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Meine Liebe AU fic: Foolishness
923 words. Very AU. PG/15. Implied het.
In the aftermath of Ishtar Vermillion... (Referencing episodes five & eight)
Hopefully without editorial errors that I didn’t catch because I’ve been staring at my monitor for too long already.
Foolishness
Disclaimer: Meine Liebe belongs to Konami, Yuki Kaori and others.
Particularly AU.
++++++++++
The episode with Ishtar Vermillion had potentially been disastrous or so Ludwig reflected several weeks later. That such a girl would calmly claim an equal footing with the Strahl candidates was horrific. It was an abomination to even consider it. A woman had no place among the ranks of Strahl, no possible reason to believe that she could be anything beyond what it was given her place to be. She couldn’t; it was impossible, irrational, disreputable; which upon critical consideration made Ludwig the greatest fraud of the lot.
Or at least it would have done if family and means had not required it. If the Herzogin von Mohn nahe Liechtenstein had not been of so frail a constitution that it was feared that she might never live to bear any sons.
It had, at the time, probably made a terrible, rational sense to falsify birth records and swear physician and immediate family to secrecy about what should have been the celebrated birth of a daughter.
Ludwig sighed. Of course it made sense. It would have been disastrous to have such a prominent family saddled with only a girl-child who would have been bartered and bargained for in much the same way as the unfortunate Hartvich girl.
It made perfect sense.
Except sometimes it didn’t make any sense at all. Particularly after the departure of one Ishtar Vermillion and the public humiliation it had necessitated. Because it wasn’t as if Ludwig could afford to let her slip away quietly and let things go unremarked upon. The position of their family, her position as a Strahl candidate had to be protected at all cost. Which in the end had removed all possibility of… anything.
A few days after that girl had left, packed up like a damsel in her virginal white and sent back to practice her needle-craft, after the adrenalin rush had faded, Ludwig had been left to consider matters from a more stark perspective.
Alone in her rooms, with both outer and inner doors locked and the bedroom curtains tightly drawn, with only the lowest flicker of an oil lamp for lighting she’d stripped slowly, methodically and had stared morosely at her reflection in the mirror. Normally she didn’t look, tried to avoid catching the slightest reflection in the mirror when she dressed, changing from modest school uniform to primly covering night attire. This time she stopped and stared hard at her reflection.
It was an unforgiving sight.
Tall, pale, far too thin. Awkwardly narrow hips, far too broad shoulders, absolutely no hint of a female bosom. Limbs that were too long, too gangly. The only female notion the absence of an obvious maleness between her legs.
Long, sour-looking face, thin lips, thin eyes…
There was nothing lovely about her at all, nothing that might ever deserve to be called beautiful or desirable. How could she even presume to call herself female when she looked like this?
It had been days till she could bear even the most casual glimpse of her own reflection afterwards. It had been a supreme act of stupidity to even consider any of it at all. Absolute foolishness to want to breakdown or cry or scream that she didn’t want to be a boy.
She didn’t want to be female anyway. It was just an illusion, an idea of something romantic and futile. If she were female, she would be trapped like some foolish moth behind glass, beating its wings in a desperate urge to be consumed by flame.
She wasn’t a moth and if she had to be anything, she’d rather be the all-consuming flame.
To be female was to be weak and controlled. Used by husband and society because it was implicit that rank and title and duty evinced a certain degree of misogyny, and the argument that a woman couldn’t be a misogynist was really about as valid as the suggestion that an aristocrat would be egalitarian just because his dearest friend had been born a commoner.
Except that last one was actually fairly negotiable.
“You’re such a little bitch.”
“So I am.” She’d smiled indulgently at the man in her bed.
He’d leaned over and kissed her. “Except when you’re being kind.”
“I’m remarkably unkind most of the time, you realise.”
“I know. You’re always trying so hard to make us hate you.”
“Well, it’s not my fault that you’re ignoble.”
He’d laughed. “Nobility is a joke.”
“So it is but I suppose you could say the same thing about masculine perception.”
“You’re such a misandrist, Lui.”
“And you’re a filthy, common-born whore.”
That had provoked another bout of laughter.
“I can’t help that I’m right.”
“You really are terrible.”
And she’d smiled up at the canopy of the bed, not at all opposed to the feel of his hands on her thighs as he’d slid down beneath the covers once more.
In the end it was all about sex and power and being able to use both to her advantage really. Which meant that she wasn’t so very different from the girl she destroyed at all. And she almost couldn’t help but think about it.
“You shouldn’t let it bother you.”
“I… Eduard, she was almost the same as…”
“No, she wasn’t.”
She was momentary confused by the sudden weight of truth behind his words, until his grin became vicious.
“Her mother really was a whore.”
“Eduard, how…”
“My father’s current mistress was her teacher.”
And she found that her smile was sharper than usual, a strange counterpoint to his delightfully cruel laugh.
