She hides it well, but there is a softness in her usually hard topaz gold eyes. There is a wistfulness to her and something else- something more vulnerable and precious.
Wordcount: 2.3k+
It's out! This monster that has consumed my life and every waking thought for the past few days. (T﹏T`) This started out as a funny and simple idea that ran away from me and that's how we got here. Honestly it's kind of spoilery and I honestly don't know if I'm releasing it too early or not, but I don't care!! Take this horrid plot bunny and enjoy it. I'll answer any questions to the best of my abilities without spoilers! It's angsty to me because I've been with these characters from the beginning, but I have no idea how you guys will take it lmaoo.
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Yearning
Nephilim Palace is easy to infiltrate if one knows her deepest secrets- and he knew all of them. The traveler spent a few of his boy years running through Nephilim’s hidden passageways.
He’s dressed in a navy blue uniform with gold tassels, white trousers and brown boots. The standard issue attire for imperial officers. He had swiped the uniform years ago and still manages to fit into them today. Like all things in the empire- nothing changed. So no one had batted an eye when he slipped into the palace and joined the bustling rush of knights, officers and servants. It helps that his figure has not changed much over the years. He takes care of himself.
The empress is in the gardens, which is strange for her. Maeve never had a love or interest in such frivolous things like flowers- well, except for standing next to them to enhance the beauty of the garden with her presence. She is vain in that way. But it was endearing.
Today however, the traveller thinks that is not the case. Today, the gold tiara she typically wears is not sitting on her pretty head.
Maeve is dressed in a simple white blouse and trousers. Her thick blonde hair is pulled up into a ponytail,reminiscent of her days as a Shield Maiden. It’s been five years since Maeve Nibel Astrea ascended the throne and during that time, that stylish chair with the fancy cushion had not softened her slender, but toned figure. In her fitting attire, the traveler could admire the hard curve of her biceps, the slope of her thighs- and, of course, her shapely, supple round ass. Yes, she was still every bit the warrior queen she was when they had first met. She takes care of herself too.
She is leaning against a stone pillar draped in a swirling mess of vines with her back facing him. The traveller can tell she is fiddling with something in her hands and is getting frustrated, tapping the toe of her boot against the marble tiles incessantly.
Curious, the traveler leans over her shoulder.
“Aren’t you a bit too old to play with teddy bears?” He says.
“Spite the Herald!” The empress jumps and swerves around to face him, slapping his chest at the sight of him. “Lugh!” Maeve rasps, looking absolutely winded and ravishing. “By the Light of the Alfather- what are you doing here?”
Lugh shrugs his shoulders with a wolfish grin, “I got your missive a fortnight ago and decided to visit.”
Maeve cocks a brow, “aren’t you supposed to be running your own kingdom, Lugh?”
“Is that not what my wives are for?”
“Last I recall, your job is to ensure they don’t kill each other.”
“Well,they do get along when left alone in their own territories,” the king chuckles, “they can play nice for a full moon's turn…I think?”
Maeve juts her hip out crossing her arms, “that sounds very reassuring, Lugh.”
“Humor me, Maeve. I traveled all the way here by boat thinking you’d like a shoulder to lean on. Let’s not think of civil war invoking hypotheticals,” Lugh laughs, guiding the empress away to a nearby bench in the shade. It’s behind a large bush of hydrangeas. Here they can have some time together away from curious eyes.
Lugh pulls out the heavy wooden basket from behind his back, tugging back the lid, revealing an assortment of small fruits, cheese and most importantly Brigian Wines- her favourites.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say this is an occasion worth celebrating,” Maeve says dryly as Lugh hands her a cup of wine. She swirls the glass, raising the rim to her nose so she could smell its sweet and fruity aroma. “I’m not as active as I used to be, Lugh. I’m going to get fat eating all this.”
“Live a little, Maeve. A little cheese isn’t going to kill you. I’ll get you to work it off afterwards.” Lugh chuckles warmly as Maeve rolls her eyes, murmuring something akin to real smooth, Lugh.
Together, the king and empress enjoy the silence of the garden and Lugh’s basket of goodies. At some point, Lugh decides it was time to break the silence. He hums, plucking a grape from the basket and dropping into his mouth. “Murder or natural causes?” He asks.
There is a thoughtful pause before she speaks, “Neither, surprisingly enough. ” Maeve stares grimly off into the distance, “she took it herself.”
Lugh nearly winces as the acidic sweet-sour wine splashes on his tongue. “Shit,” the king swears, turning to his companion, “Ledea had kids, didn’t she?”
Maeve nods mutely, “the youngest one is but a babe. Five years old.” Lugh’s heart sinks. Thea, one of his own babes was five years old as well. She was a precious thing. “And the eldest turned thirteen last fall.”
“The cripple?” The king asks, recalling Prince Vayne's eldest child.
