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m1ckeyb3rry · 3 months ago

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MY DEAREST MIRA HAPPY 1K 💯🤍 wowow your blog grew sm so quick i literally blinked and boom ur at 1k !?!?!!? congratulations i have and always will be in love with your writing i seriously need to catch up on ur works eheh..

i know the bare minimum about pokemon but google was indeed my friend so… may i request a team consisting of kaiser and arctibax (dragon + ice) 🫡 you know me and angst, plus the fact that i’ve been wanting to read fantasy as of late 🙂‍↕️

Synopsis: Shortly after the death of your mother, you meet a mysterious man in your family’s chapel, and as the days grow colder, you find that he is the closest thing to a savior you might ever know.

Event Masterlist

Pairing: Kaiser x Reader

Word Count: 18.1k

Content Warnings: pseudo-christianity written by someone who is NOT christian, fantasy au with nonexistent worldbuilding #deal with it, death, angst, no happy ending, sickness, killing, reader is kinda delicate but it IS for a reason beyond just “omg women weak” HAHA, kaiser is an angel, kaiser is also kind of a jerk, kaiser is probably ooc idfk at this point, kaiser pisses me off, i don’t like kaiser, this is based on an actual myth but in the way pjo is based on greek mythology (so basically not at all)

A/N: ANGELLLL HI MY DEAR!! omg hehe i know i feel like i was just at 500 it’s crazy that i already managed to hit 1k 😩 you were an og though fr my seventh follower or smth like that LMAOAO we’ve been through it all together!! anyways sorry this actually rlly sucks but uh…kaiser’s in it ig…and it’s a fantasy au…and it’s kinda sad…and it has an angel…because you’re an angel…😭

The winter before the plague broke out, the river spilled over its banks, stealing your stores of grain and leaving serpents to litter your streets. They were vipers of the diamond-scaled variety, with blue tongues and slit eyes and thin teeth, white with venom and red at the tips. Their killing was random and indiscriminate — the trails of blood they left behind them dried on the cobblestones, and no one dared to wash the dark smears away for fear of their retribution, for fear that they would be the next victim.

It was an omen, that much was clear, though no matter how many stars the king turned to, he could never quite understand what it portended. Anyways, before he could divine the significance, the snakes vanished, leaving the city devoid of life, bar the bronze-footed horses and those individuals who had had the sense to remain inside and away from the dark-mouthed beasts.

The harshness of the winter never abated any; you were never given anything resembling reprieve from terrors after terrors, which came in quick succession. The departure of the serpents was followed by a fortnight of storms, raging winds lashing at your tightly-shuttered windows, shards of ice like daggers driving from the sky into the hard, barren ground, and after the storms there was, for a brief week, a time of eerie stillness where nothing grew nor prospered.

That week, your every word turned to fog in the air — at least, when you deigned to speak, which was rare — and even the ermine-trimmed cloak your youngest uncle had gifted you two birthdays ago did little to ward away the cold. Your mother, who was of a delicate constitution, shivered near-constantly, wasting away by the fire which burned at all hours with a forlorn expression on her wan face.

It grew warm again, in time, but your mother’s trembling never did cease. You added your cloak to the pile of furs she was buried in, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing could seem to warm her, to breathe life into the husk of a being that she had become — she was hollow like a rattling cicada shell, her cheeks sunken and her eyes blank.

Right about when your father was at his wits’ end, there was news of the first death: a peasant, one of the farmers in the king’s employ, who had grown unbearably cold and subsequently wilted into a corpse, spending his last few days alive in the same manner a skeleton might.

Your father, the eldest of the king’s younger brothers, had enough power still that he could command every physician in the kingdom to search for a cure. It was obvious that this was the affliction poisoning your mother, who grew worse and worse daily anew. Yet no matter how hard they searched, they could not find any herb nor method of soothing her.

In the meantime, the black-cloaked disease visited homes with even less discernment than the vipers had. There was nary a family who did not have at least one member with the sickness; eventually, the physicians came before your father and the elder of your uncles, the king himself, bowing their cowardly necks and saying there was nothing to be done about it. It was doom. Anyone who had the illness would surely die, and the best thing that could be done for your mother now was to leave her be so that you, too, did not fall victim to her plight.

You stood abruptly at the announcement, which ordinarily would have earned you glares from the surrounding noblemen but today only entitled you to their pity. Gathering your skirts in one hand, you ran towards your mother’s quarters as fast as you could, ignoring your father’s shouts for the guards to stop you.

She was where she always was, and even the slamming of the door did not cause her to flinch. The firelight reflected in her eyes, which shone like mirrors, and when you knelt by the armchair she rarely moved from, she exhaled slightly.

“Mother,” you whispered, drawing her hand out of the blankets and holding it to your cheek. It was bony and thin; already, she was more skeleton than woman, but something in her must’ve prevailed, must’ve rallied and clung to existence, for her heart still beat in her chest, however shallowly. “Mother, don’t — please don’t —”

She sighed softly. You wondered if she could even hear you, or if she was too fascinated with something beyond your vision to know that you were there. You clutched her hand tighter, her knuckles digging into your palm, her fingers like snow on your face.

“Y/N!” It was your father, bursting into the room, guards flanking him as they raced towards you. You pressed closer to your mother’s chair, gazing up at her. To your surprise, her eyes had widened, reflecting a radiance that made even the hearth seem pale. Her lips, once lush and painted, now dry and cracked from dehydration, parted in wonder, and then for the first time since she had grown sick, she spoke.

“Michael,” she breathed out.

“Michael?” you repeated. Even your father paused, tremulous hope brimming in his irises as your mother smiled slightly. Her hand on your face balled into a fist against the bone of your jaw, and then abruptly it loosened. “Mother? Mother, what do you mean, Michael?”

She laughed. It was a wheezing sound, brittle and reedy, breaking off at the end into something painful. For the first time, she tilted her head towards you, and it was as if she were met with a stranger, though eventually recognition did flash across her face.

“Ah, daughter,” she said, her voice hoarse as she smoothed her hand over your hair. “He is here. Right in front of you. Don’t you see him? He is so beautiful. As beautiful as the paintings.”

“There is no one,” you said, your throat thick with tears, your voice barely able to escape it. “No one is here but us.”

The soft motions of her fingers stilled, and she settled back in her chair, suddenly content. You gripped her wrist, willing her to come back, but she was no longer awake, her eyelids sealed shut, a faint smile still lingering on her face.

“You shouldn’t be here,” your father said gruffly, as if waking from a dream. Before you knew it, one of the guards, a handsome boy with hair like marigolds and eyes like autumn, was lifting you from the ground, carrying you out of the room despite your half-hearted protests and depositing you on the ground in the corridor with a bow.

“My father is still in there. You ought to retrieve him, as well,” you said. The guard looked towards the door and shook his head.

“If your father wishes to stay, then it is not my place to stop him,” he said.

“I see,” you said, for there was no point in further argument. Leaning against the stone wall, you wrapped your arms around your torso; compared to the sweltering heart of your mother’s chambers, the corridor was all but frigid. “Do you think this plague is some sort of a punishment?”

“For what, your highness?” the guard said. He was humoring you only because your father, to whom he was sworn, remained in the room even now, so you only shrugged.

“I’m not sure,” you said. “Perhaps the people have committed some wrong, or perhaps it was my uncle, his majesty the king.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I am not so well-versed in the matters of theology.”

“Only of the sword, I’d reckon,” you said.

“That’s right,” he said.

“My mother mentioned Michael,” you said. “Right before you dragged me out.”

“My apologies for that, your highness, but it was your father’s command,” he said.

“It’s alright,” you said, finding some diversion in the conversation, which at any rate was a welcome distraction. “I do not blame you. Do you know who Michael is?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” he said. “Though I suppose you might know more than I do.”

“Likely it is the case,” you agreed. “He’s the emperor of angels, or so they claim. Perhaps we are biased because he is our kingdom’s guardian; well, anyways, according to the stories and the songs, he is the one who enacts divine will unto us. Supposedly he amongst his peers is the most merciful by far, but there are as many or more poems of his rage as there are of his kindness, so who can say?”

“I didn’t know the last part,” the guard said. You patted his armored shoulder, motioning for him to follow you — he did so hesitantly, with a backwards glance at his broad-backed counterpart, who stayed behind to watch over your still-absent father.

“It’s true, though I doubt rage and kindness are things he can really understand,” you said, weaving through the hallways of the palace until you reached a familiar wooden door.

“What does that mean?” the guard said.

“It’s a personal theory,” you said. “But how can we expect angels to understand the turmoils of humanity when they are so removed from it?”

“I confess I’m lost, your highness,” he said, ducking his head. “I shall continue to pursue the ways of the sword and leave such philosophical questions to you and your ilk.”

“Maybe it is for the best,” you said. “I don’t know that my uncle would be so pleased to learn I am becoming a preacher to the common folk. It’s not the kind of role best-suited to a princess.”

“Certainly not,” the guard said.

“Have you ever been here?” you said as you strode past the tapestry-lined walls of the gallery without pause. The guard shook his head.

“I’ve never had cause to,” he said. Arriving upon the painting you wished to show him, you stopped abruptly, pointing at the gilt-framed portrait, reveling in the shock which twisted his features.

“It’s him,” you said. “The one my mother spoke of. Naturally, the painter has been lost to time, but the subject can never be forgotten.”

The background was plain — a muddy field, gray clouds brewing on the horizon and threatening rain, sunlight breaking through in a halo over his brow. He was tall and regal, a sword in his right hand, pointed at the neck of the viper upon which his left foot was planted. Gold hair cascaded down his shoulders, the shade of the sun at midday, and in his right hand was a rose, the same impossible color of blue as his eyes. The vines of it crept up his arm and curled around his neck, and from his back sprouted a pair of wings, the feathers silver-brown like an eagle’s, unfurled like banners in the air behind him.

“Michael,” the guard said.

“Yes,” you said. “He reveals himself to us very rarely, and only if there is some message which he wishes to impart. I wonder…I wonder what it means that he appeared to my mother.”

“He’s a healer, isn’t he?” he said. “Perhaps with this blessing, she will be the first to recover from this plague.”

“Perhaps,” you said quietly. “Well, I suppose I ought to return to the court and apologize for my misconduct.”

“Nobody blames you, your highness,” he said. “Nor do they think poorly of the reaction.”

“Regardless, it was unruly and childish,” you said. “I do not wish for my father to fall from my uncle’s favor because of my behavior. It’ll be better if I show that I am remorseful. Come, then, let us go. Unless my father has banned that as well?”

“He has made no such demands,” the guard. “After you, your highness.”

“Very well,” you said, and with one final glance at the painting of the severe angel, you led the guard out of the gallery, back towards the throne room you had fled from earlier.

Your father spent the night in your mother’s chambers, though his advisors begged him not to; perhaps it was a form of precognition or intuition, for he ignored their advice and lay at her feet until the next morning, whereupon he exited the room and informed you all, his countenance faded and dull and lifeless, that she was dead.

The carriage ride to your family’s summer estate was silent and awkward. As soon as your mother had been buried in the royal cemetery, your father had insisted you escape to your riverside manor, which had remained mercifully untouched from the winter’s floods. And so, although it was still barely spring and more people fell to the plague by the day, you packed your things and took leave from the castle, at nighttime when there would be no one to see you go. So quickly was it all done that the earth over your mother’s grave was still freshly turned, and you didn’t even have the time to wish her farewell before your father was ushering you into the carriage and whispering to the coachman to hasten his preparations.

“It will be better for us,” your father said again and again. It was such a hollow refrain that he kept repeating, clinging to it like it was sanity, but it didn’t become any more believable the more times he said it.

Yet regardless, you responded with the same thing every time: “Yes, father.”

“Perhaps this plague is a curse on the castle, in which case we are justified in fleeing,” your father said. “And I have already told my brother.”

You pulled your cloak tighter around you to ward away the nip of the nighttime air. “Yes, father.”

“Besides, who can blame us? Not when — not when your mother—” he broke off.

“Yes,” you said miserably. “Father.”

He might’ve ordinarily snapped at you, but today he only sighed and nodded slightly. You supposed you should’ve been grateful that he had enough of a handle on his grief that he could refrain from spitting poison at you, but gratitude was one emotion you could not bring yourself to muster just then, so all you could give him was an exhausted upturn of your mouth which resembled a smile in its barest form.

In the sprawling grounds of the summer estate, it was easy to pretend that nothing wrong had ever happened. There was no sign of serpents amongst the prickly evergreens, for the needly undergrowth was hostile to their pale, soft bellies, and so few servants remained there year round that, of their small number, the majority weren’t even aware a plague had broken out in the first place.

“It will be better for us,” your father said again, this time with finality, helping you down from the carriage and brushing himself off. “This was the right decision.”

You wanted to tell him that there was no world in which you earnestly agreed with that, because you had left your mother behind, and how could that be right? Yet he was so determined that you did not have the heart to, so you only exhaled and shuffled after him, the thought of staying outside for even another moment all but unbearable.

There was much less to do in the lonely manor, where you sat by yourself at all hours of the day, so eventually, despite your reluctance, your thoughts turned to the last time you had seen your mother, replaying that final conversation over and over in your mind until it was all you could see.

On the third day of this self-imposed torture, you dragged yourself out of your bed, trudging to the chapel which your father had commissioned — not for himself, for he was never religious, but for your mother, who often found solace in the marble of its walls and the gold of its altar.

The door, heavy and wooden and large enough to admit a pair of horses at once, opened with a groan and a plume of dust, revealing the inside of the chapel, which was as ornate as you remembered. Your father had spared no expense in its construction, and the floors and walls alike were covered in intricate, patterned mosaic, the high windows rimmed with marble and the ceiling painted with delicate, jewel-colored pigment.

In the middle of the room was a figure, and at first you thought he must be a statue, but then he moved slightly to face you and you realized he was a man; at least, if one could consider someone like that a man, for he bore all the resemblance to the cheerful guards of the palace that a dove did to a common sparrow. His hair was choppy and short and gold, though the ends faded into a blue shade as they trailed down his back, and his bright eyes were lined with something the color of blood that only threw the azure of his irises into greater relief. There was a sort of perfection to the slope of his nose and the curve of his neck, his shoulders held straight and true, his chin high and proud — strangest of all, however, stranger than any of these things by far, was that there was a rusted sword clenched in his fist, the sheath of which sat empty on his hip.

You were quite certain that he did not belong there, but you did not have the wherewithal to question him, so you only shut the door behind you and sat in the entrance, leaning against the walnut frame and closing your eyes, clasping your hands together in front of you and wishing you had something to pray for.

“What have you come here in search of?”

The voice was unfamiliar and keen, like a dagger in your heart or a fang in your calf. You knew without knowing that it must be the man speaking; opening your eyes, you were unsurprised to find him peering at you with no small amount of disdain.

“Whatever do you mean?” you said. He stared at you with a discomfiting intensity, his fingers playing with the hilt of his sword, his eyes wide and endless like the sky, his brows furrowed.

“People don’t come here unless they want something,” he said. “So what is it that you pray for?”

“The things I want are impossible to obtain, so I do not pray for them at all,” you said.

“Hardly anything is impossible. What a limiting way to think,” he said. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“At least it is not an arrogant one,” you said. “Unless you believe that resurrecting my mother is truly something which can be done?”

“Arrogant?” the man said. “Certainly, your mother could be brought back, so for you to accuse me of arrogance is unfounded. The question is whether she should be revived.”

“What a pointless differentiation,” you said. “I doubt you believe she should be.”

“No, of course not,” he said. “Though I don’t believe anyone should, so you ought not to take it personally.”

You swallowed, hugging your knees to your chest, resting your chin atop them and averting your eyes from the strange man. Likely you should’ve felt angry at his callousness, but in the moment, the only feeling you could summon was resignation.

“Perhaps that is the truth,” you said. “Then it is the same regardless. She won’t ever come back. This is her chapel, you know. I thought I might find some reprieve by encasing myself in this place, but I suppose it isn’t so. There is no reprieve. I think of her always.”

The man made no move to offer you any words of reassurance, nor did he drop his sword. He just stood there and watched you with the sort of wary caginess that one might expect from a half-tamed animal, shifting and unsettled and pacing. You found it almost comforting that he did not offer you any platitudes nor condolences, for you had heard enough of those that you were sick of them.

“Who are you, anyways?” you said. “A servant? I don’t recognize you, but then it has been some time since I last came to this estate, so it isn’t a surprise.”

“I am something along those lines,” he said.

“And what business do you have in this chapel?” you said. “As far as I know, only members of my family are permitted entry.”

“Nobody has ever stopped me,” he said. “So why shouldn’t I be allowed? Do you mean to cast me from here?”

He was already shifting from foot to foot, as if he expected you to strike him or throw him from the chapel; it wasn’t an incorrect sentiment, exactly, for certainly if you were your father you would’ve, especially for his earlier impudence. What cause did a mere servant have to talk to the king’s family in such a way? But you could not summon that same indignation, so you only shook your head, standing on legs which had grown sleepy and electric from inactivity.

“No, I have no great desire to,” you said. “If you do not disturb me, then I won’t disturb you. Might we coexist in that manner?”

His eyebrows raised almost involuntarily, and then he shrugged. It was an odd way of doing it, though you couldn’t exactly point out what was odd about it, and then he tapped his sword against his leg.

“I suppose it isn’t a tall order,” he said.

“You should leave your sword at the door, however,” you said. “Aren’t weapons forbidden in places like this?”

“It stays,” he said with finality. You peered at it; it was a comely instrument despite its age, the hilt gold and embellished with roses, dark corrosion creeping up the blue-white blade like vines, the tip as sharp as a thorn. His fingers were wrapped around it like a vice, and you tilted your head when you realized that there was something black drawn on his hand, resembling an emperor’s crown, though you were too far to ascertain if that was what it truly was.

“As you wish,” you said. “It’s not me who you’ll have to answer to, anyways. At least I tried.”

“Your efforts will be appreciated by someone or another, I’m sure,” he said.

“I’m sure they will be,” you said with a scoff. “Ah, wait, sir. Before you leave — can I ask for your name?”

“My name? Why, so you may curse it?” he said.

“So that I may call you by it,” you said. “If we happen to meet again, here or elsewhere.”

“Is it important to you?” he said.

“It’s a courtesy,” you said.

“Since when has the king’s family ever known courtesy?” he said. You thought he might shirk away after the brazen statement, but he only gazed at you levelly, as if challenging you to respond.

“We are trained in it from birth, and must practice it from then on,” you said.

“Courtesy and etiquette are not the same thing,” he shot back.

“Will you tell me your name or not? This exchange is tiresome,” you said. “I shall assign you a name of my own if you do not give it. I doubt it will be to your tastes.”

“Kaiser,” he said. “You can call me that, if you are so insistent.”

“Kaiser,” you repeated, tasting it in your mouth. There was a familiarity and a power to the word, but you could not place your finger on what it meant; deciding it was unimportant, you nodded. “I am Y/N.”

“Yes, I knew that already,” he said.

“It would’ve been rude if I did not introduce myself to you as well,” you said.

“And there is the difference between courtesy and etiquette,” he said.

“Hm?” you said. He did not even look at you, lifting his chin so that he could admire the ceiling.

“What a beautiful scene,” he said.

“Beautiful?” you said, frowning. You had never taken the time to understand it, but now you saw that it was a depiction of Michael killing the hellish viper that was his bane. The roughness of the strokes, however, lended a gruesome quality to it that the painting in the king’s gallery did not have — Michael’s face was twisted into a grotesque leer instead of a gentle smile, and his sword was stabbed through the serpent’s throat instead of pointed at it in warning. Red-glazed pebbles wept like tears along the snake’s body, and the sword in Michael’s hand was made of cruel ivory, his eyes chips of blue glass that twinkled with delight instead of solemnity.

“Isn’t it?” he said, smiling for the first time, not at you but at the mosaic.

“Well, there’s a quality to the workmanship,” you said. “But it’s too gory for my tastes.”

“The truth of things can never be too gory,” he instructed you, and though he had no qualifications in the way of priesthood, you were somehow inclined to listen. “The truth is the truth. If that is how it happened, then you must accept it.”

