#1: *catches on* PLOT ARMOR!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

novaursa · 5 months ago

Note

Please please please 🙏🏻🙏🏻 publish your Arthur Dayne and Targaryen stories! I have always wanted to read those but there were never enough of them. For me it would be ultra win because I absolutely LOVE your writing and have been following you for quite a while and have read almost all what you have published

The Price of Fire (1)

- Summary: In the shadows of the Red Keep, the daughter of the Mad King, Princess Y/N Targaryen, finds herself caught between duty, love, and survival. As her father’s madness deepens and political intrigue swirls, she seeks solace in a forbidden romance with her sworn protector, Ser Arthur Dayne. With King Aerys plotting to use her as a pawn and her brother Rhaegar maneuvering to shield her from their father’s grasp, Y/N must navigate a web of deceit and desire. As tensions rise, secrets ignite into fierce passion and dangerous alliances, where the wrong move could mean the end of them all.

- Pairing: targ!reader/Arthur Dayne

- Note: reader is referred to as Y/N, is second child born to King Aerys II and Queen Rhaella. Timeline and plot are all over the place to suit the story.

- Rating: Explicit 18+ (all warnings are up for this one, Aerys II is a warning on his own)

- Word count: 6 000+

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @lightdragonrayne @onlyrealjoy

- A/N: So, here it is. I hope you enjoy it. This was made as a one long chapter, but I had to separate it due to the character limit here. For more parts of this story and my other works, visit my blog. The list is pinned to the top.

- Next chapter: 2

You stand in the Great Hall of the Red Keep, at your brother's side, beneath the shadow of the Iron Throne. The dark room echoes with the low murmur of lords and courtiers, their whispers mingling with the crackle of distant torches. Your head is bowed, your gaze directed to the cool stone floor, every inch the obedient princess that King Aerys II expects. But as the flicker of torchlight catches on polished steel, your eyes drift upward—just for a heartbeat.

Ser Arthur Dayne, resplendent in his armor, stands tall and unyielding among the Kingsguard. The white cloak draped over his broad shoulders reflects the firelight like the dawn. His expression is the picture of calm, yet his eyes—those pale, lilac-gray eyes—meet yours in that fleeting moment. Warmth curls in your chest, unbidden and unmistakable. There is a softness in his gaze reserved only for you, a silent promise hidden within those depths, something tender amidst the ironclad duty.

Rhaegar shifts beside you, the smallest of movements, but enough to bring you back to the present. His silver hair glints under the dim light as he turns his head ever so slightly. You feel the weight of his gaze, even without looking. He caught it, just as he always does—the silent exchange that passes between you and Ser Arthur. Your brother says nothing, but you know Rhaegar too well. He fears for you, not because he disapproves, but because of what your father might do should the king’s fractured mind discover this delicate thread of affection. Aerys has grown unpredictable—dangerous—in his madness since Duskendale, and the court is rife with suspicion and fear.

"Y/N," Rhaegar’s voice is gentle, barely a whisper, but it pulls you from your thoughts. You glance up at him, noting the concern that shadows his violet eyes. "It is nearly time for Father’s entrance. Be mindful, please."

You nod, an obedient response, though your heart is still tangled in that single look shared with Arthur. "Of course, brother," you murmur, the words escaping like a breath you didn’t know you held.

Before you can say more, the heavy doors groan open. All conversation dies instantly, and the tension in the hall thickens like a storm cloud. King Aerys sweeps in, his once regal bearing now marred by the gauntness of his frame and the wild gleam in his eyes. His silver hair, long and unkempt, hangs like a veil, doing nothing to mask the haunted expression etched across his face. The court bends the knee, yet you remain standing beside Rhaegar, who doesn’t flinch. You sense Ser Arthur’s presence still, always close, but your eyes remain trained forward. For now.

“Where is my son?” Aerys’ voice rings out, sharp and edged with paranoia. His eyes dart wildly around the hall before settling on Rhaegar. “Here you are, at last,” he sneers, the words twisted with mockery. “And your sister, too. Always so… dutiful.” The king’s gaze slides to you, and you force your face into an expression of perfect neutrality. The madness lurking behind his eyes makes your skin prickle, but you do not falter.

Rhaegar steps forward, ever the prince and heir, with a grace and poise that belies the tension simmering beneath. “Father,” he addresses Aerys with that same calm tone, though you can hear the tightness underneath. “The court gathers to hear your will.”

The king’s laughter bursts out, a brittle sound that echoes unpleasantly. “My will?” he repeats, almost mocking. “Yes, my will indeed… I shall have it obeyed.”

You feel it again—Arthur’s eyes on you. You dare a quick glance toward him, longing to feel the comfort of that gaze, the reassurance that you are not alone in this court of shadows. For the briefest instant, your eyes meet his, and despite the chaos that surrounds you, there is something grounding in that unspoken connection. Rhaegar shifts again, but this time, he does nothing to draw attention to your exchange. Perhaps he understands that in this court, where every move could be watched and twisted, a single kind look is the only sanctuary you have.

The tension in the room grows as Aerys' mood shifts again, unpredictably. “They plot,” he hisses, half to himself, half to the court. “Everyone plots.” His eyes land on you again, a flash of something sinister crossing them. But before he can speak, Rhaegar smoothly steps forward, drawing his attention away.

“Father, the lords await your command,” Rhaegar says, with a tone that brooks no refusal.

Aerys blinks, seemingly caught off guard by his son’s boldness, then barks out another shrill laugh. “Yes… yes, they do. We mustn’t keep them waiting, must we?”

The king’s focus shifts to the matters of the realm, his erratic mind drawn elsewhere, and the danger passes—for now. But you know better than to assume safety within these walls. As the court proceedings drag on, your mind drifts back to that moment—just a glance, but in it, you found strength.

You have long wondered how much longer you can endure the gilded cage of the Red Keep. And how long Ser Arthur can maintain the distance that duty demands. There are lines neither of you should cross—lines your brother understands all too well. But as you catch one final glimpse of Arthur at the edge of the hall, you can’t help but wonder if one day, one of you will step over that line, consequences be damned.

The gardens of the Red Keep are a rare oasis amidst the dull and somber atmosphere of the castle. The scent of blooming roses and honeysuckle mingles with the warmth of the afternoon sun, a welcome contrast to the cold, shadowed halls you’ve grown accustomed to. It’s a rare gift, this stolen moment of freedom. Your father’s whims are unpredictable, and more often than not, he keeps you locked away like a caged bird, much like your mother. You shudder at the thought of her—of the haunted look in her eyes and the endless hours she spends trapped in her chambers.

But today, you walk among the flowers, the soft crunch of gravel beneath your slippers a soothing rhythm. Beside you, Ser Arthur Dayne maintains a respectful distance, his hand resting on the hilt of Dawn, but you can sense his ever-watchful presence. His silent vigilance offers a comfort that words cannot. Even in a world as perilous as yours, with schemes and shadows lurking around every corner, there is a rare peace in these stolen moments with him.

You pause by a fountain, letting your fingers trail through the cool water as your gaze lifts to the sun-dappled trees. For a moment, you think you see a flicker of movement in the shadows—something, or someone, watching. You stiffen, narrowing your eyes, but whatever it was vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Varys, you wonder? The Spider is known for his silent comings and goings, slipping through the cracks in the walls like a wisp of smoke. Your heart skips a beat, unease rippling through you.

Ser Arthur steps closer, sensing your discomfort. “Is something amiss, my lady?” His voice is low, a quiet rumble that always soothes you.

You hesitate, searching the shadows once more, but find nothing. “Perhaps just a trick of the light,” you murmur, though you are not entirely convinced. “These gardens hold more eyes than petals, it seems.”

He gives a slight nod, acknowledging the subtle warning in your words. “In the Red Keep, one is wise to assume they are always being watched.” There’s an undercurrent of concern in his tone, though his face remains as composed as ever.

You continue walking, this time with him closer than before, and the silence stretches between you, comfortable in its own way. You want to speak, to say something meaningful, but the walls of the Red Keep have ears that are eager to twist even the most innocent of conversations. Still, you crave the solace of his voice, the reassurance that he is not merely your sworn sword, but a kindred spirit in a place devoid of trust.

“Do you ever miss the lands beyond these walls?” you ask, keeping your tone light, as if you were asking about nothing more than the weather. “The Dornish marches, the green fields of the Reach… there must be so much more color there than in this dreary castle.”

Arthur’s expression softens, and for a brief moment, the stern knight disappears, replaced by the man beneath. “There is beauty in those places,” he replies, his voice laced with a wistfulness that rarely surfaces. “But it is not the land that makes one long to return. It’s the people—the bonds we forge. Even the most barren desert can feel like home if it is shared with those who matter.”

Your heart stirs at his words, though you must force yourself to remain composed, even as a longing thrums in your chest. He has always spoken carefully, never crossing the invisible lines that bind him to duty, yet somehow, you hear more in his words than what is spoken aloud. It’s a delicate dance, this back-and-forth between propriety and affection, a dance you’ve grown far too familiar with.

“You speak of home,” you reply softly, allowing the faintest of smiles to curve your lips, “but I wonder… can such a place be found within these walls?” You meet his gaze, searching his eyes for an answer he cannot give outright.

He holds your gaze, the sunlight catching the dark strands in his hair, and for a heartbeat, it feels as though the world narrows to just the two of you. But even here, in the relative seclusion of the gardens, you both know better than to let such moments linger too long.

Arthur’s expression shifts, returning to the disciplined mask of a knight sworn to serve. “Home is not always a place, my lady,” he says, with a hint of something deeper beneath the words. “It is where we find those who understand us, who see us for who we truly are.”

You swallow, your pulse quickening. For a moment, you wish you could strip away all pretense, speak freely, and tell him what you truly feel. But such wishes are dangerous. Instead, you look away, focusing on the roses lining the path, their petals a vibrant red, like spilled blood.

“We must be careful, Arthur,” you say at last, your voice barely above a whisper. “The more we understand one another, the more dangerous it becomes.”

He nods, a subtle acknowledgement that you both tread a perilous line. “I will always protect you, Y/N,” he says, his tone so low that it is almost lost beneath the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves. “Even if it is from dangers neither of us can see.”

The sound of distant footsteps snaps the moment back to the harsh reality of your lives. A servant rounds the corner, head bowed, but you know better than to believe you’ve gone unnoticed. Eyes are always watching, ears always listening. The game of shadows never ends.

“Come,” Arthur says, his voice now cool and formal again. “We should return before your father sends for you.”

You nod, but as you walk back toward the keep, you steal one more glance at him from the corner of your eye. He remains steadfast, a silent guardian, and yet, in that brief look, you know the truth: you are not alone in this twisted web of power and duty. In a world where trust is a luxury, you have found it in the one man who should be least able to give it.

The sun has dipped below the horizon, casting shadows through the torch-lit corridors of the Red Keep. The air cools with the onset of evening as you walk in silence beside Ser Arthur, each footstep a measured echo in the darkened hall. The weight of the day, of the court’s endless politics and the careful masks you must wear, presses down on you, but beside him, there is a comfort in the silence. It is an unspoken understanding, the kind that has grown between the two of you over time. Your heart aches with the tension of things left unsaid, desires left unrealized, but this is the life you’ve been given—duty, restraint, sacrifice.

You reach your chambers at last. The door, carved with intricate dragon motifs, looms before you, signaling another night alone, locked away as though you were a fragile thing in need of constant guarding. Arthur moves ahead to open the door, his hand brushing against the wood before he pauses, turning back to you. The look you exchange in that moment says more than words ever could. His eyes, that soft lilac-gray, are filled with a longing so deep that it nearly undoes you. You catch your breath, torn between the duty you know he must uphold and the yearning that flares every time you see him.

“Goodnight, Ser Arthur,” you say quietly, your voice betraying a tremor of emotion despite your best efforts.

“Goodnight, my lady,” he replies, the words careful, yet heavy with something unsaid. His eyes linger on yours, as if he is memorizing the moment, a stolen fragment of time he can carry with him through the dark hours of the night.

Reluctantly, you step inside, closing the door with a soft click. On the other side, Arthur remains, taking his place as your silent sentinel, guarding the one person he cannot bear to lose.

Arthur stands there, unmoving, his hand still resting on the hilt of Dawn as he watches over the door. The corridor is empty, save for him, yet he knows better than to relax. The Red Keep is never truly quiet. Whispers travel faster than ravens, and secrets are carried by the very walls. Yet, as the minutes stretch into hours, it is not the shadows that gnaw at him—it is the battle raging within his own heart.

How long has he been fighting this? The pull he feels toward you, the forbidden warmth that rises in his chest whenever you so much as glance his way? As a knight of the Kingsguard, his vows are clear: to protect, to serve, to remain untainted by the desires of the flesh. But those vows are meant for ordinary service, for loyalty to the crown, not for resisting the affection that has grown between you. Not for denying a feeling that has grown stronger with every quiet conversation, every fleeting look.

Arthur draws in a deep breath, trying to quell the storm within him. He recalls the words he was told as a young knight: Duty above all else. He has lived by that creed, upheld it in every way, yet here he is, torn by feelings that are as dangerous as they are undeniable. You are more than just a royal charge to him; you are a woman with whom he has shared moments of unguarded truth, glimpses of a bond neither of you can fully express. And it is agony.

His thoughts betray him, wandering to what might have been if he were not bound by duty. If he could cross that threshold, take your hand, and offer something more than just the cold protection of a sword. In those rare moments when the world seems to fall away and it’s just the two of you, he wonders—could there ever be a place for them, a world where duty does not shackle his heart?

But these are dangerous thoughts, traitorous even. A man in his position cannot afford such indulgences, not when a single misstep could destroy everything. And yet… he cannot help but wish.

The sound of approaching footsteps pulls him from his thoughts. Ser Barristan Selmy, clad in the white cloak of their shared brotherhood, strides down the corridor with the ease of a man who has seen the passage of many years and many battles. His expression is unreadable, but there is a knowing gleam in his eyes as he comes to stand beside Arthur.

“Ser Arthur,” Barristan greets with a nod, his voice low and gruff.

“Ser Barristan,” Arthur replies, nodding back.

For a moment, neither man speaks. The silence stretches, thick with unsaid words, until Barristan breaks it, his gaze shifting to the door you just passed through. “She’s been locked away more often lately,” Barristan comments, almost absently, though Arthur can hear the edge of concern in his voice. “It’s a cruel thing to keep a young woman caged like that.”

Arthur’s jaw tightens. “It is for her protection. You know as well as I do that her father’s mind is… unstable. She is safer in there than at court.”

Barristan grunts in acknowledgment, but his eyes remain on Arthur, assessing. “Perhaps. But protection comes in many forms, doesn’t it? Sometimes, what we think is shielding someone can be its own kind of harm.”

Arthur turns to look at him, something shifting in the air between them. “What are you saying, Ser Barristan?”

“She cares for you,” Barristan says, his voice lowering, almost a whisper in the stillness of the corridor. “Anyone with eyes can see it. Even Rhaegar knows, though he does nothing about it. Perhaps he understands more than we give him credit for.”

Arthur’s heart hammers in his chest, but he forces himself to remain composed. “It is not my place to speak on such matters,” he replies, his voice tight with the effort to maintain control.

“No,” Barristan agrees, “it isn’t. But there are times when duty and honor are not the only things worth considering.”

Arthur turns to look at the older knight, caught off guard by the unexpected words. “What are you suggesting, Ser?”

For a moment, Barristan is silent, his gaze distant as though lost in memories of his own. Then he fixes his eyes on Arthur, a sharp gleam in them. “Go in to her,” he says, each word deliberate.

Arthur stiffens. “I cannot.”

“You can,” Barristan says, his voice firm. “And you should. I’ll stand guard.” He steps closer, his tone softening as if offering Arthur a lifeline. “I’ve fought beside you, watched you for years. You are the finest knight I’ve known, but even the finest deserve something for themselves. Go to her, if only for tonight.”

Arthur opens his mouth to protest, but the words die on his lips. The longing he’s kept buried surges to the surface, nearly overwhelming him. Barristan’s words cut through the chains of duty that have held him in place, offering a glimpse of a path he’s denied himself for so long.

“Do not hesitate, Arthur,” Barristan says, his tone almost fatherly now. “She is alone, and there is no telling how long she will be safe in this place. Give her what comfort you can.”

Arthur’s breath catches, his resolve crumbling under the weight of his desires. He knows what it will mean if he steps through that door, the line he’ll cross, the oaths he’ll bend. But in this moment, with Barristan’s silent permission, he feels a rare clarity.

“I’ll stand guard,” Barristan repeats, a final push.

Arthur nods slowly, his decision made. He turns toward the door, his hand hovering over the handle. There is no hesitation this time, no second thoughts. The pull is too strong, the ache too deep.

With one last look at Barristan—who merely inclines his head in a gesture of understanding—Arthur opens the door and steps inside.

And as the door closes behind him, sealing the two of you away from the world outside, all pretense of restraint falls away.

The door clicks shut behind Ser Arthur as he steps into your chambers, the soft sound echoing in the silence. For a moment, neither of you speak. The tension hangs in the air, heavy and electric, the culmination of all the glances, all the stolen moments, all the words left unsaid. You turn to face him, your heart pounding, your breath caught somewhere between anticipation and fear.

Arthur’s eyes meet yours, filled with an intensity that sends a shiver down your spine. He takes a single step forward, his expression torn between his unwavering sense of duty and the undeniable pull toward you. “We don’t have much time,” he murmurs, his voice hushed. “Ser Barristan is standing guard, but even that might rouse suspicion if anyone notices.”

The words are practical, laced with urgency, yet you can hear the longing beneath them—the way his resolve wavers just at the sight of you. Slowly, you approach him, your movements deliberate, as if savoring every second that this forbidden moment allows. You reach up and gently place your hand on his cheek, the roughness of his stubble beneath your fingertips grounding you in this reality. It’s a tender touch, yet it speaks volumes—of trust, of yearning, of the unspoken bond that has grown between you.

Arthur closes his eyes briefly, leaning into your touch as though he’s starved for it. “I’ve fought this for so long,” he confesses, his voice low and filled with a vulnerability he rarely allows himself to show. “But I can’t fight it anymore, not when you’re right here before me.”

“There’s nothing to fight,” you whisper in return, your voice trembling with emotion. “It’s just us, Arthur. Let it be just us tonight.”

He opens his eyes, and in them, you see the struggle slip away, replaced by something far more powerful—desire, affection, and a need that can no longer be contained. The distance between you closes as his hand reaches up to cover yours, pressing it more firmly against his cheek, his gaze never leaving yours.

Without another word, he dips his head and captures your lips in a kiss, the contact sending a rush of heat through your entire body. It’s soft at first, tentative, as though he’s afraid of breaking the fragile moment. But as you respond, leaning into him, the kiss deepens, filled with all the pent-up longing you’ve both kept hidden for so long. There’s a sense of inevitability to it, as though everything has been leading to this very moment.

Arthur pulls you closer, his arm wrapping around your waist, and you lose yourself in the taste of him—the warmth, the tenderness that gives way to something fiercer, more urgent. The shackles of duty, of propriety, fall away with every breathless kiss, every brush of his lips against yours. You feel the way his resolve crumbles completely, giving in to the desire you’ve both tried so hard to deny.

Your fingers move to the clasps of his cloak, undoing them with trembling hands, and he mirrors your movements, his touch reverent as he loosens the laces of your gown. There is no haste, no rush, just a careful savoring of each step, as though this moment is too precious to hurry. His gaze never leaves yours, even as he helps you slide out of your garments, the fabric pooling at your feet. His eyes hold a mix of awe and devotion, as though he’s committing every detail to memory.

When at last you stand before him, bared to one another in every sense, the air between you crackles with an unspoken intensity. He leans in to kiss you again, and this time, it’s different—slower, deeper, filled with a longing that borders on desperation. His hands roam over your skin, gentle but with a hunger that betrays the careful restraint he’s clung to all this time.

You guide him toward the bed, your steps slow and deliberate as if savoring every heartbeat that passes. He follows, his gaze locked on yours, his breath uneven. When you reach the bed, he pauses, a moment of hesitation in his eyes as he considers the weight of what you’re both about to do.

“Are you certain?” he asks, his voice hoarse, laced with concern. “I don’t want to rush you, to take something from you that can never be undone.”

You shake your head, a soft smile tugging at your lips as you pull him closer. “There’s nothing to take,” you reply, your voice firm with resolve. “I want this, Arthur. I want you. We’ve waited long enough.”

His eyes darken with emotion as he brushes a strand of hair away from your face. “Then I’ll be as gentle as I can,” he promises, though you can see the struggle within him—the battle between the desire to cherish you and the need to finally give in to what he’s denied himself for so long.

He lowers you onto the bed with a care that makes your heart ache, his hands steady as they explore every curve of your body, learning, memorizing. His touch is soft at first, as though mindful of your innocence, but you can see the restraint it takes for him to hold back.

But you don’t want restraint—you want to feel all of him, every part of him that’s been hidden behind layers of armor and duty. You urge him on, your hands running down his back, pulling him closer, until there’s nothing left between you but skin and breath and the shared heat of your desire.

“Don’t hold back,” you whisper, your voice laced with urgency. “I don’t want to waste this moment away, Arthur. Not when we don’t know how long we have.”

That’s all it takes for his control to finally snap. The tenderness gives way to something more primal, the repressed desire that has simmered beneath the surface for far too long. He kisses you with a fervor that leaves you breathless, his lips trailing down your neck, your shoulders, igniting every inch of skin he touches. The world outside ceases to exist—there’s only the two of you, the night wrapping around you like a cloak, hiding you away from prying eyes.

When he finally joins you, the connection is nothing short of profound—a culmination of all the longing, the stolen glances, the silent promises. He moves slowly at first, every motion careful, measured, as though determined to savor every second. But the intensity between you builds quickly, and the tenderness is soon overtaken by the passion that neither of you can hold back any longer.

Your hands grip his shoulders, your bodies moving in perfect sync, lost in the rhythm of your shared desire. The quiet gasps and whispered names fill the air, mixing with the scent of sweat and skin, creating a heady blend of sensations. Arthur’s restraint slips further as he gives in to the raw need you both feel, his movements becoming more urgent, driven by the fear that this moment could slip away too soon.

There’s a desperation in the way he holds you, as though he’s trying to make up for all the time lost, all the years spent denying himself what he truly wanted. The pleasure builds between you, cresting like a wave ready to break, and when it does, it’s a shattering release, a culmination of everything held back for so long.

In the aftermath, you lie tangled together, breathless and sated, your hearts pounding in time with one another. For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of your mingled breaths, the feel of his warmth against your skin. He traces his fingers down your arm, a touch so gentle it feels like a whisper.

“I would stay with you forever, if the world allowed it,” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion.

You press a kiss to his chest, closing your eyes as you savor the feel of him beside you. “We’ll hold on to this, for as long as we can,” you reply softly. “No matter what happens after tonight, this will be ours. No one can take it from us.”

The night stretches on, but the weight of reality begins to creep back in. You know this can’t last, that dawn will bring with it all the complications of duty, honor, and the dangers that linger beyond these walls. But for now, wrapped in Arthur’s arms, you allow yourself to forget all of that and simply live in this moment—this rare, fleeting moment of stolen bliss.

Outside the door, the world continues its relentless march forward, but in here, time has stopped.

The door closes with a soft click as Arthur steps out into the dimly lit corridor, leaving the warmth of your chambers behind. The cool air of the Red Keep wraps around him like a shroud, dragging him back into the reality he’d forgotten, if only for a few stolen hours. His breathing is still unsteady, his mind caught between the echo of your touch and the ironclad duty that now presses against him like a vice.

