“Black, green, or gold.” Hana repeated, nodding. Yes those colors did sound familiar. Color schemes had been one of the few meetings she hadn’t gotten kicked out of back at the start of this all. Tristan really was a dear for putting up with her moping as long as he had.
“I really don’t understand why you dislike her so much.” She said but she was still smiling. Let Tristan have his hatred. It didn’t bother her, nor did it touch her love for her family member. “Beatrice is uniquely wonderful. I do hope she comes. It would be so nice to have her there, you’ll have Ambrose after all. Though it’s not quite the same, her and I and you and Ambrose. He gives you the time of day.”
–
“Black, or green, or gold.” Tristan nodded as he repeated the words one more time, slow and clear like that would make them stick. With the wedding drawing nearer and things that still needed to be done piling up, it was a little too easy to forget that he was actually having fun planning the whole thing. The guest list was the only part of it that was a genuine nuisance.
“Do you want me to write you a list?” Despite the snarky nature of his words, there was hardly any edge behind them. Mostly because he knew that there was no such thing as changing Hana’s mind when she put her foot down. And even if she made him write down all the faults he saw in her dearest cousin, it would probably be short and petty. The notion of him and Ambrose being anything like Hana and Bea seemed to brighten his mood though, making him snort even. “What’s it with you two anyway? Still playing cat and mouse?”
Oliver whirled around to face the man, opening his mouth to protest. His gape soon became one of horror as Tristan explained what he needed the rat for. Oliver let out a sound of indignation when the cat leapt in front of him.
“Absolutely not!” he exclaimed, taking a step back and protectively cupping his hand over the rat to shield her.
“Keep that -” he pointed to the cat at his feet and scowled, “that demon away from Duchess Stilton,”
Had he named the rat within seconds of meeting her? Yes. Was he perhaps forming an unhealthy attachment to it? Certainly not.
“You,” he addressed the cat, “are beautiful, and I respect you, but please get off my foot and find something else for dinner.”
✧*ﾟ
-
“Absolutely yes! Give me that pest.” Tristan immediately followed when Oliver moved back, stretching out his hand expectantly. “And Jupiter is an angel. Call him a demon one more time and I’ll stop being this nice.”
For once in his life Tristan was genuinely happy about how sweet and outgoing his cat was as Jupiter placed his other paw on Oliver’s foot and gave his very sweetest meow in hopes of being rewarded with the very sweetest treat.
“Are you alright?” Greta asked, jumping forward to hold the elbow of the person who’d started to stagger in front of her. She tried to keep them upright as much as she could without touching them more without their permission. “I’m a healer, not just nosy.”
༺♥༻
“Yeah, yeah. I’m peachy.” Tristan’s reflexes told him to swat her hands away the second she put them on him. His reason on the other hand demanded to at least allow this to go on until he was a little steadier on his feet. “Oh, so you’re saying you’re both? A healer and nosy?”
where? outside the whyte wyvern || who? @stxrsfxlling
These days his heart was never anything but heavy. The weight of it was dragging him down like a boulder in the empty cavity of his chest, not quite pumping blood but clattering around with every anxious thought about the future that crossed his mind. Ambrose sighed as he leaned back, his head clacking against the wall. “How do you do it so easily?”, he asked, turning towards Tristan but not quite looking at him. “Marry someone you don’t love?”
-
“I could do a lot worse,” Tristan admitted oddly genuine as he rubbed his still bleeding nose with a smile. Where he had wondered what got Ambrose cranky enough to get them into a brawl and then kicked out of their fvourite bar, everything fell into place now that Ambrose was raw and mopey. He had no qualms about marrying Hana. With how engagements went with certain other purebloods, he was lucky to have found his betrothed in someone he was actually friends with in the first place. “And so could you. I mean, Flavia Laurent?” There is a bitter edge to his voice when he says her name that has been clinging to it ever since her miraculous rise through the ranks. It was sure to put a damper on how encouraging his words were. “There’s some prestige to that name.” is the only halfway positive thing he had to say about her without lying through his teeth.
where? probably some street corner, who can tell.
who? open
‹ The fuck are you looking at? Keep fucking walking or I’ll make us look like twins. ›
--
Usually, Tristan was an absolute sucker for drama. But tonight, there was a little too much on the line to let Vinnie run around unsupervised. He set his glass down with a sigh, got up, and grabbed him by the arm on his way out. “I think you’ve caused enough of a scene. Let’s go.”
Oliver felt as if his pupils dilated into the shape of literal hearts the minute he laid eyes on her. She stared up at him with her beautiful, deep brown eyes, and in that moment he was head over heels.
