Chapter Text
It was a beautiful, clear morning, a rest day at the end of the week, exactly one month after you had found love with Gaster Dreemur, Divinity of Ebbot and Lord High Engineer of the holy city…and you were spending it in the silliest of ways. You'd been eating a late breakfast when a passing serving girl had stopped, bowed hastily, and whispered, “Come! Our Lord is joining the morning drills, and Captain Snarl is home as well! They will fight, no doubt. It is worth the watch!”
Bemused, you'd followed her and a handful of other servants to the back-center of Gaster's huge, walled property. The practice area was tucked up against one of those walls, its sandy floor and many small buildings and sheds perfectly tailored for various types of combat training and practice. Gaster, like all Lords of the city, maintained a private militia of guards separate from the city soldiers, and his were well known to be the best. Of course, they were led by Captain Snarl, a Dog Monster of husky coloration and build, who had served (and survived) the foul-tempered Lord High Engineer for nearly fifty years. If the guards underneath him were the best, then Snarl was better than the best, his martial prowess lauded quite literally throughout the land.
As you got closer, you recognized a face that wasn't necessarily part of Gaster’s household, sitting beneath a small nearby pavilion and watching with interest. Marble, Snarl's wife and the matriarch of their pack, was settled there, the morning breeze stirring her loose, airy clothes, and the chestnut fur on her pointed ears. The moment you came near, she turned and noticed you, patting the bench beside her. “My Lady! Come and join me. Let us see our gentlemen at their practices.”
Of course, Gaster and Snarl looked up at that, both of them having excellent hearing, and you rolled your eyes with a grin as the posturing began. All of the fighters had finished their morning drills, it looked like, and were pairing off for practice bouts. The two men eyed each other evilly, now that both of their women were there to watch. “Good morning, packmistress Marble.” You slid onto the bench beside her. “I…don't think I knew that my Lord drilled with the guardsmen.”
“He hasn't, if I understand correctly, for a long time.” The sharp ring of iron on iron began to sound across the grounds. “But these are unsure times, even for those as talented as our two loves.” Then she winced. “Forgive me, I hope you don't take offense-”
“How could I?” You smiled, thinking Gaster looked handsome indeed in the morning sun, dressed in padded practice gear and bouncing lightly on his feet. “I do love him. And I know you love Snarl, as he loves you with every hair on his body.”
“Every single last one,” she said with a grin, picking black and white Snarl-fluff off her skirts. Then the two of you fell silent, watching the two men.
Gaster's sword never stopped moving, a series of slow, circling sweeps even when the two were apart from each other, his step light and quick, almost fluid like a dancer's, while he somehow still kept his entire body tucked behind it. Snarl was no slouch- his positions were powerful, and his fast, hammer-like blows would have been devastating if they'd landed. But each one was directed away from your lover, seemingly at the last moment, pushed out or down toward the ground by that waterfall-like sword technique, with Gaster twisting up in the gaps left behind. Soon, the pole-carrying practicemaster raised a hand on Snarl, and you could see a shock of orange chalk across the ribs of his padded practice coat.
“Strike to the Lord of the House!”
Snarl made a face, backing off for a moment to get a drink of water. Beside you, Marble chuckled. “It drives him mad, that he so seldom bests the Lord Divinity. My husband is one of the best fighters in the allied cities, but he cannot overcome the moving-water techniques taught at the palace. Our Lord ever offers to teach him, too, but my love is too stuck in his ways, and struggles with even the basics of the style.”
“No…it wouldn't fit him, I see what you mean.” You had never paid attention to the household guards during their daily training, had never known Gaster trained with them when he could. “It's too…ungrounded, too fluid. Captain Snarl looks strong and immovable in comparison.” The two men were circling each other again, this time coming together in fast, quick, repetitive clashes, no longer staying separate to judge the other's tactics. In moments, the practicemaster raised a hand on Snarl again, the line of orange chalk now a gruesome swipe across his protected throat. It made you shiver- Gaster struck like a cobra, fast and vicious, his eyes never leaving the other man’s body.
“Strike to the Lord of the House!”
“Must you announce it?” Snarl growled at the human, making you smile. The other guardsmen and guardswomen were slowly moving away from their own practice, filtering over instead to watch their Captain and Lord. When they began a third bout, Snarl feinted high, then almost immediately grappled Gaster, attempting to pull him in one-handed onto the ‘point’ of his practice blade. You gasped, and Marble chuckled. “You…forgive me, you haven't seen much real fighting, my Lady?”
