when a victorian princess!reader with a knack for adventure, debuting when she knows the only person she'd be happy with is her one forbidden love, knight!suguru
tags: forbidden romance, princess x knight, fem!reader, reader's appearance is described (described as fitting beauty standards of the era such as wide hips, pale, chubby, etc), meant to be read on dark mode since there's some light coloured text, a major historical inaccuracy in that knights wouldnt really have existed in the 1800s but erm shh its an au..., kinda smutty, arranged marriage (not to suguru), kinda infidelity? (i wouldnt say it is bc the marriage arrangement hadnt been finalized yet), misogyny, unabashed yearners in love, second person pov (8.4k words)
!! there is discussion and depictions of domestic abuse !!
"My lady?!" Suguru called out, trudging through the thick, grassy plains of the royal courtyard's main garden. He passed a cobbled, mossy stone well, though quickly stopping to check down into the glossy water; anywhere you could possibly fit into he'd have to check. Knowing you, you would put yourself in the most compromising, uncomfortable position for a chance you could hide from your noble duties. He passed through long aisles of shrubbery, florals, and large sprawling willow trees.
His wrought iron and steel armour clanked as he walked, hitting itself around his joints and limbs, likely alerting you to his presence. If you knew he was coming, you'd probably hide further into the orchard. He'd probably have brought your disappearance to the attention of the court except for the fact he was supposed to be attending to you, and you had slipped out under his supervision. You always did have a way of distracting him; like you knew him well enough to know how to push the right set of buttons and slip away in the blink of an eye. Plus, being raised together meant he knew how seriously you took your 'adventures' through the same courtyards you'd spent your whole life in.
He was dragged out of his train of thought when he tripped on a hard, leathery item strewn loosely on the ground. He looked down to see white, mud-stained heel with a pointed toe. Your heel. A loud sigh escaped him as he looked up and around the branches high above him. He was stupid, looking on the ground, or any other place a normal person may be hiding. You were no ordinary person, he'd known this for decades.
"My lady," he sighed when his eyes finally settled on your form—sitting along the long, spindling branch of a weeping willow tree, the thickset limb more than strong enough to support your wait but not an adequate shape for you to remain modest in your formal garbs. Your shoes were kicked off to make the tree easier to climb, and it was clear that in scaling it you got quite filthy; the feet of your stockings were caked in mud with small holes along the bottom of your feet, pricked by tinier branches, twigs, and offshoots of the tree.
"Please, come down." Suguru extended his arms up in the direction in which you sat a good nine or ten feet off the ground, though he turned his head to the right, eyes shut, lest he see you from this vulgar position. "I can see your hosen, it's... improper."
You sighed loudly, dramatical. "Must I?" you whined, petulant as the day you two met. Petulant as a young child.
"Your ball is this evening and you're yet to get dressed, your Highness." He splayed his fingers out wider, palms open, ushering you to jump down for him to catch you.
Somehow, you managed to muster an even more exaggerated sigh than before, before pushing yourself off of the branch and dropping inelegantly into the young knight's arms. One arm wrapped around your waist, gloved fingers digging into your corseted waist, the other perched at the top of your thighs instinctively to keep you up as you wrapped your legs around his waist, in turn, for security. The way he held you was improper, surely. But wasn't it justified, for your safety? And either way, there were five layers of dress and another of armour between his forearm and your thighs.
He carried you, hand pilling down your skirt as to keep your legs and ankles hidden while you two passed through the courtyard. A handful of serfs tending to the garden stared and gawked, but all of them knew well enough not to gossip about the princess's personal knight—not to his face, at least—lest they want to be whipped, maimed, or worse.
"Why were you there?" Suguru murmured into your ear, quietly as to not hurt your delicate hearing, as your chin was propped up on his shoulder and ear was right next to his mouth. He already knew the answer, but was still curious as to what you'd say.
"Don't act as though you don't already know, Sir Suguru," you huffed, a puff of warm air hitting the exposed skin of his neck. Around the courtyard, he wouldn't wear his full uniform; usually just taking his mask and helmet off. It made it easier to breathe, to move, and allowed you to indulge in a simple pleasure you often talked about; running your fingers through his silken, black hair. Who was he to tell the princess what she ought not do with his hair? "If I can't be find, I can't go to my ball."
"Your debut was supposed to be two weeks ago already," Geto grumbled, "and you already missed that. You can't miss another." You seethed something incomprehensible, probably not wanting to be heard and just muttering your frustrations to yourself. Suguru didn't probe. He knew better than to do that. He knew you better than to do that.
He strode quickly through the halls and into your sleeping quarters, placing you delicately onto the bed and closing the wooden door behind himself.
He kneeled down, positioning you to sit on the edge of your bed, legs dangling off and on either side of him as he sat in front of you. "Your dress is in your cabinet," he murmured lowly, reaching under your skirt and to your wide hips. 'Birthing hips,' as your family would call them, though he always found that gross—he understood it reflexively if anything. The standard for a woman was wideset hips, and you were, after all, one of the fairest princess in the kingdom. The fairest he'd ever seen, personally.
He slipped his hands under your chemise and hooked two fingers on each side of your stockings, gently pulling them down and away. His eyes locked on yours the whole time, refusing to look under your bustle. Geto was nothing if not a gentleman to you.
"Are you going to escape if I waited outside for you, my lady?" He stood to his full high, folding up the muddied stockings and placing them in your dirty hamper to be scrubbed by the maids.
"Would you believe me if I said no?" you grinned, reaching behind yourself to tug at and undo the ribbon bow tied to keep your corset tight, cinching your waist as thin as possible and accentuating your hips further.
He chuckled, muttering a "no" and shaking his head. Despite that, he stepped outside, door closed with his ear pressed to it so he could hear if you attempted to make a break for it.
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"Sir Suguru?" you called gently, opening the door. "How do I look?"
Fuck.
