All Hail the Queen (Famine/Privet)

Outside the castle’s dark and foggy windows moonlit snowdrifts piled against white walls, It's battlements glistened with ice in the crystal cold air. The inside seemed to be a stark contrast to the winter wonderland. Low lighting and half-shut drapes painted the walls black. The room couldn't be any darker. The light that struggled through reflected to reflect upon the white marble masked in the darkness, making it look as though they were walking down a grey lake. The walls could be any shade at all, Famine couldn’t particularly tell.

The witch blinked, eye-lashes batting away the smoke that came with the exhale from Sol’s pipe and her eyebrow raised up at the mentioning of plans. So this was a date… And unfortunately, Famine felt herself… growing bored. Famine had never been one to relax, to celebrate. Her schedule consisted of planning, hating things she couldn’t change about Fiore, doubting her ability to raise her son, and berating her guild members who slacked or failed to complete the tasks she asked. It wasn’t the most innovative lifestyle, especially with how much Basilisk Fang had failed as of late.

“Considerate, what you’ve arranged.” Famine said bluntly, glancing around the tidy premises of the castle. “But I wasn’t prepared to be showered with any sort of affection today. I’m not even sure what kind of prying you had to of done to find out about today but I’d stay out of the records.” Famine said, expressing her discomfort, tattooed arms crossing over her chest. She wondered if he thought a date would be as easy as dinner and dancing. Few things in the world excited Famine nowadays; winning, karma, vengeance, the degrading of others, and undivided allegiance towards her.

Famine’s gaze dropped to the file Sol held in front of her, eyes burning into the fairy watermark across the front. When she took it from him she clutched the ends of the folder tightly, cardstock bending between her fingers. Inside the file, along with other varieties of papers and business cards, where all of her previous jobs requests from Fairy Tail. Some had edges that were burned by the flame of a foe, others were crumpled and had their own grass stains where they'd stuck out of her pocket in the middle of a battle. The dusty pamphlets sat with receipts for all the lemonaids she’d buy herself, Lance, and Heero at the bar in the guild for lunches. Her hand slid into the vat of memories and plucked up a slightly heavier object. Once she fished it out and held it in front of her.

A photograph, that was all it took for the tears to burst her dam of restraint. A narrow wood picture clutched tightly in her hands. Famine was able to see a ghostly reflection of her face in the thin sheet of glass that covered it. She looked past her own dreary eyes and stared at The faces that had been caught in a moment of perfection. It was the happiest memories that hurt the worst, they were the ones that cut her deepest.

A frozen image of her, once with long brunette hair, sitting at that same guild bar. Her elbow lodged into Heero’s jaw mid-jab, Lance sat on the stool beside them with a girl with pink hair in his lap, Lea, both grinning. Famine focused in on his eyes, they were glistening with the laughter that she once loved. Now, they laughed at her. They reminded her of what she had lost. She clutched the frame tight, pressing it hard to her breasts wishing to feel his head resting on them one last time. It was in that moment Famine realized she no longer knew how she felt. She was numb, yet somehow in agony. She longed to be free of what she left behind, yet she wanted it back more than she’d ever wanted anything. All of her strength vanished, her legs tired and crumpled fell to her knees without so much of another word up to Sol.

Sol knelt down to Famine slowly and pulled the shadow mage closer to him, wrapping his arms around her. His embrace was warm, and his strong arms seemed very protective when wrapped around Famine’s frail body. Blue eyes lidded slightly, her eyes to the floor and the world around her melted away as she squeezed him back, not wanting the moment to end. Her tattooed arms which clutched onto the fragment of the past weakened and the frame slid out and hit the ground by her knee with a clatter. The sheet of glass cracked and pieces slid around the floor like pieces of shattered ice.

The embrace was a simple enough response to her solemn - affection, perhaps the fragile beginnings steps away from her infatuation and of love. The arms that held her were soft, yet strong. The feel of her body so close up to his chest soothed her more than she had expected, more than the numbers of time’s she's slept with him. But within seconds Famine pulled away gently, her mind swam not with the heady passion of her and Sol’s relationship but with thoughts of the boy with dark hair in the photograph, Lance. Why after so long? Perhaps her the way Sol had come to her aid was the same, maybe that was it.

A palm came up to her face to sheepishly wipe her eyes, tucking a stray strand of her dirty blonde locks away. Famine cleared her throat as though to swallow down her anxieties once and for all. “I’m… Sorry, you had to see me like this.” Famine muttered sincerely, thoroughly embarrassed to see her ace witness her in this kind of state. She attempted to gather the rest of her bearings that moment.

Famine's eyes shifted to the side again and stayed glazed with a glassy layer of tears. As she blinked, they dripped from her eyelids and slid down her cheeks. She bit her lip tightly in attempt to hide any sound that wanted to escape from her mouth; her heart remained sunk.

Her lower lip quivered as words slowly made their way out of her mouth. “I'm fine." She began, yet what followed was engulfed in the tremors.

And by her definition she was fine.

She was just in grief, birthday or no birthday.Like emptiness in her black heart, a shear of nothingness that somehow takes over and holds a soul and threatens to kill you entirely. It gives a heavy feeling that’s like the weight of the world is resting on shoulders and there is nothing that can be done to get out from under it. It's the hole in a heart that is the shape of the one you lost-- In this case her guild, her family.