love at first sight

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan tires out his mate and leaves him asleep in his room. He goes downstairs to see what there is to see.

Oh. She's still there.

Well. He's not going to leave. She can leave. Fuck her. He's not going anywhere.

Comments

[luminous_regnant]

"...Let me go check the Belltower real quick."

Golden disappears, and reappears, and says:

"Stella owed her three wishes, and she collected."

[manofmyword]

"I'd say she's down one," says the Joker. "Oh, sweetie, she killed you. I'm sorry. I love you so much."

[temporal_affairs]

"I love you," murmurs Nathan. "I'm fine, babe, I'm fine now."

[manofmyword]

He presses his face against Nathan's shoulder for a moment, then glances back at Golden. "Thanks," he says softly.

[luminous_regnant]

"You're welcome," says Golden levelly. "I believe I will leave a strongly worded note for this Batlady at the bar."

[manofmyword]

"Don't let me stop ya," he says wryly, cuddling Nathan some more.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden writes.

"Bat":

You do not know me, but you know my alternate, "Stella". She's written in our template's shared room that she owed you three wishes. (In consideration for your secret identity she disclosed nothing further about why.) I was recently summoned to Milliways by the Joker, who needed me to revive one of my staff, Nathan - the Joker's boyfriend and the father of their small child - from the dead. The circumstantial evidence is extremely suggestive of your having killed Nathan with one of the wishes Stella gave you.

You may have intended some less fatal consequence from your wish, but in fact it's very difficult to incapacitate a vampire of the sort found in the world of Aurum without tearing one of us to pieces, burning us to ashes, or - as your wish appears to have done - starving us to death. You may have believed Nathan to be a threat to you, but his rendition of the events - which I believe - suggests that he merely startled you by standing up quickly.

In other words: you fucking hypocritical murderer, you killed one of my people in Milliways because he had the nerve to be vocal about not liking his mate's enemy and then he got out of his chair?

It is the good fortune of everyone involved that Stella's wishcoins, in sufficient size, prove able to revive the dead. Between the efforts of myself and the Joker, Nathan's fine. I'm leaving a note in the Belltower stating that you are not to be trusted with any further magic, and if Stella finds out what you did with her gifts, you may come to be unhappy that she can force the door to your world.

Sincerely,
Isabella Marie Swan Cullen, Empress Regnant of the Golden Empire

[pythbox]

A few seconds after Golden finishes writing, a young woman in a tank top and yoga pants with her hair in a ponytail emerges from the stairwell.

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan's nostrils flare.

"That's her, that's fucking her," he snarls.

[luminous_regnant]

"Is it?" Golden asks, and she crushes the note-in-progress in her hand. "I won't have to leave this, then."

And she stalks towards the uncostumed Bat, making no sudden moves more because she wants to be trackable than anything else. She's not scared. She's decked out in defensive stars.

[pythbox]

She freezes on the spot, looking from Golden to Nathan and back again.

[manofmyword]

"...Of course it is," the Joker murmurs, wrapping his arms around Nathan again and leaning into him. "Hah."

[luminous_regnant]

"You murdered my friend," Golden says in her pleasant bell-like voice, just shy of a purr. "You murdered a man with a three-week-old son at home. You murdered one of the people who, at significant personal risk and cost, was essential to my deposing a government that was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people per day. The only reason he's alive again is that I pulled out all the stops and deployed a level of magic that has been used exactly once before. Would you like to explain to me why I had to do that?"

[pythbox]

She glances between Golden and the Joker, then apparently gives up on maintaining the masquerade.

"Your 'friend' told me explicitly and repeatedly that he wanted to kill me," she says flatly. "And then he made a threatening move. I didn't want him dead, just incapacitated. But I didn't have a lot of time for finesse."

[temporal_affairs]

"I stood up," Nathan growls. "I got out of my seat. I wasn't going to kill you because that would've made him upset. And you started the conversation."

[pythbox]

She ignores him.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden wishes for the Bat's remaining hex or hexes.

One appears in her hand. "I don't think I can trust you with this," she says. "Maybe you can talk Stella into replacing it in spite of the note I'm going to leave in the Belltower. Maybe not. I really doubt she'd like it if she heard that she went to all the trouble of negotiating the Joker's move to my world and then you murdered his reason for going so nicely. Of course Nathan wants to kill you. You compromise his mate's attachment to him. I don't employ vampires who are incapable of wanting to kill someone and not doing it. I certainly don't employ vampires who are stupid enough to verbally announce their intention to kill someone who may or may not have the power to stop them before they do it. He was never going to kill you."

[temporal_affairs]

"It'd be fair, at this point," growls Nathan. "Turnabout."

[manofmyword]

"Sweetie," the Joker sighs. "Sweetie, no."

[pythbox]

...The look she gives them is composed of equal parts puzzlement and loathing.

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan hides his face in the Joker's shoulder. "She'd've half-orphaned our baby," he mumbles.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden wishes the hex onto her bandolier. "I think I'm going to stand here until you or they leave," she says mildly to Roberta.

[pythbox]

She looks at Golden, and looks at Nathan, and looks at the Joker.

(She looks at the Joker longest.)

Then she heads for the front door, and leaves by it.

[manofmyword]

"I know, honey," the Joker says soothingly. "But you're fine now, and I love you, and I don't want you to hurt her. Okay?"

[temporal_affairs]

"Can't now, anyway," mutters Nathan, "she's gone. God. I love you."