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Oct 6, 2025

Nothing Royal About It

8,363 words | Teen | One Shot Author's AO3: Poisoned Ace Story Link: Nothing Royal About It Summary: Octavia just wanted one night away from the palace to have fun. Instead, she gets a sleezy creep in Gluttony and Loona pulling a gun in the middle of a club.

The silence in the palace wasn’t natural. It clung, dense and deliberate, to every inch of the frost-enameled corridors. At this hour, the staff, other than a skeleton crew, had long since retired, and Stella’s guests had been banished to the guest wing. That should’ve made it easier for Octavia to slip out. Instead, the hush pressed down so hard her ears rang with every sound she made.

Octavia’s hoodie, threadbare but comfortable, swallowed her head and most of her face, and held back the chill of the palace. The cold wasn’t natural to Pride. It was Andrealphus, leaking through the marble like a sickness, frosting over everything that used to feel like home.

As she walked, she stopped to hide in the shadows when security passed by on their hourly checks. The old staff were gone, replaced by Andrealphus’s people, strangers who watched her as if she didn’t belong in her own home. The old ones would look away if she wanted to wander or sulk. The new ones waited for her to slip, eager to report back to her uncle and mother.

Her first obstacle, in a corridor she rarely went through, was a large crystalline swan, frozen mid-flap, wings slicing through wall to wall like a guillotine. The beak glimmered in the moonlight, catching the faintest shimmer from the starlight above the glass ceiling. Octavia scowled and skirted left, but the tail fanned across the path. It hadn’t moved; it was just ridiculously huge.

“Why the hell is a sixteen-foot ice pigeon clogging the hall for decoration?” she muttered, twisting sideways until her backpack scraped the wall. A feather of frost snapped off, spiraling to the floor and shattering the perfect silence. She held her breath, releasing it after a few moments. No one had heard. If the new security goons had, the night would be over and the fallout would last for weeks. Months, maybe, if her mother decided to make a scene for the tabloids.

She pulled her sweater tighter around her. The cold permeated, prickling at her legs where the ripped knees of her tights let in air, and snuck up her sweater, chilling the skin of her feathered stomach. Her breath steamed out of her, solid as the clouds above, and lingered just long enough to make her paranoid. She moved quickly, half daring the motion sensors to catch her, but all the cameras had been pointed at her father’s study after the last incident. Still, every step she took, every squeak of sole against frost, felt like it echoed to the moon.

The next blockade was a statue of her uncle. The tail fanned out into two archways and was bejeweled with what Octavia suspected were sapphires. It was ostentatious, vain, and so delicate you couldn’t touch it without leaving a mark. There were many more just like it around the palace. Her mother had praised his ‘refinements’ loud enough for Octavia to hear all the way from her bedroom, a clear reminder that the home wasn’t hers anymore.

She pressed a hand to the cold wall. The ice there was smooth, with the faintest pattern resembling feathers under the surface. He couldn’t just ruin Dad’s life; he had to freeze mine, too.

Octavia rolled her eyes, but the edge of her mouth turned up for the first time in days. The thought of Gluttony’s endless neon haze and a few hours where nobody was watching her made her move faster.

On the other side of the peacock, he nearly slipped. The entire floor rimmed with a fine, impossible frost. She caught herself on the doorframe, hissing a curse.

Past the sculpture, the corridor narrowed, less showpiece, more weapon with daggers of ice poking out at shoulder length, some so thin they’d likely snap at the lightest of touches.

Another buzz. This time, it was a video from Hexley. He was in the middle of the room, panning across a room packed with demons, with purple light pulsing in time to the music, so loud that she could almost feel it. She lingered on the notification, thumb hovering, then killed the screen and pressed on. The cold was deeper here, the frost climbing the walls in branches that looked like veins.

She made it to the stairwell and glanced down. One floor separated her from the back exit, if she could make it without tripping any alarms. But the ice thickened on the steps, each riser slick as glass, and the banister was one continuous serpent of clear, polished rime. She set her jaw, squeezed the phone in one hand, and started down.

Three steps in, she heard voices. Two, maybe three, low and muffled from the floor below. Night staff. She froze, one foot suspended, and strained to listen. The sound was steady, not coming closer. A joke, a snort, then nothing. Her heart hammered so hard she could feel it in her beak.

She counted each step, using her free hand to test the banister for grip. On the landing, she paused. The voices were still there, but they’d drifted away, toward the kitchens. She inched past, ducking behind the shadow of a particularly stupid-looking ice bear, and kept low to the ground until the hallway bent left toward the back gardens.

The door was unlocked, as always. Nobody ever thought to lock the inside doors; they all trusted bloodlines and birthright to keep danger out. It was keeping her in that took effort. She opened it a crack, peering into the small, blue-lit anteroom beyond.

No guards. No staff. Just a faint buzz of electric light and the distant, wet drip of melting ice somewhere above.

Octavia slipped inside, shutting the door behind her with the gentlest click. For a minute, she just stood there, pressing her forehead to the cold wood.

She pulled her hood tighter, tucking her phone back into her pocket. One more door, and she’d be outside: the walkway, the guards, the cold, then freedom.

Octavia wrapped her fingers around the handle, drew a breath that burned in her chest, and pushed the door open onto the night. As she stepped onto the portico, the usual Hell-warmth hit her face, a shocking reminder of what the palace had stolen from inside.

