Can I Sit On Your Lap, Brother?
Lloyd found her in the sunroom.
Afternoon light spilled through floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the space into a crystal prism. Plants from across the empire crowded every corner—his mother's hobby, he remembered distantly. But Lloyd only had eyes for the small figure sitting on an embroidered cushion, surrounded by picture books she couldn't yet read.
Millicent Rosewelly. Mimi. The villainess.
She looked up when he entered, and Lloyd's heart stopped.
Silver hair—rare in the empire, mark of ancient bloodlines—caught the light like moonshine. It framed a round, baby-soft face with cheeks that still held toddler fat. But it was her eyes that destroyed him. Enormous violet eyes, the same shade he'd described as "amethyst ice" and "cruel gems" in his manuscript.
Right now they were just... hopeful. Uncertain. Shy.
She recognized him. Her face lit up with uncomplicated joy.
"Bwatha!" She abandoned her books and scrambled to her feet, little legs pumping as she ran toward him.
Lloyd caught her on instinct, and she wrapped small arms around his leg, giggling.
This was wrong. This was *all wrong*. The Mimi he'd written wouldn't show affection. She'd barely tolerated her brother's existence, seeing him only as a political tool. This child hugging his leg with pure delight—
"I missed you!" Mimi declared, tilting her head back to beam at him. "You were sleeping sooooo long!"
"I... I'm sorry," Lloyd said. His voice came out rough. "I'm here now."
"Yay!" She released his leg and grabbed his hand instead, tugging. "Come! Come see! Mama got new books with pictures!"
She pulled him toward her cushion pile, chattering about butterflies and tea parties and something about a cat in the garden, and Lloyd followed in a daze. This wasn't the cold, manipulative child from his outline. This was just... a little girl.
A little girl he'd condemned to slavery and suffering because he'd wanted to write "something dark and realistic."
They reached the cushions and Mimi plopped down, immediately returning to her books. But she kept glancing up at him, checking if he was still there, smiling each time she confirmed his presence.
Lloyd sat carefully on the settee nearby, mind racing. The plot wouldn't change itself. The heroine would still enter the Academy. The Crown Prince would still need a political bride. The poisoning frame-up would still happen unless he—
"Bwatha?"
He blinked. Mimi had abandoned her books again and was standing right in front of him, fidgeting with her dress hem. The shy look was back.
"Yes, Mimi?"
"Can I..." She bit her lip. "Can I siith on you lap?"
Lloyd's brain short-circuited. In his story, the Rosewelly siblings had been distant. Formal. They'd certainly never—
But Mimi was looking at him with those huge violet eyes, and Lloyd realized with crushing clarity that he'd written a tragedy where there should have been love. He'd made them strangers when they should have been each other's shelter.
Not anymore.
"Of course, my darling sister," Lloyd said, and his voice came out surprisingly steady. "You can."
Her face split into the most radiant smile he'd ever seen. She clambered up onto the settee with the graceless determination of a five-year-old, little limbs flailing as she climbed into his lap. She nearly kicked him twice, elbowed him once, and somehow ended up sideways before finally settling with her back against his chest.
My small limbs seem funny, Lloyd thought distantly, looking down at how her tiny body fit against his, but here feels like cuddling a bunny.
She was so small. So warm. So impossibly precious.
Too cute to let go.
I wanna pat her. Hold her. Don't wanna let go.
His hand moved before conscious thought caught up—hovering over her silver head before gently, carefully settling onto those silky strands. Pat. Pat. Her hair felt like spun moonlight between his fingers.
Mimi made a tiny, contented sound and snuggled deeper into his embrace.
Lloyd's throat tightened. This was real. She was real. Not a character in his manuscript but a living, breathing child who trusted him completely.
A child he'd written the worst possible fate for.
Never again.
"Oh!" Lloyd remembered suddenly. He'd been reviewing documents earlier—boring noble business he was apparently supposed to learn—and the kitchen had sent up refreshments. He reached for the silver tray on the side table, pulling it closer. Delicate pastries arranged in perfect rows: cream puffs, fruit tarts, chocolate eclairs.
"Here," Lloyd said, nudging the tray toward her. "Take these pastries. All yours."
