Merry Christmas Archaicambience!
Merry Christmas. I tried my best to finish off the Era fic you asked for but haven't finished yet. I have the Introduction ready for you though and a small one shot as the cherry on top. (smile) I hope you like. Merry Christmas.
Secret Santa Exchange Fiction
For: archaicambience
From: Inlove_n_Inhate
What I want: Fan Fiction Is my Sustenance!!! Miranda/Andréa only please-I love period fan fic pieces... (Surprise me) Well….Surprise! And Merry Christmas!
Title: Unjustly Accused
Author: inlove_n_inhate
Plot: Miranda Priestly, the head of the House of Priestly, has made a grave mistake and her new young lover may end up paying the price.
Disclaimer: I own none of the Devil Wears Prada characters. I do howerver own the literature they are being depicted in.
Introduction
I can feel my heart hammering against my chest as I force my legs to carry me through the thicket. There hadn’t been time for the stable boy to fetch my horse. There had been hardly any time to properly dress. I hadn’t had any warning. There had been nothing to stave off the blow that was dealt to me this early morn. I had only just awoken from a night of restlessness caused by the very person that I am now rushing to save.
I have been a fool.
I have put this young woman’s life up for the taking all because I love her. I do not know why I love her. I do not care for it to be explained to me; how I can possibly love her. She’s an insolent slip of a girl that had no right waltzing into my banquet hall to steal my heart! There were far more precious items and stones to take from the banquet hall. Yet she insisted upon taking the cold stone of my heart and has refused to give it back.
I wish to curse her for her bravery and her determination. I wish I could allow her to be brought to the gallows and not shed a tear in her passing. But I will shed tears in her passing. I know that I will not only forfeit my tears for her passing but my life as well. For if I lose her I will surly lose myself as well. She has brought light back into my life and I shudder at the thought of that light being taken from me again.
This is why I dash to her rescue. In saving her I will save myself. How, oh I wonder how this all began only three fortnights ago. It was the winter Solstice and as it is known vastly around this Empire my house holds the most brilliant winter Solstice celebrations and fairs. The celebration spans on for three days. A day before and after the full moon has risen into the sky and the night the full moon stands proudly above my family’s estate. An estate that I built up from nothing but an old farmhouse and stable into the nine hundred acres that it has become.
The estate, which some state is more elegant and cosmic then that of the royal family’s, has been what I’ve worked for since my parents past on from the Fever several decades before. My brothers, Henry and Patrick, are members of the royal family’s guard. They have not been back to their home since they left a summer before our parents passed on. Nor would they be welcomed back onto the land that was meant to be theirs. They left me alone to take care of the slip of land we owned and raise our second rate horses on; to pay off the few workers that helped raise the horses while taking care of our two younger siblings, Michael and Mary, who were both no older then my two own children are now, while I myself had only just escaped the prison-hood of childhood.
I did everything in my power to make our family name better then it had been. I sold off our second rate race horses and many of the chickens that mother had prized more then her own children. The money I made from the chickens alone allowed me to buy one pure breed horse and I raised that small cult into the warhorse that now one of the soldiers in the royal family rides proudly into battle. With my one perfect horse gave me credit and a reputation I have not lived down but only grown since I was a young woman just a year shy of my lover’s age. My reputation allowed me many things in the beginning but it was my products that have given my family exactly what they deserve.
Everything.
We, the House of Priestly, raise and train the best horses this side of the Nile, whether they be race, war, or farm hand horses. We are one of the only Houses in this Empire to be so well endowed with a title that we have earned rather then been born into.
When you are a Priestly you are respected and held in high regard, you are also never toiled with, ever. So it may not surprise many to know that I, the matriarch of the House of Priestly, have been married twice, once for my title only it seems. My first husband was caught being unfaithful and he was stripped of my last name and by the laws of the Empire the body part in which he committed the crime-for adultery is a crime in this Empire-his manhood. I heard from several merchants three fortnights after that he had died unexpectedly. I, at that time had moved on and did not attend his funeral nor give a penny to his family.