Blue-white floodlights painted long shadows across the iced pavers. At the far end, two guards were slouched beneath the ice-entombed statue of King Paimon, smoking as they looked out towards the grounds. They weren’t watching her, not even facing her, but their presence pinned her in place.

If she went the long way, through the garden and greenhouse, past the pool and over the fence, she’d be spotted sooner or later. Security was heightened since her father’s banishment on that side, after they figured out that was how Blitzø was getting in.

Her magic was blocked inside the palace, but maybe…

She closed her eyes and lifted her hands. Magic crackled faintly around her fingertips, reluctant and brittle. She dug deeper, reaching for the threads of energy she’d been taught to weave into portals since she was a child.

A seam split the night, violet and jagged, opening onto a wash of neon and bass that hit her like a second heartbeat. The sound throbbed in her chest, wild and relentless, close enough she could practically taste the smoke and sweat spilling through the crack.

“Come on,” she hissed, forcing the edges wider, her arms shaking with the effort.

The portal stuttered. Flared and then collapsed with a crack like breaking glass. The backlash hit like a punch of static, leaving her teeth buzzing. She doubled over, coughing white vapor, the taste of iron on her tongue.

“Of course, he screwed with the ley lines, too. Great.” Her voice came out raw, rasping in the empty night. She glared back at the palace as if Andrealphus himself might be watching from one of the windows. For a second, she considered trying again. But every second wasted increased the odds of someone noticing she was gone.

With all the frost, it took her a little bit to find the servant’s entrance, a squat iron door built to resist siege. The keypad above the handle had a six-digit code, her birth year. She punched it in, heart thumping, and ducked inside before the lock engaged.

The servants' corridor was much narrower than the guest halls, but less oppressively decorated. No peacocks or swans here, just pragmatic stone and the lingering, sour smell of bleach and overcooked root vegetables.

She padded down the hall, her sneakers squeaking on the marble, before she turned right and went down a flight of stairs, past the dumbwaiter, and into the laundry tunnel. She paused at the corner, listening: nothing but the distant whirr of a dryer and the faint, rhythmic thump of a mop hitting the baseboards.

She exhaled, letting herself relax for a single second. Then she turned left, through the cramped corridor, and toward the door that let out into the kitchen annex.

Halfway down the hall, voices again. Closer this time, sharp, clipped, staff gossiping in low tones. Octavia sucked in her breath and pressed herself against the wall, listening.

“She said the security feed glitched about ten minutes ago.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not paid enough to care if the little monster wants out.”

“Don’t say that. If Lady Stella hears—”

“She never listens. She only wants the kid when it gets her sympathy.”

A pause, then a soft laugh.

Octavia bit the inside of her cheek. They weren’t wrong. Stella only ever touched her life when there was an audience, when pity bought headlines. The rest of the time, she was an inconvenience to be frozen out like everything else in the house.

She waited for the voices to move past, then slipped around the bend, careful not to let the backpack snag on anything. She listened one more time: nothing but the mechanical tick of a clock. Octavia turned the latch and stepped into the kitchen. The room was empty, the only evidence of life a half-eaten loaf of bread and a mug with lipstick stains on the rim. She snagged the bread, pocketed a handful of honey sticks, and made for the back stairs.

Two floors down, and she was at the sub-basement. The air here was colder, but the frost didn’t cover the floors so much as it clung to the walls in intricate, lacy patterns. Octavia hesitated, then ran a finger along the ice. It melted instantly, leaving a streak of bare stone. She grinned.

“Eat shit, Andrealphus,” she whispered, then ducked through the last door and into the palace’s maintenance tunnels.

They ran for half a mile beneath the grounds, and she knew the way by heart. She’d memorized the path after the first time Mom locked her in “for her own good.” There were no cameras here, no alarms. Just the dark, and the occasional squeak of a rat desperate enough to challenge a Goetia for food.

She counted the junctions, breathing steady now, her heart slowing as the confidence grew. When she reached the far end, she found the grate where the old laundry vent used to let out. She pressed her shoulder to it, using all her weight, and it gave with a groan.

She scrambled up, out into the humid air. The palace garden stretched out like a trap built for birds. Ornamental hedges rose in twisting labyrinths, and every hundred feet, another gaudy ice statue loomed, a serpent coiled around a frozen apple tree, a gryphon with sapphire eyes, a whole menagerie of cold-blooded sentinels watching for any sign of life.

Octavia kept to the shadows, moving with a caution that bordered on paranoia. Her breath fogged in front of her, so thick she was sure someone on the roof could spot it if they tried. She ducked behind a cluster of frostbitten hydrangeas as the garden’s motion lights swept across the path. She counted to five, then darted to the next patch of darkness, landing in a crouch behind a shivering topiary peacock.

The ground crunched under her sneakers, loud in the hush of the night. For a second, she let herself imagine that she wasn’t the only thing moving out here, that maybe something else was alive and hungry and waiting in the cold. She snorted. Too many horror movies, too little sleep.

At the midpoint of the garden, the path split: left to the main gate (camera heaven, no chance), right to the servants’ maintenance shed, and from there to the hidden gap in the fence she’d found years ago during one of her enforced “wellness walks.” She took the right, jogging low, every muscle thrumming with the knowledge that she could still get caught and dragged back to her room before the night even started.

