#A THIRD FATHER HAS JOINED THE BATTLE

[zorangezest]

custody battle

aka I really reeeealllyyy like the dynamic that @crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington gave soundwave and bee. they are adopted father adopted son they adopted each other

[aonungsmate]

Hello I was wondering if I could request an Ao’nung x Reader, maybe reader could be Tsu’tey’s daughter from a woman he had mated with after learning of Neytiri’s and Jake’s mating, he had a woman that he had loved but he couldn’t have because he was betrothed to Neytiri. And that love bore fruit to our reader who is very close to the Sully family especially with Kiri whom she always defends when being teased by other children. She joins Norm and Max to the metkayina clan. And she’s just this badass with an ikran that was theorized by others to be the spawn of The great leonopteryx that Jake had tamed once. And Ao’nung is flabbergasted by this pretty na’vi riding such a dangerous animal? When the battle happens, she goes ham on the RDA and SAVES NETEYAM BC GDI LEAVE MY BOY ALONE and when they return theres a whole celebration and reader finally relaxes and shes been surrounded by curious na’vis alike bc phew baddie ‼️💅🏻 and ao’nung is such a simp tryna talk to her and rizz her up and it’s just ao’nung pining over her ackk

Destined for Might and Him

Ao’nung x Tsu’tey’s daughter!reader [Word Count: 3.1k]

🤷‍♀️uploading this after 123456789 years of draft!! Enjoy reading another rubbish fic😚💕

Warnings: mentions of death, spoilers

Jake has made countless mistakes since he joined the Omatikaya for his mission. Tsu’tey had never approved of him, until he actually saw him. He was betrothed to Sylwanin first, then came the humans, taking her away from his arms, Neytiri being the next suitable partner for him. As if there was a curse following him, a demon swooped Neytiri from him, though they were not that subtle. He has never seen Neytiri the way he looked at her older sister though.

Third time’s the charm, right?

In Tsu’tey’s case, it is. Being the next olo’eyktan meant he would be interacting with the entire clan, making sure that they felt safe even before his rule, heavily dedicating himself to making the hometree the most secure and comfortable place for their people. That’s where he met your mother, the forbidden fruit he’s always afraid to touch, only to see. He did not think it was right to look at another woman when he was promised to another man’s daughter. He was afraid that she would be too dainty for him to pursue.

Only to see, he said.

The third time he planned to mate with a woman was in the middle of the conflict. Right after he learned about Jake and Neytiri’s mating, he stormed off, not without giving Jake a good beating of course. It is when he actually had the chance to follow his heart, free of expectations. He soon learned that she too, was in love with him since he passed his iknimaya, hiding it from the rest of the clan as soon as she realized that she could not have him. Not without betraying the daughter of the olo’eyktan. So she comforted him, became friends with him instead. With his pride broken, he took everything that he thought would put his pieces back to being worthy of a warrior. Eywa, did it feel good to follow his heart and tell your mother how he really felt. So that’s why Sylwanin used to talk of mating as if it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Somehow as he reminisced, he has really begun to see himself growing older with your mother. So, he set himself a new goal. To protect his love, and his people. Neytiri did not matter to him that much anymore, having moved on from the ghost of the past, accepting Jake Sully as his brother once again, deciding to fight against the sky demons with dreamwalkers whom Eywa have shown promise in.

What he did not expect was you. So imagine his surprise when he came home, your mother guiding his hands on her torso, telling him, Think you can handle one more, ma tsu’tey?

And so, the war came. Battles were won, people were lost. Including the mightiest warrior your mother has ever known. Your father, too young to be taken by Eywa, but alas. It was time for him to embrace the great mother’s comforting presence. He thought it was a shame it would take him years before he actually gets the chance to clutch you in his arms. He’s long entrusted you to his brother though. He made sure Jake promises him to look after you and your mother after all.

A beautiful young na’vi, born into war, just a few months before Jake Sully’s first son was born. You were then named, (y/n) te Rongloa Yenateu’ite. You were a carbon copy of your father, your mother actually exclaimed Tsu’tey’s name when she saw you having the eyes and seemingly permanent daring look your father had. You never really knew your father. Your mother would speak highly of him every night, stories and songs written by her, dedicated with her love for her long lost love. You would see her casting a longing gaze at the walls of your tent whenever she braids your hair, telling you of her and her past love’s nightly escapades when the people would head to their tents to sleep. Amazement and sheer pride written on your face when hearing of your father.

That’s when your mother would sigh audibly, completely defeated that you would always be a daddy’s daughter even without meeting him.

It has been a few weeks since your adoptive family moved to Awa’atlu to seek uturu. Your mother has long passed away, developing a sickness a few years ago. Life in the waters for them was not easy, having new responsibilities and things to work on, especially the breathing.

You were the seventh Toruk Makto, for Eywa’s sake.

Your iknimaya was going perfectly, along with Neteyam. Neteyam proved himself to be a mighty warrior, having wrestled with one of the toughest-looking ikran in the rookery. Kiri showed that she had the strongest connection to Eywa when she ‘befriended’ an ikran at a very young age, earning the title of tsakarem. You, on the other hand, basically confirmed the undeniability that you were Tsu’tey te Rongloa Ateyitan’s daughter, after an unusual occurrence in the ikran rookery. The “most dangerous iknimaya”, as Mo’at would say. As soon as Txop’alei sealed his bond with his ikran, as you stepped through the narrow path, a large ikran– No, a Toruk towered over the ikran rookery, making all of you yell in surprise followed by hisses from Neytiri behind you, and screeches from ikran fleeing away.

Your heart skipped a beat when you crossed gazes with the Toruk, stepping forward cautiously as its vibrant orange reflected on your yellow eyes, examining its slightly emerald green tinges on its wings. Soon enough, you were greeted with a threatening roar, making you gulp as soon as you realized that you were being chosen. Wrestling with an ikran is one thing, but with the great leonopteryx? It’s like a death sentence. Maybe it’s your mom or dad calling for you through Eywa, but would the warrior side of you really give up this thrilling opportunity?

Xi’di. That’s what you named your Toruk. Neytiri says it looked familiar. She thinks it’s a child of her mate’s Toruk. Mo’at says it’s your fathers gift to you from the other side when she pointed out how similar the green tinges match your father’s ikran colors.

You were more than happy to get to know your friend, Xi’di, through sneaking out and having late night flights. It wasn’t long before you were exposed to war, with Jake asking you to spot demon machines when the stars multiplied in the skies, together with his sons Neteyam and Lo’ak, brothers you would consider them as.

“Stop the useless yammering and out with it,” you spoke, jutting your chin upwards to emphasize that you were a greater warrior than he is.

“I saw your ikran,” Aonung inhaled deeply, petting the ilu swimming around the two of you, “it is bigger than the others” he pointed out, his incorrectness making you roll your eyes. You thought it was pathetic that he would attempt to hold a conversation with you after participating with yet again another standoff with your brothers. Your ears flickered slightly at the sound of celebrations around you, children laughing as they danced around.

You huffed at his curious glance, “It is a Toruk,” you smiled wickedly at his reaction, “Surprised that a girl smaller than you is a better warrior?” He scoffed at you, a mocking smile written on his face as he changed the subject back to something related to breathing.

The Metkayina chief’s son was not as who you expected him to be. He was arrogant, condescending, the complete opposite of what Neteyam was like, as the former olo’eyktan’s son.

“You wish,” he smirked, remembering how you checked him out earlier in the day as he raised the nets, his toned arms making your heart gallop. “Metkayina men are known for having mighty arms,” he boasted, too absorbed with himself that he somehow missed how you bashfully avoided eye contact for a second, a blush overtaking your cheeks as he continued on and on about what he has achieved, and his goals to be realized before and after he becomes olo’eyktan.

Regardless of the boastful and proud demeanor, Ao’nung lives up to his status though, having the toughest feats than the men his age, hunting the most, sparring the best, donning the most pleasing face in the clan and all, not that you would admit that to his face.

You remembered the faint voice of your father echoing from the tree of souls, telling that he might not be able to handle it if a pompous na’vi were to win your heart, you were Tsu’tey’s daughter for Eywa’s sake. Nobody would be worthy of you if he was actually there to guard you from presumptuous young men. So, you heed your father’s vivid wishes, promising yourself that you would be in your most sound and logical self when it comes to matters like this. Jake would always nod at you with pride when he hovers to size up your suitors, as soon as he witnesses you reject potential mates.

No wonder he and your biological father grew on each other.

You were not keen on migrating to another clan, only knowing the forest since you were born. You were angry. Furious, that the sky demons were responsible for your family's pain. You would never hold that against your adoptive father though. You loved him more than anything in the world, together with your half na'vi brothers and sisters, but you could not give up the forest. And so, you held your ground and decided to stay with the Omatikaya people.

Since the Sully's arrived in Awa'atlu, your siblings have received nothing but a flurry of insults and looks of disgust from most of the village people. Especially from the chief's son.

As the eldest sister, you felt responsible for making your brothers and sisters feel safe. Back in the forest, you would glare at every stupid boy who would dare sneak up on your sister and call her a freak, you would cast the most frightening look on your face when people would point at your youngest brother. But the most important of all, you would smile the sweetest directed at your younger siblings.

So when you heard of Kiri's situation from Norm, you immediately called upon Xi'di and braved the waters to come to where your family was. Horns and spears were let out when the Metkayina guards caught sight of a large beast coming upon their island, terrified yells from people left and right were heard, except for Lo'ak who let out a laugh of disbelief when he laid his eyes on the majestic Toruk. The colors were oh-so familiar, clad in a saddle that screamed Omatikaya, a dangling string of beads around its neck, the diversity of materials that came from none other than him.

A loud roar resonated within Awa'atlu, startling Neytiri who was busy tending to Kiri. She frowned at the thought of you, thinking that she was imagining things.

"Did you hear that Ma'itan?" Her question was answered soon enough when she noticed him running towards the crowd outside and exclaimed, "Sister, you have come!"

And there it was.

Ao'nung almost snapped his neck at how fast it turned when he caught you in his peripherals. His eyes almost bulged out of its sockets at how fast it widened when you turned your eyepiece upwards as you broke the bond with Xi'di.

"My mighty warrior! It has been too long baby brother," you slung your arms around Neteyam's frame, telling him how much he's grown in just a few months. Gladness and worry was written on your face when he brought up Kiri's situation, "You mean she had a seizure underwater ?!"

Ao'nung noticed how your waterline easily filled up with tears waiting to be shed when you approached the marui where Kiri was currently being taken care of.

What made his feelings definite was the brief eye contact with him that you shared though.

"Thank you, great mother! Thank you!"

You wailed with your family, hugging each other where Neteyam was lying down, grateful that your family has been once again blessed by Eywa. The sky people had wrought destruction in just a matter of a few weeks since your arrival in Awa'atlu after you decided to stay until you have reassured Kiri's well-being.

You were feeling beyond terrified at what had just occurred. You saw your brothers and sisters getting chased by the demon machineries, three of them tied on the huge ship that drove on the waters, spurring the darkness inside you as you fought and fought and fought until you have ensured that they were all safe.

Your brother, Neteyam.

The brother that you have known the longest, shot near where his heart lies, sealing RDA's fate when you saw your brother wheezing on a rock, who wanted nothing but to come home. You were soon enough blinded by rage, together with Neytiri who channeled her anger to retrieve her daughters who were left on the ship.

Everything was a blur that night. Guns and armies thrown left and right, ships exploding, taking hundreds of lives, both na’vi and human. You didn’t think you could have handled it well without the guidance of your father. You felt rage and hurt. Seeing your brother writhe in pain, shivering in the numbing coldness of the water raging against the rocks, you felt like you have just had your heart thrown away.

Your childhood friend Spider, getting sliced across his chest. Your mother, completely having her judgment clouded over her dying son, her daughters, desperate to be freed from the arms of a demon who somehow took pleasure in making your father's life null.

Then it was all submerged in the harsh waters.

You cried out for your companion and rode your Toruk, circling around the sinking demon ship, tears continuously flowing in frustration.

Where was everyone?

You swore you almost lost your mind, but then you remembered.

They were Omatikaya. They will survive.

So, you swallowed the impending grief. You forced yourself to think clearly through the bond, Xi’di responding with the loudest roar it could muster, and swooped down towards the direction of the rocks where you Neteyam laid.

At the sight of Neteyam, you cried.

It was that day when Ao'nung first saw you cry in Neteyam's arms, who was also sniffling at the thought of almost dying and missing out on his siblings' lives. He ruffled Tsireya's hair as she cried in relief, thankful that his sister was also safe.

The people cried. The people mourned. The people had their reunion with their families.

Sully’s stick together. And stick together, you did.

All of you were safe.

“You okay, kid?” Jake mumbled against the top of your head, embracing you and Neteyam as soon as he climbed up the shores, to which you responded by sobbing and hugging him tight. Neytiri had Neteyam against her chest, kissing his forehead, thanking the great mother all over again.

You turned your heads at the sound of water splashing once more, revealing Spider.

“Monkey boy!” Kiri exclaimed, smiling at the sight of her friend, pressing a hand against his chest. You untangled yourself from your father, fussing over Tuk and Neteyam as you see Lo’ak and Spider get squished against your father’s chest.

As you pressed your lips against Tuk’s forehead, you somehow met Ao’nung’s gaze, casting a soft smile at him as you observed him rubbing Tsireya’s shoulder in affection as she cried in his arms, completely being washed over with relief and mostly just overstimulated from the war you had just gone through.

And soon enough, it was time for a celebration of their victory against the sky people.

Fires were started, wood were piled up on one another, the children holding hands together as they sing praises to the great mother, celebrating the victory of their people, ever grateful for the safety of who remained, and prayed for the guidance of Eywa to help those who were lost, to come home to her warm embrace.

Ao’nung fixed the headdress he was donning, a symbol of his status, as he sat beside his sister, scanning his gaze amongst the sea of his people.

And then there was you.

Your eyes were piercing as you held your gaze, the brutal reality of his feelings slowly sinking in as you tucked one of your freshly braided hair, his eyes slowly trailing over the accessories you saved for occasions like this.

Did you have different sets of necklaces for ceremonies?

Were they of rare materials? Because he has never seen a woman this beautiful, he wondered.

He was so struck with your fierceness he did not notice that he was the only one left on the mats laid out on the high platform that was planted on the sand for celebrations. He placed a hand against his left knee, slowly rising from his spot to walk towards you, perhaps ask for a dance?

You were speaking to him as soon as he stopped walking, him blurting out a question he’s been meaning to ask, only to be responded with a huge hit to his ego.

“Surprised that a girl smaller than you is a better warrior?”

He never let people step on his pride.

Not even his sister whom he closetedly doted on, completely overtaken by the idea that ‘he’s a man, so he should not be seen as vulnerable’. He soon learned that that shouldn’t be the case though.

With you to pursue? He’s going to relearn everything, it seems.

You were different.

But perhaps those differences would be the factors to taking him a step closer to you.

To a future where you and him embracing under the starry skies as constellations meld together as one during the darkest of the nights, would be a normal occurrence between the two of you.

That, you did.

Months of building himself up in your eyes, and you finally learned to see him as he hoped you would.

“Good, because I see you too,” you remember him saying those exact words after you practically swept him off his feet, his pretentious demeanor once again taking over to spare him of your teasing, not that it went by unnoticed.

You knew him too well.

So when he promised to take care of you, you knew he would.

Just like when he promised to not spoil his first son to the point that he’d grow up like him, you knew he’d end up eating his words.

You knew him, after all.

You see him, in both light and darkness, you see Ao’nung.

•

Edit: 💀somebody pointed out a misplaced paragraph so i went to remove that one ohmygofd

[captain-joongz]

The moon hangs heavy; Dragonheart ch.2

Pairing: OT7 dragon!BTS x knightess!reader

Genre: dragon rider AU, high fantasy, soulmate adjacent, slight enemies to lovers (if you squint), angst, fluff and humour, eventual smut

Chapter summary: The depth of mistrust between dragons and humans is tried when Jungkook attempts to welcome a new addition to his life. Meanwhile his rider fights her own demons in her own home.

Word count: cca 13.8k

Warnings: there's pov switches beware!! first person is reader pov, third person is bangtan pov!!, a bit of toxic family, slight angst, otherwise not much

Series masterlist | Previous Part | Next part

Lore | Dictionary | Character studies

A/N: alrighty folks! here we go, the next chapter of dragonheart is here! things are picking up and now we'll spend a lot more time with all of the dragons! i always love to hear what you think, so don't hesitate to let me know! i hope you enjoy yourselves <3

I couldn’t even remember when I first started putting together the plan to dismantle this empire brick by fucking brick, but I’ve carried hatred against it for as long as I knew what an empire was. Maybe it was my father’s fault, maybe I saw his ways and I wanted to go against that, maybe it was because ever since I was small he dragged me with him between all these dinners and balls and banquets, and I saw all that depravity, all that mold, the rotten heart of the beast.

Wars, suffering, endless toil and loss, and for what? For spoiled nobility and cruel kings? For an empire that saw its people as endless supplies of weapons in battles that they didn’t want and that brought back nothing? The Li Dynasty in its thousand years of reign only brought terror onto the land, into the hearts of its people, and onto anyone who ever dared to go against it.

Once upon a time, this was nothing more than a small struggling kingdom, Wuyun nothing more than a little town with barely a fortress, and now it spanned across half the continent. It devoured everything around it and squeezed it dry, pulled it into its machine of death. War after a war, battle after a battle, until there was nothing left to conquer, but still wanting for more.

Around us kingdoms rose and fell, and the only reason Gong-li didn’t also hit its expiration date was the endless exploitation of the dragonkind. If the emperor didn’t have them to fall back onto, if dragons weren’t too dangerous to fight against and other still surviving lands weren’t too afraid to invite war with such beasts against them, this dynasty would have died a long time ago.

But with such powerful dangerous weapons (it does pain me to say that, but unfortunately that is what dragons have become) in the hands of children (because that’s what we were in their eyes), we still sat at the top of the food chain and became practically impossible to dismount.

Hubris was a terrible thing. And it would always lead to a downfall. I vowed myself to be that downfall.

Tightening my training attire one more time and giving myself last look in the silver mirror, I gave myself a firm nod and left to join the family at breakfast.

As soon as I entered the dining area, my father gave me a curt smile and gestured to the seat to his left side. My brother was sitting to his right, silently eating and reading through a stack of documents. Unlike the older male, he barely even acknowledged my presence and continued on expressionlessly in his task.

I tensely returned the smile and folded myself to the dark comfortable pillow, immediately hungrily digging in. The General lightly patted me on my shoulder, his good mood reflected in the way he happily ate his food and interacted with us calmly, which made me fight the scowl off my face to not accidentally aggravate him.

