A/N: So it has recently come to my attention that I was lead by the nose concerning Black Star Empress' possible canon origins. Thanks man, you've upgraded Empress to the ranks of one of my very own OC's! Jokes on you!
"That better not be what I think it is..." Koko's tone was wary, and everyone was staring at the ring box in silence. Even Rock was speechless, although for the fact that she was clueless about the purpose of the ring box and what it contained.
"Hex..." Empress glanced over at her own Lifelinked partner, who was openly gawking at the display. "Memories, please."
"I... hold up one sec, hon. Jonah..." Hex stood up and walked forward, speaking in a rare, gentle tone. "You do know what everyone thinks that ring is for, right?"
"Well if she'd open it, things would make a bit more sense." Jonah replied cheekily, which snapped Rock back from her slight stupor and she took the box and pried it open.
Inside was a silver ring with a heart-cut sapphire, edged by a small border of gold. And there was a rune engraved into the only flat part of the heart's surface. An Old Speak rune...
"'Promise'?" Rock narrowed her eyes at Jonah, annoyed by his playful expression right now. "Vat's zis for?"
"It's for you." Jonah replied, letting go of her and slowly stepping in front of her, and crouched onto one knee, earning a sharp gasp from Koko at the quite audacious movement. "I made this promise before, and I will say it again: I am, and always will be yours. No matter what happens, I will be there for you. And with this ring, my promise is given form. I promised it back in Prague, and now I'm making it again today."
Rock's face went immediately crimson as everyone gawked at Jonah's kneeling pose after hearing his words. Even Koko was completely stunned, even after being present for the original promise in Prague.
"I don't know vezzer I should be sitting on your face or vorshipping your cock right now..." Rock finally managed to find her voice, staring deeply into his eyes. "You cheeky muzzerfucker, zis is vy I love you."
"That's not all I have for you." Jonah stood up and his gaze flicked over to Empress for a moment before she subtly nodded at him. "You and me are going out later this week."
"Is zis zat surprise you mentioned zis morning?" Rock noticed his glance to someone else behind her while she was putting the ring onto her left hand, and she got the sneaking suspicion that he had blindsided everybody with the whole promise ring stunt.
"Maybe." Jonah winked with a smirk before producing the cake knife from the table and very obviously diverted the subject. "Shall I? Or do you want to do the honours and cut the first piece?"
"Vere are ve going, Jonah?" Rock didn't fall for the distraction.
"Kinda ruins the surprise if I tell you beforehand." Jonah replied. "So can we get cake and do your gifts now?"
After the birthday celebrations finally came to a close, just after dusk, the two respective visiting groups bade them goodnight and teleported back home, leaving Rock and Jonah upstairs, having been there for several quiet minutes beforehand.
Unsurprisingly they were making out the entire time. Jonah had carried her up the stairs in his arms and brought her over to their bed, leaving her sitting sideways in his lap.
He could feel the shift of her going purple before she had even opened her eyes. He was smirking knowingly as she cupped her hands onto the sides of his face as she pulled back to do just that, staring at him while she took a moment to catch her breath.
"So..." Rock smirked slightly between her measured breaths for air. "Unless you 'ave somezing planned, I vant to make a request before our pants come off."
"I'm listening." Jonah's eyes glinted playfully.
"First... 'ow much do you trust me?" Rock asked, well aware she knew the answer after his stunt with the promise ring that was proudly glittering on her left hand.
"I think that ring on your left hand is explanation enough." Jonah chuckled. "I trust you without question." He gave a proper response anyway, even after she giggled aloud.
"So zat revard from Koko zat I've been saving... I vas zinking zat she joins us for zis time. Are you okay vizz zis idea?"
"I get the feeling you've got more in mind when she joins us." Jonah nodded without taking his eyes away from hers until he instinctively knew that Koko was in their doorway. He turned his head and knew right away that Rock had already spent the reward by speaking to Koko before everyone had started preparing to leave, which was when he'd surprised her by lifting her into his arms in a bridal carry and brought her upstairs.
