Rules: bold the themes that apply to your ship, and italicize the theme if it’s one-sided, within your story.
height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbt+ (Ariyos is gay and Riyash is pan) / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other/ fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were room mates / holding hands / secret relationship (Ariyos is in a fake engagement) / opposing world views / getting a pet (Ariyos has a gryphon that he’s raised from an egg) / have kids (Ariyos later has a niece he sees regularly and dotes on; still debating if Riyash gets a nephew) / want kids / grow old together (eventually) / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / token dummies / relationship doubts (Riyash doesn’t want to give up his original job or move away from his home country; Ariyos is next in line for a throne and is caught up in a fake engagement his sister’s council thinks is real)/ they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other/ big fancy gala / sibling rivalry (Riyash and his twin sister are. Competitive, but not nasty toward each other.) / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps (Riyash for Ariyos) / sexual tension / can’t be together (at least until Ariyos’s sister gives birth to her daughter and Ariyos’s fake engagement is amicably broken) / age gap / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle (Fake Love Triangle, with Ariyos’s fake fiancee supporting them) / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn (one of them is demisexual; there’s a lot of discussion between them about past relationships and sex before actually doin’ it) / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters
I tag @wizardra and @melethh
Riyash jolted awake as a loud crack of thunder shattered the peace and quiet. Rain began coming down in earnest outside, and the wind howled through the trees in the gardens. He wouldn’t be surprised to find downed branches or tree limbs in the paths tomorrow.
The storms he’d encountered in Votgardt or Caerva were hardly this intense. He turned over to lay on his back and inadvertently woke his sleeping partner.
“Thunder wake you up?” Ariyos inquired.
Riyash envied how alert he sounded.
“How the hell do you sleep through this once it’s woken you up?” Riyash replied.
He felt Ariyos shrug beside him.
“I’ve always been able to,” he responded. “Did you sleep through any storms in Veltan?”
“Well… I could. However, that was because the previous owner of an apartment my sister and I shared used some sort of spell to block all outside noise,” Riyash replied. “We were still working on how to remove the spell when…”
“…when you two were kidnapped and taken to Votgardt?” Ariyos finished for him.
It was too dark to see the tereco’s face, despite laying so close together that their shoulders nearly touched. Riyash nodded.
Fariyah scowled at the sheaf of letters that lay on top of her journal. She had closed her traveling bag herself and those letters hadn’t been in there before now. The package… glowed, and she picked it up to investigate it further.
The glowing effect was layers of spellwork, woven in and around the papers in a way that resembled the finest chainmail. Each strand had been carefully and exactly crafted, its ends looped and tucked in to prevent stray motes of magic from escaping. Spells of truth, spells of preservation, protection against all manner of destruction… and a magic seal that would force the deliverer to give this package to its intended recipient. Fariyah’s heart leapt into her throat as she turned the package over.
A wax seal of Pharasis Agatias, overlaid with the delivery seal, was stamped on the back, keeping the papers from flying open. The seal of Ashur Magis directly next to it. The boy Riyash hadn’t lied after all, he did work in the palace.
Fariyah glared at the two seals, but didn’t dare try to meddle with them. If they were tampered with, neither seal could be repaired, even by the original caster. It exposed the tamperer as dishonest and corrupt.
Messing with Agatias’s seal would mean exile and forced removal of magic. Fariyah was not at that level of low.
Yet.
But there were ways she could read the contents. She laid a hand on the stack of papers and cast a spell of knowing.
A long and formal greeting to the Pharasis. Fariyah skipped that part. A complete story of the boy’s kidnapping and escape. The same one he had told her.
Every single word of their conversation the previous week, down to her sneers and doubts of his story, his job, and his rank.
He meant for her to deliver this to the Pharasis herself when she presented herself in court and explained why she had been expelled from Trovska.
Fariyah tore the letters into little pieces, screaming. She flung the pieces out of the carriage window and watched the shreds blow toward the Inan Strait… and did not notice that only the paper tore.
-
Two days later, she found the same sheaf of letters tucked into her spare formal robes.
She burned the papers on a lit lamp. The flames devoured the paper and its embers burnt her hand, but the shimmering spellwork remained.
-
One day letter, it was next to her pillow when she woke.
Now Fariyah attempted to remove the spellwork.
Her first spell bounced off the sheaf and rebounded toward her. Quick reflexes allowed her to dodge, but one of the walls to her tent was slashed open. Another spell, meant to unravel the wards protecting the paper, dissolved before it touched the first strand.
the mental image wouldn’t leave me, or, a drabble I will probably never expand on:
“What did you do?” Ariyos asked. He set the book he was reading aside and looked at Riyash intently.
“I exposed him…” Riyash began blithely.
