#As Born to Rule The Storm | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lady-luckk · 2 months ago

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love twisted into madness

# pairings: yandere concubine harem x reader

# synopsis: you’re the unwilling ruler of a country with obsessive concubines who are trying to kill each other.

# warnings: this will contain dark themes such as obsession, possessiveness, drugging, and murder. if you are uncomfortable please block me. viewer discretion is advised. minors DNI.

# notes: this is a rewrite of my previous yandere concubine harem from my old blog, @screeching-bunny. reblogs, comments, and likes are appreciated!

they called you mad. insane, even. but you didn’t care. insanity was a refuge, a safe place in a world so deeply fractured. you hated your life with a burning passion, a disgust for the bloodline that bound you to a throne you never asked for. the family that birthed you, each one more power-hungry than the last, seemed like a curse. if given the chance, you would’ve chosen to be born to a pauper, far away from the twisted games of royalty.

but fate had no mercy.

once, you were nothing more than an afterthought, a shadow, the last person anyone would have expected to rule. the line to the throne stretched out ahead of you, and you were nowhere near it. but then the scheming mothers and the poisoning, the subtle betrayals and the bloody coups… one by one, your half-siblings, your full siblings—gone, each one murdered to clear the path. and just like that, the unwanted heir became the sole ruler.

you remember the day the crown was placed upon your head like it was yesterday. the moment the weight of it settled on your skull, the vultures swarmed. smiling, whispering, each noble hoping for a taste of your favor. you despised them all. they were like flies, buzzing around you, pretending to admire you while secretly planning to feast on your downfall. even your closest childhood friends, the ones you had trusted without question, turned on you. you couldn’t believe your eyes when your best friend, the one who had sworn loyalty to you, kneeled at your feet and asked for your love. then came another. and another. the shameless petitions for courtship were endless, their hunger unbearable.

love? what even was that? you had never known it. your mother had been slaughtered when you were young, and your father had always been a distant, cold figure. the only love you had ever felt was the strange, suffocating devotion of those who wanted to possess you, to claim you as their prize. people were a nuisance to you, nothing more than obstacles in your path. you’d long ago retreated into your own mind, where no one could hurt you, where the expectations of others didn’t matter. but that world, your sanctuary, was slipping away, one manipulative touch at a time.

when you turned twenty, your father, ever the schemer, presented your first concubine—a princess from a neighboring country. she was clingy, obsessive, a tiny spark in a world of insanity. she watched your every move, her eyes glued to you like a hawk, and whenever your gaze shifted, a storm brewed in her. her jealousy simmered beneath the surface, and with each new concubine, it grew worse.

your harem was a battlefield of madness, a twisted circus of egos and power plays. each day, one of your concubines would try to outdo the others—some showing off their skills, others pushing for attention in the most devious ways. the jealousy was sickening, feeding into a cycle of betrayal, lies, and violence. assassination attempts weren’t a rare occurrence; they were an expectation. each poisoned drink, each knife in the dark, was just another step in a game you never wanted to play.

you couldn’t escape them, not even for a moment. the madness of your harem was unrelenting. you could feel their eyes on you constantly, watching, waiting for their chance. every night was a war for your affection, a contest to see who would be the most adored, the most loved. the prize? a night in your bed. and as the days passed, their obsession grew darker, their need more desperate.

"your majesty, you’re the sun to my dark sky," they would whisper, their voices sickly sweet, desperate. "let me be your first spouse, your most cherished."

the words were the same, day after day, night after night. the promises of eternal loyalty, of adoration, of power. and you, trapped in a world where affection was a commodity, were left with no choice but to indulge them. it was a game, a power play that you didn’t want to be a part of, but you were the one they wanted. you were the crown, the prize, and they would destroy anything or anyone who stood between them and that title.

your chambers were no sanctuary. every time you entered, you could feel the undercurrent of madness. a concubine would always be there, waiting for you, dressed in provocative clothing, eyes filled with a strange hunger. they would make their move, their voices trembling with longing.

"please, your majesty," they would beg, their breath hot against your skin. "i need you. won’t you be mine tonight?"

but there was something more terrifying in their eyes, something darker. their love wasn’t just love—it was obsession. an obsession that twisted them, made them forget what was real, and pushed them to do things that were unspeakable. it was suffocating, it was frightening, and worst of all—it never stopped.

your harem was a breeding ground for monsters. not just the scheming foxes and the conniving lotuses, but the crazed, broken individuals who had lost all sense of reason. they would cry for your attention, manipulate your emotions, and twist their reality to get you to notice them. and the worst part? they knew how to play the game better than you ever could. each tear was a weapon, each sob a carefully crafted plea for power.

but you were not without your own tricks. you learned the game quickly—how to play with them, how to break their spirits before they could break yours. and every time one of them would try to manipulate you, you would feign sympathy, guiding them to your chambers, watching as they thought they’d won. but you knew the truth: they were all pawns, each one playing into your hands without realizing it.

as you led the newest concubine to your bed, her eyes glistening with hope and love, you could feel the fury of the others behind you. a smirk tugged at your lips as you heard their thoughts burning through the air.

"i’m going to make her regret this… i’ll make her suffer."

and so, the madness continued. each day, each night, a new battle, a new war for control. and you, the unwilling queen, stood at the center of it all, watching the chaos unfold with a cold, detached smile.

as the days bled into one another, your mind began to fracture under the weight of it all. the constant flurry of false affection, the endless manipulation, the dark undercurrents of obsession—everything blurred into a maddening fog. you had learned to expect the chaos, to accept that your life was one long, twisted game. but even now, they still found ways to surprise you.

you awoke every morning to the oppressive sound of whispers, the shuffle of feet, the flutter of silk against marble floors. your concubines, the ones you had chosen to stay, would surround you like shadowy figures, each one vying for attention, for a moment of your time, of your affection. and though you had learned to tune them out, to shut down the noise, it was a constant bombardment, a storm that never relented.

one evening, as you prepared for your nightly routine—slipping into the silk robes that once felt like a symbol of power but now merely served as another prison—you felt something new, something unsettling. the air was thick with a strange tension, an undercurrent of unspoken rivalry that seemed to be growing. at first, you tried to ignore it. another day, another ridiculous attempt to win your favor. but tonight, there was something different.

a new concubine, a girl so fresh and untouched by the games, had been added to your harem just days ago. she was beautiful, yes, but there was something off about her. her eyes—too calculating, too sharp—gave away more than she intended. at first, you had brushed it off as naivety, the innocence of someone still unfamiliar with the madness that consumed this place. but now, something in her gaze told you that she wasn’t as ignorant as the others.

you had given her a chance, of course. you always did, to see how they would behave, how far they would go to earn your favor. and tonight, she was ready to make her move.

you had just finished dressing, your fingers brushing against the cold metal of your crown, a crown that now felt more like a curse than a symbol of power. you turned to find her standing at the entrance of your chambers, her posture immaculate, her hands folded demurely in front of her. the soft glow of candlelight danced across her delicate features, casting shadows that seemed to distort her expression.

"your majesty," she whispered, her voice sweet but with an undertone of something far darker. "i need to speak with you. it’s important."

there was a brief flicker of something in her eyes—a glimmer of certainty, a challenge, perhaps. your gaze narrowed, but you motioned for her to come closer. the others were watching from the shadows, as they always did, but this time, you didn’t care. you were tired of the games, tired of pretending that this wasn’t the reality you had to face every day.

she stepped forward, her heels clicking softly against the marble floor, each step deliberate, calculated. when she reached you, she knelt—something you hadn’t expected. most of them, even after all these years, still tried to assert their superiority, to play the role of the dutiful concubine. but not her. she was different.

"your majesty," she began, her eyes never leaving yours, "i would die for you. but i have a question."

you raised an eyebrow, intrigued, but gave no response. you knew that any movement could give her more power, more ground to stand on, so you remained still, letting her feel the weight of your silence. it was a game you had perfected long ago—let them speak, let them reveal their desires, their fears. and then, you would tear them apart with a single word.

"what would you do," she asked, her voice trembling now, just slightly, "if i told you that the one who truly controls you… is me?"

the words hit you like a thunderclap. at first, you thought it was a joke, some petty game she was playing to test her limits, to see how far she could push. but the look in her eyes was dead serious. she wasn’t playing. she wasn’t afraid of you. she was looking right into the abyss, daring you to blink. then it hit you. you had consumed an aphrodisiac.

you took a step forward, your pulse quickening. the room seemed to close in on you, the flickering candlelight casting eerie shadows on the walls. you could hear the others shifting outside, the sound of their breathing rising in the stillness of the night. your body felt like it was on fire. but you didn’t care.

this wasn’t about them. this wasn’t about the power struggles that had consumed your life for so long. this was about her. this was about the fact that she had just declared war without even realizing it.

for the first time in years, you felt a stir of something in your chest. it wasn’t love—god, no. but it was something else. something darker. something that recognized the challenge for what it was.

you leaned down, your lips brushing her ear as you whispered, "try me."

her breath hitched, but she held her ground. she was daring you. she was throwing down the gauntlet, expecting you to crumble, to prove her right. but you wouldn’t. no. you had been molded by this life of manipulation, betrayal, and blood. you had been raised on a diet of lies, and now, you were the one who made them.

as you pulled away, you locked eyes with her, a wicked smile curving your lips. "you think you control me?" you said softly, letting the words sink in. "you’re just another pawn in this game. and if you think for one second you can win… well, let’s see how long you last."

she stiffened at the threat, but she didn’t back down. there was something maddeningly beautiful about her defiance. and that, you realized, was the problem. she wasn’t like the others. she was the spark that could set everything ablaze.

and yet, there was a part of you that admired it. she was a mirror to your madness, a reflection of your own broken mind. she wasn’t afraid to burn everything down, to turn the world upside down.

but what she didn’t understand was that the game wasn’t just about power. it was about survival. and in this palace, there could only be one survivor.

you guided her to your bedchamber, her hand trembling with excitement slightly in yours. but as you crossed the threshold, the game began. you could hear the others following you, footsteps growing louder, the silent battle already starting. you could feel the fury and the desire building, the relentless drive to claim what was yours.

as you turned to face her, her eyes gleaming with anticipation, you realized one thing: this would be the last time you let someone else think they had control. you would own this game, and anyone who thought they could take that from you would be burned in the flames of their own ambition.

you were the king of this madness. and in the end, they would all bow to you, or they would burn.

among the many concubines, there was one who stood out—not for his looks or his talents, but for his unnerving obsession with you. zhang wei, a general’s son from a distant province, had initially seemed like just another handsome face vying for your favor. but over time, something darker began to reveal itself beneath his polished exterior. he didn’t chase you like the others, with desperate displays of affection or teary eyes. no, his devotion was quiet, almost suffocating in its intensity.

zhang wei would watch you from the corners of rooms, his gaze never wavering, never blinking. he’d smile when you spoke to him, but it wasn’t a smile born of genuine warmth—it was something colder, something more dangerous. his words were always careful, calculated, as if he were speaking to a deity, not a mere mortal. every conversation felt like a subtle attempt to claim you, his eyes gleaming with an obsession that went far beyond admiration. and the longer you ignored him, the more intense that obsession became.

one evening, long after the others had retreated to their chambers, zhang wei stayed behind, his posture stiff with a quiet desperation that made your skin crawl. he approached you slowly, eyes wide, almost reverent, but the hunger beneath the surface was unmistakable. when he spoke, his voice shook with a mixture of longing and madness.

"your majesty," he said, his words nearly a whisper, as though confessing a secret. "i have waited so long, watched from the shadows, and now… i cannot stand it any longer. i would do anything for you, my love. let me be your first husband. i will prove my loyalty, my devotion. i would die for you."

his voice wavered with desperation, as though his very survival depended on your acceptance. it wasn’t love, not in the way most would understand. it was a twisted devotion, a need to possess you, to claim you as his, to make you his entire world.

the more you rejected him, the deeper his obsession grew. zhang wei followed you everywhere—his eyes constantly on you, his voice whispering in the hallways. it didn’t matter what you did to distance yourself; he was there, waiting, always lingering just out of sight. every time you turned a corner, you could feel his presence, his eyes on your back, never faltering.

"your majesty," he would say, his voice soft but urgent, "you are everything to me. no one else matters. no one but you."

his devotion was not a simple desire to be loved—it was a suffocating obsession, one that threatened to swallow you whole. you could insult him, ignore him, even tell him to leave, but it never mattered. zhang wei would still look at you with those maddeningly adoring eyes, his love unshaken, unwavering.

the others in your harem noticed, of course. they saw the way zhang wei hovered near you, his possessive gaze never leaving your side, and they whispered in corners. his presence was unsettling to them, but they knew better than to challenge him directly. his obsession had become so profound that he no longer sought your affection. he sought only to be near you, to breathe the same air, to be the one closest to you, even if you never returned his feelings.

he was no longer a mere concubine. zhang wei was something far worse. he was a predator, driven by a singular, dangerous desire: to make you his, at any cost. and no matter how much you pushed him away, no matter how many times you rejected his advances, you could feel his grip tightening, his obsession growing darker with each passing day. there was no escaping zhang wei. and the thought of what he might do next—should you finally push him too far—left a cold, unsettling shiver running down your spine.

zhang wei’s obsession with you went beyond his twisted devotion to you. as his fixation deepened, so too did his sense of entitlement. he began to view every other concubine not as rivals, but as obstacles standing in the way of what he believed was rightfully his: your undivided attention, your affection, your love. he didn’t just want you; he needed to eliminate anyone who dared to take even a fraction of what he desired.

it started subtly at first. zhang wei would approach his rivals with a false politeness, his smile sharp, his words dripping with honeyed charm. he would compliment them, flatter them, even offer gifts—tokens of his ‘respect.’ but there was always something in his eyes, something dark lurking beneath that calm exterior, that made every exchange feel like a thinly veiled threat. the others, blissfully unaware at first, accepted his advances, thinking they could win his favor with kindness. they didn’t know that with each word, each token of ‘affection,’ zhang wei was marking them as targets in his twisted game.

one of the first to fall was mei-ling, a young princess known for her beauty and her melodic voice. zhang wei, in one of his more insidious moments, invited her to his private quarters under the guise of a ‘friendly conversation.’ he made her feel special, important—like she was the only one who truly mattered in his world. he listened to her sing, praised her endlessly, and made her believe that she was the one he desired above all else. but when she least expected it, he cornered her, locking the door behind them. his tone shifted, became harsh, and he told her that she would never win his or your favor.

"you’re just a pretty face, mei-ling. but that's all you’ll ever be." his grip tightened on her wrist as he whispered, "if you ever think you could take my place, you’re mistaken."

the next day, mei-ling fell ill—deathly ill. the court physicians couldn’t find any explanation, and her voice, once so sweet and full of life, was silenced forever. it was a slow, agonizing process. by the time anyone realized what had happened, it was far too late. zhang wei’s smile remained ever-present as he continued to express sorrow for her passing, his eyes glinting with satisfaction. mei-ling had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

but the elimination of mei-ling was only the beginning.

lian was next, a fiery and bold concubine who had dared to openly challenge zhang wei's claim on your attention. lian had never been one to back down, and unlike the others, she didn’t fear confrontation. but that was precisely what made her dangerous to him. one evening, in the middle of a gathering, zhang wei calmly approached her, his eyes betraying nothing of his inner rage.

"don’t you understand, lian?" he asked, voice low but full of an unnerving calm. "do you really think you can win our majesty’s affection? you’re nothing more than a distraction to them, a fleeting thing. i’m the one who will stand beside him. i’m the one who will be at their side forever."

lian, always quick with a sharp tongue, didn’t back down. she laughed, dismissing him as a fool. that night, zhang wei followed her back to her chambers, knowing she would be alone. what happened there was a mystery—no one truly knew what transpired behind those doors, but when lian was found the next morning, her throat had been slit cleanly. the bloodstains on her sheets painted a chilling picture. her body had been posed, her eyes wide with fear, and the note beside her read: “you were never meant to win.”

the harem grew uneasy, whispers spreading like wildfire. but none of them dared speak openly of what they suspected. zhang wei had become a silent terror, a looming presence that only tightened his grip the more you pushed him away. his love for you had mutated into something sickening—no longer about desire, but about possession. he wasn’t just fighting for your affection; he was fighting to destroy anyone who stood between him and his claim over you.

your harem had become a twisted reflection of the palace itself—a gilded cage, beautiful and suffocating, where the concubines were both trophies and pawns. each one of them, whether driven by love, ambition, or survival, wore a mask of devotion, but beneath it, desperation simmered. there were the ones who had learned to play the game—silent, calculating, waiting for their moment to strike or be struck down. the others were the broken ones, their eyes hollow from endless manipulation, their spirits crushed beneath the weight of constant competition and violence. in this toxic arena, loyalty was a currency that could be bought and sold, but trust was a concept that had long since been abandoned.

every whisper, every glance, every touch was laced with suspicion and jealousy. some sought power, others affection, but all were bound by the same ruthless need to survive. and then there were those who, like zhang wei, had descended into madness, their love twisted into obsession, their hearts warped by a desire to control, to own. none of them were truly free, not in this place, not while you, the center of their world, remained unreachable, a god they could never fully possess. the harem, a symbol of wealth and power, had become their prison, and each day was a fight for dominance, a battle where only the strongest would remain.

#yandere oc #yandere harem #yandere x you #yandere x reader #male yandere #yandere x darling #yancore #yandere #yandere concubine harem #female yandere #gn reader #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios

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colouredbyd · 14 days ago

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'Til All That's Left Is Glorious Bone—

brother!sirius black x fem!sister!reader x brother!regulus black , james potter x reader

synopsis: being a Black means braiding silence into everything soft — childhood, love, even the ache in your bones. Sirius runs from it, Regulus folds beneath it, but you carry it still, tight at the nape of your neck. and when James offers his hands, his heart, you flinch — not because you don’t want it, but because you were never taught how to take what doesn’t hurt.

cw: Chronic illness, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, self-isolation, emotional breakdowns, grief, physical pain, mental deterioration, identity loss, emotional neglect, unrequited love, hospital scenes, overdose, allusions to death, trauma responses, unfiltered intrusive thoughts, self-hatred, references to childhood neglect, emotional repression. read with caution!!!!

w/c: 9.8k

based on: this request!!

a/n: this turned out much longer than i thought. very very very much inspired by the song Wiseman by Frank Ocean

part two part three dalia analyses of this!! masterlist

The hospital wing smells like damp stone and boiled nettle, and you have come to know its scent the way some children know their lullabies.

You’ve spent more of your life in this narrow bed than you have in classrooms, in common rooms, on sunlit grounds.

Time moves differently here—slower, heavier—as though the hours have forgotten how to pass. The light through the tall window is always cold, a winter that presses its face to the glass but never steps inside. The sheets are tucked too tightly, the kind of tightness that makes it hard to breathe.

You don’t remember when it started, the pain behind your ribs, the illness that stole your breath and strength in careful, measured doses. It didn’t come all at once. It crept in slowly, like ivy through a cracked wall, quiet and persistent.

You grew with it, around it, until it became part of you—a silent companion curled inside your chest. Some days it flares like a wildfire, other days it lingers like smoke, but it’s always there. You’ve learned to live beneath it. Learned how to stay still so it doesn’t notice you. Learned how to hold your own hand when no one else does.

Other students come and go with the ease of tide pools—quick stays for broken arms, for potions gone wrong, for fevers that leave as fast as they arrive. They arrive with fuss and laughter, and they leave just as quickly. But you? You stay.

You are a fixture here, like the spare cots and rusting potion trays, like the chipped basin and the curtain hooks. Madam Pomfrey no longer asks what hurts. She knows by now that the answer is everything, and also nothing she can fix.

Your childhood was a careful thing, sharp at the edges, ruled more by silence than softness. You were born into a house where expectation walked the halls louder than any footsteps. Obedience was mistaken for love, and love was always conditional.

You were the youngest, but not alone. You came into the world with another heartbeat beside your own, a twin—your mirror, your shadow, your tether. And above you, Sirius. Older, brighter, always just out of reach.

He was too loud, too fast, too full of fire. He tore through rooms like a comet, leaving heat and chaos in his wake. You admired him the way you might admire the storm outside the window—distant, thrilling, a little bit dangerous.

Your twin was the opposite. He was stillness, softness, observation. He watched the world carefully, his words chosen like rare coins he refused to spend unless he must. He was always listening. Always understanding more than he said. And between the two of them, you—caught in the current, too much and not enough, the daughter who was supposed to shine but learned instead how to fold herself small.

You were expected to be precise. Polished. Perfect. The daughter of Walburga Black was not allowed to unravel.

Your hair was never your own. Your mother braided it herself, every morning, every ceremony, every photograph. The braid was too tight—always too tight—and it made your scalp sting and your neck ache, but you never flinched. You sat still while her fingers pulled and wove and twisted, like she was binding you into a shape more acceptable. Your fingers trembled in your lap, pressed together like a prayer you knew would not be answered.

She said the braid meant order. Discipline. Dignity. But it felt like a chain. A silent way of saying: this is what you are meant to be. Tidy. Controlled. Pretty in the right ways. Never wild.

You wore that braid like a chain for years. A beautiful little cage. You wondered if anyone could see past it—if anyone ever looked hard enough to see how much of you was trying not to scream.

Your mother expected perfection. You were her daughter, after all. Hair always braided, posture always straight, lips always closed unless spoken to. She braided it herself most days — too tight, too harsh — and you would sit still while your scalp screamed and your fingers trembled in your lap. At nine years old, silence had already been braided into your spine.

The stool beneath you was stiff and velvet-lined, a throne made for suffering. In the mirror’s reflection, your posture held like porcelain. Every inch of you was composed, but only just — knuckles pale from tension, lips pressed in defiance.

Behind you, your mother worked her fingers into your scalp with the practiced cruelty of a woman who believed beauty came from pain. Her voice matched the rhythm of her hands, each word tightening the braid, each tug a sermon.

“A daughter of this house doesn’t squirm,” she murmured, her grip unrelenting. “She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t disgrace herself over something as small as a hairstyle.”

The parting comb scraped harshly against your scalp, drawing a wince you were too proud to voice. Still, the sting prickled behind your eyes, a warning. When the sharp tug at your temple became unbearable, a breathy sob slipped out despite all effort to swallow it.

She froze.

Then, softly — far too softly — “What was that?”

Silence trembled between you.

“I said,” her voice clipped now, “what was that sound?”

A hand twisted at the nape of your neck, anchoring you like a hook. The braid tightened, harder now, punishment laced into every motion.

“Noble girls do not weep like peasants,” she snapped. “From now on, your hair stays up or braided. No more running wild. No more playing outside with your brothers. A lady must always be presentable — do you understand me?”

A nod. Barely a motion, but enough to release her grip.

She tied off the braid with a silver ribbon and smoothed a hand down your shoulder. In the mirror, your reflection stared back — hollowed eyes, flushed cheeks, a child sculpted into something smaller than herself. Her voice followed you as you stood.

“You’ll be grateful for this one day.”

Outside the room, Regulus stood waiting. He looked down at your braid and didn’t say a word. His tie was loose, lopsided in that way he never could fix.

Your fingers moved on instinct, straightening it carefully, eyes never meeting his. He let you. The silence between twins had its own language — and right now, it said enough.

The hallway stretched long and heavy, lined with portraits that watched like judges. You didn’t stop walking. The destination had always been the same.

Sirius’s door creaked as it opened. He was lying on the bed, book propped open across his chest, thumb tapping absently against the page.

His hair was a little too long, his shirt untucked. Eleven years old and already a constellation too bright for the house that tried to dim him.

He looked up — and the second his gaze met yours, his expression softened.

“Oh, pretty girl,” he breathed, sitting up straight. “Come here.”

You moved without thinking. As soon as the door closed behind you, the first tears broke free. Quiet, controlled — not sobs, not yet. Just the kind of weeping that clung to your throat and curled your shoulders inward.

“She did it again?” His voice was low, careful. “Too tight, yeah?”

A nod. You climbed onto the bed beside him, pressing your face into his sleeve.

“I tried not to cry,” the words came out muffled. “I really tried.”

Sirius tucked a lock of hair behind your ear, then gently reached for the braid.

“‘Course you did. You're the bravest girl I know.”

He began to undo it — not rushed, not rough. His fingers worked slowly, reverently, like unthreading something sacred. With each loosened twist, the tension in your body unwound too, your breath coming easier, softer.

“She says I’m not allowed to run anymore,” you whispered. “Says I have to look like a proper lady.”

“Well,” Sirius said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “I think she’s full of it.”

You let out a tiny, hiccupping laugh.

“There she is.” He brushed his fingers lightly over your scalp. “That’s better.”

The braid came undone, strand by strand, until your hair pooled over your shoulders — a curtain of softness, no longer a cage. Sirius shifted, lying back against the pillows, and opened his arms wide.

“Come here. Sleep it off. We’ll steal some scones from the kitchen tomorrow and pretend we’re pirates.”

You tucked yourself beneath his arm, the scent of parchment and peppermint wrapping around you like a secret. In the soft hush of the room, it was easy to pretend the house didn’t exist beyond these four walls.

By morning, you woke to find him sitting cross-legged on the floor, fingers gently working through your hair again. But this time, the braid was loose. Gentle. It didn’t pull. It didn’t sting.

“There,” he said, tying it off with a ribbon he pulled from his own shirt. “Just so it doesn’t get in your eyes when we go looking for treasure.”

And you smiled, because in that moment, you believed him.

The memory fades like breath on glass, slipping away into the sterile hush of the hospital wing.

You come back slowly. First to the faint scent of antiseptic and lavender balm. Then to the stiffness in your limbs, the press of cotton sheets against your legs, the dim ache nestled just beneath your ribs like something familiar.

“Easy now,” comes a voice, gentle and no-nonsense all at once.

Madam Pomfrey stands over you with her hands already at work, adjusting the blankets, feeling for fever along your temple. Her expression is set in that signature look — concern wrapped in mild exasperation, the kind of care she offers not with softness but with steady hands.

“You’ve been out for nearly a day,” she says, eyes scanning your face as if checking for signs of rebellion. “Stubborn girl. I told you to come in the moment you felt lightheaded.”

You blink at the ceiling. “Didn’t want to miss class.”

She snorts softly. “You think I haven’t heard that one before? You students would rather collapse in the corridors than admit your bodies are mortal.”

Her hands are cool against your wrist as she checks your pulse. You glance down at the thin bandage near your elbow — the usual spot, now tender. You don’t ask how long the spell took to stabilize you this time. You don’t need to.

She sighs and straightens. “Your fever’s broken, but you’ll stay here today. No arguments. I want fluids, rest, and absolutely no dramatic exits.”

You nod. “Thank you.”

Her gaze softens, just a little. “You don’t always have to carry it alone, dear.”

Before you can answer, the curtain snaps open with a flourish — a burst of too much energy, too much brightness.

“There you are!”

James Potter.

“Sweetheart,” James breathes, as if you’ve just risen from the dead. “My poor, wounded love.”

You barely lift your head before groaning. “Merlin’s teeth. I’m hallucinating.”

“Don’t be cruel. I came all this way.”

