#zareen

thank you for your question!

unfortunately, zareen never saves beatrix from her assassination. in all honesty, even if she did know reiji’s plans to kill his mother, she wouldn’t have tried to intervene anyway.

i wanted to make their relationship something in the past, something that you experience at the cusp of girlhood and womanhood that comes to haunt you and stab you in the gut at random moments in your life. a constant rumination on the what if. although during this time, they begin to have small conversations, they know it can never be as it was. womanhood has changed them (mostly beatrix) too much.

i also made them foils of each other partly for this kind of reason. i think beatrix at the time of her death is so worn-down by her experiences at a failed marriage, resentful sons and the petty court squabbles that made up all of her adult existence; she’s ready to die. on the other hand, zareen wants to live. she feels immortal apathy seeping in around this time so she throws herself into extravagant things. more extravagant kills, more extravagant lovers. she’s too focused on herself to even sniff the air and sense that it’s rife with danger.

you can find zareen’s character sheet here

— zareen’s mother

warning: mentions of sex and infidelity, grief, death

Mehnaz was born to the daughter of a high-ranking Viboran battle strategist and nobleman.

warning: violence

summary: beatrix confesses to zareen that she is to wed karlheinz, reigning king of the vampire clan.

Zareen was a whorl of windswept black hair and breathless laughter when she barged nto Beatrix’s chambers. Her skirts were muddy, and the stink of the human realm clung to her, but there’s no question that meets her, no chiding remark.

Instead, she was met with a heavy silence. The blonde girl was sitting at her desk, chin propped on top of one hand while the other rolled something between her fingers. Though she was dressed in finery, a sweet blue silk dress with her hair done up in a hairnet dripping pearls, she looked pensive, distant… almost as if she had aged years in a mere snatch of hours. What on earth happened while Zareen was gone?

“Bea? Is everything well?” she asked as she came up behind her. She rested her hands gently on the girl’s shoulders.

The touch was electric and it jolted Beatrix out of her reverie. She whirled around in her chair, dropping the thing that was in her hands. It gave a clang and rolled onto the plush carpet between Zareen’s feet.

A ring. One large sapphire sandwiched between two twin rubies, on a bed of lavish gold. Zareen let out a curious hum, studying it where it lay on the floor.

“Have you suddenly found an interest in fine jewellery?” Zareen questioned lightly, picking it up. There was a weight to it. Though the piece would bring out the blue in Beatrix’s eyes, she struggled to imagine her wearing something so… present.

Beatrix did not smile. In fact, her face was as brooding as a half-formed storm. Zareen tilted her head, laughing somewhat in shock. The only time she wore that face was when…

“I have to talk to you, Zareen.”

“I can tell,” Zareen quipped back. “What has happened that has troubled you so, my dear?”

Beatrix looked back to the window, to the ring in Zareen’s fingers and to her lap. Her eyes shimmered like a restless sea.

Though Zareen could tell she was nervous, she knew that Beatrix was not one to skirt around the truth with Zareen, she would lay it plain and bare before her, no matter the consequences.

“I am engaged to be wed…”

That explains the ring. “You—?”

“That’s not all. My betrothed— well…”

Zareen clenched a fist around the ring, the sapphire digging into her skin. “Who is it, Beatrix?”

Blue eyes snapped up to meet hers, wide and worrisome. “The King. The King wishes to marry me.”

“Karlheinz?” Zareen hissed, disbelief colouring her words. “The man already has a queen.”

“He is the King. If he wants another wife, who is to oppose him?”

A sour feeling tinged Zareen’s gut. She placed the ring on the edge of the desk, no longer wanting to hold such a wretched thing. She lifted her eyes back up to the girl in front of her. No… the woman.

Her voice was awfully calm in her own head. Restrained. “And did you say yes?”

Beatrix folded her hands in her lap neatly, a sign of her own restraint. “I did.”

Ugly claws of anger scraped down Zareen’s gut as she paced to the far-end of the room brusquely, fangs digging bloody holes into her tongue.

Beatrix made way to stand up, but she did not follow her. Her pale hands were clasped around the fine wooden back of the chair. It creaked under the pressure. “What choice did I have, Zareen? Tell me what you would have done.”

“I would have told him to shove that ring up his royal little—”

“Folly,” Beatrix cut her off sharply. “We knew that this would have happened sooner or later, whether I willed or no.”

Zareen let out a bitter laugh. “That you would wed a King? I did not foresee it, I confess.” I did not think you would marry anyone. I thought… I thought…

“No, Zareen, that I would marry.” She stepped away from the chair this time, exasperation in her voice. “Whether it was with some fat, filthy rich merchant or the king, I would have had to marry. It is— it is what is expected of me. It is my duty.”

Her words pierced Zareen in the chest, a needle lined with the most excruciating poison. What were all these days for, then?

“You are more intelligent than any of them. They do not deserve you, least of all that King of ours,” Zareen snapped. “You could have said no.”

Beatrix just shook her head. “Then what prospects would I have? Though my parents care for me, they would sooner abandon me than have a spinster for a daughter.”

Zareen, stepped forward then, eyes glossy beneath candlelight. “Then I would care for you, Bea. It is not too late to decline his offer. Tell him that—”

“You do not understand, do you?” Beatrix cut her off, voice shivering with something foreign and raw. “You have never had to think about marriage because you are an heiress to a fortune and a trade that will continue to grow. You are allowed to be self-sufficient. But I? I must rely on a man, though it pains me all the same. It is… just the way it goes for women like me. I have made my peace with it.”

“Well, I have not,” Zareen said sharply. “How can you leave me?”

The words were supposed to come out as bitter and accusatory but instead she sounded childish, begging for somebody to stay. This wasn’t her. She did not beg.

Beatrix softened at the words. She rushed over to where she stood, her pretty hands enveloping around Zareen’s. They were soft, where hers were rough. These hands, that she had kissed and held and loved. Now, they will belong to another.

“I will not leave you, Zareen, I never will,” Beatrix spoke, with all the conviction of a lover. “Come to the royal court with me. A lady-in-waiting, perhaps… then you will always be by my side. You will adore the fineries of court life much more than I ever would. It would be perfect, don’t you think?”

Zareen pulled her hands away as if burnt. “So you want me to be your court whore, is that it? To dress you in silks and ready you for your royal husband when he calls, but kiss you and warm your bed when it is appropriate? Is that what you think will please me, Beatrix?”

The girl’s hands were still frozen, grasping for air. “No! I do not think— I would never think of you so lowly! How could you suggest that?”

“You cannot have us both!” Zareen said, fury welling up in her like blood from a pricked finger. “I will not be second to that man. I cannot.”

Zareen stepped close to her then. The blonde smelled of tea and lilies, dusty books and wood varnish. Calming, once. Now a heady smell of heartache.

Zareen’s fingers traced her cheekbone softly, then the curve of her nose, the sweet roundness of her pink lips. Then her fingers closed around her throat. Her sharp nails dug into the lovely white skin there.

“Tell him,” Zareen whispered in a slow voice. “Tell Karlheinz you have changed your mind.”

Blood welled up from between Zareen’s fingers, but Beatrix did not falter. She regarded Zareen with eyes as cold and cruel as ice, as if she were seeing her for the very first time. “I will not.”

That was all there was to be said.

Zareen let her neck go, striding towards the door to take her leave.

aesthetics and headcanons

character sheet

moodboard

relationships with canon characters

things that remind me of her

cordelia & zareen

how she sees beatrix

her mother

beatrix’s death

stories

til death do us part | zareen & beatrix

once more to see you | zareen & beatrix

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