#“the gods were merciful” for no one forcing a bedding ceremony

[eruherdiriel]

This is not right, this is not fair, how have I sinned that the gods would do this to me, how?

Sansa III, A Storm of Swords

[aurborsau]

Got a favorite silverusso omegaverse headcanon? :D

Oh well I’m glad you asked.

I’ve been thinking about a handmaides tale au for this paring for a little awhile. I briefly touched on it on the Silverusso discord channel.

Daniel as a handmaid (made by me)

(For anyone unfamiliar with the Handmade’s Tale^^)

Warning/s: angst, attempted assault,

Paring/s: Daniel LaRusso/Terry silver, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence

Daniel was the youngest of the handmaids. The only one who hasn’t previously been with child, a virgin won omega. That’s why he was sent to bear children for only the highest-ranking commander in Gilead, Terry Silver. He was surprisingly welcoming to Daniel upon his arrival, always finding ways to spend time with the omega, sneaking him gifts here and there. He’s a very attentive listener, surprising Daniel with his very own garden to do with as he pleases. Even planting roses because he remembered Daniel telling him that those were his mother’s favorite.

However, the wife did not share the same sentiment towards Daniel. She mostly stayed in her room or busied herself with preparing the nursery, making it clear that she was displeased with the omega's presence.

Daniel quickly became became acquainted with Johnny, the guardian that’s been appointed to commander Silver’s home. While Terry was away on “important business for the sake of the future of Gilead.” he’d spend his free time getting to know the beta. Johnny would help Daniel with the garden, getting the supplies, doing all the heavy lifting. He enjoyed his company, it was nice to have a friend in this fucked up world, someone he could trust.

Daniel had just finished preparing for bed, luxuriating in the expensive bath salts gifted to him by Terry. Slipping into a delicate lace nightgown also given to him by the man himself, he emerged from the bathroom only to be greeted by an unexpected visitor. Johnny sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. His eyes widening at the sight of Daniel without his customary robes, his body now on full display.

Locking the door, Johnny pressed the frightened Omega against the nearest wall with considerable force, “Johnny what are you doing?” He stuttered. Without warning, Johnny leaned in for a forceful kiss, evoking a whimper from Daniel. Desperate to escape, Daniel struggled, but Johnny's strong grip held him firmly in place. “You know you want this Danny. I see the way you look at me.” He panics now. Terry was the only one who would call him Danny, a right reserved for his Alpha. “Get… get off me!” He uses all the strength he could muster to push Johnny off of him. He sought refuge in the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Tears streamed down his face as he slid down the door, haunted by the primal desire he had seen in Johnny's eyes. The same look in Terry eyes during his first ceremony. It scared him, made him feel completely and utterly helpless at his mercy.

‘Oh god, what is Terry going to say?’ He panicked. The scent of the beta would surely be detected by Terry, and although he’s mad at Johnny right now he can’t let his death be on his conscience. He’d surely be punished. Hell, Terry would kill the beta himself with his bare hands. Fortunately, there were no visible marks or bruises left by Johnny, and with another careful wash and a spritz of the flowery perfume Terry had given him, Daniel hoped to erase any lingering traces of the beta's presence.

He’d been ignoring Johnny the next week, he couldn’t risk being in the same vicinity as the beta, no matter how lonely he got. When Terry returned from his ventures, He’d invited Daniel into his study like he did every night. “Baby I want to take you somewhere. Somewhere where we can finally be alone.” He pulls the boy onto his lap. Daniel only prays the man can’t sense his apprehension. “What do you have in mind… sir?” He looks up at the Alpha with those huge brown eyes that made the man weak in the knees. “It’s a surprise.” He leans in to brush his lips against the shell of his ear. “Why don’t you just go put on the outfit I have picked out for you and meet me by the car.” Following Terry's instructions, Daniel slipped into a little black number laying on his bed. As he descended the stairs, Terry stood there, smirking at the sight. “It’s a shame your always covered in those robes. A beauty this rare should be celebrated, not hidden.” Terry admires the boy, placing his hand on the small of his back to guide him to the car. There, Johnny stands, opening the door for the pair before getting into the drivers seat. “Something wrong?” Terry questions when he sees the apprehension in Daniel’s eyes, and the blush that creeps onto his face. “What? Yeah no I’m fine. I’m just a little nervous is all.” Which is half the truth. He can’t keep his eyes off Johnny, thinking back to that night in his room and cringing at the memory. “Come here.” Terry pulls the boy onto his lap. “I’ve missed this. You look so gorgeous tonight, I wish I could take you right here.” Terry leans in to whisper in his ear. “Cum in that pretty little ass.” Daniel's eyes met Johnny's through the rearview mirror, his jealousy apparent. Daniel couldn't resist pushing further. “Why can’t you.” He could see Johnny’s fist tighten on the steering wheel, that only encouraging Daniel to go on. "I've been so lonely without you. I miss the way you claimed me, made me yours," Daniel whispered, biting his lip as he hoped to sound seductive enough. Shamelessly, he palmed

Terry through his pants, eliciting a deep groan from the older man. In response, a firm hand pulled Daniel's head into a sloppy, passionate kiss. The wet sound resonating in the confined space as Terry's tongue explored his mouth, asserting his dominance. Breaking away from the kiss, Daniel climbed onto his knees between Terry's spread legs, determined to please him. "I want to make you feel good. You deserve it," he cooed, playing on the man’s ego as he skillfully unzipped Terry's pants without breaking eye contact. With a stroke of his heavy shaft, Daniel placed the head between his wet lips.

"Fuck, baby, work those pretty lips for me.

Good boy," Terry praised, lost in the moment.

Suddenly, the car swerved, causing Daniel to accidentally graze his teeth along Terry's shaft. "Will you keep your eyes on the road, Mr. Lawrence?" Terry angrily ordered.

Johnny's knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel, desperately attempting to shift his attention back to the road and away from the scene unfolding in the backseat.

Sighing, “it’s ok, keep going baby.” Terry guides Daniel’s head back onto his cock by his hair. Soon busting a load deep in his throat. He pulled the boy back onto his lap, wiping away the tears that stained his cheeks. “You did so good, sweetheart.” He tucks Daniel’s loose bangs behind his ear. Hiccuping weakly, Terry caresses his trembling tummy. “Your going to look so beautiful when your big and plump with my child.” , looking over at the front seat to see the beta practically fuming. “Your body was made for me Danny.” He places a kiss on each of his tear stained cheeks. “And I intend to ravish it.”

(The end was kinda rushed but lmk if y’all want more of this au.)

[hestiacrow]

Commission Example: DnD Backstory 2!

Another backstory! This is Oruvyn, a traumatized Green Dragonborn raised in a very controlling cult family with no knowledge of who she truly is.

Oruvyn didn’t know any other Dragonborns. She was abandoned as a baby on the side of a road not long after she was born, and was found by 2 humans, Luther and Diadora Labyrinth, who took her in and raised her as their own alongside their very close-knit community. The only problem was that community was part of a very violent cult, made solely of humans. This cult followed the Dark God Cenos, a legendary green dragon with huge destructive tendencies, believing that his coming would destroy all of Oskaria and reform the continent in his own image. They followed him in an attempt to avoid being killed along with all other races. They taught Oruvyn that their ways were the only way anyone could survive Cenos’ coming, that their sacrifices of outsiders older than 8 were necessary to please the Dark God, and because she was a green Dragonborn, she must be linked in some way to their god. They treated her as their most prized possession, insisting that her sudden appearance at the side of the road had to be a sign from Cenos, and that one day, Oruvyn would be their new leader. Her ‘parents’ even went as far to say that she was Cenos himself, reborn to walk among them, and that raising her would be their final test.

The cult was very thorough about keeping Oruvyn under their control. They did not allow her to read, only reading to her the texts that foretold Cenos’ coming. She didn’t know anything about mathematics, nor about other religions or races other than what she was told: they were fools and scum that did not deserve Cenos’ mercy unless they changed their ways and pledged themselves to him. The only thing aside from Cenos that Oruvyn learned about was plant life, which she would investigate herself. Thankfully, because of her heritage, she was immune to poisonous berries and mushrooms to an extent, so instead of becoming deathly ill after consuming them, she only felt mildly nauseous, and instead of documenting her findings with words, she did it with symbols, keeping the book she wrote in carefully hidden from the community.

At age 11, Oruvyn was forced to go through an ‘initiation’ into the cult. While they had raised her, she had never truly taken part in one of the ceremonies aside from listening to the readings and humming along to the mantras. An outsider, a young adult halfling, had been caught on the outskirts of the forest the cult called home, and he was brought in as a sacrifice to Cenos. Instead of carrying out the ceremony as usual, the head of the cult, Morrow Grove, decided to call up Oruvyn, as the future leader, and have her carry out the sacrifice instead. He called it ‘a way to officially bring her into the protector of Cenos and guarantee herself as the saviour of our belief’. Oruvyn didn’t know any better, and despite the halfling’s protests, she killed him, stabbing him through the chest on the altar. Immediately after she did so, she panicked, dropping the knife, bursting into tears and fleeing back to her quarters, where she remained for three days, refusing any visitors and even food, choosing only to eat the plants she had hidden away in a box under her bed.

Over time, Oruvyn got used to being part of the ceremonies. Whether they were sacrifices or general rituals, she became an integral part of the cult, and this became her normality for a few years. When she was 15, however, her worldview shattered. The cult brought in a halfling child to be the next sacrifice, one who had only just turned 8. Because of the cult’s rules, this child had to be sacrificed, but seeing someone so young being taken to the slaughter triggered something in Oruvyn. She began to question why this child was going to be killed, when she had been adopted. Her parents told her that he was too old to be brought in, when she had been found as an infant, and as a Dragonborn she was automatically superior to a halfling. Furious, Oruvyn demanded that if a halfling was inferior to her, didn’t that also apply to humans? Her family refused to respond, instead telling her to prepare for the ceremony and left her to get ready.

When the ceremony started, Oruvyn followed the motions as she usually did, but this time, she was far angrier than she normally was, having decided that one way or another she would not allow this cult to force her to take another life and hiding her book of plants in her robes. She said the usual speech, took the sacrificial knife and stood over the halfling child, who was sobbing and calling out for his mother. Oruvyn couldn’t help but feel a spark of pity, and lowered the knife, much to the shock of the rest of the cult. Her parents tried to intervene, but she refused to carry out the sacrifice. When Diadora tried to grab her wrist to force her to continue, Oruvyn lashed out, using her poison breath for the first time. Without any knowledge of what she was doing or how to control it, she accidentally let it fly into the crowd of cult members, poisoning each and every one of them.

In desperation, she climbed on top of the sacrificial altar so she couldn’t accidentally poison the child, and aimed her breath at Cenos’ altar instead, where it couldn’t hurt anyone else. Unfortunately, the poison had already spread throughout the cult, wiping them out entirely. Desperate and terrified, Oruvyn fought to get her breath under control, but was startled when a deep voice spoke to her, seemingly through the altar itself. It was Cenos himself, congratulating her on becoming just like him, a merciless killer, as her poison gathered on his altar, filling the intricate carvings. The shock finally caused Oruvyn to regain control of her breath, and she took the halfling child and fled the cult, finally leaving her home for the first time, still with the sacrificial knife in her hand.

Oruvyn ran with the child as fast as she could, following the nearby road away from her home, eventually calming down enough to stop and sit down on a tree stump. She buried her head in her hands and burst into tears, overwhelmed by a panic attack and loneliness. The halfling child, though scared, took her hand and hugged her, which surprised her, but did help her calm down as she returned the hug. He helped her calm down, saying his mother sometimes had similar breakdowns, especially after his father disappeared. Oruvyn apologised for everything he had seen and decided to take him back home to make sure he got back safe. He introduced himself as Ander, and carefully lead her down the road to his home village, Mythcairn. His mother, Bree, was overjoyed at the return of her son, and thanked Oruvyn profusely before offering her a place to stay. Oruvyn only stayed for one night, however, choosing to leave and travel as far as she could away from her prison of a home. Bree understood, despite not knowing about Oruvyn’s past as a member of the cult, but told her that if she ever needed a place to stay, their home was always an option.

Oruvyn packed a few provisions with Bree’s help, and left Mythcairn the following morning. She wandered for months on end, occasionally stopping in villages and towns to restock her supplies but usually surviving on her knowledge of plants. She learned to survive on her own, but never relied on her poison breath, as whenever she tried to use it she would lose control and accidentally kill small areas of woodland or plains. Eventually, she found a new village on the western coast of Oskaria, nestled between the sea and Baxram Forest. The village was named Misthaven, due to the mists that would set in along the coast. Oruvyn decided to settle here, and was welcomed warmly by the locals. Despite being the only Dragonborn in Misthaven, the locals were fascinated by her knowledge of poison and plants she had encountered while travelling - she had investigated what plants remained alive after being exposed to her poison breath and what she could use to restrain it – and helped her learn how to live on her own (and how to read). She now runs a small apothecary, using the plants she sells as simple medical treatment to test out more cures for her poison breath.

[tobacconist]

henhwedhel

and it is almost five hundred years after the death of christ. and the roman empire fell, and her forces withdrew from britain.

a noblewoman was praying in her chapel. as she retired to bed, a handsome man entered her chamber. dark, charming and welldressed. ‘’who are you?’ she asked ‘one who has been sent.’ ‘an angel?’ ‘not hardly.’ ~ and it is said that she was seduced, either that or she was raped.  eitherway, soon she was with child; and she felt her sin upon her.

for the devil had devised a plan to bring about the end of the world. to birth his own son, the antichrist. but the devil can create nothing on his own, and so sent one of his servants to impregnate a christian woman, in her hour of folly. and this child, he destined, was to rule the world, by his vast wisdom and power; and deceive all men to their doom.

but she was an holy woman, and prayed to God for mercy, and the LORD is all-wise and most-merciful. and she came unto a saintly bishop, and confessed her dire sin; and told him of the evil within her. and he exorcised her and blessed her and bade her to stay, at the porch of the church; until the child was born, when he would be immediately baptised, and raised thereafter by saintly monks and divines.

and she stayed there the six months, living on the kindness of the congregation. and she fasted every friday, and was given the eucharist every sunday from a long silver spoon. and she sang every hour the psalms. and she felt the child wriggling inside of her.

and lo! at midday there was a great eclipse, and her waters broke, right as the sun turned black. and all around was silent but for her screams. and the wives hurried with candles and towels, to help the wretched woman in her labour. and the child was born, and wondrous strange it was for all who beheld it. for the boychild was born with full beard, like a man ancient of days, the hoary locks, long and whispy, extending even beyond the small childs toes. and he was born as if dead. his eyes open, but silent, cold, and pale. and there was great worry about this omen. and his mother bled profusely on the doorstep of the church.

but at once the bishop strode forth, and scooped up the small hairy child. and it had six fingers on each hand, and a thumb on each foot.. he began the ceremony. and a shadow lurked at the back of the church, amongst the congregation. it strode forth, and it was cloaked, and had cloven hooves and a tail. ‘am i not this childs godfather?’ it spoke ‘i am his fathers next of kin’ ‘get out satan!’ spake the priest. ‘you are the father of lies, and death. you belong not here!’ and the cloaked figure retreated to a seat at the very back of the church. and the nuns and wives were tending the noblewomans bleeding, for she was gravely ill from childbirth. ‘and what shall the boy be named?’ spake the bishop the child was breathing, but barely. the devil put forth a hand and opened its mouth to speak; ‘merdhyn!’ she cried from the doorstep. and thunder roared as purple lightning flashed across the black sky. and so we name the child ‘merlin’ (to save the french embarassment).

‘and so i baptise thee merlin, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. and he plunged the child three times in the water of the crystal basin, three times in the water, the holy water from the fount; and blessed him. the child at once seemed to regain life, he cried just like any other baby, then laughed, then became silent, looking curiously at the scene before him

‘but who shall be his godfather?’ spake the shadow from the back. ‘the man who baptised me today shall be my godfather’ spake the infant merlin from the font, ‘for he is an holy man, and he shall instruct me in the path of righteousness, in worship of our Lord.’ and the child then recited perfectly the first chapter of the gospel of saint john, being less than an hour old. and the devil fled the place, trembling, out the western door. and they took the child out and wrapped him in white lace.

and they brought his mother also, and layed her in the fountain. incense was lit in prayer. satan was shook. her bleeding stopped immediately as she entered the waters. and there was great rejoicing.