He plops into the chair beside you without invitation, sprawled in that casual way that only someone like James Potter could manage — legs too long, posture too confident, as if the universe has never once told him no.

His tie is missing entirely. His sleeves are rolled up in that infuriating way that shows off ink stains and forearms he doesn’t deserve to know are attractive.

You squint at him. “You didn’t come from the warfront, Potter. You came from Transfiguration.”

“And still,” he says dramatically, “the journey was perilous. I had to fight off three Hufflepuffs who claimed they had dibs on the last chocolate pudding. I bled for you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m in love,” he counters, placing a hand over his chest like he might actually burst into song. “With a girl who is rude and ungrateful and far too pretty when she’s annoyed.”

“Then un-love me,” you mutter. “For your own good.”

“Can’t. Tragic, really.”

You shoot him a glare. He beams back like you’re the sunrise and he’s been waiting all night to see you again.

“I should hex you.”

“But you won’t.” He winks. “Because deep, deep down, under that armor made of sarcasm and resentment, you adore me.”

“I deeply, deeply don’t.”

“And yet,” he leans in, “you haven’t told me to leave.”

You stare at him. He stares right back.

Finally, you sigh. “Potter?”

“Yes, my heart?”

“If you don’t shut up, I will scream.”

He laughs, bright and boyish and utterly maddening. “Scream all you want, darling. Just don’t stop looking at me like that.”

James doesn’t leave. Of course he doesn’t. He lounges like he was born to irritate you — the embodiment of Gryffindor persistence, or maybe just pure male audacity.

He props his elbow on the bedside table and peers at you like you're the eighth wonder of the world. Or an exhibit in a very dramatic museum: Girl, Mildly Injured, Attempting Peace.

“You know,” he says, casually adjusting his collar, “if you’d let me walk you to class yesterday, none of this would’ve happened. Fate doesn’t like it when you reject me. Tries to punish you.”

“Fate had nothing to do with it,” you snap. “I tripped over Black’s ego.”

He blinks, then grins. “Which one?”

You throw your head back against the pillow. “Get. Out.”

“But you look so lonely,” he pouts. “All this sterile lighting and medicinal smell — what you need is warmth. Charm. Emotional support.”

“What I need is silence,” you mutter. “Preferably wrapped in an Invisibility Cloak with your name on it.”

James leans closer. “But then you’d miss me.”

You sit up slightly, brows knitting. “Potter. For the last time — I am not in love with you!”

He looks wounded. “Yet.”

You glare. “Never.”

“Harsh,” he breathes, placing a hand over his heart. “Do you say that to all the boys who deliver their soul on a silver platter for your approval, or am I just special?”

“Neither. You’re just insufferable.”

“And you,” he says, looking at you like he’s just uncovered some hidden constellation, “are poetry with teeth.”

You blink. “Are you trying to flirt with me or describe a very weird animal?”

“Both, probably.”

There’s a silence then — or what should be a silence. It’s really more of a stretched pause, heavy with the weight of all the things you haven’t said and refuse to say. You busy yourself with fluffing the pillow behind you, more aggressive than necessary.

James watches, unbothered, as if every second in your company is a privilege. He does that. Looks at you like you’re more than you know what to do with. Like if he stared hard enough, he could untangle the knots in your spine and the ones you keep hidden in your heart, too.

It pisses you off.

“Why are you like this?” you ask suddenly, exasperated.

James looks genuinely confused. “Like what?”

“Like a golden retriever who’s been hexed into a boy.”

He gasps. “You think I’m loyal and adorable?”

“I think you’re loud and impossible to get rid of.”

“That’s practically a compliment coming from you.”

You huff, crossing your arms. “Did you break into the hospital wing just to bother me?”

“No,” he says, stretching. “I also came for the adrenaline rush. Madam Pomfrey tried to hex me.”

“She should’ve aimed higher.”

“She said the same thing.” He tilts his head, eyes softening a little. “Seriously though. You okay?”

You glance away.

It’s a simple question. An honest one. And it cracks something in you, just for a second — a flash of how tired you really are, how the weight in your chest hasn’t gone away since the moment you woke up here. But you’re not about to tell him that.

“I was fine,” you say flatly, “until you arrived.”

James laughs, not buying a word of it. And you hate him a little, for seeing through your armor so easily. For still showing up anyway.

“Well,” he says, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder, “I’ll go. But only because I know you’ll miss me more that way.”

“In your dreams, Potter.”

“You’re always in mine.”

He tosses you a wink before heading for the door — whistling as he walks, bright and ridiculous and inescapable.

You throw the other pillow at his back.

You miss.And you hate that you're smiling.

The door clicks shut behind him, and silence rushes in too fast. It settles over you like dust, soft but suffocating.

You just sit there, perched on the edge of the infirmary cot, hands still curled in the blanket, knuckles pale. For a moment, there’s nothing. Just the quiet hum of the ward and the slow, measured ache blooming low in your back.

Then, you hear it.

James's laughter, bright and stupid and golden, spilling through the corridor like it doesn’t know how to stop. It chases itself down the stone hallway, reckless and echoing, as if it has never once had to apologize for being loud.

He laughs like he’s never been told not to. Like the world is still something worth laughing in.

And then—his voice.

Sirius.

You’d recognize it anywhere. Cooler than James’s, more precise, threaded through with a sort of effortless arrogance he doesn't have to earn. Sirius doesn’t speak to be heard. He speaks because the world always listens. He laughs like the sun doesn't blind him anymore. Like he’s been here before, and already survived it.

Their voices blur together, warm and sharp and unbearably distant. A private world outside the thin curtain, a place you’re never fully let into, even when you're part of it.

You swallow hard. The taste of metal still lingers.

Madam Pomfrey told you to rest. Strict orders, she said. Full bedrest. You nodded then. Promised. But your body’s never listened to promises, and your mind is already slipping away from the cot, already pressing you forward with a kind of restless urgency.

The ache in your ribs flares when you move, but you ignore it. You swing your legs over the side and reach for your shoes with slow, shaking hands. Each movement tugs at the bruises hidden beneath your skin, the tender places no one else can see. You wince. You keep going.

It isn’t the pain that drives you. It’s something worse. Something quieter. That feeling, deep in your chest, like a hand gripping your lungs too tightly. Like something in you has started to rot from the inside out. You don’t want to hear them laughing. You don’t want to be the one in the bed anymore, weak and broken and watched over like a child.

You want to run until your lungs scream. You want to scream until your throat splits.

Instead, you walk.

The corridor outside is too bright. You blink against it, but don’t slow your pace. Your limbs feel like they’re moving through water, but you don’t stop. The voices are gone now, swallowed by stone and space, but they echo anyway. You hear the ghosts of their laughter in every footstep.

And it stings, because Sirius never laughed like that with you anymore. Not since you learned how to flinch without being touched. Not since the world cracked open and swallowed the parts of you that still believed he would choose you first.

You keep walking. Not because you know where you're going.

Only because you know you can't stay.

You don’t go far. You don’t have the strength.

Instead, you slip into the back corner of the library, the one with the high windows and the dust-lined shelves no one bothers to reach for anymore. It’s always too quiet there, always a little too cold — and that suits you just fine. You drop your bag and sit without grace, shoulders curling inward like you’re trying to take up less space in the world.

Your books are open, but your eyes keep blurring the words. The light from the window stripes your page in gold, but your fingers tremble as you hold the quill.

There’s a pain blooming slow beneath your ribcage now, deeper than before, as if something inside you is tugging out of place. You press your palm to your side, hoping the pressure will settle it, but all it does is remind you that it’s real.

It gets worse the longer you sit. The burning in your spine, the throb in your joints. Your whole body pulses like a bruise someone won’t stop pressing. You grit your teeth and write anyway, like if you just get through one more page, one more hour, one more breath—you’ll be okay.

But you’re not. Not really. And every breath tastes a little more like defeat.

The days fold over themselves like tired parchment.

You wake. You ache. You drift from bed to class to hospital wing to silence. You ignore James when he finds you in the corridor and calls you sunshine with a grin too wide for the way your heart is breaking.

You tell him off with a glare you don’t mean. He calls you cruel and laughs anyway. You walk away before he can see the way your hands are shaking.

The world goes on.

And then one afternoon, when the sun slips low and casts everything in amber, you see him.

Regulus.

Your twin. Your mirror, once.

He’s seated beneath the black lake window, where the light is darker and more still. His robes are sharp and his posture straighter than you remember.

There’s a boy beside him — fair hair, eyes too bright. You’ve seen him before. Barty Crouch Jr. A Slytherin, like Regulus. Arrogant. Sharp-tongued. Always smiling like he knows something you don’t.

They’re laughing. Low and conspiratorial. Something shared between them that you’ll never be invited into.

And Regulus is smiling, real and rare and soft in the way you used to think only you could draw from him. His face is unguarded. His shoulders are relaxed. He looks... content. Not loud like James, not wild like Sirius. But happy. In that quiet, unreachable way.

It guts you.

Because both your brothers have found something. Sirius, with the way he flings himself into everything—light, reckless, loved. And Regulus, with his quiet victories and his perfect tie and his smiles saved for someone else. They’ve carved out slivers of peace in this cold castle, let someone in enough to ease the weight they both carry.

And you—you can’t even let James brush your sleeve without recoiling.

You can’t even let yourself believe someone might stay.

You sit there, tangled in your own silence, staring at a boy who you used to fix his tie after your mother left the room, because he never could quite center it himself.

And now—he doesn’t need you.

Now, he looks like the last untouched part of what your family once was. The only grace left.

He sits with his back straight, his collar crisp, his shoes polished to a soft gleam that catches even in the low light. His tie is knotted with precision. His hair, always tidy, always parted just right, never unruly the way yours has always been.

Everything about him is exact — not stiff, but composed. He is elegance without effort, and you don’t know whether to feel proud or bitter, watching him hold himself together like the portrait of what you were both meant to be.

He is the son your mother wanted, the child she could show off. He never had to be told twice to stand straight or speak softer or smile with his mouth closed. Where you burned, he silenced the flame. Where you ran wild with leaves tangled in your curls, he walked beside her, polished and obedient and clean.

If she saw you now — slouched, hair unbound and wild, dirt smudged along your hem — she would scream.

First, for your hair. Always your hair. too messy, too alive.

Second, for sitting on the ground like some gutter child, as if you weren’t born from the ancient bloodline she tattooed onto your skin with every rule she taught you to fear.

And third — oh, third, for the thing she wouldn’t name. For the thing she’d feel in her bones before she saw it. Something’s wrong with you. Has always been wrong with you. Even when you’re still, you’re too much.

There’s no winning in a house like that.

But Regulus — Regulus still wins. Somehow. He balances the weight she gave him and never once lets it show on his face. And maybe it should make you feel less alone, seeing him there. Maybe it should comfort you, to know one of you managed to survive the storm with their softness intact.

You blink hard, but the sting in your eyes doesn’t go away.

Because Regulus sits like he belongs.

The light in the library has thinned to bruised blue and rusted gold. Outside, the sun has collapsed behind the tree line, dragging the warmth with it. Shadows stretch long and quiet across the stone, draped between the shelves like forgotten coats.

Your hand closes around the edge of the desk. Wood under skin. You push yourself up, gently, carefully, like you’ve been taught to do. Your body protests with a dull, familiar ache — hips locking, spine stiff. You’ve sat too long. That’s all, you tell yourself. You always do.

But then it comes.

A pull, not sharp — not at first. It begins low, behind the ribs, like a wire drawn tight through your center. It pulses once. And then again. And then all at once.

The pain does not scream. It settles.

It climbs into your body like it has lived there before — like it knows you. It sinks its teeth deep into the marrow, not the muscles, not the skin. The pain lives in your bones. It nestles into the hollow of your hips, winds around your spine, hammers deep into your shins. Not a wound. Not an injury. Something older. Hungrier.

You stagger, palm flying to the wall to catch yourself. Stone greets your skin, cold and indifferent. You can’t tell if your breath is leaving you too fast or not coming at all. It feels like both. Your ribs refuse to expand. Your lungs ache. Your throat is tight, raw, thick with air that won’t go down.

Still, it’s the bones that scream the loudest.

They carry it. Not just the pain, but the weight of it. Like your skeleton has begun to collapse inward — folding under a pressure no one else can see. Your joints feel carved from glass. Every movement, even a tremble, sends flares of heat spiraling down your limbs. You press a hand to your chest, to your side, to your shoulder — seeking the source — but there’s nothing on the surface. Nothing bleeding. Nothing broken.

And still, you are breaking.

Your ears ring. Not a pitch, but a pressure — like the air itself is narrowing. Like the world is folding in. You blink, and the shelves blur, the light bends, the corners of your vision curl inward like paper catching flame. You think, I should sit down.

But it’s already too late.

Your knees buckle. There’s that terrible moment — the heartbeat of weightlessness — before the fall. Before the floor claims you. Your shoulder catches the edge of a shelf. Books crash down around you in protest. You feel the noise in your ribs, but not in your ears. Everything else is too loud — your body, your body, your body.

And then you’re on the floor.

The stone beneath you is merciless. It doesn’t take the pain. It holds it. Reflects it. You press your cheek to it, eyes wide and wet and burning, and feel the tremors racing through your legs. Your hands are claws. Your spine is fire. Your ribs rattle in their cage like something dying to escape.

It’s not just pain. It’s possession.

Your bones do not feel like yours. They are occupied. Inhabited by something brutal and nameless. You are no longer a girl on a floor. You are a vessel for suffering, hollowed and used.

White fogs the edges of your sight.

And then — darkness, cool and absolute.

The only thing you know as it takes you is this: the pain does not leave with you. It goes where you go. It follows you into the dark. It belongs to you.

Like your bones always have.

Waking feels like sinking—an uneven descent through layers of fog and silence that settle deep in your bones before the world sharpens into focus.

The scent of disinfectant stings your nostrils like a cold warning. Beneath your fingertips, the hospital sheets whisper against your skin, thin and taut, a reminder that you are here—pinned, fragile, contained. The narrow bed presses into your back, a quiet cage, and pale light spills weakly through the infirmary windows, too muted to warm you. Somewhere far away, a curtain flutters, its soft murmur a ghostly breath you can’t quite reach.

You’re not ready to open your eyes—not yet.

Because the silence is broken by a voice, raw and electric, sparking through the stillness like a flame licking dry wood.

It’s James.

But this James isn’t the one you know. The James who calls you “sunshine” just to hear you argue back, or the one who struts beside you in the hallways with that infuriating grin, as if the world bends beneath his feet. No. This voice is cracked and frayed, unraveling with worry and something heavier — the weight of helplessness.

“You should’ve sent word sooner,” he says, and every syllable feels like a shard caught in his throat.

“She fainted,” he repeats, as if saying it out loud might make it less real. “In the bloody library. She collapsed. Do you understand what that means?”

The sound of footsteps shuffles nearby, followed by Madam Pomfrey’s steady voice, calm but firm, trying to thread together the broken edges of panic.

“She’s resting now. Safe. That’s what matters.”

James laughs, but it’s not a laugh. It’s a brittle sound, half breath, half crack.

“Safe? You call this safe? She was lying there—cold—and I thought—” His voice breaks, a jagged exhale caught between frustration and fear.

“She doesn’t say anything, you know. Never says a damn thing. Always brushing me off, like I’m just some idiot who’s in the way. But I see it. I see it. The way she winces when she stands too fast. And none of you—none of you bloody do anything.”

Your chest tightens like a fist around your heart.

You hadn’t expected this.

This raw, aching desperation beneath his words—the way his concern flickers through the cracks of his usual arrogance and shields. The way he’s caught between anger and helplessness, trying so desperately to fix something that isn’t easily fixed.

You lie still, listening to him, feeling the swell of something close to hope and something just as close to despair.

James Potter — sun-drunk boy, full of fire and foolish heart, standing now like a storm about to break. He paces the edge of your infirmary bed as if motion alone might hold back the tide. He looks unmade, undone: his tie hangs crooked, his hair is more chaos than crown, his sleeves rolled unevenly as if he dressed without thought — or too much of it — only the frantic instinct to get to you.

“I should’ve walked her to the library,” he murmurs, and his voice is smaller now, like a flame flickering at the end of its wick.

Madam Pomfrey, ever the calm in the storm, offers a gentle but resolute reply. “Mr. Potter, she’ll wake soon. She needs rest, not your guilt.”

But guilt has already laid roots in his chest — you can hear it in the way his breath hitches, in the soft exhale that seems to carry the weight of an entire world. His hands press to his face like he’s trying to hold it together, knuckles pale, fingertips trembling slightly at the edges.

You blink. Just once.

The light slices through the shadows behind your eyes like a blade — too sharp, too clean. But you blink again, slowly, eyelashes sticky with sleep.

The ceiling swims into shape above you, white stone carved with faint veins and a hairline crack running like a map across its arch. It feels strange, being awake again. Like stepping through a door and finding the air different on the other side.

You shift your head — careful, slow — not because you’re afraid of waking anyone, but because you know the pain is still there, sleeping under your skin like an old god. Waiting. You feel it stretch along your spine, an ache carved into your marrow. Your body is quieter than before, but not calm. Just… biding time.

He doesn’t notice you yet — too consumed by whatever promise he’s making to himself. You catch only pieces of it: something about making sure you eat next time, and sleep, and sit when your knees go soft. His voice is hoarse, edged with something too raw to name.

And though your throat burns and your bones still hum with the echo of collapse, you find yourself watching him.

Because this boy — foolish, golden, infuriating — is breaking himself open at your bedside, and he doesn’t even know you’re watching.

It’s strange.

This boy who never stops grinning. Who fills every hallway like he’s afraid of silence — like stillness might swallow him whole. Who flirts just to irritate you, calls you cruel with a wink when you roll your eyes at his jokes.

This boy who you’ve shoved away a hundred times with cold stares and tired sarcasm — he’s here.

And he looks like he’s breaking.

Because of you.

You swallow against the dryness in your throat. There’s a weight lodged just beneath your ribs, sharp and unfamiliar, twisting like a question you don’t want to answer.

You never asked him to care. Never asked anyone to look too closely. In fact, you’ve spent so long building walls from half-smiles and quiet lies, you almost believed no one would ever bother to scale them.

But somehow — somewhere along the way — James Potter learned to read you anyway.

Learned to translate silence into worry. To see the way your shoulders fold inward when you think no one’s watching. The way your laugh fades too fast. The way you don’t flinch from pain because you’ve been carrying it for so long it’s become part of you.

And for the first time — it doesn’t feel annoying.

It feels terrifying.

Because if he sees it, really sees it… the frayed edges, the heaviness in your bones, the way you’ve started to drift so far inward it sometimes feels easier not to come back — what then?

What happens when someone finds the truth you’ve hidden even from yourself?

You wonder how long he’s been carrying this fear. How long he’s noticed the signs you’ve worked so hard to bury.

And quietly — achingly — you wonder how long you’ve been hoping no one ever would.

You’ve pushed him away a hundred times. Maybe more. With cold eyes and sharper words, with silence that says stay away. You made yourself invisible. Not because you wanted to be alone—but because you thought it was easier that way. Easier than asking for help. Easier than letting anyone get close enough to see what’s really breaking inside.

Because the truth is: you don’t want to be here much longer.

Not in some dramatic way, not yet.

But the thought is always there, quiet and persistent—like a shadow that never leaves your side. You’ve made plans, small and silent. Things you think about when the ache inside your bones is too heavy to carry. The nights when you lie awake and imagine what it would be like if you simply stopped trying. If you slipped away and no one had to watch you fall apart.

You’ve counted the moments it might take, rehearsed the words you’d leave behind—or maybe decided silence would say enough.

You wondered if anyone would notice. If anyone would come looking.

And yet here is James.

Pacing by your bedside like he’s carrying the weight of your pain on his shoulders. His voice trembles with worry you didn’t invite. Worry you thought you’d hidden too well.

But for now, you lie still, tangled in the ache beneath your skin. Wondering if leaving would hurt more than staying. Wondering if anyone really knows the parts of you that are already gone.

Wondering if you can find the strength to let him in—before it’s too late.

You don't mean to make a sound. You don’t even know that you have, until Madam Pomfrey draws a sudden breath, sharp and startled.

“She’s—James—she’s awake.”

There’s a rustle of movement. A chair scraping. A breath hitching.

And then James is at your side like he’d been waiting his whole life to be called to you.

But none of that matters.

Because you are crying.

Not politely. Not the soft, well-behaved kind they show in portraits. No. You're shaking. Wracked. The sob rises from somewhere too deep to name and breaks in your chest like a wave crashing through glass. Your shoulders curl, but your arms don’t lift. You don't even try to wipe your face. There's no use pretending anymore.

The tears fall hot and endless down your cheeks, soaking into your pillow, your collar, the edge of your sheets. It’s not one thing. It’s everything. It’s the ache in your bones.

The thunder in your chest. The way Regulus smiled at someone else. The way Sirius ran. The way James calls you sunshine like it’s not a lie.

The way you’ve spent your whole life trying to be good and perfect and silent and still ended up wrong.

And the worst part — the cruelest part — is that no one has ever seen you like this. Not really. You were always the composed one. The strong one. The one who shrugged everything off with a tilt of her head and a mouth full of thorns. The one who glared at James when he flirted and scoffed at softness and made everyone believe you didn’t need saving.

But you do. You do.

You just never learned how to ask for it.

And now—now your chest is heaving, and the room is spinning, and you can’t breathe through the noise in your head that says:

What if this never ends? What if I never get better? What if I disappear and no one misses me? What if I’m already gone and they just don’t know it yet?

You hear your name. Once. Twice.

Gentle, then firmer.

James.

You flinch like it’s a wound.

“Hey, hey—” His voice is careful now, as if you’ve become something sacred and fragile. “Hey, look at me. It’s alright. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

But you shake your head violently, because no, you are not safe, not from yourself, not from the sickness that has wrapped its hands around your ribs and pulled and pulled until you forgot what breathing without pain felt like.

Your throat burns. Your fingers curl helplessly into the blanket. You want to tear your skin off just to escape it. You want to go somewhere so far no one can ask you to come back.

Madam Pomfrey stands frozen in place, her eyes wide, her hand half-lifted. She has known you for years and never—not once—has she seen a crack in your porcelain mask.

And now here you are. Crumbling in front of them both.

“Black—please—” James tries again, voice breaking in the middle. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what to do, I’ll do anything, I swear—”

“I can’t,” you gasp, the words torn from you like confession. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to— I don’t—”

You don’t say it. The rest of it. You don’t have to. It’s in your eyes, wide and soaked and terrified. In your hands, trembling like the last leaves of autumn. In the hollow behind your ribs that’s been growing for months.

James sits carefully on the edge of your bed. His eyes are wet. You’ve never seen him cry before.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he whispers. “Not now. Not alone. You don’t have to be strong for anyone anymore.”

You sob harder. Because that’s the thing you never believed. That someone could see your weakness and not run from it. That someone could love you for the parts you try to hide.

James doesn't flinch. He doesn’t joke. He doesn’t call you cruel or cold or impossible to love. He just reaches out with one hand and lays it on yours, feather-light, as if you’re made of smoke.

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right here.”

A week passes.

It drips by slowly, like honey left too long in the cold — thick and sticky, every hour clinging to the next. The pain in your body doesn't ease. It deepens. It threads itself into your bones like ivy curling around old stone, slow but suffocating.

Some mornings it takes everything just to sit up. Some nights you lie awake listening to your heartbeat stutter behind your ribs, wondering if it will give out before you do.

James has not left you.

Not once, not really. He’s still insufferable — that much hasn’t changed — but it’s quieter now.

The jokes catch in his throat more often than they land. He hovers too long in doorways. He watches you like he’s memorizing the way you breathe. And his eyes — the ones that used to be full of flirt and fire and mischief — are wide and rimmed in worry.

It makes you furious.

Because you don’t want his pity. You don’t want anyone’s pity. You don’t want to be a burden strapped to someone else’s shoulder. You don’t want to see that shift in his face — the softening, the sadness, the silent fear that you might vanish right in front of him.

It’s worse than pain. It’s exposure.

Still, he meets you after class every day, waiting by the corridor with two cups of tea, like it’s some unspoken ritual. He never says you look tired, but he walks slower. He never asks if you’re in pain, but his hand always twitches like he wants to reach out and steady you.

Except today.

Today, he isn’t there.

And you know why before you even ask.

Because today is Sirius’s birthday.

You try not to be bitter. You try to let it go, to let him have this — his brother, his celebration, his joy. But bitterness has a way of curling around grief like smoke. It stings just the same.

You walk alone to the Great Hall, half-hoping, half-dreading, and then you see them.

All of them.

There at the Gryffindor table, the loudest cluster in the room, bursting with laughter and light like a constellation too bright to look at directly. Sirius sits in the center, crown of charmed glitter and floating stars hovering just above his head. He’s grinning — wide and wild and untouched by the quiet rot eating through your days.

Regulus used to crown him, once.

You remember it like it happened this morning — the three of you, tangled in sun-drenched grass, scraps of daisies in your hair, Sirius demanding to be called “King of the Forest,” Regulus rolling his eyes and obliging anyway, and you balancing a crooked wooden crown on his head like he was the only boy who ever mattered.

You loved him then. You love him now.

But everything has changed.

Now Sirius is surrounded by friends and light and cake that glitters. Regulus is far away, still sharp, still polished, still untouchable. And you — you pass by like a ghost with a too-slow gait and a storm in your chest, unnoticed.

No one looks up.

Not even James.

Not even him.

You keep walking.

And you try not to think about how much it hurts that he isn’t waiting for you today. How much it feels like being forgotten.

How much it feels like disappearing.

You sit in the Great Hall, untouched plate before you, the silver spoon resting against the rim like even it’s too tired to try. There’s food, you think. Warm and plentiful, enough to satisfy kingdoms — but none of it ever looks like it belongs to you.

Your stomach turns at the scent.

You haven't eaten properly in days, if not longer. You don't bother counting anymore. Hunger doesn’t feel like hunger now. It feels like grief in your throat, like something alive trying to claw its way up and out of you. So you just sit there, alone at the far end of the table where no one comes, where there’s room enough for a silence no one wants to join.

You have no friends. Not anymore. Illness has a way of peeling people away from you like fruit from its skin. They stop asking. Stop waiting. Stop noticing. You can’t blame them, really — what’s the use in trying to be close to a body always fraying at the seams?

Across the hall, Sirius is the sun incarnate. He always is on his birthday.

He’s laughing with James now, something too loud and full of warmth. His cheeks are flushed with joy, hair glittering with the shimmer of charmed confetti, mouth parted mid-story as if the world waits to hear him speak.

The Marauders hang around him like moons caught in his orbit, throwing wrappers and spells and terrible puns into the air like fireworks. It’s messy and golden and warm. And for a moment, you forget how to breathe.

You used to be part of that. Didn’t you?

Used to sit beside him and Regulus in the gardens with hands sticky from treacle tart and lips red from laughter. Used to have a seat at the table. A place. A life.

Now even Regulus is far away — his corner of the Slytherin table colder, quieter. But still not alone. He’s flanked by Barty, Evan, and Pandora. All sharp edges and shining eyes. All seemingly untouched by the rot that follows you. Regulus leans in, listens, offers a rare smirk that you remember from childhood, one he used to save just for you.

