Summary: When Bambi’s mother dies, it’s not his father he runs into.
Prompt: “a fawn stumbles around the forest on perpetually new legs. It has several rows of needle sharp teeth, and it is always starving” by @deepwaterwritingprompts aka this post.
Warnings: Canonical Disney mom death (not described), implied body horror.
So… I don’t know where this came from, but. Here it is.
———
It is winter, when his mother becomes lost to him. Winter, when he flees from the loud crack of Man. Winter when he is left alone.
He is destined to starve.
Bambi is still a fawn. Still incapable of finding food in the snow, of surviving alone, of fending for himself. He is still a fawn when he’s running, terrified and fueled by his mother’s “hurry!”, by the echo of Man’s work. Blinded, too, by it all, his fear and all the snow. And in the panic, he wanders to a place he should not be.
There is a part of the forest where the trees grow thicker, where the highest branches are braided so close together that the sun struggles to shine through, even on the brightest days.
There is a part of the forest where magic grows.
That is where Bambi flees to, unknowing, in the blindness of his fear. Darkness clouds over him, as he bounds deeper in, the snow here thinner than everywhere else, until he stops.
In another life, he is told to listen to the forest by his father, the Great Prince. In that life, he never hears words, never holds a conversation with the place that is his home, instead learns the figurative meaning of it. In that life, he learns to be the next Great Prince of the forest.
In this life, the forest speaks.
Lost little fawn, it sighs, branches rustling with wind that doesn’t touch him. All alone in the world.
Bambi jumps, looking around, his legs shaking furiously beneath him. “Mother?” he asks, whimpering, even though the voice sounds little like her, even though it is coming from a place too high to be her, even though it only vaguely sounds like a voice at all.
You have no mother now, the forest says, Man took her.
A tremble sweeps through Bambi, his legs hardly able to keep him upright with the force of it. This is something he knows, distantly. When she tries, she is faster than he is. He remembers her warnings of Man, about how they are dangerous, how they will take him. He was told to fear them.
He was told to fear this part of the forest, too.
He backs up, bumps into a raised tree root that makes him fall into the snow. He curls up, shivering, cold. His mother is dead and he has nowhere to go.
Do not fear, little fawn. The forest lowers a branch from the tree above him, still covered with bark, offering it as either food or shelter. I can help.
“Help?”
Yes. Don’t you want Man to pay?
Bambi lowers his head to the ground, ears flicking back and forth, eyes large and fixed on the branch.
I can help you. I can make you strong, so Man never takes a deer again.
“I’m hungry,” Bambi says, soft. His stomach is heavy in him, but empty. He was just beginning to eat breakfast with his mother when— when— he hasn’t eaten his fill. He’s been hungry all winter, more so the longer it drags on.
The branch breaks, moving closer. Then eat.
Bambi shifts to his hooves.
He bites cautiously at the bark. It crumbles in his mouth, warms his belly, lingers on his tongue.
He doesn’t remember is mother’s warning to never eat anything of magic. “It takes more than it gives, little one,” she had said, curled around him in the dark. “You must never eat anything, no matter how hungry you are. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he had agreed, even as the words went over his head. What could be so awful about food, aside from a bad taste? He nuzzled his head against her neck. “I understand, mother.”
Yet here he was.
The branch is nearly stripped bare before the effects begin to materialize.
It is pain.
He’s never felt it before, not like this — burning heat, an itch, a stabbing sensation in his mouth and an internal rolling and twisting of his stomach. “Mother!” he calls, legs giving out from under him, the only feeling beside the hurt a bone-deep sick.
It lasts too long, another fragmented cry of “mother!” before it pulls him into blackness, into something that is like sleep but far worse because he can still feel the pain.
Things are different when he wakes.
He is different. The first thing he notes — only for the bone-shaking hollowing howl of it — is that he is still hungry. Once he realizes that, he can’t think of anything else. He needs to eat.
He is starving.
———
Taglist: @super-writer-gal @mr-writes
Thanks to Sleepy for telling me to post (sorry for the delay, tumblr didn’t notify me, I swear). Also kudos to past-me for writing an actually short thing.
Prompt: “How are they?” -- “The same as before.” He looked up at the woman approaching him. “Their soulmate died, my Lady. They may never make a full recovery.”
*****
Lissy dies when they’re in the middle of a strategy meeting. They’re focused, desperate, because they know that somewhere within their troops (she hadn’t told them where, probably so they couldn’t pull them back) was their love, their life.
Their soulmate.
They’re pushing a figure representing a troop forwards when it happens.
Pain lights in their midsection, hot and furious like someone had placed the sun in their gut. They’re screaming, clawing at themselves as sensation washes away to black.
In the last moment before they fade, they know Lissy is dead.