~

and she visited her family and told them her story, and bade them farewell; for she had decided to take religious vows, in gratitude for her life. and she cut her hair, and lay down before the altar, and was ordained as a nun. and later became an hermit, and lived in the moors of the north country for three hundred years.

~

the young merlin was atfirst taken in by the local abbey, but he frightened all those who were entrusted in his care. for he was wise beyond his years. he was fluent in latin, greek, hebrew, and egyptian by the time he was 6 years old. his memory was fortuitous. his teachers often found themselves being corrected by him; and he would even quote rare books despite having never read them, and know intimate things about peoples pasts. he had a strangely intimate knowledge of things past, and also yet of things to come.  he also suffered from severe epilepsy, which plagued him all his life. 

he was moved between a number of abbeys and monasteries. everywhere he went there seemed to be strife. gossip and scandal about the half-devil monk everywhere he went. the bishop worried deeply about him.

he had a habit of speaking in strange riddles, and would sometimes speak in languages no one knew. some said he was possessed. often, others would come and ask him to prove his prophecies. and they would ask him when and how he would die, or when and how they would die. and he always spoke frankly and honestly, and it always came to pass. one day, a crowd came unto him while he was tending the gardens, angry, and saying that he was a false prophet. ‘i asked thee, if thou art truly a prophet, how shall ye yourself die. and you said `i shall fall to my death from a cliff`’ spake one man another said: ‘and i asked thee the same, and ye said ‘surely, i shall be hung as a traitor, on a crooked tree’ then spake the third: ‘and you told me that you would drown, and that thy body would never again be seen’ merlin paused. ‘all these things are true, though they may seem strange to you. all of them shall come to pass. its not my will, but alas. we shall all have to wait and see, but now i have a word for thee’ the three men shuddered in their boots, some of the crowd fled. + ----------------------------+

any thing the boy prophesied would come to pass, and so one day he was chastised for this by the bishop. ‘why do you say these things? to scare people?’ quoth the bishop ‘never’ quoth merlin ‘i only ever say the things i know. and if i know something i must tell it’ ’why is that, my child?’ ’for truth, for truth is virtuous and a godly thing.’ ‘you... you dont have any secrets at all, then, lad?’ spake the bishops servant. the young merlin erupted into laughter: ‘ahahaha! i might have secrets, but you! you dont have any secrets. i know everything about you’ and he spoke many embarrassing truths about the knave, causing great mirth. atlast quoth merlin: ‘i, i keep many secrets; but i have no secrets of my own.’ and all were silent at the gravity of his words. but he was respectful to his godfather and spiritual elder thereafter, and vowed never to issue a prophecy about a thing which could not be averted, nor to reveal the secrets of others unduly to cause strife.

now, in those days, there were dragons in this land; though most had already been slain. and in dread memory especial is the battle of the red and white dragon, which tore through the land roughly in modernday liverpool. of all the dragons in this land, those two were the fiercest. aye, even the giants cowered before them. and their battle had raged for many centuries previous. and they would destroy forest and settlement alike, and the poison the air with their horrid breath and flatulence; and the sound of their shrieking and roars would cause women to miscarry and the elderly to die suddenly. terrible were those times. but lo, there was a druid of great cunning, in those ancient days who said: ‘behold yonder disused mine, this pit is deep and hath been long exhausted. let us pour much honey, and wine, to tempt the dragons into that cave; and then seal them in with great boulders and earth’ that was many years previous, but it happened that a certain king of the britons named vortigern chose to build a settlement there, on that very mound were the dragons fought still deep underground to this very day. much strife there was upon the builders, for the land would shift underneath them as they laid the stones; and no wall would remain straight or sound. after they had finished building up the walls - the very next day they would be found toppled and in ruins, sometimes pieces of masonry found several miles away from where they were lain the night previous. another druid, of less wisdom than the first, was appointed to find a solution. ‘we must sacrifice a male child, who hath neither mother nor father, and smear his blood upon the foundation. this shall surely appease the malevolent forces’ and as the young merlins mother lived far away, and he had never known her; and his father was a devil from the very pits of hell; ofcourse he was chosen as he sacrifice. but he argued with the druids, and with the king himself. and fought his case, and made there a prophecy. he reminded them both of the two dragons, which had been forgotten at that time. and he said that the red dragon represented the brittonic people, whereas the white dragon represented the germanic peoples, such as the saxons, which had begun settling in some areas after the withdrawal of rome. the irish too, at this time, had begun invading. pictland was already on the decline. merlin spake: ‘the red and white dragon shall remain locked in battle with eachother for perhaps 800 years more. the white dragon now hath overcome the red, a------------------ and so merlin was spared, and a chapel was built atop the site instead.

and merlin became the wisest scholar in all the land by the time he was 20, not only by his vast prescience, but also his intimate knowledge of the scriptures, and the legends of old; and his command over languages; though he was slandered and called ‘wizard’ and ‘sorceror’, he reminded them that it was the magi who first declared christ to be king.---

having eventually read every book that could be found in the land, and grown tired of the gossip of his fellow monks; worrying that his presence was not uplifting them spiritually; he received a dispensation from his abbot and the bishop to become an hermit.

then he wandered into the forest, into that vast wilderness, and shed his clothes and became a woodwode for 3 years, clothed only by his long curtain of white hair, and his glorious beard. living on worms, acorns, and roots. receiving the eucharist only once a year at easter. there he wandered for three long years, until one day, very thirsty, he came upon a pure azure lake, crystal clear. he sensed he had stumbled into a strange dominion, and was therefore cautious. he stooped over the lake to drink, and saw not his own reflection, but a maiden, fair and regal. he leaned closer to inspect her beauty, and he smiled in the water, blushing. merlin bent over to drink, and kissed the strange reflection in the water. and the water was pure and sweet. then rising up he saw her, the fair white lady of the lake, clothed in elven silk, stood proud in the midst of the waters; and she courtseyed and greeted him.

and merlin vanished for 6 further years, because he dwelt under the water in that secret lake, with his elven mistress, who was called nimwe. and he took her as his second wife, and they married not in christian ceremony. and they delighted in eachother, and she taught him many things, though he was very wise. and he taught her, also. and all those pilgrims who would visit him in the woods before believed him to be dead, and many even mourned for him. but after those six years, he felt compelled to return. he emerged from the lake, but promised to return one day to his beloved. she gave him a fine purple robe and cloak of fur, and a sacred pearl of great power. and so merlin returned to human civilisation. 

[pixelwisp-archive]

oooo sharing a bed with matsukawa?? i love that man but anyone honestly this trope is too good ajdhdjjd

hi ori ily 🖤🖤

hiii Amaya ily <333 I've had this idea in my head forever so this was literally perfect ;-;

wc: just under 1k

Issei Matsukawa was pretty sure that some higher power thrived off of watching him suffer. As if the last few months weren’t taxing enough - The entire process of getting ordained, dealing with groomzilla Oikawa, dealing with other groomzilla Iwaizumi, and taking on a co op role of Iwa’s Best Man with Makki, who, by all accounts, should never be allowed to plan anything by himself - he now had to share a room with you; his best friend, Oikawa’s person of honor, and someone he’s been disgustingly in love with for so long he’s forgotten what it’s like to not be in love with you.

When he first found out the news, he thought ‘this is fine, we can handle this. It’s just a room’, but the back of his mind was frantically trying to figure out what he possibly could have done that would have pissed the gods enough for them to punish him like this (he could only recall that one time during New Years, when he picked his nose and wiped it on the shrine; but he was six, and Makki had dared him, so surely they had forgiven him for that?). He was too stuck in his head to notice the lilt in Oikawa’s voice as he explained that ‘We’re just trying to save some money, and Makki is already rooming with so-and-so, so you understand, right Mattsun?’, nor the mischievous glint in his eyes as he handed him the two hotel room keys, along with an order to not show up late to the ceremony, to which Mattsun only barely nodded to.

One night. One room. It’s fine, he thinks. 

It was not fine.

His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach when he saw the singular mattress in the middle of the hotel room. He briefly wondered if Oikawa was the aforementioned higher power. Does he know about the booger? 

Mattsun almost wanted to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, because of course. Of course Oikawa would use his own wedding to try to get Mattsun to confess for the millionth time. Of course Oikawa would make it as uncomfortable as possible for him in the process. Of course Makki would be in on it; Iwaizumi too, probably (although begrudgingly so). Of course he was, once again, at the mercy of his shitty friends, forced to suffer through another awful set up that’s destined to go horribly wrong. 

He knew whoever was "upstairs" was laughing at him. They were laughing at his suffering and honestly? He wouldn't be surprised if Oikawa did turn out to be some sort of demigod, who's only mission was to make Mattsun wish the next funeral he'd have to plan was his own.

After a rush to the bathroom, a splash of cold water, and a less-than-peppy "pep" talk in the mirror, Mattsun decided that he could do this. He can totally sleep next to you for one night. He'll face away from you, or lay over the blankets, or even sleep on the floor - whatever will help minimize contact between you two. He'll hash out the details later. The important thing is, he can do this.

He could not do this.

He didn't plan for you to look as good as you did tonight. He didn't think to consider that you would practically beg him to dance, feeling you pressed up against his chest as you giggled breathlessly into his ear. He didn't factor in the possibility that you would forget to pack pajamas, which meant you ended up in one of his shirts. He didn't take into account how good you always smelled, and how it would envelope him as you laid next to him, soft breaths hitting his shoulder as he stared at the ceiling.

Mattsun played with his fingers as he tried his best to force sleep to overtake him, but all the little things had been building up throughout the day, and he was just so tired, and so hopelessly in love, he just couldn't take it anymore.

He shifted; turned toward you. He took a moment to appreciate the moonlit path that shimmered across your cheekbone, the way your other cheek squished against the pillow, the hands that balled together against your chest. He saw your nose scrunch a little at something - probably his breath - and the final thread of hesitation gave away.

"Hey. Are you awake?" His voice was soft, a whisper, in case you were actually sleeping.

Your nose scrunched again.

"No," you whispered back, and you smiled and opened your eyes to look at him. His breath caught in his throat, but he somehow managed a smile back.

"Funny."

"I'm here all week."

"Y/n," he started. He swallowed. "Are we friends?"

You furrowed your brows, and nodded slowly.

He exhaled. Reached a hand to touch your cheek. His fingertips danced over your skin - his touch light as a feather, like you were the most delicate thing in the world.

"Just friends?"

You looked at him for what felt like an eternity, your face unreadable. He couldn't tell what you were thinking, and every second you didn't answer him had him falling deeper into a new kind of pain he had never experienced before.

You shook your head.

He felt the hope spread throughout his chest as he sucked in a breath. His touch deepened, ever so slightly.

"More?" He whispered. You reached up to cup the hand on your cheek, turning your head to place a soft kiss into his palm.

"More," you affirmed.

Issei Matsukawa was pretty sure that he owed an apology to whatever higher power he had been cursing the last few months. Maybe Oikawa wasn't a demigod - or maybe he was, but he was helpful rather than spiteful - and maybe whoever was hanging out upstairs dealing with him had been as frustrated with him as he had been with himself.

As his fingers trailed up your thigh and you whispered love into every inch of his skin, he realized, begrudgingly, that he would have to thank Oikawa tomorrow, but when he smiled against your lips for the first time, he decided that maybe thanking Oikawa wasn't the worst thing in the world if it meant he finally got to have you.

Requests are open! 

[laurfilijames]

Talk You Out Of It

Pairing: Fili x female reader

Words: 4708

Warnings: 18 + Rated E. Explicit content. Oral sex (M/F receiving), M/F intercourse, unprotected sex. Slight asphyxiation. Blindfold used during sex.

Summary: You and your irresistible husband Fili are meant to be getting ready to attend a royal feast, but manage to talk each other out of going. Basically p*rn with a smidge of plot.

A/N: I still flush every time I read this over. Please indulge in this delicious filth that I can’t seem to stop writing. I’m sorry it’s so long.

Editing/Beta courtesy of the wonderful @guardianofrivendell 💚

—————

You didn’t really want to go to the feast, but as the wife of the Heir to the Throne of Erebor there was a very high level of obligation.

The day had wearied you, full of duties and tasks that had left you uninterested and you just didn’t have the energy to endure the raucous of dwarves and make niceties with- well, anyone if you were honest.

It was a big event, an engagement announcement for one of the Princes from the Iron Hills, and you knew it would be loud and exhausting. You were typically always keen to attend a celebratory feast, being able to eat and drink to your heart's content, dancing and laughing with your closest friends, but tonight you didn’t feel up to it.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, you wished more than anything that you could stay locked away in the comforts of your chambers with your husband.

You greedily eyed Fili through the mirror attached to the vanity in front of you as he walked out of the bathing room, his skin and hair still wet from his bath.

Gods, was he ever a sight for sore eyes.

Your thighs instinctively squeezed together and you tucked your lower lip in your teeth in an attempt to compose yourself, but to no avail. Fili was naked and practically parading around your chambers, searching for items of clothing to don for the evening's festivities.

Focus, Y/N.

You looked back at your reflection as you continued to weave intricate braids throughout your hair, knowing your attendance was mandatory tonight so you needed to continue making yourself look presentable. There would be no getting out of this without repercussions, that much you were certain of.

Reaching for another bead to clasp around the section you had just finished intertwining, you smiled when you noticed it was your courting bead; the one-of-a-kind piece that Fili had engraved himself with his signet for you. But even thinking of the wonderful night Fili had presented it to you and commenced your courtship wasn’t enough to hold your concentration.

You couldn’t help but allow your eyes to drift over to where he stood beside the bed, hands on his hips, making a decision between two formal robes.

His gleaming eyes met yours in the mirror and you flushed all over at acquiring the attention of your half-naked husband.

He smirked at you and made his way over to where you sat, trousers now covering his legs but unlaced, revealing coarse, dark blond hair and barely containing his large member.

Oh. This was not helping your case.

Drops of water remained on his skin, not having dried yet, highlighting the hair on his chest and adding to his overall appeal.

“Do you think the blue or green one would go best with your gown, Amrâlimê?” Fili asked, now standing behind you.

He rested his hands on your shoulders, firm but gentle, and you closed your eyes as the contact instantly increased the tension growing in you.

“Y/N?” he prompted, and you opened your eyes to see him smiling at you in the mirror.

“The green one,” you finally answered in a low tone.

His dimples deepened as his smile widened, which didn’t help with your not wanting to go to the party.

You tried to convince yourself that it would turn into one of those situations where as much as you didn’t want to attend, you would end up having the best time. With Fili by your side, you were guaranteed to be happy regardless, but all you wanted was for him to tear this fussy dress off of you and become tangled up together in your bed.

“You seem distracted, my love,” he cooed beside your ear, causing your breath to hitch and you cursed him. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“You’re distracting me from getting ready, Fili,” you chided, needing him to create some space between you or you would never be able to finish getting ready in time.

He planted a whisper-soft kiss on the space between your neck and shoulder, looking at you in the mirror through hooded lids as he did.

You could not be held responsible for what happened next if he continued on like this.

But, as he usually did, Fili proceeded to place his lips on you, covering every available spot of your skin that was exposed to him. It seemed he could never get his fill of you, not that you minded.

“Fili, we’ll be late,” you pleaded, although a bit unconvincingly.

“Then we’ll be late,” he pressed his hot lips against the spot just behind your ear and you were done for.

Now his arms were around your waist, his hands trailing across the detailed embroidery stitched on the material and you longed for there to be nothing between your skin and his anymore. Again, your eyes closed and you allowed your head to fall back against his thick torso, getting lost in the sensation of his hands dancing over you. One moved up to palm over your breast, brushing your nipple through the fabric and extracting a breathy moan from you.

