Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A couple of weeks into her stay at the palace, Katsuki’s still not quite used to actually being there.

It’s not the practicalities that phase her, keeping track of rooms or adjusting to the colder temperatures- she’s adaptable, and she’s travelled enough that finding her bearings has never been an issue, or at least never one that anyone else was privy to. It’s the specific where, and then more pressingly the why, in close proximity to the who.

She thinks, as she prowls down the spacious hallways of the west wing, that it’s hardly a surprise that she keeps waking up every morning with the sense that she must have dreamed up the last few months. Dream’s the wrong word- it’s more akin to a nightmare, except instead of being intimidating it’s just horrifying on a low level that she mostly represses by force.

“Your grace,” a servant calls, panting; Katsuki ignores her summarily, busy examining the outer gardens with a critical eye where she’s come to a stop by the window, said gardens visible over the wall from the height of the central palace. There’s some kind of training exercise going on outside, which the Iida brothers appear to be overseeing. Their form is perfect, of course, but it’s all so rigid. She doesn’t know why the Iidas are still in charge of the royal knights when the monarchs they serve are so much more interesting in their fighting styles. Not that Deku needs to know she thinks that.

“Your grace!”

“What?” Katsuki snaps, annoyed. There’s so much staff crawling around the palace- after months on the borderlands with nothing but her motley crew of knights on call she’s forgotten how annoying it is to have all these people around all the time trying to be useful. At least the servants at Hakamada Castle have adapted to her enough to keep their services limited to the necessary- and they keep quiet and busy, instead of trying to suck up or nearly pissing themselves whenever she looks their way.

“Your grace,” the servant girl manages, curtseying automatically as if this will save her from Katsuki’s scorn. “His royal highness wishes to inform you that he is intensely sorry but he will not be able to attend your planned breakfast, as he is attending to his majesty-“

“Yeah, I get it,” Katsuki interrupts, before ten titles get rattled off in her face. “Tell him he better come find me when he’s done, then.”

“Your grace,” the servant assents hurriedly, a nervous look in her eyes as she curtseys again and scurries back down the hallway. It’s probably a very long run to and fro the King’s chambers. Yet another thing Katsuki finds annoying about the place: there’s a real shortage of discreet servant passage-ways.

Whatever. She and Deku need to have a talk sometime today, but it’s not like she’s going to die because they don’t have breakfast together. It’s just been hard to find a time of day where they can actually talk one on one. Beyond the ceremonies, Deku’s also just busy, because he’s so important these days; breakfast had seemed like a good idea. The earlier in the day the less chance there is of scandalised courtesans kicking up a fuss because the heir presumptive has dined with a candidate away from the watchful eyes of the court.

Fuck, she hates the royal court. If this actually goes through, she’s summarily executing at least half of the people here.

People clear rapidly out of the way as she makes her way into the central halls of the palace, which she notes with the kind of peripheral disinterest usually afforded to insects buzzing nearby. Now that everything with Tsunagu has been dealt with all official-like people in the palace’s curiosity has peaked, which would usually do little more than vaguely satiate her ego, but the subject matter is still sort of raw. She has complicated feelings about her new seat at the table, and as such she’s doing what is best done with complicated feelings and resolutely ignoring them.

She can’t help but feel the man’s absence a little, regardless. The first time she’d come up to Joyous Gard had been with Tsunagu, and years down the line she still orients herself a little based on his instructions. At the time she’d felt the immediate urge to stamp her claim on the royal grounds, but Tsunagu had always given off the aura of already being totally at ease in any room he walked into, without even trying. For all that she refused to follow the majority of his advice back then she can begrudgingly admit that he knew to play the politics game as well as anyone she’s ever met.

She remembers Deku from back then too, of course. Proto-Deku. Delighted and scared, stumbling after her carrying her swords and armour, fourteen and gangly and precocious. She’d laughed herself sick at the hideous page uniform his mother had put together for the journey, the blue and gold of the Hakamada house clashing hideously with his hair. If she’d known at the time that dragging Deku along to the capital would have brought them here, she’s not entirely sure that she would have done so, if she’s honest. When she’d seen Deku again two weeks ago, broad-shouldered and crowned and finely dressed in royal colors, she’d felt a bolt of unease so strong she’d wanted to strike him in full view of his counsellors.

Whatever. Bygones. She’s not a knight in training following her uncle to court anymore, she’s the newest and youngest addition to the Round Table, and if things pan out the way they’re meant to she’s not far off from being the reigning queen of the whole kingdom. No point dwelling on the past.

She speeds up her pace just a little when she crosses Avilion Hall, though. She doesn’t want to look at the portraits.

She has shit to do all day- missives to send home and to the border, reworking her men’s regiment, fixing up her gauntlets with the court alchemist, checking the math on the harvest numbers again, and all the stupid court shit she sort of has to show up to- but what she really needs to do is get the week’s news from home, so she goes and seeks out Ashido, who is most likely hanging around the knights. One of the palace’s strongest suits is its grounds, especially the training fields- over the years, military advisors and war-hardened rulers have erected a frankly impressive amount of training sites at various intervals between the walls. They all serve different groups- there’s the formation centres for fledgling knights, which Katsuki is intimately familiar with, and then the army’s private quarters and the royal regiment’s specialised grounds, which are technically open to the forces of the higher ranks of nobility within the kingdom but no one but the royal guard use in practice. Katsuki would use them herself, but her and Deku haven’t sparred since she got here, and her men are reluctant to intrude. Which is fine, really- there’s more than enough space for them to train even outside the royal facilities. Katsuki just objects on principle to not vying for the prime spot. There’s a killer instinct that she still needs to instill in the lot of them.

The training grounds her knights have claimed as their own are decent, despite her griping- tucked to the west of the main entrance into the palace, before the fourth ring of walls, their exterior in sight of passersby. She approaches from an angle so that the stone pillars block her from view and she can cast a critical eye over the men as they spar. They’re working on basic shit, which was Katsuki’s directive- over-reliance on essence is a rookie mistake. She’s seen too many little fuck ups for her liking in their recent skirmishes on the road.

She surveys the group, making a face at a few weak links before seeking out a familiar head of red hair. Kirishima, unsurprisingly, is doing the best job of the lot, form excellent and instincts more than solid as he ducks, blocks, and punches, sending one of the older men flying into the wall hard. His intent expression fades immediately, smile breaking through- no hard feelings- as he reaches to offer his opponent a hand, which is very Kirishima. Of all the knights Katsuki’s ever met, she’s never laid eyes on one so painfully chivalrous. It’d be unbearable if it wasn’t so without pretence.

“Yamamoto, c’mere,” Katsuki calls, done watching as she pulls into their line of sight; the whole group starts save Kirishima, and Yamamoto makes big eyes at her before he gathers himself and sets his staff down, walking her way. The guy’s not terrible, or Katsuki would have summarily sent him packing on some fake job in the east, but he’s young, has just stepped into his old man’s shoes this year. Tsunagu had wanted him out of battles for at least another sun cycle, but Yamamoto the elder had bit it in the same fight that he had, and Katsuki had wound up picking the best of the heirs to complete her numbers. Her instincts haven’t let her down yet- after a few fights Yamamoto’s shakiness had vanished- but he’s way too used to having something to fight with. It’s making him fight stupid in hand to hand, the wrong instincts taking over.

“Your grace?”

“I’m gonna kick you,” Katsuki says, rolling her neck a little as the knights form a wary semi-circle around them and Yamamoto swallows. “Block me.”

“Yes, your grace,” Yamamoto says, and to his credit his eyes go resolute rather than terrified, leg sweeping bracingly out behind him. She bets her ass Kirishima showed him that.

She wasn’t especially counting on a demonstration, but she’s always prepared for one. Back in the day she’d butted heads with her uncle over clothes- he’d always insisted on formal wear, which was both stifling and impractical in her eyes; it wasn’t until she saw him duel in his most frilly robes that she realised there was a cool confidence behind never dressing for a fight. She’s learnt from that, but for her part she still favors practical wear, loose pants and shirts with sturdy ass-kicking boots, the occasional cape her preferred concession to ceremony for its manoeuvrability. She’s wearing a jacket today because it’s cooler up north than she’s used to, but it’s soft leather, easy to move in, so she leaves it on, scans Yamamoto’s stance as she sets her bag to the side.

Katsuki counts down from ten in her head, watches nerves flicker in and out of his expression as he positions his hands defensively. On two she moves- feints rapidly forwards, Yamamoto’s hands moving up and out, and lets the momentum carry her as she drops low into a sweeping crouch and connects a foot to his ankle hard. Yamamoto stumbles and tips; she braces a hand flat against the stone and kicks upwards, gets him in the stomach. He goes crashing downwards, and Katsuki straightens out of her crouch, blows a stray strand of hair out her eyes. The whole exercise took maybe ten seconds.

“Right,” she says, into the quiet, as Yamamoto gets shamefacedly to his feet. “Explain to me why the fuck you’re on the floor right now.”

“I wasn’t reactive enough,” Yamamoto mumbles, red-cheeked. Katsuki waves a hand: yes, and?

“He was expecting you to kick from above,” Sero chimes in, from where he’s perched against a bench on the sidelines. Katsuki gives him a look.

“Didn’t ask for audience participation. But yeah. And why’s that, Yamamoto?”

“You’re usually coming from above, your grace,” he mumbles, getting the point.

“I’m usually coming from above when I use essence,” Katsuki corrects, sharp. “Which I never said I was going to do. If you can’t fight without your special power you can get the fuck out of here and we’ll find some half-competent valet to wear your armour. You want that?”

Several of the other men shift uncomfortably at this, either with disapproval or discomfort. The old cohort, guys who are holdovers from her uncle, have their opinions on her methods, especially when it comes to how she treats nobility. She doesn’t really give a shit. She’s already culled a bunch of the ones who couldn’t keep up, sent off to bullshit jobs back home; they know damn well they won’t get far challenging her on it.