“Who are we to know how it happened?” you said.

“Who indeed?” he said.

“You speak in riddles,” you said. “It is distracting. I do not mind it, though, because there is much I wish to be distracted from at present, so I am not chiding you, necessarily, but I hope that you know.”

“I know,” he said, amusement in his tone. “It’s something I’ve been accused of many times before, and by men several orders of magnitude more important than you as well.”

“I see,” you said. “Regardless, I believe my father might search for me soon, and as I have found some merriment in you, I do not wish for him to find you here quite yet, so I shall take my leave. But I will return! Please be here when I do.”

“I will be here,” he said, despite the fact that you hadn’t mentioned when you would next visit the chapel. You didn’t question it; he felt like the kind of person that was better left a mystery, or at least figured out slowly, so that no layers were missed.

The next morning, you entered the chapel as the bell rang upon the hour, peering in through the door and smiling slightly when you saw him perched upon a bench made of the same rich walnut as the entryway. He was perfectly still, his back straight, his sword laid across his lap, and he did not turn to greet you, staring straight at the flickering candles of the altar. Your footsteps echoed as you crossed the room, sitting on the bench directly opposite him, facing the candles as well.

“Did you light them?” you said.

“They were already lit,” he said.

“Hm,” you said. “It wasn’t me.”

“Naturally,” he said.

“I suppose someone else visits this place, too,” you said.

“What will you do about it?” he said.

“Nothing,” you said. “If it brings them solace, then who am I to deny them that? The nearest church is a long walk; even this is not so close to the manor. I am weary already.”

At this he did glance at you, his eyes lowering for a moment before he returned his attention to the front of the room.

“You are frail, then,” he said. “The walk is not that long.”

“My mother was the frail one,” you said. “I have inherited my father’s good health, or so I am told.”

“Ah,” he said.

“I will have to come on my horse next time,” you said, only half-joking. Perhaps the distance was not quite long enough to warrant riding, but you really had been winded, and the constriction of your chest was more than a little unpleasant, like there was a stone pressing into your heart.

“If that is what you require,” he said, clearly disinterested in the conversation. You wondered what he saw in the candles, if there was something he could divine from the small, captive flames.

“Was your mother a moth?” you said.

“What?” he said, blinking at you in alarm. “Are you an idiot?”

He said it so genuinely that it felt more like concern than anything. You suppressed a smile, pointing at the beeswax dripping into the golden bowl set there to collect it.

“I’ve only ever seen moths be so enamored by candles before,” you said.

“So you are an idiot,” he said, clicking his tongue. “What a foolish thing to say.”

“It was in jest,” you said. “My apologies. I shall remain serious in your company henceforth.”

“See to it that you are silent as well,” he said, and so you were, sitting across the aisle from him and watching the candles until they burnt out. Even then, he stayed facing the wisps of smoke, tracking them with his eyes as they fluttered into the air with the briskness of a wasp, so eventually you left him behind, him and those blackened stumps marring the air and the altar alike with their crumbling, papery ash.

“There is news that the plague is worsening,” your father said one day at dinner. The news of the plague brought to the forefront of your mind your mother, who you had done so well at ignoring until then. It was easy to pretend that the sickness had never existed, that those days of flooding rivers and viper-lined streets and shivering women had been nothing more than horrible dreams in quick succession.

“I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock,” you said. “Winter has come early this year.”

“Do you think so?” your father said. You gulped, pushing at your food with your fork.

“Already, there is a chill in the air,” you said.

“What horrible luck,” he said. “We’ve hardly had time to recover and replenish our stores of grain. If frost comes to the fields early, then we are doomed.”

“I am surprised it has not yet bitten the earth,” you admitted. Your father, who had always trusted you more than most men would trust their daughters, groaned, dragging his hand over his face.

“There is still time?” he said.

“We can hope,” you said.

“I will order the fiefs to begin their harvesting at once,” he said. “By all rights, summer is still yet to fade into autumn, but even if it is premature, the crops should be serviceable, and the fields can be replanted at once. If it goes well, then our yields may nearly double.”

“A sensible decision, father,” you said. “That should be more than enough to last us all until the next spring.”

“Thank you for your counsel, my girl,” your father said, and if you were not seated at the table, he would’ve patted your shoulder or kissed your cheek or shown his pride in some other such affectionate manner. “I will be lost without you.”

“I am not going anywhere,” you said. “Am I?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But one day you will leave this manor for your husband’s home, and then I shall be on my own.”

“That is still some years away,” you said.

“As many years as possible,” your father said. “There are no suitors in this kingdom worthy of you, anyways.”

“I will trust you when you say that, father,” you said. The lines around his eyes deepened from the force of his grin, and it heartened you to see, for he hadn’t smiled much since your mother had died. Setting your cutlery down, crossing them over your plate as was neat and expected, you placed your hand over his, the skin of his hunt-worn palms rough against yours. “For now, I am content here.”

“And here you shall stay,” he said, firm and sure in the way that only the brother of a king could be. What he said was what happened. He commanded things into existence and so they did occur; it was the kind of power that very few were afforded, and hardly ever in a greater quantity than him, so when he spoke, it was always with the weight of expectation behind it.

You really did ride your horse to the chapel after that dinner with your father. Now that you had mentioned it to him, you could not help feeling the signs of the impending ice of the dead season, and only hugging the warm neck of your little bay palfrey as she trotted along could ward it away. She was gentle and game enough to not mind it, nuzzling you when you got off and dropping her head to graze where you tied her. You pulled your gloves off and tucked them in your pocket, rubbing the whorl of a white star on her forehead before ducking into the chapel.

It was later than you had been the other times you had come, but Kaiser was there anyways, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his forehead pressed against the altar. Never had you seen such misconduct, but you thought he must be sleeping, so you did what you could to be as silent as possible, tiptoeing over to stand behind him, reaching out your hand to jostle him.

“Don’t,” he said, flinching back and glaring at you over his shoulder.

“You were awake?” you said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I thought you were not,” you said. He squinted at you.

“Your powers of discernment are frightening,” he said.

“Because of their uncanny strength?” you tried.

“The opposite,” he said. “You are fumbling and blind. I do not know how you have made it so far in life.”

“Maybe it’s a miracle,” you said, sitting beside him, mirroring the arrangement of his legs, your elbows digging into your thighs so that you could rest your chin in your hands. “My birth was one. Why not the rest of my life?”

“I assume you want me to ask what you mean by that,” he said.

“It’s not that I want it,” you said, swiveling eagerly so that you could face him. He snorted, not offering you the same dignity, the gold of the altar reflecting on his cheekbones. “But I’ll tell you if you’d like!”

“I wouldn’t,” he said. You waited, but he did not budge. The sword was at his side, his one hand placed over it, so instead of telling him any stories, you bent so that you could inspect the weapon.

“Where did you get this, anyways?” you said. “It’s of a make I don’t recognize.”

“And you are well-acquainted with every blacksmith in the entire kingdom, I expect?” he said.

“The ones of note, yes,” you said. “The ones with the talent to make something so fine. Don’t you remember whose daughter I am? I was loved by knights long before my father laid eyes upon me. They taught me a little.”

“What use does a princess have for smithing?” he said, though he did not make any moves to pull the sword away, allowing you to inspect it. You dared not touch it, lest he yank it back, but it seemed the lingering of your eyes was permissible, so you were unabashed in allowing them to rest upon the gleaming metal.

“Not much,” you said. “But a knight has very many uses for the matter.”

“You are no knight,” he said with a sneer.

“Of course not,” you said. Now that you were closer, you saw that the centers of the roses blooming on the hilt were sapphire, and what you had thought was rust had a different shade to it, something dried and burgundy that you could not identify. “But they were. The ways of the sword were all that they knew, so I was raised on such tales instead of the more typical stories.”

A gust of wind blew through the windows, and you shuddered, tucking your knees to your chest and wrapping your arms around them. Kaiser gripped his sword tighter, the veins of his hand standing out blue and angry, but otherwise he did not react.

“One blacksmith brands his work with a bull,” you said. “Another with a dog, and a third with laurels. Many and many things, yet the rose has no place on the list. It’s too sacred. Nobody would dare carve Michael’s symbol into a mere mortal weapon. Who are we, anyways? To compare ourselves to someone who does such grand things?”

“You said grand,” he noted. “Not great.”

“Great implies an antonym,” you said. “But I don’t think such concept really exist to him and those of that kind — good and bad and all. There are different scales, different evils, but the ways in which the angels impact our lives can only be grand or minute. It’s unfair to assign morality to it.”

“Yet if these acts, whether grand or minute, change your life for the better, or alternately for the worse, then can you not judge them to be either good or bad?” he said.

“I can, and indeed many do, but they are not my concern. I speak only of Michael, and I maintain that it is impossible for him to turn that judgment unto himself,” you said. “You know, my mother saw him right before she died. Everyone thought it was a stroke of good fortune. He’s a healer, so he must’ve been there to heal her — yet they forgot, in their desperate hope, that he also comes to escort us to our final resting places. As he had come for my mother.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s true.”

“Well,” you said. “That’s it, then. Is he evil for taking my mother? Can I liken him to a villain for what he did? I would like to. It would be easier…if there was someone to blame, then it would be easier. I wish I could hate someone for it, but I cannot. There is no one. Michael did not take her to hurt me; that is just what he does. I can point my finger at that ceiling and curse him, but what good will it do? It won’t change his nature.”

Kaiser was silent. You must’ve bored him, and you wished you could disappear into the floor, melt into a mosaic, and freeze in place before he could mock you.

“Angels are above humans,” he said after a while.

“Everyone knows that,” you said.

“So how can humans do something that an angel cannot?” he said. “How is it possible?”

“I suppose it’s not unique to them,” you said. “Asking an angel to understand a person is like asking you or I to empathize with a dormouse. The best we can do is impartiality; it’s the same for them, I’d say.”

“Dormice?” he said. “I don’t think it’s the same at all.”

“No?” you said. “I’m not that learned. I don’t take offense. There’s as many theories about these obscurities as there are stars in the sky; I pass the time by coming up with more by the day, for I have little else to do when I am not here, but of course they would not hold under examination. I’m hardly a priest.”

There was another gale, this one howling and accompanied by your horse huffing anxiously outside. You doubted it was anything more than an oncoming squall, and ordinarily you’d wait for it to pass, but you did not want to leave the mare alone in the rain, so reluctantly you stood, dipping your head at Kaiser in the politest farewell you could muster.

“Wait,” he said when you reached the door, his voice still a dull, quiet monotone that you had to strain to properly listen to. “Next time.”

“Next time?” you said.

“Tell me the story of your birth,” he said, and then he was glowering at you again, demanding and haughty and piercing all in turn. “I will understand you.”

“Who said you won’t?” you said rhetorically. “Farewell for now. Please be safe in returning to your quarters.”

Your mare pranced the entire way back to the stables, her ears pricked towards the sky, her tail held high and the whites of her eyes showing. You tangled your fingers in her mane, the coming storm seeping through the fabric of your cloak as you urged her forward, hardly making it to the stable before it began to pour, ducking under the stone lip of the roof and holding onto her reins with sweat-slicked hands, trembling from the relief of the near-miss and leaning against her muscular neck to regain your bearings.

At the end of that week, you were met with a visitor — the youngest and dearest of your uncles, who loved you as if you were his own eldest daughter. He had set out from his own manor as soon as he had heard the news, and such was his haste that even now, the grit of his travels lined his clothes and features, but that did not dampen his jovial spirit any.

“You must rest, uncle!” you said, wincing as he regaled you with a story about the strange twins he had met while riding to the manor, with faces like crocodiles and mouths that only spoke lies, right up until he cut their tongues out, after which they could no longer speak at all.

“My, my, how you fret! Lovely niece, you are more and more like your mother every day,” your uncle said. “You must be so proud of her.”

This was accompanied by a good-natured punch to your father’s arm; anyone else would’ve been reprimanded, but at his brother’s antics, your father could only roll his eyes and cuff him on the ear, just as good-natured and half-heartedly.

“I don’t think it’s possible for a man to be prouder,” he said.

“Thank you, father,” you said, curtseying before brandishing an irreverent finger at your uncle. “But really, I insist! Let me take you to your chambers. You have come so far — surely you are weary.”

“Now that you’ve mentioned it…” he said.

“There will be plenty of time for your stories tomorrow over breakfast,” you assured him, taking the stairs slowly, so that he did not overexert himself. “I am sure you have many more.”

“Of course,” he said. “Though not all of them are as lively.”

“Is there cause for alarm?” you said. Your uncle turned away guiltily. Slipping the key to his chambers into the lock and rotating it, you waited. “You must tell me if there is.”

“I don’t want to cause undue stress,” he said. “Especially after everything with your mother.”

“You have already said it. Better to be done with the affair and tell me the whole of things; it’ll only stress me further if you leave me to conjure scenarios of my own in my mind, so there is no avoiding it now,” you said.

“Come in with me, then,” he said, following after you into the chambers where his luggage was already waiting. You sat on the edge of the bed, allowing him to collapse into the desk chair, his head in his hands. “The queen.”

“No,” you said, praying it was paranoia that forced your thoughts down the ugliest of paths. “No, you don’t mean—”

“She has taken ill,” he said. “Her condition is deteriorating at the same rate your mother’s did. My brother the king is…not optimistic. She has been secluded in an attempt to contain the affliction, though of course we do not know how long she has been sick and how much longer she has been contagious. The entire royal family, barring you, your father, and I — if we stay away from the palace, that is — could succumb before the flowers next bloom.”

“Only the three of us will be left?” you said. Your uncle nodded.

“It seems that even in death, your mother is looking out for you,” he said. Something scratched at the back of your throat, and despite how you tried to swallow it back, it only clawed its way up, coalescing into a small whimper. Your uncle’s face softened, returning ten years of youth to it. “Don’t be afraid. We are safe here. As safe as can be.”

“How does it matter?” you said. “If everyone else is gone, how does it matter?”

To this, your uncle had no response, so he only gave you a pitying look and bade you to return to your room, promising you both would meet again and discuss it in the morning, when your father could join you. Whether he would’ve held true to that oath or not, you didn’t know, because as soon as you heard the murmuring of the servants awakening, you threw on a pair of house-slippers and fled the manor, running as fast as you could to the chapel where you knew Kaiser would be waiting.

In the watery light of dawn, he was almost ghostly, ephemeral like smoke or a wraith, the blue of his hair iridescent, the gold closer to a soft cream. Today he was far from the candles, sitting on one of the benches again, his back to you. You panted from the exertion of your earlier pace, but he did not move, did not try to assist you or even greet you.

“There was a prophecy,” you coughed out, flopping onto the closest bench, lying on it with your feet hanging off of the ends. “About my mother. It said that my father’s blood would spell her death.”

Kaiser did not say anything, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t listening, or at least that was what you assured yourself with. He must’ve heard you. He must’ve known.

“My uncles commanded him to take a second wife. The prophecy must’ve referred to their progeny, and indeed every heir they attempted to conceive died in her womb before it could kill her in turn, further proving the point. My father refused, however. He wouldn’t do that to her. If he could not have a child with her, then he would not have one at all,” you said. “I’m sure you know where this is going.”

“They prayed,” he said. “In turn, they were gifted with a child.”

“And my mother did not die,” you said. “That’s why people say I’ve been agreeable for my entire life. I did not fuss, either. I was good, or so I’ve been told. The best of my cousins by far. At the time of my birth, my father was away on some campaign for my uncle the king, so he did not even hear of it for many months, and he could not return for many more. It’s why I was raised by knights and nuns.”

“And why you spout theories and smithing as if you were born to them,” he said.

“That as well. Anyways, the nuns always praised me for defying that prophecy,” you said. “For saving my mother from a certain death. Do you understand?”

“Prophecies are hardly ever so straightforward,” he said. “You can divine one million meanings from them, but it is the million-and-first which will come true. It’s foolhardy and presumptuous for one to claim they understand the truth behind the future. You can only know it once it has come to pass.”

“Yes,” you said. “I don’t disagree.”

“Perhaps it was still your father’s blood that led to your mother’s demise,” he said.

“How? She fell to the plague,” you said.

“It ended with the plague,” he said. “What did it begin with?”

“Snakes,” you said. “No, before that. A flood.”

“And before that?” he said, condescending as anything. It would’ve been infuriating if it was not so at home with his severe countenance.

“There was nothing before that,” you said.

“If that’s what you think,” he said. “Anyways, is that what you came to tell me?”

“The queen is ill,” you said, gripping the back of the bench and using it to push yourself to a sitting position, swinging your legs down so that your feet were planted on the ground again. “They think it is the same disease which ruined my mother. It’s likely that the entire royal family will be lost — except my youngest uncle, my father, and myself, for all of us fled before the outbreak could reach the castle and have not yet shown any symptoms of the plague.”

“Maybe they deserve it,” he said, with no small amount of contempt. You trained your eyes on the ground, unsure of how you could even fathom saying something, and in your mother’s own chapel, as well. Surely you would be judged for it, but for some reason you thought that you owed honesty to Kaiser.

“Maybe they do,” you said. “Likely they do. But they are — they are still my family. I don’t want them to die.”

His sword caught the sun, and for a moment the maroon on the blade seemed to writhe and drip, coming alive in the light and only stilling when clouds passed across the windows once more. Kaiser’s shoulders still did not face you, but he tilted his head so that he could regard you as he spoke.

“You think they deserve it,” he said, phrasing it as a statement of fact instead of a question.

“I don’t know,” you said. “They must. We all must. These disasters are likely a form of punishment, though I know not what we are being punished for.”

“There is cruelty in this kingdom,” Kaiser said, his voice so cold that it caused a nervous tremor to shoot through you. “And it takes its purest shape in the L/Ns. That must be why they are facing the worst of it.”

You wished you could disagree with him. You wanted to. You wanted to tell him that your father and your uncles and your ten cousins were kind and good, but neither could you lie. Neither could you reassure him of a falsehood, when the both of you knew that had it been anyone else in your family who had found him in the chapel, he would’ve lost his head by now.

“They are cruel,” you said. “I know it. But I cannot bring myself to hate them, not when they love me.”

“It does not absolve them,” he said.

“It does not,” you said heavily. “And I suppose it does not absolve me, either.”

This time, he stood, hefting his sword and pacing in the same frantic way that a leashed dog might. He did not try to brandish the sword, allowing it to drag along at his side, but neither did he let it go. You watched him until you were dizzy from the repetitive nature of his path, and then you covered your eyes and listened to the thud of his boots against the ground.

“You are more like your mother and the queen,” he said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” you said. “Is it because I am a woman? I have cousin-sisters as well, however, and they are as L/N as me.”

“No, it is not that,” he said. “You have been dragged into the sins of the L/Ns against your will, and now you must reap their consequences alongside them. Whether or not you have earned them is irrelevant at this point; you will receive them.”

“It’s already begun,” you said. “My mother — my mother — and who else? They will all be gone, and my father and uncle aren’t so young, which means I shall soon be alone. What will I do then?”

Kaiser was a servant, so by all rights such things were beyond him, but never once had he spoken to you with the deference that his station implied. You didn’t think he knew what it meant to bow his head and comply blindly, so you waited for him to respond, to bestow some small wisdom hidden in the biting jaws of his blasé attitude.

“You won’t be alone,” he said.

“You don’t know that,” you said.

“I do,” he said, as if it were an undeniable truth, written in the foundations of the world. You had never been the type to feel comforted by platitudes, but something about the way it sounded coming from him made your heart swell. “Y/N L/N, you will never be alone. That I am sure of.”

“Do you guarantee it?” you said. “Even though it’s impossible, do you swear?”

“I do,” he said. It was the kindest thing he had ever said to you, so you smiled slightly, although there was no amiability in his tone.

“Then I will believe you,” you said.

“Believe me or don’t,” he said. “Your feelings will not affect that outcome.”

“Hm,” you said. “Well, thank you for reassuring me.”

“That isn’t why I said that,” he said.

“But you managed it anyways,” you said. “I need to go, though. I did not dress to be outside, and it’s a bit cool today, isn’t it?”

“No,” he said, a peculiar lilt to his voice. “No, Y/N. I don’t think that it is.”

