A new Witch

by RynRinRen

Jaenelle's son is pulled towards a Queen-only problem, she's in our world. Alone in life, Arina longs for something else. Lucien comes and takes her to his world-where she is stronger than anyone would have thought. After Purge.

20. Chapter 20

Originally published on March 19, 2023. Unbeta'd.

I own nothing of the Black Jewels Trilogy or any of the following novels. All rights go to Anne Bishop. Thanks for Reading!

BJT:ANW

Chapter 20

Early Fall. August 9th, four days before Arina's 19th birthday, The Hall.

Arina stepped off the Winds on the front drive in front of the SaDiablo Hall, instinctively brushing at her clothes as though to settle them in place. In deference to the crisper weather in this area of Kaeleer, Arina was wearing a pair of silver leggings with a black short skirt on top of them, and a dark blue tunic-style shirt with flowing poet sleaves. It was hot in Dhemlan, certainly, but it wasn't anywhere as hot and sticky as it was in the jungle Territory she was coming from. She had a bag packed for a weeklong stay, but had been running late getting out of Lady Irene's court, so was only arriving just before dinner.

And dinner at the Hall when Prince Saetan was in residence was always fairly formal, so she was dressed in what Saetan himself had assured her was appropriate for the occasion.

*Am I late?* she sent to Lucien as she walked up the path at a fair clip. She briefly considered flying up, but her hair was loose today and she didn't want to have to deal with the mess that that would make of her hair if she could.

*No, we won't be eating for another half hour. You made good time,* her boyfriend sent back to her, seeming quite pleased.

In all honesty, Arina probably didn't want to know. What she did know was that Lucien had taken an apprenticeship with Bertan, the Jeweler that the SaDiablo family frequented, because he had always been interested in fussing with things like that, and had been creating handmade gifts for his sister and mother and aunts for his entire life almost, and now that he was finished with his Court training and just waiting for Arina to set up her own personal Court, he decided why not.

Arina was in full support. She had been fiddling with trying to find a hobby outside of gardening and singing, which were both Queen things and Witch things in general. She did have her language skills, but that wasn't so much a hobby as much as just having more knowledge.

Though she was very much enjoying the art classes that she had signed up for on Jaenelle's recommendation. Maybe that could be something that she could do more often—she loved the painting and sketching that she had been doing recently, much more than the sculpting section of the class.

Arina realized that she had reached the top of the steps of the entry, only to find that Lord Beale had opened the door while she was musing on her thoughts and was patiently and somewhat amusedly waiting for her to enter.

Arina blushed and hurried in with a murmured thanks. Rose met her at the top of the stairs, grinning wildly, and almost knocked them both down the stairs with her enthusiasm.

"You're here!" the other girl squealed.

"Well, I was invited, and Lady Irene approved it. Apparently, I do not take enough time off for myself, or something like that," Arina said lightly. Which was an accusation that was probably true, but Arina had never been very good with balancing work and things that she considered to be obligations over things that she just wanted to do for herself. It still felt selfish, to an extent, to put off things that she should be doing for other people just so that she could do something for herself.

Even when there were people here that were pushing her to do those things for herself. And with all her friends having such wildly different schedules, it just felt easier to not do such things.

Still, she was looking forward to having time to herself this week. She knew that Jaenelle had a large number of art supplies here, so it wouldn't be hard to ask about getting a room set up for painting and sketching, something that she could try out doing for fun, instead of just for the lessons she was taking.

"Are you excited?" Rose asked, tugging her along to the sitting room that the children of the house had taken over years ago. Arina felt a rush of fond warmth as she entered it, just seeing the mess that the room was in, as it always had been every time she had been in there. Clothes, books, and other assorted knick-knacks were everywhere in the room, along with Yaslana sprawled out on one of the couches with a book.

"Arina, hello," he said, climbing to his feet and coming over to hug her hello.

"Hi Yaslana, how are you doing?"

"Finishing up the last of my training, so that's exciting, I guess," he said dryly, waving over at the book that he had been reading. A closer look revealed it to be a book on higher Court Protocol, and Arina could not help a grimace of understanding. Even while she was here and technically on vacation, she was going to be having Protocol lessons with the High Lord, just because she still so much further behind on that then anyone else, considering she had missed the first ten years or so of Protocol lessons.

"Exciting indeed," she agreed, voice equally dry. Yaslana smirked at her, settling back down on the couch.

"So, are you excited?"

Arina tilted her head to the side in confusion, eyeing the twins in front of her, who were both looking smug and excited themselves. "Excited?" she echoed, a little wary despite everything. "Excited about what? Taking a vacation? I guess. I don't think I have ever taken a break just to take a break, there has always been some sort of holiday or reason before." She shrugged.

Both Yaslana and Rose were gaping at her, stunned and horrified in equal measure by all appearances, and Arina really wasn't sure what to do about that.

"Is there…something wrong?" she said finally after the silence was getting to be too much for her.

"I—no, of course not," rose said, and laughed a little bit, high and shocked despite what appeared to be her best efforts. "I'm just a little surprised. You never take any breaks or time for yourself ever? What if you aren't feeling well, or just feeling sad and tired?"

Arina shrugged a little, relieved and a little annoyed at how she had gotten so nervous at the twin's shock. But obviously of course they would still be upset at finding out how much of her habits were still fueled by her previous life.

Well, she was doing better about it.

"Not really. I've always been pretty healthy, and it always seemed so selfish to just take time for myself because I was feeling sad. Besides, what would I have to do if I wasn't working? There wasn't a point."

"Oh, Arina." The aching sympathy in Rose's voice raised Arina's hackles a little, and she hunched in on herself a little defensively. She caught Yaslana kicking his sister hard in the ankle.

"It's fine," the male soothed. "It's just that that is good for us to know, so we can try to keep an eye out for you. It's very easy for Queens particularly to overwork themselves. That's why they have a Court, to help balance the load. If that is something you already have a tendency for, it's good to know that early. It seems that you are somewhat early in manifesting that particular tendency, that's all."

Arina nodded a little, relaxing a little bit back into her armchair. She still had the feeling that the twins were dancing around something that they weren't telling her, but that explanation did help calm her nerves a little bit. She could sense the edges of the physic threads that they were furiously sending back and forth between them, but firmly resolved to ignore it. While she was quite sure that they were talking about her, she was just as certain that she didn't want to know at the moment.

Luckily for her, it was at that moment that Lucien reached the room and promptly relocated her from sitting on the armchair to sitting on top of him sitting in the armchair, and she was instantly distracted from whatever the twins were still furiously discussing privately. Smiling faintly, she curled a little bit further into his chest as Lucien wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her to his side.

In the roughly fifteen months that she had been dating—if that was the right word—him, she had grown disgustingly sappy and affectionate with him, relishing in the moments that she was able to curl into him and feel surrounded by him and his scent.

Sweet Darkness, she was turning into the type of giggly-boyfriend obsessed girls that she had always been so baffled over. It was somewhat embarrassing, because she had always secretly been torn between being disdainful of that behavior, but also jealous of those girls having someone that they genuinely cared about so much that they did talk about it all the time without shame.

It was just as nice as she always suspected, and this wasn't even a high school romance that was pretty much doomed to fail, as so many of those girls had found out.

Arina strongly suspected that her childhood and life before had left her touch starved, and that was likely a factor in how much she loved to curl into Lucien's side at any given opportunity. But it was still so nice, it was hard to worry about it too much. She would ask Jaenelle about it at some point over the week, and that should be good enough.

And then it was time for dinner, and musings on there being possibly something wrong with her were set aside so that she could fully enjoy the family dinner with her functional in-laws.

Well.

Alright. That was a thought then. Marriage. Was this something she was actually thinking about? She was still a teenager, and now she knew that she was going to be living for quite a long time. Was she really thinking about making that kind of commitment so quickly?

That was a mildly terrifying thought, because it really felt like it was something she was seriously considering. Arina forcibly put that thought aside for her to worry about later, not right now. Marriage was not exactly something that she was prepared to be considering while having dinner with his family.

