well behaved women

Title: Surrender
Author/Artist: shiegra
Fandom: Hellboy
Pairing/characters: Nuada/Nuala
Rating: NC17
Warnings: incest. iffy consent.
Prompt/challenge you're answering: Handcuffs/prison scenario



They came upon her unexpectedly.

Though of course they hunted her always, she had not been prepared for them and they had not been prepared for the Princess, down in the muck and flotsam of the Rolling Dens, the hem of her dark gown filthy, her hands worn and bruised. She'd come around a corner and frozen like a hare in the sights of a fox, they staring back in stark astonishment. If by nothing else, she is instantly recognizable by her scars.

She'd bled of those for weeks, healing slowly, her only comfort his strengthening presence to far away to touch with anything but her heart.

They had been as paralyzed with shock as she, and yet when she went taut in preparation to flee the shadows came alive, the members fanned out around her.

A soldier all bared gleaming bones and raven-dark feathers grinned, white teeth pale and stark in the gloom, and bowed. It didn't even look like a mockery. "Princess," he said, and there was no mistaking the rich satisfaction in his voice. Hands closed over her arms, and she knew her brother felt them, the pressure close to bruising, wondered if he understood their meaning--his emotions locked cold away--and exulted. "You will allow us to escort you."

The question, at last, held the mockery she had been waiting for.



They took her to a room that was cold and bare and left her there, alone, the walls striped with shapes like the ribs of an animal. She walked in tight circuits of the room, her restlessness scalding her inside her own skin.

She remembered the fish-man with his soft words and kind eyes and was glad, briefly, that she had not taken his offer. Had not placed he and his people within the line of fire.

Within the spectrum of the greater war, the battle that would wash their earth in blood and ravage it with butchery, this was the most deeply private war she could imagine. You can no longer find my heart, she thought fiercely, her fists pressed against her belly.

"Ah, sister," he said, too softly, behind her. "How pleasant to see you again."

He stood against the wall behind her, a dark shape against the bone-pale arch of the sealed door, a nightmare to many given stark flesh. He wore battledress of the most serviceable form, stark black and only barely armoured.

Nuala retreated to the center of the room. "Brother," she said, lifting her chin. She spoke in the tongue of humans.

He smiled slowly, acknowledging, and stood. "Where is the crown piece?" The words were cool, flat, slung out like knives in the thick air.

"I gave it to another for safekeeping," she said coolly. "You will not find it. Already it will have moved beyond my knowledge and your reach."

"I wonder," he said, "what you think to accomplish."

"Peace," she said, and kept the pleading from her voice with difficulty. Fruitless. Useless. "I only desire peace, brother. I desire no more bloodshed."

"And you believe that sparing them will achieve that?" His contempt scalded. "You, who watched our people die by the thousands on the battlefields--I recall your tears, sister, as I recall your vengeance. You held your tongue when he asked if any opposed, and it was as eloquent as my support. Their deaths struck compassion into your heart and that of our father, but no matter how many die, they will not extend us the same kindness."

"They no longer know us," she pleaded, recognizing it in her own voice. She held out her hands, desperate. "We are a dying whisper, Nuada. Let us go in peace, if we must. Not in bloodshed."

"We will not go." His voice could have cut, could have flayed. His eyes were cold, stark with bitter will. "If I must carve the way for our survival out of this world, then I will."

"I will not help you," she snapped.

His lips curved. "You need not," he remarked. "I have the way, sister-mine. All I need is the key. Give me the crown piece."

"I will not." She turned her back on him. "Do you not listen? It is no longer mine to give."

His breath stirred over her hair, the loudest warning she had. "You abandoned it to another's keeping?" He asked. He sounded amused. "You?" One hand touched her arm, trailing down to her hand. "Nuala, it has ended."

"No," she said unsteadily.

His hand slipped away. His head turned until his breath touched her throat, almost a kiss, just far enough. Gently he said, "Nuala, you should not lie to me."

She tore herself away, wheeling, skirts flaring out around her; ridiculously hampered by their weight. He stood where she had left him, only watching. "No matter father's efforts," he said, "no matter your defiance, I am yet a half of your soul. Do not lie to me."