With your uncle there, it was harder to find time to visit the chapel. Where once Kaiser had been the only one to occupy your time and thus your thoughts, the only one with enough of a mystery to his being that even the bleakest of your grief could be warded off by it, now your uncle was there to distract you, with his stories and his tricks and his gifts. Never one for religion, just like your father, he laughed when you suggested visiting the chapel, and often by the time you were freed of his company, you were far too exhausted to even think about leaving your chambers, let alone the manor.

He was a whirlwind of a man, your youngest uncle, a tempestuous person whose sword was as ready as his smile. Quick to anger and slow to forgive, he had been the spear of your father’s campaign, slicing through the villages they conquered in the name of the king with brutal, clinical efficiency. You were the only person who had never been subject to his wrath, for you were the youngest and mildest of your ten cousins, and thus cherished by the rest of your family in a way that the others were not.

“Have you finished enough of those to go in the woods with me? There’s a place I’m thinking of going hunting, but I’d like your guidance before I do so,” your uncle said one morning, when the sun shone and the sky was as blue as if it were made of ceramic. You were sitting across from him in the parlor, embroidering handkerchiefs with your family’s sigil, folding them and placing them on the table for your father’s use. Your father himself was out for the day, checking on one of his vassal’s progress in the early harvest, which was likely why your uncle was asking you for assistance instead of him.

“It’s only something to while away the hours,” you said, tying off the end of the thin thread in a perfect, imperceptible knot, shaking out the newly completed handkerchief and then setting it with the rest. “I can go whenever you’d like.”

“I’ll send word to the stablehands to tack our horses, then,” your uncle said. “Have you gone to the river’s shore before?”

“Once or twice,” you said.

“If there’s anywhere to find deer, it’ll be there. What do you say about venison for supper by the weekend?” he said.

“Father will be pleased,” you said. The youngest of his brothers and yet the most talented when it came to hunting, your uncle was known in your family for his aptitude at picking out the rarest of game. Your father always told you that if there was anything resembling an afterlife, he would spend it all eating whatever your uncle brought home, and you had no doubt that he would be delighted to return from his trip and find a freshly-slain stag waiting for him.

In order to reach the river, you had to ride through endless swathes of green — some were tilled and tended, but the majority of those fields were wild, home to nothing but rabbits and robins, both of whom fled upon hearing the clip of your horses’ hoofbeats. At first the cleared paths were wide enough for you and your uncle to ride side by side, but eventually they grew narrower, the tall grass scratching at your legs, pollen leaving yellow streaks on your horses’ haunches, and so you were forced to ride in front, for your mare was as sure-footed as your uncle’s charger was flighty and spooky.

“Be careful,” your uncle said as you pushed her forward, kicking her when she pinned her ears at your uncle’s stallion. “The grounds in these fields are always treacherous. Snakes make their homes amongst the grasses and hide the entrances; even one misplaced footfall can be disastrous.”

“Ah, she is good,” you said. “I trust her to know where her feet are better than I would.”

“Smart girl,” your uncle said. “You must get it from your uncle.”

You swatted away a horsefly before it could land on your leg. It was gray and fat and lazy, but you knew that its bite burnt like a bee-sting, so you steered your horse away from it the slightest bit, in the hopes that it would dissuade any further pursuit.

“Of course,” you said. “Though more than smart, I trust that my father’s men have trained her well, in these very fields.”

“Do they come here often, then?” he said. “We won’t be able to find anything if there are many people passing by.”

“Not that I know of. This section of the riverbank is reserved for our family’s use. Nobody would dare come up this way unless they were on my father’s orders, and my father rarely issues such commands,” you said.

“Good,” your uncle said, relaxing in his saddle, taking his bow off of his shoulder and holding an arrow in his right hand. “If we are very quiet, then we may find something today.”

“So soon?” you said.

“Why not?” he said. “We must be silent, however, lest we frighten everything in a few leagues’ radius away.”

Soon, the only thing that could be heard was the whine of the crickets in the grass that your horses disturbed. It was a high sound, shrill and thin like a flute, insistent in the way of begging, and if your uncle had not been there, you would’ve covered your ears to muffle it.

You couldn’t tell how long you wandered along the riverbanks for, but eventually, there was a faint rustling in the brush. You and your uncle locked eyes, and then you reined your mare to a stop, allowing him to trot forwards, eyes locked on the place where the noise had arisen from, his bow held at the ready, a single arrow in place — because a single arrow was all he would need. Your uncle had never once let fly an arrow which did not then make a home in its target, and you doubted he would begin to do so any time soon.

Another minute passed before the rustling grew louder and something burst from the copse of saplings, crashing through the tightly interwoven branches. You gasped when you saw that it was not a deer or any other such game but a boy, his hair dark and long over his eyes, his shoulders narrow and bony, more like perfect, sickening corners with skin draped over them than anything.

“Please,” he said, dropping to his knees, gazing up at you, his pupils like black pinpricks in the expanse of his blank eyes. “I didn’t — I didn’t mean to! I wasn’t — I got lost, but I didn’t mean to end up here! I was only waiting for you to pass through so that I could return home.”

“So you knew that what you were doing was wrong. Expressly forbidden by the prince,” your uncle said.

“Uncle, it was clearly a mistake,” you said uneasily.

“Mistakes are made when one does not have knowledge,” your uncle said. “This was not a mistake, nor was it an accident.”

“I was looking for rabbits,” the boy pleaded. “My sister likes them.”

“So you were hunting on the prince’s land?” your uncle said.

“No!” the boy said. “No, she — we don’t eat them, she likes to pet them, she’s still young and our mother is sick so I thought I would find one for her but there aren’t any near our house, so I began to wander, and I don’t know how but I ended up here — please, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t!”

“It’s alright,” you said, loosening your foot from your right stirrup and preparing to dismount. “Where is your home? We can escort you—”

“Stay on your horse,” your uncle said to you. You froze, unaccustomed to hearing him speak in such a way. “You. Boy. You admit your guilt? You have trespassed?”

“Yes — no — I don’t—” the boy stammered. His lips were bluing at the edges, you saw, and you realized he, and likely his mother who he had spoken of, was cursed with the plague, which choked his mind and judgment as well as it did his throat and heart.

“He is unwell, uncle,” you said quietly. “Let him go home.”

The boy was not long for this world, and wasting the precious time he had remaining with this pointless interrogation caused a pit to form in your stomach and a glacial feeling to crawl down your back and shoulders, the kind which could not be chased away even by the strongest of fires.

“Crimes cannot go unpunished,” your uncle said. “If we let him go, then we will have to let the next go, and the next after that. Where do you draw the line?”

“Here,” you said. “That is where I draw it. We both know that he is closer to my mother than to us at this point. Forgive him this time. He will not return, I am sure of it.”

“I won’t,” the boy said, voice cracking. “Your royal highnesses, I won’t.”

“Tell me where you live,” you said. “Not far, surely?”

“Just over the hill,” the boy said, staggering to his feet. “The house with the hyacinths in front of it.”

“I will take you there,” you promised him.

“You will do no such thing,” your uncle said. “Y/N L/N. If you ever wish to be the lady of an estate, then you must learn how to punish those who disobey your rule.”

“Don’t!” you said, but you were too late, far too late. Already, the arrow was cutting through the air and piercing through the boy’s heart. He fell in the way a leaf might, silent and crumpling and brittle, a motionless heap staining the earth with his blood. You screamed, or at least you tried to, but there was not enough air in your lungs, and you could not inhale or exhale without the ringing in your ears climbing into a pounding sensation.

“Where are you going?” your uncle said as you tugged on your mare’s left rein, turning her around, away from the still body and your uncle’s stark figure. “Y/N! Wait!”

Tightening your calves, you cued her into a gallop, taking off along the riverbank, water spraying into the air wherever her feet fell. Dimly you were aware of your uncle shouting after you, and then he, too, was galloping in your pursuit, but his stallion was recalcitrant, rearing and gnashing at the bit with every step, slowing their progress immensely and allowing you to fly out of their sight.

Turning into the fields that swept towards the manor, you paid no heed to your uncle’s earlier warnings, pushing the horse faster instead of slowing as you should’ve, your surroundings blurring into nothing more than smears of viridian and mustard in your peripheral vision. You had to reach him before your uncle did. You had to, you had to, you had to —

Abruptly, your horse skidded to a stop, scrambling for purchase in the ground and snorting nervously. You were thrown up her neck but did not fall, sitting back and scanning the area for what might’ve spooked her. In the beginning you did not see it, but then there was a soft hiss from the ground that caused her to dance backwards uncertainly, and you bit your lip hard enough to draw blood.

“You are meant to be gone,” you said to the viper, which was baring its fangs at you, its dark tongue flicking out periodically to taste the air before it. Your words bordered on hysterical as you shifted in your saddle, eyeing its coiling body with equal parts fear and disdain. “Your kind vanished! Why are you back? Do you mean to torment me?”

The serpent did not move to strike, but neither did it shift out of the way, its slit-pupil eyes never blinking, its white teeth like pearls against the roof of its black mouth. You looked around, but there was no other path as clearly demarcated as the one you were on, and you dared not risk going into the grasses where thousands more of the snake’s brethren could be lying in wait.

Behind you, you could once more hear your uncle calling your name, and you knew that the precious few seconds you had gained on him would come to naught if you continued to dither about. When all was said and done, there was only one thing you could do, so apologizing to your horse, you squeezed her onwards. She lurched forwards with a start, her tail swishing, her movements jerky as she inched towards the snake, which grew eerily still at your approach.

Death was supposed to be a mystery or a surprise, but for some reason, as your horse took that final step forwards, you were excruciatingly aware that the next few moments would likely be your last. The snake would dart up, as quick as a whip, and it would latch onto your leg, slaying you instantaneously. What a swift revenge it would be, that your uncle had killed that boy and now he would be met with your own body, pierced through with snake venom as that child had been skewered upon his arrow!

You could’ve done a great number of things in those final seconds, but your mother’s final words came to you, and you found yourself mulling them over. He is here, she had said. Right in front of you. Don’t you see him? He is so beautiful. As beautiful as the paintings. Michael himself had appeared for her, but then who was by your side? Who would accompany you after your death?

There was a flash of movement in the corner of your eye, something azure and fluttering — a butterfly, surely, or some small bird frightened by the commotion. It was unimportant in the end; what mattered most was the color, which was so reminiscent of the person you had set out for that it broke you from your daze, heartening you enough to sit up and raise your chin, facing the snake with enough courage that even your horse ceased to shy away from it. Instead, she let out a squeal which sounded like a trumpet, and then she leapt into the air, bucking upon the landing and galloping away from the viper at such a speed that white lather frothed on her neck and streaked down her shoulders.

You reached the chapel in a time that should not have been possible, and even before you had pulled the mare to a stop, you were leaping off, your fingers clumsy as you tied her to the first fence post you saw. Your legs protested as you took the stairs two at a time, but you paid them no heed. You could not allow them to fail you, not when your uncle’s strides were twice the length of yours.

“Kaiser!” you called out when you entered the chapel. He was standing by the altar, a shower of sparks falling from the flint in his hands onto the charred cloth placed on the table, and instead of greeting you, he blew on the smoldering edge. A flame blossomed to life, and he used it to light a new candle, smothering the cloth under his boot once the fire had been transferred. “Kaiser, you must leave at once.”

“Why should I do that?” he said. “Who are you to dismiss in such a way?”

“It’s not me,” you said. “My uncle is furious, and if he finds you — if he finds you here, then he’ll cut you down, and not even that sword of yours will be enough to stop him.”

“Your uncle and his moods have little to do with me,” Kaiser said. “His tantrums are meaningless.”

“You don’t know him like I do,” you said.

“Don’t I?” he said.

“He just killed a boy for trespassing,” you said. “I couldn’t even stop him. It was the most I could do to return in time to warn you before he came here to pray for that child’s life.”

“You disobeyed your uncle and ran from him for the sole purpose of…warning me?” he said.

“Yes, but it will be meaningless if you don’t hearken to my words,” you said.

“Why is that?” he said.

“Enough with your riddles and your questions!” you snapped. “Are you incapable of taking anything seriously? You will die!”

“Answer this one and I’ll oblige your inane demands,” he said.

“Being with you is the only time I do not fear or mourn,” you said, your nails carving crescents into your palms as your gaze switched rapidly between him and the door. “My mother…my family…the plague and the vipers and the floods…I can forget about them all when I speak to you. If you are gone, then I will have no one. So please, please run. I cannot bear the thought of your blood being shed as well.”

Kaiser looked at you, and then, inexplicably, he laughed. It was a sound so lovely that it grated on your nerves, like a bell ringing too close to your ears. “Your uncle is not a man who could ever shed my blood, and he’d have to have an inordinately high opinion of himself to think he could.”

“You said you would oblige me,” you said, having half-expected such an arrogant response from him but finding that you were vexed by it anyways. “It doesn’t matter what you think of him. You must go, and only return once he has left this place.”

The door slammed open. You spun, drawing your cloak tighter around your shoulders and standing as straight as you could, dismay spiking in your stomach when your uncle walked in. The two of you had spent too long discussing, your explanation had been too lengthy, you had remained frightened of the snake for more time than you should’ve — at the end of the day, the reason didn’t matter as much as the result, which was that your uncle was here and Kaiser was still standing behind you.

“Y/N,” your uncle said, coming down the aisle, his stride light and elegant, the picture of a gentleman. You took a step back, reaching your hand out behind you to prevent Kaiser from saying something callous and damning, as he was wont to do.

“It’s not what you think,” you said. “Uncle, it’s not — please don’t —”

Yet when your uncle reached the altar, he did not draw his sword, nor did he command Kaiser to kneel before him. He only gave you a puzzled look, directing his attention to the candles burning behind your back.

“You played with your life just to come and light the candles a little earlier?” he said.

“What?” you said.

“I know it must’ve been upsetting to see, but rules need to be upheld, or else they cease to be rules and turn into mere suggestions,” your uncle said, patting you on the head.

“Aren’t you angry?” you said in trepidation.

“With you? No, of course not,” he said. “It was the same way for me, the first time I witnessed my father performing an execution. You’ll grow out of it.”

“Er, okay,” you said, too bewildered now to even comprehend his words. What was Kaiser’s magic, that he had escaped your uncle’s stern reproach and careless sword, which had felled countless men?

“Will you stay with me while I pray?” your uncle said. It was the only time he ever changed his mind about religion — after every life he took, he pleaded for forgiveness, as if that could be enough to exonerate him. You weren’t sure if it would be or not, but it didn’t really matter what you thought — it was the only way he had, you were quite sure, to go on. To continue living despite everything he had done.

“No,” you said. “Come — ah, what?”

You had turned to beckon Kaiser, but when you did, you realized that he was gone, vanished without a trace, though you had not heard or seen him leave. Your uncle gave you another strange look before returning to one of the benches and bowing his head, leaving you to wonder if Kaiser had ever even been there in the first place.

The stablehands were confused when you brought your drained mare back to them and demanded they ready another horse for you, and it was only worsened when you commanded them to also bring you one of the rabbits that were raised for their meat. Yet they could not argue with the princess, so they did as you said, bringing you the smallest of your father’s mounts and placing a young rabbit in your arms once you were in the saddle.

You could not tell whether you or the rabbit quivered more — the rabbit from confusion and fear, you from fatigue and the temperature, which had dropped rapidly since you and your uncle had set out in the mid-morning.

Taking a longer route so that you avoided the fields where you had seen the serpent, you trotted towards the riverbank, cradling the rabbit to your heart in the hopes that its warmth would transfer to you. Halting by where the boy’s body still lay, undisturbed and almost peaceful, you set the rabbit atop a tree branch so that it could not escape, and then you jumped off of your horse and crouched so that you could lift the boy onto your saddle. Draping him over it with every bit of strength you could summon, you took the rabbit back in one arm and used the other to lead the horse after you as you trudged towards the direction of the village, mud soaking into your boots and flecking the hems of your clothing.

You crossed the hill at a snail’s pace until you reached a small stone house with purple hyacinths littering the courtyard and a brown goat grazing on the scrubby grass, and then you knocked on the door and stood there until a man opened it. He was tall, his face lined and burnt from the sun, trenches like crow-feet digging into the corner of his eyes, his clothes patched and mended by inexperienced hands many times over. He squinted at you, like he was trying to recognize you, but eventually he gave up and cocked his head at you instead.

“On what business have you come knocking, miss?” he said.

“Your son,” you said. He rolled his eyes affectionately.

“Ah, that rascal. I hope he was not bothering you?” he said. You tried to swallow back the lump in your throat and found that it was impossible, so you stroked the ears of the rabbit and squeezed out a response anyways.

“He’s dead,” you said. “No. He was killed.”

“Pardon?” the man said. “Killed? On what — on what account?”

“On a whim,” you said, a tear splashing onto the rabbit’s back, turning the gray of its fur into a color like tar. “If there were a better explanation, I’d give it to you, sir, but the truth is there isn’t one.”

The man stared at you in disbelief, and you tightened your grip on the horse’s reins, waiting for him to say something. Yet he was silent, staring and staring as if by doing so he could turn your words to lies.

“I brought him back for you,” you whispered, the words digging into your windpipe as they went. “I brought him back.”

The man made a small nose which seemed to come from deep within him, guttural and low and keening, and then he fell to the floor.

“Please say it isn’t so,” he wept, pressing his forehead to your feet. “Lady, lady, say this is some cruel prank and go. His mother is sick already; you cannot say I will lose them both in such short succession. Say you are lying to me.”

“I can’t,” you said, your lower lip wobbling and your vision blurring. “Sir, I cannot do that.”

He wrapped his arms around your ankles and bawled like a child, folded over your boots as he cried and cried. You were motionless, wishing that there was something you could do but knowing that it would all be meaningless — just like Kaiser could not bring your mother back, so, too, were you incapable of resurrecting this man’s son, who had been put down at the hands of your own uncle.

“Thank you,” he said after some time had passed, standing and wiping his face, taking your horse’s reins from you. “I will see to it that he is taken care of. Might I have your name? So that I can repay you?”

“No repayment is necessary,” you said. “Please refrain; I’ve done nothing worthy of repayment. I only ask that you tell me if you have a daughter.”

“Yes,” the man sniffed. “Yes, she’s inside, sitting with her mother. Do you require her?”

“Only to give her a gift,” you said. “And then I shall take your leave.”

The man nodded at you, and you swept inside, brushing past him before he could exit the house and relive his grief anew upon seeing his son’s body in the flesh. You had been there the first time; the second time, you thought, should be something private, belonging to him and him alone.

Sitting by a fire and covered in straw was the wretched woman that could only be the boy’s mother. She appeared worse than your own mother ever had, even in the hours before her death, and her chest rattled with every breath. Squatted by her side was a girl, likely half your age and hardly even a third of your weight, her hair lank and heavy around her shoulders, her cheeks flushed a pink that promised the plague had not clawed into her body yet.

“Hello,” you said. The mother did not move, but the girl looked up at you in a manner reminiscent of a puppy or a foal, a certain naïveté to her features, which resembled her brother’s so much that for a moment you were breathless.

“Hello,” she said. Her voice was a brittle murmur, and her lips barely moved when she spoke, but her eyes shimmered with a slight curiosity, widening when you knelt before her. “Who are you?”

“Your brother sent this for you,” you said, avoiding her question and handing the rabbit to her. She inhaled in delight, taking it from you swiftly and burying her nose in the fur around its neck before beaming at you.

“Really, he did? He always called me foolish when I told him I wanted a rabbit! Said that rabbits are wild creatures and only fairies can catch them,” she said, kissing the rabbit atop its ears. “Are you a fairy, miss? You have to be, right?”

“Certainly, I am not,” you said, kneeling on the stone of the floor and placing your hand against her cheek, which burned with the heat of the fire she was tending. “Dear girl, please remember that it was not a fairy who brought this rabbit to you — it was your brother, who loves you more than anything.”

She still did not know about any of it. She did not know that her brother was dead and her mother was all but. She only saw the object of her desires encircled in her arms, so she was, at least for now, happy, and you could not bear to steal that happiness from her, not when you knew that you how fleeting it was.

