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Title: As Beautiful As Ever
Fandom: Original - Streetlight People 'verse
Characters: Cyril Ann/Xie
Word Count: 1876
Prompts: Today I wrote about a color (Day 1) and picture of a necklace (Day 2) from the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
5_prompts Camp NaNo challenge
Summary: An early scene between Cyril Ann and Xie. Before the Fall Mixer.
There was never a time that Cyril Ann was more aware of who she was than the night of the first Fall Mixer of her second Autumn term. As she dressed in one of her new dresses, the one with the precariously low back, nearly immodest high hem and the waterfall of lace at her throat that left only a hint of cleavage, she thought over the latest step in this ultimate plan at revenge.
She had employed several of Xie’s blokes to help, seeing as he had more than enough to help her out and still do the jobs he could find for them. Shipments had been plentiful lately, the money flowing more easily between Old City and New City. When times were good, no one seemed to be in need of thugs for the jobs they would have preferred were done in the shadows.
Thugs were exactly what she needed for this. They’d snuck onto campus last night, employing the Honor Guard time table she made sure to procure for them every week, and taken up residence in several shadowy corners of the campus. There was little doubt that anyone would notice them, even if they did fail at keeping themselves adequately hidden. The first order of business when she’d been allowed as a student at Grantson Academy was a new wardrobe for anyone that came to help out. When they were in the proper attire, no one questioned their presence.
They were her ace in the hole. It had only taken her a few scant months to find most of the flaws specifically in the Honor Guard and generally in the Administration and now she meant to exploit them all.
“Do you like it?” she questioned the mirror, not even turning away from her reflection as the window of her upper floor room slid open. It didn’t bother her. In fact, it made her more than a little annoyed that he hadn’t been her sooner.
As Xie’s arms snuck around her, drawing her back into the solid presence of her body, she finally gave him a look. “You’re all beat up for something that was supposed to be so easy. Xie! You promised!”
“Promised what? Make up your mind, silly girl. Do you want a bauble or do you want my face as flawless as my soul?”
“Flawless? Your soul? I think not.” She drawled her words out, sarcasm laced in every breath, but there was a huge smile on her face as she turned in his arms. “Where is the bauble you promised to find for me?”
“It would feed us for months so I hope you appreciate it.”
Her breath left her in a rush as he held up the large faceted gem the color of deepest twilight, set in pounded silver. It wasn’t hung from a normal chain but out one made a thin strands of silver woven together to form a thick rope. Without giving it a thought, Cyril Ann held up her hand, silently bidding all the lamps in the room to light. Wicks burst into flame with very little provocation, producing wavering flames that danced on the face of the metal and the gem. In her haste to showcase the piece of art, she’d called up too much magic so that it hovered over her skin with a faint crackling glow.
“Amaril,” she whispered, her eyes caressing every surface of the gem named for the Goddess of Water. To touch it with this much magic still coursing through her system, no matter how small the spell had been, would have been fool-hardy. It held a fair amount of magic itself, or so legend said.
Xie’s expression told her just how foolish he thought it had been to call up magic now and for such a silly purpose. “I want to see it dance before I put it on and the single flame made it look flat.”
Even though her words were petulant but her eyes were snapping with suppressed glee. She had eyes for only the necklace. On the other hand, Xie acted as if he could care less about the piece of jewelry he’d suffered and struggled for over the last forty-eight hours. It hadn’t been a fist that had given him that black eye. Instead, he’d taken on a state-of-the-art security system and come out the other end victorious. There was no need to tell Cyril Ann about the wealth of ancient coins that he’d pocketed.
When her eyes suddenly shifted up to meet his, he realized the stupidity of thinking about his acquisitions while she was still holding magic. “You did what?”
“There were old coins there.”
“Coins?” She fairly spit the word at him, her gray eyes suddenly appearing glacial. “What are we going to do with coins? Old City can’t take an influx of something that identifiable. You know that.”
“We’ll melt them down.”
“Melt them down? With what, Xie? Your power of persuasion? If you haven’t noticed, we don’t have the type of workshop one would need to melt down coins. And what’s to say that anything could be made with such an old metal? You put yourself into danger for nothing if we get caught because-”
“We won’t get caught,” he murmured, his eyes downcast.