He hasn’t looked at you in weeks.

The ache in your chest blooms sudden and vicious. You press your knuckles into your side beneath the table — a small, private act of violence — as if you can convince your body to shut up, to behave, to let you just exist for one more hour. But the pain lurches anyway. Slow at first, then sharper. Stabbing between your ribs like something snapping loose.

You can’t do this.

You stand — too fast, too rough — and the edges of the room ripple like heat rising off pavement. No one notices. No one calls after you. Not even James.

Especially not James.

You walk out of the Hall without tasting a single bite.

And then you’re in the corridor, then on the stairs, and then climbing the towers toward your room. Step by step. Breath by breath. It should be easy — you’ve made this walk a hundred times. But your legs tremble beneath you. The pain isn't where it usually is. It's everywhere now. Your spine, your stomach, the backs of your eyes. Every inch of you buzzes like a broken wire. You clutch the banister like a lifeline, but even that’s not enough.

This is the third time this week.

It’s never been three times.

You should go to Pomfrey. Tell someone. Let someone help.

But your throat stays closed. You keep walking.

Some part of you wonders if this is what dying feels like — this slow crumbling, this breathlessness, this fatigue that eats your name and your shadow and your will to keep standing. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? To stop. Just for a little while. Just until the pain quiets. Just until the storm passes.

Except you know the storm is you.

You reach your dorm and shut the door behind you with the quiet finality of a girl preparing to vanish. The walls are too still. The windows don’t let in enough light.

What if I just didn’t wake up tomorrow?

You let your bag fall to the floor. It lands with a dull, tired thud.

And then you see it.

Resting on the pillow — a single folded letter. Pale parchment. Tidy handwriting. Sealed not with wax but with duty. You don’t need to open it to know who it’s from. You don’t need to guess the weight of its words.

Still, you pick it up.

Your fingers tremble as you unfold it. Each crease feels like a wound reopening.

Darling, Christmas is nearly upon us. I expect you and Regulus home promptly this year — no delays. You’ve missed enough holidays already. No excuses will be accepted. — Mother

That’s it.

That’s all.

Twelve words from the woman who hasn’t written in months. No inquiry into your health. No mention of your letters, the ones she never answered. No softness. No warmth. Just expectation carved into command, as if your body isn't breaking open like wet paper. As if you’re still someone who can just show up — smiling, polished, whole.

You stare at the page until the words blur. Until they bleed.

And then something inside you slips.

The tears come without warning. No build, no warning breath. Just the kind of sob that erupts straight from the gut — ragged, cracked, feral. You sink to your knees beside the bed, hands still clinging to the letter like it might fight back, like it might tear through your skin and finish what your body started.

The pain blooms fast and ruthless. It surges from your spine to your chest, flooding every inch of you like fire caught beneath your ribs. You curl in on yourself, nails digging into your arms, into your thighs, into the fragile curve of your ribs. You clutch at your bones like you can hold them together — like you can stop them from collapsing.

But nothing stops it.

Nothing stops the sound that tears from your throat. A scream muffled into the sheets. A cry swallowed by solitude.

You can’t breathe. You can’t think. All you can feel is this white-hot ache that eats at your joints, your heart, your hope.

You don’t want to go home.

You don’t want to keep going.

You want it to stop. All of it. The pain, the pretending, the loneliness of being expected to survive in a world that only ever sees the surface of you.

You press your forehead to the floor. Cold. Unmoving. Solid.

And you cry — truly cry — not in anger or silence, but in the voice of someone who has held it in too long, who has no more space left inside for grief.

And still, the letter stays crumpled in your fist, a ghost of a girl who once believed her mother might write something kind.

You move like your bones aren’t breaking.

You move like the letter from your mother isn’t still open on the desk, edges trembling in the breeze from the cracked window, her careful handwriting slicing you open with its simplicity. Christmas is coming. You and Regulus are expected home. No excuses.

You move because if you stop, you will shatter. Because the only thing worse than pain is stillness. Stillness makes it real.

So you go to the mirror.

The room is too quiet, too full of the breath you can barely draw. The walls feel too close, like they’re pressing in, trying to crush the last sliver of strength you’ve kept hidden beneath your ribs. Your legs are unsteady beneath you, every step forward a question you don’t want the answer to.

Your reflection barely looks like you anymore.

There is a hollowness in your eyes that no amount of light can touch. Your skin is pale and stretched thin, the corners of your mouth pulled in defeat. Your hair is a wild mess—matted from where you clutched at it in pain, tangled from nights curled on cold floors instead of in beds, from days where brushing it felt like too much of a luxury.

You reach for the comb. It clatters in your hands, and for a moment, you just stare at it.

Then you begin.

Each pull through your hair is a distraction from the agony blooming in your bones—sharp, raw, endless. You comb as if each knot you work through might undo a knot inside your chest. It doesn’t. But still, you comb.

You need to. You have to.

Because Sirius is downstairs. Laughing. Shining. Surrounded by love and warmth and them. You should be there. It’s his birthday. You remember the way he used to leap into your bed at sunrise, dragging you and Regulus by the wrists, shouting, “Coronation time!” and demanding to be crowned king of everything. You always made him a crown out of daisies and broken twigs. Regulus would scowl but help you braid it anyway.

He loved those crowns. He kept every one.

You remember how the three of you used to sit on the rooftop ledge, legs dangling, hands sticky with cake, Sirius declaring himself “the prettiest monarch of them all,” and Regulus pretending to hate it, even as he leaned against you, quiet and content.

Now Sirius is laughing without you. And Regulus is nowhere near your side.

You press the comb harder into your scalp. You need to focus.

Because Regulus—he should be here. You need him. Desperately. With a bone-deep ache that feels like hunger. But you haven’t spoken in days. He doesn’t look at you anymore. Not really. And you can’t ask. You don’t know how.

And James—bloody James—you almost wish he was here. As much as he drives you insane, with his constant chatter and shameless flirting, at least it means someone is trying to stay. At least it means you’re not entirely alone. But he isn’t here. He’s down there with Sirius, and you're alone in this echoing silence, braiding your hair like it might save you from yourself.

You divide it into three sections.

One for Sirius. One for Regulus. One for yourself.

You twist the first strand with shaking fingers, tight enough that it pulls your scalp taut. Then the second, even tighter. Your arms ache. Your chest tightens. The pain is good—it makes everything else fade. Not vanish, but blur around the edges.

By the third strand, your eyes are burning again.

You begin to braid.

Over, under, over.

You focus on the motion. The discipline. The illusion of control. Each loop is a scream you don’t let out. Each pull is an ache you refuse to voice. You braid like your life depends on it. Like if it’s tight enough, neat enough, maybe you’ll stop falling apart. Maybe you’ll be someone your mother could stand to look at. Maybe you’ll be strong enough to walk past Sirius without dying inside. Maybe you won’t feel so abandoned by Regulus. Maybe you’ll stop wondering what would happen if you simply stopped waking up.

Over. Under. Pull.

You want someone to notice. Just once. That you're not okay. That you haven’t been for a very long time. But you also want to disappear.

The braid is so tight it lifts the corners of your face, gives the illusion of composure. It hurts to blink. It hurts to breathe.

But at least now, you look fine.

You stare at your reflection. The girl in the mirror doesn’t cry. She doesn’t break. She’s polished, composed, hair perfect, pain tucked behind the curve of her spine. Just like Mother taught her.

But you can still feel it.

Inside.

Worse than ever.

The kind of ache that doesn’t come from sickness. The kind that whispers, What if you just stopped trying?

And for a heartbeat too long, you wonder what it would be like to let go.

But you blink. You blink and you turn and you reach for your school bag like the world hasn’t ended, and you prepare to go sit through another class, braid perfect, bones screaming, heart bleeding.

Because no one can save you if they don’t know you’re drowning.

And no one is looking.

You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen. For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines.

It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.

Your fingers move almost mechanically as you smooth the fabric of your robe, the weight of it heavy with memories and expectation. Each fold you press flat feels like an attempt to iron out the wrinkles of your fractured soul, to shape yourself into something orderly, something that fits into the world your mother demands.

The knot of your tie is next—tight and precise, a cold reminder of the control you’re expected to hold, even as everything inside you threatens to unravel.

Turning away from the mirror, you move to your bed, your hands carefully pulling the covers taut. The fabric is smooth under your fingertips, but your heart feels anything but.

You straighten the pillows, tuck in the sheets, as if by arranging this small corner of your world perfectly, you can bring some order to the chaos swirling inside your mind.

Books come next. You stack them neatly on your desk, aligning every corner and spine as if the act itself could contain the chaos you feel.

You run your fingers over the worn covers and flip through the pages, lingering on the words one last time. Your homework lies finished—no undone tasks, no loose ends to catch you. Everything is set, ready.

Your hands tremble slightly as you set your quill back in its holder. The quiet click in the stillness of your room feels loud, a reminder of the fragile balance you hold. In this small, solemn ritual, you prepare not just your things, but yourself—gathering the last threads of control, the last remnants of order before you let go.

The silence wraps around you, waiting.

You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen.

For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines. It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.

The silence wraps around you, waiting.

The halls are half-empty, half-asleep in golden mid-afternoon hush, and your footsteps echo too loudly against the stone, like your bones are protesting with every step.

The books in your arms weigh more than they should, tugging your spine downward, but you hold them like a shield. Like maybe the act of carrying knowledge — of submitting things, of finishing things — will be enough to make you feel real again.

You don’t notice James at first. Not until he steps out from where he must’ve been waiting by the staircase — leaning against the bannister with the kind of bored posture that usually precedes some ridiculous joke.

But he doesn't speak right away this time. His eyes move to your braids, then down the neat lines of your uniform, and there’s a strange stillness in him. No grin. Just… surprise.

“Bloody hell,” he says finally, voice light but too soft to be teasing. “You’ve got your hair up.”

You blink at him. Say nothing. Your arms tighten slightly around your books, like you’re bracing yourself.

He lifts a hand, gestures vaguely. “Not that it’s any of my business — I mean, you always look like you just fought off a banshee in a thunderstorm, and now you look like you’ve… fought it and survived.” A smile tries to form, wobbly. “It suits you. You look really cute.”

You stop.

Not just physically, but inside too — something halting in your breath, like a skipped beat. Your gaze meets his, dull and quiet.

“Not today, James.”

Your voice is hoarse. Frayed silk over gravel. There’s no snap to it, no snarl or bite. You just say it like a truth. Like you’re too tired for anything else.

James straightens slowly. He doesn’t speak for a moment, just watches you like he’s trying to read through all the space between your words. Your name sits on his tongue, but he doesn’t use it. Instead, his brows lift — not in arrogance this time, but in something like confusion. Or worry.

“You—” He swallows. “You called me James.”

You shift your books in your arms, not meeting his eyes this time. “I just want to get through the day.”

He takes a step toward you, but something in your posture keeps him from reaching farther. “Hey, I can carry those—”

“I said not today.” you repeat, softer. Final.

And for once, he listens.

There’s a beat. Then he gives a small nod, stuffing his hands in his pockets, trying to play it cool even though you can see the concern crawling up his throat like ivy.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “But if you need anything, I— I’m around.”

You nod once — not in agreement, just acknowledgment. Then turn.

You don’t see how long he watches you walk away.

Your steps are heavier now, the ache blooming behind your knees and up your spine. It shouldn't be this bad — not again, not so soon. You already fell apart days ago. But the fire’s back in your ribs, licking up the side of your lungs, and you press your lips into a thin line, determined not to let it show.

You pass the Great Hall on your way. You don’t look in.

But Sirius sees you.

He’s mid-laugh, one of those rare carefree ones that sounds like summer. Remus has just handed him a small box wrapped in gold, and his crown — handmade from parchment, ink-smudged and jagged — sits slightly askew on his head. He freezes. The smile falters. His brows draw in. Something in his chest clenches.

“Was that—?” he begins, turning toward Remus.

“She didn’t see us,” Remus murmurs, already watching you too.

Your shoulders are too tight. Your spine too stiff. You don’t notice the silence left behind you. You don’t hear how the laughter quiets. You’re already up the next stairwell, already telling yourself you just need the potions. Just need to breathe. Just need to finish submitting your homework. Then maybe—maybe—

You won’t have to feel this anymore.

The infirmary is warm when you step inside, too warm. It clings to your skin like a fever, like the ache in your bones has grown teeth and is sinking in deeper the longer you stand.

You hug your books closer to your chest, as if they might anchor you here, hold you steady, keep you from unraveling.

Madam Pomfrey doesn’t look up. She’s bent over a boy laid out on the nearest cot—mud streaked across his face, quidditch robes still soaked in grass and sweat.

Normally, she’d have noticed you by now. Normally, she would have called you over, already tsk-ing and summoning your chart. But she’s too absorbed today, too busy, and for the first time in a long time, no one’s watching you.

Your eyes drift to the far side of the room—to her desk. A tray sits just behind it, lined with small glass vials. Labels scrawled in Pomfrey’s sharp handwriting. Pale blue, golden amber, deep crimson—every kind of potion she’s ever poured down your throat. You know their names better than your own.

And there, at the back, barely touched, is the strongest pain reliever in her stores. Veridomirine.

Dark and glinting in the soft light, like it already knows it’s too much for most. You remember it burning a hole in your stomach the last time she gave it to you. The way your limbs went numb. The way your mind stilled. The silence of it.

Your grip tightens on your books.

The decision happens slowly and all at once. You glance at Madam Pomfrey—her back still turned, wand still stitching, voice low as she murmurs reassurance to the boy on the bed.

You step forward, quiet, deliberate. Like you’ve done this before. Like your body already knows the path.

The desk is closer than you expect. You set your books down gently, hands shaking just enough to notice, and reach for the bottle. The glass is cool. Heavier than you remember. It fits into your palm like it was made for you.

You don’t hesitate. You don’t think.

You slide it into the fold of your robe, between the fabric and your ribs, right where the pain always begins.

And then you lift your books again, turn on your heel, and walk out as if you’ve only come for a quick word, as if nothing is different. As if your hands aren’t burning from what you’ve just done.

The corridor is quiet outside. Brisk. The chill hits your cheeks and you let it. Let it bite and sharpen and bring you back into your body.

But something is different now.

Because inside your robe, glass clinks softly with every step.

And for the first time, you feel like you’re holding your way out.

All you can hear is your heartbeat, dull and heavy, and the quiet clink of glass from the bottle nestled beneath your sleeve.

You push open the infirmary doors, and the hallway blooms before you, empty at first glance. But he’s there.

Sirius.

Leaning against the stone wall, one foot pressed behind him for balance, arms crossed in a way that looks casual—effortlessly disheveled—but you don’t see the way his jaw keeps tightening, or the way he’s been picking at the edge of his sleeve, over and over again.

He straightens when he hears the door creak open. His head lifts, eyes scanning quickly—and softening, melting, when he sees you. You, with your too-tight braid, your hollow stare, the way you walk like you’re already halfway gone.

He doesn’t recognize you at first.

Not because you’ve changed on the outside—though you have—but because something’s missing. Something small. Something vital.

And Sirius Black has never known how to say delicate things, not with words. Not with you. So he does what he always does—he opens his mouth and hopes something human will fall out.

“Hey—”

But you’re already passing.

You don’t see the way he steps forward, the way his fingers twitch like he might reach for your arm. You don’t hear the “Can we talk?” die in his throat. You don’t even look at him. Not once.

You’re already turning away.

The braid down your back is tight, almost punishing. A line of control in a world unraveling thread by thread. Your robes are neat, too neat. Tie straight. Steps calculated. As if by holding the pieces together on the outside, you might silence the ruin inside.

As if you can braid back the shadows trying to tear themselves loose.

Sirius opens his mouth. Wants to say your name. Just your name. Softly, like a tether, like a reminder. But the syllables die on his tongue. You’re already walking away, and the space between you feels suddenly endless. Like galaxies expanding between breaths.

And still—he doesn’t call after you.

He watches. That’s all he can do.

Watches you walk with the quiet defiance of someone who has learned how to disappear in full view. Someone who was born under a cursed name and carved their own silence from it. He knows that silence.

He’s worn it too. It’s in his name—in Black. Not just a surname but a legacy of storms. A bloodline that confuses cruelty for strength, silence for survival.

He told himself he had outrun it. That the name couldn’t touch him anymore. But now he watches you, and he realizes: Black isn’t just his burden—it’s yours too. You carry the same weight in your eyes. That same quiet grief. That same ache for something better.

You were the one who never bent. Never cried. Even when the pain took your bones, you met the world with cold fire in your gaze. But now he sees something else. Something crumbling. Something gone.

And it hits him like a curse spoken in the dark: he doesn’t know how to reach you. Not really. He was too late to ask the right questions. Too loud to hear the ones you never spoke aloud. Too proud to admit that sometimes, the ones who look strongest are the ones who are breaking quietly, piece by piece.

You vanish down the corridor, and Sirius stands there, the silence echoing louder than any spell. He leans back against the wall again, like if he presses hard enough, it might hold him together.

His name is Black. And for the first time in a long while, it feels like a mirror—cold, cracked, and full of all the things he was too afraid to see.

You were light once. Maybe not the kind that burned—but the kind that steadied. Quiet, firm, constant. And now, he wonders if you’ve let go of the edge entirely. If you’ve stepped too far into that old name, into the dark.

And Sirius Black—brave, loud, impossible Sirius—does not know how to follow you there.

The bottle is cold in your hand, colder than it should be.

You don’t know if it’s the glass or your fingers or something deeper, something in the marrow, in the blood. You sit on the edge of your bed like you’re balancing on a cliff, and everything around you holds its breath.

The walls. The books. The light. Even the ghosts seem to pause, like they know something sacred and shattering is about to unfold.

You set the bottle down on your nightstand, watching the liquid shimmer inside. It’s a strange shade—amber gold, like honey and fire, like something that should soothe, should heal. But you know what it’ll do.

You’ve read the labels. You’ve stolen the dosage. You’ve done the math. And for once in your life, the numbers give you certainty. This will be enough.

You glance around your room as if memorizing it, not the way it is, but the way it’s always been. The books stacked with uneven spines. The worn corner of your blanket where you’d twist the fabric between your fingers when the pain got too much. The chipped edge of the mirror where you once slammed a brush out of frustration. It’s a museum now. A mausoleum in waiting.

Your hands tremble as you reach for a parchment scrap—just a torn piece, nothing grand. You fold it carefully, slow and deliberate, your fingers aching as they crease the paper into small peaks. It’s clumsy, uneven. A paper crown no bigger than your palm.

You think of Sirius, of sun-kissed afternoons when he used to run ahead and shout that he was king of the forest, the common room, the world.

You and Regulus would laugh, always crown him, always believe him. You were never royalty, not really. Just children trying to carve a kingdom out of cracked stone and quiet grief.

You place the tiny crown on the edge of the desk. An offering. A prayer. A goodbye that won’t speak its name.

It’s his birthday.

You whisper it aloud like it means something. Like he’ll hear it. “Happy birthday, Sirius.”

And then, silence again. The kind of silence that screams.

Your fingers reach for the bottle. You uncork it slowly, and the scent rises—bitter, sharp, familiar. You think of your bones. Of how they’ve been singing a song of surrender for weeks. Months. Maybe years. Of how it’s taken everything in you just to exist in this body, in this name, in this world.

You think of Regulus. Of how his back was always straight even when everything else was falling. Of how you used to braid flowers into your hair for him, and he’d pretend not to care, but he’d look at you like you were magic. You think of James and the way his voice is always too loud but his concern is real, is warm, and how he didn’t call you a single name today. You think of how you almost wanted him to follow you.

You think of Sirius.

And it hurts so much you almost change your mind.

But the pain doesn’t leave. It never does.

It sinks deeper, folds into your joints, nests behind your ribs. It becomes you. You can’t keep holding it. You can’t keep waking up in a body that feels like betrayal, in a mind that won’t stop screaming, in a life that forgot how to soften.

There is a kind of pain that does not bleed. It settles deep — in marrow, in memory. It builds altars in your bones, asking worship of a body already breaking. You've worn this ache longer than you've worn your name, longer than your brothers stayed.

You were born into the house of Black — where silence is survival and suffering is an inheritance. Regulus moved like shadow. Sirius, like fire. But you? You learned to stay. To endure. To carry the weight of a name no one asked if you wanted. And you did it well. Too well. Long enough for the world to mistake your endurance for ease.

Because strength was never the crown you wanted. It was the chain.

You bring it to your lips.

There is no fear, not anymore. Just the hush beneath your ribs loosening for the first time. Not with hope — never with hope — but with rest. The kind no one can take from you. The kind that doesn’t hurt to hold. That doesn’t ask for your smile in exchange for survival.

You close your eyes.

And then — a crack of wood. A bang loud enough to split the night wide open. Like the universe itself couldn’t bear to be quiet a second longer.

The door crashes against the wall, unhinging the moment from its silence.

Wind howls through the space between now and never. Curtains billow like ghosts startled from sleep. You flinch before you mean to. Before you can stop yourself. The bottle slips from your hands.

It falls. A slow, glassy descent. And when it hits the floor — the shatter is almost gentle. A soft, final sound. Like the last breath of something sacred. Potion and silence spill together, staining the rug in pale, merciful ruin.

And there — Sirius.

Standing in the doorway like someone who’s already read the ending. Like someone who sprinted through every corridor of this house just to be too late.

His chest is rising like he’s run miles through storm and stone. His eyes — wild, wet, unblinking. The kind of stare that begs the world to lie.

There’s mud on his boots. A tremble in his fists. Panic stretched tight across his shoulders, brittle and loud. And something in his face — something jagged and unspoken — slices right through the stillness.

He doesn’t speak.

Neither do you.

The room holds its breath. Around you, time stands uncertain. The glass glitters between you like a warning, like a map of everything broken. The smell of the potion hangs in the air — soft, floral, almost sweet. A lullaby for leaving.

Your hands stay curled in your lap, still shaped around the ghost of what almost was. Still cradling the moment you thought you could disappear, undisturbed.

You were supposed to be gone by now.

Supposed to leave like snowfall, like mist at morning — soft, unseen, unremembered. You had rehearsed the silence. Folded your goodbyes into creases no one would find. You had made peace with the vanishing.

But he’s here. Sirius. And he is looking at you like he knows.

Like he’s known all along.

Not just the pieces you performed — the smirk, the sarcasm, the deflection sharp enough to draw blood. But the marrow of it. The hurting. The leaving. The way you’d been slipping away for years in small, invisible ways.

And you can’t take it back.

Not the uncorked bottle. Not the weight in your chest you were ready to lay down. Not the choice you almost made — not out of weakness, but weariness. The kind no one ever sees until you’ve already left.

And still. Even now.

Something uncoils in your chest. Not like hope but like release. Like exhale. Like gravity loosening its grip. The ache begins to lift, slow and smoke-soft, drifting out of your lungs, out of your spine, out of the quiet place where you’d kept it curled for so long.

And for the first time — the ache goes with you.

‘Til all that’s left is glorious bone.

825 notes · View notes

theskywithin · 3 months ago

Text

Birth Chart Breakdown- Pluto in the Houses: The Phoenix Within

Pluto does not whisper, it pulls you into the fire, strips you of illusion, and demands your rebirth. It is the shadow that follows you until you turn to face it, the destruction that clears the path for something greater. It rules the unseen forces of life, power, fear, control, surrender, transformation, and wherever it falls in your chart, that is where you will be undone and rebuilt, not once, but again and again.

This is not an easy journey. It is one of deep pain, soul-stretching lessons, and the courage to lose everything you thought you were, only to rise stronger. Pluto’s gift is not gentle, but it is profound: true power, the kind that cannot be taken, because it is born from within.

🌑 Pluto in the 1st House You are not who they told you to be. You have spent your life walking through fire, burning off the masks, shedding the layers of expectation, standing in the ruins of who you once were. Pluto in the First House forces you to confront yourself, raw, unfiltered, unbreakable. Others may fear your intensity, sensing the weight of your presence, the depth behind your eyes. You have walked through the storm of identity crises, of feeling unseen, of being too much and yet never enough. But this journey is about self-sovereignty, about reclaiming every fragmented piece of yourself and forging a presence so undeniable that even silence speaks your name.

💎 Pluto in the 2nd House What happens when everything you built your security upon crumbles? You have known loss, not just of money or possessions, but of self-worth, of believing you had to prove your value. Maybe you grew up feeling that love was conditional, that your worth was measured in what you could give, do, or achieve. Pluto in the Second House strips you of false securities, forcing you to find your foundation within. The world may take your riches, your titles, your comforts, but what you build from within is untouchable. True power is not in what you own, it is in who you are when you have nothing left but yourself.

🖋 Pluto in the 3rd House Your mind is a battlefield, thoughts that haunt, words that wound, truths that refuse to stay buried. Maybe you grew up silenced, told your ideas were wrong, or that your voice was not meant to be heard. Maybe your own mind has been your captor, replaying the past like an unbreakable loop. But Pluto here asks: What if your words are not chains, but keys? Your thoughts hold the power to create, to destroy, to shift reality itself. When you stop fearing your own voice, when you speak the truth no matter how it shakes the room, you will understand, language is magic, and yours was never meant to be quiet.

🏚 Pluto in the 4th House The walls that were meant to shelter you may have instead imprisoned you. Pluto in the Fourth House means home was not always safe, that family left wounds too deep for time to erase. You may carry the weight of generations, unspoken pain, inherited fear, patterns repeating like a song you never meant to sing. But Pluto does not let you stay trapped in the past. You are meant to break the cycle, to be the one who chooses healing over history. The home you came from does not define you, the home you create within yourself does.

🎭 Pluto in the 5th House There is a masterpiece inside you, a passion so deep it terrifies you. But do you dare to show it? Pluto here makes creativity a battlefield, maybe your art, your love, your joy was once criticized, stolen, or made to feel like it wasn’t enough. Love may have been a battlefield too, intense, intoxicating, but always leaving you breathless and burned. But the truth is, your essence was never meant to be hidden. Pluto asks you to reclaim your voice, your art, your desire to be seen, not for approval, but because you exist, and that is enough.

🛠 Pluto in the 6th House You cannot run from yourself forever. Pluto in the Sixth House makes the body a mirror, every unhealed wound, every suppressed truth manifesting as exhaustion, as illness, as the feeling that no matter how much you do, it is never enough. You have lived through cycles of burnout, pushing yourself to the edge, thinking that to be worthy, you must be useful. But Pluto demands transformation, not through overwork, but through healing. Rest is rebellion. Nourishing yourself is power. Your purpose was never to be consumed by labor, it was to rise, whole and radiant, into the life that was meant for you.

🤝 Pluto in the 7th House Love, to you, has never been gentle. It has been intense, consuming, the kind that leaves you altered, the kind that feels fated. Pluto in the Seventh House draws you to relationships that feel like mirrors, showing you your shadows, your fears, your deepest wounds. But this is not a punishment, it is the path to learning true intimacy. Not the kind built on power struggles or control, but the kind where you stand fully in your truth, unafraid of losing those who were never meant to stay.

