[Pictured: Malia, Rusila, and Kepi]
@veldeien @dragonhomeclan @sweetheart-swan @jadedragons If anyone would like to be tagged for future lore stories from me, let me know!
Shifting Winds Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Interlude 1, Interlude 2, tag for all related stories to this arc, general story tag ~
recommended listening: Lost and Found by Katie Herzig, I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons, Bloom by The Paper Kites, Red Flag by The Moth and The Flame
Love is Patient, Love is Kind, Love Will Make You Lose Your Mind; oh the world it is sleeping, but my world is you
-
Two and half years ago
The pirate ship rocks amongst the roaring waves, and yet all Malia could hear was the roaring in her ears, the tightening of her chest as she read and re-read the letter that had so carefully been left on the table in her room. Outside, the crew was wondering where their captain and a number of their fellow crewmembers had gotten off to. Malia couldn’t care less where Aranea was, half-hoped that she’d never return, but the same couldn’t be said for the captain’s daughter.
A year of pretending to be each other’s mates, and now Rusila was gone, leaving behind nothing but a piece of parchment.
(It had been like something out of a story. Rusila’s mother had wanted to match her up Rasmus, a newcomer to a ship and barely more than a child, not to mention of a gender that Rusila wasn’t particularly interested in.
Rusila had panicked beneath Aranea’s expectant gaze, and had quickly told her mother that her and Malia had been seeing each other in secret, that she couldn’t possibly be with Rasmus.
Aranea had always favored Malia, so of course she instantly approved, and Malia? Malia had been more than happy to play along after Rusila asked her to, stuttering adorably.
She would often wonder if that might’ve been the time to tell Rusila that she had always had a crush on her, and perhaps of made their fake relationship into a real one.)
Sitting down heavily on her bed, Malia read the letter for the seventh time, the parchment crinkling slightly in her tight grip.
Malia,
By the time you read this, if all goes well, I will of been gone for hours. Rasmus is taking Cord, Dalia, the children, and I somewhere far away, somewhere that my mother can no longer hurt us. At least, that’s the hope. I wish that I could tell you where, but that would be too dangerous.
I feel like a coward telling you this in a letter instead of in the flesh, but I knew that I would never be able to tell you otherwise.
I just needed you to know that my feelings towards you were never pretend. I wish that I could’ve told you that during the last year, but I was always too afraid. I didn’t want to lose you.
I know that you probably don’t feel the same, and that’s alright. I appreciate everything that you did for me over the past year, Malia, more than I can say.
I hope that we will see each other again someday, in a different life. Be safe.
I love you.
-Rusila
Those three words stare up at Malia, taunting her, curling around her heart and squeezing tight. She wants to scream, she wants to cry, she wants to fly away into the rain until she finds Rusila, taking her by the arms and whispering, I love you, too.
It’s too late for that, though, and so instead she runs her fingers along those three damned words one last time before folding up the letter into a tiny square, tucking it into a small pocket in her swordbelt, where no one will find it.
In three days, Aranea will return, half-drowned and bloody, having murdered two of her other children. In a year, Aranea will die, killed at the hands of her vengeful granddaughter, and Malia will seize control of the ship, much to the happiness of the crew.
A year and a half after Rusila left, Malia finally sets eyes on her again, but it’s too late.
When Rasmus had contacted her about becoming a partner to the kingdom he now led, sending along the no longer secret coordinates to the island that they lived on, Malia had immediately set sail. Sure, the opportunity interested her, but everyone on the ship knew that she had an ulterior motive, and were all less-than-secretly rooting for her.
(“Excited to see your girl again, Captain?” Kalliope had teased, winking at the Skydancer.
“Shut up, Kalli,” Malia had nearly blushed, and the Pearlcatcher had only laughed, patting her captain on the back.)
When Malia finally saw Rusila again, the first thing she noticed was how happy the other Skydancer looked.
The second thing she noticed was Rasmus’ little sister, Kepi as she would later learn, on Rusila’s arm, smiling as she kissed the taller dragon on the cheek.
Malia decided that she couldn’t quite fault Rusila for moving on after so much time had passed, certainly since they’d never even been truly together, but that didn’t stop her from sending Rusila longing looks every time she returned to Roava, unsure whether or not she wanted her to notice.
(Rusila never did, but Kepi certainly took notice.)
Present
Kepi found her mate on the balcony outside of their shared room, leaning against the stone railing, staring out into the distance.
In the waters just off the coast, The Crimson Jewel, the ship that had once belonged to Rusila’s mother, was burning. It was an intentional fire, and its former crew stood on the shoreline, celebrating the ship’s demise.
For a time, Rusila’s niece, Savitri, and Malia had played at being friendly rivals, but they had recently come to a mutual agreement; neither of them were the perfect captains of their respective ships, but together they would be a force to be reckoned with. Deciding to become co-captains of Savitri’s ship, The Scion’s Triumph, they had then quickly come to the decision to destroy the Jewel.
The boat was haunted by Aranea’s cruel ghost - not literally, though sometimes it felt like it - and no one was sad to see her legacy meet a flame-filled end.
(Earlier in the day, Kepi had accompanied Rusila down to the docks when she went to see the ship one last time.
Rusila had grown up on the Jewel, and nearly all of her best and worst memories lived on that boat. She had run her hand across the smooth red wood, from end to end, before standing at the edge of the ship, staring out at the water.
Heaving a shaky sigh, she nodded, before turning away and disembarking, giving Kepi a watery smile as they made their way back to the castle.)
Leaning against the railing next to Rusila, the two stood there in silence for a bit, watching the Jewel slowly break apart, the sunset a rather nice backdrop for the end of a tragedy filled era.