Ser Barristan Selmy stands just a few paces away, as stoic as ever, his white cloak still and pristine in the faint torchlight. The older knight’s eyes flicker briefly to Arthur, assessing, but there’s no judgment there—only understanding, a silent acknowledgment of what has passed.

“You’ve stayed longer than I expected,” Barristan says quietly, his voice carrying no hint of reproach, only a simple statement of fact. He steps closer, his expression a mix of resolve and sympathy. “I hope it was worth the risks.”

Arthur swallows, finding it difficult to summon words after everything that has transpired. The remnants of emotion still cling to him—longing, guilt, the ache of knowing that he must return to the rigid lines of his duty. “It was,” he replies, his voice rough with a mixture of exhaustion and conviction. “But it doesn’t change what we are sworn to do.”

“No,” Barristan agrees, his gaze steady. “It doesn’t. We are bound to our oaths, but that doesn’t mean we must be devoid of humanity.” He pauses, a slight softening in his expression. “What you did tonight, Arthur, was not an act of betrayal. It was an act of compassion—a rare thing in this place.”

Arthur nods, grateful for the older knight’s understanding. “Still, I fear what may come of it. The Spider watches from the shadows, and the King’s paranoia is ever-growing. If word of this reached his ears—”

“It won’t,” Barristan interrupts firmly, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “I’ll see to that. We both know the risks, but we also know what she means to you—and what you mean to her.”

There’s a pause, heavy with the weight of shared knowledge. Arthur knows that Barristan isn’t just speaking as a fellow knight, but as a man who’s seen too many lives ruined by the cruel machinations of the court. Perhaps that’s why Barristan gave him this brief window of time—to allow him something that might never be allowed again.

“I’ll take over here,” Barristan continues, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You’ve done enough for one night. I’ll ensure she’s safe.”

Arthur opens his mouth to argue, to insist on staying by your door as he always has, but Barristan cuts him off with a raised hand. “You need rest, Ser Arthur. You’ve carried more than your share of burdens. Go now, before the dawn comes. Clear your mind.”

For a moment, Arthur hesitates, torn between the instinct to stay near you and the reality that his own inner turmoil needs time to settle. Barristan’s gaze is firm, the kind that speaks of years of wisdom and experience. In it, Arthur sees a quiet reassurance—the knowledge that your safety, for this night at least, is in trusted hands.

Finally, Arthur nods, letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Thank you, Ser Barristan,” he says, the words laced with genuine gratitude. “For understanding.”

Barristan inclines his head. “Go on now. I’ll see you at first light.”

Arthur takes one last look at the door that separates him from you, as though he’s memorizing every detail, before turning away and walking down the dim corridor. Each step feels heavier, dragging him back into the rigid role he must play—knight, protector, but no more than that. And yet, beneath the weight of his duty, there’s a quiet resolve growing within him, stronger now than ever.

As he moves farther away from your chambers, he whispers to himself words he cannot say aloud, promises he dares not utter in the open air: I will protect you, no matter what it costs me. I won’t let this night be the last of us.

When Arthur is finally out of sight, Barristan remains by the door, his expression hardening into a steely mask. He knows what must be done, knows that tonight’s brief lapse in duty was a risk, but he also knows that for people like you and Arthur, such moments are the only refuge you’ll ever find. In this pit of vipers, compassion is a rare weapon.

Barristan draws his sword just enough to feel its reassuring weight before sliding it back into its sheath. He positions himself firmly by the door, his posture unyielding.

Anyone who might come near—whether servant, spy, or shadow—would find no easy entrance tonight. He would see to that.

The night stretches on, and as the first tendrils of dawn begin to creep through the narrow windows of the Red Keep, Barristan’s resolve solidifies. Whatever trials lie ahead, whatever darkness waits in the days to come, he knows one thing with certainty: he will stand guard here, not just out of duty, but out of a fierce determination to protect something fragile and rare in this world—a connection forged not in power or ambition, but in something far deeper.

For now, the corridors are quiet, and the weight of the world rests on Barristan’s shoulders alone. As the morning light begins to cast long shadows down the hall, he remains vigilant, his eyes sharp and his stance unwavering. There are few allies in this place, but for tonight, there is one more who stands between you and the dangers lurking just beyond the door.

The great hall is awash in flickering candlelight as servants move briskly between tables, offering plates of roasted meats, spiced wine, and fruits glazed with honey. The scent of rich foods mingles with the dampness of stone, a constant reminder of the Red Keep’s shadowed, ancient halls. King Aerys II sits at the head of the table, his gaunt figure draped in extravagant robes, the crown of sharp, twisting steel glinting on his brow. Beside him, Rhaegar sits with a composed air, the prince’s expression calm despite the underlying tension that hums in the room.

Standing behind them, silent and vigilant, are Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Gerold Hightower, their white cloaks stark against the gloom. The Sword of the Morning keeps his gaze trained forward, a mask of cool resolve firmly in place. But beneath that practiced exterior, unease coils in his gut. He knows better than to trust the rare moments when Aerys seems almost lucid, for they are often the prelude to something far darker.

Dinner passes in relative silence at first, save for the clinking of cutlery and the occasional murmured words between lords seated at the distant ends of the table. Aerys, however, remains fixated on his son, his eyes glittering with a manic edge. The King has grown more erratic in recent years, the grip of paranoia tightening its claws around his mind, but tonight there is a sharpness to him—a deliberate cruelty that seeps into the air like poison.

“My dear Rhaegar,” Aerys croons, his voice dripping with false affection as he dabs at the corners of his mouth with a silk cloth. “You’ve always been the good son, haven’t you? Always so… composed. Yet, I wonder, do you keep such composure even in matters of the heart?”

Rhaegar meets his father’s gaze with the practiced calm of someone who has weathered countless unpredictable storms. “I seek to serve the realm, Father, in all things,” he replies evenly, though Arthur notices the subtle tightening of the prince’s grip on his goblet.

Aerys chuckles, a sound like rusted metal scraping against stone. “Yes, yes, always the realm. But what of family, hmm? What of your sister?” His voice drops, taking on a conspiratorial tone, though it carries across the hall with chilling clarity. “Y/N, so delicate, so precious. A jewel I keep locked away from prying eyes.”

Arthur’s heart skips a beat, but he forces his expression to remain impassive, even as a chill runs down his spine. Aerys’ words are laced with something vile, a twisted obsession that’s grown more apparent with time. He knows the King’s madness festers around those he believes are his to control, and his daughter has become a particular fixation.

Rhaegar’s eyes darken, though he keeps his tone polite. “My sister is as devoted to our family as I am, Your Grace. Her loyalty is unquestionable.”

Aerys sneers, his smile twisting into something ugly. “Loyalty? Oh, I do not doubt her loyalty. She knows her place, after all. But I wonder, Rhaegar, is that enough for you? Is her… loyalty enough to bind her to our House as tightly as it should be?”

The prince doesn’t flinch, but the tension in his posture speaks volumes. “What are you suggesting, Father?”

Aerys leans back in his chair, tapping a finger against the armrest as if considering some hidden amusement. “She is of age now, and a Targaryen of purest blood. Shouldn’t her future be ensured with the right match? Someone who understands our bloodline, our legacy—someone who can keep her in line, if need be.”

Arthur’s fingers tighten around the hilt of Dawn, his knuckles whitening beneath his gloves. He can feel the weight of Ser Gerold’s gaze on him, a subtle warning that he cannot allow himself to react. It takes every ounce of discipline to remain composed, to bury the surge of anger and fear that rises within him. He knows too well what the King might consider as a “suitable match”—someone who would reduce you to a tool, a possession to be used and controlled.

Ser Gerold shifts slightly beside him, catching Arthur’s eye. His expression is stern, a silent command that needs no words: Hold your composure. Do not betray yourself.

Rhaegar’s voice cuts through the tension, cold and measured. “You speak of her future, Father, yet she has always served our family well. Surely her well-being should come before any considerations of… arrangement.”

Aerys’ laughter is sharp and sudden, making several of the lords at the table flinch. “Well-being? She is a Targaryen, Rhaegar. Well-being is a luxury we cannot afford! The blood of dragons flows in her veins, and it must be preserved—strengthened. Perhaps a union is exactly what she needs, to remind her of her place. Don’t you agree?”

Arthur’s heart thunders in his chest, but he dares not move, not even as his grip on his sword hilt threatens to snap the leather beneath his hand. Ser Gerold’s warning glance sharpens, and with great effort, Arthur forces himself to relax his hold, exhaling slowly to regain control.

Rhaegar’s expression remains unreadable, but his voice carries an edge when he speaks. “You are right, Father. The blood of dragons must be preserved. But that decision should be made with care, not haste. Y/N is a valuable asset to our House, and any match must serve our family’s interests above all else.”

Aerys stares at Rhaegar for a long, tense moment, as if searching for some hidden defiance. But when he speaks again, his voice is a dangerous whisper. “You would do well to remember that I am the one who decides what is best for this family. Your sister’s fate is mine to command, just as yours is. Do not think to challenge me on this, my son.”

Rhaegar lowers his gaze, an acknowledgment of the dangerous ground they tread. “Of course, Your Grace. I would never dream of questioning your judgment.”

The King watches him for a moment longer before a twisted smile spreads across his face. “Good. Very good.” He turns his attention back to the food before him, the conversation seemingly forgotten, but the tension remains thick in the air.

Arthur feels Ser Gerold’s subtle nudge—a reminder to stay focused, to not let his emotions betray him. He nods slightly, regaining his calm exterior, but inside, a fire burns, threatening to consume him. The thought of Aerys dictating your fate, of you being handed over to some vile lord who would see you as nothing more than a tool, fills him with a rage he’s never known. He wants nothing more than to protect you, to keep you from the clutches of a madman’s whims, but he knows how precarious his position is. One misstep could ruin everything.

As the dinner drags on, Ser Gerold shoots him one last, pointed look—a reminder that their duty is to the King, no matter the horrors they must witness or endure. Arthur clenches his jaw, burying his emotions deep within. He has no choice but to play his role, even as the weight of it threatens to break him.

But one thing is certain: the king’s words have only steeled his resolve. Whatever it takes, he will protect you—from Aerys, from the court, from anyone who dares to harm you. Even if it means risking everything he holds dear.

As the dinner finally draws to a close, Arthur and Ser Gerold move to escort the King back to his chambers, their white cloaks trailing behind them. The hall falls silent, but the echoes of Aerys’ twisted words linger in Arthur’s mind, a grim reminder of the battle yet to come.

And as he steps into the shadows once more, Arthur vows silently to himself: No one will decide her fate but her.

#game of thrones #asoiaf #asoiaf x reader #arthur dayne x y/n #arthur dayne x reader #arthur dayne #aerys ii targaryen #rhaegar targaryen

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ponett · 1 year ago

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Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video • Movies • Comics • Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it��s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance.

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

#bobby writes #i don't have a writing tag so i'm making one now to save this and other things

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calder · 1 month ago

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never really digested the fallout show here did i. i think the first half is pretty great. doesn't work on the whole. heres a thought dump

i like maximus's arc a whole lot. he has the emotional range of lucy while being more thematically cohesive and incidentally funny. his immaturity is played for pathos and it's very succesful imo. a brotherhood deserter is a good perspective character. i like it when he asks lucy to make his penis explode.

i thought the power armor looked very silly in the trailers. then it looked very silly in the show but it felt intentional and i liked it. wobbling rigid tin can clowns

the shady sands shit among fans was annoying. fallout fans often latch on to misunderstandings to feel directly victimized. it really is the show's fault for being too scared to say the exact year shady sands exploded but "this means new vegas isnt canon" is the take of someone playing catch-up & looking for technicalities to justify their discontent

shady sands and vault 33 being IN LOS ANGELES shatters the lore of fallout 1 but that's not a ragebait headline that would make 3d fans feel like theyre being victimized on purpose so you rarely see it talked about. (i also dont think inconsistency is the end of the world but it feels like it precludes them from ever talking about the actual lore of Boneyard)

moldaver really doesnt make sense & the 'ncr remnants' lore is so silly and unsuccessful it's beneath acknowledgement

"the high clerics of the commonwealth" is REALLY GOOD. it probably didnt mean to synergize with the 'maxson cults' conflict mentioned in fo4 but those two details together are incredibly rich to me. i love to imagine that after fo4 some pissed off west coast brotherhood warpriests showed up and purged the east coast contingency for heresy. that's so good

the ghoul potion follows up on the ghoul potion secret plot in fo4. im also not sure if this was intentional but it rules

establishing that ghouls heal from wounds miraculously was necessary and cool

"ghouls need a drug to not flip feral" is fighting words. we're not doing that

the performance on siggi was wonderful. the creative choices around the character are very troubled.

i like how they introduce the enclave with a shot of a scientist putting a puppy in an oven. everyone knows how to write the enclave except bethesda. enclave guys should have to live with that

i like how the first shot of the brotherhood is a bunch of guys in white tees laughing and beating the shit out of a peer for no reason

i want a vaguely magical character to address the dog as dogmeat

we are definitely going to see new vegas NPCs portrayed by actors in s2 imo

#psb #fallout tv show

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pursuitseternal · 3 months ago

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🕯️🐦‍⬛ “𝕷𝖎𝖆𝖗𝖘’ 𝕹𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙:” 🦇🕯️

Cordehlia and Aatarion embark on a new adventure in Waterdeep. Yes it’ll include Gale (much to Aatarion’s chagrin). 🎃 Halloween Special Companion Quest for “Our Blood is Thicker”

Lord Astarion x Cordehlia | E | 2.1K

📸 by @aristenfromwarsaw

Summary: At the request of their old Wizard companion, the Ascendant and his Raven arrive in Waterdeep the night before Liars’ Night. “A matter of utmost importance” needs their aid, a dangerous prospect with enemy Vampires, secret artifacts, and a good old fashioned Masquerade for the holiday 🎭🎃

CW: one impatient nepo baby Vampire Ascendant, one loving consort, and a silent graveyard in which they pass the time… (semi-public oral sex)

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 1: 𝓢𝓲𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓽 𝓪𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓖𝓻𝓪𝓿𝓮

Ao3 link | Ao3 series | Masterlist

The sea air swept around them, chilling and salty, the damp clinging to their skin as they stood on the hill. Waterdeep was aptly named, Astarion thought with a roll of his eyes and pulled his cloak tightly, only the best wool to keep off the autumn bite from his precious skin. His eyes scanned the expanse beneath them. Tombs. The City of the Dead or some nonsense it was named. Stones and monuments sprawled out in every direction, a few mausoleums dotting the darkness here and there. He tried not to think too long on the strongest memory that occurred in such a plot… his own turning, the moment he crawled his way to the surface from his own grave. He tapped the bottom of his staff on the rock headstone beneath him. And it drew her attention, just as he hoped it would.

Cordehlia rounded on him, a glower on her pale face that chided him in the moonlight. “Keep it down, Astarion,” she hissed in that tone he had heard for decades, the one that still corrected him like he was a brat. She crossed over where he sat on a grave, grabbing the elegant black wooden stick and snatching it from his fingers. “Gale said it was a matter of utmost secrecy.”

A snort tore from his nose as Astarion snatched his stick back. “Please, my love. Gale couldn’t be more stereotypical. He decided to meet two vampires… in the City of the Dead… on the eve of Liar’s Night.” His hand gesticulated grandly to the perfect picture of a tawdry horror story. His crimson eyes rolled so far back in his skull, Cordehlia thought for a moment they would finally be stuck there.

“Gale, our friend, asked for our help,” she corrected.

“Well, he could have done it with more panache and less predictability,” he snapped in reply, pushing his lithe frame up from the stone. He crossed over towards Cordehlia, her black leather armor polished to a shine and catching the moonlight. A smirk turned his lips, his tongue wetting them and tasting the salt in the air as he licked. Astarion would never tire of that sight, the way her armor laid flawlessly sculpted over her curves, the body beneath even more deadly since she turned. Since she became his Bride. “You know,” he broke the silence, voice dripping with honeyed seduction, “have I told you enough how delicious you look in your armor, my Raven?” he purred, rubbing his finger over the etched swirls of feathers inlaid over her shoulders.

“You do mention it… every time I dress in it, and every time you undress me from it, my love,” Cordehlia replied, a tone in her voice that was supposed to sound annoyed…

But Astarion knew what it really meant. It meant she wanted him, wanting to taste him just as badly as he wanted to feast on her. “Hmm,” he hummed a laugh, his fingers tracing to her neck, featherlight in touch as he caressed the exposed skin, tracing the twin bite marks in the sweet vein on her right side. “You sound angry, are you perchance thirsty… or is there something else you want down your throat while we wait for the esteemed Wizard?”

Now it was Cordehlia who rolled her blood red eyes at the lewd insinuation, but she didn’t deny his assertion. Nor did she reject his offer….

“Well, my love,” his breath bathed her cheek as he leaned in to whisper, “on your knees if you care for a taste.”

Cordehlia leveled that look at him, the one that arched a brow and screwed her face to say, ‘You’ve got to be joking…’ But still she slid closer, licking her lips. Crickets chirped in the night, the call of night birds was the only other sound to break the deathly quiet in the graveyard. Until she sank to her knees and took his hand in hers, sucking his fingers inside her full and smiling lips.

Then, Astarion groaned, bracing one hand behind him on the closest monument. Her fangs, still sharp as ever, nicked the pad of his fingers, letting his blood coat her eager tongue. And gods, did she suck, hard enough to bring his fingers deep in her throat. Her little hums of feeding tickled his digits, reverberating through his nerves. “Hells, Cordehlia,” he groaned, “slow down, or this is going to be a short dalliance among the dead.”

She flashed those scarlet eyes up at him, opening her mouth to roll his fingers noisily around with her tongue. “Want to bet on how quickly I can make you come undone? Or would you rather be caught by our old friend with your pants down in a graveyard?”

The laugh that left his mouth was embarrassingly breathy, but Astarion couldn’t help it as she bit his finger harder and drank. Dramatically loud sucks made his pointed ears wiggle to hear them. Another loud groan slipped from his slacked mouth as her hands wandered up the soft velvet of his breeches to snap open the fasteners. Her undead breath was still warmer than the night sea air, her inhale and exhale over his length instantly made him ache and tighten. Anticipation. She was ruthless with it.

Her hair was tied back, off her face. But even still, those ginger tendrils at her temple always seemed to slip free, and Astarion twirled them, sliding his fingers into the mess at the nape of her neck, savoring the way her head bobbed and turned as she took him inside.

“Hells,” he cursed again as she sucked with abandon. Her jaw strained to take him deeper, those little hums of delight adding to the tingle of arousal in his sex.

Releasing him, she laved her tongue up his shaft from base to cockhead, laughing. “Think if I make you say that enough times, you summon a portal?” she taunted, flicking her tongue over that weeping slit at the tip.

Astarion just chuckled, pushing her back to sucking. “I’d rather not. I don’t want to see another of Gale’s ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ expressions…” He would have kept complaining, but the way Cordehlia began to take him with such ferocity now stilted his breath and made his knees bend and go weak. A high-pitched whine left his lips as he bent forward, just a bit, just enough to enjoy the sight of his cock disappearing into her sucking lips and hollowed cheeks.

Fingers gripped tighter in her hair, almost as tight as his balls drew up just as he grew closer to that sweet release. “Yes… my love,” he praised, “hurry…”

And Cordehlia obeyed giving his cock just the right touches and licks in just the right places until he lost himself. His gasp of pleasure escaped him, fingers curled tight in her fiery hair as she swallowed his cum. Pulse after pulse, he felt nearly dizzy as he came, the world around him narrowed down to her tongue swirling and her throat closing on his cock as she savored the taste of him.

“Mmmm,” he finally purred, voice warm and pleased as he caressed her cheek. “I think I’ll be able to endure Gale’s presence so much better now, now that I’m sated.”

“Wouldn’t want you in a crabby mood, would we, Lord Astarion…” that warm, familiar voice sounded from beside them, just over the broken headstone near them.

“Shit,” Astarion cursed as he stowed his cock quickly. Then he turned, finding just the thing to irritate him the most. Gale’s face frowning, brown eyes narrowed and head wagging back and forth to say, ‘I’m so disappointed in you….”

Cordhelia gave her cheekiest, innocent grin as she stood. “I told him he’d be caught with his pants down,” her voice was pure petulant taunting, sing-song and mocking. And Astarion gave her a proper swat on her ass as payment.

“So insolent;” he scolded, that playful look on his face.

“Alright, alright,” Gale came closer, oozing exasperation. “Glad to see the time apart hasn’t changed the fact that you’re both a perfect pair of matching menaces.”

Astarion shrugged, “Well, when you look this good dead, and when it feels this good to…”

“Yes, alright!” Gale snapped, “Don’t push your luck, or I will cast Silence on you.”

Even as Astarion opened his mouth again, his face twisted in a sadistic and mischievous grin, Cordehlia interrupted, stepping between the men. “It’s good to see you Gale,” she chimed, her musical voice bringing an instant smile on the Wizard’s lips.

“The feeling is decidedly mutual,” he replied, looking squarely at Cordehlia. And not at her mate. “I am so very gratified you came. Your help is quintessential to the success of this venture that is imperative….”

“Yes, big important mission needs the Vampire Ascendant and his Bride,” Astarion crooned, repeating details from the missive they had received at the palace. Dramatically waving his hand, his lace cuff flapped in the breeze.

“Well… it’s more a requirement that I have the stealthiest couple in Toril, and the best Rogue I’ve ever encountered for such an ambitious endeavor. But before I impart any more of the sordid details, we must find a place more conducive for illicit activities and intrigue,” Gale held up a single finger before his lips.

Astarion’s eye twitched, that little tick in the corner of his right eye. “Rogue?” He exclaimed, the deep offense taken at the title saturating the single word. “You brought me all the way out here in the cold, damp air because you needed a… rogue?” Hip cocked, hands akimbo, face skewed in indignation, Astarion’s voice grew shriller and shriller. “I’ll have you know I gave up throwing the finest, most hedonistic affair Baldur’s Gate would ever have seen just to drag my sorry undead ass here to—”

His words were drowned out as a portal opened beside them, the hissing and sting of magic flowing around them in bright purple waves. Before another complaint could come from the Vampire Lord, Cordehlia grabbed his hand and yanked him with all her own undead strength through the portal.

The scent of parchment and old books, of woodsmoke and mint filled her nose as Cordehlia stepped to the otherside, dragging her love after him. Aatarion drew up short, instantly pulling his hand from her hold. “You’re joking,” he chuffed. “All that secrecy to end up in your bloody tower? I swear to all the gods except Mystra, you are melodramatic. You could have just had us come here where…”

Gale folded his arms. The mere look of chastisement on his face, the disapproving school teacher, so honed in the time since their adventures, instantly shut the vampire lord up. “It's not that I’m being inhospitable, far from, my friends. I’m being watched. This tower is being watched. And it’s a particular coven of Vampires that has me under their scrutiny.”

Aatarion’s stare hardened. “Alright, I’ll bite. Why do you have Vampires after you, Gale? You're about as boring and… tasteless… as they come.” The grin on his pale face showed he meant every bit of his insulting pun.

Gale couldn’t help but give a humored chuckle as he wagged his finger. “Always good for a laugh, you are.” The Wizard sat himself in the well-worn armchair near the fire, the mantle beside him sooty and black with constant use. But that fire, it danced and roared, the very image of merry warmth. After the cold bite of the autumn wind and the wet chill of the graveyard, Cordhelia couldn’t help but warm her undead hands over it. Gale gestured to the chair opposite. “Please, Astarion…” he smiled with equal cheeriness. “Or must I address you formally?”

