#<- tagging all my original posts this this year

[thewavesofmel]

The Voicemail

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Word Count: 1.5K

A/N: Hello! I have read some Bucky Barnes fanfics over the years and have written some other fanfiction on AO3 myself, but never felt brave enough to write anything like this. So this is my first try writing a Bucky Barnes X Reader fanfic and wrote something today on the spur of the moment and felt brave enough to post it. Depending on how I feel, I may post this on AO3 too. Apologies in advance for any errors!  Additionally, this is my own writing, and I do no consent to it being posted as original content by any other individuals other than myself.

Summary: Bucky gets a voicemail from you after two months of not seeing each other. 

Warnings/Tags: 18+ only, Minors DNI. Smut. With some plot. Friends with benefits. Dirty Talk. Mutual Masturbation. Phone sex (kinda). Voicemail. 

************************************************************************

It’s been two months. Two months of texts almost sent and a finger hovering over your name in his contacts. Two months without your voice, your smile…your touch..your kiss…your moans...and your body. Two months without you. The decision was mutual. You both decided it was for the best. But he couldn't stop thinking about you. He couldn’t stop thinking about how good it was when you both were together. No one made him feel as good as you did. No one knew their way around his body like you did. You knew exactly what made him feel good and how to get him off. You respected his limits and were always eager to try new things. You both have the philosophy of pleasing your lover as much as possible and at least three orgasms before the next round. At first, you both were amazing for each other. You both were each other's confidant and stress relief. You were each other's solace, both when life got hard or when you just needed to feel someone else's body on yours. And somewhere it just all fell apart and got too messy and too intense. He knows he shouldn’t be thinking about you. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop thinking about how good you feel. He couldn’t help but miss the sound you make when you cum and how sweet you tasted when his tongue was deep inside you.  He went through the motions, he went on missions, spent time with the team, went to his therapist, but the thought of you was constantly in the back of his head. The decision to not speak to each other after the break-up wasn’t agreed on or even said, it just happened. He longed to speak to you. God, he wanted to do so much more than just talk. He wanted to fuck you slow and deep just like you liked. Until you begged him to go faster and deeper making you scream out his name. But if he couldn’t have that, he at least wanted to at least just hear your voice. But at the same time, he didn’t even know what to say. So he just didn’t say anything, it was just easier. He thought you would do the same. Until he was proven wrong. 

That night he just got back to his apartment after a week-long mission. It was tedious and intense. As soon as he got home he just wanted to shower and sleep. And if sleep wouldn’t come, he just wanted to fucking lay down for more than 10 minutes. He pushes his still wet hair out of his face as he walks from the bathroom to the bed in comfortable sweatpants. He plops himself on the bed to lay down and sighs deeply with the urge to just roll over and shut his eyes. He decided to check his phone before he wrestles with his sleep and what he sees makes him sit straight up. 

It’s a voicemail. He must have had his phone on silent, he didn’t even hear it ring. Only a few people would call him at this time of the night, usually for a mission. But it wasn’t any of them, it was you. 

Maybe he shouldn’t listen to it. Maybe not hearing from each other if for the best. But all he could think about was hearing your voice. He couldn’t open the message fast enough and pressed play. 

“Hey, it's me.” your voice starts and his breath catches as he hears you.  

“I wanted to... I don't know, I just wanted to... I shouldn't even be calling you, should I? We hadn’t really said we should stop talking to each other. But it’s just… you know.” you stop to sigh and he sighs in agreement.

“But we did make an agreement to stop seeing each other. And I know we said it wasn't a good idea, but I just... I just can't stop thinking about you” you say softly and he feels his heart start to pound. You missed him too and it felt so good to hear you say it. He almost played that part over just to hear you say it again but he wanted to hear what else you had to say. 

“I just wanted to call you and hear your voice. I miss you. I really do. I miss... I miss talking to you. I miss... being around you. I... I miss your touch. I miss kissing you. God damn it, I miss fucking you. Um... I know that... us being... in the same room is difficult and I think that's why we are avoiding each other but I just….I don't want you to…I want you to be close to me because when you're close to me…fuck, so many things happen.” you breathe out, sounding lost in thought. And he breathes with you, his body starting to react to your words. The same tingle he gets in his body starts to make him heat up and he bites his lip.

“I… I... well... First of all, I get out of breath like how I feel out of breath now. Um, I, uh... My heart starts pumping fast. And, um... My body, it feels tingly. All over. And, um... And... And I start to get... So freaking... wet. Just your voice makes me so wet.” you slightly moan. 

“Fuck baby” he whispers in response and he can’t help but let out a small whimper. His cock grows hard at hearing how wet he makes you and the effect he has on you.

“And I... I don't want to let that go, honestly. The way you touch me and how you caress me. The way you know that I like it when you bite my ear. And you trail your tongue from my chest to my neck. Just the right spots to kiss and bite. And the way you kiss all over my body…. how you touch…the way you know how to touch my breasts…and pinch my nipples just right…and how you look into my eyes when you suck on them… fuck you know how wet that makes me.” you continue on in that same tone you use when his fingers are deep inside of you. He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself. He takes his free hand and starts to rub on his cock through his sweatpants. Hearing that sweet voice filled with need turns him on so much and it’s been so long without you. 

“And fuck… your hands…both of them are perfect…the way your fingers are so…justt so fucking good…. and the way you know to finger me, not too fast, not too slow, but just right…how you curl your fingers right up into my G spot…and rub my clit…makes me cum so hard on those fingers” you whimper. By now he picks up on the rustling and wet sounds along with your words. You are touching yourself while you talk and you aren’t trying to hide it. And by now, he fully has his cock out and can’t help but stroke himself right along with you, desperate to hear more. 

“And then the way that you... damn the way that you fuck me. You know just how to fuck me. Having you inside of me…it feels so fucking good. The way that you start slow, and you keep going…going so deep ... .it's amazing. Mmmm fuck so amazing, fuck baby.” you start to struggle with your words and the sounds of you rubbing and fingering yourself intensify. He fucking loves when you struggle with your words like that when you are feeling good. It spurs him to start to stroke himself faster.  

“Fuck princess, you sound so so fucking good” he moans out as he strokes and continues to listen.

“But then…when I say I need more…you just… fuck…you just pound right into me… so fucking fast and deep…you pound into me so good until I can’t feel my fucking legs… and you fill me up so good… and the way you rub my clit when you pound into my pussy…your moans when you are deep inside of me…and how you tell me what a good girl I am, and tell me how I feel so good, and tell me how close you are and how you want to feel me squeeze your cock as I am about to cum…and then you go even deeper…and fuckkkkkk….baby it makes me cum so fucking hard. I want that…fuck baby, fuck I want you baby I-” you suddenly stop talking cry out his name and as soon as he hears you cry out he cums. He cums hard all over his hand and throws his head back as he moans out your name. He hasn’t cum with you in so long and it feels so fucking good. He takes a moment to catch his breath as he listens to you do the same. 

“I…I miss that so much. I miss you so much. The way you take care of me after….how you lay me on your chest and kiss me gently and... hold me in your arms. I miss that. I…want it back. I know it's a lot and I know that we shouldn't… but fuck… I don't think I can do without it. I miss that. I miss you.” you whisper to him and the message ends. 

He sits and stares at his phone as his body reacts. Reacts to the desire and desperation he hears in your voice. Your need for him. You need him. You want him. And fuck, he wanted you. Before he could realize what he was doing, he was cleaning himself up, putting on a fresh shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket with his black boots. He grabbed his keys, locked up, and was out the door. You wanted him. You needed him. And he wouldn’t keep you waiting a minute longer.  

[cherrygirlfriend]

❀˖° haven't been caught

pairing: kook!reader x bf!jj synopsis: reader sneaks out with her boyfriend warnings / tags: fluff wc: 600 a/n; inspired by the 5sos song 'good girls'. originally posted 09/24/2024

you're a good girl, daddy's favorite.

yet his lips on yours feel so addictive, his hands sliding up under the hem of your shirt behind the rows of books, pulling you closer.

everyone thinks you're sweet like sugar, pretty as a picture.

you have it all; a wealthy father who already planned out the next five years of your life down to the classes you'd be taking at a college he chose, one of the richest guys in town as your perfect boyfriend, an academic career to watch out for.

yet there you were, an eyeliner pencil in hand as you smudged some into your waterline, getting ready to see jj.

"if you're not more careful, you're gonna get caught." nicky piped up, scrolling on his phone on your bed.

"i know, that's what this is for." you sigh, turning to him, the boy looking at you up and down, "how do i look?"

"like a... pogue." nicky said, scrunching his nose up slightly as he took in your attire, your usual dresses and skirts replaced by a bikini top, one of jj's shirts and a pair of ripped denim shorts.

"perfect." you grin, "you remember our plan?"

"yes, don't come out of your room and if i hear your dad passing the door i'll pretend to be talking sweet nothings to you." he scoffed, "isn't it kind of weird that he lets us have sleepovers despite us 'dating'?"

"maybe he's seen you check him out." you say with a grin, "or he just hopes i baby-trap you."

"we would have a cute kid. if we end up in a lavender marriage, could we have one?"

"definitely." you said, opening your bedroom window, "tell connor i said hi."

"oh, 'hi sweetie, my girlfriend told me to say hi to you'." nicky rolled his eyes with a snort, watching as you started climbing out of your window. "tell pogue boy to bring you home at appropriate hours."

you flipped him off, before starting on your usual route out of your bedroom. and when you landed on the ground and saw him leaning against his dirt bike with his usual grin adorning his face, you couldn't help but run to him, a wide smile on your face.

jj laughed as he caught you, holding onto your waist as you kissed him, the blonde lifting you off the ground. "missed you..." he mumbled against your lips as he set you back down, his forehead connected with yours.

"i missed you too."

"ready to go?"

"where are we going?"

"somewhere we get to be alone." jj shrugged, a daring look on his eyes as you both hopped onto his bike.

your arms tightened their hold around his waist, the wind sweeping your hair back as you flew past the line between figure eight and the cut, and in that moment, it didn't matter to you that it was in the middle of the night, or that this should be the last thing you're doing with the last person you were supposed to be doing it with, all that mattered was how warm jj's body felt under your hands.

and every part of you was ecstatic when you finally got to be alone with him, to feel his hands on your body. guess good girls are just bad girls that haven't been caught.

[coachs-kit-bag]

I love your advice about dressing in the right gear to get oneself in the mindset to transform into a jock this year.

