This has been a long long long time coming, so thanks for bearing with me and my incredibly load-bearing read-more while I get everything in order. Links to all my fics and thensome are included below, starting off strong with my biggest fish first 💛💛💛
Of Cats and Closed Doors:
In-progress Fool's Fate fix-it longfic, currently floating at around 845k words and counting <3
The Valentine's Day Fitzloved Fic Collection
Limitless - Golden Fool, post-Quarrel fix it
Charmed - Fool's Errand, Charm necklace scene alternate ending
Worth the Wait - Assassin's Fate canon-divergence
Someone Like You - Assassin's Fate canon-divergence (different one!)
Fitzloved-Centric Fic Series:
Realm of the Ellipses - Stay, A Very Sweet Dream, The Dark Night Of The Soul - Fool's Fate Elderling Tent fic, Fool's Quest Kelsingra Sweetsleep fic, Fool's Fate Chapter 29 alternate perspective (Beloved POV)
But We Were Dancing - Dancing With Our Hands Tied, Like It Was The First Time, Deep Blue, But You Painted Me Golden, 'Cause It's Gravity Keeping You With Me - Fool's Errand canon-divergence
What Have The Walls Of The Elderling Tent Seen? - Just A Little More, Never Enough - Fool's Fate Elderling Tent fic set
Golden Fool But Make It Slay - A Very Fetching Woman, A Touch So Dreaded And Desired - Golden Fool canon-divergence
The Kinktober Khronicles - Tawny Man Trilogy + Post Assassin's Fate one shot collection
A Darker Turn Of Fate - The Space Between Fingertips (Contains Non-Con), To See You Whole Again - Fool's Fate canon-divergence
Happily Ever After - Worth the Wait, Within My Own Walls, Whose Bloodied Locks No Crown Would Bear- Assassin's Fate canon-divergence
Kelsingra Married Days (The Remix) - Men Like Us (Fitzloved secondary pairing), Someone Like You - Assassin's Fate canon-divergence
To Tend A Love Through Every Season- To Come In From The Cold, A Light That Warms The Soul - Post Fool's Fate canon-divergence
Fitzloved One Shots (and additional chaptered fics)
A Peculiar Stillness - Royal Assassin (contains referenced non-con)
Wish You Were Sober - Assassin's Quest
To Be Alone Together - Assassin's Quest
I and the Wolf Together - Chaptered Fic, The ROTE Vampire/Werewolf High School AU, formerly tumblr exclusive, Farseer era - In-progress
No Choir - Chaptered Fic, Between canon - Liveship Traders + Fool's Errand
Rabbits - Fool's Errand
Held - Fool's Errand
Ginger Cakes and Amber - Fool's Errand + Golden Fool canon-divergence (omegaverse AU)
Smoke and Mirrors - Golden Fool (Fitz/Lord Lalwick + Lord Golden/Lord Lalwick secondary pairings)
Habits - Golden Fool
I Will Bring You Ruin - Golden Fool, post-Quarrel
Intimacy Of That Sort - Golden Fool, post-Quarrel (Lord Golden/Original Male Character secondary pairing)
Wide-Eyed - Golden Fool canon-divergence
Your Heart Got Teeth - Golden Fool canon-divergence
The Tender Ache of Being - Tawny Man Trilogy canon-divergence
Bound and Nameless - Tawny Man Trilogy canon-divergence
A Strange and Sacred Dream - Tawny Man Trilogy canon-divergence
Golden Tales From A Honeyed Tongue - Fool's Fate
Symphony - Post-Fool's Fate canon-divergence
Gifts - Post-Fool's Fate canon-divergence
The Whole That Turns The World - Post-Fool's Fate canon-divergence
Dragon Dreams - Fool's Quest
The Writing On The Wall - Assassin's Fate
Daylight - Post-Assassin's Fate
Fitz-Centric Fics
Things I Would Have Said To Him - Fool's Fate, (Burrich/Chivalry + Civil & Dutiful secondary pairings)
Stuck at the airport for the next few hours, might fuck around and post
Of Cats and Closed Doors Bonus Chapter 4.5
Beloved's POV - to be read as a companion to chapters 3 & 4 of OCACD
"Fitz, I-"
In the end, I had never finished the thought. Little point in speaking to an empty room. Little point to any of it. I'd been uncharitable with my best friend. I had known I was being unkind even as it happened, but that didn't make the stormy sight of Fitz's sudden, fallen face any easier to stomach as he ducked out of the doorway on the heel of my sharp, wholly unnecessary words.
I recalled that expression for hours afterward, wracked first with guilt, then irritation over the fact that I felt guilty. But the guilt was mine to bear - the blame for that gruff exchange lay solely on me. I'd been unfair to him without provocation and for seemingly no reason. I'd wounded his feelings, and I'd done so on purpose.
I was finding myself doing such things more and more often of late, and it dismayed me. To what end did I keep lashing out at him? I couldn't rightly say. Self-preservation, perhaps. Or maybe it was selfishness, plain and simple, naught but a flimsy excuse to take out my helpless rage on my nearest and most convenient target. He was probably the only target within a league, save for the neighboring farm downriver, and I had no reason whatsoever to snap at them for hovering.
I had no reason to snap at Fitz for it either, truth be told. I was only feeling boxed in, cabin-fevered and restless after so many weeks of sluggish, aimless torpor, and so many days spent completely frozen with fear. I was annoyed with myself and anxious to be in motion, to be propelled forward by some great and unseen force, but nothing ever came. No subtle pushes, no prophetic dreams, no paths or visions or branches of fate appeared before me. I simply was, like a rock stolidly lodged in a muddy stream bed.
It felt as if life flowed on all around me but I remained stagnant, trapped in the same fetid, murky place, within the same wretched whirlpool of memories. I was unable to push past them or break free of their vortex, and thus, was destined to watch life pass me by forevermore, brushing up against my edges but never dragging me along with it. It sometimes made me want to scream, and I dared not scream, not again, not anymore, so instead, I snapped. Snapped at the only friend I had left in the world who could possibly understand me.
And that was another thing that nettled. This friend of mine, he did not treat me now as he had ever treated me before. It'd happened again the night before. The nightmares, the sobbing, the shrieks of agony and humiliation. It had all rattled me so badly that I'd actually spoken this time. Told him of the night terrors some. Said far too much, probably. Revealed far more than I'd ever intended to.
He hadn't judged me for any of it, at least, he hadn't done so out loud. He'd only dried my tears and held me, and then had come the kissing, so much of it that by the time we were through sunlight pressed against the seam of the horizon, the burgeoning daylight like a warning to us both, one we'd heeded, albeit maliciously. I had woken nearly nose to nose with him, and had to pretend I hadn't when he stirred a moment later, shutting my eyes just as he opened his.
But he hadn't shifted away from me upon waking to his face buried in mine. He'd not moved a muscle, in fact, nor did he say a thing. He had simply lain there, breathing maddeningly evenly and doing Sa only knew what else until I was forced to pretend to wake again, just to get him to do something discernible, and even then, it had taken a torturously long time for him to finally draw away. I hadn't the faintest clue what that was supposed to indicate. My nerves had been jagged and my temper piqued ever since, resulting in the unfortunate sniping I'd partaken in the day before.
I observed Fitz silently gathering his things up now in the gloaming, wrapping my robe a bit tighter around my frame. It was a worn thing, the silk of it pilled from an overabundance of wear. The fabric had been a gentle one on my healing back, so it had seen more than its fair share of use over the last long year of endless nights.
I had written down instructions for Fitz to fetch me a new one, and hoped that he might heed my request. He usually did. Or rather, Patience's servants did, more like, I thought with a wry twist of my lips, watching him toss on a threadbare, homespun shirt carelessly. It caught on his broad, work-muscled shoulders and his scarred back rippled as he struggled into it anyway with a careless grunt.
His dark, sun-kissed skin brought to mind the warmth of walnut wood, falling in fat, smooth curls to my feet as I carved beside the fire. I tried to ignore him as he raked a needless hand through his thick, sleep-mussed mop of hair. Fitz was wretchedly, obnoxiously handsome, even this early in the day. It was downright criminal of him, I thought, cinching my sorry old robe closed a bit tighter. When I looked up, he was licking his lips in what felt to me to be exaggerated concentration as he methodically laced up the front of his leggings, taking his sweet time with the task. I quickly glanced aside again.
