Taryn - Blog Posts

Locke:

[The Mincing Mockingbird Guide to Troubled Birds]

I made this on my wrong blog, I meant to make post this on @tttfota

Oneshot of Vivienne and Madoc a little after the three girls being brought to Elfhame

‘NO!’ Vivienne screamed, running away and sobbing. ‘LEAVE ME ALONE, MURDERER!’

Murderer. Madoc’s head pounded. How long ago had it been since his rage and grief controlled his head and actions, thus causing another emotion to seep in-guilt?

But maybe he had already been guilty-guilty that he hadn’t done enough for Eva to want to stay here. He had always been at war, and she had been so young-somewhere in her early twenties. Human aging was confusing. 

He took a deep breath and strode towards his daughter. He couldn’t make Eva stay, but he had his daughter now and he was going to make her stay. He’d make her stay and learn how her mother was wrong-she would be his heir, his pride and joy, and she would stay in Elfhame.

He picked her up and pinned her thrashing arms to her sides. Vivienne screeched and he winced. If only Eva were here to control her.

Eva. Another wave of guilt overtook him. How could he have thrown his sword at her back just like that? Justin was another matter entirely (escaping with HIS wife and siring THOSE brats! Hmph). But Eva was their mother, the mother of ALL of them, even those bastards.

(They looked so much like her, though. And Vivienne looked like him. She had his ferocity from his younger days.)

‘Vivienne,’ he said sternly, ‘listen to me. I am your father and you will obey me. Can you not listen to me for once? You are already behind-I will catch you up on the ways of Faerie. You and your sisters.’

‘I HATE YOU!’ she screamed, tears running down her face. ‘MONSTER! KILLER! MURDERER! I HATE YOU SO MUCH YOU KILLED MY PARENTS LEAVE ME ALONE LET ME GO-’

‘SILENCE!’ he roared, and she flinched away from him, trembling in his grasp. She glanced at him and then glanced away, continuing this like a pendulum. 

He drew in a sharp breath, looking at her. She was so small, so tiny in his hands-he could hurt her in any way he wanted.

(Just the thought of it made him sick. How could he do that to his own daughter?)

She looked at him, her eyes red and watery, her nose sniffly, her face wet with uncontrollable tears.

She was scared of him. His beautiful young daughter, his baby, his heir, she was afraid of him.

The worst thing was that he was used to it. He knew those flinches, those wide-eyed pendulum glances, those limbs jerked away from him, that shivering. Even Eva had sometimes displayed them, though he had tried to ignore it.

But to have his daughter do it-his sweet, precious daughter that was supposed to have been born in the walls of his mansion, who should have been trained by him from the time she could walk, who should’ve been brought up like a warrior, who should have laughed as she killed with him, a true redcap, yet Eva had run away, and this was the result.

 He moved to wipe her nose and she bit his hand. He let go of her with a yell and she dropped from his hands, rolling into a ball on the floor (who taught her that? Eva maybe) and, picking up a vase, threw it at him. It shattered against the floor, dropping before it could reach him. She screamed and ran away again.

He sighed. He was exhausted. He had accidentally ruined his chance at happiness by killing Eva, and now he was stuck with her two bastards. If it had been only Vivienne, it would have been somewhat better, but………..

(Why had he killed her? And what if he had not? Would she escape a second time?)

A thought struck him-what if VIVIENNE tried to escape? She had her mother’s courage and spunk, so the thought of her planning to run away with her sisters was not far off.

No, he couldn’t allow that. (But he did. Three years later. Though thankfully they returned).

‘You’re not my father,’ she snarled at him. ‘Justin Duarte is my father.’

He froze. 

Justin Duarte.

The best human smith Faerie had ever seen, once his friend, then his enemy for a brief period of time, before he had died by Madoc’s blade. 

He had trusted him, taken his blades, laughed with him. 

How had he not seen the signs? Of course, he had been at war for too much time. Of course he had thought that Eva wanted to spend time with Justin because he was another mortal, and wouldn’t she get lonely without her own kind? 

