bakerstreet | i don't deserve to be happy. i don't deserve anything good. i only understand despair.

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i don't deserve to be happy. i don't deserve anything good. i only understand despair.

Twisted Soulmate AU.

Consider: a world where most everything is the same as it ever was, yet there's one downside: soulmates are real, and you will find yours. How could that ever be terrible, you ask? Why, we forgot to mention the other little snag...touching your soulmate brings you excruciating pain. Everyone else in your life you can touch no problem, except for them. You know you'll find the one when you hurt.

How does knowing that the person you're destined to be with is the only person you can't touch? Will you avoid contact with anyone so you'll never know and be the "safer" (yet unfulfilled) for it? If you do find that other half, how will you ever show your affection for each other? Sex has to be out of the question entirely, right?

In a life worth living, there's always going to be a little bit of pain. Once it's all said and done, a life with someone is going to make you earn your happiness.

r u l e s:

one ▍ comment with your character, their info, prefs, etc.
two ▍ be sure to mention if you want to focus more on romance, fluff, angst, smut, etc. be sure to put your hard nos somewhere, too (ie "no smut").
three ▍ reply to others and thread.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ooc: Open to all but reserving smut for chemistry establishment *unless canon-mates or previous threading* ]

Edited 2021-08-27 10:46 (UTC)

[ooc: Smut is a hard no unless there's a LOT of established CR in there. He's one you have to work for, and it's possible you don't want to work for it.]

[ this seems like a horrible pairing, what do you think? c; ]

[ Oh, this is a TERRIBLE idea. I love it! I can play in Westeros, although I never did get through even the first half of the first book. I've seen the show, if that helps! And given Mephisto's a king in his own right, and has dealt with power-hungry rulers before, this would work very well! I mean, horribly, yes, but well. ]

[ no worries at all! a generic high-fantasy setting works just fine for me. c: i do love the idea of her having to meet someone who styles himself a king when she's under the impression that she's the one and only queen - probably after having just freshly murdered her husband. but i am certainly down to jump in from any angle you prefer (i always love an arranged marriage trope, too)! it's all bound to be horrible (that is, beautiful) no matter what, so just let me know if there's any specific details you want included! ]

The realms of Westeros were new territory for Mephisto. Having spent the majority of his existence in Essos, his travels were throughout the larger continent, and only when news had reached his kingdom east of the Red Waste that Westeros was in turmoil once again, that he found the curiosity to go see for himself.

It wasn't an issue for him to find himself able to sail south of Valyria from his kingdom in the Shadow Lands, and then sailing northwards past Dorne, he sailed for ages, his men, his ships, and his trusted companions - of which there were only two.

He was a tall man, graceful as a gazelle in his movements as he swept his way through the main thoroughfare of King's Landing, not in a litter as most kings would be, and not on a horse, but on foot, surrounded by over twenty strange-armored guards with pikes and swords, with masks of red lacquered wood. He was fearless in his approach from the port to the castle, only just hours prior being announced to the Queen that he'd be arriving. A King of Essos, come to speak to the newly crowned matriarch of what may very well have been all of Westeros.

Or at least, that's what he'd heard she'd thought herself. Power-plays and grabs for crowns always amused Mephisto, so as the blind man walked up the stairs and into the throne room, he had a faint smile on his face. His guards parted and went swiftly to the sides of the hall, revealing him, clothed in ornate black, red and gold, velvets, satins and leather. He stood tall and proud, his hands folded behind his back. He wore no crown, but wore ornate rings in gold, with shining gold clasps that seemed to be eyeless serpents biting down on the opulent, embroidered fabric of his cloak, and not a scrap of armor on him.

He had striking features; high cheekbones and a cut jaw, a long neck which was mostly obscured by straight black hair which almost rivalled Cersei's in length, simply braided at his temples to hold the rest back from his face.

His voice was low and powerful as thunder, and even as he spoke quietly, the sound of his voice resonated in the large room, echoing against the pristine marble and vibrating against the swords which made up the throne.

"Queen Cersei Lannister, thank you for receiving me on such short notice."

It was obvious by his eyes that he was blind, but he had an eerily precise way of being able to face anyone he was addressing.

"I am Mephisto, king of Carcosa." Not that he hadn't already been introduced, as was custom, but he felt the need to impress upon the Queen just who he was.

The maester had unrolled a map at her bidding, though she'd lost interest in the whimsy almost as soon as she'd given the command. Far, far east - no, farther still, the doddering man had insisted - pointing to a crimped edge of parchment, so far as to almost be falling from the page. Carcosa. A pretty word, she had decided; the name of a foreign warrior or a lethal sword made of starlight and blood. A city so far east as to be half-imagined, of no consequence to her at all. She had swept from the maester's musty chambers, his shelves of tomes and scrolls, with little care for any history he might have divulged to her. She did not have time to reflect on the dank sorcery fringing the Shadow Lands. A part of her doubted the emissary would arrive at all.

She was scrutinizing in a mirror the work done by her handmaiden, her golden curls brushed to a feline sheen, when the king's arrival was announced to her. He had given her but hours to prepare. It was not that she must ready the keep for his royal presence so much as it was the insult of being caught unawares that so pricked her. The impudence of a visitor stepping upon her shore without her explicit leave, with no generous time allotted for her to arrange the city guard as she would like, to level with crystal-bright threats those who might think to sacrifice her safety for a glimpse of the stranger. There was time only to preen the details of her own person, to decide upon the silks and jewels that her supplicant would be treated to.

It didn't matter, of course; if she had been formally consulted on the matter of the king's blindness, she had dismissed it as a trifle to be dealt with at another time, of no matter in her daily dealings. Now it had become immediate, and she had no choice but to behold him as he made his entrance to her throne room. This man had not arrived in a wheelhouse, she'd been informed by bewildered guards; he did not ride in upon a strange striped horse, such as she'd heard were bred on the far side of the sea. He did not alight from a dragon's ridged back, either, to her innermost disappointment. The world's most far-flung marvels always proved, however, to be disappointments.