Fili needed to either stop what he was doing immediately, or call the night off altogether because there was no way you would be able to sit politely through dinner being as worked up as you were now.

Tempting as it was to blurt out your wishes of abandoning your plans, you would let him decide, allowing him to be the one responsible for causing any drama that would ensue from you and Fili missing the event. You knew Thorin would be livid and Fili would have to spend the next couple of days trying to make it up to his uncle, but you could sense it would all be worth it. The tension that hung in the air between you and Fili was so charged, hinting at what could be, and you couldn’t deny yourselves the right to find out all that was possible.

As anxious as you were for a verdict, you weren’t about to interrupt your husband who was planting kisses across your upper back where you hadn’t yet fastened the buttons of your gown.

“Are you going to do those up for me?” you asked, your voice heavy with lust.

Fili looked at you in the mirror with his lips still lingering on your skin and ever so slightly shook his head ‘no’.

A shiver coursed through your entire body and more desire flourished in your stomach.

Mahal, you were putty in his hands and so easy to submit to his touch.

You felt his absence immediately when he stepped away from you, straightening himself and rubbing his hand over his face, trying to make up his mind whether he was going to force you both to finish getting ready or abandon the idea of leaving your chambers completely.

Remaining seated, you proceeded to work at your hair, trying your best not to let your mind wander to the salacious thoughts that kept persisting for your attention.

But that was easier said than done.

Fili’s strong torso was perfectly in your eyesight and you couldn’t help but stare, taking in the creases on his stomach and especially the growing bulge in his trousers. You knew he wanted to give in to this temptation as much as you did and you couldn’t help but slightly influence his choice by draping your hair to one side and slowly trail your hand down your neck and chest.

Catching Fili looking, you stood from the bench and leaned forward, reaching for nothing in particular, giving him a view of your breasts down the top of your dress through the mirror.

Fili all but hissed, making you turn around to look at him, his chest heaving and expression hungry.

“What’s the matter, Fili?” you asked as innocently as possible.

He took a hold of your waist and moved you against the wall, your back colliding with the cold stone that caused your breath to leave you and a mischievous smile to cross your lips.

His lips crashed into yours, rough and demanding, the urgency matching that of his hands. They groped at your body, tugging and pulling at the dress that kept you hidden from him. The gown was new, but at this point you didn’t care if he ripped it to shreds.

Fili pulled your bottom lip in his teeth and stepped away from you again, only this time with a growl, still having an internal battle with himself of whether to stay in or not.

“We need to go to this dinner,” he said out loud, but more to himself.

You were left yearning against the wall as you watched him pace in front of you for a few steps, still weighing his options.

He had been dreading the evening as well, admitting to you earlier that he didn’t even like the couple who was to be married. It wasn’t as though you were shrugging off the actual wedding ceremony, this was simply an engagement party and there would be more important functions to attend in the future, so what was the harm in missing this one?

“Yes, we need to go or Thorin will have my head,” he continued, but still not entirely convinced. You remained quiet, thinking how you weren’t going to be the one to talk him out of it despite how much you wanted to.

It was almost as though the threat of aggravating Thorin humoured him and he looked at you with a naughty smirk, taking in your disheveled state. The neckline of your dress had fallen to rest just above your breasts and you stood there ready and waiting at your husband’s mercy.

Fili couldn’t resist you any longer. The sight of you like that alone was enough to sway his decision and he lunged at you, taking your mouth in his with a bruising kiss and grinding himself up against you.

“We’re not going,” he declared between kisses, making you smile against his lips.

Guilt filled you for a brief moment at breaking your commitments, but it was fleeting, the sensation of Fili’s teeth pulling at your earlobe replacing that remorse with wanton need.

In no time your dress was left discarded on the floor, nothing standing between you and Fili aside from his trousers that were only being held up by his erection.

One of your legs rested in the crook of his arm as you proceeded fondling each other, Fili grinding hard against your mound and your hands tangled in his unbraided hair.

His mouth traveled down your neck at a delightfully slow pace, savouring every bit of you until he landed on your breasts. His tongue flicked against your nipples, sucking and pulling them taut in his mouth as he alternated his attention between the two.

Fili was determined to provide you with every intense form of pleasure he was capable of, that much was clear already.

He continued to rub against you in a slow rhythm, his cock still straining painfully against his pants in an attempt to break through, while his hand trailed up your body and rested on your neck. Fili gave gentle squeezes to the sides of your throat with his thick fingers as his mouth returned to yours, swallowing your moans.

Within moments you felt consumed by ecstasy and knew you were about to give each other unbounded pleasure for the rest of the night.

You moved your hands from his wild hair down to his chest, carding your fingers through the abundance of curls that decorated him and it made you even happier that his body wasn’t currently being covered by stifling robes. Just as you began to venture lower, Fili took hold of your wrists and pinned them over your head, holding them firmly against the wall.

“Fili, I want to touch you,” you growled out of frustration.

“Patience, Amrâlimê, we have all night,” he told you in an unwavering tone.

A fresh wave of wetness pooled between your legs at his words and your body relaxed into the restraint he still had on your wrists. You supposed you could wait for a little while.

Fili’s exploration of your body continued, enjoying the taste of your skin with his tongue and feasting on you with gentle nips from his teeth.

Then he finally rewarded your patience by reaching between your legs, sliding his fingers against your slick folds. The contact made you shudder, and you knew Fili was appreciative of your desire for him by the way he huffed a grunting breath and dragged his teeth across your collarbone.

Two fingers slipped into your heat, pumping in and out of you at a careful pace before pressing onto your clit with his thumb.

You wrapped your leg tighter around his waist, pulling him closer to you as he continued to work you with his fingers, the angle allowing you to match his thrusts with your hips and ride against his hand. His other hand released the hold on your wrists to allow your arms to fall onto his shoulders, and you gripped them for support.

Though as good as this felt, you were eager for more. You desperately wanted to touch Fili, to put your hands and mouth on every inch of his body and make him feel as incredible as he was making you feel right now. Unwrapping your trembling leg from his body and standing on your own, you hooked your thumbs in the waist of his trousers and began to tug at them, anxious to gain access to what they were concealing.

Fili reluctantly removed his fingers from inside you, stopping only to assist you in freeing him from the binding laces that were failing at keeping his manhood contained. He impatiently yanked them down, his cock springing out and slapping his lower abdomen, bouncing up and down from the momentum of his hurried actions.

The sight made your mouth water and caused that familiar weighted ache to pull deep in your center.

You dropped to your knees and splayed your hands across his wide thighs, allowing your fingers to admire the defined muscles chiseled into his flesh. Your lips followed the path of your hands, landing in every notch and indentation that were formed from years of bravery on the battlefield and brute labour in the forges. Roaming your hands over to his backside, you squeezed his ample, yet firm cheeks while your lips remained on the sharply cut line that separated his leg from his groin. Each time your mouth threatened to make contact near his throbbing shaft it twitched in anticipation, causing the corners of your mouth to turn upwards in amusement.

Mahal certainly broke the mold when creating this dwarf and you couldn’t help but take your time in worshiping his body. You were going to go as slow as Fili would allow, but judging by his ragged breaths and grunts each time you made contact with his skin, it wouldn’t be for very long.

You grazed your lips along his length, the heat from his swollen flesh radiating onto them and making you eager to swallow him, but you proceeded to tease him, having your mouth land on him with peppering kisses but never taking him in.

Once you decided it was enough torment, you placed your lips on his smooth crown and flicked your tongue over the leaking hole, enjoying the saltiness of his precum.

Fili bucked into you harshly when you finally allowed him access to more of your mouth and you gladly took the full size of him, the tip of your nose now buried in the dense patch of coarse hair on his lower belly.

When you weren’t able to handle having him consistently press against the back of your throat, you recruited your hand to fist around his girthy base, pumping in time with your sucking. The combination had Fili moaning above you and his hands weakly combing through your hair, his hips slowly rolling with your movements and completely lost in a daze.

You could have done this all day, tasting him and inhaling his musky scent, but Fili soon interrupted you.

He tipped your chin up with his finger for you to look at him, watching your innocent eyes stare at him while your mouth hid and revealed his member as you bobbed back and forth, the sight quickly turning his relaxed manner into frantic lust. A look flashed in his eyes that you couldn’t quite place, something along the lines of playfulness and intrigue, and it made your stomach tighten in anticipation.

A strand of silk ribbon remained in your hair, having placed it there earlier to help hold the sections you hadn’t been braiding out of the way, and that was what Fili was regarding curiously. He took hold of the fabric and pulled, untying it with a wicked grin on his face. He ran the silky material through his fingers, and a darkness replaced the spirited look in his eyes that had been there moments before, causing you to falter slightly with your lips still wrapped around him.

Then everything was dark.

Fili tied the sash around your eyes, robbing you of sight temporarily.

More excitement flowed through you and you felt your abundant arousal drip down your leg as you remained kneeling on the floor, your tongue continuing to roll over his swollen tip.

A chuckle rumbled through Fili, having taken notice of your readied state, the sound even more clear to you than usual with one of your senses taken from you.

“Stand up, Amrâlimê,” he requested, helping guide you to your feet. Your legs felt shaky from how stimulated you were and you gripped his arms tightly, appreciating the strength in them and feeling the veins that weaved under the skin on his forearms.

You could still sense his presence near you, but it was difficult to tell exactly where he stood, having removed your hands from him and leaving you standing on your own. A shuddered breath left you when you suddenly felt his hand trace across your hip, slowly sliding up your waist.

“Shh, it’s okay Y/N, I’m right here,” he said against your ear, making goosebumps erupt across your skin.

Now his lips were on you, kissing over your shoulder, and even though they had been there earlier the addition of the blindfold made every touch from them feel all the more intense. The hair on his chest tickled your back and his cock brushed against your bum, feeling achingly hard from your previous attention.

“Fili…” you breathed out, appreciating every moment of heightened touch from your One. You felt his hands move lower, clutching both sides of your upper thighs as he knelt down to you, ready to give his own worship.

The sound of his breath seemed louder to you, coming in ragged pants, an indication at how excited he was to reciprocate the pleasure you had given him.

It was difficult to know what to do with yourself, standing slightly awkwardly and unable to reach any part of Fili with him on his knees behind you. But after a moment he gave you guidance, instructing you to bend forward slightly and press your hands against the wall in front of you.

His tone was rough when he gave his direction, and you shivered again, your body even more responsive to his voice with the absence of sight.

“I think you’re enjoying being blindfolded, Y/N,” he pointed out, and you could tell he was smiling.

You attempted a response but it came out as a cry when you felt Fili’s face meet with your core, his nose spreading your cheeks open to access your heat. His tongue slid between your folds and licked at you hungrily while he brought a hand around to your front to toy with your pulsing bud.

The uneven stone on the wall bit back at your fingertips as you clawed down it’s surface, desperate for something to ground you.

Agonizing pleasure ran through you as Fili probed his warm tongue into you, every pass of it feeling harsh but exquisite, and you no longer had control over the sounds spilling from your mouth or the convulsions of your body.

“Is this w-what you’re going to say we were doing when you explain to your uncle why we weren’t there tonight?” you panted out as Fili’s tongue drilled deeper into your heat.

He gave a muffled laugh that vibrated through you in response, but never paused in his mission. He dug his fingers into your flesh, giving a tight squeeze to your bum with the hand that wasn’t pressing circles on your clit, seeming to grow more ravenous the longer he dined on you.

Fili increased his pace knowing you were close to the edge, determined to make you come apart around his mouth. The sensation of his beard scratching over your most sensitive area combined with the smooth lapping of his tongue and the pressure of his nose on the taught area between your two holes had you shattering within seconds. Tremors vibrated through you and you pushed back harder into his face, riding out your accelerated high. Fili drank at your essence as it flowed from you, his moans of satisfaction drowned out by your unrestrained cries.

You opened your eyes when you landed from your peak, only to have your vision still compromised by the sash you had forgotten about in those moments of intensity. A dizzying sensation washed over you, feeling unable to get your bearings, but Fili was there to support you, standing and gripping your body in a reassuring way.

“Are you well, Y/N?” he asked huskily. You followed the sound of his voice as he moved to stand in front of you, it being the only thing to steady you, your body feeling weak and dazed from your orgasm and lack of sight.

You nodded as a reply, still working on catching your breath, knowing Fili would be watching for a response.

“Good,” he stated, attaching his lips to yours quickly and forcefully, catching you by surprise. “Because I’m not done with you yet,” he added when he parted from you momentarily.

Teeth and lips crashed together as your tongues sought to taste each other, your desperation building rapidly. You moaned into Fili’s mouth, relishing in the feel of his rigid shaft pressing against your tingling bud.

Fili growled, the sudden noise startling you slightly, but adding to your amusement. It was an act to restrain himself and you knew he couldn’t hold back anymore. You could feel his excitement radiating off of him, his skin almost vibrating as your hand grazed over his belly.

With a strength that would always amaze you, Fili lifted you and tossed your body onto the bed, the act making you laugh as you settled into the plush furs. Tucking your lip in your teeth and feeling your husband crawl over top of you, you imagined the level of ferocity that was about to be unleashed.

He settled himself between your spread legs, taking in the sight of you before him. The silk still covering your eyes, a bold smile breaking across your face, your chest rising and falling heavily with anticipation, and your wet core, primed and ready for him to plunge into.

No warning was given before he impaled you in one swift motion, his size filling and stretching you completely, your cries echoing through your chambers once more.

His need emanated through to you and your hips met his with hard thrusts, the sound of your bodies slapping against each other loud in your ears. Your hands clawed at his shoulders and back as you brought yourself closer to his body, not needing to see to know exactly where he was on you with his form engraved in your memory.

Desperate to taste him again, you found his lips with yours and he stole the breath straight from your lungs with every press to your mouth.

Fili had you so close to the edge again, your walls squeezing him tight with every push, a signal of your imminent release.

Fili gripped onto your hips and pulled out of you almost completely, looking down to see his member disappear again as he slammed back into you.

“Mahal, you should see how good you look taking me like this,” he grunted out, sounding feral.

He repeated the process multiple times, enjoying watching your folds slide over him, revealing and then encasing him again as he pumped in and out of you, fuelling your lust and a bit of frustration that you also weren’t able to enjoy the view.

Although your body was being jostled against the bed, the covering over your eyes remained securely in place, the elimination of sight allowing you to still feel every contact even more than usual.

A gasp left you as Fili pulled your hips up off the bed and further onto his lap, spreading you wider and reaching even further inside so his tip was now bombarding your deepest spot with every blow. Your fingers tore into his thighs that were supporting beneath your own, craving your next release. His mouth covered yours, wet and rough, the beads in his moustache tapping against your chin with his movements.

You could imagine what he looked like now, his face dripping with sweat, his brows furrowed and the most intense gaze from his blue eyes burning into you with his efforts. As much as you were enjoying the benefits of the blindfold, you couldn’t help but feel robbed of seeing your husband in all his glory of providing you flawless ecstasy.

Fili was ready to take his fall with you, the evidence clear in the loose moans coming from him and the sloppy kisses that landed across your chest. The sounds he made pushed you to your second climax, knowing he was fully indulging in everything you offered him and completely intoxicated by you. He drove into you with one last hard push, twitching against your walls as he filled you with his thick seed, the feeling of his hot spend and friction on your clit igniting another orgasm more intense than the first.

Fili collapsed over your torso, his skin sweaty against yours and body exhausted, trying to catch his breath as you both recovered from your peaks. Still remaining inside you, he carefully pulled the silk ribbon away from your eyes, revealing the soft illumination of your room to you again.

You blinked slowly as you adjusted to the glowing light, smiling as Fili came into focus above you, his blue eyes shining and dimples set deep in his cheeks. You reached your hands up to cup his face and kissed him lovingly, lost in the after-effects of your passionate endeavour.

Although you could never forget his face, you missed being able to see it even for that brief amount of time.

You continued to take him in, running the tips of your fingers over the lines on his face, stopping to press into the crease on his left cheek. It made him smile bigger at you and you automatically matched his grin.

“What are you thinking, Y/N?” he asked inquisitively.

“How this was far better than going to the feast,” you giggled.

