fic: "Assembly, Care, & Feeding of a Queen's Court" by Tielan - Chapter 5
TITLE: Assembly, Care, & Feeding of a Queen's Court - Part 5: Underestimated
SUMMARY: Jane had never enjoyed the social gatherings in Aer Gerulus, even when her father was alive.
CHARACTERS: Jane, Maria
DETAILS: Master Post
Chapter 5: Underestimated
Jane had never enjoyed the social gatherings in Aer Gerulus, even when her father was alive.
Now that he was dead, she would have avoided them entirely if not for Erik, who encouraged her to go to such parties and escorted her, even though she knew he liked them no better than she did.
"A break from our work is beneficial," he would say. "And you should really make friends your own age."
The problem was that none of the young aristo witches her own age particularly wanted to be friends with Jane. Her family weren't important, her Jewels weren't dark, and she didn't have a caste. About the only thing Jane was good for in the minds of the aristo class of Aer Gerulus was breeding, and that would only be after her Virgin Night which was still a year or two away. All of which made her competition in the minds of most of the witches at these social gatherings, not companion.
Besides which, Jane didn't want to be friends with them, either.
Most were petty, small-minded, and uninterested in spells and potions and the things that Jane found so fascinating about being Blood. At least Darcy was a Priestess, and they could have interesting conversations about Darcy's training as well as discuss the latest gossip. But Darcy was working at a sanctuary halfway across the Territory, and Jane was stuck here in Aer Gerulus.
And as for the young Blood males strutting around such gatherings, the less said about them, the better - especially to Erik.
So far, Jane had managed to evade any attempts to corner her, but she was aware that at least one if not several of the males in her social circle considered her a challenge, and things would probably come to a head sooner or later. After which she really would be unwelcome at these gatherings.
Tonight, at least, the party she was attending was enlivened by the appearance of the new Queen who was living over in the residence. Well, the Queen and the six males who'd accompanied her, from the older Warlord Prince who strode into the room like he owned it, to the stocky younger male whom the gaggle of witches nearest Jane pronounced 'delicious' behind their hands before daring each other to flirt with him.
Given the way he and the lovely redhead from the Queen's party kept an eye on each other, Jane imagined flirting was about all these girls would get from him.
She let herself be introduced to the Queen - Maria - and her escort, and was surprised to realise that the Queen whose presence had set the town abuzz was even younger than Jane. Lady Hill said something inane, Jane said something back equally inane, and then someone else shouldered their way into the conversation and Jane dropped back. The Lady had more than enough people clamouring for her attention.
Instead, Jane entertained herself by watching how the Queen's party interacted with the local aristos: a little cool, a little sardonic, and managing to do polished politeness and pointed abrasion together - sometimes in the same sentence.
Of course, because she was watching the Queen's party, she wasn't really paying attention to the others in the room. So when she found herself whisked out a balcony door into the warm, dark night, she wasn't prepared enough to do more than catch her breath before a hand covered her mouth and she was shoved back against a wall hard enough to see stars.
"Now," said Lord Nigel Ambrose with an unpleasant smile, "You aren't going to scream or call for help - you can't anyway, because I've surrounded us with a Summer-sky shield. What you are going to do is kiss me back and enjoy it - or, if you're too frigid to do that, at least pretend you're enjoying it so I get a little pleasure out of- YEAAGH!"
Jane had reached low, gripped and twisted. If she had to twist his balls off, then so be it, but she was not going to kiss the miserable excuse for a Blood male, no matter what kind of reparation his family demanded from her.
She shoved him away, her heart pounding, her breath short - not with excitement but with stress and strain. "You are never going to even try that again," she hissed and called in the knife she'd taken to keeping on her at all times. "I'll see you shaved before I sully myself with a kiss from you!"
"You bitch!" He snarled, still half-crouched over and panting from his 'injury'. "Let's see if you're so proud after I-"
In an instant, the temperature dropped, and the words froze on his tongue. Jane gasped and saw it puff in the air, steaming white by the light of the gibbous moon.