Her initial impression was of his hair: not silver, as the Targaryen prince's had been, but straight and long, nearly as long as her own, when left unbound. Right now it does fall to her waist, with braids woven back from her temples, not unlike his own, those hers gleam gold instead of black. He had the bearing of a lord, at the very least; so many of the men she suffered to meet were foundering, bumbling oafs, sweating or sulking, cowed or pompous. The man before her was built, she supposed, as a king should be: tall, lean with strength, though he was bereft of a crown. He was embellished in gold, though, to her satisfaction; gold flickered upon his cloak, clasps in what seemed to be the twining shapes of serpents. Velvets, satins and leathers all; a charlatan, or a man with an unlikely flair for taste?

His voice, mulled darker than a black wine, permeated clean through the brittle steel of the throne, and something cool slithered up her spine as his eyes landed upon her. And they did land upon her, it seemed - milky with blindness, it felt as though his gaze found her still, and she was rankled anew to know that he could not see her. By what means was he to appreciate her beauty, then? If he'd had his sight, she knew, he would already be upon his knees.

"You have traveled a great distance. I must surmise that it is your exhaustion which has compromised your courtesy." The lack of forewarning of his arrival; the queerly-masked guards who attended him, standing resolute even now in her own throne room.

"I shall forgive your use, too, of an outdated styling. There can be no king of Carcosa when I sit this throne as Queen of the Realm." Queen of the Seven Kingdoms only, a sputtering maester might have once corrected, but the world will no more squabble beneath a dozen kings and queens. Her eyes flicked like pieces of chipped jade over his poised form, and she wondered if it was arrogance that had compelled him to forego a crown, or ignorance. Her own diadem sat upon spun-gold curls, a confection of rubies. She cannot help but remark upon so notable a failing on his part.

"You seem to have lost your crown at sea, my lord."

All the poise, pomp and pretentiousness of a Queen of the realm, thought Mephisto, whose smile never faltered. His movement entirely stopped, as though he was a statue as she addressed him. Had he even breathed since he spoke? Blinked since he arrived? The way even subtle movements that he made were so intentional made it seem like he may have been a puppet of some sort. In no way did Mephisto attempt to be unnerving, he simply was.

The word 'unnerving' suited Mephisto very well. His movements, his voice, his very presence commanded attention like a grisly murder scene might. At no point was he ever outright repulsive, but Mephisto had a way to him that troubled those who laid eyes on him. He wasn't... Well, to say he wasn't human would have been insensitive. He'd lived among them long enough that he resembled them in many ways, now. But there were things that couldn't be explained by foreign lands alone.

"It was courtesy at all to be alerted of my arrival, your highness." And that much was true; he could have willed himself before her, no pomp or splendor to precede his coming. He had no need to bring along his court and army, he had no desire to, either. The sailing was nice, however, and he had nothing more than a baser enjoyment of travel itself, finding it exhilarating that there were still lands on which he'd yet to step foot.

Her tone, as sharp and snide as it was, amused him quite a lot. When caught unawares, unprepared, and ultimately compromised, every ruler seemed to take the same tone. If he'd let them feel as though they were fully in control of things, what would they learn? There would be nothing to gain from giving them the illusion of domination. They already had it. She already had that belief that she was in full control, and as fanciful a thought as it was, it had to be broken immediately.

Though, as though he could read her mind, (truth be told, he was only very well versed in the vanity of royalty, and he himself was known to be quite vain,) his smile broadened. "Word of your beauty has come so far, and I only hope that the poems do it justice. Golden ropes of waving hair, a steely gaze and skin so fair, the sharpest tongue and quickest mind, no king's wife but Robert's brings all to mind. My condolences for your loss."

He wasn't in the least bit grieving this man's death, and his tone spoke to the point. It was only polite.

"What good does a bejeweled little piece of metal do to prove the wearer's worthiness of the throne, Queen of Westeros?" He moved then, smoothly as a silk scarf through the air, waving his claw-tipped hand up over his head, producing a stately crown which matched the clasps of his coat, its appearance seemed to grow and live as it manifested, twisting serpents coiled into high spires, with large yellow tourmalines which glistened with immense clarity appearing in their unhinged mouths. "To suit your sensibilities," he replied curtly, the smile of amusement gone, only to be replaced by one of tolerant, but cold respect.

"You do not rule the world, your highness. There are hundreds of realms, and only seven kingdoms are yours by right. Though," his tone spoke gossip, "I heard a rumor that even that's disputed. Tell me truthfully, Cersei Lannister, Queen of the realm of Westeros, do you have a problem controlling your realm, keeping the mongrel would-be rulers in their cages, or should the tales of this realm be taken with a pinch of salt?"

Edited (Sorry for the continued editing!) 2021-08-29 04:49 (UTC)

He speaks of courtesy as if he has any notion of what it is, as if a man from so far beyond the natural boundaries indicated on a map could comprehend true royalty. Just as he was blind to the marvel of her face, so he must also be blind to even simple custom. Had he arrived with no heralding at all, she might rightly have taken him for an invader, and he would have been brought before her in chains, shackled at wrist and ankle. This foregone possibility brought the ghost of a smile to her lips, and she regarded him with the cool detachment of a cat who has not yet been given reason to rise.

There was something vaguely sinister about him, that was so: was it the aspect of a ghoul? Light on his feet, fluid in his movement, cut so finely at jaw and hand. His sightless eyes, and his arrogance despite that. Did he have such faith in his guards, that they could rally to his defense if she summoned her own swords forward? A smile brightened across his uncanny face, and her eyes consumed it without hesitation. Facetious or foolish? Hollow or menacing? The words he chose were measured as if for poetry, delivered lyrically, without hesitation for how they might be received. Accolades made to her beauty, which he could not see, and she lifted her chin, unimpressed. Worse than unimpressed; visibly annoyed to have been made to hear her departed husband's name. She was not accustomed to requiring more than the honed daggers of a withering glare, which she fixed him with all the same.

"I am no king's wife. I am the queen, and you will be ashamed to know that your poem does not do me justice. You may implore your gods to revoke the curse of your blindness if you ever hope to know it for yourself."

