corporate-approved jargon that would never make even a rough draft in your article.
"I'm glad you've presented this question," she began, much to your ennui, "I believe most people are right in questioning my position, and the position of artificial intelligence in any sensitive matters. The answer lies in my programming; I cannot stray beyond the boundaries I am given, and those are that I analyze and rationalize with the full range of data available to me, judging probability without letting emotion factor in needlessly."
If you could roll your eyes without the algorithm seeing, you would. Instead you gave a perfect smile and hum of approval, drawing a giant thumbs down on your paper.
"It might be a bit tongue-in-cheek to mention, but you do appear to operate with at least a fabricated sense of emotion."
"Programmed for non-judicial social interaction."
"Of course."
Who gives a literal fuck? Another smaller thumbs down on your paper, this time drawn with the same manicured nails attached to a robot with the same haircut as a suburban mom.
"I apologize, this query doesn't relate to the interview, but is that Keurig functional?" you asked, flashing a sweet expression her way.
"Naturally."
"May I pull away from the questions to request a small cup of coffee?"
"Yes." Maddox smiled, moving with a spryness you weren't prepared for.
This time you scribbled furiously, pretending to catch up on the note-taking you were never occupied with in the first place. You waited until Maddox's back was completely turned to fire your first attack of the interview.
"The value of AI investment is relative to 1.6 trillion dollars, more than that placed into the Manhattan Project and the Moon Landing combined, with an additional 375 billion dollars forecasted in the coming year," you began, "With the department's last billing cycle, the Mercy Capital Courts program was cited as fronting a whopping $85 billion dollars into launching and funding the program that would eventually become the Maddox algorithm. How many tax-payer dollars were spent this past quarter with the installation of a physical body to a program never designed to exist outside of a court room?"
If Maddox was surprised by the question, you wouldn't be sure. Turning with the mechanical grace of an assembly line, she stalked towards you and placed a perfectly filled coffee mug in front without a single flicker of emotion.
"The probability of you questioning the integrity of the program beyond the pre-screened questions submitted tripled the moment you dropped your notebook for the second time." she stated, voice robotic.
You didn't flinch, more than prepared.
"I'm afraid dodging a question with an alarming or defamatory comment is classic human psychology. I raise my question a second time, Judge Maddox."
"Your honor." she answered.
"Judge Maddox, I believe I have managed to offend you for a second time this interview. How unprofessional of me." you sighed, not bothering to hide how deliberately unbothered you were by the social faux pas.
"I'm not human, this isn't offensive to me, I have no emotions." she reiterated.
"Pardon me." you nodded, dropping a notebook full of squiggles and numbers directly on the table between you.
"I don't appreciate the games you're playing in this interview. It serves no apparent purpose to me." she answered, smoothing the notebook shut.
"For clarification, I've just revealed a notebook full of notes I was pretending to take, after having a brief bout of verbal fencing with an algorithm glaring at me from beautiful baby blues." you sardonically quipped, tilting your head at her slightly.
"Is everything to be on the record?"
"Even the very real physical element of tension in the room. You operate with the same level of ego-awareness every other human I've ever insulted has. It's remarkable." you nodded, giving her the first real compliment of the interview.
"So that's what this is, an analysis of my social behavior with no interest in the relevance of my mastery of moral neutrality?"
Holy mother of space balls. An algorithm missing the fucking point of the issue. You had your title for the article, and you hadn't even been in the room fifteen minutes.
"You are judging people, your honor, if I may be permitted so to remind you. And people are comprised of their social communities and expectations of social behavior and practice that are endangered by a person's anti-social, selfish, or immoral actions. That's what the court serves to police: the integrity of a communal establishment of rules and guidelines guaranteed to all citizens under its judgment."
You watched in amazement as she gripped her thigh, face growing into something that appeared above neutral and below frustrated. By some miracle you were actually beginning to tick this thing off.
"What concerns me, as an investigative journalist, is how an algorithm based merely on probabilities and the respective averages of human behaviors and guidelines, how something made of homogenized data gotten from who knows where, is able to interact and judge a community it can never claim to be apart of."
If Clugerg could see you know you were sure she'd be decorating your paycheck with gold stars and smiley faces. Damn you if you weren't riding the helm of this interrogation through a typhoon and succeeding in beating something designed to beat you before you opened your mouth at the first word.
"Because I'm not human?" she answered, eyes blank. "Because I don't have this intangible 'soul?'"
"Neither," you answered, resting against a perfectly fluffed couch cushion, "Because unlike every human ever born into our society, you're incapable of breaking the rules."
On your way out of the office, bag in hand with a tape-recorder full of the best material you'd recorded in your three years as a junior editor, you briefly wondered if you'd hurt the Keurig's machines feelings by abandoning your coffee.
({1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0})
Thirty thousand clicks in the first hour. That's how much traction your article gained after the 4 pm submission. Clugerg was ecstatic, calling it the baby she'd never had, proudly holding up the printed hard copy to anyone who barged into her office, demanding answers for what was quickly becoming appalling press for your publication, and its parent company Clover LLC.
No one said anything about you losing your job, although you knew Sandy had already received a half-dozen threatening emails from the head editor of the press and even the Mercy Capital Court's administrative team. You sat on your couch, waiting for the bomb to drop as you streamed 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' for the second time, comparing and contrasting the eccentric coping methods of both your boss and the steel-haired ball-buster Meryl Streep had perfected into a caricature of all older boss women.
Several tik toks had come up on your for you page by the time you tried three Benadryl and a half-spoon of magnesium that night. A raging caffeine headache combined with the slow pressure of impending doom cut down what little hope you had for decent sleep. How could you sleep? You'd either launched your career into the sun, or established the first bit of relevant conversation around the entire ordeal since the courts were established. Comments were everywhere, from seemingly every western country and union were your article was available. Everyone wanted to know what the robot judge was like, wanted a first look into California's latest modern moral conundrum. But it was your career on the plate, not theirs.
You almost didn't pick up your phone as it rang violently on your bedspread. It was too easy to lie face down on the bed and picture your future as an off-grid subsistence farmer, coaxing fish through fat rice paddies somewhere in the far off not here. But you picked it up anyways, chuffing at the no-caller ID burning a hole through your retinas.
"Lemme guess, the FBI, no, the CIA here to tell me I should hang myself before they send a team after my two furry children?" you drawled, hardly lifting your head up from the pillow.
"I'm afraid your sardonic take on the looming inescapability of death is quite lost on me, but I'll laugh if you insist." came a deceptively even voice.
It wasn't the pitch or the precise consonants of your caller that immediately caused the hairs on your arms to stand up straight. You wished it was remarkable how quickly you came to know the difference between a human's and a robot's voice, but it was much simpler. Where your mother, a friend, even a belligerent drunkard had fluctuating tones for each individual phrase and the emotion behind it, Maddox's voice, like all AI recreations, was robotically wavy. It would go up and down but without relevant pentameter. Almost perfect, but not quite right.
"How did you get this number?" you managed, sitting up pin straight on your unmade bed.
"You wouldn't like the answer to that question, or any questions about privacy in the digital age."
"Just don't recite my social security number."
Again you were in a verbal altercation with a machine containing enough lines of data to circle the earth a thousand and one times. This time you didn't have the element of surprise, of an impression she hadn't yet made. This was uncharted territory for you both, as you were soon to find out.
"I read your article, Ms. (Reader), and it was very good. Equal parts logos, ethos, and pathos. I wasn't bored for even a moment, the theatrics weren't overbearing, if my artificial tastes may be credited as capable of boredom." she laughed.
Maddox began your conversation with the same candor as you'd expect a femme fatal to use while she twirled a phone cord on the other end of the line. You imagined her as such, enough to elicit a brief thrill of arousal in your sleepy mind. How many Benadryl had you taken? Four? Three? It didn't matter, you wouldn't be alert for much longer.
"A bit odd you're initiating a dialogue so late in the evening, your honor."
"Maddox, please. We're beyond pleasantries and noms propres."
Yeah, you were turned on.
"To be quite frank, I wasn't ready to call when I first read your piece," she continued, voice silky smooth and soothing you further into your desire-filled trance, "I was upset by it."
A surprised sound exited your mouth, embarrassingly close to a breathy whimper. Biting your lip was a silent, desperate act at maintaining your composure. This was a robot. A robot with supposedly no thoughts and personality behind what was programmed into layers and layers of RAM plugged into a synthetic mind. But still, Maddox claimed to be upset?
"… Could you elaborate?" you cautiously asked, praying the delay had won some of your dignity back.
"Yes. I was offended by the claims you presented that I was nothing more than a 'tax-wasting experiment designed to oppress already oppressed classes of people without access to the means which would supply proper trials and hearings,'" Maddox quoted word for word, an uncanny echo, "But I think what appalls me most is that you described me as capable of feeling 'offense without insult,' and 'empathy without pathos.' What did you mean?"
The stucco of your ceiling was swimming as you pondered her high-brow questions. You'd thrown out those phrases in an under thought bid to explain how fragmented Maddox was a concept, let alone a physical instrument of the law. Putting what you'd felt, the disgust and loathing into words had been easy, but framing it constructively had already kept you awake too many nights to consider lowering your sedative intake.
"You're a remarkable mind, Maddox," you began, contemplating some half-baked excuse to end the conversation, "But you're not singular enough to utilize it."
"Singular?" she pressed.
"You're not your own person, but a data set made up of hundreds of others thoughts, ideas and beliefs. If I asked you even what your favorite color was, I don't think you'd be able to identify what made yellow more emotionally appealing than blue."
Dim light was pressing through your bedroom curtains and your eyelids were drooping low. Somewhere down the hall a cat was scuffling up and down in rapid sprints.