I wondered if he realized how hard I had to work not to stare at him when he did things like that. How valiantly I had to fight back so as not to reach forward and touch what I oughtn't, and view what I mustn't, and think what I shouldn't. It was growing more and more intolerable by the day, being allowed to have bits and pieces of him in the dark, but never to truly touch what was mine in the daylight. I wanted to tackle him onto the bed and run my bare hands across his sun-drenched skin for hours. I wanted to force him to open his eyes and stare into my face while he kissed me. I wanted him to leave me alone and quit looking at me, or at least quit looking at me so pityingly. I wanted-
"You're sure you'll be alright?" Fitz asked anxiously, finishing with his leggings and pulling his hair back into a hasty warrior's tail, and at the sincerity in his query, my indignation fled me. He'd found me dead once, I reminded myself. He'd found me dead. Gods, only a night ago I'd woken him in a fit of bloodcurdling screaming. Of course he was worried about leaving me alone. He probably feared what unspeakable horrors he might return to.
And so instead of a snide joke, I reassured him of my permanence as best I was able, which was clearly not very well at all. He stared at me strangely, as if he suspected I might evaporate before his eyes. Ah. Not my death he feared, then, but my betrayal. That stung my heart. Did he truly think this arrangement meant so little to me that I could abscond from it like a thief in the night? I stole enough from him in the dark as it was already.
"I'll still be here when you return," I said quietly, and then hurried him away before I did something mortifying, like begging him not to go. While he was busy seeing to the horse, I had crept into the kitchen and tucked a few fruits and vegetables from our garden and orchard into his lunch sack for good measure, as a truly feeble act of further apology. I suppose I could have just said the words. But that felt as though it would require more strength than I currently had to spare.
Fitz waited until the horse and cart had nearly cleared the bend before tossing a final, worried glance over his shoulder at me, as if checking even then to make sure I was still where he'd left me, standing in our cabin's open doorway. I raised a single hand and waggled my fingers in a slow wave, one I'd aimed at him often in our youth, Realder draped over my shoulder. It coaxed a faint smile out of him as he waved back. Once his dark head disappeared from view, I let my posture slump and my weary eyes droop.
"Let's go back to bed, you and me," I suggested to the cat.
Warm, Realder replied, nuzzling into my cheek.
For Fitz's fretful sake, I barred the doors, both to the cabin and to our bedroom, then crawled back under the coverlet and promptly slept until noon. It was the indulgent sort of lie-in that felt transgressive. I allowed it of myself all the same. What did it matter? I apparently lived for no purpose now beyond taking up space and wearying those I loved enough for them to invent far-fetched excuses to get a full day's cart ride away from me. I shifted restlessly in the blankets, beset. I shouldn't have been harsh with Fitz that way. This is what harsh got me - an empty bed and the lingering suspicion of flight.
No, that wasn't fair. He had other reasons to visit Tradeford besides getting away from me. His father's wife Patience lived there, as did Lacey, her companion. Fitz had always been tremendously fond of them both, and they were getting on in years now, and could use his youthful assistance, I was sure. I sighed, brushing out my hair and pulling on soft, comfortable things. My green trousers from Jamaillia. A loose shirt. My embroidered purple vest.
That, I did not don, but instead tucked into a basket alongside some other odds and ends. It was just as I had told Fitz earlier. I had many intentions for today, this day I was obligated to share with no one else, and I was looking forward to every last one of them. I was, after all, no stranger to amusing myself.
It felt like breathing freely, knowing that even for such a short span of time, I could do whatever I wanted. My gaze ghosted unbidden toward Fitz's discarded sleep shirt, still crumpled into a pile on the floor where it had fallen. I lifted it gingerly with my gloved hand and laid it down upon the freshly made bed. Well. Could do nearly whatever I wanted.
Still, the prospect of almost three full days to call my own was a bright enough one that I spared both the shirt and myself from any further yearning and promptly fled the room, Realder at my heel. We ate a cold lunch side by side. The cat sat by my elbow on the tabletop, the way Fitz absolutely hated.
"What he doesn't know will do him no harm," I told Realder, parceling out pieces of smoked trout to us both. The cat gave a chirrupy little purr and nuzzled into my forearm, nosing me out of the way in search of his fish.
After concluding our meal, the size of which Fitz would have frowned upon darkly, I washed the scent of smoke from my hands and then filled a skin to the brim with water and tucked a blanket into the basket, alongside some vellum, one of Fitz's lesser-loved quills and a rusty orange ink he proclaimed to have been a total failure, as well as my chisel and whittling knife.
"That counts as a weapon, does it not?" I remarked, and Realder blinked up at me inquiringly.
Fish?
"You've had plenty. Later," I told him, stroking his impossibly soft ears. "You mustn't get too full. I still need someone to hunt the rats for me."
The cat is a mighty hunter, Realder told me proudly, arching his striped back for more stroking.
"That he is," I murmured, trying not to think of Fitz's conspiratorial grin when he'd first said as much and failing miserably.
I fed Fitz's chickens and checked for eggs, of which there were none, and then led my goats out to pasture, though one can only ever "lead" a goat so far. Still, they followed along well enough when I sang to them in mercen, so that is what I did, and once they'd been coaxed out onto the grassy hills, I took my irresponsible leave of them and absconded to the meadow just beyond their sloping pasture.
It was a quiet little divot in the land. Nothing much grew there, but not for lack of trying. So far, only soft grass had succeeded, though, and succeeded en masse. The better to lounge in, I thought with satisfaction, and spread out my blanket, fishing around for the plums I'd pilfered whilst passing by the orchard. I ate two, and then set to work on the first of my many plentiful projects.
I'd brought much to do, for I intended to sit there in that meadow until the sun went down. I'd missed basking, and the day was good for it. Realder lolled in the grass belly up, baking in the hot light. I bent over my purple vest, embroidery thread in hand, and let my fingers decide for themselves what they wished to create. It was a little game I liked to play with myself from time to time. Well did I know that thread was not wood, but I still found it entertaining to see how far the magic on my fingertips extended, and to what tasks it was best suited. I'd tried it with all manner of materials and avenues of creation over the years, with varying levels of success.
Embroidery was one of those that had been more success than failure, and it proved to continually be so now. But even still, my mind wandered in the direction I'd wanted it to the least, for when I looked down after a dazed quarter of an hour, what had materialized beneath my needle but a tiny wolf and antlers? I sighed heavily, annoyed with myself, then threaded my needle with white and began the resentful outline of a jester's cap.
Such was my misfortune all day long. Whenever I spared a thought, it was one of FitzChivalry, and whenever I attempted to create, all the worse, for time and again, the projects in my hands began slowly to morph into small reminders of him. It was not until even my woodcarving betrayed me that I finally gave up with disgust, tossing aside the beginnings of an earring now ruined by the image of a charging buck, my Catalyst's unmistakable sigil of old.
It was an empty gesture at best, for nearly as soon as I threw it, I was hastily upending the wood shavings and chisel in my hand to seek out the discarded earring in the grass. It took a moment of searching, for grass really did grow quite well in that shaded meadow, but my hand closed around it eventually and I lifted it up toward the sun in defeat, a habit leftover from my many years of wearing the sapphire slave earring I'd stolen from Fitz.
It had served as a silly pastime of mine, back when I'd been part of Paragon's crew, to hold up my earring lackadaisically to the sun and examine the beams of light as they refracted through the jewel. Light caught differently on true gems than it did with fakes, even fakes clever enough to fool the very wealthy. Quite like its previous wearer, no humble setting could mask the sapphire's true origin.
I smiled despite myself and blew grass off the wooden teardrop in my hand, shaking it clean. I supposed I might as well finish it, since the wood would be good now for no other project, anyway. No sense in wasting good lumber. I set back to work with it, brushing shavings off of my blanket before flopping back onto it belly down, my bare feet kicked up in the air.
I carved and polished it until the sun sank so low I could scarcely see, and then packed up my things, led the goats back in, and shut up the chickens, since I'd told Fitz I was so very concerned over foxes. I really was, but it had been far from my best excuse, and I could tell he was unimpressed with it. Well, so was I. Though it was difficult to see, I stopped in the garden and dug up a few potatoes, then washed them off and carried them inside, where I buried them in the coals to roast for my supper.
Strange though it might sound, I almost preferred being alone in the darkness to my solitude in the daylight. There was something very sacred about that eveningtide quiet, the soft hum of nocturnal insects and birds outside the open window, and the way the candles and the hearth poured forth light, like bright islands of fire in the dusk. It was warm, and reassuring, and most of all, homey.
