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s**t.

s**t.

s**t.

A loud shrill beeeeep continued to scream overhead as Ursula scrambled around the small kitchen, her chanting as almost as high pitched as the smoke detector.

"oh god oh god oh goooooood!"

The twenty-two year old wailed as she grabbed the dishtowel and yanked out the tray in the oven. The goddamn man didn't even have ******** oven mitts around this goddamn place!

She let out a whimper as the tray came crashing down onto the sink, the heat burning through the towel onto her hand. The bread on the tray had already managed to burn itself to a nice charred state while she'd been attempting to rescue the now gummy and ruined pasta, and she wasn't even about to investigate the sauce.

Turning her head, she noticed the flicker of fire over on the sauce pan.

Okay, so maybe she would investigate the sauce.

She flipped the cold water on and briefly dunked her pale hand under the water, a fierce red spot beginning to surface on her palm. A second later and she was lifting the saucepan up with both hands, wincing as her burned hand forced itself around the handle, and she quickly shoved the growing fire under the running water, the sauce, like the noodles and bread, far too ******** ruined to bother with.

Tears of frustration were welling up in her eyes. God damn it, things just WEREN'T going her way tonight!

The beep of the newly added smoke detector (she thought it'd help a certain someone curb their indoor smoking habit) had finally reached her patience's limit, and Ursula grabbed the dripping saucepan and stormed around the wall to the alarm. Lifting the metal pan, she sent it crashing down onto the smoke detector, slinging water and sauce remains against the wall as the small circular detector let out a final BeeeEeeEee-- before finally dying on the ground.

Huffing to herself, she yanked her cell phone off the counter and pressed her fifth speed dial number. She'd be damned if dinner was ruined at this point, not when she'd already set up the meeting, not when everything was already planned.

Brushing loose strands of hair from her face (and smearing sauce on her forehead in the process), frustrated Ursula waited through the ringing and breathed a sigh of relief when a voice answered on the other end.

________________________________________

Thirty minutes later, she was cleaned up, hand bandaged, and the table was set. Well. Sort of, at least. Instead of cups there were cans of diet soda (the only kind she'd buy!), the plates were paper, and the silverware was clearly as old as she was.

Ursula, on the other hand, didn't really ******** care, at this point.

In the middle of the table sat a box, a large vegetarian pizza sitting within it. To the side, a bowl of salad, the one ******** thing she hadn't ruined that evening (though nobody would dare mention the fact it was premixed salad, so the only preparation needed was opening and dumping it into the bowl).

They would eat this, and they would <******** like it, as far as she was concerned.

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, she slumped down into one of the chairs. She'd opted to ignore the mess in the kitchen to spend the rest of the time cleaning her own self up. A short skirt, simple blouse, flats. Just a regular evening with her fiance and soon-to-be stepson. It would be okay. It would be okay.

Oh, who the ******** was she kidding?

Tonight was going to be hell.

Khaldun stood warily outside the door of Charonite’s apartment. This in itself was odd – the man usually worked out of his office. Or the track and field. Frankly, anywhere but the literal lair of the beast. Khaldun could admit with relief he'd only ever had to come here a handful of times, though unlike with Ursula, the sparse decoration didn't seem to strike him as odd - Hillworth dorms weren't a whole lot different, and these were for the longest time the only living quarters Khal had ever laid eyes on. The teen was dressed as casually as possible, and in fact for once he sported a sweatshirt, hood pulled up to shade his face and hide his hair. Not that it was cold – he would have walked miles in the frigid air in only a short-sleeved shirt to advertise his heavy metal band logos – but that he really did not want to be seen or recognized if he had to come here. He hoped this wasn’t about Audrey, because he’d made sure to be a lot more discreet about where they messed around together – places with four walls and a door, for instance. And a bed, though he was sufficiently put off from looking into its uses for the time being. He was being what he considered very careful. Maybe this was some bullshit about his job - he'd been keeping up with his work! Admittedly closer to the bare minimum, but it was still far more than doing nothing.

His hood was stil up as he continued to stare at the door. The message he'd received earlier today had been very clear that he was to come here, now, for something. No name. If this was a prank, it was one hell of a prank, and Khaldun would tip his nonexistent hat to such a knowledgable individual before his life was ended prematurely. If this was serious, it was still a deadly trap. His hand wrapped itself tightly around the written note he'd been passed in English, proof that he wasn't just here because he was feeling suicidal.

He took a deep breath, let it out, and rapped a knuckle on the door slowly two times.

Suitably thrown off-balance, he put down the water-bottle and strode to the door as suspicious as the General-King could be -- and when he opened it to see Khaldun Cilentani, dressed in a hoodie and looking as though he would rather be getting a root canal, he did the sensible thing: he closed the door again.