Would you ever get used to the title? Both the weight it carried…but also the reminder inherent in it that your Lord loved you? “None at all, mistress Marble. Is it more like…?” You gestured to the two men, who now surged back and forth between swordplay and various grapples, grabs, and kicks. “It’s....Gods, I know this sounds silly. But it’s so much more...violent, than what I've seen before.”
She nodded. “A pure duel with swords is for show alone, or practice in the drills. This is what you would see on the battlefield amongst infantry, times ten-thousand fighters. My husband has slain more enemies by pulling their throats down onto his sword than he ever has with a neat fencing blow.” The woman sighed, her pink nose twitching. “It is also better for city fighting, for close-quarters and tight side roads. If Magi plans to attack us, as my husband suspects, it will not be on the plains outside our city. They made that mistake once. No, they will secret fighters into our very walls, like termites chewing a house.”
You bit your lip for a moment, suddenly seeing, just in the shadows of the pavilion the two of you sat under alone, how many places an assailant could hide. “I focused on archery at the University as my chosen weapons training, and a small bit of basic hand to hand for self-defense. If what you say is true…and I don't doubt you…then both will be of little use to me in that scenario.”
She gazed at you a moment, thoughts shifting behind her eyes quickly, then nodded as if coming to a decision. “No, they will not. Not as you learned them.” Then, she bowed her head, turning slightly on her bench. “Join myself, and some of the other ladies, at the Temple of the Moon in the evenings. We meet at sundown, on days that are not market days. Men are not invited.”
You blinked. The secretive Moon Temple fighters were rumored to be elegant, deadly…and entirely Monsters. “I…did not think that my kind was invited either, mistress.”
“You are engaged to our Lord Divinity- you wear his keys at your waist. People must get used to you, regardless of what they think or don't think. And you would not be the only human to ever step over the threshold…though you would be the only one currently, yes.” A roar below made you both glance down- Snarl had pinned Gaster, using his far-greater bulk, but your lover had pulled a short practice knife from his belt one-handed, striking in a splash of orange chalk into the Dog's side before the Dog could mark him with his sword. The guardsmen were whooping and hollering, half in support of their Lord, and half in support of their Captain.
“Strike to the Lord of the House!”
“Enough with that already!”
Marble snorted at her husband. “So…yes. Come if you wish.” She absently flicked a fan from her waist, fanned herself gently with its moon-printed span…then closed it and slashed out at the railing in front of the two of you. Before your astonished eyes, a deep gouge appeared in the hard, polished wood.
You turned to stare at her, and she smiled darkly. “In many cases, it is good to look defenseless.” Her eyes were sly as she bent back the thin, cleverly folded silk that concealed the sharpened edges of what you now realized was a fan made of thin, steel blades, showing you the trick of the weapon- it was concealed by nature and feminine decoration, like your hairpins and the little blade you could wear on a long chain between your breasts. “Doubtless you know that already, wearing hair pins made of sharpened steel. We will teach you to be deadly with them, or any other small, discreet tool, at your preference. Though do not give up on your archery- any talent a person finds they have will one day be called to use, as payment to the Gods for giving it to them...oh look, he finally got him.”
Guiltily, you thought to yourself that it had been years since you'd touched a bow…perhaps it was time to do so again. And indeed, Snarl had finally managed a single point against your lover, a glancing blow to Gaster's side that he hadn't managed to twist away from quickly enough.
“Strike to Guard Captain Snarl!”
“Thank the gods,” Marble muttered. “He would have been miserable at breakfast otherwise.”
She said something else about the Moon Temple, the actual services and such if you wished to attend, but you were thoroughly distracted- after a moments rest, Gaster and Snarl began stripping off their padded practice armor, and the blades the practicemaster handed them then looked like bright, deadly steel, not the dull practice iron they’d been using so far, marked with thick orange chalk along its blunted edges.
“Um?!”
Marble glanced where you did, slipping her fan demurely under a slit in her skirts again, and grimaced. “Ah...so it’s come to that.” You frowned, concern building in your chest as the other guards began to do the same, the frivolity and fun leaving their forms, and she put a respectful hand atop yours for a moment. “They cannot protect if they cannot fight.” Her voice was gentle. “Truly fight, with danger and bladerisk. It has been many long years since my husband called for live drills amongst his troops, but if he does so now...well, I would be interested to know what new information has come into his ears since we left the house this morning.”
Yes… now that you thought about it, a message runner had come to Gaster at the crack of dawn, you’d seen them pass your open door at the trot as you’d begun working through the night’s missives in your office. But that was hardly unusual, the universe seemed determined to prevent the man from sleeping in. The rhythmic ring of steel kept you from pondering it further- you looked down at the guards below, led by Snarl, Gaster, and the practicemaster as they lined up, one on one, and began the slow-fast-slow drills that, when done against an enemy and with the right enchantments on ones weapons, would penetrate through the Medraign fields so commonly worn by any fighter worth their feed.
