#Cursed Sands Book 1

[jolenes-book-journey]

Mistress of the Second Circle by BC James

Sirens and Succubi and Cops…oh my. Title: Mistress of the Second Circle Series: Cursed Sands Book 1 Author: B.C. James Genre: Urban Fantasy, Supernatural Thriller A Tinder date goes disastrously wrong, ending with a middle-aged man gruesomely murdered and mysteriously mummified in a seedy motel. This baffling case lands in the lap of Detective Kace McCrae, unaware that this crime is just the…

[nvirskies]

sand - c. la rue

idea taken from one of @star-girl69 's asks about married clarisse and immediately went to think about how the vast majority of greek demigods didn't get to live past their 20's or even teen years... and the survivor's guilt that would come with being one of the few lucky enough to live longer.

warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, traumatic nightmare flashbacks, descriptions of violence, descriptions of blood + war, spoilers for TLO, set after both reader and clarisse leave CHB about 6-8 years into the future, google translated Greek term of endearment, crying, survivor's guilt, platonic RueGard, ooc Clarisse, she's matured more over time and more articulate with her feelings and words

summary: clarisse wakes up from a particularly bad nightmare in the middle of the night, reader comforts her through a breakdown

wife!fem!demigod!reader x wife!clarisse la rue

word count: 2.2k

καρδιά μου (kardiá mou) - my heart

Η καρδιά μου είναι η καρδιά σου (I kardiá mou eínai i kardiá sou) - my heart is your heart

"but you have more pieces of me than than desert has sand, and I have less pieces of you than I can hold in my hand" sand, alchemical: vol. 1, dove cameron

taglist: @lvrue @star-girl69 @azrielsdiary @petitegavotte @b0ok-lover

men, nsfw, non-sapphic, 16-/19+ dni

Greek demigods fell in love hard and fast with an unmatched intensity. They normally didn’t live long enough to even envision themselves in their adult lives, and why would they? Every day was a struggle to stay alive with monsters coming in from all angles and quests most didn’t come back from.

And that was why, as soon as the two of you graduated high school, Clarisse got down on a knee and proposed with the knowledge that you were the one she would want to spend the rest of her life, however long or short, with.

When you two had graduated college, the next thing in the books was to make it official in the courthouse, and that was what you had done. No extravagant party or ceremony, just a quiet day in the courthouse and a night in to celebrate.

But no matter how far the two of you ran from Camp Half-Blood, the nightmares never went away, never got better. As the years passed, more of the people you had considered friends died. One after the other, falling like cursed dominos, helplessly standing by as they all tumbled down.

Soon, the nightmares became more about the people that were lost than the monsters themselves. Nightly plagues of searingly painful memories from watching the life drain from so many demigods’ eyes burned themselves in both of your psyches.

All you could do was hope Charon would be kind enough to ferry them across the Styx without his payment of a silver coin.

And tonight certainly hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary with the two of you and your limbs interlaced in a protective embrace while sleep claimed your minds, as if the both of you could protect each other from the monsters both in and outside.

Your head, nestled into her chest. Her deep, rhythmic breathing made your hair flutter ever so slightly as she exhaled. Her arms, wrapped loosely around your waist, hands not-so-sneakily under the baggy shirt of hers you had stolen to wear as pajamas for the night. It was all perfect. Too perfect.

You would be damned fools to think that peace would last for so long. Demigods didn’t get peace, they didn’t get tranquility, and they especially didn’t get uninterrupted domestic bliss.

Unbeknownst to you, Clarisse’s face contorted into one of distress. Her arms pulled you in closer subconsciously as the all too familiar face of Morpheus greeted her with a sly smirk on his face in her dreams.

In moments, she was transported back to the Battle of Manhattan.

She was seventeen again.

Blood was everywhere. Abandoned weapons lay on the floor, the hands that once gripped them tightly, now loose and limp. Shrill screams echoed throughout the air, all cut short by gut-wrenching sounds of fatal injury. Metal cut through flesh. Acid burnt through metal. Flames licked and greedily consumed anything and everything as fuel.

Her feet felt heavy, her hands numb. She could do nothing but stand and watch it all unfold before her own eyes, forced to relive the carnage and devastation that had ripped through Manhattan on that fateful day.

Morpheus’ voice whispered in her right ear, the sound of it sending an uneasy chill down her spine. “Daughter of Ares. A fitting dream, no? Your father must have been proud of you for the way you fought after… well, I’ll let you relive that, too.” Before she could blink, she was transported to the moment right after Silena had been sprayed by the Lydian Drakon.

Clarisse was too late. She had always been too late.

She was back on her knees, choking and weeping bitterly as Silena lay in her arms, watching as life slowly left her once-lively eyes.

What kind of a warrior even was she? So weak that she couldn’t even protect her friend? Too weak to protect the girl who had adorned her armor and led her siblings into battle?

Just as Clarisse reached out to touch Silena’s face to wipe away the one mark of smudged eyeliner that the Aphrodite girl normally would never have even allowed to happen in the past, she was jerked back to consciousness, eyes flying open and arms almost crushing your sleeping form momentarily as she came to.

No longer was she in Manhattan, instead sheltered in the familiarly adorned walls of your shared bedroom. Upon the walls hung framed pictures of joyous times past and her sword collection, among other things.

Familiar faces stared back at her, some faces that would never age again. Immortalized memories of times that would never happen again. Everyone was dead or scattered across the globe.

A particular picture caught Clarisse’s eye. It was a portrait of Silena that she had commissioned one of the Apollo kids to draw for the daughter of Aphrodite’s seventeenth birthday.

She never lived to see that day.

Her eyes locked with Silena’s in the drawing for a moment, and that moment was one too much as hot tears began to prick in the corners of her eyes.

She had inadvertently woken you up with the way her arms tightened around your waist in a near vice grip, slowly coming to your senses. No longer were her breaths slow and rhythmic, their steadfast pattern replaced by one that was erratic and shallow. The once-steady thumping cadence of her heart as it beat in her chest was now quickened, all of which you could hear with your head having been nestled into her chest.

Craning your head to look up at her, you were greeted with the sight of Clarisse desperately trying to silently blink back tears and control her own breathing.

Hurriedly, you pushed yourself up off her chest and tugged the blankets off the two of you before sitting down on her lap. You took note of the way her hands had never left your waist, holding onto you as if she were drowning and you were the last life ring thrown out.

It wasn’t anything you and Clarisse hadn’t dealt with before. The nightmares had been a part of your lives as far back as you could remember, it just came with the territory of being a demigod. But they never got any easier as time went on.

She watched silently with eyes brimming with unshed tears, pleading wordlessly with you to do something, anything to make it all go away.

“Let’s switch, yeah? You can lay on me and completely cover me if you want, love,” you offered up, a melancholy smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. Wordlessly, she nodded and you slipped off her lap, laying back where she had just been moments ago.

Gently patting your chest, you motioned for her to rest her head on it, knowing that the rest of her body would soon follow, completely engulfing your form with hers. After she had positioned herself, her arms snaked around your waist again as she simply held you for a few moments, her face pressed into your chest as tears slowly soaked into your shirt.

One hand reached out to gently run along the length of her back, the motion meant to soothe. A few beats passed in silence before you spoke in a hushed whisper, the bedroom devoid of sound beyond the two of you breathing in tandem with each other.

“You hear that, love? That’s my heart,” you murmured softly, craning your neck to press a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “It’s beating, beating for you. Η καρδιά μου είναι η καρδιά σου.”

She didn’t respond beyond releasing another shaky sob into your chest and tightening her grip around your body, but you didn’t mind. You didn’t need her to talk just yet.

“You’re also η καρδιά μου, you know that, right? My heart, my wife, my love, my everything. And I’m yours. Entirely yours, and I”m not going anywhere.” You craned your neck again to press another kiss against the crown of her head, hand never stopping its path of running gently along the length of her back.

“I would go down to the depths of Tartarus for you. I would challenge Hades himself to a fight if it meant I had even a glimmer of a chance in getting you back.”

Never once did you try to rush her into talking or shushing her tears. You knew her better than you knew yourself, and giving her time to let everything out was the best thing you could do for her at the moment.

You were her safe space, the one woman that she could let her walls down around. She wasn’t Ares’ star daughter in your arms, she was just Clarisse. No expectations dangling over her head, just open arms and understanding.

After another few quiet moments, she finally spoke up in between half-choked sobs, whispering so quietly that her voice was nearly inaudible, “Silena… Manhattan… should have been able to save her,” before letting her face fall back down onto your chest, releasing another pained cry.

“She’s gone- a-and everyone else too- why me?”

Her question left you speechless, mouth partly opened in an attempt to come up with a reassuring response, but nothing seemed to come to mind immediately. It was rare for this to happen, as you normally had just the right words at the top of your tongue, weaving them as Arachne once wove tapestries on her loom.

“They’re all gone and- and- ”

“Shh, love…” you cut her off, gently pulling her head up to look her in the eyes, your other hand leaving her back to wipe the tears that were still streaming down her cheeks with the pad of your thumb. “Please, don’t go back into that self-sacrificial spiral. Talk to me, tell me what the dream was about?”

She only shook her head in response, unwilling to divulge details of the memory that had shattered your night of otherwise perfect proportions.

Deflating back on top of you, she whispered, “They’re all gone, and we’re one of the only ones remaining. It was like every time another one of them died, that small part of myself that I gave to them died as well.”

Her arms that were wrapped around your waist tightened for a moment before going limp along with the rest of her body as she lay atop you, her head pressed against your chest.

“Love…” you began softly as one of your hands found its way to her head and carded gently through her curls. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. None of it was your fault. We didn’t ask to be born, to be thrown into this mess of a world and tossed around like pawns in the gods’ game of chess with our lives.”

“We didn’t ask for this life, and we were so young at the time. For fuck’s sake, we were only seventeen- we hadn’t even made out yet. We hadn’t graduated high school yet, there were so many things we couldn’t control.

“None of it was your fault, I promise you. You were so brave, and you did everything you could.” She stayed silent as you spoke, the only sounds coming from her were the soft, shaky breaths as she sniffled and burrowed her face further into your shirt.

“I can’t explain to you why so many things had to happen, that’s up to the Fates. I can’t give you the pieces of yourself back that you lost when we kept losing everyone,” you murmured whilst your hands kept on with their idle motions.

It shattered your heart to give her such an incomplete answer when you knew it was tearing her apart inside to live with it all, but there was nothing you could do beyond offer solace and comfort. “And for that, I am so, so sorry. But the one thing I can do is keep the piece you’ve granted me to keep, safe and sound.”

She only nodded in response, not trusting herself to speak in fear of her own vulnerability. Her tears soaked into your shirt, but you didn’t care. All that was important was that Clarisse was here, in your arms, and slowly calming down.

Clarisse knew just as well as you did that everyone had done the best they could with the circumstances given, and that the loss affected you just as deeply. But she didn’t dig into that, it would be a can of worms to open for another time, another sleepless night where your own troubles caught up with you after running from them for so long.

And so, the rest of the night stretched on into early morning, the two of you half-awake, seeking silent solace in each other until sunlight crept into the bedroom through the cracks of the curtains the next day.

The two of you might have been running from your trauma like runners to a marathon, but at least you were running hand-in-hand with matching strides.

[cosmerelists]

Cosmere Characters Imitate Hoid

As requested by anon :)

I recently fulfilled another anon's request about Hoid imitating various Cosmere characters. This, I suppose, is a sort of sequel: now other characters must imitate Hoid. But don't worry! Hoid himself (or sometimes Design) is here to help.

[It's Hoid. There's SPOILERS for like every book in here but I'll mark which book is involved in case that helps]

1. [From Mistborn Era 1] Vin imitates "informant Hoid"

Hoid: Okay! There are three important rules for being a beggar informant! Hoid: One: look kinda gross. That way, people won't pay too much attention to you. Hoid: Two: pretend to have bad eyesight, so that they won't worry that you're paying too much attention to them. But don't pretend TOO hard, so that if they catch on to the fact that you're just acting, they'll feel superior and lower their guard. Hoid: Three: have actually good information so that you can push the pieces exaaactly where they need to go. Hoid: Any questions? Vin: Do you realize that I literally lived on the street for years? Hoid: Yes, yes, so you actually know how to BE a beggar, but do you know how to pretend to be a beggar? That's a much different thing! Vin: I understand why Kelsier steered me away from you.

2. [From Mistborn Era 2] Wax imitates "beggar Hoid"

Wax: I'm sorry; I have to drink WHAT? Hoid: Oh, so you'll drink metal-infused-whiskey all the time but you draw the line at drinking a little perfume? Wax: ... Wax: Yes?????

3. [From Stormlight] Kaladin imitates "storyteller Hoid"

Kaladin (in his best "Wit" voice): Do not fret young man--you may be hopeless and depressed, but I will tell you a story and that will fix everything! Kaladin: And by "tell you a story" I mean that you'll tell ME a story because you'll have to fill in my blanks like every three seconds! Kaladin: Oh and also! Here's an instrument you don't play. Don't lose it or else I'll guilt you about it later! Hoid: Hmmm...not a bad start, but it lacks...subtlety. Hoid: ...Also that was a really nice flute, you know.

4. [From Warbreaker] Siri imitates "storyteller Hoid"

Siri (throwing an enormous amount of colored sand into the air]: Whooosh! COLOR SAND Siri: [grins] How'd I do? Hoid [very serious, with colored sand plinking down onto his head]: So...that was the main takeaway, Princess? Susebron [clapping delightedly]: You're an amazing storyteller!!

5. [From Yumi and the Nightmare Painter] Painter imitates "coatrack Hoid"

Painter: So I just...lurk in the darkness over here? Perfectly still and brooding? I can do that. Design: Weeellll....it's not really "lurking" so much as "standing still while people put coats on you" and it's not "darkness" so much as it's "well lit so that people can find their coats." Painter: Can I at least strike an intimidating pose? Design: No, that's not really in the spirit of things. Hoid looked more "vaguely surprised." Painter: So I just stand there while people treat me as an inanimate object? Design: Yes! Exactly! Now just imagine that you're TRAPPED like that and try exude a sort of "sad but philosophic resignation." While also holding these coats. Yes! You're doing GREAT! Hoid: ...I thought this would help me see the humor in things but honestly I'm getting even more depressed.

6. [From Tress of the Emerald Sea] Tress imitates "cursed Hoid"

Tress (wearing the most ridiculous outfit she could find): It's me! Cabin boy Hoid! Tress: I may be wearing shoes on my hands, but I am actually trying really hard in my own way to achieve my own goals and help you achieve yours! Tress: No curse can steal from me my ability to make it through with the help of my new friends! Tress (in her regular voice): How'd I do?? Hoid (slightly choked up): F-Fine...

7. [From Elantris] Sarene imitates "beggar Hoid"

Hoid: Okay! There are three important rules for being a beggar! Sarene: You don't need to continue. It's obvious. Sarene: One: look gross so that people don't dare look at you too carefully. Sarene: Two: affect a harmless air--perhaps seem slightly mad or slightly blind--so that people will not worry that you might turn them in or otherwise betray them. Sarene: Three: position yourself so that you can achieve whatever aims you have in pretending to be a beggar in the first place. Sarene: How did I do? Hoid: I KNEW I liked you!

8. [From Secret History] Kelsier imitates "corpse-rafting Hoid"

Kelsier (singing in a mockingly off-tune way): Oh I'm float-float-floating on a coooorpse! Kelsier: Off to bully a ghooooost! Kelsier (in a normal voice): Wow! That ghost guy over there looks like he's having the absolute worst day of his life! Kelsier: I think I'll make it worse! Hoid: I'm not sure corpse/ghost could even be called a slant rhyme. Hoid: And in point of fact, I wasn't coming TO bully you; that was just a little side bonus that occurred by chance. Hoid: So I think your song is slightly misleading, and also bad. Kelsier: ...I can't wait until I have a body again so that I can punch you.

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

Nothing Comes Close to the Golden Coast

Description: You're on the beach because it's what your little sister wanted for her bachelorette party. One day, you can manage, right? You're not expecting to stumble right into the woman who could can change your outlook on beaches that day. But with Natasha Trace, maybe you're starting to see nothing comes close to the golden coast.

Warnings: Female! Reader, Flirting, Beaches, Mild Cursing, Natasha is too flirty for words and possibly a little dangerous

A/N: Hiya lovelies! This is a fic I wrote for @bellaireland1981 's 1K Pool Party celebration. Congratulations on 1K followers Bella! It's my first time writing a long form Phoenix x Reader fic and I hope I did Nix justice. All my love to @horseshoegirl for beta-ing this fic for me and making sure I wasn't 1) using too many commas (yes I have a problem) and 2) that this fic was flirty and fun and summery enough!

Word Count: 3617

Cross-posted to AO3 here!

Cross-posted to Wattpad here!

You like going to the beach as much as any other girl. But unlike other girls, you tend to prefer quiet, calm, clear beaches to lie on. The kind of beach where you can hear the tide coming in and the seagulls wheeling in the clear summer sky. The kind of beach where the sand is clear, and you never have to fight to find a spot to lay down your towel and where you can read without a beach ball smashing into your face. Of course, finding the clear beaches you love is far from easy. It seems like the minute the calendar hits Memorial Day, everyone in the Greater San Diego area books it to the beach for the summer. You’ve even seen people taking meetings out on the beach. But to put it bluntly, you're not one of those people.