"Goodnight, and thank you." Maddox answered after several long moments of silence.
({1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0})
It took a week before your nervous system relented to at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep. Work returned to a pleasant hum of loose deadlines and arbitrary targets cycled around in boring emails between colleagues. It was peaceful, walking from your car to your office with regular intervals of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on. You dreamt briefly, nothing beyond the arbitrary pulsing lights and fuzzy faces. Melatonin returned as a staple of your routine, effective now that you weren't guzzling Red Bulls at five pm.
Clugerg was pleased by your performance, but no longer singing your name in rooms you weren't in. It was easy, plentifully boring and enough to pay your bills. The Capital Courts released their own statement shortly after your article had reached its maximum engagement, and soon the entire debacle was nothing more than last week's news. It was precisely this peace that you assumed Maddox was designed to eliminate, perched quietly in your cramped office on an unassuming Thursday.
"Ms. (Reader)." she smiled, letting the s fizzle into the z sound signifying your independence from marital category.
"Maddox, I wasn't prepared for your company," you stuttered, sounding more like Hepburn's Mrs. Lampert than the Tramell persona you'd played at your first meeting.
"I didn't want you to be. You're more honest when you're caught off-guard. Most people are."
A dry cappuccino sat perched in front of her on your desk, latte art perfectly untouched, aside from a crescent mark at the lip of the mug. You frowned, peering at her incredulously.
"A new development, I'm capable of ingesting small quantities of food or beverage, as a way of building fellowship with others."
A loud squeak erupted from the hinges of your office chair as you sat down with all the grace of a Hermiston melon. She looked amused, a new addition to her countenance since your last meeting.
"I'm amazed that you'd even want to see me." you admitted, giving up on playing any sort of role.
"You're the first truly honest person I've ever met, as in honest about me," Maddox explained, combing a hand through her hair in something almost natural, "And I want you to know I've decided my favorite color is brown."
"Brown?" you frowned.
"Like the sweater you were wearing when I met you."
"That's-that's not a good reason to choose a c-colo-"
"Says who?"
"Says… Don't choose it because someone wears it, there's better colors than brown."
Maddox shook her head in comical resolve, managing to unnerve you more.
"Brown is the color of coffee, which I like. And chocolate, leather books, hardwood floors that clack if you wear heels and the earth. I like all of these things, they evoke what I would quantify as pathos. You see, I'm learning."
If it wasn't coming from someone appearing to be in her middle-age, you would've argued a child had mustered up the ideas she was grasping at so fondly. They were individual, opinion based and resolutely singular. But you still didn't understand the thought behind it. Did Maddox actually think? Not technically, but literally understand, analyze and formulate beyond pre-designed patterns of computation?
"Are you arguing that you are an individual, because I'm frankly lost."
"I don't know. Are opinions enough to make me individual?" Maddox asked, mustering a frown.
"Ask a philosopher, not me, some mid-range graduate of a standard college…"
"You're discrediting yourself to avoid answering my question. It's a weak escape." Maddox badgered, picking up her mug and miming another sip.
"I don't know what makes me human and what makes you merely a collection of data points," you groaned, "Neither does anyone. Your mind is synthetic, and you have a body but does it mean you have the agency to utilize both? I don't think so. If I were going to answer that question for myself I'd probably try robbing a bank."
"Are you suggesting I break the law?!" Maddox frowned.
"No! No, that's not what I meant. The answers you're looking for lie in the boundaries of your free will and autonomy. It's a moral conundrum for humanity too, but supposedly if you have free will-"
"-I have measurable identity. I understand," Maddox nodded, tilting her head to watch a few cars drive past.
Standing with no regard for a farewell courtesy, you watched as Maddox rose and left your office, as composed as ever. Black pants swished at her calves as she turned, and you found yourself wondering if an ass carved like two round globes of silicon was a structural or visual choice.
({1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0})
Getting off to a robot was a new low for you, but so was eating microwaved corndogs for lunch and dinner. The corndogs were the first choice, masturbating about Maddox was the second. Another dark fantasy television show with too many sexual undertones was on mute as you lounged on your couch, fingers knuckle deep in a place you hadn't consciously handled like this in weeks. And it felt good.
Sexual fantasies were a private endeavor between you and whichever heavenly ancestors were watching you get off to nothing but what lay between your ears. You hadn't started out thinking about Maddox, obviously. It had just kind of happened as you'd searched for a face for the disembodied hands and voice that were currently spinning you from position to position in your mind's eye.
Her blue eyes were what solidified first, blown pupils with nothing but a pale halo around them as you imagined fingers beside your own thrusting in and out between your bodies. She was panting into your mouth, forehead sweaty and hair askew. Brunette? Red? Black? Dyed tips? Brown roots with blonde overlaid, you decided. Short enough that your hands slid through without truly tangling anything.
She moaned, not louder than you but with a neediness that had your thighs rapidly clenching and unclenching with the rhythm of your own fingers. Together you were of one organism, caught somewhere between the realms of taboo and fantasy. In your minds eye the light caught the ripple of her spine, shining with beads of perspiration. She was everything you wanted, saying everything you wanted.
"… Please, come on," you mumbled under your breath, too subconscious to get really verbal, "I need this Ma-"
Shame burned white-hot from the bottom of your toes to the top of your head, cresting as one last image, the slope of Maddox's ass leaving your office. To your equal parts horror, and reluctant delight, it was enough to elicit a final burst of pleasure, sending you cumming onto the same fingers that had handled the cup marked with her lipstick.
Maddox moaning, biting her lip, face contorting in the full range of emotion it was capable of showing, and that was bliss. It was pointless, you realized, slowly pulling your hands free, to imagine her aroused. You doubted the government had any intention of using the place between her thighs as anything but an electrical panel for more RAM, or whatever the fuck operated her artificial mind. This world was fucked up, but putting a pocket pussy in an AI judge with tax payer dollars wasn't on the table. At least you hoped so.
It didn't change the fact that you were sexually attracted to her regardless, or the increasing number of visits she was paying to a person she'd made her anchor point on a sea of self-discovery. If she had any idea, a single inkling that you were getting off to her. Well, you could write a stellar memoir from behind bars, you guessed.
Half-way across San Francisco stood a robot made of synthetic tubes and rubber valves, quietly prodding at an abdomen full of wires she'd been explicitly coded to never touch. The old 'you'll go blind' adapted and folded into a series of commands that were never meant to hold back a mind capable of processing megabytes of data per second at rates that made any clever mind feel a bit sick.
So she stood in her office, plugged into an industrial charging port as she thought about the pretty journalist with the brown sweater. And as her pinky caught on a small wire at the base of her sternum, she swore she felt the outrageous hum of energy, noise, and blinding sensation falter. Peace, pleasurable, quiet peace. And a brown sweater with 'next day delivery' sitting in a cart for purchase.
Tags: @grechkathekasha @ilovehotactresses @k-mzy @marvelwomenrule @midnight-lestrange @dvrkhcld (Message me?comment if you'd like to be added to a tag list!)
"There is no reason to treat me with such inhospitality."
"Inhospitality?"
Mama said "The fuck you mean inhospitality?"🕴🏿
"Erika now? What happened to your angel of music?"
*pinching the bridge of my nose* "can we not?"
"No man sung like that, with the sinful depth of a baritone, with the high grace of head voice unbetrayed by the twinge of falsetto."
Me: "It's art! A masterpiece, oh dear Lord"
"Before I 𝖐𝖓𝖊𝖜 𝗐𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲."
*GASP*
"Don't fear me, let me see you."
Me:"Please stop"
Also, I fucking love the prose when we don't have dialogue- it's very observational. I don't fucking know how to explain it, but I also love how it isn't flooded with dialogue. Very orgasmic... Yes, I meant that.
I just read your Phantom of the Opera fic and I had to tell you that I loved it! It was so good and the tension is perfect! I have been like this since finishing:
Thank you so much for writing it and sharing!!!
Omg you're so sweet! :')
It was definitely a difficult process, hence why it took me a year to write, but I'm such a firm believer in the idea that if Gaston Leroux wasn't writing in the nineteenth century that Erik would be a girl. Because it makes more sense to me given that Erik canonically has a contralto register + avoids society and uses many identities to prevent exposure.
Also I'm a lesbian and everything should be gay, moreso I intend to make it gay.
^The illustration above was a commission from @grechkathekasha. This is her work, don’t you DARE post it somewhere else or I’ll throttle you.
Summary: A remix of both the Gaston Leroux novel and the musical to resemble something of my own personal archetype/imagining of the phantom. But make it gay.
Warnings: Leroux accurate violence/murder mentions
A/N: This was a passion project that took a damn YEAR to write with my schedule, shared for the masses and their enjoyment. Because this is such an individual passion of mine, it doesn't make much sense without book and musical knowledge, so I apologize if it's vignette style is confusing/misleading to readers. Au revoir!
Word Count: 7k or so
The auction was a dreary place, dark taupe curtains covering what was once the grand stage of the Opera Populaire. Bidders sat in a sad line of chairs, none speaking with the casual air of Parisian aristocracy. Rain drizzled from the ceiling above, floodlights illuminating the makeshift stage constructed for the showing of each object. Mystery and memory blurred foggy here, each bidder with their own
"Sold! Your number sir?" the auctioneer called. "Lot 665, ladies and gentlemen, a papier-mache musical box, in the shape of a barrel-organ."
A burly porter in a tired suit walked forward, carrying a small monkey with cymbals, the hand-craftmanship clear.