“This is a grim omen,” you murmured softly, staring down at the lines of fighters for a few moments longer, before standing quickly. “Excuse me, mistress Marble. On off-market days, correct?”
She nodded as she bowed, and you left the pavilion, passing grim small clusters of other watchers from Gaster’s people- the presence of live-steel drills was spreading like a dark tide through his staff. No one could serve under a Lord Commander, seemingly, and not know (or have been told) what such things foretold. It wasn't that you didn't enjoy watching them, those powerful, fast humans and Monsters, with your new lover and his loyal Captain at the head. But…something about the idea of watching him with live blades whirling around him…
You stopped behind a shed, staring up at the morning sky, and closed your eyes for a moment. There was no reason for your heart to be racing, no reason for your chest to feel tight. He was a Celestial, by all the Gods, a living Divinity. He could, had, weathered injuries that would kill a lesser man a hundred times over. He had three hundred years of battle experience and fighting prowess under his belt.
“This is stupid,” you whispered to yourself, as your eyes started to burn at the thought of him having to fight again. He'd not yet turned on you in those dim moments between sleep and wakefulness, though he'd warned you with misplaced shame the third night you'd spent together that such a thing was possible, now that strife stirred old memories. That he'd done it before to a lover, and, while he hadn't wounded her, the experience had scared her from his love and life.
That made you sneer, despite your worries, as it had every time you'd thought of it since. The woman (whoever she was) had been a damn bloody fool, to blame a good man for the sleeping battles that all soldiers fought. Everyone knew such things were possible- the Theatre of War was in the very center of the city, its doors eternally open; its actors, battlebrothers and battlesisters all, were forever vigilant for a fighter in need of their support, their divine comedy and tragedy. Its neighbor was the Hearthhall, for the love of the Gods! The sanctum of those who remained behind while their loved ones fought, giving strength and support as they held their homesteads. ALL who had been raised in Ebbot knew of these places, passed them every day…yet this unknown lover had fled him in the night, telling any who would hear of his mistake without even giving him a chance to make right.
Of course you prayed such things would never happen to you and Gaster, for they would mean the torment of your lover's Soul…but if they did, you would weather it.
Taking a deep breath, you mastered yourself. If you could not watch your Lord at his morning's efforts; if you could not bear to witness him with a live blade in hand…then you would make yourself useful elsewhere, rest day be damned. First, to quartermaster Haoran. The old Yazi was elbow-deep in scouring sand when you arrived, but bowed his head respectfully. “A moment,” he said, his deep voice a low, carrying boom of thunder. “If I may.”
You shook your head. “Please, take the time you need…your work is more important than anything I might need.” Of course you'd understood, technically, that Gaster's people might begin treating you a bit differently now that you were his Lady and not his steward. By the second week of your newfound love, you'd had to find a quiet place away from everyone else, and have a serious conversation with yourself over what your future would look like, and the distance such a relationship might put between you and those you considered friends.
One of many such contemplations to come, no doubt.
But it was still one thing to silently decide on something…and another to have crotchety old Haoran defer to you even the tiniest bit. Something of your thoughts must have shown on your face, for the Yazi peered at you a moment…and then, quick as a snake, threw a heavy piece of scalemail at your chest. “Fine. If you are so idle, you may help me. Each pivot needs oiled- no more than a dot! I had better not find some tremendous slop of grease on that table by the time you're done.” He pointed with his feathered tail to a nearby counter, and you staggered over with the heavy scale, hefting it up onto its worn surface and hiding a smile. There was a bottle of linseed oil there with a slim reed within, and you set yourself to the task, grateful for the distraction and for something to do with your hands.
Finally, when he'd finished his scouring and you'd dotted oil onto the last tiny joining of two steel plates, he took it from your hands and nodded with satisfaction. “Always good at the detail work, my L…friend. Now, what do you want, eh? Why come and bother a poor old Monster?”
“A bow, Haoran. A bow, and practice arrows. I'm rusty, it's been far too many years. Since university.”
He peered at you a moment, then nodded. “And a finger guard, to keep from affecting your writing…do you draw off the hip, or back?”
“Hip, please.”
For a few minutes, all was silent as he measured your arms and torso, then had you lift progressively heavier stones with both hands until finding the weight that suited you best. At last he stood back from you. “Good. Come by before sundown, I'll have it all ready. Resight your eye, and I'll let you play with these.” He drew a claw over the baskets of special practice ammunition behind himself, those that summoned fire, electricity, or slowed and sped again to pierce through a fighter's shield.