Any suggestions on a ‘starter pack’ of things that one might need to go down that path?

With your ambition to transform yourself this year, you may have gotten a boost from this recent post on the same topic. Creating a starter pack is an intriguing thought exercise as there are many different routes that one could go down. Happy to help!

1. Jockstrap

I have mentioned on this blog several times that committing to wearing a good jockstrap as daily wear is one of the strongest adaptations an aspiring jock can make. Classic styles (such as the original Bike brand) or increasingly the black Nike model are widely available and good to experiment with.

2. Sports Socks

Secondly, and easily overlooked by many, choosing the right pairs of Socks will keep you grounded in your path. Anything from a basic 5-pack of white Adidas socks will suffice, but, in my experience, you can make sports socks fit with any attire. I often wear knee-length Rugby socks underneath my suits in the workplace or a pair of Nike Elites with casual trainers (graciously gifted by a follower of this blog).

Whatever choice you make, commit yourself and your wardrobe entirely and trust the process.

3. Spandex/Lycra

It will be no surprise for a regular viewer of this blog that I advocate for skintight spandex/lycra within this list. You can even see this as your new 'jock uniform' for a good workout. Under Armour, Nike Pro and Skins Compression are all solid brands, but anything skintight is right by me. At first, you may feel that you need to wear a looser pair of running shorts, but within time you will quickly realise that the more you wear, the more correct it feels to wear alone.

Short-sleeved shirts with shorts, especially in matching or complimentary sets, demonstrate pride in your appearance. In addition, a pair of full-length tights should be in every jock’s wardrobe as standard practice. Once you start collecting, you might find it hard to stop buying, and even resist wearing anything else.

4. Vest

For those moments when you need a loose-fitting, casual look, a vest and short shorts come in handy. Showing the right amount of skin is paramount - you never know when you’ll be called to perform a good flex for the camera. Show off those gains!

5. Cap & Headphones

Lastly, as you requested a real “starter pack” to assimilate yourself fully as a jock - a good cap and pair of headphones will be vital to help you connect to the right frequency, zone out of the mundane and lock in to your goals.

This might seem like a lot at first, but before long you’ll realise just how important your new wardrobe will be!

For more ideas, you can always check the posted tagged “jock” for more inspiration.

For those lured in and wishing to purchase kits for others rather than for themselves, my Ko-Fi is always open and for TF posts you can visit @coachs-locker-room

I would be open to do another one of these starter packs focusing on a specific items, or other sports. Let me know if that interests you or leave a comment if there is something you would recommend.

[green-square-anon]

(I saw this, went "how the fuck did I miss this" and got very excited someone asked for reasons you shall see below in the next paragraph had a bunch of idea, did some stuff, had a bunch of cool ideas, wrote the first paragraph of this, then took a hot bath and had a bunch of really cool and in depth ideas of how to explain this while in it, so now it's time to see how much of the shit I wanted to say that i actually remember).

Decided to make the links blue for visibility, I should have gotten all of them if not sorry.

She does actually, so does the son. Diana and Mirian Curze respectively. But their names might be changed. "Mirian" was no joke based on some "Mirian" and "mink" and a mink theme I mentioned here (<- central post to the lore btw, check out the farm au tag) that was since completely abandoned (everything else in that post is still canon) but he's been mentally named "Miran" in my head so long it stuck and I have thought of some others but they never clicked, even if I kinda hate it. That's why he's currently tagged as "the curzeling" because I have no idea wtf to refer to him as. And "Diana" is up there with "Rose" and "Maria" as cliche names for kind gentle characters female characters who tend to be dead moms or shadow the hedgehogs maria (No, Diana here does not die) alongside just not sounding very warhammery. Her maiden name is currently Diana Ignis but I can't decide if it's cringe. The reason I haven't talked more about them is that I am ironically the kind of person who hates ocs. As in, filter the original character tag out when searching on ao3 hates ocs. Though I tend to tolerate them sometimes. So it's a mixture of having cultivated an audience of x reader fans and the like, insecurity of while I know others do like OC content I wanted to create something that some hypothetical other person who thinks like me would have clicked on in the first place. Though I cope by telling myself I tend to tolerate them more when they fulfil some sort of function, eg, "what if this character met this kind of person" rather than just "canon character x oc" which tends to make me do a U-turn. and I sorta hope I would appeal to some other version of myself with that. You should also really check out the "core" tag on this blog if you haven't already as it deals with stuff that is "canon" to this narrative (Once I start posting about other ocs I'm not actually sure if they should share the tag too, maybe I should rename it then, oh well.)

Now before we progress further some meta knowledge is required: The farm post summer last year was sort of the genesis point of this au and actually it was really a now deleted response to that from a deleted blog where it started but this is the original ask. All of this stuff originated from hurt comfort and me initially rping stuff with chatbots then mentally adding way more lore onto it (hence the farm post) I actually have/had issues with Dianas characterization. I read a bit of the fic messages for dad (in which Konrad is paired with a woman named Julia) and I also have an oc for Dorns wife named Falke, (whose name also needs to be changed because "Falke" is a default name I use for myself as self insert characters and she grew a plot, but that's besides the point) and I straight up think messages for dad's Julia and my Dorn wife (of all people lol) were more interesting characters to pair Konrad with than the initial creation of Diana was (but she got better). This right here is ironically fanwork to the messages for dad fanfic but it perfectly describes why I love Julia as a wife for Konrad, and without spoiling too much my Dorn wife (who herself is in an "opposites attract" style relationship with Rogal) is someone with an anarchistic streak, immense curiosity and who is neither pro imperium nor pro chaos. Something which would sync really well with the nightlords (Konrad is canonically very curios. and Magnus and Perturabo are actually friends in canon and also bonded over curiosity). Both of these women are people who relate to Konrad "as a person" if it makes sense. His actual personality beyond just the insanity and trauma. Diana was a generic moeblob created to synergize with Konrard when he was broken (Oh the tragic irony that would be someone helping Konrad heal only for the man who came out on the other side be someone who they did not feel attracted to or someone who did not feel attracted to them. But that makes me sad so it won't happen here because I'm a sap. Diana and Konrad love each other forever in the au where they're together.). Genereic precious cinnamon roll generic ray of sunshine x edgelord. I am once again reminded of Shadow the hedgehog and Maria. So I am desperately trying to give her more personality and actually make her more compatible with Konrad long term without making her a Falke clone. I complained about this half a year to a year ago, I think it's improved. Though the cliche is still there.

Now moving on to the questions.

I'm gonna change the order a bit and start with the last one because I think the answer to it is the funniest.

- favorite places (planets and spots on Nostramo since I'd guess she is from there):

Nope. She's actually from Ultramar. Not Macragge itself but some random agri world in the Ultramar sector. Point is she lived a very comfortable and safe life. Upper middleclass. Spoiled sweet, not rotten.

- the relationship between her and the Night Lords:

None. She's scared of them since they would attack indiscriminately and Konrad protects her from them.

- more on her backstory and orgin:

Again see farm post and this whole ramble.

- their first meeting:

Won't be revealed here because it's planned to be revealed in an actually serious post / fic in list format similar to these two that will come out once I feel able to write properly. Though it will only be mentioned very briefly. Working title is "Justice", alt titles might be snowball or avalanche, but it will likely be called justice. Don't overhype it, it will probably be about half a page. But it will explore their relationship. I can spoil that it is after he is found by the Emperor but before he gets onboard Elvers ship.

- her interests and hobbies:

I mentioned before she used to rescue animals. Biggest sap you've ever seen. Brain slides out of her ass when she finds something cute. Mother hen instincts towards everything. All of these relate to getting with Konrad lmfao.

- her live outside of the Night Lords and curze:

Needs work actually. Unless the above is good characterization lol.

Besides supposedly looking frightning, Konrad Curze's pale complexion means that him blushing would be VERY visible.

He should be reminded of this, often.

[freckliedan]

jam. listen. i know its a joke in the new dapg but dan asking phil ”would you say you’re a man now” and phil Strongly replying ”no!” is doing something to me

SAME! god. i have so much to say about the ways phil fails gender actually. it's a different way of navigating gender than dan's, which. i think i have made it deeply clear how much dan's way of navigating and exploring gender means to me. but like!!!

gender is socially constructed. man and woman are categories that most people fall into, and the way those categories are defined is decided collectively. and like—the most broadly accepted definitions of man and woman in western society include heterosexual attraction and presenting gender in a way that is appealing to the opposite binary sex/presenting gender in the way most acceptable to patriarchy. that makes all queerness gender nonconformity.

there's different degrees of it, of course—i'm not saying there's no cis queer people, or that all lgba+ people are actively gender nonconforming. there's self determination in claiming trans & nonbinary identity! that's not something i'm going to apply to people who don't claim it. and there's assimilationist lgbta+ people of all identities putting a lot of energy into conforming to cishet expectations of gender performance.

what i'm saying is that in the eyes of many, to be anything but cishet is inherently a failure to perform gender "correctly". on a really base level, that's why the misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia can't be effectively fought against in isolation, and why our liberation can only be acchieved through solidarity.

which like. this is perhaps not the point of my reply to this ask, but it's the framework that allows me to articulate WHY i'm so insane abt phil and gender, even if his is a quieter transgression from expectation than dan's?

like phil's emphatic "no!" on whether or not he's a man? it makes sense! he's not, not in the way manhood is defined by so, so many people. phil's gender is that he's gay. i don't think he personally registers that as something besides cisness, but like, it's something deeply relatable to me in my transness! it's a cool queer way of existing and identifying!

idc if it was a joke in the video! that's also some real shit! welcome to den does gender studies about dan and phil. please keep talking to me about these things forever.

in conclusion. wrow. phil's gender is faggot just like me 💛

[quibbs126]

So I made the silly megop comic because I said I would, and I figured might as well since I’m here

I don’t think I got the poses, dialogue, timing and expressions down 100% right for maximum comedy, but hopefully it’s close enough that it’s still funny. I may or may not have limited it to only four panels so I could post it on Twitter easier. If there were no limits, there’d be two panels of silence, to show how long it went on, and silence basically being an admission

But anyways, to reiterate what I said last night when explaining this idea: basically someone kidnapped the secret megop kid (Megatron had them not long after their breakup, he sent them away as soon as possible, and did not tell Optimus) bc there’s rumors about that they have one, and they planned to use them as a hostage to get the two leaders to do what they want. Unfortunately they are not aware that Optimus doesn’t know about the situation, so it’s not going to go exactly how they planned

Optimus is very confused because he’s been 100% sure they don’t have a kid. Megatron knows they do, but isn’t sure if the kidnapper is legit or not and actually has the kid, and is also panicking because now Optimus is at risk of finding out, and he’s one of the top people he doesn’t want knowing (“one of” because Starscream’s another person on that list). But his internal questioning and his external silence is not helping the situation, because now it’s putting the possibility in OP’s head

I’ve thought more on the scenario after this, but maybe I should just save it for another time

I used the g1 designs because I know them fairly well, but it probably isn’t the g1 versions of them dealing with this

The drawings themselves are crude, but this is poorly drawn comics, this is how it’s supposed to be

Anyways yeah, take the funny. Or at least I thought it was funny

[sentientcave]

Masquerade

You've come to this masquerade ball to finally dispatch the man you've wanted dead for nearly ten years, but he's always ruining your plans, one way or another.