"I hope you weren't about to say what I thought you were going to say." The words were calm and quiet, but something terrifying lingered beneath them as Lady Hill paused on the threshold of the balcony. "Because if you were, that would constitute a threat of rape. For which the punishment is to be decided by a tribunal of Queens. And I know what you're thinking," she continued in that same calm, quiet voice. "You're thinking that there's no tribunal of Queens anymore, so they couldn't possibly punish you."
"Lady-" Jane stopped as Lady Hill held up her hand to stop her protest.
A moment later that hand curled around a bladed stick, long and viciously elegant. It whistled softly through the still-freezing air as Lady Hill swung it towards Nigel, stopping just shy of his belly before dropping to point at his balls.
"As the Queen in residence at Aer Gerulus, I'd be happy to mete out the judgement and the justice," said Lady Hill. "Of course," she noted, "I've never shaved a man, so it could get messy. But that would be all part of the judgement. Did you have something to say?"
"I..." Nigel's eyes darted to the doors beyond as though hoping for a reprieve.
"Oh, they won't come out to see," Lady Hill was still talking in that quiet, low voice that was at once both soothing and deadly. "Because Lady Romanoff and Lord Barton are having a very public, very messy, very fake fight inside right this moment. Lots of dramatics, and accusations of flirting and infidelity. You wouldn't believe how well Lord Barton sulks. The witches are all desperately hoping Clint will say he's had enough, and the males are all thinking that surely Natasha will need comforting after having her heart broken by a such reckless philanderer." She smiled sweetly. "So, did you have something to say, Lord Ambrose?"
Jane felt something dangerously like hysterics rising up within her. She swallowed it, siphoning off just a thread of power from her White Jewel to calm herself down.
"Lady Foster?"
She strove to be calm. It wasn't easy beneath those eyes. "I won't press charges this time."
"You should," the Lady said. "Because he'll only try this on another witch - one who doesn't carry a knife on her."
Yes, Jane had guessed that. And she'd prepared for it, too. "I won't press charges this time, in exchange for a drop of his blood."
Nigel squeaked, but Lady Hill just arched one brow. "Just a drop?"
"Just a drop."
Lady Hill eyed her for a long quiet moment, before a smile spread across her face. "Lord Ambrose?"
"L...Lady?"
"A drop of blood in exchange for no rape charges being pressed, then?" When he hesitated, the Lady added, "It's more than you'd get from me."
Nigel took the exchange. But Jane saw the anger glimmer in his eyes as she sliced his hand - shallowly - with the knife. It changed to fear when Lady Hill stepped in, still holding the bladed stick with the familiarity of someone who knew how to use it to disembowel a man - and possibly had at some point in the past.
"Lord Ambrose."
He faced the Queen again, wary.
"I have my eye on you, which means my males will keep an eye on you, too. And if we hear any rumours... Just remember that they're less forgiving than I am."
The nod was curt, the bow barely civil.
Then he scarpered.
"Filth," was Lady Hill's comment as she vanished the blade. The temperature around them had warmed back up, no longer influenced by a Queen's biting anger. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. A little shaken," she admitted. Now that the confrontation was over and she wasn't being fuelled by anger, she felt a little wobbly. "I wasn't expecting him to get me like that."
"I wasn't expecting you to ask for his blood." Lady Hill eyed her. "Do you need to go back inside?"
"No," Jane said, squaring her shoulders. She was shaky but she wasn't helpless. "Thank you for your help."
Unexpectedly, the other witch grinned. "Thank you for the excuse. I was looking for a reason to get out of there anyway. And it feels like ages since I got to threaten anyone."
Jane couldn't help but stare, fascinated and horrified. "Who was the last person you threatened?"
"Seriously threatened? Phil. Prince Coulson," Maria added when Jane tried to match the name with the escort. Her brain didn't seem to be working too well right now.
"Why were you threatening Prince Coulson?"
"Because he was snooping around my house and I wanted him to go away. So I told him I'd gut him if he ever came back."
"And what did he do?"
"Oh, he just never went away." Lady Hill made a face. "How are you at climbing walls?"
Jane was beginning to think that she'd quite underestimated Lady Hill. This conversation was going nowhere she would ever have expected! "I don't know. I've never tried it."
"Want to learn? The library in this house is on the next floor, and it's got a great collection of spellbooks..."
