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At eight years old, Rupert “Rue” Stilinski learns about sadness. His best friend's parents divorce and Scott moves to the opposite side of the country.
He starts to make another friend when his mother takes him along on one of her errands one day, and he and Cora Hale make a game out of spying on their parents.
“You know what they are, Emissary.” Rue watches Talia Hale give an exaggerated shudder. “You told me yourself that they bring the stench of death with them. I won't have that kind of Fae in my territory!”
“She doesn't even know that her little one has the blood, Alpha Hale.”
Cora's mom leans back and sips from her teacup and then shakes her head. “It's not worth the risk. Have David find something that will stall them, and in the meantime I will make inquiries as to a more... suitable place for them.”
Claudia inclines her head once, but her lips thin in that way that Rue knows means she is not happy.
“How are your apprentices doing?” Talia tilts her head curiously.
The other woman sighs and shakes her head. “Awful. They're still at the beginning stages, and I think Alan's secretly feeding his strength to Marin. She never does anything using the Power unless they're in tandem. Frankly, it's too codependent and I'm not sure they're ever going to be able to be Emissaries alone. And who wants to be team scolded?”
Talia laughs and shakes her head. “I'm sure you'll find your successor, dear one. No need to hurry on my account. You were good enough for my late husband, you'll do for me.” Her face darkens slightly. “And speaking of scolding..." She trails off as she hears something.
Claudia leans forward and then halts, dark eyes swinging to peer at two little sets of eyes on the upper balcony. Talia's eyes follow her gaze and the werewolf sighs. “Well, at least we know they get along?”
As they squirm through their scolding, Rue's eyes lift up to see a pair of sparkling blue ones watching from atop the garden shed outside.
He never forgets those eyes.
-
When Rue is eleven, he is diagnosed with ADHD by the school. His mom laughs and rolls her eyes, takes him out for ice cream, and explains to him that it's his magic surfacing. They spend the next few weeks practicing focusing, grounding, and centering, and Rue doesn't have any more problems in school.
He learns about werewolves and druids, witches and Fae.
Over the course of that summer, his mother begins training him, things that were passed down from her mentor. Rue also learns that he should be learning this from someone not related, as the Emissaries have a very strong system of fosterage, but that his father doesn't know anything about the supernatural, and he won't approve sending Rue away for three years without a good reason.
He learns magic in secret, and quickly surpasses his mother's apprentices. It's as easy as breathing to him.
Rue doesn't learn to fear magic until he runs across a mysterious man in the woods one night, and magic is used against him. He limps home, burnt and bleeding, only to see amusement rather than worry in his mother's eyes. “I see you've met Peter.” She gets out the first aid kit. “He'll be teaching you the things I cannot.”
Rue doesn't understand, thought his mother knew everything, which amuses her.
“I'm a druid, my darling,” she says softly, “but you won't be. Healing and things of the earth are not your forte. Peter Hale will help you find that which is.”
“Did he learn as part of his training to be Alpha?”
“Peter Hale will never be Alpha. He's not suited for it.” Claudia pauses. “Best not to bring that up in conversation. He's a mite...touchy about certain things.”
-
Rue is fourteen, just turned a week before, when he finds out how much “a mite touchy” means. He feels a huge power surge when he's meditating on the roof of the school, and climbs down to find Peter over a dead girls' body.
“Paige just wouldn't listen.” Peter looks down at the girl again, and then flicks supernatural blue eyes up at his student. Rue's own eyes widen at the color change and Peter casts his down.
“Y'know,” Rue says conversationally, “blue is my favorite color.” He turns his attention to the girl briefly before smiling softly up at Peter. “If you can get her home, I can make this all go away.”
He becomes an accomplice to murder for the werewolf, and Peter rewards Rue with his first ever blowjob.
They attend the funeral together.
-
At sixteen, Rue meets his first Demon, an incubus named Danny who swiftly becomes his best friend. And then joins himself and Peter in their bed.
Danny teaches them both to speak the language of demons, the myriad ways of summoning them, and how to create pocket dimensions to keep them prisoner in.
Later that same year, a hunter by the name of Gerard Argent quietly declares war on werewolves, and he and his kin start eliminating them wholesale.
Talia won't make a move against them until they attack her pack directly.
Peter, Rue, and Danny make a plan.
-
Rue becomes the youngest full mage ever at seventeen. He uses his power to help Danny become a Demon Lord. The three of them face off with Talia to demand that she do something about the hunters.
She declines with all the hauteur of a Hale Alpha.
Peter lifts newly reddened eyes after ripping his mother's head off. Rue smirks. “I lied. Red is my favorite color.”
They celebrate by going on a killing spree. When they're done, there are no Hunters left on earth.
It's during this time, on a mid-winter's hunt in the Yukon, that Rue discovers his penchant for ice. Danny and Peter help him experiment with different ways to use it tactically. They both like the new silvery hue of his eyes.
-
They have their perfect world for less than a year, when some idiot dictator manages to launch a nuclear weapon at Russia, who retaliates, causing a domino effect that destabilizes the entire world's ecology. The three of them put their heads together to try to find some way to cleanse their world.
Peter is so distracted by this quest that he fails to adequately protect himself against Derek.
Rue feels the Alpha's death from miles away.
When he comes to himself three months later, Danny is there, has been grieving on his own while taking care of Rue. He's tracked down Derek and the pack he's hurriedly making to try to give himself enough power to stand against the duo. Together, the demon and the mage decimate everything Derek has built.
They each take a prize. Rue encases Derek in chains of ice and spends the next six months breaking his spirit. Danny uses his own methods on the boy once known as Jackson.
It's the incubus who finds the spell that will replenish the earth.
It just calls for a special type of blood.
-
At nineteen years old Rue Stilinski crosses worlds to steal a child. He fails, returns home to Danny's arms in defeat.
Together, they try to recreate the right bloodline, but there's no record of there ever having been a Kate Argent in their world, and the entire family's bloodline was wiped out.
Rue must try again.
-
When Rue is twenty years old, he dies in a parallel universe, burned alive by the mirror version of himself.
The last hope of his world dies with him.