if you tasted poison {gemini}

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

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Gemini Enigma

416 Words

Music

I kept this pretty open haha

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Now that I know [break]

I wish you'd left me wondering

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Guinivere had plenty of dangerous habits. She had said it years ago and it was still true now. She wasn't the same girl anymore. She wasn't even a girl. A woman or a monster or something in between. But this was no whim, no habit. It was a roll of the dice, and she was a very good gambler. [break][break]

Especially when the odds were stacked in her favor. An untrustworthy king built on a world of oaths left an unstable heir. A house of card. Cards she expected would fall in her favor once she showed her full hand. [break][break]

Ambrose thought he had seen all of it. He thought she was a mortal who was daring but underprepared. He thought he could outplay her. He had no idea. She had been prepping this for months-- not Julius, her. Maybe this was his plan to start with, but she knew it couldn't have done it alone. [break][break]

If only he would just admit that. [break][break]

It took practice to be this still. To be this calculated. To watch everything with wide eyes and filter it all out in the time it took most people to blink. But she had been practicing for years, and she would be learning for years more. She had no immortality, but she was a talented pupil. [break][break]

The girl she had been would have been amazed to see her here. Perched to get the throne of faerie. Not afraid of anyone or controlled by anything. The girl she had been didn't know the truth-- that this throne would never really be hers, that Julius was guiding her every move. Should she be concerned? She told herself he couldn't do it without her and worried about being left behind. No one's word was good enough for her. Not even his. [break][break]

And the girl she had been wouldn't have survived what it took to get here. She wouldn't have killed the king or spilled anyone else's blood. She wouldn't have picked up a sword, much less leveled it at Ambrose Enigma's head. She would not have had the audacity to try or the skills to survive. And so Guinivere was not the girl she had been. She was the woman who could get this done. She was the person who would survive this. [break][break]

Would Gemini Enigma? Only time and his choices would tell. Guinivere had one more card to play yet, and if she did it right, she would send that whole house toppling to the ground. [break][break]
 



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[Gemini Enigma]

if you tasted poison

[attr="class","box1"]A disgraced half-heir was an easy thing to lose. Pretend though Ambrose might that he had a duty to his brother or cared anything about it, they both knew the truth. And Gemini was prepared to use it, as with anything else, to his full advantage. He knew next to nothing about Guinevere Marcel, but he could make some educated guesses. Even if she was a pawn, she was clever enough, dangerous enough, to have poisoned the High King in a room full of witnesses and have no one know she'd done it until she confessed. That, and she stood in opposition to Ambrose with a decent chance of defeating him. Gemini may have preferred to work independently, but he'd suffer the indignity of allying himself as he would with any other. He'd use it.  He met her in the courtyard while the inside of the palace—so much as there was a border between indoors and out, in Faerie—was still in chaos. "Bold of you not to flee," Gemini observed. "I'm sure you'll be beset by our guard as soon as they finish checking my brother for nicks and broken nails." His gray eyes swept over briefly, collecting enough information in a moment to begin running calculations.  Despite the fact that the fae could not lie, Faerie was all illusion and falsehood, a land made of facades and trickery. Gemini could not see through glamours any more than anyone else, but he had the sense to assume that they were there. He stepped off of the cobbles of the courtyard and onto the packed earth that bordered it, making as if to pace in thought.  Guinivere Marcel [newclass=.box1]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #091c3d;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 279 Notes:

credit to SeaJem

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Gemini Enigma

562 Words

Music

I kept this pretty open haha

[break][break]

Now that I know [break]

I wish you'd left me wondering

[break][break]



Guinivere stood, feet planted on cold cobblestone. Guinivere stood in the courtyard of palace she wasn't supposed to see, the blood of kings on her hands and the future of a country on her shoulders.  

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She didn't feel much different then usual. 

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This was supposed to be one of those deeply significant moments that just left her feeling nothing. This was supposed to matter. It was the culmination of everything they had worked towards, and what? Julius held her like she mattered for once and she just wanted to disappear. 

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She didn't want this crown. She didn't want this burden. She just wanted to feel whole again, but immortalizing power was the next best thing. 

