#(this was technically a medieval faire but still)

[revanchistsuperstar]

Things that have happened recently:

1. Got my hair cut into a 15th century bowl cut

2. Made myself a jaunty little 15th century outfit

3. Went to a faire that’s set 300 years earlier during the reign of Richard I called Sherwood Forest and had a lovely time.

[anika-ann]

Faithless - S.R.

Type: one-shot, dark medieval-ish/fantasy setting, this-could-be-a-prologue-instead-I-guess-but it-is-not

Pairining: Steve Rogers x reader      Word count: 13,9k

Summary: As one of the priestesses to a temple harbouring the rebels undermining the brute rule of self-proclaimed King Arwin, you are confronted first-hand with just how blood-thirsty his men can be. All you can do is to serve and hope to be rewarded a favour of your choosing.

All you can hope for is to be able to protect what you hold dear: your Steven, one of the rebels, who might not even know he matters to you enough for you to try and bargain for his life.

Warnings: 18+ for referenced dub-con/non-con/rape (not too graphic, off-screen, not Steve, Steve is a sweetheart), references to voyeurism; blood, violence and death; self-loathing and medival-ish views of virginity; spoils of war (technically), vulgar and briefly obscene language, strong religious elements (paganism, vaguely Christianism), feels and angst (with a happy ending)

A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics; more than ever in my fics, MIND the warnings

Hope is the winged child of a broken soul and a faithful heart. Let it fly up to the sun. – anonymous

You were shivering.

There was no breeze in the tent; there were all the walls closed as to keep the warmth in; there was the fabric of your tunic, protecting your legs from the cold grassy ground, as you kneeled; there were your sleeves, reaching mid-forearm. And yet, goosebumps had risen on your skin.

And you were shivering.

You were shivering under his gaze, unable to look up to meet his eye, well-aware you shouldn’t anyway should you like to keep your life.

You were looking at the ground then; and yet, you saw it.

Saw him.

He was observing you with a smile worthy of the demons of the underworld; a servant of the king of the lawless, faithless land.

A year ago, Anwir the so-called True, had led his army of mercenaries and taken the land, murdering all the loyalists he could find and declaring himself the King. His men, armed to their teeth with swords and gold, had ravaged the kingdom, stealing gems, land, homes and lives, just like they always had back when still called outlaws rather than fake nobility.

Men more savage than animals; less merciful too.

Your temple, having been harbouring a few rebels, had been taken two days ago.

Under the watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses you served, you had witnessed two days of agony, hunger and death. Bloodbath. Harsh laughter in the face of life leaving the eyes of many, driving the sword deeper, more blood oozing out and soaking the holy ground, returning back to earth where all life was born.

Good women of fairness and faith.

Good men of bravery and justice.

All gone to keep the survivors docile; all gone on cruel men’s whims.

You were not sure whether to consider yourself lucky to be among the survivors, forced to bear witness to the bottom of humanity crawling out and play. You knew the names of all the fallen; you almost wished you didn’t. You prayed for them to find peace anyway. If you prayed for a piece of their souls to return and haunt their murderers too, no one needed to know.

You were not sure whether to feel lucky to have survived and bear witness; but you did thank the gods for being able to see Steven alive at least.

A good man, your Steven; not strong of body but so kind and fierce of soul, a brilliant mind helping the rebels not by swinging a heavy sword, but by building strategy. Not that his predicament had ever stopped him from picking fights he could not win, even as sometimes he had, his spirit more powerful than his own or his opponent’s muscles.

You’d know of all his fights.

He had been around; you had treated his wounds. Cuts and bruises, swollen knuckles on hands barely bigger than yours, delicacy roughened by hard work; always prepared to help, day or night, even if he risked nearly coughing out his lungs when straining himself too much.

He was still alive; and perhaps you could only thank your prayers for that. Your diligent prayers, your service to the goddess, service of a pure woman even as the longer you spent in Steven’s company, the more impure your thoughts were turning, the longings of your heart aligned with those of your body.

But Steven was kind, sweet, brave and determined to fight for good of others; were those not values of a man worthy of love?

Were those not values of a man worthy of protection?

“What is it ya’ want, little priestess?” Cassius’s rough voice reached your ears, bringing you back to the present; the cold, lonely present in the company of four rugged men, three of them idle in the chairs lined with fur and a goblet of wine in hand as if watching a fool’s performance during a feast. “Ya’ held your end of a bargain… and I’m a man of my word.”

Another shiver ran along your spine.

Cassius was not a man you knew well; he was not one of the rebels, but of the outsiders. He was one of the enemies; anyone who spilled blood of innocent people, your people, no less, was. You did not know him – but you had already seen his soul. He was not a man worthy of love nor protection; in fact, he was not worthy of your trust even.

He was most certainly not a man of his word.

And you would have not believed him to be a smidge of sincere had it not been for your prayers. You wouldn’t have believed him had you not been touched by the divine.

Two days ago, in the modesty of your room, praying at the sacredly designated time commanded, terrible cries had reached you, rattling your temple and your soul.

Your prayers had turned frantic and urgent upon the ruckus – and that was when a whisper had soothed you; a holy image materialising in front of your humble human eyes. With a face of an angel of the new teachings and the raw beauty of goddesses of your religion, she spoke to you gently as your lips continued moving soundlessly, pleading for lives and short suffering of those who were to meet their death. She stilled you with a touch to your forehead, strict eyes with wilderness of the powerful ones and a benevolent smile.

You shall be approached with a bargain, little one. And you shall accept it. Accept all the bargain offered, all his conditions; and then ask one in return. Ask him to swear on his life, to swear on my name.

Be faithful, little one, to me only, and I shall fulfil your deepest desire, protect what you hold the dearest. Accept all bargain offered and your service shall be rewarded at last.

Her lips barely moved but her voice was the clearest, purest thing you had ever heard.

And so you had listened. Of course you had.

You had lent your helping hand and healing skill to Arwin’s men; to Cassius’s men. You had betrayed your faith in rebels by doing so – but not the faith in the gods you served, not in the goddess.

Be faithful, little one, to me only.

And so you had been.

And true to the goddess’s word, you had been promised a favour – a reward for your service. A favour of your choosing.

There had never truly been a choice to make. Your decision was as clear as the days before the mercenaries arrived and stained daylight with the crimson of good men’s blood.

Your voice was shaking as much as your body was; but the conviction behind your plea was as firm as the ground under your knees.

“Spare a life, good sir. Please.”

You dared to look up briefly upon the silence following your words, met with a raised eyebrow and a wolfish smirk in the corner of the man’s lips. You dropped your gaze in an instant, eyes slipping shut at the rustle of fabric as Cassius took a step closer with a chuckle.

“Oh, little priestess, ya’ should know by now that I’m no good, but all the more of a sir… but don’t ya’ fuss, pretty flower. I won’t kill ya’. I like ya’,” he hummed, the feigned warmth in his voice causing your skin to crawl.

You took a deep breath, your own words tasting foreign, praising and submitting to a man unworthy of respect, let alone of having a human being kneel by his feet.

“Thank you, good sir—sir. I… am not pleading for my life.”

“Oh? And whose life, flower?”

You gulped, his curiosity having a morbid edge like that of little boys tearing away a fly’s wings to see if it’d survive. Your voice wasn’t louder than a whisper.

“The rebel’s—at least one. Sir. Please.”

The sudden boisterous laughter made you wince, sharp like knives and coppery like the blood they had spilled for their own amusement. You did not dare to look up, but you could feel Cassius exchange amused glances with his henchmen, laughing as well, before he turned back to you, still kneeling humbly despite your heart quaking in fear, humiliation and anger.

“Oh my sweet little priestess… I offered ya’ a favour, not a fuckin’ treasure,” he spat, another burst of laughter shaking the tent. “I meant a good warm meal, a bit of wine to light up your stuck-up pretty ass. A soft, warm bed, maybe with a man to keep ya’ even warmer… a life? You’ve barely done nothing at all.”

You gritted your teeth, blood boiling in your veins as you resisted curling your hands into fists at his mocking and blatant lies.

You had done plenty. You had saved at least two lives of his wicked men and improved another three. You had saved them despite the fact it went against your loyalties and any common sense, treating them with careful healing touch and kindness they did not deserve.

The images flashing through your mind at his sneering were unholy and downright blasphemous; spitting into his face, nails digging into his skin, fingers pushing against his eyeballs to make him feel a fraction of you felt – and yet.

All you could do was to swallow your outrage.

Be faithful, little one, to me only, and I shall fulfil your deepest desire, protect what you hold the dearest, the goddess had said.

And so you kept your voice humble, eager even, the tremble in it perhaps easily mistakable for shyness or fear.

“I can do more, sir, I— I can keep healing your men-“

“Oh ya’ will, flower. Favours or not, ya’ will keep serving us if ya’ wanna live,” Cassius said, a barely hidden threat. “But… I gotta say – ya’ got my attention. I’m curious now. Who’d ya’ have in mind?”

Your heart, already having been racing, thundered in your ribcage.

… and I shall fulfil your deepest desire, protect what you hold the dearest.

You had one single person in mind, selfishly so; yet you waited for a beat, casting your glance aside, now truly shy.

You opened your mouth, no sound coming out, worried of their reaction; but you had to be brave.

Steven was brave. He was the bravest man you had ever met and being worthy of him, saving him, meant you had to borrow some of his strength in the face of evil.

Quite literally.

The rustle of fabric clued you and yet, you startled when rough fingers slipped under your chin and pushed, forcing you to meet Cassius’s piercing eyes, his face mere inches from yours, stale breath stinking of beer and wine and sweat washing over you. 

“Who, pretty flower? Whose life ya’ came to bargain for?”

He inhaled deeply at your silence, licking his lips as his gaze flickered down to your mouth as if he wanted could pull at your lower lip and suck the name straight from your tongue. The imagery made your stomach churn, his predatory eyes a promise he would do exactly that unless your spoke.

“Steven, sir. He-“

Cassius dropped your face with the loudest bark of laugher yet, almost hysterical, head thrown back.

“That bag of skin an’ rattlin’ bones? Bit a waste, ain’t it, flower? I let him live, the next winter takes him!” he chuckled darkly, nausea tickling your stomach at the very suggestion, tears prickling your eyes, casted down – in humiliation and genuine worry.

Steve had had issues during some of the harsh winters in particular. He’d come to your temple or you’d come find him to help. Bucky, his closest friend, was usually already there, trying to tend to him, always saving a warm smile for you despite the worry written in his features mirroring yours.

“Why him, mm? What’s a pretty thing like ya’ care ‘bout ‘dat bastard?”

You stared at the ground with intent, lips pressed tight. The answer was obvious, to everyone – it must have been. You had been stupid to come here, setting yourself up for their judgement; but you had had faith. The goddess herself had advised you, a touch of divine feeding your trust into this evil in the form of a man having the ability to do you a favour.

You had to persist. You had to; one did not serve the gods for rewards, but for their favour to be given to others. Like your Steven.

Dirty rough fingers pulled at your chin again, harsher than before, eyes of a demon staring into your soul and reading the answer it was looking for with a dark glee.

“Well fuck me. Ya’ sweet on him, pretty flower? Damn, they really teach ya’ to be merciful, huh?”

Something burned inside you, flames licking your insides; for Steven, for the mocking, for the disrespect for life and for your calling – and yet. The voice of the goddess gave you strength to withstand the rage that threatened to tear you from within.

You held Cassius’s gaze even as your own swam in angry tears. “Please, sir. Please, spare him-”

He scoffed and snapped your head to side, walking away, exchanging a wordless conversation with his right-hand man.

You dropped you gaze again when they looked at you, folding your hands in front of your lap, a gesture of submission; if it wasn’t submission for him but for the goddess, he did not need to know.

Your faith would carry you through; it had to.

You sent a soundless, wordless prayer, your eyes slipping shut.

Accept all the bargain offered, all his conditions; and then ask one in return. Ask him to swear on his life, to swear on my name.

Be faithful, little one, to me only, and I shall fulfil your deepest desire, protect what you hold the dearest. Accept all bargain offered and your service shall be rewarded at last.

Patience. Patience was a virtue.

This godawful man awoke sinful thoughts rather than virtues ones, but one must preserve. One must-

His dark chuckle had your eyes snapping open, your heart trembling.

“That’s a lot to ask, flower. What’d ya’ offer in return?”

Breath hitching, your hopes rising, you supressed a smile, sending a silent thank you to forces beyond human, mind whirling with ideas even as you had already offered plenty.

“I-“

“No, no, you’re in no position to bargain. I’m gonna choose for ya’…” he interrupted you, the glee in his voice revealing he had never had the intention to give you the luxury of choice. You held your breath. “I think I choose you.”

Your heart skipped a startled beat, the most filthy implication in his voice twisting your insides with disgust and icy terror all at once.

You prayed to be wrong. You were wrong. Surely, your thoughts had no doubt been infected by the poison these men spread all around them, twisting the path your mind went in attempt to understand the chaos they caused, the blood they spilled. Surely, he did not mean-

“S-sir?”

“I want you,” Cassius repeated, approaching you once more, the smile in his voice careless and whimsical just like the one he wore when he had driven his sword through your sister in servitude when she had refused to help his men. “You’re a pretty little thing, all pure and all… faithful. Bet ya’ never had a guy have his way with ya’, did ya’?”

Blood crystalised in your veins, your chest filling with lead, every beat of your heart painful. Words stuck to the roof of your mouth along with your tongue, lips turning numb as you tried to protest.

“S-sir-“

“Answer me, pretty flower,” he ordered, his touch terrifyingly gentle as he ran his hand over your scalp, before he gripped and tugged painfully, forcing you to meet his animalistic lust in eyes. “Did ya ever have a man claim ya? Split ya’ open on his fat cock?”

You couldn’t swallow the small cry of pain as he tugged again, could not supress the tremble in your jaw as you stared into the perverse, hungry void of his wide-blown pupils.

“Tell. Me.”

“N-no.”

He smiled, dark satisfaction on his face as he pressed the thumb of his free hand to your cheek, following the wet trail of the tear that had escaped.

Your skin crawled, every single nerve in your body screaming to try and pull away, to rush to the nearest body of water to cleanse yourself of the mere touch of the filthy animal that called itself a human being. But he held you firmly; and he had a pack of monsters just like him at hand.

Even if you had tried to fight, you’d have lost hopelessly.

“Good. Looks like I can already make ya’ cry real pretty, flower… and I will,” he promised, the little air you allowed yourself to inhale burning like acid in your lungs. “That’s my bargain then, little priestess. His life for your cunt. Take it or leave it.”

You churned at the coarse language alone, let alone at the idea of allowing him to touch you any further, let alone-

The NO was never so desperately loud in your skull, in your skin, in your blood.

And yet. Yet. 

Accept all bargain offered.

Be faithful, little one, to me only, and I shall fulfil your deepest desire, protect what you hold the dearest.

Was that truly the price to be paid? Was that truly what a goddess, a celestial being, would ask of you? To give your purity to this… sad bloodthirsty caricature of man? Could she?

But what of Steven? What of faith? What of your innocence, sacredly kept for the gods, which you might have, might have in your sinful thoughts, been considering giving to sweet Steven, a good, beautiful man, a fighter, a protector at heart. Your Steven, who watched with soft eyes and tender smile as you carefully treated his wounds, who’d brush over your knuckles in thank you, his split lip hovering over the back of your hand-

“But ya’ should know, pretty flower,” Cassius hummed, his fingers releasing your hair, brushing over your throat, moving the hem of your tunic lower to press against your collarbone, down to your sternum, his touch like a disgusting brand you weren’t sure you could ever erase, “now that you’ve told me… if ya’ say no… he’ll be dead by mornin’.”

“No!”

You were moving before you knew how, leaping to your feet, rage bubbling over, fresh tears springing.

NO!

They would never hurt Steven, you wouldn’t let them in hundred ye-

Sharp pain exploded in your arm and shoulder, your knees hitting the ground again, your free hand barely steadying you as your fingers dug into the ground, another cry torn from your lips; your other arm was twisted behind your back and pulled up to cause the most pain possible, tugged at to have fresh tears stream down your cheeks.

The scene was rewarded by chuckles from the audience as Cassius snarled into your ear, like a wild animal snarling at its prey to scare it into submission. 

His mouth was on your ear, a flicker of tongue tasting the salt and sweat on your cheek, causing you to shudder in his violent grip, your prayers urgent and empty for you knew not what you were praying for anymore.

“Careful, little priestess. I can be a good sir, or a real bad one. Be a good little flower and maybe I’ll spare that pathetic child of man… be a bitch and I’ll treat ya’ like one. Will fuck ya’ like a bitch in heat right on his dead body.”

You shook your head, biting your tongue so hard you tasted blood, frantic heartbeat in your chest, in your temples, in the centre of your pain. Your chest heaved with sobs at his mocking ‘no? Well then-‘ and you shook your head harder, a plea for him to stop, to wait spilling from your lips as your mind cursed.

Cursed at the goddess who had chased you into the claws of a merciless animal.

Be faithful, little one, to me only, her whisper echoed in your head, kind and almost mocking now, and I shall fulfil your deepest desire, protect what you hold the dearest. Accept all bargain offered, all his conditions; and ask one in return.

Ask him to swear on his life, to swear on my name.

I shall protect what you hold the dearest.

You turned your teary gaze to the heavens, your sight obscured by the roof of the tent, the pain from your arm shooting up your neck.

Usurper. Animal. Monster.

What other bargain should you have expected? They seized and wrecked and spilled blood in gallons. Had they been any less wicked, they might have offered you to fall on their sword in exchange of not forcing the same on Steven.

Gods, Steven.

Should you accept, Steven might live.

Should you refuse, he was dead for certain; his body probably displayed for the crows to feed on, an example of what happened to those who denied the will of Cassius’s men.

Where were gods and goddesses while you little humans faced that?

Ask him to swear on his life, to swear on my name.

I shall protect what you hold the dearest.

Lips trembling, shivering all over, you squeezed your eyes shut; and begged, barely audible.

What else was left for you?

“Will you swear?”

You cried out as he tugged at your arm again, puling you closer to him.

“What’s that, little priestess?”

“Will you swear, on your life, on the goddess Velessa, that you will not hurt him if--- if I give myself to you?” you rasped, swallowing the nausea at what you were even suggesting.

He eased the grip on you a bit, allowing you to take a deep breath even as waves of agony pulsed through your arm.

Gaze swimming in tears, you caught a glimpse of Cassius’s right-hand man looking at his leader with a smirk.

“I dunno, pretty flower. Ya’ in no position to bargain… though ya’ will be in real nice positions later.”

The four men, still simply watching as if it was performance for the gods themselves, sipping their godsdamn wine, laughed crudely.

Your body could no longer shiver.

You swallowed loudly; your pride, your dignity, your cries of outrage.

“Please. Please, I will be good.” Rage burned through your very soul as much as your humiliation. But you knew your position. You knew there was no escape; a single, sad attempt on a bargain, the most important one; for if you were to be damned, you might as well make sure you got what you had come for. “I can be truly good, sir.”

