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Rei Hino 🔥⛩🖤

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Because DreamWorks was concerned about theological accuracy, Jeffrey Katzenberg (former Disney chairman) decided to call in Biblical scholars, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians, and Arab American leaders to help his film be more accurate and faithful to the original story. After previewing the developing film, all these leaders noted that the studio executives listened and responded to their ideas, and praised the studio for reaching out for comment from outside sources.

The animation team for The Prince of Egypt included 350 artists from 34 different nations. Careful consideration was given to depicting the ethnicities of the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, and Nubians properly.

Both character design and art direction worked to set a definite distinction between the symmetrical, more angular look of the Egyptians versus the more organic, natural look of the Hebrews and their related environments. The backgrounds department, headed by supervisors Paul Lasaine and Ron Lukas, oversaw a team of artists who were responsible for painting the sets/backdrops from the layouts. Within the film, approximately 934 hand-painted backgrounds were created.

THE PRINCE OF EGYPT (1998)

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#if you ask I will write a whole goddamn essay on Boromir #and why his death means more to us as we get older *whispers* babe I want the essay

Why must you always enable me I love it never stop. So. Wow. Where to even start. I rant through my tears about how much I love Boromir every time I watch Lord of the Rings, which I do about once a year with @captainofthefallen. Every time I watch it, his death means more to me, hits me harder, and I think that’s because the older we get, the more we identify with Boromir.

Here’s the thing. In all honesty, as a kid (I first read LotR when I was eleven, first watched the films at that age as well), I wasn’t too fond of Boromir. Oh I liked him all right, he was fine I suppose, but I didn’t connect with him. I was angry when he tried to take the One Ring from Frodo, and I cried a little at his death because death is sad and I was a kid, but it didn’t devastate me.

Because as a kid? I wanted to be Aragorn. The reluctant king who rises up and does the right thing, always. The guy who gets the amazing (be still my bi heart) Arwen, the Evenstar, fairest of the elves. The guy who literally kicks ass. The man who is noble, honorable, thoughtful, good with his words, humble, knows the burdens of leadership, who stands up and says there will be a day when the courage of men fails, but this is not that day.

I wanted to be the hero.

I noticed this trend among my peers growing up. We all loved Aragorn and wanted to be him. Boromir was sort of dismissed.

But then a funny thing happened, called getting older.

I got older, and I fucked up.

I got older, and depression hit.

I got older, and the weight of societal expectations, of being an older sibling, of adult responsibilities, of legacy, of family secrets, of family history, all settled on my shoulders.

I got older, and I learned that men are not always honorable, or kind, or humble, or the leaders they should be. And I learned how hard and desperate it is to continue to believe in the strength of men.

I got older, and I learned how temptation comes for us all, in different forms, and how we hurt people without meaning to, and how sometimes for all our regret and tears and apologies, we cannot mend what we broke.

I got older, and I leaned what it is to be forced into a role I didn’t want, to feel I’d hit a dead end, to struggle against those who had different views, to feel like people could look into my heart and see the anger and fear that I tried so hard to hide.

I got older, and I realized: I’m Boromir.

We’re all Boromir.

Tolkien was very deliberate with his characters. They aren’t just characters, flawed and wonderful though they might be. They also each represent something very specific. Aragorn represents the Ideal. The hero that we all can be, the hero that we should strive to be, the vision of mankind as we are supposed to be, if only we can let ourselves shed our hubris and our doubts. Aragorn represents who we should be.

Boromir represents who we are.

Flawed, frustrated, burdened, tempted, struggling, setback, good intentioned, afraid, angry, kindhearted, noble, loyal, and painfully, beautifully human.

Boromir went to the Council of Elrond reluctantly. He shouldn’t have gone. Boromir is a war leader, as we learn after his death. He successfully fought for and defended Gondor from Mordor for years. That’s where he belongs. Faramir is the quiet one, the diplomat, the “wizard’s pupil,” the soft-spoken and patient one. Note that even in the film version, which shows a differently characterized Faramir than in the books (Tolkien heavily based Faramir on himself), Faramir only wants the One Ring in order to give it to his father and win his father’s pride and affection–he doesn’t want it for himself.

If Faramir had been at the Council and Boromir had stayed in Gondor, everything would have gone differently, and possibly for the better.

But the Steward of Fuckwits aka Boromir and Faramir’s father decides he wants Boromir to go, to represent their family, because Boromir is the son he values and is the “face” of Gondor. So Boromir sets aside what he wants, and he goes. And the whole time he feels out of place, feels like a fish out of water, feels second to Aragorn, feels lost, feels terrified his city will fall while he is gone, feels like the race of Men is being mocked and looked down on as weak.

How many of us as we grow up are stuck like that? We can’t fix our family (although we try), we can’t fix our broken country (although we try), we can’t get rid of the doubts and fears that whisper to us (although we try), and we can’t stop feeling like we’re constantly second best, constantly failing, looked down on, especially the millennial generation.

(Given what’s happening in the world right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tolkien found himself surprisingly similar in outlook and feeling to our generation. But that’s another topic.)

And of course that’s the key. Boromir–darling, frustrated, stuck, fatally flawed Boromir–is so very relatable because he tries. He tries to teach Merry and Pippin to protect themselves and then tries to save them and dies for it. He tries to convince Aragorn (who at that point is more elf than man in his outlook) that there is no reason to give up on his people, their people–and he succeeds in that, although he dies before he gets to see it. He tries to make his father proud. He tries to apologize when he fucks up. He tries and he fails, and he tries and he succeeds. And the most important things he does, the biggest seeds he plants, he never sees them flower.

Like my God, the man’s last words are I failed. I failed you, I failed Frodo, I tried to take the Ring. I’m sorry, I failed. That hits me so goddamn hard in my mid20s and it’ll hit me even harder when I’m older, I’m sure. How many times have we said that to people? “I tried to help him.” “I tried to reach out.” “I tried to apologize.” “I tried to stop them.” “I tried so hard.” I tried, I tried, I tried. For the job, for the friend, for everything, I tried.

And I failed.

I have a laundry list of things I tried and failed at, and God, do they hurt. Sometimes it was something out of my control, sometimes it was my own behavior. And that scene with Boromir, the flawed man, staring up at Aragorn, the ideal hero, and begging him, begging him, “save them, they took the little ones, find Frodo,” begging him for forgiveness, apologizing for his failures?

Talk about a fucking metaphor.

We make our ideals in literature so that we have something to look up to and strive for, for others to strive for. Boromir falls prey to the ring, but Aragorn does not. You did what I could not. Of course Aragorn did. He’s the ideal. And we beg our ideals to be better so they can show us the way and hopefully, maybe, someday, we can be like them.

I had so many heroes growing up, real and literary. Sara from A Little Princess. Aragorn. Lucy from Narnia. Nancy Drew. Harry Potter. And so many times I would look at myself in the mirror and cry because I knew, I knew if I stood in front of them they would be disappointed in me. I knew I wasn’t being the person I could be. I tried, I failed, I tried, I failed, but my God I swear, I tried.

As a kid or even a teenager, we still see mainly who we want to be. Our ideal. And I hope that we never lose sight of that. I love Aragorn and my God am I going to keep trying to be like him, and like all of my other literary heroes. We need those heroes, we need them so badly, and the darker the world gets the brighter we have to make them shine.

As an adult, though–as an adult, we start to see not only who we want to be, but who we are, and who we could’ve been, and how we failed to be, and the paths not taken and the paths that were lost. And that’s important too. Because Boromir died convinced he was a failure. Convinced he was, truly, the weakness we find in men.

And he was… but he wasn’t.