“Okay,” she said gravely. “I’ll remember it well. Mama, look! It’s a rabbit. You like rabbits, Mama, so please wake up and look at it.”

“Your mother is resting,” you said when she bent to shake her mother awake. “You should not bother her.”

“She’s always resting,” the girl said. “And if she speaks, it’s only to say that she’s cold.”

“Is that what the straw is for?” you said. Even if she wasn’t sick, you’d have agreed with the woman; you, too, found it to be growing colder out than it ever had in the past, but she had been cursed with the plague, and so it must have been tenfold worse for her than it ever could be for you.

“Yes, it’s the best we have,” she said. “My brother, father, and I share the blanket because we don’t sleep near the fire, and so we only have straw left to warm her. I think I’m going to start working soon as well, and hopefully then I’ll be able to buy the best blanket in the world for her.”

There would be nowhere that would hire her in time for her to give her mother a blanket, except as a burial shroud, so you undid the clasp of your cloak and draped it over the woman’s body. She did not acknowledge you, but you saw her shoulders fall into an exhale, and you knew it was her form of thanks. The girl gazed at you in wonder, her eyes settling on the gooseflesh which pimpled your upper arms without the protection of the cloak, and then she returned her attention to her mother, whose expression was a degree less distraught with the added shield you had provided.

“Not now, and not for some years to come, but when you are old enough, come to the L/N manor,” you said. “You will find work there.”

Outside of the house, her father was digging, and on the ground beside him was a heap of canvas that no doubt disguised her brother. The girl followed you towards your horse, lips pursuing as you used a nearby tree stump to remount.

“How? It’s impossible to be employed there. All my family’s tried, but they’re ever-full,” she said.

“They will admit you, as long as you bring that cloak with you,” you said. “And if you tell them that Princess Y/N sent you.”

Her lips parted in awe, and the rabbit’s nose twitched as you smiled at her, as kindly as you could. In a few hours, she might despise you — after all, you had been the one to bring her brother back, and even if she never learnt of the role you had played in his death, she might resent you for that fact alone — but for now, you were someone she admired, the princess who had come from the manor and left her with a cloak and a rabbit and a promise.

Without your cloak, it was brutally cold, and you soon grew more preoccupied with trying to warm yourself in some way than with guiding the horse home. And although it was tamer than the rest, your current mount still belonged to your father in the end — it was not of the same reliable temperament as your own mare, who would’ve doggedly brought you back to the stables. As you slumped further and further into the saddle, your vision swimming, the horse only halted in the middle of the field you had somehow ended up in, unsure of what to do without a rider’s direction.

“You are a surprising person, Y/N L/N,” a soft voice said, and then someone was prying the reins out of your hands and taking them over your horse’s head. You would’ve been frightened, but though your eyesight was blurred, you knew who it was as soon as he spoke. “Foolish and surprising in turn.”

“Kaiser,” you said. “How are you here? Where did you go earlier? I thought my uncle might find you, but you weren’t there…”

“Don’t concern yourself with such trivial matters. They are beyond your understanding,” he said, clicking his tongue to encourage the horse forward. “I came here for you because earlier, you came for me, no matter how unnecessary it may have been. That’s all that matters.”

“Aren’t you cold?” you said, leaning forwards, collapsing against the horse’s crest, too tired to hold yourself up properly. “I’m cold.”

“I know,” he said. “You’ve been cold for a while, haven’t you?”

“I suppose so,” you said. For a moment, there was silence, and when he finally spoke again, his tone was tinged with melancholy.

“I wish that you were more like your father,” he said.

“Hm,” you said drowsily. “Why?”

“I want to condemn you,” he said. “Curse you. Rebuke you. Damn you.”

“And you cannot?” you said.

“I can,” he said. “All too easily.”

“Then?” you said.

“Then nothing,” he said. “It’s only that it makes me feel strange when it shouldn’t.”

“Strange,” you said. “What a vague word.”

“I cannot explain it further,” he said. “So don’t ask me to.”

“I see,” you said, though really you didn’t — you only did not want to upset him when he was the only savior you had. “Wait, Kaiser, you must know — there is a viper, one of the ones from the flood, it’s in the fields and it might yet strike. I am not sure if it is the only one of its kind, as well.”

“No vipers will dare cross my path,” he said, a laugh trickling into the cadence of his speech. “Not while I have this sword at my side.”

“Even now, you have it?” you said, your eyes closed against the light.

“Yes,” he said. “I cannot sheathe it yet.”

“What does that mean?” you said.

“It is meaningless,” he said. “You ought to be silent, lest you waste what meager amounts of energy your body has managed to retain thus far.”

You weren’t sure how much longer the two of you walked for, but suddenly you were by the stables and there was a clamor and you were falling off the horse’s shoulder, into the arms of one of the stablehands. He was speaking in a panicked rush, commanding someone to fetch your uncle and another to send word to your father before asking you something, his voice harsh and breathy, nothing at all like Kaiser’s needle-precise words. You would’ve answered, but the slight rocking motions of his gait were enough to lull you into a sleep before you could even understand what his question was in the first place.

The stablehand must’ve carried you to your room, for when you awoke, you were in your bed and the sun had set. Your father sat at your desk, a lamp lighting the letters he was writing. Wrinkling your nose and then wiggling your fingers and toes to regain some feeling in them, you yawned, sitting up with a rustle of the sheets.

“Father,” you said, your mouth cottony from sleep. “You’ve returned?”

“Y/N?” your father said, dropping his quill and jumping to his feet, racing over to your side and catching your hand in between his own, holding it to his forehead. “Oh, Y/N, you must swear never to do something so idiotic again. I was so frightened — I thought — I thought you might never wake again.”

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Why would you go riding without dressing for the weather?” he said. “And without at least asking for someone to accompany you?”

“I’m sorry, father. I wasn’t thinking,” you said again, because you knew without a shadow of a doubt that you could not tell him the truth behind your escapade, or he might find some way to penalize the family who had not been at fault and had already lost so much.

“You’re lucky that that horse was so intelligent,” he said.

“What do you mean?” you said.

“It managed to find its way back to the stables even with you all but unconscious on its back,” he said.

“No, someone led me home,” you said. “A servant.”

Your father furrowed his brow. “Ah, what do you mean? There was no one.”

“There was, I’m sure of it!” you said.

“Nobody saw anyone leading you back, daughter,” he said. “You must’ve been having visions from delirium. It’s not uncommon for those who have been so compromised.”

“Visions,” you said. “I suppose there is that explanation.”

“Setting that aside, how do you feel now?” he said.

“Much improved,” you said.

“A night’s rest will do you well,” he said. “We can speak again in the morning, yes?”

“Yes, that sounds appealing,” you said. “Goodnight, father.”

Oftentimes he, like the rest of his siblings, had a somber and unyielding expression upon his angular face, but never when he looked at you — because when he laid eyes upon you, he was no longer the prince of the kingdom. He was only your father, the man who had half-created you and loved you more than he had ever loved anything or anyone, excepting, of course, your mother.

Maybe it was because you had slept half of the day away, but the next morning, you were awake even before the sun. You lay in your bed for a moment, willing sleep to take you once more, but when it became evident that it had fled from your grasp for good, you pushed your blankets to the side and stood on shaky legs, finding comfort in the consistency of readying yourself for the day.

You had none of your usual composure when you entered the chapel. The moment you saw Kaiser standing with his hands laced together and his face tilted towards the sun, your heart skipped an irrational beat, and then you picked your way towards where he stood, careful not to slip on the precious stones of the floor, which today seemed to be more treacherous than usual.

When you reached his side, you were not sure of what to say, so you opted for the truth, however blunt. “I dreamt of you yesterday.”

“I’m flattered,” he said, in that same amused way he said everything, his every word a private joke you could never be in on.

“You saved me,” you continued. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would’ve died.”

“You wouldn’t have died regardless,” he said dismissively. At first, you raised your eyebrows, because how was it that he always said such things with such conviction that you could not help but believe in them? Who was he to inspire such faith in you? Then, before you could lose your nerve, you embraced him, your arms around his neck and fingers dangling in the space between his shoulder blades, his thrumming heartbeat reverberating through your bones like a hymn.

Many seconds passed wherein he was motionless, a being made from stone, before, slowly, hesitantly, he pulled you even closer to him, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other arm wrapping around your waist so that you did not crumble. He was hot like a hearth, his skin blazing with the kind of warmth you had not felt in so long that tears sprang to your eyes.

“You saved me,” you insisted, weeping in earnest, wishing that there was some way you could stay by his side forever and then wondering where such a desire could even have sprung from. “Even if you were only a vision conjured by my mind, I know that I would never have made it home were it anyone else I saw. Had it been anyone but you, I would’ve been lost until the end.”

“Enough wailing,” he said, but it was devoid of the typical thorniness. “Y/N L/N. Stop it.”

“I cannot,” you said.

“Pathetic girl,” he said; however, for the first time, you detected a hint of wavering in his voice. “Pathetic, idiotic girl. If only there were a way I could un-know you. If only it were possible for me to forget you entirely.”

“Don’t,” you said. “Please don’t.”

“I won’t,” he said. “If I were capable of it, I would’ve done so long ago, but as I haven’t, it can only mean that I never will.”

Somehow, you returned to the manor before anyone could raise an alarm at your second disappearance. Joining your father and uncle at the table for breakfast, avoiding your uncle’s greeting and sitting next to your father, you realized that it was not a miracle that you had escaped notice; rather, it was that everyone was supremely concerned with the letter your father was scanning, storms swirling in his eyes as he read it over.

“They’re summoning us,” he said, a second later. “Oh, Y/N, you’re here. Good.”

“Who is?” you said.

“My brother the king,” he said. “There’s been a prophecy. Very soon — in two weeks or even less — the queen will be dead.”

All of you set off at once, your father and uncle riding ahead, leaving you to cocoon yourself in a nest of furs atop the cushioned bench of the carriage. The guard from before, the handsome one with the hair like fox-hide, was requisitioned to accompany you, and so he sat across from you instead of riding in the company of your father and his retainers. You were the one who had asked for him specifically; he was kind and familiar to you, so in such a terrifying moment, you preferred his stalwart nature to any other’s.

“Tell me again,” you said, your voice muffled by the squirrel pelt wrapped around your neck and chin. “What did that prophet see?”

The guard did not know any more than you did, but in the monotony of the carriage ride, there were few other things you could occupy yourself with besides the obsessive question-and-answer game that you played with him. He was happy to follow along, or, if he was not happy, then at least he did as you asked without much complaint.

“Three things,” the guard said, holding up his right hand, the white calluses standing out against the pink of his palms. “Firstly, an eagle fell from its nest and broke its wings.”

“A clear omen against the L/Ns,” you said. “Eagles represent royalty, so for one to fall and lose its ability to fly in such a way…”

“Yes,” the guard agreed. “Secondly, upon reading the entrails of a sow, it was determined that the eagle was referencing a woman in particular.”

“And if it is a woman, then it could only be the queen,” you said.

“Correct, your highness,” he said. He could not see it, but you smiled at him — just barely, for you had not had enough to drink during your journey, so your lips were cracking from dehydration, and you did not rest well anymore, so you were constantly weary. “And finally, they consulted the mirrors, whereupon they saw death from disease tarnishing the pureness of the silver.”

“So they combined the symbols and divined that she would perish from the illness which has plagued her, as it once did my mother,” you said. “I wonder if it is worse or better to be aware that your death is approaching.”

“I suppose she must have known already, don’t you think?” he said. “In the moments before her death, your mother saw the angel Michael. I am sure the queen has had such a visitor as well.”

“Perhaps,” you said. “Though then again, I doubt that he would make appearances so frequently.”

“If he came to escort your mother, then would he not come for the queen? Forgive me for being candid, but it’s true that the queen’s station is far loftier than mother’s was,” he said.

“It’s alright. You’re not wrong, but even then,” you said, and then you sighed, sinking deeper into the plushness of your blankets. “Well, I don’t know. The affairs of angels are beyond you and I.”

“That’s true,” he said. You screwed your eyes shut, colorful spots painting the blackness behind your eyelids, the world spinning peculiarly, in a manner which was unrelated to the swaying of the carriage wheels.

“I think I will sleep now, sir,” you said. “If you do not mind very much.”

“I am only here to do as you command, your highness,” he said. “If you wish to sleep, then by all means, please sleep. I will wake you if anything happens.”

The journey to the castle was longer for you than it was for the riders, who could take narrower paths and cut across fallen trees and flooded bridges that the carriage needed to circumvent. By the time you reached, there was already a procession underway, and as the guard helped you towards the church, holding onto your hand and shoulders so that you could walk, you had to be wary of the spectators to the parade, who were shoving one another so that they could have the best possible view.

“They’re praying. For the queen’s health, and for the end of the plague,” you said, coughing hard enough that your chest ached from it, covering your mouth with your hand in shame, for you had been coughing more and more frequently as of late.

When you removed your hand, you noticed that there was something wet and wine-colored speckling it, and right when you were about to reach an understanding you should’ve come to long ago, a man’s shoulder rammed into your side, knocking you off-balance. Only your guard’s quick reflexes were enough to catch you, and he picked you up before such an accident could be repeated, taking care to push the man away rougher than he really needed to when he passed.

“Are you alright?” he said.

“Yes,” you said, half in a daze, the image of your stained hand imprinted in your mind. “Can you hear what they are saying, sir? Are they begging for forgiveness?”

“They are,” he said. “They’re repenting in the hopes that there will be mercy.”

“It’s late for that,” you said. “For me, anyways. But maybe the rest of you can still be saved.”

“What do you mean by that?” he said. Without you to slow the guard down, the two of you covered ground at twice the earlier speed, and you reached the steps of the church before the throngs of worshippers could. You saw them coming, the gathered masses of people, with the king and your father and the queen at the forefront of it all, and then you coughed again, because until you had seen that blood you hadn’t comprehended it, but now you did. “Why don’t you include yourself amongst our ranks, princess?”

“What is your name, sir?” you said.

“Kunigami, your royal highness,” he said. “Are you quite alright?”

“Kunigami,” you said, clenching the fabric of his tunic in your fists. “Kunigami, it’s not cold out today, is it?”

“No,” he said. “No, princess, it’s not. It’s mild and lovely.”

“It hasn’t been,” you said, and then you were crying, because you were afraid. You were more afraid then you ever had been, and you only had this bewildered boy to comfort you — and what slim comfort he provided! He, who was meant to be your staunchest defender but could never defend you from this. “It hasn’t been cold in many months, has it?”

“No,” he said. “Actually, it’s been rather warm. This year marks the warmest summer we’ve had since the time of the last king, or so I’m told.”

“The warmest summer?” you said. “I see now. I see. Oh, oh, Kunigami, you must go and fetch my father at once.”

“You are confounding me, your highness,” he said. “What is the matter?”

“Please bring my father,” you said. “Please, I don’t — I don’t want to be alone when it happens.”

Your poor father — some higher power had decided he deserved this. Your father, who was cruel, who killed and conquered, who was the horrible prince of the kingdom. Your father, who had already lost your mother. Your father, who would soon lose you.

“I don’t understand even now what you mean,” Kunigami said, setting you on the steps and straightening his shirt. “But I will do as you say. Wait here.”

He charged down the stairs, cutting through the crowds effortlessly with his imposing presence. You watched him go before turning back to the church, marveling at the building, the white pillars and the silvery dome which shone in the sky like a daytime moon. Statues of angels and muses lined the roof, and across the facade, there were words engraved. You could hardly read them, but you knew by heart what was written: On this mountain, I shall build my home, and thereupon I will give you the keys with which to reach me.

You didn’t know when your legs buckled, but they must’ve, for suddenly you were lying prone on the stairs, the stone freezing against your face, and although it was hardly the place for it, you found your tucking your fists under your forehead, exhaling and thinking of how sublime it would be to drift off now, drift off and not wake up for many hours or days…

“Y/N L/N.” The voice was the same, but there was something else behind it. Never had he spoken with such strength and such sadness in combination; his typical apathy had been chased away entirely, replaced with a fond if not distant pity. “I told you that you would not be alone. Did I not?”

Hands like embers held your face carefully, thumbs brushing against your cheeks as he tugged your jaw up so that you could look at him. You hardly had the strength to lift your head — how had you not known that it was coming? How had you ignored the symptoms of your own condition? Was it that you did not want to know it and so you refused to recognize the simple fact which had been looming over you for months now? But ignoring it did not make it go away. Ignoring it did not make it false. Ignoring it did not change the truth of the matter: that you were dying, that you had been dying for a long time now.

“Kaiser,” you said. He appeared different, though you could not place it; there was something hazy and golden about him, but regardless you were assured that it was him and no other.

“Some know me by that name,” he said. “Most do not.”

“What do you mean?” you said.

“Michael!” It was your father who was screaming the name, and when you shifted, you realized he was doing his best to run towards you, though your uncles held him back, shock reflecting in their faces as your father bawled. “Michael, divine lord, don’t take her, too. Anybody else, be it the queen, my brothers — even me! Kill me, kill the entire kingdom if you must, but leave Y/N. Spare her, and I will repent! I will change my ways, and I will force the others to change as well. Spare her and I will do whatever you ask — but please, please spare her.”

“You should’ve come to this conclusion longer ago,” Kaiser said, and though he spoke at a regular volume, his voice rang through the square like he had shouted. “The time for begging is long gone. The plague will continue until all of you are dead. By my sword, I swear—”

“Michael,” you said. He was silent immediately, and you fought to keep your eyes open. Noticing your lowering your eyelashes against the sun, he reflexively spread his wings to cover you in shade, allowing you to admire him in full for the first time. “Has it been you all along?”

“Yes,” he said, a soft breeze running through his feathers and ruffling his hair. “Yes, it has been.”

“My mother was right,” you said. “You really are as beautiful as the paintings. Though, you were right as well. There is nothing resembling serenity in your expression.”

To your surprise, he chuckled, though there was a distinct tinge of sorrow behind it, so that it was as similar to a sob as it was to a laugh. Something moist splashed onto your face, and at first you thought he, too, was crying, but then you realized it came from his sword, which he brandished even now. Blood, that was what it was, the source of those sanguine stains which were now animated and lively, weeping down the length of the blade and dripping onto the white marble beneath his feet.

“Of course there is not,” he said. “When there is so much injustice in this world, how can I ever be serene?”

“You brought this plague upon us,” you said. “And the snakes, and the flood.”

“I did,” he said. “It was divine will. In the face of it, even I am powerless.”

“By your sword,” you said. “Is that why you hold it before you always?”

“How intelligent you are,” he said. “Oh, if only it were not you.”

“But you can stop it,” you said. “If you deem us worthy of being saved, you can prevent anyone else from dying.”

“Not you,” he said. “It’s too late. Even if I do that, I cannot save you. Not this time.”

“That’s alright,” you said. “You needn’t save me again. Once was enough. I’ve not done anything to be deserving of a second time.”

“No,” he said firmly. “You are the only one who I want to save. If you are lost, then there is nobody worthy of surviving. What have any of the rest ever proved to me? What goodness have they ever shown? What virtue or introspection? They are all brutes, and so they have earned it.”

“I cannot say whether that is true or not,” you said. “I don’t know about anyone else. But if even one other person like me exists and your inaction kills them, too, then will you ever be forgiven?”

“I am an angel,” he said. “I seek no forgiveness. I have not done anything to necessitate it.”

“I will not forgive you,” you said.

“What does it mean?” he said. “What will any of it mean once you are gone?”

Your father had fallen to ground, repeating every prayer he had ever been taught, and even your uncle the king, who was typically stolid in the face of adversity, who had not placed a foot wrong the entire time he had thought his wife was the one prophesied to die, had tears shimmering in his eyes.

“Forgive them,” you said, and then, to your surprise, Michael, or Kaiser, or whichever name you called him, for it was irrelevant when they were all in reference to this singularly grand being — was dropping to his knees and tenderly taking your head so that it could rest on his lap. “As I will forgive you, forgive them. Please.”

Nobody even breathed. Every single body in the kingdom was stationary; the rabbits, the dormice, the people and the snakes, all of them waited to see what he would do. For a moment, it was nothing, and after that he merely hunched over and pressed his lips to your temple, his wings arcing to cover your body from any who might dare to glance at it.