I glanced around the little cabin, a cup of tea in hand and my other arm wrapped around my own chest tightly.
Home.
This was as close to one as I'd had in years. I knew exactly why that was, and turned sharply away from the thought, the tea sloshing over the rim of the earthenware mug and scalding my hand through its glove. No. Not just now. I couldn't bear to consider such things right now.
I ignored my hurts and ate my potatoes with butter from the larder and more of the summer fruit, then made myself another cup of tea and left the washing up for later. Realder helpfully lapped up the remaining butter pooled on my plate as I sat down before the fire with a shiver. I wished I'd thought to bring a blanket to wrap around my shoulders. I always caught a chill faster than I expected to this time of year.
I stared into the flames in silence for a long while, my knees drawn up to my chest, and tried to find paths in each leaping, blazing tendril, to no avail. The cat came and lay at my feet, and I pet his head for a long while, listening to the crickets and cicadas as they sang for us. Then, when I could finally fight off sleep no longer, I rose, blew out the candles, unfastened the ties on my Jamaillian pants, and let my clothing fall where it may, undressing slowly piece by piece on my way to bed.
It was the greatest indulgence I'd allowed myself all day, that moment of nakedness in my own home. Even as I did it, it frightened me, but I did not intend to stay bare for long, and so I did it anyway. Once I made it to the bedroom, I crept over to the bed like a guilty thief, picked up Fitz's discarded nightshirt, and drew it over my head, enveloping myself in the scent of him as the fabric whispered across my skin comfortingly. I inhaled deeply, bringing both loose sleeves up to my nostrils and burying my nose in them. Pine. Musk. Woodsmoke. Something unidentifiable and wild. Ink. Vellum. Tea.
I washed my face and unbraided my hair, then drew back the covers and lay down on my side of the bed, turning on my pillow in the moonlight to study Fitz's. There was an indent still where his head usually rested, and on it lay curled a single, dark hair. It drew a smile from me. He always shed like a mangy dog. I was amazed that hair was the only one present.
Curiosity overtook me as I stared at it, that single hair fallen from the head of the man I so hopelessly loved. I wondered what my silver fingertips might feel, should I touch it. How deep could that knowing even go, now that the hair was no longer attached to him? Would it be wrong of me to try and find out, a breaking of my word to him? For my word to him was all I had left to give, and I was determined not to give it in vain.
But surely it would not be the same as touching him, I bargained with myself treacherously, pulling my gloves slowly off. Surely not. It was only a hair, after all, not his wrist, and that, I had touched far more times than just one. It could show me nothing I did not already know. Probably, it could show me precious little, or even less. So recently had my Catalyst shorn his head for the wolf that surely, this hair was no older than a year or two. I could not see the harm in such a venture. Or perhaps I simply refused to try.
As it turned out, the hair knew plenty, and the moment my fingertip brushed over it, so did I. Fitz, raking dirty hands through his dark mane in the sunlight, tying it back so severely that it tugged against his scalp. Drenching it with water in the river and blowing it out of his face in irritation as he tried to plod against the biting winter wind. It crept free of his braid as he hunted and plastered itself to his sweaty brow as he leaned back heavily against a tree, his breath quickening as his hand moved rapidly-
I gasped and dropped the hair with a shudder, taken aback. Then I did a thing I should have felt immense guilt for, and to this day, feel none. I reached forward again very carefully, wound that single, dark hair around my silver finger so that it could not escape my grasp, and then slid my other hand down under the coverlet and between my legs. I shut my eyes. I let the knowledge of Fitz wash over me once more. I touched myself to it. I did not feel ashamed.
I hadn't had much appetite for such things since my death, truth be told, and even if I had, there was no real chance for me to sate such an inconvenient urge. Nowhere private enough for my liking, at least. I knew where Fitz went to do as much, down to the river or out in the woods whilst he hunted, for there were times he came back red-cheeked and mellow, unable to meet my eyes in the same way he'd often had about him when returning from trysts with Starling and his hedgewitch, or after nights spent wooing Molly. It only furthered my hesitation to do the same, that I could catch him out at such things so easily should I choose to, although, of course, I never chose.
There'd been a few times, too, when I knew he'd crept from the bed in the night under the guise of needing to piss and taken himself in hand just outside the cabin door. It was considerate enough, though if he thought I didn't know what he was doing, he was sorely mistaken, for regardless of how well he washed after, he always returned scented with desire, a heady aroma that then perfumed our bed for the rest of the miserably long night. That was a torment all its own, but at least it kept the nightmares at bay, though what dreams replaced them were scarcely any better.
But I thought nothing of my nightmares now, as sharp, intense flashes of knowing washed over me, more afflicting to my spirit than the touch of my hand was to my sensitive flesh. Alone like I was, I allowed the softest huff of breath to escape me, my mouth dropping open and my eyes falling shut as I twisted in the blankets. Fitz's hair recalled brushing against his cheek, catching in his long lashes, latching itself to his beard, and sticking meddlesomely to his upper lip as he pressed his mouth over mine in the dark.
That recollection, that kiss, it was what did me in, intensely and abruptly. I couldn't bear how my lips felt against his. It was like being turned inside out to experience my own mouth through his memory, as if from within his skin. It felt nothing like what I imagined he'd been feeling. My lips were cold, but the sensation was searing, hungry and overwhelming and tender in equal measure. He'd wanted more of it.
I lay panting, my flexing hand resting across his side of the bed, and unwillingly pried open my eyes. No man lay beside me in the dark, only an empty pillow and a single hair that would never grace his head again. But it had once, when he'd kissed me here, in this bed in the moonlight. He'd kissed me here willingly more than once, and he'd wanted more of it.
He'd wanted more of it.
My shaking fingers clenched, and before I could stop to consider, I did it all over again, the hair still wrapped around me, staring up at the ceiling blindly. My mind's eye saw only Fitz hovering above me, and the sight was devastatingly beautiful. My body, always so tense now that it ached, unspooled like my bobbins of colorful embroidery thread. Fitz's scent surrounded me. His false presence filled, temporarily, an empty, empty space in the deepest, most hollow part of my chest, the place where I thought that a soul must go.
I gazed into his dark eyes, then somehow, impossibly, I was gazing through them, back out at myself. I was seated on a white horse, my Malta, sunlight streaming over me like molten gold, and I was beautiful. He stared up at me worshipfully, the wolf at his feet gamboling with glee. I leapt into his arms, and he caught me up and kissed me in greeting, his lips lush like the summer fruit I'd eaten for supper and his grip about my waist bruising and possessive. He tasted apricot brandy on my tongue. I tasted it, too. I came again.
This time, I whispered his name when I did it, wishing with all my heart that I somehow knew his true one. He had not always been a bastard, after all. He'd been someone's precious child once, just as I had been. How strange it felt, then, to name him a bastard at the last.
In the aftermath, I did not rise and clean myself. I only unwound his hair and set it back where I'd found it, then swiftly replaced my gloves. I'd wash the shirt tomorrow, and then make up some flimsy excuse for why I'd done Fitz's laundering for him. For tonight, I wore it like a pilfered trophy, hazy with unexpected relief and content in the knowledge that to some degree, he'd once wanted me back. Once. Perhaps. If the rogue hair was to be believed.
I slept well and woke early, refreshed. It took me nearly an hour to recall my torture, a sure sign of a promising day, and I hummed all throughout my morning chores. The hens had laid four eggs overnight, and I decided to bake them into a pie crust for supper with as many vegetables and herbs as I could find, and some goat cheese Fitz and I had attempted to make the week before.
It wasn't anything all that impressive, but we'd both been absurdly proud to have fresh cheese at our disposal. For now, I nibbled a bit of it on the hearth bread I'd cooked for breakfast, well pleased and remarkably calm, to boot. Perhaps that was where Fitz had been finding all his patient fortitude this whole year past, I reflected with amusement. In the palm of his own hand.
It was a bit of a temptation to do it again, but I staunchly forbade myself until I walked down to bathe in the river. If nothing else, I would be clean. I elected to wash myself and Fitz's shirt in the same go, for I didn't dare undress, not outside, what with the neighboring farm down the way. But it was such a beautiful day that almost, I wanted to.