What a shameful waste, even for the cruelest of gods. He had no true condolences, she knew, which was perfectly well, because she did not want them. Robert had blundered for far too long in her way. Her fingers went to the throne's jagged arms as she watched the stranger, eyes darting after his fingers as they wove a crown upon his head, out of still air. Her face betrayed no fearful wonder, nor wonder of a tamer variety - she kept her poise, save for the curling of her fingers where they rested, and narrowed her eyes at the self-styled king's hands. Were they clawed? The make of his crown steals her attention more sincerely: it is lovely to behold, elegant and sinuous, gleaming with the hot gold of tourmalines. They ought to have been held in the mouths of lions, of course, but her eyes glitter covetously. Any fool knows that jewels command respect the same way armies do.

"There is one realm, and you are one of far too many men who inhabit it." His dismissal of her preferred titles would not be tolerated. His retinue of masked guards, his absence of due appreciation for her majesty, his ignorance for what is hers by right of blood; this will not be tepidly left to pass. Who would challenge her right, such as it was? By law, by name, by blood, by sword; the realm was hers. But he was, to her displeasure, no fool: he was not so far removed that he did not know how the realm she called her own rebelled against her, snarling and leering. She did not possess enough cages to keep her unruly lords contained.

"You will hear tales as vapid and cowardly concerning my realm as you have heard them of me, I've no doubt." She studied him where he stood, seeking still the proof of his tawdry magic, the sleeve he had slipped that glimmering crown from, lashes catching the light that spilled in from the high windows.

"It is courtesy that I do not have you quartered before this throne, my lord. What do they say of me across the sea, in that mire where you breed demons?" She knew little of the Shadow Lands or the cities thriving in its wake, but she had ever been one to prowl and prey upon rumor, to bare her teeth when gossip threatened to besmirch her own golden coat. Too vain and petty was she to turn away. Too paranoid in the thin, gilded petals of her heart. That sensation she has always distilled into hostility.

"Why have they sent a cripple to treat with me?"

"Regardless of the pomp and bluster of what one counts for courtesy these days," Mephisto teased, "The bit about the sharp tongue does you fair justice, your highness." His impassive tone was all that was needed to speak to just how much he cared about it. However, her threats fell on deaf ears; his guards, while strong in both combat and magic, were only there as mere decoration, nothing more or less than the crown on his head. He didn't need them to do away with any number of Cersei's toy soldiers that she decided to sacrifice to him.

And they would be sacrifices, of that he would certainly make clear, should she try anything with quite so much hubris. Her threats, the sound of her fingers curling against the metal throne, the way her tone went chopped and infuriated, it made the possibility all the more likely.

Rather than test that notion, Mephisto tilted his head, his dark hair pouring down his back in the movement. "You consider me a man?" It was a fair enough question. At no point did he say he was, nor did he ever have anyone refer to him as such in his part of the world. "Oh, to be so easy to misjudge that which stands before one's self. You conquered nothing of Essos, you do not lay claim to her. You very likely have not heard of anything east of my realm, if you had heard of my realm at all. How can one be the ruler of parts she'd never even heard about?" From his tone sprung amusement, a chuckle beyond his words. He decided to move, then, in no way from the place he stood, but in place, giving off more human airs, a shift of weight from one foot to the next, the subtlest movements of his head and chest, as though he was breathing.

Not once did he blink, nor did his feigned gaze cease to be upon her. "To whom are you referring when you say 'they'? I come of my own volition, and not to ensnare myself in your trifling power plays in Westeros, but rather, to give you a gift, and to offer something that you do not have."

He brought up his hand once more, giving a subdued twist of his wrist, at which all of his guards turned to her and knelt, heads bowed.

"I have three hundred men here with me, and a thousand more in my fleet, which will arrive within three days. And that is but the gift. No longer would you need to worry about those inland who dare to challenge your power, should you employ them strategically. You do... have strategists of your own, yes? You're not worried about the details in which you win, you simply care to win." His hands had both gone behind him once more, clasped together in a parade rest, one suited for one who was once a soldier.

"And the offer, well. That comes only if you agree to the terms, on which we must settle in private. One of those terms is to consider the possibility that blindness isn't crippling. Without sight, I see your throne of swords, I see the stained glass behind you of the Seven, false as they may be. I see your pillars, and your sconces, and your tense jaw and shoulders, the way you've curled your hands into fists. I see your soft gown and the curves around which it drapes. You are quite the fashionable dresser, for someone so deep in the west. I may not see the finer details. But the details, as the say, are where the devil lives."

He then turned to face his guards to his left, then his right. "I believe you lot may be excused. I fear nothing from her or what may fall from her lips."

What did courtesy count for once blades were drawn? It was her sharp tongue, primarily, that stood between a demonstration in this throne room of dignified courtesy, or that brought it to a bath of blood. There was a warm, gloating satisfaction in knowing that - no matter this man's magic, no matter his stilted conceit and his unearned ease, she could have his legs swept out from under him, if she pleased. She could have his tongue ripped from his mouth with pincers, his fingers separated one by one from his hands, or his throat slit at a word, clean and simple. Courtesy would be what she made of it, just as this negotiation would be what she made of it. As her guest, in her own throne room, in her own keep, he was at her mercy. And if he had heard anything of her at all, he must be passing familiar with how little of it she was inclined to dole out.

The green of her eyes flashed to follow the gleam of his hair as it fell down his back, and there swam through her a vague curiosity: was he made of the same lean, bracing muscle as any worthy knight? Had he seen battle, or did he only speak of it, as craven men did when they were deep in their cups? Was there cruelty in his hands, an unforgiving strength that ran the length of his body? Or was he as all sorcerers: limp, cringing, skittering beneath the first real shadow to fall upon him? He is, she assured herself, a man; what more could he be? A brazenly arrogant man, but a man nonetheless. A man to be subdued and conquered as all men were. Her eyes roll up to the beams above them when he speaks of Essos; her interest in this issue was as shallow as it had been in any small council meeting, when her shambling advisors summarily beseeched her to spare an hour for a discussion of the East. She would not. There was nothing on the far side of the sea but red dunes and black magic, the province of lesser men and fools.

"I am ruler of all that is worth ruling. Your sprawling wastes and ancient temples are of no concern to me, but they are mine, do not forget. They are mine as much as this castle, and as much as you." He was, after all, the one who had traveled so great a distance to seek an audience with her - in her mind, this is bountiful evidence that he comes as a supplicant, a man with wits enough to acknowledge when he stands before royalty. She need not know the name of every festering village of which she was queen, no more than she need know the name of every last peasant who owed her his life.