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And this boy before her was salivating at the chance for even a scrap of that power. Was he so imbued with it from birth that he could never want anything else? Or were some built to rule and some built to break? Could the two ever collide? 

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Guinivere didn't really feel the chill in the air, even as November crept by. Didn't feel much of anything. She threw a stone in a lake and watched the ripples grow into a tidal wave all while denying that her hand had ever been outstretched.  

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He left footprints on the ground. Half-mortal half-prince. And if she stepped down, supposedly her mortal heritage would make her footprints linger like a bloodstain, but she felt like she would just float away into nothing at all.  
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"They cannot touch me," she said, and she felt ephemeral, standing across from him on a windswept courtyard. She was turned towards him, the wind blowing westward and lifting her hair. His back was to the palace. Would he turn his back on all he knew so easily? She had. And now she was a girl with no home and no heritage, stealing someone else's birthright. The world had never given her anything. 

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"I am a legitimate contender. It is for the fae and the land and the throne to decide. No guard can injure me or Ambrose will break the laws of hospitality and be under a curse. A curse that should descend on his bloodline, so if I were you, I would tell the guards to stay back." He knew all this, of course. She was just saying what they both already knew. 

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They both knew his brother wasn't injured. She had leveled a sword at his throat but never once touched him. She didn't need to. Spilled wine and spilled blood. The acid scent of Belladonna in the air under the light of the full moon. It was already done. The deed was over. The curtain just had to close. They all had to take their final bows and see who was left standing.  

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"You, Gemini Marvel Enigma," she said, drawing out every syllable of his magnificent name that meant nothing. "Are the only one here of little consequence. Daring to sit on the throne could easily be a death sentence for you considering your father's flightiness and disdain." He was only a playing card, something to be hidden a dealt and used to build useless little houses. He was not a piece of any value. On the board, it was the queen who could move wherever she pleased. Not even a king had that power. And Guinivere had just claimed her crown. 

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[Gemini Enigma]

if you tasted poison

[attr="class","box1"] Guinivere Marcel was a woman unused to power. Gemini wondered if this was how he would be, when he finally got the thing he'd spent his life craving—would he be like a child stumbling about in his father's oversized boots, wavering under the weight of a too-large sword? He felt as if he'd always been strong enough, as if that was the tragedy of it, but would he be wild-eyed and dazed by it like the woman who stood before him? She seemed in a trance. Or maybe this was euphoria.  She had not followed his steps. That wasn't lost on him. Gemini took her avoidance as an admission. "You and I both know the truth of the magic you mention," he said, studying her, "but you would not have to in order to say it's so, would you?" Faerie with a mortal queen. The idea was so revolutionary that it was almost ironic. If they had thought him unfit to rule based on his tainted blood, imagine what they'd say about this. Gemini did not have to imagine. He'd heard it enough times.  The land will reject it. Rivers will pollute. Soil will crack and crumble. His blood will sprout nothing but poison. The temptation had always been there to demand that they test it—to face the throne and see if its branches embraced or impaled him, the poisoner's prince. To do it would be to play a game of risk, to be willing to forfeit his life, but there was nothing that Gemini would not sacrifice for an ultimate victory. He'd often wondered if a life empty of satisfaction or outlet was worth more than a death by hubris and glory.  "If I were the only one cursed, the guard would just as soon be rid of me," he said, looking towards her with wry humor tilting his expression. "Ambrose is another matter, and he knows so. I must say, you've successfully tied his hands." And potentially freed me from suspicion. Ambrose had been refusing any interrogation of Gemini under pretense of brotherly loyalty, but they both knew the truth: it was simply to let gossip stew, to prevent any certainty. After all, Gemini could not lie; questioning him was the only sure way to remove any suspicion that he had a hand in the High King's death.  Marcel was far from unique in thinking him useless. She was just as wrong as the rest of them. "I am far from insignificant to anyone with their eyes on the horizon," he said. "Faerie is change. And I am what comes next." Starlight was old by the time it was seen. Supernovas were invisible to the eye until it was too late. Would Marcel take his offer, to be there at the ignition? "If my suspicions are correct, your answer to this will be far from dependable," he said, "but I believe you will choose truth in this." He met her eyes. Even though either one of them would keep him from the throne by the same distance, he had a far greater chance of endearing himself to this new contender. It was a risk, to ally himself with Marcel, but if she proved herself worth it, well—hadn't he said there was nothing he wouldn't sacrifice? "Did you  poison the High King?" If they called him the poisoner's prince, he would only be what they made him. Ambrose may have been clever, but Gemini was brilliant. And Ambrose was lacking just enough to forget that. Guinivere Marcel [newclass=.box1]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #091c3d;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 591 Notes:

credit to Laura of Adox

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Gemini Enigma

622 Words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

Now that I know [break]

I wish you'd left me wondering

[break][break]





Guinivere watched him. He wanted her to admit it, to confess-- to her bloodline, to an act of murder. Why was the first a greater sin than the other? She had asked herself the question many times. It wasn't so bad, that she was mortal. Her real crime was being her father's daughter. 

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She watched him. "And if I can lie?" she asked. "Isn't that just a prize?" The words felt hollow, parroted. She felt hollow. Drip by drip, the 'pain that cannot forget' had fallen on her heart but left no wisdom as the great philosopher promised. It just left her empty, carved open. Now power had been poured out and she was overflowing with it, but why but new wine in an old wineskin? She was a cracked vessel, and she would shatter everywhere. Being able to lie didn't feel like a prize. Nothing did. 

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It was curious. She was avoiding the question as though she couldn't lie, when of course she could. Dishonesty on dishonesty. It seemed wrong, under these circumstances, to face the issue head on. If she aspired to rule the fae, she had to prove she could play by their rules. 

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But she could, of course. She was still alive. 

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"Why do you want me to admit to my bloodline so badly? So we know we're on equal footing?" she asked. Perhaps she could call him cousin. Fifth cousin-- that was the relation all Chinese of the same surname claimed of each other. They didn't have the same surname, and he wasn't Chinese, and she hadn't been allowed to claim her heritage anyway, but they both had mortal blood in a world where it was rare. That had to count for something. 

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Her eyes lit up for the first time. "Of course." She sunk into a curtsey, unnervingly neat. Perfect fae manners. "Thank your mother for the idea."  

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One slip up. Fae didn't thank each other. It implied debt. But what did it hurt her to have a debt to a mortal mother who was probably dead? It wasn't the first time. And she could shirk her debts. She could break her promises. She was a wild card. She was the queen on the chessboard. She had changed the game. 

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What piece was he? Not a joker or a pawn. He didn't want to be insignificant. Maybe he didn't have to be. "You could matter." she conceded. Personally, she thought he did matter. Personally, she hoped this alliance would be more than just her doing as she was told. Personally, she wondered at what it would be like to actually tell the truth for once. That was personal, though. She kept her cards close to her heart. "Alliances could be made. Could be broken. Faerie is a land of potential, and you are more potential than I've seen in a while." It was too easy to say what he wanted to hear. She had learned the art from the best. Everyone wanted to be singular, to be powerful, until they realized what it meant when they were. 

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Her lips curled up in a smile. "I just said I did." she said. "And that's for the throne to decide." Paradox on paradox. Avoiding the question and dancing around the issue like a knife in a fight. She was keeping absolutes at a safe distance even though they did nothing to her. "But since it's just the two of us here," She raised a shoulder. "Of course I did." Truth, and it tasted so false she was surprised even now that she could get it out. 