"So, what are you thinking about doing this week, while you are going to be busy not working?" Prince Daemon asked her, leaning back in his seat and smiling warmly at Arina. She flushed a little bit, staring at her plate. Wow, everyone knew how much of a workaholic she was didn't they?

"I'm capable of not working," she couldn't help but grumble at her plate, only for everyone to start laughing at her, though it was done kindly.

"You really aren't," Rose said fondly. "You have literally just told us that, if we didn't already know it."

"Well, I was thinking of trying to do some painting and drawing for fun," Arina told Daemon, gathering up her dignity as best she could under the snickering of her friends. "I've really been enjoying my lessons in art, and wanted to try some stuff that I've been thinking about, instead of just the class assignments, that I have been doing."

"That sounds lovely," Jaenelle said, reaching out and patting Arina's hand comfortingly. "It will take no effort at all for a studio to be set up for you, if you would like."

"I would really appreciate that," Arina enthused.

"Anything else?" Daemon prodded her, somewhat annoyingly smug sounding, like he knew something she didn't know. Which was probably true, but still unsettling.

"Not really?" she said tentatively. "I don't have many hobbies or things to do most of the time. Why, did you have something in mind?"

"Mmmm…"

Arina scowled at him darkly, not appreciating that answer—or rather, the lack-there-of. "What is that supposed to mean?" she grumbled, just quietly enough that they could pretend they didn't hear it.

"Nothing," he murmured, glancing over at his wife, who just smiled brilliantly at Arina.

"Why are you all looking like that at me?" the silver eyed girl demanded, looking around at the table of people who all seemed deeply amused—and maybe a little sad?—about something that she could not figure out.

"I think that in a few days you will understand," Lucien claimed, brushing his hand over her hair momentarily, which was slightly distracting.

"I don't understand," she complained.

"Yes, we know. It's…do you trust me?"

"That's not a fair question," she protested. "of course I trust you. But I also want to know what is going on, since it is very clearly about me!"

"Then please trust me on this. We want this to be nice for you, and we think that giving you a nice surprise is something that you will like."

"I do not like surprises," she warned.

"Yes, you mentioned. But this is something that should not really be a surprise. We didn't think it was going to be a surprise, we thought that you were going to be aware of what is going on."

"And I think that's the only hint that we are going to give you," Rose said brightly, cutting off what Lucien was about to say.

"So the hint is…that I should know what is going on," Arina said slowly, looking between everyone at the table. "Is that why you guys feel sad?"

"a bit, yes," Daemon said quietly, looking sympathetic and not pitying, which was the only reason that Arina was able to meet his eyes.

The young Witch sighed. "Alright, then. I do not like it, but fine, I can accept that."

"Good, because we aren't really giving you an option. Now that we know it's going to be a surprise to you, it's going to be even better than it was before," Rose promised.

"Now I am even more concerned," Arina muttered, but obligingly allowed the topic to drop, and the rest of dinner was spent talking about a new book that had just come out, and the latest news from around the Realm. Eventually the conversation came back around to Arina wanting to start making more art.

"So what are you planning to be making?" Jaenelle asked curiously. "And what medium's do you want to work in? so that we can get you everything that you need, of course."

Arina shrugged. "I'm not sure what I want to do yet, other than that I want to do painting and just sketching. I like charcoals, and oil paints, and acrylics. I'm not super fond of watercolors yet, but I think that's because they are a little messier than I like. I like crisper lines and definition, and I don't love the runniness of watercolors," she mused. I know that I mostly love landscape images, and even painting buildings. But I think that if I practiced more, I would be better at doing living images, and then I would like doing that. I was planning to try to get in some sketches of Janos, since I know that he is here, and would be willing to take a nap in my studio instead of the forest if I ask."

"Do you need practice with humans too?" Yaslana asked, seemingly deeply interested in his steak.

(There was so much steak in this place. Steak with every meal. Arina felt like she was going mad and turning into a carnivore alone. Just let her have some vegetable soup or something. Plain pasta with pesto instead of meat sauce. Surely she doesn't actually have to have red meat with every meal.)

Lucien noticeably stiffened next to Arina, who just rolled her eyes a little bit.

"Yes, actually, I do need to practice on human figures, but I'm not going to worry about that for the first two days or so. After that, Lucien, would you like to bring your work into my studio and let me sketch you?"

Lucien smirked over at his brother, than turned a soft and delighted smile on Arina. "I would be honored, my Lady," he murmured.

"There, problem solved," Arina said dryly, but didn't resist the urge to lean over and kiss Lucien.

After all, kissing Lucien SaDiablo was one of her favorite things to do, outside of flying.

BJT:ANW

The next morning, Jaenelle came by Arina's room about midmorning, and opened the door after a quick knock only to find the girl laid out on her stomach across her bed, with her wings spread out to their full extent, almost draping off the sides of the mattress. Lucien was kneeling on the bed beside the girl, running his fingers through her wings and appearing to be preening her wings for her. Arina, meanwhile, was purring—Jaenelle could hear the thrumming from the door, if only faintly. Arina's tail and ears and claws were also in evidence, and her tail was busy wrapping around Lucien's arms as he worked.

"Well, I can't say that I was expecting this," Jaenelle told the room, amusement painfully clear in her voice. She started giggling when the only response was a distracted greeting from her son and Arina's tail to unwind from his arm and twitch in what appeared to be an attempt at a wave at her, seconded by a lazy flick of Arina's actual arm, before it went right back to what it had been doing. "So what exactly are you doing here," she asked, coming closer to the bed, and taking a closer look at the pair.

Lucien was absolutely preening her, from what she could tell and from what little she knew of birds. He also was holding what appeared to be thick and heavy looking piece of delicately carved wood, and was using it to help him shift through the feathers. The wood came to a point that was almost but not quite sharp, and it was doing better than Lucien's fingers at sorting through the thick feathers at the base of her wings.

Arina just hummed at her, still purring loudly. Lucien, however, did pause what he was doing and look up at her, ignoring for the moment the complaining noise that came out of Arina's mouth and the way her tail tried pulling at his arm.

"Arina has a hard time getting to her wings at the very base, where they connect to her back, and at other parts of her wings, because she has a human body and not a bird's body. Also because she doesn't have a beak to go through her wings, and her fingers don't work too well and her claws are too sharp," he added dryly.

"I hadn't thought of that," Jaenelle murmured, leaning forward to get a look at the process, Lucien shifting so she could see. Because Eyrian wings were membranous, they were very easy to clean, though it did help to have a second person there to get to the harder parts. But with thick and heavy feathers, it would be considerably harder to get and keep the feathers clean. And birds were almost always just sitting preening at any given moment, so it must take a lot of time to go through them.

The wood piece that Lucien was using to go through the wings was clearly handmade and custom designed, as there wasn't exactly a need for that type of implement for other things. It was just such an odd and unique shape.

The wood was exposing tiny feathers that crumbled to dust when Lucien's fingers hit them, and then he was carefully coming the resulting powder dust through the wings, leaving them cleaner than they had been and straightening up the feathers as he passed through them.

"Do you need any help?" Jaenelle asked her son, clearly sensing that Arina was barely paying any attention to what they were saying over her head, mostly occupied with just purring in pleasure at the sensations.

Arina abruptly hissed, breaking up the purr, before she resumed, relaxing from the sudden awareness back into a drifting state. Lucien didn't pause what he was doing.

"Best not," he said dryly. "You can watch just fine, but Arina ripped Yaslana's arm up fairly badly when he tried helping. Rose took care of him, and I don't think Arina even noticed that she did it, but I think she is a little touchy about who touches her wings."

"Understandably, I think," Jaenelle replied, taking a step back, and sitting at the bottom of the bed to watch and wait. "Do you know how many people she does let do this?" she asked.

"other than me? Quinn, Farostel, Cassandra and Reyna are the only ones so far that she has allowed to preen her. And Reyna only because she lives with Arina, and therefore she is close enough for it not to feel grating? I think that Arina was considering letting Rose try, but hasn't done that yet. Arina said that it's best to do it minimally every week, but twice a week is better." Lucien shrugged a bit, stroking down the base of the right wing to make sure he had gotten everything before shifting further out the wing.