‘’ ‘’ ‘’
It still aches when they wake again, but duller, empty. A fistful of the night sky after the sun’s implosion gripped within them.
Like a black hole sucking away every little piece and leaving nothing behind, not even empty air.
They don’t notice when their eyes open or that there’s someone sitting at their bedside. Everything is hollow, color sanded away to something grayer, lighter, shallow. They see without processing, and without that, they don’t see anything at all.
It’s all meaningless anyways. Lissy was dead.
“Per?” Their mother speaks softly, hopeful, squeezing her hand over her child’s that they don’t feel.
The effects of a lost soulmate on the other half is largely varied. Some retain their minds enough to slide through the rest of their lives, robotically. Some never step a foot from their bed.
Some lose senses — touch, smell, hearing, sight — or they’re ridden into overdrive, the smell of their other’s cologne heavy in every second, their hand constantly laced in theirs, their hair always shimmering under the sun. Some feel the death with excruciating pain, worse than anything physical, and others feel nothing. Everything falls away in a second to leave them in a horrifying, empty shell.
Per (a shortened version of their name, they don’t go by the full thing anymore) can tell the moment their mother realizes they’re not going to respond. It feels like a weaker second of the moment they realized the truth about Lissy, vision fading out and pain twisting in their body.
They don’t feel the pain now.
“Oh.” Their mother whimpers, hand fluttering to her mouth to physically hold back her sobs.
The sound of their mother’s cry sparks something in Per’s chest, heavy and uncomfortable. She knows, now, that they’re one of the ones who take it hard.
Really, it shouldn’t come as any surprise.
They’d absolutely adored Lissy.
But the shock of learning that her child must live without their soulmate when they were so young — that was a hard blow. She hadn’t even lost her husband yet, both going strong.
Per thinks how Lissy’s death is their fault. If they’d done more to stop her, insisted on knowing which squadron they were enlisted into — maybe she’d be okay.
That’s what they’d like to think at least. In truth, they hadn’t fought her very hard when she told them.
But, than again, they always did have a weakness for her tears. It was something she had to do. Why, they would never understand, but they understood that if they made her stay, it would break her. They didn’t want to be the reason she broke.
Vaguely, distantly, they can feel the physician prodding at them, doing what they can and trying to obey their regent’s order. Fix them. Do whatever you can, they’re your ruler.
It’s some time later — a few seconds, days, they don’t know, time has lost its meaning — when their mother returns, this time with their father at her side.
“How are they?” Their mother inquires, voice light and shaking, fearful of what she already knows.
“The same as before.” The physician looks up at them wearily, apologetic, as she approaches with her arm wrapped toghtly in her husband’s. “Their soulmate died, My Lady. They may never make a full recovery.”
Their mother breaks, turning to find refuge in her soulmate, something Per will never be able to do again, a fact that only breaks her more because she doesn’t know how she would cope without the steadiness of her husband at her side.
“Is there nothing to be done?” Their father rumbles, deep voice rolling through the room like thunder.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, my Lord,” he bows slightly, wondering if he was using the wrong terms now. They were leaders again. “But any more recovering is up to our young leader.”
Per, with the little cognitive thought they still hold, wonder how they’re supposed to recover from this.
Guess I'm doing Fictober now. Also guess I'm titling these. That's definitely going to come back to bite me in the butt. Original writing. Enjoy!
*****
Masy weeps like tales of goddesses gone. Cheeks glimmering in moonlight, tears sparkling. "I need you," she cries, voice like bells and song. Her desperation only heightens her beauty, which is why Lorilee has to deny her.
She steps back. Warning shivers through the links of her spine. Her heart, spelled and beating, bids her to listen. "I can't stay," she says, voice tight in her battle against her baser instinct to flee.
If it was something that would work, she would. But escaping a siren's grasp was a difficult matter, as complex and delicate as lace.
"You have to." Her eyes, dark like void and hunger and temptation, latch onto hers.
This too, is dangerous. A siren's gaze was near as bad as one's song.
"My father calls for me. Mother is ill," she says in misleading truth, appealing to her sort-of-lover, sort-of-jailer's weakness in thinking the moon is her mother. "If I do not leave now, I shall never lay eyes on her again." That much is true.
She's spent a moon's full cycle here, which is all she needed. Masy's pearl sits stolen in her pocket, safe for her to touch due to the effects of the bite dug into her neck. A siren's result of labor was acid to touch, unless the bearer carried a piece of the siren willingly given with them. A bite given in the height of passion. A lock of the siren's hair personally braided on their wrist. A piece of nail chipped and caught in their bone.
The formermost was the most viable of the three. People died from the third, pierced and bleeding and dead before their fingers ever grazed the pearl. The second option was a token of long friendship years in the making. Impossible without falling completely under their spell. And the first? It was easier to angle for, than the others. Though it was still near impossible.