You were in a floor-length, rosy pink gown. The ruffled neckline sat underneath a sturdy, whalebone bodice. Your hair was pinned up in a wavy, lose bun atop your head with a curled strands falling over your shoulders. Your upper arms had three thin golden cuffs wrapped tight, matching the gold waistband sitting on your hips, perched right below the hem of your corset. The skirt was large, he could count the ruffles of at least three skirts underneath the main dress, the one on top, not including the smock undergarments and wire-frame bustle. Gold portrait necklaces and strings of pearls dipped down from your artificially-lightened collarbone, all of your skin powdered paler, and sitting right above the crevice of the bosoms amplified by the corset over your dress.
"You look..." Ethereal? Angelic? Mine? Not a single word that came to mind was proper for a personal knight to call his princess. "...perfectly respectable, your highness."
"Eugh, you sound like my mother," you joked, reaching under your hoop skirt and fixing the leather of your heels that caught under your heel. "Lord, I hate dresses."
"Well, they clearly don't hate you," Geto joked, extending an arm for you to take to escort you. "May I ask, why pink? I believe white is... traditional, I can't imagine your mother would want anything but."
"Do I look as though I'd subscribe to my mother's tradition?" you grinned up at him, before your eyes flit back down to the floor. He thought for a moment that would be that, that you wouldn't explain any further, until you spoke again after a moment to gather your mind. "White is for purity, yes, but pink is for... femininity. It is sweet and youthful, and... my mother believes that is a better representitive of me."
A bright, hot red spread from the tip of the knight's nose to the tips of his ears at that idea. That you are more a 'woman' than anything else? Are you impure? Is that why your mother thought you ought not wear a white dress?
"I am not... defiled," you teased, noticing the blush against your knight's pale skin. "But my mother thinks I still act like a child, and for that she figured a white dress would be better."
A child. You were no child. Suguru remembered when you were a child, when you both were. When you met. You, a young lotus blossoming in the confines of a castle, him the son of your father's personal knight and raised by the hand of the best armymen in the kingdom to be your guard. He didn't know when exactly, in his mind, you became a woman. It was as though one day you were two inches taller than him, lithe and boxy in frame, a gap in your pearly front teeth, and the next you were quite a ways shorter than him, with sturdy hips and tummy rolls and two soft breasts he recently found himself longing to touch.
"This is going to be dreadfully boring," you sighed as Geto opened the large, brown doors to the ballroom, already booming with life and people. There were other socialites, noble and royal girls your age in their flouncy dresses looking just as fed up as you were, with at least two wealthy men for every one girl. This was going to be a nightmare.
Your mother squealed, rushing up to grab your hands cloaked in lacy white gloves, her own sister in toe. "You look absolutely charming, darling," your auntie said, placing a hand on your supple shoulder.
"Come now, my love," your mom dragged you by the wrist to the east wing of the ballroom. You passed by dozens of couples waltzing, drinking, chatting, and eating. Sometimes you wished you were normal, and could just unwind like that. Enjoy your own party.
"The belle of ball," Geto muttered in your ear, teasing, as he sped to keep up with you. Tat earned him a scoff and slap to the arm before he resumed his professional demeanor.
You arrived at a long table draped in an eggshell tablecloth, covered in all sorts of hors d'oeuvres, shellfish, wines, and any other delicacy being served at your ball. There were people seated of all ages and appearances, most of which with short, spiky hair, including the women. Most of that hair was black, contrasting the people's pale skin, with a few blondes or older nobles with grey hair mixed in. Your mother called your name to get your attention, drawing your eyes up to her before back to the table. "This is the House of Zen'in," she said to you. "Zen'in family, this is my daughter. The débutante."
An older man with grey hair slicked back down his neck, spiking out where it dispersed over his shoulders, and a thin matching mustache shaped up towards his ears, smiled leered at the sight of you. "Oh, what a doll," he said as you nervously folded your hands in front of you, "so why isn't she in a white dress? Has she whored herself out?"
"Oh, no," your mother nervously assured, eyes pinching shut in an uncomfortable smile, "she is, she is. We decided to go with pink as my daughter is... prefers to deviate from norms and traditions, though not disrespectfully, and we decided on pink as it truly displays her delicacy, femininity. Her innocence and purity."
Innocence. The word tasted bitter in Geto's mouth as he took what your mother said in.
"Oh, alright," the old man grinned, folding his hands over his robed belly. "I'm Naobito. Zen'in Naobito," he introduced
You extended a hand, giving your name in turn. His hand, when he shook yours, felt bony and cold to the touch, like he didn't have a heart to pump fresh, warm blood through his wrinkled body.
"This is my son," he said, perching the same hand on the shoulder of the young man sitting next to him, "Naoya."
You extended a hand to the blonde, who simply stared and scoffed. He stood, now visibly a few inches taller than you, and only then did he shake your hand. "A man ought not be lower than a woman with whom he's communicating with," he grinned. You felt a chill run down your spine at the sheer sight of it, his smile, his perfectly manicured hands, the words leaving his thin lips.
He sat back down, his father speaking up again. "How old is she? Eighteen? Nineteen?"
"Eighteen," your mother quickly answered.
"Perfect," Naobito smirked, "my Naoya is only twenty-six."
That broke Suguru. Truly, he couldn't stomach it. A man almost a decade older than you is perfect for you but he, barely nineteen, isn't? Would he never be enough for you? "Your Royal Majesty?" he murmured softly, eyes locking with the queen's. "May I be excused of my duties? Sleep has been awful to me recently, I must turn in early, if allowed."
The queen was not a tyrant by any means. Not only that, she cared deeply for Geto—his father protected her husband his whole life, and she watched the boy grow up alongside her own daughter. She always had a soft spot for his requests. "Of course, Sir Suguru," she smiled delicately.
He slipped past you, hand barely frisking your waist one last time before he weaved through the sea of socialites to his chambers. You watched as he left, confused, already missing him though he wasn't even gone yet.
