And me? It was always you I loved, not your elegant strategy. I will love you still, if you now outgrow it. I will love you more whether time moves forward or backwards. Whether ice melts or water freezes back. Whether your next move is protection, break- through, shift, or any combination. There are at least three ways to love you: as you were, as you are, as you will be. I love you. That means I choose all three.

Undrowned, Alexis Pauline Gumbs.

There is nothing more undoing like a scandal.

Iseul remembers the first time she ever donned a disguise. It was a spur of the moment thing because young Iseul followed one oath with her heart and that was being good. A whisper of defiance was stirred by her younger sister Celia begging her to wear their brothers' clothes that she stole and sneak out with her to visit the winter fair that was going to disappear after that fortnight. Being responsible was stitched into the fiber of her skin the day Sebastian was born and she became the oldest and she really did play the part well. But the looming burden seemed to feel like it would crash on her any moment now and today, she felt like her shoulders would give out. So, she agreed and placated herself by thinking that she was going just to go so that she could look out for Celia. She's still being good. Her brother's clothes were a size too big and the hat kept slipping down her pinned hair but Iseul forever cherishes that feeling of breathing in clean smoke after years of suffocation. If news about it spread, she would forever be chastised for being so unladylike at her young age but she wasn't Iseul that night. Everyone believed that she was simply a boy going to the fair with his younger brother who would forever be enchanted by the buzzing life that seemed to move around him in a blur, an array of color blocks that seemed to paint an abstract view.

You know, you're a quite a good actor. You could've joined the theatre if it was allowed for us, Celia commented as she chewed on the candy floss that her sister got her bravely. With a deepened voice, hollow cheeks and hunched shoulders, she knew how to play the part well. Iseul only replied with an amused smile, a flicker of interest.

And Celia wasn't lying. Iseul was a good impersonator. A creature that split itself down the middle to fit into whatever box was needed that day—the nanny, the maid, the tutor, the pseudo mother, the entertainer, the man of the house, the singular pillar that could hold up the greatest foundations of marble and bones. She didn't complain much though, no proper lady should. Besides, she did love the theatre.  

Childhood was a blur of hydrangea blues and primrose yellows, the taste of her dreams feeling as sour as the carefree summer days that she could never go back to. There's a hollow cavity in her chest that serves as a constant reminder that her parents are functioning members of society and not killing each other because of her. Her siblings were bright individuals because of her. Celia took an interest in watercolor paintings because she watched Iseul do it. Hansol's first violin which was replaced by a new polished one with wood that resembles liquid amber used to belong to Iseul. Sebastian got to travel the world when it was Iseul who showed him his first map and got the keys to the business that she followed and inspected for so many years because he never wanted it. She refused to get married for so many years because if she was gone, who would make sure that home remained a home and not a monument of shattered dreams. There is a piece of Iseul in her family's souls, a sacrifice that she willingly made as she watched them blossom into the most vibrant spring flowers from the corner. So, even though not being Iseul for a fortnight caused her fingers to tremble with trepidation, the taste of the forbidden fruit was too alluring.

But at the end of the day, she was a Waterhouse and her dedication to the name felt like a slap to the face. The Waterhouse family used to be one of the most well-known and respected families in the ton, familiar with the locals and elites with their indulgent pastries and freshly baked goods that were in every house and served in every ballroom. When news broke that Edward Waterhouse had died at age 57 with a legacy of a mountain of debts and his bundle of affairs, everything set into flames. Rumors about his paramours and possible bastards, serving mediocre goods because he cut costs by sourcing cheap ingredients, and the debts that his family covered by selling their own jewelry and lands, his family was forced to bear the damage of his misdoings. It was a dirty rag that had been dragged across their names, a pungent and ugly stain left behind, one that could never be removed. They were tarnished.

Iseul was never the brightest pearl stitched in the indigo blanket of the sky, she was more of a dying star. The ugliness and rage bubbling underneath her skin felt larger than God. Tender lily white flesh, as delicate as fine china with swirls of indigo blues, crimson rage, contusion plum, and grotesque green greed painting permanent indentations of violence on her. Brittle red and blue veins rushed with gold liqueur and coiled around the smoke tendrils she inhaled. It threatened to implode into a supernova, an ancient star unfurling into a cosmic flower in splashes of violet and electric blue. A display that begged to be looked at—Look at me, see me. Am I beautiful? Am I brilliant? Iseul could never feel comfortable standing in the middle of a ballroom as the spinning figures of high society surrounded her and not feel like the inside of her throat was being impaled by a million needle pricks. There was nothing more alienating than standing in the middle of that ballroom and realizing that perhaps, you didn't belong here. Like a grimy red fox hiding in the bushes of a rose garden, splaying out its fur similar to the open mouths of the velvet blooms, praying that it shares that same fragile beauty and intoxicating scent. But she could never belong, never escape. Not when home was a trap that she once accidentally stepped on and it permanently embedded its metal jaws into the tender flesh of her ankle. 