A sudden flare of light from the house made her flatten herself to the ground. Above, a row of windows lit up, spilling gold into the blue-black. For a heartbeat, she imagined her mother framed there, feathers sharp, eyes catching the light like a predator’s. Octavia pressed herself closer to the earth, willing the darkness to eat her whole.

Nothing happened. The light stayed on for a minute, then blinked out. She let herself breathe again.

At the maintenance shed, she ducked behind a crumbling compost bin and checked her phone. Still no alerts from the palace’s “child safety” app. She thumbed out a reply to the party group, “15 min”, and pocketed the device, fingers numb enough to fumble it twice before it landed.

The shortcut to the fence ran between two rows of dead rosebushes. She walked it fast, hunching against the wind. At the end was a section of decorative iron latticework, nearly choked with frost. Octavia jammed her hands into the gap and levered herself up, scraping knuckles and nearly losing her grip as her right shoe slipped on the icy bar.

She swore, quiet but heartfelt, and hauled herself over the top. The world beyond the fence was colder, but also sharper; smells of ozone, sulfur, and wet stone replaced the sterile perfume of the garden. Even the air tasted different, like she’d left behind a fishbowl and stepped into something vast.

Her landing on the far side wasn’t graceful. She hit the ground with both knees, palms stinging, then rolled and ended up sitting in a patch of weeds, hoodie streaked with dirt and ice. For a second, she just sat there, shivering. Then she looked up at the palace, the dark silhouette against the stars, the faint shimmer of magical wards barely visible over the rooflines, and grinned.

She would have to walk a little way from the palace in hopes that she could use her magic. Otherwise, it was a bus to the Elevator to get down to Gluttony, which would take much longer.

She walked fast, shoulders back, chest open. Her shadow stretched ahead of her, spindly and fierce. The frost on the ground thinned with each step, revealing patches of bare dirt that looked like wounds. Once the last of the frost disappeared from under her feet, she could feel it, the pull of her own magic, less brittle now, tugging at her fingers.

Octavia slowed, lifted her hand, and let the spark come. This time, it answered without stuttering. A seam split the night, violet and jagged, opening onto a wash of neon and bass that hit her like a second heartbeat. The reek of cigarettes, fried food, and perfume spilled out, warm and dizzying.

She laughed under her breath, sharp and breathless, and shoved the portal wider. No more frost. No more silence. Just Gluttony waiting, loud and alive, and for a few hours at least, hers.

⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆

Gluttony parties didn’t have a volume knob, especially not one of Bee’s parties, which only had an on-off switch that was always set to maximum. Bass pounded through the club walls, shaking the neon-blue icicles that clung to the eaves. Inside, the air was soup: cigarette smoke, hellgrain vapor, perfume so thick it burned, and the tang of something stronger smuggled in under a coat.

Loona shouldered through with her crew, Gigi, Russ, and Keith, more by habit than enthusiasm. Gigi had already snagged two strangers and dragged them toward the dance floor, her laugh cutting high over the music. Russ and Keith were locked in a drinking contest at the bar, beer foaming over their hands as they shoved each other for balance.

Loona let them have their fun. She even smirked when Russ tried to slam his empty glass down and missed, spraying Keith’s shirt in sticky foam. She couldn’t help the sharp bark she let out.

Then the sound hit harder, a distorted drop that rattled her teeth. The floor under her boots was already tacky with booze, some of it probably blood. A cup flew overhead, contents glittering under the lights before vanishing into the churn of bodies. Around her, demons ground against each other with no rhythm, a mass of claws, horns, and spit.

After a while, the fun curdled, and Loona pulled her hood over her head and slipped her hands into her jacket pockets as she observed her friends. Her eyes swept the room, the way they always did when the air got too close. That’s when she saw it: Octavia.

She sat at a table half-hidden behind a bucket of melting ice, hood up, feathers flat. A plastic cup dangled from her hand like she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Even across the crowd, Loona could see the shadows etched under her eyes, the way she curled in on herself despite the room’s ninety-degree heat. Octavia didn’t even glance up when the DJ screamed something unintelligible into the mic.

Loona snorted, muttering under her breath. “Real party animal, Via.”

She started weaving toward her, the press of limbs and egos parting more from instinct than respect. Most demons knew better than to block her, but not all. A shirtless imp with too many piercings jumped in front of her, arms wide, trying to drag her into a dance circle. Loona bared her teeth, a growl humming low in her chest. “Move.” One shove sent him sprawling into the crowd. He landed in a heap, cackling.

That’s when she caught it: sour cologne, cheap vodka, and something mean under the sweat. The kind of stink that announced trouble before the eyes confirmed it.

Her gaze snapped to Octavia’s corner. A guy leaned in close, sunglasses still on, gold chain glowing, mouth too wide, voice too loud. The kind of asshole who’d never heard “no.”

Octavia’s back was already pressed to the wall. Her feathers ruffling, and her hand up in a gesture, Loona had seen Stolas do many times when he was about to cast a spell. A weak static crackled at her fingertips, then fizzled out, leaving only the stink of burnt ozone. In her left hand, Octavia gripped her cup, knuckles white. Her beak parted, maybe to snap “fuck off,” to call for help, but nothing came out. Her eyes flicked, frantic, searching for a gap in the crowd that wasn’t there.

