Levesquian: a dark hazel au (frazel!!)

two: no father of mine

Hazel closed the doors of the great chamber with a clang and turned around to face her father.

In his younger days, you might have described him as bright, in a painful way. He had emanated power like a sun despite calling himself the Lord of the Dead. With blunt shoulders, a sharp chin and sharper eyes matched with the physique of a wooly mammoth, the term "kingly" suited him.

But that was many years ago, when Hazel had been young. To her delight, she could no longer recall that image. The withered thing in front of her was the only thing she wanted to see.

"Hello, father."

King Pluto looked up from his chair with just his eyes. His beard, gray with streaks of white, was so matted and disheveled that parts of it were in his mouth. He was slumped to one side, arms weakly in his lap, a form so skeletal and wrinkled it almost appeared that the velvet cushions were eating him.

"Daughter," he wheezed. "Hello."

Hazel wrinkled her nose at him. "When are you finally going to beg for mercy? This is becoming tedious."

Pluto let out a hoarse sigh and tried for a mischievous smile. "Dear Hazel, my darling little cinnamon scone. I'll never beg you for mercy. Pain though I may receive, the mere sight of you brightens my day."

This time it was Hazel's turn to sigh. "Lies. If you insist, father." She sank into a hard-backed wooden chair across from him and crossed one leg over the other. There was no point in wasting time with chit-chat.

Pluto, sensing that this would be the last time, made an effort to push himself up with an elbow. It slipped, and he sank further into the cushions. Hazel gazed at him.

"When you see mother, tell her I said hello."

"How shall I know it is really her and not your....magic?"

Hazel shrugged. "You won't.

The room dimmed the tiniest bit, and Pluto was gone.

---

In his place was a luxuriously decorated bed, engraved with symbols and draped in numerous canopies. Tangled amongst the sheets and the pillows was a woman who could almost be mistaken for Hazel's older sister. It was her mother, Marie. A mop of curly cocoa-colored hair and mahogany skin glimmered darkly against the chest of a man who was not Pluto.

Then Pluto himself walked into the room, straight through Hazel, who was still sitting in her wooden chair. This was ten years ago, so he was virile and strong, and at the sight of his wife and a strange man in their bed, he roared something incoherent.

Marie jumped and covered herself as the man started awake, and upon seeing the situation before him, scrambled to his feet, launched himself through the window to the ground and ran away buck-nude.

Pluto converged on Marie, who backed up against the headboard in terror. The room went dim again and the scene changed, the sounds of punches echoing faintly with Marie's screams.

---

A dark, swirling form took up most of the cavern that was now visible. Marie, who had aged a few years, was cowering in the corner of the room as the giant approached her. He raised a shapeless hand, blackness emanating out of it, and then everything went into slow-motion.

"Pluto, save me!" she screamed.

Pluto's voice reverberated into the stone. "You chose to leave me. You have lain with another man. You dishonored me."

"Please, help! I am still your wife!"

"You are no wife of mine," Pluto hissed. "You left me alone. And now you will die alone. Clytius, do as you will."

Marie went limp with defeat as Clytius raised his dark chains and brought them down on her.

The mist, another voice echoed. I will give Hazel the mist. 

Marie's eyes were blank. "Hecate," she breathed. And then Marie, Clytius, and the stone cavern were gone.

---

Hazel sat in her chair icily and thought, "again."

Her father's wizened body, not quite yet a corpse, contorted in the velvet chair. He let out something between a tortured scream and a sob. "MARIE!"

The scenes played themselves over. Pluto began to foam at the mouth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

"I-I'M SOW-" he half-shrieked, "I'M S-SORRHY!"

Hazel leaned back. She was used to this. It was the same reaction every single time, like a well-practiced ballet.

She tossed in another memory, just to mix it up. Perhaps this one would finally kill him.

---

A tiny Hazel looked up at her father with wet, amber eyes.

"Where is mother?"

Pluto said nothing, and young Hazel sat down on the floor and whimpered.

"I've cut my knee. Where is mother?" She began to cry. "I want mother."

---

Hazel felt it, the moment Pluto broke. He let out a silent scream, nearly falling out of his velvet chair, and then went completely limp. She did not need to check his pulse to see if his heart still beat. Hazel stared at the body for two seconds, and then stood up.

"You are no father of mine," she hissed at the corpse. "No father of mine would let my mother be murdered. No father of mine is a monster. I need no father, and I need no mother."

Hazel strode out of the room, the doors blasted open by an invisible force. Perhaps it was pure fury. A second later, she was in the throne room, where a procession of royal officials were gathered around a table with maps on them. A maid looked up at Hazel with concern.

"Anything you need, milady?"

Hazel snapped and the officials looked up. "King Pluto is no more," she announced. "I am your queen." She looked around coldly. "Queen Marie."