Floating on my back in the lazy river, I wondered idly if Fitz was having a good visit with his mother. I wondered vainly if he missed me, then snorted at the thought and dunked my head in the water to clear it. More likely than not he was enjoying a break from the endless task that was keeping me alive and fed. I mustn't let any of this go to my head. That would be a dangerous path to walk. Even if he did enjoy kissing me so much, he still didn't like it enough to tell me about it, and that was no small thing between us. It was no small thing to me.
I had promised myself long ago that I would not settle for scraps of the man I loved. I'd broken that vow to myself a thousand times over already as it was. I wouldn't break my heart any further in some misguided attempt to delude myself into believing he wanted me back. Even if the touch of my lips made him feel the way I suspected it did. Even then. Perhaps especially then.
I finished the charging buck earring that afternoon when I should have been gardening. I had no idea what I'd do with such a token. Perhaps I could give it to Fitz as a gift. I certainly couldn't wear it myself... Could I? I eyed it speculatively, then wrapped it in a scrap of cloth and placed it in one of my clothing chests. I would decide what to do with the meddlesome trinket later. For the time being, I gathered vegetables and herbs from the garden and put my supper on to cook.
Whilst waiting for it, I brushed Realder's fur and nattered on in mercen about how inconveniently besotted I was with my damnable Catalyst. "He takes such incredible care with the things he loves when he wishes to," I told the cat musingly. "And when he doesn't..." I fell silent, recalling the harsher things Fitz had said to me over the course of our long friendship. "Well, when he doesn't, he seems to regret it. At least, I think he must." He never usually bothers to tell me so.
Have you ever asked? The question floated by like a mote on the wind. I glanced down at the cat sharply.
"No..." I said slowly, feeling a touch of unease. "No, cat. I haven't. I doubt I ever will. I'm an incredible coward, you see. Always have been one, as a matter of fact."
No. This time the word was clear and adamant, and the cat most assuredly said it. Or thought it. Communicated it somehow, at any rate. Pet the cat, cold one, he added sternly, balling himself up like a great snake in my lap. I glanced down. My hand had begun to tremble around the brush. Pet the cat, Realder repeated coaxingly. You'll feel better. The cat loves you. You love the cat.
"I do love the cat," I replied softly, and petted him for a long while as the cabin filled with the smell of cooking food and the sound of purring. I ate my meal with him draped over my shoulder like a fur stole, and cut him his own little piece once it had cooled enough. He ate around the vegetables and turned up his nose to the bits of egg with dill, but feasted on the pockets of goat cheese gluttonously, which made me very happy.
I wrote a bit after supper, to Althea and Kettricken, mostly, although I penned a brief letter to Jofron as well. I considered one for Jek, too, but had no idea how to currently locate her. Last I'd heard, she was bouncing between freighter vessels that sailed routes from the Spice Isles to the Pirate Isle for the pirate Queen Etta and her consort Wintrow, but that had been months ago, and my last three missives had all gone unanswered. I settled for inquiring as to her whereabouts with Althea, then laid down my quill with a lengthy yawn.
This was, ostensibly, to be my last full night alone. I wished to make good use of it. Of course, there was always a chance that Fitz might face a delay, but he'd never been late returning home before, so I strongly doubted it. That relieved me, in a strange way. I knew I could count on him to come back. He might stray from time to time, but always, it was me he returned to. I smiled grimly. A jilted wife's sentiment. Or a would-be lover's. Little difference that seemed to make, in the end.
It certainly didn't stop me from laying my head down upon his pillow that night and breathing deeply as my hand diligently worked. I stared at the single dark curl, so close to my face that it nearly brushed my nose. I imagined that whole head of curls beneath my hands, imagined burying my fingers in his hair and twisting it around my knuckles and guiding his head in whatever direction I pleased. I imagined him liking it. I thought it was a thing that he'd probably like. I wasn't sure why I thought so. Only that I did.
I imagined a great many improbable things that time. I didn't use his hair, not for this. My own imagination was more than sufficient, and most certainly primed and ready for the task. I was no stranger to these sorts of thoughts. It had always been a source of acute shame, for I knew exactly how much he'd dislike them. Now, it was oddly gratifying, now that there was the slimmest of chances that he truly might not mind. I lost myself in that most improbable fantasy of all - him not minding.
"Fool," I was sure he'd call me, in that way he sometimes had, the husky one that made his voice drop low, like a wolf's growl. "Fool." Would he say he loved me during such goings on, or was he more the strong, silent, panting type? It was hard to say, and so I imagined him saying it, for I'd gone this far with things already. What was one bridge further? What was one pitiful fantasy more?
Oh, the things I'd say to him if I ever got the chance, I mused, my heart quickening and my blood thrumming brightly. The things I'd do to him. For a moment, I let myself pretend he'd allow that, allow me to lay him down and love him the way he'd always deserved to be loved, wholly and entirely. Oh, I could love him so wholly and entirely, if only he would let me.
I allowed my mind to wander for so long that my body began trembling, quaking with need as I buried my burning face in his pillow. I wanted him so badly for a moment that it felt like dying all over again. I bit into the pillow with a stifled growl of frustration, tears eking out of the corners of my eyes. I should stop. It wasn't too late to stop. I had to stop. But then my body seized, and it was too late, and I was floating, my pulse a low, endless throb in my neck and Fitz's face fading from view as I blinked my way back into that quaint little moonlit room.
This time I rose and washed without delay, put on a clean robe, then crawled guiltily back into bed on the proper side. I lay there for half a minute before shifting over to Fitz's spot with a defeated sigh. "I'm sorry about all this," I muttered into his pillow. "I'll change the bedding before you get home, I promise. It's only that... Well, I'm sorry, anyway. I'm so sorry for all of it."
I shut my eyes and curled my legs up to my chest, swaddling the blankets tighter and tighter around myself until I finally felt safe. The cat nestled into the crook of my knees, and I focused on his breathing in the absence of Fitz's. That night I slept less deeply, but still awoke free from any nightmares. I also woke aroused, clutching Fitz's pillow to my breast, which was frightfully inconvenient. I ignored it, and instead of doing anything even more untoward than what I'd already done, I carefully returned his pillow to its rightful location.
His single black curl had stuck itself to the front of my robe, and as I rose, groggy, I plucked it off and carried it over to my chest. Then, before I could think better of it, I grabbed for the little parcel containing my foolish woodcarving project and wound the hair tightly around its clasp, until it was inexorably entangled with the thin wire and I could see it no longer. It was an unhinged, adolescent thing to do. Obsessive, probably. Wholly unnecessary, most certainly. I smiled secretively to myself as I resettled the earring in my trunk, anyway. What Fitz didn't know couldn't hurt him. I wouldn't let it. But I would know, and always, that had been enough for me. It had to be.
All that day I worked in the garden, playing catch-up from my last two days of unapologetic leisure. I found the labor centering. It reminded me of home, of tending our huge garden alongside my family, my sisters and mother and fathers both. All of us had done our part. When I'd been small, the weeding had been left up to me, and the digging up of ripened buried things, for I'd always had a knack for knowing what was ready just by glancing at the stems. Prophesying, Amber used to call it teasingly.
I thought of her for a long while as I weeded, pausing every now and again to push back the recalcitrant lock of hair that kept falling out of one side of my braid. I wondered if she was alive any longer, if she'd married the boy from down the lane who'd always come 'round to woo her in her youth, and if she had dozens of children and grandchildren of her own now.
I'd never seen visions of her particularly old, but that could mean nothing. She might only be living so unremarkable a life that fate's paths didn't even bother to glance off of hers. She may very well have been out there, ancient at this point, but alive, living and breathing air in the same world as I was. I hoped that was the case fiercely. I hoped she was happy, and safe, and free, wherever it was her spirit currently roamed. I stopped thinking about her altogether after that, for tears were beginning to cloud my vision, and I needed to see with clarity so as not to mangle my peas.
After most of the afternoon had passed me by, I decided to get an early start on supper. Fitz always returned famished from Tradeford Hall, as if all they'd done there was starve him. He tended to eat enough for three men after long days of work or travel. A big stew, I decided, would be an excellent idea. I had bread dough rising on the table already, and so I gathered as many vegetables as my basket could comfortably hold and then trod afield to gather my goats so I would not have to fetch them back later.
I felt very strange, knowing Fitz would be home at any moment. It was freeing and constricting in equal measure, that knowledge. I wondered if he'd take one look at my face and know precisely what I'd been at in his absence, and colored fiercely, glad I'd redressed the bed promptly that morning. "Come along now," I called to the goats in sing-song mercen. "Come away. Come have your supper, so that I can start mine."