“We might. You don’t know that.”
“We won’t get caught.” This time, he put more emphasis on the first word. “I promised you when we started this that you would never be in danger. I mean to stand by that promise.”
The last bit of magic faded from her skin, leaving a dull ache in her right hip and ankle as a reminder of her foolishness. When she covered his cheek with her palm, he flinched but not because of the snap of the magic. She saw guilt in his gaze, not just from this escapade. Xie was playing in a game she didn’t think she approved of, nor could she ever approve of.
“We’re in this together. You and I. I don’t want you covering for me if something goes wrong. Not now and not ever. I’m no fainting maiden to need a savior. And you’ve no cause to go after bigger and better pay offs. When the time is right, we’ll have ours.”
He let her caress his cheek for a moment longer before he pulled away. “I’m not looking for bigger and better.” A lie. They both knew it.
With the curse of the magic already making sure that her evening would be a painful one, there was nothing more that Cyril Ann could do but purse her lips together in frustration. “Come,” she bit out at last, turning back toward the mirror. “Put the necklace on me, if you will.”
There was a moment of hesitation, both of them caught up in what they expected from the other that they weren’t getting at the moment. More and more, they had to deal with these bits of time out of synch with each other, struggling to hold on to the closeness they’d once held when they were just two urchins with nothing else in the world but each other and their fists and feet. Since it wasn’t something Cyril Ann liked to think about, especially not with Xie in the same room, she concentrated on looking at her reflection and not at the man standing behind her.
“Will this do the trick, do you think?” he asked as he did the clasp, letting it settle on the lace in the middle of her chest. “Will they fall for it?”
“How could they not?” She said it cavalierly but she’d always doubted this part of the plan. Flaunt an obviously stolen necklace in front of the very people whom it was stolen from? Madness! But that was the very aspect that she loved of this idea. It would make them look twice at her, staring and craning their necks to see who it was that had the exact likeness of a supposed one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry that had not been seen in public in twenty years.
There would be speculation, of that she was sure, but there was no way to tell for sure what sort of repercussion she would be forced to deal with. It was highly likely that she would be accosted by the Guard in some private corner of the crowded room or even on her way back to her rooms after the event. It was also just as likely that the confrontation would take place in the middle of the room with everyone watching intently.
Whatever happened, she was ready. Cyril Ann was prepared for any occurrence, as long as it furthered her plan along to the next step - meeting the Lord High Chancellor. Whenever that meeting occurred, it would be only a few scant hours before the boys closed in on their prey and the trap was well and truly sprung.
As if reading her mind but most likely accurately deciphering the expression on her face, Xie leaned forward, placing a kiss at the base of her neck where the necklace nestled against her skin. “It’s a foolish plan but I helped you come up with it so I can’t berate you too much for wanting to follow through with it.”
“We need this plan to work, Xie. You know we do. He’ll be curious, so much so that he’ll forget to be do damned cautious. He’ll accuse and I’ll demure and then he’ll go find that he was wrong. Of course, now he’ll also find that he was robbed of some old coins that are probably nothing more than sentimental drivel. So it’s better that we take him down on his way home before he can check his empty vaults. He’ll be preoccupied and he won’t have time to put up his defenses. Tell Miles to be on watch for that first spark of blue. Whoever made that protection rune for him knew what they were doing.”
“Any idea who yet?”
Cyril Ann shook her head. “I can only still feel the nagging sense that there is another out there. Not who or where. Of course, I’ve had other things on my mind than trying to find others like me.”
“It should be the only thing on your mind.” His tone was disapproving yet again. Since he was forever trying to take care of her now that she wore dresses instead of her urchin garb, she was getting used to the tone.
Taking the time to call up only a tiny bit of magic, something that would flash and fade away almost instantly, she placed the very tips of her fingers against the skin of his jaw. When he flinched away, she took the opportunity to step away from him. His frown was the only recrimination he gave but it was enough to make her heart ache. If he wasn’t always trying to make her something that she wasn’t, forcing her into a mold of what he thought would be best, she wouldn’t need to hurt him. Besides, his jaw would stop aching in an hour or two. Enough time for her to be on her way to becoming the belle of the ball.