So when Grandmama tells her that it is her duty to secure a good marriage for the betterment of this family and for her siblings' future prospects in the marriage mart, that she must bewitch the Viscount Bridgerton and that she was more than old enough, they need to get her out of this house already, she felt like she only had the choice to implode into herself. Quite a polite way for a lady to destroy herself if you ask her.

Iseul was seven and twenty with no dowry to give and no prospects. And now she is a burden to her family and she is frightened. At least, Celia had the sweet charm of an ingenue and her infectious personality to help her but Iseul would rather sit bare on a bed of nails than try to talk to a stranger for more than five minutes. Not to mention, she had no dowry to give because her father spent all of hers and she's a spinster! All she could think was, fuck the Viscount. Fuck everyone in this house and fuck everything.

She really was as beautiful as the radiant glow of an amber tulip and she had been blessed with the knowledge and talents that could've made her the most eligible bride in all of London but who was Iseul with this hollow cavity in her chest? Who had she become after existing as nothing but Atlas, her feet deeply rooted in the earth, condemned to hold up the Heavens—the Waterhouse Clan—for all these years? They said all the beautiful girls faded away like roses and Iseul might not have been an exception to that. She had been holding onto the hinges of her freedom with her brittle nails embedded into that liberty, blood dripping from the ledge. So, perhaps it was the last dwindling flame of her dreams or the flicker of interest that Celia sparked that night at the fair that made her grab the scissors and start snipping. That long onyx waterfall that spilled down her shoulders was a sign of her girlhood and now she found herself carelessly chopping it away to her heart's will. She never noticed how sharp her features were until she gelled her hair back the way she saw her brothers doing it. She slipped on the disguise she had donned that night, her towering figure bleeding into the boxy outline, gossamer muslin traded for cedar wool. One thing Celia used to boast about was that she was never proven to be wrong and this time would be no exception. Iseul would be a damn good actor.

Callum Choi was an enigma who took London by storm, a boy from Devonshire who joined the theatre scene a few moons ago. Callum was somebody who managed to draw people into his gravity. It was a whole new reality. Even off the stage, there was this quality to him that kept your eyes on him, like he was still displaying a great performance. He was bold, brilliant, and the most dazzling star. With his smooth velvet voice and dark kohl-lined eyes, he made people hang onto every syllable that left his mouth. And Benedict Bridgerton was no exception to that.

Especially when Callum gazed at him, his warm eyes resembling the cups of chocolate he so greatly loved. It felt like shedding the clothes of his soul, the hidden corners feeling more vulnerable than ever as Callum slowly unlocked them. No one had understood his psyche so deeply or so quickly. No one captured his gaze so quickly, either.

Well, Iseul Waterhouse had. Out of all the eligible ladies in the ton, he found Iseul in the shadows, her lone figure admiring a work of Botticelli. She even looked like a muse of the masters with her wine-stained lips and the flushed apples of her cheeks, a watercolor bloom of peach and cerise. She had told him between their conversation that she was hiding as she preferred the quiet and he immediately asked her if she would like company in her solitude. She was a rock that gleamed brilliantly from between her cracks, a rare geode that refused to shatter but he enjoyed whenever she would let him take a peak inside the crevices, a medley of shimmering nebulae gleaming back at him.

Iseul never intended to destroy anyone else in her mania but Benedict Bridgerton was an unexpected character that she never intended to encounter in the tale of her downfall. It started as a dream that had spread like ink through paper and she was worried that it had bled too far beyond her grasp. She was hardly a saint but Iseul Waterhouse found herself committing sins that no amount of penance, could wipe her slate clean. She was never meant to exist with a trap embedded into her ankle and Iseul had enough of the metal contraption that festered wounds on her that burned like an infection. She never meant to wound someone else but Benedict Bridgerton already had a taste of her soul and he will forever rue the day he met Iseul Waterhouse and Callum Choi.

