“A surprise?”
As soon as the word had left Hanji’s lips, Angel’s eyes had lit up. Truthfully, she hadn’t been paying much attention at first - the scientist had a tendency to go on and most of the time Angel just zoned out, waiting for some actual point to the conversation to fling out and ping her in the face. A lot of the time it wasn’t even a good point; or rather, it often wasn’t a point the monarch cared much about. Thankfully, today was different.
“Yes, your majesty!” Hanji confirmed with a nod, grinning wide. “A birthday surprise, just for you!”
Angel’s full attention had finally been grasped. She too was smiling now, a little bounce in her step as she turned to face Hanji properly.
“Do you have it with you?” she asked.
The scientist shook her head. “Rather impossible, your majesty.”
“Impossible?” Angel narrowed her eyes, tapping her bottom lip with a finger. “So it’s something big. You’re not gonna make me guess, are you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“I definitely don’t fucking want you to.”
That made Hanji chuckle as she held out a hand, waiting for Angel to grasp it before she walked off, leading her to a different part of the mansion entirely.
The whole house was bustling now - the sun had barely risen and yet most everyone was awake, at least amongst the inhabitants that actually had to sleep. Those that didn’t, namely the royal children themselves, had been working for even longer. Decorations were strewn all about and came in all shapes and sizes, though even Angel had to admit that they were excessively red. The ballroom in particular was a violent scarlet hue, attacking her eyes from the mere glimpse she’d seen of it, and part of her wondered whether it might be wise to start adding a secondary colour to her aesthetic. She could already hear Prospero chanting “purple” in the back of her mind, making her snigger a little even as Hanji kept talking.
“--and so that’s when I...” The scientist trailed off, turning her head back to look at her queen. “Are you listening, your majesty?”
Angel, who’d been busy waving at Archie as he wished her a happy birthday, suddenly snapped her head back. “What? Yeah, sure. Something ‘bout, uh...”
“Transportation.”
Her brows furrowed in confusion, betraying how little attention she’d been paying, but she gave a small nod regardless. “Just what I was gonna say. We’re not going somewhere fucking crazy, are we?”
Hanji shrugged before giving another of her slightly manic chuckles. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It’s a surprise!”
Though Angel had been excited at first, now she was starting to get annoyed. “Would you just tell me what it fucking is?”
The snapping barely made the scientist jolt - she was used to it by now, living in this house - but she still adjusted her tone to accommodate. “I’m sure you’re aware of Perdita’s... concerns.”
“Concerns?”
Hanji sighed a little. “I hadn’t wanted to bring it up on your birthday, but... she wants you to spend much more time on Sesharrim than you have been. She says you need to be more hands on if you’re serious about being queen.”
“Oh, that,” Angel said, her face contorting as she stuck out her tongue. “She doesn’t half nag sometimes. Yeah, I told her I’d go when shit’s less... busy. It takes a fucking age to get there for starters and she always wants me to stay for bollocking months. I ain’t staying there that fucking long! This Isle’s my project, I told her so. Does she know how many fucking coalition meetings I’d miss to shake hands with some poncy cunt that wants more funds for his stupid fucking town planning bullshit? I don’t see why they can’t just come the fuck here instead.”
“Well, your majesty, I think my latest invention might help with that!”
“Why? Is it something that’ll shut my cousin up?”
“Sounds somewhat tempting...” the scientist mused, getting distracted for a moment before shaking her head. “But no! What I’ve invented is a teleporter!”
Angel stopped entirely then. Hanji only noticed when the hand she was holding went taut and stopped her in her path.
“Is something wrong, your majesty?” she asked.
“A... teleporter?” the monarch started. “Like a real, actual... from place to place teleporter?” She paused, frowning slightly, remaining in perplexed silence whilst the scientist nodded in response. “I’m not fucking saying “Beam me up, Hanji!” or some stupid shit like that.”
