Steeped In Lies
By JacklynnFrost
Beta'd by Sinfulfics and Galfridus- Thank you both for all your help on this fic. This wouldn't be where it is today and I am so grateful to have you to share my silly worlds with.
Art by LeMaskadra! She's got a blog on Tumblr under her name so check her out if you have a moment! She's done two pieces for this fic!
Warnings: Some talk of past childhood sexual abuse, which is implied but not explicit.
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Chapter One: Clouds
He isn't coming.
I knew when I was the only one sitting in our over-large dining room. I knew when Ms. Jelamet helped me into my evening hostess dress and when I had chosen my mother's jade necklace to warm my neck. When I had arranged my hair and cleaned my face I knew he would not show. Yet still, after so many disappointments over so many years, my heart squeezes and my throat grows tight as if the wound is fresh.
The air smells of sweet honey, the steam of my tea tickles my nose as I breathe it in to release it in a long rush. Soft tufts of clouds float around my balcony. The bulbous shapes near at an alarming pace, feigning as if they are going to choke the air away yet when they arrive it mists me with cool refreshing breath, giving and not taking.
A cloud reaches in, engulfing me and the railing beads with moisture. I sip my tea. The soothing warmth inside conflicts with the chill licking my skin. My hair flutters. It lifts off my neck and the cold spreads from my exposed nape down my spine in a shiver. I adjust my body so all I can see is the open sky. Clear blue stretches overhead as far as the wing can fly, farther still than the eye can see.
It's said among my people that at the end of the sky another land resides. Stories are abundant about the Heaven Realm. That peace there is so abounding there are no feelings of desolation nor desperation, no desires nor yearnings.
The tea helps the ache, my chest easing but it's empty too early for my liking. I balance the cup on the railing, adjusting it to sit on the stone. The cloud encroaches, surrounding me and I invoke my wings, the ethereal limbs stretching into existence. The breeze tickles between my feathers. Slowly, I breathe in the cold evening mists letting it fill the empty parts of me with something and rise into the air.
Aligning to only see the sky, I imagine my essence ascending to heaven. Where there is only peace. All I can do is pretend I am as empty as my tea cup and as expansive as this cloud hoping to fade into either or both or anything at all. To be absorbed into a greater consciousness to make sense of my life.
"I'm weary of waiting," I speak, wondering if anyone ever listens.
My heart grows too heavy to be lifted and my ascent to heaven is denied once more as my feet tap to the stone as silent as the view around me. My eyes close. Maybe he's busy. There does seem to be much to do in a kingdom such as ours and as Lord, it falls to him. Although I am denied helping, my older sisters have duties.
Margaret had been granted her place in the temple at sixteen. I'd been six when she'd left and since then she's fallen in love and married. Veronica had been younger still to earn her place in duty. Fifteen! While I'd been on the cusp of my eighth birthday she had taken down a Wyvern on her own. She'd armored herself, snuck into the night and conquered the beast before the first morning rays graced our clouds. Not through might, but through her cunning. Her and that beast still make overly grand entrances when she wants to provoke someone or intimidate as she rides her pet around.
Then there's me, already an adult and my purpose is to wait and 'enjoy my childhood'. How can I? When Veronica joined the assault squad so young there wasn't a child left in the castle to play with. Outside in the city, my big sister had kept the bullies and the sneers at bay but without her, each of my attempts to make a friend had ended in me playing alone, or worse.
I learned my true purpose in this family from a bully and why my own clan has so little to do with me. I'm a traitor by the very nature of it. A stranger, a cruel older kid knew and I hadn't, but she had been happy to tell me what she knew, to shame me. I am betrothed to an enemy nation royal to cement our shaky peace and yesterday I found out exactly who.
It affects everything. I even wonder if it was the reason I had been adopted to begin with, to spare my sisters the shame I bare. I know I had been a part of this family before it had been determined but the thought nags like a fly circling ripe strawberries. For Veronica and Margaret, for all the children of royals following the end of the war, I can bear it.
But I am done waiting.
My bare feet pad silently across my cool floor and I peer into my bedroom, the door cracked to show my messy bed of blankets and stack of books on the table beside my tossed pillows. I pass it and enter the second door. My personal study. I've taken countless lessons here, the history of my realm, the basics of the war and the other clans. Now I wish I would have insisted on more demon lessons. My knowledge is very limited in that area. I will have to request more material on the subject.