But just as soon as you turned to watch him leave, your mother was snapping your attention back towards the Zen'in clan table.
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Knock, knock, knock.
"Sir Suguru?" you huffed from the outer side of his bed chamber's door. "Geto?" you snapped. You never used his last name, never addressed him improperly, but you needed to get your knight's attention.
Still, he didn't respond.
You sighed, bunching up your skirt and carrying it with you to scamper off to your room. It was very close to his; you two shared a wall. With how close you've always been, you sure you'd have shared a room if he was a girl.
Geto could hear your door shut, and he let out a light sigh he was sure you wouldn't be able to hear from your room. He couldn't look at you like this; knowing soon, you won't be his princess. You'll be Naoya's queen, in all likelihood. He knew if he let you into his room... you weren't coming back out until sunup.
He couldn't help but listen to you, though. You were never particularly delicate when it came to undressing, changing into your nightly garments, or getting into bed. Tonight, though, he could hear something different. He could hear you exhale drowsily as you settled into bed. The rustle of your nightwear bunching up and... the soft, breathy sighs that ensued.
Suguru's eyes shot wide open as he heard your breath hitch, break, and fall into a whimper. He heard the rhythmic thump, thump if you moving your whole body against your bed, and a faint wet smacking he was sure could only be your fingers pumping between your thighs. No one else in the castle would be able to hear, you were smart enough to ensure you were that quiet at the very least. But Geto could hear. He, in the room the opposite side of yours, could hear every little whimper and whine leaving your pretty, pink lips.
Including when you panted "Sugu—ru~ mm.. ha—ahh..."
Fuck his life. You were touching yourself. To him.
"Oh, oh, sir Sugu..."
He was half-tempted to do the same to you.
Your pretty little whines grow exasperated before everything just... stops, with a grumble. Perhaps you had grown frustrated with the little satisfaction your smaller hands were able to give you, compared to his? Perhaps he should go over and show you how much better he is out of fantasy?
Or perhaps he should stop thinking of you in this way.
Yes. However unfortunate it may be, you were become a woman of class now. To be married off. You would be disinherited, banished, if you were to marry your own knight. Best case scenario, you could abdicate the thrown and run away with him—but no, he couldn't do that to you.
He folded his yellowish-white pillow to cover both side of his ears, muffling any more of those tantalizing noises you may make later into the night. He must sleep at once. Hopefully by morning, he'd be back to seeing you the way he always has again. His best friend.
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A WEEK LATER
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You woke up to one of your maids squealing your name—with joy or worry? You were too tired to tell. "Your Highness!" one main screamed, banging her fist on your chamber doors. You scrambled up, still indecent in your sleeping garbs, tugging the skirt as low as it would go as you opened the door to at least feign modesty.
"Yes, ma'am?" you murmured, rubbing the tiredness from your sleep-ridden eyes.
"A letter," the woman declared, extending two arms out to present you with a letter the colour of snow with your full name written in large, loopy, cursive letters. "A letter from the House of Zen'in." She was almost more giddy than you, two more maids crowding behind her, covering their mouths as they giggled too. But who were you to refuse these poor women the drama that keeps them from going mad, in the endless loop of cleaning the same large castle day in, day out?
You smiled awkwardly, closing the door, and tearing the envelope open to reveal the three loose papers in the same pristine white. It was addressed at the top to you, and signed at the bottom from Naobito.
"After meeting at your débutante ball this prior week, the men of my family all had a lovely time meeting you. However, the heir of my kingdom, the dear Prince Naoya, is particularly important to me to see married. An man old as I may not live to see my favourite son get married, should I wait any longer. Alas, a woman as spritely and pure as you is perfect for him!
As you may or may not have been informed by the elders of your own family, I have met with them, along with the other men of the Zen'in clan. Our convening has resulted in the decision that you are the perfect princess to marry our prince Naoya and deliver the next Zen'in heir, healthy and male..."
That was only the introduction, but the details on the following pages—what was hammered out by both your respective families, apparently—blurred into splotchy, illegible black squiggles your mind couldn't process or read.
Marriage. You hadn't even been eighteen for a month and you were already betrothed?! Oh, how your family was praised for letting their daughter "be herself," that you were allowed to wear a pink dress instead of a white one to your ball, that you weren't at every single party, that you talked to who you wanted to a good chunk of the time. They would probably get the same praise that they at least waited for you to be an adult, a mature woman, ready in the eyes of the court, for you to be betrothed. That was almost the worst part—you didn't want to be married, but by going about it this way, you parents had almost absolutely secure the fact that every day, with every person, you'd have to endure hearing how fucking lucky you are that you, the immature, pathetic, unladylike you that you are, got to meet your fiancé before he was your fiancé. Before you was your husband. "How lucky," you spat.
No. No.
When you felt this, this anger bubbling up from your tummy and blooming red over your face, there was only one place you could go. The garden.
You threw on the most casual dress you could find after a half a minute digging through your closet, a little navy dress that cinched right below your chest and flowed freely like silk from there. No underskirt, nothing to impede you from bolting out the window after crumpling the letter to toss it to the foot of the bed. Your parents made one fatal mistake when picking your room's space—putting a window to the courtyard in your room, out of the wall on the opposite side of the hallway.
Before any of the garden labourers could catch a glimpse of you, you bolted to the orchard in the heart of the castle. The fortress was huge, even by royal standards, with a courtyard the size of some of the more rural villages in your kingdom.
You remember being a child, taking a good ten minutes to be able to find your way around the garden. Through the flowers and rocked paths and into the orchard, off to the little pond you'd always visit with Suguru.
When you two were kids, he was only one year older than you, life was far less taxing. You'd both train daily, him to be your personal knight you and you to be elegant and ladylike as can be, but still. You had time to be children. Whenever you were given the choice, you spent that time here, at the artificial pond just west of the orchard's heart. Skipping stones, play fighting, swimming, anything and everything you two could even thought you would have fun doing.
