#GUESS WHOSE SISTER IS JUST ARRIVING!!!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

macfrog · 1 year ago

Text

ghost

when i wrote jet, she was always a two-parter to me. two characters, two horses, two stories. equal and distinct. you guys loved the first part so much that i figured i'd leave it as it was, but recently i hit 2k and thought this could be a cool way to mark it. think of this as jet's sister story. walks right alongside her; same universe, same joel - but still very much a standalone. she can be read with or without her predecessor. thank you a million times over for all the love y'all show me on the daily. writing for you guys is so much fun. love you all the most. 🤎🖤 dedicated to @hellishjoel whose love for this pair inspires me daily

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

summary: your loyalty to joel - and your ability in yourself - are tested in st. louis. the reward might just be worth the risk

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) post-outbreak!joel, graphic violence, moderate threat, a horse is shot and killed (though i don't think i made this too graphic, more gutwrenching), reader and joel are separated, badass stealthy reader, near-SA (more intended than attempted), very protective & very violent joel, unprotected piv sex, like...bloodplay i guess? lil bit of consensual choking and spitting, creampie, possessive!joel, dom!joel but also softdom!joel, big fluff at the end, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), strong language. this fic is not sponsored by nike. lol.

word count: 10.1k

main masterlist

It’s been weeks. Weeks of just the two of you, shoulders brushing together, hips moving in stride. Horses parallel to one another, heads nodding in unison. The time you’ve spent without Joel since leaving the QZ amounts to a grand total of about ten minutes. What if something goes wrong? If he doesn’t cover himself properly? If you clear the building, come back, and you’re not only a horse down, but a partner, too? You’re standing by the hole in the wall, trying to convince yourself to duck under the bare brick when Joel’s urgent voice does it for you. “Go now. Now!” And you do.

St. Louis is quiet, still, but fruitless.

It’s been two long days of wandering around and you’ve found one building safe enough to camp in. One. The rest have either been inaccessible – boarded up, broken down, or otherwise already inhabited by infected – or Joel’s deemed them too close to the middle of town, too open, not safe enough.

Not safe enough in a world overrun by a brain-rotting fungal infection? you’d asked.

He shut you up with a sharp expression which you understood simply as: Enough.

It meant that you were wasting days, though. The night you arrived, Joel quickly combed the area surrounding the barber shop you were holed up in for supplies, and found none. He woke you at the crack of dawn next morning to set off, saying he didn’t like the fact nothing was around here. Meant someone had been through before you guys and taken it all.

Meant company, is what he was saying.

So you’d ridden around for – what, maybe three hours? You and Jet, following Joel and Ghost down cracked roads, under rusted street signs. Listening to the wind circle the buildings overhead, nudging traffic lights gently until they sang in distorted, off-key creaks to you. Always keeping your eye on the Gateway Arch between buildings, using it as some kind of north star – not for any reason other than you’d never seen it before up close, but when you mentioned this to Joel, his brows furrowed and he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

Which meant that no, you wouldn’t be paying it a visit anytime soon.

It was mid-afternoon when Joel pulled on Ghost’s reins, brought her to a halt, and held his hand out to you. Jet huffed to a stop, and you swear you felt her cock her hip angrily at him.

“Turn back,” he muttered.

“What?”

“I said, turn back. Ain’t nothin’ out this way.”

“Turn back ‘n go where?”

He jerked his head back in the direction you’d come, swerved the reins sideways and then clicked to the black-coated horse to set off. She nodded obediently, like she knew what he was thinking and she figured he was right, and began the long walk back to the barbers.

You muttered an expletive and Joel coughed a Ha, hearing you loud and clear. So you turned to silently praying for a rainstorm, for a horde of infected, for anything you could sling an I told you so in and whip it at Joel.

You followed him, though, deliberately a good few paces behind, knowing he’d keep twisting around to check on you, and letting him fucking do it. Asshole.

When you finally arrived back at your spot, the red sun low behind the buildings and bleeding skyward into twilight, you slept with your back to him.

He didn’t seem to mind. He never seems to mind when you’re distant. You wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even notice. He knows you’ll come back when you need something from him – want his words in your ear, want his body on yours, want…him.

The splintered sunlight through the boarded-up windows of the shop stirs you from your sleep. It wasn’t much of a sleep, despite Joel’s promise late last night that he’d let you lie for a little longer; knew you had a long day ahead if you were to get out of St. Louis, and he’d already drained your energy with the travelling yesterday.

You’d woven in and out of unconsciousness all night, dreaming of creaky farmhouses with clicking children inside, their skin torn and swollen and sprouting in swirls of pale white, singed with raw red and rotten green. And you dreamt of Joel’s shotgun blowing their moldy maws apart, blood and bone splattering across the floral wallpaper behind them.

You’re lying on your stomach, flat out on the floor with nothing but a worn comforter separating your fatigued body from the dusty tile. Joel’s out front feeding the horses on the street. You push yourself up, stretching your back, and a red-hot pain licks around your wrists.

“Motherf–”

You wince, falling onto your elbows, and your fingers link lightly around the red skin. The marks from Joel’s belt two nights ago still haven’t eased, haven’t cooled down so much as a degree. They’re still glowing, still burning, still painful.

Joel’s rugged face appears through a busted window. “Y’alright?”

“’m fine,” you mumble, turning over and examining the sores in the sunlight. The sting as your fingertips trace over the skin draws sharp tears to your eyes.

He feeds Jet the last handful of the hay you’d stocked up on and steps in from the golden morning to the dim light of the shop, dusting his hands on his jeans.

“You want more water on ‘em? Cold flannel?” he asks, avoiding the sight of your pained hands.

You shake your head. “Don’t think it’s helping.”

Eyebrows close, crease between them deep, he lowers himself with an achy groan and says, “We’ll find somewhere. You ready to go?”

You nod, tight lips blocking any words you think you’d probably regret later.

Joel helps you up, hands you a bag of beef jerky from his back pocket, and tells you to go get settled on Jet. He’ll pack up.

As you walk by him, he runs a hand from the crown of your head down to the nape of your neck. Gentle as air. And you almost fucking turn back. Almost catch his hand as it leaves your hair, almost wind your body into his. Almost.

Almost.

You follow at Ghost’s tail for another two hours, this time west instead of north. Joel turns to check on you more than he did yesterday; asks a couple times if you need more water, if you want any food. Even asks once if you need a break.

Each time, you reply with a flat, No. It seems to come from your throat more than your lips, more a grunt than an actual rounded word. Teeth locked tight around it, barely separating to let the sound through.

And each time, Joel turns back wordlessly. A mutual understanding; an unspoken agreement – as most of them are – to not talk any more than absolutely fucking necessary.

You spend most of the ride hunched over, your palms pushing heavily against the horn of Jet’s saddle. The sleeves of your jacket rolled up to stop them from brushing against your wrists.

The horse whinnies softly, and you reply to her as though she’s actually speaking. As though you can understand her thoughts, your forehead pressed lightly to the crest of her neck. You tell her you’re fine; tell her she’s doing a great job. You notice Joel’s jaw turn whenever you speak to her.

And then he whispers, “Hey,” and you lift your head, following the flick of his head to a tiny, lone pharmacy up ahead. You could fall off Jet’s back in equal parts shock and relief.

Joel winds Ghost along the road towards the building, stops by the curb outside it.

Its windows are smashed, broken glass decorating the sidewalk in front. There’s dried blood painting the white stone exterior, and empty shell casings dotted along the paved ground. You draw your eyes from the sight to look at Joel, and he’s already noticed them. He’s staring around the street, eyes darting from building to building, looking them all up and down.

The back wall inside the pharmacy is blocked, rubble and rafters hanging loose from a huge hole in the ceiling. Dusty insulation hangs between beams, and through the tears in the candy floss material, you can see the metal grate of the dispensing area. Joel sees it, too; notes it with a grumble and a click of his teeth.

“You stay here,” he tells you, dismounting Ghost.

“’n what if you get stuck in there?”

“Stuck in front of the collapsed ceiling? I ain’t gettin’ anywhere close to bein’ stuck. Stay put.”

You slide to the side, rubber-toed sneaker angling toward the ground to jump off of Jet. Joel swings back around and shoots you a look like fire on your skin.

“You got a death wish, or som’?”

“You just said you won’t get stuck. The hell’s gonna kill me in there?”

“Me, if you don’t listen to my damn instructions. Get back on the horse.”

“I ain’t off it,” you snap, a little louder than you intended. Sure, you want him to comfort you sometimes, but fuck, he pisses you off.

Joel stalks off without another word, head low between his shoulders. You hook your foot back into the stirrup and shake your head, averting your gaze to the other side of the street where the sight of an ill-tempered man-child won’t piss you off more.

The street is lined with stores and cafes, a bar on the corner with torn-up leather seats spilling out of the door like someone’s barricaded it. Your eye travels further down, where faded, moldy bunting ruffles in the wind, hooked around a traffic light.

There’s a red-brick building directly across from you, a truck with green tarpaulin parked out front. The doors to the building creak as they swing back and forth in the wind. The windows are still intact – surprising for this deep in the city. Other than that, the place looks pretty damn abandoned.

Ghost shakes her head, ears flicking. A heavy, shuddered breath jolts from her flared nostrils in the form of two white clouds, lit golden in the sunlight. She moves from foot to foot. You pat Jet gently, distracting yourself with the feel of her long, ginger mane.

You hum quietly, filling an eerie silence. Something to the beat of your heart, quickening with each second. Trying to calm the horses, calm yourself. Joel’s still wandering around inside.

You read an article once before the outbreak that said horses can smell fear on humans. It was for a school project. Said it affected their nervous system, like, made their heartrate pick up, though they never concluded whether it made the horses more afraid themselves or not.

Feeling Jet’s body weight shift from side to side as you swerve around atop her, analyzing every movement, every sound, every change in direction of the wind on this street, you figure you know the answer now.

Yeah. She feels edgy.

The wind picks up, carrying leaves across the broken road, fluttering by burnt-out cars. There’s a scuff from the store and your head shoots back to find Joel emerging from the shadows.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, giving the street a sideways look as he walks back over to Ghost.

“Nothing I need, or nothing at all?”

He lifts his hands to take hold of her. “Nothin’ at all. Place is ransacked. Whole damn city’s –”

It all happens in the blink of an eye. One minute you’re looking at Joel, watching his lips form the words, his fingertips coming to land on the leather strap of Ghost’s bridle, and barely a heartbeat later, there’s a deafening crack from across the street.

Ghost’s body falls to the earth like she’s nothing but an inanimate sack. Her front legs buckle first, her chest crashes down towards the smooth stone, and then she’s rolling onto her left side. She’s dead before she hits the ground.

Dust and dirt are thrown skyward as she slams down, head falling heavy and still on the sidewalk.

“Ghost!” you shriek, and then you feel Joel’s hands on the sleeve of your jacket – rough. Painfully squeezing, canvas burning against your wrists.

He’s gripping the material, hauling you down to him, only you won’t let go of Jet’s reins. You’re being tossed to-and-fro atop the now-panicking horse. Ghost is bleeding from her head; thick, dark blood spilling out like tar and dripping down the curb.

You scream at Joel, fighting his grip off, eyes never leaving the black horse. But then another shot fires, ricocheting off of the ground by the pharmacy window, missing his head by less than a foot, and you fall limp.

You let him drag you off of Jet’s back and hurl you inside the pharmacy, shoving you out of view and into the dingy shadows. When you turn, you realize she’s still out there, a chestnut-colored blur as she rears and spins, fleeing from the noise. You scream her name but Joel whips around and plants his palm flat against your mouth, smothering your cry into a muffled whimper against the curve of his calloused skin.

“Shut up,” he whispers, free hand reaching into his holster for his own gun.

You drag his hand from your face, dropping it. “Jet’s still out –”

“They ain’t aimin’ for Jet,” he replies, switching the handgun into his right. “They’re aimin’ for us, and they’re gonna be down here soon. I need you to listen to me.”

“But Ghost –”

“Baby,” he says, laced with frustration and desperation and panic. Your sentence falls flat on your tongue. “Listen – to – me. Now.”

You nod, tears forming in your eyes. The horse is still lying out front; you can see her past Joel’s shoulder. You think back to your agreement: Do as you say. He’s shaking you by the shoulders, forcing you to look him in the eye, repeating those words to you. Listen to him. Focus on him. Stay alive. You don’t survive this if you don’t wake the fuck up right now.

And then he has his hands either side of your face, shaking you back to reality. “Hear me?”

“What? No, I didn’t hear. I didn’t fucking hear!”

He wastes no time chastising you. Just says it again. Calm, clear. Every word its own sharpened shape.

“I need you to move, need you to get out of here. They’re across the street, in that red building. There’s probably a gang of ‘em, right? So we gotta take ‘em out.”

“Take ‘em out? We gotta fuckin’ run, Joel! We don’t even know how many –”

“You,” his voice sounds like he’s about to break, “are gonna head out of there.”

He points past you, behind an upturned shelving unit, where there’s a small hole blown in the side of the pharmacy. Unnoticeable from outside, though if the perps across the street have ransacked this place, they’ll know it exists.

“You’re gonna make your way around the street, head low, quiet, ‘n get in the back of that building. You got it?”

“What the fuck are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna distract ‘em. I’ll cover you, alright? Just do it.”

Just do it. Just fucking do it. I tell you what to do, and you just do it, because it’s me. Because you trust me, because we’ve kept each other alive this long.

Just do it. Because right now, what the fuck else are you going to do?

Your head’s still spinning. Pulse throbbing in your ears. Lungs hammering against your chest wall for breath. You can barely think straight.

“What do I do once I’m in?”

He’s kneeling down, swinging his backpack off of his shoulders. “Take – them – out. You’ve done it before, you know what you’re doin’.”