A group of demons only a few feet away saw her pinned, saw the panic in her eyes, and looked past her like she was wallpaper. Laughter rose, glasses clinked, the song shifted. Nobody was going to step in.

Loona’s hackles rose, but she forced her shoulders to relax, breath steady. She hated crowds. She hated the way people stared when she got involved. But she hated this guy more.

The music lurched into an uglier track, sirens, blown-out synth, the kind that vibrated bones, and it almost drowned out his line: “Hey, I said, you got a name? Do you just look that sad all the time?” He leaned closer, voice dropping. “I can cheer you up, you know.”

Loona’s vision tunneled. Boots heavy on the sticky tile, she moved through the crowd with a predator’s patience. Demons shifted, subtle, as if they felt the weight of what was coming.

She saw his hand fall, two fingers twitching toward Octavia’s waist, ready to yank her closer.

Loona braced herself, phone shoved deep into her pocket as she pushed out of the crowd. This was why she hated parties. Too many assholes, not enough bouncers. But some things never changed.

She didn’t bother asking nicely. Loona drove a shoulder into the guy’s spine, hard enough that he bounced off the wall and spun around, fists up. Up close, his sunglasses were scratched, and his eyes had that desperate shine of someone way over their head. His chest was bare under the muscle tee, skin mapped with cheap tattoos that tried to look mean. He sized her up, smirked, and spread his hands wide, like he was about to tip her a coin for performing.

“Move along, dog,” he said, slurred but precise. “The princess and I are having a moment.”

Loona bared her teeth, then slotted herself between him and Octavia, tail lashing. “She said no.”

He snorted, the smell of whiskey and something moldy wafting off him in waves. “She didn’t say anything. Thought the Goetia had better manners than this.” His gaze flicked past her, searching for backup, finding none. “What, they send their mutts to fetch now?”

That did it.

In one motion, Loona drew the gun from her waistband and thumbed the safety off. The barrel pressed straight to his solar plexus, angled just high enough that a twitch would make a mess of his ribcage. She leaned in, deadpan, dragging the gun down to his waistband. “I’m not security. I’m an assassin. If you want to keep your balls, leave my sister alone.”

He froze. The bravado drained off him so fast it left a sheen of sweat. For a second, he glanced at Octavia, but her stare was flat, unforgiving, and not at all the easy target he’d hoped for.

Loona tightened her grip. “Last chance, dipshit. You touch her, you don’t walk out.”

A beat. Somewhere behind them, a glass shattered, and a few heads turned. Loona didn’t. The guy sized her up one more time, measured the fur, the fangs, the black ink of the I.M.P. logo peeking from under her jacket, and the absolute, iron certainty that she would pull the trigger.

He put his hands up. “No problem. All yours, bitch.” Three steps back and the crowd swallowed him.

Loona holstered the gun. Nobody cheered. Nobody so much as blinked. In Gluttony, this barely registered as a hiccup.

She turned to Octavia, who had not moved from her wall-pressed perch. The cup in her hands trembled, a thin arc of liquid sloshing onto the floor. Her face was a careful, expressionless mask, but her feathers stood out in panicked disarray.

Loona hated that look because she recognized it.

“Hey,” Loona said, voice lowered. “You okay?”

Octavia nodded, then shook her head, then just blinked. “He was—” She stopped, breath shuddering out. “Never mind.”

“Yeah,” Loona agreed. “He was.” She checked the perimeter, made sure the guy hadn’t grown balls, and circled back. He hadn’t. “You wanna get some air?”

Octavia looked at her cup, then at the exits, and then finally at Loona. “Can we just… leave?” The words wobbled, barely there.

“Yeah,” Loona said, softer now. “We can leave.”

She put a hand on Octavia’s shoulder, gentle this time, and steered her toward the side door. The club’s pulse faded behind them, replaced by the cold, crisp slap of outside.

She half-dragged, half-supported Octavia down the steps, ignoring the cluster of smokers huddled by the trash bins. They stared, but not at Loona; their eyes were fixed on the Goetian princess, who clung to her sleeve, shivering and fragile in the sodium glow.

“Can you walk?” Loona asked.

Octavia mumbled something that sounded like yes, then lost her balance and leaned hard into Loona’s side. Her cup hit the pavement, rolling in a lazy arc before vanishing under a dumpster. Loona steadied her with one arm, then shrugged and kept moving. The air outside bit sharper, but at least it didn’t reek of rotgut and sweat.

They made it halfway down the block before Octavia spoke again. “I didn’t… I could’ve—” The words tangled, dissolving into a thin cough. Her hands stayed in fists, feathers poking between her fingers. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Loona snorted. “Yeah, I did. Otherwise, I’d have to fish your corpse out of the gutter. Which is gross and bad for my fur.”

That got a weak, strained laugh. Octavia’s steps grew steadier, but she kept close, like she was afraid of being peeled off by some new threat.

The city here was all after-hours: delivery trucks barreling through red lights, lost tourists, demons spilling from back doors to hurl on the sidewalk. Above them, advertisements flickered, pitching sleep cures and sex clubs in Lust, everything in a haze of neon. The club’s bass still vibrated the pavement, but with every step, it faded, just a heartbeat instead of a hammer.

Loona led them towards the I.M.P. van parked across the street.