Five minutes later, Maria - it was impossible to think of her as 'Lady Hill' when she was showing you how to climb brick walls in an evening gown without ruining the gown - helped pull Jane over the window ledge of the library and lit a ball of witchlight to illuminate the room.
"Aren't your escort going to come looking for you?" Jane asked as she brushed off her skirts which were surprisingly less dirty than she'd expected.
"Probably." Maria smiled. "But by then, I'll have gotten a look at the library..."
There was a lot of library to see, and Jane was soon pulling interesting books off the shelves and flipping through them. "How did you know they had a library here?" It was a public meeting hall rather than a private residence, and there was no reason to imagine that anyone had kept a repository of books here.
"Oh, I read about it somewhere. It's been here a long time." Maria looked up from a couple of slim tomes. "What's your interest?"
"Mostly matter transformation, movement, and realignment spells."
"Do you have a workroom?"
"My father's..." Jane hesitated. "I guess it's mine now." It was still hard to think of it as her own workroom and not her father's.
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, it was several years ago."
"That doesn't mean you don't miss him."
"Do you have family...? I'm sorry," she said, suddenly recalling herself. "That was rude."
"My mother died giving birth to me," Maria said, matter-of-factly. "And my father didn't want any reminders of her."
"He abandoned you?" The rumours went that she'd grown up wild, but Jane couldn't believe it - Maria's manners were impeccable and she'd seemed very elegant and controlled all evening - at least until Nigel had started forcing himself on Jane. It just didn't seem possible that she'd been abandoned.
"Not quite," Maria's expression was careful. "But a local Queen adopted me, and I was brought up in her court. They were more my family than my father ever was."
"And you miss them," Jane said, latching onto the safer topic. "The Queen and her family?"
"Yes." Maria looked her in the eye. "You don't stop missing them, I think. You just...get used to the ache."
"To working around the hole." Jane nodded in understanding. "Sometimes I can hear what my father would say when I'm working on a spell."
"So what would he say if he knew you were working on a tangled web?"
Jane stared, astonished. "How did you know?"
"After the blooded knife? It's obvious."
"Have you... Have you trained with the Hourglass?" It was possible for a witch to be of more than one caste, although it was rare. Maria was obviously a Queen, her psychic scent proclaiming her caste to anyone with an ounce of psychic sensitivity. If she was a natural Black Widow then that was less obvious; although it was possible that she was simply in training with Lady Romanoff...
"No," Maria said. "But I know a little about tangled webs. There was a Black Widow in the court I grew up in, and she taught me little bits of her craft, even if she said I'd be better off learning lessons other than hers."
Jane dragged her thoughts together. "What are you going to do? About the knowledge, I mean."
"I was calling for him to be shaved," Maria said dryly. "I'm not in a position to tell you not to use his blood in a tangled web."
"But?"
"But I'm going to advise - as one Sister to another - that you should be careful. And," she added after a moment, "to ask if you would like some help."
Help? Jane was surprised. Wouldn't Maria have far more important things to do as a Queen than help a minor aristo witch finish a tangled web to mete out a little justice on a Warlord who didn't understand the meaning of 'no'?
*Jane?* Erik sounded worried. *Where are you?*
*In the library upstairs.* With the Queen.
*There's a library here? I didn't know that...* Erik sounded interested, and Jane grinned.
"I'm guessing you've just been missed?" Maria asked with a smile, vanishing the books in her hands. "My escort are threatening to come and fetch me if I don't go back to the meeting room."
"But you're the Queen."
"Maybe you can remind them of that." Maria rolled her eyes. "We'd better go. Nick says he'll haul me off over his shoulder if I'm not down in the next five minutes."
Jane could imagine. Warlord Princes were a law unto themselves, especially when they'd found a Queen they wanted to serve or a female to anchor them, and Prince Fury had seemed daunting enough in personality, never mind his caste or Jewel strength.
They were at the door before Jane found the courage to catch Maria's arm. "Would you like to come over some time? I mean, you're probably busy with all kinds of social engagements and Queen-type things but... The workroom was built for two, and I would like help. If you like."
Astonishment eased into a smile. "I'd like that very much. If you don't mind-"
"I wouldn't have invited you if I did mind."
"Well, then." Maria looped her arm into Jane's, "I'd love to."