In my study, there are plenty of books, two entire shelves of them. The walls are green, my choice as it reminds me of grass and outdoors, of freedom. I love my toes in the grass and walking the garden calms my soul. When everyone else appreciates the red, purple and pink blooms, I like the leaves, stems and turf. I am not permitted to go to the gardens unchaperoned and Jelamet isn't well enough anymore. I'm used to things closing in around me. All I have are the walls and my memories.
I sit and admire the white clouds that fill the window as I gather a piece of paper, a quill and my inkwell.
Traditionally, desks face inward with chairs on either side but I have pressed mine against the window. I never have visitors, especially ones that want to discuss anything intellectually. This way, I have the best view of the nothingness of the sky when I imagine friends and my future. Marrying a demon hadn't been a focus in my imaginings but if it gets me out of this castle for more than a few hours, it might truly be worth it.
As long as he isn't the monster I picture. I shudder, bile rising as I think of thick spikes and the depictions of the war from the old texts. Of dark beasts with evil soulless eyes, oozing flesh and grotesque lolling tongues. Then I think of my nightmare. Of being swallowed whole by the blackness, an opposite of peace and emptiness but of overwhelming, desperate panic. I can't fight it and my chest tightens, my breathing becomes short gasps and my eyes spill over with all the feelings I haven't felt in so long.
Through my tears I wipe snot on my sleeve. I address and start my letter, pausing only to think of the right word and phrase to keep it light. The last thing I want is to start this off on a bad foot or to offend him. Writing him directly is respectable as we are to be joined in marriage but this is as far as I will dare unless expressed otherwise.
Your Royal Majesty
Prince Meliodas,
Recently it came to my attention that it is you I am to wed.
To make the transition easier for both of us, I propose a courting.
If it pleases, would you like to join me for tea midday on the 17th? This letter should allow you entrance at the gate.
May this find you well,
Lady Elizabeth
I leave out any flowery language and I keep it as short as I can manage. A tear hits the edge and I swipe it away, glad I didn't smudge any ink. I leave it to dry and go to my side bookshelf. I find my decorative ceramic statue of a colorful cat holding up a book as if reading.
When I'd been a preteen I had dropped the gaudy thing. The colors on the beast are absurd, it looks like a peacock and a lion had a deformed baby. But, regardless of how I feel about its appearance, it had broken in the most perfect of ways. I lift her head, reaching into the hollow center to retrieve a couple of gold coins. With the ugly cat back together, I fan at the letter to dry the words, searching for a seal, or an envelope.
The sun is still up but I don't have enough time left in the day to reach the city for a public messenger. A royal one can do the job but it will be on their time and I can't trust them, not with my father's meddling. Besides, I have a boy who always delivers my messages to Margaret and he needs the coins for his younger siblings.
My dress is pocketless so I fold the envelope and tuck it into the waist-elastic of my pants under the fabric for safe keeping. The coins are tucked in my cleavage as no one would dare search me in such a private area. My father's punishment to anyone who touches me in any inappropriate way is skewed and extra aggressive after what happened with Master Twigo in my childhood.
Without many eyes, I stroll out the front doors of the castle and take to the streets just beyond the courtyard before a guard calls out to me. "Lady Elizabeth!" He yells as he drops from the sky in a rush of wind, "Where is your escort?" I flush hot and wish I could bolt but the man sighs in his full body armor to glower at me as if I am still a child forgetting such basic protocols.
"Sorry, Dale." I hush to him while his shrewd eyes look for anything out of place. "I was just going to visit Mead. I haven't seen him in a while and I heard his youngest sister is ill. I wanted to take a look." I lie smoothly. He is halfway to no when I let my shoulders droop and I peer up at him with a plea, "I haven't left the castle in three weeks." I'm honest this time.
He blinks, scowls and waves his hand forward for me to 'go'.
I am too hopeful that he will allow me passage without an escort and I feel that light elation shrivel inside with each of Dale's heavy sabatons clanking while he follows. The people of the city turn at the noise but their lingering gazes are because of me, a rare sight out in the open. Perhaps I should have removed my receiving gown before coming into the city? It doesn't matter, I know now why the mothers always call their children back when playing too near me. The whispers of, "promised to the enemy," have much more meaning now that I know it's a demon I am to be with.
Enemy nation had so many possibilities but as of yesterday, when Father showed me the missive from the Demon King himself, things seem to have changed so much when they hadn't truly changed at all.
