A Queen and Her Kings

The Mark Felt Around the Universe: Part One

Happy belated birthday to Leona, our beloved King of Savanaclaw. Long Live the King!

At 2:58 am on July 20th, 2022, thirty-three young men and one woman across two worlds felt a sudden pain on certain parts of their bodies. It left as quick as it came.

Few knew what it meant.

Fewer still knew what caused it.

It was a mark felt across worlds.

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Riddle's eyes shot open with a start as he awoke. He clutched his right hand in agony. Something was burning him, and it was agonizing. It felt like his skin was burning off. He screamed into his pillow, not wanting to be unsightly and cause a scene that would wake everyone up. His mother had taught him never to do anything like that under any circumstances.

He screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

And then it all just... stopped.

Riddle panted as he cautiously raised his head up from his pillow, half expecting the pain to return. When it didn't, he fully sat up and unclutched his hand.

There, on the back of his right hand, was an unidentifiable black sigil of some kind. The only part of it he could make out in the dark was the 'M' in the middle of it. The prefect looked down at his hand with shocked and scared eyes.

Where had it come from? Why wasn't there any visible injury after all that pain? What did it mean?

Question after question fired off in the young mage's mind. Eventually, he realized he had no idea what was going on and began to feel frustrated. Not only did he have no knowledge of magical marks such as this, the mark had also been put in such an exposed location. And to make matters worse, tattoos were forbidden in Heartslabyul by rule #693 of the Queen of Hearts; 'One shall never marr oneself with tattoos or markings of any kind, save for those of the four suits.'. He was breaking the rules.

What would his students say? What would Trey and Cater say? What would his mother say?

Riddle felt himself jolt in fear and shame after he thought that.

He needed to get rid of this mark, quickly, before anyone saw it.

With a resolved nod, Riddle laid back down on his bed and attempted to go to sleep. Once more, Cassandra Mikaelson haunted his dreams. Her smiling face never left him, even with his head clouded with worries about his newly acquired mark.

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Trey Clover had been up late, baking the last tart for the unbirthday party when he felt it. The searing pain on the back of his left hand caused him to drop the ceramic bowl full of batter he was holding onto the black and white tiled ground of the kitchen as he cried out.

"Ahhh!", he yelled out as the black and white suit patterned bowl shattered and batter splattered all over the ground. When the pain finally stopped, Trey looked around in confusion and alarm, wondering what could have caused it before he took off his left glove to access the damage. He expected blood or blackened skin. Instead, all he got was a tattoo-like crest that looked suspiciously like a coat of arms. Trey looked at it in confused intrigue.

"Vice dorm leader! We heard you yelling! What happened?!", one of the second years who slept on the ground floor asked, concerned with two of his roommates trailing behind him. Trey quickly grabbed his left hand to hide his mark and turned to face the students with a reassuring smile.