“Hm… and ya’ want me to swear, d’ya’?”

“Yes, good sir. Please.”

He dropped your arm with a sniffle on your part, the waves of pain and relief crashing down on your very being, your free arm cradling your injured one to your body with tender touch.

Cassius clicked his tongue.

“Alright, I will. I will. I am a man of faith and of my word, after all.”

You could scoff and wish for the man who shall lie to choke on his own tongue; you did not believe him to be either of those.

But you let your cursed faith guide you. You had been touched by the divine, a gentle press of fingers to your forehead shining like a light within you. May it protect you in the darkest dark times – you had to believe in that.

What else was left there to do?

“But I have a condition too.”

The wickedness in his voice; the wicked excitement in his gaze, shining like gold that tempted men to sin.

Accept all bargain offered, all his conditions; and ask one in return.

What else what there?

“What is your condition, sir?” you whispered, resigned.

He smiled; and you shivered again.

You had never seen a smile so purely evil in your life; and in the past two days, you had already seen all too much.

He leaned all the way to your face, wet lips touching the sensitive skin under your ear, a flicker of tongue to taste your skin again.

“He’ll watch.”

Air left your lungs at once, absolute terror seizing your already weightless body barely keeping steady.

“W-what-“

“He’ll watch your pretty teary eyes glaze over when I ruin ya’, when I spread that tight-”

“No-“

Cassius pulled back, shrugging without care in the world; but his eyes glimmered with dark satisfaction.

“No, then. The offer’s off the table. Sharpen my sword, boys-“

“NO!” you cried out, shaking all over, all strength having left you as you thought you might jump to your feet – but gave up before even trying.

You knew what would follow; you had seen it already. The result was the agony still pulsing through your arm all the way to your fingertips.

The despair, disgust and pain had drained you; your body, your heart, your soul. Your faith.

Accept all bargain offered, all his conditions.

Goddesses were all-knowing, all-seeing. Had she seen this? Could she have truly asked this much of you?Was this a trial of your faith? One that would save Steven but took away your everything, your chance to serve to your faith and him all the same?

“Make up your mind, pretty flower. We’re wasting time here. I’ll count. Five, four, three, two-“

“Yes.”

You breathed the word before you could think twice; what else was there to say?

One word. Three letters. Hollow. Just like you bodily vessel. Worthless; but all you could offer.

“Oh?”

“Yes. If you’ll swear on your life, on the goddess of Velessa, that you will not hurt Steven, then yes. I accept.”

He cocked his head to side, breathing in deeply, licking his lips as his gaze trailed over your body; you did not shiver.

Not anymore.

His dark smile did not faze you anymore.

You were not sure anything could.

“Smart little thing,” he praised, eyes locked on your rising and falling chest. “Go wash yourself, pretty flower. Wear something nice and white… I want him to see. Meet ya’ in half an hour, right here.”

You nodded, a puppet on a string of a higher power. A pawn.

You rose to your shaky feet, the pain in your arm dull, and walked away, knowing that the next time you’d enter, the true horror was to start.

There was ache.

There was numbness.

They came like waves crashing into each other at shore as you lied curled on the ground, bloody and boneless. Ruined. Soul trembling in the maze of your mind, blank like a canvas of horror stained entirely in red.

There were windows in your temple, a masterpiece fabled to be a work of a glassmaker so talented he must have been gifted by the gods, having been whispered the formula beyond human understanding, his hands led by too mighty of a power to comprehend a mere mortal. The stained windows casted such intense red light over certain parts of your temple that the sculptures erected in honour of the deities and the floor seemed to be dripping with it. The day you had seen the temple’s floor dripping with blood instead, you had foolishly thought there was no red darker than that.

You had been wrong.

Crimson was all you could see, the darkest shade of red.

A shade perhaps otherwise only known to gods, should you ever think such blasphemy.

But had you not earned at least a fraction of the right to curse the deity you could no longer serve? Had you not earned a moment of being arrogant enough to think you had been offered a twisted divine sight?

You had decided to give and to serve; you had been ripped apart instead.

Stolen innocence. Stolen dignity. Stolen purpose.

A stolen life.

The world was stained in the darkest red not even your tears could dilute and with the irony of fate, you were grateful for that – for the bloodlike darkness and tears made your vision blurry, shaky and nearly blind.

It was better than to see a single part of your wrecked body. It was better than to see Steven, unable to meet your eye.

You wished Cassius had not spoken a word. You wished he had not revealed your bargain with such wicked glee in his voice, wished you couldn’t hear Steven’s breathless no.

But Cassius had told him. And he had taken as much pleasure in it as he had taken in—

You wished Cassius would have choked on his own tongue before he could have spoken; because then Steven might simply loath you, think you evil or disgusting and judge Cassius all the same.

Instead, the last he had been able to look you in the eye, teary and full of murderous rage as two men built like mountains held him on his knees while the third one pressed a blade right to his throat, all you had seen was regret and loathing aimed at himself.

He wished you hadn’t done this to spare his life.

But you had.

You had and he bore witness along with Cassius’s henchmen and his right-hand man merely sitting there and watching like it was the most amusing performance of his miserable fucking life; four monsters and one man witnessing your humiliation, blood and mud now seeping into the white fabric of your tunic.

Stolen innocence. Stolen dignity. Stolen purpose.

A stolen life.

And for what?

You were trembling as Cassius walked to your no-longer-secret love, not having bothered to tuck himself back into his pants; the manic indulgent smile on his lips was painfully clear in your vision as he licked his fingers still coated in your slick and blood, causing Steven look away. He too, seemed to be shaking; or perhaps that was merely your world quaking in its very basis was shattering along with you.

You let your eyes slip shut, tears cold on your feverish face.

“Sweet like fuckin’ honey, your little priestess. Bet ya’ wish ya’ were me… did ya’?” Cassius stated rather than asked, a shuffle of fabric and a hiss followed by his voice dropping lower. “Answer, you little bastard. Did. Ya?”

“No.”

“Really?” the monster in human skin cackled, voice dripping with the very crimson you saw all around you. “‘Cause lemme tell ya’, you’d talk real fuckin’ different if ya’ felt that snug little-“

“I’d never do any— no. I didn’t. I’d never hurt her,” Steve snapped, words shaky – but not with weakness, you realised, your lower lip trembling at the fierce honesty in his voice. It was anger; it was anger so fiery Cassius might burn in the eternal fires for all the wrongs he had done in life and would consider it mercy in comparison to the scalding heat and devastating sincerity of Steve’s rage.

You found a little light flickering through the bottomless void of crimson of your world; there was no mistaking whom Steven hated at the moment, hated from the very bottom of his otherwise gentle soul. Not you.

Gods, not you. Never you.

“Fuck, you’re even more pathetic than I thought… ‘never hurt her’,” Cassius echoed mockingly, scoffing. “Bullshit. And too bad… ‘cause I have. I will again. And again… and again. Should get cozy where ya’ are, ‘s gonna be a long day ‘n night.”

With a sharp intake of breath, your dull heart jumping with a jolt of terror, you snapped your eyes open. You met Cassius’s glance from where he stood directly against still kneeling Steven, his exposed manhood inches from Steven’s face, distorted with a mix of emotion so vile your shame easily swallowed the rising tide of horror at Cassius’s promise.

“I mean, she’ll be less sweet, less tight too… but a flower so pretty... She needs seed to fuckin’ glow-“

Steven tried to spring to his feet the very same moment you recoiled on instinct, your boneless limbs protesting and failing.

Much like you, Steven moved but two inches up before he was slammed back to his knees with twice the vigour, arms locked behind his back, a snarl so animalistic you’d never imagine it leaving his lips twisting his mouth.

Cassius clicked his tongue; a sound as ominous as a cracking formation of rocks about to bury alive the unsuspecting innocent soul walking by.

Your sucked in a startled breath as Cassius cocked his head aside, one corner of his mouth, still stained with your blood, rising up in violent delight as he leaned forward, face inches from Steven’s.

“Fierce baby lion, aren’t ya, boy? Too bad… wild animals gotta be put down.”

Your silent apathy broke the moment his right-hand man rose almost lazily to his feet, reaching for the sword laid on the table, pulling it from its sheath and taking three long strides that shook the ground under your knees to pass it over to his master.

Your heart leaped to your throat, the choked single syllable uncomprehensible as you tried and failed to scramble to your wobbly feet, ending up on all fours, tangled in your own tunic, shocked by how painful it felt to move when all that mattered was now at stake despite everything you had just endured.

No.

No, no, no, not on your watch, not under the eyes of all the cursed gods and goddesses who had PROMISED, who had-

“You promised!” you rasped as you pushed to your feet again, succeeding to crawl at best – so, so far, the distance miles long as Cassius straightened and tested the weight of the sword in his hand as if it was the first time he ever carried it.

And had you not seen with your own eyes that he had ripped away a human life before, you might have believed that was the case; the greatest cowards always had others do their dirty work, sitting in the luxurious seat in the front row to oversee the destruction they had commanded.

“Oh pretty flower, the promises I’ve made and broken,” he hummed with a gleeful smile as he glanced at you before curling his wrist, the sword making a terrifying circle as he took a step back.

A blinding rage flushed your veins with enough strength to keep you upright at last, to have your voice be heard all the way to the gods themselves perhaps, a scream to all the mighty deities who must intervene, for you, you alone, you were too slow, too weak, too-

“You swore on your life! You swore on-”

“And death can come fuckin’ take me if she wants,” Cassius spat, “I’d like to see her try.”

“NO-!”

In a world where those who’d died merely turned to eternal sleep, your scream would have been piercing enough to wake them, a battle cry begging them to come to your aid.

It this world, under the eye of cruel gods and wicked goddesses, it was only enough to burn raw through your throat and nearly tear your eardrums.

And yet it didn’t hurt.

That didn’t hurt.

Because your scream was not a battle cry; it was a wail forceful enough to bring you back to your knees as the sword was driven straight through Steven’s ribcage, instantly staining his shirt with blood, the sticky gurgly sound something you’d never forget no matter whether you’d continue to walk the Earth for an hour or a decade.

The broken wet gasp leaving Steven’s lips as Cassius pulled out the blade out with vigour and his henchmen released Steven at last was cut off when he did not have a moment to support himself on his hands and the blade pierced him a second time.

The sob tore your chest apart but it did not matter; your heart was already in shreds, beating all over your body, every beat an agony unknown.

Steve’s eyes were on you as he fell limp to his side, all tension leaving him; and the look in his beautiful blue eyes with the sweetest drop of green had your violently trembling hand cover your mouth.

There was no accusation. No blame. No loathing nor disgust.

Only forgiveness.

An undeniable prove of the kindness he carried in his heart, even as it stopped beating, a prove forever etched into his features as his gaze misted over; a soft statue in its eternal beauty, the most sacred deity of all, a depiction of a virtue the filthy demons standing above it were not even worthy to look at.

But neither were you.

This was all your fault.

You had been foolish. So incredibly naïve in your blind faith; faith in a goddess who might have as well had been the messenger of the demons themselves, leading you astray, tempting you with personal gain and punishing you for giving in, ripping away what you held the dearest.

What good was your faith now?

You squeezed your eyes shut but it didn’t erase the image burned into your mind for eternity, the sheer terror to haunt you for the rest of your days.

The sobs torn from your ribcage hurt. Your muscles were spasming and you couldn’t stop it, you couldn’t breathe, because it burned and burned and burned and you should be praying.

Praying for Steve’s sweet soul.

But all you could do was to curse, with every fibre of your useless worthless being, to curse the deities and demons and humans alike, nails digging into your scalp so hard you thought you might be drawing blood.

Blood, blood, blood, everywhere, at Steve’s lips-

“The fuck?”

Your eyes snapped open on instinct, a little spark of life in your bones at the naked surprise in Cassius’s voice.

Your ragged breath stuck in your ribcage, a choked sob hitching in your throat. Your lips parted, head spinning as the ground beneath your knees seemed to evaporate, reeling mind coming to a halt.

Oh gods.

She was here; in all her celestial beauty, wildness and pulsing power which only a fool and faithless bastard could mistake for a an Earthly woman.

She stood there almost motionless above your Steven – above your Steven’s body – looking straight into Cassius’s face, an unnatural jerks to her movements as she cocked her head to side at his surprised smile.

“And where did ya’ come from, pretty thing? Who are ya’?”

Her smile sent a violent shiver through every fibre of your being, the righteous rage erased all at once, replaced by fear of power much greater than you; fear of the Gods you had cursed over and over, the worst blasphemy of all, thoughts of a worthless little human, nothing more than an ant under their boot.

How the monster standing toe to toe with her could not see what she was was beyond you.

Even with your gaze drowning in tears, even with the humility commanding you to lower your gaze, you could not tear your gaze away from the scene – a perhaps perverse need to watch whatever was to unfold. The unmatched hunger in his eye, the wicked glee at more flesh appearing to be claimed by him, another pure thing to rip apart; the ice-cold deceiving calm, a touch of a benevolent smile on her lips.

“Why, little man,” she spoke softly, Cassius’s protest silenced by another jerky but tender touch to his cheek as she straightened again, the colour of her irises beyond what you could describe, hypnotizing him and all his men alike as they did not dare to move. “I came to collect my bargain.”

Barely a second for a breath of hope for you – and then a sickening wet crunch.

Horror struck you like a lightning, hand flying to your mouth as the shriek rippled from your lungs.

Cassius was no longer smiling; in fact, he was no longer moving beyond a pathetic twitch of his limbs, eyes wide open and unseeing, his mouth tragicomically hanging open.

The entirety of the goddess’s forearm was stuck in his chest as she had punched her way through as if it was feeble cloth and not flesh and bone, her small feminine hand sticking out of his back soaked in blood and clenched in a fist as it gripped on a suddenly still heart.

“Oh gods-“

One effortless move of hers and Cassius had been turned into a heartless soulless caricature of man he had always been on the inside.

You whispered a breathless prayer as you lowered your head in submission at last, your peripheral vision stubbornly focused on the gory scene. The men who had witnessed your humiliation stood frozen in mute horror as they, too, bore witness to blood dripping down their leader’s torso, soaking the unholy ground.

All the while the goddess continued to simply stand there with terrifying calmness, her almost sweet smile slowly twisting into a snarl as she leaned closer to Cassius.

“You, you inane little rat, swore on your life. On my name. And you broke your promise,” she hissed, eyes sparkling with violent delight outmatching that of Cassius’s by eons, “and the moment you did, your own dark priestess’s protection cracked like your funny little ribs and veins just now. You’re mine.”

She jerked her hand back with another sickening crunch, the lifeless body falling to the ground already soaked with Steven’s blood; the heart – gods have mercy – swiftly followed suit.

Your stomach churned, bile rising to your throat, an unvoluntary wince to your neck as you were sure you could not unhear the wet smacking sound in all your lifetime; no doubt very short lifetime you’d be given before the all-knowing all-seeing goddess moved to punish you for all your shortcomings. For having lost faith, for blasphemy, for all the curses you had sworn on her name and those of her fellow deities.

But she had promised to protect him! a small grief-struck voice in the back of your head protested desperately, a prayer leaving your lips at last, for Steven at least to find peace in afterlife. If you did not grant the same courtesy to the demon who had taken your beloved’s life, well – it was but a little sin to add to a long list, wasn’t it? What more did you have to fear?

What was fear anymore? What did it matter?

Ruined for your temple, ruined for your love; the man for whom you’d given it all up lying lifeless on the nature’s floor. Death like Cassius’s might be a mercy for you.

Mercy.

Gods have mercy on Steven’s soul.

Gods have mercy on a priestess who had once believed too much and let herself be led astray.

Gods have mercy, please, oh please, have mercy-

The space of the tent turned so impossibly still it distracted your prayers.

The monsters among men forged by war stood frozen at the imagery as bloody as those their own hands had once committed; stood unmoving but straight and tall like soldiers. Until, as if in response to your thoughts, they dropped to the ground with a deafening snap of the bones holding them upright, their bodies suddenly as twisted as their minds and souls.

Fresh wave of horror and humility swept over you, your eyes squeezing shut. You pushed your head lower in a bow as you heard a shuffle of fabric out of this world approaching you, your hands trembling as they hung connected in your lap, shielding your stained tunic.

You did not dare to speak.

You were not sure you’d be able to find your voice even if you knew what to say.

“Look at me, little one.”

The unearthly bright fabric of her skirts with deep crimson ornaments stilled in front of you as she stood and slid her hand under your chin before you could as much as wonder if the command was yet another trial, an impossible one, as one must listen to the orders of gods and goddesses – but must also display humility and submission. She tipped your head back, her unnatural gaze boring into yours, her smile vile and kind at once, the touch of her other hand tender.

A shiver rocked your whole body, tears streaming down your face as she cradled your cheek with her blood-soaked hand. Drawing four lines down your skin all the way to your throat, barely avoiding your trembling lips, she cocked her head to side; the visceral fear at the memory of how she had done almost the very same to Cassius before driving her hand through his chest was a funny feeling as it reeked of relief and mercy indeed.

“I am merciful, little one. But I am a goddess. I can give and I can take. Your dedication might be to healing, but we were once warriors walking the Earth. And your war has only just started…” she softened her voice into a whisper, with benevolence the powerful ones, in your experience, tended to lack.

She leaned closer, almost crouching to your level, your gaze trapped in hers until her eyes slipped shut and her forehead touch yours lightly, an air of the divine you breathed in growing suffocating in your chest, your own eyes fluttering shut, heavy with tears and all the pain witnessed and withstood in the past days. And yet, you felt hollow.

Hollow and so, so godsdamn exhausted.

“But you are tired now, aren’t you? You did so well, little one. You must rest now.”

All life seemed to be sucked out of you as she breathed in, her lips so close they were almost touching yours; she whispered a command.

And your body, a former priestess, a mere human body, obeyed.

Your trembles subdued, your muscles losing all tension. Your limp body slid to the ground, gingerly so, curled on your side, chest rising and falling with peaceful breaths in an instant.

The goddess rose to her full height and smiled gently at your serene expression, before her gaze moved to Steven’s motionless body.

The corners of her lips curled up; had you been conscious, you would have not been able to tell whether in a smile or in a smirk.

To serve the gods and goddesses was what one should assume was a calling. It was – your calling. The higher purpose of life – for you were a woman of faith.

Being a priestess, however, your role among nobility or commonfolk alike reached beyond praying, sacrificing and healing – you were also meant to serve as a guide.

In the times of darkness, it was your mission to heal both body and mind, to help navigate the lost souls out of the maze of their thoughts and to ease their suffering. In the time of new teachings emerging, it was your mission to learn and understand, to help navigate the lost souls through their confusion, to build bridges and reconcile the old and the new, to bring peace to the minds of those who struggled with guilt and fear.

As a priestess of goddess Velessa, you were naturally all but loyal to your religion, but as a healer and a guide, you took interest in the new teachings. In those of love and forgiveness, of virtues and sins, of rewards and punishments for eternity and of atonement. In those not effortlessly reconciled with the ideas of the past.