"she doesn't like having people at the base of her wings, pretty much ever, even with us she's tense for the first few minutes before she relaxes."

"Because it's harder to defend herself from anything going wrong at that point, yes," Jaenelle said. "Your Uncle also hates to be on his back or have people he doesn't explicitly trust behind him, not that you have likely noticed that. He doesn't even want Daemon there usually."

Lucien blinked a bit at that particular bit of information. He had not, in fact, noticed that about Uncle Lucivar, and it was moderately worrying to learn that his uncle didn't trust his father, who was Lucivar's brother, at his back. Still, that was none of his business and honestly, he didn't want to know anyway.

"It's similar, I'm sure. I think it might be worse for Arina though, because her wings have so many parts that are easier to hurt, instead of just having the wing itself."

Jaenelle hummed in agreement, then just settled in quietly to watch Lucien continue, keeping an eye on the process in interest.

It was past eleven when Lucien finally finished with the right wing and vanished the piece of wood. Jaenelle raised an eyebrow, having assumed that it was Arina's and not her son's item.

"I take it you had already done the left wing?" she asked, as Arina started to come out of her haze.

"Yes, before you got here. Started before 10."

"I'm surprised you woke up for that," Jaenelle teased. They weren't morning people, herself and her children, unless absolutely necessary.

Lucien smiled a little, running his fingers down Arina's feathers again as she started to push herself upright. "It's worth it," he said fondly.

"Good morning, Jaenelle," Arina said after a bit of slow blinking back to awareness. Jaenelle watched the girl's wings shiver and shift a bit, flapping lightly and letting small feathers and some remnants of the bits and dust fall down before she folded them neatly at her back. Jaenelle would never admit it, but she was a tiny bit jealous of how comfortable Arina seemed with the parts and pieces of her Dream drifting to the surface. Her wings were a common sight since the past Winsol, and her cat parts also showed up more often than not, likely influenced by the panthers and jaguars that kept guard over her much like the Arecian's kept guard over Jaenelle.

She was a bit disappointed that she had missed the meeting between Challa, who was the panther that stayed the most often with Arina, and KaeAskavi and Jael. She was informed that it had been deeply nerve-racking for all the humans involved in the meeting, and would have very much liked to see it.

"Good morning," was all that Jaenelle said to the girl, putting her thoughts away. "I wanted to show you the room that we had set up as your studio, to see if there is anything else that you are going to want or need."

Arina's eyes widened a bit, as she got further up to her feet. "I only mentioned it last night, I didn't think it would be done for a bit longer," she observed.

Jaenelle had to laugh. "You should never underestimate how quickly the staff here at the Hall can get things done. I am completely certain that Beale started making arrangements for the studio within two minutes of you even mentioning it, after being told by whoever was hovering outside the door to see if we needed anything further."

Arina's lips twitched in response, clearly already familiar enough with that type of behavior from her staff at her own manor. Jaenelle had been told, subtly of course by Janzen, that Arina's staff at the StarHold and the staff at the Hall had started something of a cold war, the StarHold determined to catch up to the standards set by the Hall and also snubbing the Hall for having stuck their noses in the StarHold's business, and the Hall being deeply offended by the audacity of the StarHold in claiming that they were good enough for the next Witch and her court, which included the children of the Hall.

Daemon was finding it hilarious, mostly because it didn't have anything to do with him. Arina appeared to be pretending that it wasn't happening, because as long as she didn't officially know anything about it, she didn't have to do anything about it.

But in light of all that, it wasn't exactly a surprise to find that the staff had worked a late night and early morning to get the perfect art studio set up for Arina.

"I would love to see it," Arina agreed politely, all nuance specifically and carefully avoided.

Wandering through the hallways to the room on the south side of the building that had been determined to have the best lighting available, Jaenelle quizzed Arina on the specifics of her type of wings, learning that the girl had done a great deal of research on different types of birds to figure out what to do after they apparently started itching almost unbearably.

"I eventually figured out how to preen them for the most part," Arina admitted, "But there were always parts that I just couldn't reach myself, because my neck does not move like a bird's does, and the back of the wings was just too hard to get all the time. The base of my spine up to the spine of my back I could never get. It's impossible to get my arms around the bulk of the wing"

"How did you deal with it originally?" Jaenelle asked, deeply concerned. The first several weeks, almost months really, that Arina had had wings, and they were out all the time. She had never noticed the girl itching, not like she was currently describing.

Arina groaned, rubbing her hands over her face like she was trying not to remember. "I found corners," she said finally, sighing.

"I'm sorry. Corners?"

"Like this," Arina grumbled, then went over to the nearest outfacing wall corner and turned her back to it, and indicated scraping her back along it. She shrugged, long resigned to it. "Or I went out and used trees in much the same way. It helped a little, but not very much. I just wanted it to stop itching."

"I had no idea," Jaenelle murmured. "Why did you never say anything?"

"I didn't want to be more of a burden than I already was," Arina defended. "You had already done so much for me, I didn't want—I couldn't—put more pressure on you to figure out what was wrong with me after everything else. It wasn't going to kill me, so I could deal with it while I figured it out. Obviously now I know better, and that I should have done so, but at the time, I really couldn't."

"Well, I can't say I don't understand where you were coming from," Jaenelle said. "But let's move on, as we have arrived," and with that, Jaenelle pulled open what appeared to be a random door down a random hallway, to reveal—a huge room, with huge arching windows that looked out over the back of the Hall and the forests that ringed it. There was a balcony on that room, and while the windows and balcony were clearly a more recent addition to the Hall, they were probably a decade older, not literally just installed. The walls were recently cleaned and sported a clean white coat of paint on all of them. There were several tables set around the room in front of the various windows and light fixtures, and one was set near the door and contained multiple piles of canvas', boxes of various paints, both oil and acrylic, as well as considerably less but still there watercolors. There was a whole container filled with various sizes and styles of brushes. There was a meticulously organized set of charcoals of different consistencies. A bucket of pencils and sketching pens. A stack of sketchbooks.

It was, in a word, overwhelming. Arina just stood in the doorway and stared with wide eyes at the room, while Jaenelle and Lucien strolled right in, inspecting the materials and claiming one of the couches set in the room respectively. Arina forcibly closed her mouth, carefully telling herself to remain calm. It would be rude and hypocritical of her to say that this wasn't something that she deserved, when she had just told Jaenelle that she understood that she had value and was allowed to ask for things, like help and space to work on hobbies when they had invited her for a whole week. And on second look, while some of the supplies that were on the table for her looked new, an equal number appeared as though they had been taken out of storage instead.

And if both Jaenelle and Lucien didn't seem to care about it, then it was clearly not actually a big deal, and Arina should not make a big deal of it by suddenly protesting, when she had agreed to this last night.

Of course, when she had agreed, she had not had any idea of the scale of what she was agreeing to—although in retrospect, she really should have had some clue.

But at the same time as all of that…she couldn't deny that she was excited at the idea of what she could do, what she could try, with all of this.

Hesitantly inching into the room, Arina's fingers twitched a little bit with excitement as she took another, sharper, look around the room, this time looking specifically at how the light fell in the room, at the spots where there were a few easels set up, and how they faced different directions to catch the light in each their own ways.

She also noticed, before carefully looking away before she started blushing, how there was an easel set up looking at the couch that Lucien had chosen to sprawl over while he watched her. The way that he was laid out on the couch was familiar to every person on earth who had ever watched Titanic, and no matter how open everyone was with sex here, there were some things that she just wasn't willing to even think with Lucien's mother in the room, call her a prude.

"This is amazingly generous," she finally managed to get out, joining Jaenelle in poking through the—through her—piles of paints.

"Oh, I'm sure that Helene is glad to get rid of some of the clutter left over from when we had our art lessons ages ago, and my own finished theirs years ago and never wanted to go back to them," Jaenelle dismissed easily, confirming Arina's thoughts of where some of this had come from.

