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dufrau · 4 months

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Okay so bear with me this is Erathia fanfiction aka fic of a movie within a fic aka absolute nonsense inspired by @eskawrites

It's ronance but also not ronance? But it is ronance?

(if you havent read this story that we found ourselves in this will make no sense im sorry and even if you have read it this might make no sense! it is for me and like 3 other people! but also you need to read it and then start reading the nancy pov if you love yourself even a little)

Anyway it's uh. Their wedding night? But in sort of a "i heard you like fake dating AUs so i put a fake marriage AU in your fake dating AU but of course its a very real marriage but robin/lark hasn't fully grasped that fact?"

(Lark= Robin, Tenar= Nancy)

"It was a lovely ceremony, Your Highness."

Lark stood stiffly with her back to the door, ill at ease in the queen's quarters in a way she hadn't felt since her first days in the castle. Tenar moved about the room brusquely, as if willing the strangeness away with her quick little movements. Brushing the enormity of what they had done away like dust from her desk, as if any dust would dare settle on her royal furniture. The maid could hear a mote fall from across the courtyard, it would not last a second.

"Did you think so? Really?" Tenar asked, making no attempt to mask the doubt in her tone.

"It was a successful one, at the very least," Lark conceded. "Your plans, as always, gone off without a hitch."

"One hitch, intentional as it were," Tenar corrected her.

"Right."

Tenar turned to look at her, standing at attention by the door, and let out a deep sigh.

"Come take some wine, I think it would do you some good. You've been too sober all day."

"For your safety, Your Highness," Lark insisted. "Beloved as you are to your people, there will always be some who would take liberties. It is my job to be too sober."

Tenar laughed, ringing like clashing steel, her wits undulled by whatever wine she herself may have taken.

"I know it well. Was I not married today with a scabbard on my hip?"

That she was. She wore a gown, of course, as per tradition. But on top of it she had donned a leather coat, plated in steel. Lighter than her real armor, fitted and filigreed for ceremony. But it would slow an arrow if not stop it outright, if by some catastrophic failure an arrow was allowed to get that far.

Her sword now lay discarded across the great map table in the center of her quarters. The entire kingdom laid down willingly under her blade.

They were a grateful people, by and large, for the peace she had won them. And there had been no whispers of violence that day. Only celebration. Carts sent out through the cobbled streets of the city and out along the cowpaths to the villages loaded with wine and meats and everything needed for a feast. The ceremony would not be held hostage in the great hall of the palace but spread out across the realm, every person invited to partake.

When Lark had stood on the dais in her own finery and watched the queen take the stairs one by one, accepting Moss's steadying hand as if daring the people to question her forgiveness, she had all but lost her breath at the sight of it.

She had stumbled blindly over the vows, repeating them almost mindlessly as Ged struggled not to laugh. The vows were nothing to her. She had taken them long ago in secret. They bound her heart and her hands as surely as her nerves bound her tongue in repeating them now before this audience of friends and strangers.

Arren had stood at her back, and she was grateful for his snickering presence. The only normal thing apart from the taunting fire in Tenar's eyes.

That fire undying, it shone as fiercely as ever now when it was just the two of them as it did for the entire kingdom. Lark had a selfish wonder if perhaps that fire was meant for her all along.

It burned her, regardless.

She pushed herself off the door and into the queen's gravity. She took the offered glass and she drank, and she felt the warming wine move through her. Only the best for the queen.

"I appreciate your participation, today," Tenar told her when she was satisfied with Lark's sipping. "I know you've never cared for ceremony. I fear I've bound you to a life of it, now."

"I suppose I could take in a hunt when I sense a feast day approaching," Lark said. She felt loosened already by the wine to some small degree, enough at least to jest. "Is that not the proper pastime for the Queen's consort?"

Tenar smiled up through her eyelashes. Through her crown.

"Indeed," she said. "But be careful not to catch anything or we will need to throw another feast to show off your prowess."

Lark took another sip of her wine.

"I have not missed a ceremony or a feast these recent years as it stands," she sighed. "Now at least I can count on a comfortable chair."

"You can count on anything you need," Tenar reminded her. "This hasn't changed. I would have given you any chair in the realm if you had asked. But you don't ask."

"I'm a woods-grown rogue, I have sat in places far worse than the chairs in your court."

"Would you like to sit on my bed? It's softer even than a throne. To help me with my dress, if it pleases you."

The fire, undying.

Lark swallowed her wine roughly, the warmth turned to burning.

"Would not your handmaidens be better suited?" She asked. Her fingers twitched around her goblet.

"I can call on them, if you'd prefer." Tenar turned her back to pour more wine and Lark was faced with the temptation to do as the queen directed. How easy it would be to untie those strings. Like setting a snare, only this time Lark feared she was the one in the trap. "I thought you might appreciate the privacy after having so many eyes upon you today."