🌑 Pluto in the 8th House You have met the abyss and survived it. You have seen endings that came too soon, trusted hands that later betrayed, felt the earth shake beneath you only to realize you were the earthquake all along. Pluto in the Eighth House forces you to face death, not literal, but the kind that leaves you forever changed. It asks you to surrender, to let go of control, to trust that loss is not the end, but the beginning. You were not meant to live on the surface. you are here to dive deep, to understand the hidden, to emerge from every ending stronger than before.

🚀 Pluto in the 9th House Once, you thought you knew. Then Pluto came, and tore down every belief you had, leaving you stranded between the past and the unknown. Maybe it was a crisis of faith, a journey that changed you, a mentor who made you question everything. Pluto here forces you to seek your own truth, not the one given to you, but the one you discover in the wreckage. This is the path of wisdom, not certainty, but curiosity, the kind that never stops asking, never stops seeking, never stops growing.

🏆 Pluto in the 10th House The world sees your ambition, your drive, but what they don’t see is the weight you carry, the sacrifices made, the moments you almost gave up. Pluto in the Tenth House makes success a trial by fire, careers lost and rebuilt, reputations shattered and restored. You were never meant for an easy path, you were meant to forge a legacy, one built on authenticity, not just achievement.

🌎 Pluto in the 11th House You have stood on the outside, searching for where you belong. Pluto in the Eleventh House forces you to leave behind shallow connections and align with those who truly see you. Betrayals may have taught you that not all friendships are forever, but they also led you to your true community, the ones who stand beside you, not for status, but for truth.

🌌 Pluto in the 12th House You carry worlds inside you, dreams, intuition, secrets buried so deep even you forget they are there. Pluto in the Twelfth House is the final surrender, to the unknown, to the divine, to the parts of yourself that cannot be controlled, only embraced. Let go. Trust the darkness. You are not lost. You are becoming.

#astrology #astro community #astro observations #astro notes #birth chart #natal astrology #natal chart #zodiac #natal placements

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jijournal · 13 days ago

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NEVER GO NEAR A MALFOY| D.M

Summary: You were taught to never go near a Malfoy, ever. But how could you? He's very much unavoidable.

wc: 1.1k+

cw: potter!reader x draco, reader is twins w harry, au where voldy doesn't exist, jily is alive, kinda unsupportive james, reader and james fight.

A/N: I can't stop with the potter!reader x draco fics.😔

⊱ ─── ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ ─── ⊰

Your parents only ever gave you and Harry one command before your very first year at Hogwarts. Not “study hard,” not “stay out of trouble,” not even “stick together.” No. It was a singular warning, sharp and unwavering, as you stood on Platform 9¾ with your trunks at your feet and nerves buzzing under your skin.

James Potter crouched in front of you, eyebrows furrowed beneath his messy hair, and pointed at both of you as if branding the rule into your very soul.

“You do not go near a Malfoy,” he said with finality. “Ever,” Lily echoed, folding her arms across her chest.

You and Harry glanced at each other, unsure whether to laugh or panic. But neither of you asked questions. You didn’t have to. Their faces were carved from stone—resolute, nostalgic, and more than a little haunted.

So you promised.

And for the first few years, you kept that promise.

⸻

You were now heavily making out with Draco Malfoy.

Pressed against the stone wall behind the library, hidden in the shadows, you felt his fingers tangle in your hair as his lips moved hungrily against yours. Your heart pounded like it always did when he touched you—half from the thrill, half from the guilt.

You broke the one rule your parents gave you. And you broke it over and over again.

You didn’t mean to fall for Draco Malfoy. You really didn’t. He was cold and smug, always armed with some sharp-tongued remark. But there was something about him that you couldn’t shake—something that got under your skin.

Maybe it was the way he looked at you when he thought no one was watching. Or the way he softened, just slightly, when you were alone. Maybe it was the fact that he saw you when so few people did.

Whatever it was, you fell. Hard.

The worst part? You didn’t regret it.

Your relationship wasn’t born from passion—it was born from quiet. From shared detentions, lingering glances, sarcastic bickering that slowly melted into warmth.

It started in fifth year, during a late-night prefect patrol, when you caught Draco staring up at the stars through one of the Astronomy Tower windows.

“I thought you didn’t care about anything that wasn’t gold or pureblood,” you had teased.

“I don’t,” he’d replied, smirking. Then, after a pause:

“Except maybe this.”

He never said what “this” meant. But he didn’t have to.

You kept it hidden. For nearly a year, you and Draco became masters of secrecy. Carefully choreographed exits, notes passed in books, fleeting touches under desks. No one suspected a thing. Not your friends. Not Harry. Not your parents.

Until the day the secret fell apart.

It started with a storm.

You and Draco had snuck off to the boathouse, hoping to escape the castle for an hour. The rain came fast, wind howling against the windows. You lit your wand and wrapped yourselves in a conjured blanket, curled together on the old wooden bench. He kissed you, slow and soft, the way he always did when he was trying not to say something out loud.

And then—click.

You both froze.

In the doorway stood Colin Creevey, camera in hand, eyes wide.

“Colin,” you said, your voice weak. “You can’t—please don’t—”

But he was already running. Already shouting your name and Draco’s down the corridor.

By the time you returned to the castle, the damage was done.

You walked into the Great Hall for dinner and the noise immediately dipped into silence. Dozens of heads turned. Murmurs passed like wildfire through the room.

“Potter’s daughter and Malfoy?”

“James Potter’s going to kill him.”

“Bloody hell, are they serious?”

You held Draco’s hand anyway.

Even though Ron gawked at you like you’d lost your mind. Even though Hermione looked at you like she was calculating seventeen different ways your life was about to fall apart.

Even Harry, sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table, stood up and walked out the moment you sat down.

He didn't talk to you for a month.

You were dreading the Easter holidays.

The moment you stepped off the train at King’s Cross, the pit in your stomach grew heavier. Your parents were waiting by the barrier, smiling—until they saw you walking hand-in-hand with Draco Malfoy.

James’s smile vanished.

Lily blinked like she was sure she was seeing things.

“Draco,” you said carefully, “maybe I’ll see you later—”

But James was already storming forward.

“Is this a joke?” he snapped. “Please tell me this is some Slytherin dare.”

“Dad—”

“No, no, no, don’t Dad me—you promised. You promised us!”

“I didn’t plan this—”

“Damn right you didn’t!” James shouted, voice cracking. “He’s a Malfoy! Do you have any idea what that family stands for?”

Draco, to his credit, didn’t say a word. He just nodded once at James, then looked at you with something unreadable in his eyes.

“I’ll see you later,” he murmured, and disappeared into the crowd.

Back home, the air was thick with silence.

Lily sat across from you at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a cooling cup of tea. James paced by the fireplace like a storm cloud.

“I knew you’d rebel eventually,” James muttered. “But I didn’t think you’d break our one rule.”

“I’m not rebelling,” you said. “I’m in love with him.”

The room froze.

Lily’s eyes softened. “Sweetheart…”

“He’s not Lucius,” you said, voice shaking. “He’s not cruel. He’s not obsessed with bloodlines. He’s nothing like the stories you told us.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” James asked, quieter now. “What if he hurts you?”

“Then he hurts me,” you said. “But at least it’s my choice.”

That night, you lay in your old bed, staring up at the enchanted ceiling James had painted for you when you were little—charmed to mirror the sky above Godric’s Hollow. Stars blinked back at you as your heart twisted with everything left unsaid.

You reached under your bed and pulled out the small, rectangular piece of enchanted slate. A matching one sat in Draco’s room at the Manor. You’d created them together last year in secret—a charmed chalkboard where whatever you wrote appeared on the other’s board in real time. Just one more way to stay close without being caught.

You held the chalk in your hand for a long moment, unsure what to say. But then, your fingers moved instinctively.

Are you still there?

A few seconds passed.

Then, slowly, a response appeared, the words etching themselves across the slate in Draco’s neat, angular handwriting:

I’m still here. If you still want me.

Your breath caught.

You smiled softly, heart aching with everything you felt and everything you chose.

You pressed the chalk to the board again.

Always.

You were told to never go near a Malfoy. But you did.

And now?

You’re not going back.

⊱ ─── ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ ─── ⊰

masterlist!

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ventique18 · 3 months ago

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Malleus' Monologue, Part 1

"At the time of my birth, I received a blessing. That is..."

"Power, that reduces everything to nothing."

Senate Member A: "Malleus-sama, you were born to rule over all of those who walk the night. One by one, we shall grant this prince a blessing."

Senate A: "From myself, [Power], over everything. Lightning that obliterates anything that stands in your way. None shall touch nor hurt you."

Senate B: "From myself, [Voice], so that the very darkness itself may obey you. The freezing wind that storms over the Devil's Mountain. Resound so dreadfully that all things shall tremble beneath your feet."

Senate: "And from myself, [Time], that shall never pass you by. As unchanging and eternal as the night sky. In this ever-changing world, may your light forever guide our hopes."

"Night's blessing--"

"But..."

"What I truly wish for is..."

Attendant A: "You highness, it is time for you to wake up. Let us tend to your clothes and hair."

Attendant B: "Allow me to comb your hair first."

Young Malleus: "... Yes, thank you."

Malleus: "Ouch!"

Lightning strikes.

Attendant B: "Gaah!!"

And the attendant starts crying.

Malleus: "Ah! I, I'm sorry. I..!"

Attendant A: "You need not worry, your highness."

Chamberlain: "It's this clumsy attendant's fault for hurting you."

Attendant B: "My, my... Apolo... gies..!"

Chamberlain: "Take away her away at once."

Malleus: "......."

Malleus: "Lilia! You've returned from your journey!"

Lilia: "Oh, Malleus! You've already gotten used to walking on two legs before I knew it..."

Malleus: "Yes! I've gotten so used to walking now, that I can-- Ah!"

He stumbles on his feet.

Lilia: "Woah there! You say you're used to it, but you're still quite green, huh?"

Malleus: "Ugh. I still trip on my own tail... I'm fine now, you can put me down."

Lilia: "Hehe... Compared to when you were still an egg, you're a lot heavier in my arms now."

Malleus: "... Of course. I'm 22 years old now."

Lilia: "Why, you're still a baby at 22. But your hands and feet are big! Just like his parents, this one is growing up into a fine dragon."

Malleus: "E-- Ehehe! Stop tickling me, Lilia!"

Lilia: "Tickle tickle!"

Malleus: "Aha-- Ahahahaha!!!!"

But something happens so suddenly.

Lilia: "Gah!"

Malleus: "Lilia!! Your ears are bleeding!"

Lilia: "Guh! ..... I'm fine, don't worry."

Malleus: "But..!"

Lilia: "I'm fine, I'm fine. Calm down, take a deep breath... See? It's fine."

Malleus: "... I'm sorry, Lilia. You're hurt because of my voice..."

Lilia: "This isn't a big deal. Don't fret over it."

Lilia: "With more training, you'd have more control over your power."

Malleus: "... I understand."

But good things always come to an end.

Lilia: "Ngh... Sorry, looks like I have to go now."

Malleus: "What? Already?"

Lilia: "Work hard on your training while I'm gone, Malleus."

Malleus: "Okay... I, I'll study more and more."

#twisted wonderland #malleus draconia #ventique translates #lilia vanrouge #twst book 7 spoilers

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pitlanepeach · 2 months ago

Text

Radio Silence | Chapter One

Lando Norris x Amelia Brown (OFC)

Series Masterlist

Summary — Order is everything. Her habits aren't quirks, they're survival techniques. And only three people in the world have permission to touch her: Mom, Dad, Fernando.

Then Lando Norris happens.

One moment. One line crossed. No going back.

Warnings — Autistic!OFC, strong language.

Notes — Welcome to the Radio Silence universe! This chapter is mainly devoted to introducing Amelia as a character, but does have a bit of Lando in it too! Hope you love it.

Want to be added to the taglist? Let me know! - Peach x

2018

Amelia Brown stared at the new plaque on her dad’s office door.

Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing.

She hated it.

Not because she wasn’t proud of him. Of course she was — her dad was brilliant, and he’d worked for years to get that title. It made sense. It was logical.

But the words looked wrong. Off-balance. Too sharp.

The old plaque had been there for years. Zak Brown, Executive Director of McLaren Technology Group. She knew the exact spacing of the letters, the way the light hit the brushed metal in the afternoon. She’d memorised it without meaning to. It had become part of the hallway, part of the routine. Safe.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, fingers twitching at her sides.

It wasn’t just a new title. It was everything.

The MTC felt different now. The air had a new kind of buzz to it — louder, sharper. People looked at her differently, talked to her like she was someone else entirely. Like being the CEO’s daughter had changed her, too.

The rules had changed, and no one had told her what the new ones were.

—

Her father had been a Formula One fan for as long as she could remember.

V10 engines were her lullaby as a baby; the high-pitched scream of them a strange kind of comfort. Over time, the sound had settled into her nervous system, familiar and grounding.

By the time she was eight, she couldn’t fall asleep without it. Old races playing softly on the TV, the steady rhythm of the commentators’ voices, the roar of the engines, the tension winding through each lap.

One night, when she was ten, the power had gone out during a storm. No TV. No white noise. Just silence and the wind scraping at the windows.

She’d curled up in her bed, fists pressed tight against her ears, trying not to cry.

Then came footsteps in the hallway. Steady. Familiar.

Her dad’s voice followed, soft but certain. “Hey, kiddo. Got something for you.”

He stepped into her room with a dusty old laptop under one arm and a tangle of wires in the other.

Ten minutes later, her princess-themed bedroom was filled with the warm flicker of a grainy screen. The 2005 Japanese Grand Prix. One of her favourites.

She knew the race by heart. Raikkonen’s last-lap pass on Fisichella, the way Alonso danced through the field like he could see gaps before they even opened. She mouthed the commentators’ lines without realising, her breathing slowly syncing with the rhythm of the engine notes.

Her dad didn’t say anything. He just sat on the floor beside her bed, legs stretched out, back against the wall, holding the laptop steady for her to see.

Eight years later, Amelia thought about that night a lot.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew what Formula One had meant to her dad before she was even born. But somewhere along the line, it had become more than just his dream. It had become theirs.

For Amelia, it wasn’t just a sport. It was everything.

Formula One was her special interest; the thing that clicked in her brain in a way nothing else ever had. The stats, the strategy, the evolution of car design, the sound of a perfectly timed downshift… it all made sense when so much of the world didn’t.

It gave her a framework, a rhythm, a language that felt natural.

While other kids played games she didn’t understand, she memorised engine configurations. While teachers scolded her for “zoning out,” she was mentally replaying the 2002 Brazilian Grand Prix, lap by lap.

She could list every World Champion from 1950 onward before she could properly tie her shoes. At recess, when the others were pretending to be superheroes or princesses, she was mapping out imaginary circuits in the dirt with a stick, narrating races in her head with full commentary — down to the tire strategies and pit stop windows.

She tried sharing her passion with her peers, once.

In third grade, she’d brought a die-cast model of a 1998 McLaren MP4/13 to class for sharing time. She’d practised what she was going to say all night, rehearsed the facts in front of the mirror until the words felt smooth. Recited the specs; V10 engine, Adrian Newey’s aerodynamic innovations, Mika Häkkinen’s championship run, over and over.

But when she stood in front of the class, the words tumbled out too fast, too detailed, too much. She was halfway through explaining the brake-steer controversy when a boy in the front row yawned so loudly it echoed, and someone in the back let out a snort-laugh that made her ears burn.

After that, she stopped trying.

Except with her dad.

With him, she never had to translate. She could go on about tire compounds or telemetry data or how ridiculous it was that certain drivers still didn’t know how to defend a corner, and he never told her to slow down or “talk normal.” He just nodded, asked questions, matched her pace.

They didn’t need eye contact or hugs or long emotional talks. They had race weekends. They had side-by-side silence on the couch, watching onboards and live timing feeds. They had post-race debriefs at the kitchen table over scrambled eggs, like it was the most natural thing in the world for an eight-year-old to have such strong opinions about power unit reliability.

It was how they communicated. Racing was their shared language.

Her mom didn’t get it; not really. The noise overwhelmed her. The rules confused her. She once referred to Sebastian Vettel as “the one with the baby face and the weird flag thing,” and Amelia had almost burst into flames on the spot.

But she tried.

She printed out colouring sheets of cars when Amelia was little, even though she could already draw them from memory. She learned to set the TV volume just right; high enough for Amelia to hear the engines clearly, low enough not to overwhelm her. She made snacks on race days and never once complained when qualifying ran late into the night.

Her mom didn’t understand the obsession. But she understood Amelia.

—

Amelia walked into her dad’s office and froze, staring at the shelf lined with trophies, framed photos, and mementos from his years in motorsport. It had been that way for months now, ever since he’d taken the CEO position at McLaren, and every time she had to look at it, her ears burned.

Because the items on the shelf were never in the right order.

The memorabilia was all haphazardly placed; drivers she didn’t like sitting too close to ones she admired. There were racing helmets, but the scale didn’t make sense; one was huge, another tiny, a third just slightly off-centre.

There were photos, too, of her dad with the team, with Fernando Alonso, with the McLaren execs, but none of them were lined up properly.

The shelf, she thought, should be perfect. But it wasn’t.

Reaching up, she slid the first photo frame to the right, just enough to make it parallel with the others. Then the helmet, she shifted it slightly, aligning it with the edge of the shelf.

One by one, she adjusted the frames, the objects, the odd little pieces of her dad’s world that had once felt like a steady part of her life.

She wasn’t sure why it was bothering her so much today. Maybe it was the way everything felt out of sync.

When she reached the second shelf, she noticed a small figure of a car. A McLaren MP4/4. Her dad had given it to her when she was younger, one of the few gifts he’d ever picked out himself. She ran her fingers over the smooth surface of the model before she set it down exactly in the middle of the shelf, just below the first row of photos.

For a very brief moment, it was perfect.

Just a small fix. A temporary escape from the feeling that everything else was slipping out of her grasp.

“Wow. Looks much better.”

Amelia tensed at the sound of her dad’s voice from the doorway.

She hadn’t heard him come in. For a moment, she considered turning on her heel and leaving the room, pretending she hadn’t touched anything. But her dad was already smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He didn’t look upset. He never did; that was the problem. She could never tell how he was really feeling because his face always stayed the same. It was like his expressions were stuck, and no matter how hard she tried to figure it out, she couldn’t read him. It made it hard to know if he was happy, worried, or anything at all. Everything just felt... flat.

“You know,” he continued, stepping further into the room, his hands in his pockets, “I’ve never been great at this stuff. Never really noticed how... messy things can get in here. But I guess you’ve got a better eye for it than I do.”

Amelia couldn’t help but feel a small rush of pride.

She nodded quietly, her gaze flicking back to the shelf. There was a strange sense of uncertainty creeping in, though. “Is it still okay, though?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “I mean... Does it still... feel like yours?”

Her dad glanced at her, then back at the shelf, his smile fading just a little. “Yeah,” he said after a long beat. “It still feels like me. And it’s you, too, right? Made you feel better to change things up a bit?”

She just stared at him, unsure how to answer that.

He stepped closer, running a hand through his hair. "I know things feel... different now. I guess I'm still getting used to it, too," he admitted quietly. "But it’s still... McLaren. It's still our world, kiddo."

Amelia’s stomach clenched. She wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. She only nodded, her gaze travelling back to the perfectly aligned shelf.

Her dad placed a hand on her shoulder, his thumb brushing over her skin like a quiet reassurance. She made a small noise of discomfort. He paused, and then tightened his grip. So tight it might make a normal person wince. It just made Amelia let out a relieved breath of air, the pressure good, good, good.

It wasn’t that she hated touch, it was just that it had to be right, had to be just the right amount of force, of contact. Too light, and it felt like nothing at all. Too much, and she’d start to feel overwhelmed, like the weight of the world was pressing in. But this... this was perfect. His hand, firm on her shoulder, grounded her in a way nothing else could.

“Thanks for tidying up,” he said, his voice low but sincere. “I think I might leave it just like this for a while. Feels... good.”

She nodded, the pressure of his hand still there, steady, and it was like she could finally breathe again.

—

The McLaren pit garages smelled of oil and rubber. The fluorescent lights above hummed faintly, and she could still hear them even through the noise-cancelling headphones on her ears. Amelia moved through the space quietly, sharp eyes scanning the flurry of engineers, tire changers, and data specialists working with practiced urgency. Her hands were clasped behind her back, fingers pressed tight against her palms, and her gaze flicked between the monitors, the car, and the teams as they hustled to prepare the MCL33 for its next session.

Her favourite part was always the data. The telemetry displayed on the screens had a rhythm, a language that felt like it belonged to her more than anyone else. The raw numbers, the graphs, the fine-tuned fluctuations of the car’s performance; it all made perfect sense. She knew what to look for.

Her feet carried her forward. She found herself standing near Fernando Alonso’s MCL33, just a few feet away. The car was a beautiful mess of carbon fiber, heat shields, and wires, and it was just sat there, like a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Before the season had even started, Amelia had memorised every part of it, from the aerodynamic tweaks to the engine specs.

One of the engineers noticed her as she lingered, her posture attentive, her expression unreadable beneath the headphones. Everyone knew who she was. Zac’s daughter. A genius, in a multitude of ways.

He approached cautiously, not wanting to startle her. He’d noticed how her eyes narrowed when too many voices clashed together at once, or how she shrunk when people got just that little bit too close.

"Hey, Amelia," he said, his voice calm, not wanting to intrude. She turned toward him, her face still slightly blank, but he could tell by the way her eyes focused on his that she had heard him. “You good?” he asked, motioning toward the telemetry screens just behind her.

Amelia nodded, then hesitated. Her hand hovered for a second before she slowly, cautiously pointed at the screen. Her voice, when it came, was quiet, careful. “I... I think the tire pressures on the front left might be a little too high for this circuit. The temperatures are different compared to last year.”

She didn’t look at the engineer as she spoke. Her eyes stayed fixed on the data, like if she focused hard enough, she could disappear into it. She knew she was right, she was almost always right when it came to this, but the memory of past times, of laughter or dismissal, tugged at the edge of her confidence. She didn’t want to make it sound like she thought she knew more than the team. She didn’t even have a degree.

The engineer just blinked. “I’ll pass it along,” he said, eventually.

Amelia gave a small nod, then quickly turned her focus back to the car, to the numbers flicking past on the monitors. She adjusted her posture slightly, shoulders curling inward, trying to take up less space.

As she focused on the intricate lines of the MCL33, another engineer approached her. He was holding a tablet with a telemetry feed of his own, and without speaking, he offered it to her. Amelia looked at the data for a long moment, her eyes narrowing as she absorbed the figures and readouts. Then, her finger gently traced over the tablet’s screen, pointing to a particularly complex graph of the car’s acceleration over the course of a lap.

“Right there,” she said, her voice soft but clear, though it was a bit muffled by the headphones. "You need to adjust the mapping."

The engineer hummed, impressed but not surprised. “I’ll have the team look into it,” he said, before turning to relay her suggestion to the others.

Her dad was always there, of course, close, watching from a distance, his presence a quiet comfort. But Amelia didn’t need him right now. She just needed the machines, the numbers, and the freedom to study it all.

The engineers moved around her, respecting her space. Always careful not to brush against her, even though she was technically in their way.

When she finally did look up from the data screens, Fernando had stepped into the garage, just a few feet away, in his racing suit, helmet tucked under one arm. He glanced at her, then at the engineers who were quietly working around her.

He approached with a calm, easy presence that didn’t press too hard, didn’t demand anything. “Ah. How is the car feeling, pollita?” he asked, voice light but kind.

Amelia gave a small nod, gaze trained on the Spanish flag on the neck of his fireproofs.

Fernando smiled. Then he turned to the engineers, who were already passing along her observations.

“If she said it,” he said, tone warm and without a trace of doubt, “then yes—keep an eye on the turbo mapping. She is the smart one.”

—

She walked around the paddock often. The garages were fun —fascinating, even— but it could all very quickly become too much. The noise, the flashing lights, the overlapping voices, the sudden bursts of motion.

So she’d slip away. Not far. Just enough.

There was always a McLaren staff member trailing after her. Not hovering, not bothering, just keeping a quiet distance. Just far enough to give her the illusion of independence, a false sense of freedom she chose to believe in. She didn’t mind. As long as they didn’t try to talk, or worse, touch, she could almost ignore them entirely.

She wandered with a purpose that only made sense to her, eyes fixed ahead, headphones still on, the rest of the world muted and manageable. She liked it that way. The paddock, in the quiet bubble of her own world, was peaceful.

That’s when she spotted him.

Lewis Hamilton stood just outside the Mercedes hospitality suite, sunglasses perched on his nose. Roscoe was with him, tail wagging lazily, nose in something that probably smelled like food. Amelia stopped walking, blinked a few times, then changed direction.

Lewis noticed her before she got too close. He smiled, lowering his sunglasses slightly. “Hey, Amelia,” he said, crouching a little as Roscoe trotted forward to sniff her shoes. “Been a while. You good?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she crouched carefully, reaching a hand out to Roscoe but not touching him until the dog pressed his nose into her palm. Only then did she give a tiny nod.

Lewis waited, patient. He was always nice like that.

“How’s Roscoe?” she asked finally, her voice soft and low. One time, somebody told her that she spoke like she wasn’t sure she had permission to do so. Always quiet. Mumbling, if she could get away with it.

Lewis just smiled, warmth radiating in that easy way of his. She liked Lewis a lot. “He’s good. Living his best life. Had a spa day last week. He’s spoiled.”

Amelia looked at the bulldog again, and her tight jaw felt softer. “Good.”

There was a pause. She didn’t move, didn’t say much, but she didn’t walk away either.

“You ever want to walk him sometime, just ask,” Lewis offered, still crouched.

Amelia looked up, eyes wide, the corners of her mouth twitching in what might have been the start of a smile. She gave a small nod.

Then she stood, gave Roscoe one last pat, and turned to leave.

The McLaren staffer fell into step a few paces behind her, still pretending not to be watching too closely.

Amelia looked down at her hand. Grimaced.

Her chest tightened. The feeling started crawling up her skin.

“I need sanitiser,” she said, voice rushed and clipped, a little too loud, a little too sharp. Her hands hovered awkwardly in front of her like she didn’t want to touch anything, even herself.

The staffer blinked once, then immediately fished a small bottle from his pocket and offered it to her without a word.

Amelia snatched it quickly, not too fast, not rude, she told herself, and squeezed a dollop into her palm. She rubbed it in with fast, focused movements. Between every finger. Around every nail. Up her wrists. Twice.

Only when the last of it had dried, leaving that slightly tacky residue behind, did her shoulders drop. The tension in her jaw loosened. The hum in her head began to fade.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, not quite meeting his eyes. She turned back toward the paddock walkway, pressing her clean hands flat against the sides of her jeans, grounding herself in the texture.

—

The MTC’s glass corridors were quiet, filled with the soft echo of Amelia’s footsteps. She liked walking here early in the mornings, before the building filled with noise and movement. The lines were clean, the light was even, and everything had its place.

She turned a corner and nearly collided with someone moving fast; backwards, clumsily trying to zip up his hoodie while juggling an apple and his phone.

Lando Norris. FIA Formula 2 championship runner-up, member of the McLaren Young Driver Programme, widely considered one of the brightest rising stars in motorsport. She knew all of this about him.

