Throne of Glass One Shots

Truth AU

Note: takes place in alternate universe where Samleana didn't exist and she didn't go to Endovier

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Celeana paced her bedroom in the keep, footsteps so light the sleeping world had no idea she was awake. She had to tell her, had to tell Lysandra, there wasn't much hiding from it anymore, now was there. This double life, it just couldn't go on like this. 

For ten years, she has been an assassin, the best in the county. Sure she's had some run ins with her side of the law, especially that infatuation with that child, Sam but the Silent Assassins really did make her better. For the past... what was it? Two years now? She's been playing her hand at poker and seeking to regain her throne. Sure it wasn't easy, especially to keep a secret around people trained to do so. She had found herself in a high place of authority for her country, saving the actual conquering later. For now she did business and work in Rifthold for them, still not being trusted to rule. 

It was frustrating, she just wanted to punch something sometimes, a lot of the time, and that's where her other profession came in. She's been gone so long and has been working as an assassin since that time, she understood how that may seem like a bad combo to rule a country but she is the queen of blood and crowns. She deserves her place. 

She wanted to know what Rowan was up to, a man acquainted when in Wendlyn to kill a prince, though she completely disobey orders, but that's another story. 

Focus, she chided her wandering mind, maybe I shouldn't tell her. 

Aelin was friends with people of the palace like Dorian and Chaol, she new the smaller yet important voices like Lysandra. She knew dealers and sellers of all types. She showed them compassion, while refusing to aid in there immoral cause. 

Celeana was friends with those dealers and knew how to get a cheap find. She was enemy to the monarchy, though respected their false authority. She had friends in low places, the caverns no royal would dare venture. Friends like Lysandra. 

Aelin may be the queen of a country, but Celeana, she was queen of the men that lie beneath it. 

And Lysandra just happened to lie in the center of those two opposing worlds. 

She continued to pace her room but after some time, she just felt like a caged animal, needed to break free. 

Nimble yet scarred fingers fought with the latch, before swinging it open and launching the young girl into the swallowing night. 

Celeana flung across rooftops, swept through bars, and paraded through parties, but none of it eased her mind. Hours, but more like eternities later, she ended up swaggering across the rooftops back to the keep when she saw her little black haired friend skittering out of an ally. 

Without the second thought that a sober man would have given, she leapt down, slippered feet slamming with a pound of dust erupting off the street. 

Lysandra turned around, hardly startled. "Are you drunk?"

The drunk girl shrugged in a way that was really a non-admittance agreement, nodding in the direction her friend had just come from. "They pay you well? I can go down there if they didn't. Teach them how to tip a lady."

"No no." Lysandra grabbed Celeana's with her own, the one that had been reaching for the dagger hastily strapped to her side before she left. 

The assassin raised the hands so her fingered could scrap her face in a trail of diamonds. 

"Why do you do that?" Lysandra asked, eyes flickering to the hands that we still hovering over her cheek. 

And because at the moment Aelin didn't have the sense of the rationally to say otherwise her answer was. "To remind me there is still beauty left in the world."

A sad smile crossed the courtesans face. "If you were to see the true face that I hid, you would not recognize me as a piece of beauty at all."

Part of Celeana wanted to agree, wanted to tell her that she probably really was an ogre underneath it all but that was her training talking. That wasn't really her because she knew that was not true. She knew that this girl, nearly her match in age, wearing a thin layer of hardly smudged makeup, porcelain boned corset and a startlingly beautiful emerald gown could not be a monster. A monster was a woman trained to kill, knowing nothing but. A monster is a man without morals. A monster is a slave owner. 

Lysandra was a goddess in comparison. "A lovely a person as you, inside upside-down and backwards, could never anything short of a beauty. It's not a thing only measured in appearance, though at the moment you've got that bit down pat."

A blush coated her lovely friends face. "Those words mean worlds to me, darling. You have no idea."

Celeana couldn't help but look down at her own black clad self, tilt her head to feel the familiar blonde locks move in the light wind. She couldn't help but do this yet as soon as he did, that hand was being lightly pressed against her face. It was being trailed down her body until it was low enough to be released at the hand to be wrapped around her instead.

The shorter of the two girls placed their head on the others shoulder, feeling her cold cheek against her own. "Your freezing! Come here." She pulled the shivering girl close, draping her own jacket over their shared bodies, warming them both with the touch. 

They began to shuffle slowly to Lysandra's brothel, before Celeana would go back to her guild. They were pretty similar the two girls. Not similar enough however that Madam Clarrise wouldn't have a connipition upon seeing the assassin girl within ten feet of her property. It was suppose to be a safe space without those such as her but she was great friends with Aelin. It wasn't the fault of the girl if no one could put two and two together. 

Not even Lysandra. 

When they got within view of the brothel, both girls stopped, not a moment of second thought to differentiate the two. 

It's now or never, she thought. 

Lysandra hugged her close, and as a natural response, Aelin kissed her on the cheek. 

"Good bye, love." Aelin told her, as a send off and an admittance to her cowardice. 

Lysandra stepped away from the girl that she had no idea was some one else entirely, with a smile on her face. "See you soon."

The assassin, embarrassed by her own lack of words bounded off to take the rooftops as a shortcut home when a voice shouted after her. "Get home safe!"

Her face grew red with anger not at the girl but with herself. With world. With everyone. She adored Lysandra. She wanted to turn back and say 'Honey you have no idea.',  should couldn't. 

All she could do was ball her fists and get a head start on a minor job she's been putting off for a few days. 

Then another. 

And another. 

Until her anger and tears and frustration had been drowned in the bloodshed of men she didn't know. 

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Okay so I wasn't actually going to write anything down here but there is something I would like to know. I liked writing this, and have so much more for this au and want to write it but would you guys read it. Does anyone want to know what happens next? If so let me know, shoot me a message with your ideas or just comment to let me know what you thought of this and if you want more.  Your opinion means a lot to whether I'll continue with this so please let me know. 

Thanks. 

Much love, xoxo