“Real noble of you, Joel,” you hiss, taking the spare gun he offers and slipping it under the back of your jeans, “sendin’ me in alone to kill who the hell knows how many fuckin’ guys.”

You pull the switchblade he picked up from that farm in Nebraska and flick it once, letting it glint fiercely in the light from out front, then close it and place it back in your pocket, ready to hand if – and when – you need it.

Joel’s loading his rifle, unable to meet your eye. He sniffs. “Do it quiet, you hear me? Sneak up on ‘em.”

You shake your head in disbelief, feet starting to carry you over to the side of the room. Powered by adrenaline only, letting go of any emotion that might keep you inside this stupid pharmacy. Forgetting anything in you that might convince you to stay glued to Joel’s side.

Yeah, you can fucking do it. You’re not a kid. You’ve been doing this long enough.

This was life before the QZ. You were in a group then, a collective of survivors whose only interest was staying alive. At all costs. And you got good at it. You’ve told Joel about it before – you were the first wave. Whenever you came across another group – no matter if it was hunters, smugglers, fucking FEDRA – they’d send you in, alongside Mila. The two of you lightest on your feet, best with a knife in your hands.

You started to find it fun, after a while. Thrill of the chase and all that. Creeping up behind them, dragging the blade along their throat, dropping them to their knees as they choked and gargled and bled out. The two of you could clear an entire building in ten minutes, not a single bullet fired.

Mila preferred puncturing them. She’d lift her arm and bring the knife down with the weight of her entire body, sinking it into their necks, under their jaws, sometimes through their fucking temples. You’d seen that girl do some pretty fucked-up stuff.

You’d seen yourself do some pretty fucked-up stuff. Stuff that’d have you avoiding mirrors for weeks.

And none of it scared Joel away. None of it made him think twice about setting off with you.

Certainly never made him think twice about sending you on what can only be described as a suicide mission, just to rid St. Louis of a few bandits.

Doing it isn’t the problem, though, is it? You haven’t had to do it in a while, sure. Joel takes care of you well enough that you barely have to look twice at a threat before there’s a bullet, a blade, or an arrow through it. And you’re not scared, either. Not of those guys across the street.

No. You’re scared of leaving him. Parting with him.

You’re standing by the hole in the wall, trying to convince yourself to duck under the bare brick when Joel’s urgent voice does it for you.

“Go now. Now!”

And you do.

You emerge into an alleyway, concealed from the street by a rusty blue dumpster. Overgrown weeds at your feet, you stay crouched and still until you’re sure there are no eyes on you from the windows overhead.

I mean, you’d be dead by now if there were. So that’s hopeful.

You slink around the jagged metal, slow, silent. More gunshots sound from across the street, and you know Joel’s tossed them a bone. Maybe he’s shown himself – a flash of his jacket or scuff of his heel as he settles to fire back. Maybe they’ve already killed him. Who fucking knows?

At the end of the alleyway sits a black gate, bent and contorted into an archway which separates you from the street. Still covered by knee-high weeds, you kneel down onto your stomach and peer between the wiry green plant to get your first scope of the street ahead.

There’s a long-abandoned nail bar on the right, a few doors down from that bunting you spotted earlier. And right outside it, cast in shadow from the awning: a chestnut horse, saddle hanging lopsided on her back. Waiting, patiently, watching the shootout before her.

You breathe a sigh of relief. Stay there. Stay right there.

Joel’s on his knees outside the pharmacy, crouched behind a Jersey barrier. He lifts his head every thirty seconds, fires one heavy shot at the windows on the top floor of the red-bricked building, and then ducks for cover when they send a burst of erratic bullets back down to him, pelting against the concrete.

You watch for a minute, studying the pattern, and then slip back between the weeds like a lion hiding in the bushes. When Joel fires at the window, you push yourself up and make a swift run for it.

There’s a truck in the middle of the street. Black paint scraped, shot, and sun-burnt off. You take three good strides, kneeling once you’re at the tailgate. You peer around the rear of the truck, huge tires flat and melted into the broken tarmac. You spot your opening.

A gray fence faded by the sun, a few slats missing from the bottom half, guarding an overgrown yard, and, sitting wide open: the backdoor to the building.

Bingo.

It’s an easy enough route. Looks almost like someone’s laid it out for you this way, a perfect path. You wait for your signal – Joel’s gunfire – and sprint over to the fence, back flush against the rotting wood.

You pull the revolver from your jeans and open the chamber. Five bullets. Not bad. You snap it back and adjust your grip on it, finger ghosting the trigger. And then you hear them.

“The girl’s still inside,” a voice grunts from over the fence. Your blood runs cold.

“He’s gotta run out sometime. What the fuck’s Nico doing wasting bullets?”

“How often do strays come through? Let him have his fun.”

Strays. Like a little pet name. Like it’s sport for them. It pisses you off, your adrenaline channeling into rage, white hot across the nape of your neck, growing into determination to put your knife through every single one of them.

So, you return the gun, favoring your switchblade.

Old dog, new tricks. Yadda yadda.

You bend down, peering through the gap like a dog searching for scraps.

It’s just the two of them. One, standing by the door; looks about six feet tall by six feet wide, buzzcut atop a puffy face, tattooed arms hanging loose by his side. The other, pacing around the yard; when his worn jeans pass the opening in the fence, you scan up the tall figure and notice dirty blond hair, scraped back from a gaunt face into a greasy ponytail.

“And if anything hears him? Runners? Fuckin’…we ain’t ready for that.”

Neither of them seem to have a gun. Scrawny doesn’t, anyway, and if Buzzcut does, it’s not in his hands. Which gives you a few seconds’ advantage.

Once Scrawny turns away, you slip through and hook your arm around his neck, holding your knife to the spongey skin under the ridge of his jaw. Buzzcut steps forward, hands reach into his waistband. Fuck.

“Make a sound, I’ll cut him.”

It’s not hard for your voice to fall back to that pitch, that same old tone. Muscle memory. Hushed, so no one inside hears; serious, flat, not a hint of fear. Even though this guy can probably feel your heart hammering into his back.

There’s still shooting on the street. Buzzcut steps forward, pistol between his fingers, silver reflecting the sun into your eyes. He’s unsure if he should lift it or not. Unsure if he should do anything or not. There’s panic painted across his face the color of crimson. He’s not built for this stuff, and he knows it. His free hand comes up, palm forward. Half of a surrender.

Not good enough.

“Put the gun down.”

“Fucking bitch,” Scrawny mutters, wrestling around, long legs bent awkwardly as he leans into your smaller frame.

Fucking idiot, you think. He doesn’t know that this is the fun part. This is why you chose the knife, and not the gun. Blade over bullets. It’d be too easy to rip his brain apart with the squeeze of a trigger. Too quick. Nah, you want to hear him. Want to feel him writhe against you.

You let the blade sink into his whiskered neck. Ever so slightly. He hisses and settles.

“Put – the fucking gun – down.”

“Patrick,” your hostage spits, “just do it.”

Just do it.

Patrick glances down briefly and then nods, eyes flitting back to you. Your eyes stay locked on him, your grip tightens around the knife, but you deafen to the heaving of the chest under your elbow.

Just do it.

Where’s Joel? Is he alive? His voice is ringing in your ears.

Just do it.

There’s a pause between the bullets across the street. Have they hit him?

Just do it.

Patrick’s gun hits the ground with a blunt thud.

Just do it.

And then you feel it.

Searing pain, hot as fire in your upper thigh. A sharp scratch just below your hip, teeth cutting through denim and flesh, then a rutting feeling, twisting and digging and fucking burning as the knife is pushed further and further. You let an angry groan pass your lips and dig your own blade deep into his throat.

His skin bursts open like a bag of water. You pull on him, letting him sink to his knees flush against your chest. Before he’s even on the ground, you’re lurching forward, retrieving the pistol and swiping your knife at Patrick’s outstretched hand. He gasps, clutching his split palm, and then backs away a couple steps.

This time, he lifts both hands. That’s better, fucker.

“Don’t – don’t gotta –”

“Shut the fuck up,” you cut back, staring him down while his buddy writhes at your feet, taking his last few gulps of air. Fresh, warm blood seeps into the grass. Your thigh is on fire.

You edge closer to Patrick, and Patrick edges further away. Until his back is pressed against the wall, his knuckles scratching against the brick; his own blood streaming down his wrist.

“How many are in there?” you ask, head nodding to the doorway, barrel of the gun pressed into his cheek.

He gulps.

“How many?”

“Th-three. Please.”

“Where?”

“One in the h-hall. Two upstairs. Please,” he says again, and you drop the gun, leaving a white ring in his skin.

Mila would sink it in deep, right into his neck. The trapezius. Her favorite spot. She’d just plunge the knife in, push until he collapsed, and then leave him to bleed out. But this is a big guy. He’s gonna need more than that to floor him.

“Alright,” you concede, stepping forward. “Since you asked so nicely.”

You pull your arm down to your hip, knuckles white around the handle and take a fistful of his shirt with the other. Draw him in real close, and angle the blade to the sky, shoving it up under his chin. Nice ‘n snug.

It glides through his skin like it’s butter, and you catch the butt of the knife in your palm, pushing further up. You watch as his eyes widen, his pupils focus on yours long enough to take the memory of your face with him – and then they relax, roll back to check out the metal intrusion behind them.

Patrick gargles, chokes on blood and blade, then gasps as you haul it back out, bright red gushing down his front.

His body folds, both hands come up to cup his torn jaw, and with one kick which cracks into his knees, he’s flat on his face, breathing in dirt and grass and…the blood of his buddy.

“You’re welcome, Patrick,” you breathe, limping over him to enter the building.

Shots are firing again upstairs. It’s dark, your eyes take a few seconds to adjust, but you’re in a derelict store. Place is empty, probably looted by these assholes.

Patrick told you there was one guy in the hall, which you assume is through the door sat ajar on your left. Patrick, however, was most likely a liar. And even if he was telling the truth, you don’t know what this place looks like. You have no idea when or where you’ll come across this one guy.

The only things you have on you are your gun and your knife. So you open the revolver again, your trembling fingers fish one bullet out, and you toss it, aiming for the sliver of light between the door and its frame.

It rattles through, rolling over the solid floor.

“Patrick?” a voice calls, and footsteps begin to approach. “Tucker?”

You duck behind a battered, empty shelf.

A third guy, long brown hair tangled across his shoulders, thick beard patchy with white and gray, pushes the door open and sidles in.

“Pat–”

You’re on him before he can finish his pal’s name, same way you jumped Scrawny – now Tucker, out there. Your blade glides across his throat and he buckles, much quicker than his predecessor outside did. You settle him face down on the tile floor, nodding to him as some twisted form of a thank-you, and slip out of the room, swinging down to collect your bullet as you go.

Patrick, as it turns out, was not a liar. The bottom floor of the house is empty. You’re in a long, narrow hallway. A bloodstained runner at your feet. There are muffled voices upstairs – roaring, cursing. The sunlight streaming in through the arch-shaped window on the front door draws you nearer.

Your breathing is labored, with stress, exhaustion, and pain. Your thigh throbs under your jeans, pain shooting like lightning from the wound anytime you put weight on it. You drag yourself to the bottom of the stairs.

More shots. You swear they’ve only been coming from this building for the last five minutes. Where the fuck is Joel?

You lift your foot hesitantly, hovering over the first step. Don’t fuck this up now. You line it up, applying your weight bit by bit until you’re pushing up off the floor with a whimper, balancing on one leg, bracing for the inevitable creak of the wood.

Nothing.

You’re about to step onto the second, when the door behind you bursts open. Light screams into the hallway, shining on you like a spotlight, and three huge figures stumble in the doorway.

“Wh–? That’s the bitch on the horse!”

You throw yourself up the stairs desperately, taking them two – three at a time, but a pair of fists are in your hair, dragging you back down to the man they belong to. You cry out, swinging around, and catch him square on the nose with your elbow. He swears, retreating only momentarily, before looking you dead in the eye, blood pouring down his lips.

“Fucking – cunt,” he seethes, arms darting out to reach up for you.

His attempt is short-lived, for a number of reasons.

First: you kick his chest before he can grab you, sending him hurtling back down where he came from.

Second: one of the two Patrick said would be up here is at the top of the stairs now, taking you by the shoulders and hauling you up.

And third: Joel just opened fire downstairs.

The bullets pelt around the hallway, coming from the side you just snuck in through. He must’ve followed you across the street.

The last thing you see as you’re dragged off into another room is the three of them ducking for cover, and then you’re being flung onto a cold, dusty floor, knocking the wind out of your lungs and the revolver from your waistband. You roll over and groan, staring up at two men standing over you.

One of them – the one whose vice grip dragged you in here – is big and bulky. Like a brick wall. You realize you’ve no chance of getting by him. His fists are clenched, face reddened, black beady eyes boring into yours. Then he lurches forward, steals the gun from the floor beside you, and points it at you. The safety’s still fucking on.

The other looks younger, but still built. Toned. His shoulders swell in the green canvas jacket he’s wearing, patches on the sleeves. Short, black hair, face sculpted and smooth, chin hairless. Lips pursed as he surveys you, tosses over what to do.

“Cute little game you were playin’, down there,” he muses. “Took out half my guys.”

“Wasn’t that hard,” you pant in reply, “you’re all fucking idiots.”

You can hear Joel fighting off the rest of them, grunts and growls of pain echoing up the stairs. You don’t know which are him and which are them, and it sends fleets of panic through your chest, tightening your breath.

“Sounds like your man’s losing.”

You laugh, masking your fear with a roll of your eyes, head leaning back. “I don’t think so.”

