souridealist:

flashandthunderfire asked you: i just want all the fantasy aus today ok ROSE/DAVE COURT INTRIGUE AU

Their private code elevated itself to a language on their thirteenth birthday (the day their father died), and by now it’s almost more a way to read each others’ minds from the twist of a lip and the arc of a wrist – I don’t trust him, and but you trust me, and this one’s a risk we’ll have to take.

The whole court knows that he took an arrow for her in the Solstice Riots; two people in the world know that she took blow after blow to her pride to keep him the Strider heir when they were young, that they’ve slipped each other napkins-ful from banquets since the age of six, and still do whenever one can’t eat for fear of poison from a seatmate.

Between the two of them they keep John on the throne and gentle-handed, and every time her dress falls to her brother’s bedroom floor she tells herself that surely that’s enough to balance this betrayal out.