“My lord would suffice,” Astarion smirked, flipping the tails of his coat as he sat himself down. “But for you, I won’t stand on ceremony, not for a friend.”

Gale’s smile quirked to one side. “Seems your Raven has had a most domesticating effect on you, Astarion. Tell me, Cordehlia, is he housebroken yet?”

Cordehlia snorted her laugh. “Never,” she teased back. “But maybe you had better tell us your purpose before you insult the Ascendant’s sensibilities beyond repair.”

Suddenly, a weight seemed to fall on their companion’s shoulders, his frame slumping forward as he began to stare into the fire, as he was want to do. “I’ve made some enemies, dear friends. In my relentless pursuit of knowledge for the betterment of academia, I crossed the coven of Vampires here in Waterdeep. I had something they wanted. They took this most invaluable treasure from me before I could claim it. Now…” he lifted his gaze to the pairs of crimson eyes locked on him. “I need a fighter and a rogue to help me take it back.”

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tanoraqui · 7 months ago

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Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Some Much-Needed Downtime TBH

ok I kinda read these species-swap chapters quickly without commenting 2 nights ago bc I REALLY wanted to catch up to the show, and honestly I didn't have much to say? It was a fun showcase of some different species talents, and introduced multiple fun problems for the characters to solve [takes notes in DM]. But it didn't seem to move either plot or characters forward much. Some notes:

Honestly it's surprising that there's only been 1 count of food poisoning so far, when they're trying SO MANY new things. One must credit Senshi's cooking skills!

This might be the single funniest joke so far:

I've seen multiple posts saying Senshi's elfsona reveals him to be feminine by dwarf standards, and I'm genuinely BAFFLED by that take because it is SO obvious that Senshi's elfsona reveals him to be 1. the Hottest Man You Have Ever Met, and 2. HAIRY. We have seen 0 other elves with facial hair. I dug up that showcase of different elves and 0 of them have facial hair. In the Tolkienien lore from which all modern fantasy, or certainly this sort of fantasy, is derived, exactly 2 elves in the history of the world are said to have had facial hair. Elf!Senshi has a tiny little moustache. Elf!Senshi isn't feminine, he is the HOTTEST, HAIRIEST bear in the metaphorical gay club.

...it's possible that he's more of a himbo than we realize, though.

I don't know what's up with Kensuke and I AM worried that it's being directed by the demon. I want it to be Laios's friend so bad...

It occurs to me that "the winged lion is actually the demon at the root of all of this" is probably the biggest spoiler I've gotten, and I didn't even realize how huge a spoiler it was because I DIDN'T get spoilered for the fact that, so far as the characters know, the lion is supposed to be a helpful god. Don't play with spoilers, kids! Even if you want to read the juicy meta!

This initial fight with the gargoyles is probably my new second-favorite "Laios is really quickly analytical and problem-solving in combat" moment (the living armor fight is still #1). He sees how everyone is failing, prevents more problems as he can, realizes they can't win and puts together what pieces they need to get out. In group social dynamics, he's a mediocre leader at best, but he's a superb combat tactician.

Laios is just living in his own little after-school special, and I love him for that.

That first panel is definitely support for the theory that the 50-60yr life expectancy of "short-lived" races like tallmen, orcs, kobolds and halffeet is shorter than it should be, relative to their ages of maturity, because the long-lived races control and hold most of the resources. It's even possible that their ages of maturity SHOULD be even older, but social conditions force them to become "adults" at a younger developmental age than dwarves, gnomes and especially elves!

Panel 3 is Marcille mentally shoving Chilchuck higher on her list of Lives to Extend by Whatever Magic I Can Learn.

I love how the way they figure out that the mushrooms' effects are easily reversible is literally by thinking through the greater social worldbuilding implications of the effects.

^This is the single most Dad we've ever seen Chilchuck...topped only by that 'carry child like a football' a moment later. Actually, he yeets Marcille a LOT while tall - here, over the jump in the travel montage, with Laios to make a loop for the gargoyle...which I'm dead certain is an indication of how he physically treated his daughters. Those kids got casually, affectionately tossed like salad.

AND THAT'S WHAT WE CALL FRIENDSHIP.

...okay maybe I did have several thoughts about those 2 chapters.

"[Falin] was much tougher than I was. I hear she and our parents still write to each other" is SUCH a line for painting a picture of Laios and Falin's childhoods, and Laios's feelings on it.

you can keep your Kabru Wink(TM)s, I am weak only for the Laios Fond Little Smile(TM).

I love how Senshi is still musing on this soul = egg metaphor, and I LOVE how both times now that we've seen Laios genuinely lose his temper, it's because someone was saying "why are you just being excited about eating monsters when Falin is in danger?!", and he's snapping because he is fucking NOT dismissing his sister in favor of eating monsters, he is doing EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER to save her and it just so happens that the only plans with a smidgen of success involve leaning into eating monsters. And by trying to stop him from that, you're stopping him from saving Falin.

Laios, how tf do you remember the Wink? I'm 99% sure Kabru never once winked in your interactions; I WAS looking for it. Was he just exuding wink energy? (I mean...yes.)

The dramatic irony jokes in this chapter are on POINT. Chilchuck: "There's no way this thing still works" [tram door slams shut on his heels, cars immediately starts moving]. "You won't find a military company in the dungeon" [smash cut to Shuro, Namari and Kabru unhappily leading the Canaries into the dungeon]. Impeccable.

Stopping this one here in preparation for going nuts about implied elf-related worldbuilding in the next chapters!

#dm lb #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon

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ddwcaph-game · 1 year ago

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Chapter 4 & 5 is finally out!

The wait is finally over. Grab your plot armor, Chapter 4 and 5 of Dear Diary, We Created a Plot Hole! is finally here!

🚌 Play it here! 🚌

To celebrate the release, a +50% ✨EXP Bonus Event will be running for the next couple of weeks!

The full change log is over 500 lines long, so here's an overview of all the new stuff:

🌈 UPDATE HIGHLIGHTS

~ 509,000 total wordcount (including code) ~ 278,000 additional words (including code) ~ New average playthrough of 115,000 words!

New Stuff to Discover!

52 New Secrets to discover, 8 New Trinkets to collect, 12 New Achievements

30 New Character Traits, 15 New Heritage Passives, 3 New Phobias, 16 New Status Effects

3 New Main Quests, 12 New Sidequests

and 1 New Song to sing along to!

New Scenes!

Introductions to Wayne, Lily, and JM's parents!

New exclusive bestfriend scenes!

Get a sneak peek into the story worlds you'll visit in future, in the Story Exchange!

Revamped crush confession scene with your twin!

Steal a kiss on the cheek from your crush!

Catch a preview of Chapter 6!

New Choices and Customization!

Choose the name of MC's dad!

Choose a second bestfriend, other than your twin (and give them a custom nickname)!

You can now choose to have two different pronoun sets!

Choose a mild swear word for your MC

Added B as a crush option

Tons of Diary and Stat Improvements!

New, updated, and expanded character diary entries!

New unlockable codex entries!

Write custom post-scripts in your diary!

Added new toggle settings for simple/detailed view of traits/passives, and background transitions

New trait option that reduces the frequency and gives additional context to Filipino expressions

Improved diary and stat notification layout

So Much More!

Added lots of new character art!

Added gameplay tips!

Lots of references to In Auctorem Credimus!

Roselyna is now approximately 20% more huggable!

---

I've also updated the Trinkets & Secrets Guide, as well as the Twin Character Templates!

If you encounter any errors, or have any questions or feedback, feel free to send me an ask! I'll go through my ask backlog after I have recovered from the update.

I hope it was worth the wait! 😊

#dear diary we created a plot hole #ddwcaph #ddwcaph updates #amare #amare game #amare dev #if #if wip #if game #interactive fiction #interactive novel #interactive story #choicescript #dashingdon #chapter 4 #chapter 5

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the-painted-siren · 3 months ago

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Again

Summary: Lloyd and Arin, as featured in the constant cycle of violence that was built on Ninjago’s foundation. Notes: Happy Dragons Rising Release Day! I wrote this one for a game of Who Wrote That, where the prompt was “plot twist.” I waited to post it since it featured themes/ideas from DRS2P2. I had fun with this one. Somewhat inspired by a Hades AU I’m working on with some friends. Tags: depictions of violence, major character death (kind of. It's temporary and symbolic. Death is an illusion in Ninjago.)

Ping!

1 New Message

“Fine then. Let’s end this. Meet me in the clearing where the monastery used to be.”

Arin’s feet drum against the earth in a hard, steady rhythm. There’s a sense of comfort in the movement—memories, warmth, laughter, flashes of him sprinting up one thousand steps toward the place he once called home. It used to hold his family there, or at least the people he once thought were a cheap replacement for the one he lost in the Merge. He once held them close to his heart—he still does—but at what cost?

His thoughts burns away before he reaches the top.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

Lloyd rises to his feet. Old history writes a story across his features. Once he was a mentor, once he was a master. Now he is Arin’s grief-driven opponent. He is a protector at the cost of everyone else’s lives.

“I had to. I have to beat you.”

“This is your fault. It has been your fault since I first started training you.”

Arin swallows his fear and regrets. He takes them like a bitter pill. He is only here because of the choices he made. He chased after Ras. He learned the ways of the Wolf Clan. He is the reason the monastery burned down.

He is here because he has written himself into this loop.

That’s the thing about each ninja’s story—numerous and always increasing as they may be.

They have a beginning: they are the hero, they are called to fight, they strengthen their powers until they’re unstoppable.

They have a middle: they enter the fight, they pour every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears into every punch. They stand at the edge of the world.

They have an end: they have a burst of determination. They race toward the end, they drive the final blow. They win.

Arin can only hope that—this time—his story will be the same.

He catches Lloyd’s first strike with the sturdy handle of his war hammer. He grits his teeth, pushes back against the force that rumbles and rages and roars for dominance.

Arin had forgotten how strong Lloyd really is. He had forgotten that Lloyd could take his head off if he genuinely wanted to.

Lloyd’s second strike almost does. It’s well-times, it’s thought out. He pulls his sword back and whips it back around toward Arin’s neck and only misses by the width of a hair.

Arin rolls backwards, stumbles to his feet. His awkward footwork creates enough time for Lloyd to drive home the final blow. The sword pierces through armor and cloth and bone. Arin screams, wrapping his hands around the hilt that Lloyd grips.

“I’m sorry,” Arin whispers.

It’s a repeated prayer, he’s spoken those words more than he can count. He realizes after so many interactions, so many apologies, so much fighting for what he believe is right: if Lloyd ever forgives him, it’ll be a blisteringly hot day the Neverrealm.

He closes his eyes and sinks back into a river of blood. A freezing cold chill crawls through his veins. Exhaustion settles into his body like a heavy blade finding its home on the weapon rack. The hands of time brush over his skin, healing his wounds, sewing up his cuts, and softening his bruises.

He bursts awake.

Ping!

1 New Message

“Fine then. Let’s end this. Meet me in the clearing where the monastery used to be.”

Arin’s feet drum against the earth in a hard, steady rhythm. There’s a sense of comfort in the movement—memories, warmth, laughter, sprinting up one thousand steps toward the place he once called home.

It all burns away before Arin reaches the top.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

Lloyd rises to his feet. Old history writes a story across his features.

“I had to. I have to make it out of here, even if it kills us both.”

“This is your fault. It has been your fault since I first started training you.”

That’s the thing about each ninja’s story—numerous and always increasing as they may be. They are clear cut. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Arin tightens his grip on his war hammer and charges toward Lloyd. His story has a beginning, a middle, and a beginning again.

Over and over.

It’s a foundation that he must destroy.

— — —

There is a universe out there where Lloyd and Arin are mentor and student. They exchange warm smiles, sparring matches, and lighthearted quips between blows. They are friends and they are inseparable.

There is a universe out there where Lloyd and Arin are hero and villain. They exchange vindictive looks, vicious strikes, and harsh words among pleas for mercy. They are enemies.

They are doomed to repeat the endless cycle of light versus darkness.

It is the same universe.

(There is a spark. There is hope. The fight can end.)

(He must be strong enough.)

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago dragons rising #ninjago spoilers #ninjago dragons rising spoilers #dragons rising spoilers #lloyd garmadon #lloyd ninjago #arin ninjago #Hails' Fic #ninjago fanfiction #ninjago fic

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badbatchsprincess · 7 months ago

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Heated ~ pt.18

Pt.1 ~ Pt.2 ~ Pt.3 ~ Pt.4 ~ Pt.5 ~ Pt.6 ~ Pt.7 ~ Pt.8 ~ Pt.9 ~ Pt.10 ~Pt.11 ~ Pt.12 ~ Pt.13 ~ Pt.14 ~ Pt.15 ~ Pt.16 ~ Pt.17 ~ Pt.18 ~ Pt.19 ~ Pt.20 ~ Pt.21 ~ Pt.22 ~ Pt.23 ~ Pt.24 ~ Pt.25

Masterlist

Summary: This is an ABO Bad batch!Poly x Omega Reader smut with a plot. This takes place as an AU before order 66. Y/N previously served under the 501st before being transferred to Special Forces 99. This is her adventure with these rowdy Alphas in a quickly changing universe.

THIS IS AN ABO AU ABOUT THE BAD BATCH (NO CANON OMEGA!) Due to the unfortunate situation of her name being Omega… Omega the child from the canon series is not going to be apart of this fanfic/porn with a plot. I feel obligated to put this warning in because it makes my skin crawl thinking anyone could make that mistake.

Warnings: Violence, gore, kidnapping, Tarkin is a creepy hoe, Crosshair being a dick, Dom!Crosshair, smut, orgasm denial, spanking, mate bonds, Pip is influenced by Crosshair’s presence

DADDYYYYY'SSSS HOOOOMMMEEEE!

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

“I can’t believe she’s alive, sir.” You heard a woman’s voice echo in your mind. Her sound was unfamiliar to you.

The second thing you noticed was the mechanical whirl of the cold floor below you, everything was cold. Except for the warm softness under your throbbing head. Staying entirely still, you waited for your body to catch up with your hearing. You recalled your trauma training, wiggling each toe inside your boot, then moving up each joint and muscle throughout your legs before testing the response in your other extremities. It helped get your mind grounded in your body again as you lay on the cold ship floor.

Based off the smells, you knew you were no longer with your pack. This was new territory which only means one thing….

You’re in imperial custody.

You heard Crosshair’s familiar silvery voice mumble something back to the woman but decided you were going to try and figure out your situation first, listening before acting. He was close by you deduced, probably standing guard over your pallet on the floor. You were also aware that you had very limited time before you’d get to wherever they were taking you.

Listening a little closer, you heard plastoid armor shuffling all around you, there must be soldiers in the jumpseats lining his transport vessel. You heard the whirl of the ship knowing the engines were located on the under belly making it a newer model. Tech told you about their engineering. Usually the engine cores are located on the back of vessels, but new military class ships with loading ramps build the engines into the floor.

“What happened to her?” The woman asked again probably referencing the cut to your head and whatever sorry state you were currently found in.

“She got injured from that helmet they had on her.” Crosshair said shuffling his boots, he was standing right above your head.

You felt the air shift around you and sensed someone was coming near you, “She looks…stronger… than most omegas.” She said skeptically. You could feel the woman kneeling behind you as he observed your form.

“She wasn’t like that the last time I saw her, but she has been running with mercenaries.” Crosshair put a toothpick back into his mouth.

“That doesn’t seem normal for her kind.” You felt her lightly brush a curious finger tip over your collarbone but Crosshair’s snarl stopped her.

That was when you decided to act.

Crosshair’s second in command let out a startled gasp when you suddenly flew up off the pallet wrapping your legs around her neck in a vice grip making her claw at your legs as you squeezed the life from the soldier.

“Kriff.” Crosshair shot up off the wall but you got up quickly knowing you’d have to keep your distance from him. The second in command rolled her side, heaving, trying to get oxygen back into her lungs.

You sprung into action, taking the other storm troopers by surprise. You reached into your back belt where Hunter had put his blade and you gripped the handle firmly bringing it to your front. The first trooper that tried to grab you got his forearm slashed deeply making him scream and retreat. You then brought the knife down harshly into his neck kicking him away from you to bleed out.

“Get her under control!” Crosshair barked out nearing you.

You grabbed another trooper kicking him in the chest sending him backwards into Crosshair while you turned on the others using your blade to cut and slash your way through the mob.

“What the fuck!” One of the soldiers exclaimed as you expertly kicked out his knees and brought him to the ground using the knife and your vast knowledge of the human body to end his life in an instant.

“Omega!” Crosshair yelled but you ignored him. The severed bond seemed to have also prevented his alpha command from working. You were free from his influence.

Crosshair suddenly realized his one fatal mistake… you had been trained… by Echo.

He watched you cut down his men like they were nothing more than canon fodder. It was shocking. More of his men came flooding into the blood bath hearing the commotion.

You snarled at them flipping yourself through the air using your boots and beskar armor to bash them down into the durasteel floor with a harshness you were unaware you carried. When you reached down to grab a discarded blaster, Crosshair’s second raised her blaster aiming at you.

“Do. Not. Kill. Her!” Crosshair pushed her weapon to the side watching the plasma bolt burrow into the side of the ship. You watched her miss, and you turned on them, aiming your own gun and pulling the trigger. They both dodged out of the way in time, but you unleashed your training on the other unsuspecting troopers.

“I’ve never seen an omega do that!” You heard his second yell over the bangs.

“She’s no average omega.” Crosshair pressed himself into the crate keeping himself out of your range, “Set it to stun.”

He peeked his head out from behind the crate to find you heaving, covered in crimson blood, taking a trooper down into a flurry on the ground. Hunter’s blade had gotten knocked from your hands in the fight but that didn’t stop you.

If Crosshair wasn’t so set on his mission to detain you, he would have stopped to admire your work. He guessed all those months with his brothers, you had changed. No longer were you the meek little republic medic, but you had turned into a warrior.

“She’s going to kill the whole company if we wait any longer.” His second, Wren looked anxious. She was the best solder coming out of the imperial military academy. She was specifically selected for this very delicate mission which seemed to go in a direction neither of them had anticipated.

“We can’t hurt her,” Crosshair drilled into the two of them, “Nothing can hurt her!”

“I got that, but she’s fucking feral!” Wren scrunched back against the crate as a bloody helmet went flying by, “She’s going to tear apart the ship.”

And just like you had with Echo, it was like you got a whisper in your ear and you knew exactly what Crosshair had planned to do. He was between you and the cockpit of the ship. Mate or not, you were getting to that damn cockpit even if you had to kill the bastard to get there.

Just as you sensed him and the female trooper emerge from behind the crates, you spun, grabbing one of the flailing troopers by the collar, using him as a human shield for Crosshair’s stun ray. The young trooper dropped like dead weight and you watched as the woman pulled her trigger in your direction. You just stepped out of the way letting the stun ray fly right past you into a trooper behind you.

You used your boot to kick a discarded riffle up into your hands flicking off the safety.

Wren and Crosshair aimed for a second shot, but you beat them to it. It was like your body was moving on its own accord. Like something took over you…

You momentarily wondered if this is what it’s like being Crosshair. If so, you felt powerful. It was like nothing you’d ever experienced before. There was such cool collectedness. Such pure concentration.

Raising the weapon up and tucking it into your arm, you unloaded onto their crates missing Crosshair by, well, a hair. You heard him curse and duck while Wren threw herself down onto the ground to duck for cover.

“You’re going to take me back to Bracca now!” You snarled with a voice that didn’t even sound like your own. It was something silvery and wicked.

Crosshair’s voice was breathier than usual, “Learn some new tricks huh, omega?”

“You have no fucking idea.” You fired a few more bullets reminding him you still had the gun.

“I can’t take you back, Pip.” He said grabbing one of his plasma reflectors. He tossed it onto the wall watching you through the reflection.

You crept closer stepping over the gargling troopers who had fallen victim to your blade.

“Fine.” You smiled viciously, “Then I’ll kill youm and take the ship back myself.”

“You can’t do that mesh’la.” He sounded cocky, “You forget… you’ll die too.”

You smiled devilishly, “That’s no longer a concern.”

He furrowed his brow as he very slowly reached for fire puncher. Wren watched him anxiously clenching her own blaster. What the hell did you mean by that?

“Our bond has been severed, alpha.” You taunted.

Crosshair’s stomach knotted… what did you just say?

“Notice how your commands no longer work on me?” You kicked one of the destroyed helmets forward making Wren flinch. Never had she ever seen an omega like you.

You chuckled, “Your brothers made sure I’d be severed from you.” Bending down, you picked up the bloody knife holding it in your free hand. It was like Crosshair’s base instincts were flooding your entire being. It was thrilling. Having a peek inside his brain was like being dowsed in chilled spring water.

“Thats not possible.” He bit out watching you raise your weapon.

“But it is sweetheart.” You noticed the curve of his second’s back bowing out from behind the crate carelessly.

You locked onto your target hoping to roust her out of her hiding spot to get a clean shot.

Crosshair had to time his shot perfectly, or it would just be you and him. And while he was confident he could take you in hand to hand, you may not let it get to that point if you keep acting like a fucking ARC trooper. Fucking Echo maker kark it.

He watched you tighten your grip and peer down the scope, “What? Nothing to say?”

He remained silent, focusing on aiming his own shot perfectly through the reflector. Right as he sensed you squeeze the trigger, he quickly pulled his own. He heard both you and Wren shriek, as your bullet graze Wren’s back, while his bullet knocked the gun from your hands. He stood up in an instant ready to stun you when you threw Hunter’s knife with all your force, watching it soar through the air rotating at the speed of light. Crosshair just barely stepped out of the way to made his shot while the tip of the blade sliced through the side of his skull just missing his ear.

He watched you collapse into the puddle of blood with a thump as he pressed his palm to the side of his head feeling the blood pour.

He did it.

He made the shot.

Wren whined in pain and he set down his riffle to check on his second. He flipped her over seeing the angry red canyon you’d carved through her back all the way to her opposite rib. That was definitely going to leave a scar. The alpha screamed in agony as Crosshair maneuvered her to keep her off her back.

Then he ran over to you. Your stunned body lay amongst your victims. He almost couldn’t believe the brutality in which you killed them. It was like you had been trained your entire life in combat. There was no way Echo could have conditioned you that quickly. He was stunned. He looked around at the ship seeing all the blood splatters and stray bullets. It looked like a butcher was in here. He just couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Has the target been detained?” The pilots asked from the cockpit.

Crosshair radioed back, “Yeah, but let command know we’re going to need a clean up team.”

