An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
My final piece for SuleMio Week 2026, for the free day, kind of got out of hand in length, but hey, I hope that means there is more to enjoy. It is sort of multiple small vignettes in this AU that slowly link together, so I hope it feels good to read.
Overall, I really enjoyed making pieces for this event, and I hope you enjoyed reading them!
Summary: A chance encounter at the eponymous bar leads to a life worth living for Miorine Rembran and Suletta Mercury.
It was late at night on a day in the middle of autumn. It had been about five months since Miorine “moved out” of her father’s home (i.e. she ran away from home as soon as she could, right out of an incredibly isolating college experience), and she felt she was finally starting to settle down in the big city. Sure, she was still running through her savings, fast, but she managed to make her meager apartment feel like home, and she was going steady with a job at a nearby grocery store. Unfortunately, she was working most hours of the day, and she usually felt wiped out in the evening.
Thankfully, tonight, she was coming off of a relatively relaxed day, one that left her a bit of energy, which finally gave her the chance to check out a place she had been meaning to ever since she moved here: A local lesbian bar called The Witch’s Curse, one she’d heard a lot of good word of mouth about on different forums she’d perused when trying to pick a place to flee to. It sounded like a good place to get to know people, explore the romances she never could under her father’s thumb.
Ever since her mother passed, her failure of a father kept trying to push her into different relationships with different rich suitors. She hated that she didn’t get a say in any of this, in being forced into romantic situations from a young age, though it certainly didn’t help that all of them were straight women, and she came to realize that she was a much less straight woman. Under her father, though, all she could do was imagine a beautiful future where she didn’t have to be Delling Rembran’s son and browse the internet to find like-minded individuals.
Not anymore, though! She could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted… at least, between different extensive shifts at least. And, sitting at the bar in the dark, neon-lit building, sipping an overly sweetened drink, a safe start given she wasn’t the type to drink much. She could feel a bit of a warm buzz through her, though her senses weren’t that impaired yet. To the point where she still hadn’t drafted up the courage to speak with anyone.