“No, your grace,” Yamamoto manages, biting back protests. Katsuki stares at him and then shrugs and picks her bag back up where it lies discarded, point made. She’s not here to babysit these fucks.

“Ashido. Here. Now.”

“Your grace,” Ashido obeys, just a little sing-songy. She’s not as permissive as certain regular suspects in Katsuki’s employ, but Katsuki gives her a warning look anyways. Ashido’s her private secretary on travels because she’s a capable rider and unafraid enough to make the sort of trips Katsuki needs her to make to report back to her, not because she has much insight that Katsuki values. Katsuki does the executive shit herself.

Ashido’s smile doesn’t falter as they move out of earshot and she begins rattling off her news, which Katsuki begrudgingly likes about her. “There’s been rain in the Valley of Temples, so the orchards are looking like they’ll make it after all. Out on the east coast the priests are fighting about where to put the shrine to the Duke. The council has been working on the bills you proposed- I brought some for you to approve. There was a formal complaint made by the fishermen of the Roche islands because of the prices- they’ve had freak weather recently. Equinox festival preparations are in full swing. Lord Ono is to be wed again. The Lady Hideko has sent news that bandits have been seen in the forests around her lands again. Her Ladyship your mother has sent several letters. And there’s a lot of talk of your presence here.”

“What kind of talk?”

Ashido shrugs, tousled rosy curls ruffled by the wind. “Oh, y’know. Everyone knows the Prince is on the market. They’re invested.”

Katsuki’s not touching that. “And otherwise?”

“Well,” Ashido jumps in, moving onto Katsuki’s primary concern. “Things have mostly been quiet in the territories. Count Hiiragi and his men are still holding out, but they don’t have any of the resources to last longer than a month in a siege, since the people have turned against him after his defeat over the summer. And Lady Irino’s obviously not a problem, so her islands haven’t shown much life either. On the borders…”

She hesitates, smoothing the front of her wine-yellow dress. She must have come in the night, or she’d still be in riding garb, Katsuki notes. “It’s been quiet. Very. Patrol reports the usual scuffles with some marauders by the mountains, but otherwise…”

“Yeah, fine,” Katsuki says, getting the picture. Too quiet for Ashido’s liking, after a very challenging year or two. Since two winters ago conflict has loomed over the Hakamada lands in Liones, and though for the most part Katsuki has kept it firmly quashed, she doesn’t like the feeling that it’s ramping up towards something big. Tsunagu finally succumbing to his wounds in the spring hadn’t alleviated the feeling.

Still, quiet doesn’t mean anything yet. No one Katsuki is worried about has set foot in her territories since the Dread Prince, and he’s currently busy getting his vile hands on every little independent kingdom or fief so unfortunate as to neighbour the Waste Lands. For now there’s no enemy forces waiting at her borders, just uneasy allies. Considering said allies, her focus is on the right place. The winter summit’s barely two months away.

“That it?” Katsuki asks, refocusing. “How was the ride?”

“No interruptions, your grace,” Ashido says, answering the right question. “The forest patrols are running well. And the patrolmen are most hospitable.”

Yeah, she bets. She glowers a little at the girl, who attempts to look unscrupulous and doesn’t especially succeed. “Would their hospitality explain why you didn’t come and tell me this until the morning?”

Ashido’s eyes widen, and she looks actually caught for once, rocking back on her heels. “No, your grace. I- well, to be honest I couldn’t orient myself in the palace well enough to find your chambers, and I didn’t want to ask the palace servants and make it a thing.”

Katsuki clicks her tongue irritably, but the excuse sounds reasonable enough. Joyous Gard is colossal, and certainly a great deal bigger than anywhere Ashido’s been in her service. Still- “Ask the palace servants whatever the fuck you want, as long as it doesn’t tip my hand. They’re just servants.”

Ashido nods, biting her lip. This is the problem with recruiting semi-commoners into her inner circle: they’re still very aware of their stature when it comes to things like the monarchy, even if the people who serve the monarchs have absolutely no right to look down on them. Not that Katsuki particularly empathises with this difficulty- she certainly never let a title intimidate her, even when all she was was very minor nobility through her mother’s half-brother.

“Go drop the letters off in my rooms now. Ask for directions if you can’t find them yourself. You’re off until tonight. And I don’t need you to leave again until Tuesday.”

Ashido looks pleased, unsurprisingly. She hasn’t had the time to see the palace at all- Katsuki sent her back to court before they’d even set off, and the journey’s taken her the fortnight since, even with her essence speeding it up. At the moment the place is big on events, which Katsuki could care less about but knows her men enjoy, and Ashido’d been moaning about it the night she’d left their camp, complaining to Kaminari that he was going to be able to dress up and drink fine wines while she rode through the wild for days on end.

She walks back to the pavilion as Ashido curtseys and scampers off, waving back at the knights as she goes; inside, the training continues, the men sweating but focused as they work through the regiment. She could do with a workout herself, she thinks, but not now- she’s not in the mood to do basics during amateur hour. Later, she ask Kirishima to come with her, maybe. Or go alone.

“Good news, your grace?” said redhead pipes up, as she winds her way through them, pausing where he and Kaminari are grappling around. Katsuki curls a lip.

“Hiiragi’s holding out, but he’ll buckle. What’s new on your side of the palace?”

“Mostly people are talking about the usual stuff,” Kirishima offers, frowning a little. “The ball. His majesty the King. Um, us. There’s a lot going on by the Dinas mountains. And bad fires on the islands off Tribuit.”

“So nothing,” Katsuki summarises, with an eyeroll. Fantastic. “You been seeing much of the royal forces?”

“Well, Ser Iida- the Marquess-‘s addressed us a few times,” Kirishima says, wiping absently at his sticky brow. “I think he maybe offered for us to train together, but we haven’t really had the chance yet.”

“Tch, the marquess,” Katsuki mutters. Ser Tenya Iida strikes her as a pain in the ass. The fact he’s Deku’s most trusted adviser has not improved her impression of the guy. “Make sure you take them up on it and kick their ass.”

“Y’know they’re the royal guard for a reason, right?” Kaminari interjects, catching himself belatedly with a wince. “Your grace.”

Bad habits born of too long spent together when Katsuki was still only the future Lady Bakugou and refused to be addressed as such. She gets it- she hasn’t started sir-ing any of them since they got propelled up the social ladder either- but she’s never claimed to be proper when it comes to respect owed, just fair. 

“Yeah, and I could still take the Prince out one on one, so what’s your excuse?”

“Not all of us are natural prodigies,” Kaminari mutters, jutting a lip out; she cuffs him over the head to make him yelp. “Ow! Hey! That was a compliment! Your grace!”

“Stop whining like a kid,” Katsuki retorts, over Sero’s snickers. Kirishima smiles in a what can you do sort of way. “Keep working on this for another hour. Swords up after that. Spiky Hair, I’ve written some routines down I want you lot to go through, make sure no one bails. You’re free to go sit around with your dick in your hand after lunch. Just don’t show up late to dinner.”

“That’s not gonna be a problem,” Sero says, sotto voce. “I’d give my left leg to eat a whole feast meal again.”

“Stop acting like you were being starved on the road, fuckhead.”

There’s some kind of court being held inside the gallery when she passes the second wall, ladies in their best day dresses and their eagle-eyed mothers murmuring amongst themselves. She spots Duchess Kayama in the back with a daringly low neckline surveying the whole affair with clear amusement, Lady Takeyama preening as she coiffs her blonde curls fussily, and summarily turns in the other direction with a grimace. Deku had told her about the marked rise in marriage-age women haunting the halls before she came, but she’d assumed he was exaggerating, maybe still stuck on the idea of anyone falling over themselves to marry Deku. If anything, she has the feeling he was downplaying things, because she’s seen several parents bodily shove their daughters at him in crowded hallways since she got to the palace. In mourning garb.

Well, fuck it- she’s certainly not joining in on the fun, seeing how she has actual shit to do and their precious princeling’s favour at that. She doesn’t hasten her step so much as sneer in the general direction of the room as she passes, very aware of the hateful looks sent her way. No one except her and Deku know about the specifics of their situation, but no one is braindead enough not to be suspicious. Everyone knows they have history, and now she’s here out of nowhere in the very tight lead-up to his choosing a bride. Whether people assume she’s candidate number one or that Deku called her in for her feminine insight into the others, they can sense the threat.

She winds her way outside, reaches the building she actually wants, pausing to stare upwards at the clean white walls of the Royal Institute. The exterior is made from some kind of travertine, so that whenever it rains the stone reacts and whitens, leaving the whole building in a permanent state of surreal purity. It’s the metaphor of it all. Katsuki has never been one for poetry, but she guesses it looks good.

Inside, court scholars and physicians murmur greetings her way as she makes her way up the stairs, trying to remember where the alchemist’s laboratory is. It’s high up, she knows, because she remembers her and Deku perched in a windowsill staring down at the trees below, but she can’t remember what side of the building it was on. She’s certainly not asking for directions.

A door opens nearby, and a girl in pale assistant robes nearly walks right into her, yelping as the bottles in her arm wobble and go flying. Katsuki spins on instinct to catch three out of the air, her bag slamming heavily against her thigh, but the crash she anticipates never comes- when she turns back she finds the remaining bottles trembling suspended in the air, the girl’s fingertips pressed together and her conduit shoved between them. It makes a jolt of recognition go through Katsuki even before she manages to place the girl’s unmemorable sweet features.

“Oh,” Ochako Uraraka says, wide-eyed as the bottles rattle. “Hi.”

“Roundface,” Katsuki says, and hands her the bottles back as she blinks, blushes, and gathers them quickly to her. “Watch where you’re going, dumbass.”

“There’s never anyone up here this time of day!” Uraraka justifies, still flustered. Katsuki narrows her eyes at her- she would have recognised her sooner without the robes.

“What’re you doing working in the alchemist’s anyway? They don’t let chambermaids do the mixing last I heard.”