He stared down at your limp figure, you were covered head to toe in his men’s blood. He shook his head still shocked you had caused so much violence, Wren’s pained cries echos off the durasteel walls drawing his attention away from the slaughter.

~~~

Crosshair had taken extra precaution and used a pair of binders to keep your wrists detained as he slung your body over his shoulder. You dangled limply as the landing ramp opened up to the comfortable warm Nabooan air.

On the tarmac, a team of hazmat troopers arrived to carry away the deceased, and a squad of medics came to help Wren while the remaining two pilots exited the ship with Crosshair. He didn’t miss the way the entire garrison stared in absolute abject horror at the tiny bloody omega on his shoulder.

He heard their murmurs and knew that they were discussing his infamous mate.

You had become quite the conversation after Tarkin made it his upmost top priority to track you down and retrieve you with no expense spared.

Crosshair had also torn apart the base when he first felt the bond sever. He knew his outburst had reached every corner of the imperial base with gossip. Of course everyone was beginning wondering who this important omega was, and why she was so important to Tarkin’s favorite soldier and the empire itself.

Crosshair heard the whispers and the gasps at seeing you and the damage you had caused on the way over here.

“Is that her?”

“An omega did that?”

“Is that her blood?”

“Did he do that to her?”

The hushed comments continued as Crosshair crossed the landing pad carrying you inside. Tarkin was alerted immediately that you had been found and brought back to Naboo upon entry to Nabooan airspace.

“Is this her?” Tarkin asked approaching the sniper curiously.

“Yes.” Crosshair replied coldly.

“What happened?” Tarkin observed the dripping blood on his pristine floors from your bound finger tips.

“She killed the entire squadron.” Crosshair adjusted his grip on you.

“Alone?” The admiral questioned. His skepticism was evident.

“Yes.” Crosshair said plainly, “It appears my batch mates have been training her in close quarter combat.”

“How many of your men?”

“All of them. She nearly had the captain too.” Crosshair watched Tarkin circle the two of you looking very pleased, “She killed the medic that treated her on Bracca, but he insisted I get her to a bacta tank. She fell nearly two stories during an explosion.”

The admiral hummed in displeasure. He gestured for another medic who came running over to them, “Get a medical team prepared to treat her. She must make a full recovery.” Tarkin ordered.

Crosshair watched the medic leave and return with a stretcher which Crosshair carefully set your body down on. The sniper and the admiral keeping a close pace behind the medic as he pushed you towards the medical wing.

“Has she always been vicious?” Tarkin questioned bending down to get a look at your face.

Crosshair noticed a small audience gathering in the halls trying to get a peak at his mate, “I’ve heard stories of her past, but I haven’t witnessed it myself until today.” Crosshair said, “Her violence had been instinctual… protecting pups.”

“Very good.” Tarkin approved, “I want you to take good care of her. She’s a remarkable specimen. She must remain in optimal health.”

“Sir?” Crosshair questioned.

Tarkin gave him a tight lipped smile, “I want you to retire being a soldier and be her… Alpha. You may keep her, as I am sure you desire that now that you know she is in fact alive”

“Just so I’m clear, you don’t wish for me to serve the empire any longer?” Crosshair was confused. Tarkin didn’t want him to be a sniper anymore?

Tarkin gestured for Crosshair to enter into the medical lab before him.

“You will continue to serve the empire but you have a new purpose.” Tarkin explained as the two of them trailed towards the new residential sector. “Your mate is a very rare variant lupine. She is not to leave this facility as she is integral to our new project. She’s a very unique specimen indeed.”

“Rare variant?” He questioned, watching the beta scientists carefully lift your limp body up into the bacta tank. They removed the binders and started peeling off your boots and outer layers before beginning the sequence to drop you in.

Tarkin watched the process as well, “Her kind is not bound by monogamy like the rest of us. I was skeptical at first, I don’t believe she knows what she is either. Most of her kind have been hunted into extinction.”

“May I ask what you need her for?” Crosshair felt a tinge of anxiety simmer in his stomach. His alpha instincts weren’t liking this. He just got you back, he wasn’t letting anyone take you from him. Not now.

Tarkin explained, “We are looking for the most effective way to replenish our military. Sure, mandatory conscription is convenient, but it has been made very obvious to us that the clones were and are superior soldiers. We wish to bring forward another generation of warriors made from clone DNA and…” He gestured to your limp body. Crosshair tensed and bit back a snarl.

Tarkin continued, “However, we understand that the omega picks her mates, as she has with you and other clones we discovered through some… interrogations.”

Crosshair knew he was referring to Captain Howzer. His fists tightened slightly. The jealousy he tried so hard to repress was rearing its ugly head.

“She has a natural disposition for attraction to clones, she’s extremely intelligent, and as we have now learned, she has a calling to violence. She’s the perfect candidate for our program, and due to her very rare genetic variation she isn’t bound to monogamy, which means more pups… my head scientists believes that she will be a remarkable specimen for a new cloning program.” Tarkin clasped his hands behind his back.

Crosshair forced himself to take a silent breath.

Tarkin wishes to clone you?

He watched the blood caked to your skin dissolve in the bacta solution as you floated peacefully.

Crosshair looked sideways at the Admiral, “You wish to clone her, then breed her clones with other clones?” Crosshair was trying to follow along. The empire wanted to create an entire generation of clone offspring… using you…

“Precisely.” Tarkin nodded curtly.

Crosshair turned and looked to the admiral waiting for the catch.

Tarkin just smiled and looked up at his favorite sniper, “Keep her happy and healthy, those are yournew orders.”

Crosshair nodded. This has to be the strangest set of orders he’s ever received. He watched Tarkin spin on his heel and head for the door.

The Admiral was about to leave the medical bay before he angled his head looking over his shoulder back to Crosshair, “and I expect you to complete the mate bond, and pup her, as soon as possible.” Tarkin paused waiting for Crosshair’s response.

Crosshair just nodded, trying to make himself speak “Yes, sir.”

Tarkin gave a satisfied huff as he marched out of the facility. Crosshair just stared blankly at the empty walk-way trying to even begin to understand all the information he just received.

This just got a lot more complicated.

~~~

The sharp taste of bacta coated your mouth making you smack your lips together trying to clear it. Your mouth was unbearably dry and when you tried to open your eyes, you felt like they had been welded shut. You groaned rubbing at them trying to will your eye lids to obey but they were heavy.

When you were able to finally crack them open, you blinked a few times trying to adjust to the lights. You then realized you were perched on a squishy bed under a thick duvet cover. Never in your life had you ever felt such soft sheets. You ran your hand over the white cottons before forcing yourself to sit up.

The disorientation came to a screeching halt when you noticed the looming dark figure in the corner of the room.

There lay Crosshair, still as a statue, seemingly asleep upright in a lounge chair.

You sucked in a breath going entirely still. You were suddenly afraid your movements would wake him.

You couldn’t remember much, but all you knew was that you needed to get the hell out of here… where ever here is…

Slowly, you shimmied your legs out from under the duvet before hopping down onto the plushest carpet you’d ever felt. You realized you were in nothing but a silk slip as your bare legs were now exposed to the comfortable air. Nothing about this was making any sense, what the hell is this place?

You crept forwards keeping your feet light and a concentrated eye on Crosshair’s form. He hadn’t moved one bit as you crossed the massive bedroom.

Just as you were about to open the door…

“Omega.” His voice made you freeze in place.

He still hadn’t moved, nor opened his eyes. You could hear your heart beating in your ears feeling like a little prey animal under his predatory aura.

“Go back to bed.” He said lowly.

You remained frozen trying to weigh your options. Run and pray, or comply and wait. Neither were good. And this was Crosshair, he was abnormally agile like his brothers. He’d snatch you up like a nexu.

When he realized you weren’t going to listen, he opened his eyes without moving a muscle. You felt yourself bite back a whimper as fear suddenly started to ebb its way into your nervous system.

You watched him stretch as he stood up loosing up the tight muscles from sleeping in that padded chair.

You backed up a step determined to run if he made any sudden movements. You also realized he wasn’t in his military kit either, he was wearing a loose black t-shirt and a pair of matching joggers. His feet were bare too. You hadn’t ever really seen him like this outside of your apartment. You suddenly began to wonder if you were back on Coruscant?

Well, this was certainly no apartment of yours…

“You need to rest omega.” He very slowly approached you.

You shook your head starring to feel like a disobedient child the way he was scowling at you.

“Y/N.” He snarled, “Wanna do it the hard way? Fine.” In a flash, he lunged at you and you scurried out of the way narrowly dodging his grasp. You screamed running from him as you crossed the room.

“Omega!” He yelled chasing after you, swiping for your ankle as you jumped across the massive king size bed and took off running on the other side of the room flinging yourself into the adjoining closet before locking the door behind you. He might be significantly taller than you, but you were speedier.

He growled pounding on the metal trying to figure out a way to open it. You quickly dismantled the locking mechanism giving yourself some time before he came barreling in.

Your heart was racing as you looked around trying to figure out a way out of this before he inevitably came to retrieve you.

“Be a good girl and open this fucking door omega.” You heard him from the other side of the door.

Looking up, you tried finding an air vent or something that could help you but you couldn’t find anything.

Remembering what Tech always said, you got down on all fours crawling around the clothes in the closet looking for a vent on the floor. When you noticed a difference in the wall, you pushed the clothes back revealing a grated vent.

“Yes.” You sighed crawling forwards to rip it from the wall. But to your dismay, it seems someone had already thought two steps ahead of you. The vent just led to a smaller one that no human could crawl through.

You heard the door panel whoosh open and spun around to see Crosshair marching towards you.

You stood up, ripping the clothes from the rail and started throwing them at him. He just batted them away unbothered by your attempt to stop him.

“Alpha please!” You whined backing up into the clothes clearly frightened.

Something in him switched and he stopped in his tracks. Maybe it was the sound of your voice warbling with fright, or how small you looked in the sea of black clothes, but he came to a total stop staring at you.

You were a lot less intimidating outside of the beskar his brothers adorned you with. You looked too small suddenly, not like the fierce warrior that took out his entire garrison with your rage just a few mere days ago. The owlish eyes that frantically searched for an out, made his skin crawl. You shouldn’t be reacting like this to him… he’s your alpha for kriff sake.

“Please.” You whispered the beg seeming like you were searching for something in him.

He sighed, “You can’t be up running around yet. You fractured two ribs and your pelvis from the fall.” He was the one now pleading with you, “Please, go back to bed.”

You took a deep breath trying to read him. Was this a trap? You couldn’t really tell, but you knew he wasn’t lying about your ribs. You could feel the ache with every breath.

Slowly, you stood inching towards him. He didn’t move a muscle, instead he allowed you to pass him before he followed you out of his closet and into the main sleeping quarters.

You saw him following you from the corner of your eye as you very tentatively crawled back up onto the bed settling back in the middle like you had beed previously. You kelt on the mattress watching him stand at the foot of the bed crossing his arms.

He stared at you intensely making your squirm in the silence.

“How did you do it?” He asked sounding pissed. Your heart began to patter.

You stared at him trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

He narrows his eyes, “The bond.”

You looked down at your hands fiddling with the sheets, “I was dying. You brothers took me to a planet where force sensitive wolves severed the bond to save me.”

He remained stoic as ever. It was unsettling.

“I thought you died.” He bit out harshly, “Nearly killed me.”

You whined quietly with guilt.

He bit at his lip missing his toothpick, “How are you fine right now? It feels fucking empty in here!” He jabbed a finger into his chest, “it’s torture!”

You just stared at his chest feeling your heart break for the alpha. You had thought about the kind of pain he might be feeling, those dreams kept you up at night. The others tried to convince you he’d be fine and that he probably didn’t feel much of anything, but you knew deep down it was so much worse.

His confirmation only made you feel more guilty. You studied his face better in the day light. He was skinnier than you remembered. It had been months running around the galaxy with your pack, while you had bulked up with muscles, your alpha across from you looked like he had been dragged through bantha shit for months on end. Even his hair was longer and mused from sleep. He looked so different.

He sighed seeming exhausted.

He reached forward to touch your ankle but you flinched drawing your limb closer to yourself. The look in his eyes nearly made you cry on the spot. He looked… horrified? Guilty? Disgusted?

“Omega.” That wasn’t the reaction he wanted from you. He also seemed guilty?

You were about to open your mouth to say something… anything… when the door to the apartments chimed open and a small army of medical droids floated inside.

He stood upright putting himself between you and the imperial doctor walking inside. The small beta man approached with his glasses and a data pad kind-of resembling Tech. You watched him hesitate in the doorway seeing Crosshair puff out his chest and cross his arms with a raised brow waiting for an explanation. There was no chance this man was stepping one more foot inside this room without Crosshair’s explicit permission.

Clearly, entering an alpha’s bedroom with his omega in bed wasn’t the smartest decision.

You instantly recognized the uniform which only meant one thing… you were in imperial custody. That also meant that whatever this place was, it was also imperial.

You peeked out from behind Crosshair getting the doctor’s attention he looked at you before looking back at the alpha towering over him.

You needed to start to devise a plan to get out of here.

“I-I uh, I uhm need to get new scans. If t-that’s okay?” The technician stuttered as Crosshair’s aura intimidated the hell out of the poor kid.

You realized Crosshair had made some kind of reputation within this new empire… and it clearly wasn’t one of rainbows and butterflies.

You smiled suddenly realizing you could definitely use this to your advantage…You were his omega after all. The kid noticed your grin as you suddenly settled back into the thick covers.

He slightly narrows his eyes watching your mischievous face turn sickly sweet as you opened your mouth to speak, “Alpha?” The tone of your voice was like a soft caress to Crosshair’s ears. You suddenly looked up at him mustering the most nervous look you could.

When he turned his attention to you, you squirmed uncomfortably making worried eyes at the medical technician. Crosshair’s protectiveness kicked into hyperdrive and he turned back to the beta, “Get out.”

“B-but!” He tried to explain.

“Now.” Crosshair stepped forwards making all the droids and the medical tech nervously back out of the room.

You smiled and waved at the technician making the kid sputter as he darted out of the apartment.

“The next person to walk in here without permission will not walk out, do I make myself clear?” Crosshair growled menacingly, locking the main door behind the kid.

When he returned you were leaning against the headboard watching him cross the massive bedroom. He gave you a knowing look, like he knew exactly the game you were playing with him. You crossed your arms over your chest pushing up your breasts watching him approach the end of the bed once again.

“You’re far more manipulative than the last time I had seen you.” He snipped and crossed his arms to match yours.

You eyed him, “A lot has changed.”

“Clearly.” He retorted.

You steeled yourself, “You tried to kill me.”

He stilled, taking a quick calming breath, “You defied direct orders.”

“I am your mate Crosshair!” You snarled leaning forwards on the bed unable to keep your voice from raising.

“Are you?” He narrowed his eyes.

You took a breath trying to calm the anger raging inside.

Maybe he didn’t view you as a mate anymore, not after the bond was severed. That thought hadn’t crossed your mind until now.

“Why am I here?” You lifted your chin trying to mimic his coolness.

“You are, or were, my mate. I serve the empire. You are to remain here with me, as it should be.” He replied coldly.

“And if we no longer have a bond?” You raised a brow.

He blinked slowly, “You are to remain here under imperial custody.”

“What do they want with me? They wouldn’t allow one soldier to send an entire garrison for one measly omega, now would they?”

“You’re not just some measly omega now are you.” He pointed a finger at you, “You have some explaining to do, cyra’ika.”

“I don’t have to explain anything.” You growled.

He scoffed changing the subject, “Where are they?”

You just stared at him. There’s no way you’d sell out his brothers to the empire.

“Do they know?” He raised a brow, he was referring to your special designation, “I’d presume so, you begged them to fuck you all the same.”

You felt your cheeks redden.

“I bet they kept fucking you too, huh sweetheart?” He leaned forwards placing one hand menacingly on the bed started to crawl closer, “Once they thought I was gone and out of the picture, they had you all to themselves.” The jealousy in his tone was evident. You knew he never liked to share.

“Did you know? All this time?” He was hovering over your covered legs making your heart race. The last time he looked at you like that, you had your nose pressed to his belly as you had taken him greedily down your throat.

You felt a sudden rush of heat flow through you at the memory.

“Know what?” You whispered.

He smirked, “What you are?”

“What am I, Crosshair?” You laid back on your back as he hovered over you keeping you pinned to the mattress beneath him.

He watched you swallow and noticed the unmarred glad still in tact. He smiled wolfishly down at you. He knew what you were, after Tarkin was explained, all the pieces fit together perfectly. However, he couldn’t help but indulge his jealousy, “You’re mine.”

He reached forwards gently making contact with your gland with his bare hand. Like a taught rubber band, you felt something snap violently into place making the two of you gasp violently and writhe on the mattress as an unbearable current zapped through your entire system like a lightening strike.

“Kriff!” He grunted trying to keep himself up and not crush you as he gripped at his sternum.

You wheezed pushing up at him suddenly feeling claustrophobic. You needed to get away.

Forcing yourself up from under the covers, you weakly crawled to the side of the bed wobbling on your feet suddenly overcome with the sensation of Crosshair everywhere.

His scent, his energy, his emotions… it was suffocating. You felt like there were two people inside you as you let out a cry feeling it all come to a freezing halt.

You clutched the wall trying to catch your breath. You spun around to face him as he hunched over the mattress. He looked at you wildly.

“The bond.” You breathed. It was intact.

Then came the burning desire.

You were suddenly possessed with the need to mate with your alpha.

You crossed the room practically jumping up into the bed crawling to him as he pulled you closer. You sighed feeling his skin against yours once again and you realized just now much you missed his touch.

You wiggled underneath him yanking at his shirt, pulling it over his head revealing his chest and a spattering of new scars you didn’t recognize. You also didn’t care. All you wanted was him inside you.

Like he could hear your thoughts, he smirked, nipping at your neck sending your nerves into overdrive. You were flustered everywhere and it was sending aching tingles down into the base of your belly.

You used your feet to push the waist band of his joggers down revealing the lack of boxers. You smiled and reached greedily for his cock starting to pump him rhythmically. He thrust into your hand as his breathing deepened clearly desperate for your touch.

“Omega.” He sighed almost silently.

He pawed at your silk covered tits before frustratingly tearing the straps to get access to you.

He kissed south, ignoring your squirming as he left your warm palm to lick and suck at your hardening nipples.

You cried out as he latched on with his warm mouth making you start to drip between your thighs.

“I’m still mad at you.” You whined pushing your chest up into his mouth.

“I know.” He tore the slip dress even further until it was fully off your body. His free hand slithered down between your thighs. You parted them eagerly as his fingers traced tight circles around your clit. You mewled grinding your hips into his hand as he worked you open.

You growled frustratedly wanting more, “Just fuck me Crosshair!”

He withdrew his hand and sat back on his heels before gripping your hips and flipping you over. He brought down a harsh slap against your ass making you scream.

“So, fucking bossy these days.” He teased rubbing the reddening area, “My vod let you get away with that, huh?”

You pushed your ass up into him ignoring his comments.

“Who died and made you empress?” He laughed sardonically.

You huffed as he brought down another harsh slap. You inched up the mattress crying out at the sting. You felt him nudge up behind you, pressing his thighs into yours, then you felt the tip of his cock brush against your dripping cunt teasing you with his warmth.

“Are you going to behave? Or are you going to be a little brat?” He spat at you pinching your welting ass making you squeal.

You snarled and whipped your head around to see his evil smirk as he trust forward in one fell swoop wiping that nasty look off your face in an instant.

You felt like the air was punched from your lungs as he filled you to the absolute brim. The stretch hurt, making you squirm, but Crosshair was merciless. He gripped your hips in a bruisingly tight hold as he pulled you back against his thrusts. You couldn’t recover from his brutal thrusts, all you could do was go limp and take what he was giving you.

“Give up so soon?” He mocked.

You could only relax, feeling yourself adjust to his presence while he abused your dripping pussy.

Your moans reverberated off the walls as his powerful thrusts rocked the king size bed against the wall. You clawed at the mattress trying to find purchase and push back against his onslaught. He chucked at your weak attempt as he leaned forwards to grasp the back of your neck in his hand, pressing you to the mattress keeping you pinned beneath him.

This felt so wrong but so damn good. Ugh. You mewled as he hit that perfect spot inside you, and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of your squelching cunt and his thighs smacking against yours. You couldn’t believe this was happening right now. It almost felt like a fever dream.

You reached your hand down between your thighs wanting to cum so badly but Crosshair knocked your hand out of the way to replace it with his own.

He rubbed soft circles edging you as he continued to thrust. You cried out feeling your climax approach and you squirmed around in his grasp trying to throw yourself over the edge.

You felt your end coming when Crosshair fully stilled inside you.

You let out a defeated whine feeling your climax slip further and further away.

“No!” You cried trying to push his hand out of the way and finish yourself off yourself, but he wouldn’t budge.

He leaned forwards pressing his mouth to your ear, “Where are they?”

Your body thrummed with arousal and anxiety… so this was how he was going to torture the information out of you.

He was seriously going to deny your orgasm until you cracked?

You whined pinching your eyes closed.

You heard him chuckle as he straightened back up continuing to thrust with a slower pace keeping you just idling on the edge.

You cried out desperately trying to push yourself back on him but he held you still.

“You don’t get to cum until you tell me adi’ka.” He smirked.

“Why?” You sobbed into the mattress.

He continued to stroke you just right making you shake. Your orgasm was starting to ebb into your field again and he seemed to sense it through the bond bringing himself to stop. You let out a deflated grunt as your joints shook with the need for release.

“Please Crosshair!” You begged.

He remained stoically still.

You felt tears pooling in your eyes, “Please let me cum alpha! Please!” You were on the brink of insanity.

“You know the rules sweetheart.” He reminded petting the raised welt of his hand on your ass, “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll give you as many orgasms as you can take.” He lightly toyed with your clit making you shudder.

You sniffled gripping into the covers.

“I can feel you resisting.” He sounded curious, “I can feel it in the bond. Poor thing, you want to cum so badly don’t you little one?

You huffed trying to gather yourself.

“I know you’re a stubborn one.” He smiled nipping at your shoulder, “Good thing I’m stubborn too.”

You were karked. You were karked because you knew he wasn’t going to like your answer regardless.

“Please.” You whispered rubbing your face into the bed.

“Tell me little one, and I’ll make you cum.” He promised.

“You won’t like my answer.” You whined clenching around his hardness. He rewarded you with a little slow thrust trying to egg you on.

You sighed, “I don’t know where they are.”

He hummed speeding up his thrusts slightly giving you a small taste of relief.

“You know them alpha, they’re never anywhere too long.” You cried feeling him start to rub your under stimulated clit, “T-They were taking mercenary jobs for money. We were never anywhere longer than a day or two at most!”

“Why were you on Bracca?” He started to rub faster making you moan.

You stuttered, “T-the chips.” You sighed as he picked up this thrusts, “Wrecker’s chip was hurting him and I took them all out.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” He slowed and you whined.

“I needed real surgical equipment. The old republic ships all had them!” You admitted. You were careful to leave Rex out of this. There was no reason for the empire to know he was alive and rescuing clone prisoners.

“Good girl.” He praised bringing his pace back up to the brutal pace you craved, “Now, was that so hard?” He couldn’t help but tease you.

You just groaned finally feeling your climax approach as he rewarded you for your confession. His skilled fingers brought you to the edge and swiftly threw you over and you came with a deafening scream. It was so powerful your entire body shuddered and convulsed as his thrusts got a little sloppy too before he came with a grunt.

He continued thrusting through his orgasm until he couldn’t take the stimulation anymore and pulled out watching as your cunt fluttered and his spend oozed out of you in creamy droplets. He watched mesmerized as you collapsed onto the bed totally worn out. The edging had been rough on you, and he realized he probably should have been a little softer on you since you were supposed to be in recovery.

He tried his best to catch his breath as he slid off the bed to hunt down a wash cloth. He came back to clean you up and then himself before he disappeared into the bathroom again. You curled up on your side pulling the sheets over you trying to still come down from your high. Your brain was laden with pleasure as you felt yourself drift off into peaceful sleep.

You sighed, escaping Crosshair and this place would have to come later.