++++++++++
Meine Liebe as an entirely unpleasant world: an experiment for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lanithro.
In the aftermath of Ishtar Vermillion... (Referencing episodes five & eight)
Hopefully without editorial errors that I didn’t catch because I’ve been staring at my monitor for too long already.
Foolishness
Disclaimer: Meine Liebe belongs to Konami, Yuki Kaori and others.
Particularly AU.
++++++++++
The episode with Ishtar Vermillion had potentially been disastrous or so Ludwig reflected several weeks later. That such a girl would calmly claim an equal footing with the Strahl candidates was horrific. It was an abomination to even consider it. A woman had no place among the ranks of Strahl, no possible reason to believe that she could be anything beyond what it was given her place to be. She couldn’t; it was impossible, irrational, disreputable; which upon critical consideration made Ludwig the greatest fraud of the lot.
Or at least it would have done if family and means had not required it. If the Herzogin von Mohn nahe Liechtenstein had not been of so frail a constitution that it was feared that she might never live to bear any sons.
It had, at the time, probably made a terrible, rational sense to falsify birth records and swear physician and immediate family to secrecy about what should have been the celebrated birth of a daughter.
Ludwig sighed. Of course it made sense. It would have been disastrous to have such a prominent family saddled with only a girl-child who would have been bartered and bargained for in much the same way as the unfortunate Hartvich girl.
It made perfect sense.
Except sometimes it didn’t make any sense at all. Particularly after the departure of one Ishtar Vermillion and the public humiliation it had necessitated. Because it wasn’t as if Ludwig could afford to let her slip away quietly and let things go unremarked upon. The position of their family, her position as a Strahl candidate had to be protected at all cost. Which in the end had removed all possibility of… anything.
A few days after that girl had left, packed up like a damsel in her virginal white and sent back to practice her needle-craft, after the adrenalin rush had faded, Ludwig had been left to consider matters from a more stark perspective.
Alone in her rooms, with both outer and inner doors locked and the bedroom curtains tightly drawn, with only the lowest flicker of an oil lamp for lighting she’d stripped slowly, methodically and had stared morosely at her reflection in the mirror. Normally she didn’t look, tried to avoid catching the slightest reflection in the mirror when she dressed, changing from modest school uniform to primly covering night attire. This time she stopped and stared hard at her reflection.
It was an unforgiving sight.
Tall, pale, far too thin. Awkwardly narrow hips, far too broad shoulders, absolutely no hint of a female bosom. Limbs that were too long, too gangly. The only female notion the absence of an obvious maleness between her legs.
Long, sour-looking face, thin lips, thin eyes…
There was nothing lovely about her at all, nothing that might ever deserve to be called beautiful or desirable. How could she even presume to call herself female when she looked like this?
It had been days till she could bear even the most casual glimpse of her own reflection afterwards. It had been a supreme act of stupidity to even consider any of it at all. Absolute foolishness to want to breakdown or cry or scream that she didn’t want to be a boy.
She didn’t want to be female anyway. It was just an illusion, an idea of something romantic and futile. If she were female, she would be trapped like some foolish moth behind glass, beating its wings in a desperate urge to be consumed by flame.
She wasn’t a moth and if she had to be anything, she’d rather be the all-consuming flame.
To be female was to be weak and controlled. Used by husband and society because it was implicit that rank and title and duty evinced a certain degree of misogyny, and the argument that a woman couldn’t be a misogynist was really about as valid as the suggestion that an aristocrat would be egalitarian just because his dearest friend had been born a commoner.
Except that last one was actually fairly negotiable.
“You’re such a little bitch.”
“So I am.” She’d smiled indulgently at the man in her bed.
He’d leaned over and kissed her. “Except when you’re being kind.”
“I’m remarkably unkind most of the time, you realise.”
“I know. You’re always trying so hard to make us hate you.”
“Well, it’s not my fault that you’re ignoble.”
He’d laughed. “Nobility is a joke.”
“So it is but I suppose you could say the same thing about masculine perception.”
“You’re such a misandrist, Lui.”
“And you’re a filthy, common-born whore.”
That had provoked another bout of laughter.
“I can’t help that I’m right.”
“You really are terrible.”
And she’d smiled up at the canopy of the bed, not at all opposed to the feel of his hands on her thighs as he’d slid down beneath the covers once more.
In the end it was all about sex and power and being able to use both to her advantage really. Which meant that she wasn’t so very different from the girl she destroyed at all. And she almost couldn’t help but think about it.
“You shouldn’t let it bother you.”
“I… Eduard, she was almost the same as…”
“No, she wasn’t.”
She was momentary confused by the sudden weight of truth behind his words, until his grin became vicious.
“Her mother really was a whore.”
“Eduard, how…”
“My father’s current mistress was her teacher.”
And she found that her smile was sharper than usual, a strange counterpoint to his delightfully cruel laugh.
++++++++++
Meine Liebe as an entirely unpleasant world: an experiment for the
lanithro.