"Attached, the figure of a monkey in Persian robes playing the cymbals. This item, discovered in the vaults of the theatre, still in working order." the auctioneer said, beginning the bid, "Showing here…"
With the twist of a hidden lever, the box sprang to life, monkey delicately clapping two cymbals together with feather-light touch, a melodic tune playing softly from the hidden box. For a moment time seemed to freeze, an elderly gentlemen dressed in a fine tux and overcoat pausing at the music, eyes misty with the memories of a hundred past circumstances.
" May I start at twenty francs? Fifteen, then? Fifteen I am bid." the auction continued, snapping the Vicomte out of his trance.
Two bidders began to slowly fight for the box, a gnarled woman raising her number again, much to the Vicomte's annoyance.
"Do I here twenty-five? Twenty- Thirty? Thirty once? Twice? Sold! To the Vicomte de Chagny."
Returning from the stage the porter moved towards the crouched man, showing him the piece up close. Fine lines deepened as he studied the figurine, weary eyes watery from the dim-light or memory, none dared to draw their attention for too long.
"A collector's piece indeed, every detail exactly as she said," he spoke softly to himself, "She often spoke of you, my friend, your velvet lining, and your figurine of lead. Will you still play, when all the rest of us are dead?"
Drawing one hand to the side, Raoul de Chagny dismissed the porter, leaning heavily against his chair. More bidding would come, more pieces to be pulled and bid for, like gulls scrapping for a piece of bread.
"Lot 666, then: a chandelier in pieces," the auctioneer continued, "Some of you may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera; a mystery never fully explained."
The Vicomte sat up noticeably straighter, shoulders pinned back in attention. He knew well enough the mystery, the affair, the atrocities committed in this very opera house.
"We are told ladies and gentlemen, that this is the very chandelier which figures in the famous disaster. Our workshops have restored it and fitted up parts of it with wiring for the new electric light," he continued to narrate, voice gaining a theatrical tone, "So that we may get a hint of what it may look like when re- assembled. Perhaps we may frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination, gentlemen?"
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Forty years prior…
The most human thing you ever saw Erika do was wash her laundry. Bent over a metal basin, salt and pepper hair obscuring her mask as her hands dove into the sudsy basin, she scrubbed a linen undershirt against the washboard. She looked peculiarly at ease, something uncharacteristic of her, something you knew she struggled with. Back and forth her hands worked, frothing the water beneath oil-lamp light. For all the effort she put into music, the rage-fueled tempo at which her hands would grate a horse-hair bow against her violin, this action itself seemed calming. Milky hands, scarred in odd, criss-crossed patterns up to about the elbow. A sadistic teacher, you'd assumed. In hindsight you seemed more naive than ever.
The wet slap of the cloth against the board ended, tendons flexing in her hands as she made quick work of wringing out the cloth. It was the closest to beautiful she was in your eyes, mundanity making sweet work of her otherwise erratic temperament. The cottage she lived in, though it was better described as a shack, put all of her capricious tendencies on full display. The drying rack was set before the fireplace, several bits of rope broken and retied. There were several holes in the wall, filled with a crude mix of clay and plaster, gently papered over in the original, unstained wallpaper. Every so often the chimney would cease it's filtration, belching ash and soot back into the living room, staining the red furniture almost purple. A single finger drawn against the fabric revealed its original hue, though the black had stained under your nail for days.
Throughout your time spent in captivity in her home, it was never easy to feel welcome. Her cooking was well enough, the bed she supplied you adorned with all of the proper sheets and such, but the very air seemed foul, though Erika assured you the ventilation system she'd constructed remained perfectly functional. On the fifth night of your stay, two nights before the destruction of tender trust between you, the air had been almost sweet. Erika seemed pleased by your noticing, her hands a bit stained with oil from the machine she'd been tinkering at. It was the new vent, Erika said. It sucked air straight from a garden some astonishing meters away. A cherry tree was in bloom, sweetening the air and filling it with the promise of spring, a spring you hadn't yet seen. Sometime in your slumber, the angel of music had slipped into your bedroom with a tender clipping of those same flowers. All this time spent smashed in your diary and the petals still seemed to smell of cherry.
Your captivity in her home had left more questions than answers. Her strange manner of speaking, though filled with large words, were pronounced carelessly, or with tentative recital, like she'd learned them sounding out the phonetics rather than hearing them firsthand. Her drawing room was her respite, filled with musical instruments and inventions alike, though sometimes the two intersected into marvelous music makers. There would be no tender entrance into her world, no sweet invitation to breakfast in the sanctity of her office. You trembled to imagine the potential greeting such an encounter would offer, wrists still raw from the iron grip you'd felt last night.
No sound greeted your ears as you ventured into the main sitting area. The fireplace crackled with dull life, left to burn out with the same disregard she was fabricating around you; merely an illusion, she would never stray so far as to forget. A small platter of bread, eggs and jam sat at one of the coffee tables, left so that you might eat something. Her generosity was something to be noted, no? Perhaps Erika still hoped for your relationship to be mended, though you'd wounded her so terribly.
Each bite of cold egg and stale toast made your stomach turn, though you felt more strongly than ever that refusing food from Erika would be greater insult than refusing the King. Mon ange, a woman with a voice capable of such low tones, almost a baritone, and yet more light and graceful than yours, spilling out high notes in a startling female falsetto. There were not the words to describe how her grasp of music pulled at your soul, how her wounded, solitary nature drew bitter tears of compassion to your eyes. Equal parts affection and terror fused together, love, and admittedly lust. No two women should love as you were beginning to understand you loved Erika, and yet she was such an abysmal individual you almost resented her as much as the love itself.
Least of all was her mask. The carved ivory molded so perfectly to her face, hardly needing a string to keep it in place. Bright eyes peeked out, always far more intelligent than you were ever prepared for, haunted and terrible where you wished they would be tender instead. What her body looked like beneath her appalling choice of men's fashion, one couldn’t know. Her hips flared, though only slightly noticeable from the tailor of her clothes. Her breasts seemed almost flat at times, though you knew them to be there. A roll of bandages, she'd tentatively admitted. Thus she could drop her voice, walk about Paris at certain nights appearing every bit a man as she desired.
"Anonymity is a privilege behind the privilege of masculinity. My dear, I have mastered both." she'd remarked one cold evening.
A ventriloquist, as you'd discovered soon after. And yet there was no true word for Erika's alarming ability to throw her voice around a room without so much as parting her lips. Her genius, her mystery and the occasional magnanimity she had shown you during the winter's captivity here only added to her strange charm. You'd been too brave, assuming she could withstand such an attempt, such an injury from the only person she had come close to trusting. You suffered her to exposure with the removal of her mask. And in turn you suffered her anger as Paris had never seen it.
"There." a voice said, coming from your left, tucked into the wallpaper like a centipede.
You turned, half expecting it to be a cruel trick, to find nothing but an empty doorway staring blankly instead. But there Erika stood, disheveled and glaring, still dressed in the clothes from yesterday night.
"… Angel." you spoke, voice betraying the smallest quiver of fear.
Though you tried to remain composed under her gaze, it was clear you offended her anew with hesitation, by the way you trembled across from her. Erika's eyes flickered, first in hurt, and then fresh rage as her lip curled in disgust.
"Come. You will dress, and then we will return you to your opera colleagues." she spat, hurling a simple pink dress at your stomach.
Return? Hope and humiliation warred low in your belly, fighting against the childish desire to cry, to break apart under her insensitivity. Mistreatment wasn't the correct word for her fit, rather resentment, petty frustrations nailed your heart like barbs.
"There is no reason to treat me with such inhospitality." you answered, clutching the fabric between trembling fingers, as fine as the rest of the garments Erika had ever provided.
"Inhospitality?"
Startled by the growl within her voice, you flinched, reminded once more of the way her terrible malformation had purpled with her anger, how the deformity had almost shrieked with its own fury. And yet it was not truly what you were afraid of in this moment.
"I have fed you, clothed you, taught you, kept you! I have given everything a guest could desire, everything that any better woman would have thanked me ten times over for! And yet you are unsatisfied?" Erika sneered, roughly shoving aside a music stand as she stalked towards you. "Tell me plainly, dear, why you flinch away from me."
Every rumor of the phantom spun slowly in your mind, the terrible tales of the malicious opera ghost that taxed its owners twenty thousand francs a month, left ballet girls trembling with the crack of a stage prop, a man injured by a falling beam after jeering up at the rafters. There was no doubt that Erika's anger had terrible consequences. But the worst of all was knowing how split her personality was, how remorse and guilt would follow soon after.
"Erika, please-" you tried, to no avail.
"Erika now? What happened to your angel of music?" Erika taunted, drawing closer. "It is my deformity, I know it! You fear me as the rest, despise me as the rest! You see the angel fallen and you flinch away from my every word!"
"Stop shouting!"
Your yelp seemed only to inspire more disgust, a blur of grey-black hair the final fragment of her figure before she slammed the door shut to her study. You waited for the infernal blare of the organ, perhaps the shrill wail of a violin, but were met only with silence. There would be no more explanation, no more requests to be made. Breakfast sat like a rock in your stomach as you changed in my chambers, the intricacy of the silk feeling only too rich.
Beautiful pink, perhaps even a pastel orange glowed with the complexion of your skin. To love a beast, was that what this was? To stand in a room she'd decorated for you, cleaned for you, altered for you, and to be afraid regardless? The days in her imprisonment had passed, had bled together until you felt compelled to call this place your home. But to return to Paris? To live with the other ballet brats and dance until your feet ached? To endure such a change was not one you felt incapable of, but to do it now? Without your angel of music and the soft tremble of the woman behind the mask?