These next few chapters are going to be fucked ngl, dirty Crosshair smut to come, and angstttttt

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

Taglist: @substantial-exposure

@rains-on-kamino

@minimissmoo

@z-and-the-batboys

@aynavaano

@9902sgirl

@sideofhorny

@sxftiebee

@booksandtitts-blog

ALSO IF ANYONE WANTS TO BE ADDED TO THE TAG LIST PLEASE COMMENT BELOW, I KEEP LOOSING YALL IN MY ACTIVITY BAR LOL MY BAD

#crosshair #hunter #tech #wrecker #abo #echo #star wars #bad batch #smut #omega #tarkin #clone wars #tbb #rex #imperial crosshair

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defectivevillain · 1 year ago

Text

this winding labyrinth

chapter 1: suffocation.

pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Reader (reader is not gendered, race-ambiguous, and no physical descriptors are used)

summary:

You wish you never met Hannibal Lecter. But you yearn for his presence. You want to forget him. But he never truly leaves your thoughts. Now, you’re left to pick up the pieces of a broken design. A battle of instinct rages on in your mind—one of bittersweet relief and cloying grief, fearless resolve and poignant regret; a clashing between affection and antipathy, pride and pain. What will win, in the end? Only time will tell.

this is act 2 of this broken design. if you haven't read that, this won't make too much sense.

ao3 version | Spotify playlist

warnings: canon-typical blood, violence, gore, mutilation, death, & animal death. the animal death is pretty detailed, so please don't read this fic if you're triggered by that kind of topic.

author's notes: This first chapter is a little bit of a mess imo, but I wanted to post it to assure you all that I don’t want to abandon this fic. It may take me longer to post and update chapters, especially since I graduated from uni (mwahahah) and my schedule may get busy. Still, I really enjoy writing this story—and you all seem to enjoy reading it. Both of those things are enough to keep me going.

Something extremely ironic happened around the time I was writing the last few chapters of Act 1. So… if you remember, in Chapter 6, Hannibal and the reader go on an opera date (of sorts). During that date, the reader remarks that they “don’t know the first thing about opera.” Those words were pretty much taken directly from my mouth. Fast forward to about mid-fall, I get a call for an interview for an internship. I end up doing the first interview, then a second interview… Then I get the internship. The irony? This internship is at an opera house. (What’s even more ironic is that I’m now getting to the point where I do actually know things about opera—I know different productions and directors and technical terms… It’s absolutely crazy. The universe is making me eat my words, lol.

To make matters even stranger, I was in the office for the internship one day and caught a glimpse of a television, which broadcasts what’s happening on the stage. Imagine my absolute surprise and fear when I look up at the television screen with absolutely no expectations and see a single man in a beige jumpsuit with something over his face standing on stage, his shadow silhouetted against the wall behind him. Imagine my surprise when I see that, not only is he standing in an enclosure with iron bars (just like the ones at Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane), but it also looks as if he is staring right at me—and he looks exactly like Hannibal Lecter in captivity. It was simultaneously scary as hell and weirdly reassuring. Anyway, I’ve taken these experiences as cosmic confirmation that I should continue writing this fic. Lol.

Anyway. Back to the important things… I’m planning to borrow elements from both Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, but, similarly to the first act, there will be canon divergence and canon non-compliance. Also, as you probably discerned in the past act, there is some plot armor. But, this is fiction.

Your life currently takes two forms: before the Chesapeake Ripper… and after.

Before the Ripper, the leaf-stained pavement of the Bureau filled you with hope. Walking through the agency’s halls was a testament to the hard work that brought you there. Each assignment was an invaluable opportunity to further develop your interrogation and combat skills. You went to classes, completed assignments, trained, slept, and repeated the cycle the next day. Over and over and over again. But you were happy.

Life doesn’t feel so simple anymore. You feel like you’ve been fading for a while now, slowly deteriorating as you invest more and more energy into catching criminals. Your work has morphed into an exhausting mutual exchange, one in which you take murderers’ freedom and they take your restful nights. You can’t remember the last time you rested unencumbered by the horrors you’ve seen in the field.

By some miracle, Jack manages to keep the press relatively uninformed about the happenings behind the Ripper case. Everyone is too absorbed with the fact that Hannibal’s in captivity to remember to ask just how he got there, and you’re very grateful for that lapse in memory. You can just imagine the interactions you’d have with paparazzi. Is it true that he stabbed you? Is it true that he purposefully left you alive, only to surrender in your front yard and torment you with the constant knowledge that he will remain in the same place, lying in wait until the moment you will inevitably need him? You shudder.

Even with all the chaos that comes from the Ripper case—the media coverage of Hannibal and the attention the FBI gets—life goes on. Back at the Bureau, you occasionally lecture the new recruits and you take on assignments along with the rest of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Jack is still wont to call on you at the most ungodly of hours; Beverly still trades lighthearted taunts with you; Brian Zeller still seems to hate your guts, for reasons you’re not quite sure of; Alana and you are back to a steady friendship, albeit with occasional beats of unexplained tension and awkward silence.

Criminality continues to occur in the Ripper’s wake. You’re not surprised: the imprisonment of one criminal doesn’t beget the imprisonment of another. Even so, it’s difficult for you to proceed as if things are normal. You see traces of Hannibal in each of the monsters you apprehend. Your emotions are starting to eat you alive from the inside. You don’t have a therapist to assist you with those emotions anymore. And, while you think therapy would be helpful, you also know that there’s no way in hell you’d be able to actually be honest with a therapist without being imprisoned yourself. The things you’ve done and the urges you’ve felt… Neither is even close to a semblance of normality.

You take a deep breath. You have no issue stopping other criminals, sending them to empty white walls and thin mattresses. Why was Hannibal Lecter any different? You suppose you shouldn’t fool yourself—you know the answer to that question already: you got to know him. Beyond the mask of the Ripper, beyond the bloodied skin and cruel smile… You started to see him as a man, perhaps even a friend. Perhaps, even-

You tear yourself away from that thought process before it gets too far along. The semantics don’t matter now. All that matters is that you’re back in the field, back popping pills for your headaches and blinking fresh horrors from your eyes. All that matters is that the memory of Hannibal Lecter begins to fade away in the face of work— so much so that keeping busy helps you forget the pain.

Meanwhile, a hundred miles away, a veterinarian walks into a stable under a farmer’s guidance. The two stand over a dead horse and the veterinarian frowns. The farmer explains the horse’s death before stepping aside, letting the professional work.

The farmer quickly becomes lost in their thoughts. They hadn’t expected the horse to die in the middle of her pregnancy. The farmer swallows past the tightness in their throat and tears their eyes away from the horse. They were looking forward to the birth of the foal, looking forward to helping the mother raise her offspring. The stable air suddenly feels suffocating and they take a look at the veterinarian’s turned back before stepping outside to get some fresh air.

Moments later, the veterinarian rejoins them. The doctor’s lips are drawn in a tight line and there’s a troubled expression on their face. The farmer feels any remaining composure promptly seep out of them, as the veterinarian suggests they come back into the stable.

“It feels like there’s something here,” the veterinarian says, their expression conflicted. They touch the horse’s womb with a gloved hand and frown.

“She was pregnant,” the farmer chokes out, their throat feeling tight again. It hurts to utter the words aloud.

“With twins?” The veterinarian asks, turning around to look at them.

“No, just one baby,” the farmer shakes their head. Why would they ask about twins? Surely, they don’t feel another baby in the womb. The thought of two deaths is morbid and distressing enough, but three? The farmer inhales shakily.

“There’s… something else here.” The veterinarian remarks, their face contorting as they feel the horse’s womb once more. They turn back to look at the farmer for assistance. The farmer feels a horrible, inexplicable sense of foreboding crawling up their skin. Despite that feeling, they nod to the veterinarian. The doctor nods in response and turns to the horse’s womb, before making an incision.

The veterinarian unearths the dead foal and places it on the nearby hay with infinite gentleness. The farmer’s chest begins to hurt as they come to terms with the sight before them. Their pain doesn’t end there, however. The veterinarian continues slicing along the skin before stopping and glancing back at them inexplicably. It’s as if they’re waiting for permission to continue. The farmer appreciates the gesture and they nod in affirmation. This mystery needs to be put to rest.

The veterinarian inhales sharply, sending the farmer’s heart racing. The farmer prompts them to step aside, revealing the horse’s womb. There’s… something there. The farmer squints at it, a gasp ripping its way from their lips as they realize just what they’re looking at. A human corpse lies on the stable floor, a stark shock of muted crimson against the golden strands of hay. The farmer brings a shaking hand to their pocket and calls the police.

Unaware of these occurrences, you slowly exhale and pinch the bridge of your nose, feeling a headache coming on. You busy yourself with grading your students’ papers, and you don’t learn of the corpse until a few hours later, when the medicine begins to kick in and you’re foolishly convinced that you’ll be fine. Before you can leave for the day, Jack is walking up to you and beckoning you to the lab. The two of you grab Beverly along the way, which leaves the three of you to enter the laboratory that Price and Zeller are currently situated in. When you walk in, you’re immediately assaulted with the scent of formaldehyde. Price explains the situation behind the corpse, how a veterinarian found the body within the womb of a horse. The notion is strikingly similar to the other deaths by suffocation that have been eluding the BAU for several weeks. Jack seems to think the same thing, as he rattles off what he knows so far about the killer. You add things here and there—small things you can notice from the state of the corpse itself—before Price gets the group back on track.

“I called you here because…” Price trails off, frowning before readjusting his stethoscope and placing it on the victim’s chest once more. The room is deathly silent as he concentrates. “...There’s a heartbeat.”

“That doesn’t come with the onset of rigor mortis—we all know that,” Zeller continues, looking down at the corpse with a somewhat puzzled expression. He seems to sense you staring and looks up, his eyebrows furrowing as his gaze meets yours. “She’s dead.” He announces with complete certainty.

“She was found in the womb of the horse?” Beverly asks. Everyone else nods and she pauses for a moment. “Make an incision and check the chest cavity.” There’s an unshakeable certainty in her voice and it throws you off for a moment, before you realize what she’s getting at. It’s not unfathomable that something was buried within the victim’s chest cavity. Suffocation seems to be a common theme with this killer. Did they put some sort of dead animal in the corpse? The thought makes your stomach turn.

“Alright,” Price acquiesces, after glancing at Jack for approval. Crawford nods, evidently attributing value to Beverly’s suggestion. The four of you—Crawford, Beverly, Zeller, and you—watch as Price leans in and makes a careful incision in the chest. For several moments, there’s nothing but a tense silence in the air as Jimmy works. The quiet is broken a few seconds later when Price takes a sharp breath. “I saw something.”

“Keep going,” Jack demands, bringing Jimmy’s attention back to the task at hand. Price nods and makes the incision a little bigger. All of you are watching in anticipation, waiting for something you’re not quite sure will appear.

All of a sudden, there’s a flash of motion. A yellow blur flits about the cavity, before reaching upwards and extending its wings to fly out. You watch in disbelief as the bloodstained bird stretches its wings and flies about the lab, colliding with the sheen of the fluorescent lighting and sending shadows flickering along the floor.

Jack is the first one to respond. He quickly paces over to the small window located near the ceiling and opens it, allowing the bird an escape. For a few moments, the bird doesn’t seem to notice: it’s too overwhelmed with the sudden change in environment to comprehend that it has just been granted an escape. It has a chance at true freedom, but it’s too busy taking in the laboratory’s flimsy promises to notice. The bird eventually notices the open window and flies out of it, before Jack closes the laboratory off from the outside world once more.

The group begins discussing what just occurred, but your mind is elsewhere. You feel a strange sort of kinship with the bird: suffocated beneath rows of ribs and walls of tissue and skin; banished to the space between; too taken with the small allowances to notice freedom within reach. You pinch the bridge of your nose. Your headache is returning, as pressure builds up in your temples and constricts your very skin. It’s significantly harder to breathe. Every time you blink, you’re greeted with the memory of that bright yellow bird bursting from its confines, greeting the stale laboratory air with beating wings. You step outside the lab to get some fresh air, trading your smaller prison for a bigger one—just as the bird did mere moments ago.

It doesn’t take long for Jack to find you. After all, you’re not hidden—you’re simply leaning against the wall in the hallway that leads to the laboratory. Jack strides up to you, his hands in his pockets and that familiar tight line drawn across his face. You suspect he’ll get wrinkles a lot sooner than everyone else his age—sheerly because of all the responsibility he holds and the pressure he’s forced to perform under. It must be exhausting to be the one calling the shots in these horrible situations. You had always assumed Jack had the easy job, but looking at him now, you think that assumption must be incorrect. He is suffering, just as you are. Perhaps… Jack has just grown better at hiding it.

The thought makes Jack’s remark slip in one ear and right out the other. You ask him to repeat himself and he sighs. “We need to go to the stable where the corpse was found. There are several police officers there already, but…” But we need to do a more thorough investigation , he doesn’t say. You hear him anyway and nod. Jack walks past you and paces purposefully down the hall, not even bothering to look and see if you’re following him. Perhaps he already knows you will follow him.

What follows is an awkward car ride. Neither of the two of you attempt to break the tense silence, leaving a suffocating air of uncertainty and indecision. You don’t know what to say to Jack, so you instead busy yourself with looking out the window. You resolutely pretend not to notice your boss’s gaze repeatedly flitting over to you and, after a painful amount of time, Jack is driving up the gravel path that leads to a modest farmhouse and a beautiful wooden stable.

The place is already crawling with police officers and FBI agents. Unfortunately, the police were the first ones to be informed of the case, which means the FBI is forced to share jurisdiction with them. You know Jack isn’t too happy about that, especially once you see the frown on his face as he watches the police officers clumsily investigate. They don’t have the right training for a situation like this and Jack is delighted to inform them of that fact—albeit with much more sugar coated wording than you would have utilized. A few minutes later, the cops are gone, leaving Jack, you, and the set of agents that Jack requested to follow after your car on the drive over. The other agents are quick to secure the crime scene, while Jack and you decide to explore the premises a little first.

The property features a small, rather unremarkable house with slightly dirty bricks and a well-loved bench swing on the porch. The front door is agape, revealing hardwood flooring and items strewn about. Jack and you exchange a glance before walking into the home. You don’t see any sign of life until you reach the kitchen and come across an older woman sitting at the table, stirring a cup of tea. You’re quick to show your badge and explain the situation to her. She doesn’t seem to have a great idea of what’s going on, so you eventually decide to leave her be and keep looking about the property.

Next to the house is a rather large stable, complete with several different stalls and a wide variety of tools. You have no idea what half of the tools could possibly be used for, but the majority of them look as if they’ve been used at least once. There are bales of hay in the corner of the room and various accessories hanging near the post of each horse’s stall. There are only a few horses in the stable—you think you could’ve seen a few in the pastures out back earlier. There’s a horrible stench pervading the air, and it’s not the typical odor that comes from a farm. It’s the smell of death. You look at Jack and he nods, inclining his head and gesturing for you to continue exploring the stable. It isn’t until you reach the last stall—one that is inexplicably larger than the rest—that you find the source of the stench. The rotted corpse of the horse rests at the back of the stall, the womb flayed open. The organs have been removed, but the smell of decay remains. Surprisingly enough, you’re not alone in this stall. A brown-haired man sits cross-legged on the floor next to the horse, a blank expression on his face.

“...Hello?” You decide to try. There’s no response. “Excuse me?” Still no response.

You glance at Jack and he raises his eyebrows, before turning to the stranger. “You must be Peter Bernardone,” Jack remarks. The mention of the man’s name seems to be enough to get his attention. On second thought, you remember Jack offhandedly mentioning that there may be a stablehand on site. It seems you’ve found him.

“That’s me,” the man replies flatly, staring ahead with glassy eyes. He looks as if he’s on an entirely different plane of existence, as he looks at the wall ahead of him with enough intensity to melt it.

“Jack Crawford, FBI,” Jack answers with an introduction of his own. He flashes his badge for a moment before putting it away. You can’t tell if Peter is even paying attention, but you do the same to make him more comfortable. “We’re just here to ask you some questions.”

“I want to talk,” Peter murmurs quietly, just barely loud enough to be heard. He pulls his knees up to his chest; his eyes haven’t strayed from the corpse of the animal in front of him. You feel your chest constrict a little at the sight.

“Good,” Jack responds with a nod.

“...To you,” Peter finishes with a gesture. To your complete surprise, he doesn’t point at Jack—he’s pointing at you. Jack blinks in equal surprise, looking at you for answers. You send him a helpless look. At first, you’re not sure why you seem more trustworthy than Jack. Then you remember Jack’s position and the intimidating aura he tends to give off. You think you’d want to talk to someone like yourself too, were you in Peter’s situation.

“Alright,” you agree. You don’t see the harm in having a conversation. You need information and, more importantly, answers. Jack stares at you for a long few seconds, before exhaling in evident exasperation.

“I’ll be outside,” Jack promises, before walking away. You wait until Jack is out of sight before you take a step closer to Peter, placing your hands in your pockets.

“What do you do here, Peter?” You hear yourself ask. Your voice sounds foreign to your ears.

“I volunteer here,” Peter responds, still facing the corpse. His voice sounds hollow, empty. “Sometimes.”

“Did you… know this horse?” You ask hesitantly, looking down at the corpse.

“Yes,” Peter answers without hesitation. There’s a hint of emotion in his voice now.

“Ridden her before?”

“I don’t ride the horses,” Peter replies, “I just like to brush them.”

“Okay,” you acknowledge. You begin pacing around the stall in an attempt to calm your restless nerves. “Peter, were you here on the day that the veterinarian visited?” Jack had briefed you on the circumstances of the horse’s death, how a veterinarian had been called to investigate before the corpse was found in the womb.

“I don’t remember a veterinarian,” he stares ahead with a frown.

“That’s fine,” you answer. He may not have been there that day. “The veterinarian was the one who cut open the womb and found the corpse… Did you know this horse was pregnant?”

At that question, Peter turns around and stares at you. His hollow gaze is enough to send a shiver down your spine. For a moment, he just stares at you, before huffing in amusement. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” you echo. You suppose that was a rather dumb question on your part. “Were you… sad about the foal?”

“Of course,” Peter huffs again. “Why do you think I’m sitting here?” This discussion isn’t getting you very far.

“Fine,” you acquiesce. You take a deep breath. “This doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I’m going to give you my extension, and if you ever feel like talking about what happened, you can call me, okay?” Thankfully, you know for certain that Peter isn’t the killer—the psychological profile you built on this murderer tells you that much. Jack clearly doesn’t think Peter is the killer either, and those two facts are enough for you to rule him out as a suspect. However, you’re still contemplating the possibility of him tampering with the crime scene.

Peter clears his throat pointedly and you remember what you were supposed to be doing. You grab a notepad from your jacket pocket and quickly scrawl down the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s phone number, followed by the extension to your office phone. You take a step closer and hold it out to Peter. For a fraction of a moment, you think he won’t take it. Just before you can pull your hand back, he takes the paper and slips it into his pocket.

You turn on your heel and take a step towards the door of the stall, fully intent on leaving, when the door falls open of its own accord. Jack Crawford stands in the doorway, staring at you.

“Good, Agent,” Jack remarks. This must be important. “We have a lead,” he says vaguely, his eyes falling to Peter. You can’t discuss confidential information here—the details will have to wait until you’re both in the car.

“Excellent,” you remark in relief. “I’ll meet you at the car?” You can sense that Peter’s attention is piqued. Maybe you can still get something out of him. Jack nods and walks away once more. You then turn to Peter, who has turned his body away from the horse to face you. Somehow, he’s intrigued now. Something has caught his eye. “Sorry, Peter,” you apologize, taking a step backwards and emphasizing that you’re a moment away from leaving, “I have to go.”

“What is it?” Peter asks, “Did you find him?”

“It’s classified, I’m sorry,” you respond, ignoring the inexplicable sound of alarm bells blaring in your head. Peter isn’t the killer. “But we’re tracking down this killer. I promise he’ll be put away.”

“You promise?” Peter asks, a dangerous conviction in his eyes.

“Yes,” you respond without hesitation. You don’t have the authority to make that kind of promise, but you do anyway. The sincerity in your expression must convince Peter, because he takes a slow breath and the tension seems to fade from his form. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Peter. It was nice to meet you.” Peter says the same and you turn to leave the stable.

“Price and Zeller found soil in the corpse’s throat,” Jack recounts to you as he drives along the highway, moving at a comfortable speed. His eyes are fixed on the road, but he recalls his conversation with Price with perfect consistency. “We traced it to a burial site about thirty minutes from here.”

“Great,” you remark, relief coursing through you. To your surprise, Jack doesn’t respond. Instead, he simply nods ever so slightly and continues staring ahead. Now, it seems as if he’s avoiding something. “What is it?” You ask. Something seems off about him.

“You may want to brace yourself,” Jack warns vaguely.

“Why?” You hear yourself question. Jack doesn’t answer, and he’s quiet for the rest of the car ride. When the two of you pull up to the supposed burial site, you’re filled with trepidation. This job always comes with the knowledge that blood and gore could be waiting at every corner. That’s the normal day for an agent. So… why does Jack feel the need to warn you? You grapple with the prospect as the two of you leave the car and join the group of agents circled around something.

It isn’t until you get closer that you recognize the familiar stench of rotting death. Sure enough, the group of agents is clustered around a hole in the ground—one that houses a woman’s corpse. You stare at the marks around her neck, the dirt caked under her nails and staining her fingertips. She was on the brink of death when she was buried. She was trying to escape. You stare down at the body for another moment, searching for any more abnormalities, before taking a step back to let the other agents resume their investigation. You exchange glances with Jack.

“She’s not the only one,” Jack says. You stare at the field around you—the grassy, open expanse. It seems to stretch on for miles now. You feel your heart steadily thudding in your chest, at a rate slightly faster than normal. Your head begins to ache.

“How many of them are there?” You murmur. The question is quiet, as you practically whisper it against the wind. For a moment, you think Jack doesn’t hear it. You then realize that he has comprehended it, but is simply declining to answer. Indeed, your boss stares out at the field with a conflicted expression. “Jack?”

“Sixteen,” Jack responds, turning his attention back to you. You feel something in your stomach twist and pull.

“That can’t be right,” you remark. It sounds as if the wind is picking up. It takes you several seconds to realize the sound is being conjured by your own mind, and that the air is damp and still around you. You swallow hard and take another look around at the field, suddenly understanding why the agents are now evenly dispersed across the space. They all have shovels and each sound of metal hitting dirt is enough to send a bolt of pain down your temple and through your cheekbones. Your teeth hurt as you watch the unearthing of sixteen different victims. They’re uniformly dispersed across the field. This is no happy accident—the killer meticulously planned for their graves to be close (but not too close). The thought brings a burning feeling to your throat and you feel your knees suddenly buckle. You place a hand on the ground, feeling the familiar horrible feeling of nausea climbing past your throat until you’re vomiting on the killer’s ground. It takes you a few minutes to stop, and even longer for you to fully recover. Your eyes sting and you can’t tell if you’re going to cry or pass out. There’s an overwhelming clarity in your vision and a rhythmic pounding at your temple.

This graveyard is a gruesome display, even to someone who has spent their entire career surrounded by carnage. You’ve seen your fair share of murder victims. You’ve never seen sixteen of them lined up in two neat rows of eight, buried in a nondescript field under layers of muddy soil. Moreover, you can sense the killer’s feelings—and it makes you sick. This was not a gesture born out of respect for the victims. The murderer did not dig up these graves to give these women a final resting place; he buried them to trap them, so that even in death, they would never truly be free. Their existences would be tied to him forever. They would never be allowed to breathe again. It’s nothing short of sickening. There’s nausea stewing in your stomach again, revulsion prickling across your skin, and sweat trickling down your neck.