Fili hummed in response as he rested his head on your chest and you wrapped your arms around him, stroking his hair and back languidly.

“Aren’t you glad I talked us out of going?” Fili asked, teasingly.

“I don’t think neither of us needed much convincing, my love,” you cooed to him, feeling his laugh rumble through you.

“Now to deal with the wrath of Thorin,” you added.

He sighed loudly against your chest, “Don’t remind me, Y/N.”

“I promise to make it all worth it.”

Fili turned his head to look at you and you flashed him a smile and a wink, letting him know you wouldn’t be having an early night despite staying home from the festivities.

[love-toxin]

a/n: in which twice gets a taste of that sweet, sweet marital bliss. 

warnings: gn! reader, established relationship, wedding night sex, gangbang, quirk kink, clones, reader is slightly unhinged, bukkake, dirty talk, both of you are poor, jin is a huge simp

word count: 1.7k

When he thought about sharing his life with someone as a child, he never imagined that the sight before him would be what came to mind. 

Your wedding attire hung in loose scraps about your limbs, totally torn to shreds but the loss long unlamented. You couldn't care less when you were sprawled out on some cheap motel bed that he'd rented for the night, both your hands occupied and every available hole being used. 

God, you were such a slut, and he loved you more than life itself. 

"How do you feel?" 

Jin purred from his place at the foot of the bed, his clones busy with satiating the lust that he had been holding within him since early this morning. He had wanted to do this from the moment he saw you in your outfit, your eyes gleaming so brightly as he helped you dress, and as you did up his tie and smoothed out the creases in his suit for him. No family and no friends were present for the ceremony, your wedding held in a cheap, dingy chapel by a man that smelled heavy of cigarettes in a room that hadn't been redecorated since the seventies. It was all Jin could afford, even though he wanted to give you the wedding of your dreams--but you reassured him that you didn't mind with those sparkling eyes of yours, just as they did right now with a mouthful of your husband's cock muffling your voice. 

Another one laid a heavy slap into your ass from below, your flesh hot and bruised from the death grip it had on your hips as it reamed your little butt from its place beneath you. Someone a little more sane would have found the thought appalling, might have thought his quirk itself was chaotic and perverted, but you were special. You loved every second of it, as was evident by the way you threw your hips back and stared at him through half-lidded eyes as his clones made use of every avenue of pleasure that you offered. 

Stupid cow. Absolute filth.

"You look even cuter than I imagined,"

He couldn't hold it back, his pants tented so tightly that you could see it from a mile away, and his grin twice as bright. You'd already made two of his clones cum with your hands alone, and they had been rearing to go for more, though it seemed as though their stamina was puttering out as you jerked them off again with a feverish pace at work. You had no mercy when it came to this, even for himself--you always worshipped his cock until his mind went white and it felt like it was leaking out his ears at how good he felt. He always tried to do the same for you, only to feel like he was coming up short...but you rescued his confidence every time you reminded him of how much you loved him, and that you would never want anyone else's except for his. 

"Hah, who knew my hubby had such a nice cock? Hangs so low and heavy...so do these, huh?"

You flashed him a wink, your tongue flicking over his clone's leaky slit--if you had any hands available, he was sure you would be fondling its' package in the hopes that it would turn him on even more, and maybe even make him pop a button off of those pants that felt impossibly tight by now. 

"You knew what you were getting into--such a disgusting pig for my cock.."

The comment just slipped right out, and yet that sudden pang of fear at offending you was not nearly as strong as it had been in the past, the feeling muted by the years he had spent with you and the reassurance that you loved him anyways, including all his less savoury quirks. 

"Oink," 

You grinned over your shoulder at him, his clone trying to edge its dick back into your smiling mouth. And the one that had been spreading you open on its cock had started to tremble and spasm quite frantically, its thrusts desperate as it chased its pleasure right up until he watched it burst inside your poor, twitching hole. Each wave of its orgasm pumped another load inside you, to the point that it leaked down its cock and left a thick, creamy mess behind once it pulled out. The moment he made it disappear, you would have fallen from your place and landed on the sheets beneath--but he grabbed you by the hips and slotted himself up against your ass, cock begging to be released as he fumbled with his zipper to yank it out and line it up with where his clone had left you waiting for more. 

"Mnh...Juh.."

Your throat occupied with another clone, you struggled to moan out his name as he eased himself inside--but he wouldn't have heard you anyways, his head blanking out completely at how hot you were inside, and how lovingly you clamped down on his cock like your body already knew that it was all yours. This was one of the only times he could be so raw with you, both regarding his dick and the fact that he could leave his mask off and look down on you properly, and he already felt the moment slipping through his fingers as he struggled to keep himself composed in your presence. While he was losing himself in your near-smothering heat, he barely even took notice to his two other clones blowing their loads all over your hands and your face, before disappearing into thin air and leaving one left. And that one seemed to struggle the same way as he did, its face screwing up in pleasure as you forced yourself down on its cock until you buried your nose in a tuft of its wiry, untrimmed bush. If he wasn't sunk so deep inside you, he would've wished that was him you were drooling all over, and not just a puppet. 

"Mnh!" 

Jin's fingers fumbled over the curves of your waist, blunt nails digging into your skin to try and get some sort of hold--but you moved of your own accord and threw your hips back against him with so much vigor, he could barely keep himself upright at this point while you were so intent on making him cum. 

"Slutty cumbucket...stupid cow can't get enough, can you?"

He growled beneath his breath and you heard it anyways, your giggle smothered by a sloppy release into your mouth by his overextended clone. It disappeared within moments and left the two of you alone, and only then could you turn your head properly and watch him struggle to keep himself in his own head, his hips rocking so wildly that you wouldn't be able to tell which bruises were which tomorrow morning. Speaking didn't come easily either when you had thick globs of cream spilling from your tongue, though the sight in itself earned you a desperate moan as Jin pitched forwards and pressed his forehead between your aching shoulder blades. 

"I love you, love you, love you…"

He mumbled into your back, his lips brushing by your sweat-slickened skin before his tongue darted out to sneak a taste. You gave him little shivers up his spine, warmth in his chest, a spike of energy into his veins...everything good he had ever felt he was certain had come from you, and you were his now! He could scarcely believe it….how could he believe that the person underneath him was all his? Forever?

"So cute...are you gonna cum, honey?"

His movements stuttered and he grabbed at you even rougher, the glint in your precious eyes sending him into the throes of his pleasure as you licked his cum off of your fingers. 

"Y-Yes! Yes, yes yes yes-!" 

What remained of his energy drained out of him and into you within moments of his sweet babbling into your skin, veins twitching in his forehead and his eyes rolling back in a way that most would find obscene. All that had been pulsating and vibrating inside him became numb in those few moments, and a string of abhorrent whispers spilled out of him to the point that you wouldn’t be able to log them all. The world was bleak outside this room, but inside the haze of lust and lovemaking you had whipped up, he couldn’t imagine a more pleasing sight than the one he had of you underneath him. 

"Babe, you're crushing me!" 

The feeling of you pinned beneath him hadn't registered quite yet, but once it did he hurried to relieve you from it, his body still heavy enough that he could only muster the strength to lift himself off and collapse next to you instead. The bliss of finishing overrode everything else that circled round his thoughts--the weird smell of the room, the sounds of people arguing a floor below, the cheapness of the sheets and the absence of any coming plans once the morning arrived….you smothered those thoughts for him just by existing, and a goofy smile etched itself into his face as he dozed off immediately, his arm laid across you so you wouldn't be more than a few inches away. Where you belonged.

"...Jin? Did you fall asleep?"

Aside from him, you were still recovering, and tested your question by poking his cheek that wasn't buried face-first in his pillow. 

"Dumbass."

Your husband was dead to the world, already snoring, and seemingly unawares of the fact that you hadn't exactly gotten the same glorious end that he had. If it was anyone else you would be pissed. But for him, you just laughed with a croak in your throat and kissed his temple, before snuggling into his side and letting your nerves settle and return back to normal. It didn't matter anymore, you were married, and you had all the time in the world to do all that you wanted--and guaranteed that when he woke up for a cigarette and you teased him about it, he would bury his head between your thighs and make it up to you until management kicked you back out into the world outside. 

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH16

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

-----

Chapter 16: Journey (First Half) {cw: parent death}

Across the polar ice sheets and mountains and rivers, the aircraft landed in an oasis on the border of the Sea of Tranquility desert. If you continued on, you would enter the domain of the Dragon Ant Queen. This aircraft that didn’t have any loyalty markings could not enter. Her field hung over this desert, and outsiders had to walk through the desert to find the legendary valley and enter her underground kingdom.　

Dozens of tribes, large and small, lived near the valley of the Underground Ant City. They lived in simple grass houses built of reeds and desert poplars, and lived a hard life tending sheep, but they had built luxurious tombs for generation after generation of Dragon Ant Queens.

During the demon invasion over 20 years ago, they survived under the protection of the Dragon Ant Queen. Although tribespeople were killed from time to time in the evil tide every month, they still stubbornly survived and had continued to this day.

The successive Dragon Ant Queens represented the neutral force between the humans and demons. She didn't make enemies with the Holy See, and sometimes even protected human beings, but her identity as a devil makes her position subtle and suspicious. Human beings once feared her, but when the human world was devastated by the wanton invasion of demons, the Underground Ant City she ruled became a land of sin where humans would survive. There, demons coexisted with human beings, and though they were hostile to each other, when the evil tide came every month, they were forced to unite to fight against this test of life and death.

The yellow sand covered the sky, the wind was roaring, and this withered land groaned and sang in despair.

The guard of the Valentines tribe who was on rotation narrowed his eyes. He saw a figure in the swirling yellow sand that was coming towards him. He suspected that he had mistaken the stone forest as a figure and he couldn't help blinking hard, trying to squeeze the sand that captivated his eyes aside. But when he opened his eyes again, the figure was just ahead.

He was wrapped in a white robe against the wind, and the robe was covered with traces of wind and sand. He pulled down his hood and showed a pair of blue eyes, just like the cloudless sky on a hot sunny day.

"Hey friend, where are you from?" asked the brown-skinned Valentine.

Every year, there were always many people who came to the Underground Ant City to seek the Queen’s asylum. When they arrived here, they were often already in a state of hardship, even having no provisions left, only hungry and cold. The kind-hearted people in the tribe would always take out their small amount of food and invite them to have a good meal, and then cheerily show them the way into the Underground Ant City.

The Valentine people shared everything they owned warmly, generously, and happily, even if they lived in this barren land and were poor and strained all their lives.

"I'm from Neverland." He was dusty, hoarse, and pale, but his eyes were firm.

The Valentine stood in awe: "You just crossed the desert? A few days ago, the high priest said that there was a huge storm coming. I was afraid that many people had died. Did you encounter it?"

The traveler nodded: "Lost the camel."

"It's just a camel, at least you haven't lost yourself. This is rare luck to have in the desert." The Valentine said enthusiastically, "Come rest with our tribe. Today is the Bonfire Festival; young girls will come out to dance, we’ll all gather and have fun together, and start again tomorrow morning. The Underground Ant City isn’t far away!"

"Thank you."

The lone traveler rested with the Valentine tribe, and the Valentine guard warmly invited him to have dinner in his home. When the traveler took out the precious spices he carried with him, the guard danced happily and called a dozen neighbors in one breath. They killed a sheep, the man set up a grill, and the woman drew water from the well. Finally, they tasted this delicious roast lamb together without any other fixings, and repeatedly praised the magic of spices. Even the traveler's eagle was given a piece of the delicious roast lamb. It was clever with language and praised the sumptuous dinner, which attracted Valentines’ laughter.

At night, the bonfire was lit in the middle of the village and the tribespeople kept adding firewood to make it burn more brightly. The flaming fire dyed the sky a brilliant red. The old people in the tribe played with rough instruments, while the men and women dressed up and danced around the bonfire. The young girls were shy and waited for the boys to invite them to dance or even propose marriage.

The annual Bonfire Festival was actually a grand collective wedding. The young people in this tribe had no complicated wedding ceremonies. They only needed to invite their favorite girls to dance in front of the bonfire, and take out gifts for their sweetheart after the dance. Once the other party accepted them, their wedding would be completed.

This barren land couldn't support grand weddings, but as long as lovers really love each other, the ceremony is not important.

The traveler looked at the lively dancing from a distance. After taking off his robe, his tall and straight body and handsome appearance could be seen. The girls from the Valentine tribe glanced at him frequently. One bold girl even took the initiative to invite him to dance. She wasn’t annoyed when she was rejected, but ran back happily holding her skirt and whispered to her companions.

The traveler had to sneak away and took his eagle to the stone forest outside the village. Here there was a wind-eroded hill with steep walls, full of wind-eroded boulders and wind-eroded columns. The eagle glided in the night sky while he jumped onto a wind-eroded column several meters high and sat on it, watching the tribe with their glowing bonfire from a distance. Music, laughter, applause, the excitement of this world echoed in this desert, which made people feel excited and eager to walk into bright joy and forget all their troubles and pains.

This excitement reminded travelers of the Twilight Township’s founding day celebrations. On that day, the whole Village of Twilight was also as lively as this. There was only the one day in a year when the sunset would be replaced by a bright starry sky. People would go out of their homes, walk through the streets and have fun, or enjoy fireworks rising from the sea or on the beach, blooming in a beautiful canopy.

On that day when he was still young, and only on that day, his mother would brace herself up from her sickbed, take him by the hand, and take to the streets to watch fireworks on the beach. He sang to her and she always smiled and touched his head to encourage him. Such memories made him sincerely happy.

But this little happiness didn't last forever. Mother's hand was thinner every year. The palm that once wrapped around his could no longer hold him. Instead, his could wrap around her hands—a pair of skinny hands.

Later, she finally couldn't even get out of the house, so on the founding day of each year he didn't go to the beach to watch fireworks, but stayed with her at home. Sometimes she was awake, but sometimes she was asleep. He sat on the floor beside her bed watching the sporadic fireworks from the window, quietly watching them as they bloomed and then extinguished, just like her.

He knew that she was going to leave him, and that there was nothing he could do. He could only pray day after day, asking God to slow down, slow down, don't take away his only relative just yet, don't leave him alone.

But she still left. That year, he was thirteen years old.

After her death, he was sent to the Holy See. Every year, on the Twilight Township’s founding day, he wanted to go back and see it, but he always missed it because of one thing or another. Until one year, he finally took the time to return to the Twilight Township.

But he didn't go to the beach to watch fireworks. He spent it with her at her tombstone.

On the way to the church’s graveyard, crowds flocked to the square and the beach. He walked in secluded alleys and avoided the crowds. Could that joy belong to him? He didn't know, he only felt lonely. For a moment, he even had such a confused thought: At this moment, is Father God watching over this lonely creature?

So he mused in his heart: Please turn to me and have mercy on me, because I am lonely and miserable. Please look after my hardships and sufferings, and forgive all my sins.

Fireworks flew and exploded in the sky. The colourful fireworks attracted screams and laughter from the crowd. He stood in front of her tombstone and looked up.

Every year was so lively, exactly the same as in his childhood memories, but he never had the luck to have a person to watch fireworks with him.

Yes, he did.

He had it.

—What God had prepared for those who loved him was what the eyes had never seen, the ears had never heard, and the heart had never thought of.

It was miraculous and inconceivable, which caused his heart to wander with an oath day and night, but before he could speak it, he was already silenced. Later, the miracle slept in the tree tomb, and the fallen flowers gradually covered his face, but it appeared again and again in his memory. He carefully held this memory and made it accompany him clearly every day.

It was just that he never dared to think about this oath again, because he couldn’t say it anymore. No one could say it anymore.

He also dreamed of him, and each time he lost this heart of his, but even if they met in such a nightmare, it was better than the many nights without dreams. He stayed up all night, accompanied by the bonfire until dawn.

This kind of love was happiness and pain.

It was passionate, but also quiet.

His mind was opened and he was grateful, even if he would willingly spend his whole life in turmoil.

He was grateful for everything in his life.

-----

Editor’s Notes: A small correction: in the earlier chapter where Qi Leren read Ning Zhou’s letter, I had it say “demon tide” rather than “evil tide”. This has now been changed.