The two men look at each other. The black-haired one nods down to you, then turns on his heel. “Do what you want to her,” he tells Brick Wall, bored, and begins walking away.

A repulsive smile pulls on the man’s lips as he glares down at you. Putrid pink cheeks swell, eyes disappear. Your heels dig against the floorboards, beginning to push yourself in a dizzy haze backwards as his huge, beefy hand reaches down for your waistband.

Something of a scream, warped by the way your body so quickly jumps away from him, escapes your throat, but it only makes him laugh. Your hand slips up inside your sleeve, fingers clutch the cold metal handle of your blade. It flicks open under the fabric, and, just as the noise draws the attention of the man now fumbling with the button of your jeans, you take one good swipe and cut through his forearm. One clean slice, separating skin and soaking the tip of your knife in his blood.

He hisses, stumbles backwards two steps, clutching his arm. You throw yourself to your feet, backing into the corner opposite.

“Nico!” Brick Wall cries out, and the canvas jacket spins to face you.

You clutch your knife, hunched, panting. The room slowly tilts, resetting every time you blink, then begins rotating again.

Nico laughs, pulling a gun of his own and aiming it straight at your face. It’s a nightmare – two on one, both of them armed. But it’s better than what was about to fucking happen.

“Fucking – bitch,” Nico snarls.

“Y’all keep saying that,” you utter, eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun, “I don’t get it. I’m goin’ easy on you here.”

“You’re gonna fuckin’ get it,” Nico spits, apparently not paying enough attention.

The building’s silent. The fighting’s stopped downstairs. And there are no loud footsteps making their way up here, which means one thing.

There’s a quieter, deadlier threat on his way up.

A brutal shot fires from the hallway, taking your breath with it, and Brick Wall’s body flops to the floor. Bullet hole in his temple. Spray of blood across the wall. Only three beating hearts left in the building.

Nico seems to gasp, whether from fright or the way he lunges toward you, wrapping a tight, choking arm around your neck and holding the gun to your temple, both of you waiting for Joel to materialize for two very different reasons.

His figure creeps around the doorway, footsteps slow and soft. His eyes flit over yours, shoulders hunched, rifle aimed ahead. Your breath lets go in one huge, shaky gasp, feeling your muscles relax.

“I’ll do it,” Nico hisses, panic strung through his voice tighter than the bow of a violin. “One wrong move and she’s dead, asshole.”

Joel shrugs. “Do it.”

Nico doesn’t move. He shakes your body, pushes the gun harder into your skin.

Joel looks you dead in the eye. “Do – it.”

Your fingers run over the handle of your knife, lowering it until you have a good enough grip to lock your fist and tilt the blade, lifting your right arm and hammering it backwards, stabbing deep into Nico’s side.

Your head leans to the right as he screams out; he falls to the left. And Joel takes his shot.

Nico’s hand bursts open, blood spraying everywhere. The revolver is thrown from his grip, rattling against the floor as your fist takes one good swing across his jaw and then you fall apart from one another – you, rocking into the steady weight of Joel’s body, and Nico, collapsing against a desk.

Joel catches you in his arms and straightens you up, shifting you to aim his gun back at the threat – though there’s not much about him that warrants such a name anymore. He’s slumped against the dark wood, dark stain seeping through his shirt, head rolled back and groaning. One hand cupping what’s left of the other, blood snaking through his fingers and down his hand like vines on a tree trunk. He looks…pathetic.

Joel fires another shot at him without fucking looking; it lands in Nico’s thigh, and he screams. Mouth full of blood and loose teeth, it’s a gargled, drowned howl of pain.

“They try somethin’?” the fierce drawl asks you, brows low, eyes dark. You know what he’s talking about. The button of your jeans is undone.

You want to say, It’s fine, I’m fine. You want to tell Joel to leave Nico to bleed out. He’s the last one, he’ll be dead inside of ten minutes. You want to go, want to climb onto Jet’s back and let her carry your weak, limp body as far from here as her legs will gallop, and then, once she’s rested, further.

But Joel won’t hear any of that, you know it. Won’t leave this little son of a bitch to slip into a half-conscious drowse, the dripping of his own blood ticking down the seconds he has left while the sound of Jet’s hooves fading into the distance lulls him to hell.

He knows you. Joel. He can read lies on your lips like they’re words scrawled into your skin, so that’s a waste of time, too.

You nod. Joel’s jaw locks. And his eyes flood black like ink.

He hands you the rifle, pulls his arms out of his backpack, and paces over to Nico. The bloody, injured figure begins to back up, push himself further away from Joel, who’s reaching down for something.

“Look, man,” Nico heaves, “you gotta see it from our point of v-view. You guys came walkin’ into our territory, you – you…”

There’s the sound of metal dragging across the bare floorboards, vibration strong enough that it rattles your entire body. You turn away, figuring you don’t need to see him pummel a man to death with a broken pipe.

You hear it, though. Every grunt from Joel, every cry from his victim. Every time the pipe bludgeons into him, the wet squelch of warm flesh and blood meeting cold, rusting metal. You wander off to the other side of the room, closing your eyes.

It’s like a pattern – like the shooting from earlier. Joel sucks in breath as he lifts the pipe above his head, groans as he hurtles it down. There’s the blunt sound, a ding almost of the metal whacking against Nico’s skull, the splatter of blood bursting. And repeat. Deep breath as the pipe winds back – groan as it uppercuts through the dusty air, crack of bone breaking when it makes contact.

Finally, he stops. Takes three deep breaths. Drops his weapon. You turn.

The limp body lies at his feet, a dent the size of Texas in the globe of his skull. Olive skin now splattered red, face unrecognizable. Blood pouring out of somewhere – everywhere in his head, circling his body in a thin, fast-moving pool.

Joel’s staring at you when your eyes lift. Sweat glistening on his forehead, lips apart. Shoulders tight. You’re standing face to face, both of your breathing heavy and labored. Exhausted. And yet…you fucking need him.

You take one step forward and suddenly Joel’s advancing, too, hands out to meet you when you collide into him. Your fingers scram for his collar, ripping his jacket from his shoulders while he messily tears apart the waist of your jeans.

His weight bears down on top of you and he pushes you to the floor, following you down. The floorboards are dirty, coated in a thick layer of dust disturbed by the scuffle you just had, and glazed by the blood of those who lost. You sit up only long enough to remove your jacket before Joel’s pinning you down, unbuckling his own jeans and taking a grip of yours.

You flinch when he tugs on the waistband, and he pauses. Looks up, watches your expression twist. Then follows your eyeline, down to your thigh, where the fresh stab wound oozes thick, dark blood.

Joel slowly peels your jeans down your legs and over the gash. When they pool loose around your knees, you bend them, angling your broken skin in the sunlight. It’s swollen, the cut, reddened and raw. Flesh dragged back and forth, torn and ripped around the edges. You can’t even feel the pain of it anymore, only a prickling heat leading up to the ridges of your broken skin.

And so, when Joel’s fingers run through the air directly above it, and he mutters something about cleanin’ you up, you grunt. Straighten your legs. Pull him by the shoulders back down to you. Reply with a rushed whisper, a Hurry the fuck up.

And he listens; he unbuckles his own jeans, sags them low on his hips, and bends your knees at his shoulders. His cock is already stiff, bead of precum at his wide tip, which he dips between your folds to collect your slick, and then fists himself slowly.

Hurryhurryhurry “– the fuck up,” you groan, watching your wet glisten off the smooth skin of his shaft.

He smirks, then pushes straight in.

Your head hits the floor, eyes rolling with it as he fills you up. His face buries between your breasts, voice muffled by the material of the fabric when he lets out an open-mouthed moan. You both adjust to the feeling – the stretch and the tightness – and then, with a couple more shallow thrusts, Joel begins really fucking you.

He drags his forehead up to yours, sweat mixing where your skin touches. Your jaw clenched; you’re hissing every time he hits that sweet spot inside of you. Holding onto him by the shoulders as he rocks his hips forward, pushing you closer and closer to your first release.

Joel lifts his hand, placing it flat on the floor above your head to steady himself. Then, he quickly glances up at it, an unusual look on his face. You crane your neck and follow his eyeline to find his hand gleaming wet with blood. Bright red. Fresh.

It’s the guy he shot. Bullet wound peering out from the other side of the desk you’re lying next to; his blood has travelled across the uneven flooring.

Joel studies his palm intently, thrusts slowing down some. His face looks…puzzled? As if he’s never had to physically encounter the result of him and his bullets. As if he doesn’t know where to put his hand, now that it’s covered in that result.

You do, though. You know exactly where you want him to put it.

You take his wrist in both hands and draw his gaze down to you. The blood drips from his almost trembling palm down your fingers.

His expression changes – softens, when he sees you looking up at him, watching him from under hooded lids. And then it darkens, when you pull his palm flat against your neck, and the red fluid stains your throat.

You can feel the warm wet between Joel’s skin and yours – the same warmth on the back of your head, creeping through your hair as it seeps further across the floorboards. You’re both covered in blood and dirt, anyway. Joel seems to consider the same, and his grip tightens.

His thumb and forefinger pinch, cutting into your windpipe. Your vision falters for a second, Joel blinks out of focus, and a tiny wave of euphoria crashes over your body. A sick grin pulls across your lips, mirrored in Joel’s.

He releases you and you gasp, oxygen surging through your throat like a burst of water in a dried-up pipe. You let go of his wrists to run your blood-soaked fingers across his face, through his hair. He’s still fucking you hard, and you need something to ground you as white-hot heat pools rapidly between your legs, and a knot begins to tighten.

“You like that?” Joel grunts, driving his hips harder.

“Mhm,” you reply, mouth falling open in a silent gasp when his tip punches into your cervix. The edges of the world start to whiten.

“You’re mine, you hear?” he says through gritted teeth. “Belong to me.”

You’re nodding, throat tossing out an, Uhuh.

“Ain’t no one gets this but me, h-uh?”

Joel’s hand is back around your neck, this time taking either side of your jaw between his fingers, keeping your eyes trained on his. Whatever the fuck makes you do it – the look in his eye, silently commanding, or maybe your own fucking desperation – you’re not sure. But you open your mouth wider, rest your tongue on your bottom lip, and plead with your eyes for him to do it.

So, he does.

His jaw slackens and a bead of spit falls from his mouth into yours. He watches as it lands on your tongue and you run it along your lips, coating yourself in him, before swallowing it.

Joel groans, lets a staggered, “F-fuck, baby,” pass his lips.

You smile in return, filthy, but needy, and beginning to crash hard as your orgasm bursts through you.

He fucks you through it, pace never faltering, still stringing wet saliva between your lips as he kisses you. You pull away when it becomes too much, burying your head in his shoulder and biting down on his shirt.

“Yeah,” he coaxes you, “that’s it. Fuck. Nice ‘n tight, baby.”

As soon as the room starts to return to your vision, the feeling back in your body, you’re rolling him over. Ignoring the burn of the wound in your thigh, you push him back down and straddle him, his cock still deep inside.

You roll your hips lazily, fingers coming down to toy with your clit as Joel stretches you even more from this angle. He groans, hands finding home tight on your hips, head rolling back. He bucks his hips and your free hand steadies yourself on his chest.

“Faster, baby,” he says, trying to move you with his hands.

“No,” you hum, “we go slow. I want to go slow.”

He grunts, pissed off. Good. Keep him that way.

You begin to slowly bounce, pads of your fingers drawing circles over your swollen clit, almost hurting with overstimulation.

“Tell me what you did downstairs,” you whisper, eyes falling shut.

“Downstairs?” Joel asks in a broken voice.

“Mhm. What did you do to ‘em?”

He catches on. “Shot one of ‘em under the jaw.”

You shake your head. “Next.”

“Ch-choked one of them out.”

“No. Not him.”

You want blood. You want Joel’s fists wrapped around someone’s vital organs. You want the sound of your screams in his ears, whether they were really there or not, driving him to commit acts so heinous he won’t look you in the eye when he confesses them.

That’s what you want: him to confess them.

“One of ‘em had a Bowie…” he breathes, knowing what you’re looking for.

You fall forward with a deep moan. “That’s it. Him.”

“…hangin’ from his belt. Shot his leg, right above his knee –”

You moan again, sighing as you sink down on his cock and that feeling creeps over you again.

“– then took the knife.”

“He on the floor?”

“He got up. He – fuck – he stood up, ‘n I put it between his shoulders.”

“Fuck, yeah?”

“Yeah. Ripped ‘im apart, baby.”

You cry out in pleasure, bouncing up and down faster and faster the more the image replays in your head. You’re leaning forward, hovering over Joel as your skin slaps against his every time his hard length fills you. Fucking him to the thought of him slaughtering anyone who posed any threat to you. Those guys didn’t make it upstairs, you’re not even sure they got a good look at you before you were hauled away. But Joel tore them limb from limb at just the possibility.

“Did he – did he scream?”

“Yeah, he fuckin’ screamed.”

Your head drops between your shoulders, hands splayed on either side of Joel’s head, and his fingers knot in your hair. He pulls your forehead against his again, whispering into your mouth.

“Begged me not to do it,” he hums, and you’re thrown over the edge for the second time.

Your hips stop moving to allow space for your high; a second blinding, screaming orgasm ripples through you. You’re gasping now, fingers clutching for Joel, but he’s already moving again.

He slips out from underneath you and lets you down gently on your front, taking your hips and pulling them up to him as he positions himself behind you. And then, without a second’s hesitation, he’s back inside you, chasing his own high. Your back arches as he fucks you, chest flat against the floor.

There’s blood fucking everywhere. On your clothes, in your hair, on the floor beneath you, streaming down your thigh. The entire room smells of it – that suffocating, sickly sweet bite of iron. The bitterness so thick that it coats your lungs with every desperate pant of breath.

