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saltofmercury · 1 month ago

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𝐌𝐲 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞.

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬: nothing was ever meant to be yours, so why does this strange man insist he is?

masterlist | ao3 | mdni | take heed: könig x f!reader, afab reader, medieval au, ambiguous religion, size difference, extremely dubious consent, possessive behaviour, forced marriage, horrible courting, power imbalance, angst, stockholm syndrome, dark romance, stalking.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢. | prev

Twelve newly anointed knights calls for a festivity of revelry in the peak of harvest season. The royalty highly favours this traditional induction. It was a chance for the new men to show off their swordsmanship and honour towards the public, all the while displaying the great, militant strength of his majesty.

The common folks are relieved to have strong men to protect them, and the crown is satisfied with the agenda of the social stratum.

You’ve stolen simple glances at the new cavalry as they’re gathered along the courtyard. One in particular, Ser Eaton, you have taken a shine to. A nobleman, guided by great swordmasters before him, has been raised proper and pure to the life of men at arms.

It didn’t help that he had a boyish curl in his smile that reached his eyes, faint dimples appear everytime they do too. His light brown eyes twinkle at a challenge and his hair—the colour of golden barley—fitting him right just for the season. It is as if mother nature had accommodated solely for his arrival.

The ladies-in-waiting share snide comments and snicker upon eavesdropping the mindless daydreams of maids winning the favour of men at their calibre. However, you kept yourself grounded. You did not let your affection stray into something you could not have. They were what they always were to you, just fantasies.

But you are also well into the age where you were expected to marry. These days, love fills your endless thoughts; hope fuels your days and nights. You remember turning your nose up at the very subject as a child. Now as countless summers pass, your heart has now softened and grown weary from age. No longer having the strength to see through life on your own, you begin to think that there are no worldly materials that could fill the longingness that you yearn for other than what must be love.

Therefore, you will yourself that by the end of summer you are determined to be matched.

When the sun hovers just above the horizon after every shift, you make your way to the great altar, praying in earnest on sore knees and raw hands with three repeated mantra:

Let him be good.

Let him be kind.

Let him be loyal.

This faceless man of yours possesses no riches beyond belief, no title to bequeath, and no land to his name. He is made pure of your image. He is love and service reincarnate; he exists only for you and you to him.

The mountain of candles flicker in the darkness as you silently profess your truest desires in front of holy presence. Wax rolls slowly from the flame as dusk passes by. Indistinguishable figures enter and leave during your hour here, none ever lingers for too long, so it was a surprise when you finally took notice of a much larger company taking residence across from you.

You flutter your eyelids open, adjusting to the dimness of the room. As you do, you almost expect him to dissipate with the bleariness from your eyes—but alas, he remains.

König.

It was an oddly endearing thought. The knight who is made a spectacle before the public, to be known as a cruel god amongst the average men, on his knees praying.

You wonder if he believes in the same god as you do—or if this is what he was forced to assimilate to. You wonder what he desires, what burdens he’d like alleviated. Then somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder if he was ever praying at all.

His eyes hold a sea of storm beneath them, never breaking your gaze once you had set your sights upon him. Instinctually, as if you were conditioned, you place a soft smile on your features as a silent acknowledgement before placing your hands to the cold, stone platform to stand.

König mirrors your move as you rise from the altar. His steps were like a shadow to yours, exiting the chapel in the same stride and pace. Your cold hands brace the heavy, timber doors, ready to exert some effort this entrance always requires. However, your attempt was intercepted. Instead, a single large hand had extended from behind, grazing the back of your hand so softly you wanted to pull away from the innocuous intimacy.

The warmth from the candles sets a jarring contrast to the cool autumn breeze, prickling uncomfortably at your skin as you breathe in the fresh air. At least that’s what you tell yourself as König still lingers close from behind, making no move to surpass you.

Turning with a courteous demeanour prepared, you bow your head in respect as you offer your meek appreciation.

“Thank you, Ser König.” You say, too afraid to meet his face up this close for fear of encroaching social boundaries. Even so, he has breached your senses instead, involuntarily filling you with smells of smoke and iron.