She unlocked the door and bundled Octavia inside, then climbed in after her, locking it behind her. The inside smelled like old cigarettes and even older upholstery.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Octavia hunched in the passenger seat, hood up, knees drawn to her chest. She leaned her head against the window, looking bitterly back at the club. “He knew who I was,” she said at last, voice thin and steady. “Why do they always know?” Octavia pressed her forehead harder against the glass. Back at the palace, every hallway had felt like a stage, every glance a reminder that she wasn’t Octavia, she was a Goetia. Out here was supposed to be different, but somehow the mask followed her anyway.

“Taking the crown off might help,” Loona said dryly, flicking the crown on her beanie with a long finger. She turned to start the car. “And next time, if your magic isn’t working, punch the throat.” She pointed at her own neck for emphasis.

Loona drove one-handed, thumb drumming the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the black ribbon of road unspooling under the van's battered headlights. With the club behind them, Gluttony’s noise faded into background radiation, a low-frequency thump that trembled through the glass but didn’t touch them. Inside, it was only the slow, wet breaths Octavia fogged onto the window.

She watched her own reflection in the glass, watched it smear and reform with every breath. Behind the streaks, streetlights blinked by in pale blurs, turning her face into a flickering ghost. The silence stretched and stretched. Octavia couldn’t tell if she wanted it to last forever or end in screaming.

Loona barely looked over, but every few seconds her ears twitched in Octavia’s direction, radar locked on the smallest movement. When Octavia shifted, the fur between Loona’s shoulders bunched, like she was bracing for a fight or an explosion.

The van shuddered as Loona took a corner too fast, the tires slipping on the slush. Octavia’s shoulder thumped the door, making her wince. She tucked in tighter, trying to hide inside herself, but the world still got in. The shame of it all, running out, freezing up, needing someone to save her, sat like gravel in her chest.

“Is it always that bad?” she asked, voice barely above the heater’s dying gasp.

Loona snorted. “You mean clubs? Or people?”

Octavia shrugged. “Both, I guess.”

“They’re the same,” Loona said. Her gaze flicked to the rearview, then back to the road. “Packed full of assholes, everyone pretending not to see each other. Some idiot always thinks they’re the main event.”

Outside, the city blurred past, neon signs, empty storefronts, a guy puking into a mailbox. For a second, she wondered if he had a family waiting for him, if he’d ever snuck out of his house just to breathe. The thought made her chest ache.

“I’m a princess,” she said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them, “and I can’t even have a normal night out.”

For a moment, she pictured the frozen corridors she’d slipped through hours earlier, the gaudy swans, the glittering peacock tails, the frost that made every step scream she didn’t belong. She’d fought so hard to get away, only to end up cornered again.

She braced for Loona’s sarcasm, but it didn’t come. Instead, the hellhound’s grip tightened on the wheel. She drove in silence for a few more blocks, jaw clenched, tail swishing slowly behind her seat. The heater wheezed out a puff of warm air, then died again.

“That’s just parties,” Loona said finally, flat and certain. “Full of morons. Nothing royal about it.”

The words hit with more comfort than Octavia expected. She risked a look over, found Loona’s eyes already waiting in the mirror. For a heartbeat, the snarl was gone, replaced by something softer, recognition, maybe, or pity, but not the fake kind. It made Octavia’s throat go tight.

The van caught a pothole the size of a small crater, and both girls jerked upward in their seats. Octavia let out a soft, owl-like yelp and slapped a palm to her forehead, crumpling forward like she might puke or pass out. The seatbelt bit into her ribs, and her body spasmed so hard that a few loose feathers drifted down onto the floor mat.

Loona grunted, barely phased. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding it. “Roads in Gluttony are always trashed. They try to keep up with it, but there are too many drunk drivers to contend with.”

“Am I in trouble?” she said, so quietly Loona almost missed it.

Loona snorted. “Not with me. I’m not your parole officer.” She drummed her claws against the wheel, then shrugged. “You’ll have to deal with your old man, though. And Blitzø will make fun of you for a week straight. Maybe a month, if you puke on his rug.”

Octavia made a sound, a soft laugh, or maybe a whimper. She leaned back, eyes closed, hands folded over her stomach as if bracing for impact. Her feathers were still ruffled, but not as badly as before.

The city outside was a smear of lights and shadows, the streets mostly empty this late. Occasionally, another car would slither past, headlights making Loona’s fur shine in blue and yellow. For a while, the only noise was the hum of the engine and the ghost of club music leaking from the radio.

Loona watched the road, but her mind drifted, dragged down by memories she thought she’d drowned years ago. She remembered nights like this, cheaper, meaner. The reek of cheap vodka in her fur, the sting of a split lip, neon flickering over blood and spit on the sidewalk. She’d been Octavia, once: not a princess, but a punchline, a thing to be pitied and mocked. She’d hated every second, but it had been hers. Nobody cared if she survived the night, as long as she made it back to the group home with all her fingers.

She looked over at Octavia, who was hugging herself small, head tilted against the glass. Even with the black lipstick smudged and the eyeliner halfway melted off, she looked delicate, as if you poked her too hard, she’d collapse into a pile of feathers and shame. Loona felt the strangest twist in her stomach.

She cleared her throat, trying to sound annoyed, but the words came out softer than intended. “You want water? There’s a bottle rolling around somewhere.”