Without Boromir, Aragorn wouldn’t know what happened to Merry and Pippin or where they went. Without Boromir, Aragorn would’ve had no hope in the race of men. Without Boromir, who would have carried the hobbits up the cold mountain, or taught them how to fight, or said give them a moment, for pity’s sake! Who would have defended Gondor for so long, or loved his brother with a ferocity that Denethor’s abuse couldn’t knock loose, and inspired that brother to keep fighting even as the light faded and the night grew cold and long?

Aragorn carries Boromir’s bracers throughout the rest of the trilogy, right up to his coronation, where he is still wearing them as he is made King. Because Boromir might not have seen it–we might not see it–but we tried and we failed but we didn’t fail at everything. Lives are made brighter for our presence. The world is better for our gifts and our convictions. And no fight, even a fight lost, is done in vain.

The remains of the Fellowship ride to Gondor not just because it’s the Right Thing to Do, but because it is the city of their fallen brother, it’s Boromir’s home, the home that above all he gave everything to defend. Boromir doesn’t want the Ring for power, he wants it so his home will be safe, his family will be safe, and God who can’t relate to that, as we grow older and we see our families and friends attacked and scarred, as we have children and want them out of harm’s way. Who wouldn’t be tempted to seize the chance to keep them safe?

I see so much of myself in Boromir. And I take hope. I take inspiration. I cheer through my tears as he is hit again and again with arrows and each time he gets back up on his feet and grits his teeth and you can see him thinking not today. As a child I thought Boromir was selfish but as an adult I hear him use his last breath to apologize to Aragorn and call him his brother and his king and I see he’s more selfless than he ever gave himself credit for being. Boromir sees only his faults, but we can see what he doesn’t, we see his positive impact and we see his virtues, too.

Because as an adult I’ve failed, and I want to believe that like Boromir, I’ve also succeeded, I’ve also been more than just my faults–even if I can’t see that yet.

Aragorn is who we should be. But Boromir is who we are.

And my God, we should be proud of that. Because Boromir is a damn good person to be.

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Rei's Grandpa, in the shojo manga is supposed to kinda look like a pretty GILF. How's it funny that the 90s anime adapted that as him being a Pedophile into school girls but that's cool cuz he's a secret OG dk villian? no thx again 90s + thk u again Crystal?! Grandpa, Mamo, Seiya...I mean the list hoes on hunny...bad 90s character development #1021

Also the fact is Rei’s grandfather in the Manga was not a prev at all. He was the one who raised her after her mom died and her dad was too busy being a politician ( cough which the 90′s anime didn’t even mention but it has the best character development cough) . Due to the fact Toei didn’t do the side stories which they should have done, people don’t know that. Which PGSM explored more dealing with her dad. 

From Eternal 

From Casablanca  Memory 

From Act 41

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more or less

Back with another ficlet. Another mod gift, this one for @galaxylily over at @ssminibang ❤️

title: more or less

fandom: Sailor Moon

characters/ships: Venus x Kunzite

rating: PG-13?

Sometimes after he’s touched her there lingers a taste in his mouth like hot metal. How he imagines the taste of the earth’s ancient core, or of stones that sometimes fall from the sky.

more or less

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The sun lays a heavy palm on their heads, pressing their eyes closed, but even so the cloudless sky throbs painful blue behind his eyelids. Beside him she lies dozing, or daydreaming. The air smells strongly of salt and cypress; green sea glimmers around them. He hears murmurs of others on the barge, the creak and groan of sun-frayed rope.

“Is this the water you were born on?”

Daydreaming, then. Kunzite doesn’t open his eyes.

“Yes. On a barge like this.” Her bare arm grazing along his, the fine cut of muscle, sweat-damp. “The priests said it was an auspicious birth. This sea is holy.”

“Of course they did.” She sounds amused. “They probably weren’t thinking of your mother. Surrounded by men mouthing incantations, laboring on a rickety old boat.”

He can feel her breathing down along his side where they are pressed together shoulder to knee, the light quick blooming and closing of her ribcage. He imagines her expression, serene with only a single marring thread of tension sewing together her fair high brows as she thinks about this, this thing to which Kunzite himself truthfully has never given a single thought.

“My father expected it.” A breeze moves over his face as he speaks, pulling the words up and away from him, thinning them apart. “Here that is a woman’s duty.”

A hum, flutter of tension from her bicep through her calf like a current, and then nothing more. The linen of her gown scratches his side. She wears the loose drape and few jewels of this place, and probably the men on the barge think she is a mistress, highborn and languid, kept for pleasure. She could be that, her skin is smooth, limbs long, feet dainty; she looks like a lady his mother might have chosen, a vessel to carry his seed to sea. She yawns when tired, perspires in heat, eats and drinks and swims the waves. Hard to sense it unless you get close: the lambent rushing of power off of her, as though her blood is pressed from stars.

Sometimes after he’s touched her there lingers a taste in his mouth like hot metal. How he imagines the taste of the earth’s ancient core, or of stones that sometimes fall from the sky.

When darkness traverses his eyes he knows she has lifted her arms to the sun, is perhaps shading her face, or examining her hands. On her thumb always there is a soft beaten metal ring she had pulled off his finger, sometime and somewhere after they first met, in the gardens of starry jasmine or in a camp tent or in her bed, Kunzite can’t recall. It was his father’s ring until he died and then his mother’s, and then his after that for a long, long time. He doesn’t know why she took it. Why he’s never asked for it back. The backs of his eyelids slowly pulse a deep, fleshly red. One side of his body cools, bereft of her strange heat.

“I don’t think I could be a woman.”

When Venus speaks the wind seems to stop. His imagination, of course, and yet, her words - resound.

“I don’t expect you to be less than you are,” Kunzite replies, honestly.

He senses her gaze swinging onto him then, the cut glint of her golden eyes. He keeps his own eyes closed, body loose and prone; he feels her curious, predatory attention as the tip of a claw. She doesn’t speak. Overhead the gulls scream. After some moments, her small, cool hand closes over his, and he feels the dig of his own ring into his knuckle. It’s not gentle.

“Or more,” she murmurs.

Kunzite doesn’t know what he hears in her voice, then: if it’s the sound of warning, or only regret.

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manga appreciation

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options

another day, another gift! this one’s for the marvelous @leondaltons, one of the hardworking mods at @ssminibang and truly one of the loveliest people in this little corner of fandom. enjoy!

title: options fandom: Sailor Moon characters/ships: Minako/Venus x reincarnated!Kunzite, with a side of reincarnated!Nephrite  rating: R for some slightly limey content

Khaleid knows better than to try and keep her to himself when she’s in this state; it would be like trying to put a mountain lion to bed, or swallow the sun.

options

At night they go to a bar Nacio recommends. Dark, cramped, and dirty, just like all the places Nacio likes, “run by Argentines,” he says dismissively, “so the asado’s not bad.” He comes along, too, “to get them a seat” but Khaleid suspects it’s for dinner on their dime. He orders expansively: ribeyes, chorizo, morcilla, salad to share. Two bottles of Salta red. The three squeeze into a table for two on the sidewalk, where it smells smoky from the grill out back. Nacio and Mina’s knees bump under the table; Khaleid turns his outward, facing the curb. He lights a cigarette, watches the crowds on the street thicken curdlike, chattering and laughing. He feels out of place and terribly old. It’s past midnight. Music - music everywhere.

“I like this wine,” says Mina, a bottle and some later, a little drunk or pretending to be. Not easy for Khaleid to tell, even among friends. Her eyes are bright, hectic. “A lot. What is it?”

Nacio grins. “This, madame, is a noble Bordeaux varietal made in the Argentinean style.” Across the street, a busker sends a pointedly hopeful twang of his guitar in their direction. “Tobacco, vanilla bean, ripe black cherries.” Their friend looks thoughtful. “A little horse shit.”