“Well, I’m not a chambermaid anymore,” Uraraka declares, bravely, and there’s a glimmer of staunch pride in her eyes as her chin tilts up, faltering a little in the aftermath. “Or- just a chambermaid. I’m an apprentice to the royal weaponsmaster.”

“That so,” Katsuki draws out, more intrigued than she’d admit. Far be it from her to give a shit what servants do, but the only reason she really remembers Uraraka is the dogged determination she’d shown in secretly attending a good half of their training back in the knight school days, the times Katsuki had walked in on her late at night practicing moves. Deku had been nauseatingly supportive of her delusional dreams, and Katsuki hadn’t taken them seriously right up until the time they were ambushed on patrol and Uraraka had gotten the tar beaten out of her trying to help and gotten back up every time. Servant girls don’t become knights, even when servant boys and noble girls manage to, but Katsuki respects ambition when there’s work behind it. She supposes it makes sense, especially in Deku’s court, that Uraraka’s managed to find herself an apprenticeship in something combat adjacent.

“Yes,” Uraraka says, not a little defensively, adjusting her hold on the bottles. “Are you looking for something?”

“Proper deference, for one.”

It takes a second, and then the girl goes pale before flushing. “Oh! I- forgive me, your grace, I didn’t mean-“

It’s gutsy of her to be more embarrassed than afraid; Katsuki pretend-scowls at her anyway, lest she get ideas. Deku’s little principles are all well and good, but people shouldn’t forget their place in the world, whether or not they knew her in a different time. “I want to see the laboratory you use for conduit shit.”

“It’s just through there,” Uraraka gestures quickly, across the walkway. “I could show you if you like. I’m headed that way anyhow.”

“Fine.”

They cross into the alchemist rooms, filled with smoke and upstairs clatter as alchemist rooms are wont to be; Katsuki gazes with interest at some of the scrawled formulas lying across the work benches as they pass them by, heading for a side door that leads into a larger split room, bookshelves and laboratory tables lining the balcony that cordons off most of the room. She walks up to the balustrade to peer downwards into the centre: far down below, tools and sturdy stone tables lie covered in half-formed armor and weapons, weaponsmaster and his underlings filling the space with clatter. There are doors down below she assumes lead to the blacksmith’s, from the distant noise.

“This laboratory is the one we use for conduit work,” Uraraka explains, pointing around. “It’s up here because conduits usually need the alchemists and the blacksmiths to work together on things, so- oh, but I guess you knew that already. Um- I don’t know where the court alchemist is but I know his head apprentice is in- she’s really being trained as a weaponsmaster, but because she works almost exclusively with conduits she spends most of her days in the alchemy labs. She should be-”

There’s the sound of a frankly alarming explosion somewhere across the room, and Uraraka brightens in recognition before she winces. “Oh, she’s- ah, there. Your grace.”

A gleeful laugh resonates from the same area as the explosion. Katsuki shoots Uraraka a deeply suspicious look.

“I promise she’s good!” Uraraka defends, clutching her bottles protectively to her chest. “His royal highness the Prince got his gloves made by her, you know. And he’s very impressed with those.”

She sounds a little sour by the end; Katsuki quirks a brow at her before deciding she categorically doesn’t give a shit. “Well, if it’s good enough for Deku.”

She leaves Uraraka to stagger down the stairs with her bottles in tow, gazing after her in thought. Apothecary concoctions seem odd to be bringing down to the floor, but then she supposes healing potions could be useful to integrate into armor somehow, or even just to heal the cuts and burns of the people working the equipment. Whatever. She can see the source of the explosion now, plunged elbow deep in a sand bath with soot streaked across her entire face and odd little oculars perched on her nose amplifying her yellow eyes to a comical size.

“Oi. You the assistant?”

“Hm? At your service, your grace!” the girl exclaims, yanking her arm out violently to fall into an excessive curtsy. “I know who you are! Are you here for a contraption? I make plenty of those, you know. Perhaps some gloves of your own? They work a wonder for channelling excessive energy.”

“I don’t need a damn channel,” Katsuki retorts, before the girl can launch into another spiel. “And I don’t want a contraption. I need someone to fix these up.”

She swings her bag onto the table, where it lands with a tremendous clang, loosening the clasp to shake one of her gauntlets out. The girl makes an appropriately interested noise, grabbing immediately at the gauntlet to open and shut the braces and poke at the plating.

“Ooh. Where did you get these?”

“Doesn’t concern you,” Katsuki declares, swatting her hands away. “They got fucked up last time I used ‘em and someone needs to seal them up.”

“Seal,” the girl repeats, blinking; the forefront of her oculars spins and extends, like a telescope. Her conduit, Katsuki thinks, with some comprehension- useful essence, in the sciences, to be able to look at everything up close. “Hm, ah. Why seal? You make things go boom, they say, so- ah, ah. Conduit! Chemical, yes? Ooh. Corrosive?”

“Aqua fortis,” Katsuki allows, flashing her left ring-finger, and glaring prohibitively when the alchemist actually seems about to grab at her ring, eyes gleaming.

“Ah, spirit of niter! Yeah, that’d do it. How’d you even get the two in touch without these-“ She goes to pick up the gauntlet, blanches and quickly yanks her fingers away as it drops, eyes widening. “Heavy.” Then she smiles. “Aha. Heavy. What’s in them? Silver? Palladium?”

“Sure you can work it out,” Katsuki sniffs, a little smug. “But yeah. Precious metals don’t blow up. Congrats, you know the basics of your trade.”

“Oh, well, they can if you’re committed,” the girl says distractedly, squinting inside. “So, I guess there must be bits that aren’t as well finagled, huh? You know, I could totally make something happen here- maybe a valve to control the flow better? And- ooh, fixing up the storage pockets- and I could rig an arrow-release whenever you use it-“

“No arrows,” Katsuki barks. “And no tinkering around. Just seal it. Maybe add the valve. But have your sketches sent to my rooms first.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” the girl says, twirling a pair of plyers she seems to have pulled from her sleeve. “My babies are very helpful, your grace.”

“No babies,” Katsuki stresses, irritated, and slings her bag back onto her shoulder. “I helped design these, so if you so much as dent one I’ll slit your throat, understood?”

For a beat, the girl’s manic energy goes a little restrained as she stares her way, expression mournful around the corners like her fun’s been ruined. “Understood, your grace.”

It’s only as Katsuki leaves the building that she remembers she never even got the girl’s name. Not that it matters, really- she doesn’t especially do names. There are titles, if someone’s important on paper, and nicknames, if she has some other reason to need to identify them. Lantern-eyes will do just fine.

She stops by the kitchens to get food, which the kitchen staff have come to expect, handing her her bread and mead with much kowtowing. It’s a marked improvement from the first time she’d shown up at their door during her current stay- the ensuing panic had cost the kitchen a soup and no less than three injuries. Sue her if she doesn’t care to eat her every meal in company- she’s busy. She knows for a fact Deku has half of his meals sent to his rooms, anyways. Only reason she fetches some of her meals herself is because she has places to be. It’s hardly much effort on her part- she still remembers the route to and fro very well from being made to work the kitchens as punishment back in her teenaged years, an insult to her station she had suffered poorly.

Equipped with food, she retreats to her rooms long enough to check numbers and pen annoyed suggestions to counsellors back home, then picks up Ashido’s missives (duly delivered atop her desk) and sets back off to the library.

The Royal Library is a massive building, and one of Katsuki’s preferred haunts within the grounds. It’s huge, and mostly silent, the priests who run the place not the chatty types and particular about who they let in besides. The priest working near the entrance, a gloomy young guy with dark hair that she half recognises from Tsunagu’s rites, looks a little shocked to see her there before he recovers his overly serious composure, bowing deeply and setting his quill down by his parchment.

“Your grace. May I be of assistance?”

“Yeah. Keep the cartography room shut to visitors until I’m gone.”

Short dark and angsty’s eyes widen with disapproval. “As a rule rooms are not reserved without the assent of the royal secretarial-“

“Yeah, well, rule doesn’t apply to me, so let’s get going.”

“I’m afraid I cannot,” the priest says, drawing himself up, and for a moment Katsuki recalls the guy’s essence- the deep dark shadows that had covered the altar at his say-so. It’s a strong ability, and probably explains the guy’s character- mystic, sure, but clearly combat-trained in some capacity. Sucks for him that Katsuki doesn’t give a shit. “Without the assent-“

She’s sorely tempted to just wrestle the key from the guy and call it a day, but she just knows it’d be a pain in the ass to focus with him trying to break the door in or whatever, and besides she’s more diplomatic than she once was, she hears. She exhales aggressively through her nose and rifles through her bag, retrieves Deku’s summons.

“How’s that for official assent, huh?”

The guy looks put off, but the letter is hard to argue with, stamped with all ten royal seals and Deku’s chicken-scratch penmanship. He’s a stubborn fucker, though, because he tries it anyways: “Protocol would require I verify that the letter itself-“

“What, you wanna read private royal correspondence now?” Katsuki breaks in, loudly, smirking at his expression. “Hey, that sounds pretty treason-y to me. Not a good look these days.”

The cartography room looks almost identical to the way she remembers it, dark except for the middle of the room where the skylight sits over the main table, high bookshelves and scattered desks filled with half etched maps. They don’t keep the most up to date maps in the library, obviously- way too politically sensitive. She’s not sure where they would even be- probably locked in the King’s chambers somewhere, or maybe Deku’s. There are recent enough spreads- maps made within the past year or so- for her to work with anyways, mentally filling in the changes.

She sits there working for a good hour, and it’s more of a relief than she would like to think about to be left to her own devices in silence for so long. For most of the past year she’s been out on the road with her men, passing through villages and fighting on the borders; the return to court, especially this court, has been fairly brutal. The past week they’d been caught up in various mourning ceremonies, but from here on out it’s business as usual in the palace, barring the hot topics of the summit and Deku’s potential nuptials.

She’s written her retorts and reworked her own maps for reference by the time she looks at the summons again, the nub of her quill stilling on the last flourish of her signature before she yanks her focus back and seals her last letter, tying the pile together for later envoy back home. She’s still ignoring her mother’s letter., but it’s harder to resist the temptation to pull out Deku’s, though she doesn’t open it again. She knows what it says.