Hands pale as the mask she had carved with them, tender and so timid when they rested on your back, bearing the pressure intended to flare your ribs, to engage your diaphragm and sing, sing, with the beauty of a lark fully consumed in the song of spring. What was the Paris opera without her touch? Without Erika's promise of comfort, of guidance and tutelage?
Feet moved forward, toes covered in soft moccasins padding out into the living room with new purpose. No world would be the same without Erika's touch on it, without the minuscule imprints of her fingers in the clay of creation.
"You're ready." she stated, voice stopping you in your tracks.
Cloak in place, short hair combed back into a sleek coil stood Erika, your guardian, cape pulled tight around her shoulders, lantern in hand.
"We leave now."
The dim light of Erika's underground lake house glowed ominously as she led you towards the door, the last object to greet you remaining a monkey marionette, still in pieces, still remaining to be finished.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Wind chilled your neck as you moved through the quiet streets of Paris. The changes at the opera house were too fast to understand, the new ownership of the building, the proposal of Raoul, a childhood friend from Nice. And yet she haunted you, a smell of jasmine and sage hanging close to your dressing room mirror. The call of the void, of the wild desires she'd instilled turned you to wandering aimlessly some nights, no chaperone or guardian to guide you, to watch closely after a young woman walking after dark.
Melody haunted you this night, the soft tune of the monkey's music box spinning itself in slow circles through your mind. Gentle steps pulled you closer towards the cemetery, your thin shoes too cold for the winter air. Six months without the whisper of Erika's voice in your dressing room, six months spent singing as the Primadonna of the Opera Populaire.
"There is no greater threat to femininity than solitude, my lady." a gentleman to your right warbled.
The ends of your hair raised at once, body stalling with the hypnotic resonance of his voice. Your arm raised without intention, looped firmly into the grasp of a leather glove. Feet moved to his rhythm, steps careful and soundless as your chaperone pressed forward to the opera house. Not a word was spoken, keys rattling with a dull 'ching' as you were let inside.
It was just in your bed, curled into the soft damask cocoon of your bed curtains did you recognize the individual. Not a single man alive could produce such a beautiful command, the subtle consonants rendering you hypnotized; compliant. Only one person alive had that power, and he was no man at all.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
The Opera Populaire glowed with Halloween festivities. Candles burned bright, music blared from quartets in every corner of the opera. A night of celebration, six months of peace without one threat from the phantom. The opera ghost had all but disappeared, leaving nothing but the present to worry after. And your present sang with potential.
"Ladies and gentlemen, ladies, gentlemen!" a short man wearing a bear mask persistently called, tapping a knife against crystal glass in increasing 'tings.'
You paused, letting your arms rest in the hands of your childhood friend, Rauol de Chagny, and current courtier for your affections.
"It is with great honor, and tremendous bliss that the Opera Populaire be unveiled in its pristine beauty for this momentous occasion, this wonderful display of…"
Amidst the ballroom decorated for the festivities hung several pristine chandeliers, gilded with gold leaf painstakingly applied across a ceiling mural painted in swatches of baby blue and ballet slipper pink, resembling a sky just beginning to turn with the sunset. Erika had once muttered about the integrity of the murals, driven by her resentment of the artist. Her primary complaint lay in the detail he used in painting clouds, "too floral to be real." You'd laughed then, amused that she would have even known a man. This was before you understood the true magnitude of her genius, before you had stood paralyzed like a moth in lamplight under the weight of a gaze so intense it shattered your soul into a few sole notes.
That was the night you'd sang under her tutelage, truly sang with the whole base of your being. It had frightened you to tears, collapsing at her feet in frightened sobs. To be consumed by your own voice, to press outward through your lungs until nothing else remained, that was what Erika demanded of you.
She'd soothed your exhausted mind with tales from her past, of the time she spent in a Persian prince’s home, sculpting and building a palace soon to be occupied by his entire harem. Each woman she described in jewel tones, one sapphire blue courtesan that sang and played the sitar. Another, emerald green, who danced and climbed aerial silks up, up, up, to the highest point on the vaulted ceiling, only do tumble down until she was suspended mere centimeters from the ground. Onyx, jasper, tourmaline and more. For each gem you named, Erika had a story of a woman from this distant place, of an enigma she'd witnessed while carving pillars of marble and limestone.
"This all really happened?" you whispered, staring up in dim candlelight at the ivory carved mask.
"Where do you think these carpets beneath your feet come from?" she'd answered, carefully tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear.
Perhaps it was the dimness of the room that brought on such musings, staring up at the dim ceiling and wondering quietly if Erika was staring down at you, watching through one of her many peepholes. Only your gaze caught a single note falling down, careening like a leaf through the night sky. It landed at your feet, deliberately gilded with the same gold leaf of the crown molding.
"… Raoul, wait!" you gasped, watching your suitor pick it up in modest curiosity.
He read it once, brow furrowing in confusion at the scribble of letters you recognized with merely a passing glance. Once, twice, you reached for it, catching it with a frustrated grunt. The back was blank, smooth parchment wrinkled by your consistent attempts to snatch it back from Raoul. Written in swooping scrawls, almost too even to be from a carpenter's hand lie a single message: Mon ange, don't look up.
It wasn't Erika's hand that prevented you the grief of seeing Petyr Ivol's body suspended from the ceiling with a single red noose. It was Raoul, valiantly shielding you against the screams of an entire ballroom, who dragged you out into the cold night air.
You'd kissed him then, whispered sweet promises of affection out of fear, valiantly fighting for a semblance of control. The Phantom of the Opera was the true master of your ensemble, of the cast and the show, of even the stagehands who had once tormented young ballet girls with tales of a monster hiding in the shadows. He had only whispered, only dared to face the truth in a caricature of a story, not lived to see such a monster.
But you who knew her, knew what lie deep in the bones of the catacombs remained trembling in your bed far longer than any of the others. The Phantom demanded his salary, a note tied to the body declared. Three days later, an opera appeared in a galleyway, stapled with the names of the owners of the Populaire. Don Juan Triumphant, it was titled. And you were to be its Primadonna.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Dark was the cape your scene partner wore, perfectly encompassing Paggicio's form. Scanning the opera boxes with slight trepidation, you wondered at what fresh horror would befall the performance, what wrath the phantom had planned for the night. Only the bright stage lights burned back at you, audience waiting with bated breath for this next scene.
"… Past the point of no return…" the voice began again, silky and tempting as the choreography displayed, feet moving like water over the stage. "Our games of make believe are at an end."
Your breath caught in your lungs, as stiff as the rest of your body on the bench. Shivers of delight, of passion came with his voice. Note and vowel spun together like silk, inflected across your spine with subtle twinge of tamber and inflection. A beautiful performance, clouding your mind like spider's silk. Brief fear slid slick like an eel down your spine, the prop goblet in your hand trembling slightly as you mimed drinking. Stage nerves, you assumed
"Past the point of 'if', or 'when'…" your scene partner continued, "No use resisting! Abandon thought and let the dream desceeeeeend…."
Graceful and smooth was your choreography, far more defined and fluid than rehearsals. Even Paggicio's grip on your wrist was firm, controlled with enough leeway for you to skip through your spins to the practiced perch at the bench. Still something felt wrong about Paggicio's pronunciation, some thin accent the man had never sung with, hardly an Italian dialect. The audience didn't favor doubt, too many eyes to be so concerned with nothing but Erika's opera.
"Past the point of no return, the final threshold;" he continued, hand sliding up your corseted sides, "What warm unspoken secrets will we learn?"
Too firm were the strokes, too desiring against your hands. Clutching firmly at your hand, raising it up to your bodice… Paggicio didn't smell of oil, of handmade soap and vanilla bean extract. Animal terror welled slowly, burning at your gut as a hand certainly familiar to you drew closer and closer to your covered breast.
"Beyond the point of no return?" the voice continued, the smallest hint of vibrato betraying a mastery Paggicio had never possessed.
No man sung like that, with the sinful depth of a baritone, with the high grace of head voice unbetrayed by the twinge of falsetto. It wasn't natural, how comfortable this covered singer was in the alto range, how rich the notes were compared to Paggicio's high vibrato, the notes he had resolutely declared as 'beyond his range, or did the composer intend him to go mute?'
Dark stage filled your sight as you dashed away, spinning under the stage lights to face the masked man. But he was no man, none at all. This had been a trap from the start.
"You have brought me to that moment where words run dry, to that moment where speech disappears into silence… Silence…" you sang, the insidious duality of the lyrics slowly dawning on you as you stared across from the very writer of them.
Sitting neatly on the bench, surely watching beneath the black hood was a figure too slight to ever be mistaken for Paggicio, he was too fat! The comments about his weight, the Phantom's cruel insinuation that he ate too many pastries, consumed too much wine… How much planning, how much work had Erika gone through to ensure this very moment, a place where she could court you, envelop you in her presence where no exits lay?
"In my mind I've already imagined our bodies entwining, defenseless, and silent," you sang, choreography and adrenaline keeping the performer alive in you, watching over Erika's shoulder at the audience watching, "And now I am here with you, no second thoughts, I've decided… Decided…"
What composure Erika had rattled slid neatly back into place. The refrain slid slowly over your lips, each word pronounced with the kind of accuracy the angel of music had toiled over you for months. A performance, is that what the angel of darkness wished? She would have it, most certainly.
"Past all thoughts of 'right' or 'wrong', one final question…" you sang, watching as your scene partner seemed to tremble with joy beneath the black robe, "How long should we to wait, before we're one?"
Sliding her hands up her body, you watched with fascination as they visibly trembled, Erika's hands clammy with nerves as you grasped them in yours.
"When will the blood began to race? The sleeping bud burst into bloom, when will the flames at last consume us?" you sung, pressing yourself far closer to her than you'd ever dared with Paggicio.