You do not allow for him a chance to speak as you say your regards for the night before turning away promptly, following the direction to your home.

Perhaps that was the most you had ever interacted with the mysterious knight. You think about him for a while as you sort your sleeping quarters for the evening. Your hands suddenly went still from your woollen quilt as your mind takes you to the earlier recurrence.

How people have misjudged this poor man. If they have just a slight empathy within their hearts, they would see he was no threat. Rather his action today resembled that highly of a gentleman.

How funny, you think. A breath of a laugh escapes you at the thought of sharing news that the local monster had more couth than most of the village men could ever possess.

There never was enough time in the day. Usually after your shift had ceased, maids of all work would gather in groups and head to the stream to scrub all the dust and grime off their skin. It was much safer in numbers as well, for fear of any indecent men taking advantage and preying on vulnerable women.

Fortunately there hasn’t been a case of any voyeurs. The path down the stream was kept well hidden and guarded by others, taking turns and rotating on which group was to wash up first and who were to keep watch. It was enough to deter any unfortunate predicaments from occurring.

However, your newly added time dedicated to your prayers took up most of your respite with the sun, and so you often missed the chance to string along to bathe with the others.

It was perhaps the comfort of habit that you dare to venture out into the stream all alone. You speculate most of the people had already arrived and settled well into their homes at this hour. Reasonably, there should not be one soul wandering this area by chance. To further add to your precaution, you also choose a stream further down where river rocks and boulders amassed. It made for a suitable cover should anything happen, but it also wasn’t the most comfortable to wade around in.

You lay your day’s clothes out in the highest part of the rock where sunlight could reach and unfastened the pins from your hair. Leaving your possessions easily behind, you eagerly step into the body of water. The water was cold upon the first touch but grew tepid as you ease your way in further down.

Sighing in relief, you dip your head below the waters before resurfacing with a soft gasp. Your hands automatically begin to work at your arms with a cloth that was dampened with sweet smelling oils you concocted yourself. Scrubbing your skin to your fingertips meticulously, the smell of wild lavenders now follows you around sweetly.

You lather your hair with the same product. Letting your fingers run past your strands, you made sure to rid of all the built up grease that accumulated from the day’s work. There was still around half an hour to spare before the sun had completely set. Looking up at the sky to see the third quarter moon hanging high, you decide to soak yourself a little while longer to admire the tranquility of having the river belonging to you just for a short while.

Basking in the fresh air and the lulling sound of the babbling brooks, you begin to notice something was amiss when you identify another sound—the sound of soft labored breaths that did not belong to you. Your body freezes all at once; your heart missing a beat.

This is not real. This cannot be real—Please don’t let it be real.

With a flicker of bravery, you cautiously turn your head to look from behind your shoulder—and to your horror, you confirm your worst fear.

König stands formidably, naked in all his glory—apart from his grim hood that religiously cloaks his face. His hips above the waters, hands furiously gripping at the girth of his cock, stroking it back and forth offhandedly.

He doesn’t stop when he’s caught, instead his breath hitches when your eyes lay on his thick cock and fists himself harder. The desperate jerking motion forces a pearlescent seed to drip from his slit and into the running stream.

You’ve never seen anything of this nature before. Always prudishly looking away even when the men worked in the fields clad with only their slacks and their caps to shield them from the sun’s rays. Though you had an idea of what they appeared to be, it was only ever described through hearsay from the girls who enjoyed recounting their latest rendezvous.

So when you gaze upon the sex that could supposedly anchor heavens down to earth, you are sick to your core.

It was abominably everything like him.

Big. Ugly. Disgusting. Monstrous.

There is a film of lust over his eyes, uncaring just how unseemingly he looks. The thick coarse hair at the base did very little to cover what strains under his vigorous grip. His balls swing obscenely at the thrust of his motions as his manhood curves—pulsing furiously as pleasure buzzes through his veins, menacingly growing bigger at each passing second.

The deep, scarlet tip of his swollen mushroom-like head sprays pre-cum in your direction and it takes everything in you to breathe and grasp your conscience back to your control.