There was an outcry of injustice due to my actions and my first husband’s father brought me to court. Let it be known that this is when the Empire learned you did not toil with a Priestly and expect to come out unscathed. I won the case easily for there were no set rules in place for a woman to pay off her husbands family should the husband die before his time, rather only for the husband to pay the wife’s family should the wife pass on before her time. Sadly in this Empire there are very few women with the status in which I hold proudly.
I am a rare creature with once shinning bright red hair that faded rather quickly through the years and left me with locks the color of the silver winter moon. The mere fact that I am a woman and the head of my House has made me either of two things, well liked or despised. I have no time for either and ignore both for they both annoy me. There have only ever been few persons in my life that have wanted nothing from me but my heart. One of them was my second husband who gave me two others who want nothing from me but my time and love.
My second husband and I were happily married for ten summers. He granted me my two most precious gifts, our twin daughters Cassidy and Caroline before he past on from a fever during their third winter and our tenth. I loved him dearly and mourned for him for several months, even going so far as to pass the gauntlet of preparing for the Winter Solstice to my younger siblings while I remained in my chambers with my children and silently mourned our loss while hundreds of others partied below us.
It has been seven years since Greg’s-my second husband-death. It was on the seventh anniversary of his death that she walked into the gates of my estate, past the crowds; through the doors of my banquet hall, and straight into the deep reaches of my very soul, where she has remained. It is because of her silly smile and bright bubbling laughter and easy compassion and quick witted tongue full of jokes my children find hysterical, that I find myself racing through the foulest of forests to make it to the towns’ square to rescue her. How, I’ve yet to decipher how I’ll save her. All I know is that I must save her!
I must!
A Priestly is never toiled with!
The fear I will instill in others should allow me the time I need to think of a foolproof plan. My plan, thus far is as follows:
I’ll step into the square, the crowds will turn to me-for I know there will be a crowd, there always is when an adulteress woman is to be hung-and while they speak their hushed whispers to those next to them I will walk through the break in the crowd all the while my brain formulating the perfect escape from such an event. When I reach the gallows I will step up onto the pedestal with the help of the executioner. I will walk over to my lover and remove the gag that will have been tied around her beautiful mouth. I will wish to kiss her supple lips but will not give in to my desire.
I will wipe away the tears that are falling from her eyes and I will look into her eyes, which will be riveted on me from the moment the crowd parts and allows her the chance to see me. Those same brown eyes that I’ve woken up to find memorizing my face as her hands sifts through my hair gently while the morning sun creeps into my chambers and shines through her hair-those eyes will follow my every move and tears will spring to her eyes as she watches me find my courage before speaking to the crowd on her behalf!
But the courage she will see I will have yet found at that time so I will mimic it for her. I will replicate just enough courage so she will be able to withstand this public humiliation just a bit longer. All the while I wipe the splashes of the dried rotten fruit that would have been thrown at her by the rambunctious crowd. When I turn from her I’ll raise my hand and the crowds’ hushed whispers will quiet and all will be still. Then and only then will I find the words I need to save her life and in turn save my own.
But first…
First I need to make it to the village square in time! The sun is just now reaching the tops of the hills. I have little time! With a quick burst of speed that I know only arrives to me through my fear I race to reach her because not reaching her in time is unacceptable! Unacceptable!
I am Miranda Marie Priestly and no one has ever bet against my horses! So they shall not bet against me, if they should they forfeit whatever they saw fit to bet. I can assure you the odds are always in my favor. For my word is as good as law and my will is never denied!
Trust in me my love. My love for you has granted me all that I have lacked for so long. I will not let them take you from me! You are mine and I am yours and no one steals from me. No one!
My heart slams against my chest and my legs burn as I pass the village gates. Almost there, I’m almost there!
I am coming my dear Andrea. Do not fret my love. I am coming. I will not let you down.
I swear it!
TBC….
Title: Incompetent Teddy Bears
Plot: Miranda sleep walks into Andy’s room in Paris and starts screaming about the fashionably retarded teddy bears, which are trying to eat her. What’s Andy to do?