So why are you out on this congested, loud beach today? There's only one reason: your baby sister's Bachelorette party. It was an obligation you couldn’t get out of. You love your sister, but you’re less than happy to be spending time with her and her friends. When it’s just the two of you, it feels like you’re the closest pair of siblings on the planet. But when she’s with her friends, it feels like there is a colossal, ever-widening, yawning gulf between you. Everyone calls her the pretty one while you're the practical one. In the eyes of your entire extended family, it is one of the many reasons why she's getting married at 22 when you're still single at 28. To keep the peace, you’ve been pasting a smile on your face and literally grinning and bearing it for everything she’s asked of you. Because you love her and in only a week’s time you can get a bit of a break from her (or really, from her best friend).

To make matters worse, you’re the only girl in the group wearing a one-piece suit, something flattering yet mostly covered, without showing off your cleavage or too much of your ass.

“God, do you have to wear that old lady suit?” She'd scoffed when you walked out of your house that morning, a sunhat on your head and a sarong tied around your waist to complement the deep maroon one-piece you’d pulled out to wear. “Please tell me you have a bikini you can go wear instead. If you'd told me, I would have brought you one of mine!”

As if you'd have ever worn a bikini of hers. Your younger sister is thin, model thin, with a narrow waist and perfectly perky A-cups, which look fantastic in the hot pink bikini she's wearing today. She's got the physique that makes men look a little stupid. Already, there is a pack of unfairly pretty men who have gone a little cross-eyed when your sister and her friends walked by. In contrast, you're shorter and curvier, your hair dark where hers is blonde, and the ultimate introvert to her bubbly extrovert.

You aren't even her maid of honor at her wedding - that particular honor belongs to her best friend - yes, the aforementioned obnoxious Sally herself. It's not as if anyone has even noticed you're not having the time of your life in the water. After all, why would they? Who wants the babysitter hanging around you when you're trying to have fun? It's the role you've been playing since your sister was born, and you're sure you'll play it again once your sister has kids. For now, all you can do is stay secluded under your umbrella and try to read a little despite the noise. At least it is a little emptier on the beach now as the sun sinks slowly across the sky.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

The voice is male, filled with all the surety of a man who knows what he wants and has never failed to get it. Your eyes are rolling before your head rises from your book. Your sister and Sally are under the umbrella next to you, and unsurprisingly, that comment was targeted at the two of them. You're pretty sure they are two of the group who were tossing around not one but two footballs on the beach.

“Two pretty things like you look like you could use a drink.”

It's the blonde, tall with green eyes, and a shit-eating grin, who makes the offer. And to your disbelief, it looks like your sister is going to take these guys up on their offer.

“We'd love to!”

Is she thinking at all? Before you can stop yourself, you're speaking.

“Can I talk to you, Vicky?”

“The fuck do you need to talk to her for?”

Sally's growling at you, her arms crossed under her chest in a way that accentuates the cleavage already threatening to break free of her string bikini. Your cheeks flush as the two men glance between you and her, discerning gazes flip-flopping between you and her at heated words.

“You're her sister, not the fucking morality police. We're having drinks with them. Either you can join us, or you can glare disapprovingly. But don't you dare tell us what we can and cannot do.”

“You're such a fucking stick in the mud. I don’t get why the hell you came with us. Why are you always coming out with us, anyway? I mean, I’d have had a life by the time I was your age, but well, I guess you're even too boring for that.”

You're left gaping at Sally and your sister as they walk away. The words don't hurt, not really. You've been hearing a version of them for years, ever since Sally and Vicky decided they didn't like having you shadow them. Of course, they don't believe you when you say you'd rather do anything other than join them while they get up to all the bullshit they do. Once upon a time, Vicky used to defend you. Obviously, those days are long gone.

It doesn't mean you won't still watch out for your sister, though. Call it some sort of sickening nostalgia for the days when you and her were close once, chasing each other around playing unicorns in your backyard. Call it affection for the little girl who used to follow along behind you, repeating everything you said with a lisp. Call it love for your sister who you would once do anything for - would still do anything for.

Of course, you immediately realize the situation is far different than you thought it would be. Because there aren't just two incredibly hot men, but ten. Before you can blink, they're all over Vicky, Sally and their other friends. Somebody has sparked up a bonfire, and you gravitate to the hot flames despite yourself. You're a little chilled after being out in the hot sun all day. As the sun sets over the sea, one of them nestles a Bluetooth speaker into the sand and turns the music up. 

California Gurls, we're unforgettable,

Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top

Whoever made this playlist needs better taste in music. Or at least they need to pick something which you haven't heard on the radio every day of the summer in 2010. As it is, it will be stuck in your head for days.

“This song sucks, huh?”

You jump at the voice near your ear, stumbling and nearly face-planting in the sand. You have the kind of face which shows your emotions plainly, you've always been told so. Now someone has noticed, and you hope this person won’t throw you under the bus like all of Vicky’s friends. You pretend it’s just the song as you turn around with a smile pasted across your face.

“It's the worst!”

You're sure you have other things to say, but they disappear from your head like smoke when you see the woman who is talking to you. She's gorgeous, whiskey eyes flickering gold with the bonfire's flames. She's absolutely beautiful, and it feels a little like you're in an alternate universe. There's a cool breeze coming off the water, and in addition to the salt from the sea, you can smell hibiscus in the air. It has to be from her perfume, you note vacantly.

There's humor in her eyes as she stands beside you, surveying the others around the bonfire just like you are. You can see your sister in the distance, dancing with the blonde who asked if she wanted a drink. She looks like she’s well on her way to becoming completely drunk, but you don’t care. Vicky’s an adult. She made her own decisions, and she can stand by them. All of your attention is on the brunette in front of you. She holds out a bottle to you, condensation dripping over her fingers.

“I thought you could use a drink.”

“Thanks.”

The drink in question is a bottle of soda, ice cold.

“I, uhh…” She looks a little sheepish, some of her confidence draining away as you look inquiringly at her. “I wasn’t sure how else to get you to talk to me.”

“W-why wouldn’t I talk to you?” 

She grins ruefully, “Because you've been glaring at Bagman and your friends since you walked over here?”

“And, you don't look like you're having much fun.”

“Fun…” You sigh, "is a word for it. And we're not friends.”

“Younger sister?”

You laugh, “Is it that obvious?”

“You're a good sister, coming out with her and her friends like this.” 

Her innocent words touch your heart a little bit.

“I've got two just like her. They're so sure they're grown up, but they could still need somebody to watch out for them.”

You turn excitedly, “Yes! Yes. That’s it! She's getting married next week, but there's still so much she doesn’t know yet! And she and her best friend hate that I'm here. Call it her need to be seen and treated like an adult. I'm in her bridal party and she doesn’t even want to celebrate with me. Guess everybody would pick Bagman over there over me.”

“I don't hate that you're here, you know?”

You startle a little at the frank openness of this beautiful stranger's voice.

“Why not? You don't know a single thing about me.”

“I know you’re a big sister. I know you hate Katy Perry’s California Gurls, not because the song itself is horrible, but because you’ve probably heard it a million times.”

She tugs at your hand, and you follow her as she leads you away from the bonfire, the song still blaring away. You shouldn’t follow her, you know you shouldn’t. But despite yourself,you’re curious. There’s something about her you need to know more of. Away from the bonfire, the air is cool, and crisp. The beach feels swept clean the further you walk.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you planned this.” 

You crack open the soda and take a sip, pretending not to feel dark eyes on the side of your face.

“I didn’t plan it.” She chuckles a little, playing with your fingers. “All I wanted was to keep talking. I think I owe you a few more things I know about you, anyways.”

Your heart warms as she shrugs out of the hoodie and lays it over the sand. She sprawls down with a grace you couldn't emulate if you tried, all long, lean muscles exuding strength and power. You feel awkward in contrast, self-conscious as you try to sit on as much of the hoodie as you can without sprawling in her lap in a way that would have you mortified and her uncomfortable. But you can still feel her, warm and solid, as she retakes your hand. It’s comforting, the light touch, the calluses at her fingertips making goosebumps rise over your arms. Her perfume smells different this close, the light scent of summer hibiscus melting into roses and morning dew. It’s addicting.

“Y-you mentioned there were a couple more things you knew about me?” 

The words leave you in a whisper, tripping over each other as they drop off your tongue.

Her laugh is husky and warm, and for one moment, all you want is for her to make that wondrous sound again. But you quell that particular impulse. After all, no matter how weak you are for this woman, you barely know her. You won't be making a fool of yourself tonight.

“I think you're smart, smarter than anyone gives you credit for being. You're strong and single-minded.” She leans in conspiratorially, a smirk on her lips. “Some people would call you stubborn, but I think they're just afraid you'll leave them behind in your quest for world domination.”

“How do you know I'm gunning for world domination?” You're smiling from ear-to-ear as you ask the question.

“All the prettiest girls are. Especially the girls who bring a book to the beach for family when they'd probably rather be curled up on a window seat with a cup of tea handy.”

Your cheeks have to be crimson by now. Of all the days for an unfairly pretty woman to come up to you and flirt, she has to pick today. She’s so confident, so pretty and vivacious and all the things you never could be. In comparison, you just feel dull, like a piece of fabric bleached by the sun, until there are only the faintest hints of color left. It’s also been a really long time since anyone’s even looked twice at you.

“I-I do like reading at a window seat while it rains.” Your smile is halfway genuine now, you think. You can’t keep volunteering bits of information about yourself without getting some info from her in turn.

“What do you like doing in your spare time?”

Maybe you picked the wrong question to ask because her easy smile drops faster than you can blink. The small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes flatten out, and the dimples are so deep you’ve been wanting to kiss them since you saw them disappear as her smile does. The silence between you isn’t comfortable anymore. It’s awkward, a discordantly awkward tone spoiling the harmony of the moments before.

“I don’t have much spare time. Or hobbies.”

“I’m sorry.”

You’re babbling before the apology has left your lips, mind speeding at a hundred miles per hour at the thought you’ve somehow managed to insult the one person who’s wanted to talk to you all night. You’re standing and turning to head back to the bonfire before she hops up next to you.

“Whoa, whoa.” Her hands are hot as they make contact with your upper arms. “I’m not angry at you. I dunno if you heard what those meatheads were saying when they were posturing to your sister and her friends earlier, but I’m a Naval Aviator.”

“It doesn’t leave a lot of time for hobbies.”

“So, what do you do with your free time?” 

She’s so close you can feel the heat of her skin.

“Most of my free time is spent at the gym. It takes hard work to look this good.” 

You giggle a little as she tugs your hands until they’re flat against her toned stomach. The muscles twitch under your fingers a little, and you feel light-headed. Is she really flirting with you? You? 

“Not everyone can read books and look as good as you do.”

“What else do you do?” Your voice is weak, barely audible over the rushing waves, but she hears you anyway.

“Sleep. Try to read. Though it’s harder to concentrate when you’re surrounded by hundreds of lonely, horny men than when you’re sitting in a window seat.”

She smirks a little, leaning closer then. 

“And I definitely spend a lot of time daydreaming about a pretty bookworm in my bed to keep me warm at night.”

“O-oh.”

Your face has to be crimson by now. It feels so hot. The dark ocean seems way too alluring, if only for a cold reality check. There’s no way this gorgeous, smart, sexy woman is hitting on you. There’s no way. Maybe if you keep saying it over and over, it will be a reality instead of what your delusional mind is coming up with.

“Sadly, there hasn’t been a pretty bookworm in my bed in a while.” 

The smile on her face falls, the motes of color swirling in her hypnotic eyes, fracturing into crystals at the words. 

“None of them can take the long days away, no dates, little contact. Maybe one day I’ll find the right bookworm for me. Unless…”

Her arm has found its way around your shoulders, the warm lines of her body searing into you.

“Well, this is a silly question, but would you maybe like to grab a coffee sometime? Get to know each other better?”

You want to say yes. More than anything you want to. But you can’t bring yourself to accept her invitation, not when you have more questions than answers.

“W-why me?”

Her lips are warm even through the material of your half-damp swimsuit as she presses a kiss to your shoulder.

“You’re different from the other girls I talk to.” 

You’re unsure how to respond, half afraid she will go on and on about how boring and dull you are. All of the others you’ve dated certainly have. They expect one of the standard sexy-librarian types when they meet you and find out you like to read. They’re always disappointed when the truth they come to see couldn’t be any further from what they imagine. 

“You’re so beautiful,” she sighs. “I swear I nearly got hit on the head with one of the footballs when I saw you walk out onto the beach and sit under your umbrella.”

“You missed it, I'm sure, but those goofballs in my squadron were laughing at me for hours.” 

There's a slight pink tinge to her cheeks as she leans back. You miss her the minute you lose her warmth.

“I um…” She runs a hand, long-fingered and pretty (why the hell are even her hands so pretty), through her hair. “I'm pretty sure that's why those two walked up to your sister and her friend.”

“They wanted me to come to the bonfire tonight?”

You're pretty sure your mouth is wide open at this point. 

“Yeah. Though I should say, I wanted an excuse to talk to the prettiest woman I've ever seen. And maybe flirt with her a little. And maybe get her to agree to go out with me.”

“How is this clever plan of yours working for you?” 

Your voice is a whisper again as you peer over your shoulder at her. 

“You don’t know my name. You don't even know if you're my type.” 

It takes every bit of courage to banter lightly with her.

“I think it's going pretty well. After all, I've got you sitting here with me instead of out there with those idiots. And I'd very much like your name.”

You smile despite yourself as you tell her your name, getting hers in turn: Natasha Trace, callsign Phoenix. Her callsign fits her fierce and confident personality.

“So what do you say about getting coffee with me sometime?”

Just before you're about to respond, you hear your name called from the bonfire. It's one of Vicky's friends calling for you and pointing at your sister. She's drunk, and you can tell she's minutes away from courting an indecent exposure charge. She's sitting on Bagman's lap and doing her best to eat his face right off. He seems like a more than willing participant. Your concerns have more to do with how her bikini is moving, how she’s only moments away from an indecent exposure charge.

“Fuck.” 

You turn to Natasha and smile. “I'm really sorry, but I have to…”

You make a vague gesture in your sister's direction.

“I understand. She needs you right now.”

You nod and begin to walk away, pulling your coverup out of your bag. But your feet don't let you move very far. What kind of person would you be if you let the best thing that's ever happened to you slip through your fingers so easily? You can't let her slip away. So you rummage in your bag for one of the notebooks you always carry with you and scrawl your phone number down on it, ripping the page away.

She looks surprised to see you again when you catapult yourself into her arms and kiss her soft lips. She tastes like the beer she was drinking earlier, and as her arms wrap around your waist, you sink into the kiss a little bit more. You feel like you never want to leave. Yet you know the longer you stay here kissing Natasha, the more time your sister has to make situations worse. Her friends may be cheering her on, but her fiancé won't be quite so magnanimous.

When you pull away, her cheeks are the same pink as earlier. Her lips are kiss-swollen, and her eyes are bright. You're sure yours are the same.

“Let's get that coffee, Natasha.”

You press the paper into her hands and hurry back up to the beach to take care of your sister. In the hilarity of pulling her away from Bagman and wrestling her into your coverup, you can feel eyes on you. They track you until you drive away.

There's a text on your phone when you get home.

Let's get that coffee tomorrow morning. Do you know Madison's Cafe? I'd very much like to kiss you again.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN ON AO3, ON WATTPAD, OR ON TUMBLR BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN AO3, ON WATTPAD, OR TUMBLR, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

Taglist:

@desert-fern @horseshoegirl @dakotakazansky @sarahsmi13s @teacupsandtopgun

@roosterforme @cherrycola27 @thedroneranger @chaoticassidy

@kmc1989

[thelaithlyworm]

Daomu Biji Watcher’s Guide, May 2024

A few new entries have been popping up lately, and I’m always hopeful new fans will stumble into the pits and never leave so I thought I’d paste up a rough map.

(Obviously the best watching order, like the best reading order of Discworld or the Aubrey-Maturin books, is ‘whatever first comes to your hand’ but for the people who don’t like that…)

tl;dr:

Daomu Biji is a series about tomb raiding. Think Indiana Jones or Lara Croft but much, much longer. The protagonist Wu Xie is deeply in love with BFF1 Zhang Qiling, a hundred-year-old cryptid, and BFF2 Wang Pangzi, who was stolen in a raid from another book series. It’s comic, tragic, horrific, zany, prone to musings on life, love, desire, attachment, and has many, many piss jokes. (‘Journey to the West but modern’ is maybe the other comparison I’d make.)

Notes:

– This guide is not talking about “quality”. All of the adaptations have their own strengths and weaknesses and tone can vary a great deal, which is to say, if one of them doesn’t suit you it’s likely something else will.

– Wacky endings, and plot threads that disappear unfinished and get picked up a long time later, are as inherent to the franchise as the piss jokes.

– It’s common for the dramas to introduce characters and subplots a lot earlier than the books do. Sometimes we’ll see a character introduced ‘for the first time’ on multiple occasions and strangely familiar scenes. I’ll try to point out the biggest continuity clashes as I go.

The Soft Entry:

There are a few movies that are entertaining as standalones but will introduce various characters and background. I would recommend:

Escape from the Monstrous Snake + Mystery/Grave of the Abyss – two monster movies featuring Hei Xiazi, a supporting character. He’s a pragmatical mercenary who’s going blind in kind of a weird way, and goofy as hell when he isn’t tiptoeing over a vast abyss of existential dread. So many fun action scenes.