And mine! Realder reminded me.
"There won't be much meat in it," I warned him. "Only what's smoked in the pantry."
There's always fish for the cat, Realder suggested craftily in return.
"Mmhmm. I suppose there is," I agreed, closing the last of the goats into their paddock and filling a trough with feed for them. I added some wilted cabbage leaves atop it for good measure.
As I stooped to retrieve my basket, the cat's ears twitched. I tilted my head. Footfall, of the human variety. Its cadence was well known to me. Fitz, I thought, straightening up at once, my pace quickening to a clipped, brisk stride toward the welcome sound.
The warm one, Realder agreed. He's back, and he is calling for you.
He was, and doing it rather strangely. I caught sight of him wandering toward the garden, his back to me, looking like a lost man. I knew not where his mind was, but clearly, it was far away, for I made it all the way up to him without being noticed.
"Fool?" he said weakly just as I halted behind him, sounding for all the world like a puzzled, waylaid little boy. The childish fretting in his voice hurt my soul and confused me profoundly. Something had happened to him, that much was clear. But what? I reached out and placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Fitz?" I asked hesitantly, shifting the basket on my arm a bit. "Are you alright?"
He whipped around and stared at me blankly for an instant, and then, just as I had done in my strange vision a few nights ago, he flung himself at me and seized me in a tight, affectionate, desperation-tinged embrace, tugging me close and holding me very near to him, startling the breath right out of me. As I scrambled to somehow reciprocate the unexpected gesture, he leaned in closer to my ear. "I missed you," he explained hoarsely, never letting his grip on me falter.
I breathed deeply. The soap he'd used was an unfamiliar one, and there was no lingering woodsmoke scent to his clothes, but he still smelled of ink, and vellum, and musk, and something else, something only he ever smelled like.
"I missed you too, Fitz," I admitted, dazed, and then dared to press my face into his warm, bare neck, skin to glorious skin. I only did it for a moment. A moment was all I needed. A moment like this could last me for years, should I need it to. His embrace was fortress-like, the sort I could very easily get lost in if I was not careful. So, as a result, I determined that I must be very, very careful moving forward.
I pulled reluctantly back and he let me go at once, but did not appear to be very glad about it. He looked peaked, anxious, and weary, his troubled expression as telling as his bloodless grip on my arms.
"Are you alright?" I asked him again, trying to keep my voice gentle and unchallenging. I did not back away from him. He didn't seem to want me to. I stayed close, just in case he deigned to throw himself at me again. To catch him, I told myself. That was all. He was clearly unsteady. It was what any good friend would do under such circumstances.
"I couldn't find you when I returned. I got worried," Fitz told me, his voice small and his eyes fixed solidly on the ground. He'd thought I'd left him after all, I realized with a pang. He thought I'd left him, after promising him that I wouldn't. I took hold of his arm, rubbing it reassuringly as I spoke.
“I was only bringing the goats in from the pasture,” I explained softly. “I’m right here, Fitz. Just as I said I’d be. You must be hungry,” I added, mostly out of cowardice. I didn't want to venture any further into such a discussion than we absolutely must. “I was just about to start on supper. Would you like to join me?”
He darted those dark eyes upward at the mention of food, and despite my aching heart, I spared a smile for his eagerness. Predictable. Of course it would be the prospect of food that finally enticed him to begrudge me a glance.
“I would. I’ll see to the horses and come right in," he answered, his familiar voice thick. My fondness grew. I couldn't help it. I loved him so much. I loved his predictability. At a loss for what else to do, I patted his cheek, and when I did, it lifted beneath my palm in a warm, contented smile.
“I’m glad you’re home,” I said, then turned quickly before he could say anything in reply. I could feel my irksome hair falling out of my braid as I made my way back up to the cabin, and I could feel, too, Fitz's eyes resting on my back my whole journey inside. I waited until the cabin door swung shut to press a hand over my heart, mind reeling as I set down my basket from the garden and made quick work of my washing up. It was the last sort of greeting I'd ever expected from him, that massive embrace. It lit a fire of hope in the darkest reaches of my spirit. I attempted to snuff it out, even as I tried and failed to stifle my smile.
It lingered long past when I'd donned my robe and slippers and begun the process of cooking the stew. I lit candles and stoked the hearth flames as I went, trying to recreate the sense of homeyness and peace I'd felt the nights prior. I wanted Fitz to feel at home here, too. Perhaps if he felt at home, he might stay with me a little while longer. Deceitful creature that I was, I'd try just about anything to keep him here for as long as I could manage. I knew our time together was running shorter every day. But perhaps I might steal just a few weeks more with him this way.
I felt him coming before I heard or saw him. I always did. Despite our lack of outward connection, he was still very much bound up within me, and I within him. I sensed his hand as it hovered above the doorknob, lingering there for just a touch too long before he turned the knob and let himself in.
All was silent as the door creaked open, then shut with a soft thud. "It smells good," Fitz remarked, and I couldn't help but smile as I turned back to take in the sight of him in the doorway.
"I was hoping it would," I confided. "I thought you’d be famished after such a long day of traveling.”
He stared at me for a moment as if in wonder, then wandered over to where I stood, stirring the large pot of stew. Then he took me aback for the second time that night and very purposefully stepped into my space, plastering his chest against my back and resting the side of his face against my own, like a fitted pair of spoons slotted together in a drawer.
I froze, for the gesture was markedly and undeniably an intimate one, as tender as it was intentional. I could feel each line of his body as it pressed into mine, every contoured muscle and gentle swell and slope of fat.
Ignore it, I bid myself desperately. Just ignore it. You're splendid at doing that, anyway. You've had so very much practice.
As if he heard my harsh inward command, he made the notion completely impossible and hooked his chin charmingly over my shoulder, hanging off of me like grape vines from a trellis. I relaxed some despite myself, amazed and smitten by his open desire for my body and my touch. It was rare beyond rare for him to initiate so much contact when we were not abed, and I was not weeping or shrieking hysterically.
I did my best not to startle him off. "Long day?” I murmured, stirring the stew continuously so that it would not scald. I felt his throat bob against my shoulder blade as he swallowed and made a noncommittal noise in response, his head growing heavier as he leaned even more of his weight against me, far more than he usually did.
I liked that he did not question if I was capable of holding him upright. That he should have confidence in both the strength of my body and the healing of my back made me feel absurdly proud. “You seem weary,” I said, stealing a quick glance toward him, as long a glance as I dared. He looked very tired. He also looked beautiful. Always, he looked so sickeningly beautiful.
He studied my face intently, then unexpectedly lifted a hand to my cheek, just as I had with his outside, and swiped a thumb across my cheekbone tenderly. I couldn't help the way my mouth dropped open then, no more than I could when I'd been alone imagining us together, nor could I stop myself from catching his eyes pleadingly. He stared at my parted lips a beat too long for the look to have been accidental, and for a hallucinatory instant, I could have sworn he was about to kiss me. For some reason, that prospect was suddenly one I simply could not bear.
“I think the stew is ready,” I said into the quiet, and I feared the huskiness in my voice betrayed me. Nerves spiking, I chewed my lip as he peeled himself from my back and took a respectable step away, clearing his throat awkwardly. My damned foolish hands shook as I ladled stew into a pair of bowls for us, and I was not stupid enough to assume that a former spy would not observe as much, even if he politely chose not to mention it.
Still, he couldn't help but give himself away, in the end. “I’ll get the bread,” he offered hastily, pulling out a chair and indicating that I ought to sit in it. "You’ve done plenty. Thank you."
"Of course, Fitz," I replied, absently twisting my hands in my lap as I took my seat. I felt the heavy weight of his worried stare following the motions and stilled, with embarrassingly great difficulty.
I watched from my chair, dazed, as he finished readying the meal and served me my bread and butter with a smile. I accepted the proffered slices, still steaming, and tried not to seize his hand or stroke his thumb affectionately with my own when our fingers brushed. It was a very near thing. He'd wanted more of it.
I blinked, horrified by that line of thought, and tried to shake it from my mind as he turned to fetch us each a cup. "I nearly forgot," he said casually, setting them both down before me. "I have a surprise for you. Would you like it with our supper or after?”