She hadn’t heard from Deku in- well, a good long time, when his letter came. It’s not that they’re on bad terms, although with Deku they’re never on good terms exactly either. Last she saw him in person they were beating enemy ass together with pretty flawless teamwork, loathe though she is to tell him that to his face. It’s just that after what happened to the King, when Deku had stepped up and asked her to stay, Katsuki had said fuck no and left. Deku probably thinks it was petty, but it wasn’t, not really. She had new responsibilities of her own, and looming threats to handle elsewhere, and if she’s being honest deep down in the innermost confines of her soul she also just didn’t want to be around either of them. Not Deku, whose station and fate she had just about managed to come to terms with by then, and certainly not the King, whose broken body made her want to impale herself everytime she saw it. Two pairs of beseeching understanding eyes pointed her way wherever she went. Fuck that. She needed to make a name for herself properly, anyways, away from both of them, get out of the shadow of the throne. She’s done that, the past few years.

It’s not like she iced him out. He’s the prince. He knows what she’s been up to. If she never wrote, well- she’s not one for letter writing. And she couldn’t very well come up to court or out to wherever the hell he was when she was off fighting pirates and brigands and enemy soldiers. Most of his letters reached her late, anyways, and there weren’t so very many of them besides. Deku’s busy. Ruling Avalon takes work. Who knew.

Still, she kept tabs, obviously. News carries across the kingdom, or big news, at least. Deku’s of age, this year. He’s old for it, but since he’s only aspired to nobility since he pulled that damn sword out of a rock there are all kinds of stupid bye-laws and shit laying out his complex road to succession, so it’s on the ten year anniversary that he gets to step up to it, and that’s next summer. Katsuki could give you a date; she was there. The thing with pulling swords out of rocks, though, is that there may be this massive folkloric mythos propelling you up the ranks of society, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a commoner and a bastard at that, and that makes it hard when there are people with blood claims to the throne. You’d think, the King having infamously never sired an heir in the hopes of recreating his predecessor’s method of naming one, that this would be an avoidable problem, but no, of course. Because turns out that the old Queen wasn’t so much the virgin Queen she claimed to be, and her bastard grandson is very happy to make this known. Fucking Shigaraki.

The Shigaraki thing is one of those things where a lot of people know but not explicitly, just murmurs from the far south, that the Bastard Prince of the hinterlands is in line to the kingdom’s throne. Katsuki knows it explicitly, for reasons she’d rather not think about. She’s seen the fucker’s ugly face far too close for comfort. The problem is that for all that dread prince Tomura (or whatever he’s having himself be called nowadays) is a sick joke who everyone knows has been violently expanding his territories by raping and pillaging as he goes, his bullshit is legitimate. The King has no blood heir, and Shigaraki is the old Queen’s grandson, ergo: Shigaraki has arguable dibs to the throne once the King bites it. There’s a lot of important people both inside and outside the kingdom who would rather see a deranged enemy crowned ruler than a nobody commoner who tripped his way into royalty. Katsuki can’t even say she wholly disagrees with their kind of crappy logic- bloodlines exist for a reason. Aristocracy means the best rule. These days she’s gone a little shaky in her principles, what with the supporting Deku and recruiting knights from shithole villages instead of official channels, but it’s the way things work- have worked since the dawn of time. There’s a reason the best and brightest sitting at the royal Round Table are all from established families.

Except Deku himself, of course.

Whatever. She’s not here to think about the deep philosophical implications of their governing system. The point is that everyone knows Deku stands to ascend next summer, and that his claim to legitimacy has been severely challenged by Shigaraki’s revelations of parentage. Shigaraki hasn’t yet presented his official challenge, but he will, and in the meantime he’s wreaking havoc on his part of the lands as well as the political stability of theirs. So Deku, for once in his fucking life, is doing a sane and sensible thing: trying to marry up.

She assumed he was doing that before she even caught the first whispers months after they made their way around Joyous Gard, of course. It’s kind of the braindead move. Deku’s got no heritage to speak of and the King knows how to work public sentiment. Of course he was going to start looking for an eligible consort. If he manages to marry into some family with a strong standing in the kingdom the nobles are way more likely to rally around him, and if he plays his cards well he could land a significant enough family’s support that he’d have the kind of forces to pose a credible threat to Shigaraki even if the kingdom’s allegiances did split. There are plenty of marriage-age daughters and sisters swarming around the kingdom, not to mention young widows. Of course, she remembers thinking, whoever got asked would have to bear the immeasurable agony of being betrothed to Deku, but probably the promise of future queendom soothed that particular injury.

(Yeah, yeah, her life is a neverending series of sick jokes and dubious irony. She figured that one out at fifteen watching Deku brandishing the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds, thanks.)

She will swear to the grave, though, that she didn’t give it one thought until she got the letter. It didn’t even cross her mind. In theory, sure, she’s of marriageable age, and fucking obviously a most eligible candidate, but in practice? Come on. She’s not looking for marriage. She spends half of her nights in forests sleeping on the floor with a sword on hand, one tent over from a bunch of overgrown teenaged boys. Also, it’s fucking Deku.

The letter had reached her on a night where she’d been sat fixing a bandage and washing blood out from her toes, by the river’s edge tits out and alone as the knights sat drinking around a campfire, her cape serving as cover. Ashido hadn’t been there then; some exhausted palace messenger boy had been the one emerging from the bushes to hand the letter over, squinting warily at her in the wine-red sunset before she shooed him away.

Deku had kept things brief, by his standards. The letter was maybe a single scroll’s worth of writing. Dear Kacchan, how are you, it’s been a while, and that sort of shit had been kept to the minimum, then he’d gone straight for it. Please don’t set this letter on fire immediately. I wanted to ask you to marry me.

He knows her well enough, she guesses. She’d singed the edges a little bit on instinct. But he’d set it all out, amidst the word vomit. Started with what she could get out of it, segued into why he was even asking. I know I’m asking something crazy of you, but I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you were the best option. You are. I think you might understand why. Then all the classic Deku sentimentality, lines upon lines of woefully, unsettlingly sincere conviction: If something ever happened to me there’s no one I’d trust more to do a good job of taking care of this kingdom.

If she’s to be entirely transparent, she’s still not a hundred percent sure she made the right call agreeing with him. But there just wasn’t anything to disagree with, in that letter. Of course she’s a smart choice for Deku- the smartest choice. She’s sat at the Round Table; she’s the heir of one of the kingdom’s most beloved nobles who’s just recently bit it in battle; the King likes her; she’s a fucking phenomenal fighter, which Deku sorely needs right now. And, yeah, they have history- he trusts her, to summarize his meandering. For her part- well, she doesn’t really give a shit about romance, and since there’s pretty much no one in existence that’s actually worth her time anyways, getting to rule the kingdom is a compelling alternative to marrying for some other reason. For all that he’s insufferable she knows Deku’s not going to be weird about it, either, or not weirder than he normally is. It’d be an easy win, and it’d make it possible to do whatever she wants all the time on a way larger scale. With the way things are looking in the neighbouring kingdoms large-scale sounds pretty enticing.

Katsuki’s always aimed high. Despite the obvious qualms, she’d known the rational answer from her first reading.

She hadn’t bothered replying to his letter, for a whole fuckload of reasons. She’d just let it be assumed that she’d be coming up for her uncle’s ceremony, and when she’d first set eyes on Deku rushing outside to greet her on the palace steps she’d given him a nod before anyone said anything, eyes locked. Not a yes exactly- more like a yes, if. Let it not be said that she doesn’t know how to negotiate. She gets what works with all the talking shit; it’s more that she usually gets by just fine using her sword as a conversational opener.

Now she’s here, anyways. They haven’t spoken about it yet. No time, really- after first greetings they’d had several days’ worth of rites to get through, and all the logistics of who was staying where and who had to do what during Tsunagu’s shit. Technically it wasn’t just about him- they’d already flown the flags and whatever when he’d actually died. But the autumn’s end tribute to the lost routinely winds up being about whoever actually mattered that died, and Tsunagu had certainly mattered. Not since Sasaki has such a high-ranker died so young, let alone in combat- no shit they pulled out all the stops. It’ll make the old hag happy to hear that, she guesses. Her folks couldn’t make it up to the palace what with the flooding and the distance, but then they weren’t especially close to Tsunagu either, not like she got, towards the end.

It’s whatever. It’s over now, and his soul has been laid to rest or something. It better have been, with the amount of ceremonial bullshit Katsuki’s endured for its sake. Now there are more important things to think about, like crushing the people who want the throne and/or the King and/or Deku dead, and also the whole impending nuptials angle.

There’s a tenseness that’s settled into the kingdom like late-spring frost. She felt it out in the borderlands, the way old land lines have formed and reformed with increasing violence, villages hushed with fear, supposedly stalwart nobles distrustful and skittish. People fighting dirty, strange. She feels it when she gets news from afar, the creeping increase in stories that bode no well for anyone- hardened troops in Cameliard, unnatural quiet from the isles, perennial turmoil towards the Void Sea, their neighbours armed to the teeth. She’s feeling it now, in the court, watching the nobles watch her, watch Deku, like they’re just waiting for him to do something. Late-spring frost: overstaying its welcome, innocuous and insidious, poised to kill off a summer’s worth of crops.

(She’s thinking in agricultural metaphors now. All this fucking governing is messing her head up.)

There’s a knock at the door before she’s really ready for it, but she only slides her letters into her bag and rolls up half a map before she raises her voice. “Come in.”

It’s Deku, of course, because who else could it be. He looks a little flushed, like maybe he ran somewhere, but he carries it okay nowadays, not desperate-like. He’s dressed-down from the previous few days, but still dressed-up by Deku standards. Or not, she guesses. These are his standards now.