Ever since I returned from the banquet, I’d been in my father’s good graces. Somehow word has already travelled to him that I had been around the Bangtan thunder and I returned to a suspiciously pleased father sitting in the drawing room area waiting for me with praises. He’s been more open to me since, now that he had a chance to peacock about my accomplishments again, and it was putting me on edge. I was more used to being on his wrong side, and through the years I learnt that it was safer to skirt the grey area, as he tended to be more infuriated when we disappointed him after we’d “been so good”.

“You’ll come to the castle with me tomorrow,” the man simply stated, in a manner that revealed he was used to being obeyed. It took me a moment of silence to realise he was speaking to me and not my brother, and I looked up surprised, meeting his dark eyes.

“Yes, father,” slipped the automatic answer through my lips, “Why am I needed?” I needed to ride this good wave for as long as it was possible, so I’d also been playing it safe with him and was being more agreeable than usual. If he thought it suspicious, he said nothing about it.

“You will meet the emperor. He’s curious about Bangtan’s new rider.” The older man satisfiedly licked his lips, like a lazy spoiled cat getting cream, while I froze in my seat with a spoon halfway to my lips. Dread like no other gripped me, spreading through my body in cold currents and turning my stomach to lead. I almost felt a little dizzy with the impact of the statement.

“Yes, father,” this time it came out only a shaky whisper, but the man didn’t care, didn’t look my way again, only nodded and left us siblings sitting there.

When I finally managed to tear my gaze away from the spot our father occupied just a moment ago, I looked straight into my brother’s blank eyes. He regarded me wordlessly for a few long seconds and then stood up as well, food left unfinished on his plate.

“Don’t do anything stupid, please,” he muttered and walked away.

I looked after him almost mournfully, but in the end forced myself to get back to my own breakfast. A lump in my throat made it somewhat harder to swallow, but I did my best to push those feelings away and not dwell on how my brother’s dismissal was always a bigger gut punch than our father’s.

I didn’t remember the older man as ever being gentle, but the memories from my childhood, before we were both ruined by the General, plagued me every time I was faced with this new cold version of the once happy boy. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. How far into our hearts did our ruin reach?

When finished, I quickly moved through the house to collect all needed belongings and got on my way to the training grounds.  The nervous shake in my hands started up again, and in panic I tried to go over some strategies in my head over how I wanted the noon to go. Chances were it wasn’t going to go according to any of them, but it didn’t hurt to try.

Jungkook was already waiting by the training area, leaning into the wooden pole fencing off the sandy duel ring where one on one sword training usually took place. Coming closer, I had to temp down some evident excitement suddenly coursing through my veins, and I internally scolded myself. Now wasn’t the time to lose it, I had to keep it together.

Just as I was about to shout my greeting, I realised there was actually another person with him. His dark blue hair shined under the sun, and the silvery scales on his beautiful face made the light reflect in a way that almost seemed to be too stunning to be real. By the blush that immediately arrived on my face and made me stutter in the light jog, I knew I was once again in the company of the one and only Jimin.

But out of the corner of my eye I saw another presence.

Jungkook already spotted me and waved me over. There were some awkward greetings and smiles before uncomfortable silence stretched around us. Jimin was watching me with a spark of amused curiosity, but I saw a shadow of something darker in his gaze. Something mistrustful and wary. Which, dragons had every right to be apprehensive at first, but something about him put me on edge, like it was about more than just the usual gap between our kinds.

The third person finally joined us, jogging happily to us with a wide smile stretching across his face. I saw both of the dragons’ faces immediately relax and soften, and I realised it must be another member of their thunder.

With a wildly beating heart and clammy palms I fully took him in, still feeling a little star-struck in the presence of such a powerful pack. His hair was wavy, falling into his eyes and around his ears in artful arches, the sun reflecting powerfully off of the copper reddish colour of the locks. I noticed some beads weaved into them as they bounced with his movement. But the most prominent feature were the beautiful horns sprouting from his hairline – they were curved back slightly, following the shape of his head, and antler-like. They were as long as the top of his head, cutting off above the crown of it. I tried not to gawk at them too obviously, but they were beautiful, so I probably failed miserably. Not that he seemed to mind.

His lithe form was brimming with energy and the man seemed to have a joyous personality, face shining with a smile and eyes full of mirth. I understood immediately why just looking at him set the boys more at ease, even I felt myself getting more comfortable and loose under the rays of his happiness.

“Hobi-hyung!” Jungkook shouted out, nearly vibrating and full of toothy grins. Based on his reaction (to which I didn’t secretly smile at all, I was cold as stone definitely) it was probable that the older dragon decided to drop in unannounced.

“Hello younglins,” the man greeted us with, extending the expression to me as well, which… fair. His smiley face turned to me, eyes scanning me head to toe with a calculating gaze, a sliver of seriousness surfacing through.

“My name is Hoseok. Nice to meet you, potential rider,” he introduced himself in the end. Whatever he saw when looking at me, I nervously hoped it wouldn’t make him get Jungkook to reject the bond.

With anxious eyes flitting around, I bowed to him which he reciprocated and then shook his offered hand, both of ours gloves firmly on. Jungkook and Jimin were both watching us with sharp eyes and bated breath, Jungkook hopeful and Jimin with that strange darkness I couldn’t fully place.

“Nice to meet you too, Sir Hoseok,” my voice wavered slightly, but I hoped they’d disregard it as usual nervousness when people met them, and wouldn’t read too much into it. That they wouldn’t find out just how desperate I was for this to work out.

“No sir here, young mistress, dragons don’t get titles,” he said it teasingly, but a little bitterness still wormed its way into his voice. I swallowed, finally taking my hand back after realising I’d been shaking it for a suspiciously long time and gave him my own wonky smile.

“I will call you Hoseok-ssi then,” I insisted, carefully toeing the line between polite and smarmy, “My name is Kang Y/N, of the northern clan.” I saw clearly how Hoseok tried and failed to keep his face neutral, how his smile froze and his eyebrows pulled together in a frown the moment he realised what family I belonged to. I tried not to let it hurt me. Tried not to panic that this was the end for me, and he’d never allow me near his thunder again.

“Neither of you rascals mentioned she is General Kang’s daughter,” he gritted through his teeth and stiff grin, eyes shooting daggers towards the two younger dragons. Both of them watched him with wide eyes, guilty and innocent all at once, trying to buy themselves some leeway.

I had no idea whether they didn’t mention on purpose or whether they forgot, but I had to quickly get on top of this.

“You know my father, huh?” I chuckled awkwardly, jumping in panicked before anything else could be said, “He does have quite the reputation.”

When Hoseok turned his gaze back to me, it was a lot less warm even though he was still grinning at me. I felt the shiver run through me at the change, my instincts suddenly kicking in now that he looked significantly less friendly.

“I fear there isn’t a single person in this city, maybe even in this empire, who doesn’t know your father,” came his stilted reply. And it made sense really, all of the dragons must have known my father for all his life. They’ve probably had to deal with him ever since he himself entered the Academy some 30 years ago. Yikes.

What does one say in a situation like this? Sorry about that? I would have killed him years ago if I didn’t need him alive still?

Another bout of extremely awkward silence blanketed over us, and with every second stretching I felt the dread pull me deeper and deeper into the mud, mind racing and trying to come up with a way to save this. My chest hurt from how fast my heart beat and I felt the panic licking at the seams of my mind, but in the end the atmosphere was saved by Jungkook himself.

“Don’t be too scared, hyung just has a personal vendetta against him,” the young dragon suddenly blurted out, immediately flushing as Jimin barely covered how he burst out laughing. Hoseok also froze and in wonder I saw some of the coldness melt away into embarrassment, the man rubbing at his neck awkwardly.

“You shouldn’t be saying things like that in front of her,” he whined lightly, and it was both a tease and a warning, but finally I shook myself out of my stupor and laughed as well.

“Don’t worry about it, as his daughter I’m more than used to people having grudges against him,” I said amicably, playing it as cool as I could with my hands shaking and tongue stuttering me up, “as I said – he has quite the reputation.”

Hoseok laughed politely, but his gaze was stuck on Jungkook, promising some kind of a dressing down later when they’re alone, which the young dragon steadily ignored with an easy smile, but in a way that made me queasy. It was foolish of me to forget the weight of tossing my surname around like that.

And I knew that tomorrow I’d meet the emperor and he’d give me his blessing, and then the thunder would have to accept me as Jungkook’s rider whether they wanted to or not. And I wouldn’t blame them for hating me.

“Hyung’s just stopping by,” Jungkook stated to me, turning from the red-head’s burning stare, “He had some of his own errands to run. He works with the infirmary.” It felt both like a weak attempt to ease my nerves and a careful nudge in the direction of the dragon’s abilities, as it was considered rude to ask.

He was a healer then, a nature magick gifted dragon. I took him in once more, ignoring the way he was now more wary of me and concluded that it fit him very well. In those brief few moments he didn’t yet know me he seemed to be the kind of person to heal you just by their presence, and stupidly I felt a pang of sadness at having lost that, no matter how fake of an attempt to be friendly it was.

Instead I turned to the tattooed dragon and smiled, falling down the polite small-talk rabbit hole for a few more sentences before Jimin took a seat at the top of the wooden fence and Hoseok eventually jogged a few steps away to lean against a stone archway of the building nearby to feel the relief of the shadow.

I was stuck in the blaring sun with Jungkook, already feeling the uncomfortable heat and sweat gathering under my black training clothes. It was hard to gauge what was Jungkook’s tolerance, but he seemed fine with a pep in his step and an easy grin on his face. I would almost call him excited.

He led us inside the ring, but no swords were in sight, leaving me to wonder what he had in mind. We stood there for a moment, staring at each other. Jungkook looked increasingly more and more amused, watching me struggle in the silence and unsure of what was in store for me, and admittedly I did want to smack him a little for it, but I swallowed the urge down with a little crooked grin.

Then suddenly the dragon flew into action. My first instinct was to bring my arms up in defence, expecting him to try and land a blow. Meetings like these usually consisted of some more fighting and duels to allow the dragons to check the strength and abilities of their potential bondeds, but Jungkook didn’t do any of that sort. He started warming up with jumping jacks.

A little confused, I caught onto the agenda and started imitating him, casting unsure glances towards the two packmates that were watching us jump in the middle of a sandy ring, but their expressions gave me nothing. The pack probably must have gone through this specific thing millions of times and have since settled into a routine.

“Do you know what my magick is?” he asked suddenly, mischief dripping off of him like this was a cheeky first date and not a military affair. I shook my head, but as the silence stretched and his eyes watched me expectantly, he was clearly waiting for some sort of verbal explanation.

“I only knew of Jimin-ssi’s powers,” even through clearing my throat my voice still came out scratchy and unsure, gaze nervously flitting to the mentioned dragon to catch whether he was upset or not. Jimin still gave me nothing, silvery blue eyes just as stormy and closed off as before.

I reasoned with myself that he was less flirty and playful because this was a serious matter, but he still unnerved me, and I faced similar looking rejection way too many times to not immediately recognise the beginning stages of it. He displayed mistrust beyond the usual reasons, and I had no idea why.

“I-I know you have a fire dragon in your thunder. And an atmokinetic,” the stutter came from me scrambling to keep up with Jungkook when he dropped to the ground and seamlessly transitioned into a squatting without any warning, but it was no less embarrassing. He hummed. Jimin and Hoseok looked on. I sweated. It was a mess.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly public knowledge what most of their powers were. Since the curse was first laid, dragons have learnt to be quite secretive when it came to the full extent of their special abilities and tended to choke the information so that only what they wanted was known. As such, I was only sure of three of their abilities – Namjoon’s fiery magick that often came into the public eye during battles, Jimin’s water magick that he was known for due to the worrying line of admirals who liked to bond him temporarily to gain upper hand in naval skirmishes and Yoongi’s darker and scarier powers that allowed him to bring rains and storms and pull black clouds and strong winds to us that made all our days just the more wearier.

There were rumours of course – whispers about a dangerous dragon capable of mind control and manipulation, or tales about one who shone as bright as a dying star, as the sun itself, who commanded light in a way that both warmed and hurt. But those were just that, rumours. I had no names to those, and the thunder certainly wasn’t forthcoming with anything, just as the emperor liked to control what we knew about them.

Bangtan was powerful and mysterious and that was it. That’s where it started and ended.

Jimin’s sudden chuckle brought me back to a pouting Jungkook doing squats like his life depended on it while I did my best to keep up.

“Nobody knows what our baby does yet,” he teased him, “Don’t worry Kook, you’ll put the seed of terror into all their hearts by the end of this year.” It was the kind of mocking that wasn’t meant to hurt and flew between people who actually liked each other and knew the limits of other’s senses of humour, and I curiously watched as Jungkook played up the pout even more before bursting into a toothy grin.

Then it caught up to me what the blue-haired dragon said and I stopped dead in my tracks, shocking Jungkook into freezing too. There was a suspicion at my heart that would explain everything that was happening right now, and I didn’t hesitate to speak it into the universe.

“Wait… is this your first year participating in the unit?” I blurted out and saw Hoseok tense up out of the corner of my eye. Jungkook spiritedly nodded and I felt both relief and horror.

“Kookie’s never had a rider,” Jimin supplied, really speaking to me for the first time since I arrived, “He’s only reached adulthood sixty years ago.”

A myriad of questions suddenly had answers in my mind – Jungkook fumbling the polite traditions at the banquet, the overprotective hovering that Jimin and Hoseok were exhibiting right now, the combative energy both of them lowkey exuded while Jungkook himself was a ball of excitement. Stepping into the unknown, for the first time.

At the bottom of it all was a huge boulder falling off of my chest at the thought that I wasn’t completely alone in this frightening and exhilarating new experience we had in front of us. Now, looking at us both be clueless and anxious and eager, I found myself relaxing considerably. We could be stupid about this together, and that was a relieving thought.

Jungkook was staring daggers into his hyung and whining that he was more adult than he made it sound, but his ears were red. Hoseok in the background fondly watched on, and suddenly I felt like too much of an intruder.

Clearing my throat, I called for his attention again and asked: “So what is your power?”

Jungkook’s big dark innocent eyes were back at me and he straightened up, only to start doing lunges. I scrambled to follow his lead, warming up with him with no idea what he was planning to do today.

I wondered whether he had any other potentials, but thinking back I haven’t seen him interact with any other of the first years. I hoped that whatever trials he prepared for me, I’d be able to successfully get through them.

“My magick is elemental,” the tatted dragon started explaining, “much like Jimin-hyung’s. But mine is earth.” I itched to ask more questions and get more details out of him, but I didn’t want to overstep. Jungkook may have looked like he’d gladly answer everything, but generally dragons didn’t like it and didn’t think it proper to probe, and I didn’t want to aggravate the two high strung hyungs stepping around the training grounds and watching their younger packmate with hawk eyes.

I watched them out of the corner of my eyes, and their warning gazes were already glued to me, but Jungkook looked at me with expectant eyes just begging to be asked for more details. Sweating bullets, I swallowed my silent tears and opened my dumb mouth. This is going to be more challenging than I thought, but in a way I could have never anticipated.

“How does that work?” I gritted through my teeth, trying to ignore Hoseok’s narrowed eyes or Jimin’s outright stare. Jungkook, though, brightened and changed back to jumping jacks for ease of talking.

“Much like hyung manipulates water, I can manipulate earth,” he begun cheerily, “tear it apart, tear chunks out and throw them, cause a chasm to open or small-scale earthquakes. I can also work with and manipulate stones and ore, not just dirt.” I gave him a wide-eyed stare, surprised to learn the extent of his powers, though some things were still a little vague. But I didn’t dare to ask more questions, I’ve already tried their patience too much.

“It also means he has tough skin. Impenetrable. And it makes him very strong, like a boulder,” to my surprise it was Jimin who volunteered this information, his curious eyes flittering cautiously between me, Jungkook and Hoseok still standing a few steps away.

“There’s a downside though,” Jungkook continued, “every power has its downside. Like a weakness. It’s tied into the nature of our magick. Like fire magick’s weakness would be water and ice.” The horror that seeped into Hoseok’s face quickly clued me into the fact that Jungkook just shared something he wasn’t supposed to say.

“Yes, but that isn’t something we need to talk about right now,” Jimin jumped in, shaken and panicked, throwing the youngest dragon a stare that could only be interpreted as a warning. Unsure, I stopped and glanced between the three dragons locked into some sort of a silent battle. After a few beats I realised they must have been talking telepathically, as that was something mated dragons could do.

“She’ll have to know anyway, as my bonded,” Jungkook said finally, firmly looking from his hyungs and offering me a smile. Shakily, I attempted to returned it, but it was hard with the burning I felt from the other’s stares. I couldn’t even fully process the fact that Jungkook basically announced that we would bond, the statement barely registering in my anxious mind.

What in the hell was going on?

Then Jungkook took off, only looking behind to beckon me as he started on a lap around the training grounds. Giving one last nervous glance to the two tense dragons, I took a deep breath and ran off after him.

Jungkook was fast and it took me a moment to catch up to him, but after a lap or two we settled into a comfortable pace side by side, and I slowly came to realise what this was. Endurance test. He wanted to know how strong and trained I was. With one less unknown to worry about, I fell into step with him and steeled myself to keep up for as long as I was capable of.

The silence was comfortable between us, a nice change from the charged atmosphere around the older dragons, but I couldn’t blame them for being so cautious, especially since it seemed Jungkook’s enthusiasm was sometimes faster than the well-earned distrust towards humans that every dragon harboured deep inside their heart. I dreaded to think of someone else in my position, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of his true earnest nature.

But even I was a risk – even I could misstep, hurt him. Even I could end up being a danger to him and his thunder. I had to make sure I wouldn’t.

“Have you ever met a dragon before?” Jungkook’s quiet voice pulled me out of my troubling thoughts. It was an unusual question, one that I had no idea how to interpret the intentions behind. What was he really asking?

“Well, yes... I’ve been coming to the capital with father for quite some time,” I drawled out, weighing in my mind on how much to share, “but I really just saw them around. Didn’t really speak to anyone, I wasn’t allowed to.” Painful memories of a smiling brown-haired man resurfaced in my mind, just how they so often did ever since he left. I chanced a look at the tatted dragon, and he watched me like he knew there was more. He waited whether I would continue. A wave of strange unfamiliar emotion rose inside of me, and I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I was so confused. But then I spoke anyway because it felt right to do so.

