Fic: The Heart's Desire (Rivers of London)

Title: The Heart's Desire
Author: beatrice_otter 
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Abigail Kamara, Thomas Nightingale
Rating: General audiences
Length: 11k words
Written For: pendrecarc in the Five Figure Fanwork Exchange (fffx )
Summary: Abigail has earned her right to become a practitioner of magic. Now, the training begins.

At AO3. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.



Peter Grant, apprentice member of the Society of the Wise, Constable of the Metropolitan Police, had the unfortunate propensity to act (and speak) before thinking. In a crisis, this quickness was a decided virtue. If only he could learn to consider his actions more carefully in ordinary moments, Thomas reflected, he would be an exemplary wizard.

But such meticulousness was (for the moment) beyond him. Fortunately for all concerned, Peter had a certain amount of serendipitous luck to balance out the possible consequences of his thoughtlessness, and none of his rash actions (or words) had resulted in truly dire consequences so far. Indeed, several of them had turned out remarkably well, all things considered. Such was the case with his promise, two years earlier, that he would begin teaching magic to his cousin Abigail Kamara, should she pass her Latin A-levels.

The young Miss Kamara was, if anything, even more promising than her cousin. Quite intelligent, staunchly firm in her ethical thought (albeit occasionally in unorthodox ways), ferociously dedicated to pursuing her goals and—unlike Peter—not prone to distractions or leaping before she looked. All in all, Thomas Nightingale, Master of the Society of the Wise, Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, was quite looking forward to teaching her.
( That is, should her parents give consent. Which Peter had not considered when he so rashly promised that she should learn magic upon proving her proficiency in Latin. )

At AO3. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.

Fic: Majority (The Goblin Emperor)

Title: Majority
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor
Characters: Vedero, Sheveän, Nemriän
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 4877 words
Written for: calenlilly for worldbuildingex 
Summary: Vedero turns sixteen. She knows what she wants, and what is possible.

AN: Thank you to Gammarad for betaing and hermitknut for making up names. Thank you to the members of the Goblin Emperor discord for advice on timeline and relative ages. Yes, I am assuming that Arbelan is a decade older than TGE says, and was relegated for forty years by the time of TGE instead of the thirty years the book says, because otherwise the timeline and the relative ages of Varenechibel's children makes ZERO sense.

At AO3. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.


Vedero had known the summons was coming for quite some time, of course. As the fifth child and second daughter, the expectations of the court surrounding the celebration of her majority at the age of 16 were quite set. The child of an Emperor must receive all that was proper to their status. An income, for a start, in the form of rents from various of the Drazhada properties. (The boys had all gotten larger properties than Nemriän had or Vedero expected to.) But that was largely impersonal. Some more individual token was also appropriate … and Varenechibel IV did not know any of his children well enough to select something on his own.

Thus the interview.

Vedero stood before her father in a court dress perfectly suitable to the occasion and the season; she'd never cared much for fashion, but it was a tool she knew well how to use. Varenechibel sat behind his desk, with the nohecharei behind him and one of his flock of interchangeable secretaries off to the side.

"So," his father said. "Thou art becoming a woman, soon. What dost thou want? Nemriän requested a harp from the finest instrument maker in the Ethuveraz, but thou art not musical."

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