“Hi, Kacchan,” Deku says in greeting, scarred hand folding around the door for a moment like he’s not sure whether to come in, but he gets over it before Katsuki can say anything, which is probably good. She’s got this thing that she doesn’t like to think about now, where everytime they speak she thinks he’s going to call her by title or something, and it fills her with a sort of frozen indecision. She doesn’t know if she could do it back, one on one, and she’s even less clear on how she could look at him if he dropped the stupid nickname at last.

It’s not that she’s fifteen and delusional anymore. She says the Prince when she’s with people who aren’t in on it. She called him your royal highness so many times over the past few days it made her want to stick her fist through a wall. But Deku is Deku, maybe Izuku sometimes if she tries, and more importantly he’s called her Kacchan for as long as he could fucking talk. Kacchan when he was some loser servant boy staggering around after her, Kacchan when she was thirteen and vicious and bringing him to tears. He called her Kacchan even when he was so afraid of her it made her want to crow with glee, Kacchan when he was so afraid for her it made her want to break his jaw. If Deku stops now, it’ll be like- it’ll be this thing, this line drawn, this one fundamentally unchangeable thing changed for the sake of formality. Every day since she’s been back she’s been half waiting for him to remember himself, then angry at the relief she feels when he doesn’t.

“I can’t believe you lot are still working with this garbage,” Katsuki says, aloud, pointing at the large map spread against the furthest wall. Deku’s eyes flicker there and back, and the brief discomfort on his face shifts, dissipates, transforms.

“It’s not the model we use! Or- it’s not the one I use. But some people prefer it, since it’s what they’re used to.”

“They were used to getting their blood drained when they got a cold,” Katsuki grunts, though she acknowledges the explanation. They’ve always agreed on the complete inefficiency of the flower map as a way to chart the world. “Get with the times already.”

“Ha, well,” Deku says, smiling sheepishly. “It does no harm to keep old models up for people to look at, if it makes them feel better.”

That’s him right there, Katsuki thinks, sharply. After a week of niceties and royal graveness, there’s the ungodly mix of incomprehensible generosity and shrewd pragmatism she knows. It makes her unclench a little even as she stops bothering with the small talk, turning in her chair to fix him properly.

“So. We gonna talk about this or what?”

This is the letter she holds between her fingers; Deku flushes and tenses, looks at his hands and back at her as realization hits.

“That’s what you showed Tokoyami?”

“Who?”

“The- Tokoyami! He’s- his father sires the Dark Woods in Astoliat, he’s newly admitted to the priesthood, he- he was at the ceremony, with the shadow essence, you heard him recite the rites!”

“Oh, the guard dog. He wouldn’t let me up without royal assent.” When Deku looks about to protest, she clicks her tongue. “Don’t lose your shit, I didn’t let him look. Seal does enough talking.”

“He’s just following protocol,” Deku protests, but half-assed now, awkward until he manages to meet her eyes more steadily than she necessarily likes. “You read it, then?”

She wants to snap at him, because it’s a stupid question, but the air in room is stuffy and still now and she just sets her jaw. 

“Yeah, I read it.”

“Okay,” Deku says, hesitating, and then sits, a little stiffly, on the chair across from hers. All at once his eyes are big and serious. “If it’s no, that’s not a problem, Kacchan. I know it- I know there’s a lot going on, and I know you- understand the stakes, or… But it’s not a problem if you won’t. I promise you it’s not. There are other good options.”

Katsuki’s throat clicks around words that she won’t bother saying; she ignores her teenaged self long enough to scowl at the window and then back. 

“If this is how you try to propose to everyone it’s no wonder you’re so fucked.”

Deku is visibly taken aback by the tone, and it takes him a moment to rewind before he balks, composure shot. “Ah! That’s not what I meant! You’re still the best option! I mean-“

“Shut up,” Katsuki interjects, sharp over his escalating babbling, toying with a smirk anyways. Deku floundering sets her at ease, she can’t help it. “Of course I’m your best option.”

It’s the closest she’ll come to outright saying she knows the out he’s trying to offer her, and that there’s pretty much no world where she takes it. Deku swallows, and it’s uncomfortable again, just the two of them looking at each other with this surreal thing hanging over their heads. Katsuki wants to look away but can’t fight the instinct to hold out. It’s not like any of this is real, beyond the transaction. They both know that. She knows Deku doesn’t want her in his matrimonial bed, just like she knows that he was telling the truth when he said there’s no one he’d rather trust with the thing he cares most for. Sometimes shit is complicated like that. It just makes it hard to get over the knowledge that they’re negotiating marriage.

“So it’s not no,” Deku says, quietly, not really questioning, trying to suss her out, and Katsuki shrugs sharply.

“No.”

“Oh,” Deku says, biting his lip, and his eyes glaze a little with thought for a moment before he glances rapidly at her again, distantly shell-shocked. “Oh. I- I don’t know how to-“

“I’m not done,” Katsuki says, shifts forward in her chair so she can rest her elbows atop the table, hands tapping impatiently against it. “I get it. Makes sense. But I don’t need it like you do. So there’s shit you’ll need to throw in if you want it.”

She can almost see how close he comes to just acquiescing automatically, years of court training or bitter betrayals catching him at the last second so he nods jerkily instead, eyes focused. “Can I ask what?”

“I keep my seat at the Round Table,” Katsuki starts, blunt. “I don’t give a fuck if the consort never sits in. That’s mine.”

“Yes,” Deku says, quick as anything, almost like he’s surprised she’s leading with this, or that she’s even bringing it up. She guesses she might have seen that coming, if it hadn’t been a while since they saw each other. “I mean- you’re entitled to it, of course, that’s not… It’s yours.”

His easy conviction is nice, but she feels obliged to remind him, because someone should: “Yeah, well. Normal rules are kind of shaky. Prince doesn’t usually marry a Round Table Knight.”

Deku’s brows furrow like he has in fact thought of this and has his case all ready, but she pushes on, fingers starting on a temperamental rhythm. “I want knights. My own. Not chosen from the royal guard or regiment or whatever. I get to say what they do and how.”

There’s a serious frown now. “The Royal Knights don’t serve the King. They serve Avalon.”

“Yeah, and Avalon sits on the throne. No, I fucking know,” Katsuki bats away, conceding a little at the last instant when Deku gets that dangerous People’s Prince look in his eyes. “Not what I meant. I want say over them like you have over yours. Same goes for Hakamada knights.”

Deku nods slowly. It’s not normal for a consort but there’s no way he can talk her out of it. Tough sell, especially to Avalonian nobles far and wide, but one Katsuki knows he must be willing to make, or he’d have asked someone else. 

“Queen’s Knights. Okay.”

Katsuki’s fingers stop and start before regaining their pace with more practiced accuracy. This one’s less comfortable.

“Also, I’m never having kids.”

She needs to get it out quick because it’s not a little sickening to think about, so of course it blindsides Deku, who goes a pretty dismal parchment shade like he hadn’t even thought that far. Of course not, the fucking idiot, not like succession is the hot topic pushing him to this insanity in the first place. Katsuki doesn’t have the leisure of forgetting- she remembers Shigaraki’s face far too well.

She sees him work through it in real time, lips moving in the silent echo of his old muttering monologues, trying to measure the importance of it, and the sight makes her impatient, annoyed. He’s the one who asked in the first place. He should have thought about everything. He’s the genius, after all.

“You can get one just fine elsewhere. Knock up a maid.” Deku’s expression is one of horror; she grits her teeth. “Or find some nice concubines. I don’t give a shit. That’s standard practice.”

“I couldn’t- Kacchan,” Deku protests, pale for a different reason now, appealing to her better nature. “To some- to any poor girl, I couldn’t do-“

“It’s a job,” Katsuki retorts, caustic. “Comfortable too. Lie back and then sit around for nine months with your feet in the air.”

“That’s not how you treat people,” Deku retorts, eyes flashing with real conviction, which angers her enough that she stops giving a shit about the corner of her brain that agrees with him, knows damn well life for some peasant girl who bears the king’s bastard is not going to be cosy, not least because for all her rationale she would pretty much make sure of it herself, since having a bastard heir is all well and good so long as no ambitious relatives sit around whispering treason in their ear. Instead she bares her teeth.

“So you want me to do it instead? Huh? Sit back and think of Avalon, Kacchan-“

Deku reels like she’s hit him, or actually not like that at all, since hitting Deku basically never accomplishes the intended effect. 

“No! No! That’s not- that’s not what I meant, that’s not- I would never-“

“No kids,” Katsuki spits, before he can unravel his emotions and land on understanding, or concern, because if he does she’ll break at least a bone. The only reason she didn’t burn his stupid letter to a crisp on sight is because she knew immediately on a gut level that this was meant to be a partnership of equals. The only reason. And shit like this- shit like kids, which means pregnancy, which means wife- this upsets that very fragile understanding in violent and catastrophic ways she doesn’t want to touch. Deku’s eyes are very big and very green and he looks like he’s just now seeing a lot of things and trying not to show it.

“No kids,” Deku says, voice a little croaky on it, then surer, like he’s trying to make amends. “We’ll figure something out.”

Beneath the focus he looks vaguely miserable, which he probably is. They’ve never even broached the subject, but she would bet her essence that Deku is a romantic, that in his head it was gonna be purest love and marriage and a horde of sycophantic children, some pretty-eyed princess or sweet little servant girl. She’s giving up her total independence, if she plays this card, and admittedly some pride, but Deku’s probably sacrificing more, objectively. Marriage matters to him, she’s sure of it. Family definitely does. If he goes through with this he’s never getting either, just- partnership, she guesses. But no true love, and no fuckwit kids, or at least never either that he can acknowledge. Maybe the enormity of this very tragic dream of his being lost to him forever has just now hit him properly.

Katsuki’s not about to passionately dissuade him from his choice, though. Deku’s smart enough to know what’s best for him- that’s agood thing. Love isn’t going to help him for shit when his head’s on a pike because Shigaraki took over. And she’s not much one for the concept in any event. The excruciating ballads Kaminari sings on walks make her sick, all drippy sentiment and losers who never get anything done because they’re too busy crying or dying or both. She’s never seen True Love accomplish jack shit, nor does she believe it an affliction that she is in danger of contacting. For the most part it seems to target idiots with nothing better to do. No comment on idiocy, but Deku has better to do too. The King is celibate, after all, and he’s never suffered for it.