Time Raiders (2015) – so there are some textual clues that late in his career Wu Xie wrote this story as a memory-jogger for an amnesiac friend. The plot is a freewheeling wild ride which doesn’t directly match any book plot but introduces some major characters and how they relate to each other. It’s colourful and fast-moving. Enjoy, enjoy.

Conjuring Curse and Misty Creed are… theoretically set late in the series even if the actors look about twelve. Both work as stand-alone adventures, though Misty Creed is maybe a little deep in the lore. Again, colourful and fast-moving.

The Chronological Order

You could honestly start with most of these – they tend to come with a ‘what has gone before’ at the start or a newbie character that things get explained to. The only one I wouldn’t start with is Heavenly Palace in the Clouds, which is lovely but also the second half of a set and things won’t make sense if you haven’t seen Lost Tomb 2 first.

Lost Tomb 1 – a highly digestible 10-12 episode version of the Seven Star Lu Palace arc, ie. Baby’s First Adventure. Introduces A-Ning, Xie Yuchen, and Huo Xiuxiu early and a couple of og characters for Wu Xie to talk to instead of monologuing to himself. The restaurant scene at the end was raided from a later arc and you’ll see it again in Ultimate Note. A book character, Da Kui, was cut which is a small problem because how he died is a minor plot point discussed in Lost Tomb 2. 

Lost Tomb 2 – covers Raging Sea, Hidden Sands (underwater tomb) and Qinling God-Tree (weird bronze tree in the mountains) plus a whole lotta side stories and original content exploring the world and foreshadowing later plots. Mooostly in continuity with Lost Tomb 1 (see Da Kui above) and made as a set with Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – they share resources and a lot of actors, and some threads begun here are finished in Heavenly Palace.

Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – covers the Mt Changbai arc, a journey up a mountain to find a very old, very grand tomb. This was made so close to Lost Tomb 2 that LT2 borrows shots from Heavenly Palace and not the other way around, which is fascinating because it pointedly contradicts the last five episodes of LT2. It also brings forward some plotlines originally from the Tamutuo and Zhang Family Old Pavilion arcs (San-shu’s past in the underwater tomb, and the Huo Family videotapes) dragging some characters on-screen and forcing them to talk about their feelings, which they would clearly rather die than do. Given those plot-tweaks and the early, deliberate continuity clash, I’m tempted to call this a Canon Parallel Universe. Got some interestingly chewy character dynamics and luverly, luverly set design.

Mystic Nine – This is a prequel about Zhang Qishan – Fo-ye – and his peers, but later dramas expect us to know who Fo-ye was so I’m sticking it here. Kinda… picaresque? Lots of action scenes and Republican-era flavour and various factions jostling for power – kinda feels like an old-school wuxia story, only set in the 1930s with all that glorious Republican-era styling. Has some unfortunate cut scenes – the details of how Fo-ye recovered at his family’s house don’t make a lot of sense in the aired version, and there are a couple of missing fights in the penultimate episode. Shrug. Still a lot of fun. Comes with four side movies about supporting characters.

Ultimate Note – Covers the Tamutuo arc (a trip through the jungle) and two-thirds of the Zhang Family Old Pavilion arc (investigating Zhang Qiling’s past is like kicking a hornet’s nest). Very, very flirty and has some zippy-zip action choreography. Politely ignores Lost Tomb 1–Heavenly Palace continuity (Xie Yuchen is, once more, introduced for the first time, now with a romantically coded friendship arc) and brings in a lot of cameos from Mystic Nine and Sand Sea, which it was filmed after. Kinda tiptoes around parts of the book plot, which I suspect would be hard for anyone to film, re: Fo-ye’s actions in the 1960s. Fair warning, this ends on a cliffhanger. This is also where the Xinyue Restaurant scene appears again – two cakes!

Tibetan Sea Flower – If Tibetan Sea Flower ever airs, it will go here.

Sand Sea – Based on the Sand Sea novel. After Tibetan Sea Flower, Wu Xie goes into a bit of a decline and makes that the world’s problem. We the audience, plus Li Cu and Liang Wan, EDIT: a lovely doctor, are pretty much dropped in media res into a number of ancient conspiracies and complicated plots coming to a head in the manner of a boil. It’s weird; it’s messy; it’s mad fun. Like Mystic Nine, has a lot of factions jostling for power and colourful jianghu characters. We will, once more, see the Xinyue Restaurant scene. Also has some side movies.

Time Raiders – The textual hints that suggest Wu Xie wrote this, suggest he wrote it around Sand Sea-era, when his life was a bit complicated. I’m putting it after Sand Sea because I believe it caps a conversation that, ah, doesn’t quite make it into the drama. But notionally this is where it should go. Ah…. at one point, someone tells a story about an ancient ruler, King Mu of Zhou, who sought immortality from the Queen of the West in Tamutuo. The longer book conversation suggests that a) King Mu of Zhou engineered a “trap” for someone like Wu Xie to fall into in the future, and b) that Iron Mask Scholar, a villain from Lost Tomb 1, was an alias that King Mu of Zhou used in the Warring States Era. Which makes some of Iron Mask Scholar’s appearances in Time Raiders… interesting.

Reunion: Sound of Providence – sometimes known as Reboot. Having peaked in badassery in Sand Sea, Wu Xie has to consider what his life is going to be now, and also, he would like to track down a missing family member. So this was tweaked to make it more accessible to new viewers (so some parts of the back-story are not mentioned or conflated for simplicity) and that mostly works but I did find watching this first and then picking up the earlier dramas a bit of a mindscrew. Zhu Yilong is, however, a powerful draw and the rest of the cast sparkles. Probably best to think of Season 1 as two short seasons jammed together, which is to say, once the Warehouse 11 arc starts there are a number of characters who won’t reappear until Season 2. It’s a fun arc even so. Season 2 ends with a badass action scene and then a big party, which I think is a great way to end a story.

Escape from the Monstrous Snake, Mystery/Grave of the Abyss, Conjuring Curse, Misty Creed – these are all theoretically set around or after Reboot-era, though they can certainly be watched as stand-alones.

[wizardlyghost]

thing about deltora quest that only occurred to me in hindsight is not only just how much jasmine carries the entire party on this quest but also how genre-defyingly brutal she is lol. like, this is a kid's series that hinges on riddles and puzzles far more heavily than combat - even when deaths occur, they're often the result of cleverness in some way rather than straight up combat ability. that said, let's look at the villain kill count at the end of book five of eight of the first series:

- lief: 1 - even there it's with a well-thrown bottle of cursed water rather than his sword.

- barda: 0 - i'm not counting that one unnamed sand beast, that's an animal not a villain.

- filli: 0 - he is a squirrel, this is unsurprising.

- kree: 1 - killed an invincible sorceress all by himself, good bird best friend.

- jasmine: 5 - dropped a tree branch on a mf, drowned two cannibals in quicksand, cut a giant snake's throat, shoved a dude down a pipe full of toxic mold (after having to be told not to cut his throat while he slept jfc).

idk it just suddenly struck me as really funny how this one character who isn't the protagonist is almost from a different, far more brutal story, and uses that fact to consistently be the mvp and save everyone else's asses. i need to read this series again it's been too long.

[yuurei20]

Strange question but!! Yk how the villains are treated as heroes? How on earth did the heroes stories work if they, uh, yk, dont have the villains? Like i briefly remember TWST!Jafar hijacking Aladdin’s plan to fake being a prince, so theres not rlly any more “aladdin” story, but im curious how other stories went if u know! Are the OG heroes still treated as heroes, etc etc, that fun stuff

Hello hello! Thank you so much for this question!!

The different interpretations of history that seem exist in Twst are fascinating, and one of my favorite things is the part in Book 6 where Lilia seems to insinuate that the Disney stories that we know might not actually be what really happened, because history is written by the victors:

These "classic" stories--were they, too, twisted to suit an agenda? Is the truth closer to what is taught as history in Twst, or is it somewhere in the middle? It is so interesting to think about!

For the most part it seems that the heroes from the stories we know are not turned into villains in Twst, and the deeds that are attributed to them were actually done by multiple characters from different folklore:

For example, Harveston has stories about miners and customs based on "a young lady who made a wish at a well," a "traveler" who cleaned a stranger's home and then a tale about "some princess who wished to fall in love right away," as if the young lady, princess and traveler are three separate people.

While basing their traditions on the miners, the lady and traveler, they also deify the Fairest Queen, as if they are all independent individuals with no overlap.

One of the more interesting parts of the Fairest Queen's history, in particular, is that there is actually a "dastardly villain" in Harveston folklore that stalks a woman who is then saved by forest creatures.

The huntsman is--just like the queen--not a villain in the Twst universe. Who was who, and what really happened? 👀

For the Scalding Sands, it seems that the unnamed princess and the sultan from local stories are just as revered as the Sorcerer of the Sands himself, with the sultan known to be the person who named the Sorcerer as his vizier and retaining their connection from the story we know.

Much like in Harveston, the history of the Scalding Sands seems to attribute what we believe to be the history of just one character to multiple individuals: Kalim talks about the Sorcerer saving his country from a street rat, who was a swindler/charlatan/usurper who tried to trick the sultan and princess, in a rare case of a "hero" being vilified.

But they also have folklore about "a poor but kind-hearted young man" who shared his food with children, and whose marriage to the beautiful princess they celebrate every year with a festival.

Whereas the Disney movies make the charlatan and the kind man into one person, in Twst's history it seems they were two different people.

Diasomnia is very big on the Thorn Fairy, and they also talk about the human king who feared her, the princess whose birthday she was not invited to (Silver: "Was their king raised in a barn?") and the three presents that the princess received.

Lilia talks about a trio of fairies that were not able to break the Thorn Fairy's curses and also put an entire kingdom to sleep, while Silver comments on how Lilia is consciously, intentionally emulating the three fairies from that tale with his cooking.

Silver and Malleus discuss "some faeries" raising a child for 16 years without magic, but they do not seem to know why they did so, and it is unclear if they believe that those faeries and the three faeries that put the kingdom to sleep are the same or different people.

Heartslabyul seems to separate Alice into two different characters as well, referring to a 1-km-tall giant that the Queen of Hearts tried in court and a child that got lost in the castle as if they were two people.

The only reference we get of the "heroes" of the Lion King tale are Jack referring to the King of Beast's "rascal of a nephew" and Leona mentioning that he deposed his brother "to build a better, wiser kingdom."

While the characters seem similar to the stories we know it's possible that the timelines are slightly different, with the rebirth of the pridelands being attributed to the King of Beasts himself rather than his nephew.

The history of the Sea Witch in Twst might be the most fascinating: the characters reference the Sea Witch taking someone's voice for a contract and making a shapeshifting potion to facilitate love between a mermaid and a human, but also turning herself into a human and being proposed to by a prince the next day, with no acknowledgement that the human from the first tale and the prince from the second might have been the same person.

They also talk about the eels flipping over a boat and a mermaid princess who had trouble walking on land, but there is no mention of the princess being in the boat in the eel story.

Octavinelle even acknowledges that the Sea Witch once made herself huge and sunk a ship with a whirlpool and "some even labeled her a monster," saying that she was later lauded as a compassionate figure after turning over a new leaf. (While the less-than-pleasant deeds done by the Sorcerer, the Fairest Queen and the King of Beasts in the stories that we know are never mentioned.)

Silver's tale from Halloween seems to be an exception to this rule. Everything done by the "hero" in the tale we know is still attributed to the hero in the story that Silver knows, and the enemy army is still the enemy army.

To the initial question: it seems that the heroes from the histories that we know are still being regarded as heroes in Twst (though they tend to get separated into multiple people), while the characters that we know as villains are also highly regarded. This sometimes includes their pasts (in the case of the Sea Witch and the Queen of Hearts), being separated from their pasts (in the case of the Hunter) or with no mention of their pasts (the King of Beasts, the Sorcerer of the Sands, the Fairest Queen, the Thorn Fairy).

(Not a lot of information about the King of the Underworld when compared to the others! Idia mostly just talks about how charismatic he was. Ortho suggests something about "the truth" about him being closer to Idia's own situation than they have been taught, but Idia is not convinced.)

Also: there is a reference to a hero rescuing his ladylove from the Underworld in Book 6, so it seems the hero in that tale remains a hero in Twst as well!

[m4ttsturn]

my brother's best friend (part 3)

pt 1 pt 2 pt 4

pairing: Matt Sturniolo x y/n

summary: you find yourself falling for your brother's best friend

warnings: none

(not proofread)

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

I watch as the sun sets over the water, painting the sky with different shades of reds, oranges, and yellows. the air has now grown frigid, goosebumps beginning to set along my skin. I curse at myself for not bringing warmer clothing as I wrap myself in my towel. even with the brittle air the boys are still in the water, pushing each other around and launching their bodies over each wave that comes.

with nothing else to do, considering it's now grown too dark to read my book, I watch them. well, mostly Matt. He shoves Chris into the next wave, laughing as the water crashes over his face. seeming to feel my eyes on him, Matt faces in my direction. he smiles at me and begins to wave, but since he's distracted Chris takes this as his chance to get him back. I can't help but laugh to myself as he gets knocked down.

when he gets up he mutters something quickly to Nick, Nate, and Chris before walking over in my direction. "hey" he greets me, "hi" I smile at him. "you cold?" he questions, "mhm, it's freezing out here". he reaches down and picks up his hoodie, dusting the sand off of it and hands it to me. "thanks" he just smiles and nods in response as I put on the sweatshirt.

"you think they'll be ready to go soon?" I ask Matt. "uh probably, Nick said he was starting to get all wrinkly from the water and wanted to get out soon before he starts to look like a raisin" "of course he did" I giggle. our conversation dwindled away quickly since we were both tired. we sat in comfortable silence as we waited for the others to get out of the water.

I laid back in the sand, staring up at the stars that have now formed in the sky. I sigh contently, picking up a handful of sand and admire how each grain feels as it falls back to the ground. I turn to face Matt, only to find him already looking at me. I find myself appreciative of the darkness that surrounds us which hides my blush.

Matt looks like he wants to say something, but as soon as he opens his mouth Nate pushes him on the shoulder. "you guys ready?" Nate asks. "uhm" Matt pauses and looks at me "yeah we're ready" he answers. Matt stands up, offering me a hand. I take it gratefully, using it to pull myself off the ground. I notice that his touch lingers on my hand as he looks me in the eyes ones again. After a moment he pulls his and away and clears his throat.

everyone grabs their stuff off the ground and begins to walk towards the cars. each of us rinsing off at the showers to help get rid of the sand that has accumulated on our skin. we decide to meet up at mine and Nate's place before we get into the vehicles and start driving.

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

a/n: sorry this ones a little short but I wanted to get the next part out

[hazel-of-sodor]

Sodor in the age of social media

1. Edward

Edward is perhaps not the type of engine you would expect to have an online presence, much less an active one, with a large following. However whilst he has never been a loud presence online, he has been consistent and beloved since nearly the beginning.

It began with a story.

In the early 2000s Edward's driver was at her whits end. Her toddler refused to fall asleep, instead crying throughout the night. The doctors all said she was healthy, that this was a phase, but the driver and her husband were exhausted. One august night, it was her turn to stay up with the toddler, she tried driving around, hoping the motion of the car would lull the child to sleep, but there was no luck. When she went to pass by the engine sheds, she turned in out of desperation. Edward was over 100 years old, maybe he knew what to do.

She entered the engine shed, finding all the engines awake. It is well known among railway men that any engine can pick out the cry of a child above any other sound, a fact that has proved both a blessing and a curse to their crews.

The exhausted woman climbed onto the bufferbeam gently shushing the child to no avail.

'Well hello little one."

The baby quieted, staring up in awe at the engine before her.

"Would you like a story little one?"

The toddler cooed and stretched a hand towards the giant face of the engine.

"Thomas was a little engine..."

The child was soothed by the elder engine's voice, and try as she might to fight it, she was soon asleep. The driver thanked the engine profusely, but he just chuckled and asked her to bring the child if it happened again.

Victoria Sand grew up on the buffer beam of her mother's engine, listening to stories of the railway, and her grandfather's time as driver.

In order to allow the engine sleep the mother recorded many of the stories, so they wouldn't have to disturb him to get the child to sleep, despite the engine's protests that he enjoyed their visits.

The years went on, and young Victoria began sleeping through the night (although there was more than one instance of her sneaking out to see her honorary grandfather.) The mother wished to help other mothers and fathers like herself so, with Edward's permission, she uploaded the stories to a video site.

"Storytime with Grandpa Edward" grew slowly but surely, as parents found them and played them for their children. As the videos popularity grew, many asked for Edward to read their children's favorite books.

It should be noted at this time, almost no one outside of the Island realized 'Grandpa Edward' was in fact a locomotive, much less Northwestern No.2. Victoria's father was an artist, and the videos consisted of Edward's voice over his paintings. Most of the audience had assumed Grandpa Edward was human. Upon the realization, Edward chuckled and asked it be kept that way, as he was touched so many people liked his stories on their own.

A young generation of children grew up listening to "Grandpa Edward" alongside Victoria Sand, some of whom would later visit Sodor. Whilst their parents would almost never recognize the engines voice over the sound of steam and metal, the children would. Edward would just laugh and ask for it to remain their secret.

