#bellatbt

[eclipsecrowned]

I feel like a big gamble to take with post-Occupation Bella is thinking that she, like the uncle who raised her, is a devoted pacifist. This from a woman who was totally alone and without protection at 16 having to rely on the mercy and mind games of her captor.

No bitch she will cast a spell so horrid upon you that your single cell ancestors climbing out of the primordial soup scream and throw up --

[eclipsecrowned]

Knowing Laerion and Bella are both ace-spectrum in a medieval setting, how do they navigate their sexuality against the expectations of their societies? Are there oaths they can swear to circumvent their duties to their house? Are there situations where they would play along for the good of the family? // anonymous

In Laerion’s case, the situation is slightly easier on him. He’s a second son, so the spare, but his older brother has three fine sons by the time of his murder. Even in the wake of inheritance questions regarding the paternity of said boys, it’s not Laerion that is put forward as an alternate — it’s his father’s brothers and nephews. The expectation is lessened, and even as his own nephews become catalysts and casualties of war, Laerion throws his support with his sister’s daughters, as Laena was the firstborn. Throw in som heretofore unknown half-brothers-masquerading-as-bastard-nephews, and Laerion’s inheritance — and thus line — is irrelevant.

Do his parents still try to matchmake him for advantageous politics? Yes. Is the pressure so strongly on heirs when there’s five grandkids of royal stock already? No. In theory even if he did cave he’s under no obligation but tradition to even consummate. Likewise, he hardly needs to swear oaths beyond he’s not pushing his sisters girls any further down the line of succession by his own actions the way his mother was passed over by a cousin.

For the good of the family… I mean, I make jokes about his mother and former goodsister trying to marry him off early in the Dance to secure neutral lady-led Houses, and that girls are paraded to him at his own siblings funerals, but Laerion is pretty resolute. He only proposes to his brother’s widow out of honor and pragmatism, but not without care for her and his nephews. In the one ship he does have it’s a pure love match for a highborn foreigner stripped of title, influence, and in exile. He’d have to be last V3lary0n standing to marry to fulfill expectations.

As for Bella, it is a little more complicated. She’s not a second son and thirdborn child, she’s an heiress in her own right. Never mind it’s been generations since there was a direct parent to child passage of power for the Duchy, that she will inherit from her uncle as he inherited from his as that great-uncle inherited from his own aunt, Bella is a noblewoman in an ambitious family. There’s expectations and eyes on her since she was a child.

Her uncle, a confirmed bachelor, is content to let Bella handle her future on her own terms, including in matrimony. If she wants to wed, she has his blessing, and if not, she still has his blessing. By contrast, her father on the mainland smells profit and alliance off of how his youngest was elevated to an heiress. If his brother will cover or go 50/50 on the dowry, he has big plans. Plans Bella or her caretakers have been thwarting since her childhood and well into her teens, at which point Bella took over shooting down suitors directly.

Honestly, had Bella not been given to her uncle, her tenthborn ass was going to the church. In theory she could still run to a nunnery to escape the expectations set upon a woman of her status — but she won’t. Nor does she make oaths to saints or chastity or any out she might possess. It’s actually given her a reputation at 25 as a shrew, a sapphic, a thing bewitched or even lascivious that she not have at least an attested lover to explain this frigidness.

She actually considered, at 17 and after coming to power, marrying some neighboring lord with stores and resources to buoy the Duchy in the wake of the Knights carnage. So yes, she’s not opposed to marriage for the good of others, even if the thought of transactional consummation disgusts her. Likewise I think in another world she’d be willing to marry to ease any troubles her uncle might have in terms of debt or stress, to repay the man who summoned a human out of a terrified animal. It’s a reality of her period that she’s well aware of and Bella even thinks she’s simply stalling the inevitable by not having married at 25.

[eclipsecrowned]

If ever she doubts this place might be among the fields of Hell, there is this to remind her -- Lery's. The landscape is as forgiving as it is infuriating, with so many inways and byways that her head spins trying to think tactically. Her twig pauses in its scratching against the dirt by the campfire, Bella staring warily at her makeshift map of the Institute. Any position where she might spite the Killer is moot, as they would inevitably catch the illusion of it in the chase. Her fingers pad against her temple, tilting her head -- and she stares.

