Threecount - Fudge Ripple, Cookies N' Cream, Chocolate Chip Mint, Sour Apple, Chocolate
Hullo again, RaTs. In a fit of motivation I have begun to write again, and hopefully I will actually manage to keep up with everything this time.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #16 - suspicion, Cookies N Cream #27 - push
Extras: Fresh Blueberries - The Night has a thousand eyes, / And the Day but one; / Yet the light of the bright world dies / With the dying sun. / The mind has a thousand eyes, / And the heart but one; / Yet the light of a whole life dies / When love is done. - Francis William Bourdillon
Rating: PG
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Godhood arc
Word Count: 636
She was lucky to have her daughter, she knew, but at the same time she didn't feel very lucky.
She was lucky to have been left a princess when the Black Glass shattered her life, as easily as if itself had been glass. She was lucky, to have a queen in the making, even if there would only ever be one queen after her, even if she would have to be content with only one princess with dark blue eyes.
But there was doubt in her. There was doubt, and it whispered at the edge of her mind whenever she watched her daughter struggle to force feathers out of her human fingers, whenever she heard the relief in her daughter's sighs when her wings shed their plumage. She had always known her daughter would struggle - the sole daughter of the queen, all the responsibilities on her, not allowed to know the truth of why when she flew, she flew alone.
The doubt was cool and smooth, and it beat at her with crystal fists, shards of suspicion digging deeper into her skin with every gasping, labored shift. The day came, finally, when her daughter simply looked at her and began to cry, too human to admit what she was - broken, immendable, a creature sickening in its pitiableness.
Perhaps that was when Izdihar stopped loving Asma.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate #29 - relief, Cookies N Cream #29 - shake
Extras: Fresh Peaches -You're in love with the world today, and you're most especially in love with your partner.
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Timeline: The beginning of Falsehood arc - just after this piece.
Word Count: 907
She had been curled up in her alcove with tears running down her face - Haytham, Haytham, Haytham, her heart hammering through the rhythm of his name. She was so tempted to run back to him, quick feet quick, and take him back - love me, love me, love me. Her heart was the snare in her chest though it felt as if it had been torn from her, and -
The door creaked open, and Asma looked up - Astor's face rippling through indigo curtains - and then oh, bright gods preserve us, his voice. "Princess?"
She wrapped her arms protectively around herself as he approached, willing herself to ignore the way he was looking at her - confusion, pity, a strange worrying emotion. He did not love her, he could not - she loved him though she had loved Haytham (her heart was a despicable, fickle thing), and -
"Princess?"
The bastard was kneeling before her, reaching out a hand that Asma shrank away from - do not touch me do not know me do not love me. "Go away," she whispered.
"Princess - "
"Don't call me that."
"Princess - ?"
"Leave me alone!"
"Asma, I - "
"No!" she burst out, and tears wet her cheeks once again, damp with shame and rage and despair. Didn't he see what he was doing, he wasn't healing her heart, he was - he was ripping at it, wearing the hole ragged, unraveling her like a piece of careless weaving. "Don't call me that, don't call me anything, you don't even - !"
His eyes were bewildered, but he reached for her - and who said she was weak? She was as fast as those Rocs that were fortunate enough to change - she bolted for the door, but he trapped her in a viselike grip that held her tight even as she writhed to get away.
But his voice was gentle when he spoke. "Asma, you are only my princess."
The words cut her away from control, fragile puppet-strings torn with six careless words; he the snake-charmer, she the cobra with the torn-out fangs.
"Oh, I am not your anything," the words came, and when she fell he caught her, cradling her in his arms as she wept.
But his hands were on her and around her and his fingers twined into her hair, and for a moment or two she could believe that this was meant to happen - that he was holding her as a lover does (and Haytham had not held her so lovingly), instead of keeping her captive. That the feeling of his embrace was not alien to her.
But his lips were so soft on the nape of her neck, and -
"My princess," he whispered - it was the same voice that had told her his name that first day they met, and his eyes were still that delicate shade of blue. "Oh, princess, how could you - ?"