Except then his loving fiancée, half-risen from the table, snapped out: "Jesus Christ! Goddamnit!" in her light, lilting voice, with every sign of Berylesque annoyance -- it should have made him proud. At this clear sign of displeasure, he very reluctantly opened up the door again, staring on what was on the other side as though massively pissed-off that he had the temerity to still be standing there. With a jerk of his head, he curtly let Khaldun know he should be god damned coming in.

And shut the door behind him so that he couldn't escape.

The change in the apartment -- the apartment Khaldun had seen before -- was a little humiliating; the General-King said nothing. His stare was over to his Captain, though, and they truly were engaged, because he was already trying to communicate solely through eye language: YOU INVITED KHALDUN?

Her scowl at his initial reaction quickly morphed into a forced smile as the young man sauntered into the apartment. Orange eyes met with ghostly gray ones as she shot back an equally challenging message of: You can cut that s**t out right now as she rose completely from her chair, motioning Khaldun to sit down at the one across from the two chairs sitting alongside each other. She'd debated sitting next to Khaldun throughout the explanation he was about to receive, but decided that firstly, that would put her far too close in range of the silverware and secondly, she needed to ensure that even the General-King did not stand up and walk away from the awkward conversation to come.

Had she been less stressed than she was over the disaster zone the kitchen was currently in, Ursula might have shown a semblance of embarrassment for the less than formal table set up. It was alright, though. She would be forcing her husband-to-be to go hunting for china patterns soon enough.

Waving her hands over, she continued to usher both men to the table. "C'mon, we can do this... s**t over dinner. We need to talk. About stuff. But the pizza's getting cold."

Her bandaged hand lifted back the flap of the box, revealing what was (at least to Khaldun), probably the most disappointing pizza that could be found in Destiny City. Covered in vegetables, it was the perfect sort of junk food, in Ursula's opinion, for two males in desperate need of nutrition. Give them health food while they chow down on junk, right?

Slinking back down into her own chair, she popped open the top to her soda and took a long, hard chug. God, what she wouldn't give for a bit of rum right now to go with it.

The teenager turned his attention on the table. What would be a marginally welcome sight to the average teenager appeared to him as an oversized puzzle upon which his life hung in the balance. He was most unfortunately transfixed by the seating arrangement It was a dinner table set for three, which was perfectly normal. He'd be on one side, and the General-King and the Captain would be on the other, were on the other, staring back at him, which was perfectly abnormal. After all, the General-King was whatever the opposite you would consider a friend, while at the same time family in a perpendicular sense of the word. And Nealite was... Nealite. Indescribable. Responsible for this. It was extremely difficult to find any words to say to the sight in front of him. After the gawking time began to border on uncomfortable, the teen gave up and took his chances with sitting in the chair. He waited for something to happen - something to cut off his head, or maybe a godforsaken youma would jump out at him from behind the cushion-covered couch not far away, because for all he knew he was still at Barren Pines in one of those crazy 'tests'. Maybe this was an extra-horrible nightmare brought on by not getting enough sleep in general. He didn't get so lucky - his head was still firmly attached to his neck, and he didn't god-damn dream anything with the General-King in it, ever.

The cryptic conversation only served to boost Khal's suspicions that Charonite was about to come out of a closet of some kind. 'Gay as a maypole', 1, 'girls have cooties', 0. He raised his eyebrows slightly, but said nothing. His hood was still on over his head, as though he expected an escape route to manifest in the next minute - it was all turning out to be very classy so far in the Killingworth apartment.

Khaldun was watching the proceedings in complete silence. Once the others had had an opportunity to take a piece of pizza, Khaldun turned the cardboard box lightly with his fingers. He extricated a greasy pile of cheese and vegetables and plopped it down on the plate as though to say 'oh come on, I know it's poisoned'. His eyes were wide and confused like an owl's the whole time, and every single thing he saw now was raising a very gaudy red flag in his mind. This whole situation was so far beyond adrenaline that Khaldun felt numb. Not even bothering to look down, his fork he jabbed at what could have, in some previous incarnation, been a mushroom, but what was now only a soggy brown something, and tore it away from the cheese. Down it dropped, into the corner of the plate, and the fork maneuvered to take another shot at the unfortunate foodstuff. Trying to converse with the General-King was an exercise in futility. Once Khaldun was reassured his voice hadn't fled in fear, he ventured a fragment of a question in Nealite's direction. ". . . Tell me what?"

Charonite at least acquitted himself better than Khaldun, who was busy performing a pizzaectomy on the meal by carefully stripping the pizza of its vegetable content. Charonite was at least eating his. This wasn't really a massive step up considering that, yes, the General-King was thirty-five and Khaldun was a teenager, but it was something. You had to think positive in the man who was going to take you in unholy matrimony.

He glared at her. She was starting to be able to deflect the scowling. Instead, he focused on his pizza as though it would provide answers and succor, and eventually came out with tersely --

"Captain Nealite has been gifted."