-----

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

[purifyingthesick]

||Re8 Verses||

Sally:

Born a native, Sally lived a quiet unassuming life in the village with her husband Andrew. The young couple wanted nothing more than to have a child of their own and a happy future ahead. However, that was not to be. Andrew soon passed away from an incident at the farm after sustaining a serious brain injury, leaving Sally with no choice but to take up odd jobs in effort to continue making a living. 

Though she does eventually become known for her expertise as a midwife, the grief stricken widow found it nigh impossible to celebrate the birth of children when her own life is bereft of any good. As the years go by, Sally found herself slipping into the fog of depression, growing more and more dire until she struggled to get out of bed in the mornings. When news of Mother Miranda curing villagers of their various illnesses traveled to her, Sally decided to make a trip down to the local church, where she would meet the prophet of the Black God for the first time. 

Mother Miranda’s sermons had a profound effect on Sally. She felt a renewed sense of faith and belonging in her presence. Her words brought her solace. She grew to trust in her, seeking her guidance and blessings. Under the prophet’s instructions, she would bring her what she sought: Newborn infants. People. Though she was never allowed to stay for the prophet’s ceremonies, she would remain faithful in her service to her with the hope that someday she too could be cured of the demons that haunt her dreams and every waking moment. 

That day would finally come when Mother Miranda requested her presence in the church. Most of Sally’s memories were hazy then. All she remembered was “Cadou” and “your gift” before her consciousness was ripped from her in an overwhelming jolt of excruciating agony. The world as she knew it is long gone by the time she regains consciousness. The first thing Sally recognises is blood in her mouth. As she stumbled out of the church, she was greeted with the sight of carnage. Lycans, beasts of all manners roaming the once prosperous village in search of flesh and blood. They tore apart any unfortunate villager whom they came across and yet they left Sally well alone. It was then that she realised that Mother Miranda had given her mercy. She understands now what she had been meant to do. Children need a safe place to return to. They need a comfortable and warm place to grow and thrive. The village as it was now simply wouldn’t do. For as long as Sally lives, she will cleanse this place in preparation for Mother Miranda’s true child:  Eva. 

[[Sally is a partially successful Cadou-implanted experiment, though she is nowhere as powerful as the four lords of the village. Though she does possess a consciousness, it is fragmented and drastically warped by the effects of not only Mother Miranda’s sermons but also the parasite.]]

Adam: 

Set to inherit his father’s estate and business, Adam’s future as a merchant is looking to be a promising one. Known for a glib tongue and his doll-like features, he grew a knack for charming his clientele, often entrapping them with honeyed promises and little trinkets obtained from his travels. Vain and self indulgent, he would seek to enjoy the fruits of his family’s labour whenever he could. 

That was, until the “sickness” came. 

Over night, the amount of livestock disappearing grew more and more in number. So does the unease of the villagers. Any attempts to leave were thwarted by these...these inhuman beasts, slaughtering many who were unfortunate enough to encounter them. As the number of deaths increased, the foreboding feeling in Adam only grew. Yet his father was deaf to his pleas, convinced that Mother Miranda would protect them. 

Desperate and afraid, Adam could only flee underground, barricading himself in the tunnels of their estate to hide. 

Then his worst nightmares are realised and the slaughter begins. 

Alone, the cowering man could only survive on his own supplies for so long before he’s forced back up to the surface in search of food and supplies. It was on one such trip that he encountered a lycan. In the ensuing struggle for his life, Adam is gravely wounded but manages to get away. 

As he lay dying, his body began convulsing. Changing. 

Before long, all that remained of the human was a beastly thing. The amalgamation between spider and man, wandering around in search of “treasure” to hoard and feed upon.

[orlissa]

Shadow of Night Read Along: Chapter 10

The next day Diana is settling into the 16th century life in Sept Tours, managing the house and spending hours in the stillroom, while Matthew and Phillippe are out hunting. She is left to her own devices until the evening, when she is informed that the household is waiting for her—traditionally, they do not start eating until any member of the family at home is there too. Soon Matthew and Phillippe arrive as well—Matthew is irritated by the way Phillippe is treating Diana, although she insists that she doesn’t mind. She also wants him to feed properly—from a human. When she offers her own blood, Phillippe, overhearing them, tells her to be careful about what she is offering. Matthew’s sour mood continues the next day, making him snap at everyone around him. While Matthew is scouring the family archives, Phillippe seeks out Diana and asks her if Matthew has fed from her. When Diana admits that yes, he has, Phillippe tells her that whether he beds her or not, she’ll never be free of Matthew, but she’ll die one day, and Matthew will want to follow her. They also talk about faith, and how Phillippe believes that Matthew has none, only belief, which is more about the mind then the heart. He also tells her that Matthew goes to church at midday, and that she should follow him one day to get to know him better. Diana does just that on Monday. In the church, Matthew admits that today is Lucas’ birthday, then proceeds to tell her the story of his past family, their death, and his rebirth, albeit his story is markedly different than Ysabeau’s. He highlights how Blanca had no will on her own, and he feels like he forced his own will on her. He also admits that he tried to commit suicide after his family’s death, and that he believes Phillippe despises him. Finally, he also tells her that he was the one who killed Phillippe, out of mercy, to save his mother from guilt. Hearing all of this, Diana reassures him that she loves him still. Back at the castle Phillippe informs Diana that a witch is to arrive from Lyon soon.

Notes

Properly mated/married or not, Diana is already referring to Phillippe as “my father-in-law,” and I’m here for it.

Diana is fulfilling her duties as mistress of the house and I’m enjoying this way too much.

Despite being adamant that Diana and Matthew’s marriage is not binding and that it should be dissolved, Phillippe still makes sure that the household is aware that Diana is part of the family.

It’s interesting that Phillippe immediately knows that Diana’s not Christian, but a fellow pagan. Is it usual for witches in any era to be pagans, or is it something that Phillippe just knows?

I wonder what other buildings around the world were built by Matthew. And if he misses this kind of hands-on work. And if he is still designing buildings.

I’ve seen my fair share of churches thanks to an overzealous teacher (oh, there is a story there), and although I could usually find pleasure in their artistic value, I would never feel connected to them. They are even a bit… unsympathetic to me (I’m also prone to joking that one day or another I’ll spontaneously burst in flames in one of them). And the description of this ancient church in Saint Lucien only reinforces my feelings towards churches.

Phillippe apparently has a perchance for naming children—even ones that aren’t his.

The parallel between Matthew’s fingers being stained red from berries he collected for Blanca in the past and from bloody tears now is just too much to bear.

Blanca was already pregnant when they were wed, although it might not have been as scandalous then as we’d believe today. I’ve read somewhere in connection with Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway that a “test marriage” lasting a couple of months before the actual ceremony could have been the norm.

It’s terrible to think how many miscarriages Blanca must have went through. Considering that they had been married for five years or so before Lucas’ birth, and assuming that the pregnancies followed each other in relatively rapid succession (which then in turn would have contributed to more failed pregnancies), there could have been six or seven, or even more, depending on how far along the miscarriages happened.

Matthew thinking that being a vampire is God’s punishment for his sins is so freaking painful and sad.

Matthew thinks that Phillippe despises him and thinks that he’s too weak to marry someone like Diana—oh, babe, you couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s so awful to think that Phillippe, who is larger than life here, could be broken so terribly.

“So I stayed there, sat in his chair, pulled the political strings he wanted pulled, finished the war he gave his life to win.” Okay, okay, okay, is this “finished” a “saw it through” or an “it was specifically my actions that ended WWII”?

Favorite quote

“You don’t know your husband as well as you should.”

“Not as well as you do, no. We’re a witch and a vampire who love even though we’re forbidden to do so. The covenant doesn’t permit us lingering public courtship and moonlight strolls.”

[samwpmarleau]

I'm kinda dying for the fallout of the fic where Rhaenys elopes with Robb? Because it's like. Aegon V WISHES his kids' elopements happened with people with that level of political power.

Part 1

When Rhaenys first wakes, she is convinced the night before was a dream. A lovely dream, but a dream nonetheless. She’s bold, but she’s not that bold. Robb certainly isn’t that bold. And while she knows Ser Jaime would kill for her, die for her, would he really go against the king by bearing witness to her secret wedding? The whole thing seems unreal.

But as the vestiges of sleep leave her, she becomes aware of a dull soreness between her legs and a lack of any nightgown. Heart pounding, she glances over to her left and sucks in a gasp. She’s not the only person in her bed. Robb sleeps there soundly, devoid just as she is of any clothing, his auburn curls mussed and a placid expression on his face.

It wasn’t a dream. It all really happened. She is no longer merely Rhaenys, Princess of Dragonstone, but a lady of Winterfell.

Just as she’s marveling over the whole thing, a knock comes at her door, then her mother’s voice. “Rhaenys? You’re still abed at this hour? Are you feeling ill?”

“No, not ill!” Rhaenys calls back, hoping the panic she feels doesn’t reflect in her voice. “Just, ah…just give me a minute, Mother!”

Robb stirs at the noise, and when he registers her presence, he smiles. “Hello, wife.”

Clearly, he’d had no such doubts about whether the wedding had occurred or not.

“Shh! My mother’s right outside.”

She nudges him, intending to get him to hurry up and hide, but in his grogginess he doesn’t react in time—or perhaps her nudge was more of a shove—and gracelessly falls off the bed with a grunt.

“Rhae?” Mother asks in concern, letting herself into the room. “I heard a thud, are you—”

Her hand still on the door handle, Mother glances between Rhaenys and Robb in stunned confusion. Fortunately, Rhaenys had had just enough time to pull on a robe and when Robb fell the sheet came with him, concealing what needs to be concealed, but those are small mercies.

“I can explain.”

“I should hope so.” Mother looks at the two of them again, and replies sternly, “Get dressed. I’ll wait outside.”

As soon as the door shuts again, Rhaenys groans. “Gods, that is not the way I intended for this to go.”

Robb pulls on his breeches and shirt, appraising her with some wariness. “Do you regret what happened? We can’t exactly take it back.”

Rhaenys considers that. Her hand had been forced by Father’s overheard pronouncement, but her feelings have always been genuine. “No,” she answers, softening. “No, I don’t regret it. But we really should have thought about how we’d break the news before going through with it.”

“Your mother will understand.” He pauses. “…won’t she?”

“Not wanting to wed my brother? Absolutely. Wedding you in secret and discovering so by finding us just this side of naked? I can’t be sure.”

Rhaenys tugs one of her more simple dresses over her head, belatedly realizing she can’t reach all the fastenings herself. Before she can ask, Robb steps up behind her. “Let me.”

He methodically tugs the laces tight while she brushes a comb through her hair, and she tries to not relax under his touch. She’ll need to be sharp to have this conversation with Mother, not thinking about the warmth of Robb’s hands through the fabric of her dress.

“You’re good at this,” she remarks. “You’ve done it before?”

“Not with another maiden, if that’s what you’re thinking,” says Robb with a dash of disapproval. “Arya lamented the idea of having a servant or Septa Mordane help her with that sort of thing, so now and again she’d ask my help instead. I was less embarrassing for her, it would seem.”

“Well, I’m glad for that. This will be awkward enough without having to ask Mother to lace my gown, too.”

He finishes the laces with a final tug. “Now you’re perfect.”

“Hardly.”

She turns around and he looks so inviting with that untidy hair and his shirt not fully buttoned that she can’t help but kiss him. It’s certainly her right to do so now, but still it’s quite new and feels illicit. Robb Stark—Robb Stark!—is her husband. Their union has been witnessed and consummated. Now not even the High Septon himself would be able to break it. It’s not an easy concept to wrap her head around.

“I’ll see you,” she says, tossing a final glance over her shoulder before stepping throught the door and coming face to face with her very vexed mother, who right now has the expression of a queen more than a parent. Rhaenys has always withered under that look.

Mother leads her through the Red Keep into her solar, then rounds on her. “How could you be so irresponsible? Bedding the heir to Winterfell? Have you gone mad?”

“You always said you wouldn’t judge me if I had a dalliance,” Rhaenys replies haughtily, “and that I deserve a marriage of love.”

“Yes, but I—” Mother abruptly cuts herself off. “Did you say ‘marriage’?”

“Indeed, Mother, I did. Robb and I…we were wed last night, in the Northern style in the godswood, with Egg and Ser Jaime as witnesses.” She continues before Mother can reply, “Egg and I overheard your conversation with Father yesterday. I would never be able to stomach being wed to my brother, and couldn’t risk you not being able to sway Father on the matter. So I took it into my own hands. Now it doesn’t make any difference what Father wants or says—under the laws of men and the eyes of the gods, such a match is impossible.”

Mother is silent for a long while, digesting Rhaenys’s words. Then, “You really did all that?”

“Yes.”

“And the ceremony was to the letter?”

“Yes. Robb led us through it.”

She puts her hands on Rhaenys’s shoulders. “And you’re in love with that boy? Truly?”

Rhaenys smiles. “Yes.”

“You will lead me to an early grave, my darling,” Mother sighs. “Well, we may as well get this over with. No good will come of putting it off. Go fetch Robb and Egg, and I’ll find Ser Jaime. It’s time to tell your father.”

[alexhogh7137]

Rule The World With Me-

Ivar the Boneless × Reader

Story Summary: Ivar travel's to Kiev to escape his brothers, where he meets you and hopes that you will be his queen.

Chapter Twelve: Ivar's Revenge

Chapter Summary: Ivar takes Bjorn hostage in Kiev, where he finally gets to get some revenge.

Word Count 1,615

Warnings: angst, gore, mentions of rape

You look over at Bjorn and you can see the panic in his eyes. Your guards are now surrounding Bjorn, he can't leave even if he tried.

Ivar "It's almost nice to see you brother."

Bjorn "why are you here Ivar?"

Ivar "why am I here? This my home, did you not hear me when I said 'Welcome home my queen?'....huh?" Ivar looks at you and smirks. You laugh to yourself because the plan actually worked, you didn't even notice how close Bjorn got to you.

Bjorn "YOU LIED TO ME?! MY BROTHER IS YOUR KING?! HOW COULD YOU?!" He tried to lunge at you but the guards grabbed him in time. "You...you will pay for this." Ivar gets up and walks over to you and Bjorn, getting right into Bjorn's face.

Ivar "Threaten her again, and I won't let the people choose your fate. I will burn you right where you stand, do you understand me?" Bjorn doesn't respond. "I SAID DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! ANSWER ME!!" Bjorn chooses to misbehave and decides to spit in Ivars's face. You flinch because you weren't expecting that. Ivar wipes the spit off of his face and looks Bjorn right in the eyes.

Ivar "take him to the torture chambers. Don't stop until I allow it. Not even when he begs for mercy." The guards take Bjorn away and Ivar grabs you.

Ivar "Are you okay my love? I saw Bjorn take you into that room, did he touch you? Did he hurt you?"

"No, he tried but your brother Ubbe came in before he could get me undressed. Wait...where is Hvitserk?!"

Ivar "He is fine my sweet, he decided that he wanted to stay. I gave him my blessing to rule Kattegat, he is the worthy king."

"You don't want to rule Kattegat?"

Ivar "No, I don't. Because that isn't where you will be. You are here, this is your home and I belong with you. I want to rule by your side." You grab his face and bring his lips to yours. He kisses you long and hard.

"I am so glad that we did it, Ivar." 

Ivar "I told you! You never have to worry, my love, I will always keep you safe." You kiss him again but get interrupted by Bjorn's screams coming from the room close by."

Ivar "good. That's what he deserves for threatening my queen. When this is over, we shall have a ceremony and make our love official. Would you like that princess?"

"Yes, I would like that very much. All I want is to have you by my side forever. I love you my king."

Ivar "And I love you. Ruling the world with you by my side, what more could a king want?"

….

The torturing went on for hours. You could heard the whip hitting his back every time the man struck. You don't feel bad for him, he took your man's home away from him and tried to rape you, and for that he deserves what he is getting. You and Ivar decide to walk around the town to get some air. You are just talking and holding hands, when an elderly woman stops you.