"And if you are good at it, Beale and Helene might even one day forgive me for letting you draw on even more walls than we already have."

"I—draw on the walls? I have canvas' though?" Arina sputtered.

'Oh, of course. Still, if you need to think bigger, the walls here were prepped with a primer so they will take paint well, if that's what you feel like needing to do."

"We never got to draw on the walls in our lessons," Lucien objected.

Jaenelle smirked at her son, clearly amused by the petulance that was in his voice. "Well, unfortunately for you, my art teacher was no longer available for your own lessons," she crooned at him. "And since none of you complained about the teacher you had, how was I to know that you were missing something?"

Lucien snorted at his mother, and Jaenelle laughed like a bell. Arina cracked a smile herself.

"Well, I don't think that I am going to be drawing on the walls," Arina told her hosts.

"I was told it was necessary for us to think bigger," Jaenelle recalled fondly. "Poor Papa was so distressed when we asked him for a wall."

Arina tried to picture Prince Saetan SaDiablo, the High Lord of Hell, Patriarch of the family, in a state of distress, and gave up shortly thereafter. That was absolutely one of those 'you have to see it to believe it' situations, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be involved in a situation that got to that point.

"But there are sheets of paper rolled here under the table that the staff has gotten for you, so if you do want to draw on a larger scale, you will be able to pin these sheets up to the wall and improvise with those if you want," Jaenelle pointed out, and Arina followed her finger to one of the other tables along the wall, a long table with a roll of paper on it that must have been at least 10 feet wide, and could presumably be however long it needed to be, and she hummed in interest.

It was an intriguing idea, certainly, though she was much more willing to do it on sheets of paper than she was on the actual walls themselves, at least until she had better skills.

Mural painting was something that she might someday want to try, but certainly not yet.

Arina eventually managed to shoo both Jaenelle and Lucien out, telling them that she needed to get a feel for the materials she had, and that she was probably not going to be doing a whole lot today as it was, but she would like to get some sketching done. Yes, she was serious. Please just leave her in peace. Thank you. Yes, I will see you at dinner. Goodbye now.

She did love these people, but they were sometimes very needy, it felt like. Once they were gone, she turned back to the table of paint and pencils, and very excitedly started sifting through them, trying to decide what the first thing that she wanted to do was.

BJT:ANW

Arina spent most of the next few days all but locked in her new studio, with Janos and several of the local wolf pack sprawled out sleeping in a massive pile for the second day, and several of the cats—both the Hayllian jaguars and panthers, and the tigers and Arcerian cats that had been around for years—vying for space in her workroom.

If she wasn't so enthralled by what she was doing, she would have been much more suspicious of how Lucien wasn't complaining about not being her art subject. As it was, she was just occupied enough that she didn't notice. And any time she went looking for one of the family members, someone turned up pretty quickly, so she never noticed how busy everyone else appeared to be.

The third night after she had arrived at the Hall, the evening of the 12th, Arina wandered down to dinner humming absently under her breath and with grey and blue paint smears around her face from where she had been pushing back her hair with wet fingers, and didn't seem to have any idea of the streaks of color dried on her face.

It was, Lucien thought, an excellent look on her, this absentminded happiness.

"Good evening" she said brightly, bending down to give Lucien a quick kiss as she settled in the seat next to him, taking advantage of him already being seated.

He was much taller than her as a general rule, and she usually had to go up on her toes to kiss him. Every once in a while she liked being the taller partner.

"Good evening," Daemon said, amused. He was quite pleased for the happiness that his son had found so quickly, and it was a sweet case of young love that hadn't faded out yet. He also found it funny that Arina only sometimes noticed his presence before he announced himself to her. "Did you have a successful day, then?" he asked, politely ignoring the paint on her face, but exchanging a look with his father about it.

Saetan was equally amused by Arina's appearance—it looked like she had just put on a nicer shirt over the clothes that she had been painting in and was hoping that they weren't going to notice that her legs and arm were also liberally splattered with paint.

Considering that her birthday was the next day—and that she had evidently forgotten about it completely, which was deeply distressing to all of her friends, and honestly to the adults who had been made aware of it as well—Saetan was willing to let things slide for the day. There had been a great deal of effort put into the last few days to change her birthday celebration to a much grander affair to surprise her with, and it wouldn't do to cause a fuss for her at this point and take her out of her happy state.

And she had made an attempt, it was clear that she had kept the nice shirt out of the way, and it was clean, it was just that her skin was covered in paint that she had clearly forgotten all about, and her leggings were also a mess. When she was sitting at the table, however, her legs weren't terribly visible, so that wasn't a problem.

The High Lord wondered with no small amount of amusement how she was going to react when she actually got a good look at her arms when she wasn't in the middle of actually painting. He would bet that she was going to be mortified.

It took until almost the middle of dinner for Arina to finally stop talking enthusiastically about her latest painting attempt—sweeping snow covered mountains coming to a halt at a sprawling jungle at the base, with an Arcerian cat and a panther facing off from their respective Territories. As she was making a motion up to indicate the mountains her sleave slipped down, and she paused midsentence to stare at the white and blue and gray paint up and down her arms in splatter patterns. A dawning look of horror on her face, she pushed her other sleave back to find the same damage on the other arm, but with more blacks and greens and browns. She stared at the rest of the table, who had all started laughing as soon as she had stopped talking in shock.

"It's not that funny!" she told them indignantly. "Dinner is supposed to be a formal event? Why didn't any of you say anything?"

"How did you not notice that you were liberally covered in paint?" Rose cackled in response, completely shameless. "It's not like it was a single mark here and there. It's everywhere, Arina, everywhere."

The silver eyed girl pushed back from the table and eyed her equally paint splattered leggings, then just heaved a deeply defeated sigh and straightened herself back up at the table and smoothed her expression out into a perfectly polite and bland smile, which she aimed pointedly around the table before turning to Saetan and apologizing for the state that she was in.

Still chuckling himself, he waved it off. "I understand being preoccupied with a craft that demands attention," he told her. "And it is clear that you had every intention of following through with dressing nicely for dinner. Just perhaps next time take a second to look yourself over when you leave your studio, my dear."

"Well, that rather goes without saying," she said with a groan. Then she abruptly jabbed at Lucien with one of her claws, though she was careful to not break the skin.

*I can't believe you let me embarrass myself like that,* she hissed to him privately.

*No one actually cared,* he told her, amusement practically seeping from him. *It's nice to see you genuinely enjoying something that is just for fun, instead of something that you feel like you have to do or need to be able to do. Ever since you found out that Queens are all gardeners, you stopped enjoying it quite as much, don't think I didn't realize that.*

Arina's sudden silence told Lucien that, actually, she hadn't consciously realized that, which did actually make him feel a little bad.

That feeling went away pretty quickly when Arina hissed at him again. *No more kisses,* was the only thing that she sent before she cut the link and pointedly turned away to his grandfather to politely ask how his day had gone, as they had all heard about how her own day had been.

The High Lord chucked a little longer before smiling at her. "Mostly taking care of some paperwork that I had allowed to build up while I was doing some deep research in the Keep's library, my dear," he told her, not mentioning that a fair amount of that paperwork had also been bills and correspondence regarding the party that would be happening the next day. "As I said, I do understand the kind of focus that can happen while deeply involved in something. There are times when I have come out of the archives liberally covered in dust."

Arina smiled wryly at him. "And you likely noticed it faster, as dust tends to make people sneeze, while dried paint is less noticeable when it dries while you are moving the skin so it isn't terribly tight."

Which did explain a bit as to why she didn't notice the build up, if the paint didn't pull and crack when she moved.

"Paint looks good on you, my dear," Jaenelle said, smiling mischievously. Lucien glared at his mother, trying to convey please no, before Arina turned to look at the older woman, who just smiled serenely at her son, before motioning around her face to Arina, who looked briefly confused.

Sighing, Rose called in a hand mirror and handed it to Arina, who took it, and then looked at her face framed by paint.

"You could set a new style, darling," Jaenelle said, smirking.

"Please stop making fun of me," Arina sighed. "I know it looks terrible."