When Mina laughs her head tips all the way back and it sounds like two glasses striking each other on the edge of excessive force, ringing and anticipatory. It’s how she laughs when she wants you to know what a good time she’s having, and very likely she is, snatching bites of beef and vinegared tomatoes out of their pink juices, washing them down with mouthfuls of wine. Khaleid knows better than to try and keep her to himself when she’s in this state; it would be like trying to put a mountain lion to bed, or swallow the sun. She has innumerable moods, some even tending to tranquility. Later he’ll have her, in the turmeric light staining the dark hotel window. She’ll come down slow, arms wound about his neck, her gaze warming. She’ll touch the hair escaping his tail, his temple, her thumb on his cheekbone; sighing, soft.

Or perhaps she’ll kick open the door and yank him inside, press him to the wall and slide her hand down his trousers. She’ll be insistent, combative, the slim knife of her heel grazing a warning along his calf and her teeth at his ear; always knowing the exact mileage between where he is and the dark precipice to which she can drive him. Her hands are small but not soft. They’ll close around his collar and pull, backing them up to the nearest flat surface, and anyone looking in from the outside would think he was the one walking her to it. She is ardent but precise: desire has its cadence, its thrums and pauses, and like any player, even when in its throes, she can’t help but play. The knowledge that she goes further with him than with anyone is more than enough. Khaleid knows better than to ask her to be who she can’t be.

After they’ve done she’ll stretch herself out along his side and fall deeply asleep, instantaneous. Like a light being flicked off, throaty little snores emptied between his shoulder and neck. Or she’ll stare up at the dark ceiling a moment, eyes flaring wide, then fling herself resolutely into the shower, the room billowing with the steam off her skin. Neither of these options leaves him colder than the other. When he’ll press his nose into her discarded clothes they’ll smell like the must of her body and her floral, indolic perfume. Breathing in he thinks he smells it even now, through the waft of charred meat and warm asphalt, and he can draw a direct line between the selves occupying this table, in this moment, and the selves they’ll occupy tonight, later tonight, this morning. He thinks of her as the changeable one but perhaps that’s not entirely true. Within himself there are so many ways to want her.

“Khaleid?”

Nacio’s voice brings him back. Khaleid blinks, just once.

“What do you think?” Mina rests her elbows on the rickety table. Her thin gold chain slips out from the bodice of her black dress, flickering palely. “We’ve only asked you twice already.”

The cigarette between his fingers is half ash; the rest of it has fallen on his trousers. On his plate the meat has gone cold and purple and the wine in his glass is hardly much different. When he looks at Nacio he finds his old friend’s gaze traveling over him. Glittering, dark.

“Well, shit,” he murmurs. “Guess I’ve overstayed.” He stands, hands in pockets. “Enjoy what’s left of dinner.” He nods at Khaleid. “And the rest of the night. Hope I left enough for you both.”

“There’s still plenty of food,” Mina says. “And Mako’s probably asleep with the girls already.”

“Not what I meant,” says Nacio cryptically. “Anyway, it’s late. Time I got back to my pornographically beautiful wife and perfect, angelic offspring. Boring family man, you know.” He pats his pocket, where Khaleid can see the bulge of his wallet. “Buenas noches, friends.”

“Did you say this would be our treat,” Mina begins, moments after he’s left earshot. She frowns as she watches him round the crowded corner. “And what happened to dancing?”

Her hand small in his, not soft. She shifts her cool gaze to him, electric eyes questioning.

“Never mind.” Khaleid leans forward, stubs his cigarette in the bowl. “We have other options.”

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SAILOR MOON 🌙  (1992-1997)

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Reblogging just to add the AO3 link!

 https://archiveofourown.org/works/29290782

what the body knows

A gift of smut and angst for the wonderful, magical @coppercrane2, one of the mods over at @ssminibang, and also? Very much one of my favorite people. I hope you enjoy this, Charlie!

title: what the body knows fandom: Sailor Moon characters/ships: Rei/Mars x reincarnated!Jadeite rating: R for explicit sexual content below the cut, along with canon and non-canon character death

“You just a little hungry, or,” he wonders, warm breath shivering across her breastbone, “you starving?”

Keep reading

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what the body knows

A gift of smut and angst for the wonderful, magical @coppercrane2, one of the mods over at @ssminibang, and also? Very much one of my favorite people. I hope you enjoy this, Charlie!

title: what the body knows fandom: Sailor Moon characters/ships: Rei/Mars x reincarnated!Jadeite rating: R for explicit sexual content below the cut, along with canon and non-canon character death

“You just a little hungry, or,” he wonders, warm breath shivering across her breastbone, “you starving?”

what the body knows

…

In the windows the sky is thickly concrete, a fine film of drizzle that had gone all morning and kept them indoors, and perhaps it’s only because of a brief lull in its gentle rush against the roof that he can even hear her pause, sock–footed and quiet, on her way down the hall. Feet arrested on the threshold to the kitchen where he stands facing the sink. She listens to the ripe snap of his teeth, breaking the taut skin of a plum; the back of his hand abortively wiping juice from his chin as he turns partially around. Dim light silhouettes the edge of his jaw.

“Hey,” Junin says to her, mouth full, not even looking in her direction, “it’s getting late. Eat something.”

Sunday, and so far she’s spent it in the pantry, clearing out the back for the first time anyone’s done in – years. The smell of old crumbling contact paper lining the shelves, ringed with rusty stains from canned tuna, pineapples, curry, all with expiration dates embarrassingly long gone by. Twine, cracked soup bowls, aluminum foil, a casserole someone had gifted her (bizarrely) after the funeral. Other things. Packets of her grandfather’s aspartame, the mints he nibbled when his sugar slid, protein shakes with ingredients she still couldn’t pronounce. Milk protein concentrate, calcium caseinate, 1% or less of the following: inulin, cellulose gel, magnesium phosphate, artificial flavors. What does the body know, Rei thinks, recalling how she poured down the drain half-glasses of chocolate-flavored fluid while her grandfather dozed, his belly rejecting the decoy of sustenance, patiently eating itself down to something that could be lost or wander away, float off on a breeze. Into trash bags they all went, revealing space in the pantry like new skin. When she had emerged blinking into the hall even that darkening afternoon had seemed too bright. Now here she is – and here he is. In one hand the plum, in the other a bowl with a second one. Cut up how she liked, to keep her lip balm intact.

This was what stopped her short. How he would’ve had to have seen her pickily dicing her fruit like that; how alarming, to find herself the focus of such complete and close attention.

She’s already moving without conscious thought, hand on his arm, turning him. Rei gives him no chance to see her face. Her fingers climb the shaved sides of his head, taking the slightly grown-out hair atop for purchase; her eyes fall shut as her jaw cants up, triangulating from memory where his mouth is. His small surprised laugh is swallowed down her throat. “Rei.”

What does the body ask for? Under her palms the cord of his neck, his chest and stomach are all tangibilities, warm blood and muscle, and it feels, almost, as if she’s the one who might fly away. Months ago when he’d first reached for her she’d jumped back as if scorched; it had been so long since she felt another person’s skin. Now, she sucks his tongue from his mouth, sticky plum juice off his day-old beard. If she could she’d suck the air out of his lungs. She gets her hand in his briefs, around his cock, and he does not hesitate. The fruit goes rolling across the floor when he hoists her on the counter, accidentally dislodging her hand; there’s a brief struggle of crossing limbs, she straining for him as he steps between her legs, somehow both tugging down and rucking up her short dress. It’s faster than he usually moves, unlike him to accede to her impatience. He palms her breast in a rough squeeze, ducks his head to lick the nipple. Tiny hairs rise all over her skin. When she rubs her thumb over the wet tip of his cock he laughs and gasps both at once, and it’s so exactly what she’d wanted from him without needing to ask that closed, still, the corners of Rei’s eyes suddenly sting.

“You just a little hungry, or,” he wonders, warm breath shivering across her breastbone, “you starving?”