Disclaimer: I swear I don't own Andy, Miranda or Nigel. I do however own several teddy bears that I love to death. (smile)
Part 1 of 1
Andy sighed happily as she walked down the hallway to her room, her keycard in hand. It’d been a long night. A very long night! Rushing around town for the twins’ perfect gifts was never an easy feet, especially when she had no idea what they’d like. Andy’s feet were killing her. She couldn’t wait to take her heels off, which she’d already tripped in a good hand full of times in the past few hours alone. The packages that weighed twenty pounds each on either side not helping her as she raced through this beautiful unknown city.
Really, all she wanted to do was take off her shoes, brush her teeth, get out of her clothes take a long hot relaxing bath before slipping into the very expensive Egyptian cotton sheets of her rented bed. After a few moments of final touches to Miranda’s schedule for the next day, and the twelfth call to the catering hall to remind them that there were to be no Freesias at the brunch tomorrow, she was ready.
Ready to brush her teeth, burn her heels, a bath and then slip into bed.
Andy slipped into the bathtub, which she realized as more of a hot tub and flipped a switch that turned the jets on. She sighed and thanked whoever created hot tubs and closed her eyes as she finally relaxed.
It’d really been a looong day.
Her soak completed and her teeth brushed Andy moved over to her bed, noticing she’d forgotten to turn on the lights but shrugged no need now. She quickly placed a wakeup call for five in the morning and set the alarm clock on her phone for fifteen minutes after five, just in case she slept through the call. It was unlikely, since she had nightmares about not answering phones now that’d she begun working for Miranda Priestly, so it really was just a precaution. With that taken care of Andy shrugged off her robe and slipped into the cool sheets that were worth more then half of her wardrobe back in New York, sighing as the fresh scent of their detergent wafted to her.
What only had to be no more then twenty minutes later Andy shot up in bed as her bedroom door was slammed and someone waltzed into her room complaining about…
???
…did they say fashionably inept teddy bears?? What the fuck?
Andy, still trying to come to her bearings, turned on her bedside lamp and nearly fell out of her bed when she saw Miranda Priestly pacing before her bed.
Miranda Priestly was ranting about carnivorous teddy bears that had no fashion sense? Was this some kind of sick joke? Play a prank on the fat second assistant who’d been able to beat Miranda at her own game and deal with whatever was dealt to her? Seriously, it just wasn’t funny! Because…
Goshdamnit! She was tired! AND she hadn’t a clue in space how to deal with something like…well like this.
“Um…” Andy cleared her throat. “Miranda…?”
“They simply just don’t know who they are dealing with!”
Andy wondered if she could consider that an answer, but as Miranda continued to pace around the room she figured that would be a no.
Andy looked around her room and moved towards the end of her bed. “Miranda?”
“They’ll simply have to go about eating other people-less important people.”
“Miranda?”
“With their small beaty black eyes and lime green outfits that clash horribly with their brown, red, or pink artificial fur!”
Was she still talking about those damn teddy bears?
“Miranda do you need something?” Still not even an inkling of acknowledgement as she continued her rant.
“With their oddly disproportional heads to their fat synthetically furred covered bodies and their sharp white teeth.”
“Uh huh…” Andy nodded and brought her hands up to her face as she sobbed. This was just NOT apart of her job description it was…Andy looked at her clock…it was one in the morning! She’d had a long day and the last thing she needed was her boss pacing at the foot of her bed ranting about teddy bears that had fat disproportional bodies covered in synthetic fur with white sharp teeth that wanted to eat her.
For God’s sake what kind of sick person thinks teddy bears-TEDDY BEARS, the little stuffed animals that children--most children find comfort in holding close-are going to want to EAT them? Better yet what kind of fucked up situation have they been in with a perfectly harmless cuddly teddy bear that would make them think they’d be in any kind of danger? Especially the danger of being eaten by them!? Jesus Christmas!
“Brainless inanimate cuddling cannibals!” Miranda shivered and Andy wondered if she was cold or frightened.