He skidded to a stop when he saw her, eyes widening slightly. “Oh, hey. Sorry. Didn’t see you.”

Amelia stared at him for a beat, saying nothing.

“You’re late,” she said plainly.

Lando blinked, then gave a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Kinda running behind this morning. Slept through my alarm. Happens sometimes.”

She tilted her head, studying him like he was part of a data set, eyes narrowed into thin slits. “You’ll never get promoted if you’re always late.”

The words came out blunt, matter-of-fact. She wasn’t trying to be rude, just honest. Patterns mattered. Timings mattered. Discipline mattered. Racing was full of rules, and being late was not acceptable.

Lando laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “Oh. Uh—do you really think I won’t get promoted?”

Amelia didn’t answer right away. She studied him, eyes narrowing slightly, not in judgment but in analysis. She was already calculating, recalling his lap times, consistency, tyre management, race-craft under pressure. She’d watched his F2 season. Not just watched; studied it. He was aggressive under braking, a little rough on tyres mid-stint, but his spatial awareness was excellent, and his adaptability in changing conditions put him in the top percentile.

He was a good fit for McLaren, in her opinion.

“Are you fast?” She asked him, despite already knowing the answer.

Lando blinked. Let out a short, awkward laugh. “Yeah. I mean, I think so.”

She nodded once, satisfied. “Then you’ll be fine.”

With that, she turned and walked away, her stride quick and purposeful, the conversation already filed away in her mind, concluded.

Lando stood there for a second, caught off guard. Smart. Intense. Kind of pretty, too. But brutal. “Right,” he muttered to himself, watching her go. “Cool. Fast. Got it.”

—

Amelia sat cross-legged on her bed in her family home in England, the room quiet except for the electrical hum of her phone charger. Her mom was downstairs, making chilli for dinner, and her dad was still at the office.

She was scrolling through Twitter, quietly, methodically, as she did most evenings. She didn’t get involved much. A few retweets here and there. Articles, stats, insights. She had a good number of followers, mostly people who’d seen her on race broadcasts or encountered her race-day tweets.

But then, her thumb hovered. Lando Norris had tweeted earlier that day. She followed him, of course. She followed every McLaren adjacent account.

She clicked on his profile.

She knew him. Had obviously studied his race-craft.

She scrolled through his timeline, her eyes tracking his tweets one by one.

"Is it just me or does everyone have a friend who thinks they know how to cook but really just know how to burn toast? 😂"

Amelia blinked. She didn’t get it. Was that supposed to be funny? She wasn’t sure that incompetence was amusing.

She continued scrolling, her eyes scanning through the odd mix of jokes, memes, and race-day updates. None of it made any sense. She was used to tweets that were precise, purposeful — like her own. Her posts were methodical, always carefully planned, always factual. Data, analysis, insights. It was how she communicated with the world.

Another tweet.

“Just watched a documentary on the moon landing. Now I’m convinced I could be an astronaut. 😂”

Amelia frowned. There was no mention of racing, no insights into strategy, no talk of lap times or tire degradation. Just... this. She scrolled past it quickly, her thumb moving with a steady rhythm as she returned to her own timeline, where everything was neatly laid out, logical, and to the point.

Maybe she should talk to Lando about using his social media more usefully. After all, he already had such a large following. He could share insights, data, something valuable for his fans. He was a professional driver, for goodness' sake. It could be a way to connect with people, educate them, make them appreciate the intricacies of racing in the same way that she did.

She bit her lip, feeling a small knot form in her stomach. She wasn’t sure if she could just tell him to change. That would be... strange. Maybe even rude.

Two hours later, Amelia sat at the dinner table, poking at her food absentmindedly. Her mom was talking about her day at work, but Amelia wasn’t really listening.

Her dad, always quick to pick up on when something wasn’t right, glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on in that head of yours, kiddo?”

Amelia hesitated for a moment, rolling the words around in her mouth. She wasn’t sure why it was bothering her so much, but the thought of Lando’s Twitter kept circling in her mind, unresolved. “Lando Norris is a terrible tweeter. He needs a social media manager.”

Her dad stared at her for a beat, then burst out laughing. “Ah, that’s just Lando! Fans love him for it. He’s... unpredictable, keeps everyone guessing. People follow him because they like seeing the real him. Jokes and all.”

Amelia didn’t find anything about this situation funny.

She fiddled with her food, the tension in her chest tightening. Why did nobody seem as concerned about this as she was?

Lando was good. A good racer. A worthy driver.

Late. He was always late. He could fix that, though.

Fix, fix, fix.

She clenched her hands in her lap, staring at her plate, her thoughts spinning.

Her mom set her fork down, leaning forward slightly. “Amelia, is it really bothering you, honey?”

Amelia’s gaze snapped up, her eyes wide. “Yes! I don’t understand it. He could be doing so much more—he’s just... joking around all the time. He never posts about his telemetry or his tests. It’s such a waste!”

Her mom nodded patiently. “That’s what you would post about?” she asked, her tone gentle.

Amelia nodded, feeling her thoughts settle into place. “Yes. It’s all there, the numbers, the data. It shows his skills. It’s... more useful.”

Her dad hummed thoughtfully. “I could have a chat with him. Tell him to post more of his racing stats. They are impressive. But I won’t tell him to stop being himself. That’s working well for his image.”

Amelia wrung her hands together under the table, taking small, even breaths. It helped calm her, but the unease was still there.

“I think…” she started, her voice softer now, the edges of her frustration ebbing away. “He is a good racer.”

Her dad smiled at her, a little amused. “You care about his success, huh? Well, that’s sweet.”

Amelia nodded. Then she frowned. Sweet? Why was that sweet? She cared about the success of all the drivers in her dad’s team… not just Lando.

Her mom reached across the table and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You’re not the only one who wants him to do well, honey. But maybe let him be him. It’s working for him in his own way, even if it’s not how you’d do it.”

Amelia hummed thoughtfully, picking up her fork. She liked chilli. It was comforting. Simple. Consistent.

She missed the look her parents shared — half concerned, half understanding.

—

Fernando would leave Formula One at the end of the 2018 season.

Amelia didn’t know how to feel about it, or if she should feel anything at all. The news came as a whisper first; just a passing comment she overheard in the MTC, a conversation between her dad and one of the engineers. At first, it didn’t seem real. Fernando had been a fixture of the sport for as long as she could remember. The idea of Formula One without him felt... wrong. He wasn’t just another driver; he was Fernando.

And then, one afternoon, her dad sat her down in his office and confirmed what she had been dreading.

Fernando was leaving.

She found herself pacing around the house, her mind spiralling as she thought about the future of F1 without him in it.

He’d always been so nice to her, letting her into his garage whenever she wanted, no questions asked. There was never any judgment in his eyes when she stared at data screens for hours or rambled on about telemetry. He just... let her be.

He had understood her in a way few people ever did.

She would miss him.

—

Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. 2019 McLaren Driver Line-up.

She’d expected it. She knew it was coming. Fernando was leaving. So was Stoffel. She’d already processed that. But somehow, seeing it laid out in front of her, seeing it confirmed in black and white, made it feel much more real.

Her dad had sat her down earlier on in the month, his voice soft but steady. He’d said it was a new chapter for McLaren, a step in the right direction.

She put the phone down, the buzzing of it faint in her ears, and stared ahead. The news sat like a heavy weight in her chest. Lando and Carlos. McLaren’s new driver pairing.

—

iMessage — Lewis Hamilton & Amelia Brown

Amelia Brown

I would like to see a photo of Roscoe.

Lewis Hamilton

*insert photograph of Roscoe*

You doing okay, kiddo? Lots of changes happening over there at McLaren.

Amelia Brown

I am fine.

Lewis Hamilton

You're always welcome at Mercedes if you need a breather, yeah?

Toto thinks very highly of you.

Amelia Brown

Because I am so smart?

Lewis Hamilton

Exactly.

—

Amelia sat in the kitchen, scrolling through Twitter as she sipped her coffee. Her nineteenth birthday had come and gone, quietly, without much fanfare.

Her gaze drifted across the screen.

Lando had posted something that caught her attention.

"Why do I feel like I need a vacation, but I also can't leave my bed?"

Amelia blinked at the tweet, trying to make sense of it. She tilted her head, her fingers hesitating over the keyboard. She didn’t understand. Was he… hurt? Why couldn’t he leave his bed? He was supposed to be racing a Formula One car in a matter of months.

With a worried sigh, she typed out a simple response to his tweet.

What does this mean?

She hit send and waited.

A few minutes later, Lando replied.

It’s just one of those random thoughts. You know, like when you’re too comfortable but you also want to escape, but you don’t really? Classic conundrum lol

Amelia stared at the reply, processing it slowly.

She... still didn’t get it. Why would anyone want to leave a comfortable bed just to go somewhere else?

She frowned at the screen for a moment, her eyes scanning the thread, and then she noticed the replies.

“Lando is so sweet to explain it! 💕”

“Aw, he’s always so patient with everyone ❤️”

Amelia’s brows furrowed. Sweet? Patient? She didn’t understand. He was just explaining himself and his terrible analogy. Had nobody else been confused?

She stared at the replies for a moment longer, the confusion deepening. It felt like there was something she was missing.

She felt a small twist of discomfort, the kind she always got when emotions felt too complicated, too layered.

Amelia clicked away from the thread, unsure what to do with the strange tugging sensation that lingered in her chest.

—

That night, Amelia sat on the edge of her bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. She glanced over at her mom, who was measuring her bedroom window. Amelia had asked for black-out blinds, now that the days were getting brighter again.

“When my chest gets tight— and I’m thinking about somebody, and then I see other people saying nice things about them... and it gets, um, uncomfortable— what does that mean?”

Her mom paused, turning to face her. “Well. It can be a lot of things, honey. Depends on the person. Maybe you’re feeling protective, or it could be jealousy. Sometimes, we can feel a lot of emotions physically, and they don’t always have to make sense.”

Amelia blinked, feeling something stir inside her that she couldn’t quite name. The word felt almost too big to say. “Jealousy?” she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper.

Her mom nodded, sitting down next to her. “Jealousy isn’t always bad. It’s just a feeling. Doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Amelia’s mind spun. The word echoed in her head, uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Jealousy.

Something about it seemed to fit.

NEXT CHAPTER

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flwrkid14 · 5 months ago

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Love, in All its Impossible Forms

Tim Drake loves with everything he has. He always has. And maybe that’s his fatal flaw—he doesn’t know how to hold back. He throws himself into it the way he throws himself into everything else: completely, recklessly, without a second thought for his own safety.

But love, for Tim, is never simple. It comes in forms that twist and tangle, leaving scars even as it gives him something to hold onto. And if you ask him, he could probably tell you exactly what kinds of love he’s experienced.

There’s love that is doomed.

Steph was chaos, energy, and unrelenting determination wrapped in a bright smile. She was Tim’s equal and his opposite all at once, and when he loved her, he did so fiercely, wholeheartedly. She didn’t just step into his world—she tore through it, unapologetic and unstoppable, showing Tim a version of himself that didn’t have to be so calculated, so controlled.

But their lives were chaos, a whirlwind of masks and missions, and when the dust settled, there was never enough left of them to make it last. Tim loves her in a way that feels like holding sand; no matter how tightly he grips, she keeps slipping through his fingers. And maybe that’s why he held on so hard—because he knew she’d never stay. Steph was never meant to be tamed, and Tim loved her too much to try.

Even when it ends, there’s no anger, no resentment. They don’t blame each other for the way things fall apart. They don’t have to. They always knew, deep down, that no matter how much they wanted to hold on, it was never meant to last. It wasn’t about a lack of love—it was about the world they lived in, the lives they led, and the way they could never quite fit together the way they needed to.

Steph was the love that burned brightly but couldn’t last, no matter how much either of them wanted it to. She was the fire he couldn’t hold onto, the storm he couldn’t contain, and the one who left her mark on him in ways he’d never forget. They were love, doomed from the start.

Then there's love that dooms them.

Kon wasn't just Tim's best friend—he was everything. A partner in every sense of the word. Loving Kon felt like second nature, so easy and so effortless that Tim didn't realize how deeply it ran until it was too late. Until Kon was gone.

When Kon died, it destroyed Tim. Grief didn't come in waves-it came in obsessions.

Tim couldn't let go, so he didn't. He turned to stolen data and secret labs, creating clone after clone in a desperate attempt to fill the void Kon left behind

It wasn't about moving on. It wasn't about closure. It was about holding on to the only person who ever made Tim feel like he could breathe, even when it was killing him to do so.

When Kon returned, whole and alive, it should have been everything Tim had dreamed of. But the shadows of what Tim had done lingered between them. The lengths he went to, the obsession that fueled him—it left cracks in the foundation of what they once were. Kon loved Tim, he always would, but part of him wondered if he'd ever been loved for who he was, or for what Tim couldn't let himself lose.

And Tim, for all his brilliance, couldn't figure out how to bridge the gap he'd created. He oved Kon with everything he had, but love born out of desperation carried its own weight, and he wasn't sure how to lay it down.

So they stayed in the gray space between what they were and what they could have been, bound by love so fierce it hurt, but too fractured to fully mend. They were doomed by their love.

Finally, there’s love that dooms anybody else.

Danny is chaos, but not the kind that breaks Tim—it’s the kind that grounds him. Danny exists between worlds, between life and death, and yet he’s more alive than anyone Tim has ever met. He doesn’t fit neatly into any box, doesn’t follow any rules, and yet there’s something about him that feels inevitable, like gravity or the pull of the tide.

Danny doesn’t ask for Tim’s sacrifices. He doesn’t need to be saved, doesn’t want Tim to burn himself out in the name of love. Instead, Danny challenges Tim to slow down, to stop trying so hard to hold the world together and just be. With Danny, Tim learns how to live in the moment, how to breathe without feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

It isn’t an easy love, but it isn’t supposed to be. It’s a love that demands courage, the kind that doesn’t come from donning a cape or taking a hit for someone else. It’s the courage to be vulnerable, to stop hiding behind plans and strategies, and let someone see every cracked, raw piece of himself. Danny is relentless in breaking down Tim’s walls, not to fix him but to show him that he’s worthy of being whole.

Together, they are something untouchable. Their love is an anchor and a storm, a lighthouse and the waves crashing against the shore. It’s a love so big, so consuming, that it leaves no room for anything else.

And that’s where the doom lies.

They are the kind of love that consumes the world around them, leaving it scorched and battered in their wake. Not because they want to hurt anyone, but because their connection is so fierce, so all-encompassing, that nothing else can survive in its shadow. They are the eye of the hurricane, calm and steady, while everything outside is chaos.

It’s the kind of love that makes people ache to touch it, to understand it, even as it destroys them. The kind of love that people will write stories about and linger in though, long after the last page has turned. Love, that will echo through time in whispers and legends. But no one will ever truly understand it, because no one else could ever bear the weight of it.

Danny is the love that makes Tim believe he might deserve to be happy after all. Together, they are the love that dooms anybody else—unapologetic, overwhelming, and utterly unforgettable.

#tim drake #batfam #danny phantom #danny fenton #brain dead #dead tired #stephanie brown #kon el #steph deserves better but tim also deserves better #kon and tim: tragic best friends to kinda lovers to emotional damage pipeline #danny phantom: love that would start a war if it had to #kon and tim could also be a love that dooms everyone else #i saw a tiktok abt how every fictional couple follows one of three stories:#orpheus and eurydice: love that is doomed #romeo and juliet: love that doomed them #odysseus and penelope: love that doomed anybody else #and i knew i had to make a post about it

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aroaessidhe · 5 months ago

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faves of 2024: adult sci-fi

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

The Stardust Grail

Walking Practice

Those Beyond The Wall

As Born to Rule The Storm

Time’s Agent

These Burning Stars

Pluralities

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

Raven Strategem/Revenant Gun/Hexarchate Stories

Yours Celestially

The Fortunate Fall

#read in 2024 #again one where i'm like. i read a LOT of scifi I'm not sure if these are THE favourites but it's what came to mind first when making a #post. and represents a range i guess #Drunk on All Your Strange New Words #The Stardust Grail #Walking Practice #Those Beyond The Wall #As Born to Rule The Storm #Time’s Agent #These Burning Stars #Pluralities #The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport #Yours Celestially

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multific · 4 months ago

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Heart of a Father

Emperor Caracalla x Reader

Summary: In the shadow of his illness, Caracalla worries for your unborn child. You try your best to reassure him but his mind is too far gone. Only the birth of his child would bring calmness to his internal storm.

When the sun dipped below the horizon, you sat in the villa's garden.

Your hands rested protectively on your swollen belly, and the rhythmic chirping of cicadas filled the air. Though the scene was calm, the tension from Caracalla could be cut with a knife.

He paced restlessly.

“Calla,” you called out to him, watching as he paused and turned to look at you. His eyes were filled with worry.

“You should be inside. It’s getting cold,” he said as if suddenly he became aware of your presence.

You smiled faintly, reaching out a hand to him. “I’m fine. Sit with me?”

You watched as he sank to his knees beside you, his hand immediately moving to your belly.

The warmth of his palm against your skin through the thin fabric of your dress.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “What if… what if I’ve passed something to our child?”

You cupped his cheek, guiding his eyes to yours.

“We’ve talked about this, My Love. The physicians have said our baby is healthy. And I believe them.”

His jaw clenched, and he looked away, his other hand moving through his hair.

“But they don’t know for sure. They don’t understand… the poison in my blood, the illness. What if it’s already affected done its damage?”

You tightened your grip on his hand, hoping to help ground him.

“Caracalla, listen to me. Whatever comes, we’ll face it together. You’ve fought countless battles and ruled an empire. This is no different. You’re not alone in this. Geta will also help us. He promised many times. Everything will be fine.”

His eyes filled with tears as he looked at you.

“You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve everything, My Love,” you leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips.

He rested his forehead against yours, closing his eyes.

“I’m so scared, love. I’ve never been scared like this before.” his hands were shaking, you could feel that. You tried your best to ground him.

You placed your hand over his heart, feeling its steady rhythm beneath your palm.

“That fear only proves how much you love her already. We going to be fine, all three of us. I believe in us, Calla. Do you?”

He nodded, his breath hitching as he exhaled. “I do. I have to.”

---

The night your daughter was born was a day filled with all kinds of emotions.

The palace, usually so imposing and grand, felt small and suffocating as you were in labour.

Caracalla was made to wait outside as per tradition. You cursed tradition for that. You needed him by your side. Why wasn't he there? You felt so alone even if you had a room filled with women.

When your daughter's cries filled the room, a sound so pure and loud it chased away all your fears, Caracalla froze.

He watched, transfixed on the door.

The midwife wrapped the tiny bundle and placed her in his arms.

This is when another midwife opened the door and Caracalla barged in and to your side immediately.

With shaking hands, he looked at you before he looked at her.

“She’s… perfect,” he murmured, staring down at her in awe.

He traced a finger along her cheek.

You reached out for him, your voice soft.

“She’s strong,” you said, smiling up at him. “Just like her father.”

“No,” he said, his voice breaking. “She’s strong like her mother.” He leaned down to kiss your forehead, his lips lingering. “Thank you. For her and for loving.”

In the days and weeks that followed, Caracalla proved to be a caring father.

Geta took on ruling an empire fully for the time being, he wanted to ensure his brother had time for his daughter, for which you will be eternally grateful.

Caracalla was constantly holding her in his arms during the day and pacing the halls with her when she cried at night.

One evening, as you watched him hold her while the sun was setting behind them, he turned to you with a look of pure adoration.

“She’s my redemption,” he said quietly, his voice filled with awe. “Through her, I can be better. For her, I will be better.”

You stepped forward, wrapping your arms around him and resting your head on his shoulder.

“You already are. She’s lucky to have you, Calla. We both are.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“I believe, I’m the lucky one. I’ll spend every day proving that to both of you.”

Caracalla's fear of his illness affecting his daughter disappeared the moment his eyes laid on her.

A small treasure.

Treasure for an Emperor who thought he had it all.

But now he believed, he truly had it all.

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

Wattpad

/DO NOT TRANSLATE, STEAL OR REPOST ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

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aerynwrites · 5 months ago

Text

Give

King!John Price x Fem!Reader

A/N: It's FINALLY here holy shit y'all. sorry for the delay, it was just slow going mainly bc i got stuck on the smut lmao. SO, i just decided to post the bulk of the story now and then post a second smutty part later. I hope you all enjoy, and as usual I love to hear what you guys think!! Comments, reblogs and such are greatly appreacited. Also: this fic was inspired by the song Give by Sleep token as well as the song Kingdom of cards by Bad Omens! Word Count: 7.6k (oops) Warnings: Arranged marriage, mentions of past abuse to reader, reader's father is abusive, hurt/comfort, soft john price, mentions of consummation, fluff, just so much fluff.

The room is eerily silent, the complete opposite of what you expected on a day like this.

Your wedding day.

Your mother had stepped out once the handmaid that was provided to you had finished helping you with your dress - panicked when she couldn’t find the veil that she was passing down to you. Your father had entered as soon as your mother had left, and you dared not break the silence first. You know what will happen if you do.

But you can’t stop the way you fidget, wiping your hands down the front of the bodice of your dress, tugging at the fingers of your silk gloves. You hate wearing gloves, they itch and they are too warm - but your father insisted, hand raised threatening above his head when you almost muttered a complaint.

So. You’re wearing the gloves -

“Stop fidgeting,” your father bites, standing abruptly from the armchair in the corner to storm over to you.

The flinch that jolts your body is instantaneous, shying away from the storm of a man approaching you. The only reason you don’t shield yourself is because even you know he won’t do anything. Not today at least.

Can’t risk marking up the wares.

But it doesn’t stop him from gripping your arm like a vice, his nails digging into your skin beneath the delicate fabric of the ornate gown. You choke down the whimper, but fail to hide the fear you know is present in your gaze as you stare up at your oppressor.

“You will not ruin this for us,” he all but hisses. “I understand that decorum is a foreign concept to you, but if you so much as think about sabotaging this - me - I will-”

“I found it!” Your mother calls from the other side of the door, her voice shoving your father away from you like a storm would a willow branch.

She breezes into the room with an elegance you could never hope to match, a beauty you could never achieve - at least according to your father. She smiles at you, and you don’t fail to notice the way she takes in your shrunken appearance, the tense in your shoulders, before her eyes flicker to her husband.

She knows. She’s known the whole time - for she bears the scars too.

Her smile becomes tight, but she doesn’t say anything, just comes to you with the veil raised in her hands. It’s floor length, the back so long it trails even past your dress train, the lace details so intricate you can’t imagine how long it took the original creator to tailor it. it has a front piece as well that drapes in front of your face, falling to just above your collar bone where it will stay until your future husband unveils you.

The king.

You have to fight the shudder that threatens to run through you at the thought. You’ve only met him once, and at the time neither of you knew you would end up wedding one another. The King rules over the land, but there are many territories, many clans - his the most fearsome of all. You’d heard whispers through your childhood of the ruthlessness of the capitol city in which the King resides. Its citizens were born and bred to fight - knights and soldiers trained to kill.

Your father’s words ring in your ears as your mother fixes your veil to your head, fussing with the fabric.

‘If you even think about sabotaging me…’

Any sane person would. They would probably try to run for the hills when they found out they were to wed the ruthless King, a king that has never lost a battle, a King whose Kings-guard have a reputation of gutting those who dare defy him.

But not you. Little did your father know that you would do everything in your power to escape him.

For even death must be a better sentence than your life back home.

——

Every woman you’d spoken to back home always talked about their nerves on their wedding day. Some from fear, some from joy or just pure excitement. Some of them talked of the way they got sick just before walking down the aisle or the way their hands hook or their palms sweat.

You don’t feel anything.

It’s just pure numbness. As if you are outside of your body watching as the doors to the massive temple open wide, all in attendance standing immediately. You can see the King, your future husband standing on the dais in front of a priest, the incense from the thurible curling around them both as your father all but marches you down the aisle.

You can’t feel your feet or your hands, you can’t even register your intakes of breath. The only thing that runs through your panicked mind is that at least your future husband is handsome. You remember having a similar thought when you met him all those years ago at a kingdom wide celebration here in this very city. He was easy to spot, sitting above the jousting ring, crown atop his head, surrounded by his three kings guard.

He takes up the whole room even now, commanding it with his very presence as the priest introduces him to the crowd - to you.

“King Johnathan Price, third of his name, King of…” you zone out again, instead focusing on the very man being heralded.

He lacks the armor he usually wears, exchanging it instead for rich garments of silk and other fine fabrics. A long purple cloak, the collar adorned with fur of what appears to be a wolf, hangs from his shoulders, held together with a heavy golden chain decorated with the sigil of his house.

The crown still sits atop his head, golden and gleaming, each crevice and gemstone polished to perfection and nestled amongst chestnut colored locks. Only when you approach the dais do you notice the grey starting to pepper his temples and beard.

This is also the moment that you seem to come back to yourself, your soul being sucked back into your body as you and your father come to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and piercing blue eyes capture your own despite the veil.

He smiles, a soft gentle thing that makes your lips turn down in a frown, the action only further deepened when the priest says something about your father relinquishing your hand and soon two strong arms wrap around you too tightly for a loving embrace.

“Remember what I said,” he says lowly, and to onlookers it looks like a father telling his beloved daughter goodbye. But you know better.

“Do not disappoint me.”

And then he’s placing a kiss to your glove covered knuckles before placing your hand in the much larger calloused one before you.

The steps up the dais are a blur until you’re standing face to face with your fate. The priest rambles on as the king takes your other hand in his own, holding them between your bodies and all you can think about is how warm his hands are and how much larger he is up close. Your ears are ringing so loud you almost miss the prompt from the priest to say the scripted words, but your father’s threat echoes loudly in your mind and you speak the words automatically, your voice mixing with the rumbling baritone of the man before you as you recite them together.

The priest then sprinkles a fragrant oil on your joined hands, waves the thurible around as the crowd chants some vague prayer to bless your union. And then the words you didn’t realize you were dreading until the moment they are spoken into the air.

“You may kiss your bride.”

A hush falls over the crowd as the king releases your hands to reach for the edges of your veil. He lifts slowly, and you swear you stop breathing as he places it delicately over your head, finally revealing you to him.

And he gives you that soft smile again, the one that’s so contradictory to the stories whispered in your ears. His eyes crinkle gently at the corners as his hands come up to cradle your face, again touching you like delicate porcelain as he dips down to press his lips to your own.

His lips are soft, softer than you ever imagined, and his hands are so warm against the skin of your cheeks, and you feel something jump in your chest and-

It’s over so fast.

The crowd erupts in cheers as he pulls away, giving you one last reassuring smile before you both turn to face the crowd and his hand drops to take your own before raising them both above your heads in rejoice as you both descend the dais.

Rice and flowers and the like are thrown your way as you leave the temple, and once again your body works on it’s own set of instructions, following the kings lead and the attendants ushering you both through a maze of hallways until soon your seated at a large table in an even larger dining hall and the celebration has truly begun.

Food, more than you’ve ever seen in a place at once is piled onto the tables, music floats merrily through the room, entertainers flooding the center of the floor to vie for their King’s attention. Only when the food has been served, the wine poured, and people start eating does anything manage to catch your attention.