(Well, currently he’s dying from war wounds, but that’s not from lack of love. More like too much of it, in all directions, giving and giving. Stupid. It’s not treason if it’s true.)

There are still the beginnings of smoke curling between her fingers, wisping away when she sinks back into her chair, but her blood’s not pounding in her ears anymore, so she loosens her jaw and frowns at Deku where he sits staring at her. There’s other shit- basic shit- that matters. I want to wear my colors. I can still kill you with my bare hands if you fuck me somehow. I’ll marry you but I’ll be King too. But the thing with Deku is that she basically doesn’t need to say any of that. She trusts him to be on the same page, which is more than she trusts pretty much anyone, and that’s as good a sign as any. That’s what she’d told herself when she came up to court, anyway. Considering half the library probably just heard them yelling maybe she should walk back on her warm fuzzies.

“That’s the big shit for me,” she says, aloud. “You got anything?”

She’s sure he does- sure someone somewhere has told him exactly what to look for in a consort, and that there are like fifty demands he should be making of her- but of course he doesn’t, just shakes his head and frowns to himself before he meets her gaze.

“Kacchan- you’re sure?”

No, not really, Katsuki imagines saying. My innate ambition is at odds with my ego, or my conscience or something. But then she’s had that conversation with herself already. She’s not so sure about him.

“Are you?”

Deku lets out a breath, a little shaky, like a laugh without laughter. Maybe no one’s asked him yet. It reminds her of being seventeen and viscerally aware of somehow having wound up in charge of saving Deku from himself because no one else had the brains to. Maybe the same is true for him, because his shoulders relax all at once, and when he looks at her again his eyes are all naked trust and he’s smiling his stupid fucking everything will be okay now smile.

“I’m sure.” When she stares back unflinchingly he smiles a little more guiltily, rubbing at his wrist. “Maybe not so ready, but sure.”

She scoffs a little even though it’s not particularly funny. “I’ll never be ready to marry your dumb ass. ‘S not the question.”

Deku huffs, looks at her with too much gratitude. “Yeah. Of course.”

It’s done, then, Katsuki thinks. It’s happening. She waits to feel a wave of dread or regret, but mostly she feels vaguely relieved. Now that it’s set to happen it’s nothing- just another inevitability in her life to make work. Out of her hands, but surmountable, like everything else. More than that- she’s going to be the queen of Avalon, she thinks, with clarity.

They don’t know what’s about to hit them. They have no fucking idea. The things she can do with an army at her disposal-

“Kacchan,” Deku says, very grave, very earnest, very much killing her vibe as she refocuses on his freckled face. He’s paler than he used to be, too much time spent out of the sun; it makes his plain face especially somber. “Thank you.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” Katsuki says, glancing up at the skylight where sunbeams are making dust dance above them. “I’m doing it for Avalon.”

It rains hard, the next week. That’s not unusual where the palace lies- they get all sorts of weather, sunny summers and snow in the winter. She remembers that from knight training, the shitty dorms they had them in, supposed to make them toughen up. A lot of the kids had cried during the winter, or gotten badly ill, and one guy whose face she doesn’t remember had lost like half a finger. Deku, sleeping on the straw, had been coughing his lungs up half the time. Katsuki gets cold easily, but she hadn’t been sick once all winter; she’d used her free hours that fall to work at the Institute workbenches and made herself this convoluted copper box to place under the bed and dump hot coals into.

Anyways, it rains. The moat fills, peasants come bearing complaints and/or offerings, the Institute goes pearlescent, and her knights grumble and gripe at being made to train outside, stumbling back mud-drenched with hair plastered to their faces in the afternoons. Storm weather, Katsuki thinks, when the winds pick up. She’s not superstitious, but at morning prayers she sees the shrines piled high with tokens. Storms this early in the year mean harsh winters, or something.

“There is usually truth to be found in superstition,” the King says, thoughtfully, when they talk about the rain, her and Deku sat on either side of him in his sitting room. “Ser Mirai used to place great value on them.”

Fat lot of good that did Sasaki, Katsuki doesn’t say. “Wasn’t that because of his essence, though?”

“Ah, well, yes,” the King concedes, smiling in that disarming way of his. “But even so. I try not to underestimate what the people knows.”

Young Midoriya cares for the people, and you understand power. It’s too easy to feel adolescent around him.

“We have had reports of early snow from the west,” Deku confirms, glancing up at his mentor. “But news is always slow from Cameliard.”

“Because they intercept it,” Katsuki scorns, slouching in her seat. Tintagel and Liones alike are too southern to see much of the Cameliards, but their lands are vast; she’s had her share of encounters with their stony troops and tight-lipped emissaries. King Enji may be an accomplished warrior and an essential ally in keeping unsavoury types from creeping towards Avalon, but he’s also someone she absolutely buys turning on them to claim the throne himself as soon as their common enemies are dealt with.

The King, though, neither disputes nor agrees with the accusation, just holds his tea higher. “These are troubled times, young Bakugou. There is little trust across the kingdoms.”

There is way too much fucking trust in this one, Katsuki thinks, but she holds her tongue. It’s one of the first times she’s sat in on their daily tête-à-tête since she got here, and for all that the King regards her exactly like he always did, she’s not as chatty as either of them. Deku’s the only person she knows besides her mother who gets her going so easily.

“I’ve sent word out to the nearby towns and villages to brace for a bad night or two,” Deku is saying now, back on schedule. “And I was thinking of offering anyone without secure shelter to come to castle grounds for the time being. People die when there are winds like these.”

“Joyous Gard has plenty of space,” the King says, thinking about it, though his eyes flicker to Katsuki like he knows what she’s about to say.

“You can’t just let whoever pile into the palace at will,” Katsuki protests, thus, nerve jumping in her forehead. “Did you forget there are people trying to kill you?”

“It’s just for a day or two,” Deku replies, frowning. “And not beyond the inner walls. We’re not letting people die because of a few threats.”

“Do you know how easy it would be to hide somewhere and stay here? Learn the patrols and sneak into the palace?”

“The guard would handle it if that happened,” Deku says, not budging an inch. “And I can take care of myself. I’m not worried.”

Katsuki exhales irritably through her teeth. Deku has the self-sacrifice thing down to a fine art, but it’s like he’s still not managed to grasp that when you rule you have to make other sacrifices too, harder ones, for the sake of shit bigger than yourself. A handful of peasants or merchants dying is bad, but if Deku gets stabbed in his sleep Avalon sinks into chaos and way more people bite it in the subsequent fuckery.

“Discuss it with young Iida and Ser Tensei,” the King decides, setting his tea down. “I don’t want any unnecessary loss of life.”

Ser Iida the younger is never going to disagree with Deku, despite his reservations, Katsuki thinks with annoyance. She guesses at least his security will be ramped up. But it’s typical of the King to fold to Deku’s idealism, even after what happened at the Solstice. They’re too fucking similar.

He looks okay, the King. It’s still weird to look at him this way, when the image of him from before is so unshakeable- towering and brilliant, a giant of a man with a permanent luminous smile. Back then, on horseback with his billowing cape, it had been easy to believe in the divine right of kings stuff, godly parentage way back up the family tree. Now he’s lost half his body weight, once broad jaw pointed and cheeks hollow, he looks more half-dead than immortal, but his gaze is the same. He looks better than he had the last time Katsuki had seen him, bedridden and fever-stricken, but he still walks like he shouldn’t be able to, and when he laughs too hard it turns into hacking coughs. When he’s distressed his hand goes to his side. Katsuki notices these things. Everyone notices these things. It doesn’t help, in Avalon, that the King is like a ghost of their former glory, haunting his own palace. She’s heard them say it, in whispers- Joyous Gard is now Dolorous. Deku has impossible shoes to fill.

Deku hasn’t told him yet, about the proposal. She’s not sure if he even said he was going to do it, or if that’s just between the two of them. She’s pretty sure the King was one of those who advised him to think about it, though, so she’s not losing sleep thinking about how he’ll react. He’d approve whoever Deku chose anyway.

How the rest of the court is going to react is an open question. She imagines a lot of bitching, but with the people who matter it’s harder to guess. The Round Table especially- Aizawa, for one. He came to say his condolences at the ceremony, still with the unsettling damn eyes, and Katsuki had startled herself with the unexpected urge to ask him to fill her in. It’s just that of everyone in court, even amongst the Round Table, he’s probably the one whose insight she trusts most. He’s objective in a way no one she’s ever met is, and he never minces his words. Of course, he’s also a straight-faced liar, but you learn to work with it. Sink or swim.

They stay at the King’s another while, talk shifting to the important shit, which is to say the ever-mounting threat of outright war. Another neutral kingdom has abruptly turned silent down south, and way out in Benwick a rogue attack nearly took out the fleet’s best ship until Usagiyama rocked up herself to turn the tide. That Benwick is still firmly independent is good news, but the news that gets Katsuki the most is the quiet reassurances from Lothian. Out in Liones she’d made it crystal clear she wanted tabs kept as far and wide as possible, but they had more local shit to keep up with, and Avalon’s resources dwarf theirs. Last she’d heard Lothian was a sure deal.

“It’s hard to know what to think when we don’t have a presence there,” Deku says, gnawing his lip. It’s part and parcel of their whole tenuous deal with the monarch there, but it means the news they get comes straight from the palace, or otherwise from travelling merchants months after the fact. “If Broceliande was willing to tell us what they’re hearing, it would be easier to decide whether to press the issue, but they definitely won’t budge.”

“Because they’re cowards.”

“Neutrality has kept their borders intact for a hundred years, Kacchan.”

“No one’s neutral. They’re just too dependent on us to admit they’re under Lothian’s thumb.”

