random art pieces
Ive altered Marani's AN version a little bit so he has disguised himself as an Emeraldblooded councilor who specializes in Highbloods dealing with trauma or "hardships"
to @rrrawrf-writes, @vexed-hexed-perplexed and Best Anon (and any and all others who feel i owe them an apology) because i am a terrible person
here is some real actual fluffy content, the edited young victoria-inspired AU with Masara and Hikaj. i might’ve rewatched the movie. i promise it is full of nice moments.
-----
“Lord Prince Panam,” the queen says when Panam enters the room. She stands at the windows at the far side of the audience chamber, with her back to him. Panam grinds his teeth together silently. She wouldn’t be here, as queen, if it weren’t for him. And she won’t even face him.
“Your Majesty,” Panam says, letting cool displeasure touch his tone.
Queen Masara turns from the windows. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t move to sit, and doesn’t gesture for him to sit either. Nor, Panam realizes, does she look at all chastened.
Suddenly hesitant—then brutally quashing the instinct—Panam crosses half the room, just to the edge of a sofa. He's seen hints of this Masara before, calm and sure of herself, but never with him. He thought he'd made sure of that.
“I hear you have been out voted, Prince Panam,” Masara says serenely, still at the window. But she’s looking at him now, and Panam sees how much effort it takes her. Not yet an opening, but he can make it one. “I might have sworn you once promised me you were never going to lose power.”
Panam clenches his fists. “I have been a loyal prime minister. I have guided us most capably through the war and successfully overseen the assimilation of the newest territories," he reminds her.
“You began the war,” Masara replies, still calm. “And I was foolish enough to allow you to do so, and kingdom we have swallowed may yet become a poison."
“Your people love you for what I have done," Panam says, cold and proud. Her greatest victories are his, and she would be a nothing queen, beloved by no one if not for Lord Prince Panam.
“My people love me because I am queen.”
Panam works his mouth silently, too furious to put words to all the ways he is being used by all this ungrateful disrespect.
"You will not accept a new government," Panam says instead, cool, ready to brook no argument. You will request a new vote."
Masara meets his furious gaze straight on, which only incites Panam further.
"I have already met with Duke Inarim," she says. The name strikes Panam like an open-handed slap to the face; he almost would have preferred the violence. "He will be Lord Duke when I open the Grand Assembly."
“When was this?” Panam demands.
“Yesterday, when I invited him to form a government. He has some very good ideas I am looking forward to seeing in the coming years,” Masara says coolly, politely. “And I have written to invite Prince Hokiraj to stay with us for a while. You should not feel obliged to call on him. It would be wisest if you kept your distance, in fact. Given your intimate involvement in the war we just ended, as you just reminded me.”
---
"There’s an update to the ball," Lord Kinlo crows over the letter. "To celebrate the fifth year of Queen Masara's reign."
Hikaj stares sullenly at the ceiling, sprawled over his mother's old fainting sofa. "What does this matter to me, Kinlo?" he growls.
He remembers the first year of Masara's reign, when his father was still alive. Hikaj had been at the coronation, and watched as the new queen twirled like a pretty doll in the arms of her second cousin--a prince and Lord of the Great Assembly. Hikaj had been introduced to her as well, and they had danced briefly. Protocol had required that she dance with him, as he represented his father, the ailing old king at the time, and she had been--well.
She was elegance itself. And the dance was as well as it could have been, kind in its brevity, as it did not give Hikaj time to put his foot too much in his mouth.
Hikaj doubts she remembers that. And besides, she has emerged from the shadow of her cousin the prime minister, a queen in her own right, while he has grown... much differently.
"She's named her partner for the opening dance," Kinlo announces.
"Are you sure you haven't received an invitation, Highness? A personal letter, perhaps?"
"Oh, shut up Kinlo," Hikaj complains, mulish. "Of course I received the invitation, and of course I'm ignoring it for as long as I can. I'm a vassal prince. That barely means anything.”
Kinlo says nothing, but looks very thoughtful.
Thoughtful enough that Hikaj puts aside his sour mood for long enough to be curious.
"Tell me," he says after a minute. "What are you hiding? O what have I missed in my petulance?"
Kinlo grinned. "Our queen Masara has named you to open the dance with her," he said, without any preamble.
Hikaj sat up straight so quickly, he felt something in his neck crack.
"Kinlo," he said, "That is not a funny joke."
Kinlo waved a thick card decorated with marked with blue and silver and curling script, and a small envelope sealed by silver-grey wax with a large, visible M.
"If it’s a joke, highness," he said, laughing, “I’m not the one playing it.”
Hikaj flopped back on the fainting couch almost bonelessly, and flung an arm over his eyes. His head buzzed with possibilities, with endless avenues of action, things he could finally do for Kas with the queen's attention.