It was not an easy path to walk; but by gods, such was the divine calling of your life.

Or at least it had been.

The musings on your faith reemerged slowly; and yet not slower than you returned from the strangest sleep of your life.

Your hazy mind was flickering with confusing images; your aching body a cruel reminder that those images – some of them at least, those of horror, pain and losses so profound your heart still felt as if it laid shattered in many pieces in your heavy ribcage – were true.

A reminder that one was not touched by a deity without consequence; one was not turned from mere human into a god simply by being blessed enough to encounter a god walking the Earth.

Much like old teachings, the new ones, too, spoke of rare occasions of encountering the divine; in the new teachings, those often took form of angels – messengers, servants and warriors of God, creatures of human form with the power near that of the old gods.

As you were pulled back into the waking world, opening your eyes with lashes heavy with tears, you came face to face with a manlike form which must have been one of those messengers. An angel. A golden halo of hair softening his sharp robust features, a strong jaw as if carved from marble, an elegant slope of his nose casting shadows easily overshone by the sky-blue of his irises with a minuscule but all the warmer speckle of greenery. Large in frame, his shoulders would have likely barely fit the doorway of your modest chamber, his waist strikingly narrow in comparison, strong thighs all but inches from your still lax hand as he sat by your bedside.

With such sight, you thought – as arrogant as it was of you to think that you, in your sins and blasphemy and curses spilled, would be graced for the second time – that he must have not been a mere messenger. All about him whispered of being a warrior. A guardian angel perhaps, watching over you with a gentle wrinkle of worry between his brows, the soft furs against your back and the covers over you doing little to disguise the true warmth radiating off him; warmth, kindness and vague familiarity one felt if they began to recognize the landscape surrounding their home upon returning from long travels.

The strangest thing was that this man – this man-like vision – seemed to be watching over you with profound sentiment.Watching you.

Air stuck in your throat at that realization, your heart stumbling in your chest.

You scrambled to sit up swiftly as you blinked away your tears, shame filling your very soul at the idea of what an image you must have made for; unjustly sharp memories of how you had been turned into such pitiful sight sliced through your body like a knife.

And yet. Yet.

The pain seemed so meaningless compared to that in your shattered heart.

The angel’s frown deepened as you gathered the covers with haste, realizing that not only you had been brought to wherever you were, but also had been changed into a clean tunic – and likely bathed. Neither of which you could recall.

“Are in much pain? Should I call for a healer?” he asked gently, an air of a kindness of strangers one was barely-ever met with anymore hovering around him. “You’re safe now. I promise.”

“Where am I?”

Your voice was raspy from misuse or perhaps from the dryness settling in your mouth. You licked your lips absently, noting the man’s frown deepening with concern, his tender gaze making you shiver, your heart hammering achingly against your ribcage – but no longer from fright.

As your frantic gaze roamed around the room, you understood why your companion would be concerned if you didn’t recognize the space; where his voice and his eyes whispered of something safe and only vaguely familiar, the environment you knew like the back of your hand. It was one of the chambers in the housing of your temple, used for isolating those whom you and your sisters tended to and whom you believed to be taken by infection and fever.

Your shoulders slumped a fraction, even if for a brief moment.

Perhaps your sisters had brought you here; perhaps the angel-like man was not a divine vision as much as he was a dream produced by your fever. You had learned a long time ago, however, that even those illusions tended to be messengers, ones of mind and soul, little blessings to guide the wounded and ill – and one would be wise to hear them out.

This dreamed figure, whoever he was, was bringing kindness – and while he had said that you were safe, it was not his words that convinced you of such. It was his soothing presence, his aura of a protector, deeply ingrained into his flesh and bones and those sincere eyes that made your heart ache and flutter all at once.

“I—thank you,” you whispered, your greatest aches but an echo for a moment, giving way to reluctant curiosity. “Who are you?”

Your question charmed a sad smile on his handsome face, the same emotion reaching his eyes. His voice softened further.

“I do not blame you for asking,” he muttered, gaze casted down as he reached to brush a non-existent strand of hair off his forehead, the all-too-familiar gesture like a sharp twist of a knife in your stomach. “I can barely recognize myself. Even Buck nearly tripped over his own feet when he suddenly needed to look up when talking to me and walking.”

Your chest stilled with a wild stumble of your heart, pain and hope exploding in your lungs. Your lips parted, fresh tears springing from your eyes, your mind sent reeling.

Impossible.

This was impossible.

He was but a fever dream, he must have been, but even as that – this was not your Steven. He couldn’t be. This was--- but the gesture, ‘Bucky’, his softness and his voice, even if with an unfamiliar depth, yes, but-- your Steven—your beloved had a large spirit and a kind, enormous heart, but he was little in frame, and he was--

-dead.

Your Steven was dead.

You had seen it happen with your own eyes, seen it happen with your own regrets and the profound realization that in your misguided attempt to save him, you were the very cause for the sword piercing though his--- gods, there had been so much blood, and he must have died in so much pain and yet he had not seemed to blame you, not blame you even now, in a foreign an yet familiar form-

Was this what Steven’s spirit looked like, residing in his sickly body all along?

Was that what he would have been should the gods grace him with better health and not only brilliant mind and the most beautiful of souls, which were gone, almost by your own hand?

“Gods, please don’t cry-“ the man whispered as if he felt your suffocating pain and all-consuming guilt himself, his hand quick to reach for yours, engulfing it easily, its warmth instantly seeping into your skin, a sob bubbling up your throat as your head spun with all the things you had loved about your Steven mirrored in this man. He even looked like Steven indeed, even if he did not. He was some form of Steven, you had no doubt, as surreal as it was.

And his touch felt so, so real, too tangible to only be a conjuring of your, even if perhaps feverish, mind. His presence was undeniable.

Had he come to haunt you?

Or was this your afterlife?

“S-steven? What--- did I… am I dead?”

He winced, shaking his head quickly, his other hand too moving to hold yours, now enclosed between both of his rough but gentle palms.

“No, no, acushla, you live--- your faith carries you through… and it saved my life too,” he whispered, meeting you gaze once more, the warm blue irises you should have recognized at once boring into your eyes with emotions so deep and so tangled you only seemed to recognize one, the one least probable to appear in anyone’s eye when looking at you, especially now.

Especially after what you had bargained, what you had lost, what Steven—

A violent shiver ran down your spine, your mind stuttering as your voice did.

Saved his life?

“But- but how--- you-“

Steven – the mirage of Steven, the spirit, your Steven? – breathed in, lips parting, no words coming out as he seemed to struggle to find the right ones. His expression was, once again, so absurdly familiar on the less-than-familiar face that an instinct to reach out and assist him somehow had your free hand twitch.

You winced when the door was thrown open, a new figure stalking in; this time, a perfectly familiar face, exactly as you remembered it, a wordless confirmation of you being entirely awake and lucid, the realization slowly sinking in.

The man holding your hand – Gods, his eyes, his gestures, his voice still as warm as when you had tended to the wounds he had gained by rushing to protect innocents, your hand held as tenderly as when he had once dared to brush his lips over your knuckles in a thank you – turned to his closest friend, allowing you to admire his profile in mute awe.

Beautiful. By gods, your Steven had always been beautiful and now, even with annoyance and light scold twisting his expression, it seemed as if his appearance was reflecting his fierce soul.

Your hand twitched in his when he spoke, trying to hold onto his touch when he began – and swiftly ceased – to retreat his touch. His entirely tangible touch.

He was real. By gods, he was by some miraclereal, alive, despite the agonizingly sharp memory of his empty eyes boring into your soul kindly--- he was right there by your side, alive and well, if not healthier than before, having grown a good foot and half taller and many pounds heavier with muscle.

Even as the stunned how echoed in your mind, you sent a thankful confused prayer from the bottom of your heart, several tears escaping the well of your eyes.

“Buck, come on. She’s just woken up, into complete madness no less-“

“And you’re a dumbass who cannot explain shit to her, ‘cause you get all tongue-tied around her and it seems to matter little if you’re a small punk or a freakin’ giant,” Bucky uttered, sighing as he closed the door and focused his gaze on you, his features softening a fraction. “You prayed. You made a sacrifice Steve refused to elaborate on. The goddess came to collect and to reward. She gutted Cassius, completely massacred the hirelings-“

“BUCKY!”

Steve snapped his head to the other man so fast it brought a memory of four necks being snaped as if by a mere twitch of a hand, deadly-still distorted bodies falling to the ground, a gore image of a heart, gods have mercy, torn out of a body,of blood dripping off of her hand, her snarl and smirk and benevolent smile as she touched you and painted your cheeks with the blood of the very man who had ripped apart your dignity and purpose, and Steven--- Your Steven, motionless, eyes as kind as always but so, so empty-

Bucky continued as if unbothered by the horror-like images he brought to your mind.

“-she healed Steve, made him all brawny and huge and blessed him with strength to lead the rebels to return order to the lands. People already began stacking behind him as they should, so he’s now our strategist and the Captain of the troops. The end. Except, you know, they are awaiting his orders and instead, our dear newly-elected captain is here, ‘cause he’s a completely and utterly smit-”

“Gods, Bucky, please-“ Steven whispered hastily, earning feigned confusion on Bucky’s part, the man turning his hands palms up innocently as if he wasn’t the reason for your head spinning, your heart thundering in your tight ribcage as you tried your damnest to grasp at the meaning of the words that seemed beyond your comprehension.

“What? --Alright, fine, I’m out, I’m out…” Bucky muttered, turning back to the door as if offended, with one last meaningful glance at Steven and then you. “Move your ass though, Rogers, they’re waiting for ya’. … Your Grace.”

The door clicked shut behind him before you could muster up a response, Steven remaining stiff for several frantic beats of your heart, only then nodding as if he felt as stunned as you were.

He had not released your hand for the entirety of the absurd scene.

You were glad for it, beyond grateful; for as you turned back to him in mute awe, suffocating relief having found home in your ribcage as the truth of Bucky’s words began to settle, Steven’s touch grounded you in the madness your reality had become.

He cleared his throat, the sound nearly defeating in the silent room.

“I, uhm, I apologize about Buck. He… was blunt, but not wrong,” Steven sighed, the full extent of his words not reaching your mind, for it was too busy accepting the fundamental fact still.

The Goddess. She had kept her promise: she had protected what you held the dearest. Moreover, she strengthened Steven’s body to protect him further. She… had killed the highest ranking Arwin’s men in the area – because saving your Steven and turning him into a tangible epitome of a warrior had also served another purpose, one she had perhaps had in mind all along.

Your war has only just started, she had said.

She had blessed him with strength of a body – the only one he had lacked until that moment – so he could lead your people into a better future.

She had turned him into the epitome of hope.

“She truly did save you…” you breathed, your gaze instinctively flickering to his ribcage where two of wounds oozing blood had been, hand twitching with the need to see their absence with your own eyes.

Did the pain echo in his body still? Did scars remain where his flesh had been cruelly torn, or had they been healed?

It mattered little, you supposed.

But as Steven slowly nodded in confirmation, a patient smile shyly lifting the corners of his lips, the aches in your body reminded you that whether he carried his scars or not, you knew that you did.

Your relief was pushed away by another suffocating feeling, chasing fresh tears into your eyes. Shame.

It was a delightful truth that the goddess – even a rather twisted way – had kept her promise. She had. It had only cost you everything.

It was such a blasphemy – you scolded yourself, sending another prayer for the mercy shown by the goddess to whom you, now tainted, could no longer serve – forcing yourself to swallow your tears, your free hand curling into fist as your lips twisted in an attempt at a genuine smile.

Steven was alive. You must find joy in that for it was the greatest blessing of all, for that was what your bargain had been for, after all.

What a true delight and blessing that was, oh merciful goddess, how you did appreciate seeing him breathe freely, how you wished to lay hand over his chest to feel the vigorously beating heart, so wonderfully, stubbornly alive-

Gods, why at the same time did it have to hurt so deep within you that you could not seem to reach the source and press to find relief-

“That’s good,” you choked, your gaze evading Steven’s, instead raking over his broad shoulders, his bulging arms, the image, while beautiful, barely comprehensible. Gods, he was so large now, larger than life itself… and you. You. Less than nothing left.Your voice was barely louder than a breath. “But she, uhm… she did not heal me, did she?”

Steven did not have to speak to answer.

You had once pulled shards of ceramics from him abdomen when he had gotten to a brawl – the memory sharp as it was one of rare moments he had allowed you to see that despite his fighting spirit and stubbornness, he did understood and felt pain, much like any other human being. And yet –his expression that night had not been nearly as pained as it was now, his jaw set tight, his eyes slipping shut after a moment as if he could not bear the sight of you when he replied.

The fact alone burned down your spine and left ashes behind, ones you tasted on your tongue.

He could not bear the sight of you. That was just how filthy he saw you now.

“I do not think so, no. I… what you did-“

“It was worth it.”

You spoke the words before thinking of it twice, only to realise the truth in them before you could even think to take them back and reflect on all the kinds of pain your actions had caused you.

It burned and stung, and could rip you apart and by gods, it did – but how could it be anything but worth it?

Seeing Steve now – alive and well and strong, his body reflecting the brilliance of his soul… Oo doubt even those who had been overlooking his importance and potential were willing to follow him now, appreciate him as they should have for years. It had to be worth it.

And waking up, you had thought an angel, a godlike figure, blessed you with their presence; a messenger, a warrior. A symbol of hope. They too must have thought that upon setting their eyes on him: a symbol of hope to those who had long lost their will to fight. And on the other hand, Cassius’s men, gone: the symbol of tyranny and pain toppled over and knock down from its pedestal, shattered to million pieces to give way to celestial light.

Hope.

For the hope alone your sacrifice would have been worth it.

What was your little heart and broken soul in comparison? Your lost purpose in a world where lost souls roamed to find the temple you had once been allowed to serve in?

What was your pain in comparison to the masses?

Insignificant. A grain of salt in a wound of a bleeding land.

After all, you were meant to live a rather secluded life, a life of quiet servitude; ruined for both, men and your temple, your isolation would merely grow. Should the gods be merciful, you may be allowed to continue serving in the outskirts of the land, in the woods; if not to anyone else, then to the very goddess who had chosen not to heal you.

Your calling was never meant to be selfish; your calling only ever was to aid others and to serve deities and their purpose.

You had served a purpose. Even as fresh tears gathered in your eyes as in defiance, you must believe in your heart and soul that there could not have been a greater purpose to serve than this.

The most tender caress to your cheek, gathering the tears which had spilled over, brought you back to the room from the faraway woods and images of loneliness. Steven whispered your name, his eyes glassy as his fingers shifted to cradle your face with gentleness you had barely ever dared to dream of, your very soul trembling and drawn towards his welcoming warmth.

“Oh acushla machree, I—I never knew… I hoped, like a fool, that one day you might--- and now…”

Your breath hitched.

The realization struck sharp in your not yet mended heart, sudden pain exploding as if it was being torn in half.

All tongue-tied, Bucky’s words echoed in your ears; hoped like a fool, Steven’s raspy voice added. Completely, utterly smitten, a haunting voice joined, whispering what Bucky must have wanted to say before your beloved cut him off.

Machree, your achy heart echoed, the word the sharpest sting of all.

Acushla – a vein, as you had found in the wise texts – was what Steven had been calling you for quite some time, your belief being he had found a special respectful name for his healer in the language of his ancestors. Machree, however… machree meant that one of the texts you had consulted and dismissed for it had only tempted you and awoken inappropriate hopes had been right to speak of a sentimental meaning tied to the word acushla, used as a soft yet passionate endearment.

For machree meant my heart.

Acushla machree. The vein of my heart; the reason for my living. My beloved.

Why. Gods, why-

Your lower lip quivered so your whole body wouldn’t, tears burning a path down your cheeks, seeping into Steven’s hand still laid on your cheek.

Your Steven had hoped. He had hoped, thinking himself a fool, a fool for--- you. A part of his gentle heart had belonged to you.

You had suspected as much. You had hoped so too, with all your heart, wishing to hear him say these words for months and months if not years – only to be cursed to hear them now, praying to be able to forget them when they no longer mattered. Not with Cassius’s having ruined you and thus destroyed your chance at love.

The price of your sacrifice even higher than you had believed burned bitter on your tongue, leaving frost-bites behind, your will suddenly struggling to convince your crushed ribcage that it all had been worth it.

You could not bear the pity and regret in Steven’s beautiful blues, casting your gaze down.

“And now it does not matter,” you finished his thought, nodding slowly, the absence of his touch as his hand fell limply to his side like the harshest winds of winter. “I understand.” I wish I didn’t. “I would not expect nor hope for anything else from anyone.” Not even from a soul as pure as yours. “Let alone from the man who will at last be seen as the hero he is. You have much brighter future ahead of you, will have no shortage of-“

“What are you talk--? No!” Steven blurted out, the sudden urgency in his voice making you snap your eyes up, only to read utter confusion and exasperation in his face, both of his hands moving to hold your hand once more.

“I--- What I mean to say is--- I am so sorry for what you endured… and I understand if you cannot forgive me for not being strong enough to prevent it, more so when it was because of me, I-”

“No, that’s---  for you, Steven. Not because of,” you assured him hastily in return, the fractured smile on your face passionate, even if brief. “You are worth it, Steve. I wish… I wish I not only hoped but knew sooner how you felt, for I feel--- I wish I was not tainted the way I am.”

His voice was soft as he whispered your name like it was a prayer in its own right, a prayer and a source of pain all the same, the very same sentiment blooming in your chest.

“You are not—no. You are as precious as ever.”

Oh your sweet, sweet Steven. Fierce and loyal and kind, the fairest of them all, his soothing words charming another heartbroken smile on your trembling lips as he squeezed your hand.

“You do not have to—I know the ways of the world, Steven. I’m worthless n-“

You never got the chance to finish the sentence as his hands, incomprehensibly fast, moved to cradle your face in both of his large palms, the fierce affection in his gaze stealing your breath.

“No. You are no less worthy than a day ago, no less precious or less… loved,” he added, his voice falling into a whisper, his calloused thumb tender as he swept away the tears from the corner of your eye, a shiver rushing through your body along with traitorous hope you stumped with vigour for it hurt to have hope and have them crushed. “My heart is yours, has been for a long time and always will be. And… should you forgive me one day and allow me, I will prove it to you too. With all I am and all I could ever become.”

Gods let him have the world, you sent a silent prayer as you struggled to breathe, every word falling from his lips as tender as his hold on your face and as firm as his grip on your foolish heart. Gods grant me strength to not give into temptation to accept his endless kindness, for my own gain would be his loss.

“I—I do not wish to trap you-“

I wish for nothing more than to be yours-

Steve shook his head again, releasing your face only to reach into the pocket of his pants – a pair a size too small for him, one Bucky might have borrowed him for none of his old clothing could possibly fit him – carefully pulling out a folded parchment, gingerly opening it and laying it on your lap.

Your heart stumbled in your chest as your gaze instinctively fell on the slightly smudged ink, a single word lighting up your mind: breathtaking. For that was exactly what it did to you, seeing yourself – yourself with in a blasphemously goddess-like beauty – drawn in perfectly purposeful, affectionate lines.