“Yes,” Maeve nods, sipping her wine. “He has a good head on his shoulders- he had everything under control by the time I got there.
Which is impressive for a child. He was running the duchy and taking care of the little one with great ease. He had assistance from his retainers and the middle child, of course, but he was more put together than I expected. I was impressed. The little one was clinging to him the entire time I was there.”
There is a sweet wistfulness to Maeve’s voice, a tone Lugh doesn’t hear much from the usual high and mighty empress.
Lugh’s eyes wander to her thighs, which are supple, but tone with muscle and stare at the flimsy brown teddy bear. Looks like an old thing, a relic from Maeve’s childhood that she must have loved dearly. It’s barely holding together at the seams. The thread looks frayed and ratty, but Lugh can see the glossy shine to the new thread she was attempting to sew in. The stitch work was pitiful at best; uneven and slanted in every direction. Spirits, she was terrible at needle work.
“Is that why you were fixing up that little bear?” Lugh asks kindly, stifling a chuckle with his hand,”are you planning to send it to the babe?”
Maeve shoots him a dirty glare as her cheeks turn pink. She’s so pretty. Then takes the teddy bear and hides it behind her back, away from his line of sight. She squirms in her spot. “I’m not sending Joseph anywhere. He’s going to be a gift. The children are coming to the capital to stay with me.”
Oh, that was a surprise. “All three of them?” Lugh blinks, “and the Duchy is fine with their new lord living so far from home?”
“I’m not going to separate the children after their mother died and I wasn’t very keen on the idea of having them away from family,” Maeve says hotly, furrowing her brows. “Look. I may hate Ledea, but I’m not going to let my blood suffer so far away from me. They’re all wards to the Crown now, so I can do as I please. I’d like to see anyone try to stop me.”
Lugh could relate. His little brood of children stayed with their mothers, but they were never far from his reach, they were, at most, a day's worth of travel from the castle.
But there are more Maeve’s words than just that, Lugh realizes, watching the empress as she sips her wine with flushed cheeks. She hides it well, but there is a softness in her usually hard topaz gold eyes. There is a wistfulness to her and something else- something more vulnerable and precious. A softness he’s only seen under the soft glow of candlelight.
Lugh chuckles to himself, feeling a sharp tug in his gut. He understands what it is. It draws Maeve’s attention, but he says nothing. Instead, he reaches into his basket, pulls out a round pomegranate and cracks it in two, presenting a bountiful cluster of bright red and juicy seeds. The king takes a ruby seed and rolls it between his index finger and thumb before slipping it into his mouth and crushing it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.
It tastes bittersweet.
Lugh swallows. “You know, I could have given you a babe years ago if that’s what you really wanted.”
“The only babe I’ll ever have would belong to my lord husband,” Maeve says quietly, averting her eyes the moment they met his, but in that brief moment, one no shorter than a breath, Lugh saw a flash of pain behind her golden eyes.
Lugh drags his tongue along the blunt rim of his teeth, revelling in the sour-sweetness of the pomegranate. “Your great Empire would never tolerate their empress being one of many wives to a foreign king,” Lugh shakes head, his lips straining to smile. “Well, you never liked sharing to begin with.”
“I wouldn’t have been your first choice anyway- and more than sharing, I hate being second place,” Maeve says quietly. It stabs him like a hot knife to the chest. He hates hurting her. He’d rather claw his eyes out before any harm comes to her first.
But…he could not deny it. Horrible as it may sound. He loved Giselle, she left an imprint on his heart that no one could usurp, but that did not mean his feelings for Maeve were any less than true. Giselle was gone. Their time together was over. And yet, her ghost still sits between them.
“…Perhaps in another life, where we met and married first, we’d have our own gaggle of children to coddle- but that’s not reality,” Maeve says, throwing her head back and downing her glass of wine in one go. When she finishes she sets the glass aside and plucks a few seeds from Lugh’s pomegranate and tosses them into her mouth.
That’s a surprise, Lugh thought. The pomegranate was for him. Maeve usually had no taste for tart and sour things.
“I don’t know what it means to be a mother,” Maeve says to the sky, rising to her feet with her teddy bear in hand. “Mine died giving birth to me. I have no real frame of reference- but I want…I want to try. Ledea’s little babe…When I first laid on them, I never thought I’d ever feel this way towards someone else in my life. There’s a connection, a pull that I can’t help but feel.” Then she sighs, looking down at the ratty teddy bear. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to replace Ledea as a mother…but if I could be there or look after the children in her place…I think that will be enough.”
“You’ll be a good mother,” Lugh says firmly, setting the fruit aside to stand next to her, cupping her face, flushed and rosy from wine, with his hands. “Even if the children won’t say it to your face, even if they ignore your efforts or appreciate you. I know you, Maeve. That child will know nothing, but love.”