She had promised Madoc that she was his bride and his alone. Oh, those sweet words from her honeyed, smiling, full lips. 

Mortal words. Ones that he never should have trusted. Mortal vows, so easily broken, like porcelain vases.

And mortals themselves, who would smile and simper and promise, and in the end, they would take what they could and did not care.

How like fairies, only fairies used different methods of manipulation, and then they could be far crueler.

He’d thought Eva was a human-she could have been a faerie, the way she deceived him and took his own daughter from him.

And then Justin, raising her as his own. Horrible man.

(Honourable man, loving his stepdaughter as if she were his own.)

Had Justin ever abused her? No. Had he ever looked down on her for not sharing his blood? No.

Madoc grit his teeth. If Justin could do it, then he could too. After all, they were the progeny of his wife and thus his responsibility.

(Damn responsibility. Sometimes he wanted to fling off its burdens, just let his rage and bloostlust wander freely).

They would receive the same education as his real daughter. They would be claimed and accepted as his own and live in high Fae society and eventually settle down. 

(And they did. But did they?)

Justin Duarte is my father, not you.

He looked at her, his eyes cat narrowed. Her eyes were the same and her ears were his. Even her skin was white, unlike his green and her mother’s brown. A mix of human and faerie, both worlds. He had been excited to know what she would like, and then he thought that he would never know. And then he knew, and her face had been distorted with fury and hatred.

She was staring at him fiercely, murderously, like a redcap. He almost laughed-such irony. What he had most wanted her to look like was directed towards him. Oh, Eva.

He sighed. ‘I am sorry, Vivienne.’

She looked at him warily. ‘What?’ 

‘I am sorry for killing your mother-and your stepfather.’ he said.

She snarled. ‘You mean my father.’ 

‘No. He was your stepfather. I am your real father. And I should have not killed him-yet my rage took over. One day you too will know the feeling. Though I hope that day will never come for your sake.’

She laughed wildly. ‘It’s too late. They’re dead. They’re dead, and I hate you, and I’ll never love you, and my sisters will never love you, so stop trying.’

‘I don’t expect them to love me,’ he said. (But they did. It was just not a comfortable one.)

‘Good. Because we won’t. And one day, we’re going to leave and never come back.’ she said.

He inhaled sharply. ‘No. You are going to stay here. You are my heir and will obey me.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Like hell I will. I obey no one and do as I please.’

He swallowed and picked her up again. She started screaming and kicking, and he knocked her out. She fell imply in his hands and he sucked in a breath, pausing to make sure that he hadn’t seriously hurt her. 

He carried her back to her room, ignoring the surreptious looks from the servants. 

He opened the door and stopped.

There were Eva’s other children-her twin daughters, huddling under the covers. One looked at him, eyes wide with terror, while the other, the one who had kicked him after he had killed Eva and Justin, glared at him, burning anger concealing white hot fear. Both of their faces were like hers. They were wet with tears like his daughter’s.

He walked over to the bed and they scrambled away from him, screaming when they saw Vivienne lying unconscious.

‘What did you do to her?’ the angry one screamed. 

‘She’s unconscious right now. She’ll wake up later.’ he said gruffly.

He deposited her on the bed and turned to leave. At the last moment, he stopped, his hand on the door handle.

‘I am sorry, children,’ he said to them. ‘Sorry for taking away your parents when you so desperately needed them. But know that I will make it up. I will claim you as my own and you will be raised as High Fae.’

He would do it-he could raise them, his daughter-daughters. Eyebrows would raise, mouths would whisper, but he was the High General and he could bear it for their sake. He would sacrifice for them if need be.

He would do it for Eva and Justin, for he owed it to them-they had wanted to raise their children peacefully and he disrupted it, but now he would do the same. Maybe he could find a wife to teach them what he could not-the social customs and methods of Faerie, the intricacy and delicacy and finesse that he was so lacking in.

‘All right.’ he muttered. ‘Eva and Justin, this is for you. Here I go-to becoming a new, determined father.’