The years passed, and the 2020s arrived. By this time "Grandpa Edward" was a household name for much of Britain, with thousands of stories recorded and released. Edward had declined in person interviews over the years, he was much too busy on his branchline after all. Despite helping to raise an entire generation, Grandpa Edward had remained a mysterious figure, known only by his stories, even as little Victoria grew up and became a mother herself.

The revelation of his identity involved certain blue tank engine, because of course it was. The sickness that must not be named had swept the globe. Sodor was weathering the storm well, as it had closed its borders promptly and thoroughly. Despite this, the children of the island grew stifled in their houses, missing school, their friends, and the freedom of the outside world.

The NWR came together to help in what ways they could. Thomas was ran from one side of the island to the other, making videos for children to watch, to show them that the world and their friends would still be there waiting for them when they came out. As expected, the 'Thomas touch' happened, and the videos seemed to explode overnight, with children around the world eagerly watching Thomas on his adventures around the Island. But Thomas was growing tired. He was older now, 106 thank you very much, and the constant longer runs were more than he was used to on his branchline.

Edward took one look at him one evening at Wellsworth as he waited for a clear signal to Ffarquhar, and promptly dragged Thomas and his coaches. Thomas protested, the kids needed the joy the videos brought.

"Leave it to me," Edward said.

The first video was simply titled 'Grandpa Edward reads Thomas a story.' The video opened to show Thomas and his coaches parked inside the Wellsworth Sheds, a fully grown Victoria holding the 'The Three Railway Engines' up for Grandpa Edward to read.

[bigratsdeservebigpats]

Overblot victims (and Malleus) reacting to Yuu patting their heads when they look stressed after the incidents (and for Mal, after Chapter 6 the night Idia and Ortho come over to play games)

MY FIRST ASK OMG THANK YOU RANDOM CITIZEN

Lmao I haven't played part 6 yet I am a disgusting lowly eng player but I can do them getting headpats

Victim #1 - Riddle

He's disgusted at himself and his actions. Who wouldn't be after reacting in such an uncouth matter? His dorm members still keep their distance, eggshells more like glass shards as they tiptoe around him.

Yuu finds them after a throwaway comment from Adeuce about their dorm leader looking even wearier than usual

He's holed up in one of the study rooms, the floor is adorned with books and sticky notes, study materials repeated over and over, it's less of studying than a distraction, not that it's working.

He doesn't notice Yuu is there until he feels the gentle weight of a hand on his head, and the warmth it gives. Something tells him it's Yuu, and something else tells him that it's okay.

He cries there, without a single word exchanged between the two.

When times are hard, or when Adeuce is being especially awful to handle, he'll come over just for some quiet time, to get his head pat

Victim #2 - Leona

Leona is someone who hates being indebted to anyone, and he now owes his life to a bunch of meddling kids, and Yuu, some magicless nobody. It's embarrassing, not just for him but also his actions. Like a child who threw a tantrum.

I wanna say that Ruggie sent Yuu to talk to him. not for any reason in particular, other than the fact that Yuu is really helpful to others.

He's at the spelldrive practice, lazing off per usual, but this time while glaring at everyone. He shouldn't be mad at them, but it's sort of an automatic response.

He notices Yuu, but didn't expect them to approach, less to reach over and. pat. him. it's humiliating, especially in front of the crowd, but the sheer balls of their actions is the only thing keeping Yuu from disintegrating into a pile of sand.

"What in the land of the great seven do you think you are doing, herbivore."

"sharing good vibes."

If Yuu runs their fingers through his hair, he'll melt. if anyone asks, he hates it. if no one is there, he might mimic the action, and then curse himself when he realizes it.

Victim #3 - Azul

It's easy for Azul to hide behind the guise of work, to distract himself with ideas of promotions and menu additions and money-making schemes of the legal sort, but the usual chaotic grin wouldn't show when he was huddled over his desk.

Yuu doesn't have the money to get one of his little consultations, but that's okay, because the twins have decided they didn't want to deal with his BULLSHIT cruel increase in hours

Even buried in work, everything is organized and tidy, so much so that it doesn't look any different from the last few times Yuu snuck in, which is insane. If the twins hadn't noticed anything, they doubt anyone would have.

He's on edge, tearing his sight from the paper scribbles and readjusting his glasses.

He isn't given the chance to speak before Yuu stomps over and places a hand on their head. "You deserve a break, don't you?"

The Prefect is magicless, he knows this, but it feels like they put a sleeping spell on him, a heavy weight like that of a warm duvet blanketing over him.

It's the first he's relaxed, but he's too exhausted to say his thanks, resting his head on the desk as Yuu pets him.

Victim #4 - Jamil

Jamil is perpetually stressed. He has to worry about Kamil's food, Kalim's daily safety, Kalim's chores, Kalim's grades, Kalim Kalim Kalim, it's no wonder he's overblotted, but just because he has doesn't mean he'll be given any sort of break.

It's a bunch of Scarabia students who beg Yuu for help, since they were one of the handful of people who's actually faced off against his overblot, and who isn't terrifying to talk to.

Without any other attendants to help with Kalim or the dorm duties, Jamil would be found carrying stacks upon stacks of items to and fro down the halls

Yuu practically shouts his name, and a whole chill raced up his spine from Kalim trauma, but relief hit hard when he realized it was just the Prefect. He doesn't know why they are so worked up about him doing his job.

Yuu would offer a hand, and before he can refuse, it settles on top of his hood, pressing down just the slightest. When he looks back on it, he should have remarked that they would mess up his hair, but he was too stunned to even speak.

They would take some of the stuff in his arms, and spend the rest of the day just helping do small chores, and in return, get a lovely meal and a genuine thank you from Jamil.

He won't ever mention the headpat again, but if by some lucky miracle he gets some time off, he'll seek the companionship of the Prefect.

Victim #5 - Vil

Vil is hard to find stressed, because he knows that stress messes with his sleep and that messes with his skin and he can't risk that, so he has spa days - that always get interrupted, yoga and meditation - that are ruined when Rook enters and spews verse after verse about such a lovely day being spent outside, well fine, he still has his cheat days to fall back on, except Epel ate all the berries.

He has no choice but to escape, and whats the one place he knows for sure he won't be bothered? Ramshackle, as long as he brings some tuna to bribe Grim away.

Yuu is the one to open the door, surprised but not bothered by his presence, and he asks if they would let him stay for just a few hours to just... hide.

He ends up falling asleep on the couch, which is one of the worst things he could have done, but when he wakes, he finds a pillow under his head and Yuu patting his hair gently.

While it wasn't part of the plan, it's certainly got a calming effect. Probably not as useful as a nice soak, but certainly something to keep in mind the next time he needs a quick pick-me-up

Idia - head pat headcannons

Obviously Yuu is the one to initiate, probably because the bitch called them 'the real life equivalent of a discord kitten' and he got so scared that to stave off their wrath he had to meow for them Kawaii Anime Girl Style

He got headpats for being a good kitten and went [Windows XP Error Sound Effect]

Do not mention or his head will turn pink and He Will Never Speak Again

Ortho will spill the beans and say that his Nii-san has developed an odd fascination with the action Ortho PLEASE DONT SPEAK YOUR BROTHER COMMANDS IT

Malleus - head pat headcannons

So idk I've never met a dude with horns on his head, and I would think that the horns kinda be like tusks on an elephant, or like, a tooth. Not a lot of feeling, but they still got nerves

But they are still the symbol of his might and power, so it's gonna be hard to get him to let anyone get near them. I feel like it would almost be seen as an insult if he were to lower his head and expose his horns.

Yuu asked very politely with no ill intentions, and he knows that, so it's probably why he does let the Little Child of man inspect the horns.

What he doesn't expect is for them to place a hand right between, and just. pet him. He would chuckle, but he wouldn't complain.

This Child of Man always manages to surprise him somehow.

This was a little longer than expected, but it was fun to do an ask. Continue to feed me, children.

[alittlebitofwonk]

The most ridiculous things I’ve noticed on Hermitcraft season10 (so far):

The Impulse Horn (you know the one (I hate it))

The “breeding” bit (they were talking about horses)

“Why are you so obsessed with me?” (SmallEtho)

Skizz’s giant pyramid

The mending book saga

“Please Hold” by Jono

Iskall’s starter base

The Warden Orchestra

Mumbo building a starter base that he cannot get into

The snails

Xisuma nearly dying less than a minute into Episode 1

The sand curse lives on in Gem

Keralis’s kinda depressing Episode 1 intro (he was late ☹️)

[dartagnantt]

It's Time to Choose | Spells with choices

PDFs of this and more can be found over on at my Patreon here! I release everything for free, so your support makes this possible. I've also started making a new system based off of 5e, 6th Dawn! Become a patron and join the playtest.

Mayhaps you would want the spell to do this? Yeah, that's the gimmick :P

Alter Appearance

A simple spell. Change your face or other cosmetic (or less than cosmetic) options. This has fun world building implications as well as other interesting choices. Don't ask me why only temporarily changing yourself is harder than permanently doing so.

Elemental Mantle

Flame Shield is cool and all, but I want to cause more types of pain.

Flesh to Stone/Stone to Flesh

Did it bother anyone else that stone to flesh didn't make it to 5e? Admittedly, having it be its own spell is oddly wasteful, but there are a lot of these slash spells (okay, three, but still!) so why not?

Haste/Slow

So, I thought, if enlarge/reduce, antipathy/sympathy and flame shield could all be spells with opposite effects, why not the only remaining reverse spells? Also thought I would change the save while I was at it. I don't know why slow and polymorph both have a Wisdom save. Also also, thought I would get rid of the weird exploit where you could (as written) haste an enemy and then instantly drop concentration to get a free dropped turn from the target.

Metamorphic Rebirth

Alter Appearance but race! Or is it living reincarnation? Speaking of…

Predestined Reincarnation

Reincarnation, but not random. And forced if you want to curse someone to come back to life as a goblin for some contrived reason.

Redirect Gravity

I enjoy gravity fuckery, and I am horribly disappointed that the only spell that lets you 'usefully' change gravity is reverse gravity. Sure, there are a few gravity spells in the wildmount book, but eh. Wee!

And now to plug my stuff. I release homebrews weekly over on my Patreon. Anyone who pledges $1 or more per post don't have to wait a month to see them, and also help fund my being alive habit.

At the moment, they have exclusive access to the following:

Channel Infinity (and Beyond!)

Prior Connections

Circle of the Sands

To Shreds, You Say?

I also have four classes, and a splatbook over on DriveThrueRPG to check out:

The Rift Binder. A class specialising in summoning monsters and controlling the battlefield.

The Witch Knight. A class that combines swords and sorcery in the most literal way.

The Werebeast. A class that turns you into a half beast to destroy your foes.

The Beguiler. A spellcaster dedicated to illusions, enchantments, and general fuckery.

d'Artagnan's Adventurer Almanac. A compendium of races, subclasses, feats, spells, monsters and more!

[wardenparker]

The Viper's Bride - ch 11

Oberyn Martell x female reader x Ellaria Sand x OC Co-written with @absurdthirst

The second Prince of Dorne has lived under the illusion that he would not be forced to wed for his entire life. He has enough lovers and illegitimate children to make him a legend across Westeros, and the love of his soulmate Ellaria Sand to content him. But a contract between his brother and a lord from the north will catapult him into a match that may prove to be as complicated as it is intriguing. Especially when he learns that you already have a soulmate of your own.

Rating: Mature, but this blog is always 18+ Word Count: 12.8k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: terrible parents, age gap 10+ years, arranged marriage, classicism, cursing, food and alcohol, internalized homophobia. Reader is described as having hair long enough to braid* Discussions of pregnancy, abuse (parent to child), murder/conspiracy to murder. Plenty of judgmental moments and classicism. Summary: A trip to the Citadel with Cal proves most successful, but dinner with your parents is worst than you could ever fear. Notes: Thank you to everyone for bearing with me through even more Tumblr technical difficulties. We made it! I hope everyone finds this chapter worth waiting for.

Ch 1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3 ~ Ch 4 ~ Ch 5 ~ Ch 6 ~ Ch 7 ~ Ch 8 ~ Ch 9 ~ Ch 10

The streets of King's Landing are filled with merchants, servants and peasants alike. All hustling and moving through the streets with the purpose of completing tasks for their masters, for coin, for survival. A group of urchins play with sticks, pretending they are swords as they race through the crowds. Even with the day-to-day bustle of the people, there is a tension that fills the streets. Whispers in the shadows as people converse. Everyone knows that the trial has begun and they are wanting any little piece of gossip they can muster, true or not.

Cal is barely two steps behind you as you walk, conscious of the difference in your statures but also of the fact that you came to him for protection. It had stuck in your head that both of the men you love – who love you as well – had mentioned keeping him close by and so you doubled back to your chambers to find him and ask him to accompany you. The walk to the Citadel does not take long, but when you arrive you brush the dust from your dress and ring for entrance with a jitter running all the way down your spine. The most you can hope is that Maester Rhodestone will be at hand and that he will remember the woman he married to his former pupil. If not, you may have to be rather grand about asking entrance and access to the books that lie within.

"Your highness, if I may ask, where are we?" You had asked him to accompany you on an errand and had not elaborated. Of course, it was nothing short of an honor to be asked and he had dropped what he was doing to aid you. His dagger is close and he glances around carefully, knowing that both Lord Stone and the Prince would be very displeased if he allowed any harm to come to you.

"This is the Citadel, Cal." Pulling the rope outside had wrung a bell in the building, you are sure that you heard it. All you can hope is that it will be answered in a timely fashion. "The Prince studied here when he thought to become a maester, but that was many years ago." His eyes widen slightly and he stands a few steps behind you and tries to reason the Prince that he knows, that he has been in bed with, with a maester. "Obviously the lifestyle did not quite suit him," you murmur, glancing back at Cal over your shoulder and shooting him an amused smile. The man has spent as much time in your husband's bed as you have over the weeks that Oberyn has been in King's Landing and you are sure he cannot imagine the prince as a maester any more than you can.

There is a long pause between your pull of the bell and the large wooden doors being unbarred and the creak of one twenty-foot door being slowly wrenched opened. Blinking owlishly at the bright midday sun, Rhodestone peers out and then opens the door wider as his brow pulls together in confusion. "Princess?" He asks, looking over at your servant and then back at you.

"You remember me? How kind." And how utterly relieving. You feel you can actually take a breath again. "It is good to see you again, Maester Rhodestone. I was wondering if I might beg your help this afternoon? The prince has sent me to seek certain volumes on his behalf."

"The prince?" His face lights up and he nods, opening his arms in welcome. "It is not every day that I marry a prince to his princess. Are you wishing to know if you are carrying?" He asks with a small smirk. "Knowing Oberyn, he has undoubtedly planted his seed well. An heir for him! How exciting. Although I know he is well versed in the symptoms of carrying a babe."

"Is that something you could check for so soon?" After all, it has only been a few weeks. Suddenly there is more than one piece of information you hope the maester can assist you with today.

"There are ways to determine if you are already carrying." He promises with a smile, reaching out and taking your hand. "Books, you say?" He asks. "What kind of volumes are you seeking, princess? It will be my pleasure to assist you."

"We are interested in any information you may have on soulmates." Beckoning Cal into the hall behind you, the scent of bound volumes drifts from somewhere deep inside and relaxes you further. "This is my husband's man, Cal. He can be trusted with any information or materials you might entrust to myself or the prince."

"Soulmates?" His eyes flash and he hums as he reassesses you. "Yes, we have several volumes on soulmates. What a curious subject to be interested in." He guides you further into the building and pats your hand that is still between his. "As I recall, Prince Oberyn was interested in many subjects, but soulmates was not one of them."

"It is a topic which has recently piqued his interest," you tell the old man honestly, although you bend the reason with a coy, indulgent smile. "I think he thinks of the future happiness of his children, now that he is happily anticipating another baby."

"I know you are properly wed." He chuckles. "Your mother was quite insistent to see the record of your marriage when she came to the Citadel." He had found the woman to be quite belligerent and cross, although he had assumed it was because she feared for your reputation.

"My mother is a rather forward sort of person." A fact which makes you nearly cringe in distress of how she might have acted to the maesters. "I do apologize if she caused any commotion."

"Nothing that could not be handled." He promises with a small wink. There have been several women that could compare to your lady mother over the years. Maesters have seen a lot and know how to handle them. "It is a testament to your maester that you have turned out so...well rounded."

"The septa and the maester that had the duty of raising me were patient and attentive." You shrug in amusement and lend the old man a smile. "They had to be. I have three older brothers."

He chuckles knowingly and nods. "I was the youngest of five." He admits with a grin.

"Then you know precisely the patience that would be necessary." As the three of you walk into the Citadel together, you smile. "Your family must be very proud of you."

"My family is long dead." He hums, a little melancholy about it, but that is life. "Not to worry, they were proud to have a maester in the family when I forged my links."

"My youngest brother contemplated the study before he met the girl who was to become his wife." In fact, it was a source of great conflict for him before he decided that his heart wished for marriage more than great study and service. "We are very proud of him regardless, but to have a maester in the family would have been a wonderful accomplishment."

"Technically, Oberyn would qualify." He hums in amusement. "He had not taken his vows, obviously. He was bored easily and could not keep out of people's beds." He glances towards you and wonders if you know of Oberyn's other proclivities.

“My husband’s desire to have a bed full of all sorts of women and men alike does not keep him from assisting his brother in running the country, thankfully.” A fact which might not be true in other parts of the continent, and at that you merely shake your head. “He values the time he spent studying with you, Ser.”

