Work Text:
The night they met was suitably dazzling and impressive, an anniversary ball at the Royal Arctic Institute, with champagne fountains and fireworks exploding in vivid colours across the plains of the night sky.
But he was cool to it all, sipping the expensive champagne, his hand slick with it from filling his glass, as if it were nothing more than water. He turned his back on the fireworks because he had seen so much more impressive things in the natural world, wonders that were so much more than a human-concocted parlour trick. He thought he’d seen it all. He felt as strong and as mighty and as wise as any king. But he was struck with the weakness of a peasant when he first saw her.
She was as calm as him, knowing that the fireworks nothing compared to the fire in her blood. Her dark hair, tightly curled, brushed her cheek tantalizingly, and even her dress, shimmering and gold like a star and clinging to her body, conveyed how different she was from the wives and handful of female scholars in their dull blue and purple dresses around her. But even if she’d been wearing a paper bag, there was a captivating, powerful quality to her that could not be shaken away. Those smiling, knowing lips, those sparkling eyes, she was a weapon designed to charm, and she’d already snared a group of men who surrounded her as if she were a goddess they were worshipping.
And she saw the power in him, the easy way he stood, broad shoulders relaxed, looking unstoppable and cut from iron. She could never resist power, but she knew the game. She would trap him, like she already had most of the men in the room, with just a smile and soft word or two.
But Asriel was different. He knew power. It flowed through his veins, and he could catch in it his hand almost as easily as she could, but with a different method. He didn’t have time for charm, only persuasive bluntness and a look from those fierce eyes - not her honey-coated gaze, but one that made people know to kneel before him.
They were two gods, locking eyes across the room.
He looked away first, resting his hand lightly on Stelmaria’s head, meeting his daemon’s eyes once, briefly. He would not be easy to win. He was different from all the men in this room, and both of them knew it.
She pushed away her crowd of admirers, taking slow, deliberate steps towards him, the quivering of the golden monkey on her shoulder the only thing betraying her impatience and need.
When she was standing in front of him, close, their shoulders nearly touching, she said: “I don’t believe we’ve met,” that winning smile playing on her lips.
But he just smiled back, untouched. “No. We haven’t.”
“I’m Marisa Coulter. And you, you are a powerful man if I ever saw one.”
Her daemon had swung down from her shoulder and was cautiously approaching his, the two animal’s eyes never leaving each other’s.
His expression didn’t change. “Is that your way of asking for my name?”
“Yes, it is.” She reached out a slender hand and touched her fingertips against the lapel of his jacket, lightly, just as her daemon similarly reached out it’s spidery black paw and grazed it along the side of the snow leopard’s fur, rippling it.
“Asriel.”
“I’ve heard of you. See, I was right: you are a powerful man.” Now her fingers gripped his jacket, as the golden monkey sunk its on fingers into the snow leopard’s fur.
And still Lord Asriel remained unmoved.
“Experimental theology, isn’t that right?” She said, knowing it was, and leaning in closer to him, so he could smell the scent of her perfume.
This finally produced a reaction: he looked away, his hand flexing at his side. Stelmaria let out a low growl, and the monkey twisted it’s fingers in her fur more tightly.
“I’ve heard of you, too,” he said, his words a distraction both for himself and for her. “An infamous woman, moving her way up through the Magisterium, ruthlessly and unstoppably.” He didn’t add that he knew of her husband also, the lamb to her lioness.
“Oh, really,” she said, giggles bubbling from her mouth that only he would have sensed were false, “It hasn’t been as awful-sounding as that, really.” Her hand dropped from his jacket and the monkey backed away and she gave him a helping hand onto her shoulder again, where he stared unblinkingly at Asriel. “I just like to win.”
“So do I.” His eyes were more intense than any she had ever seen before, the pupils black holes she was in danger of falling into.
“Maybe,” she said softly, her voice oh-so-sweet, “We can both win.”
“Maybe,” he said, as if he doubted it. He scouted the room, but not out of discomfort this time, but as if he were bored. It was all a ruse, of course: Stelmaria’s tail was flicking back and forth, and the palm of his hand, stuffed casually into his trouser pocket, was sweating. But Marisa knew lies and trickery, she was the master of it, and she could see the signs like a detective at a crime scene.
“Want to go outside?” She asked, gesturing towards the patio looking over the dark garden, the sky black now, the firework show over. “I need some air.”
“I don’t,” he said shortly, and he began to walk away from her. He was playing a game too, the same game as her, but with different tactics.
Any other time, any other man, she wouldn’t have cared. She would have gone back to laughing and manipulating the other guests with a tilt of her chin, but this was different. She’d finally met a man who was her equal. So she followed him, feeling foolish, like a servant’s canine daemon trotting after its master. But she wasn’t ready to give up.
If he heard her high heels clicking on the floor behind him, he didn’t give a sign. He walked straight to the patio, the bastard. She had to bite her cheek to keep herself from smiling.
But Asriel didn’t stop on the patio: he descended the stone steps into the garden, heading towards the looming hedge maze at the end of it. So this was the game. Catch me, find me. She could do that.
She let the monkey down and he scampered ahead of her as the tip of Stelmaria’s tail vanished into the maze. But when her daemon reached the entrance, he hesitated.
“What is it?” She called softly. She reached him and looked past the hedge. There was no one in sight, just two paths splitting from each other. A challenge. She adjusted the strap on her dress, and walked confidently into the maze, taking the left path and calling “Come on,” to her daemon over her shoulder.
She guided herself through the maze, never faltering, trusting her instincts. The only time they had let her down so far had been her marriage to Edward Coulter. It had seemed like the best way to get what she desired, but now she knew she was only one who could get herself what she wanted. And no pretty white dress could change that.
Finally she emerged at the center of the maze, where Asriel and his daemon stood waiting. They’d known she would come. They’d known she wouldn’t fail.
They came towards each other, two dancers in the devil’s waltz, and their mouths met hungrily, each craving the other’s power. Their hands grabbed at clothes, at hair, at human flesh, whatever was there, and the two daemons tussled and bit at each other. Their love was violent. There would never be any conservative pecks on cheeks or “Honey, I’m homes!” for them. It would always be this way. Their love started with an explosion of fireworks and it would end that way too.