Something silly for @starfleetteddybear featuring her Flame Eternal Evie (and family). I hope things calm down for you soon! 💜
Grand Necropolis, post-campaign, chaos o’clock
Evie was gone for twenty-seven minutes.
Twenty-seven minutes to grab bread, dried fruit, and a handful of cheese from the vendor three corridors over. The bakery stand was crowded, the line was long, and she’d paused briefly to chat with a retired reaper who’d just taken up rug weaving. That was it. That was the entire delay.
But when she returned?
Silence. Which was never good.
She pushed the door open carefully, her arms full and her instincts already bristling.
There were toast crumbs on the floor.
Several.
A trail.
Then she spotted it.
A folded note lay on the edge of the entry table beside the hearth, pinned beneath a spoon and written in Emmrich’s familiar hand—though the ink looked a little... frantic.
To my dearest Evie,
I write to you from the front lines.
Francesca has declared herself Queen of Toast. Manfred has sworn fealty. I am losing ground quickly.
If I do not survive, tell the pantry I loved it.
—E.
Evie stared at it.
Then at the spoon.
Then slowly, without setting down the satchel, walked further into the apartment. She passed the larger of their couches—empty. The smaller loveseat? Clear. Which meant they hadn’t taken over the sitting room.
Not yet.
She stepped into the open kitchen, intent on putting away the bread before someone could steal a corner of it—and immediately spotted the second note, propped upright on the island between the dried fruit jar and an upturned butter dish.
Update:
She demands tribute in the form of crunchy slices and song.
Manfred is humming. I don’t know where he learned music. I fear it’s too late to ask.
She’s taken my sash. My toast. My authority.
Please come home. I am sticky and afraid.
Evie blinked.
Sticky and afraid?
She set the satchel down slowly. Carefully.
Then turned toward the dining space.
From the room, a small voice bellowed, “I HEAR FOOTSTEPS. READY THE TOASTS!”
There, she found the final note—resting against the salt dish at the center of the table like it had been dramatically tossed down mid-defeat. The edge was smudged with something that was either jam or blood. Honestly, it could go either way.
Emergency Addendum:
Do not attempt to reason with her. She bit me.
I gave her my last slice willingly. I don’t know who I am anymore.
—E.
Evie looked up.
Franny stood on a dining chair with a dishcloth tied around her neck like a cape, a paper crown slipping sideways atop her curls, and a wooden spoon held aloft like a scepter. Her cheeks were smeared with jam. Her fists were full of toast. She radiated power.
Manfred knelt at her feet, clapping and hissing “Queen. Queen,” with a ribbon somehow tied around his head.
And Emmrich—
Emmrich crouched behind the table, holding a spatula in one hand and a piece of slightly burnt toast in the other, looking like a man who had not known peace since sunrise.
Franny spotted Evie and raised both arms.
“THE OTHER QUEEN RETURNS!” she shouted. “DO YOU BRING TRIBUTE?”
Evie blinked. “I brought bread.”
A pause. Then Franny gasped, wide-eyed. “A GIFT FROM THE OUTER REALMS. ACCEPTED.”
Manfred clapped twice. “Bread! Queen!”
Evie stepped forward cautiously, eyeing the jam stains, the upturned bowl, the single slipper dangling from the chandelier.
“What,” she said flatly, “happened.”
Emmrich rose slowly from behind the table, holding a half-eaten slice like a white flag.
“She made Manfred kiss her hand,” he said, deadpan. “Then she declared tax law. One kiss per slice. I’ve had six. I’m a broken man.”
Franny pointed dramatically. “YOU MAY NOT SPEAK UNLESS YOU HAVE JAM.”
Evie gave her daughter a look. “Is that the rule?”
Franny nodded solemnly. “Toast queen’s law.”
Manfred handed Emmrich a spoonful of jam without speaking. Emmrich accepted it, sighed, and slathered it on his next bribe.
Evie fought back a laugh. “Do I get a pardon if I make tea?”
Franny considered. “Only if you curtsy.”
There was a long, heavy silence.
Evie curtsied.