It was your portrait. Portrait of which you had no doubt had been drawn by Steven himself, for he had once shyly admitted to having taken liking in art – his ink-stained fingers gently grasping your hand in thank you when you treated him on numerous occasions had only confirmed it.

He had drawn you.

He had drawn you as if you were something the most blessed dreams were made of and he had the drawing on him, even now.

“Stev-“

“You should have thought of that before you stole my heart, acushla machree,” he said, one corner of his lips rising in a tenderly shy smile. “But I show you this to make you understand – not to pressure you, for I will never. Ever. I… I would simply like you to understand who you truly are to me.”

Your thunderous heartbeat filled your temples, your fingertips moving to touch the drawing and stopping mere half an inch away for the fear of smudging it – for the fear of the beauty disappearing upon your touch, blinking away tears as not to stain it with the salty droplets.

Gods almighty.

Every single line on the parchment had been made with nothing but love. Steven had loved you, he truly had. He still did. And his words… unlike other men you had encountered, Steven was a man of his word – he did not say things he did not mean. He would accept you as tainted as you were.

He would love you and have you feel his love.

Despite everything.

For despite everything, the drawing in your hand revealed how he saw you; almost celestially beautiful and good.

A resolve inside you cracked with a deafening noise, relief and delight flooding your veins with overwhelming might, stealing your ability to speak a single word.

Mute for what must have been an eternity, you lifted your gaze at last, eagerly.

Steven’s expression had fallen, even as he had clearly tried to hold it steady: a face of a Captain who would lead his troops to restore order to the land, no matter what. The change confused you – but perhaps it should not have. You were silent for too long and Bucky had been here to tell him his presence was expected.

For all his sweet sentiment and promises, he had other duties.

As you fruitlessly searched for words to say in goodbye, in thank you, in love, he nodded curtly, rising to his feet.

“I understand,” he said, his voice strangely hollow of emotion, even as it remained so achingly kind. “Please, take your rest. Someone should be with you shortly to help you, I will make sure of it.”

Now downright bewildered at the sudden change in demeanour, you wordlessly folded the paper to return it.

His smile turned shaky, his left hand gently pressing the drawing to your palm.

“Keep it, please, unless it insults you. I… I can make myself another.”

Insult you? This gorgeous piece of art flattering you like no other, perhaps only insulting the gods in how the image depicted you in a beauty only designed for them…?

“Why would it—” You shook your head. “Why do you carry it with you?”

Your heart skipped a beat as Steven lowered his head, a faint blush – blissfully familiar, one you had more than once seen paint his features before he was touched by the divine – colouring his cheeks.

“I always felt it kept me safe and sane in midst of all this chaos. A little… a little light of hope,” he said, his smile earning a warm sad edge as he shrugged and sighed. “Rest, acush- rest, priestess.”

Nodding once more, he turned away slowly, his shoulders rising with a generous inhale.

The moment he took the first step towards the door, it felt as if a lightning of realization and determination struck you at once, your own sharp intake of breath too loud and too quick – but then you were on your feet, tangled in the covers and stumbling in your haste, caring little you hit your shin for this was not going to happen under all-seeing eyes of the gods, less so on your watch.

Not today, not ever, would Steven think you were rejecting him.

He spun back to you at the ruckus, eyes wide at your sudden fervour which you could only hope echoed the surge of affection flooding your every vein, every nerve, every last inch of your clumsily moving body. Your lack of balance mattered little to you as you all but crashed into his large frame, trembling arms thrown around his neck, face pressed to the crook of his neck in search of comfort and reassurance as much as gifting it in return.

For a single beat of your heart, he stood stunned; and then his arms moved to embrace you, holding you securely to his chest, achingly gentle and blissfully warm.

Your name was but a whisper on his lips, so tender your eyes welled with fresh tears, your fingers fisting in the fabric of his chemise, a silent sob torn from your throat as you allowed yourself to believe and feel; your pain, your heartbreak, the utter hopelessness he had wiped off so sweetly; his breath in your hair, his fierce heartbeat against your cheek, affection radiating off his very soul and calling upon yours.

There was a lump in your throat, too large for you to speak.

You did not need to.

Your Steven simply held you, lips brushing your hair, arms wrapping tighter around you as if he hoped that if he’d held you close enough, he could shield you from all the harm in the whole wide world.

And by gods, he would if he could, he’d stand unmoveable in face of any force that could hurt you, no matter how mighty; you were beginning to understand as much. He whispered as much too, the rumble of his voice in his ribcage comforting against your front.

“I’ve got you, love. You are safe now, I promise, I swear on my damn life I will protect you with all I have from now on, acushla machree, be a man worthy of-“

Oh what a lovable fool your Steven was-

You shook your head and pushed slightly for him to release you, as herculean as the act was to convince yourself to leave his comforting loving embrace. You were offered a glimpse of the apology and the gravity of his oath written in his features – replaced by awe and warm affection the moment you planted your hands on his face, glassy eyes boring into his, too filled with glimmer of unshed tears of past regrets.

“You have always been worthy, Steven,” you declared, uncompromising even in your whisper, eyes flickering all over his face softening upon your praise. “Of everything.”

And most of all, of love.

Gulping, you could not push the last words past your lips; instead, in a selfish and selfless motivation at once, you pushed higher to your tiptoes and slowly, oh so slowly as you feared rejection still, you pressed your cheek against his, the heat radiating off his skin a touch almost if not just as divine as one of the goddess.

Your heart fluttered as he leaned into the touch, a flicker of bravery leading you to carefully brush your lips over his slightly flushed skin next, earning a reverent whisper of your name.

For that was the emotion you had seen on his face all along: reverence. And love.

He nuzzled against your face softly, breathing you in, nose lightly bumping against yours, his breath your breath, bliss and torment, the distance between your lips too short and too immense to bear. One of his hands moved to cradle the back of your head, the tenderest fingers threading through your hair, your name a prayer sweeter than anything you ever tasted.

With surge of courage and impatience, you stole the sound of your name from his lips with yours, kissing him at last.

It was everything and nothing like you had ever imagined, your body lit alive, touched by the most divine forces of all and consumed by celestial bliss.

A sharp intake of breath, borrowing all air straight from your own lungs, Steven’s lips responded in kind, clumsy, tender and eager, hands reluctantly taking firmer hold of you as to never let you go. Tears rolled down your face, of joy barely diluted by the pain of scars left by your ordeal – because for all that had been taken from you, ripped from you by the hands of violent men, it was not this.

Your kiss, it would always be yours and Steven’s alone, should he truly want.

And he must have. He must have, because a sound was born in the back of his throat, his arms wrapping tighter around you to keep steady and close and keep you forever, affection of might you had never dared to dream of whispered and declared by his lips caressing yours over and over with little care for air, imperfect and beautiful and overwhelming, eyes having long fallen shut to see and feel love as it was meant to be felt – with your heart racing with Steven’s, side by side.

In the back of your mind you thought you heard Bucky swear from the doorway, Steven’s lips all the sweeter as they curled in a smile against yours. You did not care for Bucky seeing; you basked in Steven’s light and love instead.

And many, many long weeks after, when Steve tied his life – that of the people-chosen king – with yours through marriage, and he softly laid you on your marriage bed, you cried like you cried the day you kissed; lit up by his tender touch and love, soul stitched together by gentle patience and reverence and so, so achingly joyful and full of faith.

And upon that, in her all-knowing, all-seeing wild beauty, the goddess you kept serving to despite it all, smiled.

S.R. masterlist  // Complete masterlist 

Thank you for reading. I’ve come to bargain for you to let me know your thoughts 🥲💕

This story was… different. I admit I was nervous about posting it because of that.

I think the themes of blind faith, crisis of faith, faithlessness, sin and punishment and forces way beyond our understanding – and perhaps of us only being here as their pawns – were on my mind ever since I wrote the first instalment (Walking Back into My Own Myth) inspired by the collection of epic poems Kytice by Karel Jaromír Erben. This one is simply… a lot less filled with smut and a lot more drenched in blood. I also realised with horror that I am yet to give – even after this story – some love to pre-serum Steve. And so here we are 💕

I do hope you liked this story. I am indeed going to be grateful if you feel like letting me know if you did 🥰

May May be kind to you🌸

Note: The quote by anonymous at the beginning was actually made up for this story. The Goddess’s name is inspired by Slav pagan mythology.

[fancoloredglasses]

[RERUN] Gargoyles (Gettin’ medieval for the kids)

[All images are owned by Disney. Please don’t sue me]

(Thanks to Jan Schmelter)

(If you would like to see the wall of text that was the original review, you may do so here)

In the 90s, before there were a ton of cable stations devoted to cartoons and kids’ fare (The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon were it) and you could still watch a ton of cartoons between the time that kids would be coming home from school and the time parents came home from work (every TV station not affiliated with the “Big Three” (Fox was not yet the major network it is now, and its stations were often regarded as “independents” that happened to have Fox programming a few nights a week) had this format in the afternoon)

(Thanks to DuckTales Wiki)

In 1990, Disney decided to get in on this action with The Disney Afternoon, a two-hour block of cartoons using series previously aired on the Disney Channel, with such well-regarded shows as Duck Tales, Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, and Goof Troop.

Then in 1994, Disney took a serious risk with its block. Instead of the kid-friendly mild adventure (and outright comedy) reruns, they premiered a show with a much darker (though still kid-friendly) tone that included characters being wounded and (gasp) killed! Needless to say, this got the immediate attention of my college-age friends and myself!

The cartoon is about a group of gargoyles (hence the series’s title) from the 10th century who, despite a symbiotic relationship with Celtic nobility (they defended the nobles’ castle at night and the humans protected them during the day when they were stone and helpless), were feared and shunned by the very humans they helped protect (almost sounds like a metaphor for racial tensions, much like the mutants in X-Men)

The clan of Gargoyles (well, the ones who the series centers on) consists of 7 warriors

...led by Goliath, the only one of them with a name (voiced by Kieth David who went on to voice Captain Anderson in the Mass Effect video game franchise)

...along with his mate (voiced by Marina Sirtis…we’ll get to her in a moment)

...his mentor (voiced by Ed Asner, who played Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show)

...three younger warriors

...and a gargoyle-dog (dog-goyle?)

There are others, but as you’ll see they’re not that important.

When their main ally among the humans betrayed them, (though, to be fair, he was actually betraying the nobles. He assumed the invaders would leave the gargoyles alone after they won. WRONG! The invaders smashed the majority of the gargoyles while they were stone, killing them in a way that was technically kid-friendly) and the nobles blamed them for their defeat (Why? The invaders attacked during the day!) The court mage (who is known as the Magus) cursed the gargoyles to remain stone forever “until the castle rises above the clouds”. What dicks!

Fortunately, the nobles realized who really betrayed them, but unfortunately the mage could not undo the spell, so they took it upon themselves to care for the unborn gargoyle eggs as they fled (This will become important later)

Fast forward about a thousand years, when billionaire industrialist David Xanatos (voiced by Jonathan Frakes…I swear I will address this!) has the castle carefully taken down and reconstructed (making sure to use every piece) atop his skyscraper. Sure enough, this meets the conditions of the spell and the gargoyles awaken at dusk. Goliath discovers his mate was not demolished by the invaders, but was somehow still alive (after a millennium? Given Goliath’s mentor is old, they are obviously not immortal!) and told Xanatos about the spell.

As thanks, Goliath agrees to work with Xanatos, until it’s obvious that Xanatos isn’t exactly on the side of the angels.

Nor, apparently, is Goliath’s mate, who had grown more cold and ruthless (and has developed a hatred of humans) in the past thousand years (again, how? I mean, it is sorta-kinda explained in later episodes, but for now it’s a mystery). Eventually, the pair turn on the gargoyles.

(Thanks to Tooth)

About this time, Goliath meets...

...(and accidentally nearly kills) an NYPD detective named Elisa Maza.

Elisa becomes a fierce ally to the Gargoyles, eventually helping them find a new home since living over Xanatos’s roof could be hazardous to their health (and sorta-kinda becoming a mate to Goliath? Well, at least a romantic interest in a “will they/won’t they/is the biology even possible?!” kind of way)

Elisa is also inadvertently responsible for naming the rest if the Gargoyles. When she asked Goliath’s mentor what his name was, he was exasperated that humans needed to name everything, and asked if a nearby river had a name too. She replied it was the Hudson. He then threw his hands up and declared that he, too, might as well be called the Hudson, which led to the rest of the clan to choose their own names...

(Thanks to Chris bentley)

OK, time to address the Enterprise in the room. A lot of actors affiliated with Star Trek gave their voices to the series (the fact that Sirtis and Frakes played villains when so many associated them with the crew of the Enterprise-D was surreal at the very least) Every chapter in the Trek mythos to date was represented, with TNG being the most heavy.

(Brent Spiner voiced the fae known as Puck

…and LaVar Burton voiced a spider god), though there were voice actors from...

the original series (Nichelle Nichols voiced Elisa’s mother)

Deep Space Nine (Michael Dorn voiced an undead cyborg gargoyle (yes, the series had some weird characters) known as Coldstone)

Voyager (Kate Mulgrew played Xanatos’s lover’s mother,

...as well as Queen Titania of the fae)

…and even the movies! (Paul Winfield, who played the captain of the USS Reliant in Star Trek II, played a recurring role as blind man who befriends Hudson)

The show’s creator has said that, while he did cast Sirtis and Frakes for the roles, it was not originally his intent to fill the series with voices to please the Trekkies, but he did seem to favor Trek actors more as new characters were written.

Many sci-fi and (urban) fantasy tropes were visited, including time travel (again with the time-travel…however, I like how the series handled the concept: you aren’t altering the past by going back in time, events in the past happened as they did because your present self traveled to the past!)

The series was very well-written, especially for its time (X-Men showed that younger audiences could handle more mature content and could follow a continuing storyline…plus a series written as such could draw in an older demographic that could afford all the merchandising)

As always, let me know if there are any episodes you would like reviewed.

[bipolar-sad-and-ready-to-cry]

I have made a medieval fantasy AU of tsams, wow I am so original/joking

So idk if I want to share the designs yet but I will explain a little bit of the AU, every one in the AU are organic beings.

Sun is a farmer who studies and casts magic in his free time, he lives in a small village with his family. Sun is disabled from a dragon attack when he was little, the dragon attack caused blindness in one of his eyes and a constant pain in his leg which often makes it hard for him to move without pain (everyone scolds him for overworking himself and will force him to sit down and rest by taking him to a chair and giving him a magic book to read), Sun also is technically both genders he just prefers masculine pronouns and wears dresses to make it easier to get dressed and treat his scars that sometimes tighten the skin around them by applying special ointment he makes (it’s just moisturiser stuff with healing herbs).

Moon is an adventurer! Who uses his intelligence and skill with swords to earn more money for assistance with the families needs he spends long periods of time out and exploring and doing odd jobs but spends quite a bit of time at home helping Sun and Earth with the farm, Moon was lucky to only get a few burns from the dragon attack that disabled Sun but believes Sun deserves the ability to move and see like he can.

Eclipse is also an adventurer but one who likes to use pole weapons more than other weapons, he often travels with Moon and are chill when travelling but they clash a fair amount when at home, Eclipse mainly about jobs that need to be done at the home. Eclipse did get a few scratches during the dragon attack when they were little but at least he managed to stop Earth and Lunar who would’ve been too little at the time from getting any lasting injuries, he feels guilt from not being able to help Sun till after the dragon attack (Sun often tells him that he would’ve been devastated if Lunar and Earth got injured during the attack so Eclipse should be proud of himself for protecting them) .

Solar used to be an adventurer but retired after loosing his arm, now he makes sure bounties are seen by other adventurers by placing them up on a board in town, he used to be very good at archery but now he can’t even use a bow n arrow, he’s tried to figure it out but couldn’t, he also now is the main one to get Sun to stop pushing himself to the limit, he’s tried also is the one to tell people to not try and go towards a mysterious figure in the forest (he’s heard what happens to people who do). Solar as was there during the dragon attack but hid because he was scared and didn’t know what to do back then but now if a dragon were to attack he would try to kill the dragon, even with his new disability.

Lunar makes potions and runs a small potion shop next to the families farm, he still helps in the farm but prefers to focus on his potions, he sells any potion that someone needs as well as herbs, he also buys rare ingredients from adventurers that pass through. Lunar was around two years old when the dragon attack happened and thanks to Eclipse, he didn’t have any injuries from the attack.

Earth does farming mostly but also likes collecting and arranging flowers, she gives her flower arrangements to others in the village when she feels they need it, whether it’s a newly widowed lady across the village or a person who has a simple cold, she will gift them a bouquet of flowers she made. Earth was only a baby when the dragon attack happened so she remembers nothing but also doesn’t remember their parents, all she knows is their mother was a kind woman and that no one likes talking about their father.

The twins are a set of mysterious twins that visit the village pretty much everyday, everyone thinks they are orphans and no one knows their names since they refuse to give out their names but refer to themselves together as Bloodmoon, the twins like to climb onto Sun’s lap and either sleep or read with him. They look to be about 4 yrs old, and they do have a dad, it’s just he knows how adventurous they are and sends them into specifically this small village because of how kind they were to them when they first explored there, their dad is never too far away.

KC is a shadowy man or entity, he usually has a cloud of smoke that acts like a shadow around him and stands just outside of villages and towns, waiting for curious humans or other tasty humanoid creatures to come to him, you can guess what happens but he never does it where people can see him, KC lately however has been observing a small village that his two adventurous sons have been going to. No particular reason in why he has been observing the village other than his boys, no other reason at all ;). KC is also a king of a different kingdom than the village he has been observing is in, many people call him an evil king but whether or not that title is true we will see, he however does have a deal with the king of the kingdom Sun and Moon reside in.

Oh! And Ruin! he is a bard, he sometimes is in the village other times he says he’s out exploring places, he prides himself on his very odd but unique appearance and his skills with his instruments. Ruin has had run ins with dragons and many monsters before but often stops them from injuring him with his musical abilities or that’s at least what he says.

Solstice (Dark Sun) and Nexus are in the AU to but live in the kingdom KC is from and I haven’t drawn them yet because I have a vision for them and it’s too complex for my poor hands :’)

Sorry if nothing made no sense, I am still in pain cause of my foot so my brain ain’t normal rn

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Bawigrat

This one is kind of odd in general, but also notable in that it's a mythical creature that has not, to my knowledge, made its way into modern pop culture, but is kind of on one of the upper levels of the metaphorical iceberg for people interested in Medieval Bestiary Trivia just because of its... rather memorable ability. So let's get into it.

If you don't know what this is about, you can check out https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting for an explanation and previous installments.