Carefully, Oliver lifted the blue rat out of her enclosure.
“My dear, you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he informed her as she sniffed at his hands curiously, “You’re coming with me.”
--
“Unhand the rodent,” Tristan demanded the second he saw someone holding the exact rat his cat had been circling the entire time they were in the store. With a straight back and his version of a polite smile, he stepped closer to the other patron, reaching out his hand expectantly.
“My cat saw it first. And he wants it.” Like on command Jupiter, a beautiful grey tomcat, sat down in front of Oliver and gently placed a paw on his shoe. Looking up, the cat gave his sweetest meow for the man who was holding the tasty treat he had picked out for himself.
“I know that I’m wearing a dress.” Hana said with a shrug. She did feel a bit bad that she’d obviously just put a bit of pinch on things. Tristan had worked so very hard on the wedding and she wanted it to go smoothly, if nothing else than to show him he could do things successfully. “I’m sorry, Tris. I’ve been distracted. As soon as I’m home I’ll owl Charity and Bellatrix to see if they’ll help me find something suitable.”
His description of Dorcas made her laugh before she could help herself. “She isn’t nearly that awful. She’s got spark, that’s what she has. Besides, she is my cousin. I would like to have her there. I put her on the list for invitations. You sent one to Beatrice as well, right?”
–
“Han,” he stressed again, a little more whiny this time around. Tristan now knew why people usually hired wedding planners for this sort of stuff and if he had half a brain and was a little less controlling, he might just have done the same. The way Hana immediately tried to make up for it eased his mood a little. “It’s okay. It’s fine. There’s still time. Just keep the colour scheme in mind, yes? Black or green or gold.”
Her laugh immediately made him frown again. “You’re joking. Dorcas is truly terrible. Everything about her.” The list of things he could have said about Dorcas was long and mean, but he knew there was no changing Hana’s mind when she was set on something. “Of course I invited Beatrice. She’s a delight. Especially compared to Dorcas.”
Hana really wasn’t looking forward to having to spend time in this maze of a home. The Shafiq estate and grounds could fit in this monstrosity two times over. She’d already gotten lost twice. It wasn’t the same without Avalon. She had no idea how he even managed to stand this place.
“You’re the one with the schedule for this thing, at what point should I try and find an outfit for this wedding of ours?” She asked once she finally managed to find her way to his room. At least Ambrose wasn’t here. “Walter said he’d gotten an invite, I remember seeing the proofs you sent me. They were quite nice. Did an invite get sent to Dorcas?”
==
Being the man of the house was lacking the impact Tristan always assumed it would have now that most days he was the only person there. That’s why he welcomed the holidays. The wedding planning. Whatever had people coming in or him out of the house was fine by him.
That’s why relief washed over him for a second when his door opened - until Hana started talking. “Han.” There was an almost accusatory tone to his voice. “Like, yesterday, preferably? Please tell me you’ve at least thought about a dress.” He fumbled with his tie a final time before he was content with the knot, only to meet her question with a deep frown. “Invite Dorcas? Now why would I do that? She’s… loud. And awful.”
My sweetest maggie. I was so overjoyed when I got your name in my inbox. I immediately knew what I wanted to do. and most of all, what I wanted to is to say thank you. You are the sweetest, most amazing person. You are a giant part of what makes this rp feel like a home and i smile whenever you message me. You truly are a ray of sunshine and love. Now fear not, this gift is definitely a two parter, but amidst the holiday stress I didn’t want to let you wait even a second longer. I hope you have the most magical christmas. ♥
“We have still not had a death.” is what he settled on once the silence became to oppressive. He had held out for as long as he could, but with every second of sitting silently beside his friend, November fog seeping into his clothes, it had become harder not to say something. No deaths. That was what he clung to. That somehow despite the suffering and the strive and people disappearing and reappearing, but suddenly bloody and beaten, they were still winning.
Octavian’s hands were left empty again as he passed the cigarette back. The taste of smoke on his tongue grew cold and unpleasant fast and his hands felt utterly lost now that there was nothing in them to stop his nervous fidgeting. He buried them deep inside his pockets, safely out of sight. “ Do you really think there are bigger and better things out there? ” The for us goes implied. The doubt on his face is explicit. As he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, he feels fine sand and rubble under his sole. The thought at least was comforting.
-
Tristan sighed, trying to decide if this was cynicism or doubt that he heard in Octavian’s voice. For his benefit, he’d go with the first option. There was too much to unpack with the second, so he just left that thought to simmer at the back of his mind. “There has to be, right?” He said and tried his best to sound convincing. The fact that he had to play it up just to get there was concerning. “There has to be,” he repeated, quieter this time around. “I mean, this is just the beginning. It has to be all up from here.”