Impulsively, you hugged him. The grouchy old snot had been the first Monster on Gaster's staff to decide he didn't give two licks if you were a Monster or not. “Thank you, oh elderly lizard,” you murmured with a grin.
The swat of his tail chased you back out as you laughed.
-
If you allowed yourself to do nothing, flashes of live blades and thoughts of war soured your stomach. So instead, you gave yourself a bit of a head start on the week ahead, working on the ledgers for the property, and reviewing work orders for the new aquifer system being built for the city's eastern fields. It was careful work, requiring all of your focus - one wrong number, and a merchant could lose faith in the honesty of Gaster's custom…or worse, the honesty of Ebbot itself. Stopping only for a quick lunch in the kitchens, you settled back into the work for the afternoon. By the first hints of sunset, you sat back, proud of yourself. Doubtless something would come up- it always did. But for now, at least, you’d smoothed the next few weeks considerably. The only fly in the ointment was your back- you'd tweaked it trying to drag a heavy chest closer to your desk, and it smarted every time you moved a certain way. Grumbling, you tried to stretch it out to no avail, then gave up and went to see the quartermaster once again.
Haoran shoved your requested bow, practice arrows, and other gear into your arms without so much as a word, distracted by the veritable heap of enchanted weaponry that had been delivered to his subterranean workshop since you'd been there that morning. Sensing that he was hunting for ‘volunteers’, you made yourself scarce, stopping to ask a gardener on your way back to your home for a strawbale suitable for target practice.
The comfortable two-story building you'd lived in for ten years had been emptied of herb and spell supply storage since your ‘elevation’, and now served as the beginnings of your own private space as the lady of the house. You hadn't done much with the now-empty first floor yet, letting time and necessity guide you…but it was nice to have an area that was guaranteed a bit more privacy than the rest of the Lord High Engineer's busy estate. You'd already set a polite expectation of quiet around the area for the past decade, and it was one of the few spaces that you could simply go now and feel ‘normal’.
A junior gardener showed up after a few minutes with a large bale of straw, setting it behind your home as you directed, while you used ink to paint a simple set of target circles on a large piece of scrap fabric that you pinned to the straw. Then, grumbling under your breath- stupid, poxrotted back muscle- you thrust a handful of arrows down into the ground, stretched your fingers and wrists out, and doggedly began to draw, sight, and shoot. It became a pattern, in the golden light of the sunset- ten arrows into the target (at least you were hitting the target circle every time, which was something), walk down to pull them free and receive further bitching from the pain in your back, then trudge back and do the same again. Still, with repetition came muscle memory- a few stinging slaps reminded you sharply to loosen your arm and elbow, and your thighs complaints meant you were standing wide enough, your core tight and controlled. You truly had loved the art during your university days- why had you stopped?
As you sighed and went to reclaim your ammunition for the umpteenth time, the answer came to you. Simple busyness- your first employer, a human hesitant to hire a woman for what he’d thought should be a man’s work, had tried his best to drive you to failure with an unmanageable workload. When that failed, he’d resorted to basely cursing and screaming at nothing in particular, making loud noises near your workspace, or hiding materials and records from you- petty actions, the work of an angry toddler in the body of an old man. It had quite literally left you with no time at all but to work, eat and sleep for the better part of five years.
It made you smile, looking back...if only the ‘you’ of then had known what was in her future! The man’s unfounded dismissal of you had seemed, at the time, an insurmountable failure.
So focused were you, you didn’t notice your Lord’s presence until a gentle hand lifted your elbow just a bit further, a slender pair of hips pushing yours forward slightly, while he used his thigh to make you turn a bit further out on your own. You jumped a little, looking over sharply, but he hushed you, his focus on your target. “I've never once seen you practice, or known of an aptitude...either you are a savant, or there are many more secrets the Lady of the house holds than even I would guess.” His voice was a low murmur, full of affection- you could feel him in the corner of your mind that was ‘his' now. He'd missed you. Smiling at his compliment and presence, you relaxed into the form he was shaping your body to- the man had nearly three hundred years of experience, after all. Who wouldn’t take advantage of such a repository? “I suppose that's what will keep me interesting...my many lurid secrets.” You let the arrow fly, and it hit dead center.
You'd never thought such a thing as someone improving your archery form could be intimate before, but with the length of the man's body pressed to yours, his arm over your arm and his lips by your ear...it sent a shiver of delight down your spine. His hands were long and graceful, the white bone stained golden by the sun.