Taking the lace she's so carefully woven and picking it apart, tearing apart her own fruits of labor.
But Lorilee succeeded. The bite had hurt, excruciating as the pleasure, but it was worth it. Would be, if she managed to leave.
"But you can't!"
Lorilee lowers her eyes. To display guilt and keep Masy's song (not a literal one, as most think) of tears and shame and shaking hands, from pulling her further in. She could keep it at bay, some, but weeks of exposure has worn her defenses thin. The call of it messes with her psyche, sways her heart, makes her think Masy truly alone and lonely. Making her believe in the story.
She mustn't believe in it. If she does, she is lost.
Her voice shakes. Purposeful, or instinct? She does not know. "I do not wish to leave you." And a part of her doesn't. The part that Masy's song reaches begs her to stay. How could she think of abandoning her, as so many have done? How can she think of leaving? Isn't Masy all she's ever wanted?
It's simple, now, to see why so many have failed.
But Lorilee is determined, fueled by her sister's ghost and empty grave. She set out knowing that she'd have to cut off a sliver of her soul and leave it. She knew a part of Masy would latch onto her and make her think the farce was real. That she was loved.
"I'd stay if I could," she adds on. That is... less true. Was only so under a certain frame and perspective. If Masy was human and innocent and wouldn't eventually kill her, she would, probably.
"But..." Masy's lip wobbles. "I need you to stay. Everything is empty without you."
Despite knowing this is a trick, her heart thuds painfully.
"As it will be for me," she says. It already is. It always has been. Auralia lost her life for this, months ago, and it'd broken something unrepairable in her chest. "But I fear it will be emptier to not hear my mother's final words. And I can return." She can, technically. Nothing makes it impossible. But she won't. Can't. For her sanity. For her family. For Auralia.
Masy presses her hands to her chest, as if her still heart felt the same pain Lorilee's did, though it's impossible. "Please." She pries one hand off her chest to reach for her. Beseeching. Waiting. Expecting.
Lorilee takes a step back. Lets her grief show. "I can't." She presses her fingertips to Masy's; gentle, mourning, and pulls away. "I'm sorry."
And she thinks she might be.
She slips her hand into her pocket. "I'm sorry, Masy." She turns. Leaves.
Masy ups the volume and pitch of her cries.
Lorilee keeps walking. Away from the lake. Through the night, her own cheeks wetting.
As the sun starts to brighten the sky, she slips the pearl from her pocket. It sits, ice and guilt, in her palm. A piece of Masy. A piece of Auralia. A piece of so many dead. With her other hand, she grabs the tiny reed flute, presses it to her lips. Ensures that her grip is secure on the pearl. She blows.
A high, light pitch. Wind stirs. Her eyes shut.
When she opens them, she is home.
*****
So... I might come back to this? Write more of this world in future Fictober pieces if I see the opportunity because I like this world now. This is my curse. I need to stop creating cool worlds on what's just supposed to fill a prompt.
So… recently I’ve started doing A Thing where I challenge myself to type something on a single notecard via my typewriter. Here’s one of those inspired by a prompt, endless greed. Maybe not incorporated the best, but... gimme a little slack. I just ran with the first idea and space is just a tad bit limited.
I don’t know if there’s any interest in seeing these, but posting this one for the prompt. (And look, there's only one issue born of my inability to backspace!! yay me!!) (And if you are wondering, yes, worrying about the lack of space and not being able to take back anything is a little stressful. But, you know, in a fun way.)
Tagging: @flashfictionfridayofficial
(Transcription under cut :D)
Transcription:
want.
your knuckles brush against her wrist when you pass in the corridor; not-even-a-second long contact that you are only able to bite back the temptation of more for out of bitter practice.
want.
her laugh rings across the courtyard, mingled with air-soft amusement of noble ladies. practice keeps you still, from demanding the joke repeated so you could enjoy its cheer together. her laugh sounds better paired with yours.
want.
her lips shine with your favorite berry tea. a droplet hangs on her lip, your tongue eager to taste it. but it is her own that catches it and her forest leaf eyes hardly linger on your own.
want.
her balm tastes of honey and her hands are smooth in yours and her gasps all but rob you of your sense. moonlight lets you take and you do, leaving well-hated practice where it belongs, somewhere unexisting.
Prompt: "That could have gone better" | Fictober Day 7
I've made it through a full week! Yay me!!
*****
Lisa stares at the bakery across and down and clicks her tongue awkwardly. "That could have gone better," she shrugs.
"You think?" Kate asks, a bite in her words, sarcasm sharpening. "I asked you to pretend to be my girlfriend, not my fiancee."
She looks over at her. "Things escalated."
"My mother is going to think it's real. She's going to get all excited."
