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ravencromwell · 2 months

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Headcanons for either or both of the Dane twins?

Going beneath a cut, because somehow this turned into 3k of Astrid stream-of-consciousness musings on ruling her city, bracketed with Holland's disgusted dead-pan snark.

The very worst thing, Holland thinks in the bleakest moments, is that the Danes aren't the worst rulers Makt has ever had.

***

Athos alone probably would be. He is the lord of infinite, fruitless defiance, and if the city wants to give him such gifts as rebellion, who is he to say no? He will simply fight them all as entertainment between bouts of indulging his insatiable curiosity about artifacts. Emerging victorious would soothe his terror that everyone lost the throne eventually even if it left the city in ruins and more corpses than living people.

But if Athos is lord of defiance, Astrid is lady of small mercies.

From the moment the old man was dead, Astrid knows she will show none of his faux love and camaraderie to her subjects. They might love her in return, and those who love a queen want to see it reflected back, need her words of praise for their devotion no matter how they prattle simple service will suffice.

Such displays are tedious, love reserved for Athos alone.

But gratitude? Gratitude has its uses.

She and her brother want to leave their mark on this world (and its people). If her brother's little stone is as strong as they believe, one day folk privileged to suffer beneath their blades may show their scars with pride and whisper what a gift they were given by Makt's saviors.

If they do not, well. More fool them.

But in the meantime, even an Antari cannot hold off a hundred angry citizens, if they decided to mob. And sometimes, the Danes satiation requires a few missing loved ones. And inevitably, discontented souls decide there must be new blood. In especially unfortunate moments, those close to traitors have chosen to mewl about her brother's punishments and must be put down in their turn.

Her beloved Athos never understood how the body forgets pain. Men and women drink. They promise themselves the blood they saw running in the gutter was not as red as all that. Besides, it will not happen to them. To live in this city is to become deaf to screams, even your own.

Look at her brother's pretty thing. How many times has Athos made him scream? (Enough it's added a permanent, graveled edge to his voice, Antari or no.) And still she and Athos catch those glimpses of defiant hatred that are almost better than the blood for her twin.

Profound appreciation, by contrast? Thankful obligation at holding a living, breathing child, where a month ago there was dying skin and bones? That will make a man hesitate before joining a revolution.

Appreciation may even bind the Antari better than the spell of which Athos is so proud.

'Obey and protect my sister' Athos always says when he won't be close to repeat an unheeded command.

Still, she has seen how he can resist myriad precautions binding every joint and muscle and bone ! Athos's will. Seen the foolish delays, misinterpretations. Seen him dare, if Athos' words are closer to suggestions ignore them outright, force her brother to the clearest possible command. She suspects he can withstand even better as Athos' proximity fades.

Wasted breaths are risk, when blood is in the balance. Fortunately, she is no fool, wrapping herself in enough amulets calling him to her aid is rarely necessary. He rides beside her to prove that even the Dane with slightly less black in her veins can easily control their demon.

But at almost every sign of threat, he moves unprompted. Not because he fears her brother's retribution, not because the seal compels. He comes too swiftly for either of those. Holland Vosijk comes because he knows if she died, he would never throw alms to the city that hates him. No subsidized wheat; Athos would love watching the men and women he trains to ride behind them—never beside, no one is given enough knowledge to stand as equal to they two—into Arnes—divide the city into wedges and make the people under their control scrabble and beg.

When she first saw the stacks and stacks of carefully labeled payments to spell-crafters and curse-makers, she'd thought none of Athos' experiments would be needed. The old man had found a way to open the doors, and now he was dead, and they could simply ride into Arnes and snatch the glory.

But a magical payment for each farmer to feed the city as a whole, rather than their chosen hoard, wasn't the worst idea. And Astrid would happily put the dead's ideas to fine use.

She graciously allows the pretty former knight over-see it, so long as he remembers the queen is always watching.

(Though when speaking of food and goods of all kinds, it is her brother who shines in trade. His tactic is so very simple. So very effective. A merchant enters the throne room. Athos informs them what they will bring to the city. Should they complain or protest, he does not even deign to blink. Merely says: "Unbutton your shirt." And while the merchant is gawping and spluttering, the Antari bears his Seal.

"Do you know what this is?" her brother asks, gently.

By the time he has demonstrated the Seal to his satisfaction—such a thorough tutor to the less accomplished, her twin— the question of whether the merchant's trade might improve under Athos' control does not need asking.

Once, Athos slipped a request for a woman's first-born into a contract revision and she signed without even looking, so desperate to flee from the throne before she had matching runes. She even dutifully paraded the child to the castle six months later. Athos had no interest now she behaved so well, but Astrid found gratitude at keeping her child made her a most excellent spy. within the city.)

And then there are the sick. Perhaps the Antari would be allowed his little preoccupation if her brother ruled alone, assuming the family were desperate enough to contribute a person to his servants' ranks. But even mindless, there's something in his guards that hungers to live, ducking blades and attacks on instincts most would swear puppets could not have. He rarely needs replacement.