“Maybe,” Deku concedes, cynical like he didn’t use to be. “But we’re not going to risk losing them to the Waste Lands by forcing their hand. If the summit goes well, there’ll be a better way to get through to them.”

“The summit,” Katsuki mutters. She doesn’t have a good feeling about the summit.

“You never have a good feeling about working with people,” Deku says, the asshole; he even smiles when she glares at him. “I really think it’ll work.”

Given how much of his plan hinges on the inherent goodness of man, Katsuki doesn’t share his confidence. But that’s fine- if the summit goes down in flames, she can think of plenty of ways to convince the big names of Avalon to lend their support to the cause, with or without the big names themselves. It’s frankly better if they don’t get there through diplomacy- if they have to quash a few internal dissenters first, it’ll make it way easier to sway neighbours into allies. People are stupid only up to a point- putting a gate up keeps less people out of a forest than seeing trespassers hanging from the canopy.

They walk out together, Deku’s pace always rapid and Katsuki perenially slouched, and she can tell he’s looking at her, trying to read her on this. She doesn’t want to say anything about the King to him, though, so she looks outside instead, where it looks admittedly nasty, skies dark despite the early hour and rain heavy on the horizon. Atop the walls the royal flags are contorting violently, so the noble tiger is just a blur of reds against the crest.

“I heard you saw Ochako,” Deku says, nodding gently at two serving girls who curtsey deeply as they pass them by washing in hand. “She’s got an apprenticeship with the weaponsmaster, I didn’t say- she’s been working on building defences for smaller outposts, it’s really interesting work- although maybe you knew that?”

“Why would I know that?” Katsuki retorts, mildly exasperated. “You think I have people tell me what the palace servants are up to? I could really give two shits what your favourite chambermaid has picked up as a hobby.”

Predictably, Deku goes pink, wincing as he glances around. “I meant since you got here! I-it’s just impressive of her, and you knew her back then, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well. Spare me the small talk until we have to do it,” Katsuki sighs, relenting a little. So far their evening feasts have been relatively relaxed, but tonight’s already more of a big deal banquet, with all of the Round Table in attendance, and with all the expected nobles coming up in the next few weeks to flaunt their eligible daughters there are banquets and even balls looming in the not so distant horizon. That’s without getting into the summit, which will put even the palace’s colossal amenities under strain. Considering she’s set to be around at least until then, she’s not looking forward to it. Celebrations are well and good- she’s especially partial to tournaments- but at the moment they feel particularly like a waste of time, and she hates having to converse with annoying courtiers.

“I’m sort of glad we have the banquet tonight,” Deku says, glancing at the window. “At least a lot of people will be in the palace, not on the roads. No one should be travelling today.”

“Wouldn’t be such a loss if some of them got swept away,” Katsuki grumbles, thinking of the smarmy blonde asshole who’s been eyeing her like he knows something since she showed up. “Are you gonna make some shitty banquet speech again?”

“Usually the King does,” Deku dismisses, hurriedly. “I do when he’s not feeling well, but I never know how to prepare for it. It just- I mean, I’m underqualified, you know? And in front of the Knights, and all these nobles- I don’t know, I get all-“

It’s a little startlingly honest. Most of the week Deku’s been fairly reserved by his standards, but he seems to have reverted to the way he was back towards the end of their fighting together, taking Katsuki somewhat unwillingly into his confidence. Maybe it’s talking to the King that’s done it. Or the betrothal situation.

“Just wing it,” she says aloud, interrupting his rambling. “All of your best tirades are off the cuff.”

They descend the stairs, making way for some servants carrying a heavy chest; as they pass onto the lower floors Katsuki spots a little cluster of minor nobles making their way out of the throne room, bowing their heads when they spot Deku.

“Your royal highness. Ser Bakugou.”

“Ah, good afternoon, milords,” Deku greets, gesturing politely, Katsuki repeating the gesture without bothering with the words. “How is your wife, Sir Nayato?”

“Better, your highness- in great part thanks to the physician’s expedient treatment,” Nayato says, visibly a little surprised by the question. “Do we have your highness to thank for this?”

“Not at all,” Deku denies rapidly, raising his hands. “The physicians would certainly have done the same for anyone. I’m just glad to hear of her recovery.”

Katsuki tunes out the platitudes; once they’re out of earshot she looks flatly at him until he squirms.

“I just happened to mention the ailment when I was there myself. I’m sure they were well on their way to seeing her.”

Forget the self-effacing neurosis; Katsuki narrows her eyes. “Seeing the physician yourself, huh? And why are you seeing the physician, Deku?”

His expression twists, and then he looks a little exasperated himself, sighing as they cross the courtyard. “If I say it’s nothing, you’re not going to believe me, are you.”

“Hell no,” Katsuki snorts. Deku gives her a beleaguered smile.

“It is nothing, though.”

“You want me to go down there and ask?”

“They wouldn’t tell you,” Deku decides, somewhere between apologetic and combative. Katsuki scowls.

“You wanna risk me wasting half an afternoon of medical care?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Fuck you. Tell me.”

“Later,” Deku relents, glancing at the bustling hallway ahead. “I have to go talk to Ser Iida about letting in the villagers- do you want to come with?”

“Are you seriously asking?”

“No, not really,” Deku admits, around a laugh, losing the hunted look. “He’s a really great person, you know. Seriously. I know he’s a little intense, but he’s really good at his job.”

“Great,” Katsuki says, sniffing. “So he can stay on your personal guard when I get mine.”

“Kacchan,” Deku groans, but lightly. “I’m just saying, you don’t have to be so hard on him. He’s very admiring of your strategy in private.”

“So’s everyone else,” Katsuki volleys back, smirking when Deku huffs in concession. “Can’t say the same of his, though. Far as I know the best way to use your sword isn’t to shove it up your-“

“Ah, Ser Iida!” Deku interrupts, at tremendous volume, waving a little frantically when the Marquess himself appears at the end of the hallway wearing his usual squinty sternness. “I need to talk to you!”

His shoulders shake guiltily when Iida begins stiffly walking their way, Katsuki quirking her brows pointedly at him before meeting the guy’s cautious look.

“Well met, your royal highness. Ser Bakugou.”

“Yeah. Leave you two to it. Tell him the thing about swordsmanship, your highness.”

“Bye, Ka- Ser Bakugou.”

She spends the rest of the day busy. With the lack of normal travel some of her letters won’t reach home within the intended time, which means contingency planning. When Deku sends hasty notice out to nearby villages and towns for those in need to head to the palace, the weather having turned impressively bad over the hours, Katsuki sets off on horseback with a handful of her knights to sheperd the bigger groups in. They bitch and moan about it, obviously, none of them keen to get all suited up to get drenched for an hour, but their complaints stop as soon as they reach the villagers. Their reassurance is useful- strengthens the impression that Katsuki is doing it out of the goodness of her heart rather than to scan the groups for anyone suspicious.

On foot, the villagers make slow progress towards the palace. Deku had had wagons sent out to collect those he could, but Katsuki’d gone for those furthest from the palace, and they live in tricky terrain. The knights sit some of the elderly and young with them on their horses, but for the most part they walk, so they make it back not a minute too soon, even with the escort- the rain has reached such a tempo that it’s actively hard to see ahead and Kaminari keeps accidentally shocking his horse.

The gates close one by one across the evening; Deku insists on leaving the outermost drawbridge down for any stragglers, because of course he does. Katsuki, by then dry and dressed, makes her way from her rooms across the ramparts to go survey the assembled group where they huddle in the provided halls, mostly sat on flimsy rolls. At least the fires are lit. They look fairly content, from her vantage point, some of them even dazed- she supposes most of them have little reason to come into the palace building, especially places like the outer halls, which are primarily decorative. They certainly look out of place amongst the imposing pillars in their drab clothes, though the rain has at least washed the grime off them.

With this surveying done, she has no real excuse to put off the banquet any longer. By some miracle, or more aptly because her detour made her late enough to match her terminally underprepared knights’ arrival times, she encounters a contingent of them before they enter the hall, all dressed in their best and chattering excitedly, the day’s woes forgotten. This particular bunch have relaxed since they first had to mingle with the Avalonian upper class, though they still stand out by simple virtue of their plainer clothes, if not their general commoner aura. Katsuki, in her fine dark velvet shirt and with gold dangling from her ears, makes an odd addition to the group, especially wearing the red cape that brands her as a Round Table knight. Not that she gives a fuck.

“It’s really coming down,” Sero notes, looking at the thundering darkness outside as he sips his wine. “Hey, did someone dump you again, Denki?”

“Yeah, no need to be so dramatic,” Kirishima grins, as lightning threatens in the distance. Kaminari pulls a face at both of them.

“Yeah, keep laughing and I’ll have it hit you guys when you go take a piss.”

“Ooh, there’s the Prince,” Ashido says, ducking under his arm to get a better look at Deku where he stands in deep conversation with some of the older Knights. “He looks particularly good in green, I think.”

“Good thing you’re not employed to think,” Katsuki grimaces, gesturing at a servant to refill her goblet. “That Togata waving at you over there?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kaminari notes, waving back. “He’s actually super nice, you know. Like, really friendly guy. And really good with a sword.”

“He was helping set up the villagers earlier, too.”

Katsuki personally doesn’t trust anyone who came that close to the throne without holding any grudges about it, but that’s not banquet talk; she looks around the room instead of answering, leaves them to chatter as she scopes out the attendees. They’ll have to sit soon, and from the looks of it she’s up near Deku, if not right next to him. That’s happened more than once the past while, and it’s not gone unnoticed- by the court at large or by her own moronic men.

Someone nearby says a familiar name; Katsuki turns to spot Lady something or other passing her hefty furs to a meekly nodding Uraraka, who pulls a face the moment she turns away, essence allowing her to manoeuvre the bundle into something less bulky. Katsuki weighs her options and then intercepts her when she’s about to walk past, hand to shoulder.

“Oi.”