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[Gemini Enigma]

if you tasted poison

[attr="class","box1"]Few people paid enough attention to Gemini to notice when his calm grew unnatural. He could smooth his pulse, his blinking, his breath to a rate so even it seemed sterile, as one might press away a wrinkle in a silk shirt. The more frantically his mind buzzed, throwing itself against the bars, the more still and unrippled his exterior became. Now, he lifted his chin with all the regal posture he had ever learned by observation and clocked the expansion and deflation of his lungs. Slower, now. This was the closest he’d been in a long time to freedom, flying, something other than a spill into insanity. If he allowed himself to scatter, he’d miss it. He had to watch his step with Marcel; if he was right and she sat unsteady on the throne, she would be paranoid, planning sentencing before any guilty verdict was ever pronounced. He needed to win the trial she was likely running for him in her head now. May it please the court, Gemini thought. Since she’d all but confirmed his theory, he would be standing in a mortal court, where decades in prison was more than just a sneeze and justice had at least visited long enough to leave her fingerprints. She’d never even heard of Faerie. “Not a prize,” he said. “Not anymore.” He turned his head slightly, sharply, and looked towards Marcel. “A weapon. Unless you prefer dying with a trophy in your hands over living to win another day.” He knew this dance. He knew all the steps. He dreamed endless, rolling dreams that turned over themselves until he was dancing it on the ceiling. Gemini monitored his pulse, keying it to the steady solidity of a war drum, and blinked slow, as if trying to convince a cat to trust him. This might kill him. It might all go perfectly and swallow him whole. But ask Tantalus how he’d like to die, and he will beg for drowning. He looked at Marcel from his stance on the packed earth, knowing the footsteps that lay between them. “We aren’t on equal footing, Marcel,” he said, nodding towards the cobbles on which she still stood. “Not just yet.” Thank your mother for the idea. The jab was a thorn. Gemini tore it out. He understood why his mother had gone mad. Did her weakness lurk in his blood? How much could he scaffold his will before it snapped? Sometimes, he let the thought linger—of Ambrose's shadow falling over him, of the High King teaching the boy who sat at his knee while Gemini listened at doors and rocked himself to sleep on the library's stone floor. Sometimes, the flame of it licked at his edges and made him remember its hunger. But he always feared that it would devour him before he got the chance to catch anything else. At least Icarus felt the sun on his face. At least he had the chance to fall. Gemini was burning from the inside out.   “They already call me the poisoner’s prince,” he said. “You may be under no obligation to make the truth, but why not take the choice?” Gemini didn’t like submitting himself to anyone’s will, but if Marcel was as unsteady of a ruler as he thought she might be, he’d have more control than he’d ever had a chance at. He could sate himself, nurse the burn along for a while longer. He’d done too much scraping and scheming to let his pride give out now. She called him potential. She was right, but she was lying to him. Gemini found it safe to assume that if she had such a gift, she would use it. Gemini turned fully to face her, his head tilted slightly to one side. “Do not misunderstand me; I am no fool who would wonder why I am a risk. If you stand on my side of the line, you will stand apart from the people of Faerie. But you and I leave footprints, Marcel. We leave marks where we have been. We cannot be swept away. It takes the forces of nature, the deluges, the avalanches, and the cyclical ache of time to erase the impressions we leave. And Faerie will lose its choice to stand with you when you claim its throne.” He took stock of himself and realized that he had fallen into a stance unlike the one he’d copied from Ambrose, unlike the one he’d taken when they forced his head down; it was the posture of a conqueror’s statue, a monument, an obelisk. He was standing like a king. His eyes were flares, the birth of stars, a searing ignition. “But you will be as easily erased as any other if you remain standing on solid ground.” Guinivere Marcel [newclass=.box1]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #091c3d;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 799 Notes:

credit to Laura of Adox

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]

[break]

Gemini Enigma

487 Words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

Now that I know [break]

I wish you'd left me wondering

[break][break]





Guinivere eyes stayed trained on the boy. She stayed focused. Every piece of her had been weaponized. Every part of her had been used in one way or another to survive. Sometimes she didn't even realize she was doing it. But of course it was a weapon. She was a weapon. [break][break]

"A weapon then." she said. "It's what I need most right now." [break][break]
 
If she was Queen, it changed everything. She didn't need Julius anymore. She needed allies, not commands. She needed statements, not murders. She needed an heir. [break][break]

"And yet," she said, studying his stance, taking in his pose. "You stand like a conqueror. Am I to believe you could ever bend the knee? I am not so unwise to think that I need to no allies, but what I certainly do not need more of is enemies.  [break][break]