Witches of the far future. What an incredible thing to fathom, that in the age of Alchemy treated as farce and Signora Oriente's posturing faithful booked their appointments with the Reaper, the arts live on will live on for centuries.

Well. Something like the arts.

"What are you doing?" Bella asks simply, brows knit. The ways of her inheritors are so strange to her. The preparations Sable undertakes are as fascinating as they are completely alien -- She swears once she caught Mikaela fiddling with crystals, and not for Alchemical properties. // @chaosmultiverse, for sable.

[eclipsecrowned]

The song of birds, the rustle of wind in the trees, the placid lapping of water disturbed, these are all to be expected in the copse. The click of a tongue is the outlier among the serenity of nature. Shifting her basket of foraged blossoms to one hip, the hooded stranger sighs quietly.

"It's a fine crop of mullein you've tread through," she notes. "Just short of the harvest. It takes two years for them to grow up like that." Her obscured stare remains locked on the other's foot. She raises it at last, her eyes an uncanny blue that seemed violet in shadow.

"They were the property of her Ladyship... I do wonder what you'll do to rectify this." // open ; BELLOZA TOSCANO.

[eclipsecrowned]

[inhales]

Bella and the trappings of Alchemy not just in that she's a practitioner, but in her recurring narrative themes. The mechanisms of Magnum Opus reflected in her inner circle both in alchemical and Jungian terms.

The knight, nigredo, putrefaction and the darkest point of her life, a dead man who was the one tribulation of her life.

Her uncle as citrinitas, light in all its brilliance, beyond the darkness of lesser men, the wise old man in his pursuit of the arcane.

This presents Bella herself as rubedo, the unification of all experiences, the true self, transcendant, and the one who decides the legacy that all gone before her will have in all the ages to come.

This does leave us short an albedo element, the whitening, purification and superego that precedes citrinitas, but I'm sure with time some dynamic will come up.

[eclipsecrowned]

thinking of the bella n the boys go to jerusalem trip in the ‘no entity’ au and a bunch of foul mercenaries hyping up the lady to get a pilgrim tattoo. no one tell the duke.

[eclipsecrowned]

some fav bella bits as i am thinking of her to fend off demons of headache:

in her native time period, 5'4" was formidable for a lady. not unnaturally so, but it helped her schtick as a tall dark and gorgeous heiress. she's one of the smaller members of the camfire squad and is still reeling.

deluded the entire team that she only spoke italian for weeks. finally clapped back at someone gently roasting with her 'of course i speak the king's english, i do not yet know what low country malignancy infests your tongue.' followed soon after by 'i am a cunning linguist, as your mother demands all who caper with her be.' it was at this moment she was finally assimilated as the mean neurodivirgin of the squad.

notorious on his maps for playing capture the flag on the knight. it's personal between them. she's dropping all three in range of him then just leading him on The chase so her teammates can get anything done.

in a specific au with friends that involves those who get out trying to find some way to do the same for others, everyone expects her to be femme when in the modern era. she's dressing up in suits and heels and making it clear her presentation in her native timeline is simply due to cultural norms.

has an odd friendship/mentorship with ax's susie. insists on calling her susanna. susie points out that is not her name. bella counters she will use the child's christian name.

no she doesn't care about what the modern witches are doing. she just corrects their arrays mirthlessly and watches their backs in trials. she doesn't have the patient forbearance of her uncle to be a friend and supplement their own craft, but in her own gruff ways she does have a heart. she would never call them her coven, but...

the only autist in the world that thrives on eye contact. she doesn't want to be demure and submissive as her lifetime demanded. eye contact was masculine and she will aim those eyes dead into those of whoever she is addressing. it can get unnerving. blink motherfucker.

my elodie has apparently threatened her with 'shut up before i tell you how they turned your ancestral estate into a golf and spa resort for tax evaders.' she knows what some of those words mean.

[eclipsecrowned]

something about yes the odd sexual fantasy bella has can be read as knight coded: a great, strong man, a knave, an outlaw, someone who simply takes. she's not idealizing a goodly prince charming any maid would swoon over or a wise old master as you would think her type to be.

but i don't think it's about tarh0s if that makes sense. this isn't like. her thinking of him specifically and hiding it behind a vague veil of anonymity. it's more he was the first time there was a power greater than hers that managed to subdue what she knew and change the world for it.

he started it but it isn't about him. does that make sense?