Title: Out Of Bonds
Author: Kay Seda
Summary: Being an account of events regarding the royal family of the Outer Zone, by Prince Consort Ahamo (known to some as Jacob Williamson).
Rating: R for ~language~, also casual drug use and implied sexings
Cast: Ahamo, Ambrose, Lavendel, Azkadellia, DG, Vy'Soriat Kheel, Zane Bryce, Phil, Zero (probably), Airofday, Wyatt and Jeb Cain, Raw, Glitch, and special guest Guinevere the Peacock. None of those people are OCs (except for Guinevere)
Notes: Peacock 'verse, aka the royal threesome (see How To Score A Threesome Without Really Trying). Column A of tm_challenge's seasonal prompt table on LJ.
1 - Summer
Common wisdom held that second pregnancies were easier than first ones, but hell if my girl didn't turn that right on its head. That's DG though, the biggest rule breaker of us all. She came on the hottest day of the year after keeping her mother near-bedridden for months, and if we didn't already know for sure she was mine then the godawful shriek she let out would have been a dead giveaway. Flung into a world she wasn't prepared for, oh how I could relate.
Don't get me wrong, I love Azkadellia, heart and soul unconditionally, but holding DG - I can't explain, it was like I finally had...I don't know. It was different.
She looked worried, somehow, and I wanted nothing more than to make that stop.
"You'll get used to it, baby girl," I told her and smoothed down her wispy hair. "It's a weird world but you'll be fine, we've got your back."
2 - Leaves
Despite being the youngest Ambrose elected himself to be the grown-up, and somewhere along the line decided that the game was over. Della wasn't happy, and none of her tricks or tantrums worked because he'd helped her invent them.
So it was up to me to patch things up. I knew I was in way over my head, but got an idea from watching him teach Az how to conceptualize large numbers.
"Now, there are hundreds of leaves in this pile but on a single tree, there are thousands there, yes? Now imagine a forest, all the trees in a forest. Surely there are millions of them. All those trees all those leaves, billions of them, it must be."
Azkadellia's eyes just about bugged out of her head, and she grinned. "And all of the leaves in all of the forests wold be trillions!"
"Exactly!" her father said with a nod. "That, little shadow, is why balanced budgets are important. Words on a page are one thing but they represent so much more, you need to respect that."
I ended up handing him a note that said we missed him. It was enough to get the message through.
3 - Felicitous
I got Della, it was Queen Lavendel Celestina Gail the Brilliant that eluded me. Brilliant for her light, her wit, the spark of her eyes. The ribbon-cutter, the administrator, she could approve a headcasing for a judge and then sit down for tea. Ambrose called her a felicitous dragon, I just called her scary.
Della played the harp, and liked wearing men's clothing or no clothes at all. Once, before DG, she went four days without getting dressed, just because. She loved reading and riding horseback and her girls and us.
I came to realize there were two of me too, the Prince Consort of totally manufactured prophecy, and Jake from Nebraska. The difference wasn't as noticeable but I still made the mental switch as needed.
Thank Christ there was only the one Ambrose.
4 - City
Drug laws in the Zone pretty much consisted of "do what you like, don't be a dick." Mostly it was a luxury for the upper classes, and since you didn't really get more upper class than us we'd sometimes leave the girls with a governess, hole up in Ambrose's penthouse in Central, and get out of our skulls.
"I still can't believe you have a sin district."
"Doesn't every city?"
"Yeah, but we don't call it that. Or give it a square."
Della gave me a look that said I was being parochial. His Sagacity giggled about "feeling like a Fuddle" and cuddled happily with a foot stool.
Right. "Which one did he have?" I asked and frowned at the candy dish of pills.
"Peppermint," Della replied and fished around the bowl for a pinkish one. She popped it in her mouth and smiled in delight. "Oh, raspberry!"
"And what's that one do?"
"I'm not sure," she replied and pressed another pill between my lips. White chocolate. "Who's regulating this now?"
"Vy'Soriat," Ambrose announced He'd given up on the stool and was now flopped on the floor beside us. "No, no, I'm all in pieces, loves, come and put me together."
Della never needed to be told twice and fell upon him. I followed along with a laugh.
5 - Truant
Azkadellia knew without being told, which shouldn't have surprised me. Still, I'm the one she called "Daddy," to keep up appearances I guess.
She was old enough to sit in on briefings wit her mother, but I'd taken her out to play hooky with her sister. We sat at the mosaic table under the rain tree and watched DG strut along after Guinevere.