It was such an unexpected statement that it took me a moment to register that he was speaking to me. "A surprise?” I ventured, a tad disbelievingly. He nodded twice in confirmation, a conspiratorial smile playing at his lips, and curiosity took hold of me, despite my stubborn efforts to best it. "Well, now, I suppose," I said, watching him like a hawk. He looked like a child readying himself to offer up a token to a favored playmate.
"I thought you might say that,” Fitz told me, already digging around in his pack wildly. After much clunking and thumping about, he produced for me a blown glass bottle, well-made and heavy, and full but for about a cup's worth of whatever it was holding. The amber liquid within looked rather familiar to me.
"Brandy?” I asked, trying to discern what could possibly be so special about this particular sort. We had plenty of Sandsedge in the pantry, that and some even cheaper stuff, too. Liquor was in no short supply in our cabin, which made me wonder what had compelled him to bring this bottle back for me. Perhaps he'd thought I'd appreciate the craftsmanship? It was a bit more ornate than was standard, but I hardly thought that signified.
"Open it,” he encouraged me as I twisted the bottle this way and that in my hands, trying to make sense of his bizarre offering. Steam curling around my fingers from our stew bowls, I unstoppered the bottle and held it up to my nose, wondering if the brandy's scent might clue me in to its value. Not so long ago, I'd had my hands on all manner of expensive spirits, and liked to flatter myself by assuming I could still pick out the best of them with no more than a cursory sniff.
This one, however, took no great expertise to place. It was apricot brandy, and not simply any cheap sort. My mind flooded with memories as the scent overtook my nostrils. The cowardly sips of it I'd stolen before turning up at Fitz's front door, the luxurious cups of it we'd drunk together in that sad and isolated little cabin, the wolf lying between us slumbering. All the glasses of it Lord Golden had imbibed in unwisely. The last sip I'd had of it, resting shoulder to shoulder with Fitz beneath the glacier, so cold I half-wondered if I might freeze to death before getting around to swallowing the final mouthful.
I recalled being glad to have shared brandy with him one final time. I stared at him now, schooling my face to stillness and wondering if he recalled that moment, too. He peered back at me hopefully, and it was as if he plucked the thought directly out of my head.
"I wanted us to have a happier memory of drinking this together," he said, a shy smile playing at his lips as I fiddled with the bottle, but gazed only at him. My favorite brandy, by the fire, with Fitz. I should never have doubted him. He'd brought me a wonderful and thoughtful gift, indeed.
"How in the world did you find it? I had to import it all the way from Jamaillia," I commented, sounding out of breath and more hushed than I'd meant to.
"Patience had some sitting out for me in my room. I could barely believe it.” Fitz paused, then lowered his voice too, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. It was a welcome and deeply nostalgic sight. "I actually took it home without asking.”
I laughed aloud at the unexpected admission. My Catalyst, a brandy thief. Well, it stood to reason he'd be a successful one. Sa knew he'd had enough practice at it, stealing my heart away so very often.
"Ah, stolen liquor always tastes the sweetest anyway," I agreed merrily, pouring us each a generous cupful and nudging his across the table before lifting my own to inhale the luscious, summery aroma once more. I sighed deeply, then gave it a taste. It was every bit as delicious as I recalled it being. Every bit as delicious as Fitz falsely recalled it being on my tongue, too, I thought, mildly amused.
“It’s wonderful. And so is the company I share it with. Thank you, Fitz," I said, and he smiled at me so ebulliently that I wished then that I could kiss him. He only exacerbated the longing by replying with some inane question regarding the size of our chairs, whether I had taken into account his height during their construction. "Of course I did," I replied, taking another appreciative sip.
"I never thanked you for it,” he told me seriously, nibbling on his bread with a grave expression.
“You never needed to," I countered, still distracted by his brandy gift.
"Well, thank you all the same,” Fitz persisted, dipping his bread into the stew.
“You are most welcome, my friend,” I returned. There was very little in the world I would not do for him. Making sure he could be seated comfortably in his own home barely even qualified as a gesture to be thanked for. I was surprised he might assume I felt any other way.
Fitz proceeded to continue making me fall hopelessly and infuriatingly in love with him for the remainder of our meal's duration, conversing with me warmly and doting on the cat and even going so far as privately admitting to missing him, a thing I was certain he never wanted me to hear a whisper about, much less breathe a word of to anyone else. I couldn't resist doing it, anyway. It seemed I had so little resistance left in me, these days.
"It’s good to see the two of you getting along," I commented softly, watching as Fitz ate with one hand and scratched the cat's brown head with the other. He looked up from his dual task and shrugged.
“I suppose I missed you both," he said winningly, with more confidence than he had any right to be in current possession of. I felt myself grin. I did not try to stop it. He grinned back at me, equally pleased.
After he'd eaten his fill, all three predictable bowls of it, he helped me to clear away supper, still toting the cat around like a great babe in his arms. "You could put him down at any time, you know," I pointed out, watching with amusement as he balanced both bowls in one hand rather than unseat our tabby.
"What? Set him down? Why? He barely weighs a thing," Fitz objected, butting the cat's forehead with his own, and wrenching my heart halfway out of my chest in the process.
"Suit yourself," I shrugged, trying and failing not to cast what I was certain were unforgivably longing glances their way.
To both distract and preserve myself, I fetched the brandy and cups and absconded to the fireplace, poured two irresponsibly full servings, and stood drinking mine, puzzling over what had gotten into Fitz tonight and why he was being so attentive to me. Well, perhaps that wasn't fair. He was always attentive to me and saw to my every need tirelessly. But not this way. Not so much.
A cool breeze drifted in through the open window and before I could even shiver, there was a blanket draped about my shoulders, the soft one that I favored. I turned as if in a trance to see Fitz, clothed in his freshly laundered sleep shirt, with a pile of additional blankets folded over his arm.
"Thanks," I told him faintly, feeling unreal. Perhaps I wasn't. Sometimes, it felt as if I were a ghost, haunting my own life. This moment was one of them.
Unmoored, I sat down heavily on the floor and pulled my knees up tightly to my chest, hoping it might anchor me to the present moment in some meaningful way. It didn't, so I took another sip of brandy and watched as Fitz cloaked himself in a blanket too and sat down as close to me as he could without sitting on top of me. We weren't touching, not quite, but his proximity was comforting and it made me feel like a person again, and for that, I was extremely grateful.
I still didn't feel real enough to talk, so I urged him to instead, and like the eager trout that wallowed down by the banks of our river, he readily took the bait, granting me both solace and room to recover, a welcome pair of gifts, to be sure.
I watched his face as he spoke of Patience and Lacey, and was struck with the love he had for them, and thusly, with a wretched sense of guilt. I was keeping him from them. Two more who needed my Catalyst, and did not have him because I did. The thought shamed me, even as the apricot brandy wrapped its cottony embrace around my mind and cradled it gently, shushing the worst prickings of my self-loathing and regret.
"Patience was quite taken with those charts and the stories you sent her. She made me read her every word twice,” Fitz was saying, and I nodded as if I'd been following along with his tale the entire time.
“I thought she might enjoy those,” I replied, for I had. They were children's stories, and fables mostly, nothing too personal nor too revealing, but still complex and clever enough to amuse a woman as sharp as Patience was. It had been nice, revisiting those childhood memories whilst compiling them for her.
"She did. I did too. You’ve never told me any of those stories before," Fitz informed me, shaking me from my nostalgic reverie.
"Haven’t I? We’ve spoken of so much over the years that I forget what I do and don’t share with you, sometimes," I replied honestly. Sometimes, it felt as though Fitz knew me better than I knew myself. Certainly, I had woven a tale or two of my childhood stars into our talks over the decades. Perhaps he'd taken them to be merely jests or mockery. Maybe they'd only bored him so much that he hadn't bothered remembering.
Or maybe he was right about me, and I never told him a thing I did not absolutely need to. But that wasn't the case, not at all, despite what he might suspect. I thought of another night, a different bottle of brandy, and a different fireplace. Another creature curled up at our feet, dozing peacefully. Fitz's same sleepy, brandy-softened smile. The same drunken ease embracing us both.
What should I call you now?
Beloved.
I stared at him, feeling as though we had occupied this same space and time together before, like two actors on a stage, performing the same scene together each night, nothing new save for the crowd witnessing it. I wondered if he ever felt the same way. It seemed I was not destined to learn tonight.
"You haven’t. I wouldn’t mind hearing more, if you remember them," Fitz told me, peering first at his feet and then, hopefully, back up at me. He went very still after that, as if he did not wish to seem too eager for my reply. A tactic of Chade's, no doubt. I'd seen the old spider enact it with my king a thousand times over. From Fitz, the ploy seemed far more sincere.