“When I was little,” the words slowly trickled out of me, like I had to use force to push them out, “maybe eight or nine, a dragon-knight and his bonded came to our fief. They stayed with us for a little over a year. The knight was a merry man, full of laughs and jokes, and his dragon was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.” The young dragon smiled gently and gestured for me to keep talking as we ran laps. I started becoming a little breathless now that I had a story to tell, but I pushed through.

“I spent a lot of time with him, to me he was the manifestation of all things magical and fantastical,” the soft laugh that tumbled out of me surprised me, but I carried on, “He took to teaching me. Brought me out to forests and meadows, taught me about magick and nature, about dragons, about kindness to living things and cooperating with the natural world. He always called it ‘the old philosophy’. That this is how dragons used to teach their young.”

Looking back at it now with the knowledge I have, it wasn’t that hard to understand why he was such a thorn in the emperor’s eye. Why he was running away from the palace, trying his luck away from the capital. It was rotten fate that he ended up on a land that belonged to my father out of all people.

Next to me Jungkook hummed, reminding me of his presence, and suddenly the exercise caught up with me and I realised I would need a break soon to catch my breath. The young dragon seemed fine though, as he jogged on by my side with a soft smile.

“What was his name?” he asked, with reverence I haven’t heard from him yet, the quiet wonder at this mythical teacher from my childhood visible in his eyes, and it warmed me to see it. With a smile of my own I answered: “Hwan.” As simple as that.

I didn’t tell him his real name. I couldn’t yet. My teacher was a controversial character, a forbidden topic, and these dragons were most definitely aware of him, as his sudden disappearance happened only something over a decade ago. He was the first dragon in centuries to openly go against the throne, and the first person I’ve ever met that was part of a resistance against the empire. Hwan was the name he went by while he stayed with us, when he pretended to be human while going to the town’s market with me.

I’ve already learned from my mistake once. I wouldn’t reveal his name until I was sure it was safe.

“I don’t remember a dragon with that name,” Jungkook thought out loud, contemplative expression taking over his youthful face, “do you know what his magick is?”

“I’m not sure where he is currently,” was all I answered with, shutting down the conversation with firm gentleness. Thankfully the man understood. He gave me one long curious silent look, eyes taking me in from head down to my toes, something a little unreadable settling into them. But an air of softness remained, one that made me comfortable in his presence against all facts and reason.

“Let’s go try horse riding now,” was all he finally said, a little more mischief bleeding into his features, “last time you barely even rode. I need to know you can keep yourself in the saddle.”

With a nod I followed after him, silently musing on whether the bond manifested in things deeper than just compatibility for magick. Things that would explain why the pull towards the younger dragon exceeded reason and strayed into the territory of complicated feelings of comfort and safety.

Jimin shuffled nervously right next to his hyung, shuddering under the barrage of negative emotions flowing into him from Hoseok’s side of the bond.

“You shouldn’t encourage him so much, you know,” Hoseok chided him softly, even though the water dragon felt the weight of his hyungs fears and anxieties. But he didn’t think he was deserving of a scolding nevertheless.

“What do you mean? I barely even did anything,” Jimin grumbled under his breath, eyes trained on the duo running side by side by the fence, one ear listening into the conversation and heart enquiringly checking on Jungkook’s emotions. Hope, curiousness, tender joy. All that shined through, and he knew that his hyung felt it too. And didn’t like it one bit. “He spilled everything all on his own,” Jimin added for good measure.

He subconsciously rubbed at the tender skin of his wrist, mind going back to the night of the banquet, as it so often did these days. He couldn’t shake off the buzz of the bond as it shocked through him with such intensity for a moment he thought she touched him and not Kookie. Sometimes, it would still run through his nervous system like a phantom pain, even days later.

“Kookie’s excited about his first bond,” Hoseok said, but his voice carried no happiness that would be normally present during such occasions, that was all taken away by the circumstance of the situation, “but this whole thing is rubbing me the wrong way. I just don’t want him to get hurt through this. Bonds have a way of influencing you, and especially the first ones can feel quite intense. I don’t want him to be blinded by it to what might be happening here.”

Jimin looked to his hyung with alarm, heart painfully contracting under the wave of freezing cold dread seeping through his bones.

“You think there’s an ulterior motive to the bond,” the younger dragon meant it as a question, but at that point it was useless to ask. Hoseok obviously thought something else was going on under all this, and the possibility of it lit some sort of primal fear in Jimin. Bonds used to be a sacred thing, thinking that they could be stripped from all their beauty and used so villainously, it never failed to tear him apart. Never failed to remind him of all that was taken from them.

“Think about it,” Hoseok stated seriously, eyes similarly glued to Jungkook and watching his smiling face with a hint of despair, “We’ve never felt a bond similar to this one. Neither the hyungs nor Joonie have ever heard of something similar. She’s a daughter of a man as close to the throne as one can be. Is it really such a stretch to believe that he may have tampered with the bond?”

“But would that even be possible?” Jimin asked, voice quiet as the horrifying feasibility sunk into his mind, “It can’t, right?” That would change everything. It would take away more than they’ve already lost – it would warp the very nature of their souls. Haven’t they already destroyed enough? Would they go as far as to mess with natural magical bonds?

“He’s already done so much and he continues to want even more,” Hoseok argued firmly, no traces of the smiling man left in his demeanour, “I have no idea what Kangdae’s end goal is, but if there’s someone capable of this, it’s him. And she’s in his closest circle, her father serves him more than he serves his own family.” No matter how many times Jimin heard the emperor’s name flow out so effortlessly in conversation, he still got an uncomfortable feeling. His hyungs using it like that didn’t feel right – it made him too scared for them, like they were committing a grave sin. Yet they never budged.

Looking back to the young duo, a chilling sensation gripped Jimin’s insides. Could this be a trap? What would even be the purpose of manipulating a bond like that? Was she originally not meant for them?

“I worry for him too,” Jimin muttered finally, “We’ll have to keep an eye on him.” The things they needed to keep close eyes on just kept stacking up and Jimin was about to lose his mind if this continued. The threat hanging over all their heads somehow felt more present than ever. Not even the thought of his all-knowing hyungs made him feel better. Quite the opposite – feeling their quiet dismay, their wide eyes and hushed whispers when they thought they wouldn’t notice, it drove Jimin even more wild with panic.

“I wish we could consult the ancients on this,” the blue-haired dragon whispered quiet enough that had his companion not paid attention, he’d miss it, “the closest we got to that is Jin-hyung and he’s as lost as we are.” Hoseok’s tiny fond chuckle lifted some weight off of Jimin’s shoulders, the younger dragon turning to his hyung with a smile.

“Don’t let him hear that or we’ll never hear the end of it,” the healer teased softly, reaching out to mess with Jimin’s hair. Silence settled around them, but it was oppressive in a way he hadn’t felt for a long time, not around his mates. He shivered with it, tried to withstand it, but couldn’t without the warmth his lovers offered.

Reaching out for his hyung’s hand, they shuffled around until Hoseok was protectively holding him curled into his side as they both watched on, hearts heavy and minds racing a mile in a minute.

Jimin noted to himself all that she shared, vowing to ask Jin-hyung later about that dragon she spoke so highly of. He hoped, and Jungkook might never believe him this, but he really hoped she wasn’t deceiving them. Not because of her, but for Jungkook’s sake. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if this ended up hurting their youngest packmate.

Bonds cut deep, especially when they ended badly. Yoongi-hyung still carried those scars in him to prove that. He himself knew the pain of bonds that were forced on him – how oppressive they were to his own mind and heart, how every time he was used for a battle and then discarded, his soul wept for the loss of a bond that never really existed in the first place.

For all their might and power, dragons were tender beings. Easily swayed by shiny trinkets and a little kindness, they got attached so readily, and felt grief deeply when everything died in the end and they carried on.

Whether she betrayed him or died, that wound would stay with Jungkook for the rest of his nigh eternal life, and he so desperately wished he could protect him from that.

Jimin, in that moment of all-consuming terrifying despair and helplessness, knew he would give everything, even his own life, to ensure the crash and fall of the empire just to tear Jungkook out of the way of a sure tragedy in the form of his new potential rider.

“Has Taehyungie had any vision about this?” Hoseok’s voice suddenly cut through his spiralling thoughts, pulling Jimin from his little circle of doom, “Last I asked him he said he can’t see anything.” The blue-haired man thought back to the day before, to his younger mate with his dark red, heavy curls falling into his eyes, the worried frustrated expression on his face translating into the wobbling lip when he came to Jimin absolutely shattered that he can’t help his hyungs in any way, the fear dripping so thick off of him the water dragon almost tasted it in the air. Tae was devastated at his own inability to induce a vision on the young knightess, even though he privately shared with Jimin that it didn’t feel completely wrong, only that he wasn’t supposed to know yet (which according to him happened sometimes, but it still felt awful). Nonetheless it only added to the unsureness that hung about them when it came to this bond.

“No, he’s trying really hard but can’t see anything,” Jimin whispered towards his hyung, even though he was pretty sure Jungkook wasn’t listening he’d still rather he didn’t hear this on accident, “Please don’t ask him about it, hyung. He’s feeling terrible.”

Hoseok gave him a sad smile and nodded, his hands tightening on the younger worried man as he himself sunk into the troubling thoughts. Jimin hated the sudden air of uncertainty hanging over their heads that irritatingly everyone except for their youngest seemed to feel.

Jungkook kept his oblivious care-free aura while everyone around him panicked about the future of the pack, even future of dragons at all. His hyungs were running themselves thin trying to find out what this meant while he sat around the town house and talked about how he couldn’t wait for the bonding ritual.

Jimin was as angry with him as he was worried for him. But only time would tell which way this would go. And deep in his heart he knew that even if the world was falling apart, his hyungs would never let them get hurt.

Squeezing Hobi’s hand back, he finally allowed himself to relax into the warm man’s embrace.

Maybe somewhere in this country still were children who felt comforted and encouraged by their father’s presence by their side, but I certainly wasn’t one of them. The stifling aura of him hovering behind me put me on edge, the threat of ‘impress him or else’ hanging in the air over us. Father would never say it outright, no, that wasn’t his style. But it was always written into him, into his features, into the firm grip of his hand on my arm when he wanted me to check myself.

Brother stood next to him looking bored, doing his best to miss all of my pointed stares, so I redirected my attention back to the gold-plated doors in front of me, waiting for them to open and invite us in.

The emperor sometimes liked to keep people waiting. If it was just my father, he’d be let in immediately, but since it was our entire family he felt the need to show power and let us stand outside for a while. I felt the mounting wave of frustration and annoyance, pursing my lips together to keep myself in line. None of us spoke and it made the time tick by even slower. Two stripes guards flanked the door on each side and nervously evaded our eyes, no doubt wishing they were anywhere else than in front of the increasingly more displeased old general.

Then finally, after what felt like a whole hour, the door slowly creaked open and I suddenly found myself on the forefront of our little group, first to be seen, first to move and first to speak. It was unnerving.

It took a little shove to my lower back (I wasn’t sure which one of the men it was, but it was effective) to make me move into the room, and I did so sluggishly – focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and not on the man sitting leisurely on a sofa at the centre of the room. Subconsciously I straightened and adjusted my black and silver uniform, even though he didn’t look up. He actually looked like he couldn’t care less and for a moment I pondered over how my father managed decades of sucking up to a person like that. My patience would have run out so fast I’d be executed before my pillow even had the chance to permanently dent into the shape of my head.

Even though I knew the emperor was a few years older than my brother, he looked young, maybe even younger than me. He didn’t stand, and he didn’t have to, but we still kneeled on the little carpet and bowed to his uninterested form. It was humiliating and rage inducing, my hands curling into tight fists as if I was contemplating lunging at him and punching him. I wasn’t, I just wanted to go home mainly.

The emperor asked us to meet us in one of his salons that he sometimes used for official visits, so instead of the throne room we found ourselves in a pompously decorated room with a theme that I could only describe as “rubies”. The man himself sat on a sofa that was on a little platform, step above everyone else, and he stood out as a sore thumb with his golden aura in the sea of reds and crimsons.

I twitched towards one of the sofas, but a hand on my wrist immediately pulled me back into place, and so we just silently stood there some more, waiting for some command or a simple acknowledgement, but the golden man kept wordlessly scribbling something onto a stack of documents. After the fourth line I felt the frustration return with full force (and then some more), gritting my teeth as we humiliatingly waited with heads hung low in respect.

Then the sound stopped. The man clapped twice and everything set into motion. I was pulled by my father to a sofa, and I confusedly let myself be manhandled into place while I watched the flurry of servants run in with tea and sweets and carry the stack of documents out. A second later the emperor’s eyes were on me, for what felt like first time in my life.

For some reason I was surprised by his beauty. I didn’t know why, I’ve seen him before but always from much further away. I had a better idea of what his father looked like, and at the end of his life he turned into a bitter mean old man, therefore the youthful charm took the wind out of my sails lightly.

He was bathed in gold, from head to toe – from his attire and jewels to his skin, to his burning bright hair. Even his eyes had specks of gold swimming in the brown. But the longer I looked at him, the more I saw the signs of his cruelty, things that no amount of grace and allure could hide – his stare had no warmth in it despite his polite smile, instead it froze me down with its poorly hidden brutality; his sharp features didn’t as much add to his handsomeness as they brought out the shadows on his face, underlining the haunting savagery of his faux kind smile. When his lips stretched to reveal his white perfect teeth, I was almost expecting to see them pointy and sharp enough to tear flesh to shreds.

“Yeong-su, Man-young,” he greeted with a nod first my father, then my brother, before his eyes redirected to me, “and you must be Y/N then.” His voice was strong and firm, with a tone of courteousness so false it felt sleazy. I shuddered, barely managed to hide it from his inquisitive eyes and then shakily smiled back with my own nod.

“Your majesty,” father greeted, just as slimy and with a similar looking smile. I supressed the disgust crawling up the sides of my stomach and kept to myself. This might have been the first and only time I was happy about the general insisting I don’t speak so I don’t embarrass him.

“I hope your morning has gone well, our empire,” he continued, head bowed so deep his chin was digging into his breastbone, “we, your people, are joyous for the opportunity to meet with you.” Seeing Man-young going into a slight bow again, I scrambled to follow, not giving myself the space to inspect that pile of insincere grovelling bullshit.

“Thank you, general,” came a simple answer, “I hear you are here for the purpose of your daughter’s bonding. Your eyes are on Bangtan, general?” It felt both inquisitive and threatening, like a thinly-veiled warning. I curiously watched my father, the proud man that he was who would rather die than let anyone disrespect him, as he ducked his head in pretend humility. I’d never realised that he was such a damned good actor.

“Of course not, our empire, we wouldn’t dare to demand your dragons, we can simply hope and beg for your blessing.” That seemed to have satisfied the young sovereign, and I had to wonder whether he was genuinely stupid enough to believe it or whether he didn’t care because he knew his place of power and trusted in his invincibility. Surely, everyone could tell these were all fake sentiments, even the man that’s been listening to them since his birth?

A nudge broke me out of my reverie and I realised my father wanted me to grovel alongside with him, but before I could think of anything to say, a knock to the door interrupted us.

“Oh, perfect timing,” emperor exclaimed, for the first time with a real sense of excitement which put me off slightly, and then he was gesturing for the door to open. And the most curious group of people stood behind it.

The first to stroll leisurely into the room was Duke Lee, and I barely suppressed the obvious disgust on my face. He only shot me a single unfriendly glare before his expression melted into a similar smarminess of all the council members in the presence of the emperor. I tuned out his dick-sucking-esque monologue that the ruler seemed to eat up to take in the other three newcomers. Well, except that they weren’t truly new to me.

The silver-haired dragon I’ve seen a mere week ago when my father dragged me to the council meeting still had his signature cold expressionless mask on and he silently made his way through the room without acknowledging anyone to sit on a chair by the emperor’s sofa.

The other two were a surprise to me.

Jungkook wearing a uniform I’d never seen before (and that he seemed exceedingly uncomfortable in) and constantly squirming in place tried to greet me, but was promptly stopped by his companion. A dragon I knew very well despite the fact that I haven’t officially met him before. He was only slightly taller than Jungkook, but his muscular and wide form made him seem towering, alongside the power and authority that was pouring off of him in waves that attempted to drown me. His golden fiery eyes were fond yet firm on Jungkook’s squirming form, before they turned into the room and became as cold and hard as stone. I had to fight back the urge to kneel and bow to him just like we did to the emperor.

I was face to face with Namjoon, the head of Bangtan thunder, a fire dragon and one of the most easily recognisable faces of the dragonkind staying in or around the castle.

The second our eyes met I shot to my feet and bowed full 90 degrees to him, shocking the room into silence as everyone’s attention was suddenly drawn to me. When I straightened back up, Namjoon was giving me a strange look, but said nothing. He only pulled Jungkook with him to a sofa opposite of us and they made themselves comfortable.

“You’ve served me well since my coronation, general,” the emperor started again, “and my father for long years before that. You know it would be a pleasure to have my dragons in your family’s care.” Now it was my father who stood up and bowed fully, dragging me with him to extend the same courtesy, which I did with significantly more difficulty than when I bowed to Namjoon.

Duke Lee found his place on the same sofa as the two dragons, watching the exchange with fiery eyes, lips turned to a thin line. I didn’t even know what he was doing here, and his salty aura was really ruining the morning for me even further, so I did my best to ignore his very existence.

“Jungkook is your bonded, then?” this question was aimed at me, but the king was already eyeing the two Bangtan dragons sitting uncomfortably next to the slimy duke. They knew better than to speak and only inclined their heads, though I could see Namjoon fighting off words.

“Not yet, your majesty, though I hope for his acceptance,” I chose my words carefully, once again trying to dangerously toe the line of politeness and smarminess, desperately trying to please both sides and escape suspicion, but by the unhappy twitch of emperor’s lips and the cold expression on Namjoon’s face, I was failing at both.

“You have my approval, that’s more than law,” the gold-clad man stated firmly, voice void of the falseness it held before, “Do you want him to be yours?” This was the real man on the throne. Only now we truly had the pleasure of meeting him.

Now, that was the question, wasn’t it? Everything and more on the line with a single word – yes, of course I wanted to bond Jungkook. Did his thunder wish for the same? Would they ever forgive me for not giving them a choice? Those both had the same answer, one whose outcome I had to risk either way, and I hated it. Not more than them, though.

“Yes, your majesty,” I settled for, not wanting to drag it out. It was safer to stick to short answers and the man himself wasn’t interested in anything more. Namjoon sat in his place, frozen – not with shock, I don’t think at that point he had it in him to be surprised at this anymore. It felt more like resignation. Jungkook still looked the same, looked at me the same, but the heaviness in his shoulders spoke of his mate’s emotional turmoil.