Regrettably, he stepped away from you and pressed a kiss to your fingers, over the leather guard you wore to keep the bowstring from irritating the skin there. “All of them terrible and ruinous, I'm sure.” The man looked...oddly eager, practically bouncing in place in his own subtle way. You pursed your lips- Gaster's excitement could easily bring you happiness, or a new mountain of work. “What?” A silvery beak poked out from his collar, and your little Chantling Bird, a magical engagement gift from the city Elder, Lady Sanai, fluttered over to your shoulder with a peep of excitement. She preferred to keep evening hours, and dozed her mornings and afternoons away fluffed up on Gaster's pillow.
“There are visitors here for you,” he murmured, mischief just barely hidden behind his eye. “Well, they were here for me…but they wish to speak with you, if you would.”
You nodded, happy to play along with the mystery if it made him happy. It was probably the leaders of one of the old houses of the city. “Of course. Should I get changed?” Your clothes were comfortable, linens and cottons. They were light and airy, and while finer than your wardrobe of a month before, were still less than formal.
Gaster snapped his fingers, and all ten arrows flew backwards through the air into his fist- you scoffed in jealousy. “I don't think so. They're in work clothes themselves- we've been busy. Something, or more likely someone, is testing the city wards. We have been discussing ways to make it a most unpleasant experience for them.”
So distracted were you by your little Birdie, and by your lover’s unusual, but not unwelcome, near-giddiness, that you didn’t notice the edge of brilliant, polished gold armor just visible around the front of his main veranda, nor the lingering servants who grouped up to whisper nearby. No, Gaster was leading you through one of the many back doors of the house, and so charmed and engrossed by him were you, (stupid, gullible thing that you were) that you didn't even notice when the two guardsmen at the door tried frantically to sign for your attention as you passed.
No, you followed him completely unsuspectingly through the administrative wings and into the main sitting rooms of his house, laughing at his description of Snarl's absolute frustration that morning as you stepped through the doorway…
…
Where you came face to face with the Queen Mother, Goddess Toriel Dreemurr, and the Lord Father, God Asgore Dreemur, as they sat speaking softly to each other on one of Gaster's larger, comfortable couches. The very air around them glittered with starlight; tiny galaxies and storms of stardust gathered in the rafters above them and clung to their fur, casting a cool, brilliant light that was completely separate from the lamps within the house, or the golden sun outside. It was the Holy Night made manifest, so close you could touch it.
Then the Queen Mother turned her head, her scarlet eyes as bright as blood as they met your own, and a sensation like a fishhook yanking behind your bellybutton jerked through you. Reality tore away- nothing was left, nothing existed, for nothing could be as real, as perfect or beatified, as the being that now beheld you.
...
...
...
You, truly, felt your heart stop dead in your chest.
Gaster, in the middle of calling a greetings to his cousin and cousin-in-law, felt your hand leave his. He looked down just in time to see your knees collapse as you crumpled to the floor, your forehead pressed to its polished, inlaid planks, your hands placed before you in the great supplication.
He'd never, in all the years he'd known you, seen you so terrified, your eyes so wide that they looked almost grotesque before you pressed your face to the wood, bowing as deeply as was possible to your King and Queen. The corner of his Soul that was yours, in which he could feel you at all times, went completely, paralytically silent with awe and fear. Then you started to shake, trembling from head to toe, while Birdie cheeped an alarm and began tugging upwards on locks of your hair, as if trying to pull you upright again.
“...I see.” His cousin's musical voice was gentle, its overtones chiming softly off the high ceilings of the room like the faint echoes of a choir before Gaster could even react beyond staring at you in growing horror and realization. “Husband, come.” Toriel pulled Asgore to his feet, and led him out into Gaster's inner gardens on the opposite side of the room. Before she closed the sliding door behind themselves, she turned and pointed at him. “You, of all, should have known. Should have warned. She is sick with terror. Fix this.”
The moment Toriel was out of sight, Gaster bent and tried to pull you to your feet- you were breathing in tiny, wracking gasps, as if your throat had closed on itself. “Fuck me blind, I'm sorry- no, please. My love, look at me. I…I am foolish, I was only happy for you to meet-” It was pointless- your face was gray, your limbs trembling in his hold, your wide eyes fixated first on the door where his family had stepped out, and then on the stars softly whirling in the distant rafters above. He tried again, not wanting to just pick you up if you were this scared.
Finally, seeing nothing else to do...he knelt beside you and pulled you against his chest, murmuring nonsense and rocking you slightly, while putting his hand over your eyes so that you couldn't continue staring upward.