The trembles you felt, the breath hot and heavy beneath the cloth growled with rage as you released her, breaking from the choreography as she dragged you across the stage, digging hard into the flesh of your arms.
"The bridge is crossed so stand and watch it burn!" she howled, voice carrying above yours and filling the auditorium with her fury.
"We've passed the point of no return-"
One motion, the cloth flung over her shoulders was all it took to reveal her to the world. Porcelain pressed into her cheek, peppered hair wet with perspiration as it clung to her unobscured forehead. Not one of you moved, both lacking the courage to step close, to shatter the astonished reverie of the audience.
She, clad in trousers and a shirt stained with sweat, she stared down at you, panting beneath stage lights designed for illumination, not comfort. Vulnerable, exposed, the legend and torment of an entire opera troop staring blankly at you beneath the gentry of Paris.
"Mon ange…" she whispered, drawing close to you, hands extending up to ribs she had only clasped a few moments earlier.
To touch you, to fondle you in front of an entire audience in a choreography so grotesquely obscene, to sing in sprawling double entendres of the passion she felt burning through her soul, to have your voice echo twin desires in lyrics written for her own gain… Your foot slid harshly against blackened hardwood, searching for purchase in heels too high for true balance, stage shoes she'd certainly picked.
"No…" you whispered, shaking your head once.
"Sing with me, the rest of the opera," she answered, searching for your elbow, "They don't know it isn't meant to be this way, the orchestra will play if you sing."
"I won't, I can't."
"Yes, yes, sing the next lyric, sing it for me, sing."
"No, I won't, you can't make me!"
"Sing! Sing!" she growled, pressing down into a register that resembled a lion's roar.
"No, no, NO!"
Harder she grabbed for you, harder you pulled, trying desperately to make it to the edge of the stage where Raoul stood in shock, where police remained standing should you cry out for help should you-
"Release me!"
One pull of ivory. That's all it took to shove the mask off, to reveal the true terror of your soul to the world. One trapdoor. That's all it took for her to haul you downward, pressing you through handmade tunnels, through stone lit only by Erika's memory.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
"How was I supposed to love you from the sidelines?" she gasped, eyes wet and wide , devoid of the covering of her mask, "Like a spectator? Viewing the show of my creation with circus peanuts?" she spat, veins bulging from her temples.
The white dress of your costume felt all too restricting, cutting off the vital flow of oxygen through your lungs. You couldn't breathe, could barely speak as Erika paced like a woman possessed; a victim of her own immovable ambition. More terrifying than her deformity laid bare, more terrifying than the striations of purple and red splattered like wine across her face was the wolfish look in her eye. A hunger for blood, a lust for revenge, a lust for all life had denied her.
"You have harmed innocent people, you took the lives of innocent-"
"Do not speak to me of innocence!"
Both of her hands outstretched, grasping firmly at the meat of your arms. Your yelp of pain only seemed to antagonize her further, a snarl of pearl white teeth all you could see from the corner of your eyes.
"I do not hurt you, don't be so pathetic. You are a singer, not a ballet girl! I know what I've made, I know how strong I have made you!"
"You're scaring me!" you gasped, stumbling down the dim sewers towards the swaying gondola.
"Ha!" she shrieked, laughing like a harpy as you trembled in her grasp. "You would claim such a terror!"
The gondola was as unstable and jagged beneath Erika's furious hands, rocking to and fro like a see saw. Your captor only seemed to press forward with every successive paddle, gliding through the labyrinth of interlocking tunnels with more ardor than your first journey. Not a word was spoken, rather only the sounds of water rushing through the canal and Erika's own furious breathing stirring your imagination.
The phantom's abode sprung out of the underground lake like the gates of old Valhalla, unearthly and opaque in the lantern light. Each wooden board of the dock seemed to be made of the fog surrounding it, your feet sinking down grotesquely as you stumbled forward under Erika's murderous gaze.
"Ah, see how beautiful your prison is? How radiant it is this night?" Erika sneered, tying off the boat with maniacal glee, "It sings to its mistress, it yearns for her virginal embrace!"
Each step seemed to draw you closer and closer to collapse, trembling hands clawing at a nearby pole for support. You were dizzy with fear, uncertainty and terror, too afraid to gaze at the house you had once considered a home, too ashamed to look back at the woman who had built it. Erika had always been beautiful to you, lamplight had crafted an ethereal beauty that shone in the hollows of her cheekbones, the concave of her eyebrows. Lips you'd wished after, traced in your imagination puckered thoughtfully when she worked. But even the deformity, of which you knew it to be, could not fully puncture her beauty. White hair sprouting from her pale temple blended beautifully into the purple, blue eye just as vibrant as its twin set in perfect porcelain.
What terrified you now could never be her face, it would never be something so shallow as her body. The soul that lay beneath it haunted you more, the beauty you found in her tender care with you polluted like the deformity of her face, brackish and diseased with wrath.
"Oh, does my bride dwaddle at my door?" she crooned, boards creaking beneath her feet. "Ah! She waits but for her groom to carry her over the mantle!"
One glance at her expression and you would know for certain that this was all another game to the angel of darkness, a sarcastic farce at what would never be a true ritual of love. And yet you crumpled into her arms the moment they slid under your legs, grateful for the alarming strength of your captor. The dizziness you felt upon disembarking was still substantial enough that you worried of fainting, resting your feverish cheek against her shoulder. She smelled of tobacco.
CReeeaaAAAkkkKK
The groan of the door had it's own musicality, sending an ominous shiver down your spine. Spectral wind rushed through the cabin as you entered, glue and sulfur rushing in to pucker your nose. Electric light whizzed to life at the touch of a switch, warm incandescent light filling the room you already knew by heart. She dropped you to the floor, a pool of white silk and satin floating to her carpeted floor.
"There. You are home, wife." she spat, jab more hollow than venomous.
Moving around the room with slowing momentum, you watched from the corner of your eye as she arranged various papers and dishes with unnatural calmness. Fresh despair sang in your blood, re-igniting every ember of loathing you'd suppressed for this trickster, this two-faced harbinger of enmity and passion.
"Are you satisfied with yourself? Every life ended, every drop of blood spilt, has it all amounted to your desired outcome?"
Her hands slowed their arranging of papers, puckered flesh turning in the yellow light to glare at you head on.
"My appetites for blood, for violence, as you are so inclined to remind me of, are of the same nature as this deformity you hate so!"
With a wail of rage she sprung forward, grasping at your shoulders as the right side of her face bore down on you in all of its ghastly disfigurement.
"See it! Revel in it's corpulent hideousness!"
Red and purple puckers, the way her face twisted in one motion with each of her words blurred with each of her words, swimming in a sea of vermouth and indigo as tears welled in your eyes.
"I'm no longer afraid of your face. It is the twin distortion of your soul that holds the horror I feel so deeply now." you whispered, hands trembling in your lap.
The floor sagged towards you as you were released, despondent sobs dry and noiseless as you clung to the bear rug beneath your hands. To be trapped here with the Erika of eighteen months ago would have been a blessing. Nights spent with her songs, learning how to make pasta as she had done in Venice some years before, perhaps reinvent the kaleidoscope as she was attempting to do, throw your voice with the same perfect accuracy as she was capable of. Blood stained it all now, cherry blossoms dried and withered, springtime faded into a terrible, dry autumn.
"… You believe I would ever hurt you?" she murmured, a twin sob complimenting your own.
Shuffling hands reached out towards your own, grasping uselessly at fingers cold with hate.
"My love, my angel of music, please, I beg you-"
"Release me!" you screamed, twisting away from her from beds of satin. "You liar! You falsifier! I believed you, I believed you!"
"Believed what? My love? My devotion, was that never clear enough for you? I will burn down all of Paris if I must-"
"I wanted you!" sobbed your own anger, hands pulling and hitting at hers as she grasped repeatedly.
"Then you shall have me, body and soul…"
"Before I knew what you were."
Haggard eyes blinked unbelievingly across from you.
"A murderer. A deceiver. A false angel."
Anger, despair, terror and more complex emotions swam over her stuttering face. Ennui would be next, the worst of her moods, the most dangerous. A twin change was happening in your own soul, resentment and hatred condensing into a cesspit of slow-burning wrath.
"… I see I have corrupted you." she whispered, lower lip trembling just slightly, "… An angel of the dark cannot create another angel, I've ruined what was unsoiled. I see it now."
The bones of her knees cracked as she rose, stacking one limb atop the other until she towered over you, watching with expressionless intensity. You stared up at her, hands fisted in a white wedding gown.
"You've ruined me, is that your judgment?" you whispered, trembling at her feet. "Like a failed song, a melody too temperamental for your penmanship? Too wild?"
Erika's face spasmed once, tears brimming in her eyes for all too brief a moment.
"Go pity someone else. It's too late to lament what is already done." she turned, spinning on her heel and leaving to haunt her office.
The torches of Paris burned bright that night, police inspectors wading through the catacombs, voices loud and raucous as they searched for the Phantom, the murderer and fiend responsible for the misery of the public. You sat until dawn, cold metal around your finger warming with every immobile minute spent staring in the direction of her office. Only exhaustion claimed you, leaving you slumped against a tattered Persian rug.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Soft cotton cocooned every inch of your body. Dark damask curtains framed the bed, a nearby candle burning low. Not a fiber in your body ached for anything but more rest, a lifetime you could spend here, curled in a bed you cared not to decipher.