Hanji tilted her head with a small confused smile on her lips. “There’s no... ‘beams’, your majesty. Should there have been?”
“No, it’s a--” Angel struggled to find a way to explain and shook her head as she sighed. “Never fucking mind. Are you going to show me this thing or not?”
“Ah!” the older of the two exclaimed, her beaming smile splitting her face in two once again. She pulled her queen off in the direction of the surprise as she suddenly burst into a torrent of excited speech. “This device has been a long time in the making, your majesty. I first conceptualised it many years ago, though it never really amounted to much. You see, pure science alone can’t do everything - in fact, I’d say this invention is almost directly inspired by you. Much as you harnessed the power of, uh...”
“Necromancy?”
“Yes, yes, that! Much as you used magic in your own scientific pursuits, I too began to consult the many magics of this land. You see, portals and the such have long since been a part of the infrastructure here. I hear the fey in particular are very fond of them though, as I’ve since discovered, more human-based species can also create them with a little help from spells and potions. I signed up for a few magic classes, slaved over books, asked around in the pub... I even participated in a coven meeting at one point. They had some rather... strange requests before I was allowed to attend but it was well worth it in the end. Ah, here we are!”
Suddenly Hanji stopped before a closed door, turning on her heel and pulling out a blindfold she’d been hiding in her pocket.
“Really?” Angel asked as a frown began to form on her face.
“Yes, really! You do want this to be a surprise, don’t you?”
Angel sighed. “Fine. You do realise I’ve seen Sesharrim before though, don’t you?”
The queen might not have been able to see Hanji now that thick fabric covered her eyes but she could certainly hear her laughing as she opened the door before her and carefully lead her inside. “Oh, your majesty, I’m afraid this teleporter doesn’t go to Sesharrim. This is the prototype - I had to test my device on somewhere much closer to home before simply jumping into intergalactic travel, I’m sure you understand.”
Angel’s frown only grew beneath her blindfold. “Then where the fuck does this go?”
“That’s the surprise!”
Hanji stood the monarch stock still inside the room before darting off, her shoes making distinct noises on the wooden floor as she flitted around pulling levers and flicking switches. There was a loud electric buzzing noise as something before the blinded queen burst into life, giving her a start that made her exclaim “Fucking hell!” with some ferocity. Only then did the scientist return and lightly grasp Angel’s shoulders, steering her in the direction of her birthday gift.
The sensation of passing through the teleporter was something the monarch couldn’t quite describe. It almost tingled, a little like the static buzz you could get off everyday objects, but at the same time it was almost nothing like it. There was something... refreshing about it, she supposed? Though maybe that was the stark coldness of their new location - it was indoors, but it clearly wasn’t heated. If she hadn’t known any better, she’d have thought she’d just stepped out of the back door on a chilly day.
With one swift tug, Hanji pulled the blindfold off of Angel’s face and all at once she forgot about what the teleporter might’ve felt like. A torrent of noise greeted her instead as, out of comparative silence, burst a sudden cry of “Happy Birthday!” from all around her. She had to blink as she took it all in; at first it was merely from the sudden brightness, but soon she was trying to force back the tears which had crept slowly into the corners of her eyes.
They were in her old home, many miles away on Mok’s Island--no, her island now--and before her was an endless crowd of her own children, all seeming to want to be at the front all at once. Their smiles were wider than Angel had seen them in years and, she noticed as she began to blubber more, many of them had started to cry too. The only person that didn’t quite belong was sat right in the middle, zombies trying to clamber over her shoulders to wave at their mother, but she didn’t seem to mind. At first, Angel almost hadn’t recognised Prospero - the others had clearly given her a makeover only they could’ve achieved. She was decked in leather her queen could never have imagined her wearing, looking scruffier than she’d ever seen her, and eyeliner ringed her eyes to an extent that made her resemble a panda. They’d even sprayed some colours in her hair, temporary Angel was sure, that seemed to glisten like a mismatched rainbow when she moved her head to laugh.