Now it had been fourteen years, almost to the day, and you were about to be betrothed. And not to him.
You knew the handmaids would immediately alert your mother when you slammed the door in her face. Sure, you felt bad for being rude to her, but how would she react in that position? Surely you couldn't have been expect to have your manners up to par.
Once your mother was notified, she'd check on you in your room and see nothing there but the open window. You couldn't hope to escape from the entire castle, not with the moat locking in everyone who doesn't have express permission to leave. Which you clearly did not. She'd send out an army of maidens and butlers in search of you, and surely give Suguru a smack over the back of the head for not being awake to attend to you. But your mother was a flighty woman, surely she wouldn't hit him much further, and far too fond to fire or execute him. Especially not over such a minor inconvenience. She couldn't afford to get Geto mad—after all, he was likely the only person in the damned kingdom who knew where you turn to at times like these.
You stared into the reflection in the small pond. It was made by the gardeners, probably only twenty feet across and six feet deep at it's lowest point. The surface scattered shimmering sunlight through the azure rivulets sprawling out through eroded mud streams and was layered with lily pads coloured a murky green. When did you stop looking in the water and seeing a gawky tween, too ungainly to make friends and too social to be awkward?
Another reflection peered past you, over your shoulder. Pale skin, sleek black hair tied half-up in a bun, the faint glimmer of purple in thin brown eyes. Suguru.
"I always know where to find you," he smiled gently, putting a hand carefully on your shoulder. "My lady, why did you run away? Your mother has worried herself sick."
"Oh, she'd worry herself sick regardless. I just happen to be an easy scapegoat," you murmured, turning around to see his face instead of just his cerulean-tinted reflection.
He was quiet for a moment, staring deeply into your eyes. It was almost fucking intimidating. "I heard about the letter you got from the Zen'in prince," he murmured. "Why did you come out here?"
"What?" you stammered. "You just said it yourself, I got the letter from Naoya and panicked."
"No." He paused for a moment. "Why did you come out here." To this pond, you assumed.
...You could have sworn you'd heard that before.
"My lady? My lady! Why did you come out here?!" a very young Suguru, maybe eight, shouted to get your attention. You blinked the bleariness out of your eyes and suddenly, you were over two feet shorter, Suguru wasn't in his armoured uniform, and he was back with the apple-ish face of a cherub. "Why are you out by the pond? Your mama said it's time for your lessons."
"I don't want my lessons," you huffed, voice at least an octave higher. Why did you say that? It's like you weren't you anymore, like you were just living in a memory. "Mm, sometimes I wish I was a boy like you. Then we could wrestle and fight and run around all day!" you squealed with a giggle, pouncing on the older boy. Your skirt got caught on a root and you fell to your feet, palms scraping the rock and dirt, mud splashing on your face and both your outfits.
"Awh, no," you whined, staring at your now filthy, raw, red palms. "I'm sorry, Sugu," you murmured. God, you hadn't called him that in years. Not since your father heard you calling him that and screamed your ear off about 'properly addressing the staff' and 'being respectful and ladylike.' These days he was just sir Suguru, Geto if you're mad.
"Hey, it's fine," he giggled, helping you up even if it meant soaking his hands, too, in the soil coating your smaller hands. "I'll help you wash that off." He eased you to the edge of the pond, standing ankle-deep in the shallow shore, and scooping handfulls of clean, clear water, dribbling it over your hands, and rubbing it in to rub off what stuck after the initial rinse. "Dunk your hands," he murmured, holding your hands under the surface of the water to help clean it off.
As you washed your hands with the pond water, he brought a little more water up to wipe off the few splats that made it to your face.
You giggled softly, eyes locking with his. "I love you, Sugu," you beamed, like it was simple. Like it was easy. Back when it was easy.
What you wouldn't give to have that back.
"I love you too, my princess," he chuckled, pulling his hand backs when your face was finally clean. "Such a pretty princess," he giggled at the sight of your freshly washed face, your big grin. You let out a loud belly laugh, throwing yourself into his arms. So young still, you were a few inches taller than him, he hadn't hit his growth spurt yet, leading to you knocking him over and the both of you toppling backwards into the shallows of the pond.
He screamed out your name, scared at first but that gut feeling quickly turning into a fit of laughter bubbling out through his overly excited, eager, mouth. "Oh, you are so not making it for the training lesson," he laughed.
"Oh, you are so not making it for the meeting with Naoya," he groaned, voice back to that deep rumble that came with a decade of age and hardship. You shook slightly at the disorientation being back in the present moment, déjà vu fluttering from your mind like a kaleidoscope of butterflies. He was staring at the part of your dress covering your bottom half, where you were sitting, which you only just realized was soaked through in dark brown mud and river bed sediments. Oh fucking well, you were in nightwear anyway.
"No, mother would have my head in a basket before I refused to meet with him. Especially after I skipped the ball on my birthday," you spat, standing up. Geto quickly followed, looking down at you with pleading eyes.
"I talked to your mother," he said gently, "and she said you can have up to a week to stay with him, he'll be staying in the palace until then for whenever you decide it's time to meet."
Oh, what had you done to deserve such an angel down here on earth to protect you? Your tall, dark-haired guardian angel, with eyes of amethyst hand carved and traded in from the east of Russia.
"I don't deserve you," you said, voice breaking, eyes brimming at your waterline.
"Don't say that, my lady," he sighed, scooping his arms under your shoulders to half lift you and drag you back to the castle corridors, expecting you to get cleaned up and bathed before seeing your mother.
"It's true," you pout, going almost limp, ragdoll, in his strong hold.
"No, it's not," he argues, now doing all the work to carry you back. "You're smart, you're gorgeous, you're curious, and funny." He thought for a moment, eyes flitting away from you, too embarrassed to gaze upon your form at the moment. "You're my best friend."