"Oh, no, darling, on this I am being completely serious. If it was done less haphazardly and with more intent, it would be a very beautiful, unique and striking look."

Arina blinked, looking dubious, then glanced at the mirror again, frowning.

"I'm not sure I want to stand out that much more," she objected.

Jaenelle looked at Arina very seriously, for the moment ignoring everyone else at the table.

"You are always going to be different. Even if you weren't showing your wings and tail, even if you looked perfectly human, those around you will always be able to tell that there is something off about you. Not every single person, no, but…enough. All of your friends from Hayll, outside of one of them as I understood it, were able to guess instinctively what you were. Do you know what one of the largest differences between you and me is?"

"I couldn't begin to guess, beyond…everything." *You are so much more than I could ever be,* Arina told her seriously,

The rest of the table started to continue their own private conversations, clearly understanding that Jaenelle and Arina were only partially speaking out loud, and giving them the illusion of pretending that they weren't all listening hard and trying to figure out what they were saying.

"The difference is that you are more one with your Dream than I am." *I am always Witch, but I am not always Jaenelle. They are two sides of me. You are only one being. You can bring your Dream to the surface in so many ways, and you do so often, however and whenever you please. And while I can do so…I never have, unless in times of great need. You are comfortable with the parts of you that are the Dream. And I have rarely shown others the side of me that is the Dream, not really. It made me so very terribly different. And all I wanted was to be normal.*

"I want to be normal, too," Arina protested.

"You do want that," Jaenelle agreed. *Usually. But you don't need it like I did. I was born with so much power that it set me apart so deeply that all I ever wanted was to be considered normal. And you…you want to be normal, but you also want to be special, in a way that I never did.*

Arina had no response to that. It was true, though she did not like to think about it. She was a little ashamed of how much she sometimes craved the way that Lucien and the other males seemed to revolve around her like she was there personal sun. how much she loved how they wanted her opinion, her approval, her attention. The way that even her female friends wanted to spend time with her, wanted her eyes on them.

Because if they loved her, if they wanted her, then they would never abandon her to become nothing again, overlooked and only paid attention to in bare moments and only when they wanted to, not when she needed anything.

And while sometimes she couldn't stand to be in their presence, fleeing to the StarHold as though no one knew what was happening in her head, when they so obviously did. Because it was at those moments that she knew that she was using them, and all that she could taste on her tongue was the heavy guilt of dragging them down with her. And they always let her go, let her flee from them and pretended that it didn't hurt them, and she didn't know what to do to fix it, couldn't fix it, because there was something fundamentally broken inside of her.

So yes, Jaenelle was right. Arina wanted to be special, so that her friends would love her and never leave her; Arina wanted to be normal, because that meant that her friends were her friends because they liked her and not because of any supernatural reasons, but because they liked her.

And she just didn't know if she was ever going to be able to fix that part of her and make it less twisted.

Belatedly, Arina realized that she had left the link with Jaenelle wide open. Looking at the expression of pity on Jaenelle's face, Arina hastily shoved back from the table and made a garbled excuse before bolting from the room, Jaenelle following on her heels without a word.

"Arina?" Lucien called after them, half rising from his seat before Jaenelle sent him a feeling of stand down, and he reluctantly subsided.

Arina made it all the way out the door and halfway to the trees before Kaelas loomed up out of nowhere and cut the girl off—which was a good thing, because while Jaenelle was nowhere near out of shape or slow, the younger Witch had the advantage of unnaturally long legs literally built to run and a long history of running out her frustrations.

"Wait, Arina, please," Jaenelle called, finally catching up to her. "I didn't intend for this conversation to happen like this."

"But you did intend for this conversation to happen," Arina said dully, giving up on fight and almost curling into herself in the middle of the lawn.

"I am a Healer. And while you are almost completely healed of your past, what can be healed of it, at least, this is the last of the poison that is filling your soul. You needed to purge it."

Kaelas silently wandered off back to the forest as Arina stared at the ground and wrapped her arms around herself, curling in her wings as well, as a shield.

"I'm broken," Arina finally choked out. "Maybe not physically, but in my head, there's something not right. I'm not the right person for your son. I'm only going to hurt him eventually."

"I don't believe that," Jaenelle said gently, slowly easing forward and putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "You aren't broken. And you are the only one for my son. Of course you will hurt him—you are going to live for a long time. Pain is a part of life, and all partners will accidentally hurt each other at least a few times. That is just how it is. But I don't believe that you will intentionally do it, and you would never destroy him, which is, I think, what you are truly afraid of."

"How can I not be broken, as torn apart as I am?" Arina demanded. "I want two opposing things to both be true, at the same time, and I hate myself always for not being able to be both special and normal. What am I supposed to do about that?"

"Nothing."

"I—I can't just…"

"Arina, there is nothing that you can do. You are not broken, but I think that you will always struggle with this tear inside of you. It will always be a scar on your heart. But if you let yourself, you can heal it from the gaping wound that it is right now."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"You have already done the first part, by consciously understanding what it is that has been affecting you. And yes, also affecting your friends, who confide in each other, and their parents, many of whom also confide in me. Now you actually know why there are times when you will suddenly turn away from your friends, despite all your intentions and promises. They have understood—and will continue to understand, make no mistake—but there is pain there when you walk away from them. And while the pain is on both sides, they do not clearly see the pain that you feel."

"If that was all I had to do this wouldn't be so much of a problem," Arina growled.

"I did say the first part," Jaenelle reminded gently.

"The first step is acknowledging that you have a problem," Arina sighed, in the singsong cadence that that particular phrase had always been said with when she had heard it on earth.

"The next part is harder, and you aren't going to like it," Jaenelle warned.

"Please don't tell me that I have to tell people," Arina moaned, covering her face with preemptive despair.

"You have to tell people," Jaenelle confirmed mercilessly. "Your males and sisters will not be able to help you spot when you are struggling if you don't tell them what the problem is."

Arina shook her head silently, not currently willing to speak. It wasn't so much a refusal as it was denial and horror, and Jaenelle was easily able to recognize it as such.

"There is one more thing," Jaenelle said, and now she was back to sounding gentle, which was absolutely terrible. "I think that you need to accept that you are capable of being both special and—mostly—normal at the same time. You need to accept that your friends like you because of who you are as a person, not just because you are Witch. The children of my circle may have become your friends because you are Witch, but they did not stay your friends because of that. Several of them have drifted away from your inner circle, which should show you that they don't stay with you only because of what you are."

Arina was silent for long enough that Jaenelle started to worry over it, before the girl shivered a little and tucked all the parts of her Dream back under her skin, shrinking several inches as she did so.

"I guess I can try," she said quietly, more to the ground than to Jaenelle, but that was about what she had been expecting regardless.

"That is good. Maybe you can start by accepting the compliment that I was trying to give you inside," Jaenelle suggested gently. "You have shown us enough of your art for us to know that you are going to be an incredible artist, even if you aren't there yet. It might be fun for you and your eventual Court to sometimes use paint as accents or as decoration. And in this, you would be drawing attention to the skills that you have chosen and cultivated for yourself, not drawing attention to something that you cannot help or have no control over. It is, in many ways, a very good way to ease yourself into becoming more comfortable with yourself."

Arina flushed hotly under Jaenelle's careful reprimand, though it was hard to see with the girl's darker skin.

"I suppose I hadn't considered it like that," she murmured finally, sighing and stepping back towards Jaenelle and the Hall. "I need to apologize for how I have just acted," she added more formally.

"It's quite alright," Jaenelle said gently, taking the girl and hugging her tightly. Sending a quick message to her father and husband to explain roughly what had happened—Arina would need to explain herself to her children, after all. It would be better coming from Arina than it would be from Jaenelle.

"I'm sorry, too," she added. "I didn't realize quite how sharp this wound was for you, or how much that it would bring out of you."

"But you don't regret it," Arina sighed.

"You needed to have this wound cleansed," Jaenelle said in agreement. "But I can still regret that it was so hard for you."