The art you are about to see is all based on this entry here:

And if you want to get in on this, the current entry up for interpretation is here:

(bit of a long one there)

And without further ado, art for this week is below the cut:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has given us a sort of bovine with recognizably skunk-like features. They note that they focused on giving it an appropriate pose (more details in the linked post), which I think they pulled off well -- I would absolutely believe that this creature is about to fire dung at the viewer.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) has a shaggier bovid here, with a notably calm expression. The peace of mind that comes from knowing you have a terrifying defense mechanism? Also we see that the emphasis here is on the fiery nature of their dung-based defense, as shown by the flames at the back there. (And thank you for including alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has done a bit of malicious compliance here. Yes, it has the head and size of a bull, the maned neck of a horse, sure, but otherwise this is clearly a giant bombardier beetle. You know what, that's fair. I like it. I also appreciate that it is, to quote Coolest-Capybara, "seen here incinerating some Stylized Plants." (And thank you for including alt text.)

@pomrania (link to post here) has a bull/horse hybrid thing for us, but notes particularly the distended belly, saying that they figure that whatever kind of internal chemistry is going on here might have externally-visible effects. They also question the "acres" thing, as it seems to imply "a creature which can basically do sniper-range attacks with its poop".

I am thrilled to tell you that it's even worse than that. The phrasing of this entry aside, an acre is technically not a measure of distance, but of area. And this isn't a modern contrivance, it's always been area: the definition of "acre" that our medieval writers would be familiar with is "the amount of land that a man can expect to plow in a single day with the help of oxen". Three acres is, according to a quick conversion on Google, 130,680 square feet / 12,140.6 square meters). So it's not a sniper-like attack, it's blanketing an entire city block (or most of one, depending on your city) in burning fumes & poop.

Implications for the fertilizer industry are, I assume, still under investigation.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) apparently decided to roll with the "three acres" thing and has drawn their Bawigrat... um.. burninating the countryside. Which is very funny to me, as a person of a certain age who grew up on the Internet, but the rest of y'all will have to Google it. Reasons for domesticating the Bawigrat may expand from agricultural to military, though that does seem like a dangerous proposition. (And thank you for including alt text.)

@wendievergreen (link to post here) also decided to go with a bombardier beetle, as the animal with the most similar defense mechanism in real life. (This one is also giant; note the banana for scale.) They've made it more unambiguously insectoid, as the "horns" are clearly antennae and the "mane" is a sort of ridged plate. I really like the stylization here and the inclusion of the alchemical symbol. For more information, and a video that shows off the glittery ink used here, check the linked post. (Also thank you for including alt text.)

On to the Aberdeen Bestiary:

Yep, that beast is sure farting fire onto some knights. If you look for other medieval images of it, this is a pretty common way to show its defense mechanism. I think my favorite is this one:

(Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 3630, folio 78r)

Tell me that doesn't look exactly like the face a creature with weaponized flatulence would make.

Anyway, this is the bonnacon.

As mentioned previously, this is a mythical beast that for obvious reasons failed to really catch on in modern pop culture, but remains a favorite in Bestiary Trivia -- any Internet listicle about obscure mythical creatures is almost certain to mention the bonnacon.

Beyond that, I really don't have much to add other than reiterating that I think it would be pretty funny to include attempts to domesticate the bonnacon in your fantasy worldbuilding.

[corvus-witchcraft]

General FAQ

How long will this game be?

The plan is to have ten chapters for each timeframe—both present-day and the medieval-era flashbacks—plus the prologue and epilogue (and Chapter 0, I guess, if you want to count that). Given the length of the game so far and how much more I have left to go, I honestly suspect that the whole game will be somewhere upwards of 1,000,000 words. But we’ll see.

How often do you plan to update?

Honestly, my work ethic is pretty garbage, so expect updates scarcely and sporadically. The day I announce an official update schedule is the day you’ll know that I’ve finally been killed and impersonated.

When will this be finished?

I have no earthly idea. Given the length of the game and the snail-pace at which I’m writing it, probably years from now.

Wait, how do you have a Frequently Asked Questions section when nobody has actually asked you any of these questions?

Hey, I didn’t say people asked me these questions! They’re frequently asked in general! Well, except the ones that are about my game specifically. I guess those are just excuses for me to talk to myself.

Why even bother writing a FAQ when nobody is going to read it, and everybody is just going to ask all these questions anyway?

So I can shame people for not reading it, I guess. Consider yourself one of the lucky few to avoid this ill fate.

Setting FAQ

Where does Soulbound take place? Do real-life countries exist, and is Stillport in one of them?

The world that Soulbound takes place in is technically fictitious, but it's still essentially a version of Earth, and (at least in the modern day) a pretty close approximation of the world we live in. The countries in our world probably don't exist in exactly the forms we're familiar with, but since international politics aren't really relevant to the present-day storyline, I don't feel particularly inclined to define that one way or the other. I guess the best I can give you is that Stillport is probably somewhere in the Soulbound equivalent of the US, just because I'm from there, and therefore all the terminology and dialect in the game will be American. I guess this doesn't really explain why the characters in the past era all talk like modern-day Americans too, when the flashbacks implicitly take place in the equivalent of medieval Europe, but I'm willing to leave that one up to people's suspensions of disbelief.

Shouldn't the MC be speaking Middle English? What about the flashbacks? Why do they all sound so modern?

This is a fair concern, and if I'm being honest, I don't have a great explanation for it, but consider that Middle English would be completely incomprehensible to anyone today. Remember how little you understood of Shakespeare when you first studied it? The MC comes from a time that's even older than that. The alternative on my end is that I could render the MC's speech (and that of all the flashback characters) in vaguely old-timey English—which would most likely resemble language from just a century or two ago, in order to be legible—but this wouldn't really be that much closer to reality, and while it may feel better to some, I honestly don't think it's worth the time and effort it would take on my end to reconfigure all the past characters' speech while still trying to maintain distinct voices and speech patterns for everyone. If it helps, you can assume that the MC picked up on the evolution of their language over time, and their memories of their past are filtered through this new perception—which is perhaps a tad implausible, but personally, I consider this an acceptable break from reality, like aliens in a sci-fi story all speaking English, or my above point about how Soulbound's universe is arbitrarily similar to ours despite featuring different countries.

How does magic work? Can anyone learn magic? Can I?

This requires a more complex answer than I can give right now (there's some optional exposition about this in-game, if you're still interested by then), but the long and short of it is that magic flows through all people, but only people born with the "gift" can learn to actually harness it. As a ghost, you're sort of an exception—since your current state of existence is inherently magical in nature, as is the bond you form with Valerie, you'll gain the option to learn a limited selection of magical effects, including a few that approximate what one could consider "spells".

What do the magical specialties mean? Are there different kinds of magic?

This information will be covered in optional info dumps in Chapter II of the story. The short answer, though, is that there are twelve schools of magic—Conjuration, Transmutation, Dispersion, Direction, Conversion, Disruption, Divination, Apparition, Vexation, Amplification, Animation, and Affliction—sorted into four branches of three schools each, known as the Weave, the Whelm, the Will, and the Wight, which correspond to the elements of matter, energy, thought, and life/soul, respectively. Mages have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the various schools of magic, and while all mages are theoretically capable of mastering any or all of the schools, most specialize in one and dabble in two or three others (often, but not always, within the same branch). For example, Cortez is a master of Direction, but he's also proficient in Conversion and Disruption, all three of which are schools in the Whelm branch.

Game FAQ

How do I get ___ to like me? I'm always nice/supportive with them, but their relationship stats aren't going up!

It's definitely possible that it's a bug or misjudgment on my part (even I make mistakes sometimes!), but it's also worth considering the possibility that being nice or supportive just isn't what the character wants or needs in that scenario. Every character is different, and the simplest solution isn't always the correct one—not everyone wants mindless praise, for example. My recommendation is to take some time and put some thought into figuring out who each character is and what kind of behavior they'd likely be receptive to. This might take some trial and error when you're first getting to know someone (not everyone is open with their feelings, after all), but my hope is that over time, readers will be able to identify patterns in the ROs' tastes on their own. If you're really struggling with this and need some hints, though, feel free to make a query on the subject and maybe I'll give you some pointers…if I'm feeling generous.

How do I romance ___? How does romance work in general?

So, romance is in the early stages of development right now, and some changes could still happen. It's also a little complicated compared to other systems you might be used to! But for those interested in the nitty-gritty, the way I'm currently implementing it is this: There are three stats that relate to romance with a given character: the flirt stat, which measures how often you flirt, and two attraction stats, one that measures your attraction to the character in question (as determined by your choices), and one that measures their attraction to you. The three stats are technically independent from one another; flirting won't necessarily increase either attraction stat, for example. Generally speaking, the first attraction stat (MC to RO) will change the way the narration describes the character in question and unlock flirting options. The second attraction stat (RO to MC) can be increased in many ways, flirting only being the most obvious—but sometimes, just being nice can increase an RO's attraction to the MC. Increasing this stat will never actually lock you into a romance, but some of the ROs might develop crushes on you even if you didn't necessarily intend for them to. (Sorry for the people who don't like this. But don't worry, you can let them down easy!) ROs will respond differently to the MC depending on their attraction stat, as well as how often the MC has flirted with them, but I should note this: neither of those stats are actually necessary to initiate the romance. My plan is for the MC to make a final choice on whom to romance in Chapter IX (you won't be locked in, or out of, any of the romances before this). If the RO in question has a high enough attraction stat at this point, you're set; if not, the RO will either reconsider their feelings toward you and realize that they might like you after all (if you then pass a stat check based on their relationship values), or they'll, well, reject you. Hopefully, this system will work well enough that the latter won't happen too often. The secret RO, of course, is an exception to all these rules, because that romance is structured differently from all the other romance paths. But that's all I'm going to say on that front for now!

So romance is going to be slow-burn, then?

I guess so. I'm aware that's not everyone's preference when it comes to romance, but it's the only kind I have even the remotest idea how to write, so it's what I'm sticking with.

Why are some of the romances gender-locked?

Because I write my characters with canon sexualities. I understand why some people don't like this, but it's how I prefer to do things, and that's probably never going to change. Sorry if that's not your cup of tea.

Will the secret RO be similarly restricted by gender?

No, the secret RO is pan.

Who is the secret RO, anyway?

Well, it wouldn't be very "secret" if I just told you—

It's Callum, isn't it?

Uhh, I mean, I'm not definitively ruling that possibility out, but—

What about the villain? Can I romance the villain??

I haven't even said who the villain is in this post!

But can I romance them??

… Maybe.

Oh man, I love violent, unhealthy romances with selfish, homicidal bad guys! I can't wait!!

…Well, you'll have to. Also, that's not a question.

Hey, can I be the selfish, homicidal bad guy? I'm so sick of all these games that force you to play as a decent, reasonable person who doesn't kill or manipulate anyone!

…Uh. Right. Apparently a lot of people feel this way? Which is, you know, completely normal and not at all unnerving. In all seriousness, though, I guess my answer would be…sort of. There will never be an option to play a sociopathic, serial-killing psycho. (Apologies to all the serial killers reading this.) The protagonist is fundamentally written as a character who believes (or once believed) in something, and their entire backstory is fueled by an innate desire to right perceived wrongs in the world. However, there will be options later in the game that could be considered "evil" in the deontological sense, where you can go against the conventional definition of "good" and make selfish, extreme, or even ruthless decisions—and people might die as a result. Hopefully that's close enough to satiate your bloodlust!

Will you make ___ an RO?

The only ROs, now and in the future, are the ones mentioned in the "Romanceable Companions" post—nobody else will be "made" into one. If the character you're asking about isn't one of the six main companions, your best bet is to hold onto that desperate glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the object of your desire will happen to be the secret RO.

Speaking of which, who is the secret RO? Is it—

Next question!

Will there be any poly options?

No. Romance in general is already pretty far outside my wheelhouse, so I don't expect this to change in the foreseeable future, either.

What about sexual content?

Probably not. There might be some implied sex, but definitely nothing explicit.

Why are all these questions about romance?

Because that's what people on Tumblr care about, I guess!

But there's stuff in this game besides romance, right?

Yes, very much so. Romance is 100% optional, and even in the romance paths, the explicitly romantic content will actually comprise a pretty small percentage of the game. Buuuut, I know a lot people like to plan their whole playthroughs around who they'll eventually end up with, so I'm fine with clarifying stuff on that front.

Like who the secret RO is? I'm really hoping it's a bad guy—

Oh, look, it's the end of the FAQ!

[alpaca-clouds]

Isaac's Religion: Isaac as a King

Alright, with this I am going to end the little series on Isaac and his relationship to religion. And it is one thing that I am still very surprised that fandom does so little with. (But then again, like, half of everything on Isaac on Ao3 has been written by me either way, so I guess... Eh. I just really like him and Hector, okay?!)

Isaac's journey eventually ends with him taking over Styria after defeating Carmilla - and specifically after Morana and Striga abandon the place. We know very little about what he is going to do from this moment on. We do not know whether he will rule as a king or something else. More importantly, though, we know very little about how Styria is looking at this point in time.

I will not again make fun of the Europe map that Carmilla is showing. I annoyed everyone enough about that one. But let's talk about Styria and what we know about it in regards of the show.

Basically, what the show lets us assume is, that the world basically looks like in real world 1476, other than some pieces of land being dominated by vampires and other magical things. From all we know, it seems to come down to this: Styria is ruled by vampires, Venice by vampires and some sort of mages, the Black Forest by werewolves. While I can make a good guess where Cho's realm is located within Japan from all information we get, I am out of my depts in regards to the other vampire lords. But for Europe it does not really matter one way or another.

Styria is interesting historically speaking, because it was the last bit of central Europe that was actually Christianized. This happened only in the 12th century. So, depending on how the vampire lord before Carmilla ruled, and how long Carmilla had been ruling, chances are that in this world they actually never Christianized.

Technically we know very little about the relationships of humans and vampires in Styria, outside of Striga hiring human mercs later on. However, based on early concept art, and the way the sisters reference humans only as "livestock" it is fair to assume that humans were definitely a subclass of people, mainly kept around to be hunted down by vampires. There was originally a concept, that there was an abandoned village close by the castle, but this was eventually given up on.

Which brings us back to Isaac.

When Isaac attacks Styria, he most certainly kills a whole lot of folks in the castle - if not everybody other than Lenore and Hector. Again, we do not know this in detail. There is a chance that some of the folks in the castle (probably all vamps and mercs) might have hidden away during the initial attack. And a lot of folks obviously left with Striga and Morana. Still, given that this is a vampire kingdom it should be safe to assume that there are some vampires left in the kingdom at least.

And this brings me to the question: How is Isaac going to do this?

We know his basic motivation. He wants to build a place where "people" can live for a future. However, he does not really define what he means with "people" here. Or with "living for a future". Based on his dialogue with FlysEyes, the Captain and Miranda, it seems to probably come down at least partly to teaching people. And this is both interesting and very fitting within the religious context.

I do not think I am telling anyone anything new if I am gonna tell you, that literacy in medieval Europe was shite. Because compared to Asia medieval Europe was a bloody backwater. And while Europe most certainly had some inventions the east did not have in regards to agrarculture, generally science was moving faster in the east. And especially literacy was a whole lot better especially in the Arab world. While nobody did a proper census, most numbers that get thrown around for the 15th century say, that in Europe literacy was probably somewhere between 5 and 10%, while in the Arab world it was probably between 15 and 25%. Mind you, other people might have been able to read a little bit and write their own name, but nothing more.

We can however assume that Isaac is fairly literate. It is fairly safe to assume he is capable of reading the Arab writing, we see him reading a Greek manuscript, as well as some Latin. So it is safe to assume that he knows at least those three languages and is capable of reading and writing them.

Of course some of this difference can be seen to come from the religion. I am going to assume that at least some of you will know the tiny issue with Christianity by the end of the middle ages. Basically: While until this time around, Christianity basically only existed in two major flavors - Catholicism and Greek Orthodox - this was the moment where it would shatter. Mainly over one question: Should normal people be able to read the bible? As you might know: The bible at this time was mainly kept in Latin, with some Greek versions also being kept around. Which most people (who were illiterate either way) could obviously not read or understand. Meanwhile the Qur'an was in Arabic - the language that most people who were Muslim knew. In fact, most Muslims knew the Qur'an by heart, while most Christians had to rely on what priests told them stood in the bible. Which was part of the reason for the schism within the church.

And the topic Castlevania is dancing around a bit is the immense power that the church had at this time within Europe. While they had not hard power, they had a lot of soft power.

Now, here is where it becomes important, that Isaac is not just a Muslim, but a Sufi. Because one big thing about the Sufi - that differentiated them from the main other groups of Muslims - was that they basically were of the believe that everyone could learn to read and interpret the Qur'an for themselves.

In fact, there is another aspect to him being a Sufi: Because in comparison to most other religions at the time, Sufism had fairly flat hierarchies. (There is a reason anarchists tend to gel very well with Sufism.) In fact even at this time, when it was basically unthinkable for a woman to be a religious leader in any other form of Abrahamitic religions, Sufism had some female leaders and philosophers. Partly, too, because of how the religion at the time saw sex and gender.

And it is this that to me makes Isaac as a "king" quite interesting.

I do not think Isaac - whether he wants or not - will get around calling himself a king at least formally. Because this is still a world of lords, dukes and kings. People will not wanna see a formally self-governed region in their neighborhood. And I do not think he will get around a war with Bavaria one way or another.

But I absolutely could see him trying to get the people to emancipate themselves - and trying to get the normal humans literate.

Which also brings me back to the other question: What about the vampires?

Because yes, I absolutely do agree that the show visually very much implies that they all die. However, I am also going to argue, that just killing all vampires does not really go well with either Isaac's religion, nor with the goal of teaching the people. Because at this time... Well, we do not have an actual census of Styria in the real world, and we can assume that there are less humans in the world of Castlevania given the vampire rule. But I am going to assume that there are at least 100 000 to 300 000 humans living in Styria, which at least has two big cities (Leoben and Graz).

And here is the thing: Isaac himself cannot teach everyone. Sure, we can use good old concepts: Invite people over to the castle, teach them how to read and write, and then send them out to teach others... But why go through this effort if technically there is a whole population already able to read and write? The vampires.

Once again: I do not think it will go well with his moral outlook to just kill all vampires. Because by this time he has already realized that his murdering under Dracula was sinful - and this leads me to believe that he would try to avoid further unnecessary killing. So yeah.

My argument is, that eventually he will come to the realization that the best way to reach his goal - of creating a place worth living in - would be to work together with the vampires to have access to the vast knowledge that the vampires have collected, and be able to teach it to people.

Usually vampires should be able to feed without killing. They just need a rule about this.

Sure, there is anohter question left about religion in Styria after this. But that... would be a question for another day. And not for this week. Because boy, oh boy. This is already too long.

[tyrantisterror]

Fantastic Rants and Where to Find Them

So, back when the Herbie Porber movies were still being made, Warner Brothers saw the cash cow on their hands and decided they had to lock that shit down as much as possible to make sure they could milk it until its teats were chafed and withered to nothing. To that end, they bought the rights to every book the Terf Queen had written by that point - which included all the Henry Pansley wizard school mystery books, but also two gag books set within the Henry Pansley world: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was presented as an in-universe biology textbook for wizard children, and Quidditch Through the Ages, which was an in-universe book of trivia for a fake magical sport.

