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Maria Deluca Weekend

October 7th - 9th

Oct 7th

Day 1 - Favorite Dynamic

Prompt: Friends, Family and/or Lovers

Oct 8th

Day 2 - Favorite Episode

Prompt: Future/Post-Canon

Oct 9th

Day 3 - Music

Prompt: pre canon / alternative universe

Will be tracking:

#mariaweekend2022 #mariadelucaweekend2022

Any questions please ask here or @eddiesbaseballbat

#maria deluca #roswell new mexico #mariaweekend2022 #mariadelucaweekend2022

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Maria Deluca & Liz Ortecho, Maria DeLuca & Alex Manes, Maria DeLuca & Rosa Ortecho Characters: Maria DeLuca, Liz Ortecho, Rosa Ortecho, Alex Manes Additional Tags: Letters, No Dialogue, Character Study, Lost Decade (Roswell New Mexico), Post-Canon, Maria writes letters to those she loves Summary:

Maria wrote many letters over the years. Some that she sent, some that she didn't. Those that she sent were addressed to Liz Ortecho and Alex Manes. Those that she didn't send? Most of them were for Rosa.

***

written for @mariadelucaweekend days 1 and 3: friends, family and/or lovers, and pre-canon

#mariaweekend2022 #maria deluca #it was fun to write all the letters #roswell new mexico #rnm #rnm fic #thesquidkid writes

unnamed maria-centric fantasy au part 4

you can find the other parts i’ve written here

written for @mariadelucaweekend day 3!!

Maria and Michael stumbled into the inn past dusk, after the dinner hour. Michael handled the horse while Maria handled paying for the room; between the two of them, she was the one who’d never been swindled before and wouldn’t be starting now. Then it was an extra copper for a bit of bread and stew leftover, and the two of them, exhausted, filthy, and silent, climbed the rickety stairs to their rented room. Michael made it there first, but he stopped so short in the doorway she ran into his back.

When he staggered forward a step, she saw what froze him.

The room was small, clean and humble, tucked under the eaves with a polished glass window and a candle flickering merrily on the bedstand. There was even a tub of water; it would be cold, but Maria was ready to commit a murder to get the layers of road dirt off her skin.

Yes, the room was average in every way, perfectly adequate for travelers. Unless, that was, one traveled in a group. The room held only a single bed, tucked against the wall below the window.

Fantastic.

“Move, Guerin,” she said, letting every bit of exhaustion out in her voice. “I call the first bath. If you say anything chivalrous about sleeping on the floor, I’ll stab you in the kidney.”

They spoke as little while getting ready for bed as they had on the road. Guerin did offer a charm to warm the bathwater, which warmed her to him in turn. Eventually, the conciliatory way he deferred to her would get annoying and she’d miss their old banter, but that time wasn’t coming just yet. He even let her get in the bed first, letting her take up as much space as she pleased, before he fit himself into whatever space remained. Then, when they were both settled, he blew out the candle, leaving them in darkness.

It was a new moon. The world was utterly black and still beyond the nailed-shut window.

But, as was so often the case, it was easier to speak when they could not see each other.

“The time for secrets is past. It’s beyond past, Guerin. Michael.”

Maria spoke quiet and hoarse to the beams crisscrossing the ceiling. Beside her, Michael shifted on the roughspun mattress. He turned to face her, and they’d be kissing-close if she did the same, but she didn’t.

“I know. I’m not trying to deceive you.”

“Anymore, you mean.”

“Anymore,” he allowed, voice soft.

He shifted again but moved no closer to her. Uncharitably, she scoffed at him inside her head: the pampered princeling unused to anything but a feather bed. But that wasn’t true; she knew that wasn’t true. Guerin was raised sleeping on straw, on stone floors, on a pallet in front of the hearth, like every other poor child in the kingdom. Everything else was learned; everything else was bad habit. It was choice, not nature, that made him sly and sneaky like a noble.

“You know my brother and sister. Max and Isobel.”

“Your brother’s head is on every copper that’s crossed my bartop since I bought the place,” Maria said flatly. “I’m familiar.”

“Right. Crown Prince and all that. The thing is, he’s…not well.”

“Sick?”

That was a surprise, that the crown prince could be ill and there wouldn’t even be any gossip. And if there was gossip, Maria would have heard it.

“Cursed,” Guerin replied bleakly. He rolled back onto his back too, so they were both staring at the ceiling together.

“Cursed,” Maria repeated. “And…is that something that happens often?”

