Title: She Stares Down The Storm
Characters/Pairing: Lavender Eyes/Ahamo, Ambrose
Genre: romance/fantasy
Rating: G
Summary: The Queen's alert and watching when the tornado brings a stranger to the OZ. Pre-mini series.
A/N: For ozma914's TwisterPalooza on LJ. It was supposed to be comment fic. It got a bit out of hand. Not a lot. Just, y'know. A bit.
The sky darkens that afternoon, and the wind picks up around tea time. The Queen sits in the Amiable Rose Garden, breeze plucking at her skirts; with graceful hands she pours the tea into two cups: her own, and no one's.
The chair across from her is empty. She places the cup with precision— just so— and tips a bit of her own tea into the saucer to cool. The Queen can't abide things that are too hot. She burns easily. The servants would do all this for her, of course, but there's a comfort in the ritual. If she concentrates, it becomes like any other day, months ago. It becomes as though her parents are still here beside her, and as though she's not alone.
Awfully young to be queen, is what they're saying. Such a tragedy.
The Queen raises her saucer to her lips, sips the milky brew. Her eyes are far away and unfocused, and she pays no heed to the sudden stillness in the Garden until she feels Ambrose's hand on her shoulder.
"Milady," he says, almost hesitantly, "there's going to be a storm."
The Queen looks into the distance as though she can see the future; the birds have stopped singing. The world waits. She nods.
"There's going to be a storm," she says, voice near inaudible. Ambrose waits as she sets the saucer down, and stands. He offers her his hand, which she takes. As they walk towards the Amiable Gate, leading to the castle proper, servants behind them scurry to collect the tea things before they're hit by the first heavy drops of rain.
The Queen watches the storm from her window. The eerie stillness that had crept up on her transforms in the space of a second into wildness, a natural rage. The wind hurls itself against the battlements, whistles around the ancient stones. It picks up whatever it can grab and makes off with it like a thief. The rain dashes and dashes. Rivers swell and flood and race. The entirety of the OZ, caught unawares in the usually peaceful summer months, huddles in whatever shelter it can find. The Queen herself digs her bare feet into the deep pile of the carpet, curls her arms around herself and keeps her eyes open.
Then, the tornado.
One blink, and it's there, as though there was no stretching arm from the sky. As though it had grown full fledged from nothing, and where once there was straightline wind and driving rain, there's a flurry of hail the size of peas— interspersed with peas the size of hail— there is this torrid churning thing, moving towards the castle as though full of deadly intent. It picks up the landscape and throws it out of its way; it locks eyes with the young Queen, perched waiting in her tower; she stares down the storm, with the same distant calm with which she poured the tea.
In the middle of the boiling agitation, a flash of something yellow.
The Queen bolts to her feet, alone in her room, and she hunches over the stone windowsill, watching. There! Again! The flash of golden color, and something foreign. She hesitates only a moment, then turns to rush for the door, snatching up a cloak on the way.
Ambrose greets her with bewilderment in the grand foyer.
"Milady, I had thought—"
"I must go, Ambrose."
"But— Milady, the storm!"
"It is dying," she tosses over her shoulder, and she's through the door and running. She's forgotten to put her shoes on, and her feet are wet; she slips on the rolling marbles of downed hail, and leaps a horizontal tree trunk. Ahead of her the tornado groans, giving up, and lessens itself down to nothing, dissipating into a wind, and then a breeze; and still the Queen runs. She's triumphant, barefoot and triumphant, barefoot and triumphant and running.
Ahead of her, yellow.
The airless bulb of the curious balloon has lodged itself in the branches of a tree, hopelessly tangled. From beneath, attached by ropes and wires, hangs a crooked wicker basket big enough to hold four men. On the balloon she can make out only partial words, strings of letters: MAHA, it says, and REAT AND POW RF L.
The balloon's owner, scratched and bruised and passed out from sheer terror but alive, has fallen in a heap from his basket. The Queen bends to hover over him, carefully straightens out his limbs and ascertains that nothing is broken. Her heart is in her mouth, it seems— but then, no; no, her heart is in her chest, where it belongs. For once. Her breath is what seems to be missing.
The stranger is handsome, bruised and impossible as he is; every line of every feature seems strange and familiar. She thinks she may have seen him, once or twice, in a dream she had, when she was young. She waits for him to wake, holding closely there, to be the first thing he should see when his eyes open.
His eyes open. They are blue. They're unfocused, as well, and drift around aimlessly for a moment, while a smile creases the side of his mouth, as though nothing is wrong, or has ever been wrong. Eventually, at long last, they drift to her face, and the smile stays. Grows stronger.
"I must be dreaming."
"The tornado brought you," the Queen informs him.
"Dreaming," says the stranger. "Like I thought."
"You came in the storm. I saw you, and came to find you. To save you, if you needed saving." The Queen hesitates, as the stranger reaches his hand out to touch, just lightly, her hand. His gaze is focused on hers, with an odd sort of intensity, and she knows that she is strange and yet familiar to him, too.
"Lavender Eyes," he says. "I know I'm dreaming, now."
The Queen lowers her eyes, and smiles.
"I don't suppose you'd like a cup of tea," she says.
The storm is passing, with a last few murmurs of thunder. There's clouds above them both, but on the horizon is the sky, clear and blue.