And at the time everyone with a brain who'd read those two books was shaking their head and thinking how dumb those corporate executives were to do that because, like, those aren't novels or novelas or short stories or narratives of any kind. They are, and I cannot stress this enough, a fake textbook and a fake trivia book about fake things written in a slapdash manner as a cheap gag. They existed for three reasons:

First, to sell something Herbie Porber related at a significantly lower price point than the actual novels so the Terf Queen could get more of that sweet, sweet Scholastic Book Fair money by having something poor kids could buy.

Second, to give a portion of the proceeds raised from that poor kid book fair money to charity so the Terf Queen could get some nice tax writeoffs.

And as a distant third, to expand the world-building of the Henry Pansley setting a teensie bit.

Now, as far as I'm aware, they succeeded at the first two well enough - tons of kids bought those cheap-ass thin as shit paperbacks when I was a kid, myself among them. Well, ok, I only bought Fantastic Beasts and skipped Quidditch because even during the height of my Herbie Porber fan days I thought the Terf Queen's imaginary sport was really fucking stupid and every time it popped up in the books I was bored as shit and tried to skim it as quickly as possible to get to the interesting stuff. I think I looked over the book once in a Barnes and Noble and thought, "Wow, I knew I thought real sports were boring as shit, but it turns out fake ones are even more so."

But back on track - goal number three was... kind of successful, I guess? Like, I don't know if you know this, but bestiaries of fictional animals are one of my big interests. I love a big book of made up creatures, and have collected many in my long life of thirty-four years. And as I said, I got a copy of Fantastic Beasts - technically several, because those cheap ass paperbacks disintegrated if you read them more than once, and I haven't met a bestiary that I haven't poured over several times, no matter how shitty. And despite how often I read it, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was, well... pretty mid, honestly. It's a book that's 99% world-building, and like all of the Terf Queen's world-building, it's overall mediocre and undercooked.

Like, in pure Herbie Porber style, it's mostly concepts that have been done in fantasy fiction and mythology dozens of times before with no real original spin on them whatsoever, often stripped down to their most recognizable elements alone. There are a smattering of original ideas that are actually interesting an novel, a few more original ideas that have potential but don't seem very well-thought out as is, and then some that are clearly just there to be a joke and are amusing for, like, a second, but also would quickly become annoying if they were given any focus.

I'll give a very me-specific example. As a fan of vaguely medieval european fantasy tropes, one of the metrics by which I judge a bestiary is "How does this handle dragons?" Because, like, I don't know if you know this, but I love dragons a lot, and the sheer variety of dragons in fiction is one of my favorite things in the world. There is a smorgasbord of different dragons a person can choose from just in folklore and mythology alone, and that variety is reflected in a given bestiary, the higher I think of it.

The Terf Queen's bestiary gives us ten dragon breeds... and they're all more or less the same except for scale color and minor variations in size. Oh, and their names, which are all based on different dog breeds because the Terf Queen thought that was funny. It's the worst of both worlds because it gets your dragon-loving hopes up that there'll be lots of unique dragons but no, they're just different colors, ho hum. Even the Chinese Dragon sticks to the same basic bitch wyvern body plan as the rest, when, you know, Chinese dragons have SUCH a different body plan than any of their European counterparts. It's downright insulting to the variety and creativity of this iconic folkloric archetype to reduce it to such a samey-set of monsters. Absolutely the most disappointing dragon entry in any bestiary I've ever read, just infuriating.

BUT, BACK ON THE INCREASINGLY DERAILED TRACK: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was never meant to be a "great" book. Remember goals one and two: it was a cheap cashgrab, a gimmick, a gag book. It was meant to be a disposable bit of fun - "Tee hee, here's a goofy textbook from this goofy wizard story that you kids will likely grow out of in a few years, you can read it in twenty minutes and not feel bad when you pitch it because there's very little substance to it, and it only costs three bucks."

The Terf Queen doesn't write textbooks, gag or otherwise, she writes novels, narratives, and in its original form Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was clearly just her fucking around with something whimsical and stupid for shits and giggles (and money, sweet sweet money). The original version of it was published with notes in the margin written by Henry Pansley and Donnie Stoat themselves, the two wizard hooligans writing little jokes and messages to each other with further references to other characters from the series, both to add more humor and because, again, the Terf Queen writes novels, and it was clear she couldn't commit to the "fake textbook" bit without working in some characters riffing it for her own sanity. And that makes it work as a gag book - you get a few laughs from the wizard hooligans playing MST3K with their shitty textbook, learn a little about the (undercooked and poorly thought out) ecosystem of the wizardy world, and then when you reach the back cover the spine of your cheap as shit pulp paperback book falls apart and, unless you've got a weird obsession with bestiaries, you throw the dying book in the garbage without a second thought. Three bucks spent well enough.

BUT, TO GET BACK ON THE INCREASINGLY DERAILED TRACK AGAIN: Warner Brothers bought the rights to this cheapo cashgrab gag textbook, and goddamn it, they were/are determined to squeeze Herby Porber's sore teats until every last drop of money milk spills from his chapped and bleeding nipples. They announced they were going to make a Fantastic Beasts movie towards the end of making the Herby Porber novels into films, and everyone with a brain sat there and thought, "Well, that's going to be a stupid cashgrab. Bet the Terf Queen's laughing her ass off at how dumb it'll be, too."

But the Terf Queen was not laughing, at least not for long, for once the Henry Pansley movies wrapped up, she was left with the horrifying knowledge that people didn't care for her non-wizard books all that much, certainly not enough to keep her rolling in sweet, sweet money. She needed that mega millionaire cash, and she needed it in abundance and she needed it quick. So when Warner Brothers asked her to write a movie based on her cheapo cashgrab gag textbook, she said, "Yeah, I can make a novel out of that! I - I'm a talented writer! People love my writing! They definitely love my writing and they'd love to pay money for things I wrote that don't directly feature Henry Pansley!"

So now she had to pretend that Fantastic Beasts, the cheapo cashgrab gag textbook about made up animals in a made up world, has a narrative. Not just any narrative, but a grand, sprawling narrative, one to rival, nay, SURPASS Herbie Porbie and the Seven Books of Wizard-Themed Coming of Age Nonsense. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she assured us, was to be a magnificant tale, and one she planned all along, and CERTAINLY not a marriage of convenience to a completely stupid idea for a film that she was desperately sculpting into a narrative it had no ability to support for the sake of trying to recapture her already passed glory days as a writer.

And I think, in retrospect, this is a great illustration of the Terf Queen's great character flaw. She just can't fucking admit to a mistake, even when it's obvious to everyone that one was made. She will hop on board a sinking ship and keep doubling down on trying to get it to sail even as the water is up to her neck. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a serious narrative now, not a gag textbook written to wring a few more dollars from school children goddammit!

Recent editions of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them took out the Herbie and Donnie commentary, by the by. They also added many of the new half-baked monsters that were introduced in the movies, in a shoddy attempt to pretend this was the plan all along, and that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was always meant to be the seed of something great.

But it wasn't, and no matter how hard the Terf Queen pretends otherwise, it's obvious it wasn't. It's a cheapo cashgrab gag textbook, and that's all it really had to be, until greed and ego demanded otherwise.

[paradoxcase]

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Chapter 4

This chapter kind of mentally transported me back in time 20 years to when I have vague memories of doing a little bit of reading in the plucky-teenage-heroine-in-medieval-fantasy genre - here we are going to a ball and wearing a gown we don't feel comfortable in, and then throwing a little fit about life not being fair. Not that I think this is going to be that kind of story, but it does remind me of that

The humans don't count, huh? Although I am slightly mystified by what he means by "higher terrestrial life", here. Does he mean no animals deemed smart enough to be pets or working animals? No large mammals? Something else?

It seems like where the Masquerade is concerned, these are probably actually the same reason

I like that there are multiple languages here, and that it seems like they will be playing a role in the coming intrigue, and that the story isn't going to just resort to "oh, everyone just speaks Aphalone, so there's no language issue"

Does it make sense for Iolynic to still be a creole? Based on what we know so far, it sounds like it'd be some kind of Tu Maia/Stakhi creole, but we also know that Aurdwynn has been being variously invaded by those two groups for a very long time now. Is a creole still a creole 500, 700, 1000 years after creolization took place? I'm actually not sure. But I guess it could just be being used in a more vernacular, less technical sense here

Kind of interesting that we've been told by multiple people at this point that women are only respected if they wear skirts/dresses, but this duchess is not shunned for showing up in riding gear. I wonder what the full story is behind Aurdwynn's gender roles

I would have guessed some sexual implication, but I don't know, this second bit makes me double-guess. And it's interesting that she guesses it was Cattlson who offered, but doesn't know for sure. So maybe something political, then? She seems like she is trying to get Baru in her court, or at least gain some hold over her

So Heingyl's house name seems to be the same as his family name, but hers is not. I guess this probably works like European nobility, where their houses are named after placenames, and sometimes they adopt the placename/house name as their family name, and sometimes not? And the family name is Maia, while the house name is Stakhi, which sort of suggests that maybe some Maia dukes conquered this place with a Stakhi name sometime in the distant, or maybe not so distant past

Baru seems to interpret this as a threat, but I wonder if it is actually a warning? I kind of like this character, I want her to turn out to be... well, I don't know if there are actually going to be any good guys in this story, but like, a protagonist. Let's go with that

So we have like a European aesthetic here, but we are eating with chopsticks. That's fine and cool, but now I am wondering about the food - if it's chopsticks, then surely this venison and duck is not being served like it would be served in a medieval Europe setting as an entire animal or large hunk of meat on the serving plate that pieces are carved off of, because that's not super manageable with chopsticks. It would have to be already cut up into smaller pieces, right? I guess this could technically be like some kind stir fry thing with venison and duck as the protein, but it kind of sounds like we are still going for the medieval Europe aesthetic here

Does Baru actually know that Ffare Tanifel was born in Aurdwynn, or is she just assuming? Because that name does not look like is from Aurdwynn. We've been introduced to Tu Maia names, which are all very short, often one syllable, and have at least as many vowels as consonants, and Stakhi names, which seem to be characterized by stark-looking sequences of consonants, and presumably names like Heingyl that have a more generic fantasy feel and use Y as a vowel are meant to be Iolynic, and "Ffare Tanifel" doesn't really look like any of those, and the only doubled letter we have in all of Aurdwynn is the double n on the end of "Aurdwynn", which is a pretty different letter in a very different part of the word. In most books I would be like, well, the author is obviously generating character names with some sort of fantasy name generator and this doesn't mean anything, but in this book, we actually have names with different origins that look recognizably like other names with the same origin, we have X at the beginning of a character name that seems very likely to show up pretty often in the rest of the story, we have Mb at the beginning of the second word of Oriati Mbo, which indicates that the author knows about prenasalized stops, we already have multiple languages mentioned and playing a role in the plot, and we even know the genetic relationships between several of them. And there ain't no one coming up with generic fantasy names that start with "ff" as the first two letters, that's pretty much only reserved for Arthuriana stories where all of the names are meant to be in Welsh. Like, some obvious thought and research into linguistics has gone into the naming conventions of this story. So I feel reasonably comfortable saying that just based on her name alone, I do not think Ffare Tanifel was from Aurdwynn, and I'm sure her treachery was probably more complicated and more interesting than Baru is assuming here. I wouldn't be that surprised if this turns out to be "Baru finishes what Ffare Tanifel started" or something like that, to be honest

I wonder why Baru expects or wants this translator to be a woman? I don't have a good sense of this. It doesn't seem like she's at all concerned about the security of this information, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of gender expectations for this profession that we know of

On the first readthrough I was utterly mystified by what he was suggesting here, but on the second readthrough, I think Baru might be going to rope Aminata into translating these notes?

[lya-dustin]

Shock and Delight

Chapter 15

Cw: medieval-ish reasonings of aromanticism and asexuality(technically demisexuality and demiromanticism because this is a romance fic), nudity, bad puns.

It troubles him how easily they fool everyone here.

Even the Morning Scandal was completely fooled by them, and no one could get away with that these days. That woman, whoever she was, knew everything except one thing.

He enjoys her company, the way she confides and treats him as if he were as dear to her as her infernal siblings. Friendship is easy with her; he knows her since they were babes, and she knows him as good as his own sister.

“That is not fair! How come you get your book first?” Aemma playfully took his hand after his manservant brought him the wooden box containing the first published edition of Archmaester Fomas’ The Lies of the Ancients.

“Because mine comes with an apology from your brother.” He skims through the heartfelt letter the prince then puts away for later. Aemond had not been expecting that, he will need someone unbiased to make sense of it.

While he has overcome the loss of his eye at Luke’s hand, he is not sure he is ready to forgive him for it, even if it was a terrible accident.

Aemma would tell him to forgive because she was also there and knows he did not want nor mean to do it anymore than Aemond wanted to hurt everyone that night while his mother would tell him the brat doesn’t mean it and it’s a ploy to weaken him.

Sylvi was completely unbiased about it and would allow him a moment of peace away from his family.

Away from Aemma who he has become too fond of as of late.

He had never been comfortable with showing any sort of affection with anyone save maybe his mother and sister and this morning, Aemond had leaned against her as they sat under tree and used the excuse of a few stray curls to touch her face.

The prince has no idea what gave him the impulse to do that, nor why he is looking forward to be in her company again. He thinks of her too often these days, of what she her opinion would be, or how she would laugh with him instead of at him.

Even worse, Aemma is prone to affection, and Aemond has no clue as to when he begun to crave it.

Like now that he told her of the book knowing she is dying to read it and how he will let her borrow it even if he’s said he wouldn’t. Because she would, squeeze his hands, hug him in gratitude or even kiss his cheek like she does with her brother and Aemond has no idea why he wants that.

He had attributed his desire to have her in his company alone to his selfishness, but now that they are alone in his room, he knows its not that.

They are friends, confidants, kin. They are not sweethearts, no matter how good they are at pretending they are.

He couldn’t be falling for her. It was impossible and she was meant for someone else, always someone else.

Aemond couldn’t be falling in love with her because he is incapable of it.

Now that the Queen has apologized for sending Lyonel her way, Aemma has a lot more freedom to do as she please.

Aemma only accepts it to be polite and puts the matter behind her. The queen is vying for her mother’s inheritance after all and there was that whole unpleasantness during her childhood because the king neglected his family and Alicent took it out on her when she could.

Still, it is nice to have access to the family library at any time she wants, and no interference in her and Aemond’s scheme. So far it has not gone well, the prospects have not managed to inspire anything in her save some inside jokes between her and Aemond at yesterday's ball.

Like at night when she can’t sleep and the narrow tunnel in the parlor leads here. There were not many new books here, well, ones that pique her interest. There were a lot of religious texts, very explicit pornography hidden in Aegon’s copy of the Seven-Pointed Star and some novels older than her. Everyone had their own books in their own bookshelves, for their privacy as one should.

She’d kill for her novel half-finished and forgotten at home.

Maybe she could borrow a book from him, his chambers were just on the other side of the library. The tunnel she came through led to his antechamber if she remembers from all those times they would sneak in and out of his rooms when they were little.

Aemond had gotten a copy of Lies of the Ancients this morning, since he is out tonight, he will not notice if she borrowed it and gets to sate her curiosity before hers arrives in a moon or so.

The Pearl of Dragonstone thinks she has been successful in her quest only to find the book’s owner wearing his leather coat cinched by his sword belt like a dressing gown. He had not noticed her in the antechamber, if he had he wouldn’t have removed his belt and tossed the leather coat onto a chair.

“Stealing books now, Aemee, what would Teora say?” He acts as if he weren’t caught in definitely stranger circumstances.

They were kin, no one would think it strange she would be here unchaperoned to borrow a book when she lives down the hall, but what was strange was Aemond sans eyepatch…and sans clothes?

“Why are you naked?” Aemma asks, trying her best not to look. She had gasped and turned around while shutting her eyes from the sight of a very naked Aemond, but the curiosity of getting a second glance at his chiseled body was putting quite the fight.

“I left my clothes at the brothel.” He answered vaguely and hurried to dress himself in his sleeping garments as quickly as he could. “You are welcome to look, Aemma, everyone there already saw me in all my naked glory. You may as well see why I am the most sought-after bachelor at Court.”

He must be quite the sight if he is bragging about his looks to her of all people.

“No thank you. I should leave.” If only he wasn’t near the door. And because she is trapped here until he has left the stairs that lead to the library, she asks, “Did you walk here with bare feet?”

“Only you would not ask why you are leaving a brothel naked, or why are you at a brothel in the first place.” He snorts at the strange question, because of course she would ask about that.

Ever since she saw greyscale on the foot of a servant, she’s dreaded ever walking without the right footwear. Especially in Kingslanding where everything is just so filthy. They had amputated the servant’s foot; the disease would’ve killed them all and spread its plague to everyone if they had not. Aemond knows of her fear of getting a disease like that, and the asshole loves to mock her for it as if greyscale had a cure.

“You wouldn’t answer them anyways, Aemond. Anyways, are you dressed so I may leave?” she makes no mention of the book in her hands. His teasing demands he lets her read the damn book.

“You are not leaving with my book. It is not so difficult to wait a month, little queen.” He answers her question by sneaking up behind her and making her jump when he suddenly speaks. The One-Eye fails to reclaim his book and the princess takes a mad dash out of there with a stifled laugh.

They could get into so much trouble, but it’s been a long time since she has had this sort of fun.

“But it’s terribly difficult for a man to wait until marriage given you sought out a whore. What was the name of the fine establishment you left your clothes in, dear uncle?” She doesn’t mean to say that, or at least sound like it bothered her while returning fire.

They are only friends. Just friends fooling everyone into believing they are courting. Nothing more.

Still, he rolled his eye as he settled on the longer of the couches in the library. “You can read my copy as long as you do it here, right now.”

“You will regret it.” The princess sits across from him so he can’t see where she is in her reading. It is a good deal… for her. Aemond will regret it at once, Aemma could annoy even the most patient of people with her incessant questions. “So, what made you run out of there bare as a buck?”

“Don’t push your luck, sweet niece.” He sighed knowing there was no escape. Besides from what she’s gathered Aemond doesn’t have any friends. He must be so lonely here. “Aegon happened to come with his lickspittles, tried to humiliate me and I left before the milk of the poppy made me forget I am not to use my fists to resolve all my issues.”

Aemond had earned a reputation after the Morning wrote how he beat Lyonel for her in Helaena’s drawing room. He is the gallant hero with perfect looks and a good strong fist.

Their false courtship was working like a dream. The queen was now trying her best to gently guide the more exemplary men at court her way to keep Aemond from her.

There was a raven from Dorne even, seeking to thank the Realm for some act of bravery from Daemon and his men by having Prince Qyle present it himself.

A match with Dorne would keep the peace between the Marcher lords of the Stormlands and the Reach with Dorne. Even if Qyle’s sister, Aliandra, was the heir, he brought the two Ps Viserys was known for: peace and prosperity.

But until Aemma finds a good husband, she and Aemond must play two youths in love.