It was mention of a gift that hooked her attention, though by the imperious twist of her lips, it was plain that she did not believe he possessed anything she did not already have, or could not indiscriminately take. She watched first the flair of his wrist, and then beheld the small legion of guards that went upon bended knees. To her chest this did bring a gratified thrum, a briefly thrilling pulse, and then she did rise, taking stock of the half gift bowed before her.

"I do not lack for men who fancy themselves warlords, but they will recall that these soldiers are mine." The design of their dispersal would be hers, the orders they carried out would be hers, and the ensuing victories would be hers. It is in inspiring gift, but she does not allow her approval to show beyond a flicker in her eyes. A fleet, too?

It would come, none of it, for free, and so it is the prospect of an 'offer' that draws a humorless hum of a laugh from her. Its relevant 'terms' would be, no doubt, to the sole benefit of the man before her, if all went according to his own design, and she wended her way nearer to where he stood, unhurried. Scarlet silk kissed in silence across the stone at her heels, her own hands linked before her, the opulent gold of her hair as lost on him as the prismatic depiction of the gods behind her. To think that he can see her, then, or the royal splendor that surrounds them, lures a chill up her spine that she will name neither fear nor anticipation. He is a talented liar, a man accustomed to fabricating scenes of beauty, and no more.

"Yet it is the devil you'd most like to see, isn't it?" The details he could never feast upon. This, too, pleased her, and she turned a thoughtful glance out over the guards he still presumed to command. "They're mine now, aren't they? If you're a man of your word." Jade eyes returned then to his face, to his pale eyes and the surety with which he stood.

"As you will. My own will stay. Certainly you don't mean to suggest that they leave their queen with so insolent a stranger. Make me your offer."

Beneath the cloak was a body built sturdy and lean, the thin velvet jerkin that he wore only accentuated his chest, not built it up like so many pompous men wore them. The pants he wore were leather and form-fitting to a point, but until she got closer, she wouldn't notice those so much as the heavy drapes of cloth that covered much of his body.

Now the boots he wore, those were a different matter entirely. Leather like none in Westeros (at least, none that any men would, in good conscience, wear,) dyed a deep, bloody crimson, finely accentuated with stitching, grooves and creases to provide a scene upon them, towers falling and men dead upon the ground. It seemed that of what he did not speak, he wore proudly.

"I believe we two are of different minds on what a young Queen could call her own. It would do you no good to pretend to have sway over lands and men you cannot call upon. And should you wish to call upon them, you must wrap the chains that bind them to you tight around your fists. Not knowing where those chains lead," he said as he continued to follow her movements, "could spell disaster to those who claim to hold them. Proceed in your queendom with caution. These soldiers are yours, surely, now that they've been bestowed upon you, but I would not dare to try turn them on me, as you'll have twenty less men to do your bidding."

While he spoke of it, none of his new gifts to Cersei showed the fear that Mephisto had bore into them with those words. He could taste that fear, smell the trickle of sweat that came from one masked man's brow. He savored it, and savored her intrigue and hesitation as well.

Mephisto listened to her taking to her feet, and followed her path as would a sighted man, his head minutely moving to follow her. As she approached, she would easily be able to find a scent to him -- not overpowering, but a mere suggestion of spice, like mulled wine and dark resin incense, overlaying the scent of a fire. And like fire, he put off a heat that could be felt a couple feet away from him.

"There is no devil I'd wish to see," he responded smoothly, facing down to hers, a smile pulling at his lips and corners of his eyes, "save the ones you claim live in my lands. I'm sure they're a sight to behold, and wicked beyond belief."

Much like what was truly told about Cersei. Bewitching in her beauty, but cruel in her heart. There was nothing more but the lust for power, and the lust to have something to lust after. She was not the credulous sort, by any stretch of the imagination. She was staunch, skeptical and more than a little bitter, likely after a thousand disappointments.

He took a deep, unnecessary breath at her bidding for him to speak openly.

"You have been offered much, your Grace, but by no means have you seen the true fruits of labor that you've wanted. I can offer you the means to see all you wish. I only ask two simple things other than what I've already asked of you. A modicum of patience for results, and the most important bit. When you die, when you shuffle off this beautiful mortal coil that you so deeply adore, in which you take deep pride, you will give to me, not your kingdom, not your body, not anything material, but your spirit. You will have no need of it, you'll be dead. If you do not believe in the soul, what a trifling cost it would be for all you wish."

His voice went quiet, merely a molten whisper in tone, but the power that came with it was palpable as he motioned with a hand, only inches away from her, untouching and intentionally so, but it was to mimic the smooth way he would brush the back of his hand over a woman's face, his clearly sharp talons faced away from her flesh. His tone spoke truth and temptation, "You could deny me, and the fleet and soldiers I came with would still be yours to command. But could you possibly deny any form of lust within you, come to light and life?"

He waited for her to call him a charlatan and liar. He'd refute those claims easily, but she had but ask a demonstration, and he'd gladly give it.

Closer now, she was at liberty to make a thorough appraisal of her guest. A man evidently built as most others, though without the benefit of armor. He was not in the raiment of a king: no, only a velvet jerkin and breeches made of leather. Above this, draping cloth, which she suspected of concealing furtive weaponry. Why else would a man hide himself so? A knight would come clad in armor, a lord in his finery, and a king, by her estimation, ought to have been decked in gold. Armor, if he was a warrior-king, silks if he was a priest-king. From so far in the east, she cannot guess; perhaps he should have come before her wearing shadows or the pelts of skinned demons. A real king, kings long dead, who had once appeared to her in dreams, would have worn dragon's blood and rubies.

The finest thing about the queer man presently before her was his boots: those were of a blood red, that hue she so craved, and there was depicted the ruin a king should claim. Broken towers, men in agony - she would have preferred to see those corpses caught in the jaws of lions, just as she would have preferred lions to grasp the tourmalines of his crown, but this would seem to indicate, if nothing else, that he has a taste for butchery. That he is, she muses, a warrior before he is a priest.

