you're too young & eager to love

This was supposed to be the opening section of a much larger piece. But it's been sitting around for so long that I forgot where I was supposed to be going with it. Figured I could post this bit at least.


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Augusta has grown.

It's the first thing Maximus thinks as he's lead into Albtraum's executive suite. They've had the generators restored since The Incident, but he can see that they're supplementing the emergency lighting with candles, so the room is full of shadows. There's a low fire burning in a stone hearth, and the smell of cinder is everywhere. In the middle of it all, his daughter sits. Pretentious. Self-Assured. Vindicated.

Augusta is his eldest, but Maximus sometimes confuses her for another one of his offsprings, one of his younger daughters from his third wife. He's less surprised by her demeanor and more surprised that she's at the writing desk, a gigantic structure made of solid oak, square and masculine in its cut. Harrow had always leaned against it when entertaining diplomats or conducting meetings, but Augusta claims the center seat. Her ankles are crossed one over the other, modest-like, one foot bare, her left toes balancing inside the tortuous straps of a leather stiletto. It's only when she tilts her head up at the sound of his approaching that he sees the full length of her face, all the dips and planes that adulthood has sharpened and life has weathered.

She's beautiful, but she makes no attempt to hide her cruelty from her beauty. No amount of cosmetics could soften the hardness of her mouth, of her eyes. Her hair falls against one side of her face and down her back, the ends blunt and harsh. Her nails are clear and sharp.

"Do you want me to make nice?" Augusta asks by way of greeting, pausing in her writing. The tip of her fountain pen hovers, bold with fresh ink, above a stack of official looking letters. "Father arrives and corrals the disobedient children?"

Maximus wraps his knuckles around the top of his cane and taps the tiled floor absently. "This is why I married you off," he says at last, "because of your untempered spirit."

Beside Augusta, a predator cat growls, the sound low and threatening. The hair on the back of its neck rises, a rigid line following the length of its spine. It's too large to be anything but a shifter, and even next to that gigantic desk, it looks huge. For one brief moment, before he can compose himself, Maximus is startled. He hadn't noticed the beast laying beside Augusta, it's gold eyes full of intelligence and anger. A younger Maximus would have seen it immediately, but he hasn't been young for some time. He's nearing eighty. His eyes are milky, and he needs his cane more than he would like to admit. There's not much left beneath his expensive suit; he used to be a broad bull of a man, but age has weakened him. Even his voice rasps with death.

Augusta is looking at him. She sits back in the chair and drops a hand to the mountain lion's head, the way one might do to a loyal dog, her fingers idling above its brow. Its amber hair smooths, but the creature keeps staring, its eyes as defiant as Augusta's.

"And how well did that work out, father? Or can you even remember?"

Harrow mumbles something unintelligible, the slurred words jerking into the conversation from behind Augusta. He's slumped in a corner chair, half folded into himself, his mouth slack from too much whiskey, his voice a croak of impotent anger. Maximus hadn't noticed him before either.

"What's that?" Augusta asks over her shoulder. Beneath her stroking fingers, the lion starts to purr. The sound is worse than its growl.

Maximus lifts his grey eyebrows, frowning. "Sober him up. He has work to do."

"No."

He looks as though lightning has struck him between the eyes. "What did you say?"

"I said no. In fact, let's bring him another bottle. If we're lucky, he'll drown himself in whiskey, and we can say goodbye to all his foolishness." She gestures to a plain girl in a khaki colored uniform, and the girl skitters off without hesitating.

Maximus stutters on his breath. Augusta waits, scratching behind the lion's ear, and it closes its bright eyes, it's tail making a lazy, long sweep above the floor. In the background, Harrow mutters a line from a lullaby and shifts drunkenly. His eyes are only half open, but they're red and unfocused. Maximus stares at his son, trying to will him into action by the sheer force of his gaze, but there's no power in his eyes anymore, and Harrow's too busy pining over his swan to notice. His swan and his kingdom and his pride.

Augusta clears her throat. Light. Demure. Ladylike.

"Was there anything else, father? Because if not, I have a number of correspondences to address to assure the remaining compounds." She flicks her pen with her right hand, gesturing to the letter.

Maximus' mouth is a thin, grim line. It's white and wrinkled, like the rest of him. For a moment, he considers confronting his eldest, of stalking forward and cracking his knuckles across her mouth the way he had when she was a child, the way he had when her mother had also become too impertinent for her own good. Again, his hand curls tight around his cane, and he shifts his weight. He manages one step closer before the lion's eyes have opened, have pinned him with their stare. It bares its teeth like it can read his thoughts.

"Let's discuss this more over dinner," Augusta suggests before she begins to write again, the scratch of the pen deafening. At the same time, the maid returns. She's carrying a fresh bottle of whiskey.