@causeschaos sent from starter based on the trope
🤐 - a starter where our muses have to pretend they’re not dating.
Pretend. Cardan likes to pretend; it's a form of art that he has mastered throughout his life ― aside from cruelty, that is. He could pretend that the reason he would sleep in the royal stables at night was because he had discovered the perfect hiding spot in a game of hide and seek where no one could find him even if they tried and not because his mother had kicked him out of their rooms to host revels and enjoy her many lovers. He could pretend that Eldred loved him as much as he did his other five children and did not consider him a waste of seed, he could pretend that the lashes of Balekin's whip on his back were because his brother and care-taker truly wanted to better him and not in order to humiliate him. He could pretend that the Court adored him as their prince and that all those that bowed before him did it out of love and not out of fear of what he could do should they provoke him. He could pretend that all the things he touched did not crumple in his fist, did not wither in the ether and all that remained in his grasp was ash. He could pretend his heart is not made out of stone, too hard for anyone to penetrate. But someone did penetrate it ― and now, he has to crumple them as well. Destroy them. That, he marvels at.
He will be the last of your offsprings, Baphen told Eldred a week after Cardan was born; words that his mother had repeated to him as soon as he was able to understand them. And he will be the destruction and the ruination of the throne. Perhaps, that was a reason why Balekin is so hell bound into hunting him down. A reason why he ended up hiding in the mortal world, to avoid his brother's grasp. Maybe all he could ruin then was the mortals that surrounded him ― including the only one he wishes he didn't.
❛ Well, well, if it isn't the bookworm ! ❜ Sneers the Fae as he makes his way towards the blonde, his heavy, black curls iridescent in the party's colourful lightning. His remark is followed by the snickering of the gang he assembled within his first days in campus; a group of brainless goons that enjoyed spreading a tad of misery as much as he did. With them, he feels powerful ― the way they idolised him makes him feel enough. Whilst he holds a plastic up filled to the brim with beer ( a rather nauseus and gag-inducing mortal beverage but addicting nonetheless ), the other smacks the book Connie is holding to the floor and when the mortal girl has no other choice other than to bend the knee to pick it up, Cardan's lips curl in that cruel smirk of his, his black eyes ringed with gold staring right into her fierce blue ones. ❛ You look better kneeling before me than you do standing. That, is your rightful place. Inferior to your betters. ❜