She has been grateful to find that he did not lapse into devout appeals, that he did not brandish his foreign gods, conspire to frighten her with threats of divine intervention. She would have been glad, then, to see him conveniently dealt with, his body lost to the squid-stained docks, a most woeful tale to return to his people. If he had people to return to; a part of her was convinced still that his home - she has already forgotten its name - was peopled only by snarling, witless devils.

"You will find that the realm and everyone within it has been bestowed upon me. Every chain is mine." In the same spirit as its unmined gold belonged to her, and its fields of wheat, and its leal lords and soldiers. She could reach a hand anywhere at all and beneath the shadows of her fingers would be lands and men to number among her own. There was no one upon whom she could not call. Throughout her youth, there had been no one upon whom her father could not call. Only fools did not raise their heads at the lion's bidding. Those who refused were slated for a rather short life. With her crown and her throne and her husband's unfortunate demise, all had been bequeathed to her. What did it matter where the chains led so long as she held the ends, the only one with the authority to pull? She would not be refused. She would not be discarded.

Her head fell to a curious tilt to have one of her unspoken thoughts plucked from her own head: she could command these new guards to turn on their replaced master. And if they did not heed her, her own lion-helmed guards would deliver swift corrections. It would be a savory irony, to have this lord vanquished by the very men he'd come with, and she keeps that fact as near as a blade at her hip, within immediate reach.

No brash experiment was made of this - she had more yet to hear of the man before she saw him killed - and she paused warily once she stepped close enough to feel a pervasive heat. As if she had wandered too near a burning hearth, a wash of fire's glow over what skin she has bared and through her silks, too, a sensation that brings a bewildered grimace to her face. There is the rich scent of a fire, of fresh smoke and low embers and a touch of spices too exquisite to be often enjoyed at court. An oddly embracing encounter, that twining of scent and warmth, and in such contrast to his ghost's eyes, his cool bearing. Her eyes lifted resolutely to meet his own, steel against two empty white moons, and there again fled down her spine the feathering quiver of - what? Uncertainty? But she has armed guards waiting to be beckoned, and their swords are most certain.

"There is no more wickedness in your land than there is beauty." She would not allow it so prestigious a vice. Mummers did not command true wickedness; they cavorted with no true devils. "All you could wish to see is before you now, and here you stand, dependent upon a flaccid imagination."

A catty smile perched at her lips, and she regarded him with a mask of waning interest as he spoke. He would have of her patience, without defining just how long her wait must be, and having no appreciation, clearly, for the fact that she was accustomed to waiting not at all. Servants and pages and flitting handmaidens tended each need as it arose, and she had armies to dispense her tireless justice far afield, where she need not suffer the ignoble insults of war. He would have of her, too, her spirit, a word at which she snorts thinly through her nose. Here was another mummer's jape. Her spirit? That wispy, elusive essence to keep in a squat little maester's jar? Would it be black or red, or shining like a pearl?

She would have no need of it, no more in death than she had need of such a thing now, and she lifted a hand to draw idly at the bow of her throat, perhaps an unconscious fending of his own hand, and the intangible touch it places. The fond stroke of a dashing swain, she thought abrasively, though her eyes did sweep again over his fingers, over the talons which curved from them. What would it be to have those claws raking down the narrow length of her back? Her eyes returned once more to his face, irises dancing despite herself at the frivolous gift of seeing all she wished, the invaluable advantage such impossible magic would grant her. And her mind flew back to the woods-witch in the tent, the prophecies made, the first of which was proven true when she wed a king -

"How can you, a man without sight, promise me the means to see all I wish?" He must have known this would be her disparaging response, mustn't he? Looking into his defective, blank-white stare, how could she trust that he could present to her anything worth her while? What could he know of her lusts, of what she most ached to see? The dark depth of his voice made a certain godless vow of it, appealing in its certainty, despite how she decried his arrogance.

"How can you promise to answer my lusts when you cannot begin to imagine what they are?"

Oh, how wretched a woman she was, to be so snide amongst all his truths. All he'd given her thus far were truths, not a single lie among each long, casual statement. Mephisto didn't fear her, didn't flinch against her cold words. Icy steel though she seemed to be, a lioness protecting her pride, figurative in two ways, she was no different than any other royalty. He broke from the thought with a huff of subdued amusement, though it came at the end of her statement about imagination.

She could speak endlessly and tirelessly about the faults of things she had never seen, wax shallow and pitiable imaginative until the Walkers came waltzing down from their kingdom to lay to ruin this pretty summer palace. He didn't care, all they were saying to each other was trifling at best. Should she decide to find reason to balk at his offer, turn it down just as rudely as she'd been behaving, he would simply whisk back away to his own realm, back to only hearing about the chaos he'd set in motion, from afar.

"My oh my, aren't you a shrewd little ruler." His tone was again, one of casual amusement. "Unfortunately for your ego, your Grace, you aren't cut of different cloth than those that came before you. You're still cut of silk and steel, and by that notion, you are no more or less as fragile. Nor are you more or less as easy to know." He finally took his first step since he took to this position, if only to step around her in turn, a kind of dance in its own, two snakes coiling around each other, sizing each other up, looking for a weak point in the other. But the dance was graceful, like one taught at court for a pretty little ball.

"You wish for the power you pretend to have. You seethe when you come across the barriers that prevent you from having what you want. Your spoilt youth has made you feel entitled, and by my estimation, that is nothing but a good thing. It makes you fierce, it makes you strive for what you desire. You, a woman with her sensibilities, carefully looking me over, deciding whether to smite me or bed me, a woman so concerned with how things should bend to her will, and how to bend me to your will. It's admirable, to be sure." His smile spread, and never once lost what could have only been seen as eye contact, were it not for his milky eyes where no pupils or irises could have even been at one point. They may as well have been twin moons, plucked out of the sky and set in his angular face.

Then he broke pattern to turn in his careful steps around her, to sway his arm towards his - now her - guards. "These men fear only one thing, by the way. An interesting tidbit I should let you know. No mortal frightens them. No beast, no king, no other soldier or saboteur, and certainly no pithy bites and veiled threats from anyone. They are, as one could have it, perfect soldiers. They will take every command with no fear and no hesitation. If I may," he asked, and then didn't give a shit about her answer when he pointed one talon at a soldier, and bid him approach.

