#chindug

Chindug:

Send me a ship and I'll tell you what they get up to at the Requiem Ball (or the Leibniz equivalent)

undefeated best dressed couple fifty years running

offend like fourteen people between them by the end of the night

god help him if he dances with anyone else

she spends a lot of time justifying the amount of carnage her head of law enforcement causes on a daily basis, sometimes by the time they leave she's lowkey mad at him

he spends a lot of time listening to war anecdotes that remind him she was responsible for his torture and murder and his family's deaths, sometimes by the time they leave he's lowkey angry at her

thus, angry sex when they get home

judging other people together, which is actually how their relationship began when they were 19/20.

sneaking out to the gardens so china can slip her killer heels off and they can promenade across the grass in the moonlight like they're kids again

"darling where's my clutch bag?" "darling where's my mirror?" "darling where are my keys?" [his jacket pocket, usually]

"what are you scheming?" "don't be ridiculous. i'm doing no such thing." "four hundred years and you think i can't tell when you're scheming?"

insane levels of ust while dancing, they are full on eyefucking each other and everyone around them knows it

China: Does testing the strength of my ex's marriage count?

Skulduggery, miles away, his China-back-on-her-bullshit sense tingling:

She carves them in herself. She knows what each one does. But do her loved ones know which sigils she has and where? Absolutely not!

I just? China in the year 15-what-the-fuck-ever, getting hot and heavy with skug, and she's too distracted to warn him in time so when his wandering hands brush against a defensive sigil he just gets fucking blasted into the ceiling

bc. the bridgerton fake dating thing to attract a higher-status match gives me very china and skug vibes

especially the bit where they're like. bitching together about cressida and how cliche the prince is telling her her dress is pretty

and then he says exactly the same thing to daphne/china and simon/skug pulls a face and daphne/china just fucking explodes

and i just. have a lot of feelings about china disdaining the young man her family wants her to marry and lowkey using skug to a) rebel against her parents because he's on the wrong fucking side of the war and b) wade through the army of would-be suitors and try to find someone she actually likes who isnt easily intimidated

except whoops she actually likes skug this wasnt meant to happen

Fr tho like. I live for baby china discovering adolescent/YA rebellion and the absolute glee when she gets to glide into a ballroom in front of her parents and her intended suitor on the arm of a handsome heathen soldier with a more impressive title

And she falls for him and she believes he falls for her and she's got it very set in her head that he is Hers and of course one day he's gonna marry her and she'll get out from under her family's thumb for good! And they'll be happy

And maybe skug is still lowkey sleeping around with camp followers but thats okay! Her mother says all men go whoring. She'll just never bring it up and as long as he doesnt do it right under her nose and no servant girl brings a ginger bastard to China's doorstep, they'll work just as her mother and father did!

Except...skug gets hurt. And he meets Wifey, up to her elbows in blood in a field hospital, and he falls hard. And he detaches from china like she never meant anything bc skug is skug, and now she has to make her own way in the world because her family wont have her back after a heathen ruined her

And she plots and plots and plots revenge for years while they're fighting on opposite sides, she becomes fearsome and fiercely independent, gets in with mevolent and forms the diablerie and he rises through the ranks and becomes a general and a father and finally she springs her trap, thinking that with his wife and brat dead he'll be heartbroken and have nobody to turn to and she'll be there as a shoulder to cry on and he'll have to eat humble pie and come crawling back to her

And instead mevolent gives skug to serpine and she thought his friends wouldve come for him by now but he's getting weaker and she's never seen anyone survive injuries that bad and she cant intervene without risking her position and her life and finally she gets brave enough to sneak out to meet ghastly or ravel, tell them where they need to go and that it's urgent, hes dying