“Very well,” were the next emperor’s words and with that it was decided. I sat back down and kept my head hung low. I was too guilt-ridden to look at the dragons anymore, the humiliation swirled in my stomach and made me sick, and all I wanted was to just have this all behind me. Once bonded, it would get easier – and then a whole lot more difficult.

“Duke, how is the rest of the unit?”

Well, that had my attention, but I pretended not to watch the exchange, keeping my gaze at the table and the variety of colourful chocolate sweets that still sat untouched on the beautiful decorative plate. I just saw Namjoon’s tense form and Jungkook’s squirming legs while he found it hard to settle down into the furnishing. The straight posture of my brother to my side told me he was also diligently keeping up, though I couldn’t understand why this would fall under the umbrella of his interests. My brother was a shadow, he had nothing to do with the horns.

But the most curious was that Lee seemed to be involved to this extent.

“Excellent, our empire, from what I’ve heard three others have already found their dragons as well,” the duke’s irksome voice replied, and I was minutely reminded of baron Kim and his overt friendliness, “Only two remain undecided.”

When did he become the spokesperson of Qinglong? As far as I was aware, he had nothing to do with the unit. I haven’t even really seen him around the dragon-knights, so how come he was suddenly being summoned like this to speak of the unit and the new arrivals? How has he managed to weasel his way in here, when just a few months back he was mostly whining about mining and gems?

“Splendid. I want the bonding ceremony to happen in three days,” the sovereign demanded, in the manner that he was used to – speaking it into existence, “It will be the full moon. Make sure the others are ready as well.” There was some more small-talk, mostly the duke bending over backwards to agree and promise he will make it happen, while the rest of us watched him with varying stages of appalment.

“Oh, that’s right duke, I’ve heard your son showed a brilliant performance with a sword,” it was a statement uttered thoughtlessly as part of the polite conversation, but just as the information sunk into my brain and I froze, I saw Jungkook do the same. Almost on instinct we looked to each other, similar sense of horror looming over us both, and I saw Namjoon’s eyes flit between us in alarm out of the corner of my eye.

The bad premonition got confirmed when the duke suddenly straightened in joy, and if he had a tail, it would be wagging wildly behind him at that moment, and he started prattling off about his son championing the banquet.

Peacock. His son was Peacock.

Well, that didn’t complicate anything at all! I should have fucking known the moment I looked at that bastard, this particular brand of being an awful person truly did run in the family. And it explained the duke being all salty and mad about me interacting with Bangtan. With him weaselling into the emperor’s graces and into the higher layers of the dragon unit, he most probably aimed for his son to be the one to snatch Jungkook or Jimin. I wondered whether his son was one of the two who still didn’t find their dragons or whether they managed to find someone pleasing enough. I thought back to the poor dragon with fire red hair and hoped that he wasn’t a potential connection to that ass.

It also explained the sudden change of the banquet activities and the fact that Peacock knew of the details before anyone else did. It wasn’t because Lord Kim was sucking up to his father, it was because Duke Lee somehow found a way to involve himself with the unit.

Oh, father would not be happy about that…

“Your majesty,” Namjoon’s deep rumbling voice cut through the duke’s uninteresting chatter, and immediately commanded the attention of the whole room, “If you don’t mind the suggestion, I had hoped that young mistress Kang would be first introduced to the thunder before we make the decision to bond with her. Three days is quite fast.” Clearly the date bothered him quite a lot, and I felt a pang in my heart at the closed off unhappy expression on his face when he spoke of me.

But before the emperor could answer him, and by the look on his face he wasn’t very happy with the dragon, Jungkook hurriedly interjected. “I have already made the decision to bond with Y/N-ssi,” tumbled out of his mouth in a rush and surprised both me and Namjoon. I felt a light blush rise to my cheeks and this time my heart hurt from the timid joy at such an earnest confession, while Namjoon watched his youngest mate with hard warning eyes.

To everybody else in the room though it felt like a hasty attempt to smooth out the fire dragon’s uncompromising words, including the visibly displeased sovereign sitting above us like a ruler of the universe.

“The decision has been made, dragon,” the golden man spit out, a beastly sneer sneaking onto his face when he looked over the hundreds of years old magical being that he thought was beneath him, “You have two days to introduce her to the thunder.”

I was getting ready to intercept and try to save the situation a little, syphon away a little bit of that anger the man clearly felt at not being listened to unconditionally, and as much as that made me dislike him even more, I did have to suck up to him in situations like these. But then he scoffed and continued.

“Or better yet, do it today. That’s an order.” All the peace-making words died in my throat, and I nervously glanced towards the fire dragon, who was discreetly trying to hide the daggers in his eyes. He said nothing and nodded, holding Jungkook’s wrist. The younger dragon looked towards me with troubled eyes, and that was that. Stellar.

My irritation towards the emperor steadily rose, as he seemed to be adamant on making this as hard for me as possible, so I just quietly gulped everything down and sat patiently and politely by my father’s side.

The rest of the meeting flew by and I barely even paid attention, too busy trying to think through the buzz of nerves how to ease the tension, but ultimately deciding that I had to ride this one out, see and think quick on my feet based on their reactions. Namjoon, similar to Hoseok yesterday, had that air of gentleness when he looked to Jungkook, and while that all disappeared the moment his eyes weren’t on his mate, I still hoped he wouldn’t be unmovable. I’d learn what I’d have to do to earn his trust, all in good time.

In the meantime I let myself be comforted by the fact that Jungkook seemed to be fully in acceptance of this bond. I wondered whether he was able to feel anything from me. Maybe my genuinity shined through the connection, maybe deep down he felt he could trust me. I desperately didn’t want to let him down.

When the emperor finally sent us on our way, my family didn’t even waste time talking to me. With a curt nod both the men stepped through the door and set out towards the Academy, only my father pausing shortly to send me a distinctive warning look that screamed ‘don’t fuck this for us’ before he walked off.

Jungkook was cautiously smiling my way, but Namjoon next to him stood tensely, unreadable gaze glued to my father’s back. I hoped that there wasn’t much bad blood between them, but given my father’s personality you simply couldn’t spend the last 35 years in the same circles without inevitably ending up hating him, so that was probably a foolish wish.

When the golden gaze shifted to me it felt like a whole mountain was suddenly sitting on my shoulders, the weight and depth of his eyes pressing me into the ground. He was a respectable man, taking his place of standing between his thunder and the emperor very seriously, and it reflected all in his straight back and dark eyes. To me it was the first time I found myself firmly in the centre of his attention, and I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of that stare that felt like it was burning through me straight to the deepest most hidden and vulnerable places in my soul.

He wasn’t happy with me. He didn’t like me accepting on behalf of Jungkook. I could read it all there, and I felt deeply ashamed.

The silence stretching was weighing down heavily on me, I couldn’t help myself but shake in the tense atmosphere. Even Jungkook only quietly watched his thunder leader, not daring to speak out while Namjoon’s calculating gaze took me in.

Finally buckling under that stare I hesitantly bent at the waist, bowing to the man in the same manner I did to all the other dragons from this thunder I met, but inside I was second-guessing everything.

“Authority, it is an honour to meet you,” it was a miracle I didn’t stumble all over my words and stutter, that was the effect the dragon had on people around him. I saw the surprise written over his face at the title used, Jungkook smiling proudly next to him and trying to catch his eye in a ‘look at me, I was right!!’ way.

The term ‘authority’ was an old title (well, now it was an old title, just a few hundred years back it was completely normal) used for leaders of thunders. It was the correct way of addressing the dragons in positions of power among their peers, and while it was a little heavy-handed in the human language, it was a direct translation from draconic. It didn’t need to make perfect sense in the context of our speak. And it wasn’t really used here anymore.

I would bet that most didn’t even know a term like this existed – and I wouldn’t have known either if it wasn’t for Hwan who taught me a little about dragon history and hierarchy.

“No need to address me as such, I hardly am an authority anymore,” the man grumbled, but his energy was a lot less hostile. Now he just seemed resigned, which also wasn’t good. I didn’t want to argue with him, so I just decided to let it go.

“Namjoon-ssi, if today isn’t suitable for you, I can come a different day,” I offered him, head still humbly lowered, “Or I can come for dinner.” The man just waved his hand around like dismissing an annoying fly and set out, Jungkook scrambling to follow after him.

“There’s no reason to. Just come,” he said simply over his shoulder, not really looking back to see whether I went after or not. With a deep sigh I willed my feet to run after them, resigning myself to a cluster-fuck of an afternoon.

Their town house was on the other side of the castle, hidden in the shadow of the big black rock the structure sat on – maybe somewhat poetically. All in all it looked very similar to ours, which was slightly worrying given the fact that our household hosted only three people, while this thunder had seven. Though mated dragons would most probably have less need for individual bedrooms, but also there was absolutely no space for them to turn forms.

Which, unfortunately, was a thing that dragons rarely got to do unless humans commanded them to. Even though they needed to regularly spend time in both forms, people often got antsy around the massive beasts and didn’t like to see it. So dragons mostly turned only if they needed to fly or they left the city and spent a few hours out in the woods.

I took the dwelling in – it seemed quite ordinary and it was obvious on first glance that it wasn’t a place they considered home. The most beautiful and cared for part of the house was the little garden in the inner courtyard, which I supposed was Hoseok’s work.

The house was quiet as we stepped through the main gate, it seemed completely empty and for a moment I wondered whether I’d have to spent hours sitting here only with Jungkook and Namjoon, because I wasn’t so sure I was quite ready for that.

But it was an unnecessary fear as I came to realise when we stepped inside, heading towards the dining room – the thunder was already sitting ready around a traditional table with pillows strewn around and a warm feast waiting for us to dig in. Three pillows were empty – two at the opposite ends of the table and one to the right side of the closer empty one.

Both dragons left me standing unsure in the doorway into the room, heading straight for the table – Namjoon sat down at the head of the table, next to a broad-shouldered pink-haired man with massive wings spanning from his back and a very unfriendly looking man with long black hair and black horns curling around the crown of his head. That one I recognised – it was very hard to forget Yoongi once you’d seen him once. Especially when you’ve found yourself at the receiving end of that stare. Which I had before. It was not pleasant.

For the second time that day I found myself bowing respectfully, though now to considerably bigger number of dragons.

“Thank you for having me,” it was hard to say in a volume louder than a whisper – it felt like it should be whispered. It was useless politeness, given the fact that they were ordered to have me for lunch, but it was better than not saying anything.

Jungkook, who took the empty seat by the end of the table patted the pillow next to him and I slowly walked over to take it, folding myself down. No one spoke. When I chanced looking up, I found that their gazes seemed quite neutral and they were just taking me in. Well, except for Yoongi, who never gave much thought to pointless politeness – and strangely enough Hoseok, whose eyes had something unreadable but definitely not good in them.

This seat put me directly opposite of Namjoon, and much like before in the hall he left the silence stretch until I had time to spiral all the way down thinking I had already managed to fuck up a first meeting given the fact the cheerful nature dragon was looking at me like he’d need to protect his den from my murderous rage by the end of this meal.

“Let me properly introduce myself,” I started in the end, though at that point it already felt a little too late, but the quiet had a way of messing with my head. I had spent too many hours under my father’s wordless disappointment to keep my cool under such heavy gazes. “I am Kang Y/N of the northern clan.” Nothing more was needed to say.

Everybody already seemed to know though, so at least we saved ourselves that awkward realisation.

“Welcome to our house, Kang Y/N of the northern clan,” the pink-haired dragon spoke, and I was so relieved I could cry of happiness. The man had an aura of unnatural beauty about him and in my head I went through the packmates I still haven’t met trying to guess who he was. Taking in the air of maturity and a sense of duty that exuded from him, the firm yet gentle voice he spoke with and the wings that looked very uncomfortably folded over his back and bent over the ground, I was betting on the eldest.

“That’s Jin-hyung,” Jungkook whispered to me, though his voice was still loud enough to be heard through the whole room, drawing some smiles from the rest of the men. It broke the ice a little, draining away a bit of that tenseness from their shoulders, which I was infinitely grateful for.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Seokjin-ssi,” I greeted the dragon properly, bowing once more with a small smile – which he accepted graciously.

Turning to the two other dragons I’ve met before I gave each a small bow as well. “And nice to see you again, Jimin-ssi, Hoseok-ssi.” Their smiles were significantly less enthusiastic, but I’d take it. Better than nothing.

Now there were two dragons left – one that I recognised as Yoongi and one that had to be Taehyung, but neither of them seemed eager to introduce themselves. While Yoongi still kept his air of careful hostility, Taehyung looked at me curiously but with very obvious apprehension. I saw his hand tightly gripping onto Hoseok sitting next to him and given the fact that he sat at the end of the table, opposite of Jungkook, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. I tried not to take it personally.

Choosing to stop dancing around it, I took the moment to look into his eyes, hoping to convey as much genuineness as possible in that single glance and said: “It is an honour to meet you as well, Taehyung-ssi.”

The man didn’t look away, didn’t flinch, only turned his head slightly as if thinking. His eyes took me in, as if looking at me for the first time, before he finally straightened and leaned away from his older mate, instead choosing to watch me with intensity rivalling that of Namjoon. But while under the Authority’s eyes I felt like he was searching my soul for any wrongdoing, Taehyung’s eyes were like those of a curious child faced with an exciting experiment.

I had no idea whether that was a good thing, but it seemed better than before.

The last dragon didn’t even really give me a chance to speak, just nodded at me recognising that I knew him and to move on. So I did. Out of everyone here, the atmokinetic was the one I wanted to antagonise the least, so I just let it go and settled more into my seat.

“Well, let’s dig in,” Seokjin announced, still a little wooden, but the prospect of food worked like a charm to loosen up the atmosphere. Now we didn’t need to speak and the silence could be filled with sounds of eating, saving us from the inevitable awkward ‘what are your intentions with my son’ conversation.

“So, Y/N.” Or not.

I looked up to Namjoon, who sat tensely in his seat, something little pulled onto his plate just so he wouldn’t stand out, but both his hands were clasped together in front of his face and he peered at me over them.

“Yes, Authority,” I answered, hoping he wouldn’t take offence to me bringing back the title now that we were in the privacy of his home and thunder, and while he didn’t react much, at least he didn’t tell me to stop. Everyone else at the table though turned to look at me shocked, and I burned under those six gazes, rather choosing not to dissect the meanings behind their eyes for the sake of my own psyche.

Seokjin at least seemed somewhat appeased, though Yoongi started frowning even more if that was even possible. I felt the examining probing gaze of Taehyung, but I didn’t turn.

I wondered whether I was trying a little too hard a little too soon. I hoped that I was laying down the foundation of future partnerships. If nothing else, I knew that Jungkook strangely remained firmly on my side.

“Why Qinglong?” Namjoon asked, neutrally watching me over the rim of a glass he picked up. If possible, my heart sped up even more when all the dragons paused and looked towards me, eyes reflecting various stages of curiosity and mistrust.

“I…” I felt my throat go dry, thoughts racing in my head, all trying to come up with the best way to put this without antagonising anyone even more.

“I’ve honestly always wanted to work with dragons,” I settled on, giving them a shaky smile. No one reacted, their faces stayed passive and gazes inquisitive, waiting for me to continue. “I had a teacher, when I was younger-” I was prepared to launch into the whole explanation again, but Seokjin’s quick response stopped me.

“Oh, that’s right!” the pink-haired man exclaimed, “Jimin and Jungkook mentioned the dragon you knew. Hwan, am I right?” I nodded, a little shocked, hesitantly looking over to Jimin. Jungkook telling his thunder was expected, but Jimin wasn’t even a part of that conversation. What could he possibly had to say about it?

The water dragon in question stubbornly avoided my gaze though, watching his plate as he chased unruly vegetables around with his spoon. He had nothing more to add now. The anxiety of his sudden change in demeanour was haunting me – of course it was something different to joke around when we barely knew each other, but I would have lied if I pretended his new attitude didn’t sting.

“Yes, that was- is his name,” I stumbled through the sentence, dragging my eyes back to the eldest who was giving me a stunted polite smile. He tried really hard to maintain some sense of normalcy, and for that I was grateful, now that Jimin and Hoseok barely looked at me, Yoongi and Namjoon outright didn’t like me, Taehyung unsettled me and Jungkook awkwardly sat through it all with a smile on his face.

“Was? Is?” the dragon repeated with an uncomfortable confused smile, “I only met a single dragon named Hwan, and I doubt you met the same one. I don’t recall any other dragons of that name.”

“I am not sure where he is now,” I repeated the words I said to Jungkook yesterday noon, “He spent only a year at our fief. He and his knight-“

“Were travelling knights,” Seokjin jumped in, the smile a little more wooden, “Yes, Jimin mentioned you said that.” The atmosphere in the room was plunged into something more tense and uncomfortable, I could feel it charged between us.

“Therefore,” I forced out a little firmer than I wanted to, “I cannot say whether you knew him or not. I don’t know when and for how long they were in Wuyun, if even." Seokjin looked at me for few long moments, the table silent. No one was saying anything, all the dragons watching the interaction with bated breaths – especially Jungkook who for once actually squirmed with nerves, unsure of how the situation would spin.

But then Seokjin smiled again, digging back into his food with a polite expression. The others followed his example and the table rang with cutlery clinking against porcelain. I nervously followed suit. The stress took a toll on me, and I felt almost resignation settling into me. I was tired, and I was fighting a losing battle.

I knew I had to try harder, longer, and I was prepared for that. I’d earn it.

The dinner carried on, awkward small-talk springing up here or there between bouts of tense silence. None of the dragons tried to stray towards any conflicting topics again, choosing to talk about benign things, mostly with each other letting me tag along.

Yoongi didn’t say a single word the entire evening, and neither did Taehyung, though both of their energies varied strongly.

I desperately tried to hold on, letting the dragons speak and only occasionally adding something, eyes ever so often searching Jungkook’s, begging for the reassurance that I knew I’d find there. And he always delivered, smiling at me in a way that said ‘don’t worry, it’ll be okay’, and I so desperately wanted to believe that. Guess I’d have to give it time.

The first dinner could have gone better, could have been less charged, less infused with unsureness and fear, but that evening I still left filled with hope quivering in my heart, buzzing with resolve I hadn’t known for a long while.

“Duke Lee weaseled his way to the Emperor like the rat he is,” the general hissed, and I sighed into my cup knowing exactly what was coming next. “I made a mistake not paying attention to Qinglong. He thinks he can fuck me over, sneaking through the back like this. He’s always had it in for me.”

I stabbed my fork around my plate, chasing the food around and playing with it, trying not to catch the man’s attention. Whenever he got like this it was rough, and sometimes no matter what you did you still ended up at the receiving end of his fury.