“Very well, then,” he said. “I cannot save you, Y/N L/N, so this time, without riddles nor fuss, I will oblige you.”

A small smile graced his face, albeit an anguished one more characteristic of men than of angels, and as one blazing hand grew hotter and hotter against your rapidly-cooling cheek, he raised his sword in the air; then, for the first time since the plague had begun, he sheathed it.

#kaiser x reader #kaiser x y/n #kaiser x you #michael kaiser #bllk x reader #bllk #blue lock #reader insert #fantasy au #m1ckeyb3rry milestone #m1ckeyb3rry writes

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hasgavlebockenburneddownyet · 2 months ago

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Iirc the goat got attention in the past couple of years and the loneliness of lockdown as well as the general apocalyptic feeling of the world got people to do what people do best, which is invent rituals for good fortune. I cannot describe how much I am emotionally attached to the idea that the goat burning is necessary for the following year's prosperity

So, that's why I need the goat to burn. DO NOT curse us for the next year, PLEASE

Im so lacking in reference points to this tbh i have no idea if its like actually gotten more attention or not. I know this blog is how it got big on tumblr but like i was just doing my own little tradition of having the livestream on and watching it all through december and then started blogging it.

#asks

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lycheedr3ams · 1 year ago

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Death's Angel

Part 8: On Angel Wings

royal!fem!reader x executioner!konig

Summary: It's 1554. You're one of the eight daughters of the Austrian royal family, and your parents do everything they can to ensure their kingdom is prosperous and peaceful. No royal court is complete without their hand-picked executioner, one who stands out against the sea of black, faceless bodies that make up the profession. It just so happens that your family's new executioner, one who has made a name for himself far and wide for his skill with the axe, has caught your eye and ruined you for good.

Warnings: MDNI! smut, mutual pining, forbidden love, death (konig is an executioner duh), mean sisters, mentions of medieval-type violence, overbearing parents, konig is brooding and a perv, some predator/prey dynamics, possessive!konig, maybe dark themes bc reader likes seeing him kill people and bc he's a perv?

Part 7

I can't thank you all enough for the support i've gotten on this fic! this fic is what made my blog big and i just can't believe it's been so well-received. don't worry, it's a happy ending!!! also I'm sorry this took so long...I hope you guys like the ending. I'm super nervous my writing quality on this story went down, but maybe I'm too critical of my work. in any case, I hope you guys enjoy!

.......

series inspired by the art below!

you weren't sure how much time passed when you woke up in a warm bed. you blinked open your eyes and rubbed the exhaustion out of them. you looked around the room, and noticed konig sitting right by your side.

"Engel?" he asked softly. you had never heard his voice so tender.

"what happened?" you asked. you tried to sit up, but were immediately struck with a sharp pain in your chest. konig gently pushed you back down on the bed.

"lay down, Engel. you are hurt. you need to rest."

you looked down at your chest, and realized that it was wrapped with bloodied bandages. your dress was nowhere to be seen, but the blanket covered your lower half.

"what happened? where are we?" you asked as you could feel panic rising.

"we are somewhere we will never be found by anyone who wishes to separate us," konig said quietly. "you..." he couldn't finish his sentence as he cleared his throat.

"i what?" you asked.

konig shook his head. "you protected me. it is not supposed to be that way. i am supposed to protect you, and i couldn't." konig's head hung low in shame, his eyes now completely obscured from you.

you suddenly remembered everything that had happened right up to when the sword fell. your heart raced.

"i...my body just acted on its own. it was like i didn't have control over myself. it just happened." you thought for a long moment, and it was silent. konig's head still hung low.

"i don't regret it, though," you said firmly. konig looked at you in confusion.

"i promised to protect you, and here you are, laying in a bed soaked in your own blood," he said quietly as his eyes glassed over.

you smiled. "it's okay. i would do it again if i had to. but where are we? what happened to the knights?"

konig was silent for a little while. you closed your eyes.

"we are in france now. a little countryside town. after the soldiers patched you up, they realized that you weren't lying. they agreed to pretend that it never happened. but they will be back in a week, to make sure this is what you really want." his voice was quiet as he spoke.

"so...my parents and siblings still think i've been kidnapped?"

konig nodded.

"no. they need to know that you are not in the wrong. they need to know that i chose this."

"i don't know if that's a good idea," konig said after a moment. "they will say I brainwashed you."

"i don't care what they will say. if they don't believe me, that's on them. i will have the soldiers take a letter to them once they go back, and i will never speak to them again," you decided.

konig stared at you for a long while. he gently took your hand and stroked it with his thumb.

"i am sorry things turned out this way," he whispered as he looked at your hand.

you shook your head. "i wouldn't have it any other way, konig. i'm with you, and we can have our own life here. what is this town like?"

konig still stroked your hand as he spoke. "there are lavender fields surrounding the town, and a small forest to the east. there is an empty plot of land where a house can be built. the people are kind, and it is quiet and peaceful."

you smiled. "it sounds perfect."

konig brought your hand up to his lips as he lifted his hood to kiss the back of your hand. "i will make it up to you."

"there is nothing to make up, konig," you assured him with a smile. "everything will be okay now."

konig shook his head. "i will give you the life you deserve, my princess. i will build a house for you, and you can have as many gardens and animals as you like. you will have the finest sheets once again, and you will never want for anything."

you smiled. "as long as i have you, i will never want."

...

several months later

You walk out of the cottage that Konig had built for you and him on this warm morning. the birds are chirping and a gentle breeze blows over the lavender fields to the right of your cottage. you smile to yourself as you breath in the scent of lavender, and hear your sheep, ducks, and goats already waking up for the day. your garden, fenced off with bushes and a trellis with roses, blooms brilliantly in the morning sun.

konig quietly comes up behind you and wraps his strong scarred arms around you. he nuzzles your head gently with his nose and smiles underneath his hood.

"good morning, my Engel," he whispers gently to you. he speaks those four words to you every single morning. some may regard it as just a morning custom, but you know that konig never wastes any of his words. those four words every day, reserved only for you.

"good morning, konig," you smile up at him and gently hold his arms as they're wrapped around your waist. your goats bleat a few times, and you and konig share a gentle laugh.

...

life has been peaceful ever since the hell you and konig had gone through. you sent the letter to your parents, telling them the truth about your relationship with konig: how you weren't brainwashed, you didn't like being a princess, and this was the life you chose for yourself. your parents begged you to come back, their handwriting betraying their nerves and worry. but you never wrote to them again.

konig built this cottage for you in no time, and you two built your life together in this small countryside town in France. you helped out at the local bakery most days, tended to your farm animals every morning, checked your garden several times a day. you cooked warm meals for konig, which he always ate gratefully.

konig was no longer an executioner. he decided to leave that part of him in the past for your sake to build a peaceful life with you. the strong, calloused hands that once gripped axes to chop people's heads off now gripped saws and hammers and other tools to build houses, make horse shoes, craft swords. konig never spoke about it, but the gentle look in his eyes that grew as he got accustomed to normal life was something you always noticed and loved.

you two make a modest living; no more silk and fine china, but you couldn't have cared less. living life every day, doing what you wanted, you forgot about the endless want that material possessions creates. for the first time in your life, you are happy. you no longer had to worry about perfectly adjusting your hair, tying your corset, or matching your dress to the occasion each day. your hair changed each day based on your mood, and your clothing was simple and comfortable. no one told you where you had to be or when, you no longer had to watch every word that was spoken. you are free.

...

you hand konig his lunch basket for the day with a sweet smile, packed with fruits and bread and some salted meat. he rubs your head affectionately and kisses your forehead through his hood.

"danke, Engel."

"have a good day," you smiled up at him as you hugged his muscular chest. you gently tap his chin over his hood, and he smiles at your little signal and presses a chaste, gentle kiss on your lips. you watch as he descends the porch and walks to town.

you weren't sure exactly where you and Konig's lives were going to lead, but among your farm animals and garden and cottage and his arms, none of that mattered. the only thing you cared about was living each day with konig, living a normal life. you taught him what it meant to live, to breathe, to create things that made life better rather than take it away.

and even though you are no longer a princess, you will always be his angel.

taglist: @kneelingshadowsalome, @plumdreadful, @dumb-dumb-idiot-girl, @elichisstuff, @konig-breedme, @tr4psta, @cutiecusp, @konigsleftkidney, @local-vampire-s1ut, @ihaveaproblematicbrain, @twice360noscope, @madzeesstuff, @crazy-phan-girl13, @babygirl-panda19, @warrior-of-justice, @eluffi, @mooniesthings, @elowynnlane, @zaxlrza, @red-bed-bug, @alexdoesntlikeyou, @helmipss, @11aplacesange11, @rouge-swears, @pasta-m1lk, @ghostinvenus

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srbachchan · 7 months ago

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DAY 5964

Jalsa, Mumbai June 16, 2024 Sun 11:44 PM

🪔 ,

June 17 .. birthday greetings to :

Ef Rajeev Sharma from NYC ..

Ef Sigali Siman Tov ..

and Ef Rishit Shukla from Ahmedabad .. 🙏🏻🚩❤️

my wishes and the wishes of the entire Ef family for prosperity peace calm and love ..❤️

.. the memory test, and this one reads with great interest these days, is tested now for the moment of the Blog .. and when I do rewind the time clock for the day , there is little that can be of any remembrance ... the breathing yoga , the AI gym, the concerted physio , takes away more than the day .. and then one sits in wonder and apprehension for the GOJ .. and there is a fear and , well, not really a fear , but one that runs through the mind ..

'will anyone still be there ..' ?

and as the gates open the energised reception and the smiles and the cheering and the multitudinous mobiles up in the air , take over .. and take over the balconies of the balcony in the structure ahead of the road across and the rooftop of another and their vociferous waves and movements to be seen , capture the eye and attention is drawn there .. after due respect to the Ef in the front rows .. and the slogan shouting Ef's of the day and the banners and the pictures in abundance to be autographed and given in immediate return .. and the turn back to the isolation of the personalised room .. and the wonder of , 'did it really happen all this' ..

a short reflect to the Office , in meets .. and back to the meal with the kids and now the joint adventure of the EURO football game in a while .. the WCt20 having taken a spot in the playoffs with distinction and the awaited anticipation of the next .. game .. and its results ..

And between all this .. a written record of what has been discussed for and met with, for the upcoming thoughts, for the future ..

the future .. which seems crowded .. but there is ever a space in the crowds for that little inch of space to discover , move in and find yourself on the other side .. fresh air fresh horizon and fresh mind .. safe in the protection and comfort of the comfortable - the self .. !

the self is the undisclosed unburdened unknown understanding - alliteration be acknowledged - of the under .. !!

🤨

the alliteration just dropped by not quite accidentally but by response .. a response to a message that came by on an occasion and my reply being ..

"Grateful gratitude 🙏 greetings ❤️" ..

and what would normally come as an acceptance of maybe most times nothing at all , what came by was ..

'alliteration accepted '

and alliteration in its own right .. 🤣 🤣

So .. the walk down the GOJ aisle .. in heartbeat moments .. and then the climb to the viewing box .. for the revelation that all is well ..

And all the time the moment of the great Charlie Chaplin comes running by, as he is invited back to Hollywood after years from his exile , so to say , being deported from USA , on the suspicion of being labelled a communist , to be decorated by the Academy for a LifeTime Award .. and as he stands in the wings of the stage waiting for the announcement, he hesitantly asked the aide standing by his side to usher him in :

'will they clap .. ??

and when he does, he gets the longest standing ovation ever .. his eyes filled with unspoken emotion, unable to say a word .. he just stands there .. his face filled with uncontrolled gratitude ..

Ahhh .. what a moment in the history of cinema !!!

एक और रविवार बीत गया

स्नेह आदर 🌹❤️

अमिताभ बच्चन

the pictures had not come out well .. so trying again

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photo1030 · 1 year ago

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Leather and Lace - Chapter 20: All The Little Things

Summary: Arthur takes note of all the little things you do for him and tries to decide if he’s ready to take your relationship to the next level.

Warning: 18+ please. Minors - DNI; NSFW - This one is a bit longer than I planned, sorry!

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

*This beautiful images comes from the always stunning @foundynnel

*Beta-read by the wonderfully supportive @readingcoco (Thank you for herding in my thoughts, my friend!)

Tag List: @rivetingrosie4 @bimbo-dollz @pine4pple-b0i @redwritr @kuri-chans-blog @queer-sadie-adler @joelmillerswifey @gimmethosedaddymilkers @pcotarelo @delilah-grimes @maemortem @wistfulwisteriawitch @lilacxxdreams @mentallyillfrogs @absolutegeek @spurz @sophiaj650 @uniqueclodzinevoid @lookingformaurice @pawoui @randomidk-123 @yyiikes @eddiemetalheadmunson @twola @kmartkiddieisle @red-dead-simp @regwishesshehadmagic @rhehr241 @earwen-x @akariver75 @djennty @nervousmumbling @xliliths @unbotheredbeeeee @onnetonprinsessa @kittiowolf210 @ezrynn @suhiss @arthurmargon @codnerd1999 @queer-sadie-adler @alice-vanderlinde @sweetandstoned21 @j4llyf7sh @spooky631 @m0r4rx @ilovrxats @i-69-urmom @ddbluesie @ivuravix @nervousmumbling @sickvictorianangel @tirededuxhours @ezzythereal1 @chloepluto1306 @ivys-valentine @spiritcatcherxo @lea-khena @brccklynbaby1 @foundynnel @readingcoco @carmelamontezlikr @ultraporcelainpig @sofiaa-xcx

*I tagged people who expressed interest in the continued story. If you’d like to be added or removed, please let me know. There are a few that would not let me link, so I apologize if this doesn’t ping some people.

It’s been a few weeks since you and Arthur proclaimed your affections for each other and you have quickly settled into a comfortable routine. With Arthur being a senior member of the gang, and with you as his woman, you feel that you need to step up and contribute more to the Van Der Linde Gang. And Dutch and Ms. Grimshaw couldn’t be more thrilled.

The gang must always come first - that is what Arthur has instilled in you and it’s what you have come to adopt as your own adage too. You feel that same sense of belonging and responsibility for these people and finally begin to truly understand Arthur’s unrelenting loyalty to them. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and as long as the gang does well, the people within it will prosper.

You are quickly becoming more embedded into this rag-tag group than you had ever thought you would. It’s not just a group of random individuals or a place for you to hide for safety, they are your family now, just as they are Arthur’s. These are the people who comfort you when you need it, and protect you as one of their own. They laugh with you; they yell and stomp angrily with you. You affectionately think of them and pick-up little gifts that will make their day, and you are rewarded with their love and appreciation in return. This is what Arthur is devoutly devoted to, this sense of belonging. For this is much more than a gang of lawbreakers. These people chose each other, which is a bond tighter than most blood relatives.

The sun is just climbing into its zenith in the autumn sky, desperately trying to break its radiant beams through the gray, overcast clouds to shine down upon the earth below. You and Tilly rumble into camp on a wagon, having just come back from town with a load full of supplies. Mr. Pearson greets you as the old wooden vehicle creaks to a halt. He waddles over and peers his chubby face over the side. The cook is thrilled, seeing an extra crate of potatoes, two more tins of lard and a sack of grain more than he expected you to return with.

“I guess battin’ those eyelashes of yours at the store owner goes a lot further than I thought,” the portly man teases you as he grabs some of the items from the back of the wagon.

You beam back at him with a smile of pride as you hike up your skirt into your hand and climb down from the wagon seat. “What is it they say? ‘Catch more flies with honey than vinegar?’”, you hum.

“Well, don’t be surprised if I start sending you out more often, then. We’ll probably get further along with your pretty face than mine.” Pearson’s round figure vibrates slightly with the laughter of his own joke.

“Just let me know what you need, I’ll be happy to help.” Suddenly you halt dead in your tracks, realizing that you’ve just repeated one of Arthur’s sayings. Tilly is right: you and Arthur are already starting to act like an old married couple. The phrase causes you to shake your head before moving back to the wagon to grab more of the items to unpack.

You pick up one of the smaller boxes and turn to head over to the tables where the men lazily sit about, discussing random topics and enjoying a brief moment of peace and quiet. Arthur and Hosea sit, each relaxing with a cigarette in hand, listening to Dutch carry on about something that he's read recently. He’s been obsessed with “An American Eden” by Evelyn Miller lately and takes it upon himself to “preach its teachings”, as it were, to whomever is within the sound of his voice to hear it. The small group of men currently around him are not what you’d call “high-brow” and his philosophy lessons tends to fall on deaf ears sometimes.

“Hello, boys!” you sing as you saunter over, being met with a collection of head-nods and grins of acknowledgement.

As you grab their attention, you proceed to hand-out a few thoughtful extras that you pilfered in town. You toss a package of new guitar strings to Javier who snatches them out of the air with one of his nimble hands.

“Gracias, mi amor!” he beams happily as he examines the small bundle in his hands. “Where did you come across these?”

“Don’t you worry about it. I have my ways,” you smirk with an accompanying wink.

You reach over to hand a new book to Hosea with a smile, and offer a premium cigar to Dutch, who gratefully accepts your gift with appreciative eyes. Placing the empty box on the table, you look over at Arthur. “Oh, and by the way, Arthur, I think I saw that jack-rabbit you’re chasing in town today.”

Arthur’s head perks up right away. “The Petersen bounty?”

“Yeah. He was over by the brothel. By the looks of it, he’ll be holed up there for a while,” you say nonchalantly as you pull an apple out of your skirt pocket and rub its red skin against your sleeve before biting into the crisp, juicy fruit.

“Well shit, why are you just telling me this now?” Arthur huffs impatiently as he quickly gets up and starts moving towards the horses.

“Like I said, he’s in no hurry.” You shrug. “Do I get a finder’s fee for my part?” you call after him with a grin as you watch him pull Buck from the hitching posts.

Arthur just waves you off as he slides his dusty boot into the stirrup and hastily slings up into Buck’s saddle, taking off for town.

—---------------------------------------------------

The flames of the evening’s campfire pop and crackle softly as they roll and crawl over the slightly damp wood. The aroma of heady oak permeates the air and the smoky plumes rise and dance up towards the night sky. You and Arthur sit alone on the ground by the fire, leaning back against a log with a blanket wrapped over your legs. The night is quiet as the stars sparkle overhead. Most people are playing cards at one of the tables, or have drifted off to their tents for the evening.

The fire offers its warmth and golden glow, creating a soft ambiance. Arthur pulls you in for a gentle, absentminded kiss, and you find yourselves wholly content with each other, forgetting that the rest of the world exists as lovers often do. Your lips run languidly, with no urgency or demand as if working of their own accord. You start to gently rake your fingers across Arthur’s chest, slowly flexing to curl around the worn fabric of his faded brown shirt and occasionally reaching up to caress along his neck and chin. The feeling of his skin radiates through your fingertips and down into the palm of your soft hand. Eyes rolling shut, you smile into his mouth in blissful happiness as his arms lovingly and protectively envelop you.

Arthur’s strong hand sits on your hip, lightly grasping at the supple flesh hidden under the fabric of your skirt. He loves the feeling of your skin on his, it doesn’t matter what the scenario is. Whether it’s his fingers grazing yours when he hands you a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, or when his hips are pounding into yours in the throws of passion, or even just as it is now when the softest of kisses land upon his chapped lips: the feeling of you against him is like electricity pulsing throughout his entire body, bringing him to life, just like that weird story by Mary Shelley that you read to him.

It’s a rare thing for the two of you to be left alone in camp like this. Usually you have to hide away if you want any sort of privacy. But truth be told, the rest of the gang is respectfully giving the two of you some space. It’s nice not having a bitter and angry Arthur around all of the time. Ever since you publicly claimed him in the middle of camp as yours, he hasn’t been as snarky or barking at people like he usually does. And of course, people will do anything for you. The demands of daytime chores and responsibilities are one thing, but the calm evenings are left for you two. Sure, not every night is as peaceful as this, so you revel in the rare moment of solitude when the two of you can get it.