His pat of your hand turns slightly fonder and he basks in the compliment with delight. "He was always a curious mind. Intrigued by the most unusual things. Poisons were a specialty of his. He sent me a raven once." He guides you towards the large library of the Citadel, maesters in training hunched over books as they copy them carefully, the script neat and precise. "Sent me a formula for a tonic that helps a mother with her birthing pains. Marvelous thing. Unlike other tinctures, the lady kept her full faculties without the torturous pains."

"I am told he developed it for his paramour," you explain with obvious pride. "Ellaria has born him four daughters and he takes every chance to see to her comfort. Most especially during the pains of delivery."

"Yes, I thought it was something like that." He muses, smiling at you as he guides you towards a large section of books that are roped off. "If there ever was a man who needed a tonic for a woman birthing him a child, it would be Oberyn. I have no doubt you will give him many more."

"That is the hope, ser." For the first time, your hand instinctively floats over your midsection at the idea of perhaps already being with child. It would seem a miracle if the maester could tell so soon, but you would not think the knowledge impossible to achieve. After all, you have nothing like their vast knowledge, no matter how many books you have read.

Noticing the gesture, he smiles, sitting you down at a table and motioning Cal to another chair. "I will gather the volumes you seek." He promises.

"My thanks, Maester Rhodestone." The chairs and tables are nothing of luxury but large and ready for use, and you breathe deeply as you sit back amongst the innumerable volumes. "I do not know how long we will be, Cal. I hope this will not be terribly tedious for you."

“I do not think so.” He looks around the room in interest and bites his lip as he looks towards the books that are on display.

“Would you like to read, as well?” From conversations with Leyth you know that both she and Cal have a basic ability to read and write, but were not given the opportunity to learn anything beyond a child’s level while working for Petyr Baelish. The fact that you used to call him Lord of anything is disdainful to you now. “I am sure not every volume here is complicated.”

“That—” his eyes spring back towards you and widen in surprise. “You would allow that?” He asks in awe. He has not had much experience with being allowed to read.

“I encourage it.” Suddenly all the more grateful that you had heeded the wishes of your lovers and brought him with you, you nod to Cal emphatically. “There is a wondrous wide world of books to explore, Cal. Reading can be as pleasurable as it is educating.”

“I should like that.” He nods eagerly. “I wish that I could explain it, I feel like I am elsewhere when I have been able to read.”

“I know that feeling very well.” In fact, it has been your constant companion these many years. “My brother calls it my ’great escape’.”

He smiles and nods, happy that you understand him. For a long time, life was dreary and yet even now, he wishes to read. To learn. “Yes Princess, it is very much like that.”

To see him light up with it makes your heart glad, and you nod as well. “Then we will ask the maester when he returns, if there is not something for you to read as well.”

“Thank you, your highness.” He gushes gratefully. “Leyth and I have been considering buying some books we can read. If there is room to take them back to Dorne, that is.”

“I will make sure of it,” you promise him without hesitation. “No one in our household will ever lack reading materials or books of their own if they wish them. If you wish your own collection in your own room, then you shall have them.”

“Thank you, your highness.” He knows he is incredibly lucky. Most lords and ladies would not encourage learning amongst the servants.

“I am very glad you came with me today, Cal,” you hum as you see the maester approaching again. “Very glad indeed.”

“It is my greatest honor serving you and the prince.” He bows his head respectfully. “And your lovers.”

“What is an honor is not always a pleasure, and so the opposite is true as well. But thankfully we all seem to get on together quite well.” Or at least the growing pains have not begun yet, with the entire situation being still so new to you all.

“Leyth and I are very happy, possibly for the first time in our lives.” There is a sense of security that they have never had before and the fact that their bodies aren’t being demanded for any and all uses has sweetened their days. Cal wishes to be brought back to the Prince’s bed, but that is because he knows there is pleasure to be had there.

“I hope that continues.” You promise him sincerely. “I truly do.”

He smiles, knowing that you mean that just as Maester Rhodestone brings two heavy tomes over to the table. “These are to start you.” He grunts, setting them down with a thud.

"A very big start." The small joke makes the older man huff and half-chuckle, and you turn to him as you run your fingers down the binding of one large volume. "I wonder, maester, if you might have any volumes of children's stories or for beginning readers in your collection? The prince's man is eager to become a better reader and I would like to afford him every opportunity to practice."

Surprised by the request, the maester hums thoughtfully. “I believe we do.” He nods. “Let me go get them.”

"We appreciate every moment of your help, ser." The volumes that he has brought for you bear long and elaborate titles that speak to centuries of scholarship, and the heavy metal clasps on the edges click satisfyingly under your hands. Long bookmarks of lavish material have been left behind by nobles or royals past, but you are less concerned with what people of the past may have read and more concerned with the things that have remained secret. To have two soulmates at once is considered impossible - and until yesterday you had believed that. And yet here you are, with two sets of marks besides your own. Now you need to know if others before you have had the same.

“Is there anything I can help you with, your highness?” Cal asks quietly. While his reading skills are nowhere near yours, he would like to assist you in any way he can.

"I desire only your company, Cal." You had agreed with Oberyn this morning that you should keep the exact topic of your research a secret for now, lest word get out amongst the maesters and people start asking questions. There is no telling what might set the people of King's Landing on their prejudice against the Dornish or any of your party, and it is best not to arouse any suspicions during the trial.

“As you wish.” Cal wishes to ask another question, but then decides that it must not be important. If you or the prince wanted him to know, you would tell him.

It is abundantly clear, as you start to read, that returning to the trial this afternoon is going to be difficult. There are so many theories from various people throughout history on the origins of soulmates, how they are achieved, and how they are chosen, that you feel you may drown in the ink of these pages. Page after page of reading is all-consuming, and yet nothing so far has spoken about a person having more than one set of marks.

The maester returns with books for Cal and he settles down to read them eagerly. “Is there something you are looking for, Princess?” The maester asks curiously. “I’m sure I can assist.”

“Unusual cases.” Affecting an air of academic curiosity rather than betraying how much the research affects you personally, you offer the maester a smile. “The prince and I are rather intrigued by the unusual in every aspect of life.”

“Unusual cases?” His brow lifts and he hums. “Then there is a different book you wish to see.” The links of his chain clank as he stands.

“Is there some sort of record?” A listing of unusual soulmate cases would be remarkable, and ultra-rare. Exactly the sort of thing you would want to tell Oberyn about.

“Stories.” He tells you. “From the time of the dragons. Back when magic seemed to be everywhere and the old gods ruled the world.”

“The old tales often have a kernel of truth to them.” Rising from the table to go with him, you place a hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Guard our belongings, Cal. I will return in a few moments.”

“I must admit that I have not been back here in some time.” Rhodestone admits as he takes you back behind the ropes.

"Is it not a topic that interests most maesters?" You can understand if it does not. Abstaining from that part of life must mean that many do not think about their soulmates.

“Most that we council do not have the joy of knowing their soulmates.” He murmurs. “Rarely do political alliances match scars.”

"That is true enough." And what a miracle it is that your own life has suddenly broken free of that mold. What an unlooked for blessing.

“Here we are.” Rhodestone stops in front of a section of books and looks back at you. “Stories of soulmates.” He offers, plucking a volume from the shelf. “This should be what you are looking for.”

Anomalies of the Soul pronounces the unexpectedly poetic title, and the deep green velvet fabric bookmark lying between the pages sticks out near your hand eagerly. Its clasps are tarnished and neglected, speaking to untold years on the shelf, but it smells as welcoming and comforting as any other book in the realm. "Thank you, maester," you murmur, running your fingers over the delicately embossed leather cover.

“Would you like to take it with you?” He asks, eyes alight with mischief. “Technically it is not allowed, but I know Oberyn will not molest a book in his care.”

"The prince's love for books rivals my own, I assure you." Cradling the volume close to your chest, you have to wonder at its size. How utterly small it is compared to the enormous tomes that were first brought to your table to be poured over. Compared to the one in your hands now, those seem encyclopedic. "It will be returned to you in the exact condition that it is lent, ser. I promise you that."

“Then it will be our secret.” He smiles at you fondly, happy to aid the wife of the man he had secretly admired for blazing his own path. His intellectual abilities had also impressed him. Whatever he is researching, he must have good reason for.

******

Managing to take your place beside Raeden just before trial began again for the afternoon was a feat in and of itself, and you still have the small volume from the Citadel wrapped in cloth in your reticule when you join him. Cal had returned upstairs with your recommendation that he search the keep’s library for something to read, and the safety of knowing he has his mistress’s permission for the errand.

“Did you clear your mind?” Raeden leans over and whispers quietly as Tywin starts to speak again.

“I did. And gave myself more pleasant things to think on,” you murmur back, at the same time slipping your hand into his to lace your fingers together. Even a brief moment of courageous intimacy speaks volumes between the two of you, and you will take them all when they can be found.

His eyes flash with surprise and it takes extreme self-control to not glance around, to make sure no one had seen the intimate gesture. Instead he squeezes your hand and curls your arm around his further. “That is good, my love.”

“I brought Cal. To stay safe.” He should know that you needed his words and concerns even after seemingly being so confident, and you squeeze his arm gently under your fingertips. “Let us be attentive, love.”

Despite the fact that you are safe, curling close to him, Raeden is proud that you heeded his concerns. His eyes sliding towards your husband and he catches the dark, watchful eyes of the prince. Making him squirm slightly and lick his lips as he nods ever so gently towards him. Assuring him that all is well with you.

To say the trial is an unromantic place would be a gross understatement, but you sit arm in arm with Raeden for the duration. It is not intimacy you crave with the gesture but safety, and Raeden will always keep you safe. The sun has nearly fallen from the sky by the time poor Tyrion Lannister is drug back to his cell and court dismissed, and you stretch perhaps more than is ladylike. Even more unladylike is how you shrug at Raeden when he stands with you. “A grim business indeed.”

“Indeed.” He agrees as he steers you towards the doors. “Are you going back to the chambers? Spend time with Ellaria?” Oberyn catches his eye and motions him towards the front of the room where the small council is huddling together, obviously eager to convene.

“Only to change.” By the sun outside, you judge it to be very near supper time and frown. “I am to dine in my parents’ chamber tonight.”

He winces and immediately frowns. “My love…”

"We have nothing to fear from them any longer," you remind him softly. "You are a lord of Dorne and I am one of its princesses. They may talk until their faces turn blue, but they no longer hold power over our lives."

“Your mother is evil.” He reminds you quietly, knowing that he cannot stay long, but he needs you to be careful.

"She is exceptionally unkind." Is the way you rephrase it, but your lips curl into an amused smile. "Neither you nor the prince, nor even Ellaria is required to attend with me. I will weather the storm alone and return tonight to the arms of those who mean the most to me."

“I like that even less than the enduring her presence.” He frowns even more, nodding when he sees Oberyn impatiently motioning him over to his side again. “I must go, but you leave if she mistreats you.”

“I will do what I must,” you nod to him as he hurries away and you make your way for the staircase after nodding to your husband across the crowd. Leyth will be waiting for you in your rooms and then you are off to battle with dragons of your own.

******

“My lady?” As soon as the door opens, Leyth hustles forward. “Are you hungry? The kitchens have some partridge pies or some fresh roasted boar.”

“Unfortunately, I will have to abstain.” A shame, considering partridge pie is one of your favorites. “Will you help me to change, Leyth? I am expected to sup with my parents and do not wish to start a war over wearing a day dress to their table.”

“Of course.” The frown on her face accompanies a nod as she rushes towards the wardrobe where your dresses are hanging. “The blue or the yellow?” She asks you, wondering if you prefer to wear your husband’s colors.

“The yellow.” It will do well to remind them that you belong to a different House now. That you have your freedom.

“It will look beautiful on you. I have been working with Ellaria on her hair and there is a style that would complement it beautifully.” She tells you.

“I put myself entirely at your mercy and trust you implicitly.” While she is rummaging in your wardrobe you slip the book into the bedside table next to where you sleep, knowing it will be safe there until later.

Leyth preens at the chance to style you how she wishes, hustling over to you and helping you out of your day dress quickly. “There is a cup of wine here too.” She offers, having heard stories of your mother from the other servants in the keep.

"You are a blessing, Leyth." The wine is most welcome, once you are in your gown, and you sit down at the slim vanity to let her do her work. Leyth's own hair has always been beautiful, as is Ellaria's, and you trust her ability to style your own locks. "Have you had a pleasant day?"

“It has been rather serene.” She admits with a small smile. “The other servants were gossiping so I spent time with them, Ellaria was resting and did not require anything.”

"What was the gossip about today? I relish any news that has nothing to do with the trial." In fact, you would probably pay good coin to think of anything else right now.

“Apparently, there is a rumor that the Queen – Cersei, my lady, will be wed to Ser Loras.” Leyth shakes her head and scoffs slightly as she works on your hair.

"That seems..." The shock on your face is surely enough and you manage not to startle and interrupt Leyth's work. "An unlikely pairing, I admit..."

“Tis only a rumor, but it might be due to some other gossip.” Her voice drops into a whisper.

"Oh?" Your eyebrow ticks up at her in the mirror and you put your glass down right away. "And what would that be?"

“That the queen has been said to share a bed with…her cousin.” Leyth confides.

"I see..." That is a bit more than you expected, and yet it is not altogether outside of the realm of other rumours. You fold your hands in your lap and chew your lip for a moment before looking back up at Leyth as she does your hair. "You know well not to repeat such things to anyone outside myself, the prince, Lord Stone, Ellaria, and Cal. We keep each other’s council here in the Keep."

“I will not breath a word of that gossip.” She assures you. “Or any other. They are too quick to talk here. While I find it useful, it is also very dangerous.” She is used to hearing whispers in the brothel, but she knows the value of keeping her lips sealed.

"You have seen quite a lot in your time working elsewhere, I am sure." The brothel could not possibly be less talkative than the Red Keep. "The lives of nobles and royals are fetter for every conversation everywhere."

“Yes, especially now.” She hums. “They have asked questions about you. About the prince, but Cal and I have not said a word.”

“I am sure there is much curiosity about the prince who never intended to marry.” She works steadily as you watch her in the mirror, both knowing that you have to ask even though you trust her. “What is being asked?”

“Everyone is aware of the Prince’s…preferences.” She tells you quietly. “They have been asking about who has been coming and going from the Prince’s bed and if you share those same proclivities.”

“I know that you know enough not to answer.” While you had been the most frequent occupant of Oberyn’s bed since your wedding, you were certainly not the only visitor. Raeden’s reputation in the north could be damaged severely and his House undermined in its infancy if others decided that he had been given the title as a sexual favor. “You have my trust and the prince’s. We know you would not contribute to gossip.”

“I would not see fit to give them anything on anyone in your party.” She promises softly. “Lord Raeden and Lady Ellaria as well.” She might argue that she is not a lady, but in Leyth’s mind, she is.

The title does not miss your attention, and you smile softly at Leyth in the mirror. Ellaria might dispute it, but she is the only one. All the rest of you truly believe she deserves to be a lady. “You are very loyal and very clever, Leyth. I know you are more than capable of redirecting someone’s mind when they seek to be invasive, or distracting them when they get too close to something they should not know.”

“Of course, your highness.” She looks positively bemused by the idea that someone could get information from her that she did not wish to share. “While all the other servants are eager to share their lord’s and lady’s misdoings, I wish to protect you.”

"I know I speak for all of us when I say that we are grateful for that." It does not escape your notice, the kind of relationship that most nobles tend to have with those who serve them, and it has never made any sense to you. The people who help to take care of you day in and day out should be appreciated and valued, not stepped upon.

“Would you like me to accompany you to your dinner?” Leyth asks quietly. She has heard of your mother and knows that there might be trouble. “She will not notice a servant slipping away if you should require some assistance.”

"She would probably not even notice you entering the room beside me." You admit honestly, even if it is mortifying. "You would not mind it, Leyth? The whole ordeal sounds entirely more manageable with a friendly face nearby."

“I would be more than happy to help, your highness.” She promises, her hands falling away from your hair and she squeezes your shoulders gently. “You are a very kind woman and do not deserve any ill treatment.”

"I—" The earnestness of it brings warmth to your cheeks, and you lower your eyes shyly from the mirror, unused to hearing such a direct compliment. "...Thank you."

Leyth doesn’t respond, just nods and gets back to work. Making sure her lady looks like the princess that she is. There has been much change for her and she is determined to prove that Oberyn had not chosen wrong in wanting the couple to be bought from the brothel.

****** The walk to your parents’ chambers should not feel like such a funeral trudge, but each step feels horribly heavy as you approach. It will only be a single meal, something so relatively simple, yet you still find yourself offering Leyth only the meekest of smiles as she reaches to open the door for you. Inside you sweat nothing has changed from the day that you fled with Raeden at your side, and you cannot help but feel slightly bolstered to see that they have received absolutely no special favor for being the parents of a princess. “Good evening, Father.” He is sitting at the fireplace and catches your eye first, so he gets the first greeting.

“Pumpkin!” Your father groans as he stands from his chair, a delighted expression on his face as he rushes towards you. “I feel like it has been years since I have seen you. Given you a hug.” As oblivious to his wife’s machinations as he might be, he has missed his daughter from his table and has looked forward to tonight with eagerness.

“Affection makes you say so, I think.” But still you sweep forward to give him a hug, glad to hear the door gently click shut behind Leyth, you give the only parent who holds an ounce of your affection a warm embrace. “I am only in the suite just below you, you know. You could always come and visit any time.” The invitation would never be extended to your mother, but him? Certainly.