Contains: 2nd POV OC (sorry about all the blushing), werewolf MMC (sadly he doesn't do any fun werewolfy things he's just a guy with sharp teeth here), vague fantasy setting, murder attempts/reminiscence of murder attempts, a long and storied history only alluded to, what do you do when your bitter enemy turns out to be a silly little guy who just wants you to love him?, oral sex (w receiving), P in V sex, this spawned a whole ass novel and it's so so different but this lowkey holds up.

See end for Notes

~10k words - NSFW - 18+ MDNI

“My, don’t you look exquisite,” a voice purrs in your ear.

You freeze in place, glad that the mask hides the colour that springs to your cheeks. You feel like a naughty child caught with your hand in the cookie jar, an unwelcome guest at his masquerade. You thought you could escape notice, slip through the crowd of finely dressed nobles and plunge your knife into his chest at last. But he had managed to find you first. You weren’t ready. You hadn’t been to the garden to pick up your hidden cache of weapons, you had nothing but your silver hair-stick to dispatch him with.

His heavy hands land on your shoulders. “Don’t muss up your pretty hairstyle just yet, darling,” he whispers in your ear, his voice rasping like sandpaper. It’s as if he can read your thoughts. Or perhaps, after all these years, you’re simply predictable. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”

You flinch at the cold press of his mask against your bare shoulder. You shouldn’t have disguised yourself as a guest. You feel defenceless, wrapped in silk and sheer chiffon, a neat little morsel delivered straight into the wolf’s jaws. He could shift in a second and shred you into little pieces, like he had threatened to do so many times before. You try to still your frightened, thumping heart, and pull away, turning to face him at last. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean,” you say, because it’s worth a try at least, but he’s laughing before you can even finish, the smiling mouth of his gold wolf mask mocking you. His yellow eyes glitter from it’s depths, watching you.

“Oh darling, I would recognize you anywhere. I hoped you would be unable to resist my invitation.”

“Your invitation?”

“Yes, dearest. All of this was for you. I knew you could not resist the chance to get so close to me again.”

“To kill you,” you remind him hoarsely.

He chuckles and takes your hand. “Perhaps. For now, a dance, I should think. You haven’t danced all night.”

You dig in your heels, trying to resist his insistent pull, but he simply wraps an arm around your waist and tugs you closer. “I don’t dance,” you tell him sharply. “Let go of me.”

“You’re a liar,” he replies, spinning you into place, one hand on your lower back, pinning you against his chest, and the other still clasped around your wrist, sliding up to engulf your hand. He simply tugs you along with him as he moves, sweeping you along to the music, holding you so unbearably close. He could lift you off your feet with ease, if he chose to, and you don’t have enough power to resist. His scent clouds your mind, cedar soap and clean, animal musk, one of many hints of the wolf that dog him even in his human shape. “You forget, I knew you in your past life. Or have you forgotten that I once sat in your father’s halls? I have seen you dance.”

It was so long ago now, another life, before he was only the wolf to you, and before you were the thorn in his paw, that you almost had forgotten. You had hardly given him a second thought at first, he was just another visiting knight, here one day and gone the next, handsome, but beyond the concerns of the girl you once were. “You failed to make an impression,” you tell him sharply, although it’s not true. You do remember his yellow eyes watching you one night, though he never asked you to to dance. He never spoke to you at all.

Not until after. He saved you, of course, from the bloodbath, because he had claimed you. He hadn’t so much as said a word to you before he burst into your bedchamber, monstrous jaws dripping with your fathers blood, yellow eyes wild. You still remembered beating him back with the fire-place’s iron poker, and jamming the tip into his chest before you ran for your life.

“I knew you were mine from the first,” he continues. He seems frighteningly aware of your thoughts, as if his own version of the memory is playing out behind his own eyes. “My lioness, avenging her wicked father with a poker. I still bear your mark, just above my heart.” He presses your entwined hands to his chest for a moment. “I’m certain you remember that, at least.”

“Unfortunately.”

“The only unfortunate part,” he says patiently. “Is that I did not take you as my mate that night.”

His words lance through you like lightning, burning everything in their path. Your knees nearly buckle, and if he were not holding you so securely, you would sink to the floor in a useless puddle of silk. How dare he make you weak, after everything he’s done to you? But anger gives you strength, reinforces your spine with steel, and you wrench away, glaring at him, wishing you could set him ablaze with your eyes.

The music falters. You look up, at the musicians gallery, then around the room. Everyone watches, pretending not to, jewelled masks concealing furtive eyes and whispered words. Your own mask feels insufficient, lightweight and flimsy under the wolf’s eyes when your eyes return to him. He takes your arm, his grip tight, but not bruising, and guides you out of the ballroom, into the cold night air. The dark gardens are just a little too far for you to jump down from the wide stone balcony, and there are no stairs leading down. If you jump, you’d probably break your leg, and then you’d be helpless.

“What do you think of our home?” he asks. “Have you snooped around yet, my darling? Planned all your exits and hidden away your weapons and armour? I made sure you’d have plenty of opportunity. I know how you love to prepare.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t found them already.”

“I have been busy with other preparations,” he says mildly. “But I thought I smelled something of you in the corridor by the library.”

You flinch, only confirming that you had in fact been there, hiding your leather armour inside a large vase. “Preparations for what?”

“Your homecoming. The king has made it clear that it’s time to reign you in, or he will have someone else deal with you.” He pulls the mask off at last, setting the golden wolf on the balcony. Sweat glimmers at his temples, catching light from the ballroom behind them. He offers you a wry smile, his sharp white teeth flashing. “I’ve been too lenient with you.”

“Lenient?” you ask, incredulous. “I’ve been trying to kill you.”

“Those who attempt such things do not usually live long,” he reminds you. “I don’t often show mercy. I’ve allowed you to live free, in the hopes that you would come to me willingly, in time. Now it seems I can no longer afford to continue our little game. You will stay with me, or someone else will be sent to arrest or kill you.”

You press your palms into the smooth railing, wishing desperately that you could absorb the cool, dependable steadiness of stone through your skin. You look at him for a moment while he stares out over the dark gardens, his yellow eyes tracking movement you can’t see.

He’s always dressed in black, like a man in mourning, his black curls cropped short around his slightly pointed ears, beard neatly trimmed. He wears little jewellery for a man of his station, just the yellow-gold signet ring with it’s heavy, dark blue sapphire on his finger, and the gleam of jet buttons down the front of his tunic. You were more used to seeing him in his armour. The heavy black plate suits his brutality better than black-embroidered silk.

Silk offers no protection, no shield over his wicked black heart.

You pull the hairpin from your own neatly arranged curls and move fast, striking at his chest, but he catches your hand easily, his amber eyes meeting your fury with amusement. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he asks. “Stubborn creature.”

He plucks the pin from your hand and spins you around, pushing you into the railing with the oppressive weight of his presence. Your protests are weak and hardly noticed, but you fall silent when you feel the rough pads of his fingertips on the back of your neck. He gathers your hair up and pins it back in place, not as neatly as you had done earlier, but sufficiently.

“What are you doing?” you ask numbly.

He turns you around, still standing far too close. You stare forward, at the point where his skin meets the collar of his tunic, your eyes glued to his pulse. You wish for teeth as sharp as his own, so you could tear out his throat. His fingers curl under your chin, nudging your face up, forcing you to look him in the eye again. “Just returning your pin,” he says, smirking. “Why do you seem so flustered, darling?”

“Why don’t you just kill me?” you ask. Your hand lifts up to knock his away, but you touch him instead, fingertips ghosting over his knuckles. You know he’s capable of crushing you with hardly a thought. You’ve spent the last ten years learning all you could about him, hunting him down again and again and again with a single-minded determination. He likely could have killed you a thousand times over, if you’d been just a little less careful, or he a little less eager to capture you instead. He should have killed you. You don’t know how to stop anymore, you don’t know how to let go of the terrible anger that burns you up every time you think of him. You want him to suffer, to lose everything, to hurt the way he hurt you. “I’ll never stop.”

There is a flicker of sadness in his eyes, and it pings against your heart uncomfortably. “I never could,” he says, all traces of his smirking, superior air gone. His thumb strokes along your jaw. “I begged the king for your life. Your father may have been a traitor, but you were an innocent girl, and I do not enjoy killing innocents.”

“I’m not innocent anymore.”

“No, I suppose not. But you’ve committed no crimes that I cannot forgive.”

“I don’t want your forgiveness.” Your voice is hardly more than a hoarse whisper. You want to shout, but his hand on your skin seems to leech all the power out of you.

“You have it regardless,” he whispers back, low and intimate as a lover. He touches his forehead to your mask, his eyes boring into yours, twin suns scorching everything in their path. “And someday I will earn yours.”

“Never,” you hiss. You return to your senses and push his hands away, shoving hard against his chest. “I hate you. I’ll always hate you.”

He tugs your mask off and tosses it to the side, tired of pretense. “If you hate me so much, why does your heart beat like that?”

“I’m afraid of you,” you snap.

He laughs harshly. “No you’re not. You’ve never been afraid of anything, my darling. It is one of the things I love best about you.” He leans in closer, the tip of his nose just brushing yours. You can feel his breath on your skin, the sharp smells of whiskey and mint setting your nerves on edge. For a moment, you think he’s going to kiss you, and you freeze, heart pounding, face turned towards him, waiting for the axe to fall.

But he withdraws instead, leaving you to face the consequence of unrealized want. His words prick at you like the point of a sword. Love. As if he would know the first thing about it. As if he knew you.