On those occasions a petitioner dares bring the ill to their attention, Astrid takes whatever their pathetic tribute is. With gloves, of course, because assassins lurk everywhere. Takes the faded, wilted flowers and oddly shaped rocks with the tiniest bit of color lurking in stone veins from the children—so many are children, young and unscarred enough to believe facing the twins and their demon is a price gladly paid even as those they keep alive will likely betray them eventually.

Adults, when they come, bring carefully knitted blankets and finely spun clothes. Once, there were even the most lovely hair combs, made of some creature's shell far from the south the woman called a tortoise. Why she would surrender them for a squalling brat who has years and years to die while she has nothing else to barter, Astrid cannot guess. But she passed the combs to Albiz, her brother's favorite among the spell-working salon, to check for curses and let Holland do his work.

There are not many such petitioners, but every one will go back into the city and whisper of the queen's mercy, how she always stood between them and the demon, and when it was done, their friend or child or lover was alive. Whispers that will still other's discontent.

She keeps almost all those talismans, unless something catches her brother's fancy. Carves spells into the stones, wraps herself in the blankets, wears the finely made trousers.

Though she has little use for wilted posies. "Keep them," she says gently, savoring Holland's second flickering of desperate relief at being handed a token not steeped in blood.

Funny, how he is even responsible for Astrid's proudest creation, though he disdains her falcons. The complement to her brother's court of favored scholars and magicians. Where her brother's is equally spread between men and women, barely any of her falcons are men. Men are so terribly squeamish about having their bodies borrowed. And all her falcons wear a possession charm, so she may see any part of the city through their eyes whenever she wishes.

She could simply force her will, toss a charm over any likely-looking neck. But she wants keen servants, who will willingly call her attention to matters of interest. Made hungry enough from being overlooked they have the grit to never utter a word of complaint when she enters them abruptly. To never fight when she raises their hands or opens their mouths. To fall upon her prey in whatever manner she requires and ask no questions.

The obedience Athos must bind, given freely.

In return, they shall never starve, never offer their measly tributes to free family from pain, never serve anyone's will but she and Athos.

Years later, the keenest ferocity of them all, her magicless, intrepid Gudrun, under the thumb of a father who craved a drudge incapable of disobedience until she went to the market and ran to rumors of Astrid's glove, nets her flower boy. Whispers the most ridiculous, delightful story about forbidden letters and a knight-turned hound's vices that sees Astrid smiling even days later as she prepares to fully possess a prince. Whispers it with the sweet conviction she must have displayed to her father before Astrid murmurred he could not touch her. To do all the things she must have dreamed. (He learned then a knife could make even a magicless woman a man's greatest terror and Gudrun snarled in delight.) Whispers until the Antari falls to her talons, while Astrid watches from half a city away.

What she wants is easy. What she will call them does not come to her until after Holland's third visit to Arnes, feeling her brother's hand squeeze hers in delight at the wonders of this red city. Both their fingers ache pleasantly from expressing such delight at the hours-long recitation, as they have each time her brother told the Antari to 'account for each moment in the Red City'.

The prey-vulnerable Red Royals must think they are predators, dawdling with their letters, letting 'Master Holland' wander the city while they mull their answers, thinking themselves so safe with their doors. She would mock them more, save their complacency makes for beautiful tales.

Later, he will learn to speak of Arnesian wonders in a monotone as though they were fool enough to believe the city left him any less awestruck than they. But in these early days, even he cannot help closing his eyes at the thought of the fat, juicy rabbits a hunting party carried with them. Or perhaps it is the juice running in rivulets across her brother's fingers and lips as he savors the last few bites of apple. So sweet, that juice, when he had pressed it to her lips for the first bite. She had laughed until her sides ached, spun him about the throne room. She would offer her brother a bite of her own pasty—what a marvelous idea, to tell his pretty thing he must fetch back two things he had enjoyed most for them—but even three trips in, she knew his tastes ran to sweet and savory, not the burn that accompanied her meat and vegetables.

"Did you like it because it burned, pretty thing? Because everything in their world should carry the burn of their betrayal?" she had asked, hours ago, and relished the hiss of breath when he forced the Seal to jerk his head in affirmation.

"Even as you could not help wanting the sweet," Athos had laughed, graciously smearing some of the juice in a lingering kiss at the corner of the Antari's mouth. She could see the red shine of it still. Will he clean it away the second he is alone, or be unable to resist the last taste of sweetness even as he hates himself for it? she wondered, and then the Antari's voice cracked, and Athos gestured that he might fill one of the glasses beside the water pitcher and she exhaled her disappointment.

"We will scry his room and see what he does another day," Athos whispered, and of course he too had wondered if his pretty thing could resist temptation.

"The leader had a bird on his arm," the Antari continued barely a moment later, setting the emptied glass on the table and before he was done explaining how such a fierce thing rested so easily for bits of meat, she was striding to Athos' scrying basin, pulling Holland behind. "Clever, pretty thing, seeing what I need. Falcons."

Such beautiful ferocities, and she tried to touch the feathers even as she knew she would only ripple the water. "As Tosal," her brother said softly, pressing against her back and she blinked.

