Hello! Can i please ask for #029 with a dash of soulmate au? (If you are still taking requests that is.) Thank you!
That turned out a bit longer than expected. But then you need a bit of a background and world building for soulmate AUs.
Have fun with that one.^^
029 - Curious
Despite everything Lucette had always been curious about the tattoo that had appeared on her breastbone, ending just below the neckline of her dress.
Next to the white lily blossom that had been there as long as she remembered a second plant had slowly stated to grow. First starting as a line next to it and slowly spread out next to the broad leaves and the stem of the lily, slowly gaining more and more details.
It was not normal and while she detested Delora for cursing her, she had still taken advantage of being around a witch and had managed to get her alone to ask.
And in the two weeks she hadn’t really looked at it since she got cursed, the thin black lines of the tattoo had broadened into a fully recognizabel branch adorned with white flowers, thin and straight leaves spreading out from it, accompanying smaller whiter blossoms.
And since then she had been introduced to the principle of soulmates, which were common among magic users and much more rare among normal humans.
A pair always shared the same tattoo in the same place, starting out with one flower and then a second one slowly appearing. The smell of the flower you started out with, would always be the one strongest to you, and the smell of it always with you, only noticabel for the partner.
Lucette liked lilys because of their posture, straight and tall and elegant, but she also loved their sweet smell, always so much sweeter than anything else, only matched by the scent of the second flower.
She could live with the lily describing herself. It was her favorite.
The second flower that had appeared on her was white blooming oleander. She had never seen it in the palace gardens, never smelled it before, but the books she read to research the flower, described a sweet scent. And a visit to a park only proved that one true.
And curiosity was what drove her to search the city for the person accompanied by a matching scent.
The curiosity was what drove her to follow Rod through the passage into palace, when she caught a hint of the smell on him.
The curiosity was what drove her to shout out the warning to Mythros, as Alcaster tried to kill him from behind.
Mythros smacking Alcaster’s sword asside with magic and pulling a dagger out of his sleeve and pinning the mans arm to the wall by driving it throught the attackers palm without hesitation or any kind of expression reminded her of yet the last paragraph, she had read about the plant.
No matter how pretty it was or how harmless it looked for not having thorns and sweet smelling blossoms, no horse or cattle would willingly eat it and shy away from it as it was highly poisonous.
Myth hadn’t bothered to give a closer thought about the tattoo appearing on his chest for years, had never bothered to take a closer look at it until the evening after the princess had disappeared from the palace and all the rage and worries broke out when he was finally alone in his home and found himself looking into the bathroom mirror when changing into less noticable clothing to match a coat with hood to check in with his informants in the city.
The image of a second flower having joined the blooming branch he had never bothered to identify threw him off, just as much as the kind of flower that was there.
The white lily seemed like a mockery, slapping into his face that -despite what he had told himself during the last years- there may be something for him in this world beside his servitude to the queen. Something that was his on a level no one could simply take away.
Soulmates didn’t always get along, but the reports that he had found during the years had always found the problem in how set one or both parts were about what their partner was supposed to be like.
He had never even imagined having such a partner, regarding how many had died during the Hunts, leaving many with a tattoo unmatched.
And now he found himself curious, who fate deemed fitting for him.
White Lilies stood for majesty and purity and in some interpretations even innocence.
The curiosity also gave him enough drive to identify his own plant, despite his already heavy workload of keeping Alcaster happy, hiding the Tenebrarum and his Queen, doing his work as the king’s advisor, finding and organizing witches that may be sympatetic to his cause once the Queen was free again and looking for the princess. And sometimes he strolled around the city when his head was too full, trying to pinpoint the smell of lilies in streets with way to many smells to clearly pinpoint anything.
Distilling the extract of white oleander and creating an oil was an art in itself, especially because he couldn’t risk cases of poisoning on accident.
But the smell would stick when he was gone and may lead his soulmate to him when he was unable to find that person.
And everthing came to bear when there was a shout behind him, warning him just in time to keep getting killed by Alcaster, accompanied by the sweetest smell he could imagine.
The resulting comotion had multiple causes.
Alcaster, who was the head knight, had just tried to kill someone and his small legion of knights had just tried to stage a coup.
The princess warning him, counted enough of a good deed that the count of three was full for her curse, breaking it, making everyone remember her.
Myth highly protective and dazed by the revelation of who his mate was, was not willing to put her into any kind of danger and didn’t bother hiding the exact extend of his power to deal with knights, who thought that pointing a few sharp blades at him for intimidation and ended up with shelves getting pulled down onto them outside the unlucky soul, who got thrown out of a window.
The king would hopefully forgive him the mess.
But as everything died down, Alcaster taken away into the dungeons away from the knights loyal only to him, the princess settled back into the palace and the repairs and clean up started, Myth got called to the king.
When he got asked, if there was anything else he had hidden, there was a choice.
He could lie and say no. The Tenebrarum was still savely hidden, the Queen with it. But the traitor had been living with the princess and may turn up soon, spilling everything about him and the Lucis bearer was more than powerful enough to find the Crystallum and the Queen enclosed in it. Plans destroyed, planning useless and even his mate gone from his grasp.
And while his Queen may not have bothered to get involved in soulmate business, if his mate had been anyone else, his mate was her daughter, who should be loyal to only her and not get protective of a possible mate.
He wanted to live. He wanted to keep his mate. He couldn’t have his Queen and his mate.
His words like barbed wire in his throat, he started talking.