Even the light scolding she got from Erik for running away from the party couldn't diminish her pleasure for the rest of the night.
--
Chapter 6: Trust And Service
SUMMARY: Jane had never enjoyed the social gatherings in Aer Gerulus, even when her father was alive.
CHARACTERS: Jane, Maria
DETAILS: Master Post
Chapter 5: Underestimated
Jane had never enjoyed the social gatherings in Aer Gerulus, even when her father was alive.
Now that he was dead, she would have avoided them entirely if not for Erik, who encouraged her to go to such parties and escorted her, even though she knew he liked them no better than she did.
"A break from our work is beneficial," he would say. "And you should really make friends your own age."
The problem was that none of the young aristo witches her own age particularly wanted to be friends with Jane. Her family weren't important, her Jewels weren't dark, and she didn't have a caste. About the only thing Jane was good for in the minds of the aristo class of Aer Gerulus was breeding, and that would only be after her Virgin Night which was still a year or two away. All of which made her competition in the minds of most of the witches at these social gatherings, not companion.
Besides which, Jane didn't want to be friends with them, either.
Most were petty, small-minded, and uninterested in spells and potions and the things that Jane found so fascinating about being Blood. At least Darcy was a Priestess, and they could have interesting conversations about Darcy's training as well as discuss the latest gossip. But Darcy was working at a sanctuary halfway across the Territory, and Jane was stuck here in Aer Gerulus.
And as for the young Blood males strutting around such gatherings, the less said about them, the better - especially to Erik.
So far, Jane had managed to evade any attempts to corner her, but she was aware that at least one if not several of the males in her social circle considered her a challenge, and things would probably come to a head sooner or later. After which she really would be unwelcome at these gatherings.
Tonight, at least, the party she was attending was enlivened by the appearance of the new Queen who was living over in the residence. Well, the Queen and the six males who'd accompanied her, from the older Warlord Prince who strode into the room like he owned it, to the stocky younger male whom the gaggle of witches nearest Jane pronounced 'delicious' behind their hands before daring each other to flirt with him.
Given the way he and the lovely redhead from the Queen's party kept an eye on each other, Jane imagined flirting was about all these girls would get from him.
She let herself be introduced to the Queen - Maria - and her escort, and was surprised to realise that the Queen whose presence had set the town abuzz was even younger than Jane. Lady Hill said something inane, Jane said something back equally inane, and then someone else shouldered their way into the conversation and Jane dropped back. The Lady had more than enough people clamouring for her attention.
Instead, Jane entertained herself by watching how the Queen's party interacted with the local aristos: a little cool, a little sardonic, and managing to do polished politeness and pointed abrasion together - sometimes in the same sentence.
Of course, because she was watching the Queen's party, she wasn't really paying attention to the others in the room. So when she found herself whisked out a balcony door into the warm, dark night, she wasn't prepared enough to do more than catch her breath before a hand covered her mouth and she was shoved back against a wall hard enough to see stars.
"Now," said Lord Nigel Ambrose with an unpleasant smile, "You aren't going to scream or call for help - you can't anyway, because I've surrounded us with a Summer-sky shield. What you are going to do is kiss me back and enjoy it - or, if you're too frigid to do that, at least pretend you're enjoying it so I get a little pleasure out of- YEAAGH!"
Jane had reached low, gripped and twisted. If she had to twist his balls off, then so be it, but she was not going to kiss the miserable excuse for a Blood male, no matter what kind of reparation his family demanded from her.
She shoved him away, her heart pounding, her breath short - not with excitement but with stress and strain. "You are never going to even try that again," she hissed and called in the knife she'd taken to keeping on her at all times. "I'll see you shaved before I sully myself with a kiss from you!"
"You bitch!" He snarled, still half-crouched over and panting from his 'injury'. "Let's see if you're so proud after I-"
In an instant, the temperature dropped, and the words froze on his tongue. Jane gasped and saw it puff in the air, steaming white by the light of the gibbous moon.
"I hope you weren't about to say what I thought you were going to say." The words were calm and quiet, but something terrifying lingered beneath them as Lady Hill paused on the threshold of the balcony. "Because if you were, that would constitute a threat of rape. For which the punishment is to be decided by a tribunal of Queens. And I know what you're thinking," she continued in that same calm, quiet voice. "You're thinking that there's no tribunal of Queens anymore, so they couldn't possibly punish you."