"I don't wanna be your best friend," you whispered into the air, muffled by his body, "I want it to be you instead of Naoya. I love you."
He didn't respond. Had he not heard you? Perhaps you were too quiet, too tired to filter your own thoughts. "Suguru?" you repeated, "I said I love you," you huffed.
"I heard."
He let you down, setting you down on your feet in front of your bedroom chambers. He bent down to your eye level. "I was just hoping you would assume I didn't. I was giving you a chance to not repeat yourself."
Oh, he wasn't even armed with his trusty longsword and he still managed to stab you in the heart, to twist it deeper, to pierce through the back as your pitter-pattering heart bled out on his blade.
"Don't say that," you pleaded, tears now dribbling down your chin. "You love me too, I know you do."
"Exactly. If I let myself respond I would be breaking my oath to protect you. Because this marriage is best for you, your family. The Zen'in family will provide for you, will defend you. The best I could provide for you is the least they could do."
"I don't love Naoya," you begged, attempting to grab at him, anything to bring him closer, even if it meant digging the blade further.
"Go to your room, my lady," he said, pulling your pretty hands off his broad shoulders.
"Sugu," you pleaded, barely above a whisper.
He spat your name, loud, fucking intimidating. "Go to your room and change." He could see the hurt in your eyes, his heart sore at the way you flinched when he snapped at you. "Please." His voice softened, the way someone talks to a hysterical young girl they must soothe to sleep.
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A WEEK LATER
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"My lady, you're going to make a fool of yourself," Suguru laughed as you groaned loudly, shuffling through all the dresses you owned, which you'd already considered a thousand times today and rejected. "You're being a... rascal." Perhaps that wasn't the right word for it, but he could never bring himself to be truly rude to you.
"None of these dresses are good," you whine. "Too stuffy, too tight, too lose, too snobbish, too... eugh, I'll never pick a dress!"
He could see the glimmer of mischief in your eyes, familiar as with every other glint you got when an idea dawned on you. "My sir knight," you smirked, "may you pick my outfit? I simply cannot."
"That would be improper," he protested weakly, knowing he'd give in eventually. He could never say no to you, not for long, not when you looked at him the same way you had sine you were children. With a deep sigh, he finally played along, "...the one your mother bought most recently. The white and purple one."
"That stodgy old thing?" you lamented, "it's so... uninspired. It's nearly as dull as the old woman herself." You and your mother were close, yes, but since your arrangement with the Zen'in heir, Geto has noticed you taking digs at the queen more and more. He never stopped you but, naturally wanting not to be exiled, he never played along.
"You asked for my pick, and that is it."
"Fine," you groaned, beginning to undo the knotted lace of your undergarments to change
"Oh—you're—I should... leave," Geto said quickly, dashing to the door.
"Why?" you teased, smirking to yourself but leaving your tone as innocent and guileless as possible. "What if I attempt to run away again, to avoid the meeting with Naoya?"
"My lady, it's not proper to see you like this," he pleaded once more.
"I don't mind," you quickly shot back, slipping your sleeves off and scooting the slip dress off, bunching around your ankles before you kicked them across the floor. His shoulders tensed but he didn't leave.
He covered his eyes with a calloused palm, though when his fingers spread slightly to take a bashful peak, his shoulders relaxed to see that your back was turned to him. That being said, he held his hand up to cover your bare lower half, eyes glued to the hair falling down your back, dipping around the dig of your shoulder blades. His hand covered right below the little rolls and dimples at your lower back, such a pretty sight to behold.
You pulled on every single hoop skirt, bustle, petticoat, and underskirt before finally, you draped the real dress over all of the underpadding and he could finally move his hand away. You wrapped the delicate cotton and satin bones corset over your torso, holding the lace behind yourself. "Sir Suguru?" you requested, "may you lace up my corset?"
"Of course, your Highness," he mumbled under his breath, walking over to wear you stood. He pulled them tight, cinching in your waist, but not so harshly you would be, in any way, uncomfortable. "Is this okay?" he asked, tying a careful bow and brushing his thick hands over the top of your hair to smooth it down as best he could. Or maybe it was just to feel you.
You nodded, turning to face him. "Thank you, my brave Sir Knight," you giggled, putting your hand in his.
"Anything for my beautiful Princess," he teased right back, holding your hands with the most gentle of a grip he could. He was always so kind, so delicate with you, every since you were kids. Even when you were bigger than him. You kept one hand in his, the other lifting to cup his face. "What're you doing?"
"Do you think if you were a noble, we could marry?"
"Don't do this to yourself," he begged, suddenly turning dead serious.
"Don't evade my question, sir."
His mouth opened, but for a long, awkward moment, nothing came out. "...sometimes, I... like to think we would." You could barely hear him with how nervous he was to speak, to answer truthfully.
You pulled his face down, slowly, giving him time to pull away if he decided to follow the morals his parents conditioned into him.
He didn't.
Your lips connected at an angle, closed, reserved. Chaste. you moved almost as one, his free hand wrapping around behind you to press between your shoulder blades and bring you closer. Your foreheads bumped, noses rubbing as you moved, breaths mingling but nothing more.
You pulled away, half-lidded eyes fluttering open, staring at the aftermath of what had just happened. Your first real kiss, as your parents had aimed to keep you 'wholesome' as long as they could. Suguru's eyes stayed closed, even after you pulled away. He just stood ahead of you, eyes shut, breathing low and slow.
Not knowing what to say, you simply... didn't. Before he got the chance to open his eyes, for him to demand you two discuss what just happened, you quietly slipped past him and into the halls without him hearing.
Walking was awkward in the heavy dress, not to mention what had just happened weighing down on you. The dress was clinging in all the wrong places, the corset creating the illusion of an almost unnatural bust. It was white mostly, your mother had finally managed to strongarm you into buying a dress that would adequately symbolize your "purity." Bleh. Over top was a lilac overcoat, as if the Zen'in clan needed any more reminder your family was wealthy enough to afford purple dies in the outfits worn to a measly business meeting.