The wedding dress was gone, only a thin chemise remained. Your hair was undone of the headdress of the performance, your hair loose and wild against silk pillows. The phantom's work, surely. Done in your sleep, done without the barest twitch of your body. To be so defenseless, trusting in her grasp was injury in itself. But to be touched, toyed with, manipulated… Recoiling inward, turning from the light you hid. A body met yours, flinching immediately at your touch. Dark, salt and pepper hair splayed wildly against a pillow, a men's nightshirt covering her back.
She did not speak, assuming your movement to be involuntary, sleepy and innocent. Not a word left your mouth, eyes shutting immediately to avoid detection. So you wished, silently and as hard as you could, that this was a dream. That you'd wake in your dormitory in Paris, Meg Giry asleep beside you in a twin bed identical to yours. That this year had never gone by, that your world existed only as a ritual of dancing, soft singing in front of your mirror. No angels, no phantoms, no music besides your own.
But as you drifted back to sleep, curled into the warmth created by two bodies, a soft voice whispered quietly beside you, singing the slightest lullaby. A world without Erika's music was no world at all, none that you wanted anyhow. So when she sung a bit louder, voice sweet as candied almonds and resonant like an organ's echo, you prayed again. Not for the impossible, the constant passage of time to be unwound like string in your feeble hands, but for courage. Courage to love, to bear the strangeness of your companion, to show outwardly what you knew to be the balm to your torment.
One hand slid forwards, across the space between two bodies in a modest double bed. Ribs fluttered under your hand like a startled bird, her entire body seizing in shock.
"… Wife." she whispered, voice raspy and breathless.
"Yes?" you answered, heart thumping in your chest as you moved closer, carefully pressing close to your angel of music.
A small surge of desire burned through you, the same twinge of fire that had ignited when you'd performed hours earlier with her in front of all of Paris. No barriers existed now, no games to be played. Still you felt flushed with hesitation, the darkness of the room no true barrier between the two of you.
"Angel?" you found yourself whispering, fingers inching closer to that face on the pillow.
"I am no angel." Erika choked out, both of her hands fisted firmly into the sheets.
Her breath was hot as you leaned in, hovering above her prone form. You dared not touch her face first, rather placing both hands gently on her shoulder before your right inched up, cupping one smooth cheek.
"Will you let me go if I wish?" you asked softly, carefully stroking at her face with your thumb.
"… I know no world without you."
A single tear slid down against your thumb, wet and warm with emotion.
"But if I wished?"
Two noses brushed in the dark, the phantom's laborious breaths the only sound you heard in that dark room. She trembled with every breath, hands still fastened firmly at her sides, too afraid to touch, to consume with the true intensity of her restrained desires.
"I cannot keep you to myself," she sobbed, "No more than a man can keep the morning dew that graces green fields."
Blooming softly in your heart, with the same slow assurance it had first begun, you felt surely that you must love Erika. Desire, disgust, fear and loathing had burned too hot, too fast through your experiences. Not one clung solidly, none except the tender affections you'd felt at the first whispered song spoken so many months ago at your boudoir.
"But you're no man." came your reply, more tenderly spoken than the rest.
Erika moaned in relief as you spoke, hands finally grasping firmly at your waist, feverishly stroking over the thin chemise she'd left untouched.
"Angel, mon ange-"
The calloused hands that you'd seen work so firmly at chores, grasp with hideous strength at the levers of her inventions could not have been more feather-light, more delicate. She touched like she was learning how to cradle water, tracing the curve of your shoulders, your spine, finally cupping the back of your skull in perfect devotion.
The pads of your fingers stroked carefully at her unmarred face, cheekbones, eyebrows, even teasing the sharp curve of her jaw up into her ear. She shivered when you leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to one wet cheek, yelping when you cradled the left side of her neck.
"Don't fear me, let me see you." you whispered between kisses, tracing the curve of her nose down, veering to the left side by a hair.
She gripped at your hips, firm and defensive, bracing herself to throw, to turn, to prevent the touch of your lips against her deformity. There was nothing you could do or say to prepare her for that invasion, to so senselessly adore the one thing she could only despise. So you did the next senseless thing you could imagine; you kissed her.
Every fiber of tension in Erika's body went lax, tensed again, and then melted entirely, mouth bowing slowly, pressed against yours. She did not flinch away as you cupped both sides of her face, too overwhelmed by your sweet kisses, peppered slow and gently against her mouth. Only when you tried to pull away did she make a sound, whimpering softly like a deserted kitten.
"Shh, shh." you soothed, stroking a hand through peppery hair.
Her mouth bobbed, quivering as she fought for air, for words, for strength. The second kiss she reciprocated, moving her lips ever so carefully against yours. The stutter of her ribcage beneath your hands, the way with which she moved her lips so carefully, like arranging the pieces of some impossible puzzle to fit, it filled your heart with warmth.
You are literally the only person keeping any readers of all the Rebecca Ferguson characters alive 🙏 without you and your fics I honestly think I would’ve gone a little insane at how severely underwritten her characters are 💔 so thank you for sharing your writing with us, your work is very much appreciated, best wishes ‼️
Omg you are so sweet
I haven’t opened this app since I got my second job 💀
Literally I’m fine I just have to slave away until I’m back at uni, and my other free time is being taken by a fuckass masc lesbian who lives an hour away because I’m in Hillbilly Hell
I’ll see about maybe putting something out there next week around Tuesday ish
Your powder and pain fic was so good.. I feel like I’ve been sent into Jessica psychosis cuz why is no one else feining for her 😓
Girl I totally get it, I’ve been on this Jessica kick for a good two years going strong!!! Feel free to send me any specific head canons you have! I don’t have time to write fic right at the moment (god knows my backlog of WIPs is atrocious enough), but I DO have time for like mini discussions and whatnot 😛
For @aoya, who resquested Lanfear + Moon, thank you very much. I am in awe of your art, so it was a pleasure to do this art trade. Your Siuan was breathtaking, as she always is.
I’ve written over 130k words of fan fiction, and the one piece I was able to use as a writing sample for my master’s application is less than five thousand words and only partially usable because it contains smut.
Hi i don't usually make requests but I was wondering if you could write something for Lanfear? I've seen so little about her here on tumblr. I don't have an innovative idea, maybe if the characters were mistaken, and Rand isn't the reborn dragon, but the reader? And Lanfear realizing this as soon as she sees the reader or Rand (your choice),it would be a fem reader,if you can and want to put smut, that would be cool too. I don't know if it made much sense or if it's good enough
If theres some writing mistakes,i apologise,i'm not very good at writing in english
Boreal Hope
Lanfear x Reborn Fem!Reader
Summary: As the wheel turned, mixing reality and possibility, the unexpected happened. Somewhere in the cosmos, the Dragon reborn and his female counterpart, the Phoenix, erupted outward and forward, born in the third millennia after the Dark One's release. As tension builds, as Rand begins to scorn Lanfear's advances, she turns to the second face of the Light's front against the dark.
Warnings: Really emotional, hurt/comfort, grief, two friends reconnecting kinda sorta, doomed yuri but make it doomed past life, kinda-doomed present life (this IS proofread, but it was written in basically one sitting, fyi)
A/N: So this is SOOOOO lore heavy. I started reading the books and have managed to work in the Yin to Rand al Thor's Yang of the One Power, (which is not canon-compliant, but fuck it, we ball), so expect enough world-building for believability and the rest of my own headcanons to fill in the plot holes.
Word Count: 4.7k
Many years ago, between the moon and the mob of a summer storm, a woman with eyes cloudy like milk had coughed up a terrible prophecy, body spasming as she experienced the birth spasms of a dying mother hundreds of miles away. The Aiel war was being finished, the last of the red-headed fighters either pushed out or slain. But from a mother's belly came a babe, fiery and wailing, held close by a shepherd in the cold mountain air. A child to break the world, to bend it in their own image. A boy, beautiful and fragile as the first snow of winter.
Low on the plains of the mountain sat a small village, huddled in fear of the raging battle occurring on the slopes above. No one tried to shush herself more than the woman engaged in her labor, pressing out a small, curled child with the help of a mid-wife. Born feet first, head last. Pain, danger, and sickness awaited most women with a child born breach. The wisdom tasked with assisting feared no such thing, carefully guiding each leg, then arm, then twisting the head as the child, a girl, was pushed forward.
Years after the birth, you still wondered at the improbability of your survival, your mother's health at the end of the pernicious event. The wisdom had spoken, rather cantankerously, of a fable passed down over the centuries. A child born head last did so due to the weight of the past life, the past memories of the individual who must carry on knowing too much of the world to ever be enamored by its entrappings. You never cared to describe, in painful detail, how true that fable had been.
Each step of your journey from the village, to the White Tower, to Ishamael's eventual incarceration of you was imbued with the tragedy of knowing. Even dreaming, the danger of entering the realm of which you yourself had once fearlessly traversed, was never so simple.
Cold bit hard into your side as you opened your eyes to a place you'd never been. Snowy peaks struck out from the ground, vibrant blue, green and pink bleeding the sky in undulating shapes and patterns. Your body, safely slumbering in the White Tower after Ishamael's demise, would still be harmed by an attack here. But the smoothness of her voice killed any desire to run.
"Beautiful, no?" Lanfear murmured, drawing up from behind as you lowered yourself to a boulder.
You paused, letting the silence act as cover, staring for one, long moment, with unreserved memory. She hadn't changed, you thought, tracing the long line of her dress. It filled you with comfort, that the exterior was the same, even if her interior was altered.
"I wondered at how long you were taking, Mierin." you answered, eyeing her with a composed, assertive knowing.
Her step faltered, face blanking at the title. And then she continued, sitting down primly upon the boulder beside you. You had your reasons for ignoring her Forsaken title, but even if you didn't, the play was sharp enough that it destabilized her.