And once again, it’s those damned hands.

One comes to settle atop your own that sits rigid in the table, fork held tightly between your fingers as you have yet to even touch the food set before you.

“Are you alright?”

His voice is like a siren song, yet also reminding you of rolling thunder, a comforting lull that soothes the nerves that must have come crashing down upon you as the weight of today’s actions finally catches up with you.

You turn to look at the king - no - your husband, and you have to fight the burn at the back of your eyes.

Bright blue stares back at you, brows creased with worry as he gazes at you, and you’re suddenly aware of another set of eyes on you. You can feel them burning into the back of your head, and you can’t help but steal a quick glance, only to see the seething gaze of your father looking back at you as he gestures silently to your plate.

Oh gods…you look down to your plate, then to the kings, and you’re just now realizing his Kings-guard is also sat at the table with you, two on your side and one on his left, and they’ve all finished at least Half their plates and you haven’t even touched yours-

“Forgive me, my King,” you rush out, sitting up straighter, and immediately moving to pick up a piece of fruit - you think it’s a strawberry but you can’t be sure, not past the buzzing in your head. “I did not intend to appear ungrateful. I’m merely…nervous that’s all.”

His brows furrow further, and that must have been the wrong thing to say.

“I just meant…I’m excited, the nerves stem from joy I assure you-”

Soon the King is abandoning his utensils all together, reaching over to take your hand in both of his own, as that concerned look never leaves his face.

“It’s alright,” he says softly, that smile coming back to his face when he sees you relax slightly at his words. “And please, call me John,” he chuckles a little, “We’re married after all. No need for the formalities.”

You nod, “Of course, my King - John-”

“Aye, dinnae listen to him, lass,” an accented voice speaks from your right, and you startle slightly when the guard next to you leans in ever so slightly, blue eyes gleaming with mischief. “He’s full’o himself, call him ‘my King’ all ye want-”

A rough shove from the man on his right stops him in his tracks, and you can’t stop the way your eyes widen at the pure casualness of the interactions.

“Cut it out MacTavish,” the man grumbles, leaning forward to address you now, “Apologies, your majesty, but this one-” he jerks a thumb towards the one you now know as MacTavish, “never knows when to shut his mouth.”

You go to speak, only to be cut off by John.

“Leave my wife be,” he says sternly before turning back to you. “Sorry about them,” he apologizes needlessly, “they’re…” he trails off and this time it’s you who gives him a smile, a real one.

“It’s alright, I…” you pause, “thank you. For checking in with me and…thank you.”

You turn back to your meal before John can respond, missing the way his brows furrow again at your words as you finally start eating, trying and failing to ignore the way his earlier words made your heart stutter and you can’t tell if it’s good or bad.

My wife.

——

The celebration went on for what feels like days, music and more entertainers and more gifts from more lords and ladies than you could name. They served dessert, and then the dancing began and John had even asked you out to the floor for a dance. It was one you knew the steps to, thank the gods, and by the end of it both of you were smiling so wide even you couldn’t deny the way the earlier trepidation seemed to melt off of you.

That was until the night started to draw to a close. It was slow, but soon guests were retiring, coming up and giving their well wishes and goodbyes before leaving. With every guest that left it felt like a second closer to your perceived doom.

You aren’t a fool - you aren’t some naive maiden - you know what happens on one's wedding night. You know what’s expected of you as a woman - as a queen now. And that thought is made all the more terrifying when your father and mother come up to bid their own farewells.

Your mother is first, and John is chivalrous enough to give you some space, although he never quite leaves your side, just steps a few paces back as your mother envelops you into a hug. You can’t stop the tears in your eyes as her arms wrap around you, as you know this will be the last time you see her for a while, your fathers territory being many months away.

“I love you more than the entire world, my star,” your mother whispers, pressing a kiss to your cheek as she pulls away, hands coming up to cradle your face in her gentle grasp. “You will make an excellent queen.”

You pull her into one last hug before your father is impatiently tugging at you, though not in an obviously rough manner - he must keep up appearances after all. Even the large smile he wears as he pulls you into him is fake, full of deep seated hatred and loathing for a daughter he only ever saw a nuisance, a means to an end.

His grip is crushing, and you don’t miss the way his fingers dig into your sides again, his breath disgustingly warm against your ear as he pretends to whisper his goodbyes, but instead whispers words you would never dare repeat.

It feels like an eternity before he lets go, and he only does so because another hand settles on your shoulder, tugging you gently.

“I fear it’s time for us to retire for the evening,” John says, voice tight as he gazes at your father in a way that makes you suspect he isn’t as stupid as all the others your father has fooled in the past.

Your father bows, all reverence and kind smiles and posterity.

“Of course, my King.”

And then you’re gone, being whisked away from the only life you’ve known into an all new and terrifying unknown one.

——

Your footsteps echo loudly in the hallways as you follow John through what feels like a maze. This castle, just like the capitol itself is massive, larger than any you’ve ever been in. If it wasn’t for John, you feel like you might get lost in the twists and turns forever. You try to remember where he’s leading you - this is your new home after all, you will need to learn your way around. But with each turn and door your pass through it just gets more confusing. Did you turn left or right before or after the door-

“Don’t worry,” John speaks up, breaking the tense silence that had befallen you both, “you will learn your way faster than you think.”

You turn to him then, surprised that he caught on to your internal intentions. But he’s perceptive, that’s at least one thing you know about your new husband.

You try to return the small smile he gives you as you nod, looking around once more.

“I have no doubt I will learn my way eventually,” you agree, letting out a small sigh, “It’s just so…big. I’ve never seen a palace so magnificent. I can’t even begin to imagine what all the rooms hold…”

A small chuckle meets your ears, the sound surprising you slightly as you turn to look back at your husband as he speaks.

“Well, I would be happy to give you a proper tour tomorrow. I have a feeling you may enjoy the library the most,” he says, eyes twinkling in the dim light of the sconces lining the hallway.

You do perk up at that. “A library?”

John hums, nodding. “Yes I…” he clears his throat, and if you didn’t know any better you would think that he appears almost…nervous. “I noticed the multiple trunks of books among your things as the servants were bringing it in this morning. I’m almost worried that our selection of books might be too small compared to your own.”

You shake your head, another real smile tugging at your lips. “I highly doubt that,” you say softly, “And I…I will be most happy with anything you deign to show me. You are most kind.”

John only hums again, and another silence envelops you, this one much more pleasant. Only when you take a few more turns does he speak up again.

“Here we are,” he says, gesturing to a large wooden door a few paces away at the end of the hallway. There’s another door that you passed a few steps back, both of them having a guard posted outside of them. The same guards that shared dinner with you earlier.

As you approach the door John directs you too, the guard standing outside stands straighter, nodding gently to you and the John, “your majesties.”

John smiles at him, returning the gesture as he addresses him, “Garrick,” he reaches up placing a hand upon his armored shoulder, “Go join MacTavish will you? Make sure he doesn’t need any help patrolling.”

The guard hesitates for a moment, eyes flicking to something behind you both before John speaks again.

“Don’t worry,” he assures him, “Ghost is back there.”

The guard, Garrick, you try to remember nods, offering a curt bow before taking his leave and walking in the direction you and John came from. The clink of his armor fades until it’s just you and the King again, and you only realize you’d lost yourself again when gentle words greet your ears, this time in the form of your name.

You look up from where your eyes had fallen to the ground to see John standing in the doorway to the room, holding the door open and looking at you gently. A clear invitation to enter. You clear your throat, offering a small apology as you enter, eyes flitting about the space.

It’s a large bedchamber, clearly your own if your things placed neatly about have anything to say about it. The four poster bed is larger than any you’ve ever slept in, gauzy fabric draped prettily from the ceiling and down around the tall wooden posts. Furs, dozens of them adorned what was no doubt a feather mattress, made up to perfection. A fire roars in the fireplace across the room from the bed, a table and two chairs sitting off to the side of it near a stained glass window. A yewer of wine and two glasses sits atop the table, and if your stomach were roiling you’d make a beeline for the substance.

By all accounts the space is warm, welcoming even, leagues better than the single hard mattress in the tiny room of your old home. But all your eyes can seem to focus on is the bed, and the towering presence behind you. And as the solid wood door clicks shut behind you, it feels like the tolling of the bell, the final nail in your coffin as your spirit seems to leave your body once more.

You can hear John talking, voice soft as he rambles about how he tried to have the servants place your things in the best places, have them organized. You think he also mentions something about how the nights here get cold so the fires were always going. He eventually walks over to the table by the fireplace, pouring two glasses of wine, all while you struggle to breath, your eyes only leaving the bed when he calls your name again, somehow even softer this time as he offers you the second glass.

You walk over instinctively, taking the glass in your gloved hand, giving a wobbly smile as he taps his glass with your own before taking a small sip.

You follow his actions before you take a sip of your own. But the wine is good - it’s slightly spiced and warm and if you are to face the coming moments then you need all the courage you can get - and before you know it the wine is gone and you're turning back towards the bed. You notice a small dressing table off to the side of the large armoire and walk to it on unsteady feet.

John is speaking again, but you can’t hear him, not over the rush of blood in your ears or the breath stuttering in and out of your lungs as you reach up to pull the veil from your hair. You drape it across the table delicately, hands trailing over the fine embroidery before your hands fall to the laces of your dress.

Let’s get this over with.

You’re just thankful the dress laces in the front, at least you could do that by yourself. But as you tug at the strings, you find you can’t - your hands shake and the damned gloves…

You yank off the delicate silk, ignoring the raised white scars that glare back up at you as you try and manage to succeed this time in tugging the laces loose. The bodice of the dress loosens around you, the weight of the gown pulling it down slightly, the only thing holding it up being the sleeves on your shoulders. You reach up, still shaking to pull those down next, when warm calloused hands stop you.

He’s calling your name - he’s been calling your name but you couldn’t hear him over your own panic. But you hear him now, and the sound of it falling from his lips along with the grounding warmth of his hands holding your own brings you back to yourself.

“What are you doing?” He asks, and you notice now that he’s standing before you, having turned you away from the dressing table to face him, blue eyes swimming with confusion.

But you’re the confused one, your brows furrow as you look up at him. “What am I…?” You pause, looking down at yourself and then back to the bed behind you. “The…the consummation. I thought-”

Strong hands squeeze your own, and you look back to the man before you. He’s still dressed, you finally notice, and he’s looking at you like a delicate piece of glass, that you might break at the gentlest breeze.

And maybe you would.

“Do you want to?” He asks, question sincere, brows raised slightly as his thumbs brush over your knuckles.

The question startles you. Never had it even occurred to you about wanting this or not. Of course you didn’t want this. You just met this man - this man who is constantly contradicting every horrible thing you’ve heard whispered about him. This man who is a stranger but has been so kind.

You’ve never been asked what you want.

You shake your head, convinced this is a trick. Like one of the cruel ones your father would play on you - asking you a question that only had one right answer and then punishing you when you got it wrong.

“I…” you trail off, fighting with yourself. You want to tell the truth, something screaming inside you that you can trust him while the other, the years of experience tells you otherwise.

The latter wins out.

You swallow thickly, eyes falling to the floor, unable to look him in the eyes as you lie.

“Yes, of course. It’s my duty to-”

He squeezes your hands again, this time dropping one in favor of reaching up to cup your cheek, urging you to look at him once more.

“Love,” he breathes, voice gentle, “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

He takes a deep breath, as if stilling a rage inside of him as he takes in the sight of his broken bride before him.

“I didn’t ask about your duties,” he practically bites the word. “Do you want this?”

Gods, you can’t do it. You can’t look at him and his kind eyes and remember his soft smile and feel the way he holds you so gently and lie to him. Your lower lip wobbles, and tears burn at the back of your eyes as you internally prepare for the consequences of your next words.

“No.”

It’s whispered so softly that if he weren’t standing so close to you, there’s no way he would have heard it. But he does, and his hands are pulled from you so quickly that your eyes slip closed, prepared for a strike or a harsh word or something.

But it never comes.

Instead a tense silence falls over the room before his hand is taking one of yours in his own again, and your eyes open ever so slowly.

“That’s it then,” he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I’ll send for your handmaid, she can help get you ready for the night.”

You can’t stop the shake of your head, mind refusing to accept that this is it. That he is just going to leave you be.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

John smiles, and you don’t miss the flicker of sadness in his gaze. Pity, maybe?

“I won’t start our marriage off by forcing myself on you. I don’t…” he looks away then, “I’ll wait. until you’re ready.”

You speak the next words before you can think.

“And if I’m never ready?”

John smiles, leaning down to place a gentle kiss to the back of your hand, either ignoring or choosing not to acknowledge the multitude of scars adoring the skin beneath his lips.

“I’ve waited this long,” he says simply, “Forever doesn’t seem like much longer.”

And then he’s gone, slipping from your bedchambers just as a handmaiden takes his place.

——

The same handmaid as the night before is the one to wake you, Ilora if you remember correctly. She says that the King has requested you join him to break your fast, as she’s already searching through the armoire for something for you to wear. It's a somewhat silent affair as she helps you get ready, tying your corset, brushing your hair. She even offered you a pair of gloves when she sees you staring at the ones from yesterday, but you decline.

He’s seen them anyways, and if he hadn’t it was bound to come out at some point.

Maybe the conversation will come easier over tea and sweet rolls.

You follow Ilora as she leads you through the still winding passages of the castle until you eventually come to a door that opens into an open courtyard. It’s still confined by the castle walls but the ceiling is open, allowing sunshine to pour down onto the cobbled pathways that wind between a multitude of flowers and bushes and even fruit trees.

It’s like a tiny paradise hidden within the walls, sequestered away from the grim stone walls of the building itself. Birds chirp happily, flirting from one branch to the next; and you even spot a butterfly, bright blue and fluttering so prettily in the air before you. It makes you halt in your steps, watching the rhythmic beat of its wings as it floats in the gentle breeze around you.

You reach up before you can stop yourself, fingers held poised as you reach for the small creature. It flutters about for a moment before settling onto your offered hand, and you can’t stop the smile that splits your lips as its wings beat lazily against your knuckles.

Soon, another presence joins you, and a familiar hand reaches up to mimic your own, a calloused finger tracing the delicate wing of the insect. Your eyes leave one color of blue only to find another, surrounded by familiar crows feet at the corners of his eyes as John gazes softly at you.

“Pretty as a painting,” he murmurs softly, his words making the butterfly take flight, continuing on its earlier journey.

“It was beautiful,” you agree, watching the winged creature until it’s out of sight.

John only chuckles, reaching over to place a hand lightly on your back.

“I wasn’t talking about the butterfly, love.”

His words and the meaning behind them make heat rush to your cheeks, and you look at him in surprise before dropping your eyes to the floor when you catch his playful grin.

“Come on then,” he says, breaking the tension, “let’s eat,” he turns back to your secret, “Thank you, Ilora.”

Ilora offers a small bow at the dismissal and takes her leave as John leads you a few steps further into the courtyard to reveal a stone table laden with food and only two chairs. Once again you’re slightly taken aback by the abundance of food. Yes, you were a daughter of a noble house, your family was wealthy, your father a lord of some land. But you never saw this side of that life - the life of luxury. Your father made sure of that.

John must take your hesitance for nervousness rather than curiosity, because he smiles that warm smile and places that familiar hand on your back to urge you closer. He doesn’t force though, never pushing you if your feet did not want to go. He merely encourages, like trying to placate a scared animal.

Maybe you are one.

“I figured you may want to break your fast away from the prying eyes in the dining hall,” he says simply, moving to pull out your chair when you finally concede to his invitation.

You nod politely, eyes still scanning the vast array of food before you until John takes his seat in the chair across the table. “Thank you,” you say softly, eyes flitting to the attendants that seem to come from nowhere, pouring your drink, placing silverware, and even placing a napkin in your lap before retreating once more.

A silence befalls you both then, and you can’t help but want to shrink under the awkwardness of it all. It’s as if neither of you know what to say - what do you say to your husband or wife that - until less than a day ago - was a stranger to you.

Thank the gods John speaks first, your throat to dry with anxiety to do so.

“Do you like blueberry tarts?” He asks, hand already reaching for one of the flaky pastries in the center of the table, “they’re our baker’s specialty,” he chuckles as he leans to place one on your plate when you offer no refusal. “If you don’t, I’m sure you will after you try this.”

You snag the olive branch offered to you, smiling as you pick up your fork.

“I do,” you say, cutting into the delicate treat, “They’re…They’re my favorite, actually. But we…”you trail off, remembering how once your father found out your affinity for the tarts, they had all but disappeared from the tables during meals.

You clear your throat, “the ingredients were hard to find where I’m from,” you lie smoothly, avoiding John’s gaze. “So they were a luxury.”

You look up when he doesn’t respond right away, and find the usual upturn of his lips absent in place of a scrutinizing gaze. Not a harsh one, but one that made it clear he was studying you, watching for…something.

But it was gone as quick as it came, that pleasant warmth back in full force.

“Well,” he says, placing a pastry on his own plate, “I’ll make sure there’s never a shortage.”

And on the meal went.

Conversation flowed easier after that, John picking up on when you were unsure of a particular dish or food, explaining it to you and watching in utter amusement for whether you would like or dislike a particular one. He’d let out a particularly hard laugh when you’d tried a rather odd looking dish, promptly trying and failing to spit it out in as ladylike a manner as you could.

Blood pudding he called it - making you let out a disbelieving laugh at the withheld information, playfully tossing your napkin his way.

He’d caught it easily, offering you a much sweeter fruit to wash the acrid taste from your mouth.

It felt like the morning lasted forever, and truthfully, you never wanted it to end. It’s…nice, talking to someone without the fear of reprimand or a strike for saying the wrong thing. And John he…he listens to you. Truly listens and seems to enjoy the things you talk about. He asks you questions about yourself; your favorite food, your favorite color, things you like to do to pass the time, places and things you wish to see.

And he listens to all of it, seemingly absorbing every word as if he’s a man in the desert dying of thirst and you’re the oasis he’s been searching for.

It goes on like this for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, and soon weeks bleed into months and it seems like your past gets further and further behind you as this future you and John start to build gets closer.

He shows you the library like he promised, and it’s where you find yourself spending most of your time when separated from John. The first few weeks you both are nearly inseparable, claiming he wants to spend time getting to know his wife. But a kingdom cannot run itself and eventually he has duties and things to tend to, which you respect.

It doesn’t mean you don’t miss him though.

It’s a shock when the feeling first hits you. It’s the third day in a row of only seeing him in the morning to break your fast together. It’s late, and you are as usual, sitting in the armchair you claimed in the library. You’re reading a romance novel, one that you confessed guilty to John early on that you enjoyed reading. Most people back home (your father) hated them - claimed they were undignified, unfitting for a lady to fill her head with stories that would never come true.

John had hundreds of novels shipped in over the next fortnight.

The one you’re reading now is a short one, a cliche about a knight and a low born woman. But it’s sweet, and when you get to one particular part, you find yourself looking up from the page, chuckling lightly to yourself and wanting to share it with John.

But he isn’t here.

And as you look up and notice the darkness outside the windows, the only light being the fire a few feet in front of you, you feel a pang in your chest. A longing you’ve never felt before, never thought you’d feel in your lifetime.

You miss him.

And on this night, it appears as if he misses you too. Because, like a siren's call, as soon as you stand, marking your place in your book to retire to bed, the door to the library creaks open. You expect one of the guards, probably Kyle, as he too seems to be fond of the library, having found him in here on several occasions when he was off duty.

So, when you look up from where your book sits on the side table, you are surprised to see John slipping into the room, hair tousled, and looking as if he had just come straight from the stables. Riding boots caked in mud, light armor still adorning him. When he spots you, it’s as if the world itself falls from his shoulders, he sags beneath the relief and walks to you with sure even steps until he’s less than an arms length away.

“John, what are you doing?” You ask, looking down at his muddy boots and back up to the weary expression on his face. “What’s…is something wrong?”

He pauses for a moment, a flicker of something flashing in his eyes before it's gone, and those piercing blues are softening and crow's feet appear at the corners as he reaches for you, taking your hands in his own gently.

“Nothing, love,” he says, that nickname that’s become more frequent making your heart flutter. “Just missed you, is all.”

His admission makes warmth spread through you, like warm honey on freshly baked bread. And you can’t help but lean into him, relishing in the way his hands move to wrap around your waist.

“I…I missed you too, John,” you tell him softly, as if the words will scare him away.

But they do the exact opposite, they make the man beam brighter than before, fingers squeezing your sides gently as he steps ever closer, eyes falling from your own down to your lips.

Your breath hitches as he inches closer, and you can feel the heat of his words as he speaks, air brushing over your lips.

“Can I kiss you, love?”

You haven’t kissed since your wedding day. Not other than the chaste ones he’d press against your knuckles or your cheek on occasion. He’d respected the vow he spoke to you on your wedding night, never pushing you, never forcing you. He waited. Waited until you made the decision.

The nod you give him comes quicker than you thought it would, and his lips are on your own in an instant. They’re warm and slightly chapped from the ride he no doubt went on today, but to you it’s…perfect. It’s warm and gentle and all consuming, and even though it isn’t heated or rushed or rough you suddenly understand the passion that all those romance novels wax poetry about.

He doesn’t dominate you or control it in any way, he moves with you - coaxing you at times perhaps, smiling against your lips when you let out a small whimper. His hands never stray far either, only moving to wrap further around your or caressing up and down your spin, maybe toying with the hair at the base of your neck before finally coming to cradle the apple of your cheek in his calloused palm.

Only then does he pull away, and you flush at how breathless you are, the embarrassment only soothed when you see he is just as affected as you are. He rests his forehead to yours, eyes fluttering closed as his thumb brushes softly against your cheek.

“Maybe I’ll have them move my desk in here,” he says after a comfortable silence. “That way even if I have things to tend to, I can still spend some time with you.”

You pull away from him only enough so he can see the smile on your face; and the next day when you come to the library, John is sitting at his desk, right next to your arm chair.

———

Another thing that has changed for the better is your dreams. Nightmares used to be a constant for you before the wedding, waking up in cold sweats, fear making your very bones ache. But after the first few nights in the castle…they disappeared. Once you realize that the danger you used to live amongst each and every day is no longer present, it’s as if your body finally allowed you to rest.

Maybe that’s why this one is so much worse.

You’d been lulled into a false sense of security, your body's survival instincts failing you, telling you that you were safe when you should know better. It’s the very thing he screams at you as he strikes you down in this hellscape. The bitter words he spits upon you as blood splatters across the stone flooring, as the toe of his boot meets your stomach again and again.

You naive, stupid girl - you’re nothing!

You want to scream out at him, tell him that it’s not true, that you are something and that someone loves you and cares for you. But the words are stuck in your throat like tar, and copper floods your tongue and any and all protests crumble like ash in your mouth as you see his guard raise the whip above his head.

You wake up screaming.

Throat raw, the taste of copper still coating your tongue and making you gag as you fight against the furs and blankest tangled around your legs. It’s pitch black, the fire having died out to nothing but embers. So when a pair of hands finds you in the dark you can’t stop the wail that slips from your lips.

He’s come back for you. He’s come to take you away-‘

“It’s me, love stop-” the voice is muddled, far away from your panicked mind.

You fight the grip on your wrists, only stilling when one lets go to cup your cheek. Calloused hands, warm…they speak again.

“You’re safe, it’s me. Love, it’s me…”

“John?”

His name is but a whimper on your lips, and when he assures you that it is him, you fall apart like glass when it meets stone. Shattered into a million little pieces.

But he catches you, he catches and holds each and every piece of you as you sob in his arms, tears soaking the skin of his neck where you hide your face, fingers clutching desperately at the thin cotton of his shirt. He holds you so softly. Always soft, always gentle. His hands run up and down your back, over your shoulders, through your hair as he shushes you softly, cooing reassuring words into your ear.

And when you finally do calm, sobs ebbing away into ugly sniffles and hiccups, he still doesn’t let go, shifting instead to lay back against the pillows with you tucked into his side as he pulls the covers around you - a safe cocoon against the world - against the things that still haunt you. He only stops speaking, stops humming some small random lullaby he had started up, when you begin to speak.

He didn’t pressure you, didn’t ask - he’s never asked. The whole time you’ve spent together, and you know John is a perceptive man - he knows things. You assume he’s worked most of it out himself; yet, he never once asked you. Even now, when your screams no doubt jerked him from his slumber, or when you cried into him like a terrified child. He never once asked.

So you tell him on your own. You tell him of your childhood, of the hatred your father held for you, of the cruelty he subjected you and your mother to. You told him of the scathing words and the nights sent to your room without supper and maybe even days without anything but a simple loaf of bread and some water. You tell him of the things you swore you’d never tell anyone, of the blood and torment and beatings and the whip.

And in the darkness of your bedchamber you pull away from his embrace, slipping your shift from your shoulders as you tell him about the scars. He’s seen the ones on your hands but…as he traces the jagged angry marks on your back, your ribs, your stomach in the darkness…you can practically feel the rage radiating off of him like the sun on a hot summer’s day. His hands shake, fingers trembling as they trace over the evidence of darkness, of pure evil. You tell him everything, until the tears finally prevent you from saying more and he’s tugging your shift back up your arms and turning you back to face him and kissing them away with a reverence you never imagined possible for you.

“You will never come to harm here,” he swears, voice terrifyingly calm and steady. “And if you do, gods help the man to do it, for I’ll hunt him down and slay him where he stands.”

He pulls you tighter then, lips pressing against the crown of your head as arms wrap around your waist, soft words urging you back into slumber.

And despite everything….you sleep, and dream this time of warm hands and kind words and a future worth living for.

#john price x reader #cod x reader #captain price x reader #price x reader #john price #captain john price

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cup1drul3z · 11 days ago

Text

★ — Salt in her lungs

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 1 : ᴅʀᴀɢ ᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜱʜᴏʀᴇ

ᴘɪʀᴀᴛᴇ!ꜱᴇᴠɪᴋᴀ x ᴍᴇʀᴍᴀɪᴅ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | 5.7ᴋ ᴡᴏʀᴅꜱ

TAGS : Age gap, Mermaids, Pirates, Fantasy world, set in 1600s, blood mentioned

A/N : another fic that has been collecting dust in my docs

Summary : A curious mermaid princess saves a drowning pirate, breaking centuries of secrecy between their worlds. Sevika can't forget the girl beneath the waves, haunted by her even in someone else’s arms. Now, both are searching for each other—drawn by a connection neither fully understands.

Long ago, before salt crusted the corners of maps and before ships carved paths across the sea, the oceans were ruled by song.

Mermaids—known to themselves as the Thalassari—were not the glittering fairy tales whispered to human children. They were warriors, mystics, daughters of tide and storm. Born with sharp teeth and sharper tongues, they shaped the ocean’s mood with their voices: lullabies that calmed tempests, laments that mourned lost ships, and siren-songs that could drag a fleet to the bottom of the world. They lived deep in the trenches, in palaces carved from coral and whale bone, protected by magic older than the moon.

But once—centuries ago—humans and merfolk did meet.