"I am your best path to power, but I do not need one more reason for someone to want me dead. Can you forgive the death of your father? Can you forgive a mortal woman threatening your throne?" [break][break]

They all saw her as a girl. Fearful and trembling and naive. She had to prove that she was more than that, that she could be brutal as the circumstances called for it. She had to prove she could rule and she could conquer. And his grand words and proud declarations and family name would serve her, but having one more person trying to control her wouldn't.  [break][break]

She needed weapons and allies and an heir. She needed position and she needed proof of her power. She needed poison. And she needed to acquire these things herself. No one else could rule for her if she ever hoped to be a legitimate Queen. [break][break]

She wanted her people to have a choice. But then, she had to give them one, didn't she. She took one step forward, then another. "Then let us make a deal." she said. The word were a premonition of the future. They were a hope of what might be to come. They were a promise. [break][break]

"Swear yourself into my service. I will make you heir." She could renege on the deal. He couldn't. It was a risk he would have to take. She was throwing the dice and tossing out a crown. She was risking everything already. If he couldn't stomach this risk, then he was just a boy with grand words. [break][break]

She was standing before him now. There were footprints in the dirt behind her. From the dirt she came and from the dirt she would return, but not just yet. Not today. She had met death enough times to emulate it. She believed in her ability to tell it "not today."  [break][break]

Her hand was out. A mortal symbol and a half-mortal boy in a faerie palace. A faerie throne and a faerie crown and faerie blood. It was a risk. It would have to be enough.

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[Gemini Enigma]

if you tasted poison

[attr="class","box1"] "Are we still talking about lying, Marcel?" Not a prize. A weapon then.  Trapped within the palace walls though he'd been, Gemini knew the truth: the hunt for him had started the day his father died. They wanted to hang him on the wall with his head bowed and sell him for the price of seeing an insubordinate half-prince broken. The palace of the High Court had never been a proper home to him, but before he'd known the places to hide. Now it was a labyrinth, and if he ran long enough he'd find himself pinned between the monster at its heart and the one that pursued him there.  Unless you prefer dying with a trophy in your hands.  She could try. She could strike him, or slip one of her concoctions into his drink—Gemini, of course, never saw the privilege of a royal taster. She could blackmail him or threaten him, though what he had to lose he couldn't imagine. She could try to make him a pet of her regime. Show off that she had done what neither his father nor Ambrose could.  Or she could make the strategist's move. The grandmaster's play. She could embrace the reputation she had doubtless already gained and ally herself with those towards whom Faerie had turned its coldest gaze. She could be the one to recognize the potential that had been clawing at Gemini's skin since he was a child. Once again he had to force his breathing down. He was so close. So many years of waiting, tasting madness. She had to make the choice.  His voice was a low, clear note, a building current. He locked onto her eyes, searing silver. "You do not know me, Guinivere Marcel," he said. "I have been forced to my knees since before I could stand. Have you heard of the mortal children whose bodies are deformed by binding and bending them as they grow? My father pushed my head down and lashed it in place. If I ever stood at his eye level, he would be forced to see me. I have been subservient since I opened my eyes to lick at the barest embers of power. You see in me that there is nothing I will not sacrifice to get what I want. Though it is by no choice of my own, my dignity has always had a place on that list." He gave a smile as bitter as ice. "I do not need to forgive to serve. But my father should have died by a mortal woman's hand sixteen years ago. This was long overdue." Slowly, never dropping his eyes until the very last second, Gemini swept his arms wide and bowed his head. It was from this vantage point that he was able to see the footprints she left in the earth as she stepped forward to meet him.  Gemini wrapped one arm behind his back and put the other fist to his heart. "I swear fealty to you, Guinivere Marcel, mortal queen. As long as the blackthorn throne is yours, I will stand behind it with a conqueror's spine." The poisoner's prince, his blood singing with madness, smiled with all his teeth. Guinivere Marcel [newclass=.box1]margin:0px auto; width:300px; height:425px; background: transparent; overflow:auto; padding:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar]width:5px;[/newclass] [newclass=.box1::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb]background: #091c3d;[/newclass]

Music Word count: 536 Notes:

credit to Laura of Adox