SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan Kaeleer (Monday Morning Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

Saetan Daemon SaDiablo, Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, High Priest of the Hourglass, and High Lord of Hell, was having a good day. Mrs. Beale had made his favorite lunch today, he had a new book from Halaway, a Winsol gift from Sylvia, and there had been no cringing tutors or fretting merchants come to beg audience about something one of the boyos, or--worse yet--one of the coven had done. It was a good day to be Saetan.

It was about to get precipitously worse.

*High Lord?* Beale's psychic thread sounded oddly...odd. Saetan couldn't quite place his tone. *You have a...guest.*

*Who?* Most of his attention was still on the book, it was true. *Send them in.*

*...She's on her way already, Prince,* Beale sent. It was impossible to wince over a psychic thread and yet Saetan had the distinct impression that he did. But he didn't get a chance to probe further before there was a sharp rap on the door and Karla slipped in.

"Prince SaDiablo," she said, coming a few steps into his study. She then gave a precise curtsy, Queen to ranking Warlord Prince. Saetan said nothing for a moment, regarding her. There were many reasons Karla might choose to use his titles; they hadn't spoken much since the disaster in Agio and she could still be harboring ill-feelings towards him. But her curtsy, now, that told him much. Karla was adhering to Protocol.

Which meant that he wasn't dealing with his adopted niece, or even his daughter's best friend. He was dealing with the incipient Territory Queen of Glacia.

He could be forgiven his slight trepidation, right? Especially if he didn't tell anyone about it?

"Lady," Saetan murmured, rising from his chair and bowing back to her. "What brings you to my study?"

Karla tilted her chin up the slightest bit, even as her psychic scent swirled with apprehension, and said, "I thought it best to inform you that I will be having my Virgin Night in three days' time."

Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.

[Continued in comments. NFI, NFB, Karla will be back in plenty of time for NYE festivities. Conversation has veered into discussion of sexual abuse. Trigger warning in effect.]

Comments

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

Saetan wondered for a moment if it was possible to swallow his own tongue.

By the time he discovered it was not, he still hadn't found anything to say beyond, "You what?!"

Arthur had been a bad influence in the few days he stayed at the Hall.

[glacial_queen]

"Thought it best to inform you that I would be having my Virgin Night in three days' time," Karla repeated doggedly.

You know, in case he'd missed one of those words the first time.

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

"Thank you, Karla," Saetan replied, shocked out of Protocol for a moment. He rubbed his temples and thought longingly of brandy. "Because having you repeat yourself was ever so helpful."

No, whiskey. It needed to be whiskey for this conversation, oh yes.

As disbelieving shock slowly ebbed, fear, concern, exasperation and even outright anger clamored to take it's place. His Protocol mask slipped on and he asked in a calmly civil tone, "Perhaps the Lady would care to share some of the pertinent details? The who, how, and why seem sadly lacking, not that you've clarified the what."

[glacial_queen]

The apprehension in her psychic scent spiked a bit at that calmly civil tone. And Karla responded to being intimidated the way she normally did.

Poorly.

"The how, I should think, is fairly self-explanatory," she said. "I am hardly an expert, but I'm fairly certain sex is sex regardless of what world you are in."

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

The air in the room chilled just a bit. "I forbid it," Saetan replied, because that solved everything, yes. "Darkness, Karla, you are still a child!"

[glacial_queen]

The temperature was plummeting a bit in Karla's vicinity as well. "What right do you have to forbid me such, High Lord?" Karla asked, barely restraining a snarl. "A child? A child?! When do I get to be a child? Where is this mythical land where I can be free from duty, responsibility, and danger? I ceased to be a child when Hobart first saw me as a threat. Age means nothing anymore."

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

Saetan struggled for words. Karla had a point, but it still went against everything he believed. She was still so young--too young. Just a girl. There was a much higher likelihood of her ending the evening broken, regardless of how skilled her lover was. Speaking of...

"Who has agreed to see you through this folly?" Saetan asked, his voice a quiet rumble. "No respectable male in Kaeleer would--"

[glacial_queen]

"No," Karla agreed evenly. "None would."

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

"Interesting." Ice was creeping across the top of the desk, cracks spider-webbing across it where Saetan's fingers clenched the desk. "Then whom?"

Though he was guessing he knew already.

[glacial_queen]

"Don't play stupid, Saetan," Karla snapped. "It doesn't suit you. You know very well who."

Well, one of the two, anyway. But she was saving that tidbit for later.

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

Karla was just lucky they were having this conversation in the Hall and Dhemlan and not in Hell, where he could just toss her into a Black-locked room and summon Marjong the Executioner to take care of one young, winged male. "You're an interesting one to talk, Karla," he said. "Rushing your Virgin Night just to be with this male. I thought you were smarter than that. A better Queen than that. Instead you're willing to risk everything you are just because you're hot to get a male between your legs?"

He had no idea just how much he sounded like his sons right there.

"Mother Night, Karla, I expected better from you!"