"It doesn't matter, though, does it?" Az asked. Her eyes were dark and curious but not at all ashamed. That's our girl.
"Not to us," I told her. "And if anyone puts up a stink, well, there's no denying who your mom is."
Her smile was proud, and I tugged at one of the loose curls of her hair.
Right on cue the moment was ruined by a splash, a squawk, and the wail of a very offended princess. Az and I sighed and hurried to fish DG out of the reflecting pool. Again.
Someday she'd figure out that lily pads wouldn't hold her weight.
6 - Family
Lavendel's mother died when she was ten, and by the time I arrived her father was a senile husk.
Ambrose's parents had given him to the temple, who gave him to the crown, who gave him to six-year-old Lavendel.
I ran away from that bitch the first chance I got.
So none of us really knew what we were doing, but between the born leader, the genius, and...me, we figured it out.
Della and I were curled up on a couch while Ambrose loomed by the fireplace, the girls rapt at his feet while he told some ghoulish fairy tale from Ev. Something about Phanfasms. We all laughed and cringed, and Az hugged her sister.
The next day Ambrose sequestered himself in his lab and told us to go on the Finaqua without him. Looking back, I realized it was the last night the five of us were together.
7 - Dusk
There was a glow through the little shack's window.
It was just after sunsset, and I was heading down to grab my sketchbook before dinner. The shack by the lake was a small sanctuary, a bolthole I had just for me. They'd offered me an entire wing of the palace but the potter's shed with the view of the water was fine. Just enough space to write and draw, it was all I wanted.
I couldn't stop grinning at the little figurines, and their glow. I knew they would keep me company and light my way no matter what, so from then on I kept them close by.
8 - Bear
Lavendel had vanished in a fury some hours before, and I'd scolded the girls for wandering before taking them to the kitchens for sweets. Now the queen was back, and there was blood on her hands, arms, face, matted into her hair, soaked into her blouse and the trousers she'd borrowed from Ambrose's wardrobe.
"I'm in need of a tanner."
Holy shit, I wanted to say. "I think you need a bath, first."
She looked down and nodded graciously. "Oh. Yes, I suppose so."
Briefly, the bearskin rug in her office served as a warning to any who threatened her daughters. Daughter. Family. Kingdom.
9 - Shell
I'd catch Azkadellia staring into a mirror. She'd raise her eyebrows, try lots of different smiles, tilt her head this way and that. Practicing, I assumed, all the expressions of a queen.
But she kept going back to this one sly, self-satisfied smirk which I wasn't sure was appropriate. Yeah, she was growing up (faster every day, it seemed) but it was still weird.
"Butterflies rehearse when they're in the cocoon," Zane told me. He was thumbing through an actual book of prophecy, one his aunt had written, and frowned at a certain passage. "...in the stillness between, hm."
I shook my head and again wished Ambrose was there, he'd get it, but he was still obsessed with that crazy sun-moon machine thing.
"I'll let you get back to your work, Toto."
Zane raised his eyebrows. "I'm trying to get your daughter to stop calling me that, you know."
"Sorry."
10 - Dream
Della woke up screaming for Ambrose. Thankfully we'd gone back to the Northern Island so all he had to do was climb over me to get to her.
"What is it, Del?"
She just clung to him and wept. The look he gave me was baffled, and all I could do was shrug so he pulled me in too. Della's fingers twisted in my hair and she begged us not to leave her.
"It was just a nightmare," I suggested hopefully, but she shook her head.
"No. Worse."
Ambrose, always eager to know the future, asked "What did you dream?"
"I cannot say. Just...please, please promise-"
We did the best we could, but fate's an ugly bitch.
11 - Myth
Zane's book was stolen one day. It didn't matter, by that point we all had the prophecy memorized.
One to darkness she be drawn, one to light she be shown.
It sounded like a bunch of mythological bullshit to me and I was amazed when they decided to drag Phil into it. Weird enough to have Zane and Vy'Soriat in on our little domestic drama, but...Phil?
"You Majesty, I have spoken with your eldest daughter. Or not," the mystic began. Guinevere had claimed his lap and he calmly stroked the back of her neck. "She is a sharp young lady with an unexpected well of power."
Lavendel crushed my hand in hers and let out a shaky breath. Across the room Ambrose kicked the wall.
"All right, what does that mean?" I asked.