He didn’t take well to any perceived competition, and Duke Lee sleazing his way into father’s personal meeting with the emperor definitely displeased him.

Even with the slight pride I was able to win him in these past few days, during the duration of this very uncomfortable lunch I felt his eyes stray to me more than once, an unreadable look on his face. I knew it quite well – he was planning something, and I didn’t like that somehow I seemed to be involved in that.

My brother sat opposite of me as usual, gaze curious and impassive all at once trained on the quietly raging man. He also seemed to be aware that he was in the clear for this one, given the relaxed nature of his usually tense form.

I was waiting for the shoe to drop, attempting to at least somewhat enjoy the food presented – after all, it wasn’t the cook’s fault the general chose this time to throw a temper tantrum and spin his evil plans.

“Y/N.”

I froze mid-bite, heart contracting painfully for an agonising moment before I untensed and turned to face the older man.

“Yes, father?” I hoped that bundle of nerves choking me wasn’t audible in my voice, that I didn’t sound as strained as I felt. I was hoping to escape this for now, though I knew I couldn’t keep the man off my back for long with just a few promises to fly Bangtan.

“There is a general leading the Qinglong unit, right?” he asked, far-away contemplative look in his eyes as he barely regarded me.

“Yes, father, Qinglong is led by General Yun and her dragoness Ha-rin,” I answered dutifully, a bad feeling settling into my stomach and weighing it down. The man only hummed, swirling the glass in hand. He minutely looked towards my brother, the two men holding eye contact for few gut-wrenching seconds before he turned back to me.

“I will look into the affiliations, but considering the size of the unit I cannot imagine there’s many ranked,” the general scoffed, something vile creeping into his eyes, “There’s at most two captain generals, which would mean around four corporals and four captains. Horns have always banked more on infamy then numbers.” The cruelty in his mocking sneer never failed to shock me, not when he always found a new way to remind me of all of his worst qualities. Just like today.

“Man-young is working hard to climb the shadows’ ranks,” father said and gestured towards my brother who still leisurely ate dinner, “I will not have you pull him down by not trying for the same. Bangtan is only the beginning.” I’ve already heard these demands before, but he’s never said them with so much undebatable conviction. There was no arguing – and I would not attempt to.

“Yes father,” I recited obediently, bowing my head in show of submission and satisfying his ego. What was it they said? Revenge tastes sweeter when the lamb trusts you with their very life? The betrayal never feels better than when they never thought you’d be the one to stab the knife in?

My father thought he knew me the best. He thought he knew how to control me the best. I fought to stifle my smile. I still had a surprise or two down my sleeves, general.

“I will pull some strings, they will not embarrass me by not having you promoted by the end of the year,” the man continued, lost to his own thoughts swirling around in that machine for destruction he called brain, hand carding through his greying black short hair and silver stubble, stormy grey eyes glazed as he already planned his next steps. “Once you become captain, you need to pull your own weight. I want you a corporal within the next year, Y/N. I hope you chose the right dragon for battle.”

I ignored the remark about Jungkook and nodded again, head still bowed politely as I agreed once more, the false promises falling out of my lips easily. My brother watched me, eyes inquisitive but none-the-wiser, and I smirked his way. I saw the exact moment disappointment ran through him, thinking I’m still nothing more than that rebellious kid hell-bent on making his life harder, and though it stung, it was the better option. He was not my friend and he would not be my ally, no matter what.

“You’ll be my tool to claiming Qinglong back to my favour. I will not stand for that vermin trying to run things on my turf.”

This was between me and the goddess of creation, the mother of nature.

But one thing I did have to give to my father – there was one thing he was most definitely right about. Bangtan was only the beginning.

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Ultimate Au Guide (LMK)

All my Lego Monkey Kid Au’s in one big post. ( i don't wanna talk about how long this took me. don't ask me. I'll cry...)

Warning: this thing is huge

This consists of current Au’s, future Au’s, Au’s of Au’s, and anything in between!

Current Au’s;

Taken

Summary: Wukong and Macaque unknowingly have twins. Before they can realize this miracle, one (MK) is Taken away to the human realm by Nezha. All to prevent the Jade Emperor from killing this child and starting another war.

This story focuses on Qi Xiaotian, the Monkey Prince, and young “human” orphan MK as the two try to reunite while also avoiding every third party force trying to use the two for their own personal gain.

Fanfic: Yes here is the link

Ships:

Red x Xiaoxiao (Xiaotian the twin, not MK) but… you know, there might be some MKxRedSon. (It’ll be dramatic, trust me)

Shadowpeach

FreeNoodles (Tang X Pigsy)

AzureLion x Ao Lie

My art:

First (From old account. It's crazy how much of a change my art and character design has come from this first post)

Older designs I really did love Xiaoxiao's outfit here though. I should bring it back. Maybe as his "he's discovered himself" outfit XD

This should lead to all art

Fanart:

forever-in-dreamland

shiomik

pumpk1nappl3p1

litt1e-prince

litt1e-prince (Xiaoxiao's room!)

sketchskelonkey

cinnamelrollin

jeez-a

clementine-shine

Status: Incomplete

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 6 or 7 /10

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The Day the World Eclipsed

Summary: After losing his Mate and child 500 years ago, a miracle occurs when Sun Wukong is gifted with the return of his child, Qi Xiaotian. His little Star, his everything, Wukong dedicates himself to being a better Father and man. This is all tested when he is reunited with the reincarnations of his companions to the West and his long-lost Mate returned from the grave. Custody battles and shared parenting can be such a messy thing~

Fanfic: Yes, here is the Link

Ships:

-Shadow Peach (past mention, and then very slow burn forgiveness)

Spicy Noodles (possibly future, still under debate)

My Art:

First Piece (Still on my old account)

If I had to pick a cover for this au, it would be this (also on old account)

Older MK sneak peak

This will lead to all other art

Fan Art

lagt-duck

dumbbitch2-0

a-small-tired-lonely-potato 

crypticpaw

litt1e-prince

Status: Incomplete

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 4 or 5 /10

----

The First Gift

(One shot) (This does have a sequel underway)

Summary: A peek into Sun Wukong and Macaque's life before they join the Brotherhood to take down the Jade Emperor. Wukong's got a big plan under his sleeve, and Macaque has no idea. With the help of the Brotherhood, Wukong is positive his plan to ask Macaque to marry him will be flawless. (Spoiler; it isn't)

Fanfic: Yes, here it is!

Ships:

Shadowpeach

My Art: Amazingly I've never drawn anything for this one

Fan Art: None

Status: Completed

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 0/10 (it's super Fluff)

-----

Tragedy of Six

Summary: The world was never the same when The Lady Bone Demon attacked. By her hands, many were injured, and many more were killed. The Brotherhood could not escape this touch, losing their children to her conflict. Yet unknowingly, these same children survived. They are being raised by The Lotus Prince Nezha, who is being forced to train and prepare these children to be soldiers for the Lady Bone Demon. (And inspired Fic on both Taken and "Blood and Bones" by EmerialynCodeVenice)

Fanfic: Yes, here is the link

Ships:

Shadowpeaxh

Azure Lion X Ao Lie

Sandy X The Huntsman Spider

Any future ships with the 6 kids are up for debate and what the audience likes best

My Art:

Link This should lead to all art

Fan art:

violetjedisylveon

Status: Uncompleted

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 9/10

--------

Fix and Mend

Summary: Macaque is trying to find his way in the world and his current place in life. Getting himself a part-time job at Pigsy's Noodles he discovered two very interesting facts. 1, Wukong clearly has the hots for him, and 2, MK is secretly dating Red Son. Now he just needs to figure out what to do with these two tidbits.

Fanfic: Yes, here is the link~

Ships:

SpicyNoodles

ShadowPeach

My Art:

I amazingly only drew one thing for this one so far

Other Art:

Status: Incomplete

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 1/10

----

Choose Your Own Adventure

Summary: This is a Tumblr-focused Choose Your Own Adventure. Completely decided by the votes of the audience. The first two are basically a test to see how well I can do something like this.

Fanfic: No, but it is here on Tumblr

-First Adventure (Completed)

Second Adventure (In Progress)

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 2/10

----

Future Au’s:

Fading Moon

Summary: MK believes he is a normal human boy, with a normal human Dad, and normal not ancient Uncles. That is until he meets Red Son, the Demon Bull Prince, and the truth of his heritage starts to unfold. As well as discovering the unfortunate fate of his Baba, a person MK had never had the chance to meet until he was 19.

Fanfic: Not yet? A have a lot written for this though

Ships:

Traffic Light Trio~ (Red Son X Mei X MK)

Sandy X The Huntsman Spider

ShadowPeach (Past mention)

Macaque X Erlang (Not sure what this ship is called. Present mention.. and.. toxic version of it. This story is a whirlwind people)

Free Noodles~ (Slow burn~)

My Art:

I do have a master post just for this au since I plan it to be more tumblr focused for now Link

Fan Art: None currently

Status: Incomplete

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 6/10

--------

The Second Gift

(Squeal to The First Gift)

Summary: Being together with Wukong could bring Macaque no greater joy. No means or way could make his life better than where it was. After a strange occurrence with his magic, Macaque realizes happiness can always grow.

Fanfic: Not yet but it is slowly getting there~

Ships:

Shadow Peach

Gajasimha shipping (Azure X Yellow Tusk)

My Art: None yet

Fan Art: Nada~

Status: Still in progress

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 0/10 FLUFF BABY~

-------

Missing the Then and Now

Summary: Macaque wakes up with no memories of where he is, or WHO he is. The explanation for this is a large and very deep injury that wraps around his entire skull. Almost like something squeezed until he popped. Now, however, he finds himself on a ship with some Monkey Kid, his family and friends, and a sun-kissed Monkey King who won't stop looking at him. And what is worse, none of them want to explain how he got this way.

Fanfic: Nothing yet. But man the word doc is getting pretty hefty

Ships:

Shadow Peach (Past mention)

Shadow Peach (Slow burn/One-sided for a time?)

Macaque X The Mayor (past Mention) (this one is really wild guys.)

My Art: None so far

Fan Art: None so far

Status: It's on it's way

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 6/10

--------

Eternal

Summary: When Macaque was killed, he expected his soul to be taken to the Diyu. Instead, he finds himself stuck to Wukong- the very man who ended his life. When Soul collectors come to see what the hold up is, they inform him that as the two had been tethered in life, so too are they in death. Macaque will only ever be free when Wukong has found peace and moves on. This goes on for a long time, yet when Macaque feels the tether start to loosen, he panics and realizes- he doesn't want Wukong to let him go.

Fanfic: I have too many Word docs and this is one of them~

Ships: ShadowPeach

My Art: None yet

Fan Art: None Yet

Status: Stuck in the world doc abyss

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 7/10

-----

Torn Between A Star

(A sort of alternate direction for "The Day The World Eclipsed)

Summary: Macaque survives the fight against Wukong, forced to return home. Terribly weakened and knowing he could not defend the egg that housed Wukong and his child, he flees to his Sister- Princess Iron Fan. Together they live there until the child is born. 5 years later, Wukong's Journey To the West is done. Returning home to no mate or child, he is desperate to track them down and bring them home. A certain Bull King and Iron Fan stand in his way.

Fanfic: So... Word doc. Big one. Real sad.

Ships: Shadow Peach (Past mention and struggling with current romance)

My Art: There will be some

Fan Art: Maybe one day?

Status: THE DOC HAS IT IN IT'S CLUTCHES~

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 5/10

--------

When Lions and Dragons Meet

Summary: Taking place in the years of Wukong's Journey Westward, Wukong stumbles upon his Brothers. Wanting to settle things Wukong meets up with Azure Lion to find peace- and surprisingly finds it. For a second. That is until he finds out that Azure Lion has had... relations, with a certain Dragon that currently accompanies Wukong and the other Pilgrims in the form of a horse. And is not keen on letting Azure continue this courting.

Fanfic: I swear guys- I got- I got soo many words docs. There aint a fanfic but there will beeee one day.

Ships:

Azure Lion X Ao Lie

Shadow Peach (Kind of a mention?)

My Art You are getting some art. It's cute

Fan Art: ...I mean... if ya want to?

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 2/10

----

Seen Through My Eyes

Summary: Wukong thought Macaque had abandoned him when he was trapped below the mountain. His Mate never visited, never once showed his face. Then, many years into his imprisonment, someone stumbles into his cave. They blindly feel around, unable to see anything in front of their face. To Wukongs shock, it's Macaque. His Mate's pure white fur is tainted black, his ears bigger than normal, and his eyes- his eyes are gone. He smiles, however, hearing Wukong's heart. "I finally found you".

Fanfic: None yet

Ships:

ShadowPeach

My Art: I personally drew some stuff but never posted it

Fan Art: I dare you all XD

Status: Sitting in a Google doc, festering away from the angst

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 8/10

-----

The choices we make, and the regrets we take with us

Summary: Lady Bone Demon had whispered a secret into MK's ear just seconds before Wukong arrived. Now safe from her clutches and seeking the Samadhi fire, surprisingly with Macaque helping them out, Wukong notices that MK can't stand to look at him. What had that Witch whispered to make MK's gaze so steely?

Fanfic: Nope~ Not yet~

Ships:

FreeNoodles

ShadowPeach (Past Mention)

My Art: yes!

Fan Art: None

Status: In my Google Docs and covered with sobbing emotions from the one person I let read it

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 9 or 10/10

----

Au’s of Au’s:

I'll have you all know that ALL of these were given to me by YOU GUYS. You are to blame for putting these in my head! XD

UnTaken

Summary : A "What if" to my Taken Story. What if MK was never Taken and actually got a chance to grow up with Xiaoxiao and his parents? Xiaotian would probably be called Xiaohua in this one, and MK would go back to being Qi Xiaotian.

Fanfic: No, but it's on its way

Ships:

ShadowPeach

Azure Lion X Ao Lie

Red Son X MK? Maybe Red Son X Xiaohua? Maybe they both fight over him?? Maybe they share him?? I dunno yet.

Tang X Pigsy

My Art

This will lead to all art

Fan Art: Would be cute but none yet~

Status: Tumblr grown so far but I got a good amount of stuff written in a google doc

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 0 or 1 /10

-------

Taken Apprentice

Summary: Based on Taken once more, but with the twist that instead of taking MK to the human world, Nezha took MK with him to the celestial Realm. From there he raised MK himself as his apprentice. Hiding him with a glamor and instilling a misguided loyalty to the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor is insistent one of the twins must still die, but agrees to keep MK around, hoping to find a chance to kill the other twin instead and keep the loyal MK as his own bodyguard.

Fanfic: I... I don't think it'll be a fanfic. Like- Oh my gosh, so much writing. I wouldn't know how to stop.

Ships:

Shadowpeach, of course.

Probably Red Son X Xiaoxiao again

Some Azure Lion X Ao Lie

Uuuuuuuuu- other wise I dunno?

My Art

Only one thing so far

Fan Art: I would die if you did

Status: Tumblr based so far. I haven't written anything for this. I will only if begged and bribed.

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 4/10

-------

Taken Reverse/Swapped

Summary: Another Taken Au. XiaoXiao and MK are born, but instead of MK being taken Xiaoxiao is instead. He would be Xiaohua in this one. Xiaohua, who is abandoned at an orphanage, winds up being taken in by the Spider Queen when he shows promise as a thief. Xiaohua is iving the life of crime, while in return MK (Xiaotian) is being raised to follow in his Father's footsteps as a hero. The two eventually meet and clash.

Fanfic: I haven't even finished Taken there is no way XD

Ships:

Hmmmmmm. Mabe MK X Red Son?

Maybe Enemy to lovers Xiaoxiao X Red Son? I dunno

ShadowPeach

Sandy X Huntsman Spider

My art

The start of the madness

Fan Art (looks into your very soul)

Status: It exists in tumblr and thats it right now

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 4/10

------

Parent Trap

Summary: Based on Taken once more. Isn't quite like the normal LMK lore. When MK and his twin brother Xiaohua were babies, their parents separated, each taking one of the infants with them. MK went with Wukong, and Xiaohua with Macaque. When the two get older, they manage to miraculously meet at a Summer Camp and discover the truth. Now these two working on a plan to reunite their parents.

Fanfic .... T-There might be one in the future... maybe...

Ships:

ShadowPeach (Past Mention and reunion)

Ao Lie X Azure (Slow burn)

Macaque X Mayor (The kids are trying to end this one)

My art:

Only this so far

Fan art: None currently

Status: This one is in a word doc, okay?? There is writing on it!

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 2/10

-------

The cancelled Au’s??

Strange title I Know, but it’s the best way to describe this section

-The Day the World Eclipsed (the Original Plot)

-most may know this, but I changed the plot of the Story within the first few chapters. When Wukong left to head to the City, intent on finding a new home for his son… he was originally intended to go through with that.

I have Many MANY chapters of this unfolding- of Wukong actually going through with abandoning MK.

It was farrrr different than what the story has changed to now. And I love the direction the story is now going, but I had a lot of angst planned for the original :)

One day I might even post what originally was intended to happen.

Angst Rating: (1 being not that bad and 10 being it intending to stab you in the heart and twist)

Angst Rating: 10/10

---

You did it! You are at the end! Feel free to either comment here or ask in my ask box about any of these~!

[thelordofgifs]

Ranking all the Kings of Gondor

Based on what, you may ask? Vibes. Let's go.

Eldacar. Twenty-first King. THE bestest boy in the legendarium. The hero of the Kin-strife, the archetype of immigrant child trauma, the exiled king, the vengeful father... we love him so so so much ok!!

Aragorn. First High King of the Reunited Kingdom. Yes I know your list would put him at the top but this is my list and I do what I want. Anyway he's wise and kind and "the hands of the king are the hands of a healer" and he's brave and clever and has an excellent fairy-tale romance going on and I am very much not immune to Viggo Mortensen covered in blood with unwashed hair.

Elendil. First High King. He's brave he's cool he's wise he DEFEATED SAURON. Love him.

Isildur. Second High King (co-ruler). Justice for my boy the movies did him so so dirty!! Anyway he saved the line of the White Tree and fought so so bravely and he did his best. I will not countenance Isildur slander actually.

Valacar. Twentieth King. Ranks this highly mostly because he's my blorbo Eldacar's father, but Valacar is cool! His father sent him to the Northmen to build an alliance and Valacar promptly fell in love with their chief's daughter instead. And then Vidumavi died long before he ever even became King and you have to wonder if Valacar feared he would outlive his children too :(

Aldamir. Twenty-third King. Also ranking highly mostly because of genetic proximity to my guy, but Aldamir is sooo tragic actually. He's a second son who never should have become King except his older brother was MURDERED and maybe he spent the rest of his life trying to live up to him!! Also he was also killed in battle which I am sad about. This family cannot catch a break.