You can’t seem to push yourself up to your feet. You’re grounded to the damp soil, to the wrong side of the earth. What deems you worthy of living? What deemed these women worthy of dying? Your hands are twitching at your sides. A deep breath causes your chest to hitch and you nearly vomit again. You look down on your body as you claw at the grass and tear it up, shakily pulling at the dirt and plants and grass and rot and death and injustice and horrible, terrible guilt and indescribable anger and vengeance -

There’s a hand on your shoulder. You instinctually tense, your movements beginning to slow. It feels as if you’re suddenly catapulted back into your body, forced to inhabit the itchy, dirt-stained skin and the endless remorse that wants to eat you alive from the inside.

“They’re dead; there is nothing left for them here,” Jack says. It’s his strange way of comforting you. It sort of works. After a moment, he takes a step forward and extends a hand to you. You take it, allowing him to pull you up. Jack seems to be fighting against the urge to say or do something, because his eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are pulled taut in a thin line. There’s dirt all over you, yet you are still privileged with life.

You don’t remember how you get back to the Bureau. All you remember is staring blankly ahead as you’re half-led through the halls by Jack himself, his hand on your shoulder providing equal support and increased pressure. All you remember is the worry on Alana’s face as you walk past, the way she gets up from her desk and walks over to you, how she leads you towards the far restroom with a gentle hand. It ends up being the same restroom where Zeller accused you of killing Franklyn. The memory of that encounter is far fresher than you want it to be.

Alana leads you to a sink and guides your hands towards the water.

“Allow me,” she remarks, turning on the sink. She steps away for a moment and you stare at the water dripping from the faucet. Alana returns moments later with a washcloth. She pumps some soap on your hands and helps you wash them clean. Your head aches. You don’t know what to think, what to say. All you can think about is the graveyard. It haunts your vision every time you blink, forcing you to think of suffocating under piles of dirt and debris. You inhale sharply, gasping. Regaining your breath is a chore. “I’m worried about you,” Alana soon admits. You hate that her concern makes you feel appreciated. Your relationship with Alana ended years ago. You don’t want to be hers again, but this very moment reminds you of the intimacy you no longer get to see.

“You shouldn’t be,” you remark. Alana laughs under her breath. You both know that’s not how it works. Emotions don’t bend to logic.

“What did you see?” Her hand on your forearm keeps you tethered to reality. You shake your head, unable to begin describing the scene that will most certainly haunt your nightmares. The two of you are silent for the remainder of your time together under the flickering fluorescent lights, as you try to come to terms with the terrible regret, revulsion, and rage threatening to spill over your frame and inhabit your every waking moment.

next chapter

endnotes: thanks for reading! i'm very excited to continue this story, mwahhahahha

here's a lil sneak peek for the next chapter: “Peter,” Clark practically coos. You hate him, more than you’ve ever hated anyone before. He is a bundle of contradictions: a fine-dressed man with a fine-dressed smile and fine-dressed lies and cruelty and violence and- “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

hannibal taglist <3: @its-ares @tobbotobbs @xrisdoesntexist @gr1mmac3 @tiredstarcerberuslamb @yourlocalratwriter @kahuunknown @atlas-king1 @pendragon-writes @slipknotcentury @cryinersaved @the-ultimate-librarian @starre-eyes @pendragon-writes @peterparkeeperer @gayschlatt69

#Hannibal Lecter x reader #hannibal nbc #hannibal x reader #Hannibal Lecter x male reader #Hannibal Lecter x gn reader #transmasc reader #male reader #gn reader #hannibal x gn reader #hannibal x male reader #gotta cover all the bases

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dumbbitchenergy17 · 2 years ago

Text

Clan of Three - Chapter 1

Chapter One: The Mandalorian, The Child, and The Thief

Plot: A Mandalorian, an infant with a history of the jedi, and a teenager with similar powers with an undiscovered lineage. An unlikely group to travel the galaxy together.

Word Count: 5.9K

Pairing: Father Figure!Din Djarin x Platonic!Teen!Reader

Warnings: Fighting, teenage behavior, small injuries

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A ship known by many for the man on board, he couldn’t even be described as a man. Skillful in languages, the ways of a blaster, and hand-to-hand, part of a race of the past. The bounty hunter, part of the creed. Their famous words, ‘This is the Way’.

The Mandalorian...

Dirt and dust fill the air as the Pre-Galactic ship lands on the planet of Nevarro. A sharp hiss comes from the landing gear as the large ramp opens up a man dressed in the finest armor and weapons stalks through the town. Looks and whispers as he makes his way through the town. A cantina filled with music and booze, its patrons conversating with one another or drinking their problems away but the arrival of this bounty hunter silences them instantly as his cold gaze scans across the room.

Spotting hidden in the corner a dark-skinned man who once his eyes meet his helmet raises a hand, “Ah, that was fast. Did you catch them all?” He asks and the hunter silently places all the tracking fobs on the table in front of him, “Good. I’ll begin the off-load.” The man nods at the seat in front of him and the other man sits down. Pulling his reward from his pocket and sliding them across the table.

“These are Imperial credits.” The Mandalorian says finding no use in them, the empire was something he didn’t want to support. The other man shrugs trying to convince him, “They still spend.”

The masked ban glares at the other man through his helmet, “I don’t know if you heard, but the empire is gone, Greef” His modulated voice shows his disgust and irritation.

“It’s all I’ve got.” The man puts his hands up and the hunter stands grabbing his trackers rather to give them to someone who will pay his preferred currency, “Save the theatrics…fine I’ll.” He sighs pocketing the money and pulling out a different payment, “I can do Calamari Flan, but I can only pay half.” He looks at other options contemplating them before grabbing the blue credits.

Greef signals someone in the cantina who leaves to unload the bounties on the ship, “Okay…I have a bail jumper, bail jumper, another bail jumper, a wanted smuggler-” “I’ll take them all.” The Mandalorian cuts off the man’s listing ready for new work making Greef let out a laugh.

“Nah, hold on. There are other members of the Guild, and this is all I have.” He shakes his head but the bounty hunter didn’t care about other people, “Why so slow?”

“It's not slow at all. Actually, very busy. They just don't want to pay Guild rates. They don't mind if things get sloppy.” Greef explains leaning back in his seat and gesturing to the bar quickly bringing him a drink. The Mandalorian watches him twitching to get off this planet and onto the next bounty and reward,

“What’s your highest bounty?”

“Not much. Five thousand.” Greef recalled his highest payment for all those bounties, the price bothering the hunter,

“That won't even cover fuel these days.”

The Guild member nods slowly before one job he forgot to mention comes to mind, “Hmm. There is one job.”

“Let’s see the puck.” The hunter holds out his hand ready to start.

Greef shook his head taking a sip of his drink, “No puck. Face to face. Direct commission. Deep pocket.” This was not a normal occurrence, bounties always had a puck or something for the bounty hunter. The Mandalorian could only think who was so important to whoever wanted them dead or alive.

“Underworld?” Mando questioned,

“All I know is no chain code” Greef pulls out a chit card placing it on the table between the two of them taunting the hunter the offer not standing for long, “Do you want the chit or not?”

Arriving at the meeting with the client he hadn’t expected the empire to lead to a standoff with four remnant stormtroopers' blasters aimed at him and his weapons aimed at them. A hand stops the soldiers and they all lower their weapons the bounty hunter slowly lowering his but not putting it away. “He also said you were expensive. Very expensive,” The client gestured to him to sit, “Please sit.” The Mandalorian sits down hesitant his hand twitching at his gun when the client grabs something out of view bringing out something wrapped in cloth. Unwrapping it the shining metal glisters in the light the same metal that decorated the hunter’s body. The staple of the Mandalorians is a metal of high value and meaning.

”Beskar?” He says looking at the metal brick surprised to see such a large piece of it.

“Go ahead. It’s real.” The client allows the hunter to inspect the ingot. “This is only a down payment. I have a case of beskar waiting for you upon delivery of the assets.” The client explains his payment being something large until the words acknowledged him

“Assets?” He was only expecting one bounty for this underground work.

The client nods his wrinkled hands folding together in front of him before waving a hand at the hunter, “I’m sure a man of your skill will have no trouble collecting two assets.”

“Alive.” The otherwise silent doctor pops in standing to the side with a data pad filled with whatever information,

“Yes. Alive. Although, I acknowledge that bounty hunting is a complicated profession. This being the case, proof of termination is also acceptable for a lower fee.” The imperial man says and the doctor looks at him in shock, “That is not what we agreed upon.”

“I’m simply being pragmatic.” The client gives his final word before turning back to the silent hunter.

“Let’s see the puck,” He says needing more information before he could decide whether to take the offer. He was going to take it, the second the beskar was brought out he knew it was going to be in better hands once it was returned to the Mandalorians.

The man frowns looking away, “I’m afraid discretion dictates a less traditional agreement. We can only offer you a tracking fob.” The doctor hands the Mandalorian a tracking fob.

“What’s the chain code?’ He asked still prying for information.

“We can only provide the last four digits for each.” The client says.

“Their age? That’s all you can give me?” The Mandalorian says growing more frustrated.

“Yes. One of them is 50 years old while the other is 17 years old. We can also give you the last reported positional data. Between that and the fob, a man of your skill should make short work of this.” The client smirks at the bounty hunters' conflict as he gets up and moves to leave. “The beskar belongs back into the hands of a Mandalorian. It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of such disarray, don't you agree?”

His decision was made then.

The air was cool on your skin as you left your room slipping out through the window to avoid your father asleep just in the other room. It was calming walking through the silent town, but it quickly changes when hands grab you. One quickly covering your mouth to muffle your screams, you kick your leg back hearing a sickening crack as they roar in pain biting on the hand covering your mouth the metallic taste of blood fills your mouth. You try to run off knowing you couldn’t overpower the men, you go to scream out when something collides against your head and you crumble to the ground.

That had been about four weeks ago when you later woke up in a room chained to the wall having no idea where you were and even if you were on your planet. It had been about a week into your captivity when you gained a companion. A creature that must have been an infant had joined you. So you watched the child giving portions of your food since he needed it more and watched over him. Silences were common in the room you were being held in other than the babbles and sounds coming from the babe. Until a loud pop sounded muffled before another, you couldn’t tell what it was until the sounds of screams came with them. Gunfire…

The door burst open and two men enter one unlocking your chains and the other grabbing the child’s carrier bringing you out of the darkroom into a larger one. The sounds of fighting and gunfire grow louder out here, “It’s only two of them out there, why won’t they die!” The one with the child growls out pushing his carrier against a pile of crates the harsh movement making him cry out.

“Stop it. You’re going to hurt it.” You push the man away from the child. He whips around smacking you across the face it stings in pain. You glare at him and spit the blood that pools in your mouth right in his face. He wipes the red off him before quickly lifting his rifle slamming the butt of the gun against your temple and you crumple to the ground.

The fight on the outside is long over and almost unfair to the mercenaries, the doors leading into the building explode open with the heavy weapon the bounty hunter uses. The rubble falls around the doorway created as he enters followed by a droid, IG-11. It’s silent as he stalks inside, with quick reflexes as a lone enemy jumps out and is quickly shot down.

“Anyone else?” The bounty hunter calls out as the droid looks around before down at the tracking fob it had.

“The tracking fob is still active. My sensors indicate that there are two life forms present.” The Mandalorian scans the room coming upon a girl unconscious bleeding from the temple and an egg-shaped container behind her. The tracking fob beeps louder in the direction of both the girl and the container as the hunter cautiously opens it.

“Wait. They said 50 years old.” He looks confused at what was supposedly the 50-year-old asset but looked like a child.

“Species age differently unlike the female. Perhaps it could live many centuries.” IG-11 explains as the child slowly emerges from the blanket, this tiny green creature looks up at him stretching its hand out to him, “Sadly, we’ll never know.” The IG unit starts to raise its gun but the Mandalorian stops it.

“No. We’ll bring them in alive.” He says commanding the droid to stop and ignore its protocol.

“The commission was quite specific. The assets were to be terminated.” IG raises its two weapons aimed at the child and the girl.

A shot is fired, and the IG unit drops to the ground shot down by the Mandalorian. He puts his blaster back in his holster walking up to the child as it continues to look up at him in wonder. He shifts his gaze from the child to the girl, those two were meant to be his bounties.

Your head stung with pain as you were jostled around in a constant up-down movement. Blinking your eyes adjusting to the bright light, were you dead? Was this heaven? Your vision finally focuses and you see a helmet the visor a T-shape. Fight or flight kicks in as your fist collides with the underside of the mask hitting him straight in the jaw. Not expecting the attack he stumbles still holding you and you push yourself out of his arms. You hit the ground the sand cushioning your fall as you scramble to stand holding out the blade you swiped from his boot. A blaster is pointed at you but you keep your grip on the knife fierce ready to fight. You take in the man before you dressed in armor and weapons, but what had your eyes widen was the design of the helmet. Once you had seen before…Mandalorian.

“Who are you? Where the hell am I?” You hiss out holding the blade with two hands as he has his blaster trained on you before he holsters it holding his hands out showing he was of no harm.

“You're on Arvala-7.” The man says you were slightly taken back that he spoke your language and not Mando’a but you still weren’t taking your chances.

“Who are you?” You glare the knife still pointed at him trying to figure out who he was through the helmet.

“I can’t tell you that but it’s either you trust me or let even more people who aren’t willing to have you alive.” Those mercenaries only kept you alive for whatever reason until this stranger showed up including the child. Your eyes widen…the child!

“Where is it?!” You demand, looking around for the child. You remember the hit of the gun before you were knocked out.

“Where’s what?” “The child.” You see behind him was the container holding him, the creature looking at both of you. “Oh thank the maker, I spent the last few weeks watching over it.” You sigh in relief and the man nods before walking off the carrier following after him,

“We should get going.” You rush after him pocketing the knife in your belt and coming beside him.

“You’re a Mandalorian…I’ve never met a Mandalorian before,” You speak up glancing at the silent man, “What’s your name, you never gave one.” He barely looks at you before walking ahead so you were behind him making you scoff, “asshole.” You mumble under your breath dragging your feet through the sand. He continues silently despite the heavy armor that should be making noise as you all enter the base of a canyon. “So do you ever take off your helmet at all? Like even when you slee-”

His hand juts out making you run into it and you glare up at him from the corner of your eye you see his hand slowly reaching for his blaster. An ambush of Trandoshans wielding axes rushing towards you, one swings its axe at you when he shoves you out of the way. You hit the ground pushing yourself up from the sand when one of the bounty hunters wraps his arms around your waist lifting you up into the air and dragging you from the group.

“Hey! Let…me go!” You thrash in his arms twisting and turning in his grip trying to break free, the loud sound of a gunshot right by your head making your ears ring as the both of you hit the ground. You scramble away seeing the blaster wound in his chest and you look back seeing the Mandalorian holding his blaster pointed at you. He lets out a hiss of pain the metal of one of the axes slicing his arm, he prepares to counter when a blade is protruding from the Trandoshan’s hand. He looks back seeing you holding your hand out having thrown the knife before the both of you are attacked by more hunters. You can see one heading towards the child with your hunter busy fighting off two of them. Looking around having lost your weapon when you grab one of the axes the weight is heavy in your grasp. It’s right before the child when you swing the axe the weight and momentum striking its side a screech coming from it. It swings its own axe out and you block it with the handle of the blade the clang of metal and sparks ring through the air. Kicking out at its side making it cry out in pain you swing the axe digging it deep into its arm. You struggle to pull the weapon free and with its own weapon coming at you, you can only dodge letting go of the blade. If you had been a second late it would have been worse than the blade slicing across your cheek. It raises its axe to bring it down on you when it's shot crumbling to the ground. Looking up seeing the Mandalorian blaster still smoking as you quickly move away from the dead enemies to the hunter and the child.

“Thanks.” You breathe out your hand touching your cheek wincing from the pain pulling back and seeing red. He nods his attention turns to the ground where there is a blinking tracking fob.

“We need to keep moving.” He says the three of you quickly leave the canyon and the remains of the fight. Dusk had long settled the beating sun leaving only the cool night feeling nice on your sweaty skin. Out in the dunes camp had been set up the fire blazing on the open sands, your gaze taking in the embers floating into the air. You were used to this much sand and the heat hadn’t bothered you but it felt foreign now. You were somewhere maybe not in your same system anymore you hadn’t even been off your planet before. Your home was all you knew of and now you had people after you trying to kill you. A hiss of pain comes from the bounty hunter beside you trying to sear his wound up but unable to with the angle of the cut. You move closer trying to help when a blaster is pointed at you making you put your hands up.

“I was just trying to help.” You say slowly sitting back in your spot as he keeps his gaze training on you before slowly putting his weapon away and continuing to fix himself up.

“I don’t need your help.” He says and you roll your eyes turning away and looking at the small creature sitting on a pile of blankets from his carrier his round eyes watching the flames dance in front of him. “Hey.” The hunter calls out and you turn looking over at him in his hands bacta spray and bandages. You scoff looking away and wrapping your arms around your knees.

“Hey!” He calls out moving closer and you turn more away from him, “You need to get patched up or it’s going to get infected.” You look over your shoulder glaring at him.

“I don’t need your help.” You mock his own words back at him and you could feel the annoyance and anger coming through his helmet aimed at you. You let out a shriek when his hand wraps around your arm spinning you around to face him, his gloved hand grasping your jaw holding you in place when you try moving back, “Let me go.” You push against his chest but he doesn’t budge.

He glares at you and you could feel the cool gaze staring back at the metal helmet making your movements come to a stop. He nods before beginning to clean the cut on your cheek before moving to one of your temples. You hiss out in pain when he presses too hard on the wound putting the bacta spray on.

“Would’ve been worse if you didn’t dodge,” He comments when you glare at him in pain, he continues tending to the injury, “Where did you learn to fight like that.” The stoic voice asks finishing pulling back and you bring your hand up touching the bandaged cheek and temple.

“Tatooine,” You say picturing your home the dunes of sands, the shouts of Tuskan Raiders, the wind in your hair on the speeder bikes, and the dual suns that made the perfect sunsets on the best days. “You fight to survive when you don’t got much…I have..had a pretty good teacher back home.” You correct yourself, were you ever going to go home or was this bounty hunter just going to cart you off to whoever wanted you? He nods looking down at his chest plate to fix it. Silence fills the quiet night as you look forward poking at the fire to keep it alive before glancing at the Mandalorian before you speak up.

“I want to thank you…for everything,” You say and you see him pause in his fixing, “You could’ve killed me and the child but you didn’t. I’ve only heard stories about your kind so I don’t know if it’s a religious thing or you're just different.” You quiet feeling embarrassed saying all that but one thought had been plaguing your mind.

“Are you…are you going to bring us home? The child and I?” The mask of his hides his face and anything you would be able to tell, his body language didn’t reveal anything and you couldn’t see his emotions through the metal.

“Yeah, kid…you should try to get some sleep.” He responds, his words bringing hope to believe this stranger. Fixing the child in his carrier asleep for a while before settling against the cool sands the night sky and the stars looking down at you. Whispers of sleep and dreams lull you and the Mandalorian hears a brief mumble from you,

“My name’s Y/n.”

The morning soon arrived and you were up following the hunter to what you assumed was his ship. Walking over the ridge there was his ship but it was getting dismantled by Jawas, creatures you were familiar with on Tatooine. Their large sandcrawler beside the ship loading the scraps.

“Dammit,” The bounty hunter huffs pulling his rifle from his back and laying down on the ridge looking down on the ship and taking aim.

“Wait what are you doing?” Your words are cut off as a beam is sent out hitting one of the jawas disintegrating it. The death of one of its kind sends them into a frenzy trying to run back to the ship as he continues to take out more. He quickly stands sliding down the ridge chasing after them as you and the child follow after him.

“You’re not going to be able to chase after a sandcrawler!” You yell out as he runs after it not before shouting back at you,

“Stay there!” He orders before you freeze watching him disappear with the sandcrawler leaving the two of you by the ship. It had been a while and he hadn’t returned neither did the sandcrawler.

“Kriff come on!” You say setting off after the bounty hunter the child following after you. Following the tracks of the large fortress before you stumble open a body laying along the ground recognizing the Mandalorian helmet. “Oh, maker please don’t be dead.” You say hovering over him, you debate taking off his helmet to see if he was breathing or hand a pulse. Your hands reach for the edge of the helmet ready to pull it off when he shoots up the strong metal colliding with your face making you fall back clutching your nose.

“Kriff! Dammit, that kriffing hurts!” You blink away the tears putting light touches against your nose trying to feel if it was broken. His helmet had to be built with a strong metal cause that hurt a lot. The hunter sits up groaning from his own pain of being electrocuted and kicked off a sandcrawler, “You’re a real asshole, stupid bounty hunter, stupid helmet.” You ramble off pushing yourself to stand your nose throbbing in pain and your head ringing.

He groans pushing himself to stand, “If it’s not broken then you’re fine.” He slings his rifle over his shoulder his body sore as the three of you return to his ship. You and the child sit against some rocks watching the hunter taking in the damage to the ship, he returns from inside the ship and you give him a look. He ignores it and begins to walk back into the desert. Having no choice but to follow, you walked through the dunes and plains the sun beating down on you. How was he not sweating in that armor? Your travels had the sun setting behind you and in the distance, you could see a structure. Growing closer you see it’s a moisture farm and there was a man fixing something.

“This is supposed to fix your ship,” You comment and he doesn’t acknowledge you walking over to the man who looks surprised to see him. You quickly learn the man’s name to be Kuiil as he brought you into his home feeding you the sun had long set the night here.

The Mandalorian stands beside Kuiil the two watching the child watching a frog with much interest chasing after it.

“I thought you were dead.” Kuiil says to Mando as they both watched the child playing with the frog, “These are what was causing all the fuss?” The two look away from the child to the girl, you were leaned against a crate a knife in your hand twisting it in your grasp. You meet his gaze glaring at him making Kuiil laugh. Mando looks down at his boot seeing his blade gone. How did he not notice you took it?

“She certainly doesn’t like you,” Kuiil says and the bounty hunter is silent watching you before turning away.

“I think that one is a child.” He says the child grabs the frog that he was playing with. Kuiil nods looking at the two bounties, “It is better for them to be delivered alive then,”

The bounty hunter shakes his head the problem coming up, “My ship has been destroyed. I’m trapped here.” He had been close to his fight with the Jawas before they gained the upper hand

“Stripped. Not destroyed. The Jawas steal. They don’t destroy.” Kuiil explains and the bounty hunter scoffs,

“Stolen or destroyed- makes no difference to me.” He retorted, frowning remembering what those little cloaked freaks did to his ship, “They’re protected by their crawling fortress. There is no way to recover the parts.”

“You can trade,” Kuiil suggested and the hunter looks at him like he grew three heads.

“With Jawas? Are you out of your mind?”

The older man nods his idea final, “I will take you to them. I have spoken.” They hear fussing and the child is shoving the frog into his mouth to begin devouring.

“Hey! Spit that out,” Mando called out and the Child swallowed the frog whole making you gag as you watch the whole interaction. The night had been spent traveling you had gained a cloak to protect yourself from the rain and by the time it was the day you had arrived at the sandcrawler.

Kuiil climbs off his blurrg leaving the three of you to watch as he greets the Jawas in their language. He turns looking back at the three of you mainly at the bounty hunter, “They really don’t like you for some reason.”

