#gdcfics

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Lieutenant: Er, sir-

Amon: Yes, Lieutenant, what is it?

Lieutenant: You know you’ve never told us how you do the whole ‘taking people’s bending away’ thing.

Random Equalist: Yeah, is it something you can teach us like chi-blocking?

Amon: No.

Content warning for mentions of drugs and prostitution. Also for Yakone’s potty mouth, but honestly he doesn’t use any swearwords worse than what you usually encounter on tumblr.

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Yakone awoke to darkness and a pounding headache. Upon attempting to massage his aching head, he discovered that his hands were tied behind his back, lashed securely to something that felt rather like the back of a chair. His legs were tied as well, probably to the chair legs.

Well, this was odd, he thought. Last he remembered, he was wasting away in solitary, cursing the Fuzz, the Avatar and the World in general. Not that he was unhappy to be out, of course not, but he'd honestly expected to be in the Can for...well....longer. 

…and permanently losing all faith in True Love when Edvard says no.

The look on Hans' face was enough to have made Edvard wish he had lied. 

But how much worse would it have been if he had?

Was it better to have let him know the truth instead of giving him false hope?

Edvard would like to have thought that he did the right thing, but right now, he felt like the sort of person who offered meat to a hungry dog under the dinner table and then snatched it back just before the poor creature could sink its teeth in.

"What good is True Love if it can't bring Mother back?" Hans asked, his voice soft and despondent.

Enchant: Someone enchants another character(s).

Jan opens the book. It is not a large book. It is small, bound in leather that is crumbling slightly around the edges. It smells old - faintly like almonds and vanilla with a slight acidic tang, and the pages are covered in symbols and incantations written in black ink.

He’d found the book three days ago, secreted away in that dark, dusty corner of the Palace archives that Edvard used to sneak away to in the wee hours of the night. 

He skims past a symbol beside which is written in Edvard's elegant, smooth hand, "To make a loved one stay", forcefully enough to almost rip the delicate page from the loose binding.

He stops at page on which is written "For Happiness". He squints at the symbols and grumbling, rummages in his coat pocket for his glasses. With his glasses perched on his nose, the symbols almost seem to jump off the page - strange, arcane and detailed in crisp, midnight black lines that are stark against the spotted cream of the pages.

For the rest of the night, Jan carefully and painstakingly carves lines and swirls onto the Adder Stone (it'd taken him days of gathering pebbles from the nearest river to find the blasted thing).

Edvard had made this sort of thing look so easy when he did it.

Then again, Edvard had always been better than him at anything that involved craft.

 And he wasn't around, so Jan supposed he'd have to do.

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"I fixed your necklace."

Valdemar has been more dour and melancholic than usual, but at the sight of the carved Adder Stone with a long, robust strip of leather strung through the hole, he seems to visibly brighten.

"It looks just like how Edvard made it," he says with a small smile, "Thanks."

Theo stares into the glossy surface and watches his reflection shift and morph into someone who is him and yet not him. He is younger. Happier. In the mirror, the man who is and is not him turns to greet a woman with greying hair and a face that would never be called pretty, but which is graced by the grandest, most beautiful smile he has ever seen. Then, the woman beckons a young man - tall and thin with a shock of curly blond hair and a smudge of ink on his cheek, into view, and Theo forgets to breathe.

Henrik studies the image in the mirror, trying to puzzle out how he could possibly be seeing this. He sees himself as a boy, surrounded by what seems like all the books ever written or printed in the whole of human history, watched over by a plain, middle-aged woman with eyes like his who he has only seen staring back at him out of paintings. 

For a moment, Edvard sees nothing - only his reflection staring back at him. Then, the surface of the mirror seems to ripple and shift, and he is staring at himself, surrounded by his family: Liz, his daughter, his mother, and his brothers - all 12 of them - all together, happy and content. 

