i have a lot of chapters to write for my other RQ fanfics but i needed to get a feel for writing all the characters again. so here's a mare/cal/maven centered one-shot. (and not too shippy. it's just thought-based.) maybe i'll make this a multi-chapter based off of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (prob dead reckoning and pâro) but i'm unsure atm. i'm lending GS to a friend atm so i might get a few names wrong, sorry.
nighthawk
n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night—an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future—that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.
- the dictionary of obscure sorrows.
Cal is uncomfortable at night. Always, and he hates it.
It's fine during the day. It's fine because he sometimes focuses on teaching war strategy to Ada Wallace, who despite being older than him, is ever-so-intrigued and an easy learner. They even do test runs on the Blackrun, and Ada learns to pilot and fly so very quickly that it surprises him. She enjoys learning, and her war plans help him quite often with ideas. It's fine because sometimes he focuses on training the newbloods, especially the children, who are shaky but slowly getting better. He's thankful for his training and natural ability to help people learn and control. Other times he reads or pours over maps.
He speaks Maven's name during the day, because that's what you do when you plan wars.
When he speaks Maven's name, he repeats it over and over in his head, 'till the point where it finally ends up losing its meaning. That's what happens when you say something too many times, of course. Then, it's not a word. It's just a sound, a jumble of letters, a strange mixture of vowels and consonants. Nothing worth mentioning. Not at all. He focuses on the war during the day. He tries to pretend there's nothing emotional in it.
He's just a general, after all.
He's just a general. That's all he is. Just a general. A Silver general.
He laughs to himself when he looks back on it at night, because those moments after the dark settles and the stars come out are the only times he can admit the truth to himself. Only then can he admit that he's not a general and he could never be again because he lost that goddamn title with the title of Crown Prince. Nothing could fix that, not even the Scarlet Guard.
Mare doesn't react when he does laugh, probably because he does strange things like this when he's dreaming. He knows when he wakes with his tears on his face and his tears on her cheek, or sometimes when he lets himself cry when neither of them are sleeping, and she doesn't react much. Maybe, just maybe, in those moments, her lips twitch downwards (he looks at them a lot, anyway) or maybe she shivers when tears hit her cheek, or maybe after when he silences the slightest of noises she presses herself just a little closer to him under the thin covers.
He hates that after dusk has fallen and he's tucked into bed with Mare, the moment the name Maven pops up in his head, so does the word brother. He hates it. It's idiotic, because he knows that the younger, brotherly prince who played board games with him as the two laughed together is long gone.
Long gone. Long gone. He repeats the words to himself as he lies in bed with Mare sleeping softly next to him. Long gone.
Hah, like that boy was ever there in the first place.
Cal considers himself a poor boy with no siblings and no parents.
Unlike Cal, she thinks of him whenever possible.
Mare hates thinking of him; Mare hates thinking of him because it's inevitable.
She's a bad teacher, she's a bad martyr, she's a bad leader, she's a bad friend, she's bad family. Bad family, like Maven was.
In any case, she grasps at straws when conversations arise. She focuses on touches and light brushes of skin against skin or takes joy in the small moments when Cal, her rock, grins at her, murmuring charming things in her ear like "that's my girl." She forces laughs at Kilorn's stupid jokes, hoping they'll come genuinely again. But Cal has to spend time training, and Kilorn has to spend time hunting, and Farley and Shade are always off away in some corner of the area together.
She hates it, she despises it, because when she is alone, she always thinks of the former shadowed prince and the King of Norta, Flame of the North, Maven Calore.
Of course, it's worse at night.
When Cal thrashes or cries silently in his sleep next to her, her fingers tighten on the thin paper that is the punishment in her hands. She wants to turn and comfort him, to slip her hands around his, but she knows that both of them will forever be alone in a crowded room. Her eyes rake over the sharp words on the paper instead. Until we meet again. Tell him it will be his last. Surrender... And she cringes, sure he feels it, sure wherever the hell he is King Maven Calore is laughing to himself because his words affect her so. Where did he go? Where did the boy she knew go?
Little quiet girl.
She realizes, sometimes, that she and Maven were never really friends. They were acquaintances, hesitant allies that looked at each other for perhaps a second too long. But that was all, until his brother messed up, and suddenly she and Maven made the strange leap from acquaintances to lovers. She felt then like he'd understood her, like he was for the cause, but she was ever so suspicious, not so with Cal. And suddenly—ever so suddenly—Cal'd messed up, and Maven had swept all her hesitance and distrust away with a simple kiss and a few empty promises.
Disgusting. She hates herself when she looks back at it.
She doesn't want to give in, at least, that's what she thinks. Part of her sobs (not out loud) at the name, thinking of burns and sharp pains in her heart and her body, thinking of brands burned and carved on her collarbone. Part of her ignores the king that exists, thinks back to the lover she once knew, the lover who didn't exist, the dear lover Prince Maven Calore who died the same moment Mareena Titanos and Crown Prince Tiberias Calore the Seventh did.
She folds the letter up, sticking it into her pocket, and shifts closer to Cal, who shivers in his sleep. She feels so horribly dirty for thinking these things with the boy she's kissed thrice now lying next to her.