Franny beamed. “LONG LIVE THE OTHER QUEEN!”
Manfred tossed toast into the air like confetti. Emmrich slumped against the wall beside Evie and dropped his head to her shoulder.
“I was gone for twenty-seven minutes,” she murmured.
“I counted all of them,” he whispered.
She smiled and tilted her head to kiss his cheek.
He made a soft sound. “Jam tax,” he added. “You still owe one.”
Franny took a bite of toast and grinned. “Mama has to pay me now.”
Evie rolled her eyes and kissed Emmrich again anyway.
“Tell your queen,” she said, “we’ll be having a coup at bedtime.”
That night, after the Queen of Toast had been bathed and tucked into bed with her spoon and a single stolen bread crust, Evie returned to the bedroom and crawled into bed beside her husband.
He groaned softly and reached for her. “Did we survive?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The jam might still be plotting.”
She fluffed her pillow—then stopped. Something crinkled beneath it.
A final note.
Final Report
The kingdom has fallen. The queen now sleeps. The jam has hardened into battle scars across the counter.
I, a simple soldier, survived by sheer willpower, bribery, and your bread.
If I fall in battle again tomorrow—if the toast should rise anew—let this be known:
I died loving you.
And possibly covered in marmalade.
—Yours, always,
E.
Evie tucked it into her drawer with a smile, then leaned over to kiss him softly.
“My darling Evie…” My lich lord crooned, his voice sweet as honey, but an undercurrent of darkness swirled. “It is not enough that you warm my bed, and swell with my child. It would never be enough. If anything, it has awakened the desires of a much younger man, whose passions only rage hotter the more I have of you.”
So drunk with the pleasure of his cock, I nearly missed him slipping a gold band onto my left hand. My eyes, delirious with lust, spied an emerald that matched my necklace both in color and size.
Emmrich hissed lowly in rapturous pleasure at the sight. Then he tutted absentmindedly. “Ah, it’s a little looser than I would like. We will take it to the jeweler to be resized.”
“Make love to me.” I demanded rather than asked, my voice wobbly and my face wet. “As if you could—that you would give me another child, on purpose this time.”
“You stoke fires you should not. Those are not things you should confess…” Emmrich's voice melted into a puddle of sin, and his disquieting gaze scorched me like a depraved voyeur. “Unless you never wish to leave our bed again, flame of my heart.”
Here I am working on my Lichfic and I’ve got the back burner of my brain buzzing with a modern AU Emmrook idea. 👀
The LAST thing I need is another WIP when I haven’t even written my Veilguard AU but…
Later-bloomer college student Evie Ingellvar (25) is banking on the money selling her eggs at a high-end fertility clinic to pay her tuition and to keep a roof over her and Franny (7) heads for the next few years. This single mom isn’t looking for romance or anything to be handed to her.
Emmrich (early 50’s) is a successful doctor, fresh out of an amicable divorce (Johanna was always more of a friend than wife) looking to expand his family through surrogacy to give his young son Manfred (8) a playmate.
In an internal fuck up of eye-watering lawsuit proportions Jane-the-virgin-style, Evie ends up not donating her eggs but instead being artificially inseminated by Emmrich’s sample.
All I can imagine, once they both get past the shock and horror, is Emmrich being the doting, supportive partner Evie never asked for but secretly longed for. Like he keeps calling/texting her asking if she needs anything, if she is taking the vitamins he had delivered to her house, and how she’s feeling.
And the first thing she asks him for is a large sprite (extra ice) and a McNugget happy meal. And a few minutes after he gets the alert that the DoorDash was delivered Evie sends him a pic of Franny holding the box up and grinning like Santa came to visit.
And much later Emmrich picks up a call from Evie’s phone only to find out it’s Franny’s tiny voice on the other line.
“Mama can’t get up. She threw up. A lot. And now she’s asleep on the bathroom floor. She told me to call Auntie Neve but she didn’t answer.”
The way Emmrich would break every traffic law known to man to race to Evie’s shitty apartment to check on her.
Anyway I might flesh this out more if we (the Emmrook fandom) like this idea.