"I love you," came a voice, one that Asma distantly recognized as her own, and dimly she hated herself for being weak enough to say it. "You can't love a creature like me, though - I can't change, I'm the foolish princess bound to fail and never wear her feathers. I can't make my mother love me, I can't do what everyone else can, I'm - I'm completely pathetic, but - but Haytham - and you, and - "
His hands released their bruising grip on her shoulders, and his arms wrapped around her torso in a gentle touch so like the brush of summer flowers against her skin. And suddenly it flooded from her mouth - Haytham, Janan, the three-year tryst that left a burning hole where her heart used to be (and it still sang his name, wherever it was, Haytham, Haytham, Haytham). The way he was so free with his love, except when it came to her. The way she had learned through him what jealousy tasted like. The way they had betrayed Janan, together, but it was far more her fault than his.
Her tongue stilled, fell silent on the word love; and that resounding door-click echoed again in her mind.
She knew how it would go from here. Astor would be repulsed, that she could do such a thing behind the back of her guardian, and he would drop his arms and step away. She could perhaps beg him not to tell Janan, and maybe, if he still liked her, he would agree. But he would never tell her another fairy tale, never gift her with some foreign bauble again. He would never teach her the names of the stars or dance with her again, and she would never watch his nimble fingers pick up a quill or scuttle, spiderlike, across a piano's keys -
"I love you, too."
Asma froze, and her hands rose to clutch at her trembling mouth. And even as she shook he took her into his arms, cradling her as her mother should have done. No, no, no - Haytham, Haytham, Haytham.
Her heart beat so convincingly, and her arms ached to hold him again, and -
And yet -
"Stay with me," she said impulsively (the three words that no one had been able to fulfill - the three words that had caused her downfall), and the arms around her tightened.
"Always, my princess," Astor's voice said, and Asma's heart began to sing another name.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #15 - confidence, Chocolate Chip Mint #2 - fuzzy, Sour Apple #5 - "what's this button do?"
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 1880
She was seated by the window, humming something that sounded like a lullaby; eight notes that scattered into a kind of frenzy, that both soothed Asma and frightened her. She couldn't identify what had her on edge about it until she recognized those eight notes again - it was something Astor had written, something unfinished when he showed it to her, and she once again wondered why she hadn't just had this girl killed.
"Janan," she said, and the silver-haired woman looked up from where she had been sitting, carefully repairing a tear in a scrap of black fabric. Asma vaguely recognized it as a sash of hers, but recognizing it as unimportant, she continued, "Has she eaten? Spoken at all since she came up here?"
The other Roc shook her head, tucking her repair work into some hidden pocket or another as she stood up. "She has eaten, but she only laughed at me when I tried to get her to talk to me - "
"Well, that's because you're an annoying airhead with stupid hair."
Asma's focus darted to the girl at the windowsill; she had stopped humming and had turned to stare at them with disgust. Her eyes were still green and still Oriana's, and Asma had to bite down - something, a scream or a sob or an apology, she wasn't sure which.
"Janan wouldn't consider killing you," she said, and was pleased to find that her voice was calm and cold. "I, however, am seriously thinking about the possibility."
"Like you killed my sister?"
Another bolt of something, sorrow or anger or surprise, and Asma turned to Janan. "Leave me alone with her, would you? I want to talk to her."
The silver-haired Roc bowed, though she gave Asma a look of worry, and departed. The princess turned back to the girl with Oriana's eyes, regarded her for a moment. The girl stared back.
"Your sister?" Asma said after a long moment, and a slow smile spread across the girl's face.
"Oriana," she said, and Asma pressed her lips together to prevent one of those not-quite-screams from being set free. "My sister. She went gadding around with one of your kind, you know. I told her it wouldn't end up all right, but no, she was infatuated with some musician who was the friend of the princess's, so she was okay."
"He was my lover."
For the first time, a flicker of surprise crossed the girl's face, and then she shrugged. "Well, then I can see why he wanted Oriana instead," she replied, and for the third time in as many minutes Asma wondered why she hadn't just killed the girl.
"What's your name?"
"Mine? I'm Hana." Hana settled herself comfortably, still staring at Asma with somewhat less fear than was usually merited in humans. "I'm not going to ask you your name, 'cause I already know it. Aaazzz-maaa."
She stretched out the name and made it an absurd caricature. Asma wanted to hate her.
"How did it start?"