She wants to tell him, but what’s lodged in her gullet is an animal or the selfish type of spirit (her own) she read about in childhood, devouring whatever would come out, ravenous for anything coming in. So she tells him by doing, gets a brusquer hold on him, throttling down, the rough edge she’s learned he craves. When they’re like this he’s vocal but not about his desires; always they seem matched to hers, as if he’s afraid she’ll balk. I like everything you do to me. But what does the body want? Surely there are acts he had begged from others before her, as they kissed and touched skin and shed their clothes on the floor, acts he and she have yet to perform. Clear directives and not only suggestions found in the jump of his stomach, his head lolling back to the futon in lamp light, brow strained, almost as if he’s in pain. Maybe he is. Starving the same as her, desire tamped down inside. But in his presence it’s impossible to swallow her wants, hide or make them casual. As she beats Junin off, her hand sure in a way she does not feel, he drops his face in her chest, shuddering. His fingers insinuate themselves along her inner thigh, twist away her underwear. The tip of one dipping there, barely into her sex. Maybe he doesn’t realize. How much of him she would take.

The air in the kitchen feels heavy and cool, window cracked open (broken), all that unspent water loading the sky. In her ears is the hushed mix of their breaths and she finds herself counting his, noting each hitch, each sigh. Familiar. But Junin feels more solid than anyone she has held, hips digging into her thighs, width of his torso crowding her, his head tucked under her chin in the guarded apostrophe of her throat. She has an urge to take him further into herself somehow, a sentiment that feels protective but lacks the associated tenderness: selfish again, the frank way she would consume air or water, things the body needs. When he leaks a little the friction eases, so she grips harder to compensate, drags slow from root to tip. His answering groan is muffled into her sternum, a low, defenseless thing, and her mouth goes wet. A dozen unwired thoughts light up her mind at once. The noise her father made when the hospital called – Kaidou’s lips tensely closed under her own – Junin’s thumb stroking her throat as she kissed him, imbuing her with an odd, illogical sense of safety – the deep chill of her grandfather’s forehead the time she touched it last. Going out under the eaves this morning, looking at the sky, wondering if the drizzle was rain, really, or only mist. Putting out her palm to check as if this was a distinction that mattered. Sustenance, decoy.

What does the body know? Her eyelids flutter when Junin pushes two fingers into her, long and recurving like a bow, hooking at the place where she already feels something – not pleasure, not quite – starting to take form. Something stronger and less anodyne, like biting the inside of her cheek and tonguing the resulting wound: a sharp, dizzy sensation of brilliance, copper dissolving in her mouth. Something her body already knew for itself, what was asked for, wanted, needed. The first time he’d so much as touched her hand – that recognition – instant. In that moment she had understood what was known could never be unknown. But where did that leave her without him? The broad slope of Junin’s back encompasses her field of vision, the old gray college T-shirt in graying light, his shoulder moving up and down. Breaths burst from her in harsh little pants. He shifts into focus, making no attempt to delay or tease, working the tips of his fingers into that tenderness again and again with brutal efficiency. As if from someplace far away Rei hears herself whimper.

Junin kisses the divot of her collarbone. “You good?” he murmurs. His voice ragged. “You okay?”

The gentleness in his words calls up that thing in her gullet again, another pang of hunger, and she feels as if she’s being carved wide, skinned and left out open. Any moment he could glance up and witness her. The late day shines darkly through the windows, through the gleam of what could be rain or mist or nothing at all. Her skin feels like a bruise everywhere he’s against it, throbbing and too soft to be touched. Down where she’s holding him she can feel the trip of his pulse. What does the body know? The length of his cock overfills her small hand and she wonders if when they make love this will be enough to sate her. If anything is.

“I’m fine,” Rei tells him. She licks her lips, swallows. “Go harder.”

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I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, it's okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes.

-- Callista Buchen, from Taking Care

[apsaraqueen]

hello!! i just want to know if you've done prompts for domestic fluff? if not, could you maybe provide me some? thank you so much in advance! i find your blog very helpful and i love the content here overall. 💕

Hi and I’m happy you enjoy my content! :)

Here are some fluff prompts I have.

And here are some new ones.

Domestic fluff prompts

both waking up in the middle of the night and going on an adventure to find the perfect snack

falling asleep on the couch, waking up to not only a blanket around them, but their partner squeezed in behind them

playing Mario Kart after the kids are in bed and cursing all the other drivers out

having a water balloon fight in their own backyard

spontaneously deciding to paint their spare room on a Sunday

leaving notes in each other’s lunch box when they know it will be a stressful day at work

having a favourite animal at the Zoo, they regularly visit together

making funny faces behind the computer while the other one is in a boring Zoom meeting

being overly competitive at child games

surprising the other one with a picnic

having a system for putting away dishes, because one is not tall enough for putting away the glasses

walking shelter dogs together and dreaming of finally getting their own

going to open houses in rich areas just to see nice houses

brushing their teeth together and smiling at each other in the mirror

deciding on a list of Netflix shows they will only watch together

having a secret signal for parties that means “Let’s go home now”

Have fun!

- Jana

[apsaraqueen]

I feel like there’s this whole subgenre of fic that just really, aggravatingly, doesn’t get bickery banter couples, which means that a lot of the content for them just ends up reading like emotional abuse.

Like! The thing about couples that bicker for fun, the thing that makes it romantic, is not ‘I hate this and I’m sad and hurt and uncomfortable, but I’ll put up with it because I love you and at some point you’ll start being nice to me’. That’s not fun bantering! That is, at best, a serious miscommunication!

The thing that makes it fun and (potentially) romantic is ‘We know each other so well that we can be rude and gross and weird together, we can transgress the rules of polite society with each other without actually causing any real hurt, because we know where the real lines are and don’t have to guess at them or use the rules from a game that neither of us wants to play.’

It’s fundamentally about intimacy, not about treating your SO like they don’t have feelings that matter.

[apsaraqueen]

for chinese new year they get all these famous actors and comedians together and they do a lil show and one of the comedians was like “i was in a hotel in america once and there was a mouse in my room so i called reception except i forgot the english word for mouse so instead i said ‘you know tom and jerry? jerry is here’

[apsaraqueen]

Cruel choices #137: you must consume one - and only one - of the following pieces of media.

1. Sailor Moon retold in the style of a 19th Century Russian philosophical novel.

2. The Brothers Karamazov retold in the style of a magical girl anime.

[apsaraqueen]

contingency

Resurfacing with fic! A short-ish smut thing I did for a challenge hosted by the lovely folks who run @ssminibang. Prompter was the lovely @venuscrescent: Hino Rei/Sailor Mars x Jadeite, “Mindfuck.” Here goes nothing. Sexytimes follow under the cut.

title: contingency fandom: Sailor Moon characters/ships: Rei/Mars x Jadeite rating: R for explicit sexual content

“Did you really come into my bedroom in the middle of the night because you trust me?” Jadeite bends his head to catch her eyes. His own are cool, appraising. “Or because you want me to fuck you until you can’t think straight and it doesn’t matter anymore?”

contingency

…

“Who,” says Zoisite, “would be the greatest lover in the Dark Kingdom?”

At first, nobody says anything; Castor and Pollux simultaneously drain their wineglasses, exchanging significant looks. Then Nephrite says, in a slightly sullen tone: “Why is this a theoretical question? And why,” he adds, growing more miffed, “isn’t the answer obvious?”

Night has fallen on Earth, and Sailor Mercury is dead. After Beryl left the High Table, dragging Kunzite with her, the celebrations have gone from boisterous to feral. There are youma everywhere the eye can reach: youma drinking, youma singing, youma fighting, youma asleep, youma coupling, youma at (scandalously) the High Table, youma coupling under the High Table. Carnelian has kicked this last at least eight times now. She’s fairly sure her heel has blinded one of the threesome, but so far nothing seems to dent their enthusiasm. She kicks again, hears a soft grunt, and looks up to meet Jadeite’s startled blue eyes.