He leaned the chair he was sitting in back farther against the wall, the heels of his feet resting against the outward corner of the wall. He held Azar’s small harp in his hands and plucked at the strings absently. He had no idea how to play the instrument, but he enjoyed the sounds he created nonetheless.
“…for the lazy bum he was,” he finished.
A final pluck of a string, and he lost his balance and crashed to the floor. The harp flew out of his hands and landed somewhere in the room, and if it weren’t for the stars in his eyes, Riyash would glare at the bark of laughter that Ariyos had let out.
Title: Mission - escort hostage prince out of country. Failed Step One.
accept this late, very humble offering that i wrote last week.
there are two other parts but idk if i should post them since they don’t... fit, even though they reveal who the mystery person is.
Ariyos heard the curtains rustle before he saw the shadow. He barely had time to react before he was forcefully shoved against a large dresser by an unknown assailant. Pain lanced through Ariyos’s lower back, but he pushed them off. The assailant’s foot tripped him up as he attempted to run away and he fell hard onto the carpet. Ariyos quickly rolled onto his back, but before he could defend himself or even try to get up, the assailant was on top of him and—
They ripped off the cloth covering the lower half of their face.
Ariyos gasped in shock. He knew them. At the same time, he didn’t. The stranger’s long, thin face was covered with a neatly trimmed beard, and their brown eyes had bags of exhaustion underneath. This close, Ariyos could see traces of kohl on their lower eyelids that had been imperfectly removed. They could have passed for Florin’s younger brother, or—
A child. Ariyos now knew who this was. The whispers at court, the ones that said Florin had reportedly fathered a child before marrying Erlas Gracia, proved true. Except…
“I know you. I don’t know your name, but I’ve seen you in Caerva, in the crowds during important events at court. But you usually have very gaudy, ah…”
Ariyos mimed painting an eyelid. The stranger let out an annoyed sigh.
“You’ve never noticed I was impersonating one of Tereca Annika’s servants?” they questioned brusquely. At Ariyos’s confusion, they shook their head. “That doesn’t matter now. Florin sent me. The two of us need to leave Trovska by first light.”
They rolled off Ariyos and got to their feet, but they didn’t bother helping him up. He had no time to dwell on that, or the fact that this stranger hadn’t addressed Florin properly. Ariyos scrambled to his feet and took a step back.
“No. That’s impossible.”
“Florin explicitly stated that I had to get you and your gryphon out of the country without the Trovan pretender’s knowledge.” the stranger whispered fiercely. “Do you know how worried your sister is? This is the only chance we have to smuggle you out without provoking an invasion.”
“I know how worried my sister must be. But I’m not leaving.” Ariyos replied. “I’m not abandoning Ingelip-Elect Eba in her quest to take back her throne. I’m supporting her until it’s over.”
The stranger looked stunned. Before Ariyos could blink, they had grabbed the front of his tunic and slammed him hard against the nearest wall. Pain erupted on the back of Ariyos’s head, and he blinked past the tears that had formed to clear the stars from his eyes.
“What the fuck am I supposed to tell Florin now?! Do you realize just how hard the Erlas is fighting to bring you home?” the stranger snapped. “You could die if the Ingelip-Elect fails!”
Ariyos took a deep breath to steady himself. He pried the stranger’s hands off him.
“I’m prepared to accept that, and I’m sorry you’re going back without me. But I want you to take this back with you instead.”
He sidestepped the stranger, who followed him with wary eyes as he approached the bed and got down to the floor. Crawling backwards underneath the frame, Ariyos thought he heard the stranger approach the bed and stop at the side table. After a few minutes of searching, during which he could have sworn he heard a drawer open and close, he found what he was looking for and crawled back out, clutching a thick sheaf of letters in his hand. The stranger was waiting for him, leaning with their back against the wall. They were pulling uncomfortably at their beard, but they stopped when they saw the letters.
“Please take these to Florin in my place. I want Gracia to look at these at well,” Ariyos stated. He got to his feet and brushed himself off with one hand. “The contents are extremely important.”
The stranger snatched the letters out of their hand and shoved them inside their tunic. They turned to leave but stopped and looked back at him.
“Word of advice. You shouldn’t be so obvious with your relationship to that Veltan man. You’re supposed to be wooing Ingelip Annika, not wooing the Veltan.”
Ariyos looked mildly shocked at their knowledge into his private life, but he quickly recovered. “Gracia and Ingelip Annika already know I prefer men.” The stranger raised their eyebrow, and then dashed toward the door just as Ariyos realized his mistake. “Wait!”
He raced after them, but the stranger had already opened the door and shut it behind them. Ariyos cursed the well-oiled hinges and the spell Riyash had put on the door, because there was no sound as the door slammed shut. Heaving an aggravated sigh, he shuffled over to the side table and opened the top drawer, just to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated hearing it open earlier.
The clear bottle Riyash had passed to him in the library was gone. Ariyos sank to the floor and groaned.