“Excuse me, your- oh,” Uraraka blinks, glancing rapidly between Katsuki and her curious knights. “Your grace. Um, Sirs…”

“Thought you weren’t a chambermaid anymore,” Katsuki interjects, quirking a brow. It makes her face set with bravado.

“I said I wasn’t only a chambermaid anymore, your grace. I pay for my own lodgings as a condition of my apprenticeship.”

Katsuki purses her lips, glancing at the noblewoman fussing over her companion and back at Uraraka. “You look real grateful for the opportunity.”

“I am!” Uraraka protests, a little guilty, probably correctly guessing that she saw her grimacing. “It’s just- milady has a very delicate disposition! She gets warm very easily, and- also cold, so-“

Sure enough, the lady in question is now glancing around in search of her, irritated expression melting when she meets Katsuki’s eyes and turns back to her companion so rapidly her headdress skews, making Ashido snort.

“She’ll be wanting this again,” Uraraka sighs, resigned, before straightening. “But her particularities are, um. A sign of her very attractive sensibility, you know.”

“Don’t embarrass yourself,” Katsuki retorts, shaking her head. “Go give her her furs and then say I asked you to go feed my snake.”

“Your- snake?” Uraraka repeats, despite her preemptive curtsey. Katsuki groans.

“There’s no snake. Go out to the outer walls and come tell me if the drawbridge is still up.”

“Oh,” Uraraka says, and then nods more enthusiastically, cheeks pink with determination before she casts her voice overloud. “As you wish, your grace. I’ll fetch mice posthaste.”

She scampers off to the woman with overly contrite features, and Katsuki looks away, meeting the confused looks of her knights.

“You know her, your grace?”

“Why are you sending her out in the deluge? The poor girl! One of us could have gone!”

“She’ll survive,” Katsuki dismisses. She’s not being nice- Uraraka’s a convenient means to an end, easy to send in and out without it looking like Katsuki’s questioning the sagacity of royal orders. If it so happens that the girl will take far greater pleasure in the half hour spent struggling through the inner walls than she would at the beck and call of some courtesan diva, that’s just serendipitous.

Ugh. Serendipitous. She glances at the Hakamada fox crest where it hangs against the far wall. Maybe it’s for the best you’re not around if you’re having me sound like an asshole inside my own head.

The gong ringing interrupts her train of thought; she prowls through the parting mass of nobles to find her seat, which indeed sets her neatly down next to Deku and on the other side of a suggestively smiling Duchess Kayama. She ignores the latter in favour of begrudgingly meeting the former’s raised cup midway as they settle, kicking his ankle to stop him from sitting when he visibly forgets he’s meant to be talking.

“Ah- welcome, everybody, to our Great Hall…”

Dinner goes fine. Food is good, no one near her does anything particularly annoying, and her and Deku spend a good deal of it heads bowed discussing court rumours about what went down in Benwick, so she doesn’t feel the minutes passing by aimlessly. Once or twice she’s dragged into weird barbed conversation with Kayama, and at some point one of her younger knights gets heated at a palace guard and has to be cuffed around the ear for it, but it’s fine. Whenever the room quietens, the howling winds outside make themselves known, battering against the high windows; Katsuki thinks of the King’s chambers and hopes for his sake the fires are well-maintained.

They’re taking dishes away by the time a finger taps her shoulder and a girlish voice asks if she’d like more wine; Katsuki automatically extends her goblet in the same movement that she turns her ear, damp brown hair brushing her cheek as Uraraka leans obligingly forwards, voice hushed.

“They’ve left the drawbridge down, because they had one or two travelling merchants stumble in across the evening seeking shelter. But, um-“

She hesitates; Katsuki gestures absently at her to stop pouring, frowns. “What?”

“When I left- it’s very hard to see, but- when I left, I really thought I saw lights, over the hills.”

Lights, Katsuki wants to demand: What lights? Lights that far off would be visible on a better day, sure, torches maybe, but on a night like this, no torch would withstand the weather, and even if by some magic it did it certainly wouldn’t be seen from the palace walls. But she can’t start asking questions, not with Kayama eyeing her and Deku shifting in his chair like he’s trying to get a look at her serving girl.

“Right,” she says instead. “That’ll do. Go serve my men, if you can find them.”

“Your grace,” Uraraka mumbles, and retreats demurely, though her concerned eyes meet Katsuki’s in passing as she winds towards the other end of the tables.

Lights. What the hell does that mean? On instinct she lowers a hand to her belt, feeling the familiar weight of her sword against her leg. It’s not good-mannered to bring swords to the table, but these days knights are pretty much expected to, a policy she distinctly approves of.

Could be nothing. Could be lightning. Could be the reflection of the tower fires catching Uraraka from an angle. What does she know, anyway, a palace maid? Certainly there’s no reason to sound the alarm.

She stays alert regardless, deaf to the excitable chatter when the servants bring in sweets, and though she’s good at hiding things these days Deku must catch the shift because he leans towards her once they’ve been served with a level expression, cape swishing importantly over the arm of his chair.

“If the questions are too much, I can say something. I know I’ve said I’d announce my choice after the ball, but-“

“What?” Katsuki says, catching up, shakes her head. He must think Kayama said something. “No, I don’t give a shit. After the ball is fine. Let them have their chance to flash eyes at you or whatever.”

Deku looks confused, but Aizawa asks him something from nearby, and he gets drawn into conversation long enough for it to pass, Katsuki scanning the room in silence as the night draws on. Uraraka has vanished from sight, but her knights have all stopped drinking, so she must have said something before disappearing.

It’s a good forty minutes later that she first hears commotion. It comes from outside first, though she only notices because Deku does- something weird is going on in the sky over the palace, repeated thunder with no lightning. Then, maybe ten minutes later, there’s voices and the sound of chainmail moving fast, doors opening, and Iida and a guardsman are beelining for Deku as discreetly as they can, the latter wet-haired and pale.

“Your royal highness, news from the outer gates-“

Katsuki sits up straight; Deku’s eyes go to her and then the knight, intent. “What? Is there flooding? Travellers?”

“Soldiers,” the guard says, grim-faced. “Foreign soldiers.”

“From where?” Deku asks, already on his feet, even as Katsuki demands the same, forgetting herself; Iida glances up at the hanging crests.

“Cameliard, your highness. And- the Prince is with them.”

She physically can’t remember any one thing she does from there until they reach the gates. It’s all one long blur of automatic movement- rushing after Deku into the halls as he calls out orders and she yells over her shoulder for her knights to stay put and keep watch, then taking the shortest possible route over the ramparts, torrential downpour be damned, trying to turn the half-hour maze into five minutes. It’s hard to see and harder not to fall at the speed they’re keeping; she’s distantly aware as they close in of Iida keeping pace, members of the royal guard in tow, overlapping information from all sides as they advance past guardpost after guardpost, Izuku’s sword not drawn but glowing green against his hip, her palms hissing against the rain. Her heartbeat is pounding in her throat by the time they reach the fourth wall, exertion and temperament alike, but when Iida goes to lead them to the final rampart Deku stops his arm, shaking his head, and his voice is firm despite his rapidly rising chest.

“No, we should cross the grounds to them.”

So they rush down the spiralling stairs, and every time they pass a window Katsuki’s eyes flash to the high arch of the outer gate, lit by flickering torches, and the figures she can just about make out past the red capes of Avalonian soldiers. They slow when they reach the ground floor, Deku stopping short of the entryway to take a deep steadying breath as Iida gives a series of complex hand signals (this guy and the fucking hand signals) to the knights, who scatter accordingly into formation. Katsuki does nothing but let her hands crackle, damp from the rain.

“I can have them send forth an emissary,” Iida says, focused, as Deku rights his cape. “It would leave you in the more comfortable position.”

“Cameliard isn’t our enemy,” Deku says, quietly. “If they came unannounced it could be anything. We’ll go to them.”

They cross the grounds at a measured pace. Between the fourth and fifth gate there’s nothing but land and barracks, so there’s no incline, which makes it impossible to see over the knights barring the Cameliards from entry, especially with the rain factored in. Katsuki gets what Deku is going for, but she would have sent for the Prince, because they’re going to be soaked by the time they meet the bastard, and in their own stronghold that’s embarrassing.

She doesn’t voice this, though, just keeps pace with Deku, ignoring Iida’s attempts to get knights to cover him on all sides as they advance into the dark wet night. Sky-breaker is spitting green sparks into her thigh, sole point of light as they walk, and the knights by the gate move to call out to them, barely understandable through the downpour. Her clothes and hair are clinging to her skin, frigid dampness supremely discomforting, but it barely registers, her focus on the lit gate as they gain on it.

She sees them in waves. Across the draw-bridge, spanning further back; a good two dozen, maybe more, the latter half swallowed by the dark. Many on horseback, but not all. Men, mostly knights, but at least one dark-haired woman, on horseback in an ornate silver cloak and fitted riding dress. In formation. No weapons drawn. Less bedraggled than they should be, after hours of rain. Her eyes jump irrepressibly from one blurry face to another, seeking the focal point at the frontlines. The Avalon knights part as they draw near, and for a second she thinks she has him- an absurdly big man in a giant fur coat atop an equally big horse, hard-faced and superior-looking- but instinctively her eyes jump to his side, and despite the obvious reservation fix with determination on the rider next to him, sat astride an implausibly pale horse with the coldest eyes Katsuki’s ever had the displeasure of meeting.

By her side, at the very mouth of the bridge, Deku draws to a dead stop. Directly ahead of him, the woman who could have been ripped straight from Kaminari’s most lamentable love ballads if not for the brutal burn scar covering a good third of her face looks back at him, dark riding cloak lowered negligently to better see him.

“Prince Shouto of Cameliard,” Deku greets, loud against the rain and the silence. “Well met.”

“Prince Izuku of Avalon,” the rider responds, long tendrils of absurd red and white hair whipping loosely at her shoulders. Her voice is a distant monotone, but it carries. “I hope that we are.”

This is the first coherent thought Katsuki has when face to face with the Crown Prince of Cameliard: Someone somewhere has fucking lied to her.

Her second thought is: What the fuck?