Fandom: Original - Streetlight People 'verse
Characters: Cyril Ann/Xie
Word Count: 1876
Prompts: Today I wrote about a color (Day 1) and picture of a necklace (Day 2) from the
5_prompts Camp NaNo challengeSummary: An early scene between Cyril Ann and Xie. Before the Fall Mixer.
There was never a time that Cyril Ann was more aware of who she was than the night of the first Fall Mixer of her second Autumn term. As she dressed in one of her new dresses, the one with the precariously low back, nearly immodest high hem and the waterfall of lace at her throat that left only a hint of cleavage, she thought over the latest step in this ultimate plan at revenge.
She had employed several of Xie’s blokes to help, seeing as he had more than enough to help her out and still do the jobs he could find for them. Shipments had been plentiful lately, the money flowing more easily between Old City and New City. When times were good, no one seemed to be in need of thugs for the jobs they would have preferred were done in the shadows.
Thugs were exactly what she needed for this. They’d snuck onto campus last night, employing the Honor Guard time table she made sure to procure for them every week, and taken up residence in several shadowy corners of the campus. There was little doubt that anyone would notice them, even if they did fail at keeping themselves adequately hidden. The first order of business when she’d been allowed as a student at Grantson Academy was a new wardrobe for anyone that came to help out. When they were in the proper attire, no one questioned their presence.
They were her ace in the hole. It had only taken her a few scant months to find most of the flaws specifically in the Honor Guard and generally in the Administration and now she meant to exploit them all.
“Do you like it?” she questioned the mirror, not even turning away from her reflection as the window of her upper floor room slid open. It didn’t bother her. In fact, it made her more than a little annoyed that he hadn’t been her sooner.
As Xie’s arms snuck around her, drawing her back into the solid presence of her body, she finally gave him a look. “You’re all beat up for something that was supposed to be so easy. Xie! You promised!”
“Promised what? Make up your mind, silly girl. Do you want a bauble or do you want my face as flawless as my soul?”
“Flawless? Your soul? I think not.” She drawled her words out, sarcasm laced in every breath, but there was a huge smile on her face as she turned in his arms. “Where is the bauble you promised to find for me?”
“It would feed us for months so I hope you appreciate it.”
Her breath left her in a rush as he held up the large faceted gem the color of deepest twilight, set in pounded silver. It wasn’t hung from a normal chain but out one made a thin strands of silver woven together to form a thick rope. Without giving it a thought, Cyril Ann held up her hand, silently bidding all the lamps in the room to light. Wicks burst into flame with very little provocation, producing wavering flames that danced on the face of the metal and the gem. In her haste to showcase the piece of art, she’d called up too much magic so that it hovered over her skin with a faint crackling glow.
“Amaril,” she whispered, her eyes caressing every surface of the gem named for the Goddess of Water. To touch it with this much magic still coursing through her system, no matter how small the spell had been, would have been fool-hardy. It held a fair amount of magic itself, or so legend said.
Xie’s expression told her just how foolish he thought it had been to call up magic now and for such a silly purpose. “I want to see it dance before I put it on and the single flame made it look flat.”
Even though her words were petulant but her eyes were snapping with suppressed glee. She had eyes for only the necklace. On the other hand, Xie acted as if he could care less about the piece of jewelry he’d suffered and struggled for over the last forty-eight hours. It hadn’t been a fist that had given him that black eye. Instead, he’d taken on a state-of-the-art security system and come out the other end victorious. There was no need to tell Cyril Ann about the wealth of ancient coins that he’d pocketed.
When her eyes suddenly shifted up to meet his, he realized the stupidity of thinking about his acquisitions while she was still holding magic. “You did what?”
“There were old coins there.”
“Coins?” She fairly spit the word at him, her gray eyes suddenly appearing glacial. “What are we going to do with coins? Old City can’t take an influx of something that identifiable. You know that.”
“We’ll melt them down.”
“Melt them down? With what, Xie? Your power of persuasion? If you haven’t noticed, we don’t have the type of workshop one would need to melt down coins. And what’s to say that anything could be made with such an old metal? You put yourself into danger for nothing if we get caught because-”
“We won’t get caught,” he murmured, his eyes downcast.