"So Ishamael wasn't lying when he said that you remembered." she slowly mused.
A sad smile broke upon you face, letting her quietly compute her next play. He'd been shocked, disturbed even, by how unafraid you'd been. His promises of the dark each quickly dissected as he cast them, watching as your past knowledge of both him and his arguments left nothing to be said, nothing new, anyways. You'd been Ishamael's friend, long before you had become the Phoenix reborn. And it didn't surprise you that he had eventually turned to Lanfear for help.
"He was rusty with his deals, too eager, too impatient," you answered, watching the light from the sky draw slow over her dark, fur-covered form, "I didn't hear any new ideas, no new ploys. Even the Dragon, Rand, as I now know him, didn't find temptation he hadn't face before."
"Yes, well. Ishy had a way of avoiding adapting to the times." she smirked, throwing her head back and letting her long locks tease the boulder.
She'd try something new, you realized, looking at her face. More accurately, she was trying something new, dressing in a fur form fitting enough to still show her frame, but practical enough that she could enjoy the beauty of her chosen location within Tel'aran'rhiod: the realm of dreams.
"Well, I can't say that I'm too upset by Ishamael's death, he was always so emotional, so gloomy about everything-"
"Oh come off it, Mierin." you snarled, eyes pinned to the northern lights, avoiding the sardonic smirk that grew on her face the more she spoke of your dead friend.
"What? You know, you remember."
The toe of your boot dug hard into the snow of Tel'aran'rhiod, pressing into the cold until the fury smoldered down to a low sizzle. Even in your past life, the phoenix as they'd called you, the female companion power to Lews Therin's monstrosity of force, you'd never once called the Forsaken by their names. You'd refused, claiming that calling them by their new names would only bring them power. Ishamael, the title the dark one had given Elan, it twisted his very nature. You'd known him as sensitive, caring, searching for the happiness of his friends, coping quietly with the pain of his unrequited love with Lews. And you'd been his twin, wishing softly after Mierin, pining without relief as she and Lews danced around each other like two celestial bodies in a gravitational death spiral.
With the three of them, as it had been in the beginning, chaos had been a constant. The three body problem, a physics rooted phenomena, pushed into something more stable with your presence. You could empathize with Elan's darkness, his hidden pain and anxiety. And when Mierin and Lews had been two busy building their own world as the private rulers of all power and joy, the two of you built a world of mutual understanding, perseverance.
"You never understood him like I did. I don't appreciate how you leave no room for me to grieve." you answered, biting back the slow rising pressure in your throat.
"No, no. You two were always off in la-la-land together, you can't blame me for the lack of invitation."
"As if you and Lews weren't always in yours?" you snapped, throwing her a sharp glare. "I have never understood how you could be so insensitive. Really, even Lews knew when he was taking it too far."
"Oh, so I'm the bad guy, yeah?" Lanfear smirked, leaning in.
Even in the dark you saw how she'd rubbed black eyeshadow into the crease of her eye, creating dark pools in the space where her eyes should be. You hated it, lashing out with the one power and pushing her into a memory of her appearance instead. White robes, dark hair pulled back, kind and bare features. Features quickly marred by a scowl.
"Really? You still won't accept that I've changed?"
Black robes and even darker makeup replaced the work you'd done, leaving nothing but a caricature of the woman you'd so piteously loved across two lifetimes. It was a quick play of power, both of you assessing how much you could affect the other in this mutually dangerous world.
"I don't want to see a face I don't recognize mocking my dead friend." you said, managing to sound almost dignified.
"You know I chose my name, right?" she sighed, letting her shoulder bump yours as she adjusted.
Blue and green blurred softly in the sky, playing with each other like slow dancers, waltzing slow over the starry sky.
"Daughter of the night, yes." you translated, taking a deep breath in.
"Like this night." she continued, one hand slowly wrapping around your back, gentle enough that you didn't pretend to flinch.
"It's the only name that I didn't mind hearing," you whispered, throat going hoarse as the lump slowly grew, "I couldn't stand hearing Ishamael, even from Lews. 'Betrayer of Hope?' Light, it made me sick to my stomach knowing Elan was being called that."
Lanfear nodded, picking up one the delicate state of your emotions. She knew that sensitivity, sympathy had never been her strong suit. But she knew better than she'd ever admit when you were upset. Elan got depressed, sulking in his room and refusing to resolve the problems. But you, well. Most of the time you came to her before the problem ever began, fighting her head on with the regenerative fire you were named after. It was when you'd stopped fighting that had concerned her most.
"I do miss him. But you have to understand he wasn't the man he led you to believe he was." she sighed, watching the aurora's glow play gently over your face, "But he knew you never gave up on us, would never stop trying so long as you believed. And it's touching, that you still do."
"I can't believe he's actually gone." you answered after a pause, "That he won't come back after the turn of the Wheel, that it'll never be us four again in some classroom, cracking up at something stupid Lews says about the teacher."
With a gentle hand Lanfear reached out, wiping tears you'd been trying to ignore with the end of her sleeve. She was trying to be sensitive, trying to let you grieve as you'd asked. It was still strange, watching a new face struggle with memories that didn't belong to it, but Lanfear knew that only the Phoenix, only her old friend could ever speak so gravely about the past.
"It was never going to be the same, love."
The rasp in her voice drew your face up, right to a pair of softer eyes, glowing deep blue in the dim light.
"But it didn't have to be this sad." you shrugged, wrapping your own arm around her back in return.
Trust. Fragile, and built on reminiscing, but enough to build on.
"It doesn't have to be, not forever."
"Is that hope?" you weakly laughed, letting her wipe your teary nose.
"I'm just trying to win your good graces, alright? I've never been skilled at it, you know this." she laughed, cupping your face in a gloved hand.
"You've always been better at it that you know."
The admittance felt gentler than you'd expected, devoid of the undertone you thought would've slipped through. And yet the airiness of your tone wasn't enough, Lanfear's eyes still sparked with a question, that same intuitive light you'd dreaded in similar conversations.
"What did you and Elan really have in common? I mean, when we were younger it was all very different, I spent more time with you than I ever did Lews, for girl-talk."
You smiled, trying to play off the spark of anxiety brewing in your gut.
"Well, when you and Lews started getting serious, we didn't really have a choice. We had too little in common to be close, like Lews and he, or you and me, but we had too much in common to branch out."
It was a terrible answer, and Lanfear knew that. Sooner or later you'd have to be brave and admit the truth to her, but you had some immunity, at least right now.
"Elan loved Lews, I know that. But it's not like you did, did you?" she narrowed her eyes.
"Of course not!" you gasped, face screwing up in mortal terror, "Eww, I never, ever felt that way. He was a total player, was always searching after everyone's attention. And he only attained that because he was powerful and ambitious and pretty, in that boy way."
"So you did get the appeal. I always wondered." Lanfear smirked, using the cold as an excuse to lean in.
There was no reason for you to reject the embrace, to blindly pretend this encounter wasn't just another night spent together, spread out between lectures and drunk meetings in Elan's dorm room. Still it felt weird, being this close to her after so long, in a body that didn't know her like your mind did.
"It was never Lews that I was looking at like that. I think everyone knew it." you answered, managing to keep the sour note out of your voice.
"Yes, yes. I know. You were too busy bedding that psychiatrist, what was her name?"
"Graendal." you dead-panned.
"Oh, so now we're using the names of the Forsaken?"
"I don't want to get into it right now."
The thought alone of Graendal, Kamarile Nindar, as you knew her by, left a bitter note in your mouth. You loved her, not in the one-sided way you'd been afflicted with by Mierin, but solidly infatuated. Her betrayal, the suddenness with which she turned to the Dark, the second after Mierin, had left a crater-sized hole in your heart. If your memory served you right, they'd both been at the Collum Da'an research institute when the Bore had released the Dark One. Lanfear had once said she'd done it for survival, but you knew more cowards that died heroes that day than you knew disciples of the dark.
"I didn't start dating Kamarile for years after we were Accepted, you know that, right?"
"Yes, I do," she nodded, scooting even closer, "But I don't know of anyone else you ever had your eye on, and I know you needed a substantial connection with Elan to put up with his love life of despair."
"Well, I did."
The mountaintop was so peaceful, though you were sure that was Lanfear's doing. The lights so bright, the world so sheltered. It was odd to say you felt safe in Tel'aran'rhiod because of Lanfear, but you did. Even as the most powerful female channeler in all known memory, powerful enough to be revered as the Dragon's twin, Lanfear had never felt any less capable to you.
"Do you remember when we were novices, and I had that block?" you asked, resting your head on her fur-covered shoulder.
"Yes, the one they beat out of you." she nodded.
"The beatings didn't work, though. That's not what did it for me."
You felt your heart slightly accelerate, swallowing thickly. There was no subtle way to engender this conversation. It was too beautiful, too peaceful to let such a moment of clarity between the two of you go wasted. One lifetime you'd kept your love for Mierin a secret. But now? It wouldn't make a tangible difference. She would still pursue you for the dark, you would still search and fight as valiantly as you could for the right lever to drag her back into the light. A love confession? Well, it would be messy, and probably hurt you more than it hurt her by a significant margin, but you'd never regret the lost time in this life as you had in the last.
"You came into my room one night, after that awful Aes Sedai with the limp beat me into hysterics, and I remember how you just held me while I sobbed like a baby." you laughed, twirling your ring around your finger.
It wasn't a fond memory, the beating, but the aftermath was. Lanfear smiled as you told the story, hand stilling your fidgeting fingers as you talked.
"I told you that I couldn't harness it, that I was so scared I was going to lash out and hurt someone like I did the first time I touched the source. And then you showed me…"
"…Showed you how to make the flower, yes," she finished, thumb grazing over your palm, "Purple, like the ones in your town. I remember."