Arthur’s lips eventually part from yours to leave a trail of delicate kisses under your jaw and down your neck, hitting that favorite spot of his. The place behind your ear is where the softest skin he has found on your body is hidden. That spot always tastes so heavenly to him and draws that little breathless noise from you that drives him wild.

Arthur’s nose buries into your hair, picking up the floral notes of the soap you use to wash it with. You giggle and nuzzle him as your hands come up to cradle his head, your fingers entwined into the locks of his hair, hugging him to you as your nose wrinkles in merriment when his beard stubble delightfully tickles your sensitive skin.

And suddenly, as you roll your body closer into his, before you can even think twice about it, the words just float from your lips like a dandelion seed being carried on a summer breeze.

“I love you, Arthur.” Your voice is a breathless sigh of utter contentment, a melody singing through the air.

You haven’t seen his face yet, but feel his movements halt as his whole body goes rigid against you. Arthur slowly pulls his face from your neck and looks at you, speechless, with shocked and confused eyes, face flushed a shade of scarlet to rival the fire in front of you.

But you quickly place your fingers over his lips as if to hush any sort of protest he may have. “Now before you go crazy, Arthur, you don’t have to say it back. I simply said it because I wanted to, because it felt right just now.” You give him a soft and reassuring smile, amused by his reaction as he continues to stare at you, blinking quietly. You can tell he wants to say something in return, but can’t find the words as his mouth begins to work, but no sound comes out.

“It’s okay, Arthur,” you giggle. “Really. I didn’t tell you that to hear it back. I just wanted to make sure you know it. And you can say it if, and when, you’re ready.”

You pause to give him a moment to answer, to make sure he understands that you have no demand of him, but you can see that he is still troubled and finding it hard to articulate what he needs to say. You honestly do not need him to say it back to you. How he treats you is how he feels about you, regardless of words stated or not. Words are used to manipulate people. His actions show you everything you need to know. So thankfully, you put him out of his misery by leaning over to kiss the corner of his mouth as he continues to look at you dumbstruck.

“Don’t get too worked up over it, Arthur.” You pat his cheek affectionately as a look of empathy sits upon your face. “I don’t need you having a heart attack over it. Like I said, you don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know where my heart lies.”

Arthur’s forehead creases as he watches you stand up, brushing the dried leaves out of your skirt before reaching down for your blanket. You bend over to catch his scarred chin in your fingertips. “Goodnight, Arthur,” you whisper and kiss him again. You give him an impish little grin before heading over to your tent for the night.

You leave Arthur still sitting speechless on the ground, a troubled look settled upon his handsome face as he watches your lovely form fade into the darkness of night before disappearing from view altogether as you close your tent.

—-----------------------------------------------------

In the days that follow, Dutch announces that he is going to move the camp again. You are all sitting around the fire when he proceeds with an impassioned speech about moving south just outside of a town called Blackwater.

You watch Dutch as he presents himself to the group, noting how he carries himself in front of others. He is charismatic and passionate, a natural-born leader. Since you have known the dark-haired devil, he has always had a dramatic and commanding presence, drawing his people to him with his idealism and wit.

You find it amusing how Dutch’s boldness and optimism is a perfect compliment to Hosea’s skeptical wisdom. The two of them together make quite the dynamic duo, two sides of the same coin. Sometimes you wonder at the true nature of their relationship. Are they “brothers”, just as Arthur and John are, or is there more there, smoldering under the surface like hot coals left after a raging fire has burned down? Both men had their lady-loves in their lives, and both were left devastated when these sparks of light were extinguished in their otherwise dark lives. But you can’t help but wonder if there was ever more to Dutch and Hosea’s relationship than meets the eye. The “curious couple and their unruly sons.” The very idea of it makes you regard them with a softer spot in your heart.

The gang is preparing to go to work and the new location has some hot tips emanating from it. The camp is abuzz with packing and planning with everyone sprinting about and working on their assigned tasks. Arthur and Hosea are discussing a real estate tip around West Elizabeth, while Micah and Dutch have their own plan…something about a ferry boat.

Arthur and Hosea wander to sit at one of the campfires, away from distractions, and are busy discussing their tip and planning for the new move when Hosea casually asks Arthur about you.

“So…how’s things going with (Y/N)?” He gives Arthur a sly smile with that twinkle in his eye. Hosea has been silently observing the budding courtship from the beginning, carefully watching for any signs of discord that would need to be nipped in the bud before trouble brews.

A slight pink dusts Arthur’s face at the older man’s inquiry, visible even under his week-old beard. A sheepish little grin tugs at the corner of his mouth as he purses his lips in thought.

“Have you ever wanted to listen to every word someone says, even about the smallest thing in the world just so you can see their face light up and hear their voice?”

Hosea gives a light-hearted chuckle as he brings his cigarette to his wrinkled lips. “Yeah, that girl broke down those walls of yours without you even noticing she was doin’ it, didn’t she?”

But the smile slowly drips from Arthur’s face as a dark cloud settles over his features. A deep and sad sigh pushes its way from his broad chest under his worn beige jacket. His eyes relax their focus and stray to look out over the camp as he absentmindedly chews on his bottom lip. Hosea notices the change in mood and immediately fears the worst.

“Ah, shit, what did you do?” accuses the old man in disappointment.

“Nothing!” Arthur counters defensively as his face snaps back to Hosea’s attention. But he is met with the clever fox’s skeptical scowl. Arthur hesitates to share what’s on his mind, afraid that once he verbalizes the phrase again, it will become all too real.

“She…she told me that she loves me,” Arthur admits quietly, before letting his gaze float to the worn leather of his boots, his toe poking at the grass.

Like a switch has been pulled, Hosea’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Well, that’s great news, my boy!” He claps Arthur on the shoulder in congratulations. “Although I could’ve told you that after the first week she was here with us.” But when Arthur doesn't return his friend’s enthusiasm, Hosea’s smile quickly turns down again in confusion, eying him up cautiously. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.”

“What, are you tellin’ me that you don’t love her?” Hosea asks incredulously, his face drawing up in disbelief.

“No, I wasn’t sayin’ that at all,” pouts Arthur. “‘Cause I do,” he says with a slight, yet definitive nod. The man fidgets slightly, his hands suddenly sweaty and shaky as he finally admits outloud what he’s known internally for awhile. A short, yet sharp exhale escapes him, as the statement is now out there, exposing his fragile heart for the first time in a long while.

“Well, then I fail to see the problem,” presses Hosea with a flippant wave of his hand in exasperation.

Arthur fidgets with the cigarette in his fingers, slowly rolling it between his thumb and index finger. “What if she realizes that she doesn’t? Love me, I mean?” He catches Hosea’s eye. “What if she wakes up one mornin’ and decides she don’t want me no more?” He turns his gaze outward, focusing on nothing again. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Arthur cringes when he hears his own voice whining about being loved, bitching about the same thing he said to Marston a few weeks ago. Yes, it’s sooo horrible to have a wonderful woman love me. He thinks sarcastically. God, I’m pathetic.

“I suppose I see your point.” Hosea nods his head in understanding, as Arthur’s worry becomes all too clear. “So what if she does one day? Hmm?” The old man waves his hand dismissively in the air. “But, what if it turns out that (Y/N) wants to be with you forever?” Hosea squints at Arthur. “Don't you think she’s worth the gamble?”

Arthur turns his pained eyes back to his old friend. “I can’t go through that again, Hosea. I just…I can’t do it.” He leans out on his elbows onto his thighs, head swimming with ever-present self-doubt, coupled with the desperate yearning for the love and acceptance he’s craved since he was a child.

“Arthur, if (Y/N) tells you she loves you, you better believe her.” Hosea points his weathered, crooked finger at Arthur, poking him in the chest. “Don’t be afraid to start over. You may like your new story better this time around. (Y/N) ain’t like that other one,” he grumbles, his jaw clenching slightly without even needing to mention Mary by name.

“No, I suppose you’re right. She surely ain’t.” Arthur sits quietly for a moment, mulling over Hosea’s words. Hosea always has a way of getting him to see reason, always had since Arthur was a kid. Hosea could quiet his mind with just the simplest words. Arthur takes another deep drag of his cigarette before that roguish little grin pops up again. “You know…if I somehow manage not to screw this up, Hosea…I’m gonna marry her.”

The admission makes the old man’s heart almost burst with happiness as he huffs out a laugh and pats Arthur’s shoulder again in approval. “God willing, I’ll live long enough to see that.”

The two men share a soft chuckle between them. They have been through so much together to get to this point in their lives and the idea of hope and love in the future gives them a feeling of contentment that is rare for their kind of life.

Arthur wants you, of that, there is no doubt. After Mary and Eliza, ‘love’ was just a word to Arthur, some meaningless string of letters that he’d hear from Mary-Beth as she read her silly stories. Four little characters that created an empty and almost cold feeling for him. L.O.V.E

But now, the word has taken a whole new form in you. You are his definition of desire. Arthur never knew how engulfing the flames of love could be until now, until you uttered those three simple little words to him. You are the only thing that could have brought him back to life with your hands, your lips, your soul. Arthur would journey to the ends of the earth to keep you in his life. He misses you from the moment you separate. All he knows is that nothing else makes as much sense to him as loving you. This is what it feels like to fall and not know, or care, where you land.

You have no idea the depth of how you affect Arthur, how you calm the chaos in his head and still the tornado of thoughts that threaten his sanity. When he holds you in his arms, you become the eye of his storm, the center that is safe while the gale rages wildly around him.

When two souls fall in love, there is nothing else but the yearning to be close to each other. The very presence that is felt through a hand held close, a voice heard drifting into one’s ear, or even that slightest smile that you know is only for you. Souls do not have clocks or calendars; they do not function with the idea of time or distance. Devoted souls only know it feels right once they have found each other. Like a magnet to steel, beloved hearts will always be drawn to each other with that force of nature that is undeniable.

—----------------------------------------------------------------

“Uh oh”, whispers Abigail. Her brunette head pops up as she watches with trepidation from where you both pack supplies into one of the wagons.

You lift your head to follow her sightline and see Micah and Arthur arguing again. The two of them have been at it for the last few days as the plans to move out of the area are beginning to be set into motion. You wonder how Dutch could put his trust in two men who are so drastically different. It follows suit that Micah will run his mouth with Arthur getting a few verbal, sarcastic jabs in here and there. But it usually ends with Arthur simply towering over the much smaller man until he shrinks down into submission in fear of an iron fist landing into that filthy mouth of his.

This latest fight seems to be in regards to the competing jobs which have been planned for once you all move down towards Blackwater. Arthur wants nothing to do with this ferry job that Micah is pushing, citing it to be reckless and overreaching. The gang has been in the law’s cross-hairs for some time now and he and Hosea both think sticking to smaller, more reliable jobs is best right now. But Micah has been pitching a more grandiose scheme, arguing that the gang needs to strike bold and quick, garnering as much money as you can so you can start to move away from the civilization that is slowly strangling the gang. Unfortunately for Arthur, Micah seems to be like an earworm, burrowing into Dutch’s brain and playing on his already inflated ego.

You and Abigail observe with baited breath to see how far this current argument will go. But it appears Micah is not backing down this time, continuing to push Arthur to the limits of his patience. Suddenly, in a bold move of newfound courage, Micah steps up right in Arthur’s face, almost nose to nose. The cool autumn air is sucked sharply into your lungs as you gasp and your whole body freezes in apprehension, adrenaline like a knife suddenly thrown into your belly.

“(Y/N)…” Abigail warns, placing her hand on your forearm. But you are already ahead of her, quick to stride over to the feuding men. As you get closer, a small group begins to gather as the yelling continues to escalate.

“I’d take a step back and reconsider myself if I were you, Micah,” John smirks with a half-hearted warning from where he sits off to the side, sharpening his knife. John knows full-well that it is only a matter of time before this gets physical, as Arthur has little patience. He has seen Arthur pummel men into a pulp for less offensive actions. But truth be told, John would love to see Micah get his ass beat by Arthur. Hell, he’d even consider paying for it.

Arthur isn’t saying much but you can tell by the heaving of his chest and the scowl etched into his face that he’s a bomb seconds away from exploding. His broad shoulders set hard as stone as Arthur stands even straighter, towering over Micah. His large hands slowly curl into themselves, fists clenched tight like boulders at the end of his pulsing forearms.

Carefully, you approach the two men from the side, watching them closely and trying to gauge how much time you have before Arthur’s fuse burns to the end of the powder-keg. The tension in the air builds uncomfortably, causing a knot to settle in your stomach.

“Arthur?'' You call his name softly, trying not to startle him. You tilt your head to look up into his face, trying to catch his attention, but Arthur’s icy stare is trained only on Micah. But then you notice that Micah’s hand is hovering at his side, fingers flexing over his gun in its holster.

This has now elevated to a precarious situation that needs to be diffused quickly and delicately. You don’t understand why no one else is stepping in to break this up, but assume it’s probably to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Out of everyone in the gang, these are probably the two men that you absolutely would not want to tangle with.

Dutch, conveniently, is not around for this show, which may be why Micah is suddenly so bold to openly challenge Arthur like this. While he likes showing off for Dutch, Micah knows he can push the envelope when the leader of the gang is not around, as if trying to insert himself into that coveted role. Over Arthur’s dead body, that is.

When Arthur still doesn’t answer you, you inch even closer. Carefully, your arm lifts and moves fluidly across Arthur’s chest to lay your hand against his cheek. You calmly say his name again, “Arthur.”

The simple act cuts to the outlaw instantly as he blinks out of his angry trance and turns to look at you, confused as if he hadn’t even noticed you were standing there.

Once you catch his attention, you offer Arthur the softest of smiles, your eyes bright and sparkling, distracting him from the weasel that is his ire at the moment.

“Come with me, please.” Your request is quiet yet authoritative.

“What for?!” he snaps, the fury radiating off of him as you can feel how his whole body is flexed and rigid.

A slow and deep exhale emanates from you as you intensely hold his gaze. “Would you rather go for a walk with me..alone…by the river where it’s peaceful and quiet? Or sit here and argue with Micah Bell?”

You can see Arthur’s mind trying to process your words, his anger and frustration wrestling with your simple logic.

“Fine,” he barks, not really directing his venom at you.

Arthur reluctantly lets you snake your arm around his and turn him away from Micah. It’s like trying to pull a tree out of the ground with your bare hands. But Micah will not be dismissed so easily. His eyes narrow as he stares you down, just as you begin to maneuver Arthur away.

“Oh sure, run and hide behind a skirt!" Micah teases. “Pretty damn sad, Morgan!”

“Shut your damn mouth, Micah, or I will shut it for you. Permanently!” Arthur’s voice booms through the camp as his finger points in Micah’s direction to accent his point. Arthur’s eyes lock coldly with Micah’s as he cranes his neck to shoot Micah one last heated glare before he continues to walk away with you.

“Come on, you,” you delicately chide Arthur, your arm and hands tightening around his bicep just a bit more, eager to get the two of them separated as fast as you can.

Behind you, Micah stands pouting as the two of you walk away. A pain clicks in his chest as he watches how you handle Arthur. He sucks his lip between his jagged teeth, jaw clamping down on the tender skin. He’s irritated to no end with Arthur, but even more so, with your infatuation with the man. A pang of jealousy cuts deep into Micah as his fists clench open and closed as they still hover over his holster at his side.

“Micah’s got a point. Looks like Arthur’s gone soft on us,” Bill snarks as he stands with his thumbs hanging on his gunbelt.

“I’d like to see you tell him that to his face, Bill,” John quips.

“Mock all you want, gentlemen,” adds Javier, waving his hand towards Micah and Bill. “But the fact of the matter is, that man is taking that woman to bed tonight.” And he points in your direction. “You two have fun all by yourselves in your tents later.”

“Shut up, Javier,” mumbles Bill. But Micah only stands in angry silence before spinning on his heels and heading off in a huff to get a whiskey bottle from one of the supply wagons to sulk.

The wind kicks up a bit, biting at your cheeks as you walk down the path out of the camp. Arthur is heatedly silent as you walk. It is little wonder to you why so many find him so intimidating and fearsome.

Passing by the hitching posts, your gray Gypsy gets antsy, whinnying and stomping the ground in a tantrum at the possibility of being left behind. “Ugh, are you acting ornery today, too?” you huff as if scolding a child. “Alright, come on. You can come along, too.” You quickly grab Blue to follow, as he’s been pent up quite a bit lately and is itching to move about.

You lead Arthur, with your horse in tow, as the path takes you down to the river’s edge. The soft lapping of the water against the sandy edge of the bank offers a calm and welcomed change of scenery. And it is here that you turn Arthur loose, letting him vent loudly, while you simply agree with everything he says, replying occasionally with “I know” and “I get it”.

“Goddamn fool! Don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground!” shouts Arthur, waving his arms around.

“I know,” you reply calmly as you rub your hand along Blue’s nose and face. The horse nickers softly and nudges into you, like a cat purring in your hands as you watch Arthur pace back and forth in frustration like a wild animal in a cage.

“And Dutch is gonna go along with it?! Just like that?” He flashes his intense blue eyes at you.

“I know, it’s crazy,” you shake your head at him.

“Are they even thinkin’ ‘bout the rest o’ us?”

You just shrug. “I don’t get it, either,” you say calmly.

Arthur momentarily stops in his ranting and looks at you, finally taking a moment to breathe. Why you are not as heated as he is is beyond him. “Is that all you’re gonna say?”

“Well, I figured I’d let you carry-on and wear yourself out and when it’s my turn to yell, you just point and then I’ll go.” You cross your arms over your chest and give him a little smirk.

But Arthur’s face holds anything but amusement, as he firmly plants his hands on his hips in frustration. “I ain't in the mood for jokes, (Y/N),” he grits out slowly.

A grin creeps its way across your face. “I bet I could get you to laugh.”

“I doubt it,” he grumbles with a slight eye roll.

Squinting slightly in challenge with a teasing look, you walk over to him, placing your hands on his ribs before letting them slowly drift down to his waist. He raises an eyebrow at you but is quickly disappointed when your hands divert from his waistline to reach into his satchel and dig around until you pull out his leather gloves. Confused, Arthur’s eyes follow you as you saunter over to Blue and step up towards his great head, stopping to place each glove over one of the horse’s ears. As your horse twitches his ears, the gloves appear to be hands waving back and forth at you.

“Huh…Huh?” You point at Blue, a huge grin erupting over your face, clearly pleased with yourself and your childish little distraction.

Arthur just stares at you blankly, totally taken aback at your adolescent behavior. “You’re ridiculous,” he snorts with an eye roll to the heavens.

“Oh, come on, that’s funny and you know it!” you snicker, hugging Blue’s neck affectionately.

Arthur rolls his eyes skyward once more, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head at your nonsense as he finally ambles over to you. “You drive me crazy, you know that?” he huffs.

Knowing he’s been beaten, Arthur sighs with resignation, wrapping you up against his barrel chest and bear-hugging you tightly. Your glittering laugh gets muffled by his chest as your arms hook under his to return his embrace. Arthur pulls back for a moment, collecting your happy little face into his giant hands, and looks down at you. But all he can do is shake his head once more before hugging you again, placing his chin atop of your head.

Amazingly, you were right: he has forgotten all about Micah Bell.

Later, after you’ve gotten Arthur to calm down enough to safely be around other people again, the two of you are tucked away in his tent. He sits on the cot, scribbling something in his journal, as you stand in front of his shaving mirror, unpinning your hair and getting ready to retire for the evening.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I found something for you!” Your face lights up with excitement as you spin around back to his table and pick up one of the items sitting there. You eagerly shove a small aluminum tin into his face, hardly able to contain yourself. Arthur peers inside, curious what it is that has you so worked up.

“Cherries?” he questions, surprised to see the little jeweled fruit inside.

“Yeah! I found a cherry tree that the birds hadn’t gotten into yet, so I picked some for you. I remember you telling me that your mother used to make cherry cobbler for you as a kid. So I was going to try and make you some.” You look down at the tin of deep red fruit, shaking it a bit and watching them roll about. “I’ll have to mix these with some that we’ve jarred up, so it probably won’t be as good as hers,” you admit, mouth twisting a bit in disappointment, “but we’ll see.” You look back at him with a simple smile and shrug before turning to set the tin back down on the table.