"Very well," she said, her breath coming too quickly. "I will not give it to you. Do you taste a lie there, Nuada?"

His eyes trailed down and rested against her stomach. "You have grown better at hiding it," he said simply. "Give it to me, Nuala, or I will find it."

Nuala folded her arms around herself, fingers sliding into her sleeve. "I will not."

She drew the knife when he moved slightly, and he went still, regarding her steady grip, her set mouth.

Princess or no, she had trained with it. And they no longer knew each other like two sides of the same mirror, could no longer taste the other's intent before their own exhale.

His eyes moved up from the knife to her face, his still. "Nuala," he breathed, and a tremor wracked her.

She was fast enough to turn the knife and recoil, her body moving like a striking snake's, a fluid snap of muscle. But he caught her upper arm with the other hand, and as the blade opened a shallow gash along one hand, the same pain flared against her own and with a muted cry of agony she was forced to release the knife as he twisted it from her grasp.

And then he was holding her, breaking every boundary they'd held and kept, his hand tight on her arm, their blood mingling. "Nuala," he said, too low. "Give me the crown piece."

"There is no future to be had from fields of death, Nuada," she said desperately. "Do not do this."

"It is our only future," he said.

The movement was swift, light, and the touch so soft and strange she barely registered it. His mouth, on hers. An almost courtly touch, graceful and full of meaning. His grip branded her. Their fingers were wet and tangled, and he turned her hand over in his, pressed their palms.

She mouthed something against his lips even she didn't understand. His name, maybe, or a prayer to the earth, or some plea for sanity. Or no.

His teeth were against her lip, biting, and Nuala shuddered in his grip, helpless and trembling like a doll or a child. Her skirts moved against his legs. He did not let her go, and he did not give ground. Both of their hearts pounding crazily.

The air tasted of ash and dust, and he went to one knee before her, her skirts bunched in his fingers, eyes gleaming like an animal. She staggered back, found the bed she had been given, low and spare, with her knees. She did not mean to fall against it, but she did. He was not searching her. This was not a question.

"Nuala," he murmured, his fingers trailing up the inside of her thigh. She made a sound, a ragged hitching gasp.

"I won't let you win," she whispered, and he rose up to his knees as she struggled upright, fingers white-knuckled in the bedclothes and his touch branded her, on the inside of her thigh, fingers touching the crease of her hip.

He kissed her, too soft, near mocking but too hot for it. "As you will it, my lady," he agreed, and then he was touching her and it was still not a question, only hunger, and she cried out, shaken, and seized his arm, her fingers sinking down.

He was her brother. He was a monster.

For you, sister...anything.

His teeth bared, a smile nothing like human and nothing like tame. His touch wracked her; she shuddered, bucked, tried to breathe. Her barriers were fracturing; she could taste his satisfaction on the back of her tongue.

The pleasure rolled her under, but she didn't feel him in her head, looking, looking. Only in her mouth, and in her body, driving up against her; her thighs pinned open, his hungry mouth, his hands on her wrists and the shadow of him, there, always, so close after so long. He thrust into her, moving achingly slow, and each breath that ghosted across her skin wrung another cry from her.

She bit off a scream, the cries swallowed, her hips arching into his. He murmured to her in their birth tongue, almost a song, almost too soft to comprehend, voice more guttural by the second. She could hear her own voice--high, sharp gasps--and her dress tore, his mouth on her breast, teeth a hint of pressure on her nipple and she convulsed, her pleasure a blinding sharp-edged thing eclipsing her vision, swallowing her coherence. And then he was still moving in her, even slower, and she was almost so sensitive it hurt as she quaked around him, shaking, clenching. He snarled her name and his teeth sank into her shoulder as he came, and she realized their cut palms were pressed together, fingers twined, her nails digging into his skin.

When she settled fully back into her skin, eyes fluttering, she found him laying against her, sleek and lazy, her thighs still locked around his hips. With his free hand he traced the intricate gold of the crown piece in calm, lazy circles over her skin.