“Hanji wanted to show you this weeks ago,” she admitted. “But I’m afraid I insisted on giving it to you as a birthday present.”
Angel’s bottom lip wobbled as she tried to sniff her tears away. She couldn’t help but laugh too even as her crying got worse, wiping one of her eyes as she spoke. “Is it... permanent?”
Prospero nodded and all of Angel’s kids mimicked the movement. “You can all live together again,” she confirmed. “Just like you used to.”
A little sob escaped the monarch then before she suddenly darted forwards. Prospero tried to get to her feet to meet her outstretched arms but all it did was send them both hurtling to the ground when Angel collided, squeezing her tightly even through the harsh impact against the tiled flooring. Her queen was crying onto her chest but not because she was sad. The sight brought a smile to the commander’s lips and, as she stroked the younger girl’s hair, she pressed a soft peck to her temple.
“Well!” Hanji called from above them with a clap of her hands. “I don’t know how the teleporter’ll react if you all try to force your way through at once, so an attempt at decorum would be appreciated.”
“What’s a duh-floor-em?” shouted one of the kids back.
Hanji thought about the answer for a while before shrugging. “I’m not sure. You can take it to mean ‘go through in single file’ if you like.”
Predictably, the mess of zombies that followed did nothing of the sort. They all wanted to see their mother’s mansion before the others and as soon as possible - they were shouting and elbowing each other and a few of them even started a fight over what single file actually entailed. The scientist was doing her best in her attempts to organise them but it was as futile as she’d expected.
As the crowd around them began to dissipate, Angel and Prospero started to stir too. The smaller alien lifted her head first and then the rest of her body, unfolding her arms from where they’d been tucked around her subordinate. She placed a hand on either side of her, about to lift herself up properly, when she came to a sudden stop. She was supposed to be getting up and going, of course she was, but something about the commander’s piercing eyes made her just want to sink back down and stay there, at least for a few moments more. The thought brought warmth to her cheeks and, perhaps worst of all, Prospero had definitely noticed. Angel jolted then, scrambling to her feet in an attempt to act like nothing had happened. She thought she’d gotten away with it at first, even if her face had reddened, when a hand on her own stopped her.
“Come now, your majesty,” Prospero said softly, lowering her head so she could speak into her queen’s ear. The sounds of the chaos in the room almost seemed to ebb away then, shooed by the warmth breath that tickled Angel’s skin. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it? There’s no need to resist doing the things you want to.”
The monarch’s eyes had widened even before she turned on her heel. As soon as Prospero was in her field of vision, she wasted no time in leaning further in, pressing her lips quite firmly to Angel’s own. They were soft, terribly soft, and the faint wafts of her flowery shampoo almost threatened to envelop her. Was this what people meant when they talked about how good girls smelt? Prospero certainly smelt good - far better than her queen would have ever expected a soldier to.
The kiss had barely begun before it was over. Prospero merely let it linger on Angel’s lips as she pulled back, the fainest lipstick stain at her mouth betraying her otherwise collected demeanour. It only became more obvious when she grinned and the crimson tones contrasted with her teeth. Her lips couldn’t rival her queen’s face, though - even Angel’s jacket struggled to be as red as she stuttered in the air, uncharacteristically lost for words. Prospero might’ve kissed her once before but she’d been prepared for that one! This one... This one was...!
“Happy birthday, your majesty,” the commander said with a voice that almost seemed to taunt her.
Angel didn’t have a response - she merely followed Prospero with her eyes when she moved to leave. She was concentrating on her face at first but, as she got further away, she felt them drift lower, tracing the way her leather makeover clung to her body. Had her subordinate always been this...? Well, this...? Her brows furrowed; she didn’t know what word to use but whatever word it was, she didn’t want to say it. That would only be admitting it and, if Angel was going to be anything on her birthday, that thing was stubborn.