"Your name?"
"Oriana. And the Roc."
Her expression was belligerent. "Why should I tell you?"
"Because," Asma said, in as chilly a voice she could muster, "I could have you killed."
"What makes you think I care - "
Asma stood. The blue bauble winked at her from behind Hana's head, and she approached to retrieve it.
"H-hey, what are you -?!"
The human actually flinched when Asma reached out; but there was still that flicker of shamed relief in her eyes when it became apparent she was grasping something behind Hana. She retreated to her seat. The glass sphere was a reassuring weight in her lap, and as she spoke the cool surface was like water beneath her nervous fingers.
"Better yet," Asma murmured thoughtfully, "I could have you dragged through the desert for a full year, kept on the brink of death, then slowly dismembered and eaten alive, piece by piece, until you were nothing more than a lump of agony-riddled flesh."
She glanced at Hana. The human was even paler now; and Asma felt an odd, vindictive glee.
"All I want to know is what happened between my lover and your sister," she said softly, persuasively. "No one can be harmed because of it - I cannot touch him, and your sister, well - she's beyond harm."
A jab that they both felt. Hana made an involuntary jerk towards her, as if to attack, and Asma flinched - not from Hana's motion, but from her words.
Why don't you come out and say it, Asma? She's dead, and you made her that way.
They were silent, for a time, until Hana opened her mouth. She closed it - Asma felt the now-familiar sinking in her stomach -
Then, slowly, methodically, Hana began to tell her the story.
"We knew he was a Roc. None of the Black Glass were part of our village then; we were peaceful, I suppose. He wasn't attacking us or trying to hurt us; he just appeared one day in the center of town, and after a while everyone got used to him. He started being 'the Roc' or 'the blue-eyed boy.'"
Hana got up, beginning to pace around the room. Asma watched her with a predator's wary eyes, the glass orb now a cold weight at her stomach - did she want to hear this? How Astor had torn from her what she thought was hers to keep?
She did; Hana continued. "Oriana was always weirdly into your kind. Once he started being a regular occurrence, she went up to him and begged him for any sort of stories about your people. He told her the old mythology story, the one everyone knows, and he told her a lot about how everything in the palace worked. Not guard schedules or whatever," she said hastily, waving her hands quickly at Asma. "Just... how life was. Dance, music, stuff like that."
The green-eyed girl paused, rested a hand on the wall. "He told us about you."
She very nearly leaped up at that, but only the glass orb kept her from doing so - the lapis shards exploding across the floor was an image that would haunt her terrified daydreams. Yet her lips trembled as she spoke.
"About me?"
"Yes. He called you Princess Asma, and he said he was a very dear friend of yours."
A very dear friend. For some reason, it almost struck her as funny, and she allowed a brief heh of amusement. "You could say that."
Hana was quiet for another long moment. "... Yes. He didn't talk about you much, though. Mostly it was just Oriana and him, discussing music or dance or whatever."
"How long?"
Her voice was intense, and the green-eyed human looked up in surprise. "How - ?"
"How long, Hana? When did he start coming? When did he - "
Her voice failed her. Hana's face was oddly soft; compassionate, even. As if she understood, a little.
"He started coming about three years ago," she said, and at this Asma had to laugh. He'd begun this little affair of his before they'd even become formal lovers, and when she'd taken him a year into whatever this was, he hadn't bothered to mention to Oriana that her head would be his other woman's ideal birthday gift.
"That fool," she said softly, and Hana shifted uncomfortably.
"Well... it kind of led up to things, like things do, a lot, and about half a year ago he gave her that sapphire ring thing. Which I guess meant that she was his consort, or something - do you wear that thing, too?"
Half a year ago. It was half a year ago that Oriana had been brought into their halls, all bubbly personality and mass of golden curls; emerald eyes and shy smile.
It was half a year ago that Asma had bathed her hands in her blood.
"No," Asma said harshly. The pain of hearing this had gone, turned to ice. "The blue ring isn't something to be taken lightly - amongst humans and Rocs, perhaps, it might symbolize a casual relationship - for," she added caustically, "what else could a relationship between a human and a Roc be? But for us, it is something very different. Eternal bond. It means your destiny is bound to the one who wears the ring with the identical stone."