Dashing beneath the surface, you scramble through the maze of boulders and snatch the clothes you had left behind to haphazardly dress yourself quickly from his sight. You hear him bellow as you leave; staggering sounds of waters being pushed through his heavy, powerful strides alarm you as if he is hailing hell bound for your soul.

Cotton sticks to you like a second skin as you weave through the woods, desperately leaving behind an angry praetor calling out your name, beseeching you to stay. You cannot hear him—you would not hear him. Squeezing through the tightest crevices from a particularly narrow path you have chosen, you run as if you were escaping your own shadow.

By the time you reach the safety of your own home, you do not dare to look back until you have shut and locked the door behind you. Your lungs were burning fire by the time you catch your breath, your body trembles from the cold and the adrenaline all the while sweat trickles down your face. You do not even spare the time to change into something dry, instead you reinforce your door with the heaviest desk you could find and anxiously wait by the windowsill, anticipating for the worst.

You imagine seeing him over the horizon; hear the terrible ringing of his chain links, and when he finally arrives at the threshold of your home, you imagine König tearing down your walls pursuing you like a man possessed—a vindictive spirit who won’t rest until he has your head.

You wait and wait until the moon is at its peak, until your hair is dry—until you can not tell the difference between the shadow of a tree and the silhouette of a man.

In the late hours of the night, you fall asleep on your kitchen tiles; in the depths of your psyche, you dream of him.

A shadow pursues you relentlessly from behind. In your dreams, you did not gaze upon the creature’s form but you knew just exactly what face this monster wears. He has steel nails for teeth, his open jaw fixed with a permanent smile, his eyes burn hellfire white while he howls his awful laugh.

You feel taunting sliver of touches at your heel. It is as if the monster knows you cannot outrun him, that he’s just biding his time until he finally swallows you whole—like a predator playing with his food.

You will your legs to run faster but they are sluggish at your behest. Your heart rate picks up from your arduous labour as you hear the laughter beginning to grow to a deafening screech. The familiar ringing of the chain links was the last thing you hear before a sudden force jolts you awake.

Once you are brought back to the land of the living, your heart continues to pound against your chest. Twisting to sit up from your sleeping position, your back strains painfully from the cold, hard floor.

Looking up to the sky from your window, you catch the dawn beginning to break.

Even the most terrible nightmare could not even cease your circadian rhythm. Even worse that it could not even make you shirk your own duties.

The events replayed through your mind incessantly as you prepare yourself some new set of cloths with the current one smelling nauseatingly of mildew. The looming purple sky beginning to turn ochre yellow heralding a new day did little to calm your mental plague.

You find yourself bending over the toilet from your worries. With no food sitting in your stomach to spill out, your body unnaturally rejects bile. The powerful contractions quakes your entire being. The bitter taste lingers even after you rinse your mouth with water and mint. Your mind becomes light, however your feet feel as if they’ve been dragging the world with them.

Fear consumes you.

You cannot go on like this. You refuse to set your sights on him after what you had seen, but you cannot afford such luxuries to abandon your post. And so you acquiesce like an ever faithful servant, only this time you decide to sequence your own schedule out of order.

Instead of entering through the gatehouse as you would countless times before, you inconspicuously slip through the back of the kitchens, hiking through an old hidden path that’s been reconquered by nature. In spite of the difficult trek, it was thankfully to your advantage, concealing you from any sentinel that may have been stationed on the bridges or towers anticipating for your arrival.

Ordering your tasks in reverse was easy. You work in the shadows; cleaning the mud, dirt, blood whatever the men could get themselves in from their capes. As the others heave the baskets onto their hips, you do not make any intention to join them out in the fields. Rather, you busy yourself by attending to another who called out for anyone who had the capacity to help her with husking ten baskets of maize.

Time passes you by easily like a stranger in a crowd. You even find yourself letting your guard down and enjoying the mundane routine of the day. Wiping the dishes dry in communion with the other maids of your stature, you exchange with small talk to relieve the weight that you carry over your shoulders.