“Well, I did disintegrate a few of them.” The hunter brings up and you could hear the angry noises coming from the cloaked people. His hand instinctively goes to his rifle as a fight almost brews. Kuiil holds out his arm giving a pointed look to the hunter, “You need to drop your rifle.”

“I’m a Mandalorian. Weapons are part of my religion.” He refuses.

“Your religion is about to get us killed.” You hiss at the bounty hunter who glares back at you.

“Then you’re not getting your parts back.” Kuiil says giving the final ultimatum. The Mandalorian sighs putting his rifle down and climbing off the sled. “And the blaster.” He sighs removing that as well. You go to follow him when he points at you.

“Stay.” He says and your jaw drops, you weren't some animal, “And don’t touch my stuff you’re not doing that again,” The memory of him forcing you to return the blade is still fresh in your head. Maybe he should be more careful of his items. You roll your eyes sitting back down with the child watching the conversation.

Kuiil listens to the Jawa before turning to the Mandalorian, “They will trade all the parts for the beskar.” He shakes his head blowing up in anger pointing at them,

“I’m not gonna trade anything. These are my parts. They stole them from me.” He says “They, they….belong to me!” He speaks Jawa though it’s truly bad and you stifle your laughter.

“You speak terrible Jawa. You sound like a Wookiee.” One of the Jawa says and he loses his temper swiping his hand out with his flamethrower making them all yell out.

“You understand this?!” “No! Whoa, easy, easy.” Kuiil quickly diffused the fight before speaking to the Jawa, “He is Mandalorian. He cannot give you his beskar armor. What else may he trade?”

You hadn’t noticed some Jawas coming by the sled until they were inspecting the child’s carrier and poking you with their staff.

“Hey! Stop it get away.” You stand up shouting at them in Jawa alerting the bounty hunter who stands up.

“Get away from them!” He shouts and they scatter away from the two of you.

“There must be something else,” Kuiil says and the Jawas turn to discuss amongst themselves before turning around.

“We will require The Egg. Bring us The Egg.” It says and your hunter looks confused, “The Egg? What Egg?” You were confused as well as Kuiil groaned facepalming as the Jawas continue to chant.

The Jawas allow you all to travel by sandcrawler before you arrive at a series of rocky formations. The three of you minus Kuiil dismount and begin to walk through the rock formations toward an open clearing leading to a cave. “Shouldn’t I have a weapon in case you fail or something?” You bring up and he glares at you ignoring your request leaving you and the child to watch him venture inside the cave. It’s silent for a bit before a loud roar comes from the cave and out comes the Mandalorian and a large mudhorn. You watch him fire blast at the creature before reloading his weapon and the creature charges throwing him against the mud.

“Not doing so well!” You shout at him which draws the attention of the beast who charges at you and the child, “Crap!” You shout rolling out of the way mud covers your knees and arms as the child’s carrier dodges in the other direction. The mudhorn turns ready to charge again when flames unleash burning it. It tries retreating back to its den but he latches onto it with a grappling line around the horns. Shaking him aside attacking with said horns and hooves to the ground. It goes to stop down at him you rushing forward when the creature suspends in midair. A feeling you hadn’t felt in a while covers your skin as your hand whips around to look at the child its tiny hand held out. You hear the sound of the blade driving into flesh but your attention is focused on the small creature.

The Mandalorian slowly approaches the child seeing the look of slight fear on your face looking down at the child before it collapses in its cradle asleep. His gaze shifts to yours, your face seems plain but he could see the fear in your eyes that you were trying to hide. He turns walking back into the cave and returning with the egg. You had arrived back at the sandcrawler with the egg the Jawas rejoiced taking it and cutting it open devouring the insides.

“Mando!” Kuiil calls out to the bounty hunter.

“I’m surprised you waited?” Mando says and Kuiil nods looking at him,

“I’m surprised you took so long,” Kuiil says and the Jawas quickly prepare the sled with the parts of his ship. Then you were back off to the ship. You were sat in the back with the parts of the child’s carrier resting beside you as you look out on the horizon. You could hear their conversation but chose to ignore it, your mind more focused on what you had witnessed. You hadn’t imagined it you had truly seen it with your own eyes. That feeling that rushed over you had opened up something that had been locked up in fear. As you look down at this child you could feel a connection form.

The child was still asleep when you arrived at the dismantled ship, “There is no way we're gonna get this to work without a full maintenance facility. This is gonna take days to fix.” Mando says looking over the wrecked ship.

“If you care to help it might go faster. There is much work to do.” Kuiil says ready to begin the repairs. The night continues over you all as the two repairs the ship. Your head is deep in wires in the cockpit the fusion cutter grasp in your mouth as you moved cables around. Maker, this whole ship was a mess, did he purposely want a ship that was slow? As you go to move another wire, you feel hands grab your legs pulling out from the open panel and you look up to see Mando glaring down at you.

“Why are you touching my ship?” He growls out, were you tampering with it to make this harder for him? You scoff pushing him away from you and crawling back to the open panel.

You ramble off fixing the wiring but it would just be easier to get an entirely new ship. “More like fixing, like how could you allow it to get like this! Your hyperdrive is so outdated that makes you two times slower than most ships. Then there are the core processes and your sensor systems dying on you. Your better off selling this hunk of junk and getting something that’s not Pre-Galactic, hey!” His hands grab your legs again pulling you out of the panel but you were already done. He pulls you up to your feet pushing you down to a seat.

“Stop touching things,” He snatches the fusion cutter, “Just don’t even move.” He glares at you which you equally return. He steps back before turning his back from you and heading down out of the cockpit. You cross your arms settling in, maker what an asshole.

Mando sighs the last of the repairs are finished having repaired or fully restored the ship’s systems and parts. He turns looking down at Kuiil, “I can't thank you enough. Please allow me to give you a portion of the reward.” He says and the man shakes his head.

“I cannot accept. You are my guest, and I am therefore in your service.” He shakes his head and Mando nods looking at the ship,

“I could use a crew member of your ability. And I can pay handsomely.” He offers but Kuiil refuses.

“I am honored. But I have worked a lifetime to finally be free of servitude.” Kuiil says and Mando nods moving towards his ship as Kuiil mounts his blurrg. “I understand. Then all I can offer is my thanks.” Mando says.

“And I offer mine. Thank you for bringing peace to my valley and good luck with those two. May they survive and bring you a handsome reward. I have spoken.” Kuiil watches as the Mandalorian enters his ship sitting in the pilot's seat his two bounties beside him, the child was asleep in his cradle and you were leaning against the wall in your chair your eyes closed. He fires up the engines of the Razor Crest is roaring to life as he takes off leaving the planet behind.

To Nevarro.

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #the mandalorian #clan of three series #din djarin #din djarin fanfiction #mando x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x y/n #din djarin x jedi!reader #din djarin x teen!reader

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novaursa · 5 months ago

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The Price of Fire (2)

- Paring: targ!reader/Arthur Dayne

- Previous chapter: 1

- Next chapter: 3

- Note: For more of my works such as this, visit my blog. The list is pinned to the top.

- Rating: Explicit 18+ (All flags are up for this one, Aerys is warning just by himself)

- Word count: 7 000+

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @lightdragonrayne @onlyrealjoy

The sun is beginning its slow descent, casting the gardens of the Red Keep in hues of deep gold and amber. The gentle breeze carries the scent of blooming roses, a rare sweetness in a place often filled with tension and whispers. You walk quietly beside Ser Arthur, your protector once more after a week of uneasy distance and formalities. His presence, as always, is reassuring—a steadfast anchor in the churning sea that is the court.

Arthur’s eyes are ever watchful, but he takes comfort in these moments with you, even if they are draped in silence. His hand rests casually on the hilt of Dawn, though there is a readiness in the way he carries himself, as if anticipating a shadow from around every corner. But today, it is not shadows that emerge from the hedges, but a figure of gold and red.

Ser Jaime Lannister strides toward you, his golden armor catching the fading sunlight in brilliant flashes. His confident smirk is in place, the usual gleam of mischief dancing in his green eyes. He slows his approach as he reaches you, offering a courteous nod to both you and Arthur, though his smile is more of a challenge when it lands on the latter.

“Ser Arthur,” Jaime greets smoothly, a touch of amusement in his tone. “It’s good to see you back at your post. You seem particularly diligent today.” His eyes flick to you briefly, as though implying something without needing to say it outright.

Arthur remains composed, offering a polite nod. “Ser Jaime. It’s important to maintain vigilance in these times, as you well know.”

Jaime’s grin widens, the air of casual arrogance that he’s so known for slipping into his tone. “Indeed. Especially when guarding someone as valuable as our dear princess.” He glances at you again, his expression unreadable. “My sister, Cersei, will be arriving in King’s Landing soon. She’s eager to reacquaint herself with the court. I imagine the city will be even more lively with her around.”

There’s something veiled in his words, a subtle probing as if gauging Arthur’s reaction. Jaime’s relationship with his sister is no secret, nor is the reputation that Cersei Lannister brings with her—a sharp mind wrapped in beauty, one capable of weaving webs as intricate as any spider’s. Arthur’s grip on the hilt of his sword tightens slightly, but his expression remains controlled.

“I’m sure the court will be most… entertained by her presence,” Arthur replies, choosing his words carefully. He knows better than to be drawn into Jaime’s games, especially with you so close by.

Jaime chuckles, a low, amused sound, as if satisfied with the exchange. “Let’s hope for entertainment, then.” He offers you a more genuine, almost charming smile before turning back to Arthur. “Take care, Ser Arthur. It seems you have a most important charge to attend to.” With a mock bow, Jaime takes his leave, strolling away with the swagger of someone who knows the weight of his own importance.

Once Jaime is out of sight, the tension lifts, leaving just you and Arthur alone again, the soft rustle of leaves the only sound between you. You can sense the subtle shift in Arthur’s demeanor, the guarded mask he often wears cracking just slightly now that it’s only the two of you.

You glance up at him, something playful yet deliberate in your gaze. “The court is growing busier by the day, it seems,” you remark, your tone carefully measured. “It makes it more difficult to find… moments of peace.”

Arthur’s eyes flick to you, and though his expression remains serious, you can see the faint spark of understanding in his gaze. He’s learned to decipher your carefully chosen words, to pick out the meaning beneath them. There’s a brief pause, the tension between you both a taut string ready to snap.

“Moments of peace are indeed rare in this place,” he replies, his voice low, almost conspiratorial. “But not impossible, if one knows where to look.”

You take a small step closer, the distance between you shrinking until it’s barely appropriate. “And if one knew where to look, they might find themselves in the company of someone they trust.” The words are bold, but they hang in the air with an unspoken invitation.

Arthur’s breath hitches almost imperceptibly. He’s already tasted what it’s like to break free of the chains that bind him, and the thought of indulging once more, of stealing another moment away from prying eyes, is almost too tempting to resist. He knows it’s a dangerous game—one that could unravel everything he’s built—but the way you look at him now, with that mix of hope and daring, pulls at him with a force he’s powerless to deny.

“There’s a place,” he says quietly, his voice almost a whisper. “Hidden away, where no one goes at this hour. We won’t be missed for a short time.”

You nod, your heart racing with anticipation as you give him the smallest of smiles—a shared understanding that words are no longer needed. The decision is made, the line crossed again. This time, there is no hesitation, no fear of consequence, just the promise of something both of you have craved.

Without another word, Arthur takes a quick glance around to ensure the path is clear before gently taking your hand, guiding you away from the main walkways and deeper into the maze of hedges and winding paths. The sounds of the bustling castle fade into the background, replaced by the rustle of leaves and the soft crunch of gravel beneath your feet. He leads you through a narrow passageway, past thick vines that have grown wild and unchecked, to a secluded alcove hidden from view by tall hedges.

The space is small, intimate, with ivy creeping up the stone walls and the golden glow of the setting sun casting long shadows. Arthur turns to you, his eyes searching yours, and in that moment, the world outside ceases to matter. There’s no court, no king, no duty—just the two of you and the undeniable pull that draws you together.

You step closer, your hand still in his, feeling the warmth of his skin through the cool metal of his gauntlet. There’s a tension in the air, thick with anticipation and the shared understanding that this stolen moment is yours alone. Your heart pounds in your chest as you reach up to cup his cheek, your touch familiar yet electrifying in its boldness. His breath catches, and you can see in his eyes that he’s already lost, just as you are.

“Lead me,” you whisper, the words barely audible.

Arthur’s eyes darken with the weight of his desire and the knowledge of what is to come. His hand tightens around yours, and he draws you closer, his breath warm against your ear as he whispers back, “Follow me.”

And with that, he leads you deeper into the shadows, where neither duty nor watchful eyes can find you.

In the hidden alcove, where the shadows cloak you from the world, all pretense shatters. There’s no need for words, no need to maintain the roles you’ve been forced to play. The air is thick with the tension of what’s about to happen, and you both know there’s no going back once the dam breaks. Arthur’s gaze is burning now, the weight of his desire unmistakable as he takes in the sight of you, as if he’s memorizing every detail for the dark days when this memory is all he’ll have to hold onto.

Without hesitation, his hands find your waist, pulling you close, pressing you against the stone wall behind you. The cool surface contrasts with the heat radiating between you, a shiver rippling through your body as he leans in, his breath warm against your ear. “I can’t hold back this time,” he murmurs, the strain in his voice betraying just how much he’s been fighting this need. “Tell me you want this—tell me I’m not alone in this madness.”

“Arthur,” you breathe, your voice trembling with anticipation and longing. You reach up, your fingers curling into his hair as you tug him closer, your lips brushing against his with a teasing whisper. “I want you. I need you—now, more than ever.”

The last thread of restraint snaps. Arthur’s mouth crashes against yours, the kiss fierce and consuming, all the careful control gone, replaced by raw hunger. His hands are quick, practiced as they strip away the barriers between you, fingers deftly unlacing your bodice just enough to expose the bare skin he craves. You tug at his cloak, his surcoat, your movements frantic and filled with the same urgency, until only the bare essentials remain.

Arthur’s breathing is ragged as he lifts you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist as he presses you firmly against the wall. The feel of him so close, the tension of what’s about to happen, sends a shudder of anticipation down your spine. There’s no gentleness this time, no patience—only need.

He positions himself, his grip on your hips firm as he looks into your eyes, as if searching for any hint of hesitation. But all he finds is the same burning desire reflected back at him. With a low, almost desperate groan, he thrusts into you, his body claiming yours with an intensity that steals your breath.

The sensation is overwhelming, a mixture of pleasure and urgency as he fills you completely, pushing deep with the kind of desperation that only comes from holding back for far too long. You gasp, the sound escaping your lips before you can stifle it, your fingers digging into his shoulders as you cling to him, your own need mirroring his. “Arthur—”

He swallows your cry with another searing kiss, his pace relentless from the start. There’s no time for slow exploration, no room for gentle caresses. This is pure, unrestrained passion—a fierce joining of bodies and souls that’s been denied for too long. The world fades away, leaving only the feeling of his body against yours, the friction, the heat, the way he moves inside you with an urgency that borders on desperation.

Your nails rake down his back, urging him on, needing more—needing all of him. His name slips from your lips in breathless moans as he sets a rhythm that’s fast, demanding, each thrust sending jolts of pleasure through you that make it impossible to think of anything but him. “Don’t stop,” you whisper, your voice ragged as you cling to him, your head tipping back against the stone. “Please—don’t stop.”

“Never,” he growls, his voice thick with emotion, his lips brushing against your neck as he continues, faster, deeper, driven by the same hunger that gnaws at you both. His hands roam over your body, possessive, like he’s trying to claim every inch of you, to etch the memory of this moment into his very soul. Each thrust, each moan, each gasp builds toward something explosive, a crescendo that’s as fierce as it is inevitable.

The rhythm between you is wild, the push and pull of your bodies synchronized in a dance that feels both frenzied and natural. You can feel him trembling, holding onto the last vestiges of control, and it only spurs you on, your body tightening around him as you move together, chasing the edge of oblivion.

“Arthur—” you gasp, your breath hitching as the pleasure coils tighter, threatening to snap. His response is a broken groan, his face buried against your shoulder as his pace becomes erratic, the urgency of his thrusts matched by the rising heat in your core.

When the wave finally crashes over you, it’s blinding—pure electricity surging through every nerve as you cry out, your fingers clutching at him desperately. The pleasure rips through you, leaving you shaking, clinging to him as your body pulses with the aftershocks. Arthur follows a heartbeat later, his grip tightening, his own release tearing a raw sound from his throat as he buries himself deep within you, the last of his restraint shattering completely.

For a moment, there is nothing but the sound of your mingled breathing, the quiet aftermath of your shared passion filling the hidden alcove. He holds you close, neither of you moving, both of you caught in the hazy bliss of the moment. It’s fierce and tender all at once, the intensity of your connection still humming between you, a silent promise that this is far from the last time.

After what feels like an eternity, Arthur gently lowers you back to your feet, his forehead resting against yours as he catches his breath. “We shouldn’t keep doing this,” he murmurs, though there’s no conviction in his voice, only the lingering echo of desire.

You smile faintly, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “Perhaps we shouldn’t… but neither of us wants to stop.”

He pulls back just enough to look into your eyes, the conflict clear, but so is the quiet resolve that underpins everything he does. “No matter what happens, I’ll protect you.”

“And I’ll keep finding ways to be alone with you,” you reply, your voice soft yet determined.

The sun dips below the horizon, casting the world in deep blues and purples as night falls. But in this hidden place, time seems to stop, leaving just the two of you in a moment that feels like it could stretch on forever.

But as much as you both wish it could, you know you can’t linger. There are duties, responsibilities, and prying eyes to return to. Yet, as you both carefully straighten your clothing and prepare to return to the world outside, there’s a new understanding between you—an unspoken agreement that this secret will remain yours, a stolen joy in a world filled with shadows.

Arthur takes your hand, pressing a lingering kiss to your knuckles before leading you back through the winding paths and into the light of the Red Keep once more. The world waits for you beyond the garden, but what you’ve shared here will remain—a fierce, unbreakable bond forged in the most hidden places of your hearts.

As you and Arthur make your way back through the darkening gardens, the world outside begins to bleed back into focus. The warmth and intimacy of the hidden alcove fades into the cool, looming shadows of the Red Keep. You adjust your clothing, smoothing out any creases, while Arthur ensures his cloak falls back into its pristine folds, the white fabric swaying as he walks beside you with his usual measured grace. Despite the shared intimacy of moments before, the tension in both of you remains, a lingering awareness of how close you are to dangerous exposure.

The winding path narrows as you approach one of the side entrances of the Keep, the high stone walls casting long, slanting shadows in the dim evening light. You can feel Arthur’s unease beside you, a tightness in his movements that betrays his ever-watchful vigilance. It’s a precaution both of you know too well is necessary—secrecy is the only armor you have in this deadly court.

But as you near the final turn leading back toward the keep’s more public corridors, a figure steps into view from the shadows, his sudden presence nearly making you stumble. Ser Arthur’s hand instinctively moves to the hilt of Dawn to draw it, but he freezes when he recognizes the figure—Varys, the Spider, dressed in his flowing robes, his hands tucked into his wide sleeves, his expression calm and unreadable.

“Ser Arthur, Princess Y/N,” Varys says with a smooth, almost musical tone, inclining his head in what appears to be a respectful gesture. “Out for a stroll in the gardens, I see? How charming—especially on such a fine evening.”

You tense, every muscle in your body going rigid as you exchange a brief, worried glance with Arthur. The Spider’s presence here could be pure coincidence, but in King’s Landing, nothing Varys does is by accident. His sudden appearance makes your skin crawl—this is a man who has eyes everywhere, and if he’s found you here, it means he’s already pieced together more than either of you are comfortable with.

“Lord Varys,” Arthur replies, his voice steady but with an unmistakable edge. “What brings you here at this hour?”

“Oh, merely doing what I do best—keeping an ear to the ground, listening to the whispers carried on the wind.” Varys’ eyes flick between the two of you, sharp as a razor despite the practiced softness of his smile. “It is fascinating what one hears when one knows where to listen.”

You can feel Arthur’s tension spike, but he remains calm. “And what whispers have you heard, my lord?”

Varys sighs softly, his expression almost sympathetic. “The sort that would concern those with deep ties to the crown.” He glances at you, his tone dropping to something almost confidential. “Prince Rhaegar has been seeking you, my princess. He was rather distressed when he discovered you were not in your chambers. He fears for your safety—and his concern has not gone unnoticed by certain watchful eyes.”

Your heart skips a beat, the weight of Varys’ words pressing down on you. Rhaegar is looking for you? The thought of your brother’s concern twisting into suspicion is a chilling one. Arthur’s grip tightens subtly, his knuckles whitening beneath his gloves. “We were just returning,” Arthur says, careful to maintain an even tone. “The princess needed some air after spending so many hours confined indoors.”

“Of course,” Varys replies smoothly, his eyes narrowing just slightly in what could almost be mistaken for amusement. “It would do no one good for the princess to be stifled, especially in such turbulent times.” His gaze sharpens then, a flicker of genuine warning in his tone. “However, I would advise you both to be more cautious. The prince’s concern could draw attention to places where discretion is required.”

You swallow, your pulse quickening as you process the implication. Varys is warning you—not out of kindness, but likely because he sees value in whatever game you and Arthur are playing. If Rhaegar’s alarm becomes too pronounced, questions will be asked, and in this court, those questions rarely remain benign.

“What are you suggesting, Lord Varys?” you ask, your voice steady despite the unease swirling inside you.

The Spider’s smile widens, but there’s no warmth in it—only calculation. “Simply that the prince must be reassured. It would be best if you returned swiftly, and perhaps even spoke of a walk or a visit to the sept. Anything that could calm his concerns. After all, it would be a shame if more eyes than necessary began watching where they shouldn’t.”

The subtle threat isn’t lost on either of you. Varys is giving you both a chance to cover your tracks—but make no mistake, he’ll be watching, waiting to see if you falter. The game he plays is one of survival, and your slip could become a weapon in his hands if you aren’t careful.

Arthur gives a curt nod, the tension between his brows deepening. “We will heed your advice, my lord.”

Varys inclines his head once more, his voice a soothing purr. “I’m sure you will, Ser Arthur. And remember, I am always a friend to those who understand the value of discretion.” With that, he turns and glides back into the shadows, vanishing as swiftly as he appeared, leaving only a lingering unease in his wake.

The silence stretches between you and Arthur for a moment, thick with unspoken worry. He finally turns to you, his expression troubled. “We need to return immediately. If Rhaegar’s been looking for you, it’s best we don’t give him—or anyone else—reason to believe there’s more to this than an innocent walk.”

You nod, your heart still racing. “I’ll tell him I felt restless and decided to walk the gardens for some air, but I got lost in my thoughts. He knows I do that sometimes.”

“Good,” Arthur agrees, though his eyes are still scanning the shadows, wary of unseen eyes. “But be careful. We can’t afford to draw any more attention.”

You reach out and squeeze his arm, a gesture of reassurance, though both of you know the precariousness of your situation. “We’ll be careful,” you say softly, but there’s an underlying resolve in your voice. You both have too much at stake now to let anything ruin it.

Arthur nods, then gestures for you to lead the way, allowing you to move ahead with him close behind, his posture rigid, his eyes alert. As you approach the entrance to the main corridor of the Keep, you take a deep breath, steeling yourself for the performance ahead. It’s just another game within the court’s endless dance of secrets and lies, but now, more than ever, you have something to protect.