“I am sure that your husband would not wish for me to intrude upon your time.” He squeezes you tight and wishes he was brave enough to ask if the man was treating you right. “His elevation of Stone was a surprise.” He offers instead.

“Not entirely.” When he offers you the other seat before the fire you take it, motioning for Leyth to come into the room with you as well. There are plenty of places for her to sit politely nearby that are not right beside you. “Raeden has been deserving of a title his whole life. Noble blood runs in his veins, Father.”

“Yes.” Your father fluffs himself out and leans back with a sigh. “But he was born on the wrong side of the bedsheets.” He reminds you. “Bastards cannot be acknowledged in regards to title. The boy’s father could not give him his name.”

“And so Oberyn has given him reason to be proud of his own name.” You will not point out that it is something he could have done himself years ago, but you will not start a disagreement so early in the night. “They do not feel the same way about bastards in Dorne that the North does.”

“Yes…well, we know why your husband has a fondness for bastards.” He taps his finger on the edge of his chair and stares into the fire, wishing to ask a question but not knowing how. “Is he treating you well, daughter?”

“Yes,” you reply simply, unsurprised that your father has opened his mouth and your mother’s words have fallen out. “It is the entire nation of Dorne that feels differently than the North, Father. Not only my husband. His daughters are not a topic to be quarreled over.”

“I am not speaking of his daughters.” He murmurs quietly. “That woman is still here. Roaming the halls.”

“Ellaria.” Tonight is not destined to go well, you can feel it and it disappoints you more than you can say. “Her name is Ellaria, and she is a remarkable woman. More than that, she is my friend. So please keep any ill opinions you might have to private company.”

He frowns for a moment, unable to see why you would befriend your husband’s lover. It is not the way things are done. “Are you happy?” He asks finally, more concerned with that than your mother’s endless nagging complaints about the unusual issues with your marriage.

That, at least, softens you. And you end up with a dreamier smile on your face than you intended. “Extraordinarily,” you promise him. It is not for your parents to know what you discussed with the maester before you are able to talk about it with Oberyn, but you are feeling happier in this moment of thinking about it than you have in hours.

He smiles, watching you and he doesn’t miss the way that your hand slowly slips down to your stomach. Making his breath catch slightly and he nearly tears up. He’s seen woman do this enough to know what it means, even if you aren’t saying the words. “That— that is good.” He manages.

“How have you been spending your days in the keep?” Wanting to turn the conversation to something pleasant, you cannot imagine that your parents have been engaging in anything particularly high-profile so the topic should be safe enough.

“I have made some good trades.” Your father offers. “Met with other lords and discussed issues.” He shrugs. “I am missing home, but your mother wishes to see the trial.”

“With any luck the trial will resolve itself quickly and justly, and you will be able to return home again without incident.” Your own pang of jealousy for his ability to return to the Vale is tempered. There is nothing in the world now that would keep you from journeying on to Dorne, even if you may be a bit homesick in the beginning.

“Yes.” He can heartily agree and nods. “I miss the Vale. The crisp morning air.” He hums and slides his eyes over to you. “I do not suppose there are many of those in Dorne, but I know you will find a breeze.”

“I am looking forward to a warmer ocean. One I can swim in and not only view from my windows.” The frigid waters of the Vale are not for the faint of heart, and you never went to the shores with your brothers. Freezing yourself to death for a few moments of entertainment never sounded like fun.

“I enjoyed the waters when I visited when I was a boy.” Your father smiles fondly.

That makes you tilt your head, and you sit up a little in your chair. “I did not know you had ever visited Dorne.”

“When I was young.” He acknowledges, not sure why he had not told you this. “My mother went back to her father’s funeral. I was allowed to go, since I was not in training yet.”

“It must have seemed very exotic to you there, as a young man from the Vale.” The two climates and cultures, you are starting to understand, are entirely different. To the point where you cannot understand why anyone would willingly leave the warmth and freedoms of Dorne to live in the strict and cold North. But perhaps – you think with chagrin – none of them did come willingly after all.

“It was. Mother was happy to see her sisters again. The food and the dancing was such that I had never seen before.” He sighs softly. “Dorne is a beautiful place and you will love it as much as you loved the Vale.”

There is something sad in him at that confession, and you reach over to touch his arm gently. “I may settle into my new home admirably, but that does not mean I will not miss you.”

“Perhaps one day I will visit you.” It is unlikely, especially with the unrest of the kingdom, but he could wish for it. “I had always hoped to go back, perhaps find – well, never mind.” He had told his father that he wished for a Dornish bride, but he had made a deal with your mother’s father instead.

“You will always be welcome.” While you know Oberyn would have no tolerance for a visit from your mother, the difference between that and a visit from your father or brothers would be monumental. “Perhaps you would enjoy Dorne again with the same wonder you felt when you were young.”

“Perhaps.” He knows that he will never set foot in Dorne, although he would love to meet the child you carry one day. His grandchildren are the light of his life now that his children are grown. “I am glad you are well married, settled.”

“I think the prince is very different from what you and mother expected.” The sadness closing his face unsettles you, and you glance back at Leyth for a moment, glad to have the security of a supportive face nearby. “But he is a good man, and as upset as I was to have this marriage arranged for me, it has turned out to be a happy situation.”

“Your mother—” your father starts to explain how your mother had convinced him that strengthening the strong ties with Dorne was an advantage.

“Decided it was time you marry.” Your mother announces as she sweeps into the room. “You had been far too spoiled for too long.”

The warmth being sucked out of the room on her arrival is not a new or unexpected sensation, but it does make you sigh heavily in disappointment. The moment with your father had been very nearly sweet. “Good evening, Mother.”

Her eyes narrow on you, deciding if your tone was insolent or not and then remembers the way that bastard you are married to made her bend the knee to you. Her face brightens and she comes over gracefully, expecting you to stand. “I am delighted you could join us for dinner. Your father and I have missed seeing you at our table.”

“Have you?” Though you truly doubt it, you offer her a thin smile from your seat. “I would have thought you should be glad to have your spoiled youngest child taken care of by someone else for a time.”

“Your husband sees you to care, but we can enjoy your company.” Her gaze slides around the room and she tuts. “Although I see that your faithful hound is no longer at your side.”

“Lord Raeden is attending to small council business with the prince.” The fact that she immediately attacks your soulmate – one of your soulmates – should not be a surprise but it still makes you frown. “As the Prince’s Hand, he has many more responsibilities than he once did.”

“Prince’s Hand?” Her brows shoot up and she looks as if this is news to her. “I cannot imagine why a prince would need a Hand.” She looks to your father to see what he knows.

“Why does a king need a hand? Or a queen?” Your father postulates from his seat, when it is clear that the question is directed at him. “From what is said, Prince Oberyn seems to do as much ruling of his country as his brother does.” A fact which was new to him entirely when he heard it, and not necessarily a welcome surprise. He dotes on you, yes, but he has no idea how you will fare on the arm of an active ruler.

That was not the answer that your mother was looking for and she huffs in annoyance. “From what I hear, the prince has little time from his own interests to do anything.” She snorts.

“And what is it that you hear, Mother?” Expecting another jibe about Ellaria, your head tilts in her pointedly in her direction. “Please. I find myself most interested to know.”

Her eyes narrow at your challenge and her lips twist in anger. “Nothing, Princess.” She coos in a mocking tone. “If you can stand the servant’s whispers about who is coming and going from his bed, it is not my place to say anything.”

“Whispers are nothing when they are false.” It is easy to be serene about this particular topic, considering the only bodies that have been in or out of Oberyn’s bed since coming to the Red Keep are yours, Ellaria’s, and Raeden’s. And even then it has mostly been you. “You knew the man’s reputation when you betrothed me to him, did you not? So you could not have been too concerned.” The look you give her suggests that you know very well her true motivation was to make you miserable. It is only too fortunate that she has failed.

“I did not think he would bring his whore to King’s Landing!” She hisses. “Do you know what that does to our family’s name?”

Your father snorts and shakes his head. “Nothing.” He tells his wife. “She does not affect you at all.”

"Did you think that Oberyn would simply banish the woman who has born him four children after decades together, simply because I am a new and shiny toy to play with?" You scoff in a nearly identical sound to your father's and the shake of your head is the very same. "If he would be willing to give her up so easily then what would stop him from throwing me over when he found someone new again?"

“Men take their pleasure where they will.” She tells you dismissively. “But they do not flaunt it.”

"And you are upset that my husband remains loyal to his paramour because you consider that flaunting his pleasure?" For some reason, rather than making you angry, this turn of events does nothing but amuse you. A fact which you communicate to Leyth with a silent half-smile. "I suppose it makes no difference to you if I remind you that my marriage is not any of your concern."

Her spine stiffens and if looks could kill, you would be dead. “Someday you will have need of a place to land when he bores of you.”

"I have no doubt that you believe that." After all, how could she have any idea that you would gain his marks? That you would come to mean so much to each other so quickly? She was surely counting on the opposite.

Clearly dissatisfied with the way the conversation has gone and this air of confidence you have, she sniffs and snaps her head around. “Where are those no good servants?” She hisses.

"Savoring their free air, no doubt." You murmur aloud without thinking that the sentiment probably deserves filtering.

“What did you say?” Nearly breathing fire like a dragon herself, your mother spins around.

“You there!” Your father springs to his feet and points at Leyth. “Find where our dinner is.” He demands, hoping to dispel the tantrum about to come.

“Please, Leyth.” It was definitely not wise to say out loud, and you look to your maid with an apologetic expression. It will be best if she does not witness your verbal whipping so she can’t relate it back to Oberyn late, should he ask. “If you would.”

“Daughter, what does your husband say about the trial?” It’s a desperate tactic, but your father is interested to know.

“Nothing.” The question itself surprises you, but at least speaking to your father does not make you wish to throw things. “He is a judge and cannot express his opinion either way until it is time to pass the verdict.” Privately, of course, you know Oberyn believes Lord Tyrion to be innocent. But that is his private opinion.

“I admire a man who does not spread his thoughts to any and all who would hear.” He admits, smiling and nodding in approval.

It is a commendation, or at least an attempt at one, and you nod. Conversation is the only thing that keeps the room from falling into the quiet fury of your mother’s breathing. “There are times to make oneself heard, and times to keep things close to the vest, as they say.”

“Yes.” He agrees, ignoring your mother and focusing on you. “I am sure that he has dealt with things he would rather not since he’s been here. His animosity towards the Lannisters, for example. Yet from what I hear, he treats the little Baratheon girl like one of his own.”

“The child should not be punished for the sins of the parent,” you find yourself echoing your husband’s sentiment easily. “It is not Myrcella’s fault that the two families do not get along, and he would not treat her as though it is. That would be most unworthy of him.”

“And he gives Stone a lordship.” You father hums, considering it carefully. “Your husband is an oddly thoughtful man for one of such a fierce reputation.”

“Thankfully his thoughtfulness is not odd at all.” A fact which you did not count on but are grateful for. You might have even pushed the subject further but Leyth returns a moment later with another maid who bears a silver tray with wine and cups.

“It is about time.” Your mother snaps, glaring at the poor girl who had been sent to serve your parents.

The dear thing looks beaten down and tired, and you want to tell her that you know exactly how she feels but that will only cause another outburst. Instead you thank the girl when she offers you a goblet and ask her, her name.

“Shasu, your highness.” She mumbles quietly, her head bent down and her eyes on the floor.

“Thank you, Shasu.” The small act of kindness is the least you can do for the girl that your mother has obviously treated poorly.

“Welcome mum.” She skitters over to your mother to give her another goblet of wine, not wishing to hear another lecture on how lazy she is.

For a few blessed moments there is silence. Only the popping if the fire and the sound of people drinking punctuates — after you have the audacity to ask for a cup wine for Leyth as well.

“Why is your servant here?” Your mother turns towards Leyth with an air of disdain.

“My ladies’ maid is entitled to come with me wherever I go.” Admitting that you brought her for comfort would help nothing, so you do not even think of saying so. “Leyth is invaluable to me.”

“Then she can help that useless girl fetch our meal.” She insists, waving her hand towards Leyth. “Go on girl.”

“No.” Something inside you ripples to life, overtaking anxiety and fear and the inevitable shutdown that comes from being in your mother’s presence. “My ladies’ maid is not in the business of serving dinner to rude, ungrateful creatures.” Never able to defend yourself, or even Raeden, before this — suddenly something inside you has switched to life to defend Leyth. “And if you cannot be civil for the remainder of the night, to us as well as to poor Shasu, we will simply leave.”

For a brief moment, your mother looks like a fish that has been brought to the surface of one of the deep lakes in the Vale, mouth agape and lacking air. Even your father freezes at the words that come out of your mouth. “Gods old and new,” your mother slaps her goblet down and sends you a withering glare. “Is this how you speak to the woman who bore you?”

“The woman who bore me and has threatened to take my life so many times that I have since lost count.” You remind her, fully displeased with how tonight has gone. You had meant to rebuild bridges with your parents, not burn them. “Honestly, Father, I cannot fathom how you have stayed married to her so long when her disdain for you and for me is so clear.”

Your father sighs softly and seems to weigh your words heavily through the space of a few tense moments. He had known that his wife had never really cared for a daughter, she had made that clear, but he had never known of actual threats against your life. He would have never tolerated that. “I had remained with your mother because my children were not yet all settled.” He admits, ignoring the way your mother’s eyes widen in shock.

“Then surely now that I am married you can be free somehow?” A marriage is binding. Everyone knows that. But there are certainly ways of avoiding or separating from one’s spouse. “Mother you cannot be so shocked by this. Perhaps only that Father is standing up for himself, but not that he is unhappy.”

“He is not unhappy.” Your mother manages to find her voice and hisses quietly, her eyes shooting towards the door to make sure servants are not looking.

“Or perhaps you believe you must give him permission to feel anything at all.” Turning your head from her, you focus solely on your father for a moment. “Is there any way that I can help you, Papa?”

“I had planned on leaving your mother with her brother.” Your father admits. “On the way home.”

The room turns deadly silent, but you can feel something akin to disbelief and even joy bubbling out of your throat and you cannot stop the laugh. "I see you do not need my help at all." There is a kind of wonder in the feeling and you put your hand over your mouth to stifle the outpour of hiccupped giggles. "In fact, I think I might be quite proud to hear it."

“You cannot leave me with Fraham.” Your mother screeches as soon as she draws in a breath. “He is an imbecile and I am your wife!” Her face is one of stone cold rage and she picks up her goblet to throw it against the wall.

"You have haunted my life." Steady but growing, your father's voice can be heard above the crash. "I only regret that I was too blind to see it earlier."

“I made you who you are.” Her voice climbs octaves and she picks up the pitcher and hurls it at him. “My dowry kept your pathetic excuse for a house from crumbling and I gave you the sons you craved!”

Barely managing to dodge the projectile before it shatters against the wall and flies in every direction, he can only shake his head and motion for you to move behind him – the instinct of a father to protect his daughter still caught deep in his chest even if he had not always followed it. "It does not matter now," he insists. He had had dreams once. Lasting ones that stayed with him well after waking. And he had tried to follow them – but ended up with her instead. "But knowing you have threatened our daughter's life makes me all the more resolved. You will not hurt our grandchildren as you hurt our children."

"Gods curse you." She spits. "I lay under you as you rutted out your pleasure, filling my womb with your pitiful seed. Bearing your brats and saying nothing." She berates him. "Knowing you were wanting that Dornish whore you had been pining for." She cackles and shakes her head. "You don't think I knew? I knew. Stupid man, thinking with your cock."

As if that one thing is what lights fire beneath him, your father raises his eyes to his wife and seethes. "Marlee was my soulmate." He informs her with a rumble. "I loved her. Something I truly think you will never understand."

"Soulmate." She scoffs, the nasty, pinched expression one as if she had smelled a particularly foul odor. "She was a grasping, greedy bitch who just wanted to cause scandal, to shame me in front of the other houses in the Vale." She smirks slightly. "So when she came to me, begging me to release you from the arrangement, telling me about the bastard you had planted in her whore belly...." She shrugs. "I took care of the problem."

"Mother." It is your turn, this time, to take a step in front of your father as the air is knocked clean from his body. "What did you do?" Not four feet behind her, Leyth is standing frozen looking like she might flee the spot, but you motion ever so subtly for her to stay. You need her in the room just a little while longer.

"I did what any woman of the North who knows her worth would do." She tells you, not even slightly ashamed of her actions. "I paid one of the soldiers to take that Dornish whore out to the canyon and push her into it." She admits, a haughty expression on her face. "That way my betrothed would focus on the importance of his impending wedding."

"Leyth." Turning your eyes to your maid, her name comes out in stony resolve. "You have heard the confession and will make sure to tell the prince that it was given of the lady's own free will?"

"Yes, my lady." Clearly terrified but understanding the importance of what is about to happen, Leyth nods once.

"Go and find him, and bring him here with Lord Raeden to arrest my mother," you direct her without hesitation. "No doubt the prince will want to settle the confessed murder of one of his own subjects himself, and I will inform Queen Margaery that we will require a cell to keep her in."

In her rage, your mother had not even considered that you might try to have her arrested and she scoffs. “Do not be foolish.” She hisses. “The prince will not care about single whore who died before your brothers were even born.”