There was no expected reaction to this. He continued, "Queen Beryl is the rightful ruler of the Negaverse and heir to Earth's throne. The Captain proved herself worthy, and to make a long story god damned short to get it into your head, she's now ascended to be your god damned majesty, all right? I was going to make a mass meeting of the Negaverse, but here's it straight: she is your ******** Queen. You will address her as such. You'll treat her as such. Don't give away her identity in public, but in private you will call her what she deems acceptable, which will ******** be -- don't argue with me, Ursula -- your highness. Your majesty. Ma'am. Don't act as though you were brought up in a god damned barn."

Whatever Khaldun had expected to come out of that closet, it wasn't that.

"Also we're engaged."

It came out as a curt mutter.

Ursula had held her breath at the General-King's last mutter, her eyes moving to stare down at her own plate, swallowing the remaining bits of veggie pizza.

She wasn't ashamed. Ashamed was not the word for this situation. Nervous. She was nervous over how Khaldun would respond. How he would react and take the news. The soul was one thing, sure, but her biggest concern, setting aside the fact she was now the ******** Queen of the Negaverse, was Khaldun overreacting to the news he was going to have a stepmother of sorts in the near future.

Khaldun was a confused kid. A really confused kid. For as long as she'd known him, he had been paranoid, distant, a loner. They had somehow, against all odds, formed an awkward friendship of sorts. Almost like siblings. During the past year, they'd betrayed and stood by one another, they'd fought together and against each other.

This time, though, she wanted to beat him to the goddamn punch before he found out the news through other means. If there was one thing that would seal the deal completely on Khaldun hating her forever, it would be finding out this information from a third party.

No, he needed to be told. He needed to understand that while Charonite had a ******** lousy way to show any sort of fatherly attention towards him, that Charonite was still there for him. And, now, Ursula was there as well to help him... only now, they would be linked through family.

Shifting uncomfortably in her chair, she debated on stuffing her face once more to avoid the inevitable confrontation. Instead, she sucked in a deep breath, and nodded her head as she exhaled.

"Your f-Charonite," she started, catching herself as quickly as she could, "He proposed to me. I said yes. We're going to be married."

The silence in the air was nerve wracking, and Ursula was unable to take much more. Bolting up from her chair, she stared down at her half eaten pizza, thoughts racing wildly.

"Ice cream. I have ice cream. Anyone want ice cream?"

Eyes moved from Charonite to Khaldun, then back to her betrothed. Without waiting another moment for a response, she turned and high-tailed it away from the table and towards the freezer stocked full of delicious comfort food.

Wait, wasn't she the one who was supposed to keep the others at the table?

Never mind what Khaldun had been thinking before, this was a nightmare. It was too much to consider all at once. If he had more time and less overall confusion from the situation he was in, maybe he would be able to carefully dissect every aspect of that curt answer before Nealite bolted from the makeshift dining room table. Nealite. Was. Getting. Married. To. Charonite. The same Charonite who'd pulled her around by her hair over petty indiscretions. The same Charonite who took every opportunity to belittle and abuse Khaldun. The same Charonite who had been rather adamant that girls were nothing but trouble and Khaldun wasn't allowed to 'get involved' with them. And Nealite was choosing this monster in the end. It was as good as a slap in the face, as good as several. It was a betrayal that was, while not unimaginable, still akin to sharply twisting the knife. His legal ******** guardian, his future ******** stepmother, his so-called parents would be the General-King and Queen of the ******** Negaverse. And he'd lose the closest thing he had to a friend, to family, forever, even as they formally became it. The teen didn't stop and consider that Nealite had arranged all this to prevent exactly this sort of reaction - he just began to react. The feeling started off very cold and numb, like ice, spreading throughout his nerves, the shock of simply hearing the news. And then, as his mind worked to make sense of it, the cold was replaced by a fire kindled deep inside him.

He waited until he could hear Nealite rummaging in the kitchen for god knows what. Vegetable ice cream? Khaldun had a look on his face that would have been far more natural-looking on a basilisk, stonier than stony. He was angry. Extremely angry. On par with Charonite, though that sort of comparison would only have served to make it worse. He stared across the table directly at the General-King. To prevent him from making the sort of hasty, violent decisions he'd like to make at this moment, he was internalizing the white-hot rage at an admirable pace, like swallowing pure, undiluted hydrochloric acid. He was fighting a primal urge to grab the fork and knife at his disposal and use them for the weapons they ought to be, though the farthest he got with that was some involuntary twitching of his fingers. He was so angry he was sick, but he managed to at least stop himself from moving in his chair, or getting up, or running. Something he might regret. Unfortunately, it was not fast or efficient enough to keep him from opening his mouth. There were, for perhaps the first time in a long time, no formalities. He was way past formalities.

"So," Khaldun began in a pleasant tone loosely wrapped around a venomous one, "you've never been involved with a woman?"