You walked out to the business room, in which your mother and father as well as Naobito and Naoya Zen'in waited patiently, all in their fanciest robes and garbs.
"Where is sir Suguru?" your mother asked, watching as you sat across the table from your soon-to-be-husband.
"He wanted to clean himself up before the meeting, he wanted to make a good impression on the Zen'in house," you said back to your parents, lies coming easily from a lifetime of needing to lie to grasp even an inch of freedom.
Your father nodded, waving his hand in an attempt to convey 'go talk to your fiancé, get to know each other while the big kids talk business.' You turned to Naoya, putting on your widest, fakest smile, the blonde reciprocating sharply.
"Is that how your breasts always look?" was the first thing he ever said to you.
"I—" you were shocked at his disrespect, "...I beg your pardon?"
"Your breasts," he reiterated like it was casual, dinner table conversation, "do they always look like that or is it just your corset?"
"I, uhm... suppose the corset is... helping?" you responded, rubbing insecurely over the girdle, wondering what else he was looking at. How else he was picking apart your physical appearance.
"It's nothing personal. I'm simply evaluating the genes you will pass on to our offspring," he shrugged nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair with a cruel smile. "I value the sexual appeal of my wife as if we unfortunately have a daughter, it'll be easier to marry her off if she doesn't look like man. What good noble would want to marry a twiggish whore?"
Something churned in your gut, how casually he said such disgusting things about women, about your hypothetical child. "Are you not going to say anything?" he asked, continuing his spiel before you had a chance to respond. "That's great, really. Too many consorts my father have brought me are all yap, yap. It makes me think, why not just marry a man? At least then what they'd be saying would be intelligent. I hate women who think they have something to say."
You were shocked. So shocked, to your core, that you couldn't help but sputter the first thing that came to your mind. Geto put up with far too much from you, to the point you've been spoiled in what you can get away with saying. You've never needed a filter before, since the only friend you were allowed to have was him. "Why don't you just marry a man then?" you asked, slightly dumbfounded.
His eyes shot open, smirk wiped off his face in an instant. "I beg your pardon?" he snapped, already aggressive.
"If you hate women, why don't you just marry a man? I can't imagine women like you back," you sputtered. You weren't thinking about what you were saying, just shooting back.
"You do not fucking talk to me like that, woman," the blonde man practically growled, both your parents still distracted with hammering out the details off the arrangement.
"It was just a question," you shrugged, rubbing one hand up and down your arm. As much as this man was loathsome, annoying, and pompous, you didn't want him to go batshit crazy. Mostly because that would get your parents mad.
"You do not ask me questions, you foul-mouthed bitch," he snapped, finally getting the attention of your mom. You locked eyes with her, pleading for her to dig you out of the situation, but alas... a female monarch holds less power than a male heir. She shot you a sympathetic glare before returning to the business conversation at hand.
At your mothers silence, her refusal to help or even get your fathers attention, something in you broke. You leaned forward, voice lethally stern, and stage-whispered, "if you want total submission you're gonna end up with a bitch either way. Either you're gonna be old and decrepit with a dog by your side because no woman was enough for you, or you're gonna find your perfect, submissive wife and she'll grow to resent you so deeply you'll be smothered in your slee—"
CRACK!
You heard the sound before you felt the sharp sting of Naoya's fist strike your nose. A blinding, white-hot pain sprawled outwards from your nose before you felt something warm and wet trickle down over your lip. It tasted metallic, tangy, and with a texture like diluted mucus. You lifted your hand to your nose, not realizing how badly it was shaking until you saw it in front of your eyes, and pressed it right under the right nostril. It came back stained scarlet.
Naobito didn't even so much as glance.
"I'm going," you said to your parents, shoving yourself up from the table, storming off with your skirt bunched in your arms to move around more easily.
"No you aren't, sit back down," your father screamed.
"I'll be in my room," you muttered back. You didn't slow down, let alone even consider continuing your conversation with Naoya.
Sure, your parents had hit you before. You were smacked, caned, and whipped, you were locked in your sleeping chambers of had food withheld, but you had never been punched. You had never broken a bone, or cartilage, or whatever. Much less by a near-stranger.
You had lied to your parents, once again slipping it out so easily they didn't even think twice. You weren't going to your room, you were going to Suguru's. You knocked three times. "Suguru," you demanded. Another knock. "Suguru." Knock, knock, "Geto." Was he playing the same game as last time? Pretending to be asleep? No, it was the middle of the day. You weren't going to fall for his silent act again. "I'm not going to leave just because you don't respond. I'll stand here as long as it takes, even if I have to starve you out. I won't bring you food or anything if you decide to act like a child."
Normally, that would get him with ease. The door would be open before you were finished. He must have been pissed—or incredibly distressed and upset—that you left before he could even open his eyes after you initiated the kiss.
"...I'm bleeding," you finally said, so quiet there was a chance he wouldn't have even heard it.
The door immediately swung open, revealing Suguru in the informal clothes he wore under his armour you almost never saw.
"Come in," he quickly ushered, closing the door behind you and rushing to grab a roll of cotton and press it under your nose. "Are you okay? What happened? Am I pressing too hard?"
It did sting, but the warmth he emanated was more than comforting enough to make up for the dull ache. "I'm... as fine as I can be, Noaya hit me, and no."
"Naoya?" he said, voice dropping to a low, frigid, monotone murmur. "Would you like me to kill him."
"No," you said, chuckling softly. Whether he was serious and willing to go that far to protect you or joking just to see you smile, it made you feel better either way.
The silence between you two was never awkward. You sat there on his bed as he kneeled in front of you, dabbing at your nose with a wad of cotton, until the sharp sting of pain was nothing but a haunting melody thrumming in the back of your mind. "You're the only one I trust to kneel at my feet," you murmur. Geto could tell by your tone that you hadn't meant to say it aloud, that it was an 'inside thought' made verbal by the presence of a figure so comforting your brain registered you two as one. "Why won't you run away with me?" The words tumbling from your mouth were not thought out in the least, though they were true from your heart. He could tell that much.