If I were them and I knew one of my own was to live among the demons, beside the Demon King himself, would I feel as if it would be safer to not be involved? Thinking about it made me feel better. As if I understood the coldness from my clan, why things stop moving when I arrive. Life stops and I want it to go, I'm going to make it go. I turn down a thin alleyway toward the home of my friend, Mead. Dale and I walk the rest of the way without many onlookers. I knock on the plank door and a girl answers. Her dress is torn at the hem, her brown hair cow licked in the front to stand tall and her wide brown eyes crinkle in joy. Dale positions himself at the side of the door, at the ready and I frown at him.
"Ady 'isabets." Mabel lisped, smiling as she tugs me inside. Mabel is the youngest and still has a hard time grasping her speech. The door shuts as I take in the little place. Worn rug, table with stools and mismatched chairs, a sitting area with pillows and blankets and scattered toys.
Mead's parents died three years ago and although Mead had been ten at the time he still took on all four of his siblings. He works hard at any job he can get and he does well enough to keep them cared for. The oldest sister swarms first. Millie had lost her front tooth and she beams at me, telling me, "a fairy was going to leave me a teddy for my tooth but he forgot it so had to go back for it." I smile at her gap.
"Even if it takes a few extra days, it means the bear has been on a journey!" I laugh, happier in this overfull room than I've been in days. Her hair is golden but her eyes are the same brown as the lot of them.
Markle and Mae rush from their game on the floor, Mae knocking the pieces and Markle quickly turns to push her to the floor. "You did that because I was winning!" He accuses and her face is vicious as she pounces from the floor to attack him from behind. They both cut their brown hair wicked short but Mae still finds something to grip as she wrenches his head to the side before he body-slams backward on top of her. Mead ignores them as this is normal for the twins.
"You hot?" Mead whispers and I nod. He clapped "Attention!" the four kids shift and move to stand in a row. "Show the lady the songs you've each been working on." The four of them start singing their own song. Millie a rendition of our ceremonial fight song. Markle a choppy version of the Entrance to the Sky piece, one of my favorites but I will reconsider after hearing this version. Mae hums and Mabel warbles strange cat noises then roars like a dinosaur unexpectedly.
My laughter joins the climbing noise, the siblings trying to outdo one another before Mead huddles in expectantly. I recover quickly.
"I need a letter delivered to Prince Meliodas, by hand, Demon Territory," I whisper fast as I realize the Entrance to the Sky piece has reached its midpoint. Mead hisses through his teeth in apparent apprehension. I start digging into my bosom and he watches, tilting before I scowl at the boy. He blushes decently and turns away. I give him every piece I acquired from the cat.
"It's a day's journey there, another back. I can't leave this lot alone." I agree with Mead, looking over the younglings.
"They are invited to the castle." I grin, imagining the chaos they will bring to break my monotony.
"Must be important." He holds out his hand for the letter and I groan, bending to gather my dress up and unhooking the letter from my pants underneath.
"I don't want more rumors than there already are," I confess. "Besides, if he refuses I'll be humiliated and I don't want that plastered throughout the kingdom and beyond." I can imagine this Prince Meliodas not wanting to be in the same room with me either.
The song stops, the cat noises turn to tears and Millie picks up Mabel, the new noise replaces the intentional one. Mead agrees and swipes the envelope with Meliodas' name meticulously written on the front. In a rush, he pockets the coins, all in different strange places. Under his left armpit, behind his neck, and into his shoe. He hides his coin, I understand- I have to do the same.
"It'll be hard to hand-deliver this to the prince himself." He warns, calling out to his siblings to pack for an overnight stay at the castle. "Take care of them, will'ya?" He requests, addressing me but angles to their backs as they rush to their bedrooms. There are two, one for the boys and one for the girls. Subtly, I check to make sure they have enough food in their kitchen, glad to see fresh vegetables and I note then to send the kids home with armfuls of goodies.
Dale is not pleased but holds his tongue as I make my way back home with four loud additions. They all pile in my bed that night and pass out with stuffed bellies.
This is my submission for NNT Big Bang! (On Tumblr)
I was paired with LeMaskadra and her art can be found on her blog- She's helped me with my fic and it was wonderful working with her.
Readers- Enjoy and let me know what you think. :) I broke out of the box for this and I'm a little nervous.