"I think we will let him decide that for himself." As quickly as you can, the effort to crowd your mother backward toward a door that is either a room or a closet is the best thing that you can do for now. Simply contain her until Oberyn and Raeden can get here. "Father, I need you to help me now. Leyth, go!"

“You killed her.” Your father chokes out. “My Marlee? She was expecting?” The news of his soulmate’s demise and her carrying his child is a shock and his jaw clenched in fury as the reality settles over him. “You bitch!” Rushing forward, your father grabs your mother and draws his hand back, bringing the palm of it down against your mother’s cheek with a sharp crack. “You cursed bitch!”

"Father!" There is no point in claiming that the slap is not deserved, but it does not help the situation any. For now the best thing that you can do is attempt to wrench open the door handle in the wall where your mother is being pressed and wrestle her inside of it. To know that she has actually had someone killed makes the threats she made against you all the more terrifying, but there is no time to dwell on it now.

For a moment, a dark, satisfying moment, he considers wrapping his hands around her throat. Choking the life from her evil body until the light leaves it. Instead, he holds steady as she tries to collapse onto the ground and as soon as you open the door, he shoves her inside the small, windowless room that served as a chamber pot room.

"That was not on the list of things that I was prepared to do to deal with Mother this evening." You admit, holding the door shut very tightly while the maid – Shasu – scurries across the room to provide you with the key that will fit in the lock and keep her inside. With your heart beating out of your chest and lightheadedness threatening to take over, you reach for your crumbling father and hold on tight. "I am...so horribly sorry, Papa..."

In a sight that you have never witnessed, his lower lip trembles and his eyes squeeze shut. “It is why I wanted to give you time.” He chokes out. “To find your soulmate.” He staggers back a step and drops to his knees, mourning the lost love he had thought abandoned him for so long. “I— I thought she had returned to Dorne.” He tells you as he sways where he is kneeling. “That she couldn’t stay when I was marrying another.”

"Papa." Down on your knees on the rug beside him, there is nothing to do for the moment but offer the little comfort you can. "I—" But what can you say besides how sorry you are? How your mother evidently ruined his life and then attempted to ruin yours as well? How she stonewalled your brothers into arranged marriages and how you might finally understand why he never stood up to her. It was grief that made him small compared to the endless evil of the woman he married. "I cannot imagine how terribly you feel. I am truly sorry."

“I—I never knew. I never knew.” He moans softly, shaking his head and stares down at his hands for a long moment before he looks up at you, devastated. “How could I not know?”

"What marks did you have from her?" Even as you ask it, you can feel the two sets of marks carved into your own body like stone. He must have something. Otherwise how would he have known they were soulmates?

“She— she did not have any scars.” He gives a rough chuckle, remembering finding it so odd at the time. Eyes closing as he recalls examining her body. “She bore mine.”

"Then..." You sigh softly, reaching to hold your father's hands in yours. "You could not have known. If..." Drawing a deep breath, you look up at him and offer the most supportive expression you can muster, even with tears in your eyes. "If you never wore marks from her then you could not lose them. It is not your fault." The person whose fault it is, is screeching in a cupboard some six feet away. "To hear what she has done in the past, I am shocked that Raeden or I still breathe air."

“Raeden?” Your father frowns and looks up at you in confusion. “What does Stone have to do with you? Did she attack you and the boy defended you? He should have told me.”

"Papa..." Shaking your head gently, you squeeze his hands in yours and sigh. "It was...it was years ago that we found out but...Raeden..." A sigh escapes you, as if your mouth has trouble even forming the words to him. "We discovered that Raeden is my soulmate soon after he saved my life," you murmur quietly. "Somehow Mother found out. That is...that is why she was so insistent about marrying me off. Or one of the reasons, I suppose..."

If it is possible, your father seems to wilt even more right before your eyes. His tears leaking out of his eyes and flowing down his cheeks to disappear into his facial hair. “I failed you, pumpkin.” He chokes out. “I—I didn’t know.” He promises you. “Your— she said you had no marks.” He would have never married you off if that was the case. “If I had known…” He squeezes your hands tight. “I would have let you marry him.” He promises you. “Despite what others might have said, I know what it is like to want your soulmate. I would have blessed the marriage.”

Somehow, you know he would have. You have always known it deep in your heart. But now - on the rug as you wait for the other two most important men in your life to arrive - all you can do is wrap your arms around his shoulders and hold your father close to you. "It is not for wishing on now," you promise him, producing the handkerchief from your pocket to wipe his tears. "I am happy in my marriage, although it is not what I expected. And I cannot say how deeply sorry I am that you have not been the same."

“I had to endure.” He tells you sadly. “For you. And somewhere along the way, I lost sight of why I was staying.” He turns his eyes towards you, pleading with you to tell him the truth. “Tell me you are not saying what an old, foolish man wishes to hear. Tell me Oberyn pleases you and cares for you? Even if it is just by leaving you alone?”

"Oberyn loves me." To say it out loud is something divinely light that you had not expected, and some of the heaviness leaves your chest immediately. "And I love him. We neither of us looked for it, or expected it. But we have found ourselves in it quite naturally." There is a stray tear that he has missed wiping away and you catch it with your thumb. "And he does not deny me the chance to love Raeden, either. Mother's cruelly intended plan for my misery has backfired entirely."

Your father frowns slightly and shakes his head. “Your husband does not— he lets you be with your soulmate? Take him as a— a lover?” He whispers it quietly and even though he should chastise you for such a thing, he cannot. Not when he knows the love of a soulmate. Even now he yearns for Marlee.

"Papa, I think what Oberyn allows and encourages might turn your mind on end." It is not meant to be teasing, but still you cannot help smiling even slightly. "His Ellaria is his soulmate, and I have Raeden. We do not keep each other away from their love. Only add to it." You could try, if you dared, to explain the extraordinary extra set of marks that you carry, but you have no idea how to prove it to him without your husband and paramour by your side so he can see the marks for himself. Besides, you do not intend to tell him before even Raeden knows.

Barking out a laugh surprises him and he pulls you into his arms. “Then perhaps I did not fail you.” He sobs, holding you close and thanking the gods old and new that your mother’s evilness did not affect you any more than it did.

“No life is perfect, Papa.” To claim otherwise would be foolish and untrue, but you hug him fiercely there on that rug. “And the life I lead now would not make everyone happy. But it makes me happy.”

That is the scene that Oberyn finds when he bursts into the chambers, Raeden on his heels and both of them carrying weapons. Leyth had found them coming back from the small council meeting before they had ever reached their rooms and your husband curses himself for allowing you to come alone to visit your witch of a mother.

“Gods be praised.” From the space you occupied on the floor, you gladly let Raeden help you up and embrace both men at once. “Did Leyth tell you all?” With your mother still shouting and screeching herself hoarse in the closet, you can only hope that she is tiring herself out in her anger.

“She said your mother killed a Dornish woman?” The prince frowns, looking between you, shaken but obviously okay and the crumbled and broken man at your feet. Raeden’s arms around you tighten, knowing the danger you have faced from your mother.

“To put it simply? Yes.” The support of having both men here now makes it feel significantly easier to breathe. “My father’s soulmate was Dornish. And with child. My mother ordered her murder so that it would not impede their marriage. I—” You look between them helplessly. “I did not know what else to do. She is locked in the closet under the threat that she will be arrested for what she has done.”

“You all witnessed her confession?” Oberyn’s eyes widen slightly and he looks from you to Leyth to your father.

“We did.” Your own eyes move between the three men surrounding you to Leyth and back again. “Admitted of her own free will. Which is when I sent Leyth to find you.”

“You did the right thing.” He promises, looking towards your father. “Your wife is going to be put to death, for the murder of your soulmate. If you wish to plead for her life, now is the time.”

Put to death? It is your eyes that widen and not your father’s, though the shake of his head does increase as Raeden helps him to his feet. “I am told now that she has threatened my daughter on many occasions and even you, ser.” Knowing what he knows about Raeden Stone now, his heart is heavy with regret in many more ways. “How should I defend her? How could I?”

Raeden looks shocked and his eyes dart over to you, wondering if you had told the man why she had threatened him. Despite your mother being cruel and callous, he doesn’t think that you would want her to die. “Perhaps death is too easy a fate for her, your highness.” He tells Oberyn.

Of anyone, you might have expected that you would plead for the life of the woman who birthed and helped to raise you, but it is Raeden. Loyal and good and noble Raeden. “What are you suggesting?” It is true that you do not relish the idea of more death, but you cannot exactly send a woman to the Wall.

“Being isolated would be a worse than death for a woman who relishes control over others.” He explains to you and Oberyn. “Perhaps a life of service to others would be a more fitting.”

“I would not even let her be near to a family,” you admit, surprised by how sick the thought makes you. Your own mother’s treatment of children is something you know only too well. “The life of a septa toiling with her hands in a holy house might be the closest chance for learning humility.” Your eyes turn to Oberyn, the fire in his eyes surprisingly less fearsome to you tonight though more ferocious than you have ever seen. “But would my father still be tied to her?”

“If she is taken to the holy house to serve the seven, it would be as if she had been sent to a nunnery.” Oberyn muses, seeing that you don’t want your mother to die, despite the horrid treatment she had dealt you. “Your father’s vows would be voided because she would be vowed to serve the new gods.”

The path seems clear to you, but it is not your choice. As much harm and hate as has been dealt upon you in your life, the decision is not yours. Nor is it Raeden’s, nor anyone else’s. “Papa,” you place your hands firmly on your father’s shoulders and will your eyes to stay steady. “It is your decision to make. Marlee was your soulmate, and it was your child.”

Your father sighs and he bites his lip, looking away for a moment and then meeting your eyes again. “For all her faults, she is your mother. That alone is the only reason I would say that she is not to die.”

The only sound in the room for a long moment is your mother’s screams of protest from the closet. If she could hear the extent of your conversation she might not be so violent in her screeching, but who knows. She might consider the life of a septa to be tantamount to death. “There you have it.” Looking back to Oberyn, you nod ever so subtly.

“Then I will talk with Tywin and we will have your mother shipped off.” He knows that there does not need to be a public trial, not for her, and the less is said, the better. Oberyn reaches for you and cups your cheek. “Do you wish to see her one last time?”

“I will not be surprised if she tries to lay a hand on me, but…” The locked door rattles and you sigh softly but eventually nod against his hand. “My brothers may hate me for this, but they have not seen the sides of her that I have. I will at least say goodbye.”

“She will not touch you.” He promises and Raeden nods, stepping forward. “I now can protect you from her and I will.” He vows softly.

Half of Oberyn's body blocks you from harm when Raeden steps forward to turn the key in the lock, and the wall-like strength of the man you love now seems even more appropriate. Forever your soulmate though no longer your bodyguard, Raeden steps forward to brace himself so that even if the women charges when he opens the door – unlikely but not impossible – he will be able to catch and restrain her.

“How dare you all!” Your mother is breathing fire, although she steps through the door as the picture of outraged decorum. “I have never been so mistreated in all my life.”

"Perhaps." You stand safely behind Oberyn and look her straight in the eyes. "But we have been mistreated for all of our lives."

“You got nothing but what you deserved.” She counters, sending you a withering glare.

"And now so will you." Whatever she may think of you, it does not matter now. Your crime was falling in love with a man below your status. Hers is a very real murder. There are consequences for that. "By ruling of the Crown of Dorne, you have been sentenced to life in the sept for your crimes. Your fortunes, titles, status, and family name are forfeit. It will be, for all the world, as if you never existed at all; and you will devote the years remaining in your life to serving the gods." Actually passing the sentence is a heavy, uncomfortable sensation, but it seems more right coming from you than from Oberyn. More deserved. "Do you have anything to say for yourself before you are sent to take your vows?"

For a single heartbeat, astonishment flashes over her face. As if she never expected to be punished for her actions. “I am your mother.” She insists before she looks to your father. “Your wife. I have stood by your side and bore your children for the past thirty years.”

"Which is why I asked the prince to spare you from death," your father tells her honestly. The darkness in his eyes – their murky melancholy through all of this sadness – has deepened again and he looks so much older now that he ever has before.

She frowns and shakes her head. “You would have never been satisfied. You would have never built a life with me if she had been in the picture.”

"We can never know." He admits sadly, and he looks to Prince Oberyn with resignation written in the creases of his face. "Thank you for showing mercy, my son. You are as good a man as my daughter says."

“I am much worse than she knows.” Oberyn promises him, shooting your mother a cold glare. “And I can promise you that if you ever threaten my wife again,” he vows to her. “It will be the last breath you take.”

******

Ellaria is lounging in front of the fire with Cal when the four of you return to your chambers, and she frowns immediately. “What has kept all of you?” She asks, turning her head to survey your group. “You look utterly exhausted.”

Raeden sighs and moves over to the table with the wine and cups. “Her mother.” He tells her shortly, as if that would be the entire answer.

“What has the horrible crone done this time?” She asks, face immediately morphing into something more sympathetic.

“Confessed to murder. Been arrested. Sent to the sept.” Each sentence is short but they seem to drag forever as you speak them and shuffle your feet toward the nearest place to sit. “For as many times as she threatened me, I did not truly think she was capable of it…”

Her eyes widen and her gaze shoots to Oberyn, seeking conformation of your comments. He nods once and Ellaria is scrambling to her knees and opening her arms. “My dear, sweet princess, I am so sorry you have to deal with this news.” She pulls you into her embrace protectively.

Ellaria’s arms are warm and safe, and you burrow into her immediately. Too emotionally exhausted for tears, the most you can manage is to hold tightly to Ellaria and stare blankly. “And now Papa is wifeless, soulmate-less, and will have to tell my brothers that I had her punished…”

“She had herself punished.” She corrects you. “You showed her mercy that she never bestowed upon you.”

“My father is the merciful one,” you admit with shame. “I…I think I might have let her die, if the decision was mine alone. Purely from a lifetime of anger.”

“I would not blame you.” She pets your face lovingly. “No one here would. No one at all. Not if they knew what you had endured at her hands. The fear you lived with.”

“I wish I knew more than just her first name.” Not moving from Ellaria’s arms, you turn to find Oberyn and Raeden pouring four goblets of wine as Leyth and Cal disappear silently through a doorway. “All I know is that my father had a Dornish soulmate called Marlee who was expecting his child, and that mother had her killed so that she would not interfere with the wedding plans.”

Ellaria’s lips purse together and she sighs. “That is horrible love. Simply horrible.” Her hand rubs your arm gently and she continues to hold you. “Come. You are exhausted.” She glances up at her own soulmate and seemingly makes a decision. “We will all sleep together tonight. Comfort each other with our proximity.”

Your eyebrows are knit together when you look back at her, but this time you move quickly instead of your previous tortoise-like pace. Your head turns to look each of them in turn, naked hope shining in your eyes. “Would you all?” It is awful to realize that you feel like a child asking for a cuddle before bed, but the fact is that you feel safer and more cared for with these three people than anyone else in the world. “Please?”

“Of course, star.” Oberyn had planned on spending the night with Ellaria since you craved Raeden’s affection, but this had changed things. He knows the other man is also off kilter and he reaches out to caress your cheek and his lover’s. “We do not need to fuck. I want you to have the comfort and security of our bed tonight. All four of us will be in it.”

______

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[endless-summer-soldier]

cruel to be kind - chapter six

pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (90s college AU)

summary: it started with a dare. Bucky restlessly pursues Y/N, seeking just one date. as he chases her, he realizes she's different from she challenges him, so he starts to catch feelings. but it all falls apart when she learns about his initial motivations. based on 10 things I hate about you!

warnings: alcohol use, cursing

word count: 1.5k

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Y/N sat on a baja blanket, staring out into the ocean, wondering if he would come. Sam confirmed he was able to sneak Bucky the mixtape, but Y/N wasn’t sure that he had decoded her message. On the tracklist, she underlined different letters and numbers that read “Sat 2PM 7th St Beach.” It was subtle, which was her style, but she wasn’t even sure he would figure it out. Hell, he might not even have noticed the pattern. In her mind, it was almost like a test. If he didn’t decode the message, then things weren’t meant to be. 

She eyed the book sitting in her lap, willing herself to at least try to read to distract her mind. But everytime she finished a page, she checked her watch to see what time it was. It was now 1:56 and the weight residing in her stomach grew heavier. Who was she kidding, he wasn’t going to show up. This whole thing was stupid and she was kicking herself for ever thinking it was a good idea. She hated this feeling. This was why she pushed people away. Being vulnerable was the easiest way to get hurt. 

And now a tear was falling down her cheek. She was so in her head about things that she was crying. She quickly wiped the single tear off her cheek and laid back on the blanket, placing the open book over her face. She had to get her shit together. She would not be the girl crying over a guy. Y/N took in a deep inhale and breathed out of her mouth, calming her nervous system. The oxygen was all she needed to clear her head. Her decision was made.

She stood in the sand and tossed her book in her bag. She folded up her blanket and collected her sandals, trudging through the sand to the boardwalk.

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving already. I’m only a few minutes late, and for good reason.” Bucky stood in front of her, in his signature leather jacket, with two cups of coffee in his hands.

“What are you doing here,” she stated more than asked, adding a few more bricks to the wall that was guarding her heart.

“I got your message,” he smiled. He walked closer towards her and handed her a cup of coffee. “Figured we had some catching up to do,” he added.

She stood there, still processing this. He came. He figured out the message and he showed up. He passed the test. She hadn’t really thought through what would actually happen if he came. And now here he was, standing in front of her.