And finally, fucking – finally, all the adrenaline and momentum is brought to a climax when Joel releases deep inside you, and you feel yourself contract around him as a third orgasm pulses through you. Your cunt swollen, aching, you almost don’t feel it, but for the way your legs give as soon as he stills inside you.

He’s groaning, borderline fucking whining, before he draws out of you and slumps down beside you on the floor. You’re both staring at one another, almost afraid to touch each other – as if you’re made of glass. Fragile. Breakable.

Yeah. You’re his. And he fucks you like you’re his, like your only purpose is to relieve his stress, tire out his anger, but then…then he looks at you like this, the sunlight twinkling in his warm eyes, dust falling over him like snow. Then he shifts the hair from your face so he can take a proper look at you, study every detail on your face – the cracks in your lips, the curve of your nose. And you know you’re so much more than that to him.

Always have been. Always will be.

You lean over and run your fingers across his cheek, dried blood the color of wine all over your hands. Joel lies still, places a soft kiss to the pad of your thumb when it touches his lips. Your nails sift through his beard. His eyes close over, laying in the comfortable stillness as you trace his face, delicately drawing from his dark brows down to the patches of skin between the graying hair on his jawline.

He doesn’t move when you push yourself up and roll over onto his chest. Doesn’t flinch when you press your mouth to his neck, running from the bottom of his ear up to the tip of his chin.

And when you bring your lips up to meet his, he kisses you back.

His hand sneaks through your hair to the crown of your head and he sits up, rolling you onto your back and caging you underneath him, teeth grazing along your bottom lip, asking it to part. His tongue slips inside, wet and warm and comforting against yours. Your fingers lace at the back of his head, your own cradled in his hands on the hardwood.

It’s like he’s starving. Like he’s been holding off on doing this, for whatever reason. And now that you’ve been the one to open the floodgates – fucking, destroy them – everything comes rushing to the surface. Every time he wanted to, and didn’t. Every time he was buried inside you, and purposefully held his jaw apart from yours. Every minute he’s spent since he met you, without his lips on yours. It all comes rocketing up.

And before it gets too heated, before he begins winding that coil again, he’s pulling away. Lips leaving yours, noses bumping together as they part. You smile, and Joel breathes a laugh for the first time in what feels like weeks.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey.”

You glance down at his flannel: stained with dirt, with sweat, with blood. It brings you down a little from your sun-kissed, golden-rayed eutopia. You suck in a deep breath, and his finger hooks under your chin to lift your face to his.

“Should get that leg covered.”

You nod, and he pulls up off of you, letting you sit up. He wanders around the room, checking the backpacks of Nico and his guys, and pulls some gauze and a bottle of alcohol from a side pocket.

He kneels slowly by your side, offers you the white pad. You shake your head. He has to do it. You don’t know why, don’t know what’s stopping you from wrapping your own wound – something you’ve done hundreds of times by now. But it has to be Joel.

He tips the bottle over the dressing, dousing it in alcohol, and settles it carefully on the floor by your hip. You look at one another, a Ready? and a No, but do it anyway pass across your gaze.

The clear fluid seeps from the pad down his hands, thinning the bloodstains and dragging them in light orange streaks down to his wrist. And when your eyes are distracted, watching the stream of blood and alcohol, he presses the gauze to your thigh.

“Fuck – you,” you stammer, eyes screwing tight enough that you see stars.

“I know,” Joel breathes, and pushes the gauze down harder. Firmer. It shoots heat up your leg, flashes the image of that plank of wood named Tucker who stabbed you across your mind. Your teeth grit, the tendons in your neck leap.

Still holding the pad to your skin, Joel winds a dressing around your thigh. He knots it, gives it a little tug, and then sits back on his heels.

“Okay?”

You tilt your head, lift your eyebrows in form of a Yeah. A half-truth – it feels better to have it covered, but fuck is it stinging. You lift a roll of spare bandage and wrap your wrists.

Joel nods, and then passes you your jeans.

“We should go,” he tells you. Then, softer, kinder, “Gotta go back to the pharmacy. Still supplies in the…”

You push yourself to your feet, unable to listen to the end of his sentence. Ghost was carrying most of your food. The map is still in her saddlebag. Ammo, too. The thought of seeing her again turns your stomach, and Joel seems to figure.

“Why don’t you head out back, go get Jet? I’ll grab everything.”

You stare down at him. Your head shakes before words filter through it. You don’t want to be apart from him again. Not today, at least.

He seems to figure that, too. He nods once, then stands with a low grunt. He fixes his jeans, shrugs his jacket back over his shoulders, and his hand finds the nape of your neck again. He pulls you nearer him, your lips brush against the shoulder of his jacket, and then you split, grabbing your supplies and searching the room for any that these assholes might’ve left to you.

When your pockets are full, you limp at Joel’s heels down the stairs and outside, glancing down the street. The silhouette of a horse slowly meanders back over to you, head bobbing, hooves clicking across the asphalt. Show’s over.

Joel stops and waits for her to approach, lets you bury your face into her strong body when she reaches you.

You squeeze your eyes shut against her muzzle, your forehead between her glossy eyes, and hope the message finds a way through flesh and bone – strong enough and sincere enough to push its way through your skull to hers. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Joel’s hand leaves your back and he walks slowly over to the pharmacy.

Your hands run over Jet’s soft mane, combing her gently, reassuring her as if she’s the one covered in blood, bruised and pained. You hook a finger around her bridle and follow Joel.

As you slowly approach, he’s emerging from the shadows of the pharmacy, a backpack in each hand. He reaches the same curb you were stood on less than an hour ago, and looks up to check on you. Your stomach lurches, glancing down to his boots.

There she is. Black coat shining, chest not moving. Legs splayed out on the road. Pool of blood around her velvety soft ears. She seemed so lean, so fit and graceful when she was on all fours. Now, lying in a heap in the shade of some barren street, she looks huge and clumsy. It makes your eyes swell with tears.

You shift with Jet, turning her to avert her gaze. It’s stupid; she’s a horse. How would she know what’s going on? But then, the way she’s breathing – soft, quiet. It’s like – it’s like she fucking knows.

Joel does it gently – kneels beside Ghost, searches in each pocket for your belongings. He knows your eyes are on him. He pulls a box of bullets and the folded-up map from the bag, slips them into his jacket pocket. Collects the tins of soup and canned fruit in one hand, standing to roll them into Jet’s bag.

He turns to you. “You got your switchblade?”

You nod, and he holds his hand out. You drop the heavy knife into his palm, and he bends back down to Ghost’s side.

He uses your blade to cut the bridle by the corner of her mouth, slicing through the leather running from the bit up to the headpiece. Then pulls it apart, a single strap with a tiny buckle still attached, a silver hoop at one end.

He reaches for your backpack, drags it across the rough ground, and knots one of the canvas ties through the silver hoop of Ghost’s bridle. Triple knots it, to make sure it won’t budge. And then he leans back, surveys his handiwork, and turns to gain your approval.

You can’t do much more than nod, tears dappling down your raw cheeks.

When he’s sure he’s got everything, Joel passes you your backpack, slings his on, and then kneels by her side one last time. He places a gentle palm on her head, runs his hand down her muzzle. Sniffs.

A thank-you, you think. A Farewell, brave girl.

He stands again, turns back to you. Waits for you to decide it’s time to move on.

“I can’t do it…” you whisper, and Joel nods, taking a step closer. “I don’t want to leave her.”

And then you’re sobbing, and he’s taking hold of your shoulders and pulling you into his arms, and your cries are muffled by the soft fabric of his shirt. You wrap yourself close around him, bury deeper into his chest, and Joel tightens his grip. The steady beat of his heart pulls you back down, grounds you. You match your breathing with his and pull away.

You approach Ghost shakily, then crouch, fix her mane out of her eyes, scratch her silky ears one last time, and let her go.

Joel’s face is tight when you turn back. Eyebrows low. You bite the inside of your cheek as you pass him, and then hoist yourself up onto the brown horse’s back.

He pulls himself up in front and leans back into you, head cocked to wait for your signal. You snake your arms around his waist and feel a delicate hand rest on top of yours, interlaced on his belt buckle. His thumb traces your knuckles, and when you lean your ear between his shoulder blades, he clicks to Jet.

The horse swerves off, beginning your long journey out of the city.

----------

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outsideratheart · 2 years ago

Text

First Impressions (Alexia Putellas x reader)

A/N: Chapter 1 of the Legacy Series.

For most people the wave of Spanish air they feel when they step off the plane is warm and welcoming but for you it feels like thick smoke and every breathe you take makes it harder to breathe. The last time you came to Barcelona lead to the worse day of your life and since then the place your parents called home was nothing than a reminder of what you have lost. It is because of this that you hadn’t stepped foot in Catalonian city since.

Upon entering arrivals you are met with your driver holding a board with only your first name on it.

“Miss Y/N” the driver extended his hand.

“Just the one name, I feel like Adele” you joked.

The drive only took thirty minutes which you found impressive considering it was game day for a women’s football team of Barcelona. You looked anywhere but outside the window as you pulled up to the stadium. You could hear the fans before you opened the door, the sound and sight of them made you overwhelmed.

“Here, I thought you might want this” the man in the driver’s seat passes you a cap “your mother said you would forget to bring one”

You hated being predictable, you much preferred to keep people on their toes but in that moment you are grateful that your mother knew you so well.

“Do you want me to do a lap of the car park?”

“No, I just need a minute”

It’s just a football game. You’re here a fan, it doesn’t have to be anything more.

Following the signs to the family section you are sure to dip your head as people pass by. Sure it would have been easier to get private seats but then you would have to had let the club know you were coming and no way could you have gotten away without having a meeting with them, especially with the news your manager had given them a couple of weeks ago.

Once in your seat you notice a girl sitting next to you, she looked weirdly familiar but you know that you had never met her before. It is only when you watch the player’s come out for their warm ups to put 2 and 2 together. The girl had a striking resemblance to the player whose name was on the back of most fan’s shirts.

“Hola” The girl next to you says “I haven’t seen you at a game before. Are you here supporting a family member?”

“Hi. No, I’m not. I’m a friend of Lieke Martens”

“Are you a Barcelona fan?”

You could tell the girl was being polite but you just wanted to watch the game. You didn’t want anyone to know you were in the city and the more you talk to her, the more likely she is to recognise you.

“They’re a family team”

“You’re from here?” The brunette wouldn’t have guessed. You’re dutch accent wasn’t overly strong but you definitely didn’t have a Spanish tone.

“The Netherlands”

“You’re Dutch. That makes sense if you know Lieke”

Ok so she didn’t recognise you, maybe she didn’t watch any football games other than her sisters.

“I’m Alba. Alexia’s sister”

“Y/N. It’s a pleasure to meet you Alba”

“Just Y/N”

You only hum in response. She may not know you’re a football player but there’s no way she wouldn’t know your last name.

The younger Putellas lets you watch the game in peace. It is only when you react badly to one of the ref’s calls does she begin to pay attention to what you are saying and the way you are saying it. You hear her say your name followed by a tap on the shoulder but when you turn to face her you see that she is joined by an older woman. The way the look in her eyes changes let you know that she knows more about football than her youngest daughter does.

“Is this your first time here?” To anyone else it might be a weird first question to ask. Not what is your name, not how are you.

You can feel your palms get sweaty as a lump forms in your throat, one that you are quickly to swallow. When words fail you, you can only nod in response.

“Mama, this is Y/N. She is a friend of Lieke’s”

“A friend of Lieke’s” it’s the way the woman phrases her sentence that makes you feel a little bit guilty.

You shrug your shoulders slightly, a small smirk tugs at your lips.

“That’s what I said. She does know a lot about football though, she acts like Ale does when she watches a game at home”

You can tell that Eli want’s to say ‘that’s because she is considered football royalty’ but she bites her tongue.

The rest of the game goes in favour of the home side with them going on to win 5-1. A result which doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, yourself included but you don’t hang around for the final whistle. When the 4 minutes injury time gets announced you figure it the perfect time to make your exit.

“You’re leaving?” Alba says at you stand up.

“It’s easier to beat traffic this way. It really was nice to meet you Alba and—“

“Mama you never introduced yourself. This is Eli. Mama this is—“

“I know who she is” her words earn a look from both you and Alba although both for a different reason “Will we be seeing you back here soon?”

The older woman wasn’t stupid.

“I’m not sure” it was an honest answer. You has a decision to make this summer, one which could lead to you to calling the city your father loved home just as he once did.

“Well I hope I do and I know Alexia does too”

“Mama she hasn’t met Alexia”

You can see that Alba has questions but you couldn’t stay to answer them, you wasn’t ready yet.

Once again you say your goodbyes but just as you leave to turn back.

“If you happen to see Lieke tell her I’ll meet her at 9”

“I will” Eli says.

Alba looks back and forth between you and her mother wondering what she is missing.

The two of them wait in the car park for Alexia to come out and sure enough the dutch woman is by her side. What you wasn’t aware of is that you had been recognised by the team as the walked back into the locker room at halftime. They had heard the rumours but up until this moment that’s all they had been. Now though they wondered what the true nature of your visit was and if it meant something big was coming.

“So it was Y/N in stands with Alba?” Alexia asks Lieke.

“Alexia” the dutch woman warned her “She came here as a friend nothing more”

“But it could be more. You’ve heard what they’re saying”

They approach their cars which are parked next to each other. The captain hugs her mother and sister, both of them congratulating her on a good game and an excellent season as this was the last game.

“Lieke, Y/N asked me to tell you she’ll meet you at 9” as promised Eli passes on your message.

