#(think like shop owners getting in trouble/shut down for giving food to homeless people in this beautiful USofA)

[emry-stars-art]

Whumptober day 6: conditioning/mind control/forced to hurt someone else (full under the cut)

Find the royal ay masterpost here

No version of Neil/Nathaniel is easy to break - there’s a lot of persuasion involved in Evermore Kingdom’s quest for their next butcher to do his work without a fight.

(Or POV you’re realizing the young butcher is just as scary as you’ve heard but for vastly different reasons than the rumors imply)

[therookieking412]

She was so, very much in love. She loved every inch of him, his soft eyes, his pale hair, his strong dance. She had been with him for two years and never thought their love would end. They had married straight out of high school and went to a hotel for their honeymoon because they had no money. It didn’t matter where we spend it, she thought, as long as we’re together.

Her friends had warned her, “Careful, if you move too fast, you’ll fall over.”

She didn’t listen. 

She had gone to college and came home from classes to his loving face, he kissed her and they were happy. They struggled in debt, “We’ll be okay.” He promised, “Once you get a job, we’ll have two incomes and we can pay it off.”

He danced their troubles away in the kitchen to the sound of the dishwasher and the low hum of the television. 

Two years out of college they had a child they couldn’t afford and were left swimming, but they were in love and that baby was theirs, a beautiful child with pale hair and blue eyes, everything she thought their child would look like. They went to the park, to half off ice cream shops, to coupon zoo days; any way to give their child a good childhood without making themselves broke. 

They had a cat, a little thing with a cream belly and purple top, he wasn’t much trouble, but they only had him because their baby waned a dog, and the cat was the closest and cheapest thing. He was thin from running away from small children and only eating twice a day. He was apart of the family though, a member so when it came down to it, they didn’t have the heart to give him up and instead sold one of their cars.

They lied to their children, said everything was fine while buying a cheap cone to shut them up. They borrowed movies from their friend, a woman who lived a wealthy life as the daughter of a millionaire, still unmarried and building her own fortune. She was so kind hearted. They ate cheap popcorn and laughed at animated cartoons and for a moment everything was okay.

They had too many fights. It felt like they argued every night, a different battle, each one directed towards an all out war that ended in discontentment or a forced peace because their children needed them. 

He didn’t even dance anymore. She would try to draw him into the steps but he would pull away, “The dishes need to be done.” 

“The children will want to get the movie going.”

“The cat needs to be fed.”

“The phone’s ringing.”

He loved to dance with her. 

When she first read of the scandal she couldn’t believe what she was reading. She thought it was a dream.

HEIRESS SCANDAL REVEALED

THE NEXT OWNER OF HER FATHER'S COMPANY CAUGHT WITH A SMALL TOWN HUSBAND

“What’s that mommy?”

“Nothing!”

She closed the paper and burned it, dipping the edges into the stove’s fire. She knew it was useless, she had ran into a marriage too quickly. She should have given it more time. She should have seen the love fade from his eyes. She should have- 

But she didn’t.    

The divorce was messy. Papers and lawyers and the grey hairs grew from stress and she never thought she’d miss the color of her hair. She kept the house and the children, he got the car and whatever he bought with his own money. She didn’t care about what he wanted she just never wanted to see his face again.

She never got what she wanted.

COMPANY HEIRESS MARRIED

COMPANY HEIRESS AND HUSBAND PREGNANT!

COMPANY HEIRESS AND HUSBAND RENEW VOWS ON FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY

He was everywhere, he lived in the pocket of the richest woman in the country. Their friend, their dear, dear friend, a bitch if she ever knew one. She stole him away from her, from their marriage. 

He hadn’t even waited a year to marry her.

She cut her hair short. It was too much of a hassle and it wasn’t pretty anymore. Just a dead grey. It mocked her when she woke up, a sheer curtain of steel surrounding her face, a prison she put herself in, bars that keep her from ever moving on, from ever loving again. 