Eärnur. Thirty-third and last King. This is the idiot who challenged the Witch-king of Angmar to single combat and was never seen again, but I have a soft spot for him on account of. that was really sexy.

Eldarion. Second High King of the Reunited Kingdom. We don't know much about Aragorn and Arwen's son, but movie!Eldarion is very cute which is enough to earn him a high rank.

Rómendacil II. Nineteenth King. An all-round competent guy who ruled as regent for years for first his lazy uncle and then his lazy father. Built the Argonath!! Also he's Eldacar's grandfather which again earns him points.

Eärnil II. Thirty-second King. Ended up with the crown after his predecessor and both his sons were killed in battle (although NOT his daughter. JUSTICE FOR FÍRIEL). Anyway Eärnil strikes me as a decent guy who was doing his best. Props to him for taking pains not to alienate the Dúnedain of Arthedain.

Ondoher. Thirty-first King. The aforementioned predecessor, who is mostly ranked highly because I feel bad that he died :( and he tried to ensure Gondor would still have an heir to the throne if he and his eldest son were killed! But his youngest son joined the battle in disguise and got killed anyway!

Minardil. Twenty-fifth King. Another tragic one, he was Eldacar's great-grandson and was slain in battle by the descendants of Castamir. I am upset about this.

Meneldil. Third King. We don't know much about him, but he was the first solo ruler of Gondor and also the last child born in Númenor before the Downfall, which is cool.

Telumehtar. Twenty-eighth King. Finally got rid of the last descendants of Castamir, excellent work.

Calimehtar. Thirtieth King. Defeated the Wainriders attacking Gondor in a great alliance with the Northmen, which we love to see. Also he built the White Tower of Minas Anor! Good for him.

Anárion. Second High King (co-ruler). He was initally a lot higher on the list because I feel for him always being overshadowed by his father and brother, but then I learned he was killed by a THROWN ROCK which is kind of pathetic ngl. Sorry, Anárion.

Tarondor. Twenty-seventh King. Had the unenviable task of rebuilding the realm after it was ravaged by the Great Plague, but unfortunately he moved out of Osgiliath for good (which makes me unreasonably sad. I love Osgiliath) and also allowed the watch on Mordor to lapse for good.

Eärendil. Fifth King. We don't know much about him, but his name is nice.

Anardil. Sixth King. We don't know much about him, but his name is also nice.

Telemnar. Twenty-sixth King. Died in the Great Plague, sad for him I guess.

Narmacil II. Twenty-ninth King. Slain in battle with Wainriders, made no impression on me at all.

Siriondil. Eleventh King. We know very little about him, but that's a good name.

Cemendur. Fourth King. Boring and doesn't even have a good name.

Turambar. Ninth King. Mainly this low down because THAT'S A TERRIBLE NAME WHAT ARE YOU THINKING.

Hyarmendacil II. Twenty-fourth King. Defeated the Haradrim in battle, good for him I guess.

Atanatar I. Tenth King. No personality. I don't like his name either.

Rómendacil I. Eighth King. Defeated some Easterlings in battle, but apparently not very well because they later killed him. Oh well.

Ciryandil. Fourtheenth King. A Ship-king, and I don't like Ship-kings (mostly because Castamir tried to be a Ship-king).

Ostoher. Seventh King. Didn't do much, although he started the practice of the King spending his summer in Minas Anor. Good for him? I guess?

Eärnil I. Another Ship-king. Died in a great storm, which is one of the perils associated with being a Ship-king!

Calmacil. Eighteenth King. Generally incompetent. Gains a couple of points for being Eldacar's great-grandfather.

Narmacil I. Seventeenth King. Also pretty incompetent. He let his nephew do all the work of ruling for him.

Atanatar II. Sixteenth King. Lived in indolence and splendour, and neglected the watch on Mordor which was not very wise of him!

Hyarmendacil I. Fifteenth King. Ok he actually sucks. The King who defeated the Haradrim and instituted the practice of taking their sons as hostages to live in the court of Gondor.

Tarannon. Twelfth King. The first of the Ship-kings, also known for his loveless marriage to his wife Berúthiel who gets blamed for everything for some reason.

Castamir the Usurper. (Technically) twenty-second King. Should not be on this list and is here purely so that I can say. FUCK. THIS. GUY.

[noirandchocolate]

Age of Calamity is such a funny game when you think about it because most of the characters go through Events and use their strengths and suffer hardships and stuff, but honestly they mostly end the game the same as they started it. It’s not “bad storytelling” or anything to have most of the main characters (Link, the Champions, Impa, etc) not change very much character-growth wise, I’m not insinuating that. They’re heroes and it’s fun to watch them BE heroes and in some cases have nice heartfelt moments together, etc.

But it’s just hilarious to me that the characters in the game who DO get some form of character development arc are:

3. King Rhoam (a distant third place but he does realize his kid’s interests were helpful not frivolous and he apologizes and lets her continue leading the army and fights by her side)

2. Zelda (expected, she is the main character after all, and she gets to grow from doubting herself based on her father’s words and how special and talented everyone around her seems to be in comparison, and being upset at not being able to help more, to realizing her worth as a capable leader whose love and passions were what saved everyone)

1. MASTER FUCKIN KOHGA (goes from trying to peace out and let his lackeys take care of every fight, to desperately NOT wanting to leave Sooga and the others behind (poorly and obviously hiding it behind “come on stick together so you can protect me!” while he as the PC for your first play of that mission is clearly doing all the work to protect them); ends up not only joining Zelda’s faction to protect/get revenge for his Clan despite his hereditary beef with the royal family, but PERSONALLY taking to the battlefield including in the final deadly dangerous missions; declares during that final battle that HE is gonna “send that giant menace packing,” ie the very same monstrous entity he previously served)

Like. It’s not even close. Master “Top Banana” “Kill You All To Death” Kohga. Has THE most character development in the game.

And it’s just. So unexpected and therefore great and entertaining to me.

[neoymm]

taken inspiration from Rozen Maiden (THE PEAKEST ANIME EVER)

and also i have no clue why this post is this long, im just rambling and yapping out of my head.

okay, so dolls.

billy and mary are the twin pair of dolls among the dolls siblings

they have exist for a while, like, in the 1800s perhaps, or earlier than 1500s because we got no clue when the dolls is actually made in the rozen maiden series 😔

they only given the name of William, later nicknamed to billy, and Mary stays as Mary, their father, the creator of the dolls, will be the wizard cuz he fits in that roll.

the other dolls is given the name of Frederick (later shorten to freddy), Darla, Pedro and Eugene.

they are dolls, but they are alive, because of one thing: father (/wizard). wanting to be the chosen one — a human; aka alice in rozen maiden; aka i have no idea the substitute name in this post.

CC and Marilyn are a couple, in 1940s, who happens to be archaeologists, found two strange letter in their two cases. and out of curiosity, they accepted the letter despite it being strange.

the letter stated: wind up or dont wind up

the couple thought it was weird and circled wind up.

immediately two wooden boxes appeared, they are big, like suitcases. so curious again, they opened it.

in the boxes, they found small humanoid things, dolls, and they look like twins pair of dolls. so Marilyn holds Mary, found the doll’s skin is very human-like. while CC found this wind up doll key and understood somewhat, that these dolls is a moveable dolls.

so he set the key, twirls it on billy and mary, the couple waited and slowly, the dolls move. but the movement is strange, it’s like a child learning how to walk but was more ‘dolly’ and ‘robotic’.

then the dolls opened their eyes on their own, getting use to the movement, becoming more ‘alive’. (WHICH THEY ARE, BECAUSE OF ROSA MYSTICA IN CANON ROZEN MAIDEN BEING THEIR SOUL)

the couple of course, shocked, wondering how the dolls works. and decided just to take the dolls as their ‘children’, aka take care of them. faking the dolls as their children because it’s insane to be seen with ‘alive dolls’. and the dolls passed as a literal 5 (or younger) years old.

the dolls introduced themselves as Billy and Mary, with the last name ‘Batson’. they are the third and fourth doll.

later, CC and Marilyn finds it strange that the dolls will disappear to somewhere in a while, like middle of the night-ish. so all on that adventurous spirit, they followed the dolls and found out there’s a mirror connecting to the other dolls’ worlds.

and they found mary and billy fighting another doll, Darla. In their powered up form that CC and Marilyn never know before, until this night of course.

Darla is definitely young, youngest of all when CC and Marilyn found out, she was made as the last doll, the ‘sixth’ doll. but they are not so much different because of the base build for dolls. but actions speaks louder amirite? Darla lost, expected to be killed by her rosa mystica taken away by either billy or mary.

billy and mary didnt want to, since living for 1 week (i guess?) with CC and Marilyn has made them somewhat better than they were before. less spoiled and less arrogant of a doll. but also how they missed the other siblings, they don’t want to lose the siblings because of these death battle and only one can remain. so they spared Darla, taken her in with CC’s and Marilyn’s permission.

sooner joined by Freddy, who has this talent for music typa doll, he is very weird though, but he is in fact the oldest one, aka the first finished doll to be made. then later on joined by pedro, who is probably the strongest of the dolls, the fifth doll, he suddenly appeared by flying with his case. crashed in, did a small fight and gone. but he do visit frequently with peace.

Then eugene, the smart one, the second doll, who didn’t really care much, currently just roaming around and sometimes do a small stay with CC and Marilyn with other dolls.

but, where’s the fun when Black Adam didn’t appeared? So black adam, the secret, imposter, seventh, but also is the ‘zero-th’ doll, appeared to claims all of the dolls rosa mystica to be the chosen one. be human.

he was the first doll to be made, but never finished, until someone else other than father (wizard) finished him and gave him the chance to be human. filled with rage, he took that chance and made a rampage, but he has to manipulate the situation first, using his powers to made it hard for the other dolls.

this is where the other villains from captain marvel appeared, sivana, mr mind, sabbac, ibac, etc etc. and it has going on for decades now, there has been multiple times where the dolls has to go back to their hibernation (box).

in which meanings, CC and Marilyn has died, either due to black adam, or just natural causes.

the time is now twenty-something (20??) the billy box is suddenly opened, no mary in sight, billy is confused. shazamed (using his doll power) and find mary. but in the way he helped a weird ass costumed team (soz), the Justice League.

JL was thankful for this strange man who appeared out of nowhere and helped them fought the enemy. asked him to join the team, billy was hesitant at first, because of his doll sister. but of course is a little afraid of black adam finding him and get him before he can even find mary.

but he accepted. and shenanigans issues.

also sivana and mortal enemy of captain marvel will appeared during this time rather than before JL thingy

mow, im done for today, thanks for reading, signing off

[neyafromfrance95]

you said that as a shipper, you don't care if galadriel and sauron have romantic moments, can you elaborate?

sure. what i mean is "traditionally" romantic, their dynamic can be essentially romantic/soulmatistic without a traditional romance formula.

i love haladriel for their push and pull dynamic bc as a metaphor it explores the dark vs. the light, and subtextually it is about destined enemies x doomed lovers.

i don't mind galadriel not ever giving in and succumbing to sauron bc for me, the most important thing is her inner conflict, and subtextually, galadriel being tempted by having power in the middle-earth and being pulled under by the darkness will always be interconnected with her being tempted by sauron's proposal and imply her heart desiring the taboo (in trop continuity). u would just have to read between the lines.

i don't care that she outwardly rejects sauron even after seeing him as halbrand in the finale, bc the scene confirms that she has feelings for the latter. her willpower and pride are simply strong. and i like these traits of hers, i don't want them subdued, i don't want her to ever submit.

as for sauron, his love may not be explicitly stated either, but rather communicated through his delusional and obsessive yearning. every time he mentions "light" it will signify galadriel in some sense, nenya will still symbolize galadriel for him. and if the one ring is inspired by gal, well, that will be insane.

i personally love their sexually-charged push and pull dynamic of the cosmic scales. they can be lovey-dovey in valinor in the 7th age (in our fanon), but now i want galadriel's devotion to opposing/slaying sauron to be so strong it crosses the line of a simple hate and becomes an intrinsic part of her identity. i want sauron's worship of her light to turn into him obsessively coveting her, desiring to posses her like silmarils.

their battle in the finale is brutal, but it's as if they're dancing at the same time, it's a form of storytelling. him stabbing her is a symbolically sexual, ravishing act that can be read as a metaphor for gazing into an abyss for so long, the abyss gazes back into you! there is a thin line between hate and love, as those can be two sides of the same coin, and when u let one in, the other may follow as well.

galadriel's outward relationship with sauron and her inward relationship with halbrand is how her relationship with the darkness, power and ambition is explored through a more tangible narrative.

like, the story itself shows and tells you, and everyone working on the show say that sauron and galadriel are intertwined in a way that places their connection above every other relationship they have, and ultimately, that's what makes for a good ship.

my only concern moving forward is that their interactions won't be central. this is why im holding onto the hope for the mind-palace communications. but there are many other ways to either make them interact or show that they are thinking about one another.

i still am delusional and wish for a kiss tho. it can be done without gal "joining" sauron if the writers want it done. and i guess i have to bring this topic up as well, since anons have asked me this a few times before but i once gave my "unpopular" opinion about it at length and prefer to leave it at that. but in short, i don't really care if celebrian is sauron's daughter or not. would be great if they leave some space for allowing "sauron is the father" interpretation, and i would be equally ok with them making it clear that she is celeborn's daughter. i prefer her to not be introduced at all in trop, tbh. what i love about sauron and galadriel's relationship is that cosmic connection between them, not who may or may not be related to them as a third party.

[alliehew]

The Death of Violet’s Worldview

I just saw @nesta331917’s post about how Violet being unable to trust Xaden in Iron Flame makes complete sense and I just wanted to spit out my thoughts on that—and Violet’s characterization—because I completely agree!!

When I’m rereading I tend to fixate on Violet’s difficulty grappling with failure (to uncover the truth sooner, to save Liam, to protect her friends from the bitter truth & dangerous rebellion, to raise the wards in Aretia—whatever defeat she is internalizing at the moment) not only because I’m in this photo and I don’t like it, but also because it is such great characterization.

Violet previously protected the people she loves (and herself) by weaponizing the wealth of information she had, but now the very foundation she used to define herself has been ripped out from under her. Not only was she unaware of the reality of venin, wyvern, and the truth behind the attacks on Navarre’s wards, the entire rebellion that she (and her dad!! her favorite person!!) has studied and analyzed for her entire life was censored and propagandized by her government to shape public opinion and she was none the wiser.

For someone who is centered by facts, information, and truth, to learn that you’ve been on the wrong side of history at no fault—or choice—of your own is devastating. It’s a feeling of utter powerlessness and betrayal; no matter how many hours Violet had explored the archives, no matter how many times she reread the death tolls, maps, and battle strategies, no matter how ferociously she believed in the power of information, nothing could change the dismal reality that the truth was simply not accessible to her.

Not only that, but the discovery that her own mother was complicit in the death and destruction of entire provinces for the benefit of her country and children introduces a whole new burden of guilt and hypocrisy Violet didn’t know she complied with. Add in that (1) the man she’s just fallen in love with is leading a revolution against these terrors she knew nothing about, (2) Dain, Violet’s best friend since she was a child, stole her memories to aid in the hypocrisy of their government and nearly get her killed, and (3) her brother Brennan, whose death completely altered the fabric of her whole family and may have contributed to their father’s own death, is fucking ALIVE, and it’s the perfect (onyx) storm of disillusionment. Absolutely everything Violet held true came barreling down in a matter of weeks, and no amount of rereading or reanalyzing could mend the hurt or justify Navarre’s (and, from Violet’s perspective, her) lack of intervention.

Violet is selfless to a fault, and being misinformed about the horrors outside of the wards robbed her of her choice to defend the defenseless. Of course we saw her escape Basgiath/the “safety” of Navarre to join the revolution as soon as she could, but the feeling of failing not only those you love, but also countless others you didn’t even know were in peril is still so heavy. She also has consistently been targeted for being The General’s Daughter, and now the full implications of that association is branded on her like a third relic.

Of course Violet’s relationship with Xaden has been affected by the guilt, betrayal, and disillusionment that are ingrained within it, whether either of them has accepted it or not. Even if Xaden had nothing to do with the revolution and they were living happily ever after before graduation, once the truth about the dark wielders came to light and Violet didn’t know up from down I’m sure the identity crisis still would have (at the very least) strained their relationship.

Anyways.

I so desperately need Violet and Xaden to finally be able to finish their fight and figure out how to move forward while trusting each other.

Give Violet (And Xaden) A Break 2025, Pleeease Rebecca

[achaoticeternal]

Yes please write a part 2. If you don’t mind could something happen there that endangers strongreaders life and Aemond prevents.

check out part one here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Favor of All

AEMOND TARGARYEN X STRONG(VELARYON)!READER

summary: once returning to king's landing, you and your mother watch aemond win a tourney and a favor word count: 942 warnings: tarcest? dangerous situation?

“His first tourney!” You look between Aegon and Helaena in shock at what they’ve told you. 

“We can hardly believe it either,” Aegon rolled his eyes when he noticed how overly excited you and the princess were, “Is my eldest sister joining us?”

Shaking your head at Aegon’s lack of enthusiasm, you scoffed at him before taking a glimpse out the window of the carriage, “My mother is in the same carriage as the King and his wife.”

Aegon didn’t acknowledge your reply, but it didn’t matter. The carriage had come to the halt for the royal arrival at one of the great amphitheaters of the city. Aegon stepped out before either you or Helaena, and did not even offer a hand to assist. Instead, two eager boys (most likely the third or fourth son of some lord ) came to help the young ladies out of their carriage. 

Immediately, you were all ushered toward your setting today. Instead of sitting in the typical noble box, the Hand had made a request for the King to be seated toward the center so that he may watch Aemond from a better vantage point. 

You currently sat to the left of your mother, Rhaenyra, as she was on the left hand of her King father. Helaena’s lady-in-waiting sat on your other side, and you began to make polite conversation with her.

Together, you laughed and giggled until a caller came approaching.

“My Princess!”

You turned to see who beckoned you and met the gaze of a violet eye and long hair neatly braided away from his face.

“Uncle!”

Aemond stopped before the gate where you were eye-to-eye with his horse. You pet the soft hair of the creature and you glanced up at him.

“So now you'll compete in tourneys?”

“You know I don’t really give a shit about this,” Aemond chuckled with a playful smirk, “But it is my duty to perform such tasks.”

“Mmhmm… I’m sure you can’t stand the attention of all the ladies wishing for your affection,” You teased the prince while biting your lip.