Where? Mulciber Manor.
When? Saturday Night
What? 1335 words. heed the tws in the tags
In the manner of most important events, it happened suddenly.
Later Tristan would recall the moment in a series of facts, a sequence of images tucked carefully away in the back of his mind, to remember only ever from a safe distance: doors slamming in the middle of the night, a flash of green light. The mud under his feet, a splash. Something white and weightless slowly drifting to the bottom of the lake.
He had thought nothing of it. Doors slamming, shuffling in the corridors. It was a Saturday night. His father had friends over. They had plenty to drink. This was not unusual.
He was determined to fall back asleep despite the raging thunderstorm outside when a flash of not lightning but bright green light lit up the sky and made his heart drop.
He raced outside as he was, his shirt and pants drenched after just a few steps, and didn’t stop for a second until he reached the origin of the green flash, the lake behind the house. His breath came in harsh, sucking gasps from exhaustion, feeling panic spark like fireworks behind his eyes when he saw it, when he saw her. His sister’s body limp and lifeless in her father’s arms. Now be careful with her, Avalon is fragile, he remembered his mother’s words to him when he himself was barely a toddler; his first memory of his own life being the first memory he had of her.
And now she was-
He needed to help her. He needed to hold her, touch her, he -
He crashed into two of his father’s men who held him back, restrained him as he fought and struggled and screamed. And still he fought, no matter how uselessly. He felt the tears on his face for the first time as he struggled to break free, struggled to do something, but couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but watch how his own father threw his sister’s lifeless body into the lake clad in nothing but a night gown and watched her sink.
No, no, no. Avalon couldn’t be gone. She was still here, somewhere. This didn’t happen. Tristan would protect her like he promised. No. She wasn’t gone. No. No. No.
Tristan was begging now, pleading “Please, that’s my sister. Please.”. But there was no mercy to be spared for him. No until his father finally turned around to face his son, a crying mess. Before he even reached him, his father pulled his hand back for a hit to snap him out of his hysteria. When it connected, it wasn’t with a slap but a punch, full-fisted and habitual. The familiar taste of blood offered some superficial comfort as his father took Tristan’s face into his hand too roughly.
“Pull yourself together. She wasn’t our blood,” his father hissed sharply, his voice barely carrying above the volume of the storm.
With another sharp nod of his father, his goons finally let go of him. And while the men returned to the castle, Tristan dropped onto his knees, feeling something huge and horrible flickering and swelling in his chest.
He was meant to protect her. But when it mattered most, he didn’t. What did that make him? Where did that leave him?
The further his thoughts spiral into what life would like without her, without the one person who thought that he was good, who believed he could be someone someday, the deeper he plunged into an unfathomable emptiness that made the bottom of the lake sound incredibly inviting. Maybe he could make up for his failings in life by not leaving her side in death.
But the thought of their parents made him take a different path. It made him get up, caked in mud, and walk the way back to the castle while the storm still raged around him.
He noticed the light still on in the sitting room and stopped to peek inside before heading upstairs only to see his mother standing by the window, crying quiet, graceful tears. “It didn’t matter that he wasn’t her father. I was her mother,” she said between shaky breaths, an accusatory tone in her voice as she turned around and offered Tristan a knowing look that sparked no sympathy in him. “You are my mother, too,” Tristan said. She laughed, wet and airy and cruel and pushed her way past him out of the room.
By the next morning, he’d find a note on his night stand that would read
Dear son.
By the time this note finds you, you will have noticed my departure. I am afraid it is no longer safe for me to remain in Scotland.
Do not try to find me. You won’t.
I am happy you get to witness your father’s true colours now to confirm that I am not insane, but can’t imagine you will be much bothered by it. You become more like him by the day.
If only she knew how right she would be with that statement. He looked just like him the way he climbed the stairs up to his study. Left the same muddy footprints. Grit his teeth with the same rage as he swung the solid wood door open and stepped inside to face him.
Tristan tried for tough and accusatory when he said “You- You killed my sister.” but his insistent sobbing made his breath hitch and the angry tears streaming down his face watered down his words enough for his father to have the audacity to smirk at him.
“Get it together, boy,” he demanded without looking, to preoccupied with pouring himself a glass of gin. “Girl wasn’t even mine. She was hardly your sister to begin with.”
Red hot rage filled him, made his skin burn and crawl as Tristan stepped to his father, the never-ending trail of tears still running down his face. “I don’t care if you think she was your daughter or not. She was still my sister.”
By the next step he took, his father pulled his wand on him, kept his arm all the way outstretched, the tip of the wand pressed against Tristan’s throat. He could see a flicker of fear in his father’s eyes as he took another step despite it.