The stories say a fisherman’s net tore through the kelp curtain guarding a mermaid nursery. Curious, the humans came closer. They captured one. Dissected her. What they didn’t understand, they feared. What they feared, they destroyed.

A war followed. Not one of armies or flags, but of quiet ruin. Ships lost with no trace. Islands swallowed by sudden tides. Harbors cursed with empty nets and dead water. In retaliation, humans built stories—legends to bury the truth. Mermaids were dismissed as sailor myths, drunken mirages, hallucinations brought on by thirst and madness. A convenient lie. Over time, belief faded like a tide pulling back. Mermaids became fantasy.

Below the surface, the Thalassari wove their own stories. Humans, they said, were extinct—burned out by their own fires, vanished into the sky. “Surface ghosts,” they were called, used to frighten little mermaids into obedience. Don’t swim too close to the shore, or the ghosts will steal your voice.

Generations passed. The sea kept its secrets.

Until now.

Until you.

You, the youngest daughter of the Sea King—mouthy, reckless, and far too curious for your own good. You’ve always wanted to see what was beyond. Not just the reef wall or the border tides, but the world above.

You weren’t supposed to be awake this late.

The reef pulsed with sleepy biolight, soft and dim, like the whole sea was breathing slow around you. Your sisters had long since curled into their shell beds, and even the guards stationed at the edge of the inner currents had grown lazy—hovering with half-lidded eyes, tridents drifting just slightly out of reach.

Perfect.

You moved silently through your chambers, brushing past strands of sea-silk and coral trinkets. Your father had filled the place with gifts. A necklace of blood-pearls. A singing conch from the Mariana Trench. A polished mirror carved from obsidian that always reflected you looking smaller than you felt. They were all meant to distract you. Soften you.

But none of it mattered when your heart was pulling toward something outside.

You ran your fingers through your hair. Tugged on your travel wrap—lightweight kelp-thread woven for speed, not elegance. No crown. No sign of royalty. Just you. Just the water.

You moved to the back wall of your chamber, where a curtain of kelp swayed lazily over the outcrop. It looked like just another patch of rock, but if you pushed it just right—there—the shimmerline faltered.

Just a flicker.

Your heart thudded in your chest, a rhythm too fast for deep sea calm.

One look over your shoulder.

Empty room.

You exhaled.

Then you slipped through the crack in the reef—outside Sanctum for the first time in your life.

And the sea felt different out here.

Colder. Wilder.

Free.

“You call that a tie-down? That knot wouldn’t hold a drunk mermaid’s panties, let alone a cannon!”

The deck of The Harpy’s Grin was chaos—ropes whipping in the wind, gulls screeching overhead, crewmen scrambling like wet rats as the sails snapped angrily above. The storm had passed hours ago, but its temper still echoed in the waves. And Sevika, captain of this barely-floating beast, was not in the mood.

She stalked across the creaking boards with heavy boots, the scent of brine and old smoke clinging to her coat. The sun caught the steel of her mechanical arm as she grabbed a dangling line and yanked it tight with a grunt, shooting a deadly glare at the nearest crewman.

“Reefbreak’s balls, if you lot can’t manage a basic lash, I’ll start tossing you overboard one by one and see who floats best!”

“Cap’n, the wind changed too fast—” one of them started, eyes wide and voice shaking.

“And the wind’ll break your jaw next time you whine instead of workin’.” Her voice was rough as gravel, but cold. Controlled. She didn’t raise her voice unless she meant it.

The man shut up real fast.

Sevika took a slow drag off the half-chewed cigar clenched between her teeth, squinting out at the horizon. The water stretched out, glittering like spilled coin under the sun. Endless. Boring. Predictable.

God, she hated calm days.

“Where’s the chart?” she barked, already heading for the helm.

“Below deck, Cap’n!”

“Well get it! I’m not lettin’ this damn ship drift like a tavern whore waiting for a kiss.”

She took the wheel in one hand, metal fingers tapping restlessly on the polished wood. Her jaw worked against the cigar, tension in her shoulders she couldn’t seem to shake. Not from the storm. Not from the crew.

From the feeling. That gnawing itch behind her ribs like something was coming. Something that didn’t belong on the sea.

She spat overboard.

“Fuckin’ sirens,” she muttered.

Except she didn’t believe in sirens.

Not really.

Sevika barked one last order and turned back toward the wheel, the wind catching her coat as she narrowed her eyes at the far edge of the water. Something shimmered there—a ripple too smooth for open sea, a flicker of color where none should be.

Probably nothing.

But her gut said different.

And Sevika had learned long ago to trust her gut more than gods, ghosts, or gossiping crewmen.

She took another drag from her cigar and growled, “Bring up the scopes. I want eyes on the wreck fields.”

A crewmember scrambled up beside her, already raising the scope to his eye. He adjusted the focus, then stiffened. “There’s... something in the water, Cap’n.”

“‘Something’?” she snapped. “That’s real fuckin’ specific.”

“Not a fish. Too big. Looks like... maybe someone fell overboard?”

Her cigar twitched at the corner of her mouth.

“Lower the rowboat,” she ordered, voice flat. “Two men. Careful hands.”

Oren hesitated. “You think it’s a survivor?”

“I think I didn’t ask for your opinion,” she said, turning on her heel.

But as she walked away, she muttered under her breath, just quiet enough not to be heard:

“Or a goddamn lure.”

You’d gone too far.

You knew it the second the light changed—the way it bled through the water in slanted, unnatural beams, not the warm shimmer of Sanctum’s safe magic but the sharp, raw glare of the surface world. The current had tugged you past familiar coral shelves and singing stones. Now, the water was colder. Still. Heavy with silence.

And wreckage.

You kicked gently through the murk, weaving past twisted metal and splintered wood, ghost-ships swallowed by barnacles and age. Sails shredded like jellyfish skin. Harpoons rusted and bent. A graveyard.

Your brows furrowed as you muttered, “Why would there be so many here...?”

You’d always been told humans were myths—surface ghosts that vanished long ago, burned away by their own greed. Old stories. Scare tactics. Tales told to mares to keep them close to the reef. No one you knew had ever seen one.

But the wreckage told a different story.

You drifted lower, nearly brushing your belly against the ocean floor as you approached a strange shadow ahead—huge, looming, far too intact to be part of the graveyard. Not a reef. Not a creature.

And then you saw it.

Half out of the water above: a massive dark shape, long and wide like a sleeping leviathan. Wooden skin. Metal teeth. Some kind of strange… hump-backed whale?

Right next to it, floating just beside the beast, was a smaller one. Sleek. Smoother. Almost cute, in a crooked kind of way.

You froze, breath catching in your throat.

“...What are those?”

You stayed low, heart thudding as you pressed into the sand, eyes wide and glittering with curiosity. Whatever they were, they hadn’t moved yet. Maybe they were just strange surface creatures. Maybe they were whales. Maybe this was why your father forbade you from leaving.

But gods help you—you had to know.

The rowboat rocked gently beside the ruins of the old wreck, creaking as it drifted in the lazy current. Sevika stood near the bow, one boot up on the edge, arms crossed, cigar tucked behind her ear. She was squinting into the water, watching the way it shimmered around the rotted timbers below.

“See anything yet?” she muttered.

“Hold on,” one of her men called back, leaning farther over the edge. His fingers gripped the railing as he tried to peer past the sun glare. “I thought I saw—wait, yeah—somethin’ shiny. Looked like—”

The glint was gone before he finished the sentence.

A plink broke the stillness.

They all froze.

The man’s hand went to his bare chest like he’d been stabbed. His face twisted. “No—shit! No!”

“What now?” Sevika asked, already annoyed.

“My necklace—!” he barked, voice cracking. “It—it was my late wife’s—shit!”

And then he jumped.

Straight off the side.

“Godsdammit!” Sevika cursed as water splashed over the side.

“Man overboard!” the second crewman yelled, standing and nearly tipping the whole boat in his panic.

Shouts rang out from the main ship—sails snapping above, boots pounding on the upper deck. Sevika didn’t wait. She tore off her coat and dove in.

The water swallowed her whole.

She cut through it like a knife, teeth clenched against the cold. The man was below her, flailing, reaching toward the shimmer of silver glinting just above the ocean floor—lodged between sharp black rocks. Stupid, reckless bastard.

He grabbed it, fingers closing around the chain.

But then he panicked.

His chest heaved. His eyes went wide.

Sevika reached him, shoving him upward with both hands. Her grip was strong, steady. “Go!” she yelled, voice lost in a stream of bubbles. “Get up!”

He kicked off, disappearing toward the surface.

She turned to follow—and pain lanced up her leg.

Her boot had caught.

She yanked, hard. The rocks didn’t budge.

The pressure was already building behind her eyes. Her lungs were screaming.

She kicked again, twisting, trying to slip free—

Still stuck.

Still sinking.

The decision wasn’t a decision at all. It was instinct.

One moment, you were crouched in the sand, hidden beneath a ledge of coral and bone, eyes wide as the strange surface woman thrashed against the rocks. The next—you were moving.

Your tail snapped once, twice, and you shot forward through the murk.

Her foot was caught tight between two slabs of stone. You yanked on them, fingers digging into the crevices, but they wouldn’t budge. Too sharp. Too strong. The woman’s dark eyes locked onto yours—wild with confusion and quickly clouding. Her mouth parted, a stream of bubbles escaping.

And still—she fought.

But something else moved behind you.

A shadow.

The shark.

You felt it before you saw it—the ripple through the current, the low thrum of hunger. It circled from far off, but closing fast, drawn by the shimmer of your scales.

You cursed under your breath.

Too shiny, stupid tail, stupid.

You twisted, diving down just as it cut through the water in a flash of grey muscle and hunger. Sevika flinched as it passed—still trapped. Still vulnerable.

You didn’t hesitate.

Your fingers found the knife strapped to her thigh—slick and cold, the leather sheath wrapped in thick cords. You yanked it free, spun, and darted directly toward the open mouth of the predator.

It came at you fast.

You were faster.

With a sharp flick of your tail, you spun to the side and drove the blade into the beast’s eye with all your strength.

A hiss of blood spiraled through the water. The shark jerked, convulsing, and fled into the gloom.

You turned back, breathing hard. Sevika was struggling against the rock again—and with a final wrench, she broke free. You caught her as she kicked off the bottom, her strength already faltering.

She was slipping.

You could see it in the way her limbs moved—slower, heavier, like her body was made of stone. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to stay conscious.

You grabbed her hand.

Your fingers locked around hers as you pulled, kicking hard toward the surface, dragging her up through the light and salt and silence.

When her head broke the surface, she gasped—choking and sputtering—but you were already gone.

Back beneath the waves.

A shadow disappearing in the blood-tinged blue.

Rough hands pulled her from the sea.

“Got her! Cap’n—breathe! Come on—damn it—”

Water spilled from her mouth as she coughed, hacking and heaving onto the wood of the little rowboat. Her chest burned. Her lungs felt like they were made of rust. Her limbs, heavy and half-numb, barely moved as someone braced her shoulders.

“Is she bit?” someone asked. “Shit, there was blood—a lot of it.”

Sevika blinked, vision blurry with salt and sun. Her throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper.

“Wasn’t mine,” she rasped, voice like gravel dragged across stone.

The two crewmen looked at each other. “You sure? Looked like a fuckin’ massacre from the top deck.”

Sevika coughed again, this time spitting over the side. She sat up slowly, her shirt soaked and clinging to her, the weight of the sea still wrapped around her shoulders like a ghost.

“I said it wasn’t mine,” she muttered, jaw tight. “Shark came in. Got chased off.”

“Chased off?” one of them echoed, brows lifting. “By what, a fuckin’ miracle?”

She didn’t answer.

Because she didn’t have one.

There’d been something in the water. No—someone. She remembered flashes. A face. A grip on her arm. Eyes wide and unafraid. No legs. Shimmering skin. A tail.

And then—nothing.

The rowboat bumped against the side of The Harpy’s Grin, ropes lowered to haul her up. Voices crowded her ears—more concern, more confusion—but she didn’t register a word.

She stumbled onto the deck with help, boots squelching against the boards. Her mind was still half-drowned.

“You hit your head, Cap’n?” someone asked. “You’re out of it.”

“Fine,” she growled, brushing off a hand from her shoulder. “Fine.”

But she wasn’t.

Because when she looked down, just before the crew peeled her soaked coat away, she saw something wrapped around her wrist—delicate, green, and glinting like sea glass.

A strand of kelp, knotted into a perfect little braid.

And Sevika never tied things pretty.

You didn’t realize it until you were almost back—until the shimmerline came into view, flickering faintly around the outer reef like a curtain of moonlight.

The knife was still in your hand.

Your breath caught. You paused in the current, tail curling beneath you, the knife suddenly heavy in your grip. You turned it over, saltwater glinting along the blade’s edge.

It wasn’t just any weapon.

The handle was worn but beautiful—wrapped in aged leather, darkened by years of salt and heat. Carved into the metal beneath were delicate engravings: waves, stars, a compass rose. On one side, stamped into the base near the hilt, was a name in old surface script:

Sevika Vexley.

You mouthed it soundlessly, letting the letters roll through your mind.

That woman—she wasn’t like the stories. She wasn’t shriveled or monstrous or cursed with fire-skin. She was strong. Broad-shouldered and wild-eyed, all sharp angles and tension, even as she drowned. And... gods. She was attractive. In a terrifying, deeply unfair way.

You shook your head, cheeks heating. This was not the time.

And yet—your fingers didn’t let go.

You could’ve returned the knife. Left it near the surface. Let it sink back into her world. But a part of you didn’t want to. A part of you needed to keep it. Not just as proof that it happened—but because it meant something. She had a name. A face. A voice. A life.

Humans aren’t real, you’d been told. And if they were, they’re long gone. Dangerous. Violent.

But she didn’t feel like a ghost.

She felt realer than anything you’d ever touched.

You sighed, slipping the knife carefully into the folds of your kelpwrap and turning back toward the shimmerline. You passed through the magic, your tail tingling as you crossed the barrier and reentered Sanctum.

Guards drifted lazily nearby, none of them noticing you.

You exhaled in relief. No one saw. No one knew.

And no one would believe you anyway.

Your chamber was dim and still when you slipped back in—just as you left it, though your heart was hammering like you’d been gone for days instead of hours.

You crossed quickly to the corner near your bed, where the coral flooring dipped slightly beneath your vanity shell. With a careful glance over your shoulder, you knelt and pried up a loose tile of polished shellstone. It had cracked months ago, but no one had bothered to fix it. Lucky you.

The knife slid in perfectly.

You let your fingers linger on the handle—just for a second—before pressing the tile back into place and smoothing the sand around it. You exhaled. Safe. Hidden.

But before you could rise—

“Where were you?”

You froze.

His voice filled the room like a wave crashing against the reef—deep, commanding, too calm to be harmless.

Your father hovered just inside the entrance, broad-shouldered and impossibly regal even without his crown. The water shimmered faintly around him, a sign of his rising temper.

“I asked you a question,” he said, slower now. “Where. Were. You.”

You turned, schooling your face into neutrality. “Nowhere.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” you snapped before you could stop yourself. “I just... went for a swim. I stayed within the boundary.”

“Don’t insult me,” he growled, his tone sharp now, dangerous. “Your scent is soaked in brine and blood. You reek of the outer currents.”

You stiffened. “I’m not a child.”

“No, but you are my daughter,” he barked, surging forward. “And I did not build this sanctum just for you to go wandering into cursed waters where things that shouldn’t exist still might.”

Your jaw tightened, hands curling at your sides. “So I’m supposed to spend my whole life locked in a cage of pearl? Singing at court? Smiling for foreign envoys? That’s not living.”

His face twisted. “That is safety.”

You held his gaze, unflinching. “Then maybe I don’t want to be safe.”

The water between you crackled with tension. Silence hung, thick and bitter.

His voice, when it finally came, was low. “One day out there will get you killed.”

You turned your back on him.

“One day here will kill me slower,” you muttered.

You didn’t look as he left. You couldn’t.

Because your hands were still shaking.

The reef was asleep again.

Soft glows pulsed through the coral towers like slow heartbeats, and the palace was quiet save for the faint echo of guards’ tridents tapping stone. You lay still in your bed until their patrol passed your chamber door—then you moved.

You slipped from the silkweed sheets, every motion careful, quiet. The room was still dim, only the bioluminescent drift-lamps casting gentle light across your floor. You knelt by the vanity again, fingers brushing over the loose tile. It popped free with practiced ease.

The knife was still there.

You pulled it out slowly, cradling the handle in your palm. The engravings were cool under your fingers, familiar now. You traced the name again.

Sevika Vexley.

There was no going back. Not really. Not after today. Not after her.

You needed to know more. You needed to see her again. Ask what she was. What the surface was. What the truth was.

You slid the knife into the belt of your kelpwrap, letting the folds hide it from sight. You glanced once more toward your door. Still quiet.

You slipped out.

Through shadowed halls and gently swaying curtains of sea lace, past the silver fountains that never ran dry. Past your sisters’ chambers. Past the court’s main hall. You moved like a shadow, like a whisper. Like you weren’t the king’s youngest daughter.

Like you weren’t royalty at all.

Except—you forgot.

The moment you passed the final shimmerline, leaving Sanctum behind, you felt the cool rush of wild sea against your skin—and a gentle tug at your temples.

Your crown.

You hadn’t even realized you were still wearing it—so familiar, so constant it felt like a part of your body. The delicate chains brushed your cheeks as you swam, gold glinting faintly in the dark, seashells and crystal pieces catching what little light filtered from above.

The teardrop gem gleamed like a beacon.

If someone saw you—

You swallowed hard, but didn’t stop.

The knife was secure at your hip. The water was cold again.

And somewhere out there, above the wrecks and waves, was a woman who should not exist.

And you were going to find her.

The dock buzzed with noise as The Harpy’s Grin pulled into its usual berth, ropes thrown and sails furled with practiced speed. Salt clung to the air, and the wood of the pier creaked beneath hurried boots as the crew began unloading barrels, crates, and whatever scrap was worth selling from the old wrecks.

Sevika stood at the gangplank, arms crossed, eyes narrowed at the chaos below. Her coat was back on, sleeves damp, and the braid of kelp that had been wrapped around her wrist was gone—tucked somewhere deep in her quarters where no one could see it.

She didn’t say a word as her crew barked and grunted, lugging gear onto the docks.

“Hey!”

A familiar voice cut through the noise.

Sevika looked up just in time to see Vi weaving through the crowd, her usual cocky smirk in place and a gleam in her eye. The crowd parted for her. It usually did.

“Finally,” Vi said, coming to stand beside her. “Took your sweet time.”

“Storm slowed us down,” Sevika muttered, voice low. “Got caught in a wreck field.”

Vi looked her over, brow twitching. “You good?”

There was a pause.

Sevika scratched the back of her neck, eyes flicking toward the crates being hauled off her ship. “...Fell overboard.”

Vi blinked.

“You what?”

“I said I fell overboard.”

Vi stared for a beat—then barked out a laugh, loud and obnoxious, smacking Sevika on the shoulder. “You idiot! I told you to stop standing so close to the damn edge when you’re brooding like a cliché.”

“I wasn’t brooding,” Sevika grumbled.

“You were,” Vi grinned. “You always are. Gods, you're lucky you didn’t drown. I’d be stuck drinking alone, and you know no one else can keep up with me.”

Sevika huffed a soft laugh through her nose, shaking her head.

“So?” Vi raised a brow, already turning toward the street. “We doin’ our usual, or what? I got us a table at the tavern.”

Sevika didn’t answer right away.

Her gaze drifted over her shoulder, back to the sea. The waves looked calm now—unbothered. Innocent.

But she could still feel the ghost of fingers wrapped around her wrist, dragging her toward the surface.

Not human. Not a dream.

Her jaw tightened. “...Yeah. Sure.”

She turned and followed Vi into the crowd.

But her mind stayed on the water.

The tavern was warm and loud—clanking mugs, the low thrum of music from the back corner, sailors laughing too hard over nothing. It was the kind of noise that usually helped Sevika drown out her thoughts.

Not tonight.

She sat at the booth, half-drunk cider sweating in front of her, boots kicked out under the table. Vi was mid-story—something about a guy trying to barter with a dead jellyfish and calling it “enchanted”—but Sevika wasn’t really hearing it.

Her eyes had drifted to the far wall, where a faded mural stretched across the plaster. It was chipped in places, water-stained at the corners, but still vivid enough to make her pause.

A mermaid. Painted in swirling blues and silver, hair flowing like seaweed, mouth slightly open in song. A fairytale. A warning. A joke.

Except it didn’t feel like one anymore.

“—and then the guy actually licked it, I swear on my—wait—”

Vi snapped her fingers.

“Hello? Not talkin’ to myself over here.”

Sevika blinked. Her gaze flicked to Vi, then back to the mural, then back again. She shifted in her seat, leaning back with a quiet sigh.

“Sorry.”

Vi raised a brow. “You good? You’ve been weird all night.”

There was a long pause.

Then Sevika just said it.

“Do you believe in mermaids?” she asked, voice low. “Or… sirens?”

Vi snorted a laugh, lifting her drink. “What, like the fish-girls with seashell tits and magic songs? That kind of mermaid?”

But Sevika didn’t smile. She didn’t even blink.

Vi’s smirk faded slowly. She lowered her mug and leaned in a bit, watching her friend’s face.

“…Did you see something?”

Sevika didn’t answer right away.

Vi scooted closer across the bench. “Sev. What happened out there?”

Sevika stared into her drink, fingers drumming once against the side of the mug. Her jaw worked like she was chewing on the words, deciding whether to spit them out or swallow them whole.

“I saw something,” she finally said, voice quiet enough that Vi had to lean in more to catch it.

Vi’s brows knit. “Like… what kind of something?”

Sevika hesitated.

“Something in the water,” she said. “When I was stuck. Thought I was gonna black out. Then she was there.”

Vi blinked. “She?”

“...I don’t know what she was,” Sevika muttered. “Had no legs. Fast as hell. Got me loose. Dragged me up. Then gone.”

Vi sat back slowly, mug forgotten. “You’re serious.”

Sevika nodded once, slow and deliberate. Her eyes flicked to the mural again.

Vi followed her gaze, then let out a low breath. “And you think—what? Mermaid? Siren? Sea spirit?”

“I don’t know,” Sevika repeated. “But she wasn’t a hallucination. She had weight. Heat. A face.”

Vi was quiet for a moment, chewing on her lip. Then she scoffed softly. “Well, damn. I thought I had a good story tonight.”

That finally earned her a ghost of a smile from Sevika.

“You still do,” Sevika said, lifting her drink. “Just not as weird as mine.”

Vi shook her head and grinned, clinking her mug against Sevika’s.

“You’re buying the next round,” she said. “And if this ends with you falling in love with a sea creature, I better be the best man at the wedding.”

The water was darker here. Colder.

You'd been swimming in circles for what felt like hours, trying to retrace the path from earlier. The wrecks weren’t where you remembered. The currents were different, pulling wrong, whispering strange things around your ears.

But you had to find it. Find her.

You darted around a cluster of sunken crates, eyes sharp, heart thudding with a mix of urgency and hope. You couldn’t stop now—not after what you saw. Not after what you felt.

Then the current shifted. Cold. Heavy. Familiar.

Your blood ran colder than the sea around you.

You turned slowly, and there it was. The shark.

The same one from before, its wounded eye now scarred and clouded with rage. It hovered just a few body-lengths away, tail swaying in slow, predatory rhythm. It had followed your trail.

Of course it had.

You backed away, body tense, hand reaching for the knife at your hip—but you knew you couldn’t outswim it in open water. You were fast, but not that fast. Its nostrils flared. It inched closer. Closer.

It opened its jaws.

And then—

“Tch. That’s enough, fish-breath.”

The voice came from behind you. Smooth. Teasing. Dangerous.

The shark froze mid-lunge.

Its entire body trembled before it spun, darting off into the gloom with a ripple of panic you could feel in the water.

You turned.

Floating just a few feet away was a woman.

A mermaid, but not like anyone from Sanctum.

Her hair was long—long—a brilliant, electric blue that shimmered even in the low light, trailing all the way down to where her deep indigo tail began. She was tall, lean, and wore a grin like she knew every secret the sea had ever whispered. Sharp teeth glinted behind her smile.

She cocked her head at you.

“Hey, kid,” she said, voice curling around you like silk. “Wanna turn into a human?”

Your eyes went wide.

The tavern was even louder now.

The music had swelled into a full reel, all frantic strings and stomping boots, and the crowd had doubled since sunset. Lanterns glowed low and golden above the bar, casting warm light over sweat-damp necks and flushed cheeks. The air was thick with the scent of spiced rum, woodsmoke, and something fried and probably burnt.

Sevika was drunk. Very drunk.

She was slouched in a chair near the back, one boot kicked up on a barrel, her coat half-falling off her shoulder. The smoke from her cigar curled lazily above her head, ignored entirely as her attention was focused on the woman seated across from her.

She had a voice like honey, one hand wrapped around a mug, the other idly playing with the end of Sevika’s collar. She laughed too loudly at something Sevika said—and Sevika smirked, leaning in, words low and slurred just enough to soften her usual edge.

From a distance, she looked like any other pirate relaxing after a haul—flushed cheeks, hooded eyes, the swagger of someone used to getting what she wanted.

But if anyone looked close enough, really close, they’d see the difference. The way Sevika’s gaze flicked—not quite focused on the girl in front of her, but through her.

Because the girl wasn’t her.

Not her.

The girl was close, sure—dark hair, delicate mouth, a laugh that danced in the air—but her eyes were too pale, her chin too sharp. Her hands were wrong.

Still, Sevika played the part. She leaned in, voice rough and low. “You always drink like that, or are you tryin’ to impress me?”

The girl grinned, tipping her mug. “Maybe a bit of both.”

Sevika laughed, mouth curling around the cigar, smoke exhaled through her nose as she tilted her head. “Dangerous game.”

“And you’re the warning label?” the girl teased, inching closer, eyes glinting. “Please.”

Sevika took a slow sip of her drink. It sloshed slightly as she set it down, the amber liquid nearly gone. Her elbow hit the table harder than intended. She blinked a little too slow.

“Just sayin’,” she muttered, “You got no idea what I’ve seen. What I’ve touched.”

She didn’t mean to say it like that, but the words slipped out anyway, thick with drink and memory.

The girl’s brows rose, but she was still smiling, amused, leaning in close enough that her perfume—citrus and sweat—brushed Sevika’s senses. “Then maybe you should show me.”

A smirk ghosted across Sevika’s mouth. Her hand drifted forward, fingers brushing against the girl’s wrist. Her touch was practiced, steady, but her eyes…

Her eyes were miles away.

The other woman leaned in like she was expecting a kiss.

But Sevika didn’t move.

Not yet.

Because all she could see, in the flicker of candlelight on this stranger’s face, was another face—wide-eyed, glinting with seawater and moonlight. That tail. That mouth when it opened in shock. The shimmer of scales, the cut of a jaw that didn’t belong to any myth she knew.

Sevika blinked again.

The illusion cracked.

“You alright?” the girl asked softly, drawing back just an inch.

Sevika rolled her jaw, wiped a hand down her face, and laughed—low and hollow.