“She’s staying in the city but she hasn’t been back si—“

“She is leaving tonight but we are going for dinner. I’ll text you the address ss and if you happen to be close then I’ll introduce you”

“Vale”

“Alexia” Lieke turns to her captain “don’t bring up the rumours. As you said it’s been a while since she’s been here and she doesn’t want to talk about football”

You and Lieke have known each other for years as joining the senior Netherlands team at the same time. She knew that her captain was a big fan of yours and the prospect of you joining Barcelona was very exciting but you were very private and she could only hope her friend would respect that.

She would find out a couple of hours later that once Alexia has something on her mind then she had to voice her opinion no matter how many times she was warned otherwise. It is why when she arrived at the restaurant with a couple of the girls, albeit half an hour later than she was told, Alexia eyes search for you the moment she walks through the door but settles when she sees Lieke knowing that you won’t be far away.

Lieke watches as Alexia fidgets in her seat and cannot help it as small chuckle escapes her lips. Her captain was nervous and you weren’t even in eyesight.

“Not that I don’t like your company but where’s Y/N?” Alexia asks your national team mate.

“First of all you’re late Y/N is settling the bill although according to her she went to the bathroom”

“You said 9”

“and it’s 9:30. The Spanish may have a habit of being late but the Dutch are punctual”

Alexia turns around as she hears your voice get closer and closer. When you take a seat opposite her she is a loss for words.

“This a such a coincidence” you turn your attention to Lieke who you can tell feels a little bit guilty.

“Yours definitely wasn’t a face I expected to see in the stands today”

It was small talk and you hated small talk especially now because you could tell what it was leading up to.

“What can I say, I have a few days off so I thought I would come see Lieke before I fly to England”

“England?” Lieke asks. As far as she was aware you were flying back to Amsterdam.

“Viv invited me to an arsenal game”

“So you’re checking out potential teams”

There is was and it took less than ten minutes. You gave Lieke a look and in turn she mouthed an apology. She truly believed that Alexia would at least wait a bit before bringing it up.

Your move, your future, anything than included you moving away from home made you anxious and even though you had met these girls on the pitch you didn’t know them off it and this wasn’t a topic you discussed with strangers. It also didn’t help that Joan Laporta had been pestering you for the past couple of weeks and hearing Alexia try to pry you for information made you feel like they were in on it together.

“I’m visiting friends Alexia and I don’t talk business with people I don’t know”

Your response changed the energy at the table but still Alexia’s eyes never left you.

“C’mon Y/N, playing for Barcelona is your birth right. You belong here and the team would be lucky to have you. Imagine the fans, how happy they would be to wear a Barcelona shirt with —“

“Alexia, can’t you see you’re making her feel uncomfortable” Aitana whispers to her captain.

The young Catalonian was the only one at the table apart from Lieke that you would consider a friend. She has worked with the foundation for years, even coming to Amsterdam to do a few workshops there. In this time she never asked you about your father and you would never be able to thank her enough for that.

“Aitana it’s fine. She’s like most people I meet, she just wants me for my last name”

It was a sentence you said with a heavy heart and although you tried to play it off, everyone could hear the waver in your tone.

“Y/N I—“ Alexia instantly regrets what she has said.

“Listen Alexia, I like you up and until now you haven’t given me a reason not to. When Lieke first joined Barcelona she was nervous but she told me you welcomed her into the club and made her feel at home so I know you’re a good person. I don’t want to argue with you so let’s start fresh”

The brunette thanks the higher powers that she hasn’t put an end to this friendship before it even had the chance to begin.

“Start fresh, ok. I’m Alexia Putellas”

The table sniffles back laughter at the formality of their captain.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Y/N Cruyff”

#alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas one shot #woso x reader #woso imagine #woso one shot #Barcelona femeni one shot #barcelona femeni imagine #barcelona femeni x reader #espwnt one shot #espwnt imagine #espwnt x reader

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her-satanic-wiles · 11 months ago

Text

Masterlist ⛧ Lost in Translation Masterlist ⛧ Ao3

Words: 10.8k

Reading Time: 43 min

Warnings: angry sex, begging, biting, corruption kink, creampie, cum eating, cunnilingus, dry humping, fear kink?, groping, feelings of claustrophobia, hair pulling, low self-esteem, mentions of grooming (non-sexual), multiple orgasms, nipple play, pain kink, penetrative sex, PIV sex, possessive Copia, primal kink?, praise kink, pussy slapping, rough sex, semi-public sex, this is objectively filthy, unprotected sex (sash the dick to smash the slick, lads), vaginal sex

Taglist: @zombiesnips-blog @da-rulah @teenage-birt-dag @ellenokumura @thew0man @sodoswitchimage @the-real-eggplany @deathmimedream @love-is-all-you-need-13 @kadedoesthings @rosyerato @xshadyladyx @popiaswife @perpetratorwithaquill @punkiy50 @onlyhereforghost @kaijukimchi @copiaspet622 @jaymechaos @akayuki56

As the newly appointed Cardinal Copia struggles with the weight of a looming prophecy, a resilient scholar challenges the narrative, uncovering a conspiracy that reaches beyond the walls of the Ministry. The emergence of a forbidden love ignites a rebellion against a power-hungry Sister, whose thirst for control threatens to reshape the very foundations of the Church. Will the revelation of those schemes lead to liberation or plunge the Ministry into chaos?

Previous Part ⛧ Next Part

🔞 MDNI 🔞

Your conversation with Copia left you feeling perturbed at best. Something didn’t sit right with you. As the Ministry’s librarian and main archivist, you knew most of the prophecies that circled the Church - none of them mentioned the antichrist’s Prime Mover, not that you could remember, anyway. That prophecy ate away at you, gnawing its way into your brain like a worm fig fly burrowing into an unripe fig.

Arriving back at the library, you were bombarded by Aisha and Riley, both of whom had seen Copia talking to you when he should have blessed you. Both had their concerns, of course, worried that you’d fall back into some kind of relationship with him and wind up with your heart broken again, but when they heard what you’d learned, they were just as stumped as you.

“It’s entirely possible that you’re wrong about this, ___.” Aisha said, her tone hesitant but still as honest as usual. “I don’t understand why someone would base their whole lives around a prophecy that wasn’t accurate… or real.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” you replied, animated in your actions, “no one in their right mind would. I feel like I need to put on a tin-foil hat right now and go to my cork board, but I have read damn near every inch of this library. I’ve digested almost every single Satanic, religious text I can get my hands on. I’ve read all the prophecies we know of thus far - I just don’t remember this one specific one.”

“But,” Riley interjected, their tone just as measured as Aisha’s, “there are thousands of prophecies after all. You can’t expect to remember each one.”

“No, but I do expect to be reminded of them as I hear them. Of course, I couldn’t remember every single one in great detail, but I’d remember the gist at the very least.”

Aisha, “Well, there’s only one way to find out, I guess.”

Riley, “What can we do?”

“We? Bitch, I know you’re not dragging me into this stupid charade.”

“Look at it this way, the faster she figures out what the prophecy is, the faster she can move on and we can all forget this debacle.”

Aisha looked at you and clapped her hands. “Where do we begin?”

Well, that was the question. In a library filled with thousand-year-old texts, each with its own historical relevance and prophecies given by each author who just wanted attention or fame, where would one begin? When every book in that room carried mystical contents, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. So, you all chose a large, mahogany table and set that up as your base, comandeering each seat and preventing anyone else from using it or interrupting you. Then, you all searched for and grabbed any historical text in reference to prophesies or the antichrist and dumped them all on the table. How many books were there in the end? How many stacks had piled up so high that you’d created yourselves a small prison? 300. 300 ancient, scholarly texts that had mention to the antichrist and relevant prophecies.

Aisha and Riley took it in turns to manage front desk for you, but both of them took a stack of books and a notepad with them so that they could continue the research in their down time. You, on the other hand, remained at the desk, allowing your other work to fall behind so you could figure this out. It was like your brain could only focus on one important task at a time, and when you discovered that this was important, it ended up taking top priority.

Daytime became nighttime, and nighttime became hazy cycles of reading relics and skimming over pages full of prophecies that blended into one another like a jumble of misplaced words. As the light from the lamp flickered across the tattered covers of the volumes, the library filled with the smell of old paper.

There were open books all around you, their yellowed pages teeming with historical descriptions of apocalyptic visions, and mysterious symbols. The prophecy’s complex language mingled with the deep religious debate, creating a maze of material that seemed designed to confuse rather than educate.

You carefully noted every detail that even slightly referred to the prophecy in question, cross-referenced sections, and compared the subtle differences between translations. Notes strewn all over the pages, a disorganised collage of your efforts to put the jigsaw together.

You kept getting the feeling that you were chasing shadows as you dug deeper into the texts, reaching for something that was evasive and eluded you every time you believed you had a lead. There were creases on your cheeks from exhaustion and the weight of the old books pressing down on your shoulders.

You worked side by side with Aisha and Riley, who translated texts, brought you food, and consoled you when you felt that you could no longer take the frustration any longer. The three of you formed an unofficial partnership to take on the mystery surrounding the prophecy.

Nights became days, and you couldn’t tell which day it was. Every page you turned echoed the murmur of countless seekers who had gone before you, the moments merging into an invisible blur.

And then, in the midst of the seemingly endless search, a faint glimmer of recognition sparked in your mind. A passage, hidden within the dense verses, bore a semblance to the prophecy in question. The revelation struck like lightning, awakening a surge of determination within you.

“No!” You said, much louder than you’d anticipated.

Riley and Aisha snapped their heads to your direction (as did the rest of the library goers who were startled by your outburst.) “What?” Riley asked, standing from their seat and leaning over the desk at you.

“The prophecy Copia and Sister Imperator believes just doesn’t exist. It’s like it’s been conflated from an old antichrist theory from centuries ago. Listen to this, “‘the antichrist will be born on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. Only then can he come forth and do Satan’s bidding, bring about the end times and raze a new Hell upon this Earth.’ This prophecy was taken from an old Catholic text and whoever deciphered it left footnotes and opinions.

“The translator doesn’t believe that the antichrist would bring about the end times, not in the way Catholics believe. Armageddon won’t pass as a rain of fire from the sky and the destruction of the planet, but more like a sociological shift that will destroy the Catholic church and bring education to those indoctrinated by Yhwh’s Bible.

“What I’m getting at is that there’s no mention at all of a wife for the antichrist, or if the antichrist will even produce an offspring at all. In fact, the author seems to believe that this sociological shift will become the antichrist’s final act - ‘the antichrist will die at the hands of the non-believers, messiah’d in the same way as their saviour, for only death can bring the motivation of the masses to call for a change of the system’.”

“So why does Sister Imperator place so much emphasis on the ‘wife-with-three-sixes-in-their-birth-date’ theory?” Aisha asked, putting her book down and looking at you.

You shrugged. “Maybe she’s mistaken?”

Riley shook their head. “No. Sister Imperator doesn’t make mistakes - she bends the Ministry to her will to benefit her. She’s far too smart to make mistakes as big as this.”

“You think this is more sinister?”

Riley nodded. “Surely she must have said something to you the last time you saw her?”

You began to shake your head, eyebrows furrowing at how hard you were thinking back to your conversation with her. “She told me to never let them see what they’ve done to me.”

“That was after you saw Copia fucking another person. I’m talking about before, when you felt like you had to go see him in the first place.”

You tried to remember everything that happened during that conversation, but it had become so long ago that the details had become a little fuzzy. “She did say something a bit strange now that I’m thinking about it. She said something like, ‘we didn’t work this hard for the Cardinal’s career for it to fail’ but the ‘we’ was an ‘I’ until she corrected herself.”

“See?”

Aisha, “So you think that Sister Imperator has organised this whole thing? Nah, I’m not buying it. If she organised this then why didn’t she make herself Mama and be done with it?”

“Because,” Riley rummaged through one of their piles of books and flicked to a page, “according to the Emeritus lore… mythology… whatever… the Satanic Church runs as a democratic type of monarchy - we can have a say on who we want to run the Church, but they have to come from the Emeritus bloodline given that they are, supposedly, direct descendants of Lord Lucifer Himself.

“Now, up until he became head of the Church, no one knew for sure who Cardinal Copia’s parents were. The amount of interest Sister Imperator showed on the kid made everyone believe Imperator was his mum, but no one could be certain if Papa Nihil was the Cardinal’s father. Just because the Cardinal has the typical Heterochromia doesn’t mean it’s real. Remember how people whispered about the idea that Imperator made the Cardinal wear contacts every day? It wasn’t until he became Head of the Church that people started accepting the Cardinal’s lineage, because only an Emeritus can lead the Church. Sister Imperator is not an Emeritus. She can’t directly lead the congregation. But her son can.”

“This sounds unbelievable.” Aisha claimed. “If the Cardinal was an Emeritus, then why is he still Cardinal? Why isn’t he Papa?”

Riley thought for a minute. “Maybe because Papa Nihil is still alive.”

“Then surely Papa Nihil would be Head of the Church right now, since Papa Terzo passed?”

“After last time?” You asked. “Nah, he wouldn’t take up that position again. Why do you think Papa Primo took over while Papa Nihil was still alive? Even if Papa Nihil wants to be the Head again, I don’t think the Clergy would let him.”

“Maybe that’s why the Cardinal is still Cardinal,” Riley added, “the Clergy won’t let another son ascend to Papalcy as long as a Papa is alive.”

“Which is why Papas Primo, Secondo and Terzo died.” You said quietly. “She said, ‘we didn’t work this hard for the Cardinal’s career for it to fail’, and we know the previous Papas didn’t die of natural causes…”

“They had to die because they would have fought back against Sister Imperator and her wishes!” Riley exclaimed closing their book and dropping it to the table. “My head is spinning.”

“But she said ‘we’,” Aisha thought aloud, “who’s ‘we’? She couldn’t have done all of this alone.”