Phil's smile was grim. "It means, your grace, that there is more to the princess that meets the eye."
12 - Life
Ambrose hated the plan. Too much chaos, too many variables, but it was all we could do. He told me my part after dragging me into a servant's staircase, and somewhere between getting slammed against the wall and pulling my pants back up I think I got it.
"Why can't I stay with her?"
He paused in doing up the few remaining buttons of his shirt. "You need to be here to guide her."
"But I can-"
"Del and Phil and Zane say it has to go like this."
"How do you think it should go, Ambrose?"
For the life of me I don't know why I didn't press him on it. He was staring like he was trying to memorize me, so I returned the favor. His hair was mussed, coat hanging open, he looked a little careworn, as Vy'Soriat would say.
He patted my cheek and gave me one more kiss. "Good luck, Jake."
Then he vanished down the stairs, and it was another fifteen years before I saw him again.
13 - Sink
At least Lavendel had a few spells left in her. A couple glamors, a couple travel storms, the wiping of DG's memory...
It hurt to see her hanging on to the nurture units, even worse when she didn't recognize me. I knew it was for the best and that she'd get a chance to grow up happy but...it was finally sinking in, what had happened, what we'd done. What we still had to do.
I never was any good at chess but even I could see that we were all just pawns dressed up in other pieces' clothing, it would only be a matter of time before the black queen snapped us all up. The only one who might actually be safe was the castled king.
14 - Path
The Realm of the Unwanted was the ugly love-child of Sodom and Switzerland. The residents never took sides, too wrapped up in their own business or pleasure or idle to care about politics. Recruiters for both sides cursed each other in the streets but actual violence was rare, which was weird since the place made the Sin District look like Disneyland.
Turns out I wasn't the only nameless person on a secret mission there, either. In my first month I met the Harbinger, the Clown, the Pathfinder, so nobody took much notice of the Seeker. That was okay, eventually the networking came to me and soon I was ready to run the long con.
The hardest part was remembering how to sleep alone. No more inquiring hands or stately snoring, no more talking and talking until almost dawn. Hell, there wasn't even a dawn to wait up for. Just me, passed out drunk again in a dingy apartment.
15 - Glimmer
I watched Azkadellia grow up in crinkled newspaper pictures. I had to keep myself from punching my compatriots for appreciating her assets.
"Least when she's queen we won't be bowing to no gray ol' mule no more."
I had to keep myself from punching a lot of people.
When Central fell I finally got to see a picture of Della, a glimmer of blue surrounded by black-clad guards. She looked more resigned than defeated while they hauled her off to be locked away.
Ambrose's fate was harder to verify. Officially he'd been exiled back to Ev, a show of political mercy from the Sorceress. The sources in the Realm laughed at the idea, convinced he'd been killed either by accident or execution. I'd been ready to accept that, until I got the truth from a longcoat with a soul patch who was out of his head on something lime-flavored.
I decided it was about time I punched someone.
16 - Trip
The next few years were spent drunk, tripping on sweets, sometimes sleeping with people who looked nothing like either of them, and growing an impressive set of muttonchops. I'm not proud of any of that. It was all just killing time until the world ended.
There was an unexpected bright spot in the form of Airofday, since we hit it off pretty well. Neither of us pretended to be anything we weren't, so we could trust each other as much as you could trust anyone in the Realm.
"What are you looking for, Seeker?" she asked in her lilting voice. So many folks had made that inquiry, and I'd given so many lies in return, but time was almost up and I needed all the help I could get.
"A girl."
She snorted. "Who isn't?"
"A girl looking for a man named Ahamo. If you meet her, bring her to me."
"Ahamo?" Airofday repeated and cocked her head. "Strange name. I will remember...for a price."
I grinned and promised her twenty platinums. Unfortunately the longcoats offered her triple that.
17 - Location
By the time the wanted posters showed up I was about ready to jump out of my skin. The Realm was going nuts with rumors: the Mystic Man was dead, some high-level prisoners had escaped, and the Sorceress herself was on the hunt for them. Who could have imagined four people causing so much trouble?
Really, the tin man and the Viewer barely registered since I was too busy staring at the other two pictures. Ambrose looked as officious as he ever got, and the girl...my girl had grown up pretty, and brave and strong and smart to have made it this far. I knew that between her and Ambrose, no matter what had happened to him, we would win.
It was just a matter of days before we located the emerald, took that wicked bitch down, and got our family back.
