The Estate, Sidra, Balmia, Tuesday Evening (Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

Karla paced back and forth, trying to absorb some of the calm from her garden, trying not to curse her ungainly figure. Even the land in full bloom, laden with fragrant flowers and early fruits wasn't enough to bleed off her fury. Warren's 'birthday' present had been delivered this morning, a bouquet of witchblood tucked in a grinning skull. Karla wasn't sure whether she should be grateful or not that it was only a skull; a head, she might have recognized.

Of course, a gift from Raven was likely coming soon. She wouldn't let an opportunity like Karla and Warren's shared birthday go unremarked. The only question would be if she knew what Warren's gift had been--and, if so, how she would attempt to outdo it.

Once beloved. Once sister. Now they were both hollow, twisted shells of their former selves. Warren had gone to Earth and come back corrupted by Apocalypse, managing to hold onto himself for only a few days before being lost completely. Raven had tried to protect her Queen for as long as she could until Archangel's games had driven her over the edge and released her demonic side. Now Karla was trapped between them as they raged back and forth for possession of everything Karla held dear.

She only wished that was limited to herself.

"Karla, you should sit down." Her former mentor, Helene, had been visiting the day Warren had torn Sidra from the rest of Balmia, using his powers to partially phase it out of reality with the rest of Kaeleer and put it into some kind of time bubble vortex thing that, even now, Karla couldn't quite understand and Warren was not inclined to explain. All she knew was that it cut Sidra off from the Winds, from Portalocity, from any contact with the outside world. A small blessing, that. It meant the rest of Balmia and Kaeleer was safe from them--at least, until one or the other emerged victorious. Karla found it hard to regret her friend's presence here, even though it meant she was in danger. But she needed a mother figure right now more than ever--especially one who was also a powerful Black Widow. "You need to rest."

"I'm not feeling very restful," Karla growled, using a fist to try to ease the nagging sensation in her lower back. A bit of Healing would vanish that pain entirely, but even that was beyond her capabilities now. "And chairs are too much of a pain in the ass to get into and out of unless I plan to stay sitting for awhile." And she didn't. There was important pacing to be done. "You should go inside. One or the other of them will be dropping by soon and you know they don't like it when our little chats are interrupted by others."

Helene grimaced. "I don't understand why you allow these so-called visits," she said by rote. It was an old argument by this point. "They're dangerous--"

"To everyone else except me," Karla interrupted. "I'm the bone they're wrangling over. That gives me a measure of safety. One that you don't have."

"I've seen wild dogs fight over scraps before," Helene retorted. "Believe me, the scraps come in a distant third in that contest. And you can't protect yourself from either of them."

"I am well aware of my limitations," Karla said, trying to find a position that eased her various aches. "But trust me, this is safer than the alternatives. Right now, keeping them fighting each other is the only protection we have."

Helene nodded at Karla's stomach, large and round under her airy shirt. "And when the baby's born? What then?"

"Then I'll have my Craft back," Karla said, ice-blue eyes narrowed. "And then we see about evening the score."

[For the two villains so named! Sidra in Glacia Balmia is now unreachable by phone, computer, or any other method of communication/transportation. Feel free to have your characters notice that, if they're likely to do so! NFB.]

Comments

[wwiii]

"Except you're not saying it. You're doing the same as you always do, skirting around it. You can't betray him like that, can you? Not to my face."

And the hell of it was, she was right. It destroyed Warren a million times over, seeing her unable to actually outright deny that he was still a factor in her life, see her confirm in not so many words that she was still holding on to the knowledge that he existed somehow, deep down.

He cried out in his little gilded cage, the place where he'd been wingclipped in the back of Archangel's head. And Archangel laughed.

"What makes him happy and what you believe are two very different things, aren't they?"

[glacial_queen]

So many deaths. And yet she still couldn't say it. Not out loud. Not where she could hear it and maybe even believe it. It would be so much easier if she did, but...how could she deny him? It hurt.

Even now, after everything, if Warren came back to her, she'd find a way to make it work.

And so, rather that respond verbally, she slapped Archangel as hard as she could across the face. "Still amused, are you?" she growled.

[wwiii]

His face stung, but only for a second, and Archangel's hand flew up an instant after her hand made contact. He wasn't raising it to strike a blow, though he did knot his fingers into Karla's hair.

"Thoroughly. You, my love, are an endless source of joy to me."

[glacial_queen]

Karla gasped and closed her eyes briefly, biting her lip to keep from making any further noises.

"Let. Me. Go," she said evenly, counting her breaths. "And stop calling me that. You don't know how to love. You don't even know what means."

[wwiii]

In reply, he tightened his fingers in her hair, and leaned forward, breathing deeply where her neck met her shoulder.

"What would you have me call you instead? My Queen? My sky, perhaps?"

[glacial_queen]

"Don't--" she choked out, telling herself it was rage she was choking on. "Don't you dare, you have no right."

Her fingers flexed, aching to slap him again, even as her head tilted just the slightest bit under his hand to let him nuzzle closer.

[wwiii]

"Haven't I? But it's true," he cooed, and then started pressing kisses to her throat. "If you hadn't given his sky back to him, he wouldn't have so desperately needed his wings back. I might not even be here at all."

A few more gentle kisses, and then a flash of teeth, biting just hard enough to leave a mark.

"Oh, he fought, of course. He struggled lamely against Apocalypse with all he had left in him. But in the end, after he'd been broken and chained, the kiss of the air on his face again was as sweet as any other he'd known."

[glacial_queen]

"Ah!" She cried out when his teeth found her neck, but it wasn't from pain. And that had her fighting harder to leave his embrace. She could handle it when they fought or when he threatened. But those times when he used his--used Warren's knowledge of how to make her respond, those were when he was the most dangerous.

"Fuck you," she spat at him. "Get away from me."

If only she had her Craft...

[wwiii]

He held on to her for a moment longer, fingers lingering in her hair before he unfolded his wings and let her slip from his grasp, if she so desired.

He didn't step away. He had no interest in doing so. It pleased him to see her struggle to pull herself away from him, after all.

"I could give him back to you, you know. Have him, his touch, his smile, right there at your fingertips whenever you wished it of me. It would be so easy... You can still see him when you look at me, can't you? Why else would you let me get so close to you at all?" He inclined his head just slightly. "Those moments when I embrace you are the closest you've been to him in months."

[glacial_queen]

Shut up shut up shut up! Karla squeezed her eyes closed and gritted her teeth, willing herself to not say that aloud, to let him know that he was getting to her. It would be so easy to cling to that, to pretend that he really was Warren, to let the illusion fool her.

Some nights, she wondered if it would almost be worth it...

"It doesn't change the fact that you're still a monster," she said in a low voice. "You can fool my eyes, but not my heart. And your psychic scent still shows me what you really are."

Kayla. Raven. Morton. Julian. Warren.

It could never be worth it. Never. She had to cling to that truth.

[wwiii]

"Oh, does it?" He purred just that little bit more, watching her react, watching her fight to resist him.

Unlike Raven, all he needed were words.

"Then you know how hard he fights, even now. How much he bleeds for you, for your embrace. How he rails against me, knowing it will only destroy him all the more. The longer you pull away, the less of him there is." There was something hungry in that otherwise placid smile of his. "Maybe the day our child is born, that will be the day I finally put him out of his misery. Just long enough to be aware that a daughter lives that he'll never see."

[glacial_queen]

Karla's hands flew to her stomach, arms wrapping protectively around her daughter. "Neither of you ever will," she snarled. "Go ahead, kill him. Give me no reason to hesitate when I see you for the first time fully in command of my Craft."