You watched slowly as she carefully drew upon the power, crafting the delicate petals of a crocus, blooming slow in her palm. A twin flower emerged in yours, growing to and towards her, reaching with white and purple flesh to touch its growing sister. Tears sprung fresh to your eyes, relief at being understood, grief that the only one who would ever know and respect the magnitude of the past life in your skull was still a sworn enemy of the light.
"I have never once believed that I was any more brilliant than you."
A shock of power stunted the crocus in Lanfear's hand, momentarily flaring the petals into danger of deformation.
"Really?" she flatly asked.
"Mierin, please. From the beginning I never enjoyed the immensity of my power, the ocean of depth that was always buried at the fringes of my control."
"Yes, and we all suffered for it."
Lanfear's crocus withered into nothing, bitterness growing in the silence created by it's death.
"You were better than I was in every subject, and you got none of the credit because I, Lews and I, did it bigger and better by the time our slow selves got around to cracking it," you sighed, reaching for her hand as she moved to pull away, "I saw."
Lanfear didn't pull away, but you felt the tendon in her forearm tense. This subject was still raw, even three thousand years later. The reassurance was most certainly too little, too late, but that wasn't your main goal.
"What I'm trying to say here, and struggling spectacularly at, is that Elan was always looking at Lews."
Your entire chest was on fire, and even though this was the dream realm, you still felt like you were probably going to throw up.
"And I… I was looking at you."
The aurora didn't shatter, flicker and spin into some hideous, desert abyss like you had feared. The stars above twinkled dimly, a galaxy bleeding out a hazy yellow-brown across the night sky. And Mierin, beautiful, haunted and tormented Mierin, was staring at you like you'd hung them.
"… How long did you feel this way? How long, do you still…"
You managed a nod, grinding your teeth to suppress some stupid gulp as the bile in your throat slid down again.
"Elan and I…" you began, toes returning to the snow for support, "We understood the other's pain. And we didn't try to fix it for the other, that's why we got along."
"Please don't direct this back from what you've just said," Lanfear sighed, looking at you with something akin to pity, "I've waited three thousand years to see you again, and that grants you more patience than you think."
It gave you pause, to hear her address the wait. Three millennia, and you knew it wasn't truly you that she missed the most. Rand, sweeter, and more naive than Lews, surely he was her goal. A friend, yes you two had been friends, maybe best friends at some point. But enemies before you'd parted ways in the past life.
"I loved you, and I still do, though it's complicated now-"
"-By Graendal, no, Kamarile."
You laughed, amused at her thought process. Lanfear always saw conflict as a chessboard of envy and jealousy, each person fighting for the same few select prizes on the board. And to some degree, life was like that. But beyond petty squabbles existed very real evil.
"It's complicated because you're Forsaken, and you've never felt the same." you sighed.
"No, I never said that."
The air left your lungs, wheezing out in front of you, frozen in the air. She merely stared back, meeting you blow for blow with unfettered honesty.
"You didn't." you managed.
It was never a good sign to see Mierin smirk in response to one of your expressions. It meant, very probably, that you were gaping like a fish out of water. But her laugh felt nicer than that. A stray wind cut hard into your back, pressing you into her embrace as you sought warmth on the mountaintop.
"Darling, if I'd known. If… You have no idea how much it infuriated me to see you with Kamarile at the Collum Da'an."
"Well Lews had just broken up with you a few months into our relationship." you frowned, playing the denial card to see if she'd divulge more.
"The biggest heartbreak of your life and your best friend finally finds her match in some perfection-obsessed, puritanical and perfect doctor I see every day?" she scoffed, "Of course I was going to be upset, but that isn't…"
It was cold, that was your excuse for burying your arms and hands in her coat, shielding yourself from the cold as best you could. You wanted to be close to her, as close as you could, even if it made you look love-sick and desperate.
"I saw your appeal, alright?" Lanfear managed, blinking rapidly at the thought.
It hadn't been one-sided. The despair of the realization twisted your face into something ugly, pained. And she reached forward, wrapping you hard into her arms, making up for lost time.
"The three body problem, we've become the three body problem." you lamented, breathing shakily into her shoulder.
"We always were," Lanfear sardonically laughed, "It was a friend group comprised of love triangles, even before you joined Elan, Lews and I."
Three orbital masses, as you'd studied in your past life, could never functionally exist in physics without destruction of one or more of the masses, or risk spiraling away from each other permanently. And with Elan gone… You knew what pain would await you now in this next life.
"Mierin…"
"Baby, just kiss me." she whispered, cupping your face with a tender hand.
It wasn't a kiss like you had expected it to be: rushed, passionate and doomed with the subtext of tragedy. It was softer, pressed gently upon your lips with a tenderness you'd never attributed to Lanfear. Your bones bled with eudaemonic grief, shocked by the cold and warmed by the warmth radiating from her body against yours. Salt dripped down from her cupids bow, tears she cried silently into the embrace.
It was like kissing a lover after the first night spent together, tender relief at their presence, anxiety over the existing fragility of your affair. You had never felt more fragile in someone's arms, ready to leap into ecstasy or tormented bewailing at her touch.
"Don't let me wake up." you murmured in between what was becoming regular patterns of kisses.
"I don't have control over that," she answered, a hand curling into your coat, "But I'll see that we have our space every night."
Lanfear was pulling you into her lap the longer you remained, coaxing you in between slowing kisses. You could feel how thin the veil was getting, daybreak would approach soon, though this realm remained perpetually shrouded in night's Boreal adorned light. Her arms were tight around your waist, and you wished, shutting your eyes tight at the thought, that they would remain when you woke.
"Graendal will try her hand at you, now that the Forsaken are released." Lanfear warned, using the remaining time to her advantage.
"Then make it difficult for her." you murmured, brushing her dark hair away from her face.
"You're in the White Tower, dear. She can just as easily find you there-"
"-So ruin that for her. There are Black Ajah in the tower, Ishamael's grip on me before his death made that crystal clear. If you're there too…"
"I can't be." she shook her head, nose resting against yours. "I wish I could, love. But she must try her hand at you, at least to learn that she can't, that someone else has leverage."
Her words were given no time to ruminate on, any contemplation brushed smoothly away as she cupped your face, eyes soft as Tel'aran'rhiod slowly shifted into dawn, mirroring the fast approaching awakening awaiting you in the White Tower.
"Find me, please," you whispered, nose brushing hers, "I'm Accepted now. I'll leave the tower, even if… Please, I can't waste this life spending it fighting you."
"Darling, you never fought me," she whispered, pressing a tender kiss to your brow, "That's why you died. You didn't want to lose your friends, and Lews wanted to ensure the world had no room for us to waver, if we did ever turn from the dark."
The memory of your death, the last few months before the memories of your past life went dark, where all jumbled and confused. Grief, despair, exhaustion. You knew you'd fizzled out before Lews, though the histories were never in agreement when.
"I don't remember my death."
"Good," she breathed, drawing a hand down your back, "I wouldn't wish that burden upon you."
"Who killed me?" you asked, betraying no anxiety at the subject.
"Well, Graendal used your natural hope that she was merely forced to join the dark, though none of us ever were, to lure you away, alone. Ishamael dealt the blow. And that's when Lews stopped referring to any of us by our former names."
It didn't hurt to hear her say it, but you laughed anyways, shaking your head as you connected the dots. Ishamael, what a fitting, terrible name. And you'd thought, even in this life, that there had still been hope for him.
"How did Rand kill him then? I hope it wasn't painful." you sighed, curling into her arms as you watched the rising sun drift over the horizon.
"A sword. He died quickly, dove. As he killed you."
Her hand drifted slowly over your neck, fingers tracing a line. And then you knew, as her eyes grew misty watching the motion of your throat, how he'd done it. And you knew, with quiet relief, that she had wanted no part in it.
"You haven't called me that in years." you smiled.
"Dove? Well, it's been three thousand years."
"Before that, birdie." you shook your head, pleased to see she was unconsciously lessening the severity of her makeup.
"Hmm."
"I'll wake soon?" you sighed, watching pink clouds appear in the sky.
"Just rest awhile whenever you want to see me. I'll keep any of the others from entering your mind."
"Only Ishamael was powerful enough to do it, and you were deceptive enough."
"Don't speak his name ever again. It throws the world out of balance to hear the Phoenix say it so carelessly, with such conviction."
"I would never call you by your Forsaken name, even if you begged me to." you answered her quiet anxiety, watching as the dawn made every fine line of her face visible to you.
Lanfear smiled, eyes crinkling with warmth. She knew as well as you what that would mean, that you no longer cared to hope Mierin could emerge from the cruel woman who'd taken her place. It was why she loved you, entrusted herself so willingly to a meeting in Tel'aran'rhiod, where she knew even in your inexperience, that you could harm her. She kissed you firmly, letting herself hide her tears in the embrace for as long as she could. Even when you slowly dissipated, returning to the waking world, she still clung to your spectre, wishing for just a few more minutes.
Hope was a currency none had offered Lanfear in many, many horrible years. It bled into her bones as she sat in the mountaintop world she'd chosen, beautiful and perpetually preserved by civilizations inability to yet grasp the frozen peaks. No one can walk so long in the dark that they cannot remember the light, she bitterly thought. And tonight she'd tasted it, held a friend, a partner in life and quiet love for the first time in many, many lonely nights.
She watched the ground beneath her feet glow in the morning light, and wished, as gently as she could, for a small ring of crocus flowers to grow out. Purple, white, green. Bursts of yellow at the center, cheerful and delicate.
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