Jon
In the darkness, something stirs.
A tug of string, a snap of thread, fate unspooling and respooling in new form. Plans carefully ironed now bursting with wrinkles. An old man pushed into the sea for nothing.
Candlewax drips onto my palm and I hiss. No matter how I obsess over what is to come, I will always be trapped by the indignity of the present. My body broken by ceaseless labor, eyes swollen from sleepless nights. But I will not die. Not yet. Something out there bids my chest to beat, a god who will pump life into my limbs so long as my duties go unfinished.
A god. I almost laugh.
Instead, I choke.
Perhaps that is what I am. Meddling from afar, weighing the misery of one against the good of all. A man my age should have a wife and kids, someone to grieve for their Choke-strewn ashes.
I was too good for that. The years I might've spent romancing a sweetheart were consumed by sprawling parchment, burnt and made anew with every attempt at theft. Not that there were many. My work was deemed the ravings of a madman, neighbors encouraged to keep their distance lest I infect them. I became sharp, eagle eyed, a hermit who scorned all and bowed to none. A tragic existence. But a necessary one.
Another droplet, more searing than the last. I had no choice. The world needed me. But sometimes I allow myself to regret, to trace the lines of a future long gone, to reminisce of Beatrix and our two sons. Of morning kisses and nighttime laughter, of the rancid thoughts pooling in each stray pocket of silence. A dynasty preserved, a people chained, all for the selfish joy of a man too racked with guilt to savor it. A man who clawed his skin to hash marks and bit his nails until they bled.
He hanged himself, in the end.
No, there is no happiness for my ilk. Nor is there glory. My sacrifices will not live beyond me, the paths averted known to none but myself. I will be lucky to scrape a footnote in the history books.
It's better this way.
A third drop trickles my knuckles, and I curse. This wasn't supposed to happen. There was a chance, true, but a slim one. Mare Barrow has never been one for compromise.
It was the boy, however, who truly caused the ripple. Nuisances, both of them. I ought to leave them to their fate, let them choke on their own hubris as I cackle in the shadows. But that is not a nationfeller's choice to make.
It will be risky. I must walk a fine line, leaving trail enough to keep her searching without falling into her grasp. Should I falter, she will squeeze my ability to its limit, unlock futures worse than any natural chain of events. But she'd shred her mind to ribbons were I to remain idle, shattering any hope of instability with it.
I can make it by sunrise if I hurry. In time to catch the attention of a lesser Merandus: one too young to force my limbs in place, to catch more than a glimpse inside my skull.
But a glimpse is all she needs.
Another family would've called her a liar, dismissed her claims as cries for attention. Merandus, however, is not so foolish. They know what lies in her brain. They know what curries favor with the queen. And they are too selfish to consider me bait, to wonder how a man so abilitied could've missed this outcome.
My old plans flutter atop my desk, and I pause to mourn. No longer will I foretell her rise on my mountaintop, confound court with my counsel and wield their rebellion. Those futures are dead.
They deserve a funeral.
I bow my head as flames lick the parchment to ash. "Farewell, little lightning girl." The candle flickers out with a hiss. "You have become our red ruse."
And so begins Part 1: The Girl.
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Red Ruse
Fanfiction"You will live. It's a question of how much she's willing to indulge me. Of whether you'll be my prisoner--" He softens. "Or my queen." My queen. The words twist and ache with implication, with promises he can't possibly fulfill. "There's a di...