Before she could respond, Bucky stepped closer, taking the blanket out of her hands and splaying it out over the sand.

“Come on,” he urged her. She didn’t object, sitting down next to him as they looked out onto the ocean.

“I’ve never heard you this quiet before. You usually have a biting remark queued up as soon as you see me.”

“I do not,” she argued.

“See, that’s better already,” he joked, giving her shoulder a light nudge.

“I didn’t think you would come,” she admitted.

“You didn’t think I would come or you didn’t think I would decode your message?”

 “The latter is probably a bit more accurate,” she said sheepishly.

“I know it may seem like I’m just a pretty face, but I’ve been known to have clever thoughts every so often.”

His attempts at getting her to loosen up were moderately successful, but she still wasn’t willing to open up just yet. Luckily, Bucky had planned for this. He knew this conversation would take some work.

“Are you happy to see me here?” he asked.

She let out a sigh, “I am. I hate to admit this, but I missed you these past few weeks.”

Bucky placed a hand over his heart, “You missed me?”

She hit his bicep with the back of her hand, “Don’t make me say it again.”

“I missed you too. And all I wanted was to talk to you and explain things. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that.”

She merely nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“So let me start by admitting that I am a complete idiot and I probably don’t even deserve a second chance, but I appreciate you giving me a chance to redeem myself.”

“Good start,” she commented.

“I agreed to the dare just to get Zemo to shut up. And I think the only reason I really went for it is because you intrigued me. I always found you attractive but I never pursued you because…well honestly you don’t come across as very friendly.”

Y/N chuckled and he continued.

“And then when I first talked to you, it was like I had this need for you to like me. I wanted to figure out what made you tick, and the more time I spent with you, the more I liked you. I need you to know that everything I said was true and that the person you spent all that time with was the real me. The dare just gave me a reason to talk to you. These past few weeks I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I haven’t been eating, I’ve barely slept, knowing that I hurt you has been killing me. I can promise you, I will never hurt you again. I think I might be in love with you, and this is the first time I’ve ever felt this way so I’m still figuring it all out, but I will do anything to win you back. I’ll bring you breakfast every morning, I will carry all your books and walk you to class every day, I will give you my car. Whatever you need, I’ll do it. Just please, give me another chance.”

She was quiet for a second, processing his words. 

“Could you, like, say something?” he asked nervously, struggling to read her expression.

“I’m thinking,” she responded. “Did you rehearse that?”

He was confused by her question, but answered anyway. “I mean I had points I wanted to hit on. I think I may have strayed a little bit towards the middle but I think I ended strong.”

She gave him a small smile, “Do you really mean it all or are you just telling me what I want to hear?”

He took her hand, “Y/N, I’m not here to bullshit you. I mean every single word. You are the world to me.”

“You used the l-word,” she commented. Bucky found it cute that she couldn’t say love. 

“Yeah I wasn’t planning on saying that, but it’s true. I do love you.” He ran his thumb up and down the back of her hand. She was quiet again, thinking through her response. She never took this long to respond, usually she went with whatever popped into her head. Bucky took her hand and placed it to his chest. “Do you feel that? How fast my heart is beating? It gets like that every time I’m around you. And my stomach always feels like there’s a million butterflies fluttering around in there. You do that to me.”

“I love you too.” It fell off her lips so easily, Bucky thought he must have misheard. 

“You do?” he asked in disbelief. She bit her bottom lip and shyly nodded her head, trying to hide the smile on her lips. He lost control. He lunged at her, essentially tackling her down onto the blanket as he squeezed her into a tight hug. When he pulled away ever so slightly, his face hovered above hers. 

“Are you gonna let me kiss you?” he asked. She simply nodded and his lips were on hers, making up for their lost time. It almost scared her, how easily she fell back into the kiss. Her hand found his jaw as she held him close, not wanting him to leave her vicinity. This was the moment she’d been waiting for and it didn’t disappoint. The spark was there, the longing was there, the love was there. And in that moment she knew that she never wanted to be without him.

They kissed and cuddled for a while and then they sat there together and watched the sunset. Y/N leaned back into Bucky’s arms as he kept her warm from the crisp autumn air. They talked about nothing and everything, trying to catch up on the weeks they had missed. And in that moment she knew she would never grow tired of this. He had somehow managed to thaw her frozen exterior and taught her that love was worth the risk of pain. 

As it started to get darker, they packed up their spot on the beach and headed back to the boardwalk. She knew she wasn’t leaving his side tonight. She’d spent too much time away from him and she wasn’t ready to separate just yet.

“Keys please,” she said, holding out her hand. 

“Oh are you driving?” he asked skeptically.

“Well yeah, it is my car now,” she replied easily.

Bucky leaned his head back, “Of course, how could I forget.” He placed the keys in her open hand, before wrapping his strong arm over her shoulder and pulling her in close to kiss her temple. 

[redfoxwritesstuff]

Sunflower: Book 1, Chapter 1

Tom Hiddleston x ofc (Mia Sull) Chapter 2 Masterlist Series Rating: M Chapter Warnings: Mentions of sexual health items, alcohol use, Nudity Series warnings: Sexual content, alcohol use

RPF Note- This is a fictional version of Tom Hiddleston. I have and will continue to play with the timeline of his career. All characters are fictional. Out of respect for the actual Tom, I have fictionalized his family members beyond the most basic details as well as as past romantic entanglements. Please do NOT take this romantic work of fiction as disapproval of his current relationship. He appears happy, has a family and I am happy for him. I have a hundred and one fictional versions of him in my head, I don't need the real life man single.

Summary: Las Vegas drew in people like him. Heart broken, lonely and rejected while his ex married someone else. Here he could be anyone though, flying under the radar of his skyrocketing fame.

Las Vegas was home to people like her. Lonely, broke and with the weight of the world on her shoulders. There was never enough of anything except stress. She was one of the countless faces that lived in the shadow of the glittering lights.

Two worlds collide in a drunken night neither can remember. What do you do when what happens in Vegas is a legally binding marriage contract between two strangers?

Chapter One

Shrill ringing cut through the silence. Slitting open her eyes, Mia regretted it instantly. The bright sunlight of the day stabbed her eyes without care for the pain it caused. Blindly, she groped toward the cursed sound of her phone ringing. Pawing at it, she dismissed the alarm or call or alert- what exactly she didn’t know and didn’t care at that moment. 

“Fucking hell…” It was hard to talk. Her throat felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton balls. Her head pounded and it felt like she was floating. 

“Agreed…” she could have sworn a voice mumbled behind her. She had had far too much to drink the night before and couldn’t trust her senses.

“Where are you?” The voice was a distant squawk. It turned out that it was a call and, rather than dismissing it she had answered it. 

“Fuck.” she said again, not registering much but dragging the phone to her ear. “What?”

“Breakfast. You’re missing from it. Where are you?” It was her sister Ashley on the other end of the call. 

Breakfast… shit. Breakfast. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Where are you?” Ashley’s voice was so loud. Was the phone on speaker or was the volume punishing her for the night before?

“Hotel room?” Mia said.

“Mandalay Bay.” The voice behind her offered slightly stronger. The bed shifted under the weight of another occupant moving. The voice earlier hadn’t been a figment of her imagination after all.

“Who was that?” Ashley asked.

“I don’t honestly know.” She admitted, not caring if she hurt the occupant’s feelings but trying to keep her voice down. 

If there wasn’t a thousand angry hornets surfing on shifting sand in her skull, it may have occurred to her that admitting that while in a hotel alone- she assumed they were alone at least- with a strange man was likely not the greatest choice. 

“Tom.” The mystery man supplied as if that actually gave her any information. Did he expect her to remember him? Did he remember her?

“He says his name is Tom.” Did she even know a Tom? She had no memory of a Tom. 

“I heard.” Ashley was not pleased. She was whatever existed below highly displeased was. “Who the hell is-”

“Give me ten to fifteen, kay?” Mia didn’t give her a chance to answer before disconnecting the call. 

“What the hell happened?” It took all the strength in her body to roll from her stomach to her back. Her limbs felt like they had been replaced with sacks of potatoes. How much did I drink?

The thought was cut off when she saw him. Light brown hair was lit up gold in the offensively bright Las Vegas morning sun, defining the curl to the short stands. He had a sharp jaw peppered with morning stubble and defined cheekbones. Most importantly, he was without a shirt. Hopefully that was all the clothes missing from him. 

He held his hand up over his chest, suspended and looking at it incredulously. A Simple gold ring reflected off his left hand. 

Fuck. Her leg brushed against his as she shifted to face him. She was very much naked and anything resembling pant legs did not cover his leg. Fuckity fuck fuck. She fucked a married man. When the fuck did she sink so low?

“I think we got married?” Tom’s voice had fewer cotton balls and gravel now as he shifted again in the bed. 

“Oh thank god, you’re not married.” The words slipped out in a breath before the real meaning of his words sank in and she bolted upright. “Wait, what? Fuck.” She yanked the too thin blankets up to her naked chest as soon as the overly cold hotel room air made contact with her bare breasts. In the process, she stole blankets from the mystery Tom. His long toned thigh and hip was reveled and yep- he was naked too.

“I believe we’re married.” The words came slowly, calmly as he watched her. Absently, he tugged the blanket to cover his hip and maintain his cover, though he seemed far less concerned with potential exposure than she was. Who could blame him? His chest and abdomen were toned. No wonder she fell into bed with him. 

But marry him? She wouldn’t. She didn’t know him. And they couldn’t, anyway. “There’s no way.”

“Shall we find out?” Muscles rippled and contracted as he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. His back was as nice to look at as the rest of him. Quickly, she chastised herself for thinking that way. 

This was insanity. 

Look away, she reminded herself, as he leaned down and slipped on a pair of boxers. Before she could stop herself, she noticed how they hugged the curve of his ass. It was possible he had a nicer ass than her. 

Tom rummaged around as she tried to make a gown out of the blanket before handing her a white button-down shirt. It was too large for her and clearly was his. “Your dress is ripped down the zipper.” 

“Turn around.” 

He complied, but a chuckle slipped from him as he did so. “It’s a bit late for that, eh?” 

“We don’t know that.” It was a lie, she knew it was. Her hips ached in a way that made it impossible to lie to herself, but she sure as hell would lie to him.

“The condom in the trash over here says we did,” or maybe lying to him wasn’t an option. “It’s okay if you don’t remember- I only remember bits. We shouldn’t have.” 

“But we did.” It killed her to admit that. “Look, if we were so drunk we couldn’t remember having sex, they wouldn’t have given us a marriage license.”

“You think?” It didn’t sound like he was listening to her as he rummaged through some papers that were scattered on the floor. 

“I know, Tom- that’s your name, right? Look, these sorts of things happen in movies and books. Sure, you can walk into the clerk’s office and get a marriage license damn near 24/7 and walk out with a license within 30 minutes, but they’re trained to look for people too damn drunk to make that decision.”

“And what if I just found the paperwork?” When she faced him, he was looking at her intently and holding a stack of papers in his hand. 

“No.” He pulled the papers from her as she reached for them, eyebrow raised. 

“You don’t know me?” His whole demeanor changed with the question, body becoming rigid.

What the fuck sort of question was that? “Should I?”

“It doesn’t’ matter.” Sure, he was hot, but what the fuck was with that ‘do you know who I am?’ shit? But he seemed to relax with that answer. He didn’t look like a mafia throwback at least. 

When she reached for the papers again, he let her take them. She didn’t exactly have the right clothes on to try and climb the man to steal them if he had decided to be childish. The official papers were all there. Everything looked legit and the yellow carbon copies were present with the official white sheets missing. 

“Fuck me.” 

“I would make a joke, but I suspect now isn’t the time.” Tom cracked a slight smile, but she only returned a glare. 

“Not the time.” 

“So, are we married?” 

“I think so.” She wanted to puke. It wasn’t fair. She was so hung over and yet the adrenalin was letting her think through the shifting sands in her brain. There wasn’t anything she wanted to do more than puke in the moment, yet her mouth was dryer than the desert. 

“Maria, correct?” Tom spoke softer. “The paperwork said your name is Maria?”

“Mia,” She corrected absently. She was only Maria when someone was mad at her. “Hiddleston? That’s my new name? What the fuck kind of name is that?” Realizing how harsh her words were, she tacked on a quick, “Sorry.” 

“I can’t say none taken, but we’re under stress, so I’ll let it pass.” 

Fiddling with the ring on her finger, she stood in silence for a moment before sitting in a heap on the bed. It wasn’t her intention to insult his name, but she hadn’t expected to have woken up to a husband.

“Here.” A glass of water waved through the tears she hadn’t realized were gathering in her eyes. “You’re probably dehydrated. I know my head is pounding,  yours surely is too.” 

“Thank you.” She wasn’t aware of how thirsty she was until she took the first gulp of water to wash down the Advil he also handed to her.

“Slow down,” He cautioned, “or you’ll make yourself sick. 

Looking down at the last bit of water in the glass, she was silent as her stomach rolled. They had to do something. This shouldn’t have been able to happen. She couldn’t be married to a stranger. 

“We need to file for an annulment.” the words came out softly and silence hung in the air after. “The ring is pretty- hopefully it can be refunded. Do you think you picked it or me?” She was talking to fill the void in the room. 

“I did,” He sounded… something. Down. Perhaps the reality of the situation was weighing on him as well. “You wouldn’t have any part of picking it.” 

“You remember?” 

“Bits and pieces are coming back.” 

“You picked a nice one.” The ring fit her well, sparkling with promises fit for a princess she would never get to be. “Hopefully you can get a refund.” 

Silence again. There were no analog clocks in hotels anymore, but she could somehow still hear the ticking of a clock marking off the seconds in her soul.

“I can have Ashley, my sister, bring me some clothes and we can go get the paperwork filed.” The words were flowing out quickly, trying to fill the room. “We can get this taken care of and be done with it. You won’t have to see me again. I won’t make it dif-”

“What if we don’t?” Long nimble fingers that made her remember warmth twisted his simple band around his finger. 

“What?” Surely she didn’t hear him right.

“I was raised to believe things happened for a reason. The amount of things that should have stood in the way to prevent this- what if it happened for a reason?” He couldn’t be serious.

“So what, we just stay married?” 

“Well,” She cut him off. 

“We don’t even know eachother!” 

This was insanity. He was insane. Why would a man like him want to be married to some random woman he didn’t know? He looked like a goddamn god, surely women fall at his feet. She wasn’t special. Any woman could have fallen into his bed. It just happened to be her this time. 

“Hear me out,” He said. It was hard not to look at him. What woman wouldn’t want a tall, handsome man pleading with her while wearing nothing but his well fitted boxers? “Let’s take some time. Let’s get to know eachother. We don’t have to rush-”

“You’re actually insane.” In her exasperation, she flopped back on the bed. The hem of the shirt- his shirt- rode up her thighs, and she quickly sat back up and yanked the fabric down. “If we ‘take our time’, the window for annulment will close. Then-”

“Then we get a divorce.” He said it as if it was that simple. 

“Divorce means lawyers and court fees. I don’t exactly have shit to split but-” 

“I’m not concerned about my assets.” 

“How long do you want? A few days?” She ran her hands through her waves in frustration, but quickly yanked them down again as she felt the hem of the shirt creeping higher again. “I need some damn pants.”

“What about a year?” 

~~~~~~

Alcohol was burning in his throat even as he called for another. Ice clanked against the cold glass. Lights and sounds blinked and clanged around him and yet, thanks to the insulation, it sounded distant. Condensation dampened his fingertips.

It was childish; he knew that. He was far too grown to be drowning his sorrows in a bar. It was risky too- with the attention and influx of fans, he could only dream of it wouldn’t be unexpected for someone to recognize him. 

“Excuse me?” A soft voice called behind his shoulder. This was it, he was found out. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m on per-” She slipped into the empty seat next to him. The bar was packed, and it had only recently been vacated. Though he looked at her, she had her eyes on the bartender.

“Washington apple?” She ordered.

Brown waves cascaded down her back. Were they as soft as they looked? The scent of flowers clung to the surrounding air. 

“Mia!” The bartender knew her. “Shouldn’t you have gone home hours ago?” 

“No point. I wouldn’t sleep anyway.” The glass slid into her hand with practiced coordination that gave away a history between her and the bartender.

“Why’s that?” He shouldn’t be listening in on their conversation, but the whiskey buzzed in his head, making it hard not to.

“AC is down. No one would get any sleep, anyway.” 

Tom downed his whiskey and ordered another. His ex may be getting married, but why should he spend that time alone?

“I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep here with no air conditioning.” 

~~~~~~~~~<3 Tag List:

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[klonoa-at-blog]

From: Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament Official Guide Book (Published by Famitsu/Enterbrain - 2002) (Pg. 140)

World 3: A world inspired by deserts and ruins. We were planning to create a course in the ruins, where cursed relics and guardians would appear.

(Image 1) The course was built in the desert, and the only way envisioned was to climb up on cords so as not to get bogged down in the flowing sand.

(Image 2) Buildings built by an ancient civilization. Some of them contain hidden treasures, but they also seem to be the home of ghosts and monsters.

(Image 3) He has been an archaeological excavator for 20 years. He is an expert in excavation, and he is loathe to have his land taken over by strangers.

(Image 4) The fortress of the ruins where the treasures lie was to be equipped with a huge weapon, although it was not functioning.

(Image 5) A mysterious figure watches over those who enter the ruins in search of treasures with an impish smile. Even so, she seems to be a guardian of the ruins.