Lisa frowns. "Your mother? Why your mother hear about you from your ex?" She glances at the bakery again, like the answer is going to be printed on the windowfront. It's not, of course, so she looks back to her with cautious confusion.
Kate groans. "They live on the same street." She runs a hand up her face, jaw tensing. "God, she’s going to get all excited. She’s going to get heartbroken. I’m never going to live this down.”
“That sucks. Maybe she’ll just think you’re crazy, though? That it was a weird prank or something?”
Kate lowers her hand and glares. “The point of this was so I didn’t look insane.”
“Mark missed, then. Fake dating is insane.” She hooks a thumb in the loop of her jeans and offers a small, consoling smile. “Better luck next time.” She turns on her heel and takes a step away, from Kate and the bakery both. “See you never, fake-fiancée.”
Kate lunges and grabs her wrist. “Oh no. You can’t just casually upheave my life and then walk away all casual.”
“Why not?” A brow lifts, out of her volition. “The point of this—
Kate hushes her. “Can we talk somewhere else?” Her eyes dart, quick but noticeable, to the bakery, and around the semi busy street.
Lisa considers it, decides she doesn’t have anything better to do. “Where?”
“My car?” She points at a navy blue BMW of some sort, parked just a few car lengths down. Lisa shrugs, a silent sure.
They get in. Lisa eyes the ignition warily, perched awkwardly on the seat and continues what she was saying. “The point of this was I don’t know you. You don’t know me. I pretend to know you well while you brag about me to the ex you’re still hopelessly in love with and then we go our separate ways.” She tugs her arm back. “It doesn’t work as well if we stay in touch.”
Kate stares balefully. “You said we were engaged.”
“I…” she rolls her wrist a few times, “improvised. You were about to break. I saved us.”
“You ruined me.”
“I saved us.”
A brief battle of wills. Lisa’s hand drifts towards the door.
The locks click. “Don’t you dare. I’m not letting you go.”
Her hand settles back in her hand. She traces the seam of her jeans with her knuckles. “Do I need to call the cops? Are you kidnapping me?”
“No. You need to fix this.”
“I did. You were on the verge of a breakdown in there, so I gave you a reason to look a little teary.”
She glares, eyes very dry now. No hint of the breakdown she’d been hurtling towards in the bakery anywhere to be seen, though it must be boiling. “Fix it again. Do it right this time.”
“What do you want me to do? Go back in there and tell your ex that I was just kidding? Go back and hit on him? Call my uncle to kill him? Actually marry you? What?”
“Call your uncle to—” she shakes her head. “No. None of the above. Just…” she pushes a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear, “keep this up a bit longer? Let my mom know and meet you and then break up in a couple weeks?”
Lisa’s eyes widen. “Oh no.” She shimmies away, pressing her shoulder against the door. She points an accusing finger. “No. I refuse. I am not starring in a rom com. No.”
“Just for a couple weeks.”
“No. I’ve seen these movies and I’m not playing a part in it. I deserve better. Go find another random person to play your fiancée. I’m not doing it.”
“You’re the one that proposed!”
“I… mentioned we were engaged. And besides, you were the one who started tearing up at the mention of a pregnancy! What’s it matter to you if your ex has moved on and is about to have a kid? You go move on. Find another fish. One that is not me." She grabs the handle. "Now unlock the car. Goodbye. Nice knowing you. Hope I never see you again. I'm not going to marry you, fake or otherwise. Have a nice life."
She tugs on the handle. The door doesn't budge.
Kate's arm reaches across the center console, a plea of some sort hanging from her lips.
"Hell. No," she says emphasizing the words. "Not fake-not-marrying you. I'm not gonna do it. I'm sorry. But I'm not. Goodbye. Unlock the car."
"Lisa," she says, the name segmented in half like she overfilled it with care. Why did she tell her her name? She could have come up with something fun. "Please. I need this."
She blinks, face bland. "That's what you said about dating. Now we're engaged. I'm too young to be married."
"You're like... twenty six," Kate says, waving a hand over her.
"Excuse you, I am twenty four."
"Oh, pardon me. Will you marry-not-marry me now?"
She widens her eyes. "You'll break my mother's heart."
"I don't care."
"You are cruel."
"Thank you. I know. Unlock the car."
"Not yet."
Lisa narrows her eyes. "You can't keep harassing me."
Kate squints back. Lisa cringes at the fiery determination in the other's gaze. What did she get herself into? She was a psycho. She knew that. Why did she agree to fake date a psycho? "I can," she tells her.
"You're a psycho," she informs Kate. "And I have a rule. No fake-dating-marrying-not-marrying psychos. It never ends well."
"How convenient for you."