BJT:ANW

It wasn't particularly easy for Arina to tell Lucien about why she had bolted from the table—it was worse that she was trying to explain in front of Rose and Yaslana at the same time.

Not that it would ever have been simple to bare her soul to others and express her deepest insecurities and doubts and self-hatred. But it would have been easier if it was just the person that she felt that she loved more than anyone else—certainly she loved him more than she loved herself most days. The person that she wanted to become her lover.

They were understanding—surprised and saddened, but very understanding—which Arina supposed made rather uncomfortable sense, from the only daughter of Witch, her shadowed twin brother, and the son of Daemon Sadi, who reflected his father, who reflected his own father…who was the High Lord of Hell.

If there were any people who would be able to almost immediately understand the struggle that Arina had, it was these people. Arina was more than a little embarrassed that she had never considered that there were other people who might struggle with similar thoughts, but Lucien, following her to her room that night after a hesitant invitation, was quick to reassure her that she had not been selfish for thinking such things.

"There is nothing wrong with you," he said fiercely. "We have had our whole lives to grow and understand our place in the world, how to hide our doubts and fears. You haven't had that. I would have been concerned if you had so easily realized that I had some of the same thoughts—I have gone to great effort to hide them."

"I suppose that's fair," Arina agreed. She rolled in the massive bed until she was curled up into Lucien's side and closed her eyes."

"Arina?"

"Mmm…"

Lucien propped himself up and looked down at Arina, smaller than he always thought she should be, making a faintly unhappy face when he moved and opening her eyes to look up at him.

"When are you thinking of having your Virgin's Night?" he asked, finally getting it off his chest.

Arina's eyes went gratifyingly wide, pupils blowing out a little bit in shock. "Ah. I guess I haven't really thought about it," she was almost stammering.

"Not at all?" he pressed, carefully keeping the distress from his face and psychic scent.

"Well. I mean. Not…a lot. And not lately, I guess. I just…was never terribly interested in it, really. And I only ever think about it…around…you…"

It took quite a bit of effort for him not to preen at that. Considering he had just moments ago been afraid of complete rejection, it was nice to be told that.

"You don't?" he asked, not a little bit shocked.

Arina laughed a little at his face, but she was blushing pretty heavily at this point, and turned her face to look out her balcony windows instead of at him anymore. "I just don't, no. I don't feel any urge to pleasure myself, and the only time I ever even think about it is when we are cuddling or kissing anyway. It never felt like anything I needed. For years I was certain that even if I did it, it wouldn't feel nice, because there was never anyone I felt strongly about."

She shrugged. "I guess I never thought it was important, is all. I certainly don't need sex to feel content or complete in a relationship. I never really felt like it was missing from ours. But you do?"

Lucien let himself drop back onto the bed and put a pillow in front of his face instead of answering.

"I'm going to take that as a yes, then" Arina said dryly, and yanked the pillow away.

"I don't understand," he whined. "You've seemed interested the few times we went far enough for it to be even remotely relevant." Specifically remembering the very beginning of their relationship, when they were still living together at the Keep and the Hall, before she left for learning at Hayll.

Arina sighed. "I did say that when we are kissing and messing around, those are the time that I am considering and thinking about it. It's just that unless we are already moving in that direction…I don't think about it. It simply has never been terribly important to me, and it still is not something I feel that I am missing."

"That doesn't even make any sense," he said plaintively, trying to reach for another pillow, only for Arina to huff and climb on top of him and pin his arms where they were. He froze, and gave her his full attention. "This is maybe not a good position for you to be in," he managed to get out, breathing very carefully.

Arina scoffed. "I am familiar with the mechanics and idea of sex, Lucien. I learned more about it in my world than you think. I do actually know exactly what I am doing, but you were just complaining and not paying attention to me, so I decided to make a point."

'Right," he said faintly, his eyes helplessly dropping to her breasts as she straddled him, and Arina rolled her eyes, hard.

"Eyes up here," she said, bone dry. Lucien laughed very slightly, but did meet her eyes again. "I want to be very clear here—I am not against sex. Unlike Karla—who I have actually spoken to about this, who is actively against having sex—and I am even interested in having sex with you. It's just that I'm not going to initiate it much, if ever, I think, so if you want it, you will have to tell me. Can you do that? I understand that it is very much…not that way, in this world. Normally the woman has to start things?"

"I—yes, it's not exactly my place to…make demands, as it were. Can I tell you when I would like to have you? Certainly. That would be always, anywhere, anytime it pleases you."

Arina narrowed her eyes down on the male beneath her, and flexed her fingers against his wrists, delicately allowing her claws to slide out and press, ivory smooth, against the veins there. Lucien's breath hitched slightly.

"Yes, my Lady. I can tell you if I need something from you," he managed.

"Good boy," she murmured.

"Mother night," he hissed out, carefully and deliberately relaxing his body against the bed. He wasn't weak by any stretch of the imagination, but he also didn't have a lot of doubt that physically, Arina was stronger than he was. Stronger, and more skilled in using that body to overpower people.

These were probably not things that he should be thinking right now, when Arina had not had her Virgin's Night yet, and he was not mentally prepared for one.

He should probably talk to his father about how much it was affecting him, the way that Arina was pinning him in place and was clearly able to do as she liked with him, not that he would argue with her. Though it might be hard for his father to actually talk about it, given his specific and particular history in Terrielle.

"Well, in that case, I will look into arrangements for my Virgin's Night. Were you interested in helping me with that, or should I make inquiries elsewhere?"

Lucien snapped his eyes, which had drifted shut as he worked to get a handle on himself, wide open and met her small smile. "I would be interested," he said, "But I am young for it still, and haven't actually done it before. So I would also need to speak with someone about how it is done on my end."

"Alright. Is there a specific time that would be best?"

Gaping at her in shock was probably not the answer that she was hoping for, but for several seconds Lucien couldn't stop himself. Arina was never what he expected. He had been struggling to speak about this for months now, which was not helped by the fact that they were so far apart physically almost all the time, but as soon as he managed, she was surging forward in a way that he had not anticipated at all. So much faster than he had anticipated. Already she was planning for it, when Lucien had been afraid only moments before that it was something that she was going to reject entirely. He would also need to give her space to figure herself and her desires out after her night, to see if anything had changed for her. And he also needed time to think carefully himself. The conversation that they had just had was not something that he had ever really considered, and he needed to wrap his head around the idea. Having a lover of the same gender, and not wanting to have sex at all were things that he did have vague awareness of—Rainier and Lady Karla were both outliers in that way—but he hadn't heard of anyone being like Arina was saying she was. And it wasn't something that was done openly, ever.

Of course, it was a deeply private and almost embarrassing thing, and not something that would ever come up in polite conversation, but still.

He needed to talk to his Aunt Karla, very soon. Like, tomorrow. Which was nice and convenient, since she would be at the Hall the next day anyway.

"Lucien?"

"Ah. Anytime, really," he got out, desperately hoping that she wasn't going to ask him what he had been thinking about. "It doesn't have to be tied to anything. It could be any time you want. Here would probably be best, though, rather than Hayll."

Arina gave him a sharp glance, studying his face intently, before apparently accepting whatever she saw there.

"Good, then. Will I need to do anything?"

Lucien shook his head. "Just show up, really."

"So romantic," she observed, raising an eyebrow.

"It's your Virgin's Night," he said, frowning a little. "It's too important for anything to go wrong, so romance isn't exactly the most important part of it—though it can be, when there is courting before. And most of the…effort…is done on well. My end."

"That's honestly one of the most tragic things that I have found out about this world, that your first-time having sex isn't supposed to be romantic" Arina said after a moment, then slid off of where she had been straddling him and curled back into his side. Lucien put his arm around her and tucked her even closer to him, and she didn't resist at all. He didn't quite know what to say about that. He wasn't sure if there was anything that he could say about that.

"After this Winsol, then?" She murmured. Lucien shivered, unable to stop himself, and found himself murmuring agreement.