"Lady-" Jane stopped as Lady Hill held up her hand to stop her protest.
A moment later that hand curled around a bladed stick, long and viciously elegant. It whistled softly through the still-freezing air as Lady Hill swung it towards Nigel, stopping just shy of his belly before dropping to point at his balls.
"As the Queen in residence at Aer Gerulus, I'd be happy to mete out the judgement and the justice," said Lady Hill. "Of course," she noted, "I've never shaved a man, so it could get messy. But that would be all part of the judgement. Did you have something to say?"
"I..." Nigel's eyes darted to the doors beyond as though hoping for a reprieve.
"Oh, they won't come out to see," Lady Hill was still talking in that quiet, low voice that was at once both soothing and deadly. "Because Lady Romanoff and Lord Barton are having a very public, very messy, very fake fight inside right this moment. Lots of dramatics, and accusations of flirting and infidelity. You wouldn't believe how well Lord Barton sulks. The witches are all desperately hoping Clint will say he's had enough, and the males are all thinking that surely Natasha will need comforting after having her heart broken by a such reckless philanderer." She smiled sweetly. "So, did you have something to say, Lord Ambrose?"
Jane felt something dangerously like hysterics rising up within her. She swallowed it, siphoning off just a thread of power from her White Jewel to calm herself down.
"Lady Foster?"
She strove to be calm. It wasn't easy beneath those eyes. "I won't press charges this time."
"You should," the Lady said. "Because he'll only try this on another witch - one who doesn't carry a knife on her."
Yes, Jane had guessed that. And she'd prepared for it, too. "I won't press charges this time, in exchange for a drop of his blood."
Nigel squeaked, but Lady Hill just arched one brow. "Just a drop?"
"Just a drop."
Lady Hill eyed her for a long quiet moment, before a smile spread across her face. "Lord Ambrose?"
"L...Lady?"
"A drop of blood in exchange for no rape charges being pressed, then?" When he hesitated, the Lady added, "It's more than you'd get from me."
Nigel took the exchange. But Jane saw the anger glimmer in his eyes as she sliced his hand - shallowly - with the knife. It changed to fear when Lady Hill stepped in, still holding the bladed stick with the familiarity of someone who knew how to use it to disembowel a man - and possibly had at some point in the past.
"Lord Ambrose."
He faced the Queen again, wary.
"I have my eye on you, which means my males will keep an eye on you, too. And if we hear any rumours... Just remember that they're less forgiving than I am."
The nod was curt, the bow barely civil.
Then he scarpered.
"Filth," was Lady Hill's comment as she vanished the blade. The temperature around them had warmed back up, no longer influenced by a Queen's biting anger. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. A little shaken," she admitted. Now that the confrontation was over and she wasn't being fuelled by anger, she felt a little wobbly. "I wasn't expecting him to get me like that."
"I wasn't expecting you to ask for his blood." Lady Hill eyed her. "Do you need to go back inside?"
"No," Jane said, squaring her shoulders. She was shaky but she wasn't helpless. "Thank you for your help."
Unexpectedly, the other witch grinned. "Thank you for the excuse. I was looking for a reason to get out of there anyway. And it feels like ages since I got to threaten anyone."
Jane couldn't help but stare, fascinated and horrified. "Who was the last person you threatened?"
"Seriously threatened? Phil. Prince Coulson," Maria added when Jane tried to match the name with the escort. Her brain didn't seem to be working too well right now.
"Why were you threatening Prince Coulson?"
"Because he was snooping around my house and I wanted him to go away. So I told him I'd gut him if he ever came back."
"And what did he do?"
"Oh, he just never went away." Lady Hill made a face. "How are you at climbing walls?"
Jane was beginning to think that she'd quite underestimated Lady Hill. This conversation was going nowhere she would ever have expected! "I don't know. I've never tried it."
"Want to learn? The library in this house is on the next floor, and it's got a great collection of spellbooks..."
Five minutes later, Maria - it was impossible to think of her as 'Lady Hill' when she was showing you how to climb brick walls in an evening gown without ruining the gown - helped pull Jane over the window ledge of the library and lit a ball of witchlight to illuminate the room.