“You’re right,” says Zoisite. “It’s Kunzite.”

“What,” explodes Nephrite, at the same time as Yasha begins to titter.

“He’s so powerful,” sighs Zoisite. “Don’t you remember that time he erected the dome over Moon and Mercury, and they couldn’t breathe for, like, minutes? Imagine if that were you.”

There is a long, uncertain pause.

“What the fuck,” says the West-king pitifully. “What’s wrong with you all? Do you know what an advantage it is, having half a dozen shadows around to do your bidding in bed? Ask anyone.”

“It’s true,” says Widow loyally. “They have so many hands.”

Thetis, who has been sitting silent on Jadeite’s thigh until now, pipes up. “It is my lord.”

Zoisite’s eyes narrow. “No, it isn’t.”

“Sour grapes,” murmurs one of the DD Girls. Carnelian still can’t remember all their names.

“What does Carnelian think,” titters Yasha.

“Carnelian used to be a priestess,” snaps Zoisite. “Obviously she’s a prude.”

That, thinks Carnelian, is not strictly true. But she shakes her head, affects boredom. “I don’t have an opinion,” she says, tossing back her long dark hair. “Why are we talking about this?”

“See? Prude.”

“I’m curious, Zoisite,” says Jadeite. She notices his wineglass is largely untouched. “Why don’t you think it’s you?”

“How dare you speak to me after what you - ” the king of the North begins in a stage-hiss, and then colors. “Wait, you think it’s me?”

“It’s not you,” says Thetis derisively. “I already said, it is my lord.”

Carnelian swallows a gulp of wine that burns all the way down. “What is your rationale, Thetis?”

The pretty youma doesn’t look at her. “My lord is a master of illusion.”

“Yes, but Kunzite,” Zoisite starts.

“No, wait,” says Nephrite. “Now I’m curious. Tell us what you mean.”

Thetis straightens, unselfconscious. “I mean, when making love, he is able to construct anything one may imagine, and make it seem as reality. Any sight, any smell, any taste, any...touch.”

“Well, shit,” says Nephrite, impressed despite himself. “That does sound pretty hot.”

“I don’t want to make love to you, Nephrite,” says Jadeite, grinning.

“Cheers to that,” Nephrite replies fervently, reaching over to clink his wineglass with the Far Eastern king’s.

“The DD Girls can do all that,” titters Yasha. “What’s so special about illusion?”

Thetis smiles. “My lord trained the DD Girls.”

Carnelian leans white arms on the table. “Isn’t that cheating?”

A hush falls all around. Even the threesome under the table goes silent.

She goes on. “How can you call yourself a great lover if the pleasure you give is only an illusion?” As she says the last, she glances at Jadeite. “Is that any better than a magician performing a trick?”

His expression is amused as usual, and entirely unreadable. He says nothing, while Nephrite hoots.

“To properly construct an illusion, one must have had the experience,” Thetis begins coldly.

Another one of the DD Girls calls mockingly, “You claim to speak for one of the Shitennou, youma?”

“Kunzite’s protocol, not mine,” the Far Eastern king drawls back, clearly enjoying himself. “I can’t fit a stick that large up my ass.” An appreciative snicker goes up from all the youma.

“We thought you didn’t have an opinion,” Castor and Pollux intone in unison at Carnelian.

She shrugs. “Nothing personal. Only theory.”

“Well, if you’re ever interested in practical application,” bellows Nephrite, leering genially at her, and she smiles.

“Handle Jupiter the way you did Mercury and I might take you up on that, hero.”

“I’m a king of heaven, not a fucking demigod,” he protests, and everyone laughs.

The king of the North has been quiet some time, gaze flitting between Carnelian and Jadeite. Now he speaks up. “Carnelian, you were friendly with Moon and Mercury as a civilian, weren’t you? Today must feel strange for you,” his voice drips like treacle, “given your history.”

Carnelian blinks, confused, but before she can respond, Jadeite does.

“We were all chosen by the Queen to carry out the great work of the Dark Kingdom.” He speaks against Thetis’s temple, but Carnelian is startled to find his gaze focused on her. His tone is bland. “Certainly none of us would question the judgement of the woman we owe our fealty.”

“Oh,” says Zoisite hastily. “No. Never. Our great Queen is wise in every choice she makes. Also,” his voice rising slightly to carry, “no doubt she must be a lover beyond compare. The greatest. In fact, let’s just stop talking about this?”

“I want to talk about this,” titters Yasha, and Carnelian sees Zoisite materialize a crystal shard and stab her in the ribs. She topples without ceremony, blood oozing from her side.

Carnelian stands up and almost immediately feels a little dizzy. Too much wine, she thinks, swaying. She sets a hand on the table for support. “I’m going to retire for the night.”

Jadeite is still watching her. “Feeling all right?”

She ignores him, makes her way out of the great room and down one of the halls. As she turns into a narrower passageway she hears the Far Eastern king make his excuses as well.

…

She’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. She’s tried sleeping on her stomach, her side, her back, thinking of nothing, thinking of him, masturbating. The last only left her more restless.

Cursing softly, Carnelian swings her legs out of bed, ties on her red silk banyan. She can’t find her slippers, so she doesn’t bother. Her bare feet take her out the door. Down the dark halls and passageways that twist and turn like the wind in this place. In her palm she holds a flame to guide her, but if she’s honest with herself, this is a way with which she’s quite familiar.

When she knocks on the heavy wooden door no one answers. Someone inside laughs.

She knocks again, harder this time. “Jadeite.”

Behind the door she hears silence, and then footsteps. It’s still another minute or two before the door opens and she’s greeted by the sight of Jadeite, wearing loose pants and no shirt.

Carnelian brushes past him. “I can’t sleep.”

“Hello, Carnelian,” he says drily, shutting the door.

His quarters are as she remembers them: large, minimal, luxurious. After he brought her in, Beryl gave him a promotion of sorts, and now he more or less jockeys for rank with Kunzite, though the latter still has the lead. Accommodations show Beryl’s favor, even though he doesn’t care much for material objects. Only concrete floors, an enormous bed. A handsome leather chair with ottoman, deep wood tub, and an angular block of marble that serves as a bar. Looking around, it occurs to Carnelian that she’s been on her back, or had him on his, in or on every single one of these. Except the bar. That’s new.

Thetis claps her hands in front of Carnelian’s face, and she blinks. “Thetis?”

“My lady,” Thetis says. Her dark eyes brim liquid with hate. “I apologize that we didn’t hear your knocking the door. We were - somewhat busy. How might my lord or I help you?”

“I - ” she starts.

“Thetis,” his voice comes from behind her, and they both turn to find him leaning a shoulder to the wall, arms folded across his front. “Carnelian and I have matters to discuss. Would you mind?”

“My lord,” the youma begins. Carnelian notices, belatedly, that she’s naked.

His eyes are fixed on Carnelian as he says, with inexpressible gentleness: “Get out, Thetis.”

After a moment, Thetis bows. Neither of them speak as she gathers her clothes and leaves.

“Now,” says Jadeite once the door shuts. He goes to the bar, materializes a small charcoal-dark bowl for tea and glass tumbler of water on the otherwise bare surface. The former he hands to her. The latter he leaves where it is. “What’s this about not sleeping?”

“I told you,” Carnelian answers peevishly, taking it. When she sniffs its contents a thickly green smell steams up from the bowl. Gyokuro leaves, quite good ones. “I just can’t.”

The Far Eastern king sighs heavily. She tries not to notice what this does for the lean musculature of his chest. “I should’ve been more specific. How would you like me to help you go to sleep?” When she doesn’t reply he adds, “Not that I don’t have ideas, but - ”

“Well, I don’t think drinking tea is going to help.”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “It might with your impending hangover, Hino.”