But he does know you, you realize with a start. He made you. His actions had set you on your path, and his choice not to kill you, each time that he should have, had created the determined, single-minded, furious woman that you had become. The carefree girl who you had been was long gone, dead the first time the wolf’s jaws closed around your throat. It burns you to think that he’d shown you mercy all along, that you had escaped capture or death by his leave, rather than by your own cunning and skill.

His eyes remain on your face, reading your thoughts like you’re a book laying open, waiting for him to happen by and discover all your secrets. “You have become worthy of me,” he continues ardently, pressing your hand to his chest again, anchoring it with both of his own. “I would have kept you like a bird in a cage if I’d taken you then. A pretty thing to amuse me and adorn my halls. But you are no trophy, my love. You will not survive in captivity. Even now, with the king’s sword hanging over your head, I will not force you to stay.”

“Is this some sort of trick?”

“I used to wonder the same thing. A cruel trick of fate, that my mate would hate me so fiercely.”

“You killed my father,” you hiss at him. You yank your hand away, desperately stoking the anger that has kept him at bay all these years. Each time he calls you mate and darling and love your resolve quakes, and you have no sword in your hand to make him regret it, like you usually would.

“He was a traitor. I had orders.”

“And what comfort will that be when your orders are to kill me?” you ask, sneering up at him. “What will you do when your orders are explicit and undeniable, and you are to kill me on sight?”

“I’ll never see you again.”

You aren’t sure what you expected, exactly, but it always trips you up when he speaks plainly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you snap.

“What do you think it means?” He hurls the words back at you, his anger lighting from your own. “It means I would pluck my own eyes out before I’d kill you. If the king ordered me to hunt you down I’d stay one step behind you until we reached the very ends of the earth. If he came outside this very moment and told me to snap your neck—” He shudders, shaking his head like a dog shakes off the rain, and when he looks back at you the anger is gone, hidden away again behind his steely resolve. “Loyalty only goes so far. He knows not to make an order I cannot follow. If he truly wants you dead, he’ll ask another.” He glances over his shoulder, keen yellow eyes fixing on a point somewhere inside. “I hope it does not come to even that.”

“But why?”

He lets go of your shoulders and turns around, stalks a few feet away, and turns again, pushing both of his hands through his hair in frustration. Because I love you!” he snarls. “You had me the first day you tried to run me through. Oh I wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, beautiful thing that you are, but it was the first moment that you tried to cut my heart out that I knew there could be no other. You have no idea what it’s like, to love such a stubborn, foolish, bitch of a woman? Do you understand what it will do to me, when you leave? But I have never been able to keep you by force.”

“But you let me go,” you say numbly. “You said—”

“Let you go?” He laughs, striding back towards you. “Oh my love, you misunderstand. Just because I couldn’t kill you does not mean I didn’t try to keep you. But you have slipped every chain I’ve placed upon you. I’ve never pulled my punches. I would not disrespect you so.”

“You called it a game—”

He inclines his head towards you. “I did. Perhaps I should not have. But it was easier to think of it as a game. A test of my own worthiness. I admit, I have always looked forward to your attempts on my life. It’s good, I think, for a man to be beaten once in a while, to keep him sharp. Otherwise he forgets to be vigilant.” He sighs, touching the edge of an old, silvery scar on your shoulder, brushing a loose strand of your hair out of the way. “Besides. We’ve both made our marks upon the other.”

“I’ve gotten you more times than you have me,” you say, lifting your chin imperiously. “Two or three times I really thought I’d finished you off.”

“Are you so certain of that?”

You think about it. “Yes.”

“Care to make a wager, dearest? If you’ve left more marks on me than I on you, you may ask anything of me.”

You draw in a steady breath. “And if I lose?”

He grins. “Not so confident now, are you? I only want what is freely given, so you needn’t worry. You can name your own penalty.”

“How magnanimous.”

“I can be,” he says. “Now, shall we inspect each other here, or would you prefer somewhere more private?”

The thought of being alone with the wolf makes you shiver, but it’s not revulsion that you feel, it’s something far worse. The dark, cold balcony seems a world away from the golden ballroom with all it’s legions of beautiful, elegant guests, but it’s only panes of glass that separates you from them, hazy from condensation, opaque enough that you doubt anyone can see through them. It makes no material difference, in the end, but it’s winter, and the cold seeps through your dress easily, your skin only warm where he touches you. “Ah, yes,” you say nervously. “Perhaps somewhere more private.”

“And warmer,” he adds. “As stunning as you look, I do not believe you are dressed for the weather.”

As if on cue, a snowflake descends from the dark sky. You reach out your hand, catching it against your palm. A moment later, the sky is thick with snow, fat, fluffy flakes catching the light and turning the world white. You look back at him. He looks softer, somehow, with that little dusting of snow catching in his thick curls, melting flakes glittering like diamonds on his shoulders. For the first time, you’re struck by how young he looks. He was a man grown at your first meeting, and you had always thought of him as much older, but you know now that he couldn’t be ten years your senior. You suspect it’s much less than that.

It changes something in your perception of him. Softens him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, stepping in close again. Although you’ve hardly moved an inch since you came out to the balcony, he’s full of restless energy, moving away and back again like he’s tethered to you by some invisible string. He tilts his head to the side, his keen predator eyes practically glowing in the soft light.

You were glad your face was already flushed from the cold. “I was just thinking. You look so…” You trail off, thinking of the best way to phrase it.

“Handsome?” he suggested. “Strong? Irresistible?” He wiggles his thick black eyebrows, grinning wickedly, making you laugh despite yourself.

“I was going to say young, actually,” you say. “I was wondering what sort of boy you were.”

He holds a hand out to you. “I’m sure there’s a portrait somewhere, if you’re curious. Now come along, pet, I don’t want you catching a cold out here. I do have a wager to win.”

You hesitate. All the ancient, bitter anger and sadness wars with something new in your chest. It’s been so long since you wanted anything more than vengeance. Ages since the last time you felt deep, aching want for someone’s hands on you, if you ever even had. The obsession between you, at least, was mutual, and you had traded the excitement of romance for the thrill of the hunt, the clash of your sword against the wolf’s. His taunting sounded better than flowery poetry to your ears, and you could not help but seek him out every time the loneliness of your new life became too much to bear. He had been your focus, your centre, your reason for existing for so long that you can no longer deny what this is.

Love is not always kind. Between the two of you, it’s become a desperate, wretched thing, living on scraps of attention and hungry looks traded in battle.

His fingers close around yours, and you realize that you’ve reached out and taken the offered hand. You look at him, and he’s smiling in a way you haven’t seen before, half-hitched up on one side, almost shy.

He twines his fingers through yours and leads you back through the ballroom, slipping around the edges of the crowd like the wolf he is. No one seems to pay either of you any mind, although you feel curiously bare without your mask, as visible as a hare in a field to the eyes of a hawk. But your hunter is holding your hand, his thumb stroking over yours soothingly, like he can sense your unease.

Despite that small reassurance, you’re grateful when you step into a nearly empty corridor. A few well-dressed servants carrying trays bustle between the ballroom and the kitchens at the far end, but your wolf leads you the other way, through a few hallways littered with decorative items and portraits of long-dead nobles with eyes that seemed to follow you. You had been there only a few days earlier, but it looks different now. Perhaps it’s that you aren’t on constant guard for the wolf. He’s already here, holding your hand, pretending that he’s not watching you, just as you pretend to look at the portraits and statues and expensive looking vases you pass by, stealing glances at him only when you think you can get away with it.

The silence between you is almost comfortable, both of you too caught up in your individual tumble of thoughts to put anything to words. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. You wonder if he feels like he’s won already, but there’s none of his usual taunting or his infuriatingly handsome smirk. He looks serious, black brows lowered in a sort of pensiveness that you’ve never seen from him. Of course, you had only once gone so long in his company without attacking him physically, and you had been tied to a chair, at the time.

“Do you remember, a few years ago, the hunting lodge just above Lake Pym?” he asks.

You laugh. “I was just thinking about it. Why?”

He stops in front of a door and leans against the frame. “Do you think you’ll be able to go as long without trying to stab me this time around?”

“That depends on whether or not you tie me up again,” you quip back.

“Don’t say such things,” he warns you, opening the door and holding it open, letting go of your hand for the first time in ages. Your fingers feel cold without his touch. “You’ll give me ideas.”

“You’ve made far too many confessions tonight for me to believe that you didn’t already have ideas,” you tease. Funny how easily that comes, like you’re old friends and not enemies. A tidy little fire burns in the stone fireplace, with a cozy arrangement of rugs and furs laid out before it. A low table sits ready, carrying wine and glasses and a few plates of the sort of interesting finger-foods that they had been serving in the ballroom. Raising your eyebrows, you look back over your shoulder at him. He hadn’t spoken to anyone on the way in, which meant that it had been all prearranged.

He closes the door behind himself and leans against it, grinning sheepishly. “I live in hope.”

The room - his room- is neat, a big bed with four posts carved like small trees, green-velvet curtains tied back neatly, is the first sign that he might actually like colour. You imagined him always in sombre black and white, dark hair, white teeth, dressed like the reaper and often so employed. But perhaps he isn’t as stark as you’d always thought. His furniture is solid and well-made of warm-toned wood, and the bookshelves that flank the fireplace are stuffed with books, the odd space cleared out for knick-knacks and trophies. You had never considered that he might like to read. It isn’t something that has ever come up before.

The wolf sits down on the furs and nudges a black lump by the fire. The shape uncurls into the biggest, fattest, blackest cat you’ve ever seen and pads over to you, sniffing your skirts suspiciously.

“You have a cat?” you ask, because it seems unlike the picture you’ve built up of him over the years. Another thing you missed. You had been so focused on him as an enemy that you had hardly stopped to consider him as a man. You sit, and the cat drapes itself across your lap, purring already in anticipation of a good scratch.

“I don’t have a cat,” he corrects you loftily. “Smudge is the matriarch of a proud line of excellent mousers, and she is a valued member of the household. One cannot own a cat, I have learned. One co-habituates with cats.” He leans over and gives the cat a little scratch under the chin, his knuckles just barely brushing your knee as he withdraws. “She isn’t usually very friendly, but she must recognize a fellow assassin when she sees one.”

“I’m not much of an assassin, I’m afraid she’d be terribly disappointed in me. I’ve failed to kill my only target, and I have been at it for quite some time.” You give the cat a scratch behind the ears. “I’m sure her record is much more impressive.”

