hiii!!! I love your dividers so much omg they're all so perfect would you have time to make some sorta softcore royalty themed ones? (Im thinking like Marie Antoinette vibes idk) tysm if you do!!
Hi anon, I think these fit but let me know if not. Thanks for the request! 🩵🌸
Flag ID: A five striped flag of varying widths. The top and bottom stripes are wide and a golden color, bordered by thin black stripes towards the center. The middle stripe is bold purple with a light gold clipart of interlinked cartoon hearts overlaid. End ID.
Consort: A term for when an individual uses the word consort in place of partner, etc, whether exclusively or not.
Colors chosen for gold jewelry and historical association of purple with nobility due to price of dye acquisition.
definition: a female-in-nature xenogender that is regal and grandiose and related to kings, royalty, and nobility. it also may be used by people who feel that their gender is female, but masculine only in the sense that they are a king.
etymology: derived from rex (latin for king) and the suffix -era (a female-in-nature suffix)
flag: a flag with four visible stripes, underneath which is a three-spiked yellow symbol resembling a crown. the first stripe is dark pink, the next a slightly lighter deep magenta, the third dark periwinkle, and the bottom bright blue.
A Hades / Persephone AU, written for @kanejweek 2022 - prompt: Kings and Queens
Read on AO3 here, or keep on reading below...
xxx
There were rumours, around the Barrel, that Dirtyhands had tricked his Wraith into becoming his queen. Had offered her false, tempting lies, or promises to expand her fleet of ships, or reassurances she would keep her freedom, despite being chained to him.
Others claimed he’d lured her with a perfect, ripe pomegranate, plump with ruby seeds, and signed her life over to him while she was distracted by the taste, lips pink with juice and eyes closed in bliss.
Whatever the truth, the Wraith of Ketterdam spent half the year in the city, the deadly shadow by Dirtyhands’ side, and the king and queen of the Barrel stalked the streets they ruled, two pairs of dark, dangerous eyes keeping watch over each other.
The other half of the year, the Wraith left Ketterdam and her king behind, sailing away on her ship, never once looking back.
Of course, there had always been rumours floating around the Barrel, and not often were they entirely true.
xxx
‘Meja! Oh, my Inej, it has been too long!’
Inej’s mother already had tears streaking down her cheeks as she ran towards her daughter, flinging her arms around Inej as she walked into the circle of caravans. From behind her, Inej’s father smiled fondly, waiting patiently for his wife to release their child.
‘Mama, please,’ Inej murmured, allowing herself to be stroked, held, wept upon. ‘It has only been half a year.’
It was the same every spring, when the ice thawed and she set off from Ketterdam and across the True Sea once again.
Inej’s mother huffed indignantly. ‘And if it were not for that Brekker, clouding your good sense with his dark trickery, you would be back safe in your caravan all year long, with your parents, where you belong.’
‘Cara, my love.’ Inej’s father moved close then, gently pulling her mother back. His voice was gentle, but held just a hint of warning. ‘Kaz is who Inej has chosen. Ketterdam is where she has chosen. Be grateful she is able to spend even half a year with us, ov?’ He smiled at Inej as her mother tutted. ‘Welcome back, meja.’
Kaz had never joined Inej on her trips to Ravka. It had been made clear, back in Ketterdam when her parents arrived at the docks that first time, that although they were infinitely grateful for him reuniting them with their daughter, the Ghafas considered him a demon, a devil, and not someone worthy of their bright, happy, precious only daughter.
Even after five years’ of marriage, Inej’s mother acted as if Kaz had tricked her into loving him, had stolen Inej away from the safety of her caravan’s embrace — as if he were no different to the slavers who first snatched her away, no different from Tante Heleen herself.
Inej had cut her first visit home short, when her mother refused to stop making snide, hurtful comments about Kaz, and ever since her mother had managed to keep to the minimum of insults when Inej made her yearly visit.
And as much as Inej loved her parents, her family, the life she’d long lost, she knew she loved her husband more. She missed him desperately, ached for his tender touch, his bitter-coffee eyes, the single-minded devotion he held for her.