Ingrelen Eba throws a party following the unfortunate demise of her hated cousin. These are the stories of selected survivors.
Crack. All crack. No one was harmed.
Uh. Definite R for mentions of sex and vague mentions of vomit. Just in case.
Prologue
Eba walks up to a balcony overlooking where the festivities took place last night. She had the grace to retire early and slip out when no one was looking, though that’s not to say she didn’t have a debauched night of her own in her own chambers.
From up here, she can look out and watch the casualties of last night’s banquet. The hall is an absolute mess of spilled food, wine, collapsed drunkards, and likely vomit. There’s a pile of ashes at the far end of the hall, and she remembers an effigy of Leif being burned with no smoke. She pities the servants who have to clean up after this.
But she also pities the foreigners who aren’t used to Trovan alcohol. Oh, the hangovers they are going to have…
“Weaklings,” she muttered.
Part One
Amaranth wakes slowly. Her head feels like it’s been split open, and she tastes wine when she attempts a swallow. The floor is cold against her back. A strange woman is still asleep next to her, half on Amaranth’s side and half on the floor.
Amaranth realizes almost too late that they’re both naked, but she doesn’t particularly care at the moment. She braves a splitting headache to lift her head up and look around. The room is a total mess; one curtain is torn almost completely in half on one window, and the bed next to her has an embroidered coverlet and sheets hanging off the mattress. An empty candle holder is on the floor, possibly knocked over.
She remembers almost nothing from the night before, until the stranger wakes up. She has short blonde hair, blue eyes, and is just as muscular as her. Amaranth can’t place a name to the face, but she remembers looking at her across a crowded hall and talking to her. Which clearly led them to here, hungover and naked and not at all sure if the previous night is worth remembering.
“Good morning,” the stranger mutters.
Amaranth doesn’t understand a word of Trovan. It didn’t matter last night, as she discovers a bite mark on one breast and several hickeys on her thighs. She’s sure she’s pulled a muscle in one leg as she flexes it and grimaces. The stranger has hickeys on her breasts and neck and her hair is sticking up in all directions.
“I’m never drinking again,” Amaranth replied mournfully.
The stranger actually giggles. Maybe she knows some Caervan?
“Who are you?” Amaranth asked. Stranger looks confused. She drudges up the Trovan vocabulary and phrases Erlas Gracia’s tutor hammered into her head before coming to the country from her alcohol-clouded mind. “Name?”
“Adela,” the stranger replies.
“Amaranth,” Amaranth replies. She starts giggling as she points at herself. “Good… morning?”
Her Trovan is terrible but Adela doesn’t seem to mind.
“Good morning,” she corrects her. She makes the phrase sound harsh but Amaranth hardly cares.
“Adela? Where are you?” a male voice asks beyond the doorway.
Adela rolls off of Amaranth but doesn’t sit up. She snaps a phrase likely laden with expletives at someone presumably named Adalbert.
Amaranth starts laughing but stops; her head hurts too much.
Part Two
Kilain wakes to the unpleasant feeling of a neck ache.
He’s face down on the floor in the banquet hall, the stone pleasantly cool on his face. Lying on his stomach, he looks around and sees a few more people barely visible behind tables. So at least he’s not alone with passing out on the ground.
He doesn’t see Amaranth anywhere. He vaguely remembers seeing her speaking with one of the generals of the Trovan army. The blonde one… there were two blondes. One man and one woman. It was the woman she was talking to.
He isn’t worried about her. He’s more worried about his ability to turn over without hurting his neck or throwing up. Neither seemed like a pleasant experience right now.
He falls back asleep.
Part Three
Ariyos opens his eyes and immediately regrets it. He’s lying in just the right spot for a ray of sunlight to pierce his eyes. He turns his head away and takes stock of his surroundings from the floor.
He’s not in his chambers but he’s fairly close to them. He somehow passed out under a portrait of a picturesque forest in Votgardt that looks like imps swimming in a grassy sea.
Then he looks down at himself and cringes.
He somehow vomited all down the front of his outfit. The stains are never going to come out.
He just hopes he hadn’t emptied the contents of his roiling stomach in front of a crowd of people.
Part Four
Riyash wakes to an exhaustion that’s bone deep. The smell of burnt wood and straw fills his nose, and he’s slumped against the wall of a banquet hall. People are groaning nearby and somehow there’s a full cup of an unidentifiable liquid standing upright near his left hand.
He knows he used magic the night before. But why?
Then he sees the burnt, twisted remains of some sort of pot over by a table. Small recollections start coming back.
An effigy. He set it on fire for everyone—an effigy of Leif. People screamed at the flames but calmed when there wasn’t smoke. He doesn’t know who made the effigy.
He looks at his hands and marvels that his drunk self managed to even control the flames.
He grasps the cup tightly and brings it to his lips, only to spit it out.