“I wish that my mother could’ve seen this,” Rusila finally said, a hard glint in her eye. “She loved that ship, more than anything. More than she ever loved Magnus or I. I wish that she could’ve seen it burn, and could’ve felt the sort of loss she should’ve felt over her own children.”
Kepi rested a hand on her mate’s back, rubbing lazy circles as she spoke.
“I’m sure that your mother is rolling over in her grave as we speak.”
Rusila smiled a bit at that, and after a few more moments she shifted, moving behind Kepi, wrapping her arms around her as she rested her chin on top of the queen’s head. Her movements were slow, always just the slightest bit hesitant when initiating any sort of physical contact.
They stayed like that, quietly watching the “show”, until the sun was nearly gone, stars beginning to dot the sky above them.
“I miss it, sometimes,” Rusila eventually murmured, her voice tinged with melancholy. “The sea.”
“The ocean’s right there,” Kepi teased, though she was pretty sure she knew what Rusila truly meant, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t scare her just a little bit.
“You know what I mean…sailing, being out there on the open sea with nothing but ocean around you for miles and miles. Or maybe you don’t know what I mean, sky pirate,” It was Rusila’s turn to tease, referencing Kepi’s mother’s airship.
(Kepi bristled just the slightest bit at the mention of her family, thankful that Rusila couldn’t see the way that her face fell, or her teeth clenched.)
Finally, pushing aside any vulnerability that threatened to creep into her voice, Kepi asked the question that worried her the most.
“Would you ever want to go back to it? To that life?”
“Maybe someday,” Was Rusila’s airy, breathed out response, and while she thought that the “only if you came with me” went without saying, it most certainly did not in Kepi’s mind.
Kepi had invited the crew of the Scion’s Triumph to dinner in the castle that night, and it had turned into a rather raucous celebration. Stretching long into the night, Kepi was mid-conversation with one of the crewmembers when she saw it, out of the corner of her eye: Malia, leading Rusila from the room by her hand.
(It’s nothing, you can trust Rusila, a part of her mind reassured her.
But can you trust Malia? Follow them, another voice advised, and so she did.)
Excusing herself from the conversation, Kepi made her way towards the door as inconspicuously as possible, not wishing to draw any attention to herself.
Once outside, it was easy enough to figure out where the pair had gone, their voices easily heard from around a nearby corner. Creeping towards the adjacent wall in a way that looked absolutely ridiculous for a queen, Kepi rested her back against the wall and listened.
“-maybe it’s time for you to get to bed,” Rusila’s voice was quiet, coaxing.
“No, Rus, please, I just…I just can’t put this off any longer, please just listen,” Malia’s voice was only slightly louder, pleading, sounding entirely more emotional than Kepi had ever heard the captain.
Rusila must of gestured for her to continue, judging by the quietly murmured “thank you” from Malia. There was a stretch of silence, before finally-
“I still have that letter you left for me. I read it every now and then, as…I don’t know, as a reminder, I guess. Of what could’ve been…of what still could be, some day.”
“Malia, I’m with-”
“With Kepi, I know! I know, and I’m not asking you to choose. I just…I need you to know that…I love you, too.”
“Too?” Kepi couldn’t help the chill that ran through her at the use of that word; Rusila had told Malia that she loved her? When? Unable to help herself, the queen just barely peeked around the corner, finding herself with a side view of the other two. They stood less than a foot apart, and that alone made her want to interrupt, made her want to walk over and shove Malia away from her mate.
Instead, she stayed still, waiting to see what Rusila’s reaction would be.
“Malia, I…I-”
“It’s okay, I know that you might not still feel the same way, I don’t…let’s just forget I said that, okay?” Malia began to back away, sounding uncharacteristically uneasy, but before she could get very far, Rusila grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her in.
Kepi’s heart stopped for a moment before she realized that Rusila had merely pulled Malia in for a hug, not something else; nonetheless, her mate’s next words still made her heart ache.
“I do still love you, I’ve never stopped,” She said, holding Malia close, and after a moment of shock she hugged Rusila back, eyes fluttering closed.
Kepi had heard and seen enough; as quietly as possible she turned and fled, willing away any tears that threatened to fall, her mind whirling.
If only she’d stayed a moment longer, she would’ve heard her mate’s next words:
“But I love Kepi too, I love her so much, and I just…this is all too much, Malia,” Pulling away, this time it was Rusila that took a few steps back, though Malia made no move towards her, clearly seeing the other dragon’s sudden anxiousness. “Everything with Rasmus, and how strangely Kepi’s been acting lately, and now you tell me this, I just…I just can’t…”
Rusila’s voice broke as she trailed off, not making eye contact with Malia, and the captain finally put her hands out in an attempt to stop Rusila’s increasingly panicked rambling.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay…the last thing I want is for my…my feelings for you to be another problem on your plate. Really, we can just…forget that I said anything, at least for right now, okay?”
Rusila finally looked up at Malia, her eyes searching the other dragon’s face for sincerity, before nodding, wiping at tears that had yet to fall. Malia smiled, a melancholy little thing, and Rusila smiled back, happier than she could say that Malia understood, that she understood Rusila as she always had.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the room they shared, Kepi was planning the conversation she would be having with Malia the next day, cutting all ties between the kingdom and her and her crew.
-
abrupt ending but??? this was…..entirely too much fun to write lololol. I really wanted to get the next part finished by today, because it’s intense, and it’s my birthday and I always post lore on my birthday, but this is a suitable fill-in lol. the other one will be finished very soon, though! and hoo boy, it’s very emotional.
the last two years the lore I’ve posted on my birthday have centered around Aranea, and while she may be dead, she’s still here in spirit. :’D the first year was about her getting her ship and becoming a pirate, the second year was her getting super dead, and now this time her ship is the one dying, so it’s pretty fitting~
make me happy on my birthday and ask me questions about these dramatic lesbians :’D