“Gods, that’s terrible!” she cannot help her response and he nods in agreement. “I thought Helaena said he was past such horridness?”

“He reverts to that when things don’t go right, like how my mother used to put you down when father ignored us and made you diamond knowing no suitor would come because she feels threatened by your presence.” The prince explains things as if he were talking about the behavior of a pet and not the shitty things his brother and mother did to them. “It’s simply their nature.”

“Again, that’s terrible.” The princess reiterates and her companion shrugs it off. To him its something that occurs often and cannot be fixed, to her its something that needs to be fixed.

“I don’t want your pity anymore that you would like mine, Aemee.” He refuses to even look at her expecting pity.

“It’s not pity, you do have my sympathies, I know how awful it feels to be the target of something you never asked for. As you said, your mother and your brother are prone to taking out their insecurities on us and it won’t end until they decide to grow up.” Aemma left the chair and used the book as an excuse to sit with him. She wasn’t going to remember anything she read on it, not that she read much of the first chapter anyways. “But enough about them, well, him. You get to leave the coop and do as you please, what fine establishment did Aegon follow you to?”

She doesn’t really care to know, but her question has him snort and even for a moment forget his troubles.

“It’s not appropriate for a lady, let alone a princess to know.” He tries to dissuade her from needling him about it but gives in when she reminds him that she is also his friend and kinswoman who lives with Daemon and the boys.

Even in the dark the princess can tell he is embarrassed, if she could touch his face, she would find his cheeks warm.

“The Cock Inn, despite the name it is rather---”

“Eggs-cellent.” She finishes the sentence for him making her friend break out in silent laughter.

“Fuck you.”Aemond has a nice laugh, hardly does it and perhaps that is why the princess takes it upon herself to make him laugh even if they would be fucked if they were to be caught here by the wrong people.

“You are terrible, Aemma. I should have known you would mock a woman’s most prized possession.” He is smiling as he playfully chastises her for her stupid pun.

“Someone has to make you laugh, Aemond. Until I marry and leave, I shall take on that responsibility even if you forbid me.”

If only Aemma could have this easy companionship with her suitors. After that moment days ago when she suddenly felt attracted to him under the tree and hoped to replicate it with the other young men, she’s come to fear it will never happen again.

“I shall have my revenge at your next ball, mark my words, sweet niece.”

If Aemma didn’t know any better she’d think there was something there. Something he feels too, she’s sure of it.

[recoveringdreamer]

TIMING: current LOCATION: felix's boiler room PARTIES: @zombiebabysitter, @gossipsnake, @ariadnewhitlock, @notstinky, & @recoveringdreamer SUMMARY: a group of rhyming allies come together to break a curse. CONTENT WARNINGS: descriptions and discussion of snakes eating

The rhyming had become… almost fun, if Felix was being entirely honest with themself. There was something kind of entertaining about it, even if it was technically a curse. It didn’t seem to be hurting anything and, as a bonus, it seemed to annoy Leo enough that he’d been avoiding conversation with them. If it were only Felix cursed, they might have just… let it continue for a while. But they were pretty sure some of their friends were getting tired of it, and it didn’t seem fair to subject all of them to a life of rhyming just because Felix didn’t mind it. 

So, they’d called together a strategy session. A few of the people who were cursed — and no one who wasn’t. The last thing they wanted was to spread this thing even further, so it seemed way safer to only include people already involved. It wasn’t like someone could be cursed twice, right? 

The boiler room was a little cramped, not really meant to house this many people at once, but that was okay. They wouldn’t be in here long, hopefully. Felix had set the glass orange in the center of the room, like they all might need a reminder about why they were gathered here today. He squinted at it suspiciously from where he sat on the single office chair, elbows on his knees and hands folded and propping up their chin. 

“We need a plan of action,” Felix announced. “So far, nothing we’ve tried has had any real reaction. It can’t be broken. And once you’ve touched it, rhymes must be spoken. But every curse has to have an out. I think we all know that without a doubt. So, what should we do? I want to hear from all of you.”

—

As far as Charlie was concerned, rhyming kinda fucking rocked. He had been a lyric-writing machine as of late, speaking the words aloud and then writing them on paper if they sounded good. Yeah, Finn was annoyed any time Charlie opened his mouth to speak to him, seeing as how everything that came out of his mouth was a fucking rhyme, but that wasn’t his fault. How was he supposed to know that ugly as sin Faberge egg was cursed with a rhyme scheme curse?

So that’s how he’d ended up in Felix’s boiler room apartment after a shift at the pit, tired and a little out of sorts. Charlie looked around at the others in the room, then let out a sigh. “Well as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing that we’ve learned. We’re stuck in a rhyme which is, as far as I’m concerned? A total fucking crime. But also, I’ve been writing a lot and I feel kinda like a robot. So I can go either way, I write music by day.” He shrugged his shoulders.

As far as Charlie was concerned, this was a gift. He was able to write his music and not have to wrack his brain for rhyme schemes when he was cursed to do it automatically. It was great! He’d written so many songs in such a short amount of time that he was allotting himself a break after all this was cleared up. 

__

Thea had found a nice patch of damp for herself, tucked against the wall of Felix’s possibly still rat-infested boiler room. For hundreds of years, humans had been rhyming (probably, Thea had done no real research regarding the topic). But the couplet itself dates back to like, the medieval era, right? (She really should’ve googled) Regardless, Thea felt connected to her poetry slinging ancestors in that she was certain she had poetry slinging ancestors. Really, could anyone confirm that she wasn’t related to William Shakespeare? The rhymes said otherwise. There was a history of art she was connected to; a history of verse and meter and kids teasing each other on the playground rhyming ‘fart’ with ‘smart’. It was all really normal, when she thought about it. 

Still, her ability to hold conversations was severely impaired and that ability was struggling before the rhyming. “What if the answer is a visual enhancer? Perhaps the answer is…more advancer than basic thinking?” Thea had been testing the bounds of the rhymes; as long as they existed—slant, couplet, alternate, ballade, enclosed, triplet, limerick, villanelle—the form didn’t matter. ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ was as valid to her tongue as ‘I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again (I think I made you up inside my head)’. She wasn’t surprised that this had led to creativity for Charlie. “I’m pinking.” Thea brought her cold hands to her hot face; it was hard to say what she was about to but the truth was clear to her. 

“I-It might be that state of head clear, so-called.” Thea gestured to her hair (which was growing in nicely!). “That state of bald to which I was once appalled; in case any here recalled. That is to say, to our problem enthralled, perhaps we all must go bald?” 

—

The English language was complex and often confusing as a non-native speaker; and that was without being cursed to rhyme anytime one opened their mouth. Of course, as Anita had learned, the rhyming wasn’t limited to speaking in English. Spanish was a much more beautiful language and lent itself better to forced rhyming in her opinion. But in this strange grouping of Felix’s friends, Spanish was not a realistic option. Despite her usual propensity to yap she had resigned to being slightly more silent to try and avoid having to rhyme. Being forced to do anything, even something as simple as rhyming, was not something she had interest in. It had grown old and at least in silence Anita felt like she was in control. 

Both people who had spoken so far seemed strange and Anita didn’t know them much at all. When the one sitting against the wall suggested they all go bald, Anita’s face scrunched into a disgusted frown as her eyes rolled to the side in the direction of the woman. “No, we are not entertaining that for one moment; and I surely hope I am not that suggestion’s only opponent.” 

Moving somewhat suddenly from where she was standing near Felix, Anita picked up the orange egg from the table and threw it against a wall on the other side of the small boiler room with all her strength. It, of course, didn’t break. They’d tried that many times before. She sighed, walked over to pick it up in defeat and then placed it back in the center of the room where it had been. “It doesn’t break. And nothing happens when you feed it to a very large snake. I don’t know much about curses and I’m sure there are some exceptions, but the ones I do know of can last for generations.” 

—

Rhyming wasn’t the worst, but Ariadne had never been a big fan of Dr. Seuss. That was too much, and she preferred an occasional rhyme rather than constant ones. Which was probably rude to say and think, but she couldn’t help it. At least rhyming didn’t seen to cause her or anybody around her any actual harm. That would’ve been too much, and wouldn’t have been something that she could so easily deal with. Some of the nightmares she’d had to cause even wound up rhyming, which was a bit of a headache and had made for some less effective nightmares – something she’d have normally been thrilled about, because less effective meant less harm, but it also meant she wasn’t as quickly satiated, which meant she had to do more, which ended up meaning more harm.

But right now she was here to help Felix. Not to make things about herself and have some sort of a pity party about all of it.

“You’ve all got good thoughts.” Ariadne began. “I guess we’ve just gotta figure out how to connect the dots.” She winched. “I’d rather not go bald, if it’s all the same to you. I bet there’s something else that we can do!”

—

Okay, so some of the suggestions so far weren’t the best. Felix wasn’t really sure how going bald would help anything, and they rubbed a hand absently over their hair at the thought. Their mother used to shave their hair in the summers, but it had never looked quite right. Their brother always insisted it was because they had a lumpy head. Felix wasn’t sure if that was true. They hoped it wasn’t. “I’m not sure going bald is the best solution,” they said hesitantly, flashing Thea an apologetic smile. “I’m sure, between all of us, we can find another resolution!”

But, of course, throwing the orange wasn’t helping much, either. Felix winced as it hit the wall uselessly, falling back onto the ground without breaking the same way it always did. They weren’t even sure if breaking it would actually lift the curse. For all any of them knew, that would make things permanent. “We can’t afford to be pessimistic! How many of those generational curses are linguistic? I know we can find a good way out. There are some really smart people here, so I have no doubt. We know trying to break it won’t work. If we keep trying the same thing, we’ll all end up going beserk. Let’s try to think of things we haven’t done yet! I’ll start up a list so we don’t forget.” They pulled out their phone, typing in the notes app. Breaking the orange was at the top of the does not work list. They added a last resort list and typed bald beneath the heading. “Has anyone tried anything on their own? Let me know so I can put it into my phone!”

—

There was a brief moment that Charlie considered the bald thing, a hand shooting up to his hair, and then thought better of it. “I’d rather rhyme forever than be bald.” He decided, pulling a face. He fell silent for a long moment, wracking his brain for ideas of how to be free of the curse. Sure, it was useful to get songwriting done, but it was a nightmare when trying to have a serious conversation with someone and you’re acting like fucking Dr. Seuss. 

He frowned at the mention of generational curses and large snakes, looking at Anita a little funny before shaking his head and going back to the task at hand. Breaking the curse. “What happens if we dull its shine?” He asked, staring at the tacky object. “Surely if we find a way to tarnish it, we’ll all be fine.” Charlie scratched at his head, unsure if that was a solution to anything or just a way to take his frustrations out on the orange.

Had he tried something on his own to break the curse? He thought about it for a minute, looking over to Felix’s phone. “I tried rhyming all the words I could think of that would rhyme with red. Took a while, but… it didn’t work and I was filled with dread.”

__

Having an idea rejected was not a good feeling; having it rejected in rhyme was somehow worse. Thea slumped against her moldy pitch of wall. Yes, she’d also rather rhyme forever than be bald and yet, she couldn’t stop thinking that ever since her hair started coming back, her life was weird. Mostly that was because of the strange hair serum she insisted on but what if it was because she angered some baldness god by not respecting the bald? What if this curse was yet another warning from the bald man above? Thea sighed; probably not. Wait… Thea shot up, waving her arm in the air as though this were a classroom, but spoke despite anyone calling on her. She pointed to the older, very attractive woman. “Snickity snackity make, what’s this about a snake?” Thea leaned back again. “We’ve gone through it, if a snake can’t do it, maybe we quit?” But Felix was trying so hard, and no one wanted to rhyme, or be bald. 

“Yes.” Thea shrugged at Charlie’s red rhyming plight. “What a mess. Technically everything rhymes. I don’t have lactose digesting enzymes.” Thea shook her head. “No, what I mean to say—not to play—is that rhymes slant, are still rhymes you can grant. Words imaginary are not a rhyming scary. It is true, though it makes me blue, that the English language has…” She paused. “Words known as…” She paused again. “Unrhymable.” She sighed. “I thought I was able…to break rhyme with these words fabled…instead I became unstable.” Thea lifted a finger up. “Listen: purple. What rhymes with purple? Purple rhymes with purple. Circle is not a perfect rhyme for purple. Jimminy jemminy nurple, I still rhyme with purple.” Thea hugged herself, trying to soothe the pain of purple rhyming. “My point is that rhymes imperfect, are still rhymes you can perfect. And so what does it matter? What’s the point of all this chatter? For a curse that will never shatter?” 

—

Anita didn’t care for being pointed at, but she did grin softly at the suggestion that if a snake couldn’t solve this that it was perhaps unsolvable. A sentiment she, as the snake in question, wanted to agree with but also one she knew had to be untrue - because she knew that there had to be a way to stop this awful rhyming even if she wasn’t the one who was able to figure it out. “Why are you both trying to rhyme colors? Red, purple … and all the others. You seem to be making this harder on yourselves than this all needs to be. Don’t you see? You don’t need to be Shakeperian with the words that you say. They just need to rhyme at the end of the day. It is harder in English that is no doubt, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution we can’t scout out.”

It wasn’t something that she would admit aloud, but there was part of Anita that wondered if this was a permanent curse. Her ability to transform into a snake, the gift of the lamia, was technically a curse. An unbreakable one that traveled through a family for generations. She didn’t really want to have a second curse upon her forcing her to rhyme until the end of time. “Maybe if we source this orange back to its origin we’ll find a solution before we become permanent jesters. Preferably before the start of the new semester. It’s one thing to have to rhyme, but I don’t wish to feel like the lorax trying to find words that rhyme with antenna, glands, and thorax.” 

_ 

Ariadne did her best to stay mostly silent. All the rhyming was giving her more than a bit of a headache, and she wasn’t always great with words to start, so suddenly rhyming perfectly was a bit unsettling. Which, again, was maybe a rude way of looking at things, but she couldn’t quite help herself. It was important to try and think of ideas though, and she scrunched her face up, trying to think of more ideas – Thea and Felix and Anita and the dude called Charlie were all having really interesting ideas, and she wanted to do her best to at least try and contribute something.

“Maybe if we ask it to stop? I don’t know if that idea’s a flop.” But it couldn’t hurt to suggest. Ariadne was always down to ask people, animals, or – objects, in this case, to do their very best. Give them the choice, even though she wasn’t sure if this orange had a thought process – conscious – but if she could come back from the dead then maybe decorative oranges could think for themselves.

“Thankfully if I have to rhyme when I do ballet – I shouldn’t have to think all day.” Ariadne nodded, “Plié rhymes at least mostly with chassé, and so on.” So that much was a relief, that she wouldn’t sound too weird during class. Though she was sure that some way would come about to make things sound weirder than they should’ve. “Uh, we could also leave it be? Go away and come back and maybe offer another plea?”

—

This really was a mess, wasn’t it? Everyone was going back and forth about their experiences, and Felix’s feelings towards the curse were souring the more they realized that their friends were probably having less fun than they were. Charlie was full of dread, Thea was rambling about unrhymable words and baldness, Anita had classes to teach, Ariadne had ballet… but that was why they were all here, weren’t they? If they banded together, they’d surely find a way to break the curse. 

Glancing up at Ariadne, they offered a small smile. “Talking to it was one of the first things I tried,” they admitted. “I asked it to let us stop rhyming, but it never replied.” They’d tried that tactic for longer than they’d like to admit, in various different ways. Begging, pleading, making empty promises to the reflective glass… nothing had really done what they were hoping for. “I’m not sure making it dirty would do much, either. It’d probably work as well as breaking it, and we tried that for so long that I had to stop to take a breather!” Breaking it seemed mean, anyway, and Felix didn’t want to be mean. They squinted at the egg, inspecting it carefully.

“Maybe it wants us to make a specific kind of rhyme,” they suggested. “Something to do with the thing itself this time? There could be some kind of secret password. Or maybe something we need to try to say backwards? Or it could just have to do with the egg. Or maybe we have to take it to the leg!” Could the leg be related? Leg did rhyme with egg, didn’t it? Except… “I guess it doesn’t look much like an egg, when you really look at it. The shape isn’t quite right, so the word doesn’t really fit.” They turned it over in their hands with a sigh. “I guess… it’s really more of an orange. I didn’t even know they sold glass oranges, but apparently they do. Isn’t that weird to think about?” They were rambling now… and unaware that those rambles no longer rhymed. Still turning the egg over, still perplexed, and just as clueless as always.

—

There were a lot of ideas being thrown around, and Charlie wasn’t sure which one would make sense. Well, the orange egg thing wasn’t lonely, so appeasing it seemed to be out. Rhyming words with difficult words to rhyme made sense. He was so lost in thought that he tuned out most of what was going on, only coming to when Felix began speaking again, going on and on about different rhymes.

Charlie stared at Felix as he rambled on, noticing that his words slipped from rhyme to just regular speech. “Wait.” Charlie pointed at Felix, shaking his head. “Nothing rhymes with Orange! Which means…” He paused a moment. “Felix, you fucking genius!” Charlie surged forward and shook his friend by the shoulders, grinning brightly. “That’s it, nothing rhymes with orange! We’re fucking free!” He placed his hands on either side of Felix’s face and nodding his head excitedly before letting go and doing a little dance now that he wasn’t stuck rhyming everything. Now Finn wouldn’t be reduced to murdering him for his rhymes! Amazing!

__

“No, technically things do rhyme with orange.” Thea said quickly, ignoring the more celebratory aspect of Charlie’s words. “There just aren’t perfect rhymes. But what’s a perfect rhyme even mean? What does it—I mean—what I was saying was…” Thea paused, staring at the group. She wasn’t rhyming. Felix wasn’t rhyming. Charlie wasn’t rhyming. Their problem was solved! And yet, watching Charlie celebrate made her feel decidedly empty. “I guess we’re free?” Her words were back to being bland; her cadence was clumsy again. She was Thea. She frowned. What rhymed with free? “Uh, I guess we have knees? Uh, tree?” It wasn’t the same—she had to think about her words, she had to bear the ugly sound of her voice echoing in her ears. She was Thea, as she had been before all this. Rhyming wasn’t so bad, when the alternative was this. Thea forced herself to perk up. “Hey! Good job, Felix!” 

Pushing herself off the ground, she swiped dirt off her legs. “Now, what do we do about the orange?” Thea pointed at it. “It is really nice, and I think it matches with the Garfield posters, but maybe we should, like, break it or something? Or put it in a case that says ‘don’t touch unless you want to rhyme’? Or, uh, something?” Thea winced at herself; she’d gotten used to the more eloquent rhyming. 

—

For as much as Anita cared for Felix, she did not much care for this group of their friends and she cared even less for their ramblings and ideas regarding fixing this curse. Clearly there were no solutions down in this boiler room. Mentally planning a swift exit before things devolved into listening to the girl suggesting they go bald, Anita had not even noticed that people stopped rhyming until the excitable one burst across the room (not that it took much to burst across a room that size) and was exclaiming that they were free. She frowned, a bit annoyed that everyone was still talking about rhyming with colors. Hadn’t they gotten past this. 