The knight's lips tugged into a straight line, hand falling down to his side, the cotton ball in his hand still a pale white as your nose had evidently stopped bleeding. "Because I know you well enough to know you deserve better than I could ever offer."
"Suguru..." you mumbled, heart feeling is though it was being tugged out of your chest, still beating and thrumming in the gentle touch of his calloused hands.
"Don't look at me like that, you know I can never say no," he said. The inflection of his voice made it sound like he was joking, but his words were sincere. Dead serious.
"Just stay with me the night," you adjured, cupping his face gently, tilting it up so he'd lock eyes with you. "I don't want to be alone in the same castle as that man."
"You know I'd protect you if he tried to break into your chambers," Geto sighed, placing his hand over yours, rubbing his thumb over the outside of your wrist.
"Please?"
How could he ever say no to his princess when she begged him like that?
──────
"Sir Suguru," you whimpered as he tossed you down into his bed, the springs creaking below you. You were bare, this was improper, and Suguru fucking loved it.
"No," he muttered, crawling atop you, muscular arms caging you in on either side of your head. "Call me Sugu. Like you used to."
Before you could respond, his lips crashed down onto yours, gnawing like a starved dog on a lamb chop. As he tugged at your lower lip with his perpetually pointed canines, the same ones you teased him for as a child but were now running the tip of your pink tongue along, you could have sworn you tasted the same coppery bite of blood as trickled down from your nose—but it could have just been residual blood from the beating, not from a possible split lip.
He pulled away, panting, face red with heat and exhaustion already. His lips came down again, softer this time, pressing carefully against your forehead. He didn't pull away after the kiss, just left his lips their, patient. He wanted to feel the warmth of your body against his one more time while your body was still sacred to him, still on a pedestal. He felt half-disgusting, not because he cared about any woman's virginity, but because said virginity was yours, and he was never good at taking things from you. You would never not be sacred to him, your body was still a hallowed form even writhing beneath him; he just wanted one last touch before the muck and mire he saw as his soul intertwined with yours. What a filthy man he is to want such a thing.
"Sugu," you whimpered, leg twitching as your foot rubbed against his ankle. Your fingers dug into his tense biceps, leaving faint, red scratches down his supple skin. "Please, I need you. Inside. I need to feel it."
"Wait," he responded, "patience is a virtue."
He lowered his body to press against yours, hardened muscle against longing flesh. His weight was mostly supported on one elbow, not wanting lay down his whole mass and crush or hurt you, the other arm working to stroke up and down your sides, committing your form to memory in fear this would be the last touch he got of you again, before you were a married woman.
His knees spread, lowering his length down and lining the blushing tip against the ache between your thighs. You took a deep breath, mentally preparing for the pressure about to beat into your core, but it didn't come. Not write away.
Suguru buried his face in your neck, quickly kissing the pulse point below your ear before muttering quietly to himself. Holding your breath, trying to remain as silent as possible, you attempted to listen; "Here do I swear... by mouth and hand, fealty and service to the Crown and Kingdom..."
Was that his oath to you?
He sounded out of breath. "To speak and to be silent... to do and to let be... to strike and to spare..."
Yes, it was his oath. The one he swore to you, both mere children, formally making any act against you one of treason. Solidifying him as your knight.
"Suguru..." you began, hands threading through his hair. You went to say more, to continue the thought, but he smacked a hand down over your mouth.
"Shh," he hushed, eyes lifting to meet yours through a shield of lush, raven eye lashes. "I don't want the king and queen to know what a traitorous heathen I am."
He burrowed his face further into the crux of your neck to muffle his own groans and grunts, hand pressing down on your parted lips, as he slowly pushed into you, bodies intertwining, tainting each other with the sanctity of seditious love.
──────
author's note: while I am very proud of this one, UGH this was supposed to be queer forbidden romance but as a woman i dont feel comfortable writing the experience of a gay man and there were no female knights in the middle ages for me to write yuri (im a sucker for historical accuracy to the best of my abilities). but fret not there is yuri to come </3
also to anyone wondering YES this was inspired by a single tumblr post screenshotted and reuploaded on pinterest sue me (i believeee it was by anothericarus so rly sorry if that was also a reupload/i cited the wrong person :<)
I am nothing if not predictable. Victorian AU: Jackson, Diana, Catherine? 😌
Ah yes of course. The big leagues.
My idea for Lamb’s fit for this is really what started this whole venture so it only feels fitting to begin there. I look at him and I immediately go “man he would look great dressed up as a grubby but broke miserly character in a charles dickens novel”, which ironically- his book descriptor counterpart Timothy Spall has played and I feel like is probably exactly what Mick Heron envisions every time he writes about Lamb. He’s definitely somewhere between Scrooge and Fagin- tattered tophat and mended and patched (probably well enough to still look pretty worn down) overcoat, fingerless gloves, probably an old silk cravat from 20 years earlier (the rough time period I envision is the 1880’s/90’s with a few tasteful anachronisms for character reasons), and I think if he doesn’t have a little ebeneezer scrooge red scarf then I haven’t done my job properly. It just feels right.
Lady Di of course is a proper lady in this AU and looks the part. Nothing but the classic lobstertail full bustle ensemble made of fine silk will do. Definitely giving off Irene Adler energy- maybe with colors slightly more muted than the bright dyes typical for the period- after all she’s a spymistress and must appear a little more incognito but still I don’t think a dark red or blue silk would be remiss here- and of course a tasteful hat.