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Edvard snaps his fingers and a small curl of flame flashes into existence. Little Hans stares in amazement and claps his hands as his older half-brother grins and bows.

"That was amazing! And you can do other things too?"

"Small things," Edvard disperses the flame with a elegant wave of his hand, "Potions, transfiguration...that sort of thing."

All of a sudden, his face turns serious, and he kneels down beside Hans.

"This is our secret," he says gravely, "You must never tell anyone about what I can do. Please, Hans. Promise that you won't tell."

Hans doesn't know why Edvard doesn't want anyone else to know about his magic, but he nods anyway.

"I promise."

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A few months later, the Royal Guards come and take Edvard away - as well as his brothers and Lady Cathrine.

Jan is the loudest - kicking and screaming and struggling in his iron manacles demanding to know what he had ever done wrong. Lukas is crying, Valdemar is shaking, and Lady Cathrine is as dignified and graceful as she can manage with a darkening bruise under her right eye and a limp from the twisted ankle she gained after a guard pushed her down the stairs.

And Edvard-

Edvard stares straight ahead, his expression blanks and his shoulders tense. He glances to the side and for a moment, his eyes and Hans' meet.

"I know this is a difficult thing to do," Carl's soft voice murmurs from behind him.

Hans feels his older half-brother's hand close gently on his shoulder, and he swallows thickly, trying to ignore the irrational feeling of being trapped.

"It's for their own good," he continues as the guards lead Edvard and his brothers and mother further and further away, "They'll go to a place where they'll be able to practice their gifts freely and where they won't endanger the common folk.

Believe me, Your Highness.

He just wishes artistic satisfaction wasn't quite so painful.

He can barely pick up the pen later during his lessons, and the tutor mutters the old tired phrase of "This wouldn't have happened with Master Edvard." and sends for his mother to see what is the matter with him.

Lady Cathrine turns his small, little boy's hand over in her own elegant palm, and presses sharply against the muscle connected to his pinky finger.

"Ow!" Jan yelps and winces as his mother tsks and massages the strained muscle.

"You've been drawing again," she sighs, "How many times have I told you to stop letting yourself get distracted with such useless pursuits?.."

"I was painting," he corrects, "And I like drawing. And painting."

"Princes don't paint, darling," she hums a little tune as she speaks, "They pay other people to do it."

"But I'm good at it!...could be good at it," he says, "If I practice enough-"

"You don't have the time to practice. And I've seen your drawings, darling. They're nothing special."

Jan's heard those words a thousand times before, but they never fail to make him feel utterly worthless and miserable.

"Oh, don't give me that look," Cathrine sighs and pats his cheek, "I'm only telling you the truth. Isn't it better that I tell you this now before you figure out that you're not as good as you think you are?"

"Yes, mother."

"Good boy. How's your hand?"

Jan flexes his fingers, clenches and unclenches his fist - the ache is gone, like it had never been there in the first place.

The moment she presses her mouth to his skin, it's like heaven. She loves the taste of him - skin and sweat underlaid with something heady and intoxicating and undeniably him-

She nips him sharply - something she remembers her previous lovers seemed to enjoy - and Edvard yelps.

A sudden rush of heady lust comes over her - she feels like she's swimming in treacle, her blood burning hot and fierce under her skin and all that she can think of is more, more, more-

Until somewhere under the cloudy haze, Liz feels Edvard's hands on her shoulders - can feel them trying to push her away, and she hears his voice, soft and shaky with something that's definitely not arousal.

"Ow ow ow - Liz, ow ow, please- owowowowow - please stop - owowowowow-"

She pulls away and scrambles backwards, shaking her head to try to clear it of whatever temporary madness seemed to have suddenly taken over. She looks down at Edvard and winces in guilt at the number of bite marks scattered across his stomach and abdomen (some a little too close to some very sensitive parts).

All remaining thoughts of continuing evaporate as she watches him discreetly wipe the moisture from the corners of his eyes with slightly shaky hands.

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well