“Just dye it, mom.”

She did, it was strange, the color was wrong on her head, it wasn’t the same as it was before all the stress, when she was young and free, still in love and unconcerned about the next tomorrow. 

Oh how he ruined her.

She went to ice cream shops, took trips to the zoo, and walked through the park; she didn’t have to wait for coupons or cheap days anymore. But nothing was beautiful anymore. It was so grey, or the color of her hair, so bright but still somehow off. 

He was amazingly happy and his wife was amazingly beautiful, that was the life they were meant to have. A happy marriage with perfect children with the brains of philosophers. And every weekend when he came to take the children off her hands, his eyes always widened, surprised at the horribleness she became, expecting the pretty young girl he married to be there to greet him. The first time he saw her short hair he seemed confused but didn’t point it out.

He was too polite, a gentleman, a man of his word, a cheater; a whore and he was the one who lived a happy life. 

She had been good, too. She had been supportive, a good wife, a good mother, and what had became of her? She became death on earth. A hollow woman with no meaning. She wasn’t even fifty yet.

How could that be? Wasn’t that what she had been taught? That people reap what they sow? So what did she plant that would lead to this? 

She cursed the earth for its bad harvest and drank.

And drank.

And drank.

And drank.

Soon, she began to go out, she’d order a drink and tell the bartender to “keep it coming” until she got too drunk to see and a kind man offered her a ride home. Somehow, that man was always there at the same time as her. He noticed too, and made sure she didn’t drink too much, telling the bartender to just top the vodka glass off with water, she wouldn’t know. He memorised her address after he took her home more times than either could count. 

It had been a year before she saw him somewhere besides a bar. She gave him an embarrassed smile and a shy wave. 

“Didn’t think you’d go anyway outside a bar.” Were the first words she’d heard come from him that weren’t drunken slurs, or ones she’d forget from being so drunk. 

She replied with a retort and so did he, a playful banter that had to make her think of what to say next instead of just letting words fall off her tongue. She’d felt- 

Revived.

Then he left. He was throwing a party for an old friend and was just getting food for a barbecue. 

Every week she went back at the same time, on the same day, hoping to see him, and she did, she always saw him, always in the same aisle, one week it was a block party, the next was a picnic, and she soon caught on that he was in the same aisle every week to catch her, just as she was there to catch him.

His eyes were bright and full of life and tragedy, but it was obvious he didn’t let his pain control him as she did. 

He invited her to one of the parties and she was happy to attend, a wonderful event filled with friends and family. He introduced her as “The moron that doesn’t know when to stop drinking” that had earned him a slap and a hearty laugh from those listening and she realized she didn’t mind, she felt the giggle bubble out of her throat before she could stop it.

They accepted her in and made her family before she knew it, they had taken her and wrapped her up in their affairs and activities and everytime she saw him there. It almost pained her when she realized she loved him, she tried to stop herself because she couldn’t go through what had happened to her again, but then she looked into his eyes and knew she couldn’t let her tragedy hold her back. 

They wasted no time getting married, “We’re too old to wait around” he joked. Planning didn’t take long for she had done it all before and everything was perfect the day of, a small wedding with every last one of their friends there, and there were no sides to pick because everyone they knew knew the both of them. 

Their honeymoon was a trip across Europe, a stay at a beautiful hotel with a pool and a spa, destinations that were beyond her imagination, and her love at her side. 

They bought a dog, “We’re too old to have kids” he said and bought her favorite breed the next day. 

One morning, she read the paper, a headline mention the heiress of the most productive company and her husband throw a charity event for the homeless. She read it. Their old friend was doing some amazing work to help the people, and her husband was doing just as much. She didn’t cry and she didn’t care, she read the article as if these people were two of the richest people she didn’t know, celebrities she could never fathom meeting. 

She smiled, maybe her tragedy wasn’t as awful as she thought. Her husband kissed her on the head, yes, if it lead to this, it was all worth it.