She’d been thinking, more and more: six months was not enough for her, anymore.
xxx
The deal had been the deal.
Kaz asked her to stay, but Inej knew she had to be free to sail the seas, to bring some form of justice to the dark, cruel world. To see her parents, and try to rebuild their relationship. The compromise had been half a year with Kaz, and half a year to herself.
And no matter how much he missed her, the gentle touch of his wife, her brilliant eyes and kind smile and wicked tongue, Kaz knew he could never deny her anything. Besides, six months with his queen at his side in Ketterdam felt far more than he’d ever deserved.
Still, he missed her, in the months she sailed away from him. Missed her with a longing, an intensity, that no-one would believe was possible from the Bastard of the Barrel.
In her absence, Kaz haunted the Barrel, kept the city under control, ran his Dregs’ with an iron fist. He visited the Van Eck mansion, had supper with Jesper and Wylan, ran his schemes and heists and plays as usual.
And he waited, with every beat of his darkened heart, for his love to return to him.
In the week before she was due back into her berth at Fifth Harbour, Kaz started preparing for her return. He opened up their house on Zelverstraat, airing the rooms, laundering the musty sheets and towels until everything smelled as bright and flowery as Inej herself. He stocked the kitchen with the ingredients for her favourite pan bread and dhal, as well as hutspot, and of course, fruits of every kind.
Inej loved all fruit indiscriminately, from the crispy apples and fat, sweet peaches that were Kerch’s speciality, to gold-fleshed mangoes, tiny purple blueberries, sharp, juicy oranges the size of her fist. And always, ripe, blush-coloured pomegranates, her favourite. From the first one she’d ever tasted, on the eve of their wedding, Inej had declared them the most delicious food, and Kaz had ensured that their house was laden with pomegranates each time she returned to him.
Now, he waited on the docks of Fifth Harbour, ignoring the chill in the air, his hands clasped on the crows-head of his cane. He almost smiled when the Wraith appeared on the hazy horizon, perfectly on time, and stayed standing, silent, watchful, until the sprightly warship swept into berth twenty-two, and her captain leapt up onto the brow of the boat. Kaz barely had time to raise a hand in greeting before Captain Ghafa grabbed onto a sheet and swung down onto the dock and into his waiting arms with a golden laugh.
‘My darling Inej,’ Kaz crooned, kissing her greedily, stroking her silken hair, breathing in the sunshine smell of her as he buried his face into her neck. ‘My queen, my love. I have missed you.’
I have missed you: such mundane words, for the depth of feeling they portrayed. He’d missed her, of course, but in a way so much more than just missing. He’d missed her, like the winter missed the flowers, like the summer missed the rains.
He’d missed her, and now she was in his arms, his, again, for the next six months.
‘I missed you too, Kaz,’ she murmured, her breath as sweet as spring air against his cheek. She kissed him again, and for a moment he imagines blossoms flowering in his hair as her lips breathe life into him.
xxx
‘They say I stole you away,’ Kaz whispers into her hair, as she pushes his shirt from his shoulders.
‘I ate the fruit willingly,’ Inej gasps, as his soft lips kiss the tender skin of her neck.
‘They think I have chained you to me,’ Kaz murmurs, arms tensed, as she pushes him back onto their bed with a sharp smile.
‘It is I who have chained you, my love,’ she smiles in return, trailing a long, steady finger down the muscles of his stomach.
‘They think you are my Queen of Hell.’
‘They don’t realise you’re my King of Flowers.’
Kaz groans as she sinks onto him, her back arched, her hair loose, her skin glowing in the light of the oil lamp. ‘I love you, Inej,’ he manages, before she wipes his mind clean with her voice, her body, her very being.
Her eyes are bright with adoration and wicked with intent as she smiles down at him, straddled across his hips, holding him hostage to her heart. ‘And I love you, Kaz.’
xxx
A soft light rising above the level meadow,
behind the bed. He takes her in his arms.
He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you
but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you're dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true.