“...You’re not angry with me?” She asks softly. Her gold eyes flickering with a soft, fragile light. Her voice is so small…
It hurts. It hurts so much he feels like drowning. There is nothing Lugh wants more than a child with her gold woven hair and sparkling topaz eyes. A babe with her bright, all consuming smile.. but Lugh’s made his peace. He’ll take whatever she gives him and he’ll accept it gladly because it’s better than not having her at all. That would be death.
“I’ll love any child of yours, Maeve,” he says instead. And that is the truth. “Even if it’s not a babe of my own. I’ll love it. I won’t be able to physically be there every step of the way, but my spirit, my light, will be with you, my love. I mean it.”
Her lips taste bitter, tart and sweet all at once and he doesn’t mind. Such is life. He swallows it all without protest and if he drowns he’d welcome it gladly. There is no place he’d rather be than right here, with her in his arms.
When they part her golden eyes are shimmering with a hint of tears, but her smile is brighter than the sun. Then she laughs, bright and fluttery, then pries his hands from her cheeks. “Your hands are sticky! I’m going to get pimples, Lugh!”
“You’d still be pretty, don’t worry,” Lugh apologies with a small smile on his face as she smacks his arm in protest. He’s glad that she’s happy. It’s all he’d ever wanted for her. Perhaps with the children with her, Maeve will be less lonely in the palace. Nephilim was a lonely place to live alone.
“Come on, let’s go inside and wash up, then maybe you can put me to work like you promised,” Maeve says coyly, tucking the teddy bear away in one hand and reaching for his own hand with the other.
“So soon, Maeve?” Lugh asks, “it’s hardly midday and there’s still so much food to eat. I don’t think there’ll be a lot to work off. ”
“I’ve had my fill. And…I’ve missed you,” Maeve confesses with a bashful, hooded stare.
Ah, well, Lugh is definitely not going to argue against that.
The king takes the empress’s hand, enjoying the way her slender fingers wrap around his own and takes the heavy basket in the other. He likes the way her thick head of hair feels on his shoulder and how her smile lifts his heart.
They leave towards the palace hand in hand. Lugh wonders what the servants and the guards will think when they see him dressed in a simple officer’s uniform. There is no way to hide his identity when he’s next to her. He thinks it’ll be funny.
“Oh! That reminds me,” Maeve pipes up, “the little one’s birthday is coming up in a few moons. If it’s not too much trouble, I was thinking…”
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Side Story - Dylan’s First Day
It’s my last year of high school. Finally, I’ll be out of this hell hole full of fake people and start living a real life! I can’t believe I’ve survived so long. If it weren’t for Vivian, I probably would have transferred a long time ago, like my old friend…
I arrive at the prestigious Thomas Rourke High, and notice that there's someone stuck at the gate in front of me, talking to Lewis, the security guard. He’s laughing at something the person inside the car said. They must be someone nice if Lewis likes them.
The car finally passes through and it’s now my turn.
“Hey there, young Dylan! It’s great to see you back!” Lewis greets me warmly, as he’s been doing for the last 3 years.
“Hello, Lewis! It’s good to be back!” I lied. It’s not like I’m going to confide in him.
“Have you seen the new kid’s car? Quite the beauty, I must say!”
“The new kid? We have a transfer student?”
“Yeah, it was the one before you.”
Suddenly, I hear a honk from behind.
“Yeah, yeah… Kids these days have no patience. Go through, Dylan, we’ll talk later.”
“Sure, see you later, Lewis!”
I enter the parking lot and notice that a lot of people are staring at this new kid as they get out of the car. Is that car so special? I never understood the fascination for them, but it’s expected of me to like them, so I always pretend I do.
After parking, I approached the school, only to notice a lot of kids taking pictures of the transfer student’s car. Some of them greet me, only to ask me what I think of it. I don’t care about it! Why are they so obsessed with a damn car?!
As I talk to them, I notice the new kid talking to Isaac and his gang. Are they going to bully the poor kid already? Maybe I should help… No, I’m popular enough to mess with Isaac…
Some of my fake friends and sophomore fans approach me, asking about my Summer. I tell them all the amazing things I did, which never really happened. They wouldn’t like it if I told them I just rewatched the Love Love Fantasy anime 3 times.
We slowly make our way to the gym, as they all notice the transfer student and change the subject from me to this person. What makes them so interesting? Just because they’re an unknown factor, everyone wants to get to know them. Or maybe my friends are just vipers, looking for someone new to gossip about.
At some point I get so annoyed with the constant talk about that person that I just attack one of my followers. “Did you get that at a yard sale?” I ask about her scarf. Everyone starts pilling in on the girl, and I can see she’s close to tears as she takes it off. I’m sorry, this is a jungle and they should all know their place in the hierarchy.
This is only half of the story. You can read the rest for free on Patreon!
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