"But if your boy knew the significance - "
"I said between us, girl," the princess spat. "Astor was simply attaching his mark of ownership to your sister - like a dog. All she was was a pet, a plaything. Don't be foolish, like Oriana was."
She could almost see the hopeful light in Hana's eyes go out, and the human's voice was flat when she spoke again.
"Well, your boy Astor gave her the ring and dragged her off to the palace, I guess to introduce her to everyone. We got all excited, because hey, one of us is going to be royalty - and instead of a wedding invitation, I get my sister's head in a box."
The girl's eyebrow quirked. "Was that your idea? Very stylish."
Asma had spent the week after Oriana's death in her room, alternately - as she was told by Janan when she'd come to full consciousness - vomiting, staring at the wall, and dancing until her feet bled. She had no memory of the week.
She didn't think she'd had anything to do with the box.
"Can I go now?"
Hana's voice jerked Asma from her daze, and she stared at the girl for a moment. What would happen if she let her go - she'd get in contact with this Black Glass again, whatever it was, and launch another assassination attempt, most likely. And this time it would be transferred from her to the Rocmother, even more powerful than she. The Roc would crumble without a queen at their head.
She could have Hana killed, but even with the ice on her heart, she'd had enough of death for a while.
Her eyes were so like Oriana's, and if she looked out to the distance and let her brow smooth, she'd even -
"No," she said softly. "No, I think you're going to stay here a while, Or- Hana. We aren't in the habit of letting would-be assassins go free without some consequence, after all. And it might be interesting to keep you around, just to see what kind of trouble Oriana's sister might get herself in."
The princess stood, clutching the glass orb in her hands, and called for Janan. Hana simply stared at her for a moment, dumbstruck, until her expression hardened into one of fury.
"You bitch, you said you'd let me go!" she cried, and the next few moments were a blur - Hana lunged, the door banged open, the wrathful shrieks of the human as she beat against Janan's restraining arms. The silver-haired woman dragged the green-eyed girl from the room, calling for Haytham's help, and Hana's bitter yells faded.
There was an odd, dry sound, like two leaves rubbing against each other. Asma reached up to touch her throat. She'd laughed.
She was looking forward to seeing Astor when he discovered her latest addition to the palace.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #16 - suspicion, Cookies N Cream #27 - push
Extras: Fresh Blueberries - The Night has a thousand eyes, / And the Day but one; / Yet the light of the bright world dies / With the dying sun. / The mind has a thousand eyes, / And the heart but one; / Yet the light of a whole life dies / When love is done. - Francis William Bourdillon
Rating: PG
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Godhood arc
Word Count: 636
She was lucky to have her daughter, she knew, but at the same time she didn't feel very lucky.
She was lucky to have been left a princess when the Black Glass shattered her life, as easily as if itself had been glass. She was lucky, to have a queen in the making, even if there would only ever be one queen after her, even if she would have to be content with only one princess with dark blue eyes.
But there was doubt in her. There was doubt, and it whispered at the edge of her mind whenever she watched her daughter struggle to force feathers out of her human fingers, whenever she heard the relief in her daughter's sighs when her wings shed their plumage. She had always known her daughter would struggle - the sole daughter of the queen, all the responsibilities on her, not allowed to know the truth of why when she flew, she flew alone.
The doubt was cool and smooth, and it beat at her with crystal fists, shards of suspicion digging deeper into her skin with every gasping, labored shift. The day came, finally, when her daughter simply looked at her and began to cry, too human to admit what she was - broken, immendable, a creature sickening in its pitiableness.
Perhaps that was when Izdihar stopped loving Asma.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate #29 - relief, Cookies N Cream #29 - shake
Extras: Fresh Peaches -You're in love with the world today, and you're most especially in love with your partner.
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Timeline: The beginning of Falsehood arc - just after this piece.
Word Count: 907
She had been curled up in her alcove with tears running down her face - Haytham, Haytham, Haytham, her heart hammering through the rhythm of his name. She was so tempted to run back to him, quick feet quick, and take him back - love me, love me, love me. Her heart was the snare in her chest though it felt as if it had been torn from her, and -
The door creaked open, and Asma looked up - Astor's face rippling through indigo curtains - and then oh, bright gods preserve us, his voice. "Princess?"