“There is only one who has my affections,” Aemond wistfully produced a red and white rose, presenting it for you to take, “my princess…”

You sniffed the flower gently, looking bashfully up to the man, “You have my favor… May the Warrior guild your blade, and may the Mother watch over you.”

Aemond nodded and turned back toward the starting end of the joust. In place of the King, Alicent and Rhaenyra stood together and gave the welcome of the tourney. Soon enough, it all began with men and horses colliding, fighting each other with a determined grit. 

Soon, the Prince started his first joust. While you cheered loudly for him, he simply won with ease. Many champions and fools were bested by Aemond, and all you could do was cheer wildly for him. In the final event for the day, Aemond came to your on his horse once more. 

“My dear niece, you and your prayer have been quite the good luck charm for me to day,” His eye flickered from Rhaenyra, back to you. He scanned over your face, and offered a smirk, “Might I have your favor, princess?”

With a great grin, you turned to the side table and grabbed your braided favor. You pressed a soft kiss to one of the flowers before placing it onto his baton. With ease, you guided the favor down the shaft, eyes never leaving his. 

“My favor is yours,” Your heart beat had picked up rapidly as you felt the eyes of the public upon you. Yet you didn’t care, too entranced by Aemond. 

Your hand eagerly gripped your mothers as you watched the joust begin between the finalists. Aemond looked as if he was charging into battle, while the other lad seemed to have an ego for getting thus far in the competition. The trumpet sounded and both men charged at the other. It was a swift motion, but Aemond easily knocked his competitor off his horse. He continued to turn his horse backed around, as the other man equipped himself with a bow and arrow. The man fired three shots at Aemond, yet none of them came close to striking the prince. He fired another arrow, however it refocused on course of the booth. 

Your eyes went wide, and you felt the hands of your mother go to grab and tug you out of the path. Before you could move, the arrow struck with a great thud. Aemond had stopped the speeding arrow with a piece of his shattered shield. He looked from the man, who yielded, and then back to you with great concern in his eye. 

“Are you well, my lady? Unharmed?”

“Thank you, my prince. Your speed and agility have done the great service of protection,” Your hand clutched over your heart as you spoke with a nervous laugh. 

“I am simply glad that you are well,”Aemond gently grabbed your hand and brought it to his lips to press a soft kiss to your knuckles.

A warm blush came to your cheeks at his actions. You felt the eyes of your mother look over the scene before her with a great itensity. Something had suddenly shifted in how she saw Aemond and his behavior toward’s her daughter. Rhaenyra finally saw just how Aenond was with her daughter as Daemon was with her. It warmed her heart, knowing that someone cared for her daughter as much as she did. 

Later, she would speak to Alicent about a betrothal, but now she simply allowed you to seek the affections of your prince.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

hope you enjoyed!

[fictionadventurer]

Time to talk about James Garfield! He's nearly forgotten today because his presidency was cut so short, but he might be one of the biggest over-achievers ever to reach the White House, and I'm overdue to tell you about his life story.

James Garfield, like Lincoln, came from a dirt poor background. Pretty sure he was the last president to be born in a log cabin. His father was a farmer who died when he was three years old, leaving him in the care of a mother and older brother who doted on him. They recognized that he was smart and wanted him to make something of himself, but young James had read a few too many books that romanticized life at sea, so at sixteen he ran away from home to get the closest possible version of that experience that he could manage--working on a boat in the Erie Canal. He came back home within a few months because he nearly drowned, and by then, his mother and brother had scraped up enough money for him to go to school.

After high school, he went to a prep school where he worked as a janitor to pay for his tuition. At least, for the first year. By his second year, the school decided to hire him to teach six classes! And later added two more because he was so popular! While he was still attending the school as a student, mind you! He went to college, became the principal of his old prep school, studied for the bar and became a lawyer, got involved in state politics, and then left to go serve in the Civil War, where he became the youngest-ever major general. Then his friends asked him to run for the US House of Representatives, and even though he refused to leave the army to go campaign, he won the election. Then he did leave the army to join the House, where he served eight terms.

Which brings us to the 1880 presidential election. Which was an absolutely wild and crazy political battle within the Republican Party. The big issue was civil service reform. Up to this point, all federal employees were appointed by the ruling president's party--it was called the spoils system, because "to the victor go the spoils." The president (or whoever he gave hiring power to) could appoint whoever he wanted to any government position, regardless of whether or not the person had any relevant experience. By the 1870s, this system had become a cesspool of corruption and cronyism, but the Republicans were split on the need for reform. On one side, you had the Stalwarts, who wanted to continue with business as usual. On the other side were the Half-Breeds, who wanted to replace the spoils system with a merit-based system where employees would have to meet certain education or experience requirements to get the job, which they could then stay in regardless of which party was in power.

Anyway, when it came time to choose the presidential candidate, the battle got ugly. On one side, you had Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, a political boss who maintained his power through the spoils system, who was there to nominate Ulysses S. Grant to a third term. On the other side, you had James G. Blaine (the Magnetic Man from Maine), a Half-Breed who'd been Conkling's archnemesis ever since he called him out on the Senate floor as a seedy, ruthless villain.

James Garfield had no interest in being president; he'd seen too many of his friends (including James Blaine) get their principles warped by their obsession with the presidency, and he wanted to stay well away from all that. He was there to nominate John Sherman (younger brother of a certain famous Civil War general). Sherman, for his part, knew that Garfield was the more popular politician from Ohio, and hoped to neutralize him as a potential competitor by asking him to give the nominating speech.

So anyhow, at the nominating convention, Conkling gives this rousing speech in support of Grant that has the crowd going wild. There’s no way Garfield's going to be able to follow that. So what he does is look at the crowd and calmly talk to them about how there may be a lot of noise and emotion here today, but this isn't where the election is going to be won. Votes are going to be cast by ordinary Americans living on their homes and farms with their families, and they need to know that there's someone who can serve their interests in the White House. The crowd is spellbound. Garfield then asks them, "What do we want?" To Garfield's horror, one guy yells out, "We want Garfield!"

Garfield made it clear he was there to nominate Sherman, and finished his speech. Then the voting began. Round after round after round of voting, with no one candidate getting enough votes to win the nomination. Garfield got one vote in the third round. In the thirty-fourth round, he suddenly got seventeen votes, as delegates desperate to escape the gridlock decided to throw some votes behind a different name. Garfield stood to protest, saying that no one had the right to vote for him since he hadn't consented to be nominated, but the president of the convention, who secretly liked Garfield more than any of the other candidates, told him to sit down.

By the thirty-sixth vote, Garfield won the nomination. He reluctantly accepted.

When Garfield won the presidential election, it was the first time since the Civil War that a president had been elected who had support in both the North and South. Garfield was seen as a man of the people, living proof of the American dream that any man, no matter how lowly, could one day rise to become president. As Garfield rode in the carriage toward the White House for his inauguration, a man in the crowd yelled out, "Low bridge!" as a reference to Garfield's now-legendary past as a canal worker; Garfield grinned, took off his hat, and ducked.

Once he became president, Garfield became embroiled in the war over civil service reform. Since it hadn't been reformed, he had a constant stream of office-seekers coming to beg for appointments to federal positions, and a lot of federal positions that needed to be filled. His archnemesis was Roscoe Conkling; Garfield was determined to enact civil service reform, and Conkling wanted to do all in his power to prevent it. Conkling forced Stalwart members of Garfield's Cabinet to resign, and he went to war with Garfield over the filling of federal positions.

And that's an interesting story, but the more important part of the battle was with another person entirely, who Garfield had never met. Charles Guiteau was a madman with a checkered past, who'd been involved in strange sex cults and in running various scams--mostly running out on rent payments. During Garfield's election, he gave one speech in support of Garfield to a tiny crowd, and Guiteau, in his delusion, thought that under the spoils system, this entitled him to a reward. He wanted to be a foreign ambassador, and he came to the White House every day seeking a meeting with someone who could give him the job. He was mostly stopped by Garfield's secretary, and his attempts to get help from the vice president and various Cabinet members also failed.

At last, Guiteau became frustrated, and decided that the only thing to do was kill Garfield. God wanted to maintain the spoils system, he thought, and the only way to do that was to get the reform-minded Garfield out of the way so the spoils system advocate Chester Arthur could be president. Guiteau tracked the president to a couple of spots in Washington, but always found a reason not to take a shot.

But on July 2, 1881, when Garfield was at a Washington train station, Guiteau shot him in the back. The bullet went past Garfield's spine and lodged in his pancreas. Robert Lincoln--who happened to be traveling with Garfield--secured the services of the doctor who had treated his father. The wound was examined--the doctor poking unsterilized fingers into the bullet hole--and Garfield was transferred back to the White House for treatment.

If the bullet had been left alone, Garfield would most likely have made a full recovery--nothing about the wound was fatal. Unfortunately, he was president of the United States, and doctors were determined to give him intense medical care--which meant that he died through medical malpractice. The head doctor thought these new-fangled ideas about "germs" and "sterile procedure" were conspiracy theories, and certainly not worth the extra work of sterilizing everything. The wound was repeatedly probed with fingers and unsterilized instruments, which led to a massive infection that spread through Garfield's whole body.

Alexander Graham Bell invented a medical detector to locate the bullet; it would have worked, but Garfield's doctors--convinced they knew the path the bullet had taken--only allowed Bell to scan the right side of Garfield's body--and the bullet was on the left.

Garfield was unable to keep down solid food. He dropped from 210 lbs to 130 lbs. Massive pockets of pus formed throughout his body. He was literally rotting from the inside. Yet by all accounts, Garfield remained cheerful and kind to everyone who cared for him.

Garfield was a healthy fifty-year-old man, and he rallied a few times, but he wasn't able to overcome the infection. The heat and humidity of Washington only made it worse. An air-conditioning device was invented and installed to keep the room cool, but at the beginning of September, the decision was made to transfer Garfield to a house at the New Jersey seaside, in the hopes that the cool sea breezes could aid his recovery.

Garfield left Washington on September 6. A special train line was constructed that took him right up to the door of the house; when the train got stuck on the final hill, a crowd of hundreds that had gathered in support of the president worked together to push it to the top. Garfield's final few days were spent in the pleasant seaside atmosphere, but it was of no use. Garfield died on September 19, 1881. The country plunged into mourning--this president with so much promise, this man of the people, was dead, only six months into his presidency.

That short term means that Garfield is mostly skipped over in American history classes today, but he absolutely should not be. His rise from poverty to the White House is inspiring, and his death is tragic. There is so much to his story, and it's a shame that it gets shuffled aside in the grand sweep of American history.

[bumblebeehug]

It's insane how much I hated laxus, bickslow, gajeel and Ichiya during their first appearances but now I love them

YOU SAID IT!!!!!

Laxus? I didn't like him even remotely until my THIRD rewatch of the ENTIRE series. I just didn't understand his nuances. To me he was just a dick who then became sappy and bland. Now however? If Anyone Hates Him They Also Hate Me. He was a kid, like everyone else, and he wanted his father's love, but his grandpa had basically disowned Ivan. Sure, it was for a good reason, but Laxus didn't know that. To him, his Ivan was still his dad. Still, he stayed at Fairy Tail, but oh! Look at that! His grandpa, who scared away his dad, doesn't seem to care about Laxus as much as he cared about all the other kids at Fairy Tail! Damn!! I'd become filled with rage too!!! And then, after the whole angry arc for Laxus, we're talking battle of Fairy Tail and stuff past us, he rises above his past. He had every right to get angrier, to hate the world more, but he looks at himself, realises his faults, and lives a life to redeem himself. If that's not an amazing character, then I don't know what is.

Bickslow was a dick in the beginning but I'm afraid I loved him ever since he took that helmet of in the Battle of Fairy Tail. Damnnnn he looks good AND he's funny! I'll take 10 of him please and thank you.

Gajeel was also one of those characters that quickly grew on me, but that's mainly because we saw that he didn't just "turn good" as soon as he joined Fairy Tail. He was grumpy, he hated the sappy guild stuff, he explained that he was only there to keep working. But it was clear that the love from the guild softened his steel heart - he allowed himself to be beaten down by shrimps (Jet and Droy), he took a hit from Laxus in Levy's place in order to redeem himself, and he genuinely became very loyal to the guild because deep down he was a good guy. He was just in bad company for a long time.

Ichiya... That guy... He's one of those characters that you can't really hate because he's not actually a bad guy, but he's sooo hard to wholeheartedly love because he's just so creepy. For Erza to fear him as much as she does is just bad character for Ichya. It's hard for me to see any redemption from that. Still, he's pretty harmless and makes for a couple of good laughs. Gotta say though that he's on the bottom of my list of characters in this post.

My own addition to characters I hated at first: Jellal. Oh dear. I remember the first time I watched Fairy Tail and the whole Jellal thing played out. I wanted to like him so bad, but the trillions of curve balls were too much. Every time I felt a sliver of compassion for his past, I'd see that smirk that he did behind Erza's back in the tower of heaven, and I'd physically recoil. His whole redemption arc went completely past me, because him losing his memory in nirvana was just lazy and cruel to 12 year old me. Now I know that it's just part of his redemption, that him losing his mind was meant to stirr things around in your head. Erza wanted to hate him too, but at the end she couldn't. Not him. I think I only started liking Jellal this year. I could tolerate him before, but I found him overrated. Now? He's my son. He went through so much bad, and now he has to live with it. The bad things he went through, the bad things he did. The people he killed. And it's no wonder he wanders the earth with only one purpose now - he's so righteous that he lives to redeem himself. Not to die for his sins, but to live for the good. And I know that's his whole thing, I was just too stupid to realise it in the past. Like, I technically understood, but I didn't understand. I love Jellal now, but damn was it hard in the beginning!

[angelshizuka]

Me prefering movie!Gabriel over show!Gabriel isn’t as simple as “one is redeemable and one isn’t“.

I love morally corrupt villains as much as the next person, my problem is how the show keeps acting like Gabriel is still redeemable, while his actions keep proving the opposite, and then they officially ruined it all with that s5 finale...

Before anyone throws their “um, next season this, next season that“ arguments at me, I’d have this to say: For one, s5 is supposed to be the end of the Gabriel arc, we’re officially allowed to complain about it now.

And second, that’s not even getting into how this arc has been going on for 8 years and 5 seasons, we have every single right to be impatient and sick of waiting for things to finally wrap up. Even when this show finally does something right, it’s still “too little, too late“.

(If you’re someone who only joined the show in recent years so doesn’t feel this kind of impatience yet, good for you, but some of us who have been here since 2015 aren’t so lucky.)

Also third, if s5 taught us anything it’s that the “next season“ argument doesn’t mean shit. Look at how that argument was used for Adrien’s treatment in s4 and then s5 came around and treated his character like THAT in that finale!?

That argument is officially null and void to me.

Anyway, my point is show!Gabriel could’ve been a good corrupt villain, but they kept leaning into the “redeemable“ angle too much, so now he sucks at being both type of villains.

And I will literally die on the hill that the sole fact Adrien was completely absent from the Gabriel showdown (heck, barely showed up in the finale at all...) is reason enough to hate the way the Gabriel arc wrapped up. Redeemable villain or not, Adrien facing his father during the final battle is the literal lowest barest of minimums you’d expect from an arc like this, yet they failed at even that.

THAT is the main reason why movie!Gabriel won for me, the fact there was a showdown at all.

Even if movie!Gabriel would’ve gone full villain and treated Adrien like show!Gabriel has in episdoes like Cat Blanc, I probably still would’ve have liked it as long as there wouldn’t have been any stupid memory wipes or time travel to undo it, like the show loves doing.

The show acts like Gabriel wasn’t Adrien’s villain to defeat, but the movie doesn't, it’s as simple as that.

[queer-ragnelle]

Best of Ladies of the Lake

Seeking recommendations for media featuring the Ladies of the Lake?

Here’s a curated collection of Retellings, Films, TV shows, and more ordered alphabetically by Lady and oldest to newest. Each recommendation comes with a brief synopsis and review containing mild spoilers.

All PDFs link to my Google drive, videos to MEGA drive, and can be found on my blog. Each passage adopts the unique spelling of character names as used in the media.

🌊 More Best of Masterposts 🌊

Lady of the Lake

Books

The Chessboard Queen by Sharan Newman

Guinevere Evermore by Sharan Newman

Possibly my favorite version of the Lady. Nameless despite all her subjects having names, including Nimuë. She kidnaps Lancelot, then kidnaps a wetnurse & brother for him too. Lancelot is her “toy” & between her & the wetnurse, messes him up beyond recognition, even though the Lady claims to love him. In the third book, she gives Morgan a place to stay & remain eternally youthful. They realize the horror of their actions, the Lady gave Merlin Excalibur/scabbard to give Arthur, Morgan stole scabbard, now their sons Lancelot & Mordred are fighting on opposite sides of a war Arthur can’t win.

Movies

Excalibur (1981)

The Lady appears briefly to issue a repaired Excalibur to Arthur who broke it by using it to chat & wrongfully defeat Lancelot. She wears a beautiful sequins dress & she's so otherworldly with the green lighting & eerie music.

TV Shows

The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949)

The Lady helps Galahad escape Merlin’s machinations while on his quest to recover Excalibur. She pops up throughout the show to offer guidance & advice.

The Legend of King Arthur (1979)

The Lady appears to bring Arthur across the lake & receive Excalibur. She doesn't speak which makes her very strange & her hair is decorated in cattails. She returns twice, once to bring Merlin to the afterlife & again to receive Excalibur from Bedivere.

Merlin (1998)

Coolest Lady—she wears shimmering white and floats above the lake like a ghost, fish swim around her throat like a necklace & the numbers dwindle as her power weakens throughout the show. She gives Merlin cryptic guidance & causes problems seemingly on purpose.

Nimuë/Ninian

Books

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle

The Story of the Champions of the Round Table by Howard Pyle

The Story of Sir Launcelot and his Companions by Howard Pyle

The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur by Howard Pyle

Nymue is the head of all the Ladies of the Lake & the one who guides Arthur across the lake to get Excalibur. Ironically she is not the hand that reached out of the water. She later kidnaps baby Launcelot & raises him in the Lake Kingdom. She has a sort of rivalry with Vivien, who curses Gawaine, which Nymue releases him from. After Ettard’s rejection of Pellias, Nymue marries him. Nymue is also the one to lead Galahad to his shield just as she outfitted Launcelot for knighthood before him.