As you make your way back to your chambers, you can’t help but cast one last glance over your shoulder. The shadows seem to shift, but there’s no sign of Varys. Still, you know he’s watching—always watching.

With Arthur close by, you square your shoulders, preparing to face whatever awaits inside the Keep.

You and Arthur make your way through the winding corridors of the Red Keep, the tension between you both thick enough to cut with a knife. The stone walls seem to press in closer as you approach the royal wing, where the shadow of the Iron Throne looms over every decision made within these halls. The evening light has faded into the deep blues and purples of twilight, and the flickering torchlight casts long, ominous shadows.

When you reach the familiar archway that leads to the Great Hall, you spot Rhaegar standing at the end of the corridor, his tall frame bathed in the glow of torchlight. His silver hair gleams, and though his posture is calm, you can see the subtle tension in his shoulders. He’s been waiting—and not patiently.

The sight of him sends a wave of anxiety rushing through you. You’ve always been close with Rhaegar, but you know better than to underestimate his perceptiveness. His violet eyes are sharper than most give him credit for, and when it comes to matters involving those he loves, he leaves little room for doubt or evasion.

As you draw nearer, you see his eyes fix on Arthur, then briefly flick to you. There’s no accusation in his gaze, but there’s something more—a quiet demand for answers. It’s a look that makes your heart skip a beat.

“Brother,” you greet softly, slipping into the formal politeness that the court requires. “I didn’t realize you were looking for me.”

Rhaegar’s expression softens slightly as he turns to you. “You were not in your chambers. I grew concerned.” His voice is even, but there’s an edge to it that reveals the depth of his worry. “You know how unpredictable these halls can be after dark.”

You nod, lowering your eyes slightly in an apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry, Rhaegar. I was restless and decided to walk in the gardens. I lost track of time.”

There’s a pause as Rhaegar studies you carefully, as if searching for any sign of deceit. For a brief, nerve-wracking moment, you’re certain he can see right through the thin veil of your excuse. But then his gaze shifts from you to Arthur, and something in his expression changes—hardened resolve mixed with guarded suspicion. The two men lock eyes, and the unspoken tension crackles between them.

“Ser Arthur,” Rhaegar says, his tone polite but firm, “I would speak with you privately.”

The words hang in the air like a command more than a request. Arthur’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, but he gives a short, respectful nod. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

Rhaegar turns back to you, his expression softening just enough to reassure you. “Sister, return to your chambers. I’ll be with you shortly to discuss matters concerning Father’s plans.”

You dip your head in acknowledgment, though there’s a knot of worry tightening in your chest. “Of course, Rhaegar.”

Before you turn to leave, you allow your eyes to meet Arthur’s briefly—just a flicker of a glance, a silent exchange of concern and understanding. But it’s enough to ground you.

As you walk away, you can feel Rhaegar’s eyes on your back until you disappear around the corner. Once you’re out of sight, you let out a shaky breath. The game you’re playing has grown more dangerous, and Rhaegar’s suspicion is a formidable obstacle. But you trust Arthur, and you trust your brother’s love for you, even if it’s clouded by the weight of his duties.

In the shadowed corridor, Rhaegar turns back to Arthur, waiting until your footsteps fade into the distance. The prince’s gaze hardens, a rare steel in his violet eyes as he crosses his arms over his chest. The silence stretches between them, heavy and deliberate, before Rhaegar finally speaks.

“Arthur,” he begins, his voice low and measured, “you’ve served me and my family with unwavering loyalty for years. I trust you as much as I trust anyone in this world.”

Arthur remains still, his expression as unreadable as always. “I live to serve, Your Grace.”

“I know.” Rhaegar’s eyes narrow slightly, a calculating gleam in them. “But there are rumors swirling through the court—whispers of things that could be dangerous if left unchecked. I need to know that those closest to me have nothing to hide.”

The implication is clear, and Arthur’s heart hammers in his chest, though his face betrays none of the turmoil beneath. He meets Rhaegar’s gaze directly, refusing to flinch under the weight of the prince’s scrutiny. “I am your sworn sword, Rhaegar. My only concern is your safety—and that of your sister.”

Rhaegar’s jaw tightens, his expression softening slightly, though the edge remains. “You’ve always been protective of her. I appreciate that, Arthur. But I must ask… do you think it’s wise to allow her to wander the gardens alone at night?”

Arthur’s eyes flicker, a momentary crack in his stoic demeanor, but he quickly regains his composure. “She needed a moment of peace. The court is suffocating at times, even for one as strong as the princess.”

Rhaegar’s gaze remains fixed on Arthur, his silence drawing out the tension until it’s nearly unbearable. But then, he lets out a long sigh, his posture relaxing just slightly. “I don’t blame her for seeking solitude. This castle is a prison in many ways.” He pauses, then adds, more quietly, “I only hope that solitude is the only thing she seeks.”

Arthur feels the weight of those words, the veiled question that hovers beneath them, but he holds his ground. “She seeks what any of us do, Your Grace—a moment free from the chains of duty.”

Rhaegar studies him for a long moment, as if trying to pierce through the carefully maintained armor that Arthur wears. But finally, the prince nods, his expression softening. “Very well. I’ll take your word for it, Arthur. But know this—if there is anything, anything that might put her in harm’s way, I expect you to tell me. I will not tolerate secrets when it comes to my sister’s safety.”

Arthur bows his head respectfully. “You have my word, Rhaegar.”

The prince’s expression remains tense, but he finally lets out a breath, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “Good. That’s all I needed to hear.”

Rhaegar turns away, signaling that the conversation is over. He begins walking down the corridor, leaving Arthur standing alone in the shadowed hall. As the prince’s footsteps fade into the distance, Arthur releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

For a moment, the silence is deafening. The game has grown more perilous, and Arthur knows that Rhaegar’s suspicions are not easily dismissed. But as he stands there, the memory of your touch, your whispered words, linger in his mind like a soft caress.

The flickering candlelight dances across the walls of your chambers as you wait for Rhaegar, your nerves strung tight as a bowstring. The warmth of the room, usually a comfort, now feels stifling as the weight of anticipation presses down on you. You’ve spent the last few minutes pacing the length of the room, your thoughts a whirlwind of fear and uncertainty. The tension between you and Rhaegar has been growing, and you know that tonight’s conversation could be the tipping point.

Your eyes flick toward the door every few seconds, your heart thudding in your chest each time you hear footsteps in the corridor beyond. You force yourself to remain calm, to banish the worry gnawing at your insides. Whatever Father’s plans are, you have to be prepared to face them—and, more importantly, to navigate them in a way that keeps you and Arthur safe.

Finally, the door creaks open, and Rhaegar steps inside, closing it quietly behind him. His expression is grave, the shadows beneath his eyes darker than usual, a sign of the many burdens weighing on him. He crosses the room in a few long strides, his silver hair catching the light as he moves with his usual grace. But tonight, there’s a heaviness in his demeanor that puts you on edge.

“Brother,” you greet softly, trying to keep your tone neutral, though the worry beneath it is unmistakable.

Rhaegar meets your gaze, and for a moment, his face softens—a glimpse of the brother you’ve always known, the one who would play you songs on his harp to calm your restless heart. But that warmth is quickly overshadowed by the tension in his eyes.

“Y/N,” he says, his voice tinged with concern. “We need to talk.”

You nod, moving to sit by the small table where the candle burns, casting an intimate glow over the room. Rhaegar follows, taking the chair opposite you. He doesn’t waste time on pleasantries, diving straight into the matter at hand.

“Father’s madness is growing worse,” he begins, his voice low, as if even the walls have ears. “His paranoia is reaching dangerous levels, and his fixation on you… it’s become increasingly unsettling.”

A shiver runs down your spine at his words. You’ve known for a while now that your father’s attention toward you has shifted, becoming less about family and more about control, about keeping you as a tool for his own twisted ambitions. “What is he planning?” you ask, keeping your voice steady despite the anxiety tightening your chest.

Rhaegar hesitates, as if weighing how much he should reveal, but then he leans forward, his gaze locking with yours. “He’s been speaking of a marriage arrangement for you. He wants to use you as a way to solidify alliances and strengthen the Targaryen bloodline. But the options he’s considering… they’re not chosen with your happiness in mind.”

You clench your fists beneath the table, dread curling in your stomach. You knew this day would come—knew that your father would one day try to use you as a pawn in his game—but hearing it confirmed by Rhaegar makes it feel all too real. “Who?” you ask, your voice barely a whisper.

“There are whispers of Lord Qarlton Chelsted and even worse—rumors that he’s considering someone from the Crownlands, a man known for his cruelty and ambition. Father believes that binding you to such a figure would keep you loyal and under control, a way to ensure your compliance.”

The room spins slightly, your breath catching in your throat. You can feel the walls closing in, the chains tightening around you. This isn’t just about a forced marriage—it’s about trapping you, cutting off any hope of freedom, of love.

Rhaegar reaches out, his hand covering yours on the table. “I won’t let that happen, Y/N. You’re my sister, and I refuse to let Father destroy your life the way he’s destroyed Mother’s.”

His words are a comfort, but they do little to ease the fear gnawing at your insides. You force yourself to focus, to think clearly despite the rising panic. “What can we do? Father’s grip on the realm is still strong, and his word is law.”

Rhaegar’s jaw clenches, his eyes darkening with determination. “There are ways to maneuver, to stall him. I can push for an alternative match, something that would satisfy Father’s desires while giving us time to find a more permanent solution. But that’s only a temporary fix. In the end, we need to be prepared for anything.”

You know what he’s not saying—that if it comes to it, he’s willing to defy your father outright. But you also know how dangerous that would be, both for him and for you. Aerys’ wrath is unpredictable, and his paranoia would see betrayal in even the smallest act of defiance.

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself. “I trust you, Rhaegar. But if Father becomes too insistent, if there’s no way out… I won’t let him dictate my fate. I’ll find a way, even if it means—”

“Don’t say it,” Rhaegar interrupts sharply, his voice laced with fear. “Don’t even think about doing something drastic. I’ll find a way to protect you, I swear it.”

There’s a silence that stretches between you, heavy with the weight of all the unspoken fears and desperate hopes. You’ve always trusted Rhaegar, always relied on his strength and wisdom, but this time, you’re acutely aware of how limited even his power is. The game your father plays is one of madness, and the rules change with every passing day.

Finally, Rhaegar lets out a long breath, his expression softening as he looks at you. “For now, keep your head down. Don’t give Father any reason to turn his attention toward you more than he already has. And stay close to those you trust.”

You nod, understanding the subtext of his words. Stay close to Arthur. He’s the one constant in this storm, the one person who knows how to navigate the dangers as well as you do.

“I will, Rhaegar. Thank you.”

He stands, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to your forehead, a rare gesture of affection. “We’ll get through this, Y/N. I promise.”

As he leaves your chambers, closing the door softly behind him, you’re left alone with the flickering candle and the oppressive weight of the future hanging over you. Your father’s plans are a looming threat, one that could shatter everything you’ve dared to dream of. But as fear gnaws at the edges of your thoughts, a spark of defiance ignites within you.

You won’t be a pawn in your father’s twisted game. Not if you can help it.

Whatever it takes, you’ll find a way to forge your own path, even if it means embracing the shadows and secrecy that the Red Keep is built upon.

The air in the small council chamber carries the scent of old parchment and the faint tang of wine. Flickering torches cast long, wavering shadows across the polished stone floor, making the room feel more like a den of conspirators than the heart of the Seven Kingdoms’ governance. King Aerys II sits at the head of the table, his gaunt figure draped in heavy robes of black and red. His violet eyes, wild and gleaming, flit around the room with erratic focus, a dangerous gleam in their depths.

The members of the small council are seated around the table—Lord Tywin Lannister, cool and calculating; Varys, the ever-watchful Spider; Grand Maester Pycelle, feigning wisdom with every stroke of his beard; and a few other lords who are all too aware of the precariousness of their positions in this court.

Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Barristan Selmy, and Ser Jaime Lannister stand at attention behind the king, the white cloaks of the Kingsguard pristine and still. Arthur’s face is a mask of calm, but beneath that surface lies a coiled tension, ready to spring. He’s been dreading this meeting, knowing that your name has come up more frequently in recent weeks, and that it’s only a matter of time before the King’s attention turns back to you.

Aerys’s fingers drum on the armrest of his chair, the sharp clicks echoing in the silent chamber. “So,” he hisses, his voice grating like the rasp of steel against stone. “The matter of my daughter remains unresolved.”

The words hang in the air like a noose tightening around the room. Tywin’s eyes narrow just slightly, the ghost of a smirk playing at the edges of his mouth. “Your Grace,” Tywin begins smoothly, “it is a delicate issue. The princess is, after all, of vital importance to the future of House Targaryen.”

Aerys’ lips curl into a twisted smile. “Indeed. She is my blood, my treasure—my weapon. But you all seem to think you know better what to do with her.” His voice rises, laced with the biting edge of madness. “Perhaps I should remind you that she is mine to command, just like the rest of you.”

Varys inclines his head, his hands folded serenely within his wide sleeves. “No one doubts Your Grace’s wisdom,” he says with a silken tone, “but it is precisely because of your unmatched foresight that we must tread carefully. A hasty decision regarding the princess’s future could cause unrest—or worse, embolden those who would seek to weaken your rule.”

Tywin’s amusement is barely contained. “Wise words, Lord Varys. The girl’s value is undeniable, but placing her in the wrong hands could be a disaster.”

The King’s eyes flash with irritation at their cautious diplomacy. “Disaster?” he sneers. “There is no disaster that I cannot crush. If her marriage does not suit my needs, I will simply take her back—and if an agreement cannot be reached, then perhaps…” He trails off, a sickening smile creeping onto his face. “Perhaps I’ll take her as a second wife myself. Who better to keep our blood pure than I?”

The chamber falls deathly silent. Even the ever-controlled Varys stiffens, though he quickly schools his features into his usual calm mask. Tywin’s green and golden eyes flick toward the king, his expression unreadable, though the faintest hint of distaste lingers in the curl of his lip.

Rhaegar, who has been sitting quietly, suddenly straightens, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. “Father, that is unacceptable.”

Aerys’s eyes snap toward his son, the glimmer of paranoia igniting as he fixes his gaze on Rhaegar. “Unacceptable?” he hisses. “You dare question my judgment?”

Rhaegar doesn’t back down, his expression firm but calm, the prince everyone in the realm knows—a man of honor and composure. “You’re right to value her so highly, Father. She is of Targaryen blood, and that blood should remain within our family. If a match must be made, it should be one that strengthens our House.” His eyes flick briefly to Varys, as if anticipating the Spider’s next move, but then return to his father with renewed determination. “I propose that she marry me.”

The words slam into the room with the force of a thunderclap. Even Tywin, who rarely shows surprise, raises an eyebrow. Jaime’s grin broadens, barely concealing his amusement at the chaos brewing before him. Ser Barristan’s gaze shifts subtly to Arthur, who remains statuesque, though inside he feels as though his world is unraveling.

Aerys blinks, processing his son’s words, before he lets out a bark of laughter—sharp, mocking, and tinged with the edge of madness. “Marry her? You would take your sister as your wife?” He leans forward, eyes gleaming with twisted delight. “Oh, you have a dragon in you after all, despite your meekness. But why now, Rhaegar? Why show such sudden interest in your sister’s fate?”

Rhaegar meets his father’s gaze without flinching. “She is of our House, our blood. If she must be wed, it should be to someone who understands what it means to be Targaryen, who will protect her as fiercely as she deserves.” His voice remains level, but there’s an underlying edge of protectiveness that Arthur recognizes all too well. Rhaegar is trying to shield you from the king’s madness, to keep you close and safe where others cannot reach you.

Aerys’s smile grows more predatory. “Or perhaps you simply want her for yourself, just like I do. What’s to stop me from taking what is mine, even from you?”

The tension in the room is unbearable, the silent war between father and son playing out before everyone’s eyes. Ser Barristan’s grip tightens slightly on the hilt of his sword, his gaze flicking to Arthur, who remains deadly still, his face a mask of stone. Inside, however, Arthur’s mind is racing. This is a dangerous gambit, and while Rhaegar’s intentions are clear, they are fraught with risk. Marrying you to Rhaegar may protect you from your father’s more sinister designs, but it also ties your fate to the bitter struggle between father and son—one that could end in blood.

Jaime leans slightly toward Arthur, his voice a low murmur that only Arthur can hear. “You should see your face, Dayne. It’s almost as pale as your cloak.”

Arthur doesn’t respond, refusing to give Jaime the satisfaction. The Lannister knight’s amusement is clear, but this is more than just a twisted game of court intrigue to Arthur—this is about you, about everything he’s tried to protect. He swallows down the bitterness rising in his throat, his eyes fixed on the confrontation before him.

Varys clears his throat delicately, cutting into the tension with his usual oily charm. “Your Grace, Prince Rhaegar raises an interesting point. A marriage between the princess and the prince would indeed strengthen the bloodline and quell any potential unrest among those who wish to see the Targaryen dynasty remain undiluted.”

Tywin’s lip curls, the displeasure clear even as he speaks with measured calm. “It would also prevent certain… alliances from being forged, alliances that might have been useful in securing the loyalty of key houses.”

Aerys’s eyes narrow as he looks between Rhaegar and his councilors. “You all speak as if my daughter is some tool for your ambitions. She is mine to command, mine to use as I see fit!” He glares at Rhaegar, the madness twisting his features into something almost monstrous. “But perhaps… perhaps you’re right, my son. Perhaps a marriage between you and your sister would serve our House well. Or perhaps it would merely give you more power to defy me.”

Rhaegar’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t back down. “I have only ever served our House, Father. I would do whatever is necessary to keep it strong.”

The tension simmers as the King contemplates, his mind twisting through the layers of paranoia, desire, and control. Ser Barristan’s eyes remain fixed on Arthur, a silent warning in his gaze: Be ready. Jaime stifles a laugh, his amusement at the situation barely contained, while Arthur forces himself to stay still, his every instinct screaming to protect you from the madness unraveling before him.

Finally, Aerys leans back in his chair, a sickening grin splitting his face. “We shall see,” he says softly, the menace in his voice unmistakable. “For now, I will consider it. But make no mistake, Rhaegar—your sister’s fate is still mine to decide.”

With that, the King’s attention shifts back to the matters of state, as if the terrifying exchange was nothing more than a passing amusement. The council members slowly return to their discussions, but the tension lingers like a dark cloud, heavy and threatening.

Arthur remains at his post, his mind racing even as he forces his body to remain still. The implications of what just transpired are profound. Rhaegar’s bold move may have temporarily deflected Aerys’s darker intentions, but it’s clear the King won’t let go of his hold on you so easily. And for you, the danger remains ever-present—caught between the ambitions of men who see you as both a prize and a threat.

The torches lining the dim corridors of the Red Keep sputter and hiss as the three Kingsguard knights escort King Aerys back to his chambers. In the air was a thick and oppressive weight pressing down on each step. Aerys mumbles to himself, his hands twitching restlessly as his eyes dart around, catching at shadows that seem to dance in his mind rather than the walls. His sudden bursts of shrill laughter echo off the stone, sending a shiver down even seasoned knights’ spines.

Ser Arthur Dayne walks on the king’s right, his hand resting lightly on the pommel of Dawn. Ser Jaime Lannister takes the left, his golden curls almost glowing in the low light, while Ser Barristan Selmy brings up the rear, his every movement measured and deliberate. They all remain silent as they guide the Mad King through the winding passageways, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

When they reach the king’s chambers, Aerys spins abruptly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he looks at each of his Kingsguard in turn. “They’re all plotting,” he hisses, his voice like brittle glass. “Even my own blood—plotting, scheming to take what is mine.” His gaze lingers on Arthur for a moment, and for an instant, Arthur feels the full weight of the king’s madness bearing down on him. But just as quickly, Aerys waves them away with a dismissive gesture, his mind already wandering to some new paranoid fantasy.

The door closes behind the king with a heavy thud, and silence falls in the corridor. For a brief moment, the three knights stand in quiet, letting the oppressive atmosphere of the encounter bleed away.

It’s Jaime who breaks the silence first, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “Well, that was quite the show. I almost feel sorry for the princess, being fought over like a bone between two mad dogs.” His tone is laced with mockery, his green eyes gleaming with amusement as he shifts his attention to Arthur. “Tell me, Dayne, how does it feel to be caught in the middle of all this? Your precious princess, at the mercy of whichever dragon has the sharpest claws.”

Arthur’s jaw tightens, his grip on his sword hilt turning his knuckles white. Jaime’s words cut deep, slicing through the control Arthur has struggled to maintain. He knows Jaime delights in poking at people’s weaknesses, but tonight, with the stakes so high and the emotions so raw, it’s too much.

“Watch your tongue, Lannister,” Arthur snaps, his voice low and edged with a dangerous growl. “This isn’t a game, and if you ever speak of her like that again, you’ll regret it.”

Jaime’s grin only widens, unbothered by the venom in Arthur’s voice. “Oh, touched a nerve, have I? The Sword of the Morning has a soft spot after all. I thought you of all people would know better than to get too attached.” His tone is teasing, but there’s a glint of something darker behind his eyes—a challenge, daring Arthur to lose his composure.

Before Arthur can respond, Barristan steps between them, his stern gaze locking onto both knights. “Enough,” he says firmly, his voice brooking no argument. “We’re not here to bicker like children. Our duty is to protect the crown, whether we like it or not. This is not the time for petty squabbles.”

Arthur clenches his jaw, forcing himself to take a breath and step back. He knows Barristan is right—letting Jaime’s provocations get under his skin is exactly what he shouldn’t be doing. But the thought of you, of what you’re being put through, makes it hard to swallow the anger simmering in his chest. “You’re right, Ser Barristan,” he says, his tone clipped as he fights to regain his calm.

Jaime shrugs, still smirking but letting the matter drop for now. “Of course, Ser Barristan. Far be it from me to cause trouble.” His voice drips with sarcasm, but there’s an edge of curiosity in his gaze as he looks at Arthur, as if he’s trying to puzzle out just how deep Arthur’s feelings truly run.

Barristan turns to Arthur, his expression softening slightly. “You should return to your post, Arthur. The princess may need your protection more than ever now.”

Arthur gives a curt nod. “Thank you, Ser Barristan.” Without another glance at Jaime, he turns and strides down the corridor, each step carrying the weight of his thoughts. His mind races as he makes his way back toward your chambers. He can’t let the situation slip any further out of control—he can’t let Rhaegar’s plan or the king’s madness put you at greater risk.

When he reaches your chambers, he takes his position by the door, the familiar comfort of his duty settling over him like a cloak. But tonight, it feels different—more charged, more urgent. He’s never been more aware of just how precarious your situation is, nor of the delicate balance he must maintain between protecting you and keeping his feelings hidden from the vultures circling in the court.

Inside the room, he hears the faint rustle of fabric, the soft sound of your breathing as you move about. The mere knowledge that you’re there, close but out of reach, is both a comfort and a torment. But it’s a torment he would endure a thousand times over if it means keeping you safe from the darkness closing in.

As he stands guard, his thoughts return to the bickering with Jaime, the tension with Rhaegar, and the king’s twisted plans. He vows silently to himself that no matter what happens, he will protect you—even if it means facing the consequences of a broken oath, even if it means losing everything.

In the flickering torchlight, Arthur’s resolve hardens into something unbreakable. He may be just one knight in a web of lies and power struggles, but for you, he would stand against the world.

#asoiaf x reader #asoiaf #arthur dayne x y/n #arthur dayne x reader #arthur dayne #game of thrones

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