She takes a sip. “I like this gyokuro.”

“I remember.”

Too close. She looks away, at the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window. It’s all snow outside, vast drifts of it, still and moonlit. It must be another illusion, of course; there’s no “view” to speak of in the dimension they occupy. But it slots in close enough with reality - they are, after all, situated around the Earth’s northern pole - that she could pass over it, unquestioning.

“Don’t,” she says quietly. “We’re not doing that anymore, Asa.”

“Yes. Because you left and never came back.” His tone is even. “Begs the question: why are you here?”

She sees he has his arms folded again. His hair is absurdly disheveled, wild, curls springing out everywhere. It makes him look like the boy king she’d first met. Somehow it’s been, what - she counts the time in human terms - five years? Six? since she’d woken up with a vague memory of a bus and little else. He had been the first person she saw when she opened her eyes in the Dark Kingdom. Her hand had been sweaty in his. The first to take her to Beryl, the first to show her the power she held, the first...

She hasn’t thought about all that in a long time.

Carnelian opens her mouth and it tumbles right out.

“Did you really do that? Use illusion when we - ”

“Ah,” he says, almost to himself.

“I know what you can do. Obviously. But until Thetis said - I never thought - ”

He waits patiently, not helping. He rarely does. After her first mission, he had told her that often the best thing was to let others be fools, and it had been good advice. But even then there had been a softness in the way he dealt with her, despite her naivete, that was like the flawed, included side of a gem; and she knows that softness remains, even as the Dark Kingdom has cut away every other gentle, foolish thing she knew in him, made sharp every aspect.

Carnelian gathers her straying thoughts. “Look, I just want to know if, when we were - ”

“Together,” he supplies.

“Together - if you - ”

“No. I didn’t.” He frowns. “Hino. How is it possible, after everything, you’re still such a prude?”

Carnelian ignores this, as well as the note in his voice that seems to suggest he considers her remaining inhibitions a personal failure on his part. “You didn’t. But - why not?”

A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Because I didn’t need to. It was good without it.”

She tries to keep her face from showing how remarkably gratifying that is to hear. “But wouldn’t it make it even better for you? I thought illusion was your greatest pleasure.”

It’s a drug, he’d said once. They were in the bath. Better than wine, than the stuff the Queen gives us. Better than fucking. Nothing feels better than knowing your power and using it.

“It would’ve been too much.” His voice pulls her back to the room, expands into the high open space, its echoes. The same room, but different. “When you and I were…”

“Together?”

Jadeite shoots her a flat look. “Together.” He goes quiet abruptly, glancing down, as if lost in the past. Then he says, “I don’t think I could’ve stayed in control, if I’d done that with you. I don’t think…” he trails off, considering. There’s a furrow in his brow, which clears when he looks up.

“It was good,” he says simply. “I didn’t want more. I was already - happy.”

She glances away, embarrassed - for him or for herself, she’s not sure.

“Look at you,” she hears him say quietly. “How you’ve changed.”

She senses him coming closer, keeps her eyes trained where they are. There’s a spot on the otherwise flawless concrete, slightly darker than the rest. She focuses on it, and he follows.

“From that time you burned a hole through my sheets. Remember?” When she looks up he’s smiling, though his eyes don’t wrinkle as they should. “And then you stole Kunzite’s shitty ones to make it up to me.”

Now, objectively, is not the best time to note that she’s toured Kunzite’s bed recently, and he’s significantly upgraded his linens. That’s a rivalry too white-hot to probe, even for her.

Carnelian sets down her empty bowl with a soft clink. “How would I ever know?”

“Know what?”

“If you did use illusion. Keep up, Asa.”

The Far Eastern king blows out a breath. “You’re the most powerful seer in the Dark Kingdom. The strongest of the Queen’s warriors, too, except maybe for Kunzite. Stronger than me.”

“Don’t be evasive.”

“I already told you. I never used it like that with you.”

She scoffs. “And I’m supposed to trust you when you say that?”

“Let me ask. Did you really come into my bedroom in the middle of the night because you trust me?” Jadeite bends his head to catch her eyes. His own are cool, appraising. “Or because you want me to fuck you until you can’t think straight and it doesn’t matter anymore?”

For what feels like a hundred long seconds Carnelian stares at him, thinking.

Then she steps between his feet, takes his face into hot palms, and seals her mouth over his.

...

He doesn’t miss a beat. His own hands rise, skimming her waist through the slippery silk. His fingers find the opening, splay warm across her ribcage, spreading the garment apart. Her heart is thudding so loudly in her ears, she’s sure it reverberates in his fingertips.

“Show - me,” she says, words rounded, cut off by his mouth. “I want to see - if I can tell - what’s real.”

He doesn’t respond, only continues to kiss her, to take her out of her clothes, movements fluent, and she tries to remember if it was like this the first time she came to him, when they were both so young, or if his sureness is the product of all the times that came after.

She loosens the drawstring of his pants at the same time as her robe falls noiselessly around her body, leaving her in black panties. Jadeite walks her back to the foot of the bed, kicking off the pants as he goes, and he’s completely nude under. “Were you with Thetis just now?”

“You saw for yourself.”

“Answer me.”

Jadeite stops, breaks off a kiss to look down at her. His expression is amused. “There’s no need to be jealous of Thetis.”

Carnelian gazes up at him. Then she twists her foot around his calf and yanks, using the momentum to reverse their positions, throwing him down onto his back in the bed. He lands with a grunt, followed by another, as she straddles his hips.

She leans down until their noses touch. Improbably, the blueness of his eyes still astonishes her. “I’m not jealous of Thetis.”

She’s about to say more but then his hand slides between her thighs, and whatever words she had die in her throat.

He’s studying her, gaze dark and intent. His knuckles graze the damp silk of her panties, back and forth. But instead of slipping in he hooks the fabric and pulls her forward. “Come up here.”

Swallowing, she crawls up his torso, resettles. When he twists the silk aside completely, tongue slipping out to taste her, she can’t help herself, falling forward. She catches herself with elbows on the mattress, calves tensing for balance, and feels him chuckle, a soft puff of air against her sex, followed by the tip of his tongue.

She closes her eyes, shuddering at the feel of it, circling her clit. “Oh, my God.”

He licks up into her with the flat of it, fast but light the way she likes, keeping the pressure consistent even as her legs splay and she begins to move, involuntary, rocking over his chin. His blunt fingernails dig into the curve of her ass to keep her steady. 

For prolonged seconds - minutes - she has no idea - can’t feel anything but for the thoroughness of his mouth, exploring her sex. Kissing the way he did her mouth, suckling on her clit as if it’s her tongue he’s tasting, small and soft as fruit. She’s distantly aware of how noisy he’s being, making the most obscene sounds, wet smacks, low hums and grunts of satisfaction as he works her over. The coolness of the room hits everywhere he’s lapped at her and she feels so wide-open it’s unbearable.

“S- stop,” she manages, finding a sliver of her presence of mind. “Stop, I can’t - I want you inside.”

She pushes off her elbows, struggles back backward on all fours, so he can sit upright. He’s already leaning over her, tugging her panties down her legs, easing her onto the mattress. She senses more than sees his hand, working himself in long deliberate strokes. The lights are bright without harshness and every feature of his face is visible, planes flushed dark and drawn taut as a drum, lips and chin smeared shiny with saliva and her slick; she sees it all in a half-second before he’s kissing her again, other hand cupping her skull, dragging her up to him. His tongue tastes strongly of her sex, so much that she almost recoils. But before she can think, there’s suddenly the heavy, hot weight of his cock dragging against her thigh, and he’s positioning himself. The head pushing in, stretching her, slow.