“Aisha’s right,” you said, “this had to have been a group coup, there’s no way one woman could pull off three murders and an ascension all by herself.”

Aisha, “Well, Papa Nihil is still alive, so we know he must have been involved somehow.”

Riley, “Who stood to gain from the Cardinal’s ascension? Who did gain from the ascension? Who’s new to the Upper Clergy?”

You, “Cardinal García’s new, he wasn’t around before Papa Terzo.”

“Cardinal Dubois and Cardinal Li.”

“Archbishop Müller was bragging about his payrise in the bar not three weeks after Papa Terzo’s removal back in Sweden.”

“Now Cardinal Al-Farsi was removed from his position in the Upper Clergy, and we know it was because he was actively against the removal of Papa Terzo.” Riley looked at Aisha, now standing wide eyed and frozen in her spot. “Aisha?”

“Sister Evelyn Chandler.”

“Who?” You asked.

“She’s due to be the Cardinal’s Prime Mover in all of this, apparently she has three sixes in her birth date as well. No one benefits as much as she does.”

Your world came crashing down around you once again, your brain ticking into overdrive as you remembered catching Copia rocking against the other woman in his office months ago. During the first and only Mass you’d attended since then, you remembered seeing her wandering into the Basilica behind Papa Nihil and Sister Imperator as a third, important member of the family, but your mind was hyper-focussed on seeing Copia for the first time in so long, you almost didn’t register her. Almost.

In all the time since you caught them together, your mind had been all over the place. If the whole Ministry was talking about Sister Evelyn and the Cardinal, then how could you have missed it? The short answer was that you just weren’t listening. As a way to distract yourself from what had happened between you and Copia, once you’d left your home and re-entered society, you had holed yourself away in your office to work on the translations. Seeing her for the first time (truly seeing her, not just as a lump on Copia’s lap) during Mass, it didn’t register that she was the person grinding into Copia’s crotch, and that she had become important enough to be paraded to the entire congregation.

She never interacted with you, never acknowledged your presence, never looked at you, not that you’d noticed anyway. It was so easy to just not see her. But now it was all flooding into your brain, the idea that she and Sister Imperator could have orchestrated this whole thing behind Copia’s back.

Was Copia in on this?

No, he couldn’t possibly be. He seemed genuinely angry at the “prophecy” and how he’d have no part in it if he was given the option. Besides, no one advocated for Papa Terzo harder than Copia. Copia publicly looked up to Papa Terzo, worshipped him almost similarly to his worship of Satan. He wouldn’t be happy with the death of his half brother, not when he idolised him so much. Watching him from afar for as long as you did, meant you were able to see him in multiple different moods, and he mourned Papa Terzo. He mourned his half-brother for months, almost the whole year he’d been Head of the Church and leader of the Ghost Project. He definitely wouldn’t have gone through with it… right?

“So where do we go from here?” Aisha asked both you and Riley, pulling you out of your miniature crisis.

“Well,” Riley began, “I’m not entirely sure. We have all this circumstantial evidence, but there’s no proof of anything. Like I said, Sister Imperator’s smart, she’d hardly leave any physical proof of her crimes.”

Aisha turned to look at you. “You said you wanted to figure this out and now you have. All you have to do is present all of,” she gestured vaguely to the table, “this to the Cardinal and then you can move on.”

“What if he’s in on it?” You queried, your voice quiet and scared.

Riley shook their head. “Nah. The Cardinal’s a lot of things - ‘dumbass’ would be a word I’d use for him - but he’s not the kind of person to usurp the Satanic throne for his own personal or political gain. I mean, look at the man; he spent all his fifty years trying to be invisible. If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s a naïve and gullible idiot who’s so desperate for his mother’s love and approval, he’d do anything to appease her. You said yourself he doesn’t believe he’s the antichrist, right?”

“Right.”

“Well then, there you go. There’s your answer. He thinks he’s in this position because it’s the right and prophesied thing to do. Not because he’s a puppet in his mother’s games.”

Aisha’s tone was lighthearted. “Honestly, fair play to her. A bad bitch who knows what she wants. I admire that.” Both you and Riley looked at her with a mixture of disappointment and disbelief. “What?” She stood from her seat. “I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs.” She turned to walk away and raised her fist in the air. “Go live your best life, Queen!”

Riley sighed. “I hate her sometimes.”

“Mmm,” you agreed. “You gonna help me put these back?”

Riley sucked in air through their teeth and began to back away from the desk. “You know, I would, but Sister Kowalski said she needed help finding books about rituals and, you know, can’t let Sister Kowalski down.” They gestured to the table. “But you got this, right?”

You shot a middle finger at them.

“Atta girl!”

Setting the books back was a lonely task thanks to Riley’s disappearance and Aisha ‘working at the front desk so she can’t leave’. But it gave you chance to think about the situation at hand.

There was a crushing feeling of helplessness that descended over you as you carefully returned those old books to their shelves. With every book you placed back, the magnitude of the problem became more apparent and the weight of the knowledge you acquired felt like a burden. You felt exposed and helpless when you realised you were trapped in a web of deception and surrounded by people who had ulterior motives. The Ghouls and Sisters around you went about their business, oblivious to the storm building within you. You were more aware of your inner struggle in the library’s profound silence.

The sensation that you were just a pawn in a much bigger game lingered as you pushed a hefty volume back into its proper position. Your sanity was being tormented by doubts regarding Copia’s role, Sister Imperator’s actual motivations, and the possibility of Upper Clergy influence. Your impression of being trapped was echoed by the library’s walls, which seemed to be closing in on you.

Copia’s POV

With every passing hour, Copia was more and more convinced that he’d never see or hear from you again - at least in the way that he wanted to. He paced the floor of his office when he was alone inside of it, mind raging at the prospect of living his life without you. He was so convinced that you were running from him - and who could blame you? He felt like a sham, a joker with the hat of a Cardinal and all the responsibility of a Papa. Out of all of it, all the attention and the duties, he only wanted you. And he was tormenting himself as punishment for doing stupid things that could lose you in the end.

A knock on the door interrupted Copia’s thoughts as he paced his office, gripped by the agony of possible loss. Startled, he turned to face the entryway, a glimmer of anticipation replacing the dread etched on his features. “Come in,” he called out, his voice a mix of apprehension and hope.

The door creaked open, and a Sibling stepped into the room. Copia thought he recognised this person, but being the head of the Church and living in the Ministry alongside thousands of other clergy members, everyone’s face was familiar to him. “Good afternoon, Your Dark Eminence,” they greeted cautiously, closing the door behind them. “Mind if I have a word?”

Copia, his expression a blend of curiosity and anxiety, gestured for Riley to proceed. “Of course, Sibling… uh…”

“Sibling Riley Martinez, Your Dark Eminence. I work with Sister ___ in the library.”

At the mention of your name, Copia’s stomach flipped. He was excited to know that you’d sent one of your friends to talk to him, but nervous at that exact fact. What did you not want to say? Or rather, why didn’t you want to convey your message yourself? Why did you send your friend as he would a Ghoul? “Ah, yes. Sibling Martinez, what brings you here? Is everything okay?”

“Well, Your Dark Eminence, no. May I?” Sibling Martinez gestured to the sofa in front of Copia’s desk. Copia nodded, and invited Sibling Martinez to sit.

They cleared their throat and began to tell Copia exactly what they and their friends had discovered. Copia listened carefully as Sibling Martinez revealed the information, each word hitting the weak spot in his heart like a hammer. The information weighed heavily on him, and a hint of resentment started to peek through the gaps in his calm demeanour. Fury couldn’t even begin to cover how Copia felt. His wrath simmered beneath the surface as the truth came to light. His hands balled into fists as he tried to control the flood of feelings that were about to explode; not that Sibling Martinez would know, from the outside Copia looked calm and collected, as if he was just listening to any old story. But on the inside, he was seething…

Sibling Martinez continued to share the discoveries, detailing the inconsistencies in the supposed prophecy and connecting the dots to Sister Imperator’s potential involvement in a larger, more sinister plan. Copia’s jaw tightened, his frustration morphing into a potent mixture of anger and betrayal. “So, she’s been playing me all along,” he muttered, more to himself than to Sibling Martinez. The realisation was a bitter pill to swallow, and the taste of deceit lingered in his mouth.

“Sister ___ also suspects that Sister Evelyn Chandler is a key player in all of this. The three sixes in her birth date, the sudden rise in her status—”

The anger within Copia surged to the forefront. He slammed his hand against the desk, the impact resonating through the room. “Maledizione!” he exclaimed, his frustration breaking through. “I trusted them. I trusted Sister Imperator. And I thought Evelyn was just a pawn, but they’ve been orchestrating this entire thing.”

Sibling Martinez nodded, acknowledging the weight of the revelation. “It seems that way, Your Dark Eminence. Sister ___ would have wanted you to know. She’s trying to make sense of it all, just like you are. She doesn’t know what to do about any of this, though.”

Copia paced the room, the fire of betrayal burning within him. “And you? What do you think of all this?” he asked, his gaze piercing into Sibling Martinez’s eyes.

Sibling Martinez hesitated for a moment before responding, “It’s a lot to take in, Your Dark Eminence. But if there’s a plot against you, we want to help expose it.”

Copia continued to pace the room, his mind brimming and full with fresh rage. The cogs in his brain were ticking over and over. Something about Sister Evelyn’s involvement didn’t quite add up, though. If the plot was based around a flimsy, untrue prophecy, then Sister Evelyn would know that it wasn’t real - yet, she, like Copia, was fully immersed in the whole farce. But what was the answer.

He stopped pacing and turned back to his guest. “Who did you say benefited from my ascension?” Sibling Martinez listed the known members of the Clergy and Copia clicked his fingers together. “You’re missing one. I’ve just discovered Sister Chandler’s involvement.”

“Your Dark Eminence?”

“Of course she benefits - of course she does. She becomes Prime Mover. But, she was unaware of this whole plot, I’m convinced.”

“So how is she involved?”

“It’s not her. It’s her father - Saltarian.”

“Cardinal Saltarian? I don’t know him, I’m sorry.”

Copia shook his head. “Not Cardinal, just Mr. He has no title. Mr. Saltarian has been in my life for almost thirty years at this point, a very good friend of my mother’s. There’s not much that he doesn’t know, to be truthful. He’s a spy to everyone - not a man to be trusted. He may not be a member of the Church per se, but I doubt my brother’s deaths didn’t line his back pockets in some capacity. Not to mention his daughter becoming my Prime Mover. That would give him a power that he wouldn’t have as a mere Cardinal.”

“So what are we going to do about this, Your Dark Eminence?”

Copia stopped and thought for a moment, weighing all of his options. “You do nothing.” Sibling Martinez went to protest but Copia continued. “For now at least. I appreciate you coming to me with this information, Sibling. And please thank Sister ___ for starting this whole investigation. After everything I’ve done to her, I don’t deserve it.”

“Well, she doesn’t want you suffering. What will you do?”

“I’m not sure.”

The truth was, Copia was sure, he just didn’t want word getting back to you. Not yet anyway. The way Copia was feeling, he was more than ready to burst into Sister Imperator’s office and confront her about all of this. It wasn’t until Sibling Martinez had left that Copia was able to straighten himself up and storm to his scheming mother’s office, and unfortunately for her, she was there.

He didn’t knock - he didn’t see the need. He was too angry for pleasantries and kindnesses. Sister Imperator didn’t have a guest, so he could get right to the point without disturbing another person. “Ah, Cardinal.” She said, an amiable smile on her face. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Three sixes in her birth date, hm, Sister? That’s why Sister Evelyn is to be my Prime Mover?” Copia’s attitude was foul, completely out of character for him.

“So the prophecy says.”

“So it is to do with the prophecy and nothing to do with Mr. Saltarian’s involvement in raising me to power?”

She was silent for a moment, just a brief second too long, but that was all the confirmation Copia needed.

“You are despicable.”

Sister Imperator’s expression remained stoic, her eyes meeting Copia’s with unwavering confidence. “Everything was done for the Church, for our cause. The emergence of the antichrist is a crucial moment in our history, and we can’t afford to let it slip away.”

Copia scoffed, the bitterness in his tone cutting through the air. “For the Church? Or for your own gain? Mr. Saltarian’s involvement, the manipulation of prophecies, the orchestration of all three of my brother’s deaths - all to secure power for yourself.”

Sister Imperator leaned back in her chair, a sly smile playing on her lips. “Power is a means to an end, Cardinal. Our mission is to bring about the reign of Satan on Earth. Sacrifices must be made, alliances forged, and obstacles removed.”

Copia’s anger intensified, a storm brewing within him. “You manipulated me, used me as a pawn in your game. And for what? To satisfy your thirst for control?”

“Control is essential in guiding the destiny of the Church. Your ascension was necessary, Cardinal. You were groomed for this role, and now, you stand at the precipice of a new era. To serve as the antichrist just as the prophecies have told!”

Copia shook his head, his disbelief transforming into a fiery resolve. “I won’t be a puppet in your schemes any longer. I won’t let you exploit the Church - and me - for your personal agenda.”

Sister Imperator chuckled, a low, menacing sound. “You’re still learning, my dear Cardinal. The puppeteer does not relinquish control so easily. The Church needs a leader, and you were chosen for a reason.”

Copia’s resolve saw through the complex web of deceit, and his eyes hardened. “I won’t play your games any longer. I’ll expose the truth to the congregation. They deserve to know the extent of your manipulation.”

“Expose me, my dear boy, and the entire congregation will work to overthrow you.”

“So be it. I never wanted this role - this was your dream.”

“You wouldn’t. Now, enough with this idiocy, Cardinal. You have duties to attend to and a ritual to prepare for.”

“I’m going to put a stop to this.”