She wrapped her arms protectively around herself as he approached, willing herself to ignore the way he was looking at her - confusion, pity, a strange worrying emotion. He did not love her, he could not - she loved him though she had loved Haytham (her heart was a despicable, fickle thing), and -
"Princess?"
The bastard was kneeling before her, reaching out a hand that Asma shrank away from - do not touch me do not know me do not love me. "Go away," she whispered.
"Princess - "
"Don't call me that."
"Princess - ?"
"Leave me alone!"
"Asma, I - "
"No!" she burst out, and tears wet her cheeks once again, damp with shame and rage and despair. Didn't he see what he was doing, he wasn't healing her heart, he was - he was ripping at it, wearing the hole ragged, unraveling her like a piece of careless weaving. "Don't call me that, don't call me anything, you don't even - !"
His eyes were bewildered, but he reached for her - and who said she was weak? She was as fast as those Rocs that were fortunate enough to change - she bolted for the door, but he trapped her in a viselike grip that held her tight even as she writhed to get away.
But his voice was gentle when he spoke. "Asma, you are only my princess."
The words cut her away from control, fragile puppet-strings torn with six careless words; he the snake-charmer, she the cobra with the torn-out fangs.
"Oh, I am not your anything," the words came, and when she fell he caught her, cradling her in his arms as she wept.
But his hands were on her and around her and his fingers twined into her hair, and for a moment or two she could believe that this was meant to happen - that he was holding her as a lover does (and Haytham had not held her so lovingly), instead of keeping her captive. That the feeling of his embrace was not alien to her.
But his lips were so soft on the nape of her neck, and -
"My princess," he whispered - it was the same voice that had told her his name that first day they met, and his eyes were still that delicate shade of blue. "Oh, princess, how could you - ?"
"I love you," came a voice, one that Asma distantly recognized as her own, and dimly she hated herself for being weak enough to say it. "You can't love a creature like me, though - I can't change, I'm the foolish princess bound to fail and never wear her feathers. I can't make my mother love me, I can't do what everyone else can, I'm - I'm completely pathetic, but - but Haytham - and you, and - "
His hands released their bruising grip on her shoulders, and his arms wrapped around her torso in a gentle touch so like the brush of summer flowers against her skin. And suddenly it flooded from her mouth - Haytham, Janan, the three-year tryst that left a burning hole where her heart used to be (and it still sang his name, wherever it was, Haytham, Haytham, Haytham). The way he was so free with his love, except when it came to her. The way she had learned through him what jealousy tasted like. The way they had betrayed Janan, together, but it was far more her fault than his.
Her tongue stilled, fell silent on the word love; and that resounding door-click echoed again in her mind.
She knew how it would go from here. Astor would be repulsed, that she could do such a thing behind the back of her guardian, and he would drop his arms and step away. She could perhaps beg him not to tell Janan, and maybe, if he still liked her, he would agree. But he would never tell her another fairy tale, never gift her with some foreign bauble again. He would never teach her the names of the stars or dance with her again, and she would never watch his nimble fingers pick up a quill or scuttle, spiderlike, across a piano's keys -
"I love you, too."
Asma froze, and her hands rose to clutch at her trembling mouth. And even as she shook he took her into his arms, cradling her as her mother should have done. No, no, no - Haytham, Haytham, Haytham.
Her heart beat so convincingly, and her arms ached to hold him again, and -
And yet -
"Stay with me," she said impulsively (the three words that no one had been able to fulfill - the three words that had caused her downfall), and the arms around her tightened.
"Always, my princess," Astor's voice said, and Asma's heart began to sing another name.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #15 - confidence, Chocolate Chip Mint #2 - fuzzy, Sour Apple #5 - "what's this button do?"
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 1880
She was seated by the window, humming something that sounded like a lullaby; eight notes that scattered into a kind of frenzy, that both soothed Asma and frightened her. She couldn't identify what had her on edge about it until she recognized those eight notes again - it was something Astor had written, something unfinished when he showed it to her, and she once again wondered why she hadn't just had this girl killed.