Satisfied, Arina hummed into his throat, and was asleep within minutes of curling into him. Lucien felt that it was a tiny bit unfair, as he was certainly not going to be getting to sleep anytime soon, with how much he was thinking about what had happened that night—what was supposed to be a simple dinner and relaxing evening before the party tomorrow had turned into so much more.

Well, at least he had gotten the answer he had been hoping and trying to get for several months now figured out. It had been a much harder question to ask than he had thought, asking Arina about sex. But with the differences in their upbringings, he had been very anxious about it, not that he would ever have admitted it.

It had turned out rather better than he had hoped. After more than a year of not actually getting much of anywhere physically, he finally had answers about it, and would be able to figure out more in the future, as she had said that she didn't mind. Hope was a wonderful thing.

BJT:ANW

Lucien woke up the next morning late, not that he was ever particularly early in the morning. But the sun was way up in the sky, and even just rising he could already feel the swarm of people who were swirling around the Hall and the grounds, the excitement rising in the air.

And the steady beat of bland annoyance not far from the bed, aimed directly at him. Lucien turned his head to the left, where the large mirrored vanity dresser was set against the wall. Arina was perched neatly on the short stool there, legs curled around to the side, steadily brushing her hair while watching him with cat sharp eyes in the mirror. The slit pupils in her silver eyes were always viscerally unnerving the first instant that he saw them, a sensation which he knew from quiet conversations with the others that was not limited to him.

Even being faced with the big cats themselves weren't quite this unnerving. Facing such an unnerving predator in a human body was beyond the typical.

Even the most dangerous of the Blood, including Daemon Sadi, The Sadist, couldn't pull of the single moment of deep unease and fear that anyone who met the eyes of Witch, Dreams Made Flesh would feel every time they looked at her.

The absolute knowledge down to the bone that there is something Other Looking at him, seeing through him to his bones and the bare depths of his Self.

It didn't help that Lucien knew full well from experience that while his mother Witch used her eyes all the time, Arina never pulled them out unless she was displeased.

Likely because Arina's Witch eyes were even more unnerving than Jaenelle's and she knew it.

Arina never so much as hesitated with her motions, even as he carefully sat up, not quite meeting her eyes directly. The perfectly rhythmic motion of the brush was almost as unnerving as the look in her eyes.

"I don't suppose you would care to tell me why there is a large hoard of people wandering around here, that were not here yesterday?" Arina inquired, voice very bland.

"Ah."

"Or is this just another thing that I was supposed to be aware of?" now annoyance was creeping into her tone. "As was mentioned at the beginning of this trip, I am not fond of surprises."

Lucien gave up. He didn't want to be fighting her over this. "Are you aware of what day it is?" he asked, sliding off the bed and over to where he had hung up his planned clothes for the day in Arina's wardrobe, ignoring the silent warning in her eyes.

"Thursday, I believe," Arina said after a moment, tipping her head to the side to keep an eye on him through the mirror, though she did apparently determine that she was done with her hair, which was something of a relief. Putting the hairbrush down, she stopped staring at him to start sorting through the materials and make-up that was scattered over the surface.

Lucien snorted, despite himself. "Yes, it's Thursday. Do you know what the date is, today?"

"August 13th, I believe."

"And what is August 13th, my Lady?" Finished dressing, Lucien turned back to face her in the mirror, leaning against one of the bedposts.

Arina frowned at him, and appeared to think about it. To his mild despair, it took her several minutes to finally come to the correct conclusion.

"Oh. It's my birthday today, isn't it?"

"Yes, my Lady, it is your birthday. I cannot believe that you have already forgotten what your birthday is. You haven't even turned 20 yet, this is ridiculous," he grumbled.

"Well, I forgot that it would be relevant, here," she said, voice still surprised and a little disbelieving. "It never mattered back there, and it was really only if someone asked me for my birthday that I would even remember it, because I had to know it for health things…"

"Well, you did tell us, ages ago, before you left for Hayll. But then you never mentioned it again, and it wasn't until well after Winsol that we realized that you had been here over a year and we never celebrated your birthday. Quinn had to get a look at your paperwork at the Hayllian Court for us to find it."

"You could have asked," Arina said, amused now. "I take it there is a party set up downstairs, then, and that's why if feels like everyone I know is here?"

"Yes. After we realized that you had no idea what was going on, Rose decided to keep it a secret and have it be a surprise party. Just another way for us to show you that we care about you, and you matter. Even the things that you don't think matter still matter to us. You deserve a happy birthday celebration. It shouldn't be the first happy birthday that you have, but I guess it is. Though from this point forwards you will have many more celebrations, and they will all be something that you will be able to look forward to."

"That's rather terribly sweet," Arina said quietly, but when Lucien came over to her, she put her hand up to his face and leaned back into his chest. When he checked in the mirror, her eyes had shifted back to the normal human eyes, only noteworthy due to the silver sheen to them, instead of the gold that one expected to find.

Lucien looked down at the table and found on it a mostly flat, wrapped gift that hadn't been there even a minute before, and had to laugh. "I think someone was listening in on us," he commented, nodding to it. Arina followed his gaze and quirked a smile, reaching out to pick it up and unwrap it without any pomp or fanfare, but with a level of care that was somewhat disconcerting. She had been the same way with her Winsol gifts, he remembered, unwrapping each one as though they were extremely delicate, but otherwise not making a big deal out of them—because she was still unfamiliar on how to deal with being given gifts.

Once it was completely unwrapped, Arina opened the lid of the box, and promptly started laughing.

The two of them were looking at a box of paints, with a variety of colors and several brushes included, but it was laid out identically to how one would lay out a make-up kit.

"Well, I guess I know who this is from," was all Arina had to say, setting it down on the table in front of her, but she looked very much amused.

"Are you going to use them?"

"I don't know," Arina murmured, running a finger around the colors. "I'm not sure if I have an idea of what to paint with them."

"Well, maybe think about it and get ready to come down for the party," Lucien suggested, leaning down and brushing a kiss over her nose. "I'm going to head down now and join the party. Come down soon, darling." He left her frowning over her paint set as he headed out the door and down the stairs, breezing into the dining room, which was set up with a massive spread for the many guests.

Most of the people that had been invited were the family friends that Arina had already meet, but there were also a large number high ranking Queens had been invited as well—Saetan networking for Arina, as she would become the Queen of Ebon Askavi and it never hurt for Arina to have more contacts among the long lived races.

Arina's coterie was in the middle of staking out the entire left side of the dining room—the right side was milling with various dignitaries, who were all busy sizing each other up, while the younger generation was chatting amiably with each other over shared plates of food, clearly settling in for the long haul.

Farostel, leaning next to the door when Lucien strolled in, pushed off and joined him at the table, Rose hurrying over a moment later.

"How is she feeling this morning?" was the first thing that came out of Rose's mouth, fairly predictably. That was followed shortly by, "I'm assuming you did actually tell her what was going on, and it isn't a surprise anymore?'

"She is well," Lucien said tactfully, shrugging a bit as he started putting a plate together for Arina. By this point the Queen had won her little war over breakfast foods and what she considered to be an acceptable meal for the first thing in the morning, and a result, there was no longer any offerings of steak on any plate given to the Queen before noon.

The compromise was that she was getting plates piled high with sausage, with bacon, with omelets filled with ham and cheese and mushrooms and all sorts of filling things. Potatoes, chopped finely and fried in grease.

She ended up eating more than most of the rest of their group, or more to the point, she had longer, drawn out breakfasts that lasted for over an hour of almost constant snacking, or having two breakfasts, one at dawn and another one midmorning. It was a neat compromise to how she never felt like she could eat steak for breakfast, but needed the massive amounts of protein that the steak was providing.

It was also the only way that Arina and her friends were able to get through mornings sometimes, when they felt like she needed to be eating more. The fact that Quinn was awake to share her first breakfast was helpful, as it managed to convince the others that she was actually eating enough, because Quinn would be the first to bring it up if he thought that she was not taking care of herself properly.

And Arina was probably always going to be in the habit of eating many smaller meals, instead of 3 large ones, as was normal for most people. That was the way that she had had to eat for the first year and a bit of coming to Kaeleer, as it was the safest way for her to actually be able to eat everything that she needed to consume to keep her body going, when her stomach was just too small from years of not eating enough for a normal human anyway, let alone one of the Blood.