Bedivere: The King's Right Hand by Wayne Wise

Nimué is a little girl rescued by Bedivere from a battle. She can foresee everyone's deaths & freaks them out. She only comes in near at the end but I like that Bedivere is her big bro & Merlin is afraid of her, as he should be. She eventually joins Vivienne & Morgan in Avalon for training as a Lady of the Lake.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Nimue is an honorary member of the Round Table as a replacement for Merlin. She is present throughout the entire story & uses magic to fight on the battle field along side the knights. She gets her own flashback chapter to explain her backstory & why she sealed Merlin away. Her romance with Collum was cute.

Movies

Merlin and The Sword (1985)

The movie is a frame story which opens with Ninian & Merlin trapped together for eternity in a cave beneath Stonehenge. In Medieval times, Ninian is rescued from evil knights by Pellinore & brought to court because her father is too ill to present her himself. She quickly develops a relationship with Merlin beginning first with divination but progressing to learn his most powerful magic. Morgan imprisons & tortures Ninian’s father to extort her to get Merlin’s most powerful magic, her she accurately binds them both into the cave forever.

TV Shows

Merlin (1998)

My favorite Nimue ever. She was a very unique accent & alluring acting. She first meets Merlin when they’re both teenagers, no questionable age gap. They come together again many years later when she helps him escape Vortigern’s prison. After she is burned & scarred by a dragon, she stays in Avalon with the holy people where Merlin visits her sometimes. They get their happily ever after when they’re old!

Video Games

Sonic and The Black Knight

In this alternate universe, Amy Rose takes on the role of Nimue to give Sonic the sword he’ll need to defeat corrupted King Arthur. She guides him on his quest & at the end, unites her magic with the Knights of the Round Table to help defeat Merlina.

Vivian

Books

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle

The Story of the Champions of the Round Table by Howard Pyle

The Story of Sir Launcelot and his Companions by Howard Pyle

The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur by Howard Pyle

Vivien is an enchantress taught magic by Morgana le Fay whilst on the Isle of Avalon. Vivien successfully beguiles Merlin & traps him. She returns later to tempt Percival while on Grail Quest & puts a curse on Gawaine.

Bedivere: The King’s Right Hand by Wayne Wise

Vivienne is the old leader of all the Ladies of the Lake in Avalon. I like how powerful & well respected she is throughout the book. Didn't care for the ending at all where she facilitates Morgan/Arthur marriage, but everything before that is solid.

Movies

Sword of Lancelot (1963)

Vivian is a handmaiden that travels with Guinevere from Cameliard to Camelot. She becomes romantic with Mordred & helps him spy on Guinevere & Lancelot while spreading gossip among the ladies.

Lancelot du Lac (1970)

French film adapting the Vulgate. Viviane has raised Lancelot from his infancy & brings him before the King & Queen to be knighted. She also has her handmaiden Saraide from the Vulgate as well. They wear pretty blue gowns except when they bring Lancelot to the surface everyone in the party wears white.

Camelot (1998)

Vivian is the head of the Isle of Avalon where Merlin brought Arthur to be raised. She introduced Morgause to Arthur & they eventually marry. She also helps Lancelot & Guinevere conceal their affair from Meleagrants who caught them together.

TV Shows

Starz Camelot (2011)

Vivian is the first person that Morgan recruits after deciding to employ more women. She is not a true Lady of the Lake here but acts as Morgan’s messenger, handmaiden, & confidant. She has cool face tattoos & a gorgeous wardrobe. It was compelling to see she let Igraine escape against Morgan’s wishes, allowing a glimpse into her conscience.

[persona-brainrot-real]

a very long about haru because i love her and im upset about how the game let her story get overshadowed at every turn

its nearly 3am rn but i'm thinking about how genuinely insane it is for persona 5 to introduce Haru as a character who is struggling to find any of her autonomy and treat her the way that they do. her father is marrying her off to a man who makes it explicitly clear he wants to use her for sex and even Okumura, in his palace, is shown to understand this.

[ID: three screenshots of Persona five royal. In the first, Haru in her Phantom Thief outfit says "Father! You want me to be that mans plaything to satisfy your own ambitions?" the second is of Shadow Okumura, looking angry, saying "This is the only value you've had from the very beginning. The third image is before the boss fight against the cognition of Haru's fiance. He is saying "let's have fun! I'll play with you until I get bored!"]

even outside of the palace, in their daily life he makes it extremely clear that he has no intent on trusting Haru with company business (likely because he expects the company to be handed off to her husband after he dies) and he doesn't acknowledge her feelings or anything she says to defend her own autonomy (i know this is me reciting everything in the game i do have a point)

[ID: three screenshots of Persona five royal. In the first, Haru is upset as she says "So I'm not even allowed to decide where I will live, am I?". In the second, Okumura is saying "not only do you come home late, you've even stayed out overnight without permission..." looking disapproving. In the third image, Okumura is saying "I have my hands full right now with the company. Don't cause any more trouble for me." He is holding his phone.]

even when she first joins your team, she tries to insist on being useful and fighting, considering this is her request and her fathers palace, and morgana tells her she cant. i know its 'for her own sake' that she cant fight, but considering that Morgana was there when she first awakened and planned on using her to get through a palace alone, its really frustrating to then see him say shes not strong enough to fight in a team.

[ID: two screenshots of persona five royal. Both are taken in Okumura's palace. In the first, Haru is saying "I can fight too! Please, let me join you in battle!". In the second, Morgana is saying "Your persona is too weak to fight safely at the moment. Just leave that side of things to us for now."]

and this comes in AFTER morgana, while using her, gets her to insult his friends on his behalf because hes annoyed with them, even though she's visibly uncomfortable doing so, contradicts what morgana wants her to say, and is shown later to have no real malicious feelings for them - and all of the bitter feelings she DID have were because morgana told her that the PT's were mean and didn't treat him right or didn't need him, which wasn't true to begin with, and is why she has to ask him for direction on what to say,

[ID: Haru looks upset. She stands opposite the Phantom Thieves and looks at Morgana. She is asking him "What was it again?"]

and you bring all of this into a brilliant character of a girl who is so self-assured, so firm on what she wants and her own autonomy - i want to be a Phantom Thief, i want to be a hero, i want to have my autonomy but more importantly i want to earn it, i want to change my fathers heart myself so that he becomes a better person and a better business owner, i want to prove to him that i can be trusted with the company and that i have more worth than being married off - but never really gets to express that? Even when it comes to the fight with Okumura and her chance to have her moment - the moment where Yusuke tells Madarame he's a coward who lost sight of his passion, where Ann gets to tell Kamoshida that he's only alive because she wants him to live through all he's done (both in the palace and the real world), where Futaba gets to talk to her mom directly in a scene that always makes me tear up - Haru's moment to stand up to her father is overshadowed by her father speaking to Morgana instead!!!!!

i know that this could also be a huge meta moment - he sees his daughter standing up to him, defending herself, and dismisses her entirely to try and appeal to the next rational subject, a man, but . the man is a cat. it doesnt work as well if he turns to a cat to be like "well certainly you'll be more reasonable" and turns the focus to Morgana - who has already taken up a lot of time that Haru deserved to have recognised!!!!

i have issues with morgana, yes, and I believe a lot of that arc could have been really useful character building for him if it had been handled slightly better, given more weight and better pacing, but it really wouldn't have been such a big problem for me if it hadn't been pushed so heavily during Haru's character moments, because she is SUCH a good character!!!!

in her first appearance she makes for a really good subversion of what the PT's think that they are. her insistence on working for justice helps them work through their temporary doubt for what their purpose is and by having such a difficult situation happening in her life, she unites them all on something that they have to do. At least until they go to Okumura's palace for the first proper investigation, the intent to rescue Haru from her fiance is more important than the Phan-site and more important than any of Okumura's business practices.

she prioritises everyone elses happiness over her own to the point where she watches her father die on live television and tells the PT's to continue having fun at destinyland without her without considering that they'd want to be there for her. She has always suspected that people only wanted to be her friend for her money - and this seems to have affected her so much that despite being 'secretive about her history' at Shujin, she still doesn't mention at any point whether or not she has friends and is only seen speaking with teachers.

after her fathers death she has no real reason to trust any of the PT's - they were navigating with an unknown method, with no proof to show that what they were doing wouldn't cause a mental shutdown, they barely know each other, and yet she trusts them in spite of this and places her faith in the PT's regardless. even when faced with the person who DID kill her father, she understands that his death was a larger piece in a bigger plan and that it wasn't akechi's fault, it was the fault of Shido for ordering him dead, and in Shido's palace she's able to get the catharsis of killing the cognition of the person who aired her fathers death publicly on TV.

And what I think is a more frustrating part than any of that - where all of the Phantom Thieves, after their palace, get following story beats that increase their importance to make sure that you, as the player, can get attached to them, but the more PT's that join the team, the harder it is to juggle all of those characters and a lot of them have very vocal and prominent personalities that keep them involved. Yusuke's general quirks and behaviour keep him interesting, Makoto has an entire arc that's established ages before she's involved in Kaneshiro's palace, Futaba becoming navigator keeps her relevant, but where Haru's arc is taken over by Morgana in the palace where she's introduced, all subsequent story beats are entirely overtaken by Akechi.

Don't get me wrong, I love Akechi and he is in my brain 24/7, but it is extremely unfortunate that her fathers death immediately kickstarts the section of plot where the PT's realise that they're being tricked, meaning the plot suddenly ramps up, and during the school fair (something Haru is explicitly very excited about), Akechi's growing popularity and prominence in the story takes centre stage, especially as a day later he blackmails the PTs and joins their party.

Again, not complaining about Akechi, its just unfortunate that Haru's main story is clouded over by Morgana having a character arc and then the fan favourite comes in and immediately becomes the most prominent character for almost the entire rest of the game. It's sad because I love Haru but it wasn't until I romanced her that I realised how much I love her and how much there is too her - which ESPECIALLY sucks because it makes the section where you're reassuring her in the velvet room fall so flat compared to how you reassure everyone else.

ALL to say that i think it's wild to have a character whose entire arc routinely revolves around proving herself and reclaiming her autonomy from the men in her life, like her father and her fiance, and having her character arc so heavily influenced and even overshadowed by morgana, a male character. thank you guys for listening and if you disagree with me consider writing what your opinions are on your own post and not on mine :3

Anyway. huge rant post over. Haru is my wife and my girlfriend and my silly rabbit and i think she should be hyped up way more. ESPECIALLY for her showtime attack with makoto because that's fucking adorable. everyone must post one thousand haru okumura positivity posts right now

[ID: a gif of Haru Okumura, in her Phantom Thief outfit, holding her hat with one hand and pointing with the other. She says "I am no longer your subservient puppet!" while looking determined.]

[tsunami-of-tears]

A Court of Shadows and Sunshine — Part Ten

Azriel x Aurora (OC)

Summary: Cassian puts his foot in it again, Aurora opens up to Azriel, and our new mates finally get some action. 

A/N: SMUT. WE HAVE SMUT!! Resisting the urge to write ‘their tongues battled for dominance’ like the fanfics from the good ol’ days.

Wordcount: 1.5K

Warnings: smut (Azriel gets to third base), angst, mention of SA

Part Nine

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧

Azriel

Aurora emerges from the bedroom, ready to attend their first family dinner as mates. She’s not dressed in anything too fancy and yet Azriel’s breath catches, he’s lost for words at her sheer beauty. He runs a shaky hand through his hair as he exhales. 

His eyes fall to Aurora’s exposed collarbones, and the blue pendant once again strung daintily around her neck. Curiosity gets the better of him tonight, and he asks, “That necklace, where is it from?”

Aurora smiles softly and lowers her gaze as she reaches up to touch the sapphire stone. “It was my mother’s. My father gifted it to her when the mating bond first snapped for them. He couldn’t be with her physically at that time, so it was a promise. A promise that he’d come back for her. I wear it to honour their love, and all they sacrificed for it.” Aurora looks back up at Azriel with silver-lined eyes, he has to fight his own tears from spilling over the edge. 

Reaching to touch the pendant, Azriel asks, “But the colour, that blue, why did he pick that?” 

“Ah, only the Cauldron knows that.”

———— 

Following behind Rhys, Azriel and Aurora enter the sitting room of the River House. Nesta immediately pulls Aurora into a tight embrace. 

Cassian stands and gives Azriel a friendly clap on the back. “I’m glad you could take a break from your activities to join us tonight, brother.”

Aurora’s face falls and guilt pours down the bond. She shifts on her feet, awkwardly fidgeting with her hands and avoids everyone’s gaze.

Azriel shakes his head as Cassian looks between him and Aurora with furrowed brows. 

Azriel takes Aurora’s hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We haven’t done that yet,” he says bluntly. 

Choking back tears, Aurora slips from Azriel’s fingers and hastily exits the room. 

“Great, thanks for that,” Azriel mutters, chasing after Aurora.

He closes the door behind him, cutting off the sounds of Rhys and Nesta laying into Cassian. “You’re an idiot.” “Brother, you could have some more tact.”

Azriel finds Aurora curled up on the stairs, crying softly. Her makeup streaked down her cheeks. 

Azriel sits beside her, wrapping his arms around her, “Shhh, it’s okay. 

Aurora looks up at him, her teary eyes make his heart pang. 

“I’m sorry for making you wait,” she sobs. “Any female would jump at the chance to be your mate. I’m probably not at all what you expected, I understand if you need to see to your needs elsewhere…”

“Hey hey, stop,” Azriel interrupts her rambling. “I do not desire anyone else. I’m a very patient male, I’ll wait as long as you need.” He rubs his scared fingers over hers, bringing her hand to his lips. “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer.” 

Aurora nods. 

“Have you bedded someone before?”

Aurora’s cheeks flush a bright pink underneath the smears of black, but she answers quite bluntly. “Yes, I’ve been with males before. It just didn’t always have much of a choice.”

Azriel freezes at her words, a cold rage simmering under his skin.

“My first time was really special, it was with a human male from the continent. We were both teenagers. The other times, they weren't always so great.” Aurora lets out a shaky breath. “Where I come from, females are considered property. Often sold to the highest bidder. Those of us who were sullied, well we were fair game.”

It takes everything in Azriel to remain calm, to hold himself back from burning the entire continent with his fury. Aurora strokes his arm, pulling his attention back to her

“Hey, it was a long time ago now. I’ve healed, and it's made me stronger.”

Azriel willed himself to be calm. Aurora’s steady touch on his arm grounds him, keeps him in the present. 

“Good evening,” Feyre’s cheery voice calls from the top of the stairs. “I hoped we’d see you both tonight.” 

Azriel and Aurora stand from their perch on the stairs as Feyre makes her way down with Elain in tow. 

“Aurora, have you met my other sister, Elain?” Feyre asks. 

“No, pleasure to meet you,” Aurora beams, any trace of their previous conversation gone. 

Elain looks between Azriel and Aurora with a distant expression. She acknowledges Aurora with with a nod, walking past her and down the hall. 

 “Sorry about her,” Feyre says. “She’s not been herself lately.” 

Aurora takes Azriel’s hand in hers, “That’s okay, I understand how that feels. We were just going to join the others.” 

———— 

Aurora

The rest of the evening went much smoother. Azriel’s steady hand was a constant presence on you - on your knee, the small of your back or holding onto your hand. It helped keep you calm as your mind raced and you felt stressed over messing up social etiquette. 

Though it was lovely to spend time with your friends, it was a huge relief when you walked in your door with Azriel in tow. 

You roll your shoulders and rub the base of your neck, not noticing how tense you’d been all night. Azriel grabs your hand and leads you over to your lounge, motioning for you to sit between his legs.

You let out a soft moan as he starts to rub your sore muscles, “Oh your hands are magic.”

Azriel laughs but you sense a hesitancy in him.

“I mean it,” you say, shifting to face him. You grab both his hands and bring each one to your lips in turn. “I love them.” 

Looking at your mate, his vulnerability, something sparks inside you. You lurch towards Azriel, kissing him like you’ve never kissed anyone before, like it’s the very thing giving you life. Your tongues dance together, kindling the growing fire inside you. 

You pause briefly to move up the couch and pull Azriel on top of you. You wrap your legs around his waist, bringing his body flush against yours as you resume exploring his mouth. 

Fingers tangle in his hair and you buck your hips, wrapping your legs even tighter. Azriel bites your lip in response and a moan slips between your lips. 

Azriel’s body tenses at the sound. “Do you, ah, do you want to stop?”

“Oh gods no.” 

Azriel kisses you again, softly but full of desire, before working along your jaw, and down your throat, sucking and nipping as he goes. “Is this okay?”

“Mmmmmm, yes Azriel” 

He looks at you with raised brows as he fingers the top button of your blouse. 

“Go on,” you smile playfully, biting your lower lip.

Azriel slowly unbuttons your shirt. He kisses along your collar bones before reaching behind you to unclasp your bra. He groans at the sight of your exposed breasts.

The look he gives you is pure sin, but his words are a prayer, “Mother above, what did I do to deserve such a beautiful mate?” 

Your cheeks heat, deepening the growing flush to your face and chest.

Azriel smirks and leans down to take your nipple in his mouth. He flicks his tongue over the sensitive skin before moving to the other side. Your hips buck involuntarily, your sensitive parts begging for some attention too.

“Shall I keep going?” Azriel asks you, his smirk growing.

“Yessss,” you moan as your hips buck underneath him again.

Azriel makes quick work of removing your pants, leaving you in only your panties beneath him. Usually, you’d feel uncomfortable to be so bare, but Azriel already saw your soul, and you his. With him, everything felt right.

Azriel hooks his fingers around each side of your underwear, pulling them down and exposing your sex. 

“Perfection,” Azriel murmurs, lowering himself closer until you can feel his hot breath against you. You roll your hips and whine, overcome with need. 

Azriel doesn’t hesitate any longer, licking a stripe up your slit before circling around your aching clit. He groans as he laps you up, tasting you. 

He alternates between firm pressure and lighter strokes. You moan and grind against his face as he finds a rhythm you particularly enjoy. 

He doubles down, unyielding, as you come undone at his touch. 

As you reach your peak, your entire body starts to glow - radiating euphoria. 

You climax, hard. Azriel doesn’t stop as you ride out the high on his tongue. 

Azriel rises, his chin glistening with your essence as he gives you a wolfish grin, “I think we can do better than that.” 

He was right. 

You lost track of how many orgasms he gave you that night. 

With his fingers, with his tongue again, and with combinations of both. About halfway through, he carried you to your bedroom where you did it all again, and again, and again. 

He never once asked for anything in return, not that you would’ve objected. Still, you appreciated him taking his time. 

When he was done with pleasuring you, he slides beside you on the bed and wraps his arms around you. You relax into his broad frame, utterly exhausted but feeling at peace. 

Your eyelids feel heavy and you start to drift off. 

A whispered “I love you” is the last thing you hear before you black out. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧

Tags ♡ @mis-lil-red

Part Eleven