She thought of all the people who thought fairy stories were for children, never knowing there was magic all around them, never knowing sorcerers were real and apparently meant them real harm. She thought of her own mother, whose mind and feet wandered, who she’d left in Arturo’s care to go on this stupid adventure, and of every doctor who’d barely given them a look before declaring her in fine health but for an overactive imagination. Her heart pounded hard, then harder, sickly, in her chest.

“Not often. It’s grim magic. Any curse you lay comes back on you threefold, one day. But some sorcerers lay them regardless. Sometimes, people want to see others suffering more than they care for their own happiness and long life.”

She didn’t understand, but she didn’t need to. Who cared about the intricacies of how a curse came to be? There were other, more important concerns, like:

“And you know how to break this curse?”

“In theory. Or at least I thought I did.”

“What does that mean?”

“The curse was triggered when he used too much of his own magic—depleted himself beyond his body’s ability to fight it off, like an infection. His magic has been raging since the curse took over. He can’t control it, and it feeds on itself; the more magic he uses, the worse his condition becomes, and he can’t stop using magic. But there are artifacts in this world that can absorb magic and hold it, that can act as external wells of power for sorcerers.”

“That’s what you had me searching for!”

“Precisely.”

No wonder he’d paid her so well despite always protesting she would bankrupt him. If it was for the life of a prince, she should have asked for double.

“I had hoped to use the artifacts and fragments you collected to create a sort of…” Guerin gestured, his long-fingered hands waving in the dark, “A crutch, for his spirit. It’s one of my more useful skills, artificing. So he could have not just a simple well to keep the curse at bay—one that could be stolen or depleted—but a way of diverting the curse altogether, killing it once the well was empty. I was so close.”

The anguish in his voice pierced somewhere behind her collarbone, and at last she turned to look at him, the dim line of his profile, the steady heat and weight of his shoulder less than an inch from hers.

“What happened?”

“My workshop was ransacked. All my work, destroyed or stolen. Months of planning and research trampled. I could start over, but what if Max was consumed before I achieved anything? And how to start over when I’d used almost all my materials, and my supplier was…”

“Was what? I’m still here,” Maria demanded roughly. She wouldn’t even entertain the idea that he was talking about anyone other than her. “Your silver still spends. Unless, what, I didn’t work fast enough for you?”

“I didn’t know. Lady Deluca, I swear to you I didn’t know.”

“What are you talking about?”

He just couldn’t stop trying her patience, could he? Couldn’t just stick to straight answers instead of winding tales and dramatics, couldn’t just—

He turned, then, so they were nose to nose. She froze and held her breath, so she felt it in the air between them when his caught and fluttered past his lips.

“Your talisman.”

Faintly, she could see him raise his hand, hover it in the air for a heartbeat, then touch his own sternum where her pendant hung against her own chest. Had he meant to touch her? She held her breath again.

He continued, “It…it hides you, from all magic. Including your own. But if you’d lost it, at any point in any of the errands I paid you for, the defenses of these artifacts could have sensed you and…”

Throat bobbing, he swallowed so hard she could hear it.

“I think you must be mistaken,” Maria corrected, as gently as she could. Believing in magic was one thing, but this? The pendant was just a family heirloom, and besides—the reason she hadn’t laughed Guerin out of her bar when he first started talking magic was her own small magic. The reliability of her card readings, the ability to sense others’ emotions she’d inherited from her mother. None of that was hidden from her.

“When was the last time you took it off?”

“Not since my mother gave it to me the day I turned eighteen.”

“That’s good. It’s an heirloom, so you’ve protected it. But if you’d lost it at any point while hunting one of those artifacts I asked you for…there are worse things than sorcerers drawn to wells of power, Lady Deluca. Creatures that will suck your spirit from your flesh and your marrow from your bones. I put you right in the lions’ jaws, and if anything had happened to you…”

“You’re not responsible for me. I make my own choices.”

“But you deserve to make them with clear eyes and all the facts. And I took advantage of your ignorance, mistaking it for a safeguard. And, Lady…Maria. I’m sorry.”

Well. What was she supposed to do with that?

“I appreciate that. And I already know how you can begin to wipe away that debt,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt.

“Say the word.”

“You’re going to help me break a curse.”

#mariaweekend2022 #mariadelucaweekend2022 #my fic #maria deluca #michael guerin #miluca fantasy au #is my general tag for it but i honestly dont know if it will wind up miluca or malexa hahaha #this one actually has some plot in gasp