It wasn’t until you felt a firm hand turning you around to replace your damp rags with a silver ewer of water and clean cloths did the familiar pit of mass resume to drag you down to the underworld.

“The physician needs assistance while his apprentice is away.” In lieu of a request or a demand, the head of the Housekeeper informs you, expecting your recognised, dutiful obedience. Rather than seeing you off to adhere to her words, she observes a momentary frozen mien. Neither speaking nor moving to your newly assigned task.

“I recall you being of help in his ward, yes?” Her tone is short, eager to get on with the endless work she has ahead.

You balance the heavy pitcher carefully with both hands; your teeth gnawing on your bottom lip in apprehension. “Yes, ma’am.” Your voice was meek but polite—though your reply did not appease her in the slightest.

“Well?”

There are no words you can construct in haste to explain why you would rather die than to come across that vulgar man again.

“You waste a second more of my time and I will write you up for insubordination, is that what you wish?” Her voice is now audible above the surrounding noise.

“No, ma’am.” Her punitive measures against your idleness is enough for you to venture away from the safety of the basement walls.

Her warning is like coals beneath your feet, and as you move along the halls and away from the formidable woman, the fire wavers into something weak and cold. With each step you take is like a step towards an impending doom, marching slowly towards your own demise.

You know the schedule of each station like the back of your hand. You know that if you take your post by the physician’s side, you are to be confronted by the man who undoubtedly will look at you as if he is ready to tear the flesh from your bones—for the apothecary pavilion was set up conveniently by the training grounds.

They would always keep a physician stationed at every session, the appointment being arranged partly due to damages exacerbated by the infamous knight who doesn’t know—nor care—for the sheer strength he unleashes against his comrades.

Piercing sounds of steel against steel bears the tiding that you have reached your journey’s end. Men at arms here exercise their instincts against nature to slay and bludgeon another. Though they employ their moves with restraint, the sight of blood smeared across their teeth and cuts from their blades was a usual sight.

You cast your eyes down towards the solid ground of dirt, making yourself small and scarce by endeavouring no sounds from your timid steps, all the while holding your breath as you reach the familiar ivory colour of the tent—as if depriving yourself of oxygen would make you invisible.

It could just be part of your own making but you feel eyes on you like sunlight on your skin. You choose to ignore it. Like you ignore the ghost haunting your hallway, creaking your floorboards in the dead of night. So you eye your feet, the way it scuffs the sand beneath you. You then busy yourself with the ivy that grows mighty on the stone walls instead of the glorious savagery in front of you; pretending to study its branches and twines as if it was the most fascinating foliage you’ve ever seen.

Finally, you reach the threshold of the medical bay, skipping your last steps with haste as you open the tarp.

König sits at the bed, his shirt strewn across the floor. He leans back with his hands spread behind him. Across his shoulder bleeds maroon from a slight superficial cut. A light cock of his head to the side and the strongest intuition that he is hiding a saccharine smile tells you that he doesn’t need any form of medical attention.

Turning your head behind your shoulder, you quickly learn that the physician is occupied with attending to a concussed knight on the other side of the yard.

“Mein entlaufenes, Frau."

He sighs endearingly, as if he was awaiting his woman in the privacy of his bedroom.

“Don’t you see your fighter is hurting?” He says when you remain unmoved. “Come; take care of your bleeding Romeo.”

You avert your eyes and begrudgingly do as you are paid to. Making yourself useful, you readjust your grip on the heavy pitcher, careful as to not slosh the water around too much around the rim. You conclude the sooner you finish your work, the sooner you would be rid of his presence once more.

You avoid facing directly from him—despite it providing you the easiest access to dress his wound; the way his wide thighs lecherously invites you in deter you from encouraging him. Instead you set down your burdens on a small desk nearby and begin to skilfully coat a clean white rag with alcohol from the side.

If he is displeased by your aversion, he would most definitely be pulling a face from behind his hood.

You oscillate your line of sight from his cold, cyan-like eyes to the cut; nervously approaching the wound slowly as if he was an animal ready to strike at any moment.

