The Deck of Destiny - A Caraval Oneshot Collection

darling girl of stars ~ I

Setting: AU: Scarlett is a fate muahahaha
This was a request written back in June by 1AceClovers0

     "Daddy, someone's at the door," Scarlett called from the kitchen, finishing up what was left of the chocolate her father had given to her for her tenth birthday.

She tried to jump up to look through the peekhole, but she was too short. Just as Scarlett went to take a chair from the table to heighten herself, her father entered the kitchen.

"Relax, auhtara. Don't hurt yourself." His hand quickly smoothed over her hair as he bristled past her, hand already opening the door.

A man with blond hair with an apple in one hand, and an envelope in the other was waiting on the other side, and Scarlett could see bursts of orange hatred glooming around him. She winced.

"All the information is in there?" Her father asked, snatching the envelope from the strange man's hands.

"Yes. As much as I could find," he snapped. "Now we're even. I don't owe you anything anymore."

Her father laughed. "So bitter after all these years?"

The man looked as if he wanted to retort, but his silver eyes met Scarlett's. "Why is there a... child... in your residence?"

Gavriel turned around quickly, as he forgot that his daughter was standing in the middle of the kitchen. "Darling, why don't you go ahead to bed?"

"Is he a Fate, Daddy?" She could tell from his emotions. There was too much gold laced in with the orange for him to be human.

"How did she—"

"Auhtara, if you go now I'll read you a bedtime story with extra magic in it."

Scarlett hesitated, but decided she could benefit more from going to her bedroom than standing uselessly in the dining room. "You'll be up soon?"

     "Very soon."

     Scarlett didn't miss the menacing glare her father shot the strange man, or the hints of cautionary yellow peeking through his emotions. Regardless, she ran up the stairs into her room and tugged on her night gown. Her hands delicately removed her earrings from her ears and set the scarlet jewels on her dresser.

     "They were your mother's," her father had told her years and years ago.

      Scarlett then fell onto her bed, tucking herself under the covers. Now all she had to do was wait for her father.

     She wasn't kept long as she heard the front door close, and moments later the Fallen Star sat himself down on the edge of his daughter's bed.

     "Look at you getting ready all by yourself." His hand moved to stroke her cheek, brushing a stray brown lock from her face. "Are you ready for your story?"

     Shimmers of proud copper and cherry excitement swirled around her, but Scarlett quickly remembered the strange immortal in her home. "Can it be about the Fates? I wanna know more!"

     He chuckled. "I suppose."

     Every time the Fallen Star told his daughter figments of stories about the Fates, it always started and ended the same way; with once upon a time, and the option of becoming a Fate herself on her eighteenth birthday.

    8 years later...

     "Happy birthday, Auhtara!" Gavriel leaned against her doorframe with a red balloon in his hand.