Now of course we come to Standish. She was a little bit trickier to find good reference images for because there’s not nearly enough extant garments from working class folk floating around but I think I have a fairly firm grasp on a couple of things: first that she definitely predominantly wears very simple cotton dresses (though perhaps when she was younger she owned finer silk dresses in high fashion, but those days are long gone now), and that she usually wears a darker skirt with a lighter blouse (see Marilla Cuthbert from Anne with an E below, but with more of the cut of top that Bridget from The Gilded Age wears). She might own a full bustle daywear outfit or two but again- definitely made of cotton rather than the fancy silks Taverner wears, and frankly they’re not often seen considering… well she works for Lamb. Wouldn’t want to soil something that nice simply by being in his presence so working clothes it is. (Fanciest she might get with this is some more puffed sleeves and a bow at the collar. But that might be stepping a bit too far outside the 1880’s silhouette that I’m going for with a lot of choices here)
the variant time files make me crazy. they make me insane.
DOSSIER #201
R.V.A CASE LL-4.1 & DX-4.1 | ENGLAND, 1813
You swear he will be the death of you.
It's an unconditionally hot summer — but that doesn't stop the men from gathering on the front lawn of the manor for a good game of rugby in the late afternoon sun.
Beside Jane and Darcy under the pergola, you bury your face into your fan.
Mr. Loki has forgone his jacket — there's rivets of sweat running down the long, strong stretch of his neck and chest. His sleeves have been rolled up, and you inhale tightly as you watch him laugh at something Thor says and back peddles down the greenery. He's all legs. Tall, sharp, and handsome.
And sweating.
Good lord.
You reach for a glass of lemonade. The condensation bites at your fingertips. You feel a bead of sweat run down your back.
Even here, in the shade, it's hot.
Blame the view.
Jane and Darcy are no better. The conversation died a while ago when the jackets and shirts were tossed to the grass in favor of denoting teams.
When the match finally ends, you try your best to fan yourself and resume your reading. Jane and Darcy decide the heat isn't worth suffering any longer.
Loki has other plans.
He's still a bit out of breath when he approaches the covered tea-table. His smile is boyish — a rarity.
"I hope you enjoyed the sport."
You drag your eyes across him. "Seemed rough."
Loki squints into the sun, his hands perched on narrow hips. He perches one leg up on the second step, and leans. He looks relaxed. Truly a sight you try to remember. He must have noticed.
"I believe we're headed to the pond for a swim," he says, turning to eye Thor back over his shoulder, "Should be back in time for dinner."
His curls are sticking to the back of his neck. You can see the muscles of his back through the thin linen of his shirt.
You clear your throat. "Do enjoy."
"I'd offer another view," he says slowly and with enough coy to kill, "But, I fear that may not be entirely decent for a lady of your standing."
You nearly choke on your water.
"Must you tease?"
His laugh is gentle. "It's in my nature, Doctor."
"Yes, well," you mutter as you stand, "Enjoy the swim."
You gather your book, and turn — but before you can step down, there's a hand offered to you. Loki looks softer and less like the man whom you'd had such a dire rivalry with during the spring. Summer has brought different feelings, it seems.
You take his hand and ignore the burn of your skin on his.
He helps you down the steps, then gives a small, courteous bow.
"Perhaps... Chess, after dinner?" he calls, after you return the bow and begin down the path.
So all my current writing project needs both its unpublished chapters re-worked less for any sort of audience and more for my own sense of sanity. So in an effort to unwind and post a something, have some DP characters as they would be sometime in the late 1890s
...FWIW, the lack of historical AUs somewhat astonish me. The mid to late 19th century, especially, was all about spooky ghost and magic shit. I mean, come on, this is the same era the Order of the Golden Dawn and Alister FREAKING Crowley were running around founding temples and whatnot, while the Society for Psychical Research was publishing major works on supernatural phenomena. There is no way the Fentons wouldn't be in the middle of all of this, home made ghost boxes and spirit phones in hand.
We'll start with Victorian!Sam.
The Victorian era often gets smeared in the modern day for being stuffy and restrictive, but by the later half of the period for sure, that label really didn't apply. This was the time of the first major feminist movements, and an entire breed of "new women" running around, playing sports, getting jobs, hassling for the right to vote, and generally being non-traditional. Victorian Sam would absolutely be all over this, much to her wealthy, traditionalist parent's grave dismay.
After a nasty case of food poisoning from a poorly cooked slice of beef that left her bedridden for much of her childhood, she has become incredibly picky about food, and is especially resistant to eating meat in general.
After so long stuck inside, Sam relishes freedom, and will often sneak out on her bike just to ride around, and takes uncommon pride in her physical prowess, which she built up in an effort to avoid ever becoming a sickly waif ever again. It is on one such unauthorized trip that she ends up meeting Tucker Foley and his weird friend, one Danny Fenton.
Victorian!Sam developed an interest in the forbidden and the occult after hearing her mother rant about the evils of secret societies and their "devil books," which she believed were ruining societies good Christian values. As a general rule, if it upsets her mother, Sam will take an interest in it, and by the time she was fourteen, had managed to amass quite a collection hidden away in the family attic. In addition to being fun to read, she uses the books to practice her French and Latin.
Without access to anything like the internet, and after spending most of her life in the gilded cage of the family manor, I imagine Victorian!Sam is more naive than Cannon!Sam, and in some ways, even more stubborn, since her high status and excellent education mean she is rarely, if ever contradicted, and is very much unaccustomed to being wrong.
Clothing-wise, Sam is decked out in a female biker's jacket (There's a photograph of the outfit here), with a female pompadour style haircut and a bicycle based off a Wisconsin made Sterling Safety Bike (Owned by Vladco in universe, of course.)
This work is actually unfinished, as late in the game I decided that this version of Sam looked too nice and lady-like to be a decent rendention of the character, but I'm also practicing the art of not dumping my work into the trash bin over and over and just accepting mistakes instead, so here it is.
Anyone who wants to play with, color, or otherwise mess with the piece has my permission to do so, as I have no intention of finishing this one.
A fully finished Victorian!Jack is incoming in the next few hours, probably after dinner.