"You are too kind," Lark thanked her. "I only worry that it wouldn't be appropriate, Your Highness."

"We are married," Tenar spoke it into existence. The reality of it almost sent the wine back up Lark's throat. "It is more than appropriate. If anything it is expected."

The wine stayed down but a laugh came up in its place. She set her cup down.

"Well I fear I'm doomed to fail at fulfilling those expectations." Her free hands gestured disbelievingly. "Certainly no heir can come of it, unless your court magician has tricks up her sleeve I am not privy to."

"No tricks, no." Tenar shook her head.

"Well then what can they expect of us? Of me?" Lark felt herself rising to panic. "What is it we owe them, in here? I won't sully you in the name of ceremony."

Tenar laughed without humor.

"Sully me?" She asked. "Do you think me so soft? So easily broken? Do you still think me the wilting flower? The helpless princess locked away safe in her castle?"

"No, My Lady," Lark insisted. "I was a fool ever to mistake you so."

"You are many things, but a fool has never been among them."

"Your Highness-"

"Enough!" Tenar's patience rarely ran out but she let it now. "Don't feed me more formality, I have had my fill. We are equals. If you won't call me your wife I would have you at least use my name."

"You have no equal, My-" Lark cut herself off. She cleared her throat, trying to clear away the tenderness that always gathered around the two syllables she had to speak. "Tenar."

She watched the word hit her queen's ears, watched them pink.

"You make music of it, my name," Tenar said softly.

Lark looked at the ceiling and loosed a helpless laugh. "It is the only song I know."

Tenar stepped forward and took Lark's hands into her own. A warrior queen, her dainty fingers calloused and strong.

"I should think a woods-grown rogue would have heard some more bawdy lyrics than those," she offered.

"If I have ever heard any I have long since forgotten them," Lark told the truth.

"I believe it." Tenar's eyes were steel. Unbending in her resolve. "You're no rogue anymore. You wear your station like a costume, and I understand it. I do the same, much of the time. But I know your heart. It is real. And those that look upon you, that look upon me? To them it is real. It has to be. They'll look upon us, now, together. What will we show them?"

Lark felt wordless under Tenar's gaze. She fell back upon her oath. "Your will is my will, my queen. I will be what you need me to be."

"I need you to be your own self, Lark." Tenar insisted. "I need you to stay my hand when it would move too hastily. To act when I am unable. I have a sword, and an entire armory full of spares. I don't need another weapon to wield. I need a wife, if you would be one. But do not mistake me, it is your choice, always. Even now. I would have your friendship and be grateful for it, if that is what you offer."

"I will be whatever-"

"Lark." Tenar dropped Lark's hands and took hold of her face now, forcing her to look, and to see.

The fire. Undying.

Lark could not win this war against a woman who never flinched. She broke open.

"Fine. Yes." She raised her hands in surrender. She could only beg for mercy. "You have me. I'm caught, at last. There are likely still bounties on my head somewhere, and they are yours if you'd like to cash me in. You have me. I am yours. I have been your friend. I would be your wife if you should somehow find me acceptable." She fought for her breath and she caught it. She slowed herself. "I would be your wife, Tenar. If you would have me."

"I would."

"Well then. I guess you do. Have me."

"And you have me. Understand, I would not be sullied, by you or by anyone." Tenar told her. Lark's apology was cut down in its stride. "But you have marked me already, and deeply. It cannot be undone. And I am the better for it."

Lark was all out of oaths. "You flatter me."

"I do not waste my words."

"Flattery is not wasted on me, Your Highness." She watched a smile touch her queen's face underneath the flush of frustration.

"I have asked you to stop that." Tenar let go of Lark's face and stepped back. "I took a knee to ask you to marry me and you took a deeper one to say yes. Will you never stop putting me above you?"

"It is a hard habit to break," Lark mused. "I have spent so long looking up at you, even despite your stature."

"Ah!" Tenar laughed, sincerely. "Insubordination, at last."

"Progress marches ever forward." Lark, too, marched ever forward, following in her queen's footsteps.

Tenar turned and asked over her shoulder. "And how does it sit, this equality?"

"Unsteady, truth be told."

"Well,"Tenar offered. "If even footing is too much to bear, can I suggest that I might prefer to be beneath you, at present?"

Lark could only sputter. "Are these the bawdy lyrics you spoke of, my queen?"

"My name," the queen insisted.

"Tenar," Lark breathed.

"There. That is the tune. Now come and sit on my bed where it is soft. Help me with my dress. I will teach you the words."

#cfdau #tenlark #ronance #eskawrites #basically this is the same flirting i always write but in an obnoxiously different dialect #im sorry #or youre welcome #this is not canon in the erathia/cfdau universe this is just me exorcising a brainworm

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