"She wanted to keep things reasonable and tame." Koko smirked after being noticed so quickly. "Which leads to her next question for you."
"Oh?" Jonah turned back to her, realizing that she was blushing nervously, almost as vividly as her hair.
"Ve 'aven't tried everyzing... and I vasn't sure about 'ow to ask you to... um..." Rock stopped talking as her face went completely crimson.
"It's alright, take your time." Jonah spoke gently, able to sense her bombarding waves of embarrassment and an underlying aura of equal parts shame and excitement, which was what particularly got Jonah's attention within their Lifelink.
Rock's adapter didn't register her next words, barely more than just mouthing the word itself, so even she looked up to blink twice in surprise.
"I... vant to try... um..." Rock averted her gaze from either of them for a second before finally getting her wish into words. "Anal."
Jonah gently kissed her forehead with a loving smile tugging at his lips. "With a booty like yours, I'm surprised you didn't ask sooner." He teased her, knowing that Koko had snickered slightly behind him. "Can I ask why you burnt a full reward on that though?"
"Vell... um... it's... new, after all. And I didn't know vezzer or not I vas ready to give it a try, until I remembered ven Koko told us about 'aving sex on ze kitchen counter feels good on ze ass..." Rock explained. "So I used ze revard for zis sreesome so zat Koko could just... um... point us in ze right direction or somezing like zat."
"Well, I don't see a problem with it. I'd be fine having Koko help us like that." Jonah didn't even need to think about it, Rock was right. Koko was someone that they both trusted completely, and it was no secret that they had sex with each other a lot, so this felt right, without even a hint of doubt in his mind. "Besides, it's not like we bother hiding what we do, right?"
"If it wasn't a special occasion or cashing in a reward, I'd have at least lectured you two about that." Koko teased with a smirk. "But I'll let it slide, just for tonight." With that she stepped into their room and closed the door behind herself, then took a seat at their desk, facing them with a slight shift in her smirk. It still had that teasing glint, but seemed to be much more sly too. "I do have one condition, if I may."
"Sure, vat's up?" Rock knew that the gears were already in motion, so she and Jonah both gave Koko their full attention.
"If it isn't completely obvious by now, I'm not heterosexual." Koko's smile became very amused. "So, Jonah, please keep your dick in Rock and not me, okay? I'm sure Valmet wouldn't appreciate it if I started to constantly dote on you as a lover instead of her, alright?"
"We could tell that fact for a long time, Koko. I get it." Jonah nodded slowly in agreement to her request. "So, since we've made everything clear, I think it's time that a certain Princess finally gets her reward that she so patiently saved for so long..."
"So I've been meaning to ask you something..." Hex's good eye went over to where Empress was standing, in her blindspot, as soon as they and Beast reappeared at the safehouse in Virginia.
"Oh? If you're bringing it up now, it clearly wasn't meant for Koko or Rock to hear." Empress smiled slightly, turning her head as Hex did the same for proper eye contact between them. Even Beast had glanced back and forth, raising an eyebrow slightly.
"More towards Rock, honestly." Hex shrugged. "Why did you mute her voice back in Prague?"
Empress' expression shifted slightly, visibly pursing her lips before letting out a small exhale through her nose.
"It... wasn't originally my idea. But it was the most painless of the ones presented to me at the time." Empress was clearly choosing her words very carefully. "Unfortunately, until... certain conditions are met, I'm not actually allowed to say anything beyond that for the time being."
"Did you know about this?" Hex turned her head slightly towards Beast, who shook her head.
"Wasn't allowed to be in that conversation. I was ordered to stand outside the door. I've got a gag order too, for what little I know. And yeah, they even thought of your Lifelink, so even if you tried to get the memories, it'd backfire on you just for trying."
"Why do I get the feeling this shit's more sinister than it sounds?" Hex narrowed both of her eyes warily, the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the mention of blocking out Lifelinks like that.