"Oh gods, Kinlo," he said. "Open it quickly and break it to me easy. I don’t think I can handle this."
----
The queen allowed the prince the choice of music; and Hikaj, who remembered how Masara had mentioned the Kassan waltz with interest during their brief conversation, chose a traditional--native--piece.
The queen must have learned the steps during the war, because she did not object to Hikaj's choice; nor did she object to a Kassan waltz opening the ball in honor of her reign as queen of Amir (and Damira, and now Kas).
They didn't speak to each other before they danced. That wasn't the Amirran custom--partners should meet first on the dance floor. A lady had to be danced with before she could be spoken to.
When the first unmistakeable notes of the music Hikaj had chosen were played, loud and drawn out, the room moved easily to allow space in their center. Hikaj stepped out, before Masara, and bowed deeply. Very deeply.
Masara caught his hand, and pulled him upright with a gentle but firm tug. "Prince Hokiraj," she said softly, "I hope you do not think yourself so low in my eyes.”
Hikaj brought Masara's hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles, beginning the dance with a proper greeting. Taking up her other hand, Hikaj stepped in close. The music began in earnest with this signal.
"Your Majesty," Hikaj murmured, in the space between them where the steps brought them yet closer. “You have become a powerful queen since we last danced, and I am yet a prince.” He would never wear his father’s crown.
He spun the queen out, in measured, elegant steps, and then they drew in close to circle each other again. Hikaj stared at the air above them, where their wrists were delicately twined, though not yet touching. It was only the first pass of the dance, after all.
“You may never be king, as you thought,” Masara said, as unflinching with this truth as with any other—but when Hikaj looked down at her face in surprise, he saw kindness in her dark eyes, an understanding that did not shy from what she had stolen from him. “But that does not mean you cannot have what you have always wanted.”
They separated, and when they came together again, Masara continued, “There is always the possibility of a new Lord Prince of the Assembly.”
Hikaj said nothing for a long moment, lost in the dance and in that renewed fluttering of possibilities, of what could be done with power. The steps were slow, elegant but comparatively easy—no excuse for his silence. Finally, when they made a closed circle once more, he asked, “Are you asking me to stand in your government?”
Masara’s reply was instant, laughing, delivered across the slowly opening space between them. “I do not choose who stands in the Great Assembly.”
“Then what is it you would have of me?”
But the dance, Hikaj realized with a start, was over. He was already bowing over Masara's hand, a far more natural courtesy, and the queen inclined her head. On impulse, Hikaj kissed the only ring she wore.
He was rewarded with a smile as the dance floor around them filled in with the swish of skirts and murmured greetings. It was surprised and delighted, almost shy too, and Hikaj knew, instantly, that he could die for a woman who smiled at him like that.
You are disgustingly dramatic, a voice suspiciously like Kinlo's said in Hikaj's head, but Hikaj was very practiced at ignoring it.
He offered the queen his arm. "I have danced with you, Your Majesty, and I believe that means I am now free to say again: what is it that you ask of me?"
The queen let herself be led from the dance floor, couples swirling away as they passed, and back in again behind them.
“Only that you call me Masara, if you wish."
Hikaj tried not to swallow his tongue.
"And, perhaps," the queen added, "a little advice."
"You dance the waltz beautifully, Masara," Hikaj said instantly. "You can't want for advice there."
Masara looked amused. "No; fortunately a waltz is something I may practice in private a thousand times."
“Your practice has made you a wonderful dancer,” Hikaj assured her.
“But I fear I do not have quite so much time, when it comes to peace with Kas,” the queen replied, soft and serious now. Anyone might have heard them, in the ballroom, but for the invisible barrier of space afforded to them by respect and protocol.
Hikaj suddenly felt like he was seventeen again, in that moment when he'd realized Masara's quiet reserve hid more than the puppet of Lord Prince Panam. That flash of insight had startled Hikaj into more honesty than he would've preferred. He's lamented about his father's war and what it had done to his people, in the short, insufficient space left by a dance... But here was that honesty returned to him.
Five years later, when Hikaj was the age now that Queen Masara had been then.
"I think we are more forgiving than you fear," Hikaj said. "If you came to visit us, and stayed with us a little--show Kas what we are gaining for all that we have lost. Give us consolation."
Masara huffed a laugh. "Hokiraj, I am not so naive as to think that alone will do it."
"No," Hikaj agreed. "But just wait until they see you dance." He cupped his hand and held it out, like the some of the last poses of the dance, and Masara curved hers above it as if they sheltered some soft thing together. "Then all Kas will know there is more to you than a metal gauntlet."