"Stab me in the heart." If he wasn't to give her what she wanted, he may as well have a little fun and give her some entertainment. He stood still once more, as poised and motionless as one of her suits of armor standing in the hall. And the soldier, with his pike, did as asked with, as promised, no hesitation, rending through his silks and jerkin, clear through his body, until the back of Mephisto's cloak jutted backwards. It moved Mephisto with its force, and he had to catch himself with a well-placed single step backwards to brace himself, his hair pouring off his shoulders, barely kept out of his face by the braids from his temples.

Then Mephisto tilted his head back to Cersei with a broad, true smile. "It is no trick, I assure you. See for yourself, he's run me clean through." No blood dripped from him, and no pain showed on his face. But sure as the tides, the pike was in one side of him and out the other.

The soldier released his hold on the pike and stood at attention before Mephisto. The king could smell the exhilaration of victory, and the sound of the man's drumming heart. Oh, the fear was there, as well, and he savored it like he did all the other morsels of fear, pain, and death.

"Truly, your highness." He unclasped his cloak and let it drop down onto the polished stone floor, so she could better see the handiwork of the soldier, and the details of the war-embroidered silk brocade of his shirt which matched his boots, and the cut of his toned arms. "He's quite strong, and so are the other men. And, besides that, his aim was impeccable. If I had a heart, it certainly would have been pierced clean through. Now. If I can survive this, and I can stand here and gloat over it, what does that say about me, if you can drop your skepticism for just a moment?"

He concluded with his hands back behind him once more, once again in the resting pose of a soldier, absurdly ignoring the pike in his chest. "Cersei Lannister, Queen of Westeros, all you need do is ask. Ask of me a show of this power I possess. I am not here to offer you the world and give you nothing. In fact, I've given you practically nothing already, save my presence and some toys to play with. All you've given me is your time, a very precious thing indeed."

Edited (I made a lot of revisions because I kept thinking up more things.) 2021-08-31 21:49 (UTC)

She can think of a number of parading lords who would have sputtered at her insults - men who would have either bowed their heads and fled, or purpled with rage and seized stupidly for a weapon. She would have been treated then, to a brief spectacle of blood, could have taken the man's fate in her own slim fingers and specified its design. A swift, clean death, to bring a conclusive end to her annoyance? Or a dallying stay in the dungeons, so the the cries of his punishment could be heard climbing the walls for the next several days? This man does neither: he does not scrabble together what is left of his dignity and retreat, and neither does he react as a coiled animal would, lashing and spitting.

He seems almost amused, and her flinty eyes skip across the features of his face as she watches him, her curiosity giving to a hot flare of insult. Shrewd little ruler, he names her, as if she were no more than a frittering princess of any forgettable House, as if she were a child striving for glories laughably out of reach. Little, as if to emphasize how small the shadow she casts, as if her influence cannot be felt rippling, even now, across the dun hills of Essos, humming even under the stones of his own palace, if a palace he does indeed keep. She will not be dismissed as a trifling curiosity, as a petty wife exulting in her lord husband's death, destined only to be shackled to another, to be swallowed once more by a man's shadow. She will not. The fact that he is so flagrantly unruffled by her, so undisturbed by her disdain or the display of steel awaiting her command in this very room, only provokes her to brighter ire. Who does he think he is, to speak to her as if he is wiser, as if he is above her, as if he is dispensing wisdom out of the generosity of his heart, something she never would have acquired on her own? As if he counts her among the seething masses, as if she is not made of gold?

She has half a mind, then, to order one of her own soldiers forward - one of her new guards, despite his warning, just to spite him - to brandish a sword against his preposterous throat. He is quicker, and arrives more smoothly at the same conclusion: he orders one of those fresh guards forward, with a command to kill. She scoffs; this will be another bit of mummery, then. A dash of smoke and sorcery in a play of immortality, or at least immense strength and fortitude in the face of blood. He is wearing, she does not doubt, iron above his heart to deflect a finishing blow. Her lips are pressed primly as she bears silent witness, her face unmasked in the skepticism with which she has heard this command be given, and she takes half a step back, loath to have her guest's blood spattered upon her silks.

But there is no spray of scarlet, no groan of anguish as artifice takes a mistaken, fatal step. The pike simply does as it is bid, piercing jerkin and living body and cloak alike, and she must resist the bewilderment that begins to write itself across her face. He does not fall to the floor, and there is no deceptive disappearance of the pike's head. It has emerged from his back, as if he had indeed just been run through by a foe's weapon. She is aware, for a moment, of how the slanting light turns to fire the dark ink-spill of his hair, as the sun picks out crystal facets in a raven's wing, and the smile he presents to her is not pinched with pain, is not the mischievous smirk of a magician who has just duped a crowd.

She regards him for another taut beat, unmoving and unflinching, only her eyes made of motion as they run down the front of his body, climb again to his face, and then fix on the wound that should have killed him. Once he has unfastened his cloak, she steps forward, a whisper in her chest underlying the beating of her heart. Anticipation.

The silk worn across his chest is decorated with the same scenes of massacre as his strange, polished boots, and she lifts her fingers as he speaks, first finding the haft of the pike, tracing slowly along its make, fingertips finding it to be as real as any her own knights had ever held.

"You have no heart." That is all that can be gleaned from this demonstration, can't it? An absence of the heart meant an absence of fear, and an absence of fear meant there was nothing this man could not do. A lack of fear is also, she knows, what marks a rabid animal, what slates it most promptly for death, but how can a man with no heart be killed? Her shoulder blades shift with the pleasure of this thought, no matter how mad it may seem - and how mad can it be, when the maesters of the world are capable of all manner of horrors? When she had once dreamt of dragons, how can she deny that she had dreamt of a life without end, if one was meant to be as impossible as the other? And the dragons had once lived.

Her fingers slide from the pike to his chest, to the rent silk and jerkin, and her own blood riffles to think how the point had been driven through him, through bone and muscle, how it had shown itself through his back, and how he remained standing still. The flicker that gleams in her eyes, of an animal that has just stumbled across something delectable, makes no secret of the truth he had spoken: she was deciding whether to smite him or bed him.

But she also believes herself clever enough to have discerned the bargain he means to make, a bargain he himself must have made, and she poses that question as she trails her fingers along the juncture where pike has impaled stalwart body. "Who did you sell your spirit to?"