"My dear human, that's the most accurate description possible for someone lacking the proper details." A new, oddly playful sounding female voice spoke up behind them, which brought up Beast's Seven-Shot gun faster than any of them could blink, but Empress' hand shot out even faster, calmly - albeit incredibly quickly - placing it on the top of the glowing blue barrel that was so akin to a Beretta M92f.
"Beast. She's known for sudden appearances, put it down." Empress hadn't even glanced at the owner of the voice yet, but Beast was glaring at the girl at the end of her gun with a deadly focus.
"I've been here for three hours and fifteen minutes, actually. You left England exactly when I arrived to sit in this very chair. You're the ones making the sudden appearance this time around. The house is far too quiet at this time of night, you almost startled me to the point of a very undignified shriek, I must admit."
"Who is she?" Beast didn't lower her gun, and by now Hex had affixed the young looking girl a proper stare, taking in her appearance.
Her ram horns adorning the sides of her head immediately gave away her mage heritage, and she was dressed in a rather cute white sundress with a pink sash around her waist, and was seated on one of their own chairs, her legs crossed at the knees and her hands - one of which was clad in a wrist-length silvery metal gauntlet that only partially covered her fingers, which had pink nail polish that matched her sash - were calmly clasped in her lap.
"Ram, are they permitted to be present for this conversation? Case in point, your initial comment about Hex lacking details." Empress pointedly pressed her hand on Beast's Seven-Shot downwards, and the gun was lowered with a sigh and a steely glare through blue flames before the horned girl hummed in thought briefly.
"If they're present, I'm afraid I'll need to make things both brief and vague. If they step outside while we speak, then you're permitted by the Elders to paraphrase what we're about to discuss." Ram explained. "And before you two get the wrong idea, I'm just the liaison between Queenie here and the Elders."
"Hex, Beast... time is of the essence for these matters, so could you both please step outside so we can talk in full?" Empress spoke in a clearly apologetic tone and locked gazes with Hex, who instantly recognized the hidden 'I'll make it up to you' in her eyes.
"Alright, it's no big deal." Hex nodded and left, and after a brief scowl at Ram, Beast followed while dismissing Seven-Shot with her own flash of blue light, so akin to her little sister.
"Not my rules, you know this." Ram held up both hands, palms up, and Empress sighed with a nod as she pulled up the nearest chair and sat across from Ram. "So, which one first? The bad news or the scary news?"
"If there's any good news, I'd like to hear that first."
"Your hair looks gorgeous, and that perfume I can smell is amazing." Ram smiled at the thus far rarity of an obvious joke from Empress.
"Alright, bad news first." Empress smiled at Ram's genuine compliments.
"White's base is here in the United States, in Nevada, she has a dedicated enplaced Portal Sphere back to the Palace in Otherworld, and she's been having the Federal Bureau of Investigations running recon on any known sightings of not just yourself and Beasty, but Rocky-Poo too. And she's got a cheeky human boy Charmed up to his near-sighted eyeballs working for her, some Canadian civilian named Nick Tarka Ryan. Elders wouldn't permit me to look into him beyond his name and enthrallment to your eldest daughter."
"And the scary news?" Empress gulped loudly, bracing herself for the worst.
"How blunt do you want me to be?" Ram asked, her gauntleted hand's index finger tapping her thigh only once, which was a gesture that Empress did not fail to notice.
"Hammer blunt." Empress brought her gaze right back to Ram's own eyes, staring her right in the face.
"Rocky-Poo's gonna be pregnant." Ram stated immediately, then held up her un-clad hand, which had a simple wristwatch. "In 3... 2... 1..."
Empress' eyes widened in utter terror, her mind and body practically grinding to a halt even before she had finished vocalizing her other rarity in and of her patterns of speech...
"Fuck."
A/N: Side note, that is the only time that Empress has used a human vulgarity in the entire story.