The woman "My queen, you did a good thing today."

"Thank you ma'am. Do you need anything?"

The woman "oh no! I just saw you walking and I just had to tell you how happy I am to call you my queen." You start to tear up and hug the woman. You try your hardest to make your people proud, so to hear validation is truly amazing. "And Ivar, thank you for keeping our queen safe. And I am so very sorry to hear how cruel Bjorn has been."

Ivar "No need to apologize. And you are very welcome, I love her very much and will always do my duty to protect her." You walk back over to Ivar and lean your head on his shoulder.

The woman "Aw look at that. True love, what a sight to see. I must say my queen, you look much happier than you ever did with Prince Oleg." You took a deep breath. You haven't thought about him in a while so to hear his name it feels like a dagger is piercing straight through your heart.

"Yes, that is because I was never happy with Prince Oleg. He was not a very kind husband."

The woman "oh I am sorry to hear that!" You just nod, trying not to cry in front of the poor woman. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Ivar "I don't think that that is a very good idea at the moment. Y/n has had a very long and stressful day."

The woman "oh yes, well I'll leave you two be." You both walk away from her, arm in arm and you look up at your beloved.

"Thank you. I can't believe that it is still so hard for me to think about him, or to even hear his name. Everything is still so….vivid."

Ivar "I know my dear, time will heal your wounds. But until then, your people don't need to know everything that he has done. Once you are ready, they will understand why you took so long to tell your side of the story." You agree and continue walking. The fresh, wintery air almost stinging your lungs from how cold it is. But it is refreshing. 

….

Bjorn "IVAR!!! MAKE THEM STOP!!!" Ivar walks into the room. There is blood everyone. The smell of it was pungent, however, he is used to it. He is a viking after all.

Ivar "you called for me?"

Bjorn "they have been torturing me all day! Make them stop."

Ivar "apologize for threatening Y/n, and I'll make them stop."

Bjorn "apologize? To that whore? Coming into MY kingdom, disguising herself as a grieving wife and mother, begging me for my help….no, I will certainly not. I am here because of that bitch!" Ivar grabs his dagger out of his pocket and holds it, right in front of Bjorn's right eye.

Ivar "say ONE more word and I will cut your eye out of your bloody skull!" Bjorn opens up his mouth to speak, but Ivar doesn't give him the chance. He digs his dagger into Bjorn's right eye. He made sure that he didn't go too far, he doesn't want to kill him just yet, just wants to make him suffer. Once he is finished he gets back down into his face.

Ivar "tomorrow, the people will decide your fate. I don't want to hear another word come out of your mouth." He looks at the man, "Continue." And walks out the door. Bjorn yells, begging for mercy but it is never given. Ivar walks out of the door, only to see that you were standing there the whole time, hearing every word. Tears are streaming down your face. 

Ivar "oh, my sweetheart…" he pulled you into a warm embrace, trying to comfort you. 

"The last person to call me those words was Oleg! Ivar...I...I can't-breathe" he grabs your face and makes you look into his beautiful greenish-blue eyes.

Ivar "Look at me Y/n, Oleg is dead, he won't hurt you anymore. And as for Bjorn, if the people decide that his fate will be mercy, I will kill him myself for talking about you in such ways." You continue to cry but your hyperventilating has died down. 

"I-I'm sorry I'm just...not strong right now."

Ivar "It's okay, you have every reason not to be. You have gone through a lot today, let's get you to bed, huh?" You agree and he helps you walk to the room. You didn't know why your hormones were all over the place. Why you are crying so hard right now. 

….

Ivar takes off all of this armor, leaving only his pants but he changes those into almost like sweatpants. You decide not to wear anything, you just didn't feel like dealing with a long nightdress tonight. You pull the furs up to your chest and wait for Ivar to crawl his way back to bed. 

Ivar "gods, you are too beautiful." 

"So are you." He laughs at that. No one has called him beautiful before, or anything really besides a cripple.

Ivar "Oh I am beautiful, huh?"

"Mhm...come here." You give grabby hands and Ivar climbs into bed. You let him get situated and then you climb on top of him. His body warmth immediately calms all of your senses as you let his body engulf yours.

Ivar "better princess?"

"Much, thank you."

Ivar "I love you."

"I love you Ivar." He kisses your whole face, making you a giggly mess. He makes you feel so special, so important. You can talk to him about anything and everything, like he's your best friend...but he is so much more than that. 

Ivar "Tomorrow is going to be an eventful one, my dear. You don't have to witness Bjorn's fate if you don't want to. I won't force you to do anything that you don't wanna do."

"I appreciate it Ivar. But I want to be there with you."

Ivar "okay, thank you."

"Will I ever see Hvitserk again?"

Ivar "you can see him whenever you wish too. Just right now, he and Ubbe need to figure everything out. As do we with Bjorn, alright?" You nod and give him a quick kiss good night. Hopefully when you see Hvitserk next, it won't be so stressful and it will actually be a joyful occasion. Perhaps a celebration!

_____________________________________

{In the next chapter, you will learn of Bjorn's fate!}

@hvitserkmarcosource @ivarthebonelessvk @ivarthebloodyking @willxpod @desiredposion

[dreadwulf]

#3 One Flesh, One Heart, One Soul

Brienne has become exceedingly annoyed with him. 

It is a little like when they had first met, this antagonism. Except she had despised Jaime then, and he could not arouse any anger in her however he tried. She had remained calmly disdainful that entire journey despite his continued efforts to irritate her. 

Now she is vexed. Jaime has succeeded in breaking her composure, nearly without trying, and all he had to do was inform a tavern filled with people that they were married, and convince them to toast his bride and buy them drinks. Drinks that their companions were very appreciative of, mind you. Even Brienne had finished a flagon, her face turned a now-familiar scarlet. She was at first clearly torn between shouting at him and punching him in the face, and settled on glaring daggers and leaving the room without a word to anyone, and now she has ridden ahead to their next destination without him. 

Jaime is not nearly so satisfied with this accomplishment as he might have expected. It is a little unnerving actually. Brienne avoiding his gaze and not speaking to him was more troubling than he wanted to admit, but he has never seen her openly angry and it is inexplicably worse. He wasn’t completely sure that was possible. 

Even their companions have noticed. The Hound has been clearly amused by the entire situation, and Ser Hyle has been smugly enjoying the deterioration of their relations. Young Podrick had ridden beside Jaime most of the afternoon, and questioned him anxiously.

“Why do you antagonize my lady so, my lord?” Podrick has been unfailingly polite to him thus far, in a way that suggests he is intimidated by him, or more likely by his House. But just now he is worried and protective of his lady knight, as loyal as any squire. 

“I don’t know what you mean, Podrick.” He gives the boy only a sidelong glance. 

“It upsets her. Ser Lady Brienne. I’ve never seen her like this before.” Pod sits up a little straighter on his little horse and affects a hardened expression. “You should be nicer to her.”

Jaime snorts. The lad is about as threatening as a newborn puppy. “I’m very nice to her. Am I not praising her to everyone we meet?”

Pod screws up his face in frustration. “She doesn’t understand. You’re hurting her.”

He shrugs off these comments; surely the boy has it the wrong way around. He spurs his horse and rides ahead all the way to Ironoaks, and the rough terrain of the rising road successfully occupies his thoughts. 

The high road to the Vale is closed by the snows, but they have managed to hug the coast around Wickenden rather than travel through the Mountains of the Moon. It takes weeks longer, and still they have had to fight their way through rising snow. Hopefully their destination is close. Much of the Eyrie court has moved to the Gates of the Moon, and Brienne’s party has heard news of a tourney there to select new members for the Brotherhood of Winged Knights. It is in this direction they ride despite the worsening weather. From there they can cross to the rest of the Vale, if needed.

The village surrounding Ironoaks Castle is quiet and still. Jaime rides through much of it, looking for some central place where he might find Brienne. If she has not decided to ride somewhere else entirely to escape him. But no, she would not leave her squire, and Podrick Payne is hot on his heels even now.

He finds her at a posting in the village square with news of the tourney. She stands enfolded in her heavy travel cloak, her loose blonde hair blowing in the snow, and he dismounts to join her.

Jaime thinks little enough of the Vale Knights - they are confident in their superiority but were no match for his sword when he had two hands. But the conflagration of nobles and knights will surely be an ideal location to learn news of the region, and a safe place to hide from Crown forces. If the Stark girl is indeed in the Vale, she would surely be there. 

“I might have competed in this once,” he says by way of greeting as he comes to stand beside her. “Perhaps you might consider it, becoming a winged knight. There are not so many Starks left to serve.”

Brienne does not turn to him. She fairly growls at him, arms crossed beneath her cloak. “I thought you wanted to find your honor? If you are not so distracted by ridiculing me.”

A strange falling sensation fills his stomach. “Oh, so you’re speaking to me now? How nice.”

“Will you stop telling people I am your bride?”

“Why? It’s true.”

“It’s misleading.” She glares at the missive nailed to the wall as if it has attacked her personally. “I never agreed to be anyone’s wife. Must you make this more unpleasant?” 

“It’s not unpleasant for me,” he says cheerfully.

“Of course it isn’t.” Brienne lifts her chin and looks at him, and this time it is he who cannot quite meet her eye.  “You can amuse yourself as you like, you are not the one who will be considered spoiled afterwards. Your reputation will be pristine when the marriage is undone, but not mine. Even though I spoke no vow, and was not even awake for the ceremony.”

He feels a pang of guilt at that. “It was not my idea either, Brienne. It was a convenience. I know that it was not real, and you did not agree to it.” 

“For gods sake let’s keep it quiet then,” she hisses at him. “For the survival of my good name keep your japes to yourself.”

“For your good name, I’ll refrain from sullying it with mine,” he agrees with considerably less cheer. 

“Why did you allow it in the first place? I thought you were forbidden to marry, as a Kingsguard…?” Brienne is staring at him most earnestly, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“As it happens, King Tommen has declared me dead and replaced me in the Guard. He did not wait overlong to do it, either. So as dead men have no vows…” he shrugs, with a great deal more indifference than he is feeling. 

He hadn’t known that detail at the time, of course. It had most likely happened while they were on the Quiet Isle, and he had learned of it from rumors on the road. But she does not need to know that. Nor does she need to know how hurt he had been, to find himself so easily discarded.

“But what was the purpose? The Quiet Isle would have tended to me just the same. Why -- ?”

How to explain? She doesn’t remember it. She doesn’t remember him holding her belly together as they rode for the Isle. She doesn’t remember screaming in pain in the bed they put her in. How she had thrashed and writhed in it, when they let him look in. They would not let them go to her side, not even young Podrick, who clearly loved her like a mother. Not even him, when he had carried her in pleading for their help, and was still covered in her blood.

How can he explain to her that he tried to tell them no? That he had refused to wed an unconscious woman without her permission? That was when they had shown him, when he had seen her in that bed and wanted to carry her away immediately from that awful room. It stank of sickness, of infection, and she did not belong there. But of course it was coming from her, the sickness was in her and radiating off her in waves. Her skin was grey and damp with sweat and those wounds open to the air were black and dripping with pus. Her face gaped open at her cheek and he could see a flash of muscle tissue through the swelling, the cheek she had always kept covered before. These were old wounds, weeks’ worth of wounds, one on top of another, and worst of all the one to her belly that should have carved out her guts. They had stitched it shut, that one, but it showed no inclination to stay closed. She was shivering, moving in small, restless jerks. 

“Can you give her nothing for the pain?” he had demanded of them, but they said the amount they would have to give to touch these wounds, she was unlikely to wake from it. They said it and the monk and his fellow looked at Jaime expectantly, as though they have asked him a question. It takes him too long to realize what the question is. 

“If you’re asking,” he said testily, “whether I agree to a mercy killing, I do not. Brienne will live. You will save her life.”

They had looked at one another, grimacing. The monks had explained, one after another, that they could not save her. That her wounds were quite grievous, and quite infected, and the lady was mortally ill. They would be only delaying the inevitable. They thought, after a certain point when they had tired of arguing with him, that it would be selfish to continue.

“When I lost this” -- he had shouted at them, holding up what was left of his right arm -- “and I was burning with infection, wearing my own rotting hand on a chain around my neck and in such unimaginable pain I was pleading to gods I don’t even believe in to put an end to me, Brienne told me to live. She said I must live, and so I did. I would ask no less of her. I don’t care that she is a maid, she is no weaker than I am and has endured far more than most men. She will survive this if we let her. You will give her the chance to, and so help me I will make certain of it. I will burn this monastery down if you don’t.”

But she had writhed. The monks held her arms down firmly against the bed, to keep her from hurting herself or flinging herself off of it. Her entire body seized with pain, silently, an agony too harsh even to allow a cry to escape her lips. It bent her back so that she arched off the bed and her hands formed claws at her sides. 

When she relaxed into unconsciousness again, Jaime noticed his lungs screaming at him and remembered to breathe in. He took a harsh gulp of air and held it painfully, his vision blurred.

“Do you see?” The Elder Brother had said then. “Do you understand?”

He had nodded wordlessly. He believed them, that she was dying. Dying by inches and measured breaths, the Stranger’s hand on her shoulder. He never told anyone that, not then and not later, that he had given in. Out loud he had insisted she would live, that they must try. But in that moment, looking at her in the bed, he knew that she was dying and there was nothing he could do to save her. That was why he had agreed to marry her. He could do nothing for her terrible pain but he would not allow her to die alone and scared. He could at least do that.

But she did not die. She did not die, and now she stands before him and she is confused and he does not know what to tell her. She doesn’t remember and there are no words to describe it. It had been agony, that helpless moment looking at her in the bed, and he would have done anything in his power to help her, and so he married her. There is no way to explain that.

Jaime steps closer to Brienne. He has to look decidedly upwards to find her eyes, and has never gotten used to it. His eyeline falls more naturally to her strong jaw, her neck, which he had been so entranced by in the Inn. Her neck, with the fading burn beneath her chin where they had hung her. 

He could kiss her. She is unreasonably tall but he could bury his hand in her hair and turn her face down to his. Her mouth is not pretty but her lips are thick and pillowy and would be sweet to taste. He could do it.

“What about this?” he asks instead, suddenly. Jaime brushes his knuckles against it, the mark around her neck where the rope had been. “Why would you let the Brotherhood do this to you?”

Something strange flickers across her face. “I could hardly protest. There were too many.”

He insists. “You could have simply done as they wanted.”

Brienne shakes her head. “It would not have been right. You did not do the things they accused you of, and I would not execute an innocent man.”

Jaime should have been prepared for that answer but he isn’t. For some reason it hits him square in the chest, like a blow. 

“Of course,” he says, a little breathlessly. He lets his hand drop back to his side. “You would only do right.”

Of course. Of course that is why. Brienne is good, she is truly good and honorable and she would have done it for anyone. Brienne would do the right thing, and that is that. She is a true knight and he is a damned fool.

He pretends to read the bulletin of the tourney with great interest.

“It was a whim,” he says in answer to her earlier question, and shrugs. “The nuptuals. They said it would be undone, and it took no time at all. Only a few words and it was over.”

 “A whim.” She sniffs, and nods harshly. 

“They were quite set on having you married, their order. For a lot of unmarried monks they are quite obsessed with it.”

“I see,” she whispers.

***

When he makes the arrangements at the Inn this time, he arranges for the two rooms, but does not mention a wife. He says very little at all, and sets himself in the tavern well apart from the rest of their little party. 

Podrick Payne looks between the both of them, Brienne and Jaime, and stays with Brienne. 

The Hound, oddly enough, sits next to Jaime, though he offers little in the way of conversation. He makes a pleasant enough drinking companion, in that he signals regularly to the barmaid to replenish their supply, and does not ask any questions. 

Ser Hyle sits beside Brienne as she sullenly eats her supper, speaking to her eagerly, probably about their ridiculous situation. He had wanted to be the one to marry her, of course. He had offered it, on the Isle. But Hyle Hunt is a schemer from a minor house and he would wed Brienne for her inheritance and leave her on her deathbed, Jaime thinks. He would not have cared for her the way he had. 