"Oh, it's really not." She raises a hand, wiggles her fingers between them. "This actually happens, like, all the time. You wouldn't believe it. It's this condition I have. Ask-Me-To-Fake-Date-You Syndrome. It's very deliberating. I can hardly leave the house. I need to get a guard slash emotional support dog. I get harassed all the time. It's awful."
"Well, if this happens all the time, then shouldn't you be better at not screwing it up?"
Lisa holds up a finger. "About that. You see, usually, I say no. Clobber the guy over the head and run while he’s dizzy. But you looked like you were on the verge of a heart attack and I was afraid the blow might kill you so I said yes, but you basically forced me to—”
“You just shrugged and said sure! That it sounded like fun.”
“Oh wow. That heart attack is really getting to you, huh? I never did that. I think you need to see a doctor. Like, now. So you don’t die.” She pulls her phone from her pocket, hovers her thumb over the screen mockingly. "I can call an ambulance, if you're not well enough to drive?"
"I'm not dying!"
“Shame." She sets her phone on her thigh. "Maybe I would’ve married you then. Are you rich? You look like you might be rich. I could be persuaded to marry you if you’re dying and rich.”
She stares at her. At a loss of words, it seems. "...no."
“Pity. Good luck finding someone else, then. Or not. I could care less. Now, if you would..." she gestures at the door.
Saying yes to pretending to date her while she buys danishes at the bakery her ex works at was a terrible idea. And she’d known that, she just… thought it might be entertaining to watch? It was a trainwreck about to happen. She had to watch it play out.
"Why is the front door locked anyways," she asks, trying the handle, uselessly, again.
"It's a BMW," Kate says, the words stiff and cold, automatic. Like this is something she's rehearsed. "And my niece rides in the front."
Of all the luck. If she'd known she'd be locked in, she wouldn't have gotten in the car. She would have argued on the street and not cared about the people overhearing. She didn't live here, the consequences wouldn't touch her.
"Please stay," she asks. "I'll-- make it worth your time, somehow."
"I can't." Lisa rubs at her temple. "I'm not going to be in town that long. I have a flight in a couple days."
"But..."
"I really can't help you. The bakery was fun but I can't do anything more. I have a plane, and a job. You can spin whatever story to your mother, say that I got a new job opportunity and dumped you when you wouldn't move, or whatever, but I can't do anything more."
Kate sighs. "Can I have your number, at least?"
Lisa covers her phone protectively. "Why?"
"So we can... call and stage a fight, or something. Do something to salvage this. Can you do that, at least?"
She sighs. She shouldn't.
She unlocks her phone with her thumbprint. "One phone call," she says, "and then I'm blocking you."
"Fine."
Lisa passes her phone over, open and waiting for a number to be imputed.
"We'll have to text to figure out the story."
"That's fine." She takes her phone back, adds the contact and changes the name to 'fake not-wife'. "Now if you won't mind..."
The car unlocks. Lisa hurries out, hesitates in closing the door. "I am sorry about the ex, for what it's worth. He seemed like a jerk."
Kate laughs. It seems tired. "He could be one, sometimes."
Lisa shrugs. "Have fun puzzling this out. Maybe don't set up fake dates unless you've got it planned out."
Rissa squints at her chalice, swirling her wine around and staring intently like the secret of the universe is coded within.
"Your Majesty? Are you... alright?"
As if he doesn't know.
"I feel strange," she declares. "I think my wine was poisoned. Again." Her nose wrinkles and she sets the chalice down. Sourness tingles on her tongue. She stares at Captain Numin balefully. "Why," she asks, dramatics in her words, "do they think that poisoning the wine will work?"
He winces. "Wishful thinking?"
Skill. Warning. Mind games. Poisoning her wine in a way that slips past her taster -- meaning it took time to activate. A rare poison. High market. Expensive and hard to find.
"As if I'd ascend the throne as the first solo empress and not have safeguards for assassination attempts. This is the fourth poisoning. They're ruining all my wine."
"That's... not the important part? We need to stop whoever's doing this. They're trying to kill you."
"I can live a little poison," she shrugs. "I just wish it wasn't always in my wine." Why not her morning tea? Why not her dinner? She glares at the chalice, turns her gaze to his. Softens it after a moment. "Do you think yours is, too?"
He pushes it away, disgust filtering across the face like he's appalled by the thought. "If you want to try--"
She snatches it up and takes a big gulp. No sour tingle, but... She frowns at it. Did they have to be so obvious? "I am going to behead them on sight. Your wine is fine. Do you think if I post a notice in the town square, they'll poison my tea instead?"
"No?"
A pinch to his brow, confusion.
"Pity." Rissa takes another sip, rolls it over her tongue to confirm. Poisoned, still. A different kind. Subtler. Weaker. It narrows the possibilities, adds more weight to her theory. "At least it narrows the possibilities," she says aloud. "They poisoned the cup, not the barrel."