“Mhmm. Of course you will.” Sister Imperator went back to fiddling with papers on her desk, making herself look busy in order to get Copia to leave.

With a blazing determination in his eyes, Copia left Sister Imperator’s words trailing behind him. The seriousness of the situation weighed on him, but he couldn’t turn his gaze away from the betrayal that had occurred. He wondered where to go next as he made his way more into the Ministry.

There was an unsettling silence in the hallways, and shadows played on the walls. Copia’s mind whirled with ideas about how the congregation would respond, potential partners he might discover, and the impending threat of Sister Imperator’s power. He knew he needed help, and he needed someone he could rely on.

Copia entered the library in search of comfort, the smell of ancient volumes and parchment reassuring him, and guiding him to a familiar room. He discovered you absorbed in your task, a serene determination on your face. The agony and turmoil of the past had given way to a steely resolution, a testament to your resilience.

You looked up as Copia entered, a mix of surprise and apprehension in your eyes. “Your Dark Eminence,” you greeted respectfully standing from your seat with your voice betraying no emotion. Your eyes were just as wide and doe-like as they were the last time he saw this expression on your face, except that time you wore his bedsheets as a dress. That time he ravished you on his dining room table and showed you absolutely no mercy. The mood he was in again, he didn’t want to show you any mercy again; he wanted you beneath him on that desk, screaming his name and taking everything he was willing to give, everything he felt like he had to give.

Was he wrong for feeling this way? Absolutely. After everything he put you through and after promising to wait for your answer, he should be doing that. He should be waiting for you to contact him. He should be giving you the space and time that you needed to work through this. But there was too much anger coursing through his veins, too much adrenaline working through his body with nowhere to go.

There was a look in his eyes that you’d never seen before - an anger that had never been present in all the time you’d observed him from afar, or spent directly in his presence. It terrified you - but had your core tightening in knots and aching for relief you’d not had in weeks. You wondered if you’d let him touch you like that again, if you’d give in to his urges in order to quell your own.

Copia opened his mouth as if to speak then closed it again. Despite his anger, he was still hesitating to get the words out. But he stepped closer to you, slowly, tentatively, as though moving would scare you off like the doe your eyes portrayed you to be. “You need to stop me if you don’t want this, amore.” He told you, his voice dangerously low and rumbling as he spoke. “Any word from you and I’ll walk away.”

Your heart pounded in your chest, breasts rising and falling with the heaviness of your breaths. Each step he took closer to you made you more and more breathless, your hairs standing on edge and your body tingling in anticipation.

He was right in front of you, a gloved hand reaching up to the back of your head and pulling at your hair from the roots, lifting your face to look directly into his and expose your neck. “If you don’t stop me, I’m going to bend you over this desk and take what belongs to me. Will you let me, amore? Will you let me inside you again?”

You whimpered, unable to trust your voice to convey your thoughts accurately. Your mouth was drier than it had ever been, saliva refusing to flood your mouth and whet your lips. Your whimper was the only response you could muster, and it clearly displeased the Cardinal.

He tugged harder on your hair, lifting your head a little further back. “Words, amore. Use them.”

“Y-yes, Cardinal. I-I… want you inside me.”

Though your words were barely a stuttered whisper, Copia still counted them. His lips smashed against yours, teeth banging against teeth as he encapsulated your lips in a rough kiss. The hand that wasn’t tangled in your hair moved to your waist, pulling you closer to his body while he pushed you back against the desk, trapping you between him and the wood just as he did the first time he had you back in London. His tongue entered your mouth, tasting you again for the first time in so long, and groaning at the sensation. He missed this - he missed you. There was a part of him that wanted to be gentle with you, but the rest of him was too tightly wound; he couldn’t bring himself to handle you with care.

He broke the kiss and stepped away from you just long enough for him to grip your hips with both of his hands and turn you around, before he pressed you back up against the desk. His hard cock tented beneath his jeans and cassock, bulging against your ass cheek and reminding you just how much he desired you, how much he craved and needed you.

Your palms were flat to the lacquered wood, leaning against the desk for some support while Copia had his way with you. His hips gently rocked against your body, desperately rubbing himself against you as his lips attached themselves to your neck, kissing and licking at the exposed skin there. In frustration, he pulled your habit off your head and threw it to the ground, before placing his hands back at your hips. But those hands wandered as they loved to do, grabbing and squeezing at your body roughly, getting their fill of you after weeks of being deprived. He gripped onto your love handles, your stomach, moving his way up and groping at your breasts, squeezing and rubbing them beneath his gloves and your clothes. He caught hold of your nipples between his thumb and finger, while his teeth captured your ear and bit down gently.

“Copia!” You breathed, your hands moving to sit on top of his as they tweaked and pulled at your clothed nipples. Small moans escaped your lips as he toyed with your body, your pussy dripping and screaming for some attention.

Copia chuckled and released your ear. “Is she needy, hm? Needy for her Cardinal’s cock?”

“Please.”

“Sathanas - you have no idea how much I missed hearing you beg for me, amore.” He let go of your right nipple and ran his hand down your body, stopping at your crotch. He covered your cunt with his hand and gripped it. “Are you wet enough for my cock, I wonder? Are you ready for a good,” he slapped your cunt, “rough,” another slap, “fucking, hm?”

“Yes, Copia! Please!”

He lifted your habit and dipped his fingers into the waistband of your panties, hooking them against the elastic. “Tell me, amore. Tell me how much you want me to bend you over this desk and pound this cunt.” He pulled them down just enough to completely expose your bare pussy to him, a string of your wetness snapping when the fabric was pulled too far down your thighs.

“I w-want you so deep inside me. I’m so desperate for your c-cock, Copia. Please… please give it to me.” As you spoke, you felt him reach beneath his cassock and fumble with his clothes to free himself. “Fuck me, please!”

His hand came up to your shoulder blades and pushed you down flat against the desk. The other fisted his cock, stroking a few times before lining himself up with your dripping wet entrance.

“I won’t be gentle with you, amore.” His warning was delivered more like a threat, but it had your walls clenching nonetheless.

“Make it hurt.” You whispered.

He pushed in all the way to the hilt, not bothering to take it slow. He let your words go to his head and set a relentless pace inside of you, hitting your cervix deliciously and making you scream out with each thrust. Your cunt opened up for him just as easily as it always did, further proof that you were made for him. His hips snapped slowly, but roughly, making your entire body jiggle with the force of each one, and the heavy desk to slide across the floor.

Sliding into you felt like sliding home. After all the time he was away from you, he couldn’t have you, and hold you in his arms, there was a massive bout of relief that washed over him. This felt good, it felt right. It was everything he needed after all this time. And you felt the same way. You didn’t realise just how much you needed him and missed him until that moment.

Copia’s grunts as he rammed his cock inside you filled the room alongside the loud squelch of your cunt swallowing him whole. His hands were now attached to your hips, gripping onto them as tightly as he could, leaving red marks and bruises in his wake. Copia was so long and thick that he stretched you out so nicely, and he always made you feel so good inside. By the time he was finished with you, you were usually a sore, shaky pile on the bed, with little ability to move or even think. You could feel your knees weakening as Copia rearranged your insides, your whole body turning to mush at his hard mercy - a mercy he wasn’t willing to show you as he picked up his speed but maintained his roughness.

There was a dull ache that came with the head of his cock slamming into you as hard as he did, but you worshipped the feeling. After going so long without feeling him stretch and fuck you, you needed to feel him, no matter how much burning came with it.

Your ass jiggled more than normal as you moved your hips to meet his thrusts and arched your back as far as you could for him. He let loose a torrent of profanities in Italian, each one telling you how you felt incredible for him, wrapped around him and squeezing him so fucking tightly he could hardly breathe.

“Made to take this cock, eh?” He huffed, his Cardinal paints dripping from his face with the exertion of his movements. “Built for me to fuck whenever I wanted to. Cazzo! I didn’t take you as much as I should have. Should have had you hanging off my dick every fucking day. Closest to fucking Heaven I’ll ever get. Fuck!”

“Right th-there! Oh, fuck, Copia! Right there!” You moved your hand down to your clit and began to rub at it, furiously stroking your bundle of nerves and tightening around him, causing him to let out a groan so deep and gutteral, it had you whining for him.

“Always so tight for me, amore.” He breathed as he watched the cream from your pussy gather at the base of his cock. “Always so wet and pliant, taking everything I give you like a good fucking girl.”

He started thrusting more rapidly and erratically. The fingers that had been gripping your hips clenched even more tightly than before, as if he was afraid you may vanish at any moment and leave him without an orgasm.

“Copia! You - fuck! - You’re gonna make me cu-cum!” You could feel your toes curling in your shoes, your brain turning to mush at the feeling of him rearranging your insides like he hadn’t done before.

“Tell me, please, amore! Tell me how much you love this cock.”

“Copia, n-nobody could… compare! Nobody could ever… make me cum… like you. Fuck, Copia, I’m so close. Please!” You continued to work yourself into a frenzy, rubbing quickly over your clit and applying more pressure, your other hand gripping onto the edge of the desk so tightly your knuckles were turning white.

Your cunt cinched tighter around him, making him feel almost choked. As you reached your peak, it became extremely hard for him to move inside of you. Copia felt his knees turn to jelly from the force of his body, forcing him to thrust within you one last time before spilling his load into your twitching hole, a strangled groan falling from his throat as he bent at the waist, sweaty forehead resting on your back while he was emptying himself into you.

But he wasn’t done with you yet.

He pulled out of you, ignoring your whine at the loss of connection. You turned your body as much as you could to watch Copia fall to his knees behind you, groping your ass cheeks and pushing them upwards, in turn spreading your labia apart and watching as his cum spilled from you like honey from a wand. “So fucking filthy for me, amore. What a gift for me, eh? I was blessed by the Dark One, no?” With his hands still pulling your body apart, he dove into your cunt, licking the dripping cum from your hole first before playing with your sensitive clit when he’d deemed your labia clean enough.

His tongue came down on your hole again causing you to cry out in sensitivity as he dipped his tongue inside you, scooping out his seed and swallowing everything he’d gathered. The one hand that played with your clit was now tangled in his salt and pepper hair, pushing him deeper into your pussy as it screamed for a second release.

“Amore, does my tongue feel that good?” He tormented you with his remarks, stroking over your clit with his gloved fingers in place of his mouth for a little while. “It’s that good that I could make you cry like that? Merda! Listen to yourself.” To prove his point, he started to suck on your clit more forcefully, making the squelch of your heat louder with each rough move.

Following his actions you tried again to stifle your cries by biting your lower lip, but it didn’t work. Instead, your cum leaked out of your body onto his face, soaking his moustache as you came a second time. He was moaning at your taste, and you could hear him slurping everything up, like he was sipping from a water fountain. It wasn’t until you physically pushed him away, your body exhausted and shaking that he finally stopped tormenting you with his tongue, and backed up.

Like an old man usually would, he groaned as he stood up from his knees, gripping onto the desk to help him stand as his own body wasn’t responding as it should. You chuckled at him, a lazy laugh spilling from your lips as you watched him rest against the desk, tucking his soft cock back beneath his clothes. His breathing was heavy and ragged, and his chin still glistened with your release, his hands not wiping him clean yet for reasons unbeknownst to you. So, you fought with your own weakness to stand in front of him, and kissed him, your tongue popping out from behind your lips and licking up your juices from his lips. Once you pulled away, you rubbed your thumb over his chin and wiped up the excess of your cum, sucking it into your mouth.

“You shouldn’t do things like that,” he complained, “I’m too tired to fuck you again. Give me a few minutes.”

You laughed. “Rest and recover, old man.” You said, tapping his chest with your hand. You began to pull your panties back up and make yourself presentable. “What brought all that on?”

Copia explained his reasoning for coming to find you, that he didn’t intend on fucking you within an inch of your life, but he saw you and he had too much energy, too much adrenaline, he just couldn’t help himself. You listened intently, affectionately holding onto his arm and pressing soft kisses there every now and then. It wasn’t until he’d been silent for a few seconds that you realised tears were beginning to fall from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he blubbed upon noticing you’d seen him, “I’m so sorry.”

Copia’s sudden apology caught you off guard. You reached up, gently wiping away the tears from his eyes. Concern crept into your voice as you asked, “What’s wrong, Copia? Why are you sorry?”

He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “I… I just can’t believe how much I’ve hurt you. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I want it so badly.”

Your heart ached at the vulnerability in his eyes. You sat beside him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We can work through this, okay? We can figure things out together.”

He nodded, appreciating your understanding. “I love you, ___,” he confessed, his voice laced with sincerity. “I’ve never felt this way before, and I don’t want to lose you.”

You smiled, leaning in to kiss his forehead. “I love you too, Copia. But…”

He cried a little harder. “No, please, no ‘but’. Anything but that…”

“Sister Evelyn’s still going to be your Prime Mover. And I don’t want to be your mistress and share you with other people. Not like that, anyway.”

He wiped a tear from his cheek and rubbed his nose with his glove, taking a sniff before he spoke again. “I never wanted her in the first place. And I don’t intend on going through the ritual with her. I didn’t to begin with, and I definitely don’t now. Please don’t walk away from me.” He pulled you into a tight embrace, holding onto you as if afraid you might slip away. In that moment, you both clung to the hope that love could conquer the challenges you faced, no matter how complicated they seemed.

You could feel a storm approaching as the weight of Copia’s remarks hung in the air. Even after his sincere admission and your mutual hug, an overwhelming feeling of doubt clouded your relationship. You could not deny the truth of Sister Evelyn’s existence in Copia’s life as he clung to you.

“I can’t promise everything will be okay, Copia,” you whispered, your voice barely audible over the silence that followed. “I want to believe in us, but it’s hard when there’s someone else in the picture. And with Sister Imperator pushing for this, I don’t see how we can get passed this.”