I know that it was not real, he had told Brienne.

I truly believe that the ceremony was real and it was sacred, Elder Brother had said. 

There was not, in fact, much ceremony at all. He had simply sat beside her on her sickbed. The both of them in the same clothes they had worn before Lady Stoneheart, torn and bloodstained and filthy. They had bound Jaime’s left hand to her right and Elder brother said the words. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. Her hand was cold and limp in his but he threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed, hoping somehow she felt it as a comfort. If she was not silently screaming in objection to this farce of a wedding. 

He said the words; she could not say them back. I am hers and she is mine. From this day until the end of my days.

They had left him alone with her, with dreamwine and milk of the poppy to ease her passing, and he poured her a finger of the dreamwine, and when much of it dripped out of her mouth he poured her another, but no more. She did not move about so much after that. Then he had crawled into the bed beside her and slipped an arm around her, just above the stitches at her belly, and held onto her as best he could with his handless arm and her wounded from head to toe. 

She at least would not die alone, nor lie in an unmarked grave in a strange place. She would not go unremembered. He would make sure of that.

I don’t doubt you would have chosen better, but I will be a good husband to you in what way I can. I will take you to my home at Casterly Rock and make a place for you and a place for me. One day when I die they will lay our bones there together.   

But she did not die. She had survived through long nights and days of pain and fever, had survived the monks and their bandages and resetting of bones and scouring of infection, and slowly her wounds had closed and her fever broke and consciousness returned at last, against all odds and expectations.

She had survived and by the Seven, he had been so relieved. Every day since he has been relieved. For the first time perhaps ever his most fervent prayers have been answered. He has lost his mother and his father, become estranged from his brother, separated from the children he had fathered, lost his right hand and his vocation, found that the great love of his life had been an illusion and a lie, but when he had claimed Brienne for his own she had survived. 

So if she doesn’t want him for a husband, he surely cannot begrudge her that. He had not prayed for that, had he? He only asked her to live. 

He stays in the tavern longer than all the others. Brienne and Podrick and Ser Hyle finish their supper quickly and disappear. The Hound paces him admirably but eventually excuses himself to his bed, with a strangely sympathetic touch on the shoulder. 

He must look miserable indeed to earn pity from Sandor Clegane.

It takes a considerable amount of ale to do him any damage, watered-down as it is, but Jamie makes the effort. By the time he wanders upstairs he is weaving in his steps and sure that Brienne will be long asleep, and he is considerably surprised to find her sitting up, fully dressed and waiting for him. 

She sits on the foot of the bed, her hands twisting in her lap, and she looks tentative and uncertain. Jaime likes that least of all, this new timidity. It is Brienne being Good again. She treats him as a suitor she is letting down gently, and he thinks that if he is going to be rejected, he might at least have made a real overture first. He has not earned this. This is unfair.

“We must put an end to this marriage,” Brienne says slowly, meeting his eye at last. “I do not like what it has put between us.”

The words stick in his throat awkwardly, though he has thought them often enough. “If we returned to King’s Landing, the Faith could annul it at my request. But I did not think you would want to abandon our search for that.”

“I don’t see much choice.” She wipes the heel of her hand across her face, quickly.

Finally he snaps at her. "Is it so awful, being wed to me? How humiliating for you, married to the most dishonorable man in Westeros. You must be suffering intolerably.” 

Her mouth twists. “If you were not the loudest man in Westeros, it would not be so bad. If you did not insist on embarrassing me--” 

"I didn’t realize I was to be a shameful secret for you to keep. If it embarrasses you, I will not speak of it  But tell me, if you are so distressed, why didn’t you ask your Elder Brother to dissolve this farce?"

"I did," she replies sullenly.

Oh, he thinks. And then: Oh. Of course she did.

"I suppose he told you the same thing he told me then." His face is grown hot again, as if held to a fire, and he spits out the words as though they burn. "That it would be dissolved if left unconsummated at year's end. So there is your freedom if you can stand the wait."

"I can endure your japes if there will be an end to them." She hunches over strangely, her shoulders up nearly to her ears. 'i know that you would never touch me."

"Certainly not. I am a gentleman."

She looks up, suddenly fierce. "Sleep you in the other room then, so that there is no mistake. Our companions must support our claim that we do not share a bed."

"Fine," he says before he has quite thought about it, and storms out into hall, slamming the door behind him.

He stands frozen in the hall staring at the wall in front of him, until he hears footsteps behind him. Cautious footsteps. 

He listens closely to them, imagining their maker, how carefully she steps so that he will not hear. She will open the door at any moment, to be sure he is gone, and he should move quickly into the other room they have rented but he is frozen in place. For some reason or other, he wants her to see him there.

But she does not open the door. Instead he hears the lock clicking into place behind him, sealing him out.

Click.

At this he immediately breezes into the adjoining room, startling awake their companions with some story of being locked out of his room after visiting extensively with the bar patrons.

"I knew you'd fuck it up," Ser Hyle says derisively from his pallet on the floor, and Podrick evinces a small giggle, and Jaime curses them all to the darkest of the seven hells and claims a chair for his bed.

He sleeps fitfully against his fist, and he does not think of his wife asleep alone in the next room behind a locked door and it does not hurt at all, it doesn't, it doesn't.

[cognitivefunk]

The Ceremony is Complete

OK going to bed! I was ~inspired~ and decided to write a drabble since I couldn’t sleep. Sweet dreams!! ^_^ 

Reader x Sleep Paralysis Demon Rating: M - Mature, bordering Explicit Warnings: Blasphemy, noncon/dubcon, fear, fearboner, horror, psychological?, reader is gender-neutral

….Tick Tick Tick Tick….

The only sound that filled the dark room was the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall. The blue backlight glowed mutely in the night. Blearily, you peel open your eyes, the sleep causing your lids to stick together. The clock reads 3 a.m., the witching hour. You groan to yourself, moving to shift the blanket up over your face, that is, until you realize you’re unable to move.

A bead of sweat forms on your brow, and you feel the fear seeping over you, sinking into your gut like lead and doom. The wall beside your bed crawls with shadows in the night, hands grasping the air, writhing and wanting.

Scratch….Scratch….Scratch….

You want to scream, but your voice is silent, your mouth agape in a deaf cry. Your vocal cords strain, you try to pry your voice from your body, a sickly sensation crushing into your chest. The fear was tangible, and unnatural, a life-force of its own. That’s when you notice it. The tall figure made of darkness. Tendrils of smoke rolling from its humanoid form, twisting and turning. Growing and disappearing. Its eyes shone red and predatory.

You lock eyes with the creature, willing yourself to move, too afraid to even tremble in its presence. Its legs and arms seemed endless, emphasized by the way it jerked when it moved. The smell of death permeated the air, and it was all you could smell as you gasped for air. Your stomach turned as your heart began to palpitate. You want to ask it what it wants, why it’s here, but all you can manage is to keep your eyes trained on it as it crawls over your bed. The towering figure grins, rows of sharp and snaggled teeth glistened with drool, oozing down from its gaping mouth.

Drip…drip…driiiip….

The cold liquid fell upon your face, its breath washing over your face like a decaying autumn breeze. You had anticipated the temperature would have been hot, albeit a creature such as this was neither alive nor dead. Clawed fingers, crusted with viscera stroked your face slowly, moving down your torso to splay across your chest.

‘What?’ you thought to yourself, trying to communicate with the being through telepathy, ‘Stop! Leave me alone! What are you doing!?’ The skittering hands upon the wall descended onto your body, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. The shadows caressed you, but also marked you, leaving scratches in pairs of three across your chest, your arms, your legs.

“Stop! Please! I’m begging you!” you screamed your thoughts in your head, hoping with all your might they may be heard. But the creature did not yield. It slowly pulled back the cover on your bed, slowly, inch by inch. Tears began to well in your eyes, you could taste death on your tongue. You had never been particularly religious, but in desperation, you turned to prayer in your moment of weakness.

‘Our father, who art in heaven….’ Claws raked across your face, stinging red and angry as the blood pooled to the surface and down to stain your pillowcase. The blood was hot against your searing flesh, quickly cooling under the crisp breath of the demon above you. Finally, it spoke, gravelly and deep, nearly inaudible in pitch. “Foolish human, god is not here with you. I am.”

The sheets flung off of your body, and you felt yourself being lifted by the many hands that touched and grabbed at your clothes, pulling them off to reveal your skin. You shivered, yes from the cold, but also from the raw vulnerability. You lay bare before the demon, at its will. At its mercy.

“Fear not, small one. I do not wish to end your existence, short as it may be.” The growling thunder reverberated against your chest, and the sensation was electric against your bones. Fingers morphed to talons, tendrils twisting and shapeshifting before your eyes. It moved your legs apart, and you felt your heart nearly stop in your chest. Your blood ran cold, and you tried to fight against the paralysis that bound your body, your very soul.

‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name! Thy kingdom come, THY WILL BE DONE---“

“SILENCE! Insolent fool! You are mine and I shall bestow upon you my gift. Do you wish for death?” with all your might, you screamed inside your head. ‘NO!!’

The grin split its features in twain., and you notice for the first time the forked tongue that slithered out of its fanged mouth. “Good,” it practically purred in delight, its tongue tracing the side of your cheek, leaving a cool slime in its trail. Your stomach leapt forward once again, a shiver ran down your spine. “The blood moon is calling tonight, and I have chosen you as my bride. Young one, rejoice, as I, god of the ancients shall consummate our vows, Shhhh, don’t cry…”

The growling laughter increased in veracity, coming from nowhere, and everywhere at once. Was this a nightmare? Had you died and gone to hell? What madness had forsaken you, who only wished for a restful slumber? Your thoughts were halted as your legs were held wide open, your head tilted back and the blood began to flow into it, making you dizzy.

“Together, let us become one,” it breathed against you, and you felt something prodding your most private entrance. You squeezed your eyes shut, hoping it would wake you from this nightmare, but to no avail. It was during this moment of refuge the beast pushed forward, stretching your walls apart. You howled in pain as the monster entered you, the only thing to push past its paralyzing spell since it had begun.

Tendrils reached out, stroking your sex in tandem with each powerful thrust. To your surprise, you found the pain dissolving into a raw sort of pleasure. A pleasure that made each nerve ending alight with electrifying signals. You felt more alive than you had ever felt before, as this creature of death poured itself into you, thrusting and grinding into your body. Twisting its tendrils against your sex and coaxing a climax from deep within. Your voice having been found once more, spilled from your lips, a choking, moaning noise.

“Yeessssss,” the hiss beside your ear fueled the arousal pooling between your legs, coaxing the demon further inside your body. “You are mine and mine alone…Worship me, worship me as your savior, your god.”

Your eyes rolled back into your skull as the darkness consumed you, surrounding you from every angle, inside and out. Its thrusts became erratic, stroking and coaxing your climax to fruition. A white light shone in the blackness of your vision, and for a brief moment all you could see was those glowing red eyes, searing into you. A numb sensation washed over your body, followed quickly by the bitter cold that came flowing into your core, cooling you from the inside. The liquid gushed against your legs, spilling onto your sheets.

You notice your throat was raw from screaming, and you reach up to touch your face. You could move! You turn to face the demon but there was nothing but your bedroom in the dim backlit glow of the clock. You glance at the time, and to your horror it read 3 a.m. You touch your face, for evidence of the scratches left behind, but you find nothing but the smoothness of your own flesh.

You take a deep breath, filling your lungs with clean air, the smell of death no longer overtaking your senses. There was one thing that remained, which made you question everything that had transpired in your sleep hazed mind, and that was the cool dampness between your legs, and the tattered clothing on the floor. Grabbing the blanket on your bed, you wrap it around yourself and walk to the window, to peer up at the moon.

It shone red, and in a flash, in your mind’s eye you saw its gaze upon you.

[prairiesongserial]

12.7

Johannes was beginning to regret taking his shoes off. He had the thought that he was going to have to put them back on very soon, and the idea of hauling ass back to the truck with shoes full of sand did not sit well with him.

His mood was approaching a dramatic downturn - entirely his own fault. He had been tuning out the Catholic business. He hadn’t realized that anything was wrong until he’d noticed the way Weep-Not and her people were taking the communion wine into their mouths. Several of them that he could see had held it in their cheek rather than swallowing, an expression Johannes knew well from years of experience of hiding things (coins, jewelry, flammable liquid) in his own mouth. Seeing that expression on so many faces had stirred a feeling of alarm in his gut, and by the time the congregation was spitting out the wine, Johannes had slipped into the shadows beneath one of the beach houses, concealed behind its stilts and rotting lattice fence.

The wine was probably poison. Johannes had no real sense of what was going on here, but he was sure of that much. Even from yards away, he could see that Val had become unsteady on his feet, wobbling from side to side as though a strong wind could blow him over. Another moment, and the congregation was on him, covering him like a wave crashing over his head, making him vanish from sight.

Johannes held his breath, pulse pounding hard in his ears. The congregation broke apart again, shortly, to reveal the image of Val’s body lying prone and still in the sand.

A chill ran through Johannes, and he pressed a hand over his mouth, biting down hard into the meat of his index finger to keep from swearing out loud. This had all happened so fast, too fast for him to even realize there was real danger here. He couldn’t tell if Val was breathing, and hated the thought that this was his fault somehow, that he had taken the preacher out on a whim and managed to walk straight into trouble.

“Where’s the preacher’s friend?” someone asked from the beach. The congregation was milling about, taking down the table they had set up and giving a relatively wide berth to Val, now that he had dropped into the sand.

“I don’t see him anywhere,” someone else responded. “Should we look?”

“Not now. Get the false preacher into the boat,” Weep-Not said from somewhere nearby, close enough to make Johannes jump. He leaned a few inches out of his hiding space to see that she was ascending the stairs of the house he’d hidden under. “Sea-Mercy, go and gather the torches, as many as you can carry. Bring Joy-In-Sorrow with you. Fear-Not will take the first boat, with the preacher, and the rest of us will follow to the island. Wake the horses when you get there. I’ll bring up the rear, to make sure the preacher’s friend doesn’t follow. Fear-Not can lead the ceremony.”

Her voice was sharp, in a way it hadn’t been before. It had the hardness of someone accustomed to giving orders, and seeing them be followed. Johannes had gotten the sense before that Weep-Not was in charge, and he felt that even more now.

“Should we tie him up?” someone asked, from the beach, where several of the congregation members were still hovering over Val.

“No need,” Weep-Not said, dismissively. “He won’t be in his right mind until the fire starts.”

Heavy footfalls thundered over Johannes’s head - she was going up the stairs. 

Johannes felt a chill run through him. So Val was alive. Having that information felt worse, somehow, especially with the congregation - the cultists, Johannes supposed - talking about torches and false preachers. He was beginning to suspect that these were not the same people of Kill Devil Hills that his mother had put on revival shows for, but more than that, he was beginning to suspect that he was going to have to go to a disgusting amount of trouble to save Val’s life.

The cultists in Johannes’s admittedly limited field of view began to disperse, two of them grabbing Val and dragging him down the beach. Johannes imagined that there was a pier or a dock somewhere, given the talk about boats, and that he was going to have to find it relatively soon, to reach the island Weep-Not had mentioned. That would be the easy part, as far as he was concerned. All he would have to do was follow the shoreline, or the footprints that would assuredly be in the sand.

The hard part was the fire. For that, he was going to need a change of clothes.

Once he was sure the cultists had moved farther down the beach, Johannes eyed the underside of the next closest house, gauging the distance. It was probably about ten yards away, and he would be exposed for as long as he was sprinting towards it. Not ideal, when the houses themselves were tall enough to provide excellent vantage points for catching folks running around on the beach. But he had to move now, before Weep-Not came back down the stairs, and the houses were his only hope of cover when it came to getting back to the car.

Johannes didn’t give himself any more time than that to think it over. He ran for the next house, his feet kicking up the hot sand, and threw himself into the shadows underneath it. He was sweating through his shirt already, and there was what felt like a cobweb stuck in his hair, but that was something to worry about once he was back at the car. He crept to the very edge of this house’s underside, eyed the next one, and then sprinted again.