[glacial_queen]

A part of Karla flinched and wailed at that, but that part was overshadowed by the rage that his words evoked. Nothing in this Realm or any other could have induced her to strike out at Saetan--but the same didn't hold true for his study. The books behind him exploded into shreds of white paper and brown leather, while the decanter of yarbarah shattered into a thousand pieces. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air as it poured out onto his desk, where it then froze into scarlet droplets.

"This has very little to do with him," Karla said, her calm voice at odds with the destruction around her, though the cold, glittering fury and the spreading circle of ice at her feet gave an insight, in case the destruction wasn't enough. "This has everything to do with being a Queen. Or has what happened to Jaenelle not been enough for you? I'm doing this for my own protection. You can't even keep Jaenelle safe! What can you possibly do for me?"

No, she couldn't hit Saetan. But each word was a blow in their own way.

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

Saetan opened his mouth to respond, but was forestalled by the door to the study being flung open, hard enough to slam into the wall behind it and lodge there.

"Enough." The words were barely a whisper in her midnight voice, filled with suppressed thunder. "You will both back away. Now."

Not from one another. Witch wasn't concerned with physical proximity.

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

Saetan felt his Queen's hand on the emotional leash she held, tight enough to almost choke him, and welcomed it. Step by step, he retreated from the edge, from the violence that made him a Warlord Prince. Across the desk he saw Karla shaking like a newborn foal and realized Witch was exerting her will over Karla, too.

Step by careful step.

"Has she told you what she intends?" he asked through gritted teeth.

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Witch replied, sapphire blue eyes dark and fathomless. "I promised I would make the brew."

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

That took a lot of the wind out of Saetan's sails. He sat heavily back in his chair, ignoring the cold and the wet that seeped into his clothing. "But--how?!" he choked out. "Why?! Mother Night, she's only sixteen!"

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"Being twelve didn't stop it from happening to me," Witch reminded gently.

[glacial_queen]

Karla took a long, shuddering breath. "I have my reasons, High Lord," she said, voice quiet. "Should you wish to hear them."

Her hurt feelings and riled temper flared, Or do you just want to insult me and my choice and my love again! but Jaenelle's power was there, soothing and calm and she kept that comment behind her teeth.

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

"I...think I should," Saetan said carefully. "Before I protest further."

Anything more than that, he didn't trust himself to say.

[glacial_queen]

Karla was silent for a few minutes, gathering her thoughts. "You protest because I am so young," she said slowly. "But I'm not, Saetan. Not anymore. I can't afford to be. Anytime I am in Kaeleer, I am in danger. We all know that. And there's no one here who can protect me."

She sensed Saetan's protest before he could even voice it.

"Little Terreille," she ground out. "If Jaenelle is not safe, with you and Lucivar both sworn to her, where does that leave me? Darkness, if the worst does happen and I am kidnapped, do you think Hobart will care that I'm not yet seventeen? I was thirteen when I came home from the coven. That didn't stop anyone then."

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

"Karla..." Saetan said. But Jaenelle's abrupt hand motion shushed him. Karla needed to say this and Saetan needed to hear it.

[glacial_queen]

"I must survive if Glacia is to ever be whole again," Karla said, glancing up as tears welled. She waited for them to subside before continuing. "I may be the strongest witch in Glacia, but a male can get around a witch's strength if he waits for the right time and has help."

Morton had told Saetan about the attack in her room, she knew that much. One against three. If her cousin hadn't arrived when he had, it would have all been over. "I'm scared Saetan. The longer I wait, the more opportunities Hobart will have to break me. I couldn't have survived what Jaenelle did--either time. I can't afford to have my Virgin Night hanging over my head any longer. Glacia can't afford it!"

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

Saetan recognized the look in Karla's eyes. It was the same look another witch had worn once, when pleading with him for her Virgin Night. Luthvian, Lucivar's mother. Karla was a Queen, driven by her intense need to express her Craft and protect her people.

And driven even harder by her need to survive.

He recognized that and respected it. Understood it even. But he had made a mistake with Luthvian and needed to make sure he wasn't making one with Karla, too.

"And you're certain that's your only reason for doing this?" he asked. Not because he thought it should be, but because he needed to make certain Karla was being fully honest with herself, too. "It has nothing to do with your feelings for Warren? Your attraction to him?"

[glacial_queen]

At first, Karla looked like she was going to protest. Instead, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and slowly shook her head. "I can't deny that I love him," she said. "And I won't deny that I want him. He can make my body sing with a kiss, with a caress. Hell's fire, sometimes even with a glance."

Too much information? Perhaps, but Saetan was the High Priest of the Hourglass as well as the High Lord of Hell and Karla thought he was asking more as her senior Black Widow than as a Warlord Prince to a witch under his protection.

...That didn't mean she was going to divulge just how far beyond kisses and caresses they'd gotten. She wasn't stupid.

"Desire does play a part in this," she admitted. "But I don't think that's entirely a bad thing. In fact, I can only think of it as good."

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"Why?" Jaenelle asked before Saetan could say anything. Her eyes were still sapphire, but the midnight was gone from her voice.