Arthur stares at you, thinking back to the other night at the fire when you whispered those lovely little words to him. His mind rolls over how you treat him, how you care for him, how you’ve made him your focus like no one ever has before.

“Hey, you”, he mutters softly.

You lift your face back to him, eyebrows arched awaiting him to continue. “Hmm?”

The outlaw reaches out with his calloused hand and gently wraps it around your bicep, pulling you over to him. You stand between Arthur’s knees as he holds your hips and stares up at your angelic face. You lean over and kiss his forehead, his eyes fluttering closed as you run your fingers through his hair. After a moment, his eyes slowly open again, drinking you in. And Arthur realizes as he stares into your beautiful eyes that he has fallen in love with all of the millions of simple little things that you do, things that you do all of the time, and don’t even realize you’re doing them.

“I love you, (Y/N).”

You smile brightly down at him as his gravelly voice utters those amazing words so softly from his lips. You observe the seriousness in his face, so earnest in his declaration, as if he is trying to convince you of it. Arthur waits for your reply, hoping he hasn’t taken too long to tell you, fearing you’ve had second thoughts.

After a brief moment you lean forward and kiss the tip of his nose. “I know,” you whisper, raising an eyebrow with that smart look you get.

“I mean it”, he insists. “I never wanted more ‘til I had you. And I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.” His hands grasp a bit tighter as if he’s afraid you’ll walk away from him. “I suppose I was just too afraid to let myself go there again.”

“It’s not love that you’re afraid of, Arthur. It’s that the next person that you love will be like the person who left you broken.” You cup your hands around his face, your thumbs drawing against the weathered skin of his cheeks. “I promise, I won’t do that to you.”

Arthur’s eyebrows crease even further, that shadow of worry cascading over his face again. “(Y/N), I can’t give you the life you want, the life that you deserve.”

“Are we doing this again?” you ask with a tinge of admonishment. “Arthur, I don't want someone who will promise me the world. I want someone who will hold me when I need it; who will bring me coffee in the morning; who will pull the blanket over me on cold nights when I’m sleeping. I want someone who will love me the same as I love them: madly, uncontrollably, inconveniently, and, yeah, maybe even foolishly.” A bright smile illuminates your face. “And I think you’re just the fool I’ve been waiting for.”

This makes a small chuckle break from his stern face as he shakes his head.

You pull his stubbled face in closer to yours. “I don’t care how complicated this gets, Arthur. I still want you.”

He lifts his hands from your hips and wraps them around your wrists as you continue to hold his face. “Maybe I’m afraid because you mean more to me than anyone ever has. I don’t want to mess that up.”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing, and you won’t mess it up, Arthur.”

You watch the idea of it settle over Arthur, wrapping him up like a warm blanket and just as comforting as one, too. The tension in his shoulders ebbs away and his eyes soften and twinkle, making them rival the bluest ocean.

He smiles up at you again. “Say it.”

“What?”

“Say it again for me, would ya? Say you love me.” Arthur beams up at you as he wraps his arms completely around your hips, pulling you in and holding you tightly.

“I love you, Arthur Morgan. More than you can ever know or even comprehend.” You lean your face in close again, hovering sweetly over his. “We can do this, Arthur. I promise.”

“Yeah, we can.”

—--------------------

The next day, Arthur, Charles and Javier have gone into town to get more supplies and stop for a round of poker and a quick drink. A quick drink soon turns into many. And many drinks turns into an argument with the locals. One that ends with the boys coming home victorious, but pretty banged up. Even as drunk as they were, the Van Der Linde gang is not a group of men to be messed with.

Charles and Javier come back with mostly superficial wounds, black eyes and bruised ribs. Arthur, of course, always seems to carry the brunt of the trauma in these situations. If he’s not taking on the largest brawler, he’s dealing with more than one man at a time. Either way, Arthur is always the one to come home more torn up than the others.

But thankfully, you now have Arthur safely in your med tent, stitching up a shallow knife laceration in his side as he sits quiet and guilty. Arthur sheepishly avoids your eyes, as you are unusually silent about the situation, a clear indication that you are not happy about it. You tug on the thread of his stitches a little too aggressively as short huffs emanate from your nose in frustration.

“What if you get tired of this?” Arthur grumbles as he watches how you carefully pull the thread through his red and inflamed skin, wincing slightly as the needle pushes into his flesh over and over again.

“Of what? Patching holes in you that you get from being reckless and stupid? Or seeing you without your shirt on? Because those are two totally different things,” you quip as your eyes briefly dart up to meet his before going back to your handiwork.

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, I do hate seeing you all busted up and bleeding,” you frown. Your delicate fingers dance across the damaged skin, deftly folding the thread around your fingertips with expert precision.

“It ain’t so bad. If you think I look bad, you should see the other guy’s knuckles,” Arthur jokes.

“Funny,” you deadpan.

“You ain’t the only one who’s funny, you know.” He pokes his long finger into your ribs in jest, making you squirm as you try to keep your hands steady.

“Point taken.” You continue to fuss, cleaning his wound and scrutinizing the stitchwork. “I will always take care of you, Arthur. I promise.”

“And I will always be reckless and stupid,” he snickers.

An exasperated sigh escapes you. “That wasn’t the point.”

“Nope, can’t go back on your promise now,” he gloats.

—--------------------------------

You wake in the middle of the night in your tent, cold and lonely. Arthur was still out of camp when you went to bed tonight, but you miss him terribly. Sometimes when you are separated, you get this overwhelming feeling of emptiness without him. Maybe it is the ever-impending threat of danger that you live in. Or maybe it is that you just love him so much that it hurts to be apart.

Still half asleep, you meander out of your tent and quietly pad over to Arthur��s, hoping to find him there. When you get to his tent and pull back the opening, you find him asleep on his cot. He still has his boots on, too, which means he came home and just plopped down and passed out. (Usually he will stop by your tent upon returning to camp, but you figure he was either too tired or didn’t want to disturb you.)

You smile with a great sense of relief and slip inside the tent, affixing the tent door down behind you again in privacy. You tiptoe over to the cot and carefully crawl onto the bedding. You snuggle-up next to Arthur’s side, lifting his arm and wrapping it around yourself as you rest your head on his chest. Once settled, you breathe out a sigh of contentment, nuzzling your face into his chest and eager to feel the warmth that radiates off of him. Within moments, you are back asleep, tucked safely under Arthur’s arm.

But while you fall back to sleep, Arthur is awake for the next hour that follows. He stirs at the feeling of your delicate hand around his wrist when you settle in next to him, but he has a hard time going back to sleep now. As you lay there together, Arthur listens to your peaceful breathing and inhales your flowery scent. He relishes the feeling of your weight on his chest and your feline-like body up against him. As he lays in the soothing darkness, his gaze lands on your gently sleeping form laying upon him. He observes how your chest steadily rises and falls with each delicate breath. He notices how you have carefully entwined your leg around his own, and your fingers gracefully splay across his beating heart. Arthur realizes that he has in his grasp what he’s always wanted: someone to come home to, someone waiting for just him. And he doesn’t want to miss a single moment that he gets to hold you like this.

When Arthur eventually shifts his weight, it causes you to stir from your comforted slumber. A large and deep yawn escapes you as you roll your eyes up to meet his blue orbs gazing down at you. A sleepy grin blooms across your face when you see that he is awake.

Arthur softly runs the back of his dirt-stained knuckles against your cheek. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, it’s alright. I should probably be getting up anyway.” You sigh with a slight pang of disappointment as you roll yourself up and stand off the cot.

“Aw c’mon, stay with me,” Arthur whines, catching your hand and holding it tightly.

“All night?”

“Yeah, all night,” he insists. “It ain’t like people don’t know what we’re up to in here. And either way, it’s none of their business anyway.” He rolls onto his side, propping his head up with one hand as he continues to hold yours, playing with your fingers and drawing his thumb over the back of your hand.

“Do you really want to roll over and wake up with my face smashed into yours?” you tease.

“More than anything.” Arthur tugs you back down to him and kisses the corner of your eye, making you giggle. ”I’ll make it worth your while,” he utters out in a sultry tone, causing your knees to go weak. Your only response is a flutter of your eyelashes and a deep kiss to his pillowy lips as you climb back onto his cot.

Arthur shifts his body and wraps his muscled arm around you to usher you back down, pinning you under him. A quiet hum escapes into the quiet, still air as he quickly deepens the kiss, his tongue pushing past your sweet lips. You hungrily reciprocate his affection, your hand gliding from his cheek to the back of his head as your fingers card through his hair. The feeling of your fingernails gently scraping along his scalp sends shivers throughout his whole tired body. Slowly, your knee bends, rubbing your leg against his much larger frame, indicating that you want more.

Arthur’s hand roams freely and greedily over your sumptuous body as his palm firmly clamps over your breast, massaging the tender flesh before his mouth encompasses it over the thin cotton of your nightgown. Your chin floats back at the feeling of him touching you, your mind already lost in an incoherent fog. He works his way from your breast to your sternum, and proceeds to leave a trail of kisses and caresses down your figure. And as things go, your heat begins to tingle and ache with dire need. The anticipation is wreaking havoc with you, drawing soft whines and moans from your throat.

The delicious sounds emanating from you set Arthur ablaze inside. He quickly sits up onto his knees as he begins to impatiently pull at your nightgown. But instead of just pushing it up, he yanks the obstructing article up and over your head. With the top half of your body exposed, Arthur makes quick work of your bloomers, folding your legs up in front of him so he can work the fabric down your lovely calves and over your feet.

You are now completely bare to him, your large, shining eyes staring up at him as he looms over you like a predator. Arthur’s own eyes are filled with a divine mixture of love and lust, just for you. Your arms stretch out to him as a silent plea for him to continue. With a smirk, Arthur is quick to pull his shirt over his head and undo the buttons of his trousers and union suit underneath. You reach up and clumsily tug at the sleeves of his undergarment, exposing his chest to the cold night air. He has no time to strip himself down completely, as once his hard cock springs free from its confines, it is very clear he is ready to get things moving along.

Arthur covers your body with his own once more, slowly rocking back and forth with a hypnotic motion. Your leg snakes around his backside in response, your heel digging into his thigh. Hot, steamy breaths cover each other’s faces from the barrage of wet heated kisses as the intimacy quickly escalates. Arthur’s hand drifts down between your two bodies to seek out your tender folds. A sharp moan jumps from your lips as the pads of his fingers sublimely rake across the delicate skin between your legs and your pelvis jerks up to grind against his palm.

“Christ Almighty,” Arthur pants with his lips crushed against your temple.

“I know”, you sigh in agreement.

A deep and guttural groan erupts from his chest, filled with want and desire for you. Feeling how your slick coats his fingers already, Arthur reluctantly withdraws his fingers to give himself a few quick pumps of his cock, using your wetness to lubricate himself. He rolls his hips to align his large body at your entrance, looking down at where your hips conjoin. Your hands find their way under his arms and grasp tightly to the flesh of his back, urging him to move forward and to do it quickly. Arthur’s chin lifts to meet your gaze, finding your mouth gaped and eyes heavy-lidded with wondrous longing as his name falls as a whimper from your kiss-swollen lips.

He hastily pushes himself into you, his usual slow and careful pace forgotten about. The feeling of his thick cock being roughly shoved into you makes you cry out, but you are quickly muffled with his scorching mouth over top of yours. Arthur is quick to start a fast pace, as his hips snap sharply into yours, rutting deeply into your core. The velvety walls of your cunt flutter tightly around him when you feel his length twitching inside you. The grinding is euphoric, sending waves of pleasure shooting throughout your bodies. The way the two of you sync up in the throws of passion is glorious, transcending any pleasure either of you have ever known.

Arthur proceeds to sit back up onto his knees so he can fully take in the vision of you, your body shuddering beneath him from his force. The cot creaks beneath you as the very strength of its joints is being tested. He wraps his hands around your soft thighs for leverage as he observes how his cock glides in and out of you. Your back lifts off of the cot, arching to angle your pelvis towards him, eager for him to fill you even more, if that is even possible. Your hands seek out his thick wrists, slightly pulling yourself towards him to match his motion. When your head drops back against the canvas of the cot again, Arthur immediately falls forward to suck on your exposed jugular, leaving slight bite marks that pinch your overly sensitive skin.

“You are so fucking amazing,” he garbles into your skin. “I don’t ever want to leave this tent.”

His burly body covers yours once again, encasing you under his muscled limbs as his arm snakes around your head, his face tucked tightly into your neck.

“Then we won’t,” you whisper. You turn your face towards his, your bottom teeth dragging across the plump skin of his earlobe, your panting hissing in his ear as he continues to rock into you. You can taste the saltiness of his skin and the faint notes of earthy musk from being out all day in the elements as your tongue flicks at the bare skin of his shoulder as you attempt to muffle your moans into the muscle there. Your whole naked body feels as if it’s on fire with every inch of it touching him right now. The sound of your beloved outlaw grunting lustfully into your ear erases any and all other outside distractions or thoughts. And as his torso lurches back and forth over you, you feel that oh-so lovely lightning barrling its way towards your climax.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop now,” you whine. Your arms encircle Arthur even tighter as you await that rapturous feeling that you know is coming.

As usual, your whole body clamps down around him when your climax hits. Your wanton squeaks and moans are a bewitching melody in Arthur’s mind. The already-tight walls of your cunt restrict around his hefty cock, drawing out a brief whimper from him, pushing him to his own orgasm as he pulls himself out of you and rubs himself against your stomach in search of that friction needed to finish.

Arthur instinctively clutches you to himself when he climaxes with an almost bone-crushing pressure. You tremble slightly, more from the overstimulation than from the damp night air encompassing you. You curl up into him, clinging desperately to his frame. Your fingertips dig into the valley of his spine, the soft chestnut colored hair that decorates his back sticking to his skin with a thin layer of sweat. The two of you have been together quite a few times by now, but every damn time it is exquisite, just as if it was the first time all over again.

The feeling of Arthur’s chest rapidly rising and falling beneath your arms mesmerizes you as you feel the very life of him coursing through your hands while you lay there wrapped up in each other. You can feel his heartbeat against your cheek as you nestle your face into that coveted space where his massive shoulder and neck meet. The weight of Arthur on top of you is so comforting. Where some may consider Arthur’s sheer bulk smothering, you find it calming. You wonder how he could ever think you are not safe when you’re with him, as that is always where you feel the most secure.

Your hips are always a bit sore after making love to Arthur, not used to opening up so wide to accommodate such a large man, but you snicker as you tell yourself that you’ll just have to do it more often to get used to it. The more you are together, the more comfortable and relaxed you become, giving in to the sweet intoxicating feeling of the other. The societal shame and guilt that often gets attributed to the act of sex have long been discarded. You two are no longer self conscious about being too loud, and are no longer hiding your bodies from each other in fear of rejection. Playful giggles of excitement, needy and eager hands, and exploratory kisses are the norm for you two now.

Both fully expended and exhausted, Arthur hands you one of his towels to clean your stomach of his pearly spend that scatters across your skin. Once you toss the soiled linen to the side, Arthur shifts his body lower so he can lay his head onto your chest and pulls his blanket up and over the two of you. Your lips lay against the crown of his head as you play with the thick waves of hair while your fingertips drag along his forearm that tightly holds you to him. And within moments, you are both fast asleep again.

—---------------------------------------------

After breakfast, you finish washing up the last of the dirty dishes, drying your hands on your short apron as you head over to the horses to give them the vegetable scraps. Arthur is already over there, throwing down some grain and fresh water for the lot. He catches your eye as you approach, giving you a smile and nod as you return his gaze with a blushing grin, the memory of last night still fresh in your mind as well as between your thighs.

Arthur watches you as you toss the greens into the horses’ buckets, laughing lightly as they push each other to get to you. “Alright, piglets, hold on. There’s enough to go around.” You lovingly pat Taimia on the neck, as she is the best behaved out of all of these “spoiled children”. Arthur draws on the cigarette that hangs from his mouth, his eyes hovering over you. He squints slightly as he fidgets with the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, his thoughts kicking around in his head since last night.

“Hey, so I’ve been doin’ some thinkin’...” he starts nervously, his voice hesitant as he tosses the butt into the grass.

You look over your shoulder back to Arthur as you try to keep Blue from nipping at your pockets, looking for treats. “Yeah?”

“When we setup the new camp in a few days, what if you put your things in my tent?” He averts his gaze from yours for a second, unsure of how you will react to his suggestion.

But you simply give him a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

Arthur takes a tentative breath before he elaborates. “You know, move your things over and, um…stay there.”

It takes a moment to register, but the idea of it causes a huge smile to slowly spread across your face from ear to ear. “Arthur Morgan, are you asking me to share your tent with you?” Your cheeks flush like a brilliant rose and you nibble your bottom lip with excitement.

Arthur reciprocates with a big grin of his own. “I kinda like the idea of waking up next to you every mornin’.” He swaggers over closer to you. “Although you do snore, though.”

“I do not!” you exclaim in playful offense, your hands planting onto your hips.

“Yeah, you do. It’s cute, though,” he snickers. “Like a cat meowing.” He proceeds to imitate a snore/meow sound as he pulls you to him by your waist.

You slap his arm as you playfully scowl at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, but I’m your idiot.” Arthur arches an eyebrow at you as he ducks his head to kiss under your jawline.

“Yeah, I guess so,” smirking as you roll your eyes. “I'm kind of already invested in you and all.”

“It kinda works out nice that way. You’re mine and I’m yours.”

Your effervescent giggle makes Arthur’s heart melt. “I’ll take that deal.”

Arthur cups his hand around your cheek, his thumb pushing your chin up so he can look into your glittering eyes. “I’ll ride with you through all the bullshit, Y/N, just as long as you don’t bullshit me. Fair?”

Your delicate hands run up his chest and push over his strong shoulders where your fingers lace together behind his neck. “I can only make you two promises, Arthur: That I will never hurt you in the way that I, myself, have been hurt, and that I will love you in the ways that you, yourself, have never been loved.”

You stare into those sapphire eyes of his, trying not to get distracted by the full-range of emotions he has dammed up behind them, emotions that you have only just begun to unleash. “I don't want to just be with you, Arthur. I want to live and love with you. I want to experience every single thing, stupid or great, that our time on this Earth is willing to give us together.”

A deep and relaxing breath is pulled into Arthur’s lungs and released, taking with it any of the anxiety and doubt that he’s been fostering over this new thing, this new beginning that you have gifted him and that he cannot wait to start.

“Just be with me now and we’ll figure out the details later, I suppose,” he hums. He leans down to catch the rose petals of your lips into a delicate kiss. Your eyes float close and you smile into his mouth. The kiss is not too short, nor too long, but just perfect, as it carries all of the affection you both hold within it.

Arthur pulls back from you, and cradles your face in both of his large hands, staring down at your happy, sparkling expression.

“In my life full of wrongs, Y/N, you’re the thing that’s right in it. And I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”

#arthur morgan #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan x f!reader #arthur morgan rdr2 #arthur morgan x reader smut

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zaldritzosrose · 8 days ago

Text

Rampion (Sihtric x Rapunzel!Reader)

Summary: Locked in a tower for years, having been coveted for your blessed beauty by the witch Skade. Never knowing the outside world, never knowing where you had come from. The walls of your tower were the only place you knew. Until your stranger, the unexpected hero, saved you and stole you away.

CW: MINORS DNI (it may be fluff, but it's my blog my rules), afab reader, she/her pronouns (referring to Skade), only reader description is of hair long enough to scale the tower, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of imprisonment, Skade being a deplorable human, mentions of thievery (Sihtric, naughty naughty), allusions to smut, mentions of magic and prophecy, references to Norse deities and practices.

Words: 4684

My darling girl, sunshine of my day @thenameswinter99 I am so sorry it took me so long to finish this. But I hope it's everything you wanted it to be. Maybe I'll even treat you to a part two, but I won't make you wait months this time!

The offering your mother made before you were born was supposed to be a blessing. Asking the goddess Freyja to bless you with grace and beauty to one day secure a safe and prosperous match that would benefit the kingdom.

It had done anything but.

You had grown up to be more beautiful than your mother could have ever dreamed. Men from all corners of Dane controlled land came to plead for your hand. Making promise after promise.