He frowns and looked at you in a funny way. “Have you never taken a life?”

“I’ve tried very hard to avoid it. You’re the only person I ever wanted dead, and I— I wanted to be better than you. I wanted my hands to stay clean, so I could beat you and still keep my sense of…” You look down at the purring black puddle of fur in your lap rather than at the wolf. “Oh I don’t know. Righteousness, I suppose.”

“So sweet that you wanted me to be your first,” he teases.

You know he means first kill, but you turn pink anyway, and there is no cold wind to blame for your rosy cheeks this time. There were many firsts that you had missed out on, in your bid for vengeance. “Perhaps I still do,” you snap, not thinking about the double meaning until after the words have left your mouth. You scramble to clarify. “My first kill— Not— Ugh.” He begins to laugh, and you cover your face with both hands, wishing the floor would open up beneath you and swallow you whole. “Stop laughing!” Your voice is muffled by your hands, but there is no way that his keen wolf’s ears don’t hear you perfectly. “That’s not what I meant!”

He snorts. “I know, pet. It’s a bit late for that, I should think.”

You peek at him between your fingers, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Darling.” He leans over and gently takes hold of your wrists, prying your hands away. He is mercifully no longer laughing, but the look in his eyes only makes your face burn hotter. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve never taken a lover.”

“There was never a good time,” you manage to squeak out. It was half true. There had been offers, and moments when you’d been sorely tempted to share someone’s bed for the night, but the few fumbling kisses you’d shared with young men had failed to thrill you the way that crossing swords with the wolf did.

He sits back with a groan. “You’re always throwing wrenches into my plans.”

“How on earth could that have anything to do with your plans?” you ask hotly.

“Darling, don’t be so naive. My plans were obviously to seduce you into my bed so I could out-perform every man who had ever touched you, forcing you to admit to yourself that we belong together. But I suppose that would have been too easy.”

“Too easy!”

“I would never imply that you would be easily seduced, my love, only that I am fairly confident that you would have a harder time denying what we are if I were to employ my considerable athletic ability with the task of making you come undone.” He smiles ruefully. “But seduction isn’t fair if you’re a virgin. I’ll have to win your heart the old fashioned way.”

“The old fashioned way?” You stare at him, incredulous. “What, you’re going to court me?”

“I’m certainly going to try,” he says, turning toward the table to pour you a glass of wine. “It’s the long road, but you’ll find I’m usually more than willing to take the scenic route.”

“You’re insane,” you say weakly, accepting the offered glass. “You must be.”

“Must I be? Like you said, I’ve made far too many confessions tonight, you must know that I do not mean this as some passing fancy. I think it would be a waste to continue this bloody crusade of yours. For both of us. I confess my bias in the matter, as I rather enjoy living.” He shrugs, looking at you over the rim of his own glass. “Do you? Has your life been all you wished for, these past ten years? You’ve forgone comfort, education, friends, romance, children— Do you want none of those things?”

“Of course I do—”

“Then take them. Everything you want is yours if you stay.” He takes a sip of wine and winces, face screwing up like a child tasting something bitter. “Ugh, I hate wine.”

“I know. I was wondering if you were going to drink from that glass you’ve been waving around.”

“I just wanted to indicate that it wasn’t poisoned.” He sets the glass to the side, still grimacing. “Just in case you were wondering if I was still trying to trick you.”

“It had crossed my mind.”

“Perish the thought, my love.” He stretches out in front of the fire, propped up on one elbow. “I’ve laid down my arms. If you must end this once and for all to free yourself, so be it. But I do think my alternative is better.”

You set your wine to the side as well and reach back to pull the silver hair-stick from your curls. You consider it, for a moment, pressing the point into your fingertip, not quite hard enough to draw blood. He watches with an inscrutable expression, making no move to disarm you. The cat slips out of your lap and stretches, moving off into the shadows again, either unaware or uncaring of the danger to her house mate. Or perhaps she’s simply more aware than you that there is no longer any danger.

You reach out and place the make-shift weapon on the rug in front of him.

The crackle of the fire is the only sound for a long moment. The wolf was rarely rendered speechless— getting him to shut up was usually the more difficult task. But he simply looks at you, like you’ve performed a miracle in front of his very eyes.

You slide one of the plates of food off the table and set it on the floor between you, something to hopefully distract his attention a little. You pick up one of the little triangle pastries and take a bite, catching crumbs with your other hand. You eat two more, realizing that you haven’t eaten in hours, and wait for him to break the silence.

He sighs and rolls onto his back, tucking both hands under his head. Firelight dances over his skin, burnishing his features like well-polished bronze. Although you have known him a long time, you’ve never studied him like this, while his eyes are closed and his usual grin is smoothed out into a peaceful smile. He looks noble, like a hero from the epics you used to read as a girl, more like you remembered from the days before everything changed.

“You’re staring,” he says without cracking an eye.

“How would you know? You haven’t opened your eyes in ages.”

“And how would you know that, if you haven’t been staring?”

He has you there. “Alright, fine. I suppose I was. I was just thinking about… about before.”

He opens his eyes. “How long? We do have a rather storied history, don’t we, love? I myself have been thinking of Lake Pym.”

You smirk. “I bet you have. I had a feeling you were rather enjoying yourself.”

“I was. It would have been more fun if you were a more willing guest, or if I at least didn’t have to keep you tied to a chair the whole time.”

“You wouldn’t even let me feed myself,” you lament, though you can’t help the traitorous note of amusement in your voice. “It was terribly humiliating.”

“Revisionist drivel!” he snarls playfully. “I did untie you so you could feed yourself, and you tried to stab me. You forced my hand.”

You blink. “I suppose I did.”

He leans closer. “I suspected you just wanted me to take care of you. You were too proud to ask me for what you wanted, so you forced the situation. And snapped at my fingers the whole time like an absolute menace.” He holds up his right hand and displays a white mark around the first knuckle of his thumb. “That’s one, by the way.”

“I only bit you because you stuck your finger in my mouth,” you reminded him.

“Ah, I suppose I did get a bit carried away, didn’t I? There was just this moment when I touched your lip…” He reaches out as if he wants to repeat the remembered gesture, perhaps hoping for a better outcome, but he hesitates, dropping his hand. You almost wish he hadn’t. “Are you still too proud, my love?”

“Yes,” you whisper.

He senses your weakness. The way the answer drips with doubt like blood from a wound. “Will you let me kiss you?” He moves closer, anticipating your answer before it leaves your lips.

Your breath catches in your throat. “Yes.”

At long last, he closes the distance between you, hands cradling each side of your face. He just barely brushes his lips against yours, and holds you back when you try to chase him, his familiar wolfish smile lighting up his face. “Not so fast, my darling. You’ll have to ask nicely, if you want a proper kiss.” He unbuttons the cuff of his black shirt only a moment later, his eyes dropping away from yours for a moment, and then rolls up his sleeves. “Two and three, respectively,” he says, pointing out two more scars along his forearms. They were both from similar situations. Two times that you had disarmed him and made him bleed for it. You reach out and touch the silvery marks, feeling the smooth gap in his arm hair and the fully repaired muscle underneath the flawed skin. “You’re a better swordsman than I,” he says, reaching up to unlace the top of his tunic. “I might have had the edge of experience, at the beginning, but you quickly caught up to me, didn’t you? It was a good thing you were so scrupled about killing people other than me, or I’d have lost far too many good men to your blade.”

“You’re just trying to flatter me.”

“Is it working?” He pulls the tunic and shirt off in one go, baring his chest. There are a few scars there that you could not claim, and two that you can, although your eyes are drawn to one in particular. The ugly, uneven star right next to his heart, where you had run him through with the iron poker on the night of the wolf. “This one is my favourite,” he tells you, pressing one of your hands to the scar. “The first time you tried to kill me. Jon had to half-heal me himself, or I wouldn’t have made it to a proper healer in time. It’s partially why there’s such a scar. He’s always been terrible at the more subtle magics, but if you want something blown up, Jon’s your man.”

You laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Make sure you also note, in that treacherous little mind of yours, that he will not employ his considerable magical gift with the task of making me explode. He is still rather fond of me, even after all these years.”

“It is good, I think, to have a king that is so well-versed in the art of restraint,” you say mildly.

“Oh yes, I imagine it is.”

“So is it really just the five scars?” you ask. “That’s all?” Despite the truce the two of you had settled into, you felt strangely disappointed that your obsession with killing him over the last decade had resulted in only a handful of scars. It all felt like a waste. You try to console yourself with the knowledge that he heals more rapidly than most men. The scars you have left are despite that.

“There’s one more, on my thigh, but I imagine you probably don’t want me to take my pants off.”

You do want him to take his pants off. “Yes, that’s very thoughtful of you,” you say instead. “I suppose you’ve won, anyway. I have a lot more than six scars from you.” You had expected that his life as a warrior would have marked him more significantly. You’re covered in scars, faded and fresh alike, and there is no getting around the fact that you feel like you’ve stitched yourself up so often that you look as worn down as your oldest, ugliest shirt.

The disappointment in his eyes is gone so quickly that you aren’t entirely sure you hadn’t imagined it. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it, won’t I?”

“You’re just trying to get me out of my dress,” you say hotly.

“Obviously. You look very lovely in it, of course, but I have been hoping for the chance to peel it off of you.”

You shake your head. “I think you’ll be a bit disappointed.”

“Never. What would possibly deter me at this point, darling? If stabbing me through the heart didn’t erode my affections, what could?”

“Oh I don’t know,” you say thoughtfully. “I could have scales, or a tail—”

“I have a tail,” he reminds you. “And I’m quite positive that you’re human, so I’m not worried about scales. Or strange birth-marks or stretch-marks or scars, either, by the way.”

You take a deep breath and stand up, turning your back to him. “It would help if you could undo all these buttons for me,” you say, sweeping your hair in front of your shoulder. “There are so many of them.”

He jumps to his feet and scrambles to help. A few buttons plink to the floor, torn free in his haste. “I’ll have it fixed,” he says hastily. “And I’ll buy you new gowns. As many as you can stand.”

You glance over your shoulder, nervous laughter stilling on your tongue when you see the look in his eyes. You turn forward again, sliding your arms through the sleeves and shimmying the gown to he floor. He gives you a hand to steady yourself as you step free. “I— I don’t want— I won’t stay.”