"Janan," she said, and the silver-haired woman looked up from where she had been sitting, carefully repairing a tear in a scrap of black fabric. Asma vaguely recognized it as a sash of hers, but recognizing it as unimportant, she continued, "Has she eaten? Spoken at all since she came up here?"
The other Roc shook her head, tucking her repair work into some hidden pocket or another as she stood up. "She has eaten, but she only laughed at me when I tried to get her to talk to me - "
"Well, that's because you're an annoying airhead with stupid hair."
Asma's focus darted to the girl at the windowsill; she had stopped humming and had turned to stare at them with disgust. Her eyes were still green and still Oriana's, and Asma had to bite down - something, a scream or a sob or an apology, she wasn't sure which.
"Janan wouldn't consider killing you," she said, and was pleased to find that her voice was calm and cold. "I, however, am seriously thinking about the possibility."
"Like you killed my sister?"
Another bolt of something, sorrow or anger or surprise, and Asma turned to Janan. "Leave me alone with her, would you? I want to talk to her."
The silver-haired Roc bowed, though she gave Asma a look of worry, and departed. The princess turned back to the girl with Oriana's eyes, regarded her for a moment. The girl stared back.
"Your sister?" Asma said after a long moment, and a slow smile spread across the girl's face.
"Oriana," she said, and Asma pressed her lips together to prevent one of those not-quite-screams from being set free. "My sister. She went gadding around with one of your kind, you know. I told her it wouldn't end up all right, but no, she was infatuated with some musician who was the friend of the princess's, so she was okay."
"He was my lover."
For the first time, a flicker of surprise crossed the girl's face, and then she shrugged. "Well, then I can see why he wanted Oriana instead," she replied, and for the third time in as many minutes Asma wondered why she hadn't just killed the girl.
"What's your name?"
"Mine? I'm Hana." Hana settled herself comfortably, still staring at Asma with somewhat less fear than was usually merited in humans. "I'm not going to ask you your name, 'cause I already know it. Aaazzz-maaa."
She stretched out the name and made it an absurd caricature. Asma wanted to hate her.
"How did it start?"
"Your name?"
"Oriana. And the Roc."
Her expression was belligerent. "Why should I tell you?"
"Because," Asma said, in as chilly a voice she could muster, "I could have you killed."
"What makes you think I care - "
Asma stood. The blue bauble winked at her from behind Hana's head, and she approached to retrieve it.
"H-hey, what are you -?!"
The human actually flinched when Asma reached out; but there was still that flicker of shamed relief in her eyes when it became apparent she was grasping something behind Hana. She retreated to her seat. The glass sphere was a reassuring weight in her lap, and as she spoke the cool surface was like water beneath her nervous fingers.
"Better yet," Asma murmured thoughtfully, "I could have you dragged through the desert for a full year, kept on the brink of death, then slowly dismembered and eaten alive, piece by piece, until you were nothing more than a lump of agony-riddled flesh."
She glanced at Hana. The human was even paler now; and Asma felt an odd, vindictive glee.
"All I want to know is what happened between my lover and your sister," she said softly, persuasively. "No one can be harmed because of it - I cannot touch him, and your sister, well - she's beyond harm."
A jab that they both felt. Hana made an involuntary jerk towards her, as if to attack, and Asma flinched - not from Hana's motion, but from her words.
Why don't you come out and say it, Asma? She's dead, and you made her that way.
They were silent, for a time, until Hana opened her mouth. She closed it - Asma felt the now-familiar sinking in her stomach -
Then, slowly, methodically, Hana began to tell her the story.
"We knew he was a Roc. None of the Black Glass were part of our village then; we were peaceful, I suppose. He wasn't attacking us or trying to hurt us; he just appeared one day in the center of town, and after a while everyone got used to him. He started being 'the Roc' or 'the blue-eyed boy.'"
Hana got up, beginning to pace around the room. Asma watched her with a predator's wary eyes, the glass orb now a cold weight at her stomach - did she want to hear this? How Astor had torn from her what she thought was hers to keep?
She did; Hana continued. "Oriana was always weirdly into your kind. Once he started being a regular occurrence, she went up to him and begged him for any sort of stories about your people. He told her the old mythology story, the one everyone knows, and he told her a lot about how everything in the palace worked. Not guard schedules or whatever," she said hastily, waving her hands quickly at Asma. "Just... how life was. Dance, music, stuff like that."
