sm_monthly Jan 23 theme
Other stories set in this verse here
Title: A Matter of Legal Wording
Author: purplekitte
Theme: Silver Millennium--Corset
Genre: Romance
Version: PGSM
Rating: PG
“Help me lace this, will you?”
“What’s the need? You’re only going back to your rooms so your maids can help you change clothes.”
Beryl scowled in the mirror she was twisted over her shoulder to see. “There will be talk.”
“There’s always talk.”
“This is serious.”
“Everyone knows. Among the palace servants at least. It’s not as though anything could be a secret from them.”
“It’s serious enough to me. Anytime you could label me adulterous before the court and break off the engagement and I would be sent home in ruin and disgrace and would be lucky if a country baron in a fort of sticks in the wolf-infested woods of the Mississippi valley would marry me.”
“I’m not going to.”
“You’re a flighty skirt chase which is alright in a man and a prince.”
“I can be serious,” he claimed despite all evidence to the contrary.
“Then why have your been avoiding Kunzite and me for days?”
“It was that private audience you and Nephrite were called to last week,” Kunzite identified, stepping into the dressing room and moving to help Beryl with her silk ribbons.
“After… I didn’t know if you’d want to break it off if you’d… once you know… but you can’t break it off. Politically regardless of the reason that would be the worst thing that could happen to you.”
“Why would I want to break it off, if I could? What do you and my brother know?”
“That’s just it. Look, no one setting up the betrothal knew and by the time anyone who did heard it was too late to stop it politically.”
“Who knew what? I never saw you in my life till I was thirteen and few enough people in the kingdom of the west ever did.”
“Your mother did.”
Beryl blinked. “Yes. Before I was born, when Nephrite was first committed to the Shitennou as a child.”
“What of it?” asked the older man, who had been a child of five or six at the time and remembered a little.
“My father was having an affair with your mother,” Endymion blurted out. “Your father, I mean, you know, doesn’t know, but it was pretty sure. You’re my half-sister, and Nephrite’s.”
His two lovers gaped at him.
“I understand if you want to break it off. Our affair I mean, not the engagement. I’ll still go through with that for you and leave you two alone with each other. Unless you still want me,” Endymion said with a half-hearted attempt at his usual eyebrow wiggle at Kunzite.
“I always yell at you for being a perverted pushy immature jerk; I never thought you’d be more of an idiot when you’re trying to act otherwise.” She stalked over to him, her improperly tied laces and skirts making ominous trails around her. Beryl latched onto the only important point in his previous statements and used the operative word. “Illegitimate half-sister.”
Title: A Matter of Legal Wording
Author: purplekitte
Theme: Silver Millennium--Corset
Genre: Romance
Version: PGSM
Rating: PG
“Help me lace this, will you?”
“What’s the need? You’re only going back to your rooms so your maids can help you change clothes.”
Beryl scowled in the mirror she was twisted over her shoulder to see. “There will be talk.”
“There’s always talk.”
“This is serious.”
“Everyone knows. Among the palace servants at least. It’s not as though anything could be a secret from them.”
“It’s serious enough to me. Anytime you could label me adulterous before the court and break off the engagement and I would be sent home in ruin and disgrace and would be lucky if a country baron in a fort of sticks in the wolf-infested woods of the Mississippi valley would marry me.”
“I’m not going to.”
“You’re a flighty skirt chase which is alright in a man and a prince.”
“I can be serious,” he claimed despite all evidence to the contrary.
“Then why have your been avoiding Kunzite and me for days?”
“It was that private audience you and Nephrite were called to last week,” Kunzite identified, stepping into the dressing room and moving to help Beryl with her silk ribbons.
“After… I didn’t know if you’d want to break it off if you’d… once you know… but you can’t break it off. Politically regardless of the reason that would be the worst thing that could happen to you.”
“Why would I want to break it off, if I could? What do you and my brother know?”
“That’s just it. Look, no one setting up the betrothal knew and by the time anyone who did heard it was too late to stop it politically.”
“Who knew what? I never saw you in my life till I was thirteen and few enough people in the kingdom of the west ever did.”
“Your mother did.”
Beryl blinked. “Yes. Before I was born, when Nephrite was first committed to the Shitennou as a child.”
“What of it?” asked the older man, who had been a child of five or six at the time and remembered a little.
“My father was having an affair with your mother,” Endymion blurted out. “Your father, I mean, you know, doesn’t know, but it was pretty sure. You’re my half-sister, and Nephrite’s.”
His two lovers gaped at him.
“I understand if you want to break it off. Our affair I mean, not the engagement. I’ll still go through with that for you and leave you two alone with each other. Unless you still want me,” Endymion said with a half-hearted attempt at his usual eyebrow wiggle at Kunzite.
“I always yell at you for being a perverted pushy immature jerk; I never thought you’d be more of an idiot when you’re trying to act otherwise.” She stalked over to him, her improperly tied laces and skirts making ominous trails around her. Beryl latched onto the only important point in his previous statements and used the operative word. “Illegitimate half-sister.”