Andy yanked at her duvet from the bed and stood. She shivered herself at the cold air of her room and with a quick decision and move, covered Miranda’s shoulder with the blanket. When Miranda only seemed to take the ends of the covering and pull it closer Andy sighed and sat back down on her bed, pulling the remaining blankets on her bed around herself as she watched-suddenly now fasinated-as Miranda paced back and forth while continuing her rants on and off.
When Miranda suddenly stopped, this time looking from side to side instead of just ahead of herself Andy snapped back to attention. She looked at the clock-2 am. She turned her attention back to Miranda only to find the silver haired fashion empress staring at her harshly.
“Andrea…”
Oh. Shit.
Andy jumped up from her lying position. She fumbled and yanked a little too hard as she jumped up and instead of standing at attention at the end of her bed she ended up lying on the hard rugged floor of her room face first. She heared a rather impatient sigh from above her and with a deep breath and a few mumbled curses she stood up, and threw her blanket rather roughly to her bed.
“Do tell me Andrea, why is it you are in my room at…” Andy’s mouth fell open. “…2 A.M. in the morning.” If Andy’s mouth hadn’t been attached to her head by her jaw she might have worried about it falling to the ground and shattering.
Was…she…serious?
“Hmm?” Andy blinked several times.
“Are…you…serious!?” Andy nearly wailed as she looked at her boss. She couldn’t possibly be serious?! She had just watched this same woman pace back and forth across her bedroom for an hour while ranting about teddy bears that wanted to eat her and all the horrible assortments that they’re forced to wear by their makers and how absurd it is for a bear to be clothed at all. Rather Andy thought how ridiculous it was to be sitting up at one in the morning listening to her boss rant about teddy bear rights or how they’re evil carnivorous creatures that should be burned.
“Excuse me!”
“Oh please do. You need to be excused!” Miranda’s mouth fell. “This is ridiculous! I’ve just spent the last hour listening to you rant about teddy bears. Teddy bears!” Andy exclaimed as she threw her arms in the air before letting them slap against her sides. When Miranda just looked blankly at her she just shook her head and sighed.
“Is there anything you need Miranda?”
“An explanation.”
“Well I’m not really sure I have one for this one.”
“Try.” Andy shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold.
“I don’t know what happened. I came back from shopping for the twins like you’d asked, took a bath, brushed me teeth, called in for a wake up call…”
“Today Andrea…”
Andy sighed. “You just barged in. Came walking right in and scared the shi…” Andy cleared her throat. “-living daylights out of me and starting ranting about teddy bears that had no fashion sense and that were trying to eat you.” Andy met Miranda’s eyes and was surprised to see the older woman blushing. Andy blinked a few times and waited.
The silence finally got to her. “Uh…Miranda?” The older woman looked at her, her face still a rosy pink. “Are…are you alright?”
“Not a word of this to anyone.” Andy stepped back at the force behind the words and fell onto her bed before sitting up quickly and meeting Miranda’s eyes.
“Of course, not a word but…” Miranda raised an eyebrow. “Are you alright?”
“Goodnight Andrea.”
Andy watched in amazement as the woman most men and women would trip over themselves trying to please just waltzed right out of her room after one of the most bizarre nights of Andy’s life. Hell this was even weirder then that time she’d walked in on….
BANG! Andy jumped a little and turned towards the sound before sighing and moving back into her bed.
Andy moved back up her bed and turned off the light before cursing when she realized Miranda had taken the duvet with her. Well shit. Andy sighed and closed her eyes. She didn’t care about the duvet! Let her keep it for all she cared! All she wanted to do was go to sleep. She swore if Nigel came in next ranting about Barbie dolls that wanted to give him a make over she’d quit on spot before shoving him out of her room. With a deep breath and a cleansing exhale she closed her eyes.
Finally…
Sleep.
Except.
Ring, Ring, Ring!
Andy howled as she threw the phone against the wall and turned over in bed and sobbed. It just wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair! Andy pulled herself out of bed and got to work. Still under the impression that it just wasn't fair.
Lucky for her the man she shared an elevator with down to the lobby didn’t say a word about the crazy woman’s ranting about “carnivorous teddy bears that lacked fashion sense and had disproportional bodies covered in artificial fur”. He just got off on the first floor and never looked back.
The End.