18 - Symbol
"Both of your daughters are dead."
All I could do was hold Lavendel - not Della, Della had died with DG - tighter as we watched the Sorceress depart to fulfill her destiny. Vy'Soriat lingered behind, and once she was gone he approached us.
"A troop of longcoats transporting prisoners from the Realm of the Unwanted was ambushed by a resistance cell," he said quietly. "Reports say the prisoners were freed."
Lavendel shook her head. "I don't underst-"
"I have not given this information to Azkadellia," Vy'Soriat continued, and a brief smirk passed across his lips. "I suspect she has more pressing concerns than the status of a tin man, a Viewer, and a headcase."
He bowed to symbolize where his loyalties lay, then turned and left us. That was fine, I didn't mind being the only one there to watch hope be reborn.
19 - Reunion (author's choice)
Azkadellia took one look at Ambrose and fainted straight away, DG and the Viewer catching her before she hit the ground. Lavendel did a little better because I held her up, but even then her last steps faltered and she ended up falling into his arms.
Technically she just fell on him, grabbed his coat and hauled him down with a tearing sound as I followed along to kneel beside them. She held tight, cried, and started talking about everything, lots of remember, remember, but she kept her eyes closed and didn't see the confusion, that he really, really didn't remember. It did occur to her that he wasn't embracing her back, and that's what made her draw away.
"Ambrose?" she whispered.
I shook my head. "Della-"
The headcase blinked and smiled. "No, no, that's my name, right?" He looked up at the tin man, who'd been torn between which scene to respond to. "See Cain? Told you I had a proper name."
"Never doubted it," the tin man, Cain, replied, then turned to DG. "I'll go find Jeb, tell the Resistance what's happened. You going to be okay, kid?"
DG looked up from stroking her sister's hair. "Me and Raw'll be fine, you be careful. Glitch, are you-"
"I'm going to keep an eye on my brain," Ambrose announced and got back to his feet, leaving Lavendel and me behind. He nodded firmly, cocked his head, and pointed. "Two eyes, really! Um. W-where was it again?"
Zane promised to guide him, and they followed after Cain. I looked at Lavendel but she was staring at her girls and the Viewer, who'd been joined by Vy'Soriat. Az was awake again and talking to them slowly, only sometimes glancing our way.
"It's over, isn't it?" Lavendel whispered.
I sighed and took her hands. "I think so. Time to start something new."
20 - peacock (author's choice)
We'd lost Guinevere. Honestly the bird could only live so long, but Azkadellia told us she'd actually cared for her until her death. The she'd had her stuffed and mounted on a golden perch in the Witch's private dining room.
Lavendel declared that we should have a funeral, which we did in the garden where it all began. No one was permitted to wear black, the only colors the queen deemed appropriate were those found in peacock feathers, so it was a strange procession of gold and green and blue and violet that paid their respects.
Not long after that we lost DG too, which might be a little dramatic but I don't know how else to describe it. I can't really blame her as it was a lot to deal with, the whole damn quest plus finding out who she was and then having the real truth about her family dumped in her lap. So she ran off for a bit, like father, like daughter.
Cain tracked her down, brought her back, and we all had a long talk about how she needed her freedom but we needed to know she was safe. We came to an agreement that Cain would look after her, and things have been okay since then.
Jeb Cain, not Wyatt, Wyatt had traded guarding one princess for the other. Just as well since Az (still very much a child in mind and spirit) could barely look at her own father at first, or me or Lavendel for that matter. Wyatt figured that if she stayed lost then the Witch would have won after all, so sometimes he shielded her and other times he pushed until finally she could stand on her own. She also stood with her mother at council meetings, with her sister at gallery shows, and with me at the roulette table.
Azkadellia knelt at her father's bedside after the attempted restoration surgery nearly killed him. They exchanged one-sided conversations and held hands, and it was right about then that we realized we hadn't so much lost Ambrose as gained Glitch.
That took getting used to, even if the first time he cajoled Lavendel into dancing with him it was like no time had past at all. Same when he absently rubbed my shoulders during a committee briefing. Same when we found ourselves staring at his blissful expression while he sucked on a caramel.
Perhaps inevitably, we found him in our bed. Lavendel looked at me, I looked at him, he blinked at both of us, and then I asked if I could take him back to him room.
A confused expression crossed his face, and then Glitch flashed us that old, wicked grin. "This is my room, slipper."
And damned if he wasn't right about that.
fin