“Your mother is a whore and that thing you call sister--”
—and it only took one more step forward for Tristan to be on him, all fists, connecting knuckles with his jaw and his chest and his throat, punching him backwards with enough force for him to fall to the ground, the wand clattering against the hardwood floor as the man dropped it. Tristan felt both break with the impact, the bones of his fathers nose and the bones of his own hand, saw blood way before his own knuckles split. He felt his father fight back, his face painful and raw now and still Tristan kept hitting him, kept hitting him even once he stopped moving, once there were no more teeth to knock out, and once he stopped sputtering blood with every shaky breath, thrusting all his fear and anger and sorrow and confusion into the momentum of his hands until he felt his father’s entire face cave in, each punch splattering more blood across the study’s walls and floor.
Eventually he stopped. He didn’t know how long it’s been. Only that he’s caked in mud and blood and felt so empty it ached. So empty he feared he might cave in on himself as he leant against his father’s desk. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. Once. Twice. He had another minute, maybe two before the panic set in. Before the fear came crashing down on him like waves, together with the rest of the world, and forced him to face the consequences of his actions. But that was then and this was now, and now he could rest his head against the desk, close his eyes and softly weep over the loss of his sister.
Walden blinked, surprised. In hindsight he found it kind, but in the moment it really had been fucking awful. He hadn’t considered that someone else would consider the whole thing a wash.
“I only care what happens to Tilden because Daisy cares what happens to Tilden.” He said with a shrug. Daisy’s love for the man (and Walden’s reluctant persistence) was the only thing keeping him from multiple murder attempts at the moment. “You’re a good friend to me, Tris.” He said, letting Tristan pinch his cheek just this once. “Can we go kill something else for a bit? Don’t really care what.”
–
“If anyone could make her forget about him after his tragic, accidental passing, it’d be you,” Tristan reassured Walden, one hand placed firmly on his shoulder. There were very few things in life that Tristan preferred over spending time with Walden. So how Daisy would choose a lad named Tilden over him was just a little bit beyond him.
A wide grin split across his face at Walden’s offer. “Tell me you didn’t just ask me if I was in the mood for violence. Seriously. You wound me,” he lamented as he got up from his spot on the bed and held a hand out to help him up. As if Tristan was ever not down to kill people things.
paris had been staring mindlessly at a book for the last half hour, and he hadn’t turned a single page. he looked as empty as he felt; pale, even more gaunt than usual, and the circles under his eyes were heavier than he’d ever seen in the mirror before.
“mr avery is not accepting visitors at this time.” he heard the bickering between an uninvited guest and one of his household staff go on for a while. it was giving him a headache. so much for not being bothered in his time of grief. he rose to his feet and pulled his dark robe tightly around himself, before heading over to the door. “let them in, or else they’ll start camping outside the manor.” he didn’t wait for them to enter before he walked back into the other room to pour himself another glass of whiskey.
---
“Oh, he’ll see me,” Tristan corrected with a tight lipped smile, clearly intended to be threatening more than polite. He almost wanted to admire the woman for her dedication, for standing her ground even when faced with Tristan Mulciber, but with how close he was to drawing his wand and making her step aside, it seemed more foolish than courageous.
His expression lightened immediately when he heard Paris voice echo in the hallway. It was all the prompting he needed to rudely push past the house staff. Tristan wanted so much to say something witty, some playful jab at how Paris was slowly but surely becoming a hermit, but couldn’t manage to get it past his lips when his eyes finally fell on the blond. He looked like a ghost, haunting his own manor. So instead of saying anything, Tristan followed Paris close and silent like a shadow, like he always did. He watched him pour himself a drink and used the time that took to finish to gather a little bit of courage to speak up. “I came as soon as I heard. Paris, I’m so sorry.” Was that for his loss? Or for being so preoccupied with his own life that he had only came by now?
where? some pureblood gathering | who? @xkilljxy (bea)
Mind numbingly boring was the only way Tristan knew to describe this as. Everyone was engaging in the sort of small talk that made watching paint dry sound riveting, none of his usual accomplices were around to ease the strain of it all. The only way out seemed to a woman about his age who, if her expression was anything to go by, was having about as much fun as he was. “Not to be pushy, but I need to strike up a conversation with someone before Mr. Fawley tries to tell me about his new boat for the third time tonight and you are the only person around here who seems at least bearable.” He chuckled as he spoke, kept his tone light in the face of salvation. “If you’re actually enjoying any of this, you are required to tell me, by the way. Wouldn’t want to offend any of our esteemed guests.”