I turned from him and stared into the flames, trying to decide where to begin. Trying to recall what he already knew, and what I wished for him to know, and what I wanted, for the time being, to keep only for myself. It was heavy work, sorting back through my memories that way. Like seeing forward in reverse. I preferred to deal in futures. They were far more malleable, still flexible and ever changing. History was so permanent. What had been would always be, and there was never any getting around it. There was only fruitlessly convincing yourself that one day, perhaps you might.
"There are a few more I can recall, if that is what you’d like," I said into the breathless quiet that had fallen while I sat there mired in thought.
"I would," Fitz told me seriously, and then bridged the nearly nonexistent gap of space between us and lay his head sweetly on my shoulder, an earnest, gentle gesture of friendship so heartfelt and unassuming that it warmed me to the very marrow of my bones.
I smiled down at him, took a drink of apricot brandy to whet my throat and calm my nerves, and then plucked from my memory the first story that came to mind. It was a silly tale, one my sister had loved to hear told, of a greedy bear that swallowed the moon, then spat it back up bit by bit until it was whole once more in the sky, only to gobble it right back down again. Fitz laughed robustly at it, and in his laugh, I heard my oldest and dearest and most trusted friend in all the world.
His eyelids drooped as I talked to him, and the wearier he got, the more liberally my tongue began spilling its secrets, in subtle ways that he might not recognize, but that I surely did, yet felt powerless to control. That was so often the way, when it came to FitzChivalry and me.
I spoke to him of two knights who'd made a pact of lifelong fealty, not to any sovereign ruler but to one another, to defend each other's bodies to the death, and one another's souls for all time. I spoke of a shepherdess with hair like silk, whose touch could cure men's any ailment, and whose shining hair became a braid of golden stars on the night she finally died. I told him of the brave fisherman who caught a thousand fish each for his two true loves, from every one of the six great seas, and learned a thousand songs each from a hundred different islands, all to win the privilege of their hands in marriage, and to capture the hearts of both their families.
Fitz listened, rapt, drinking his brandy and cuddling close to me like a tamed old hound. After a time, I rested my head against his and he shifted so that we could better lean on one another, topping off both our cups without being asked. Realder purred long and loud, and fire seemed to wrap the room warmly with light, just as our blankets hugged our shoulders. I wished fleetingly that he and I were sharing a single one. I drank some more brandy. Fitz sagged against me even further.
It was around the sixth or seventh tale that he slid down my body with a snore. Smiling, I caught him in my lap before his head hit the floor and set a hand to his shoulder, thinking to rouse him. But he was sound asleep, lost to dreams of better times and, I hoped, constellations far away. His beautiful hair had fallen in a tangle across his face, and I gently brushed it away from his eyes. When he still refused to stir, I continued. His tresses were soft between my fingers. Thick, and tangled, and obscenely lush, exactly how I'd imagined they'd feel.
He made a soft noise of drunken approval in his sleep when I slowly scraped his scalp with my fingernails, and because I was a fair bit tipsier than usual too, I permitted myself to continue doing it. I also permitted myself to resume speaking. These words, however, I spoke to him in mercen, rather than the common duchies tongue. They might have been meant for Fitz, but for the time being, they still belonged only to me. Only ever to me.
"I would catch a thousand fish for you," I said. "Though I don't particularly love fishing. And I would learn a thousand songs. That, I think I'd like a bit better. I would heal you with only the touch of my hands. Come to think of it, I've already done that, though it was probably my fault you were dying to begin with. And speaking of, I would gladly swear fealty to you alone in life and death alike. I would happily pluck the stars out of the night sky and braid them into your beautiful hair. Were it possible, my heart, I would even feed you the moon."
"I would do anything, Beloved," I whispered, and let my inflection be frighteningly true, not put on or guarded or altered in any way. It was only my own voice. It was simply me. "I would give anything for you to love me the way that I love you," I confessed, my fingers weaving gently through his hair and my palms cupping his serene sleeping face. "But that's alright. The way that you love me is good enough, too. I would never love you any less for it. I promise. I do not think I could love you less if I tried my whole life long."
Then I hummed to him, an old lullaby my father used to sing to me and that I had, in turn, sung to Paragon many a sleepless night as we traveled up the Rain Wilds River together. I sang until I grew dizzy, brandy creeping into my veins and overtaking the blood there, leaving me awash with numb, intoxicated bliss. It was a false peace, but still peace, nevertheless. Besides, I thought drunkenly, it had been a gift from my Catalyst, my one true love. That had to count for something. It must.
Fitz blinked awake groggily some time later. "I think I’ve had too much brandy," he announced unnecessarily, lying supine in my lap as though he belonged there. He did, I thought, blearily pleased. Just for tonight, he did, and even he was not pretending that he didn't. I kept on petting him affectionately as we spoke, and he did not bother to act as if he didn't enjoy it.
"That makes two of us, I think. Bed?”
"Ugh." He buried his face in my belly, his breath hot through my robe as he groaned miserably. He must have been as dizzy as I was. I laughed helplessly, rubbing his back to console him.
"Bed," I said sternly, thumping it a few times encouragingly, and he floundered up, caught in his blanket and clumsy from inebriation. I stood and then offered him both my hands to help him do the same, and he let me draw him up off the floor like a limp-limbed ragdoll. I was tempted to scoop him into my arms and carry him the rest of the way to the bed, just to be certain he made it there without falling, but judiciously refrained, and blew out all the candles instead.
He seemed to have muddled along well enough, for by the time I joined him in bed, he was cozily tucked into the blankets, only the top of his head and the tip of his nose visible beneath the field of embroidered flowers covering him. As I settled in next to him, his arm shot out and seized me zealously. This time, it was me who went limp as he clumsily pulled me into a possessive, unrestrained embrace. Touched, I set my cold feet to his shins, for he was as warm as a bonfire from the hearth and the plentiful brandy.
"Good to be home with you," he told me, his apricot-scented breath caressing my mouth. I leapt off the horse. He kissed me. I tasted of apricot brandy.
"Glad you’re back," I murmured, for I was. His head was back where it belonged, resting in the center of his pillow. I stared at him in the dark, and drank in the sight of his face so close to mine, and loved him, deeply and quietly and with everything I had.
Make room for the cat, Realder said, clambering on top of us both, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard, frustration welling up within me. Any other night, I would have welcomed such an addition. But tonight, I wanted nothing between me and Fitz. Not even our tabby cat, much as I adored him.
Cat, not tonight. I want him close tonight.
I heard it as clearly as if Fitz had spoken the words aloud.
I want him close tonight.
He wanted more of it.
"Not tonight, Realder," I agreed, lifting the cat out of the gap between our chests and setting him instead at our feet, where he sat, clearly piqued by our rejection. Please, I implored him placatingly. This is important. You want me every single night. He has never wanted me like this before.
Yes, he has. All the time, Realder replied, his pride obviously injured. My entire body went still, save for my hand, which stroked through his ears conciliatorily.
He has? I replied, slowly easing back under the covers, where Fitz awaited me, drunkenly expectant, his arms flung open wide.
All the time. He mopes at the door for you whenever it's closed, and he gives you all the best bits of meat. He watches you when you sleep, and touches your chest to make sure it still rises and falls while you're dreaming. He has wanted you this way for as long as I can recall. He doesn't want you to see it, but he never hides it from me. The warm one loves you best. He loves you more than you love the cat. More than hunting. More than warm fires and long naps and the blood of a fresh kill. More than anything.
Realder had never said so many words to me at once before, nor spoken with such clarity of purpose. Dazed, I lay my head down on Fitz's chest, directly over his heart, and wrapped an arm around him.
"Goodnight, Fitz," I said, for there was really nothing else to say. He held me for a moment quietly, two not-quite lovers together in the dark. When he broke the silence, it was with a single word, a chyurdan one I'd first heard a very long time ago when I'd fled to the mountains. It was a vastly important word to me, one I made it my business to know in all languages that I encountered.
Keppet.
"What did you say?" At first, I thought he was calling me by name, and his use of the mountain language to do so startled me. The meaning was not quite exact, but the sentiment was near enough that I went stiff, suddenly terrified for no reason I could ascertain at all.
He said it again, patiently and drunkenly and with more honesty than he usually used. "Keppet. That’s my true name. The one my mother gave me, I think. It’s Keppet," he replied.