“This might sting,” you whisper, so lightly you could mistake it for a wind blowing in the breeze.

He doesn’t flinch when the alcohol meets the break of his skin. König watches attentively like a dog, eyeing your delicate fingers, cleaning and patching up his lesion with the utmost care. An act he deems akin to devotion.

In the midst of dressing his wound with a gentle adhesive, his indecent hand travels to your working one, gripping with purpose.

“Gute Arbeit, Schatzi," he praises. “But you are not finished yet.”

König leans closer towards you. His hood brushes your hot cheeks as you stare dead ahead—paralysed with fear.

“I am hurting..” His hand guides you down his chest. “Elsewhere.”

You pull your hand before he could direct it to his crotch but he keeps the grip around your wrist, preventing your untimely departure. You forget your station and resist him when he pulls you closer by the waist, making you stumble across your own feet and into the arms of a perverted, war-mongering mercenary. With a struggling yelp, your futile efforts to push him away only encouraged him to lock his hold on you even more.

“It’s so painful, Schatzi,” he rasps desperately against your ear.

König groans when you inadvertently brush against his swelling cock in the middle of your attempt to escape.

“You feel that?.. My mighty sword?” There is a smile in his question as he suspends you against him fiercely. “You saw it too—ahh.. Had you hiding in your burrow didn't it, mein kleines Häschen?”

“Ja, I know–hah–it’s massive. Don’t be scared, I mean to prepare you for our first time.” His breathing grows haggard; you feel the wild beating of his heart against your terrified ones.

“S-Ser König! This is–is highly inappropriate,” you beseech, but it falls on deaf ears. He already has a hold of your laces from behind and means to tear it apart.

You have to do something—

Cry out for help!

Incapacitate him—anything!

SLAP!!

As if merely possessed for a single moment, you gasp at the inconceivable notion that you had just struck the crown’s most favourable knight. The world has grown quiet and time seems to slow. Your hand, one not currently restrained by him, is raised high and throbbed at the sting of skin meeting his through thin fabric.

You have not yet considered the weight of your actions. For the only thing you know is how loud the sound of your heart beating inside your chest and how tight the air around you is to even breathe.

König stares at you with indecipherable eyes. Yours widen; mouth slightly agape at the ready to spill a litany of apologies.

However, the sound of the tarp fluttering was enough to break the spell that enchants you both.

Scurrying from his hold and to your feet was surprisingly easy, given how hard it was for you to pull him away with all the strength you could muster just a minute before.

A new figure steps into the closed canopy, but you don’t dare bare your face freely to meet their scathing gaze. Instead, you hurriedly take the pitcher you came in with and take your leave promptly.

König must have let you, for you did not hear any protest coming from his end.

Taking forceful steps away from the tent, the tears that you fight to hold back suddenly come breaching at your waterline and down your cheeks. Angrily swiping them with the back of your hand, you twist your face and tightly purse your lips, terrified a sudden sob would escape.

No—you do not want to make this real. Not yet. Only when you’re in the safety of your own self would you then collapse down to the floor, wailing pathetically like a banshee howling in the dead of the night—only then would it become real.

At that moment you renounce him vehemently. You renounce your sympathies for the seemingly pitiful man who hails beyond the mountains. You renounce his harmless disposition and any vestige of kindness you thought he might hold.

From now, König has now become the monster everyone says he is.

#read later #könig cod

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saltofmercury · 1 month ago

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𝐌𝐲 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞.

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬: nothing was ever meant to be yours, so why does this strange man insist he is?

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞. | next

There is another way to pierce another’s heart without the means of artillery; to leave a wound that would never heal even with the passage of time. For it is the sharpest of tongues that could destroy even the proudest spirits to nothing but dust.

Humans are often political creatures. Be it common folk or those of noble born; words are weapons that mankind arms throughout history, persistently evading the right of those who may wield it.

You know it all too well. The powerful sting of it. How it could degrade one’s status to a social pariah. The ostracisation due to fear of association.

Women of your stature often had to navigate it the youngest than most.