He continued like that along the shoreline, until he reached the head of the trail he and Val had taken from where they’d parked the truck. Hopefully the tall grass and weeds would provide cover - if not, he’d have to hope no one noticed him and sounded the alarm. Just in case, he took the trail at a run, still barefoot. Fuck the shoes. Putting them on would slow him down, anyway.

Sand sprang up under Johannes’s feet, stinging his eyes as he threw himself carelessly down the trail. There was a lingering voice in the back of Johannes’s head, a very practical voice that he was willfully ignoring, telling him that just driving back to camp would be much easier than going off and trying to play the hero, here. Who cared if he only got three-fourths of the Hemisphere bounty? That was still more than the circus made in a good year, even if Ezra was never going to let him hear the end of it for letting a bunch of deranged gentiles kill one of the only four people they were supposed to protect.

On the other hand, maybe this wasn’t about the bounty anymore. God knew that the visceral stab of fear Johannes had felt seeing Val’s body lying so still, possibly dead in the sand, had nothing to do with the bounty.

On a third hand, maybe Val would die and then Johannes wouldn’t have to think about the fact that this was no longer about the bounty. That might be nice, he thought bitterly.

The truck was exactly where he’d parked it, and Johannes threw himself into it, already unbuttoning his shirt as he flopped into the truck bed and landed hard on one shoulder. One of his buttons popped off and rolled away from the force at which he was undressing. He ignored it, tossing his shirt aside and wriggling out of his pants sitting down, not realizing until it was too late that he was now effectively sitting in the truck in his underwear. He hadn’t even looked for the clothes he hoped he had packed - but he did so now, approaching one of the costume crates on his knees.  

He was sure he had fire-retardant clothes around here somewhere, both for the fire hooping act and for setting off flashbangs to scare muties. He’d thought they were in the same crate as the priest outfit had been, but his search came up empty. Pulse pounding in his ears, Johannes searched the next crate, and then the next, feeling dizzy with the idea that he had been wrong, that he would have to save Val without anything to protect himself from the cult.

He searched the crates a second time, and then he saw it, a bright pink and gold bundle shoved to the bottom of a pile of costumes, with a pair of heat-resistant gloves folded on top. The gloves were utilitarian, made of thick, brown fabric, but the jacket was the same gold-sequined jacket he had worn on the first night he’d met Val, back in New Orleans. That was fine, Johannes thought, already thrusting his arms through the sleeves. This was shaping up to be a ridiculous rescue mission. Why not add sequins?

Johannes finished changing, throwing on his newfound pants and boots that were free of sand, twisting a colorful scarf into a headband to keep his hair out of his face. As an afterthought, he strapped on a pair of knee pads that had been clattering around in a box full of miscellaneous costume supplies. He wasn’t sure what he would need them for, or if they would come in handy at all, but who knew with cultists? They certainly detracted from the gold tassels on the fire-proof pants he’d chosen. When he finally climbed out from the truck bed, he was somehow even sweatier than he’d been when he’d started.

“Der mentsh trakht un got lakht,” he muttered to himself, setting off for the beach again. His pace quickly increased from a brisk walk to a jog, and finally to an all-out sprint. Man plans, and God laughs. Wasn’t that the truth.

The beach was empty when he returned. Johannes squinted into the sun and saw a procession of boats being rowed towards a dark shape on the horizon - the island Weep-Not had mentioned, he supposed. This all felt like a lot of trouble to go to for one preacher, like the  communion had really only been one step in a much longer ritual Weep-Not and her people had in mind. Johannes was beginning to believe that their previous church had not, in fact, burnt to the ground on account of a lightning strike.

He followed the shoreline like he’d had a mind to before, the wet sand sucking at the soles of his boots. The thought of having to row a boat was already exhausting him even before he saw the pier that jutted out into the water like an outstretched finger. There were still a number of boats cluttered around it, bobbing unevenly this way and that where they had been tied to the posts of the pier. They all looked old, crusted with dirt and algae, wood rotten with age. Johannes doubted some of them were technically seaworthy.

Someone was boarding one of the boats as Johannes approached the pier, and he was unsurprised to find that it was Weep-Not, now dressed in a flowing white blouse over her white dress. Something large was tucked under her arm, but Johannes didn’t spare it more than a glance - he hit the pier and broke into a sprint, knowing the heavy footfalls of his boots would both startle her and alert her to his presence before she turned around.

“Hey!” he said, sharply, hoping she would turn around.

She did. Weep-Not’s eyes were wide with surprise, maybe at the fact that he was there at all, or the fact that he was still running full-tilt towards her. Johannes didn’t stop, let the momentum carry him all the way towards her, and chopped his arm hard against her neck.

The clothesline made Weep-Not crumple to her knees on the pier as though she was made of paper. Johannes could hear her breathing shallowly and knew that he hadn’t knocked her out - which was a problem, if he didn’t want her to come after him.

“You’re lucky I don’t kill you,” he told her conversationally, not particularly meaning it. He picked apart a few of the knots lashing boats to the pier, and brought the ropes over to Weep-Not, who was just beginning to struggle back to her feet.

Weep-Not scoffed.

“If you were going to kill me, you would have done it,” she said, her voice rattling in her throat as little more than a wheeze.

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Johannes asked cheerfully, grabbing Weep-Not’s wrists with the aim of binding them to her ankles, so she couldn’t walk. She struggled in his grip, but he’d gotten her windpipe good, and could hear her still struggling to get a full breath. He leaned down so that his lips nearly brushed her ear, grinning. “That preacher belongs to me. And if you think I’m about to let you and your people take him, you’ve got another thing coming.”

He double-knotted the ropes, and got up to see about commandeering one of the boats he’d already set free. Only then did the object Weep-Not had been carrying under her arm catch his eye. It was laying on its side on the pier - Johannes nudged it upright with the toe of one boot and was entirely surprised to find that it was a mask, made to fit snugly over one’s entire head and neck. It was crudely made out of twigs and scraps of driftwood, and Johannes couldn’t tell for the life of him what it was supposed to be, until he picked it up and found himself staring into the empty eye sockets of what was now clearly a horse.

“Huh,” Johannes said, turning the mask over in his hands. “I can work with this.”

12.6 || 12.8

[wrathofthewind]

ii. Mercy

The first he’d ever laid eyes on Marius, it was during a mission near the Jungles of Tar. Everyone knew not to enter beyond the bounds of the black palms and acid rain. The poisons alone made it impossible to traverse. But occasionally, a poor soul would wander in the dead of night, usually an ignorant one or worse, a desperate one. There had been many stories of sordid bandits and criminals attempting to flee for their life or evade capture by risking entry into the Jungle. If they managed to emerge, they would usually beg to be captured or end their life.

Some of the curses were putrified skin from the sap of plans that dripped on them, or becoming instantly blinded as they attempted to wash their face by a creek. If they dared eat, in the madness of starvation, their lips would be burned or teeth melted, never mind swallowing. Sometimes they found edible meats or fruits… and there were even prized medicines to be obtained, with the right equipment.

Anything that survived the Jungles of Tar was built from a material far beyond what was normal, it could endure and flourish? It was clearly the strongest of its kind. Arnalt never expected to find one such creature to be a child. This also happened often, parents without the means to raise a child would abandon them in one of the hollowed trees or on a pile of random leaves. The child would be like an offering to the gods at that point, or straight up fertilizer. But on a rare occasion, some children survived and were eventually found.

Perhaps a happy occasion for some, but to survive in the jungle, it was more likely the child was cursed by the Kur. The very source of the jungle’s terrifying symptoms… an ominous land that was buried underneath the jungle. The roots had clung to that land’s evil and to this day the Azurians would occasionally come to deliver cleansing spells and help the jungle heal. One patch per generation, perhaps.

Marius had been near the very edge of the forest. Arnalt and his guardians hadn’t even fully entered, on a mission to locate the rare Vegnas Spyralia. An extremely important herb for Arnalt’s crowning ceremony. He’d been 17 at the time, dressed head to toe in protective gear. Enchanted cloths tied all the way up to his mouth, with thick black robes concealing a lithe body underneath. His hair tied up and wrapped in the magical cloths as well, and his eyes shielded by a thin blue veil.

The boy, if it hadn’t been exposed to others before, would’ve thought him and his whole party a pack of monsters. Maybe assassins from the Fallaix—shadow dwellers. But the boy just started crying and plopped on the ground, squeezing a fruit until its juices stained his arm. He looked dust-covered and windswept. His clothes weren’t ragged, but his knees were scrapped and his knuckles were bruised. He might’ve accidentally wandered on his own and gotten lost, ended up in the borderlands. Hungry and scared, maybe climbed a few trees to locate someone.

The child now looked pitiful.

“Sire… should we…?” One of his guardians pointed at an arrow and his bow.

Arnalt lifted a hand. “It’s alright Pallax, he looks healthy enough, he might even survive.”

“But he’ll be cursed even if he does… who knows what poisons are now in his system.”

“I will not have a child killed by my men, under my watch. We save him. Quite frankly fuck the curse.”

“But… but it’s a Kur now!”

Tyssen also attempted to stop him but Arnalt wouldn’t have it and side-stepped him, immediately finding his way to the boy’s side and lifting his veil, revealing pale icy grey eyes and light lashes. “Child, do you know where you are?”

The boy looked up and his eyes were uncharacteristically bright and honeyed. Arnalt pat the dust from his head away and revealed a disheveled mass of mahogany curls. A good wash and that hair would gleam. He was clearly in great health, just dirty, scrapped up and scared. He sniffed softly and stared at Arnalt with a pout.

“Where are your parents?

The child shook his head.

“They’re deeper in the jungle?”

Another shake. His eyes watered and he gripped Arnalt’s sleeve.

Pallax gave an audible gasp behind them. The energy was restless even among these hardened men.

“Are they alive?”

It was a blunt but necessary question.

The boy shook his head and Arnalt sighed. A thousand different stories popped in his head, this childs robes had accessories, he was possibly from a wealthy merchant family, overtaken on the road by bandits or some such, or perhaps one of the monsters that occasionally emerge from the Craigh. He was obviously all alone now and worse, had ended up a Kur.

“Alright, come with me.” He unceremoniously picked him up and arranged him piggyback style. The child was 5 or 6, not exactly small but not too big and either way he’d slow them down if he walked.

“Highness! We beg you to reconsider!” Pallax was practically foaming at the mouth now.

“It’s not recommendable to take this child. You should leave him where you found him. It’ll be better for the world, and for… him.” Tyssen urged.

“Says who? Some crap folktale? When was the last time anyone was affected by the curse of the Kur, at most from the few accounts I know the children don’t even live past a few days, if he’s going to perish then the least we can do is offer him a warm bed and some food for his remaining days.”

“Sire! What’s in his hand!” All the guardians went for the hilt of their swords or drew their bow and arrow. The young boy had simply opened his palm near Arnalt’s face.

Arnalt glanced. It was a curled, purplish-red vine with tiny bell-like flowers sprouting around it. Arnalt snorted. “Well, well. How can this child be so lucky if it’s as cursed as you say? Look, Vegnas Spyralia.”

The guardians were indeed shocked by this, but still weary.

“This child might’ve just been my trial. Let this be a lesson for all of us, that compassion is still a noble trait of Azurian, and when I’m made formal prince, this shall be one of my virtues. Have it engraved on my sword’s hilt.” Now Arnalt was in great spirits. This indeed felt like a lucky day! They’d barely braved the dangerous jungle and instead rescued a child with the boon in hand. The child’s hand went limp, but the Vegnas Spyralia was still tightly gripped in his fingers. A grip like that meant this child had learned to hold on to something and desperately strive to never let it go.

A mother’s robe perhaps? He heard the soft snoring behind him and thought it amusing.

A Kurian. When he regained consciousness Arnalt made a note to ask what village he was originally from. Maybe after a bowl of hot soup the child would even tell them how he ended up in such a predicament.

Now, as he entered Marius’s humble quarters near the kitchens, he was still a little mystified that the fragile young child had grown much more past the date of his imminent “death”. If anything, he was like the very medicine they extracted from the jungle, the sturdiest of its kind. Even now, at still such a young age, his potential was palpable. His spiritual force even slightly frightening.

Arnalt observed him silently as Marius ran a few solo drills, unaware his Master had entered.

He unconsciously gripped the hilt of his sword, still engraved with the word “Merced”—Mercy—and cleared his throat.

Marius immediately stopped mid-kick in the air and fell gracelessly on the floor. He clambered up to a formal salute position, but it looked rather amusing with his clothes half off.

“My… My… My Lord if I had known you would grace me with—“ he stammered some more unsure of how to finish and quickly kneeled down again. As if awaiting command.

Arnalt felt his lips quirk slightly. He really could be too amusing. “At ease Marius. I just came to check your vitals.”

“You— you don’t have to…” the boy stood up again but looked down shyly. “A medic can surely—“

“They will send you no medics Marius and you know why.”

“It was an accident.” His voice had gotten smaller and smaller.

“Let me see.” Arnalt extended his hand, expecting Marius to hold out his wrist and allow him to examine.

For the most part his spiritual current seemed fine, but there was a light tremor somewhere near his thumb. Arnalt brought out a small knife from his belt and pricked the pad of that thumb. Immediately, a small stream of tar-like black blood spilled, viscously sliding out until it was replaced by the sight of normal fresh blood again.

“T-thank you, I’m sorry.”

“I thought we went through this, you are to never use Aerial magic, or any magic unless you’ve verified your blood is fully cleansed and your spiritual current is purified.”

“It was fine this morning.”

Arnalt sighed. It had been accumulating like this more frequently. He wondered if this was the real curse of being a Kurian, that they would eventually need to be exsanguinate to keep up with the rate of blood pollution. A very poor way to go indeed.

“We’ll need to drain you more often then. Here.” He passed Marius a strip of jerky. “You’ll need meat to keep up with all this bloodletting. You really should reconsider this martial knight business.”

“This is nothing!” Marius declared.

When he looked so determined Arnalt felt like once again patting his head, ruffling that thick head of hair. Arnalt’s face usually looked stoic and cold, a picture as calm as water without a single ripple. Befitting of the Azurian name. But even though his face remained unchanged, he must’ve let something slip in his expression because the young boy in front of him suddenly stared at him with eyes that practically glittered.

Arnalt frowned. “How dare you!”

Again Marius kneeled. “Forgive me my Lord, I momentarily forgot my place.”

Arnalt felt heavy all of a sudden. “They’re going to bring this case to the council. I don’t know if I can help you.”

“My Lord has already done too much for me. I will gladly accept whatever punishment befits me.”

What would it be this time Arnalt wondered… the water dungeon was grueling but at least it was nearby. Lashes were barbaric, but Marius was so sturdy he healed immediately. Either way Arnalt hated those old methods. He was known to never use them himself. The word on the hilt of his sword wasn’t just for display.

“I’ll try to speak for you, it really seems to just be this blood issue, but I make no guarantees.”

“My Lord is merciful.”

Arnalt thought the words sounded rather odd and… fond. He cleared his throat once more.

“Stand. Go eat. I’ll have them send over rice.”

“I should starve in penance.”

“Knowing the council. You just might.”

Just then a young girl entered, wearing a grey simple tunic. She bowed lightly. “My Lord Arnalt, your presence is requested in the council room.”

“Thank you Pagytha. Be sure to have rice sent here while I’m gone.”

“I... I can’t do that My Lord.”

Arnalt froze mid-step. He turned towards her, his eyes bloodless and cold. But this gaze wasn’t really directed towards her, but to the dark thought that overcame him.

“That was a direct order from your Prince. What is the meaning of this?”

“The King has ordered his... the creature’s exile. By royal decree it cannot be undone. Forgive me my Lord, I am only authorized to speak until this point.”

Arnalt’s shock was the first ripple on his face, quickly replaced by anger. ‘Can you at least tell me to where the hell exactly he’s been exiled?’ He instantly felt bad for his tone, gripping the hilt of his sword once more to calm down and when he was sufficiently less altered, he at last spoke up.

“How long?”

“A year, sire.”

“Where?”

“The Winterlands.” 

It was just as he’d feared.