Captain Numin drums his fingers on his thigh. A poisoned cup typically points to a servant -- the taster, or the one who delivered it, or poured the bottle, though that wasn't applicable here. This, however, was no servant. "We'll still have to toss the wine."
She slams the chalice down. "But my cup was poisoned. Not the whole supply. My cup."
"It's a precaution," he shrugs. "That's how it is."
The empress downs the rest of his chalice to make her point. "Well, when they've snuck a poisoned cup past the tasters, what's the point? As long as I regulate myself, I'll be fine."
"And what if it's a slow building poison?"
She pouts at the bottom of the chalice. As if she can't recognize a poison on taste. "It's not. This is the standard high-brow stuff." A specialized version of it, but. She shouldn't admit to knowing that. Safety purposes and all. "How is it that they're dedicated enough to slip into the castle but not to get a better poison?"
"We don't want that to happen," he reminds her.
For council's sake. The plan, obviously, was not to have her dead. Yet, at least. They needed time to finalize their plan. As if she'd let the council remain if she didn't have a rat or two on the seat.
"Yeah, yeah." She waves a calming hand at him. She can't die during a personal dinner with him. It was too damning. "Poison is bad for you. I'm just... thinking. It's strange. Is it not?"
"It is. And we're working on it."
She sighs, long and weary. "I would hope so. I miss unpoisoned wine." As fun as the game was, it was getting boring.
Captain Numin clears his throat. "About that."
Her head whips towards him. She gives him the glare she reserves for the worst of prisoners in the dungeon, knowing he'll attribute it to her love of drink. "You're not banning me from wine."
"It's for your safety."
Tricking you into trusting us, his eyes say. Making you weak. The people will riot if their new bastard empress cannot eradicate her first threat.
"I'm the empress. I say you can't."
She knows him too well. Their plan might have worked, maybe, if she hadn't known Numin since they were both children. He could not sit as a rat at her table and have her overlook the vermin because she once called him friend. She was a child then. She knew no better.
Now she did.
"It is a law made by emperors of late and their councils, Your Majesty."
She narrows her eyes further, wonders how he can pretend to be so concerned as he looks her in the face. When did depravity set upon his mind? "Then I will change it."
“You have more important matters to attend to. Like the rebellion.”
A pretty little distraction, that. A well crafted one, but she was always a master of her strategy and negotiation classes. She knew a show when she saw one.
“But my sanity.”
“It’s just wine, Your Majesty.”
A gasp. “Just wine? Just wine? Did your father not raise you respectably? He never would have said such a thing to my father.”
He never would have turned his heel to her father.
“The late emperor was not being poisoned.”
“That is beside the point.”
“It is not.”
She blows a breath out her nose, rubs the bridge of it. Politics, especially when brought into her private matters, were exhausting. She might hold off the beheading and have the man behind this tortured first. Simply out of their lack of taste.
Simply out of their betrayal.
Her eyes linger on Numin. He's giving her the same look he did last time, when she'd actually groaned about the wine. Pride meshed with faux concern. As if he's playing her. As if she doesn't know.
Rissa looks at her dinner and sighs. At least she doesn’t bring out the good wine for these dinners, though as soon as this is over, she’s getting herself a generous pour of the best bottle they had.
She’ll have earned it, for weeding out the corruption plaguing her court.
*****
Taglist (ask to be added/removed): @super-writer-gal
Prompt: "This time, do what I say" | Fictober Day 23
Welp. I just realized I changed the prompt to next time instead of this time, but. I don't have the time/motivation to rehaul the whole thing to fix it, so. It is what it is. Slightly off prompt is better than a late one? Warnings for vague war and blood mentions.
*****
Barsi isn't a strategist.
She's invaluable for the maps she makes and she's asked input in strategy meetings but her mind isn't the sharpest, compared to those who see her ink on parchment and project mock battles in their heads, instantly knowing what sorts of plans are more viable than others.
It's not foreign, really, but it's nothing she could do herself.
She only sits in to give more details on the landscape; distances, slopes, anything more detailed than what's on the paper. Typically, she offers the details and that's it. No advice. Because she's not a strategist.
But she’s no fool, either.
“They’ll see you there,” she pipes up, frowning at the alcove Niro is pointing at.
His eyes turn up to her, surprised. “You said it was a cave.”
“A tiny one,” she bites her lip. Recalls it again. “With you attacking in the early hours, the sun would light it up. And you’d have to be packed in to fit a dozen men. That’s not…” she trails off, unsure under all the eyes suddenly focused on her. She roams for a comforting face and settles on Tani. “That’s too dangerous, isn’t it?”
Niro scoffs. “Where would you have us place a troop, then?”