Octavia blinked, surprised. “Yeah. Please.”

Loona found it wedged between the seat and the emergency brake. She chucked it over, and Octavia caught it clean, unscrewed the cap, and chugged half before breathing again. Some of it dribbled down her beak, soaking the collar of her hoodie. Neither mentioned it.

“You know,” Loona said after a while, “most kids would kill to get away with what you just pulled. Hell, when I was your age, I spent every weekend wasted in some alley, fighting imps over bus fare. You at least made it out alive.”

Octavia snorted. “Yeah. Real achievement.” She massaged her temples, then glanced sidelong at Loona. “I’m not like you, though.”

Loona’s hackles bristled, but only for a second. She let the words settle, then shrugged. “You’re right. You’re not. You’ve got people who care whether you live or die. Might as well use ‘em.”

The headlights cut a path through the dark, and for a moment, the street ahead was empty, almost peaceful. A billboard overhead advertised a teeth-whitening clinic, featuring before-and-after photos of both faces grinning as if they’d won the lottery. Loona wondered what it felt like to want something that simple.

She slowed at a red light, tapping the wheel while they waited. Octavia watched her, eyes shiny in the dashboard glow.

“Loona?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For… you know.”

Loona glanced over, caught the vulnerability in the kid’s face, and looked away fast. Her tail thudded against the seat. “Don’t get mushy on me. I did it for your dad. He pays half our rent.”

Octavia tried to laugh, but it came out wobbly. She went back to staring at the window, tracing little circles in the condensation.

The light turned green. Loona eased on the gas, hands steady. Up ahead, a gang of lesser demons poured out of a liquor store, yelling at each other and swinging bags of stolen chips. One spotted the van and yelled something rude, but Loona just bared her fangs and kept driving. Nobody chased them.

In the passenger seat, Octavia’s breathing slowed, and her eyes started to drift closed. Loona watched her for a second, then flicked on the heater. It coughed and spluttered, but the air got a little warmer.

They had a ways to go before they got home, and the trouble was waiting there. But for now, the van was theirs, a small, ugly refuge limping through a dangerous city. And, for the first time in a long time, Loona didn’t mind sharing.

⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆⋆☽🦉☾⋆

By the time they reached the apartment, the city had gone hollow and mean. Only the hungriest demons still stalked the sidewalks, eyes glinting in the headlights, mouths sharp with want. The van rattled through the last turns, Loona’s hands steady on the wheel, Octavia curled deeper into her seat, half-melted against the window.

Loona angled the van up to the curb, engine grumbling in protest. She cut the lights but let the heater drone on, filling the silence with a low, persistent whine. The building across the street hunched in shadow, its windows glowing faintly, home, or something like it.

She glanced at Octavia, who was still awake but barely. Her eyes fluttered, slow and heavy, and her hands had relaxed from fists to loose claws in her lap.

“You’re a lightweight, you know that?” Loona said, voice flat but not unkind. “Two sips of club punch and you’re out like a busted streetlamp.”

Octavia’s lips twitched. She made a noise, equal parts laugh and sigh, and let her head thud gently against the glass. “You’re one to talk,” she managed, eyes never leaving the city beyond. “Didn’t you once get arrested for passing out in a pet store ball pit?”

Loona’s ears went stiff, the tips turning red under the dashboard light. “First off, it was a doggy daycare, and second, I was undercover. Long story.”

“Mmhmm,” Octavia hummed. She turned, for the first time really looking at Loona, not as a threat, not as a bodyguard, but as something else. “You’re scary,” she said, dead serious. “But also kind of… safe?”

The words seemed to unravel something in her. Octavia’s feathers, which had been rigid since the club, eased back down, and her shoulders loosened as if the night’s weight had finally slipped off.

Loona tried to scoff, but the sound died in her throat. She flicked her tail, eyes locked on the windshield. “Gross. Don’t say stuff like that.”

Loona drummed her claws on the steering wheel, counting off seconds. She imagined Stolas pacing the living room, feathers puffed, eyes wide with panic. She could already hear Blitzø’s cackling, the way he’d needle both of them for weeks.

Beside her, Octavia stirred, eyes flicking to the apartment’s glowing windows. Her shoulders tightened, wings hitching like she was bracing for impact. Whatever waited inside wasn’t just her father’s panic; it was judgment, and she knew it. She wanted to dread it, but mostly she just wanted to keep sitting here, doing nothing, letting the world spin without her.

Beside her, Octavia’s head lolled, breath misting the window. She looked even smaller now, hoodie swallowing her up, every line of her face relaxed in sleep. The sadness was still there, but it had softened at the edges, dulled by exhaustion and, maybe, by the sense that someone actually gave a shit.

Outside, the city reminded them it was still awake, a siren wailed somewhere distant, and a group of drunk demons stumbled past the alley, shouting slurs at each other. The noise faded, but it left behind a sharp edge of unease, a reminder that safety was temporary.

Loona nudged her, gentle as a whisper. “Come on, Via,” she said, the nickname slipping out before she could stop it. “Let’s get this over with.”

Octavia blinked, slow, then nodded. She peeled herself off the seat, tugged her hoodie tighter, and slammed the door behind her. The sound cracked through the night. Above them, Stolas leaned on the fire escape, cigarette ember glowing, his red eyes locking onto them at the noise.