“Fine,” she muttered, tossing back the last of her drink. “Just thinkin’ about someone who ain’t here.”

The tavern blurred as the night deepened—faces blending into laughter, music thickening into static, the hum of drink and desire drowning out all reason. Sevika didn’t remember leaving exactly. Just the heat of the girl’s mouth on her neck, her fingers tangled in Sevika’s shirt, and the way the air outside felt cold against her flushed skin as they stumbled down the uneven cobbled streets toward her place.

They barely made it inside.

The door slammed shut behind them, the girl giggling as Sevika backed her into the wall, one hand braced beside her head, the other sliding up her thigh. Their mouths met—hot and hungry, the taste of rum and desperation between them.

It didn’t matter that her name was wrong. That her voice was wrong. That the curve of her back didn’t fit Sevika’s palm quite the way she wanted it to.

She didn’t stop.

Didn’t want to.

Didn’t let herself.

The bedroom was dark, lit only by the moonlight bleeding in through the thin curtain. Clothes came off. Hands roamed. The girl made all the right sounds, said all the right things, wrapped herself around Sevika like she meant it.

And Sevika gave in to the rhythm—fast, rough, breathless.

She chased the high, moving harder, deeper, fingers gripping, mouth biting, needing something to burn out the feeling gnawing at her ribs.

But just as she tipped over the edge—

Just as her breath caught, her eyes squeezed shut—

She saw her.

Not the girl beneath her. Not the one gasping and moaning and clawing at her back.

Her.

The girl from the water. From the wreck. From somewhere else entirely.

Except—this wasn’t a memory.

It was an invention. A split-second fantasy.

The mermaid—you—laid out beneath her, body slick and glistening like she’d just surfaced, hair tangled in seawater, eyes wide and dark with pleasure. Your mouth open, lips parted around Sevika’s name—not Captain, not help, but Sevika, like it belonged to her.

Her expression was soft. Overwhelmed. Beautiful.

It wrecked her.

Sevika came hard, breath torn from her chest, muscles tensing as the world went silent except for that imagined sound—the voice of someone she didn’t even know, someone she couldn’t possibly forget.

And when it was over—

When the girl curled up beside her, pressing kisses to her shoulder, sighing into her skin like she meant it—

Sevika just stared at the ceiling.

Eyes open.

Jaw clenched.

Haunted by a fantasy she hadn’t meant to have

comment to be added to the taglist!

#arcane #arcane sevika #sevika #lesbian #sevika x reader #wlw #wuh luh wuh #sissormetimbers

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stellarsecrets86 · 4 months ago

Text

"Written in the Skies, Etched in the Bones"

- Placements By Quotes

Readings are open for Valentine's. Here

🍁 Sun conjunct Pluto – "To destroy is to create. To die is to transform. I am never just one thing."

🍁 Moon opposite Saturn – "Loneliness does not terrify me. I have been my own home for as long as I can remember."

🍁 Venus square Pluto – "Love me, and you will taste both heaven and hell. I am not gentle."

🍁 Mars trine Uranus – "Freedom is not a choice, it is my nature. Chains are a language I never learned."

🍁 Mercury opposite Neptune – "I live between the lines of reality and illusion, never fully belonging to either."

🍁 Saturn square Ascendant – "You will never know how much I’ve carried because I make it look weightless."

🍁 Jupiter conjunct Sun – "The universe expands inside me. I do not fit in small spaces."

🍁 Pluto trine Mars – "I am made of fire and war. Be careful how close you stand."

🍁 Moon conjunct Chiron – "Even my scars have stories to tell. They whisper in the dark when no one listens."

🍁 Venus trine Jupiter – "My love is a flood, not a river. It drowns everything it touches."

🍁 Neptune square Mars – "I burn and dissolve all at once, like a star too tired to shine."

🍁 Mercury sextile Pluto – "My words cut like knives, not because I am cruel, but because I see the truth too clearly."

🍁 Uranus opposite Moon – "I was never meant to stay. Some spirits are built from storms, not soil."

🍁 Saturn conjunct Venus – "I love like an ancient promise—slow, unshakable, written in stone."

🍁 Mars opposite Pluto – "If you awaken the darkness in me, do not flinch when it looks you in the eyes."

🍁 Mercury trine Uranus – "My mind is a door to places even I do not understand."

🍁 Moon square Pluto – "If I seem distant, it’s because I have walked through fire no one else survived."

🍁 Neptune conjunct Sun – "I live in a dream I cannot wake from, and reality has never fit me right."

🍁 Jupiter square Mars – "I do not fear the unknown. I run straight into it, laughing."

🍁 Saturn trine Mercury – "I have learned to be quiet, but do not mistake that for silence."

🍁 Venus opposite Uranus – "You cannot hold me, only watch as I disappear."

🍁 Chiron square Sun – "Pain taught me everything I know about love."

🍁 Mars conjunct Ascendant – "Do not ask me to be soft. The world sharpened me long ago."

🍁 Pluto square Mercury – "My mind is a weapon. I do not hand it over lightly."

🍁 Moon trine Venus – "I have made peace with softness, but I do not live there."

🍁 Sun sextile Saturn – "My strength is not loud, but it is unshakable."

🍁 Uranus square Mars – "I will never be tamed. I was born to rewrite the rules."

🍁 Mercury conjunct Jupiter – "My thoughts have no limit, so neither do I"

🍁 Venus square Mars – "I love like a wildfire—passionate, consuming, and impossible to control."

🍁 Neptune trine Venus – "You do not fall in love with me. You fall into me, like a dream you cannot escape."

🍁 Saturn opposite Mars – "They built walls around me, and I learned to carve doors."

🍁 Chiron sextile Venus – "Loving me is a lesson in patience. I heal in the arms of those who do not run."

🍁 Pluto opposite Jupiter – "The deeper I fall, the higher I rise."

🍁 Mercury square Saturn – "I speak in riddles because my truth is too heavy for most to carry."

🍁 Moon conjunct Jupiter – "My heart is too big for this world, and yet I keep giving it away."

🍁 Uranus trine Sun – "I was not born to blend in. I was born to break the sky open."

🍁 Saturn square Neptune – "Dreams build me, reality breaks me, and I exist somewhere in between."

🍁 Mars sextile Venus – "Loving me is like standing in the rain—some find it intoxicating, others drown."

🍁 Pluto trine Sun – "They tried to bury me, but I am the seed that does not die."

🍁 Neptune opposite Venus – "I love what I cannot have, and that is the tragedy of my heart."

🍁 Jupiter sextile Moon – "I have survived a thousand endings and still believe in magic."

🍁 Saturn trine Pluto – "Pain did not make me bitter; it made me invincible."

🍁 Mars square Moon – "I feel too deeply, and I fight too hard. It is both my power and my curse."

🍁 Sun opposite Uranus – "I walk my own road, even when it leads me into darkness."

🍁 Chiron trine Mars – "I do not wear my wounds as weaknesses, but as armor."

🍁 Venus conjunct Mars – "I was made for passion, not patience."

🍁 Neptune square Sun – "I am a collection of lost dreams and unfinished stories."

🍁 Pluto conjunct Ascendant – "You will never truly know me. I am an entire universe wrapped in flesh."

(PS: These are my own interpretations. For entertainment purposes only. Have fun!💚)

🪶🪺

#astrology #astro community #astro observations #astro notes #birth chart #horoscope #natal chart interpretation #natal chart #natal moon #horoscope interpretation

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heliosunny · 4 months ago

Note

Hello, may I request mydei and phainon reaction on self sacrificing reader? Both are in the middle of battle, but they fail to notice a sneak attack resulting reader shielding them. But instead of backing down, the reader just continue to attack the enemies ignoring their injuries, after battle reader still alive in the end, just barely (I'm not ready for angst 😔). Sorry if it's bad desc, I'm not good at explaining. Anyway, thank you.

You first met Phainon and Mydei when you were barely old enough to wield a sword. And if fate had been kinder, you never would have met them at all.

You had no noble blood, no great legacy. You were just a normal human, a child caught in the endless conflicts of kingdoms. Your only talent was surviving, and that was enough to bring you to the war camps where young warriors trained.

It was there that you met them.

The first time you saw Mydei, he was getting scolded by his instructor for fighting bare-handed instead of using his sword. He had just sent another boy crashing into the dirt with a well-placed throw, all while laughing like this was the best fun he’d had in weeks.

“You’re supposed to fight with a weapon!”

“But what if I lose my weapon? Gotta be ready for anything, right?”

You expected him to be arrogant. A prince, after all, had no reason to look twice at someone like you.

But when he caught you staring, he just flashed you an easygoing smile. “Hey. You fight?”

You hesitated. “…Yeah.”

His grin widened. “Great! Let’s spar.”

He didn’t give you time to refuse. Before you knew it, you were thrown into a match with him, and to your own surprise—you managed to hold your own.

When you knocked him flat on his back with sheer endurance alone, he just laughed.

“I like you.”

You frowned, breath still heavy from the fight. “That’s not how sparring works.”

“That’s how friendship works” he corrected, completely unbothered by the bruises forming on his arms.

And just like that, Mydei decided you were his friend.

If Mydei was chaos, Phainon was discipline.

You saw them for the first time in the middle of the training grounds, surrounded by fallen opponents. Not one of them had been able to land a hit.

Phainon was not just a warrior—they were a force of nature. Their movements were efficient, precise, with no wasted energy. Where Mydei fought like a wild storm, Phainon fought like a perfectly honed blade.

And yet, when they turned those sharp eyes to you, there was no arrogance—only assessment.

“You” they said, stepping toward you. “Fight me.”

“…What?”

“I’ve seen you train” he said, voice steady, logical. “You’re not strong, not fast—but you endure. Show me.”

You had no choice but to fight. Phainon was ruthless, pushing you harder than you thought possible, knocking you down over and over.

But when you refused to stay down, when you stood back up on shaking legs, they finally spoke again.

“…Not bad.”

It was the closest thing to acknowledgment you’d ever get.

From that moment on, Phainon kept an eye on you. They never forced their presence on you like Mydei did, but they were always watching. Training with you. Correcting your form. Testing your limits.

It wasn’t friendship in the usual sense.

You were never meant to stand beside them.

One was a prince, born to rule. One was a warrior, destined for conquest. And you? You were just human.

But none of that mattered to them.

Unlike Mydei, who was born into royalty, or Phainon, who had carved their name into history through sheer force, you had nothing. No title, no noble blood, no powerful lineage to back you.

So you clawed your way up from the dirt.

You trained until your body was broken. You endured countless battles, taking orders from those who would rather see you dead than standing beside them. You survived betrayals, wounds that should have killed you, and nights spent in cold trenches while nobles feasted in safety.

You suffered because you had to.

And eventually, you earned your place.

You weren’t the strongest. You weren’t the fastest. But you were relentless.

By the time you stood as an equal beside Phainon and Mydei, you had already been through hell.

And they knew.

----

The campfire crackled, casting flickering shadows against the worn faces of your soldiers. The night was cold, but the warmth of camaraderie kept the chill at bay. After a long patrol, exhaustion should have weighed on everyone’s shoulders, but instead, laughter echoed across the clearing.

You leaned back against a log, arms crossed, watching as your team exchanged stories, tales of near-misses, foolish mistakes, and victories hard-earned.

But as always, the conversation turned to you.

"Come on, Captain" one of the younger knights grinned, nudging you with his elbow. "Tell us another one. The one where you held the pass against the raiders—alone!"

You raised a brow. "I wasn't alone. I had twenty men."

"Against a hundred raiders" another soldier interjected. "And still, none of us could have done what you did."

Murmurs of agreement passed through the group. Even those who had been quiet before now leaned in, waiting.

You exhaled. You weren’t one for boasting. The fight had been brutal, the kind that left scars deeper than flesh. But this was more than just storytelling—it was morale. Your men respected you not because of your birth, but because of what you had endured beside them.

And so, you gave them what they wanted.

You spoke of the storm, the cold bite of steel, the way the enemy came in waves. You described the desperation, the way your body had nearly given out, but you had refused to fall. You told them how you had stood—how you had fought until the last breath, until the tide had finally turned in your favor.

By the time you finished, the air was thick with awe.

"You're a damn legend" one of them muttered.

You chuckled, shaking your head. "No. Just someone too stubborn to die."

The laughter that followed was warm, genuine.

But across the fire, Phainon and Mydei sat in silence, watching you with unreadable expressions. You didn't have to hear their thoughts to know what they were thinking.

They hated this. Hated how your men adored you for the very thing that drove you into the ground. Hated how you spoke of near-death with nothing more than quiet acceptance. Hated that you kept proving, again and again, that you would rather break than yield.

And most of all—

They hated that they couldn’t stop you.

----

The battlefield had been left behind hours ago, the scent of blood and steel still lingering in the air. Though the war never truly stopped, for one night, you, Phainon, and Mydei found yourselves in the rarest of circumstances—a moment of peace.

The three of you sat atop a high cliff, overlooking the vast plains that stretched beyond the horizon. The stars were sharp and clear, and the wind was cool against your skin, carrying with it the distant hum of life beyond war.

Phainon lay sprawled against the grass, arms folded behind his head, his silver hair catching the moonlight. He looked peaceful.

Mydei sat cross-legged, methodically sharpening their blade. The rhythmic sound of steel against whetstone was the only thing keeping them from getting restless.

You were silent, watching them both, content in the quiet.

For once, neither of them seemed interested in lecturing you about your reckless choices in battle.

“You never talk about it.” Phainon’s voice broke the silence.

You blinked. “Talk about what?”

“What it was like,” he said, still looking up at the sky. “Before all this. Before you fought your way to where you are.”

Of course, he’d ask that. He always wanted to know more.

Mydei didn’t speak, but they were watching you now—golden eyes sharp and waiting.

You weren’t sure how to answer.

What could you even say? That you had spent your youth crawling through the filth, scraping for survival while people like them lived in castles? That no matter how much you proved yourself, there were still nobles who sneered at you, waiting for the day you finally broke?

Instead, you just shrugged. “It was hell.”

Phainon turned his head toward you, frowning. “That’s it?”

You smirked. “What else do you want? A poetic speech?”

“Hm. Maybe.” He rolled onto his side, propping his head up. “You never let anyone see the weight you carry.”

“You don’t need to carry it alone.” Mydei’s voice was quiet, but firm.

You glanced at them. Their hands were still steady, but there was something restrained in their posture, as if they were holding back something heavier than words.

You scoffed, shaking your head. “I’ve always carried it alone.”

Mydei clicked his tongue. “That’s the problem.”

You sighed. “You two wouldn’t get it.”

“We do.”

You paused. There was no hesitation in their voice. Because they had fought their own wars, too. Different from yours, but battles all the same.

For a moment, none of you spoke.

Then Phainon grinned, stretching. “Alright. Since we’re being honest tonight—” He suddenly sat up, his eyes glinting mischievously. “If you weren’t so stubborn, I’d have kidnapped you and kept you in a palace by now.”

You snorted. “You wouldn’t get the chance.”

“I’d find a way.” His smile was too wide, too knowing. “Or Mydei would beat me to it.”

Mydei said nothing, but the way their gaze lingered on you said enough.

You rolled your eyes. “You two are ridiculous.”

----

The palace was drowning in chaos. The walls that once gleamed with wealth were smeared with blood, bodies of soldiers and assassins alike littering the marble floors. The chandeliers swayed from the force of battle, casting flickering shadows across the carnage.

Screams, steel clashing, the sickening crunch of bones breaking—it all blurred together in the madness of war.

You didn’t have time to think. You fought on instinct.

Your blade tore through enemy after enemy, your breath ragged, sweat mixing with the grime on your face.

But even as you cut down the last opponent in your path, you felt it.

Through the haze of battle, your gaze snapped toward Phainon and Mydei.

They were cutting through enemies with brutal efficiency—Phainon’s movements were deceptively relaxed, his silver hair whipping through the air as his sword cut down a soldier trying to flee. Mydei fought with terrifying force, every strike designed to kill.

But they didn’t see what you saw. A shadow slipping between the columns, too fast for an ordinary soldier.

A glint of steel—aimed for Phainon’s back.

Another enemy, moving low, aiming straight for Mydei’s unguarded side.

You moved.

A sharp whoosh of air as the assassin’s blade descended—

And you were there first.

Pain exploded through your body as the dagger buried itself deep into your side. You felt it tear through flesh, hot blood gushing down your armor.

But you didn’t let it stop you.

With a snarl, you twisted your own blade, cutting through the assassin’s ribs. They crumpled against you, lifeless, but the second attacker was still moving.

You forced your battered body forward, barely managing to intercept them before they could reach Mydei. Your weapon met theirs in a brutal clash, sparks flying from the force of impact.

The pain was unbearable.

Your vision blurred. Your legs screamed at you to stop.

But you kept fighting.

Something cold dug into your ribs, slicing deeper into your wounds. You barely managed to kill the last assassin before you staggered.

“Y/N!”

You barely registered Phainon’s voice before another enemy rushed forward.

Your fingers tightened around your weapon, forcing your body to move—

But this time, you were too weak.

Mydei's eyes blazed with fury as he cut the enemy down in a single, merciless strike.

“Fall back.” Mydei’s voice was sharp, his breathing controlled—but his hands were shaking.

You tried to push forward instead. “I can still—”

A hand grabbed your wrist. Phainon.

His grip was tight, almost painful. His blue eyes, always unreadable, were now filled with raw, unrestrained rage.

“You’re done.”

Your body gave out.

The battlefield was gone.

All that remained was you, barely breathing, and the two who refused to let you go.

Phainon and Mydei had fought countless battles. They had seen warriors fall, seen blood spill across countless lands. But nothing..nothing had ever made their hearts stop the way it did when your body collapsed in their arms.

Your skin was deathly pale, drenched in too much blood. Your breath came in weak, ragged gasps, every exhale sounding like it could be your last.

Phainon knelt beside you, his hands pressing hard against your wounds in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Stay with me” he muttered, voice hoarse. His hands were slick with your blood, and no matter how hard he pressed, it wouldn’t stop.

You didn’t respond.

Mydei was already barking orders at the soldiers. His golden eyes, sharp as ever, held none of his usual composure.

They had never been frantic before.

“We need the best healer” Mydei snapped, “Now.”

A knight hesitated. “The nearest healer is—”

“The best. Find the best in the kingdom. If they take too long...I’ll make them regret it.”

The soldiers ran.

But even with the best healer, would it be enough?

Phainon and Mydei didn’t know.

With you in Mydei’s arms, your body limp against his chest, he sprinted through the war-torn corridors of the palace. Blood from your wounds stained his armor, dripping onto the cracked marble floors with every hurried step. Phainon ran beside him

Every second mattered.

You weren’t allowed to die.

Not after everything. Not after you survived hell to get where you were.

Mydei moved faster.

They both knew exactly where to go.

The grand hall of healers was a place untouched by war, its white stone walls glowing beneath the soft light of enchanted lanterns. The scent of herbs and incense clashed with the overwhelming stench of blood that followed Phainon and Mydei as they burst through the entrance.

A group of healers turned in shock, their pristine robes paling at the sight of the two warriors—covered in your blood.

“Save my friend.” Mydei ordered.

The head healer, an older woman with sharp eyes, stepped forward. “Put them here” she instructed, motioning to a large healing table.

Mydei carefully lowered you down, but his hands lingered longer than necessary. As if letting go would mean losing you.

Phainon stood at your side, arms crossed, his fingers digging into his sleeves. He watched as the healers swarmed around you, their hands already moving, pressing against your wounds, muttering incantations and preparing potions.

One of them turned toward Mydei and Phainon.

“They’ve lost a dangerous amount of blood,” the healer said grimly. “And the wound was deep—if it had gone any farther, it would have been fatal.”

Phainon’s jaw clenched.

“But?” Mydei demanded.

The healer hesitated. “They are alive.”

For a moment, neither Phainon nor Mydei spoke. The tension in their shoulders didn’t ease, their expressions didn’t change.

But something in them released—like a thread that had been stretched to its limit, finally loosening.

As the healers worked, neither of them moved from your side.

They wouldn’t leave you alone.

Because if you woke up and they weren’t there—

They didn’t know if they’d ever forgive themselves.

Hours passed, maybe days, but you never stirred.

The healers did everything they could. The best potions, the most advanced spells—everything to stabilize you. But in the end, it was your body that had to fight.

Phainon never left your side.

Not even once.

He sat by your bed, his arms resting on his knees, his fingers digging into his palms. His blue eyes—once so sharp, so full of amusement—looked hollow.

He watched over you like a sentinel, barely blinking, barely breathing whenever you exhaled just a little too softly.

He spoke sometimes, his voice rough, low, meant only for you to hear.

“You’re really pushing it this time, huh?”

A pause. His fingers twitched against his knee.

“You’re not allowed to die, you know.”

His chest tightened painfully. His heartbeat felt wrong without you awake to match its rhythm.

Mydei didn’t sit.

He paced.

His golden eyes never left you, his hands clenched so tightly at their sides that their nails dug into their palms.

He should’ve noticed the assassin.

He should’ve been fast enough to stop it.

And now, you were paying for it.

The first night, he barely said a word.

He stood at the far end of the room, back straight, jaw locked, every inch of him looking like they were ready for battle—except he wasn’t.

“…You’re an idiot”

A shaky breath.

“We told you not to throw yourself into war.”

“Next time…” His voice wavered. “Next time, you let me take the hit.”

The room was silent. Phainon still sat beside you, unmoving. Mydei stayed at the edge of your bed, eyes dark with guilt.

Neither of them spoke.

Neither of them slept.

Neither of them moved unless it was to check if you were still breathing.

Because until you woke up—

Nothing else mattered.

It started with a breath.

Phainon noticed first.

His sharp blue eyes, which had been locked onto your face for days, widened the second your fingers twitched. He straightened so fast his chair nearly toppled over, his heart slamming against his ribs.

“Y/N?” His voice was hoarse, his throat dry from days of barely speaking.

Mydei’s head snapped toward you

Your eyelids fluttered.

A slow, exhausted movement, like lifting them took more energy than you had. The world was blurry at first, too bright—but the moment you saw two figures hovering over you, you knew.

They were still here.

“…Stop” you rasped, voice barely above a whisper. “…staring.”

Phainon exhaled a shaky laugh—relieved, but also furious.

“You absolute menace” he muttered, but there was no heat behind it. His shoulders shook, his usual confidence shattered. “Do you have any idea how long you kept us waiting?”

“…You’re idiots” you mumbled, still exhausted, still in pain. But the words were laced with something softer. Something grateful.

Phainon let out a slow breath, running a hand through his messy silver hair.

“You’re one to talk.” he muttered.

Mydei finally spoke, their voice quieter than usual.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

You didn’t respond right away.

Because you couldn’t promise that.

You all knew it.

You barely had time to process being alive before they smothered you.

Phainon and Mydei weren’t the type to hover—or so you thought.

But as the days passed, as you drifted in and out of consciousness, you realized something:

You were never alone.

Phainon was always there when you woke up.

Sometimes sitting on the chair beside your bed, boots propped up on the frame like he had no care in the world. Other times, he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching you like a hawk.

At first, you thought it was a coincidence.

Then you woke up at three different times in the night and saw him still there.

“Phainon” you muttered, voice weak. “You need to sleep.”

“I’ll sleep when you stop looking like death” he shot back, tossing a small piece of fruit at you.

You barely caught it with your sluggish reflexes. “…Did you just throw food at a wounded person?”

“Gotta make sure you’re still functional” he said with a smirk, but his fingers drummed anxiously against his arms. “Eat it. You need strength.”

The next time you woke, he was gone. But the blanket was pulled higher over you, and a small tray of food rested at your bedside.

Unlike Phainon, Mydei didn’t talk much.

Instead, he acted. When your muscles were stiff from days in bed, he was the one who helped you stretch. Silent but firm, guiding your movements with precise hands, ensuring you didn’t push too hard.

When the bandages needed to be changed, he did it himself.

“I should’ve noticed the attack.....I should’ve stopped it before you had to.”

You frowned. “…It’s not your fault.”

Then, without a word, Mydei tightened the bandage a little too much.

“Ow.”

He didn’t apologize.

But the next day, when you struggled to sit up, he was already there—offering a silent hand for you to take.

Phainon and Mydei switched shifts without speaking. If one left, the other appeared like clockwork.

When you finally stood on your own, Phainon cheered like you had won a tournament. “Look at you! Walking! I almost forgot you had legs.”

“You’re still weak” Mydei muttered.

“Thanks for the confidence boost.” You rolled your eyes

Their hands hovered near your arm, like they were ready to catch you if you so much as wobbled.

----

“Alright, Y/N, you’ve had your fun. But no more war for you.”

“…Excuse me?”

“We’re not letting you go back” Mydei stated.

You stared at him. Then at Phainon. Then back at Mydei.

“…That’s not your decision to make.”

Phainon sighed dramatically, pushing off the wall. “See, that’s the thing—you clearly don’t make good decisions for yourself. Case in point: nearly dying.”

“You nearly die all the time” you shot back.

You turned to Mydei, expecting at least some reason from him. “You know I can’t just sit here and—”

“You will.” His voice was calm, but unyielding. “You’re not throwing yourself into another battle.”

You clenched your jaw. Frustration bubbled.

“You can’t stop me” you said, evenly.

Phainon and Mydei exchanged a look.

Then Phainon smiled way too cheerfully. “Oh, we absolutely can.”

Days passed. You regained your strength, your mobility.

But Phainon and Mydei never budged.

They weren’t just forbidding you from going back to war. They were enforcing it.

Phainon kept distracting you—always dragging you into conversations, sparring matches, or just physically blocking the exit with a lazy grin.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

You scowled. “Outside.”

“Mm. Sounds fake.”

And Mydei? He didn’t play games.

He simply stood there. His golden eyes pinned you in place, and when you tried to slip past him, his hand shot out—gripping your wrist.

“You’re not leaving.”

One evening, you snapped.

“You can’t keep me locked here like some fragile thing,” you spat, fists clenched. “I fought my way up! I bled for my place in the army, and I’ll keep fighting whether you like it or not!”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“You think we don’t know how hard you fought?” His blue eyes burned with something unreadable. “You think we don’t know what you sacrificed?”

“We watched you almost die, Y/N.”

“And you would do it again” Mydei added, “Without hesitation.”

You turned to them, ready to argue—but stopped. You could fight them. You could keep arguing, keep pushing, keep forcing yourself into battle until you finally didn’t make it out.

You could stay.

Not out of weakness.

But because, for the first time, someone was telling you

You’ve done enough.

You let out a slow breath, your shoulders finally relaxing.

“…Fine.”

Two pairs of eyes locked onto you—one shocked, one wary.

Phainon’s grin was slow, careful. “Fine?”

You huffed. “Fine. But if you both get yourselves killed without me, I’ll find a way to haunt you.”

Mydei let out the smallest, barely noticeable breath—relief.

Phainon’s grin widened. “Aw, you do care.”

You rolled your eyes.

But when Mydei placed a steady, reassuring hand on your shoulder and Phainon bumped his fist against yours with a lopsided smirk, you realized you weren’t fighting alone.

#yandere x reader #yandere #hsr x reader #honkai star rail #yandere honkai star rail #yandere hsr x reader #hsr x you

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