“I don’t know.” The chair presses into her back. “But that’s not… it won’t work.”
“There’s no other option,” he tells her, lips pressed flat. The others seem uneasy, to varying degrees, but they don’t argue.
“We could move further south,” she suggests. "I don't think we're going to be able to move through here."
“There’s not enough time for that." He dismisses her, easily and she drops it, if only because he's gotten them this far and he's yet to lead anyone astray. He knows what he's doing, she's just the mapmaker.
She knows nothing of war.
The meeting continues in a blur. The only thing she’s aware of is that he’s going to put men in that little cave, have them rest there, forging ahead for the army. They’re going to be seen. It’s not a safe path to take, she’d nearly been caught roaming, mapping it in her head and she was unarmed.
But the troops? They weren’t going to be unarmed and alone.
They weren’t going to be able to make an excuse believable enough to get them out.
But Niro gave his order and off the men go.
They don’t make it back.
Barsi spends the day with a sick coldness in her stomach, a terrible dread she can’t shake off. The day passes, her not sleeping and the men don’t come back when they’re supposed to. She waits with Tani, sitting with a jittering leg and after the sun’s dragged some, she speaks. “They should be back by now,” she says, instead of the they’re not coming back her gut whispers.
Tani glances at the sky. “They’re only a bit late.”
But the sun keeps moving. They keep waiting.
The men don’t show.
Nico even comes out, frowning, and sends a scout to check on them. It’s a few hours when the scout returns and Barsi knows the news he bears before he lunges for Nico and tells him in a broken quiver. “Dead,” he says, and there’s a haunting in his eyes that suggests he saw something worse than bloodstains and still-wet pools. “They’re all dead, sir.”
Yet still, despite knowing, the news crashes into her chest. She closes her eyes.
Nico tells the scout something, tone short and heavy. Disappointment, it seems, and some contrition, loss. Men are dead, never to go home.
“Next time,” Barsi says, as Nico’s eyes shut to take in the loss, “do what I say.”
The accusation in his gaze is weak, washed out in the effects of the loss.
“I told you we should have kept moving south,” she says, and lifts her chin so she looks more confident because all she feels is guilt. Guilt she doesn't want to feel, that she wants to avoid and she knows this isn't on him alone, his refusal to listen. It's on her, too. She should have pushed harder, insisted Nico change his mind, but she’s not a strategist.
Prompt: "That is what I'm known for" | Fictober Day 20
Same world/characters as this and this. It's not required that you read those, though, as this happens before any of them. Happy reading!
*****
The only name of Aliya's that the world knows is what she is. Mercenary.
It's to the point and vague enough that she's hard to pin down. Mercenaries are everywhere and finding one who goes by the title alone? Impossible. Add that the rumor that she can steal faces, born from the ease in which she strolls into homes that are actively attempting to keep her out and it's little wonder she's never been caught, despite the long years she's been active for.
Law is something she tossed over her shoulder at a young age and has never seen reason to pick back up. She's been criminal as long as she's been independent and she became as such at a far younger age than most. Lawfulness is something she only knows to pretend to be and she's happy with things staying that way.
This, though.
The king employing her. It's as lawful as she's ever going to get. As big and notorious a job she can conjure up.
She's never been caught and she's never had a member of the royal family (let alone the king) hire her. The first she will never let happen, but the second?
Her specialty is impossibilities.
When she first saw the declaration, posted in each village square, she saw the code, of course. It did not fit with the king's seal proudly sat at the bottom. The content the people read is a decoy, something about moral, some stupid message they all flock around like vultures on a corpse.
She thinks it's a joke. Some weak attempt at a trap, determined by a random maid's toddler because do they really think the top-wanted criminal is going to waltz into the castle over a coded request? As if she'd ever walk into something so obvious.
But then came the messages from contacts she keeps, frim characters as unlawful as herself, from the maid she knows in the castle, from any contact she trusts for truthful information. It's genuine, this call for aid and she laughs at the informant (the fourth contact) that tells her so. The idea is ridiculous. She's one of the most wanted individuals in the kingdom's history. Yet the king is asking to hire her? How the mighty fall.
She breaks into the castle, despite her weak invitation.
The thought of walking to gate, as she is, and seeing if they let her in is tempting, but sneaking in to places as guarded as this is more fun. It's not even difficult. The thrill of knowing she's traipsing in the king's very home while all his guard is unaware, though? It's exhilarating.
She slips into the throne room via the secret passages only the royal family and their personal guard are supposed to know about.
"King," she says drolly, stepping from behind a pillar and draping length of cloth, where the door was hidden.