Mimi's head popped up so fast she nearly headbutted his chin. Her eyes went comically wide, fixed on the sweets with laser focus.
"Yorss thoooo?" she asked, the baby-talk pronunciation of "yours too" making Lloyd's heart clench.
"Yep," Lloyd confirmed, fighting back the stupid sting in his eyes. "All yours."
"ALL?!" Mimi twisted in his lap to stare at him in wonder. "Even da chocolate?"
"Especially the chocolate."
She gasped like he'd just offered her the crown jewels. Then, with the solemn gravity only a child choosing dessert can muster, she reached out with both hands and selected the biggest cream puff on the tray.
It was nearly the size of her fist.
She took a bite that was probably 40% of the pastry and got cream filling everywhere—on her chin, on her nose, somehow on her forehead. Her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk as she chewed with single-minded determination.
"Mmmmph!" she declared, which Lloyd interpreted as approval.
He couldn't help it. He laughed. Real laughter, not the bitter amusement of his previous life but genuine joy at watching his sister demolish a pastry with such enthusiasm.
Mimi grinned up at him with cream on her teeth and reached for a fruit tart next.
Outside the sunroom windows, the afternoon continued its lazy progression. Gardeners trimmed the hedge mazes. Somewhere in the mansion, servants went about their duties. In the distant capital, the wheels of plot and politics turned inexorably forward.
The Crown Prince was probably in his morning sword practice, being everything noble and heroic Lloyd had written him to be.
The heroine was likely helping her adoptive merchant family, radiating that special protagonist goodness that made everyone love her.
The other noble children who would become Mimi's tormentors were living their oblivious lives, not yet old enough to be cruel.
And here, in this sun-drenched room that smelled of roses and cream filling, Lloyd Rosewelly held his sister while she ate pastries and got crumbs all over both of them.
She'd moved on to an eclair now, chocolate coating her fingers. She offered him a bite without looking away from her prize.
"For Bwatha!" she insisted.
Lloyd dutifully took the smallest nibble possible. Mimi nodded in satisfaction and resumed her destruction of the dessert.
His hand never stopped patting her hair. That gentle, rhythmic motion that seemed to soothe something broken in both of them.
I wrote you to be cold, Lloyd thought, watching her lick chocolate off her thumb. I wrote you to hurt people. To scheme and manipulate. I wrote you to deserve what happened.
But you're just a baby who likes sweets and wants to sit in her brother's lap.
Mimi finished her eclair and immediately reached for another cream puff, paused, then selected a fruit tart instead with the strategic consideration of someone planning a multi-course experience.
"Mimi," Lloyd said quietly.
"Mmm?" She didn't look up from her tart.
"I'm going to protect you. No matter what."
Now she looked up, violet eyes curious and trusting and utterly guileless. "From what?"
Everything, Lloyd thought. From the plot I wrote. From the heroine's schemes. From the Crown Prince's judgment. From the slavery and suffering I condemned you to because I wanted to tell a dark story.
"From anything that might hurt you," Lloyd said instead.
Mimi considered this with the seriousness of a five-year-old processing Important Information. Then she smiled, nodded, and returned to her tart.
"'Kay! Bwatha is strong!"
She had no idea. No idea that her brother had literally written her destruction. That every terrible thing coming her way was his fault, his creation.
But she would never know. Lloyd would make sure of it.
If saving Mimi meant becoming the villain himself—scheming, manipulating, destroying every carefully constructed plot beat he'd created—then so be it. If he had to take on her role, absorb her fate, become the story's monster so she could be its hero?
He'd do it in a heartbeat.
The Crown Prince had no idea what was coming for him.
But first, Lloyd had a sister to spoil, pastries to provide, and a few more precious moments before the real work began.
Mimi leaned back against his chest with a contented sigh, fruit tart half-demolished in her sticky hands. The afternoon sun painted them both gold.
"Love you, Bwatha," she mumbled around a mouthful of cream.
Lloyd's arms tightened around her carefully, protectively.
"Love you too, Mimi. More than you'll ever know."
Outside, the plot machinery churned. Inside, surrounded by plants and sunlight and pastry crumbs, Lloyd Rosewelly made a silent vow:
The story he'd written would not come to pass.
His darling sister deserved better.
And he would tear down heaven itself to give it to her.