How else to claim this power? She has forgotten, for a moment, the more trivial gift of the soldiers, the more pertinent opportunity for a political negotiation. She is delighting, instead, in the sound of her own name lilting from his tongue, in her title as queen, though he speaks it incorrectly still, and in the promise of the only gift she has ever truly wanted. How marvelous the expression on her enemies' faces would be, when their steel drew no blood, when their treacheries touched her not at all, knives in the dark, finding only ghosts.

"I would not hear your offer of the world, for I already have it. Show me the power you possess." She will not ask - she will command. But there is a hunger which paints her voice a low, deep red, a tone that asks for what is has long been aching for. "Give me what I want, or I will find the blow that kills you."

The moment she took a step forward, the soft and light footfalls of her elegantly adorned feet alerted Mephisto to her approach. Her anticipation rang around her like the chiming of perfect golden bells, and his expression neutralized as she touched the pike, feeling the lightest touch of it from her slender fingers - slender because of their lightness, the sound of them running across the metal pole which jutted out of his chest. Being proven right once her hand landed against his chest, he gave a single nod, feeling as though she may have been satisfied by the demonstration. There was a twinge of pain at her closeness, though, something that he hadn't expected. It pulled at a part of him that he had not thought was still within him. Somewhere, deep within the dark and corrupt, a part of his Grace had shivered and moved, cramped in the confines of what he now was, reaching out towards her.

He didn't give it much thought.

Mephisto nodded to her assessment. "No heart, no blood." And curiously, she pivoted that thought to something that made him laugh quietly. Before he answered her question, he bid the pikeman approach, and retrieve the pike from within him, and at his help, it came cleanly out of him. His rended clothes stayed that way, really more for his own amusement than anything; they'd return themselves to perfection at his whim, but for now, the result of his showing off to the queen would remain.

"You presume I was once mortal," Mephisto said, then shook his head, deciding once more to move, walking back to the place he'd started, as though that one square of marble was his home. "I sold nothing, your Grace. Now, before we get into exactly what it is I can give you, I must let you know. I am not omnipotent. I cannot give you immortality - long life, yes, but at a limit, and not impervious to outside interference. Or I can give you imperviousness, but not long life. For one, it would render our agreement moot, and two, I wouldn't if I could, even if I wanted to, which I don't. Besides, I've heard a Lannister always pays her debts."

He turned back towards her while his thoughts aligned in a list. "I cannot smite those you wish me to at a whim, but I can give you the means to know how on your own. I am no toy with which to play, no little wish-giver. I am not one of your fidgeting, dottering maesters, though I hold their knowledge and more."

He tilted his head in a show of curious query. "I cannot give you that for which you do not ask, my Grace. If it exists, and if you ask for it, I can provide. I cannot summon a person, mind, but ask me for anything. Anything at all, that you desire. Perhaps, since you fancy yourself the queen of all, something to counteract your growing troubles in the east, and the coming troubles from the north. I would advise against dragons, basilisks, and the like. They don't, hm... They don't take well to command, and you seem like a woman who needs full control of something, or it's useless to you. Perhaps a pride of real lions to let loose into battle, scare those direwolves from the north back to their cold forests."

No heart, no blood. How true an observation, and how thrilling to the most visceral part of her. How could her blood ever be spilled if there was none? How could the hour of perishing ever arrive if there was no blood to be spent? And more significant even than this: what nest could weakness make within her if there was no heart in which to perch? The absence of that sole, pesky organ would keep her from ever growing soft. The relative slimness, the smallness, of her own body need not grieve her; she was surrounded always by sworn knights who would cast aside their own lives if it meant protecting her. Fearing bodily harm while she was so fiercely protected was a wasted agony. What most deserved her concern was the rallying of her enemies, the assembling of armies, the arraying of treasonous soldiers in the north, in the south, and evidently in the barbaric, slavering east, too.

She steps aside as he beckons a man forward to relieve him of the ineffectual pike, and she watches with genuine fascination as the weapon is drawn from his body, as no red blood sheets down upon the marble. His clothes have been ruined, to be certain, and she tips her head to the opposite side as she surveys that petty damage, linking her hands before her. It drained a murder of its flavor, didn't it, to spill no blood? Others' blood, that is, not her own, and to never worry of losing even a drop of her own most precious currency - that would be venerable, indeed. Her strength, like her beauty, would be peerless.

Her eyes stay with him as he retreats, as he resumes his own space once more, as he names himself more than mortal. Who but the gods could ever claim to have begun as anything but mortal? Even the heroes in the tales of greatest renown had suffered, at one time or another, some failing of their humanity, had been weakened by the price of mortality. Any true hero would, of course, win back his immortality from the gods. She lifts her chin as he does as she might've expected: he begins to limit what his supposed power is capable of, cheapens the gift he can grant her. No immortality, which she would never have allowed herself to be so foolish to believe, anyway, despite that ember that flickered behind the cage of her ribs. Not even long life protected against external threats, a barter with a mortal man's limitations, a mortal man's shifting commitment.

Not only does he recuse himself from the trial of bestowing such a gift, but he proclaims that he would refuse even if it were in his power, and this needles her. She narrows her eyes, resisting the enthralling demonstration she had just borne witness to, and regards him as she would a coiled viper, golden hair slinking over her shoulders, down the length of her back.

"You fear bestowing upon me the greatest of your gifts? Do you think me insolvent, that you will not claim your price, or is it that you fear me after all, even without having given me anything?"

This pleases her, to think that hesitation in the face of her power would stay his hand, would give him pause. She levels her eyes with his own again, those two faceless moons, and wonders how he has come to possess such command, the authority to recite such a list before her. She had touched his chest with her own hand and found him to be as solid and true as any man, though susceptible to none of a mortal man's weaknesses. An illusion of this magnitude, of such reckless risk, would have demanded too much of a lesser man's stores of patience and fortitude. While she reflects, she steps in a slow, soundless circle around him, weighing his words.

He has not taken her prompting answer as the opportunity to dazzle or frighten her, to conjure before her what he himself might think most imposing, most convincing of his power, if it does prove to be a power of tangible means. And again, limitations; he cannot procure for her a person, he cannot procure her unspoken desire. With her own wishes limited to material objects, then, she must grant herself another moment of review. She has her crown, above all, and she has her throne. She has silks that most maidens and ladies of any mentionable breeding will never have the privilege to see, let alone feel against their own skin, and she has treasures both domestic and foreign. Jewels; ornaments of every imaginable variety. What she desires, beyond the inarguable evidence of her reign, is to be desired.