Born into the common people by likely chance, duties were scarce apart from menial labour. People often amuse themselves with other means. You bear the brunt of your fair share of being others’ entertainment for a while before they become foretime news.

With time, you assimilate to the manners of how they speak. The information that you share is also often carefully strategised. Most important of all, your feelings were kept well guarded.

But your soul is not without compassion.

So you feel for the royal mercenary who patrols the grounds of the city. The masked sentry who secretes his mien you surmise, is a misunderstood creature.

His hood that he dons became the catalyst of fear mongering through streets. Men sneer in disgust at the sight of him. Women take affront at his presence. Children would run into their mothers arms.

They say that the King has employed a damned creature to do their biddings. Founded him from the edge of the world, towering among men with unbridled, brutish strength, they sought him and ordained his loyalty to the crown. His face however, is a ghastly sight. And so they cover him and hide the monster to walk amongst men.

Rumours—if repeated ubiquitously—are often mistaken for fact.

They named the monster König—or perhaps it was he himself who bestowed the title. For no one paid him any respect to the meaning of it. Instead, his executioner-like hood has signified him to be a harbinger of death.

You pay it no mind however, for you had your own tasks to fulfil instead of languishing it away with gossip.

At the first appearance of daybreak, you set off to your post as one of the many humble chambermaids employed by the crown. The man they whisper of are often sighted at the courtyard. Beyond the fortified stone walls, he displays his barbaric nature against his own. Innate inhibitions are nonexistent when he engages in combat—as if he is unable to distinguish an ally to an enemy when placed in opposing sides.

They likened his mind to being possessed with the unyielding tenacity not to win, but to survive.

The walls carry news of curious eyes that spy just what this supposed man is capable of. You hear exchanges of times where König had come close to ripping another knight’s limb, another where he bludgeoned an officer’s face unrecognisable from what was supposed to be a friendly sparring session.

Protests must have spilled profusely from their side as he refuses to relinquish unless a direct word of order is given from his superior.

The crown’s very own war machine.

Chills run through your blood even as you tend to the fire at these stories. Perhaps it was these nightmarish tales that you allow yourself to be immersed in to be anticipating his presence every time you traverse the castle halls.

Your anxious, sharp eyes constantly look for the infamous boogeyman, and perhaps it is your zealousness that leads you to often lock eyes with his pale blue gaze regarding yours.

Caught in your own schemes multiple times, you deflect your true intentions by offering him a kind smile—one in which you may never know are returned.

You see him far in the corner of your eyes as you labour away in the fields, often ignoring him like a ghost haunting your nights if you can help it.

However there are other instances where you cannot.

As if your time had suddenly aligned with his, you cross paths with him more times than you would like. Often frequenting the halls you take, forcing you to acknowledge his rank or extend a polite greeting for the sake of pleasantries as you would for anyone else. Consequently, you have disadvantaged yourself by building a small rapport with the one your society has rejected fervently.

Still, you bear no ill will towards the knight who hails from a foreign land. There was no malice when he absentmindedly occupied your thoughts.

Instead there is only pity for this man. Pity that violence is what he had known and what he will ever know now that he’s stationed here.

There must be longingness for his own kind, perhaps a family back home?

You struggle with the empty space that your sister had left behind three summers ago when she married a kind merchant from the coast, and so you wonder just how he could tame the storm of loneliness raging inside himself. Despite what others describe him, you believe—no, you insist that he was human.

Playing the devil’s advocate at night, you humanise the royal war machine. You sympathise with his poor disposition. Hurting for him as if the words they send his way was a direct attack on your character as well.

However, you were too much of a coward to stand in his defence. Biting your tongue and looking into the bottom of your empty cup whenever the men at the tavern stirs fear into the locals’ hearts at the tall tales they have of him.

You care too much about your already unfavourably dismissive reputation in the town. You fear being shunned if they begin to relate you to him. Assuming you to be a woman who takes pleasure of the same sadistic nature he seemingly possesses.

Humans are fallible creatures you suppose; for you had compassion—not integrity.

#read later #very excited #könig cod

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