"Aren't your escort going to come looking for you?" Jane asked as she brushed off her skirts which were surprisingly less dirty than she'd expected.
"Probably." Maria smiled. "But by then, I'll have gotten a look at the library..."
There was a lot of library to see, and Jane was soon pulling interesting books off the shelves and flipping through them. "How did you know they had a library here?" It was a public meeting hall rather than a private residence, and there was no reason to imagine that anyone had kept a repository of books here.
"Oh, I read about it somewhere. It's been here a long time." Maria looked up from a couple of slim tomes. "What's your interest?"
"Mostly matter transformation, movement, and realignment spells."
"Do you have a workroom?"
"My father's..." Jane hesitated. "I guess it's mine now." It was still hard to think of it as her own workroom and not her father's.
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, it was several years ago."
"That doesn't mean you don't miss him."
"Do you have family...? I'm sorry," she said, suddenly recalling herself. "That was rude."
"My mother died giving birth to me," Maria said, matter-of-factly. "And my father didn't want any reminders of her."
"He abandoned you?" The rumours went that she'd grown up wild, but Jane couldn't believe it - Maria's manners were impeccable and she'd seemed very elegant and controlled all evening - at least until Nigel had started forcing himself on Jane. It just didn't seem possible that she'd been abandoned.
"Not quite," Maria's expression was careful. "But a local Queen adopted me, and I was brought up in her court. They were more my family than my father ever was."
"And you miss them," Jane said, latching onto the safer topic. "The Queen and her family?"
"Yes." Maria looked her in the eye. "You don't stop missing them, I think. You just...get used to the ache."
"To working around the hole." Jane nodded in understanding. "Sometimes I can hear what my father would say when I'm working on a spell."
"So what would he say if he knew you were working on a tangled web?"
Jane stared, astonished. "How did you know?"
"After the blooded knife? It's obvious."
"Have you... Have you trained with the Hourglass?" It was possible for a witch to be of more than one caste, although it was rare. Maria was obviously a Queen, her psychic scent proclaiming her caste to anyone with an ounce of psychic sensitivity. If she was a natural Black Widow then that was less obvious; although it was possible that she was simply in training with Lady Romanoff...
"No," Maria said. "But I know a little about tangled webs. There was a Black Widow in the court I grew up in, and she taught me little bits of her craft, even if she said I'd be better off learning lessons other than hers."
Jane dragged her thoughts together. "What are you going to do? About the knowledge, I mean."
"I was calling for him to be shaved," Maria said dryly. "I'm not in a position to tell you not to use his blood in a tangled web."
"But?"
"But I'm going to advise - as one Sister to another - that you should be careful. And," she added after a moment, "to ask if you would like some help."
Help? Jane was surprised. Wouldn't Maria have far more important things to do as a Queen than help a minor aristo witch finish a tangled web to mete out a little justice on a Warlord who didn't understand the meaning of 'no'?
*Jane?* Erik sounded worried. *Where are you?*
*In the library upstairs.* With the Queen.
*There's a library here? I didn't know that...* Erik sounded interested, and Jane grinned.
"I'm guessing you've just been missed?" Maria asked with a smile, vanishing the books in her hands. "My escort are threatening to come and fetch me if I don't go back to the meeting room."
"But you're the Queen."
"Maybe you can remind them of that." Maria rolled her eyes. "We'd better go. Nick says he'll haul me off over his shoulder if I'm not down in the next five minutes."
Jane could imagine. Warlord Princes were a law unto themselves, especially when they'd found a Queen they wanted to serve or a female to anchor them, and Prince Fury had seemed daunting enough in personality, never mind his caste or Jewel strength.
They were at the door before Jane found the courage to catch Maria's arm. "Would you like to come over some time? I mean, you're probably busy with all kinds of social engagements and Queen-type things but... The workroom was built for two, and I would like help. If you like."
Astonishment eased into a smile. "I'd like that very much. If you don't mind-"
"I wouldn't have invited you if I did mind."
"Well, then." Maria looped her arm into Jane's, "I'd love to."
Even the light scolding she got from Erik for running away from the party couldn't diminish her pleasure for the rest of the night.
--
Chapter 6: Trust And Service