"Mhmm?"

"He will go back tonight and bring you one with As Tosal. It will make the bird still and silent, but not turn it to stone."

"Was it your favorite, when you made him demonstrate all his mysterious tricks to the salon?"

"You know me so well. We will send him jingling with compulsion coins and they will be none the wiser."

"It isn't a fruit I can have forgotten in a pocket if something goes wrong."

"Then you will not let it go awry, Holland. Do you think a week's silence on his return would make him more or less inclined to state the obvious. It is so very dull."

"More, to spite you. It is what comes of wanting a pet who bites. Athos, come here." She held her mad, foolhardy brother, who would weave a plan in an instant and risk all his great discoveries to bring her something marvelous without her even needing to ask, close to her chest. "The pretty thing is not wrong. Besides, I do not need a falcon, love, only their design. For my court. Can he-"

"Of course. Tell us the rest of the trip later. For now-"

"Holland-" This once, for bringing her such a gift, she will grant his name, since he has so little liking for her sobriquet, "Find the best silver smith in the city. A falcon, in flight. On a chain, small enough to slip beneath a shirt. Bring a finished one for approval by lunch tomorrow."

It was midnight, he would have to roust the Shal's leader from a warm bed to find a smith he would also disturb, he was tired. If the Antari thought any of these things, he did not say them, simply turned on his heel and left.

***

In the next seven years, Holland Vosijk can count, with fingers to spare, those Astrid Dane invites to her glove who flee the invitation. (Athos always let his magicians come grovelling, but Astrid's falcons were always keen-eared for new recruits) Perhaps it is his worst delusion, thinking they, too, see how much blood runs at the margins of a people who, if not content, are at least not especially restless.

There is fountains worth from the one hundred eighty-two killed by the Danes personally, and his sixty-four. The blood of fools who ran their mouths too freely to the innocuous-looking barmaid or shopkeeper or grandmother before a little silver charm emerged. Blood of crows know how many drunk by Athos' magicians for power.

When forced to collaborate or unearth magic, he can most easily hold his control near lady Albiz, who makes the job no crueler than necessary, heeds advice, and returns her dead to their people or buries them herself. And she still snuffed out two Maktahns the day she swanned into Athos' service. He will not forget that because she grants an ounce of respect.

Two lives she'd taken, that were merely one crime, on one day of two thousand five hundred fifty-five. Still full of all that blood, she'd strolled into morning court in a ragged tunic and skirt, pupils glassy from the sudden torrent of magic into a body that knew only a trickle.

Like Alox.

Fifteen and cocksure with it like him, too.

"I heard there was a place here for those who could take it. I'll be your best magician if you'll let me take enough. I'm tired of running dry."

There had always been people not even the king's knight could stop, no matter how it choked him to admit it. He could have wandered the streets, never sleeping, and still not stopped all the blood being shed. And sometimes. Sometimes, they had something Vor needed and he turned a blind eye and Holland fled to Arnes to be in a world where kings didn't have to allow atrocities for the greater good. Until the ache to smell ash and steel and the fear Vortalis was dead in his absence swamped the rage and tugged him home.

But Vortalis would never have leaned in and inhaled the blood clinging to her like a bouquet, licked the red from the corner of her mouth, mirth echoing off the walls until Holland's head throbbed when she moved like a desperate, striking snake to try for a kiss. As though he'd let it be stolen back from his tongue. Would never have said, for all to hear: "Defiant little thing, aren't you? You're the third most beautiful person I've seen all month."

How many lives might be saved, if Albiz and worse weren't infesting the city? How many slum magicians had killed some unwitting neighbor, watching them preen and knowing Athos and Astrid Dane would never care, so long as they were not challenged as the greatest sorcerers of the land?

Deluded or no, it is those few refusals Astrid grumbled over and insisted he keep an eye on ("If they dare not serve, they must have plans of their own. Look harder, pretty thing, and you'll find the rot they're tangled in.") he seeks when he returns for kingship. Hopes their refusal meant more than a disdain for fancy jewelry. Because Athos and Astrid Dane aren't the worst rulers Makt had, but he will be better by far.

#did you want? 3k of Astrid? Probably not #did I plan for "I'll drop a bucket of head-canons to turn into 3k of writing this utterly amoral but oddly compelling woman?#nope. nope I fucking did not. also didn't plan for the side characters that apparently make up Athos and Astrid's court in my head now #but here we fucking are. debuting the project which has obsessed my every free brain cell for the last two weeks #notes on names in here: Albiz is proto-Norse. meaning otherworldly/eerie.#which was perfect from the moment I conceived that first image of her in court #Gudrun is both Norse for battle and secret lore #which again. how could I resist when I realized who she was? This is the result of being obsessed! for months with: but who is the ADSOM #lady in the blue cloak?#Holland Vosijk #Astrid Dane #(because apparently I need a tag for her too now)#Athos Dane #for triggers: can we just go with they're Astrid and Athos they're their own warnings #getting way the fuck too touchy without permission. random dehumanization via refusal of given names #casual discussion of gruesome murder #etc. etc.#Shades of Magic

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