The green-eyed girl paused, rested a hand on the wall. "He told us about you."
She very nearly leaped up at that, but only the glass orb kept her from doing so - the lapis shards exploding across the floor was an image that would haunt her terrified daydreams. Yet her lips trembled as she spoke.
"About me?"
"Yes. He called you Princess Asma, and he said he was a very dear friend of yours."
A very dear friend. For some reason, it almost struck her as funny, and she allowed a brief heh of amusement. "You could say that."
Hana was quiet for another long moment. "... Yes. He didn't talk about you much, though. Mostly it was just Oriana and him, discussing music or dance or whatever."
"How long?"
Her voice was intense, and the green-eyed human looked up in surprise. "How - ?"
"How long, Hana? When did he start coming? When did he - "
Her voice failed her. Hana's face was oddly soft; compassionate, even. As if she understood, a little.
"He started coming about three years ago," she said, and at this Asma had to laugh. He'd begun this little affair of his before they'd even become formal lovers, and when she'd taken him a year into whatever this was, he hadn't bothered to mention to Oriana that her head would be his other woman's ideal birthday gift.
"That fool," she said softly, and Hana shifted uncomfortably.
"Well... it kind of led up to things, like things do, a lot, and about half a year ago he gave her that sapphire ring thing. Which I guess meant that she was his consort, or something - do you wear that thing, too?"
Half a year ago. It was half a year ago that Oriana had been brought into their halls, all bubbly personality and mass of golden curls; emerald eyes and shy smile.
It was half a year ago that Asma had bathed her hands in her blood.
"No," Asma said harshly. The pain of hearing this had gone, turned to ice. "The blue ring isn't something to be taken lightly - amongst humans and Rocs, perhaps, it might symbolize a casual relationship - for," she added caustically, "what else could a relationship between a human and a Roc be? But for us, it is something very different. Eternal bond. It means your destiny is bound to the one who wears the ring with the identical stone."
"But if your boy knew the significance - "
"I said between us, girl," the princess spat. "Astor was simply attaching his mark of ownership to your sister - like a dog. All she was was a pet, a plaything. Don't be foolish, like Oriana was."
She could almost see the hopeful light in Hana's eyes go out, and the human's voice was flat when she spoke again.
"Well, your boy Astor gave her the ring and dragged her off to the palace, I guess to introduce her to everyone. We got all excited, because hey, one of us is going to be royalty - and instead of a wedding invitation, I get my sister's head in a box."
The girl's eyebrow quirked. "Was that your idea? Very stylish."
Asma had spent the week after Oriana's death in her room, alternately - as she was told by Janan when she'd come to full consciousness - vomiting, staring at the wall, and dancing until her feet bled. She had no memory of the week.
She didn't think she'd had anything to do with the box.
"Can I go now?"
Hana's voice jerked Asma from her daze, and she stared at the girl for a moment. What would happen if she let her go - she'd get in contact with this Black Glass again, whatever it was, and launch another assassination attempt, most likely. And this time it would be transferred from her to the Rocmother, even more powerful than she. The Roc would crumble without a queen at their head.
She could have Hana killed, but even with the ice on her heart, she'd had enough of death for a while.
Her eyes were so like Oriana's, and if she looked out to the distance and let her brow smooth, she'd even -
"No," she said softly. "No, I think you're going to stay here a while, Or- Hana. We aren't in the habit of letting would-be assassins go free without some consequence, after all. And it might be interesting to keep you around, just to see what kind of trouble Oriana's sister might get herself in."
The princess stood, clutching the glass orb in her hands, and called for Janan. Hana simply stared at her for a moment, dumbstruck, until her expression hardened into one of fury.
"You bitch, you said you'd let me go!" she cried, and the next few moments were a blur - Hana lunged, the door banged open, the wrathful shrieks of the human as she beat against Janan's restraining arms. The silver-haired woman dragged the green-eyed girl from the room, calling for Haytham's help, and Hana's bitter yells faded.
There was an odd, dry sound, like two leaves rubbing against each other. Asma reached up to touch her throat. She'd laughed.
She was looking forward to seeing Astor when he discovered her latest addition to the palace.