#hge

My gift for @oftheides in the 2025 HGE event @hamiathesgiftexchange

Fandom: The Queen’s Thief - Megan Whalen Turner Rated: G No archive warnings apply Word count: 273 - Featuring: Background Relius/Teleus - A poem about cooking, directly inspired by "The Invitation" in Return of the Thief.

so you better be sure (if you're making god a liar) — this is the big chonk, even though it’s one chapter it’s the longest fic i’ve ever yet written (9,791 words)! it’s a canon divergent fic of if the Minister of War had gotten his way and Gen wasn’t raised as the Thief, covering Gen’s birth through Queen of Attolia. Gen/Irene ship, plenty of angsty Gen & MoW content

(psst if you like it subscribe, because i might add a chapter with some more scenes that were in my outline but got cut because i decided i could end it earlier)

Dressed Like a Goddess — 2,441 word Irene/Helen modern AU centering around Helen’s clothing shop, very simple/not much plot

Helen's Life in Five Fights — 1,185 word fic made up of five scenes in which Helen practices with a sword. most of them are (bitter)sweet moments with her family, ending with some fluffy Helen/Sophos

Holiday Gift Exchange for Percival! ( @ambiguousnothing​ )

This funky dragon took like 7 hours according to Procreate shdgsh but it was worth it >:-0!

Extra drafts below!

(youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY)

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The dragon’s name turned out to be Saathr, and her sense of humor left Cass somewhat uncomfortable.

For instance, she thought it was funny to blast Old Earth classical music into his bunk to wake him up.

“It’s not that I don’t like classical music,” he said blearily as he stumbled out of his bunk, past the dragon, who was now in human shape and very amused. “But did you have to pick that one?”

“I love Bach,” Saathr said, fingers dancing through the air as if she was playing the piece. Given her age, she was probably perfectly capable of doing exactly that. “Toccata and Fugue in D minor is one of my favorites among his collection.”

“Did you have to chose that to wake me up? It’s not the most… easygoing piece of music.”

“I thought it would be dramatic.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

It was dramatic. It was definitely dramatic. It was possibly the most dramatic piece of Classical music around.

“I Horde sheet music,” Saathr said out of the blue as Cass went for the coffee pot, which the dragon had thoughtfully turned on for him. “Lady Hoshi has the earliest known original of this piece, but I have a copy of that one, and a later original. I think she traded a Favor with one of the Djinn Kings to get it, but I could be wrong.”

“Lady Hoshi the Librarian of Earth?”

“That’s the one. She’s a dear, and sends me copies of any sheet music she already has, and I send her copies of anything I find in my travels.”

Cass didn’t even want to think about how old Lady Hoshi must be to have an original of something millennia old. Then again, there were dragons still alive who were even older, so he supposed it made sense. All the same, he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He was just an errand boy. His job was to find the dragon, talk her into leaving her lair down in the Furnace of Carrier Caribbean, and bring her to his superiors. Fortunately, his offer was tempting enough to make a dragon curious, and it wasn’t like there was much that could harm a dragon Saathr’s age anyway. He had seen her scaled form. She was immense, and very powerful. Also, the dragon community was tight-knit, and he suspected that she let the others of her kind know where she was going and why before she agreed to come with him. He would, in her place. There were still plenty of people around who would be interested in the fortune to be made on a dragon’s corpse.

A dozen of her shed scales would bring wealth beyond imagining, and those fell off on their own.

“Tell me about this work you offer,” Saathr said, eyes closed as she admired the swelling music.. “And why they chose you/ I can smell your Other heritage. It wouldn’t protect you from me if I took your offer poorly.”

Coffee in hand, Cass dropped into a chair at the small table and sighed.

“I’m a complicated mix of competent and disposable,” he told her honestly. His commanding officer and the witch who told him how to find Saathr both cautioned him against ever lying to the dragon. Words he took to heart. “I’m good at what I do, which is mostly commando work, a little espionage, and some straight-up brawling. I am also… kind of bad about following orders to the word. I get the job done, but… not always how they want it done.”

“So if I decided to eat you, you would be no loss,” Saathr said with a giggle that showed fire behind her teeth, “But you were likely to convince me if I did not?”

“Something like that.”

“And the work?”

“You’re one of the older dragons around,” Cass told her, which she knew, of course, but she didn’t know that he knew it. “There’s been a rash of Fire magics popping up mid-Rim, all clustered around a double binary cluster of stars. It’s new, and worrisome because we don’t know why they’re showing up, but there’s enough of them in the last few years to be notable.”

“Why me specifically?”

“You were living in a furnace. My superiors figured you didn’t mind fire.”

“I am a dragon. None of us mind fire.”

“We knew where to find you.”

“Ah.”

It was the truth. Saathr had a reputation for being willing to do favors in exchange for other favors, and her lair was easy, if unpleasant, to get to. With the proper bribes to open negotiations, and her actual pay to be discussed by people above Cass’s pay-grade, Saathr’s aid was easily secured.

“I like you,’ Saathr decided out of the blue, surprising Cass. “You know music.”

“I like classical,” Cass admitted with a nod towards the speakers on the ceiling, which were still blasting Bach. “My mother taught music on Atlantica.”

Saathr hummed and considered him through her red, slit-pupiled eyes. They were the most inhuman thing about her, in human shape, and Cass tried not to squirm under her gaze. He felt just a little like a mouse under a falcon’s stare.

“I am going to keep you,” she decided after a while, and smiled at him, her teeth still decidedly pointy. “Now tell me, do you play any instruments, or did your mother’s learning pass you by?”

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HGE - Conflagration

Cass got volunteered to go find a dragon, but no one really expected him to succeed.

Fire District

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