She tilts her head lazily as the guards whip towards her and point their swords and spears. She hardly pays them mind. She was invited. And the question of would he punish a man for wounding a criminal who snuck into the throne room is tempting enough that she risks a wound. Nothing fatal, as she's prepared and they're surprised. But the idea of it -- she's disappointed that she gets no answer, as they all fail to lunge at her with attempt to harm. Pity. She would loved the reaction.
Oh well.
"You requested my aid?"
"Stand down," he orders the guards and it's less amusing to see which listen immediately and which hesitate to follow orders. It's always fun, to see which pride their morals over their loyalty, even if it's not as fun as one of them being punished over her. The opportunity is one rare to show itself and the answer is all-too revealing.
She steps further into the room, purposefully brushing her side against a knight who stiffens at the contact, as if her rotten soul and ill morals are things that will taint him with a mere touch. She rolls her eyes. Men working for rulers so often think themselves some blessing of a deity, can-do-no-wrong, the pinnacle of morality. She's wearing a cloak with a large hood that hides her face, for the dramatics and the privacy of rolling her eyes at ridiculous things.
There's a weapon in her hand, and more she can easily reach, just in case this goes south.
Judging by the king, though, his expression and recent actions and all the things his body language screams, she doubts they will.
"You are the Mercenary?" the king asks, raking his eyes over the little of her he can see. Doubt is weak in his eyes, overshadowed by something much stronger, something she wants to call hope.
This was turning out better than she'd hoped and she's hardly said hello.
She smiles, knowing he cannot see it but perhaps he'll hear it in the way it twists her reply. "That's what I'm known for," she says lightly. "And as, I suppose."
And the questions. Was his son truly stolen by the Dark Magician? Does he trust her to return him in one piece? Where does his desperation come from, that he turns to the scum of his people over the polished trust he holds in those in his court?
"Remove your hood."
An order.
"I'd rather not."
A sigh, weary. He looks so reluctant and she's drinking it up. Aliya's never had a king humble himself to her and she's going to enjoy it. He must be at the end of his rope, to send a coded message sent through his entire kingdom in hopes that she would come. "I give my solemn oath as king that you will not be captured on this night, or, if you accept the proposition I hold, that you will not be captured through the entirety of the time you work and for a week thereafter."
Oh.
A king's oath.
He was desperate.
Glee pushes it's way up her chest and she flips her hood over her head. How pitiful it must be for these guards to see her face knowing it is her and be unable to act on the knowledge.
She raises her chin, looking the king in the eye exactly as she's not supposed to. As if she's higher than him. More powerful. It's true, in a way. He's the one who gave it all to her. The eyes of the guards burn, anger hissing in the air at the orders they're following.
The king does not examine her. His eyes flick briefly over her features and he lowers his head to her. Some knight sucks in a breath in his shock. Aliya wrangles her smile back. He was doing absolutely nothing to act as if he had the high ground, any sort of authority over her. Desperation was a light word for the depths he is showing her. She wonders how much she can talk him into giving if she accepts. "I require your aid."
"As I assumed, for your insistence that I arrive to hear your plea." The corner of her mouth tugs outward.
The disrespect she was showing so blatantly. A knight to her left clenches his hand around the hilt of his sword, looking as if he wishes to unburden her body from her head at the audacity she's displaying. She purses her lips at him in a kiss. He scowls. But the king has made his place clear and he nothing besides.
It's pitiful, really.
And so, so entertaining to witness.
"My son has been captured by the Dark Magician. I require your assistance to liberate him."
Not new news, technically. She knew what was going to be asked of her as soon as she first decoded the message, when she thought this was all a joke (and it still is one, to her, undoubtedly her favorite). There's only so many things a king will humble himself before a criminal for and she's heard about the crown prince's capture already.
This is but confirmation.
"And I should aid you for what reason?"
She's a criminal. What does she care, if the prince is lost? If the throne is in trouble, if the kingdom might be empty of an heir. If morals were something she possessed, she wouldn't be known as she was for shattering the law under her heel with the ease of it being an insect.
"Because I ask it of you. Because when he is safe, I will reward you with gold beyond your dreams and a single royal treasure."
And that's-- that's the height of it. The peak of desperation.
He's offering a royal heirloom.
"Because you are the king lowering your head to a criminal," she muses, aloud if only to bother the guards more. The king's shoulders tense but he only lowers his head further, crown in danger of toppling down the steps and to her feet. "Oh, raise your head. I do not bargain with hair and crowns. I'll require your oath in ink before I even consider accepting."
The king gestures to an attendant, who scurries to bring him a quill and sheet of paper.
Aliya does nothing to hide this smile.
This might be her favorite day yet.
*****
I've found the world that will carry me through the rest of fictober. My motivation to stick with it has wavered a bit (these prompts-a-day-for-a-month things are hard) but I'm stubborn and I'll do whatever I have to to get things done. I've gotten this far.