The abrupt declaration filled me with such stunned disbelief that I began to cry silently, tears welling in my disbelieving eyes. Keppet. Loved. Wished for. Wanted. The king's lowly bastard child had been called only Beloved by his mother once, too. I squeezed him so hard that my vision went white.
"I thought you couldn’t remember anything about her," I managed, my voice shaking alongside my trembling mouth.
"I couldn’t, not for a long time," he murmured somnolently, nuzzling into my hair as he spoke, as if to hide within it. "I put it all into her, into Girl-on-a-Dragon. When you ki-" He trailed off, drew a ragged breath, then continued. "When you gave my memories back to me, I started to recall a bit about her. Not much. But little things. Keppet was one of them."
"Keppet," I repeated, awed. Two gifts Fitz had given me this night, the brandy and now this. I sat up a bit to better look at him, trying to imagine the little face his mother had once gazed upon, back when he'd been named only precious and lovely things, and never been told he was unwanted or unworthy or lesser because of the bed in which his parents had once lain, and whether or not they'd been wed when they'd done it.
I saw it easily, that youthful innocence I sought. It hovered there just beneath his scars and his tired eyes and the years that had accumulated in the interim between then and now.
"Yes,” I told him, smiling. "You do look like a Keppet. It suits you far better than Fitz ever has." It did. Keppet suited him very, very well indeed. Beloved suited him best of all.
He shook his head at me sluggishly and tugged me back down into his arms, obviously pleased. "Well, it’s far too late to change my name now, but I still wanted to tell you. I thought you might like to know," he explained, and it struck me as eerie that he'd surmised as much, as if he could hear the longings of my heart from across the miles and had chosen generously to oblige them. Mayhaps he had. We were prophet and catalyst, after all. At least, we once had been.
"I am glad you did. And it’s never too late to change, if that is what you want. If you’d prefer, I can call you that from now on."
Fitz squeezed my arm bruisingly in reply, smiling down at me with a painful sort of warmth that made my stomach hurt. "You can if you’d like," he slurred softly. "But it doesn’t really matter. I like most things you call me, and I’ve been Fitz for a very long time. I don’t mind staying the Fitz to your Fool."
It was like being doused with icy water. For a moment, we hadn't been. For a moment, I'd forgotten. In the hazy flurry of warmth that surrounded us both, somewhere between his confession and the cat's revelation, I had fallen into a trap most dangerous. I had believed, unimpededly, that he and I felt the same way. But no matter how intimate his words, no matter how tender his touches or sweet his breath or comforting his kisses, he was not mine. He was not mine, and I would never be his.
Fitz rubbed my back soothingly, blissfully unaware of my sudden anguish. I was glad of that. I wished I were, too. It had been a beautiful moment we'd just shared, one I'd cherish for a long lifetime of loving him. Keppet. Sweet little Keppet. The boy who would never be king, and always, had deserved to be.
"Goodnight, Fool," the waylaid king of the Six Duchies bid me, yawning into my ear.
"Goodnight," I replied faintly, safe and warm in the arms of the one I could never have. Had it only been last night that I'd shaken with ecstasy at the thought of his handsome face? Now he held me, and we felt further apart than we'd ever been then. The warm one loves you best, the cat had said.
He does, Realder confirmed, stretching out across our toes. He's even thinking about it right now.
Hush. Enough of that tonight, sweet one. I'm far too drunk. We both are. But at Realder’s words, the tight sorrow in my chest slowly eased. "Oh, Beloved," I murmured aloud to my sleeping love, resting peacefully in my arms. He snored in response, and tears pricked at my eyes.
"Oh, my sweet, sweet Keppet," I whispered, brushing the hair back from his face one final time before bending to kiss his furrowed brow. "I love you best, too." And then I followed after him into slumber, and had no nightmares, but only dreams of us together, and in the end, I truly could not say which of the two would have been worse.
fave thing about writing fanfic is when I write a line so particularly, egregiously, unapologetically, undeniably self-indulgent that I have to stop and giggle and rabbit-kick my feet and scream into my hands
(I wasn't tagged by anyone this time around, I just wanted to do it skdjdjdjdjjdjd)
This is from the beginning of my (as of now dubiously named) post-AF Fitzloved love-child OC fic, Possible Culminations of Love, which follows Fitz and Beloved as they navigate an entirely unexpected pregnancy and birth, and Bee experiences the agony and ecstasy of sudden older-sisterhood. Much Farseer chaos ensues and endless fawning is done over the newest addition 😌💛🦌
The child was born in the last gasps of winter. The night was cloudy and dark, and outside of Buckkeep's high, stone walls, a storm battered at the coast relentlessly. Within, tucked snugly away in a discrete wing of the castle where we would not be observed, Beloved brought forth into the world his second daughter, and my third.
She had a dark thatch of hair, and sweet, piercing eyes that peered up at me the same eerie way that his always did, demandingly and cunningly. Her arms and legs were long for a newborn's, and her skin was nearly the same shade of brown as mine. Her lungs worked beautifully, a fact she put to the test the instant she took her first breath, much to both of our delight. She was perfection, nestled snugly in Beloved's labor-trembling arms - a robust, red-cheeked, healthy baby girl.
The delivery was, according to Beloved, nothing of consequence, though having heard his groans of pain and felt the power of his fingernails as they dug bloody half-moons into my hand, I tended not to believe him. Still, he'd borne tears of unimaginable torture, he reminded me loftily, through mercilessly gritted teeth and knuckles gone as white as his jestering days, as our child had made her brutal entrance into the world. If he could bear that, so unwillingly, then he could certainly bear the glad and entirely expected pain that birthing a new being must bring.
"One untouched by Clerres," he told me tightly, gripping my arms so hard they came away as darkly fingerprinted as my wrist. "One never marked by their cruelty or subjected to their darkness. One never failed by us. Perhaps this baby, we can keep safe, Fitz. A child wrought of love, and born into the same. Ours to cherish and protect. Yours. Mine. A sibling for our Bee, so she will never be alone. The child that shall complete our family. The child who will make it whole."
Lmfao CAVITIES!!! CAVITIES I TELL YOU!!!!!!
No pressure tagging @feyweird @maddyisenough @johaerys-writes @leithillustration @kaijuerotica @stedesbonnets @smoky-solitude @neatbay and @marsskaterboii <3
make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People can send you an ask leave you a comment or rb in the tags (I don't have asks on lol <3) with the title that most intrigues them, then post a snippet or share something about it!
Lmfao these always get real long for me so bear with me I beg 🙏💀
Someone Like You
A Peculiar Stillness
To Rewrite History's Annals (By The Soul's Familiar Flame)
All The King's Horses, All The Queen's Men
To Each A Little Death In Turn
The Warhorse and the Wolf - Fitz/Laudwine
I Know Places - Kettricken/Laurel Pre FE fox bonding fic
Beloved/Molly/Fitz post FF oneshot
The Quarrel But They Fuck
Of Dreams and Dragons
Maybe a Fool's Assassin fix it
BEE POV All the different ways the end of the Clerres mission could have gone through her eyes via the Paths
Fitzloved Omegaverse Fic
Beloved modern AU tattoo artist
Fitz goes back to Buckkeep with Kettricken after AQ and he and Nighteyes help raise Dutiful
Heavy is the Head that Sacrifices (working title)
Rurisk Fitz fic (this is vague aF sorry)
Fitz giving Beloved a *hand* bc his is silver 💀😭💀😭💀😭 (girl get a grip) - what if Fitz was still dumb but in a different unfathomably clueless way?
Fitzloved: Night After Chapter 6 AF in Kelsingra
Fitz/Amber boardwalk meet cute
Fitz meeting Hope fic
Daughters Of The Blood (Elliania & Nettle fic)
A little Fool introspection in his tower room after Fitz says “I dreamed about you while I was gone”
Erik and Detozi MODERN AU
Rosemary fic
Bonus Chapter 4.5, 6.5, 17.5, 22.5, 22.75 and 25.5 Of Cats and Closed Doors
A Far Gentler Path Rough Draft
ROTE Werewolf/Vampire High School Modern AU Rough Draft
Of Cats and Closed Doors
Lmfao since I'm just shy of 30(!!!!jesusfuckingchrist!!!!!) WIPS I will save everyone the wall of text and NOT tag 30 people but I will tag a few other writing folks who come to mind, no pressure of course! :)