They barely made it up the stairs before they heard Stolas’s tirade, Blitzø trying, and failing, to calm him down. Octavia’s knees buckled, and Loona caught her under the arms, half-dragging, half-carrying her down the dingy hallway to their apartment. The keys jangled in Loona’s hand, but she didn’t stop moving, wedging her shoulder into the door until it banged open.

Inside was warmth, cheap carpet, the funk of instant noodles and vet bills, and the hiss of TV static bleeding in from the next apartment. The moment the door swung open, Stolas pounced from the couch nearly throwing Blitzø off it in his excitement.

“Octavia! My Starfire, are you all right? Oh, Lucifer, you’re stumbling! Did someone touch you? Are you concussed? Do you need a compress?” He swooped across the living room in three strides, feathers puffed to max capacity, eyes saucered with panic. He stopped just short of Loona and Octavia, feathers puffed, beak working through a string of syllables that barely made it past his own anxiety.

“You are not fine, you’re, oh, darling, you’re shaking! Loona, did anyone see you? Was there a crowd? Who took her? Do they know who she is? Oh, what if it’s in the news already? I should check—”

He fumbled for his phone, only to have Loona physically block him, her body a solid wall between Stolas and his daughter. Loona’s patience was already fossilizing.

“Chill,” she growled. “She’s fine. Sit the hell down.”

Stolas recoiled, feathers snapping close in shock. His hands fluttered in the air, torn between grabbing Octavia and wringing his own neck. “But, her feathers, her, look at her, she’s—”

Octavia winced, looking not at her father but at the floor, cheeks blotched and eyes slick with old tears. Stolas reached for her again, fingertips trembling, but stopped short like he’d remembered he wasn’t supposed to squeeze too tight. The embarrassment on Octavia’s face was so sharp it could have cut glass.

In her head, she wanted to melt straight through the carpet. Every word out of her father’s mouth felt like a spotlight, too hot to breathe under, and she hated how it made her smaller instead of safer.

Loona planted her feet wider, voice low and level. “If you don’t get out of the way, she’s gonna pass out right here.”

For a split second, Stolas’s mouth worked open and shut, indecision a battle in his eyes. Then a new voice came from the kitchen, rough as a cheese grater and twice as cutting.

“She’s right, feathers,” Blitzø said, leaning against the counter with arms folded. “The kid needs to sit. Let Loonie handle it before you hyperventilate and pass out on my new rug.”

Stolas spun, offended. “How can you say that, Blitzø?”

“Don’t smother her to death,” Blitzø shot back. He stepped between Stolas and the girls, planting a hand on Stolas’s chest, not shoving, just enough pressure to ground the former prince. “Go make some tea. Or scream into a pillow. Let them breathe.”

Stolas hesitated, feathers still at half-mast, but the authority in Blitzø’s glare was impossible to ignore. For all the fights they’d had, sometimes Blitzø’s word hit like gospel. Stolas shuffled back, casting Octavia one last, desperate look, then turned for the kitchen. Even as he left, he kept turning back, wringing his hands, eyes flicking from his daughter to Loona and back, like he could will the whole night away if he just worried hard enough.

Loona grunted, shifted her grip to get a better hold under Octavia’s arms, and aimed her for the couch. Octavia’s legs were jelly, so Loona did most of the steering. She felt the weight, literally and otherwise, and for once she didn’t mind carrying it.

Blitzø lingered in the doorway, eyes following them with a different kind of intensity. When Loona looked up, expecting a joke or a jab, Blitzø just nodded, short and direct.

Loona didn’t say anything, but it landed heavily. She eased Octavia down onto the couch, propping her up with a battered throw pillow and crouching to eye level.

“You good?” she asked.

Octavia’s hands shook as she tried to answer. “Just… tired,” she managed, feathers drooping. Her eyes flicked to the kitchen, where Stolas could be heard clattering mugs like he was being murdered by ceramic.

Loona shot Blitzø a look. “Dad, help him before he breaks another mug.”

Blitzø made a show of rolling his eyes, but the corners of his mouth lifted in a real smile. He snapped off a mock salute, then sauntered to the kitchen, where Stolas was already spiraling into a monologue about medical ice packs and psychic damage.

Their voices collided: Stolas's high, anxious, and Blitzø's low and firm, but both faded into a kind of white noise as Loona turned back to Octavia.

Octavia slumped, every muscle giving in at once. She hunched over her knees, face hidden behind her hood, and shivered, not from cold, Loona guessed, but from the echo of the night. Loona considered making a joke, but her words jammed up in her throat.

“Hey,” she said, softer than she meant. “You want to go to my room?”

Octavia nodded, the movement barely perceptible. Loona rose and looped an arm around her shoulders. She hauled her up, slow and steady, and guided her down the hallway, leaving the chaos of Stolas and Blitzø behind.

Loona kicked the door open with just enough force to avoid breaking the hinges. Octavia nearly tripped over the threshold, but Loona steered her inside and lowered her onto the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under their combined weight, springs protesting in sharp little yips.

Loona’s room was a cave, with deep purple walls, blackout curtains, posters for bands with names like Crypt Abscess and The Screaming. A string of blue LED lights ran around the ceiling, half of them burned out, giving the place a submarine-like gloom. There were stacks of books everywhere. The space smelled faintly of lavender and burnt matchheads.