He hums in response, gathering up the gown and laying it over the back of a chair.

“I won’t,” you repeat yourself, as if the words will sound convincing the second time. They don’t.

“I already told you, darling, I won’t make you stay. It’s up to you.”

He draws you back to your seats in front of the fire, and you offer him your arms. You’re riddled with fine scars, most of them faint, little nicks from his blade. His hands slide up to your shoulder and gently tug the capped sleeve of your chemise to the side, baring the imprint of his jaws. His thumb runs across the marks, his other hand landing on your knee.

“I wondered if I’d bitten you that night.” He moves closer, his tongue moving over his sharp canines as he sighs. His fingers trail down your arm as his touch drops away. “You never turned, so I wasn’t sure.”

“It doesn’t always take,” you say, using his shoulder to help you back up to your feet. “I think it depends on the moon. New moon, that night. If you were any other wolf you never would have shifted.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” He settles back on his heels, looking up at you. “I can’t say I’ve thought about why some bites take and some don’t. I’m not as observant as you, my love.”

Laughable, when his senses are many times greater than your own. It’s not his observations that are the problem, it’s the connecting cause and effect, thinking about consequence for more than a moment. He’s faced so few consequences in his life that it doesn’t come naturally to him. You, on the other hand, are a mess of consequence, action and reaction measured and weighed, failures poured over until you can see every mistake you’ve made, follow the tracks to how things could have been, if you’d done it all just a little differently.

You pull your skirt up so you can untie the ribbon that holds up your stocking, and he slides it down to your ankle. “This one’s only indirectly your fault,” you say, angling your leg so he can see the trail of pocked scars that wrap around your knee and up your thigh. “When I jumped down that ravine. Scraped myself up on the rocks.”

He tuts, hands reaching for these scars too. It’s just an excuse to touch you, certainly, but you make no move to stop him. You just hold your skirt up, giving him unfettered access to your skin. His amber eyes flick up to your face, and he leans forward, pressing his lips to your knee.

There’s no halting the soft “Oh” that falls from your lips, but he would have heard even the softest catch of breath. There’s no hiding from him, and it terrifies you, leaves you so unsteady.

His eyes flutter shut for a moment, his exhale warm against your skin. “You shouldn’t show me any more,” he tells you. “I find myself wanting to kiss every inch of skin you show me, and I worry that you won’t stop me if I try.”

You sink back to his level and pull your stocking back up, tying the ribbon around your thigh again. “Would that be so bad?”

He groans and lays back on the furs, hands neatly folded on his stomach. “I am trying to be a good man for you, darling. You deserve more than I can give in one night. I need at least a few weeks to make you fall hopelessly in love with me before I can do anything that would tempt me to take you to bed.”

You run your palm over his stomach, feeling the soft pelt of hair over his warm skin, letting your curiosity guide your fingertips. You feel the expansion and contraction of muscle as he breathes in and out, tucking one hand under his head so he can watch you more easily, his eyes barely open.

You have to admit, he is handsome, especially relaxed like this. Only a few short hours ago you would have found the idea of him kissing any part of you abhorrent, but now you find yourself similarly compelled. You take his hand and kiss his knuckles, the tips of his fingers, the palm of his hand.

“Come here, you little minx,” he growls, trying to pull you down on top of him. You pull back, and he lets go, still worried about pushing you when you’ve made so many overtures in such a short time.

You had expected him to hold on tightly, however, and overbalance, tipping over the other way with an inelegant little squeak. He laughs as he sits up, and you do too as he helps you back upright. He lays back again, and there’s no resistance when he takes you with him this time. He tucks you into his side, and you look down at him, chin propped on your hand.

“I rescind my earlier statement,” he says.

“Which one?”

“You don’t have to ask nicely for a kiss, darling. I worry that you’re too prideful to admit that you might like one, but if you can steal one whenever the mood strikes you, I might be lucky enough to receive a few impulsive ones that your good sense isn’t fast enough to stop.”

You huff. “Is this your way of asking for another?”

“It’s my way of asking for as many as you might want to give me,” he says. “There is, of course, a standing offer of anything you might like that is within my power to supply. I think it prudent to remind you.”

He’s a ridiculous kind of man. You’d always thought his tendency toward verbosity was just him grandstanding, but now you see it for what it really is. He wants to be understood by you so desperately that each sentence becomes overwrought, less clear for his efforts to imbue each word with meaning. Your own tendency toward blunt, inelegant language is an almost laughable counter. You say little, and hide everything you can, and he reads you plainly. He speaks like a poet, puts everything out in the open, and you misunderstand him on purpose.

Perhaps that’s why you didn’t see this for what it is a long time ago. If you were not so determined to make an enemy of him, perhaps you would have noticed the softness in his eyes, the way he looks at you as though you’re the sunrise and set, like you’re the moon and all the stars in the sky.

You kiss him, before he can open his mouth to speak again. There’s nothing lacklustre about the way your lips slide over his, the way your breath mingles, the way he makes little noises of satisfaction, unable to be quiet even with his tongue flicking over your top lip, encouraging you to open up for him. Angling your head to keep your noses from smushing together, you oblige, letting him lick into your mouth, his arms circling you, holding you tight against his body.

You can't put a name to the feeling that sparks between you, but it's the thing that's been missing from every kiss you've had before.

The heat, the need of it all burns away all that remains of your carefully maintained resolve. He loves you, fool that he is, and you're not sure you could survive without him now. Is that what love is? To mourn even the thought of their absence from you, to cling tightly and never let go? To sink into each other until you're one, two halves of the same whole?

He kisses you until you're breathless, lips swollen from the tug of his sharp teeth, jaw curiously sore from moving in a new way. You pull back first, braced on one arm as you look down on him. He's beautiful, more than human, wild-eyed and fey, but solid and warm beneath you in a way only a man could be. His imperfections make him dearer to you, not just the marks you've drawn on his skin, but the gap between his two front teeth, the way one brow arches a little more than the other, giving him that permanently skeptical look that had always made you feel he was making fun of you. The crooked smile, the notch in one ear.

You know his face more intimately than your own, but you still want to look at him, especially through this new lens.

“I don’t think I want to wait,” you admit. You’ve waited long enough, haven’t you?

“Are you certain?” he asks.

“I don’t see what difference it makes, really.”

“It makes a great deal of difference. I’ve taken enough from you, I don’t want you to regret it.” He gazes up at you, tracing along your jaw with careful touch.

Your heart races rabbit-quick in your chest, and although you're the one looking down at him, you feel pinned in place by the wolf's eyes alone. "Then make sure I don't," you say softly. "I can even promise not to make another attempt on your life until the morning."

"Darling…"

"Please. I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow, but tonight I think I want your hands on me."

"You think?" His fingers catch around the back of your neck, as though he's waiting for some cue before he pulls you back into his arms.

“I know.”

He pulls you down for another kiss, rolling the two of you so his big body stretches over yours, your underskirts bunching up as he slots his thick thigh between yours, pressing against your core. He holds most of his weight off of you, but you’re still trapped beneath him. For the first time in a long while, there is no panic, no desire to fight furiously for freedom. You feel quite content where you are, especially when his thigh flexes, rubbing against you firmly, sending a shower of sparks through your belly. You gasp against his mouth, your hands skimming down his sides gingerly. When he does it again, you dig your fingers into the muscle of his back reflexively, murmuring apologies as his lips leave yours and slide down your bared throat.

“Don’t,” he growls against your pulse, dragging his tongue roughly over your skin. “Don’t apologize. You won’t hurt me.”

His teeth graze the slope of your shoulder, finding the older scar from his lupine jaws. You let out a shuddering gasp when he bites down lightly, not even hard enough to leave a mark. There’s a part of you that wants him to leave a mark, a bruise if not something more permanent, but you’re not sure you’ll be able to convince him out of gentleness tonight.

He kisses down your chest, grinning up at you when he reaches the top edge of your corset. “You are still wearing far too much clothing, my love. Come here.” He stands in a smooth movement, and you’re untethered without the weight of his body against yours, but only for a moment. He helps you to your feet and leads you to the bed, taking a seat on the edge and pulling you between his knees, turning you so he can loosen the laces of your corset.

You shed the garment as soon as you’re able, as well as the extra petticoats. Your chemise is thin, loose material, obscuring little, but you leave it on while you sit beside the wolf, toeing your heeled slippers off and nudging them under the bed and out of the way. Hands folded, you wait, heart beating like a drum. You feel so strange, almost outside your own body, watching him unlace his boots and tug them off impatiently.

He stands to strip off his trousers, and you quickly avert your gaze, looking down at your hands rather than see him in his fully undressed state. You have a rough idea of what you’d find, you’ve been in the public baths more than a few times, and even doing your best to be respectful, it’s hard not to see something. But seeing something in a setting where everyone is minding their own business is a lot different than seeing something up close, especially when you might be expected to do more than just look.

“We don’t have to do this, love,” he says, kneeling in front of you, clasping his hands around yours. Your eyes fly back up, landing on his face. His chuckle makes your cheeks burn. “If you’re nervous—”

“No,” you say quickly. “I want to. I’m just— I hate not knowing what I’m supposed to do.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that darling. It’s your first time, I should think the responsibility rests on my shoulders. All you have to do is tell me when you like something and when you don’t.” He leans forward, forcing your thighs apart to accommodate the bulk of him, and kisses you, all sweetness. “And if you want to stop, we stop. Anything more than that can wait at least until the second or third time.”

It sounds so simple, put like that.

“Besides,” he adds, giving you a wicked grin as his hands move to your hips, the movement rucking your chemise up further on your thighs. “You’ve always been a quick study.”

Well, he’s right about that. His lips find your throat again, pressing languid kisses down your chest until he reaches the edge of your chemise. His eyes flick upwards, seeking permission before he goes further. You untie the simple knot with one hand, the other petting through his soft curls.

He noses aside the thin fabric to find your nipple, latching on with a contented hum. The act sends tremors down into your core, intensifying as his tongue flicks across. You pull in a shuddering breath, and your exhale becomes a whimper when his teeth nip at you, his other hand coming up to grope at your other breast, his touch warm and appreciative before his grip slides down to your hips and he tugs you to the edge of the mattress.

He pulls away from your breast and kisses you properly again. “Do you want more?” he asks. “Can I taste your pretty cunt, darling?”