“Tons of words rhyme with orange in Spanish,” Anita muttered, mostly to herself and whomever else in the room spoke Spanish. “Naranja. Toronja. Corrija. Esponja. Puta.”  As she listed of Spanish orange rhymes the realization of what the others were talking about settled in. Had the ridiculousness of the English language just saved them from this rhyming hell? Gross. She’d cogradulate Felix on the success later, maybe, it was their fault everyone was rhyming to begin with anyone. She certainly wasn’t going to do it in front of these strangers, though. “Did you not see what happened earlier? How do you expect to break this thing? No, no. This thing must be locked away in a box of some kind, taken to a remote location, and buried a minimum of 12 feet underground. And then the key must be destroyed.” 

_ 

“Aw, well…” but it did make Ariadne smile that Felix had already tried her idea. They were really great, and the fact that they didn’t just immediately brush her idea off. Because there were plenty of people who might’ve done that. She wouldn’t judge any of them for brushing it off, because that was just how things worked, sometimes, and there wasn’t a reason to be judgmental about it right back to them. That wasn’t kind, and she wanted to be kind whenever she could.

“That’s – we’ll think of something, I know it. We’ll figure stuff out.” Except she did a double-take, listening to everyone else. They weren’t rhyming anymore. “I sort of like blue. It’s a nice color.” Ariadne shook her head. “Sorry, was – I just wanted to try it out, to see if I’d –” she smiled. “If there was still rhyming going on. “That’s true, orange is a tricky thing – word – to rhyme with.” She signed, but nodded to Thea’s idea, and Anita’s. “We could lock it up. Just to be safe?”

—

The rhyming curse was broken, it seemed, as easily as it had been cast in the first place. Touch an orange and rhyme. Speak the word ‘orange’ at the end of your sentence and free yourself. It didn’t make a lot of sense but, then, curses rarely did, did they? Felix felt a rush of… pride, maybe, as Charlie called them a genius, even though they’d had no idea what they were doing when they broke the curse. They hadn’t meant to free anyone any more than they’d meant to curse them in the first place, but maybe intentions didn’t mean much here. Maybe it was enough that they’d broken the curse at all.

There were other matters to attend to, anyway. Felix looked to the orange skeptically, shifting their weight uncertainly between their feet. If Anita wanted to bury it, maybe they could bury it. But… “I’m not sure I can dig a hole that’s 12 feet deep. Maybe we should just, um, chuck it into the ocean or something?” Did it still have its power? If they touched it again now, would the curse start anew? It was hard to say. “I can take care of it. Um, one way or another. I can make sure no one else gets cursed.”

—

Staring at the orange with a look of hesitation, Charlie frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe you should handle it with a pair of tongs, yeah?” He suggested, looking over to Felix with a raised brow. “I mean, can’t risk touching it again, you know?” He looked to Anita, nodding his head. “I definitely think the deeper the hole the better off we are, bury that shit away and hope no one digs it back up. The ocean is an idea too, throw it off the side of a boat Titanic style.” Charlie wiggled his brows, remembering the scene where she threw the necklace into the ocean. 

“Just don’t get yourself cursed in the process of getting rid of it. Because if you curse yourself and then throw it into the ocean, you’re fucking screwed, you know?” Charlie decided it was important enough to point that out, god forbid that poor Felix be stuck rhyming for the rest of his life.

__

“What if the fish start rhyming?” Thea asked with complete and honest seriousness. “When you throw it into the ocean? I mean, and, you gotta think about—like…” She hated not rhyming. Everything sounded harsh and wrong. “…like, pollution. There’s a lot of garbage in the ocean already, it’s not nice to dump things in it.” She frowned; maybe none of them really cared about the environment. And yes the ocean was vast, but that thing totally looked like it would just float and then what? “It’s like, you know in Oops, I did it again? They have that whole part in the music video. Which, um, yeah—“ Thea gestured to Charlie. “Yeah, like Titanic. I know that’s not your point but people find things in the ocean eventually. Someone could find it.” The attractive woman was sure that it couldn’t be broken—even if Thea thought they just needed to try harder—and Thea couldn’t argue with an attractive person. It wasn’t much better to bury it either; there would be rhyming worms. 

Thea shrugged; rhyming wasn’t the worst thing to her. “I trust you, Felix. Whatever you want to do with it, that’d be good.” She agreed more with Ariadne, and the idea of locking it up. “Even if it slightly contributes to the declining environmental state of our planet.” Felix was allowed a little climate crime, she thought. They were owed that. 

—

“Oh my god!” Anita finally exclaimed, astonished and exhausted by all of the talking and discussion about what to do and how it might make the fish start rhyming. It was like the curse was lingering, trapping them into a cycle of hypotheticals and hesitations on how to destroy the stupid orange thing. She had given a perfect solution but its feasibility was questioned. Fine. But she was not going to sit around in this room any longer and have a philosophical discussion about how throwing the orange in the ocean may impact the environmental state of the planet. 

Walking up to the egg again, Anita allowed her neck, jaw, and inner digestive tract to shift into the mojave rattlesnake. She did not know these people, and typically would not have exposed herself so obviously, but none of the questioned an orange figurine making the rhyme and they were all friends of Felix’s, in the boiler room of the Grit Pit - if there were ever a space safe from hunters this was it. Opening her mouth wide, she inhaled the orange and allowed it to travel through her body where it would hopefully, finally, meet its end. 

Anita whipped her mouth after shifting back to her human appearance, scanned the room, making eye contact with each of the individuals present. “Now that that is settled, let us never speak of this again.” She paused, waiting to see if the orange in her stomach was going to make her rhyme again, “And look at that, no compulsion for poetry.” She grabbed her bag and made her way to the exit, seeing no need for her to stick around for even a second longer. 

_ 

Ariadne found herself distracted by her relief, up until a lady partially turned into a snake? Or snake-like? Which caused her to do a fairly significant double take. “Or… that. That works too.” It did work, so long as it didn’t hurt the woman who’d eaten the orange and didn’t hurt the orange, either. Even if it had caused all of them to just keep rhyming non-stop. Wynne had found it cute, maybe even charming, but it had been a bit dizzying.

“I won’t say anything about that, I promise.” Ariadne held up her hand, Girl Scout salute and all.

“I know I could use a rootbeer float, if anybody wants to come along?” She turned to leave. “Felix, if you want, we can go shopping for decor together sometime.” Ariadne nervously shifted from the ball of one foot to the other, wishing she had on shoes that were more flexible, desperately wishing to go by her dance studio. “But we did it. That – good job, everyone!” She winced at herself.

—

Thea made a very good point. What about the environmental impact of a cursed glass orange sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor? Felix grappled with the lack of a perfect solution, heart stuttering uncertainly as they tried to come up with some magical answer that might resolve the issue with no kind of negative impact. Burying it in the dirt might find someone else digging it up, keeping it locked away always ran the risk of it being found. What options were available to them? How could they get rid of a thing that didn’t seem to be able to be destroyed without risking someone, somewhere finding it and using it for some kind of poetic evil? 

Their heart was pounding with the pressure, panic threatening to suffocate them, when Anita stepped forward. She made a quick beeline for the orange, and — she ate it. Felix blinked, watching it disappear down her throat. She spoke, not in rhyme, and Felix blinked again. The orange was gone. No one was cursed. This was the closest thing to a best-case scenario they’d gotten in a while, wasn’t it?

Their eyes scanned the group, wide and maybe a little confused, but no longer quite as stressed. Ariadne spoke up with offers of root beer floats and shopping, and Felix nodded. “Yeah,” they agreed. “Yeah! Okay! Root beer floats. I’ll pay for everyone. Um, as an apology. For the curse.” Wow, it still felt weird to not speak in rhymes. A slow smile spread over Felix’s face, in spite of everything. They sighed, content, and walked towards the door. “Next time,” they mused, leading everyone out into the hall and closing the door behind them, “I think I’ll buy a glass apple.”

[good--merits-accumulated]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

(if you want to!)

:0 Thanks for the ask, Lee!

1) Hymnal To The Year-Turn

This one is very predictably my absolute favourite. Fantasy-medieval setting (AKA, historical accuracy is a thing of the distant past, and I'm playing dress up with different time periods) AU where Todd is a court bard exiled from an enemy country, Neil is a knight, and court intrigue ensues. Fraught sibling relationships included for free!

2) Berth

Very short oneshot exploring the "Neil and Todd run away from Welton" possibility, set on the train to New York. Not remarkable, but I like some of the prose in it. :]

3) tick tick

An epistolary (text messages) companion to all the episodes of Qi Hun, as well as expanding past the last episode because Guangliang just got kind of... out of hand. Waves hands. You know how it is. Silly and fun to write!

4) To Overtake A Scald-Crow

... Not actually technically a fic I've written, because it's a WIP. Still one of my favourite! AU where Todd, in the 1910s, gets sucked through a portal and ends up in the world of the fair folk. Massively about the importance of oral storytelling (+ being gay and doing crimes).

5) ... Another unnamed WIP (sorry!). More fantasy (are we sensing a pattern LMFAO). Tonally (and wrt to some plot points) an AU of the The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper, because I got nostalgic and really wanted to write something in that particular style of British children's fantasy fiction. Snippets for the WIPs below:

^ To Overtake A Scald-Crow

^ unnamed WIP T_T

[mermaidsirennikita]

Favorite groveling efforts in historical fiction? Grand gestures and not, where the hero has to win the heroine’s forgiveness after screwing up in some way?

Yes!

Generally, I always recommend Untamed by Elizabeth Lowell. This is a medieval romance with a true alpha hero. He is shitty to the heroine (mostly in the sense that he suspects she was sleeping with her friend before their arranged marriage, so he refuses to consummate the marriage until she has her period and also just like... holds that kind of shit against her) but not in a way that any Elizabeth Lowell hero isn't a shitbag at points tbh! And his grovel is extremely OTT in the best way.

The Bride Goes Rogue by Joanna Shupe has a great one. Technically two, because Preston does his whole "wet cat grovel" before screwing up again. And having to do something more debasing the next go around lol. The Prince of Broadway by Shupe also has a good grovel!

S.M. LaViolette books have some good grovels. The Footman is my favorite, because he's just... pathetic. And he should be--he really fucked up! But yeah, this guy just sort of whimperingly approaching like an embarrassed dog while she looks down her nose at him is my FAVORITE thing. Selina has a good "she's fucked off and now I don't know what to doooo" grovel. Hyacinth has something of a grovel; I feel like it's a bit more on the "chase her down to prove my love" side, but it's good.

Oooh, His Valet has a grovel with the hero literally on his knees begging. That shit is good.

How to Steal a Scoundrel's Heart by Vivienne Lorret gives good grovel. I mean, the man brings a puppy.

A Rogue's Rules for Seduction by Eva Leigh is a book-long grovel because the hero left the heroine at the altar and now must win her back while they're trapped at an island house party.

The Notorious Lord Knightly by Lorraine Heath is another one that's sort of like... a book of the dude making up for leaving her at the altar lol. I personally like this one more, as they are more combative initially, and his grand gesture is really good. But the one above is also solid!

Heath's The Earl Takes All (aka Gorilla Twins) has a big grand gesture/grovel. I love it, and boy did he need to do it. I'd also recommend Beyond Scandal and Desire, and in a different kind of way, When the Duke Was Wicked (I mean lol... he certainly does a grand gesture).

The Mistress Experience by Scarlett Peckham has a good one, especially since it's another one where it actually takes the hero a minute to REALLY realize how badly he fucked up.

The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean has one of my favorite book-long grovels because the hero has actual real adult shit to make up for her--he cheated on the heroine. (To be fair, he is groveling after she leaves him for two years, which I think helps.) Big grand gesture. Other MacLean books with good grovels include A Rogue By Any Other Name (my favorite MacLean) and Daring and the Duke (which I think works better if you read the other two books in the series first, even though they're all technically standalones).

Stacy Reid's When the Earl Met His Match has one of my favorite grovels. Another one where he hits his knees. In the rain. In the mud. Wicked in His Arms has a really unique grand gesture as well.

Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare has a grovel I like quite a bit!

The Hawk by Monica McCarty gives good grovel--I mean, it's a GESTURE. Like, "grovel via kidnapping" vibes.

Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley is a book-long grovel with the hero deciding to get his wife back three years after she left him. He's gotta prove himself!

The Duke by Gaelen Foley has a RIDICULOUSLY OTT grand gesture grovel right at the end. It's camp. I enjoy it lol

If you're down for an nb/nb historical romance with a grovel, Something Spectacular by Alexis Hall has a unique grovel in that like... the one person didn't mean to hurt the other and was reacting in a trauma response manner... But an apology was still necessary. Knees are hit. Tears are shed. It is raining. One party says to the other like "oh my god it's raining and you're going to hurt your knees, get up".

[taliesin-the-bored]

To add a little clarity, Jenny Rowland in that book isn't actually saying the poem is bad; she finds it very interesting and is mostly analysing it from a detached perspective for the antiquarian traditions it records. There's some commentary on the poetic skill, both positive and negative, which is where the section I posted is from; it's mentioning there's slightly less metrical, technical skill vis a vis the rules and forms of medieval Welsh poetry than some other saga *englynion*, supporting her proposition this dialogue dates from after the form's heyday. I just screencapped a bit I thought was funny out of context because I have a mutual who likes Gwyn a lot and thought they might enjoy seeing him getting kinda bullied, ahah

Fair enough, I can agree with that, and I probably should have read into it further before reblogging. I suppose from my own reading I've become accustomed to vicious authorly attacks on Welsh anti-blorbos. Like this:

Wow, Laurence Main, tell us how you really feel with those sarcastic parentheses on "St" Illtyd! (For the record, I have met that author, and he is a delight to know, but he does not hold back about "Old Ill-Tide" or Gildas and also hates Taliesin with a burning passion).

Or this, from Adam Ardrey:

More sarcastic quotation marks and more hate for Gildas, who was not gentle in his own works and didn't mention King Arthur in any of his surviving writing and is still getting flamed for it around a millenium and a half later by people who are Maelgwyn fans, are trying to prove Arthur was real,* or both. I have written mediocre Gildas fanfiction at two in the morning with this as the fuel, because I think he probably gets too much hate, though having never met him, I can't judge any better than the people who claim he burned his praise of Arthur for petty reasons.

Anyway, this post went off the rails a lot, but all that is to say that literary scholarship can get incredibly opinionated, it's easy to fall into one viewpoint or become overly cynical about it in general, and I think I have mostly done the latter. Also, that Jenny Rowland book sounds rather interesting; I might have to check it out.

*For the record, I have no firm stance on the matter, since as far as I can tell it can't be proven or disproven. In my head, he both was and was not real. Schrödinger's King. Or warrior, rather.

[seriousbrat]

Interesting answer as always!

Tho my argument is that because magic can be so active, kids need a sport to stay fit and able to do it. The real reason Neville could never produce a patronus is because he didn’t get that post-10km endorphin rush.

Of course I’ve read your fic and I remember the Rosiers hunting werewolves. Here’s an idea that you’re free to take or reject: would the self-loading crossbows have a tracking spell intheir arrows, in case the game runs gets shot but runs away?

I can imagine muggle weapons being one of those things that wizards don’t need, but they just really like, almost as a fetish. I suppose the sword of Gryffindor is an example.

Speaking of werewolves, I always thought you don’t give Professor Ninja Warrior Circuit Lupin enough credit. Canon Lupin is actually quite active, not only in his practical lessons, but also in high-risk Order moments like the department of mysteries and 7 potters. I don’t think he’s waking up at 5 am to do laps in the lake, but I also don’t think he’d pass out from exertion after a run or a game of quidditch.

lmao I forgot about Lupin's ninja warrior obstacle course! Good point. And yes I mostly just meant that he's always described as tired/pale/exhausted in canon from his transformations, (which is technically not a healthy state) and it is still an illness so I just wouldn't describe him as healthy. I don't think that he's an absolute weakling haha, he can obviously hold his own duelling etc quite well. Although I did once have Sirius describe him as 'Remus fucking glass bones Lupin' in a fic haha, but that was just Sirius being mean. (also it was a muggle au. in which remus was born with glass bones and paper skin. and every morning he breaks his legs. )

It's not a bad point. I'm not sure how physically taxing actually casting magic is supposed to be itself, like if it requires physical stamina as well as willpower. I'm sure though that being fit in general helps a lot, especially with more active forms of magic like duelling where you usually to have to run around a lot haha. It might be helpful for them to do endurance training at Hogwarts lol but between that and the stairs and the classes I think I'd be exhausted! There's so much activity at Hogwarts that doing some kind of physical training is probably more useful for adult witches and wizards honestly.

About the crossbows, that's a great idea! I always pictured the bolts as vanishing and reappearing instantly on the crossbow but there could definitely be some sort of tracking charm on the animal if the bolt didn't fell it instantly. Although tracking would also be what the hounds are for.

I'd thought about whether the crossbows would have inbuilt aiming charms but decided against it because I think the "fun" of it is in the skill, so it would kind of defeat the point if you never missed, and similarly I think the 'fun' would be chasing down the poor animal in a bloodthirsty way with your bloodthirsty hounds. Maybe these are charms that can be toggled on/off somehow haha, like they exist for training crossbows and for amateurs but most true enthusiasts don't use them.

Also yes, Hagrid uses a crossbow (which isn't self-reloading lol, that's for lazy posh people like the Rosiers) and obviously we've got the sword of Gryffindor/other goblin weapons, plus many suits of armour around Hogwarts. In 'the fountain of fair fortune' Sir Luckless uses a sword and shield, and Sir Cadogan, who was a wizard, uses both wand and sword. So I think wizards would be familiar with/enjoy medieval weaponry at least. And like magical crossbows, Cadogan, and Gryffindor's sword, maybe pre-statute of secrecy it was more common for muggle weaponry to be combined with magic.

[grailfinders]

Csejte Halloween Trilogy megamix!

have you ever wanted to play an entire party of just one person? now you can! I know this isn't quite a full event, and there's no servant with an official event boost, but fuck it, 99 elis attack.

Elisabeth Bathory, the build that started it all. hush ignore the first draft. move fast, look good, and blast peoples' brains to bits via the power of rock. bard/fighter is always a pretty fun combo.

Elisabeth Caster: what if instead of splitting our focus between fighting and singing, we just... didn't? set up your stage in the sky and have your backup dancers do all the hard work.

Bathory Brave: more fighty, less singy, but still very Elizabethan. maybe don't actually show up to a fight in a bikini tho.

Mecha Elis MKs 1 & 2: Raining down missiles from above in a medieval fantasy game feels like cheating, but if you DM gives you trouble just summon your giant robot to make it feel downright fair in comparison.

Carmilla: the extra crispy version of the elis. contagion is a fucking terrifying spell- if you want to play a villain, this is a good build to take notes from.

Carmilla (Rider): technically less villainous, but you can summon a ton of dogs to the field if you want to give your DM an aneurysm. also worth noting she's one of the most social builds on this list despite not even being a bard.