“Don’t move,” Loona said, then made a face because obviously Octavia wasn’t going anywhere. She left the door half-open and stomped down the hall to the bathroom, flipping on the ancient light that buzzed like a dying fly. She found the bottle of painkillers under the sink, probably expired, but whatever, and a plastic cup she rinsed out with cold tap water. It took her three tries to open the medicine bottle; the childproof cap was like a personal insult.

She returned to find Octavia exactly as she’d left her, perched on the bed with her head drooping, feathers half-fanned out behind her like a broken fan. Loona set the water and pills on the nightstand, then sat beside her with a heavy exhale.

“Here,” she said, pressing two white pills into Octavia’s palm. “Take ‘em. Doctor’s orders.”

Octavia did, obedient as a kicked puppy. She choked them down with a sip of water, then hunched forward, elbows on knees. Her hands trembled as she wiped at her face, and Loona tried not to look at the red smudge on the feathers where she’d smeared her own eyeliner.

A silence settled between them, softer than before. Loona reached over and grabbed a tissue from the box, handing it over. Octavia took it and dabbed at her eyes, careful and deliberate.

“Wanna get under the blankets?” Loona asked, already moving to help.

Octavia nodded. Loona pulled the comforter back and motioned for her to lie down. She did, curling on her side, wings tucked close. Loona fumbled the pillow into place and, with a brief moment of self-consciousness, gently pulled the blanket up to Octavia’s shoulders.

She stood back, watching. The kid looked so small like this, like the weight of her whole life had finally caught up and sat on her chest.

Loona turned for the door, but paused when she heard Octavia’s voice, barely more than a whisper.

“…You called me your sister.”

Loona’s hand froze on the light switch. For a moment, she couldn’t speak. The word echoed in her head, sharp as a needle.

She looked over her shoulder. Octavia’s eyes were open, watching her in the dark, just two glints of reflected blue.

“Yeah,” Loona said, keeping her voice even. “Because you are. Now go to bed.”

Octavia looked smaller than ever, lost in the shadow of her own bed. She groaned, and crossed the room in two strides and flopped onto the bed beside Octavia, stretching out on top of the covers.

“Scoot over, feathers,” she grunted, giving Octavia’s leg a nudge with her own. “You take up the whole mattress.”

Octavia startled, then rolled onto her side, making space. She let out a noise, half snort, half laugh, all real, and Loona felt the tension in the room bleed off, replaced by something new. The mattress bounced, and for a second, they just lay there, both staring at the ceiling, sharing a patch of quiet that felt earned.

After a while, Octavia spoke, voice so faint Loona almost missed it. “You didn’t have to stay.”

“Yeah, well,” Loona said, “The couch is lumpy. You’re doing me a favor.” She folded her arms behind her head, gaze fixed on the cracks in the paint above.

Octavia didn’t answer at first. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t empty anymore. The apartment was alive with little noises, the ticking of pipes, the fridge kicking on, the muffled background of their fathers' voices still bickering. Stolas spiraling, Blitzø making fun of him, the volume rising and falling like a weirdly comforting tide.

Loona kept her eyes on the ceiling, letting her thoughts drift. She remembered the group homes, with beds covered in rubber sheets, and dorms with twenty girls, where there were never enough blankets. She remembered learning how to sleep with her back to the wall, one eye open, always ready for a fight or a fire alarm, or someone else’s breakdown. The idea of a sibling, someone who shared your space and didn’t try to screw you over, was so alien it might as well have come from another universe.

She’d never had this, never expected to be this for anyone else, and yet the word sat on her tongue like it had always been there, waiting.

She didn’t know how to be good at it, but she was trying.

A sound drew her back, a hiccup of a laugh from Octavia, soft and tired and, this time, not sad at all.

“You’re weirdly good at this,” Octavia said.

Loona snorted. “At what? Babysitting?”

“No. I mean… I always thought you hated people. But you’re… nice.”

Loona rolled her head to the side, grinning in the dark. “Careful. You say stuff like that and I’ll have to beat you up.”

Octavia stuck out her tongue. It was barely visible, but Loona caught the movement and reached over to flick her forehead. It made Octavia laugh again, the sound lighter than any she’d made all night.

From outside came the faint wail of a siren, then a burst of laughter that turned sharp, angry, before fading into the night. The city was still hungry, still dangerous, but within these walls, it was held back.

They lay in the dark a while longer, side by side, not talking. The weight of the night pressed down, but it was shared, not lonely.

After a long time, Octavia whispered, “It’s not so bad. Having a sister.”

Loona swallowed hard. She didn’t trust her voice, so she just grunted in agreement.

The blue LEDs buzzed. In the kitchen, the bickering had faded to a dull, pointless hum. Octavia’s breathing slowed, deep and even, and Loona realized the kid was already half-asleep. She reached over and pulled the blanket up over both of them, tucking it under Octavia’s chin with a practiced, almost maternal gesture.

The apartment felt quiet, but not empty. It was the quiet of safety, of knowing that if the world caught fire again, someone would be there to put it out. Loona let herself relax into the mattress, letting the presence of another body next to hers banish the old, echoing loneliness.

For the first time in years, she slept without dreaming.

And in the silence of their small, imperfect world, nothing hurt.

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