The desire in his words sends a shiver down your spine. You nod, and he sits back on his heels and kisses all the way up your thigh, although he pauses and pulls back to your other knee, kissing his way up again, this time sinking his teeth into your inner thigh, not hard enough to really hurt, just enough to make you jolt, your pearl begging for any kind of friction. When he passes over your cunt to mouth at your other thigh, you whine, shifting even closer to the edge of the bed. You can feel your cunt dripping, the air strangely cool on your wet skin.

A pair of mischievous eyes glance up at you. He’s doing this on purpose. He started all of this, and now he has the gall to tease you. Glaring in response, you grip him by the hair and pull him in, determined to put his clever mouth to better use than smirking and biting you when you need him elsewhere.

To his credit, he makes no complaint and does what he’s directed, slipping his tongue between your folds, lapping up the slick arousal. His big hands push your thighs up so he can get a better angle, and he kisses your cunt with as much passion as he did your lips, if not more.

The feeling is electric. His mouth scorches, sets you alight in ways you’d never imagined, the occasional scrape of his too sharp teeth against you thrilling. It’s too good, has you fighting his grip even as your fingers are still tightly wound into his hair, holding him close. It’s too much, but if he stopped it would be so much worse.

If he minds your writhing, he doesn’t show it. You can’t help the sounds he pulls from you, but he’s louder, as though this is more for himself than for you. He groans when your hips buck against his mouth, pants when he lifts himself away enough to breathe, his amber eyes gleaming, fixed on your face, except the few times they flutter closed, just for a moment, savouring your taste.

His nose nudges your pearl as his tongue presses inside you. You grip him so tightly to your core, your hips shaking so hard that you’re surprised you don’t break his nose. The hot, molten cataclysm that’s been pooling somewhere behind your belly button overtakes you, sweeping you away, limbs seized, unable to out-swim the current. You can’t see past the stars in your eyes even after your legs relax and you force your hand to unclasp his hair, finger by finger, so you can lay back on the mattress, breathing hard.

He crawls up onto the bed and pulls you toward the centre, a self-satisfied grin on his face. His cock presses into your thigh, insistent for attention, the tip peeking out and leaking against your thigh. He ruts against you when he kisses you again, his close-cropped beard soaked with your arousal. You can taste yourself on his tongue, tangy and bitter-sweet.

You lay twined together, forehead pressed against his as you both catch your breath. One hand gently brushes up and down your spine, the other pulling your leg up over his hip. “How was that?” he asked.

There may not be words for what you feel. Maybe there are, but they’re beyond you right now, washed away with all the resistance in your body. You settle on nice, which makes him laugh.

“Only nice, hm? I suppose I’ll have to work harder.”

“Better than nice,” you assure him. “I— I liked it a lot.” It’s still insufficient, so you kiss him again, hoping he won’t ask any more questions.

He does, after a long moment. “Are you ready for more?”

“There’s more?” you ask. “Or— for you? Do you want me to—”

“No, there’s no need for you to do a thing, love. The next part is for both of us.” He rolls onto his back, taking you with him effortlessly. He reaches past you with one hand while he kisses you sweetly, tongue pushing into your mouth at the same moment you feel his cock slot against your entrance. He pushes in gently, halting when he meets resistance, fucking shallowly into you until you relax enough to let him bury himself deeper into your body.

You tuck your face down against his chest, focusing on the feeling of his cock stretching your cunt, so deep inside you that his presses against your womb. He tries to keep himself still, but his hips buck slightly, tearing a groan from your chest. There’s no stopping the way your cunt squeezes down on him in response, nor the way your hips grind against him. He makes a choked sound, breathing out shakily when you push yourself up to look at him.

The angle change nearly has you collapsing back down, but he takes pity on you and flips you both so he can take the lead. “Hello, pretty thing,” he says, giving you another kiss and a firm grind into you before he starts moving his hips, slowly working himself in and out of your cunt, lips settling against your ear so he could tell you how well you’re taking him, how good you feel around his cock.

Any ability to respond is quickly fucked out of you, your breath punched out with every deep thrust, your world shrinking down to a handful of sensations: his lips on your ear, the weight of his body and the delicious drag of his cock against your inner walls.

He works his hand between you to rub at your pearl, the heel of his hand pressing down on your lower belly. The thought that he can feel himself inside you with your hand is one of the last fully formed ones that cross your mind, because he growls and picks up the pace, unrelenting until you’re shaking and babbling and clinging so tightly to him that you’re certain you’ll leave permanent marks.

He drags you up another precipice and throws you over, his forehead pressed to yours, watching your face as you shake and cry out. He ruts into you, and you can feel him fill your cunt, his cock twitching, rooted firmly inside you. He doesn’t pull away, just throws himself onto his back, holding you tight to his chest.

His heart beats like a drum under your ear, slowing gradually as he catches his breath. His cock slips free, and you stiffen slightly as his spend leaks from your swollen cunt, spilling onto his belly. He pops his head up as soon as you tense, and huffs out a laugh, kissing the tip of your nose.

“Sex can be a bit messy. Come on, love. Let’s get cleaned up.”

Your legs wobble when you try to stand, but he happily slides a supportive arm around your waist, leading you into the adjoining tap room. Once you’re both cleaned up, he coaxes you out of your sweat-soaked chemise and wraps you in one of his shirts and you both sit back down in front of the fire.

You pick up your abandoned wine glass, holding it with both hands as you eye the wolf. He looks content, satiated, like he’s had his fill of you. There’s a little tremor of unease that settles in your belly. Now that the chase is over, will he still want you? Do you still want him to want you? At the beginning of the evening you had been determined to kill him, and now…

He looks back at you through half-closed eyes, and unfurls his arm. “You’re too far away,” he tells you, voice a warm purr. “And you’re thinking too much.”

It’s still unfair, how easily he reads you. An open book, pages left open for him to flip through at his leisure. Despite your trepidation, you walk forward on your knees and sit against him, knees tucked under his arm. His fingertips trail up your thigh, over your knee, down your calf, and back, over and over, as he waits for you to speak.

“What happens now?” you ask at last. “Do we go our separate ways?”

Hurt flashes across his face before he can hide it behind a neutral mask. “If that’s what you want.” His fingers continue retreading their path while silence builds between the two of you. At last, he pulls in a fortifying breath. “Is that what you want?”

There’s raw desire in his eyes, not tempered in the least by your coupling. He offers you everything so easily that it feels like it must be a trick, but he wouldn’t work so hard to hide his feelings if he didn’t care for you, if this were a trap. If you stay, it has to be your choice, not made because of his own want for you to remain by his side.

The anger that kept you warm in all your years out in the cold is gone. Killing him won’t bring your family back from the grave, it would just place another soul in one. The desire for revenge truly burned out a long while ago, and you couldn’t admit that only embers remained. It was why you were so desperate to end it tonight, to close the chapter and look forward to something new.

It’s so like your wolf to ruin your plans. This time, you’re not sure you mind.

“I’d like to stay,” you say at last.

He’s on you so fast that you drop your wine glass, spilling red over the furs. It’s hard to stop laughing enough to kiss him back, trying to point out the mess to him. He growls something about not giving a damn as he gives up trying to kiss you through your smile, and presses his lips to your pulse instead.

In the end, with all the history between the two of you, what’s one more mess?

It's been almost five years since I started writing this short story, and I had fully expected not to finish it. I was caught up in the story in the peripherals, the potential history between Cat and Valter. This scene no longer fits in the overall narrative, even if there are still threads of it that remain unchanged, so I feel like it's safe to share. I'm working on the third draft of The Night of the Wolf, sorting out the mess of my second draft (so many changes it might as well be a second first draft) and I think there's a very real possibility that I can actually finish it, and that's in no small way thanks to all of you. I have been writing for a long time, but it's only been in the past year that I've shared my work with anyone, and it's been a really lovely experience. Thank you for reading my silly fanfictions, thank you for reading this, and I hope to share more bits of original work going forward, if there's any interest. (But don't worry, I'm still gonna finish the fanfictions. I show no signs of stopping yet)

C. T. Cutter

(Also, special thanks to my best human person @dragonnarrative-writes for making me finish this and being so so kind to me about my work and encouraging me always. I am bad at accepting compliments but I appreciate them all the same)

Image Credits: 1 - 2 ~ Dividers by @/cafekitsune

[lukas-wrld]

This was another reminder to actually put myself together and get my story written, so thank you @mjparkerwriting for tagging me!

I shall be using my yet to be properly introduced, or planned, or actually started story idea, How to be the Perfect Daughter (working title)! The idea is that in the process of answering these questions, I'll figure out more of the story, so without much further ado-

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

I'm still not sure how to put it into precise words, but I'm playing around with the idea of "the ability to define yourself/choose your future/live your life gets increasingly difficult if the context you're in doesn't really let you do that" or something like that. Currently, anyway. Definitely liable to change at some point, lol

I didn't necessarily choose it, but rather, it's kind of the culmination of a couple of years of mulling over this story idea and changing as a person and the idea becoming more than just a way for me to vent out my frustrations and anger

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

The real world. My own life experiences, as sparse as they are, lol. Childhood rage from lockdown

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help the reader grow as a person?

Daughter wants to be seen as more than just that, more than just a second mother or a soon to be wife despite her entire culture kind of telling her otherwise.

With her, I'm trying to achieve some kind of catharsis. Maybe show people that the proverbial glass ceiling is sometimes there, and sometimes sucks, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't make the most of what is beneath that ceiling

How many chapters is your story going to have?

I'm not sure. If you couldn't already tell, I'm barely even on the planning stage XD

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Original content! I hope to publish it some day, though I think I wouldn't mind if I just posted it somewhere on the internet and called it a day

When did you start writing?

The earliest time I can remember that wasn't school assignments was probably around 2018/2019. I had recently discovered fanfiction and had stumbled across the wonderful realisation that I could write my own!

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

As much as I'm pretty much just reiterating what's already been said;

your writing is a lot better than you think it is, so keep on at it!

write out your ideas and your hopes and all the vibes you want to incorporate into your story

write away your fears and insecurities and the stagnation that wants to settle

write whatever your head won't let you forget and the aches that linger in your heart

but just make sure that you write

I remember a really cool analogy that I saw somewhere here that went something like;

your words and works and WIPs that you write down are like seeds you plant in a garden;

sometimes they won't always come out looking the best;

they may not be vibrant or fruitful or even very pretty

but because you planted them, and when the time comes for them to die,

they'll make for excellent fertiliser for the next batch of seeds

and you best believe after all your hard work with the first batch

the next one will turn out much, much better

and the one after that, and forever

so make sure you plant your seeds!