But men were not the only ones who coveted you. A witch named Skade, a woman hated and feared in equal measure by your people. She wanted your blessing, the favour the Freyja had showered on you before your birth. She wanted that for herself. In any way she could.

News of your beauty had travelled through clan after clan, some daring to say you were the most beautiful.

Skade could not risk losing you to some Dane earl or the like. Her only option? To take you for herself.

And she did.

You hadn’t seen the outside of the stone tower for as long as you could remember. You knew this hadn’t always been your life, but the memories were hazy. Like looking back at them through fog.

Skade had made you reliant solely on her. Never leaving the confines of the stone around you. The only way you saw the outside was through the large window, high enough to see through the trees and to the expanse of green land and small villages in the distance.

Maybe one of them was your real home? Maybe one of them held people who missed you? Or maybe Skade was right, the world was too dangerous for someone so blessed as you. That you were safer locked away than out and free.

You spent your time on numerous hobbies. Painting, sewing, reading, anything you could turn your hand to. Skade would always return to you with something new for you to do, be it paints, charcoals or books. You were never short of a distraction.

The tower was simple, a single room filled with everything you needed. A soft bed with numerous furs to keep you warm, a gift from Skade. Strewn around the room were the remnants of your hobbies. The most notable, however, was the vanity across from your bed.

Your pride and joy, over all your hobbies and creations, was your hair. The long braid that at times you would hang from the window of the tower. Skade had gained a habit of tugging gently on the end to alert you to her presence. The impressive braid scaled down the entire tower, thick enough to allow Skade to climb it without causing you any pain.

But you were desperate for more.

Anything that wasn’t the walls of stone, Skade’s voice that would at times irritate you. But you had nothing else. Where would you go if you could escape?

Sihtric was content. Life in Coccham was easy. The town thrived enough; Uhtred ruled fairly as its lord. He had always been an adventurer, a traveller. He enjoyed his home in Coccham, but he found it hard to remain in one place for long.

But there was a past time Sihtric kept well secret from even his friends. Since he was a child, he had a penchant for theft. Blending into these surroundings, becoming someone else. And gaining all he coveted as a result; be it jewels or women.

There were times he would disappear for days, even weeks on end. Always returning home, with a tale a numerous ‘gifts’ for his friends. None of them questioned it. They likely knew. They knew him well enough by now. But they also knew he would never stop. It was something ingrained within him. It was who Sihtric was.

Warrior. Dane. Thief.

It had been months since he had left Coccham. Nothing quite interesting enough to draw him away from his creature comforts, from his friends.

Until he heard of some travelling merchants, over the waters from France. Merchants always brought things of interest. Trinkets to steal. Women to seduce at times. He had stolen from French merchants before, their wares always varied and beautiful.

He listened out for word of their movements. When they neared Coccham, he prepared himself to leave. Slipping out as night fell so as not to raise more suspicion than necessary. People always noticed, but no one ever confronted him on it. His bag was packed simply. No more than his smaller weapons, food and changes of clothing.

His horse had been saddled the night before, a clue to his plans to anyone who paid attention. When the town was covered in darkness, he left, not planning to stop until he was at least a day’s ride from the merchant’s camp. It would give him time enough to plan his next move. And of course, to see what was worth stealing.

The ride was quick, which worked in Sihtric’s favour. He made his camp and waited. A day passed and he was more than ready.

And to his luck, the carts soon crossed the horizon. It was normal for merchants to make a night’s camp before entering a city or town, and these were no different. He watched them, counting the carts, counting the chests he knew would be filled with all kinds of treasures and trinkets.

Sihtric waited until dark, it was rare for merchants to guard their wares. Whether it was pride or naivety he did not know. But it always worked to his benefit. Once he could see each of them were asleep, he made his move. Practiced movements allowing him to enter their camp safely.

In his youth, he would have tried to take more than he could carry, risking detection in his greed. Now, he knew where the most precious items would be kept. Usually the chests with the most intricate locks and protection. But he was more than capable of breaking into such things.

Practice made perfect after all.

He was quick to pick the lock, hearing trained both on the sleeping merchants around him and the clicks needed for the lock to open. Slowly, he opened the chest and made quick work of searching for the most valuable of items.

Soon, he was satisfied. Returning the chest to closed and leaving the lock as if it had never been opened. The perfect ruse.

As quiet as he entered, he exited the camp with his finds.

Sihtric made sure to store his new stolen treasures away securely, wrapping anything he could in his spare clothing and hiding them deep in his pack. He was in no rush to return home, finding the solitude more relaxing than he ever had. He chose a longer route back to Coccham, a natural trail that led his through a wide expanse of forest.

He was entirely daydreaming, leading his horse with his eyes trained on the dirt path below him. It was only the sound of distant singing that drew him from his reverie.

His steps fell still, listening intently for the direction the singing came from. It was one of the sweetest voices he had ever heard. Curiosity and apprehension gnawed at his gut, his free hand clutching his hammer pendant while his other gripped his steed’s reigns tight.

It was not long before the singing grew louder, but it did not come from where he expected. A stone tower nestled deep in the forest was entirely unexpected. And it was from within the singing came. His eyes drifted upwards, assuming he was following a thick branch or vine. But when it didn’t rustle or sway in a passing breeze, realised then it was a thick braid of hair.

The tower was a good few feet of the ground, making the braid longer than he had ever seen. And at the end he saw Freyja’s symbol nestled within the cord that held it all together.

“What in the world…?” Sihtric mused to himself, settling himself a fair distance away at the trunk of a tree.

His horse was tied nearby, and he began to simply listen. He recognised some of the songs, tales of the same gods he knew and worshipped. He was entirely enraptured. The voice would drift in and out, filling his ears and mind with nothing but calm.

Darkness soon fell, but he made no effort to leave. Sihtric could do nothing but wonder who was singing, why they were locked away in such a secluded tower. His question was almost answered when he heard a voice he vaguely recognised.

“Sweet girl!” Skade called, tugging at the end of the braid.

Sihtric watched with curiosity as the witch waited for a face to appear in the window. Even from here, he could see that you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And he had seen many.

What surprised him more, was when Skade climbed the tower with the help of the braid. He wondered if it hurt, but it seemed something well practiced between you and the witch. He remained watching as Skade disappeared through the window, realising then there was no door to the tower.

Hours passed and he did not see you again. Sleep soon found him, and he slept dreaming of nothing but your voice.

Skade did not leave you that morning, choosing instead to watch as you painted. It was a rare occurrence for her to remain, but you did not balk at the company.

The pair of you sat in silence, Skade mixing some herbs together though you dared not ask what for. You had learned your place with her quickly. There was something both young and old about the witch, she had never once revealed her true age to you. You were not friends; at times you were barely acquaintances.

You knew she wanted something from you, the tower being one of the many ways she kept you close. But you never knew what exactly she wanted you for. It was another question that went unanswered whenever you asked it.

But there was something you would occasionally dare to ask.

“Will you ever take me with you when you leave?” You asked, setting down your brushes and turning to look at Skade.

The look you got in return made your blood run cold.

“Do I not provide everything you need? Why would you wish to leave, you know it is not safe for one such as you!” Skade snapped, the pestle grinding hard against the mortar beneath it.

You jumped a little at the tone, but you were determined.

“Tell me why you keep me here then! What about me needs protecting so much?”

But she didn’t answer. Choosing instead to entirely ignore you. You knew better than to press the issue, returning to your painting in silence.

Your mind wandered while you painted. Trying to think of any possible reason a witch like Skade would have to keep you. She never asked for anything from you, in words anyway. Only that you remained in the tower.

No matter how hard you thought, nothing came to mind.

The sun was what had woken Sihtric. He’d half expected to wake up and realise he’d dreamed the singing, the tower, the witch and the girl with the braid.

But there it was. Clear as day.

Grey stone, covered in leaves and winding vines. The window that you had been singing from empty now. But curiosity still nestled itself in his stomach. Sihtric had time, no one would be expecting him back in Coccham any time soon, none that knew him well anyway.

His treasures were safely hidden, but they weren’t the prizes he was concerned about right now.

You. His mystery in the tower. You were his new prize.

He kept half of his attention on the tower and the other half on the forest around him. Hunting and gathering some supplies to tide him over for a day or so. Enough to keep him going until he caught a glimpse of you again.

Sihtric wasn’t quite sure how many hours had passed. Enough for the air to cool just a touch, for the sun to be lower through the trees.

But not long enough for your reappearance at the window, it seemed.

He returned to his spot, secluded behind a thicket of bushes and rocks. Enough to hide him and his horse. He only had to hope the witch wasn’t the one to pass his hiding place.

There was too much risk in lighting a fire, so he satisfied himself with the berries he had picked and the remnants of the food he had brought with him from Coccham. And the bottle of ale he had swiped from the sleeping merchant.

All he needed to do now, was wait.

The sun was dipping behind the window, not enough light now to paint by. But enough to read. Skade was preparing to leave again, though as usual she never told you why. Not that you wanted to ask.

You were still upset, partly because she refused to ever answer a question. Though something else was eating at you, that you couldn’t place.

What was curious this time, however, was that Skade had more than her small pouch around her hips.

“I will not be back tonight, sweet girl. I must go to the closest village, and it’s more than an evening’s walk away.” Skade said, answering the question that had not yet come from your lips.

You nodded, back to her again as you chose from one of your many piles of books. And silently you walked to the window, slinging your braid over the sill for Skade to climb down.

And then she was gone.

You remained in the window. Though your hair was now looped around your feet, your book resting on your knees. The world around you was a distant thought as you lost yourself in your book.

Until you heard a whistle.

Below you, close by but you couldn’t see anyone. And Skade would never whistle to get your attention.

So, you ignored it, returning to your story and thinking nothing more of it. Maybe it was just a bird or the wind. Until it happened again, louder and closer.

This time, you set down your book and took your time looking around the forest below.

It certainly was not a bird or the wind. There was a man, a Dane based on his clothing, at the foot of your tower. And from the axe on his back, he was a warrior too.

You almost froze in panic. Was this what Skade had warned you about? Was this the danger she had hammered into your mind?

No, if he wanted to hurt you, he would not have whistled for your attention.

Your silence prompted him to whistle again, and then you saw him pointing. Pointing to the tip of your braid that hung over the sill.

Had he seen Skade climb in and out? How long had this stranger been watching you?

Sihtric had taken a chance. He didn’t know why you were hidden away in a tower. But nothing about you seemed dangerous.

So, he took his chance. Whistling until you looked at him. Gesturing for you to let down your braid.

He could only hope you would do so.

You had none of the instincts a normal human would have. You had never known danger, aside from the stories Skade would terrify you with.

But your stranger didn’t look dangerous, ignoring his weapon.

Slowly, you unravelled the braid at your feet. Throwing it down as you would for Skade. A small smile on your lips as the stranger stepped back before it hit him.

And when he began to climb, you winced a little at the weight difference. But he scaled the wall of the tower quick enough, easing the weight by resting his feet on branches and vines.

Soon, he was at the sill. Smoothly dropping himself into the tower and turning to look at you.

“Thank you, lady,” he said with a small smile.

You stood from the window, pulling your braid back in and wrapping it so it didn’t trail across the floor. The few pins stuck in your sleeve were just strong enough to hold it together.

The two of you stared at each other, neither wanting to be the next one to speak.

After what felt like an eternity, you couldn’t hold back your curiosity any longer.

“What is your name?” you asked, wandering over to your bed and sitting down.

Your stranger didn’t move, but your question earned you a smile.

“Sihtric, lady.”

It was your turn to smile.

“I am no lady, Sihtric.”

In truth, you didn’t know much about yourself. Other than what Skade would tell you. Which seemed to be becoming a frustrating occurrence.

Sihtric chuckled softly, running a hand over his face. But you offered him your name before he could speak.

And all Sihtric could think of, was how beautiful a name it was.

Hours passed; the sun had entirely dipped below the horizon in the time Sihtric had spent in your tower. And only then did he remember the witch.

“Is she not due to return? I should…”

He was already making for the window when you grabbed his arm.

“She’s not back for a few days. She’s gone to a nearby village for supplies.” You said quickly, pulling him back just a little.

Sihtric looked back at you. He couldn’t leave you here. Thief or not, at his heart he was a good man. And no good man would abandon someone like you.

He turned to you completely. Shifting so he had both your forearms in his hands.

“Do you want to stay here?” he asked, giving your arms the gentlest of squeezes.

That made you think. Skade was, when you thought on it, keeping you prisoner. She refused to tell you anything about where you came from or who she really was.

Something had always felt wrong. There was one thing to be protective, but the way Skade treated you it was like you were something to own, to covet. Barely the person you were.

“I…I do not know. I have never been anywhere else…”

Sihtric’s eyes were filled with nothing but sympathy. How long had the witch had you here?

“Never? Have you ever left the tower?” Sihtric asked, his thumbs now rubbing soothing circles on your arms as he saw panic and pain in your eyes.

“Never, Skade…she won’t let me.”

His jaw hardened. He had known he recognised the witch. Hated by Danes and Saxons alike. He’d heard rumours of a lost princess. Taken from a Dane village years ago when she was nothing but a child.

Was this her? Were you the lost princess?”

“Do you know where you come from?”

You only shook your head, tears already brimming in your eyes. And Sihtric didn’t hesitate, wrapping his arms around you and holding you to his chest. Only then did you cry. Truly cry.

He could only wonder if anyone had ever held you?

Sihtric let you cry. His hand firm on your back and slowly rubbing up and down to soothe you.

Eventually, the tears let up and when you finally looked up at Sihtric, he looked nothing but determined.

“Then we’ll find out. Get whatever we can carry between us, I’ll make a rope so we can climb down.”

He gave you no time to answer, pulling whatever he could find from your bed to wrap together into a rope. In that time, you took your most precious book, some parchment and charcoals and the pins and brushes to braid your hair.

For practicality, you found another dress and bundled everything you wanted inside.

Nerves chewed at your stomach as you waited for Sihtric. This was happening. It wasn’t a tale from one of your books where the prince saves the princess.

But it was happening to you. You were finally leaving the tower after more years than you could possibly count.

Sihtric looped the rope around the thickest vine by the window.

“Are you ready, princess?”

The climb down the tower both felt like an eternity and less than a second all at the same time. Sihtric took most of the weight, climbing down first whilst you climbed down afterwards.

He waited for you at the bottom, your things over his back and his hand out to help you down. Sihtric knew leaving the rope was dangerous, but he wanted you as far away from that tower as possible.

His horse, thankfully, had remained where he’d left her. As was his pack and other things. The benefits of a secluded forest it seems.

When everything was packed on to the horse, including you, Sihtric prepared to leave.

“Where will we go? Skade will find us…”

Sihtric sighed, taking both your arms and wrapping them around his waist.

“She will have to go through me if she does,” he said simply, squeezing your hand before urging the horse to move.

Sihtric had every intention of eventually returning to Coccham. Explaining why he had returned with you would be a challenge, but Uhtred and the others were good men.

But he knew he couldn’t expect you to ride that long with no rest.

He knew there was a township nearby, mostly Dane controlled. And it was the opposite direction he had seen Skade leave in the day before. He could only hope you both would be safe enough there.

The gates of the town came into view eventually, the singular guard waving him through.

Sihtric rode until he came to an inn he had stayed at a handful of times as he passed through, sometimes alone and sometimes with his friends.

His horse was stabled, and he used a small trinket from his haul from the merchants to pay for a room. Somehow, he had a feeling you were not going to want to stay anywhere alone.

“Are we…will be safe here?” you asked, the moment you and Sihtric entered the room.

Sihtric put his pack and yours on to the bed, passing you to begin lighting the fire.

“Safe enough. The town I live in, where my lord and my friends live, is not all that far from here.”

The fire lit quickly, and you immediately gravitated towards the warmth. Sihtric took that time to just look at you. The way your braid had begun to come loose, the Freyja pendant hanging from the cord that was now wrapped in the middle of it. The way your dress seemed homemade, maybe you had even sewn it yourself.

“Your lord?” you asked, holding your hands out in front of the flames.

Sihtric realised that you really knew of nothing that happened outside the walls of that tower. He grabbed a fur from the bed, laying it out before the fire and sitting himself down. Holding out a hand for you to join him.

“Yes. My lord is Uhtred, currently in Coccham. Do you know where that is?”

Again, you shook your head.

Sihtric cocked his head in confusion. How could you not know? Not necessarily about Uhtred, but Coccham was a well enough known place.

Skade truly had kept you in the dark about everything.

“That’s alright, we’ll be there soon, and you can meet him.”

You smiled. How could a stranger, a man you had known barely a day, make you feel so comfortable. Not only had he saved you. He was going out of his way to look after you.

You settled beside him, the space between you small to remain on the fur. The silence was comfortable, simply basking in the warmth of the fire.

But Sihtric could see you were tired. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he pulled you closer. Laying himself down and taking you with him. Your head on his chest and his arm around your waist.

And when you did not move, curling into him instead, he could only smile.

Sihtric made sure he was careful with you, gentle even. His hand stroking up and down your back. But as you got more comfortable, you moved to unpin your braid. The intricate style tumbling down your back, some loose waves tickling the skin of his arm.

Suddenly, everything he felt simply felt…more.

And he realised you were much the same. Your hand on his chest now gripping his shirt just a little tighter. Your face nuzzling more under the curve of his jaw.

He could smell the flowers that you had weaved into your hair. Your nose was filled with the smell of leather and sweat on his skin.

“Sihtric?” you said softly, your lips grazing his neck as he spoke.

He tilted his head down to look at you, only to see you looking straight up at him.

Without hesitation he pressed his lips to yours and though you froze in surprise initially, you soon reciprocated. The hand on his chest now tugging at his shirt, his arm around your waist pulling you almost on top of him.

But he didn’t want you to feel like he was expecting too much from you. He rolled you both to the side, one arm under you and holding you close. His lips never leaving yours.

Your hands found his chest, holding his shirt and seeming like you wanted to close any space that remained between you both. Sihtric’s hand on your waist trailed down, hooking your thigh over his hip.

He could feel your hesitation, and quickly broke the kiss. Staring directly into your eyes.

“We won’t do more than kiss, my princess, if that’s what you want?”

You pressed your lips to his.

“I just want you. You saved me, and I did not know I needed saving.”

Sihtric smiled, pressing his lips to yours. And then to the corner of your lips and then to the line of your jaw.

And the sigh that slipped from was more than enough to keep him going.

“I will save you time and time again, my princess, if that makes you happy.”

He had never felt like this. So entranced by a person, especially one he didn’t truly know. But he felt like he did know you. Almost like he had known you his whole life.

That was enough to make him pull back from his kisses. He could see the small flicker of disappointment, but he pressed a kiss to your forehead and pulled you into his chest.

His face pressed into your hair and he heard you sigh again, your arm wrapping around his waist as you relaxed in his arms.

You were his princess now. Nothing, not even a witch, would take you away from him.

The tower came into view as Skade passed the forest’s threshold. The supplies were heavy in her pack, but that was not what her mind was focused on.

She saw it immediately, the twist of the makeshift rope standing out against the old stone of the tower.

A shriek of rage left her, loud enough to make the birds in forest flee in fear.

You were gone.

But you couldn’t have possibly managed that alone? The rope was strong, knotted in ways only travellers and warriors would do.

Someone had helped you.

Her hand gripped the rope, eyes fluttering closed. She could see you, clear as you always were.

But then she saw him. A Dane, the hammer pendant hanging from his neck and the axe on his back were clue enough. Something about him felt familiar, but the vision of him was too foggy for her to entirely pinpoint him.

What she could feel, however, was you. The bind that tied you both together was strong, Skade had cultivated it over the years she had kept you locked away.

Whoever had you, wherever he had taken you…she would find you.

No matter what it took.

Sihtric/TLK taglist:

@legitalicat @foxyanon @thenameswinter99 @multyfangirl

@sihtricsafin @sihtricfedaraaahvicius @alexagirlie @gemini-mama

(If you want to be added/deleted, let me know)

#sihtric kjartansson #sihtric x reader #sihtric x you #sihtric kjartansson x reader #sihtric fluff #sihtric kjartansson fluff #x reader fluff #fairytale au

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