AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello again! Long time no write, I know, I know, but good news: I have a double update for you today. WOHOOO! This oneshot was written for the KC Frosted Exchange in 2021 for my darling friend, Ezza. (I must've forgotten to upload it here after AO3 reveals because I'm a cottonheaded ninnymuggins. Oi!)
Anyway, enjoy!
SUMMARY: Klaus is demon king of a volcanic realm and has been for eons. Caroline is a mage who can't help but crash through the gates to upset a few things. (Fantasy AU + Magic.)
"Rumor has it you love to destroy," she said.
A demon king who was endowed with the power of synesthesia, Klaus could perceive other people's intentions by the color of their words. And this woman, this enchantress who had swept into his realm's masquerade ball before the stroke of midnight with the grace of Cinderella and the treachery of Medusa, this mage who was currently pointing a wand at his chest —her's were golden.
Like amber.
Like daffodils in February.
Like a sun ray peeking through snow-covered pines.
Like honey that stuck to the roof of his mouth, its sweetness refusing to erode until he choked on every last drop of it in hunger. In gluttony. In damnation so tempting all he could do was surrender to it, swallow after swallow after swallow.
Like a viper that had no idea how lethal it could it be with the one bite it inevitably landed against the base of his throat, inviting in trauma with softness, comfort with devastation—all while it sucked, siphoned, and stole away any remaining ploys or tricks he had left to play.
At this stranger's mercy, Klaus raked her over slowly. His hands at his sides. And to think only an hour ago he'd believed this was going to be another tedious party with the same dull, familiar faces and formalities. How wrong was he?
The woman before him now was neither dull nor familiar.
She was blonde, youthful, perky. She was adorned in a long willowy dress and a blue sequined mask that rested on the flushed curve of her cheekbones like the wings of a bluejay. In fact, she moved - fine, ambushed - with an airiness that made him wonder if she didn't fly, if she didn't belong to the sky herself.
She was determined, too. Overtly so. It seemed she was more than willing to brave his wrath and break the laws of his world like glass to get what she wanted, and yet, he had no idea where she'd flown in from. Or why. Let alone how she'd managed to corner him all on her own.
There were lesser demons five times her age who still hadn't accomplished that feat, his meddlesome siblings included.
"And who might you be, love?" he smirked, intrigued by her beauty as well as her audacity. It wasn't every day Klaus found himself held hostage at wand-tip, after all.
"My name would be poison on your lips, demon. It'd be better for you if I didn't say."
Arrogant 'til the end, he dimpled at her. He cocked his head. "Tell me anyway."
Her nostrils flared at his persistence, her jaw clenching with suspicion, with interest. "Why do you care to know?" she asked.
"Any man worth a salt would want to know the name of his assassin, or usurper, or trespasser, or whatever it is you claim to be." Brazenly, defiantly, he met her eyes, which were a sharp yet gentle blue, and swallowed hard against her wand which was now pressing against his windpipe. "Especially one as beguiling as you are."
"Caroline," she said through gritted teeth, softening the pressure, but only a little, as she glared at him with a mixture of distrust and curiosity. "My name is Caroline. But trust me, knowing that won't leverage you a damn thing."
"And what is it you want with me, Caroline?"
"Now, now—no need to fret, demon. I'm not here to kill you," she said with a splash of darkness, with a hint of glee in her expression as music from the ball began to drift down the vacant hallway where they convened in an alcove like forbidden lovers who had snuck away for a tryst. "Yet."
"No?"
"No."
They began to circle each other like predators. She was hunting, so was he. It seemed cat and mouse was a sport they both knew how to play.
"Then why are you here?" he asked, his voice sparking, his words taking on the fiery edge he was known for. "Pretty or not, I don't entertain idle threats for long."
With a flick of her wand, Klaus was silenced. Immobilized. Held aloft by the throat, he dangled high above a grandfather's clock, powerless and vulnerable in a way he'd never been before, the fire in his fists running cold. Expiring. Blowing out like the candles on a birthday cake.
"You want to know why? I'll tell you why," she said with a laugh and a snarl.
As she threw him back into the nearest wall, a mountain of leather-bound books fell around him like sleet to pummel his back, his shoulders, his arms and his legs. He grunted in surprise more than pain, the wind knocked out of him. His crown floating free of his head.
A smile slashed across Caroline's mouth like a scythe as her magic wrapped around it like a vibrating rope that glowed. Humming, her magic tightened and shook with white-hot pressure until the crown snapped down the center into two jagged, distinct pieces that hovered above her outstretched palm. Toddling there like a broken relic. Idling there, all brassy and bent, like a tarnished antique.
She returned half the crown to him straight away, with its bone and fire embellishments still as bloody as twilight, but fractured nonetheless, only to then fuse her half with a shimmering azure pendant she wore around her neck.
Bluish-silver light, the kind that was seen only first thing in the morning before it snowed, sprang between them like a bolt of sky. It illuminated their faces. The hallway. The night, which was blacker than a draught of dreamless sleep outside.
Then, with frost tearing through his veins, with cold cracking his bones together in a drumbeat, she shot him a haughty but triumphant look and said,
"To give this realm the wretched queen it deserves."
Caroline scared him a little.
The way she swooped in with a wand-full of power and a smile, breaking the ground under his feet like an earthquake does when two equal but mighty land masses meet. The way she stole half his kingdom by force, but then brushed her hand against his tentatively, like a question, like it didn't have to mean anything, but could mean something someday, if they both willed it, as they inspected the Desert of Wails together one evening.
He feared the way her cold laughter knocked against the volcanic stone of his chest, demanding to be let in. How the sound of her voice was an ocean he could swim in. How her eyes could freeze him in place without warning, the future he once dreamed of fading from red to pink to gray.
She would bring ruin upon him like this. He knew it. Soon, everything would be different.
Already, with her blue magic flaking and thundering through the air, he felt the change, which was imminent. Whether he was ready for it or not, a new beginning was on the precipice.
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