Gently tagging: @the-ellia-west @the-stray-storyteller @aalinaaaaaa @hero-coded

@blackwood4stucky @bebewrites @hayatheauthor @agirlandherquill

@ashwithapen @friendlyshaped @dendotdrabbles @cupandquillcafe

and of course, any other writer who's interested!

author ask tag

Thank you @the-inkwell-variable for tagging me. I had to think hard on these answers.

I'll use my current WIP for this. It was once called TLBH. Now, its WotG. We will see if it changes again.

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

I think the main lesson would be that there's always something bigger than you, and sometimes you have to decide whether or not that something is great enough for you to change as a person. My characters go through and will continue to go through a lot. They are constantly tested and while some of them rise above it all--no question about it, others struggle with every step. Some are never able to stand up at all.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

I used the real world as inspiration. I really like history and religion, so I studied tons of cultures and languages and historical events. I have a lot of mythology, history, and religion/philosophy books and links saved because I'm just so fascinated with how everyone sees and understands things differently.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help the reader grow as a person?

It is multiple POV, but without giving away too much, I’d say that every character is searching for purpose and acceptance in one way or another. I think I, as the writer, want to show how motivations change as we change as people, and that's okay. I want to tell a story that inspires people to love, change, fight, and live.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

I'm currently looking at a series with five books total. This first story will have 35-36 chapters.

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

All OG. I want to publish traditionally, but we'll see what happens.

When did you start writing?

Since I could string together semi complex thoughts and also hold a pencil lol. I've always liked writing. I started writing fanfics some time in high school, maybe around age 15. If you want to get technical, though, my first fanfiction was in elementary school and it was about young Jack Sparrow before he became THEE Jack Sparrow.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

WRITE! Who cares if you think it's ass?

Write the story you always wanted to read but could never find.

Talk to other writers. Make friends. It can be very lonely, but having people that understand what you're doing and are also going through the same process is helpful.

I'm still working on the last one.

I follow a ton of writers on here, so I think I'll tag a bunch of people just for the hell of it.

@frantheram @mrbexwrites @stargazingdustbunny @marsh0mallows99th @cwritesfiction @writingamongther0ses @paintedbutton @inkednotebook @lukas-wrld @writinglittlebeasts @vicwriting @kae-luna @the-orangeauthor @kckramer @ghost-type-writer @phynewrites @wildswrites @jamieanovels @tabswrites

[non-plutonian-druid]

[ID: a comic about Voltron characters set in a Gravity Falls au.

Keith, outside the mystery shack, picks up a stick and throws it. A large canid runs after it.

Pidge, sitting inside and looking out the window, disturbed, asks "Is that a wolf."

Lance leans over her and says "This is why I keep telling you to investigate Keith."

Pidge shoves him away, saying "This again? Keith's not an alien, Lance."

Lance says "What? I'm serious!" Pidge looks unimpressed, and he adds "Not about the alien thing." He presses his face to the window and says "But he's so mysterious. Why's he so weird."

Pidge opens a can of soda and asks "How old are you?"

Lance, counting on his fingers, lists "1. Nobody knows where he lives."

Pidge interrupts, "I don't know where YOU live."

"You're just antisocial. Matt's been over," Lance tells her, and continues "2. Does he even work here."

Pidge hides her face in her soda and says "uh."

In flashback with a much simpler style, Pidge asks Coran "DOES Keith work at the Mystery Shack?"

Coran: Why, I couldn't say!

Pidge: One way to tell is if you pay him.

Coran: Oh yes, I suppose so!

Pidge: WELL?

In the present, Pidge continues, "I still haven't been able to figure that out."

Lance narrates a few one-panel scenes of Keith being weird. He says, "Remember that time Hunk found him in the woods at night?" Hunk, carrying a telescope and looking spooked, says "H-hey, dude." Keith appears to be dripping wet, is all in shadow, and has glowing eyes.

Lance continues, "And that time he robbed a convenience store?" Lance in the past spots Keith emerging from a store and says "Oh, hey Keith." A cashier says "Stop! Thief!"

Lance adds, "And that time-" before being cut off by Pidge, who waves her arms through the scene, dissolving it. She says "OK, OK, I see your point." Looking thoughtful and a bit evil, she continues, "We'll have to stalk him on his next day off..."

Lance, startled, says "I didn't say STALK!" End ID.]

For those of you who don't remember, which I imagine is everybody, i made a gravity falls au of voltron a while back! Pidge and Matt are Dipper and Mabel, Coran is Grunkle Stan and is actually a family friend of their parents and not their uncle, the rest of the paladins sans Allura are collectively Soos and Wendy, and I went with the name "Mystery Shack" for the building instead of Castle of Lions because Castle of Lions is too cool for a tourist trap.

The vld gravity falls au tag, which i haven't updated in one hundred thousand years and which i should get around to talking more about, especially because i have the entire main plot planned out and never talk about it

[chell-min]

redrawing an oc from 2020! 4 and a half years of art evolution through my little guy reed :)

[italyveneziano]

Old redraw of an even older drawing ☺️ They are the father and son ever. To me (please don't tag as ship!)

[vulpinesaint]

Hi! I just went through your quizzes (gorgeous writing, by the way!) and I wonder if you have the results for all of them posted somewhere? I know both saints quizzes have a full results post and the garden one too, but I don't think I've found the others. I'm especially curious about the supervillain one :)

hiya!! thank you so much i'm so glad you liked them <3 as of right now i only have results up for the saints + garden quizzes, but i would be so happy to post more results for you! anytime i post results, they should be linked on the masterpost in my bio :) i think i will. only post the supervillain one for now. the other ones make me feel a little silly. but you are so welcome to the supervillain results <3

for those of you who have taken the supervillain quiz: here's how your story could have ended!

[sforzesco]

BROTHERS

The river Weser ran between the Roman and Cheruscan forces. Arminius came to the bank and halted with his fellow chieftains:— "Had the Caesar come?" he inquired.​ On receiving the reply that he was in presence, he asked to be allowed to speak with his brother. That brother, Flavus by name, was serving in the army, a conspicuous figure both from his loyalty and from the loss of an eye through a wound received some few years before during Tiberius' term of command. Leave was granted, and Stertinius took him down to the river. Walking forward, he was greeted by Arminius; who, dismissing his own escort, demanded that the archers posted along our side of the stream should be also withdrawn. When these had retired, he asked his brother, whence the disfigurement of his face? On being told the place and battle, he inquired what reward he had received. Flavus mentioned his increased pay, the chain, the crown, and other military decorations; Arminius scoffed at the cheap rewards of servitude.

They now began to argue from their opposite points of view. Flavus insisted on "Roman greatness, the power of the Caesar; the heavy penalties for the vanquished; the mercy always waiting for him who submitted himself. Even Arminius' wife and child were not treated as enemies." His brother urged "the sacred call of their country; their ancestral liberty; the gods of their German hearths; and their mother, who prayed, with himself, that he would not choose the title of renegade and traitor to his kindred, to the kindred of his wife, to the whole of his race in fact, before that of their liberator." From this point they drifted, little by little, into recriminations; and not even the intervening river would have prevented a duel, had not Stertinius run up and laid a restraining hand on Flavus, who in the fullness of his anger was calling for his weapons and his horse. On the other side Arminius was visible, shouting threats and challenging to battle: for he kept interjecting much in Latin, as he had seen service in the Roman camp as a captain of native auxiliaries.

Tacitus Annals 2.10-11

there's a lot going on in there! Arminius switching to Latin is a detail that always makes me feel a deep kind of sadness, especially with how it's preceded by mention of their mother. I wonder what she thought of what became of her sons, on opposite sides of everything but still, inescapably, brothers. even when they want to kill each other. there sure are a lot of fucked up and unhappy brothers around. and Arminius asking about Flavus' injury............I also had a whole thing typed out about the horror of imperialism and colonization and the trauma of assimilation but I think this sets the tone better

Rome's Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest, Adrian Murdoch

and also this, just for fun

(ibid)

this post is already a mile long, so lets add another mile to it: a little scene at the start of their conversation! tfw you go in for a hug and your younger brother who also ended up being taller starts roasting your hair style

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost ⭐ cara.app⭐ko-fi

[dammarchy211]

THE COMMITTEE FOR RAPACIOUS INTERLOPERS AND MANIACAL ESPERS !

drawing dump I definitely can’t fit all of them in but here’s most of em lol. Neo Cortez the founder and Head of C.R.I.M.E. Got a complete redo which I actually Like now so’ll probably expand on him more

[katabay]

L'APPEL DU VIDE

okay so. jack! jack. what a collection of guys. the overlap between jack and the beanstalk and jack the giant killer, though. that sure is something! sometimes king arthur is there, which always takes me by surprise.

this. specifically. is an idea I've been kicking around. jack and the beanstalk is not a story I've ever enjoyed, as a kid it was probably my least favorite to read. as an adult, I was INTENSELY fascinated by reading j.g. ballard's the drowned giant. I think about it frequently, and somewhere during a re read of it, I ended up revisiting jack.

combining different versions of jack into one character is not a new concept, but it IS a fun one! the version I've been assembling together plays less with the fun elements of a jack story (and adjacent folklore stories), and focuses more on the potential for tragic elements with the addition of the usual grim and jagged narrative edges that I personally enjoy.

jack with the backstory of the devil and the three golden hairs, only jack doesn't find love, he's TIRED, all he wants to do is go home, but there isn't a home to go back to. what is the point of being born lucky if this is what it gets you? jack the giant killer, only he doesn't want to kill giants, jack who saw a body of a giant when he was a small child and cannot bring himself to do as a king commands. jack, who climbs up the beanstalk and stops halfway to look down. etc.

to go back to the drowned giant real quick, both to set the tone about jack seeing the body of a giant as a youth, and also because I've been haunted and obsessed with this excerpt of it ever since I read it:

J. G. Ballard, The Drowned Giant

anyway! this was originally like, a two illustration concept to get out of my system. however. I'm halfway through outlining a narrative. so. maybe it will also be several illustrations and also comic.

[themintman]

that one "do you think we're friends in every universe" Dan and Tray post I made AGES ago but space dogified.. rubs my hands together like a cartoon villain

The drawing 👇👇 based on this one painting my friend sent me AGES ago to draw for a different au (mermal 🎉🐟) but uh. IT GOT TURNED INTO A TDM THING-

also the original post I made