She comes just like that - from the sensation of being filled, finally; the pad of his thumb rubbing her swollen clit. Her own moan startles her - a loud, breathy thing, almost comically elongated. His grip on her biceps turns into a vice as she clenches helplessly around his cock, over and over.

When she finally finishes, gasping, he drops his forehead to hers. She notices, somehow, in the drift of bliss, that he’s not moving in her. “Fuck,” he murmurs. “That was embarrassing.”

It takes a few tries to speak. “What was?”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows once, twice. “You almost made me come.”

“Oh.” A shaky half-laugh escapes her. “Good.”

She waits until her muscles cease to quiver, and then, though her legs feel like deadweight, she somehow wills herself to wind them about his hips, groping at his ass, rolling up to get him deep, get him moving. He groans against her cheek.

“Don’t - I won’t last - ”

“I don’t care, Asa,” she whispers. Her fingers find his temples and smooth back the matting curls so she can catch the blue of his eyes again. His pupils are dilated wide like an animal’s, dark as glass at their centers. “I want to see you lose it.”

He hisses, face contorting, but then his hips buck and almost without volition he begins to thrust; not even pulling out all the way, instead fucking deep, as close to her body as possible. The base of his cock is wide enough she can still feel the stretch at the opening of her sex. For a few thrusts it burns, and then suddenly she’s so shockingly, copiously wet, she hears his breath go sharp.

“My…” His hand on her head, fingers curling in her hair. “My name.”

For half a second she thinks he wants her to say it, some game of dominance, submission - then she understands - remembers. “Asa.” She reaches up blindly for him, whatever she can touch. “It was Asa Junin.”

He inhales at the lee of her neck, breathing high and hard, like he’s been held underwater. “Rei.”

“Rei,” she squeezes her eyes briefly shut. He’s driving into her body so unrelentingly it’s difficult to configure speech, sentences breaking off, words fragmenting. “Hino - Rei. I was - was a - priestess.”

He withdraws completely, reaching down to pull up her knee, then grips her hipbone to keep her in place before sliding all the way back in. “And I wanted you,” he pants against her cheek, “the moment I saw you.”

“It’s - real,” she breathes. The words punctuated, each thud of his hips. “This - is real. I can tell.”

Her arms anchor around his neck as he presses his open mouth to her shoulder. Their bodies working together, now slicked by sweat. It’s almost too much - her thigh wedged between them, bending her in half, like hammered metal - nipples tight under the friction of his chest - the dull slap of his thrusts - an odd, tingling pressure, the place he’s hitting deep in her, again and again. When his hand slides around, one finger slipping past her clit, past where they fuck, tracing the cleft further up, it’s another sensation added to all the rest and she tenses under him, unsure.

“Okay?” his voice is low in her ear.

She’s trembling all over. “I - yes.”

The feeling of fullness, it’s - different. Sharper, more, entire. She wants to get away from it, wants to take more, both at once. A jolt of pleasure races down her spine as he pulls back; their eyes connect just as she realizes, vaguely stunned, that she’s going to come again.

Her eyes widen. “Junin - ”

“Almost,” he gasps, breakneck rhythm gone staccato. “I - ”

Her hoarse cry cuts off whatever he’s about to say as she flies apart. It’s much faster, harder than the first time, brinking on violence, shocking bright hot tears to her eyes.

Every part of her falls slack, her sex throbbing and raw. As she comes down she feels his pace stutter. A high, juddering sound escapes him as he thrusts a last time and pulls out, jerking off frantically. She props herself up on her elbows to watch as he spurts all over her, eyes landing where semen drips viscous, nacred, into the dark nest of curls between her thighs.

…

She’s laughing, even now as they lie in the dark; tiny, fitful, idiotic huffs against the still-perspiring side of his chest. Her stomach is quivering like she’s done a thousand sit-ups, and her thighs are sticky and sore. She feels - wonderful.

“I should clean you up,” she hears him mutter exhaustedly above her, but he makes no effort to move. She laughs again.

“Leave it there,” Carnelian tells him. “I told you I wanted to see you lose it.”

“Think I have to take back what I said about you being a prude.” He yawns prodigiously. “You’re a dirty girl, Hino.”

“Tell Zoisite that the next time he comes through.”

“Kind of making my bedroom sound like a merry-go-round, here.”

She smiles a little, without warmth, but he can’t see it, anyway.

“Both,” she says.

“Both?”

“You asked if I trusted you, or if I wanted you to fuck me.” She stares at the ceiling, allowing the whorls of concrete to resolve themselves into patterns of significance. “Both.”

She can feel his ribs rise and fall, still fast, under her cheek.

“Junin.”

“Hm?”

“Do you ever think…” she bites the tip of her tongue, worrying it between her teeth. “That maybe, this - this all is the big illusion. That the people we were before were the real ones. Who we should’ve been.”

Jadeite doesn’t speak.

“And - and what we are now...”

Quietly, he says, “We should go to sleep.”

Her eyelids flutter, moth-winged. “Right,” she replies, soft.

In a few minutes his breathing slows, evens out. She shifts a little; in slumber, he adjusts, unconsciously making room. When she touches his chest his heart beats in her fingertips.

Carnelian closes her eyes. Before she can form another conscious thought, she’s gone.

[apsaraqueen]

💗

For @apsaraqueen

This was written as cheerupemofic for BAMF a few weeks-ish ago, I think? Never got around to posting it but here it goes. Somewhat experimental R/J. Some angst but… it’s, uh, for BAMF? So. Yeah.

***

“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” - Pablo Neruda

I.

The Moon is beautiful and stately, all marble palaces and graceful domes, but leached of colour in an eerie wash of silvery white. Jikokuten takes a knee in the throne room and looks askance at the royals, for even they blend into this ghostly dream-world with their pearlescent gowns and platinum locks. The weather and grounds are flawless, not a single leaf or stone out of place. It’s almost too perfect– ominously so– and to one whose kingdom only dons white for mourning, it’s jarring. 

And then he sees the High Queen’s court file in, the warrior princesses of legend, flanking the throne two by two, and there she is, a spot of scarlet in the sea of white. Ebony hair and auspicious red skirts, eyes like the twilight sky before it turns full dark. He blinks, and his heart stutters. 

II.

The sheep are languishing in the heat, and getting leaner by the day with nothing but dry brush to eat, and Jochi coaxes some of his own water onto the littlest and weakest of the lambs. It’s foolish, and more than likely the little animal would die anyway, too malnourished to survive the drought which had blighted the steppes this summer. His father had always railed at him for being too soft-hearted, too foolish and un-Mongolian, but a part of Jochi always had perhaps too much sympathy for the foundlings and the weaker ones. There is a nebulous memory, perhaps not his own, of standing up for a boy with eyes like the open sky and a shock of black hair from– what? He doesn’t quite know.

He hears the sound of hoofbeats– it is a grand procession, the entourage of one of the Khans, and that is both blessing and curse, for they would surely bring much-needed supplies and victuals if returning from a successful raid, but just as surely would bring death and doom against any interlopers or opposing factions. Jochi’s yellow hair would stand out like a beacon, and so he pulls up his hood despite the summer heat and draws back into the shadows to watch the group. The warriors are fearsome indeed astride their ponies, bows and sabers at the ready. There is an iron-haired Chieftain at the forefront, proud and indomitable with eyes as fierce as a falcon’s. And then right behind him, dwarfed by the stalwarts flanking her, must be the clan’s princess, wearing a fine red dress and ornaments of silver and amber around her neck and atop her raven hair. She’s beautiful, with eyes as fearless as her Sire’s, but more so, something about her face strikes such a pang in Jochi that he forgets himself, and steps forward, right into the path of the procession. He’s knocked senseless not a moment later under the marauding hooves, but he only has eyes for the desert-mirage loveliness of the princess’ face.