Or a dragon, a dragon would have served nicely, and her eyes roll back up to the arching windows, the pitched ceiling. A dragon whose obedience he could not guarantee would be of no use to her at all. But a lion - a single lion could be brought to some sort of domestication. They had been kept deep beneath Casterly Rock, she had reached through the bars in her own youth, and if she had one present at her side while she held court from the throne, perhaps the dissenters would come to appreciate, again, all that her name implied.

"Fine, give me a lion. A lion grown, and golden." Part of her expects, upon giving this command, that he will merely summon her brother. Who has yet chased the northern wolves more ravenously?

She could grouse and gripe aloud, the way her emotions and posture spoke loud enough to him. He didn't care about how displeased she was about the limitations - they all were - but to be told she could be given anything, anything at all. Not just material things, but knowledge unlearned, emotional fortitude, bodily fortitude, everything her imagination could conjure to ask, save people and immortality, that was a fair amount more than her imagination's limits had seemed to keep her from realizing.

As she did her circle around her and considered deeply her first desire, Mephisto stood still as a statue, save for his head which turned to follow her movements, and then at her command, he waved his hand and summoned up no mere lion, but one of the most lovely ones that could have ever been found, right at his side. Golden indeed, it shone gold like her hair, and was taller than most lions, five feet at the shoulders and his maned head nearly reached Mephisto's shoulders. he put his hand upon its head, turning to it with a smile, and a "Good kitty kitty." He then summoned an almost delicate gold chain around the beast's neck and stepped forward to hand it to her. "He's tame and takes command easily. Ferociously protective, incredibly loyal. But the males, beautiful as they are, are no fighters. The females," he said as if she didn't know, "are the real hunters and fighters. Not unlike your Grace."

Mephisto stepped behind her then, his hands, hotter than any human's, curled around her shoulders as he leaned in to whisper, "Material possessions do not make a ruler, my dear. Ask for a language. Ask for command of the weather around King's Landing. Ask for the curse upon you to be lifted. But ask only after the deal has been struck."

He cannot manifest a lion out of thin air, of this she is certain. Yet that is, before her very eyes, in spite of her bitter refusal to believe and her instinctive dismissal, precisely what he does. As soon as her decision has been made, the command spoken, he conjures for her a lion beyond what she had absently envisioned. She had called to mind only the lions she'd known beneath the Rock, beasts abiding nature's own proportions, fearsome but otherwise unremarkable. She had thought of lions tawny, but never true gold. The details did not matter, for no man could devise a lion beside him at will. Especially not a lion of grandeur; never a lion of gold.

So she can merely blink, then, when the lion appears before her, as seamlessly as if she had dreamed it. Gold, true gold, and of magnificent size. She takes a step back, a flutter in her chest to behold such a beast, and so near. With her heart quickened to a hum, she watches as a slim chain is summoned abount the beast's neck, as it is passed into her own hand. Her fingers curl there without thought, though her conscious mind rails still against the impossibility of it. But how lovely to have that chain pressed to her palm, to have at the end of it an animal of legendary design.

So briefly taut is she, a harp's string aching to be strummed, that she gasps when his hands land upon her shoulders. They are hot, as hot as the transparent flames he had seemed to exude, and she quivers, she thinks, not for the way his whisper rains against the shell of her hair, but for what he offers her. Ask for her curse to be lifted? With the lion's chain in her hand, with the beast obedient and gleaming like real gold, she cannot help but wonder if it can be done. And at so paltry a cost? What good was her soul if the curse was to be made true? What good was her soul even if it wasn't? Either it would see her killed, or it would die along with her whensoever she perished, serving her not at all. She has no desire for language, no desire to have the storm clouds rolling into the bay to be made subservient to her whims.

She turns to face her visitor but opens no space between them, keeps her voice low and dark between them, as if an eavesdropping god might be near. Her empty hand rises again to his chest, to run her fingertips again where, on any other man, there should have been blood. She finds none, and she has never felt so carnal a thrill, never so intoxicating a sense of victory.

"Let it be done. Lift my curse."

"Gold shall be their hair," Mephisto whispered again, "And gold shall be their shrouds. A wicked curse upon the innocent. Unfortunately for one, there's not much to be done about him. He's his own ruining, and you know that well as anyone." He was speaking to distract Cersei from the unseen, unknown tendrils that wound around the Queen's soul. Some mortals could feel the change as he did, like thorny vines growing around their spirit, digging into it, but it connected her to him in a way that most would never see, or think to look. Witches and those who could see in the flames, men capable of deep sight that spoke to the cleaving of souls together would immediately tell. This woman, this soul, was spoken for.

He allowed her touch to fall upon him again, and as Cersei rested her hand on his unmarred chest, Mephisto's attention turned to the curse itself, the way it reached out towards the children that she'd made in trysts with her twin, and severed all the ties that bound those beautiful blond children, and ripped it away from Cersei herself. What next was about the young replacement, the prettier, the more compelling and frankly better ruler... well, there was nothing to stop the course of fate in the way of others, but he could give her a couple names that would stave off her downfall.

"Your children are safe, outside of their own doing. Unless he wants to make a deal with me, as well," he said with no small amount of amusement in it. "But the younger ones, they won't suffer fates on account of you and your... reckless thirst." Stepping away from Cersei, the smile on his face was wan and mirthless. "As for what the witch spoke," and he knew each word, recorded in the wordless, unwritten weave of history, "of your fate at the hands of a younger, more beautiful women... well, their fates are beyond my control as well, but I can help you rid yourself of their threats. Prepare you for their arrival. Both of them. Fate certainly doesn't like you, Cersei Lannister."

He walked up the stairs, towards the throne, unafraid of the guards stationed to protect it, and he ran his fingers over the wrought metal, enjoying the chill of it, the sharpness of the blades at the back. "This silly chair," he spoke in a chuckle, "Is and has been the downfall of so many men. I would hate to see it be the downfall of a woman such as yourself."