But the damage was far too ingrained into the fabric of time for it to ever be undone. The fire had spread through the forest and the branches could do nothing but catch onto the garnet hues. He supposed he was fortune's fool. However, what was there to be done if this inferno was the closest warmth his heart had ever felt to the warmth of life? That meeting this damned soul is the closest evidence there is of his heartstrings being tugged similar to the way a violin's strings are played by a virtuoso's devotion-laced fingers. Both of them wondered that once the flickering embers finally settled into ashes, could whatever they had, something fragile and raw, still be salvaged? Both of them wondered as their eyes bore into their souls, sunkissed caramel piercing through the delicate lace clouds of the vast cerulean, would this love ever be worth the ruin?

After all, there was nothing more undoing like a scandal. 

Nam Ji Hyun  ✸  The Great Impersonator.
 ISEUL CORDELIA WATERHOUSE or CALLUM CHOI
XXVII  /   I tried to be good, am I no good?

Luke Thompson  ✸   BENEDICT BRIDGERTON
XXVIII  /   Always an Angel, Never a God.

Uhm Ji Won  ✸  SAEBOM WATERHOUSE (née CHOI)
XLVII   /   The Matriarch.

Lee Do Hyun  ✸  SEBASTIAN WATERHOUSE
XXV  /   Scion to the Tainted Legacy. 
Am I my brother's keeper?

Chae Jong Hyeop  ✸  HANSOL WATERHOUSE
XXI   /   The Brightest Pearl.

Go Min Si  ✸  CELIA WATERHOUSE
XVIII   /   The Blooming Rose.

— FEATURING —

Matthew Goode / EDWARD WATERHOUSE ♰
Meryl Streep / CECELIA WATERHOUSE
Carla Gugino / EMMA MONTGOMERY
Matthew Macfadyen / LAURENCE MONTGOMERY

rest of the cast members
as their respective characters

DISCLAIMER
i do not own bridgerton or its characters. all rights go to shonda rhimes, julia quinn and netflix. credit for the psd goes to breewaffle on deviantart. this book is rated mature and will have historical inaccuracies (apologizing beforehand) and will follow topics such as death, abuse, slight sexual themes, self-harming tendencies, religious themes, undiagnosed mental illness, period typical misogyny, mature language, etc.

also english is not my first language. so, i may struggle with grammar and stuff like that, pls be gentle if u spot any mistakes.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

the synopsis is ass tbh but idc anymore this is the 3rd time im rewriting it so <33

HI, so this fic was inspired by a lot of things i've seen where they thought that sophie beckett (or baek really) (sooo excited to see yerin and luke tgt for season 4 btw, i love a good romance story) should have like a mulan/twelfth night inspired storyline and while im pretty sure the show isn't following that, the concept of it was incredibly intriguing to me so i thought i would try my hand at it. so this is basically inspired by twelfth night, she's the man, mulan, victor/victoria, etc. basically films that follow that grain. 

now, establishing that i'll try my best to write a proper piece of writing that deals with all of that respectfully and in a cohesive way. BTW, ISEUL DOESNT INTEND TO PLAY BENEDICT LIKE THAT. its all a very unintentional thing where benedict falls for callum and we follow that pattern of violet throwing the ball and trying to find benedict a match and well we find iseul when she's #hiding from ppl cuz who likes crowds. and its a slow build up where its like he finds himself falling for two ppl where both of them don't seem interested cuz they're the same person and she feels like she's deceiving him. as mentioned, benedict was never smth that iseul could've predicted so its all a very by chance thing. and while benedict does feel betrayed, it all falls down to him falling for her soul. the aura is what draws him in but its the mind, the way she connects and inspires him that makes him fall deeper. cuz callum and iseul are the same person, its just that their personalities are on different frequencies. benedict is confirmed to be pansexual (same king) so its just me exploring him falling for someone's soul. basically twelfth night blended with she's the man. 

iseul waterhouse, ms. mommy and daddy issues, sibling issues,....everything issues. she's constnatly on the verge of passing out <333 her arc with callum is very much her finding out who she is and establishing that. that whether she's iseul or callum, she's the still the same person she's always been and its her coming to terms with that. that the way she is, is okay and she's allowed to live within the lines where things blur. its just a big arc abt self discovery cuz iseul starts off as being super fucking lost and just existing but not living. that she doesnt need to exist in a specifc binary. these are decisions she makes cuz she's quite literally holding onto the hinges of her freedom by the claws.
this freedom and act is also what inspires benedict to get back into art and they just help eo become happier (tho cause a lot of heartbreak too so umm slay ig) 

btw no set timeline cuz its just meshed tgt but so much happened in season 3 that i decided to set this in season 2 cuz season 4 will come out by the time in my grave. i'll blend a lot of the plots tgt so there's no set timeline but its set around that arc. but yeah thats it im so excited for it <333 THANK YOU I HOPE U HAVE A GOOD DAY