III.

Jun doesn’t meet Ru-Yi until the wedding. She’s brought over to his familial estate in a lavish palanquin, amidst loud, raucous music and the rapid pops of firecrackers, and escorted to the altar by the servants to kneel next to his older brother Kai. As the heir apparent, it is imperative that Kai make a good marriage to a wife who would not shame him and brings all the right assets to the match, and Ru-Yi’s father is a very wealthy, powerful man. The newlyweds courtesy to their parents and each other, and then someone lifts the bride’s red veil away from her face, and Jun almost drops his goblet of wine. It is a stunningly elegant face, all cherry lips and willowy brows, but what’s more, though he’s certain he has never met her before, it’s somehow familiar. She, too, seems to feel it, because her eyes linger on his for a moment too long, a thin line of confusion drawing between those brows, before she turns away with a bland smile for the procession of well-wishers. 

Despite the many presents of dates and lotus seeds on the wedding day, and, months and years later, the foul-smelling tonics and powders, she never bears Kai any sons, and Jun watches, heart heavy, as Kai takes on one concubine after another, carouses in the brothels night after night, as the lines between Ru-Yi’s brows grow deeper and deeper with cheated joy and thwarted wishes. He doesn’t care if she doesn’t bear any sons, but she’s not his concern– will never be his concern. There are flowers left on her doorstep in the mornings, still wet with dew and with neither name nor note. It’s poor consolation for both of them, but she’s not his to love.

IV.

The air is arid and far too hot, almost tinged the same turmeric-yellow as the hot sun blazing down overhead. Captain Geoffrey Lindhurst with Her Majesty’s navy had been in India for all of four months, and is still getting accustomed to the local climate, so different from the ever-present London fog. The local food, too, is a far departure from the starchy Sunday roasts and meat pies and puddings of his boyhood, with its exotic spices and bountiful portions. The servants at his bungalow are politely quiet and do their tasks without complaint, but he has the sense that there is far more to their lives and customs than the scant glimpses that he sees now and then.

He’s out taking a walk on a balmy evening, and passes by one of the temples. He knows nothing of the religious beliefs of the locals, with their somewhat-fearsome-looking, animalistic gods with their fiery eyes and six hands and elephant heads, but many of the locals seem quite devout in their faith, praying several times a day and eschewing certain foods in their diets. Even at this late hour, the temple is open for worshippers, its air smoky with incense, and he sees a young woman emerge, clad in the flowing, traditional garments with a gauzy scarf over her dark hair. His gaze meets hers for only a split-second– light blue to orchid– but it jolts his system harder than a glass of raw gin. He has no idea who she is, and moreover, everything in his training and upbringing tells him that he has no business dallying with any of the locals. Geoffrey opens his mouth to speak, against everything that he’s known all his life, but she vanishes down one of the narrow paths and disappears into the night before he can say anything, or be quite sure that she wasn’t just an illusion, a trick of the light. 

He visits the temple enough in his years stationed here that he gets to learn the local traditions and customs, and indeed become quite familiar with their rituals. But he never sees her again.

V. 

The dame walks into his dilapidated hole-in-the-wall of an office on stiletto heels the red of fresh blood. Jack knows trouble when he sees it, and she’s all but radiating it like smoke surrounding a wildfire. “Help you, ma’am?” He keeps his voice brusque and businesslike even as she shrugs off a lustrous black mink stole to reveal crimson silk and fiery diamonds, curves in all the right places. “What brings you to this side of town?”

“I need a private investigator, and they say you’re the best. My driver’s outside, and he’s bigger and meaner than you,” she adds in a snide tone to match the diamond earrings. “My name is Rowena Warrington. Henry Warrington’s daughter.”

The Governor’s daughter has as much business in the seedy part of downtown as he would rubbing shoulders with millionaires in a fancy ballroom. “Don’t you have security, or lawyers, or whatever, to deal with whatever you’re dealing with, Ms. Warrington? This is a bad neighbourhood.”

“And no one’s been able to figure out the truth behind my mother’s death, so here I am.” Presumptuously, she makes herself at home, sitting down in a battered folding metal chair like it’s a throne as she lights a cigarette. “Price is no object, of course.”

“No.”

He won’t be swayed, because this is exactly the type of trouble that he doesn’t want, even though she turns on the wheedle, and later, the tears. He lets her leave in high dudgeon, and shuts the door behind her, and tells himself that his instinct– one that tells him in no uncertain terms that he’d narrowly escaped a terrible fate– was spot-on. And he busies himself with the usual mundane work which flows in every day like water through a leaky pot– fraud cases. Stolen heirlooms. Prisoners on the lam. Cheating spouses.

He reads about the huge, tragic scandal some months later in the paper– the cover-ups, the blood money, the extortion, the beautiful young woman whose life is tragically cut short because she’d had the audacity to poke her flawless nose where it definitely didn’t belong and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and is shocked at the grief which hits him. He owed her nothing, he tells himself as he broods into his second whiskey. She said herself that her driver was bigger and meaner than him. She should’ve been safe. Should’ve been careful. 

Should’ve been protected, with one’s very life. 

He throws the newspaper into the fire and watches it curl up into ash as he pours himself another one.

VI.

The busful of unconscious mortals is just where he wants them, of course, and Jadeite goes about the business of collecting their energy, siphoning it for Queen Metallia’s use. It’s rote and routine, but then a flash of scarlet catches his eye, and it’s the miko from the temple at the last bus-stop. Black and white and red all over, and he pauses, kneels down to move a strand of her lustrous black hair out of her face. 

“So beautiful. Ever since I’ve seen this girl, there’s something about her…” Something haunting, like a hint of incense smoke that clings to the air or a raven’s feather, black against white pavement, a memory that is-and-isn’t his. With a gentleness that he’s not had cause to employ in a very long time, he carefully shifts her into a more comfortable position, one more like natural sleep than the unconsciousness of a sinister spell, and lingers, unable to tear his eyes away from her exquisite, weirdly familiar face, until the all-too-unfortunate shouts of angry feminine voices tells him that he is not alone, and the Sailor senshi have arrived.

The miko opens her eyes and everything snaps into place a split-second before she transforms and a rage of fire heads for him, and he has but a moment to mouth the word ‘Sorry’, unheard and unacknowledged, before the flame hits in a wall of agony and heat. It’s no more or less than he deserves.

VII

The world is lustrous, glistening crystal, but unlike the Silver Millennium and the Moon Kingdom, the diamond brilliance of the towers bring colours into sharp relief, turning white sunlight into countless prismatic rainbows and reflecting the pale blue of the sky as rich sapphire. Jadeite takes a knee with his compatriots in the throne room and bows his head before the royals– his King and Queen, united at last. Countless lives had been lived to lead to this– an entry to a paradise hard-earned. 

There she is, still, raven hair and red skirts, and after, when everyone has broken off into their groups, he seeks her out. He has no reason to expect a positive reception, but the words are long overdue, and she has a right to them. 

“Lady Mars.” He makes an elaborate leg, as one might have done in a decadent court in the era of gilt and Rococo. She raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t storm away or glare, and that’s something.

“No need to stand on ceremony, Lord Jadeite. We’ve met before. More than once, I daresay.”

“And I’ve loved you every time.” The words are baldly spoken and perhaps too blunt, in poor form, but they’ve been buried for far too many years and lifetimes already. She halts, and he notices that her breath isn’t quite steady, and that gives him the courage to remain where he is instead of making a hasty escape.

Finally, a queer sort of half-smile crosses her face as she tilts it back up to his. “You’ve been terrible about showing it up to now, haven’t you?”

“Up to now,” he agrees. “It doesn’t have to remain so. Unless you wish it.”

“Hmm.” She glances away, but stays standing where she is, within reach. “I suppose we’ll have to see.”