“We might. You don’t know that.”
“We won’t get caught.” This time, he put more emphasis on the first word. “I promised you when we started this that you would never be in danger. I mean to stand by that promise.”
The last bit of magic faded from her skin, leaving a dull ache in her right hip and ankle as a reminder of her foolishness. When she covered his cheek with her palm, he flinched but not because of the snap of the magic. She saw guilt in his gaze, not just from this escapade. Xie was playing in a game she didn’t think she approved of, nor could she ever approve of.
“We’re in this together. You and I. I don’t want you covering for me if something goes wrong. Not now and not ever. I’m no fainting maiden to need a savior. And you’ve no cause to go after bigger and better pay offs. When the time is right, we’ll have ours.”
He let her caress his cheek for a moment longer before he pulled away. “I’m not looking for bigger and better.” A lie. They both knew it.
With the curse of the magic already making sure that her evening would be a painful one, there was nothing more that Cyril Ann could do but purse her lips together in frustration. “Come,” she bit out at last, turning back toward the mirror. “Put the necklace on me, if you will.”
There was a moment of hesitation, both of them caught up in what they expected from the other that they weren’t getting at the moment. More and more, they had to deal with these bits of time out of synch with each other, struggling to hold on to the closeness they’d once held when they were just two urchins with nothing else in the world but each other and their fists and feet. Since it wasn’t something Cyril Ann liked to think about, especially not with Xie in the same room, she concentrated on looking at her reflection and not at the man standing behind her.
“Will this do the trick, do you think?” he asked as he did the clasp, letting it settle on the lace in the middle of her chest. “Will they fall for it?”
“How could they not?” She said it cavalierly but she’d always doubted this part of the plan. Flaunt an obviously stolen necklace in front of the very people whom it was stolen from? Madness! But that was the very aspect that she loved of this idea. It would make them look twice at her, staring and craning their necks to see who it was that had the exact likeness of a supposed one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry that had not been seen in public in twenty years.
There would be speculation, of that she was sure, but there was no way to tell for sure what sort of repercussion she would be forced to deal with. It was highly likely that she would be accosted by the Guard in some private corner of the crowded room or even on her way back to her rooms after the event. It was also just as likely that the confrontation would take place in the middle of the room with everyone watching intently.
Whatever happened, she was ready. Cyril Ann was prepared for any occurrence, as long as it furthered her plan along to the next step - meeting the Lord High Chancellor. Whenever that meeting occurred, it would be only a few scant hours before the boys closed in on their prey and the trap was well and truly sprung.
As if reading her mind but most likely accurately deciphering the expression on her face, Xie leaned forward, placing a kiss at the base of her neck where the necklace nestled against her skin. “It’s a foolish plan but I helped you come up with it so I can’t berate you too much for wanting to follow through with it.”
“We need this plan to work, Xie. You know we do. He’ll be curious, so much so that he’ll forget to be do damned cautious. He’ll accuse and I’ll demure and then he’ll go find that he was wrong. Of course, now he’ll also find that he was robbed of some old coins that are probably nothing more than sentimental drivel. So it’s better that we take him down on his way home before he can check his empty vaults. He’ll be preoccupied and he won’t have time to put up his defenses. Tell Miles to be on watch for that first spark of blue. Whoever made that protection rune for him knew what they were doing.”
“Any idea who yet?”
Cyril Ann shook her head. “I can only still feel the nagging sense that there is another out there. Not who or where. Of course, I’ve had other things on my mind than trying to find others like me.”
“It should be the only thing on your mind.” His tone was disapproving yet again. Since he was forever trying to take care of her now that she wore dresses instead of her urchin garb, she was getting used to the tone.
Taking the time to call up only a tiny bit of magic, something that would flash and fade away almost instantly, she placed the very tips of her fingers against the skin of his jaw. When he flinched away, she took the opportunity to step away from him. His frown was the only recrimination he gave but it was enough to make her heart ache. If he wasn’t always trying to make her something that she wasn’t, forcing her into a mold of what he thought would be best, she wouldn’t need to hurt him. Besides, his jaw would stop aching in an hour or two. Enough time for her to be on her way to becoming the belle of the ball.