It was actually nice, because after the others accepted that fact about her, it turned into everyone trying to feed her over the course of the day, and she was actually able to accept their offerings, as she was no longer so full she wanted to explode all the time.

"She is feeling better this morning than she was last night," Lucien clarified, when no one said anything. "She will be down soon."

"Oh, did she sleep in?"

"Ha. No, I assume she went for her morning flight as typical of her, and then promptly holed back up in her room when everyone started showing up. She definitely wasn't thrilled when I woke up, at least."

"So you told her why everyone was here?" Rose pouted.

"Not in so many words," Lucien said. "I just asked her what the date was. Pointedly. It took her a while, but she did figure it out."

"It's so sad that she didn't even remember her own birthday," Rose said mournfully.

"She mentioned to me that the only real reason that she remembered it and could tell us what her birthday was when she asked was really mostly because of medical reasons."

"I hate that so much," Rose said brightly. "So very much. Did she get the present that mom sent up to her?"

"She did indeed. I'm not sure she is going to use it today though," Lucien murmured. "I got the impression that she didn't have a solid idea for what she wanted, so she wasn't planning on using it, but she might change her mind."

"Gift?" Farostel asked, bland, and Lucien was forcibly reminded that the other male was, in fact, standing right there.

"You'll see," was all Rose said, before flouncing off back to where she had been gossiping with Titian and Mirabelle from Hayll.

Farostel turned a faintly questioning look on Lucien. *Arina came to dinner last night covered in paint markings. Mom suggested that paint marks would be a striking look on her, something she could do instead of the typical make up that everyone uses. So she gave Arina a paint set that was arranged as a make up kit.*

Farostel blinked. *That would indeed be very interesting and striking. I would like to see her be so bold.*

Lucien turned his head to the door, feeling Arina approach, and Farostel followed him a moment later.

Arina stepped through the door, and Lucien inhaled a little too sharply if the way that Farostel jabbed him in the side a moment later indicated.

She had painted her face—there were delicate leaves painted over her face, framing her eyes and lips as though she was peering through the foliage of a tree that she was perching in. She was wearing a pantsuit of some sort, a single piece of fabric with pillowing pants that looked like a skirt when she came to a stop by the table, smiling at Rose, who was already gushing about the paint.

The top of the outfit was a sleeveless, backless top that tied around the back of her neck, and Arina had continued the foliage look on her neck, arms, and shoulders. Her loose hair mostly concealed the open back, but when she moved her head, there were tantalizing glimpses of something concealed behind the curtain of hair, something painted in much darker colors.

How she did that part, Lucien had no idea, but suspected a very creative use of Craft.

It was absolutely the most striking thing that he had ever seen, even outside of a formal event. At even a fairly casual party like this, it was beyond stunning.

His mother was going to be beyond thrilled at how successful her gift had already proven. Several of the visiting Queens who had not met Arina before were staring wide eyed in amazement and awe. One of the younger Queens, who was clearly there as the guest of an older one and trying to be on her best behavior, brushed her fingers over her own cheek, as though imagining the paint on her own skin.

That was already one person seriously thinking about trying a copycat style, and Arina had been in view of the party for all of a few minutes. She was looking a little tense and uneasy though, so Lucien slipped over quickly, still holding the plate he had put together for her and had been nibbling off of himself, and pressed into her side.

There was a skintight Red shield that she had created over herself, but the way that she leaned into his side told him that the shield was just there to protect the paint.

"Happy Birthday, love," he murmured in her ear. "Are you ready to face the adoring hordes?"

"Absolutely not," she murmured under her breath.

"I'm with you, and will be with you the entire time. So is Farostel. I know that Quinn is currently staking out the gift table, watching it very carefully. It will be fine. You are beautiful and lovely and everyone is going to adore you."

"If you say so," was all Arina had to say in response, deeply unenthusiastic.

BJT:ANW

A small, private party only was absolutely what they should have done, and everyone knew it as Arina grew more and more tense as the day went by. Lucien cursed himself for not having realized as soon as he knew that she wasn't thinking about her birthday. They had wanted the day to become special and memorable and something that she could think about fondly, but now she was just being passed around between strangers that she didn't know for the most part.

Of course, when they had planned the party and sent out the invitations for the day, they had thought that she knew that her birthday was the big event coming up.

They had the small private party of just all of Arina's coterie, now expanded to include her close friends from Hayll, and their families as relevant, but that wasn't until everyone had left the public party, which wasn't due to happen for another few hours.

Arina was keeping her unhappiness at the massive amounts of social activity with strangers to herself very well—if Lucien and Farostel didn't know her as well as they did, and if the Kindred present couldn't smell the unhappiness on her, it would be almost impossible to even tell.

As it was, Lucien just kept using himself as a buffer for her as often as he could, and tried to steer Arina in the direction of his parents when there were still three hours of the party officially left to see if anything could be done.

Thank the Darkness, his parents took one look at the tightness of Arina's eyes and started clearing out their guests. Thankfully, the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan and the Heart of Kaeleer were more than influential enough to get everyone out of the Hall and heading to their homes within a half hour, which Arina spent secluded in Daemon's private study staring at and not reading the book in her hands.

*I'm sorry I ruined the party,* she sent abruptly. It wasn't a private thread, just something that she sent out on the Red thread, evidently unsure who she should be apologizing to.

*Don't apologize,* Jaenelle responded sharply before anyone else could. *I'm sorry I let this go on to the point where you were struggling so much. I should have noticed that you were distressed long before my son brought you to me. We wanted this birthday to be good for you, since we forgot it last year. I fear that we have failed you very badly in this.*

*You meant well.*

*But we did not do well. I am very sorry, my dear,* Daemon corrected.

Arina closed her eyes, in the study, and Lucien knelt in front of her and took her hands tightly in his. She curled her fingers around his and squeezed back, taking a deep breath, and didn't respond to that statement. But the rigid line of her shoulders did start to relax, and Lucien took that as the victory it was.

He would try to talk to his Aunt Karla later, and his father tomorrow—he would not be leaving Arina's side whatsoever for the whole night.

Farostel, circling around the couch Arina was sitting on to lay his hands gently on her shoulders and just stand there, holding onto her, was clearly in agreement.

It was better, after everyone left and the Hall was quiet. All that remained were Arina's close friends—even Jaenelle's Circle had left, in respect for how Arina was feeling. Lucien felt like setting something on fire out of pure rage when Arina carefully avoided the table that was piled high with wrapped gifts, clearly so very uncomfortable with it in a way that made him want to rise to the killing edge in response.

The coterie, though, had all held onto their gifts so that they could give them to her in person, at this portion of the party, and it was deeply relieving to find Arina starting to smile again as she opened up silly gifts like a circlet of antlers that Lauranna and Astira had created for her, with crafted flowers woven through it.

Daemonar had gotten her an expertly forged and crafted Eyrian stick, the live weapon and not the practice ones that she had been using before. Similarly, Farostel had given her a set of Dea al Mon hunting knives, which admittedly fit Arina much better than they would have most anyone else who was not Dea al Mon, who lacked the instinctive fear that went down the spines of anyone who met them.

Other gifts included more music, more tailored to Arina's tastes now that they knew what she liked to listen to, lovely stationary and pen sets, and weaving materials for her webs.

Some practical gifts, and some that were just fun and sweet.

Thankfully there wasn't any jewelry, because Lucien was willing to bet every single mark of his own that the gifts on the table were mostly going to be jewelry, broaches, pins, gloves and hats, which were the current fashion, though it was very clear that Arina had no interest in so much as looking at that table tonight.

It almost made up for how badly the day went, but not quite.

But this whole trip was in some ways even more of a success than he had thought it would be—the greatest source of Arina's pain that remained to harm her had been dragged into the light, and Jaenelle, the greatest Healer alive, was certain that she was only going to continue to heal from here—no matter how awkward the timing of it all was.