Copia’s grip tightened, a mix of desperation and fear painted across his features. “I know I messed up, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. Please, don’t leave me.”

Your heart ached at his plea, torn between the love you felt for him and the reality of the situation. “Copia, I need time. I need time to process everything and figure out what’s best for both of us.”

He pulled away slightly, his eyes searching yours for any sign of certainty. “Time,” he repeated, his voice carrying the weight of the unknown.

You nodded, tears welling up in your own eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, Copia. But I can’t be with you if it means sharing you with someone else. It’s just too much.”

A pained expression crossed Copia’s face, his emotions on full display. “What if… listen, the full moon and the ritual is in two days. Once the ritual is completed, nothing can change it. No Sister Imperator, no Sister Evelyn, no one. What if I performed it with you?”

Copia’s idea lingered in the air, an intriguing yet unsettling proposition. The weight of his words fell on the room, and you couldn’t help but feel a mixture of unease and want. The prospect of sharing such an intimate ritual with Copia sparked hope, but the history of grief and betrayal threw a shadow over the decision.

Your glance met his, looking for genuineness in his eyes. “The rite, Copia, is a sacred and binding ceremony. This isn’t something to take lightly. Are you sure that this is what you want? And can we honestly move on from what has happened?”

He nodded, a determined expression on his face. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. A life with you matters more to me than anything else.”

Despite your concerns, the honesty in Copia’s voice touched your heart. The thought of rewriting the story and starting again seemed appealing. However, the scars of the past warned of caution.“I want to believe in us, Copia,” you said, lowering your tone. “I’m scared. Is it possible for us to move passed everything that happened between us?”

Copia’s hand gently caressed your cheek. “I know it’s not going to be easy. It’s too late to undo the harm I caused you. But I’m willing to go to any length to get back what we had.”

His vulnerability mirrored yours, and for a brief time, you sensed a real yearning for redemption. The thought of standing at Copia’s side during the ceremony, rewriting the tale together, gave you a sense of hope. “One day, Copia. One day to think about it,” you said, your eyes locked with his. “If we’re going to do this, we need to be certain. No more secrets, no more pain.”

He nodded, understanding the weight of your words. “I’ll give you the time you need, ___.”

He kissed your hand and left the room, butterflies forming once more in his stomach. Copia couldn’t ignore the feelings of nervousness and optimism that swirled in his gut as he left your office. The weight of the coming ritual, the decision hanging in the balance, and the frailty of your connection all played out in his head like a symphony of doubts.

Copia returned to his office and slammed the door behind him, providing a brief respite from the turmoil outside. The room felt both familiar and foreign, reflecting his emotional rollercoaster ride. He took a deep breath, hoping to calm himself. His heart was warmed by the hope that lingered from your conversation. The thought of starting again and correcting the past with you by his side was a light in the shadows. Copia slumped on his desk, his thoughts racing with possibilities, worries, and a desire for a better future. For the first time in a long time, he felt a flicker of hope. The notion of sharing the sacred ceremony with you held out the potential of a new beginning. His ambition was fueled by a real desire to repair what had been broken.

As the night of the ceremony approached, the mood in the Ministry became electrified with excitement. The corridors were alive with whispered talks, and the air was thick with the weight of approaching events. The faithful assembled, dressed in ceremonial attire, and made their way to the Basilica di Lilith for the long-awaited ritual between Copia and Sister Evelyn.

You could feel the tension in the air like a physical force among the wave of followers. After careful consideration and talks with Riley and Aisha, the choice to carry out the rite alongside Copia was made. While the uncertainty persisted, a calm resolve grew within you. This was your night, the first night of many where you would be beside the man you loved - provided all went according to plan, of course.

Copia’s Ghouls had split, and the one half had made their way to a secret, smaller chapel in the Papa’s quarters: the Cappella di Venus, named after another woman who had been demonised by the Catholic Church, based from mistranslations, as usual. Catholics mistaking Venus rising before the Sun, bringing light to the world before the Sun had woken and drowned Her out, they had taken this to be a metaphor for the Devil challenging God, and in turn destroying everything She had, just as they had done for countless women throughout time; Hypatia, Jezebel, Lilith, Eve, Delilah. The list went on.

The Cappella di Venus, located in the heart of the Papal Quarters, radiated a sense of intimacy and secret that contrasted dramatically with the grandiosity of the Basilica di Lilith. Despite its modest size, the chapel was opulent and splendorous, providing a more private sanctuary for the Upper Clergy’s private rites.

The chapel’s entryway was embellished with beautifully carved wooden doors containing occult symbols. When these doors swung wide, they revealed an area that glistened with an otherworldly brilliance. The chapel was bathed in a warm and intimate brilliance from soft lights emanating from exquisite candelabras carefully positioned along the walls.

The architecture of the church reflected a bygone era, with vaulted ceilings covered in brilliantly coloured murals depicting scenes of celestial beauty. Every surface was embellished with gold highlights and intricate filigree, catching and reflecting the dancing candlelight. The air was fragrant with incense, producing an unearthly atmosphere that seemed to transcend the terrestrial realm.

The chapel’s centrepiece was a magnificent altar made of polished marble veined with deep crimson and ivory tones. A tapestry portraying the Emeritus bloodline’s symbol hung behind the altar, a quiet homage to the sacred lineage that ruled the ministry.

A life-sized statue of Venus, the venerated figure of love and beauty, presided over the chapel’s focal point. The statue was meticulously carved from marble and showed Venus with a calm look, carrying symbols of love and grace. Candlelight threw subtle shadows on the statue, giving the impression of movement within the stone.

The chapel’s velvet-cushioned pews formed a semicircle around the altar, creating an intimate atmosphere for the limited few who had access to this secret sanctuary. The chapel’s walls were embellished with stained glass windows representing images of historical significance to the Church, and tales from Venus’ mythology, transforming the ambient light into a kaleidoscope of colours that danced across the polished surfaces.

As you and the Ghouls took your places in the dimly lit chapel, the excitement in the air was obvious. Aisha and Riley stood by your side, bringing a mix of comfort and shared concern. The flowing shadows formed by the flickering candlelight created an atmosphere imbued with both mystery and holiness.

The atmosphere in the chapel appeared to increase in tensity as the minutes passed. The gentle rustle of velvet as Aisha shifted alongside you, as well as the occasional exchanged looks with Riley, expressed the shared fear. You cast sidelong looks towards the entryway, the carved wooden doors closed, separating you from the imminent ritual.

The Ghouls lined the chapel with solemn looks, dressed in their ceremonial attire. Their veiled features betrayed no emotion, adding to the seriousness of the situation. It was a dramatic contrast to the turmoil you were experiencing.

You couldn’t shake the feeling that Copia wouldn’t arrive on time, that circumstances beyond anyone’s control would derail the meticulously prepared arrangements. The weight of the impending rite pressed in on you, increasing the anxiety with each passing second.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to the sound of footsteps echoing in the corridor outside the chapel. The oak doors creaked open gently, exposing Copia standing there in his scarlet cardinal robes, the remainder of his Ghouls following behind him. As you caught his gaze, a rush of relief washed over you, but it was quickly replaced by a surge of anxiety. His eyes were a mix of tenacity and vulnerability, expressing the turmoil of his emotions.

Copia entered the chapel with measured steps, the doors closing behind him with a soft thud. The Ghouls separated to make way for him as he approached. The mood shifted, the coming ritual’s heaviness settling over the chapel like a heavy shield.

He took your hands into his as Aisha took her spot between the two of you, and placed a kiss on the back of them. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, “I had to dodge a few Sibling latecomers.”

“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.” You said, a smile on your red lips.

Aisha sighed. “It won’t be long before Imperator figures out what’s going on, can we get started please?”

In secret, Aisha had taken a white candle and carved it on two sides, one with the symbol of Venus, the other with the symbol of Lucifer - together representing the freedom to love whomever one chooses. The candle was placed in a dish, similar in shape to a martini glass (but the bowl was rounder and the stem was a little shorter) and while you and Copia held it, Aisha lit the candle. “May the Father guide you on your future together,” Aisha said as the candle began to burn down, “and may the Lover bless your union in Her name.” The candle would continue burning after the ceremony had been completed, and once it had burned away, it was said that the remaining smoke would help to bless the couple, and banish negative spirits.

A special oil had been concocted the day before, too, this time by Riley. Using the same book that Aisha was reading from during the ceremony, Riley had crafted an oil known to enhance love and bring abundance, made from roses, patchouli and vanilla, as a symbolic gesture to boost passion, and create a magnetic energy that drew people together. After the candle had begun burning, Aisha took the condiment-sized bowl filled with the oil, and drew the Satanic Cross over yours and Copia’s forehead, right where your third eye would be. “May Lucifer protect you and your union from outside evil.”

Venus, personified in the statue that overlooking the event, cast an ethereal gaze upon it. The warm glimmer of candlelight reflected off the Goddess’s marble face, granting Her presence an unearthly atmosphere, while the light of the full moon bathed the chapel in the rainbow of colours, as if she was bearing witness alongside Venus as well as lending Her power to the ceremony.

You and Copia swapped rings as the rite neared its conclusion, a symbolic union that Satanism kept given its roots in ancient Roman weddings. The ring planned for Sister Evelyn was now on your finger, already blessed and ready for a life bound to an Emeritus.

As the rite came to a close, you and Copia kissed, confirming the tie formed in the sacred chamber of the Cappella di Venus. The bond felt profound, a joining of fates that resisted the tyranny of a false prophecy. The kiss embodied relief, an unconscious acknowledgment that, for that brief moment, the outside world and its difficulties had vanished.

You could feel a gentle presence lingering in the chapel after the rite, as if the ghosts of Venus, Lucifer, and Lilith Themselves were looking over the unhallowed site. The energy left behind was a harmonic blend of celestial elements, and the flickering candlelight seemed to dance with renewed life.

It was done - and no one was able to stop or break it.

Barely thirty minutes after the ritual had completed, chaos broke loose. The consequences of your secret ritual were sure to make an appearance that night, given the fact that Copia had jilted his initial Prime Mover at the altar, and ruined the ritual for another month, but that was before Sisters Imperator and Evelyn had discovered the ritual had already been completed with another woman. They both came charging into Copia’s home - now yours, too - unannounced, Sister Evelyn’s red dress flowing behind her like a hellish princess only to find you and Copia entangled in each other’s arms after enjoying one another’s bodies, the blessed ring nestled comfortably on your finger and an uncharacteristic, shit-eating grin on Copia’s face.

The air crackled with unspoken tension as Sister Imperator’s stern expression deepened.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sister Imperator’s voice cut through the room like a whip. “Copia, explain yourself.”

Copia remained where he was, uncaring who saw you wrapped in his arms. You were both covered by sheets, but even still he felt both exposed yet powerful. “Isn’t it obvious? I chose ___ as my Prime Mover. The ritual has been completed.”

Sister Evelyn’s eyes flickered with a mixture of fury and hurt. “You… you betrayed me, Copia?”

Copia’s grin faded slightly, almost guilty. “Betrayal implies there was trust to begin with. I never intended to go through that ritual with you, Eve, and you know that. I suppose your father will be pissed, though.”

“Of course, he wants the best for me.”

Copia flinched, a cockiness coming from somewhere he’d never used before. It was turning you on to see, if you were being honest with yourself. “Will you tell her, or do I have to? Not fair to keep her in the dark now, is it, Sister?”

Sister Evelyn’s expression shifted from hurt to simmering anger. Her eyes bore into Copia, a storm of conflicting emotions playing out on her face. The revelation of her father’s involvement added another layer of complexity to the unfolding drama.

“I will handle this,” Sister Imperator interjected, her tone firm and commanding. “Evelyn, leave us. I need to speak with Copia alone.”

“No,” Sister Evelyn demanded, “someone is going to tell me what’s going on before I lose my shit at all of you! I’ve been jilted, humiliated and betrayed and now I demand some fucking answers!”

Copia’s defiance wavered for a moment, but then he sighed. “The prophecy is a farce, Eve. It was all a huge lie to get me in power so she could do what she wanted with the Church and your father could get a bit of control.”

“Her dad?” You gasped from beside Copia, earning you a slight chuckle from him. “Oh shit, that explains it.”

While he spoke, he still held onto you, his fingers stroking up and down your bare back softly. “The three sixes in a prophecy is for the antichrist, not for you.”

Sister Evelyn’s anger intensified at the revelation, and she shot a venomous glare at Sister Imperator. “Is this true?” She demanded, her voice sharp and accusatory.

Sister Imperator, ever composed, met Sister Evelyn’s gaze without flinching. “The prophecy was a means to an end, Evelyn. The emergence of the antichrist is crucial for the Church’s future. Copia’s ascension was a necessary step.”

Evelyn’s eyes widened, her disbelief evident. “But I thought… I thought I was meant to be his Prime Mover.”

Copia’s grip on you tightened, a silent reassurance amidst the unfolding chaos. “You were a pawn in this, just like me. I never wanted the ‘Papa’ role, I’m certainly no antichrist, and I’m sorry your fate was tangled up in this so your father could gain some power. Go, be free. Enjoy a new life with fewer responsibilities.”

Sister Evelyn, caught between hurt and anger, took a step back. “I can’t believe I let myself be manipulated like this.” She looked directly at Sister Imperator. “Fuck you. For all of this!”

“Hey, Eve?” Copia said, his voice gentle but the same shit-eating grin appearing on it as before. “We’re looking for a new Cardinal to fill the role in the Upper Clergy - how about it? A bit unconventional but I think you could do well, no?”

Sister Evelyn smiled, eyes never leaving Sister Imperator’s. “I’ll take it.”

Sister Imperator’s nostrils flared, her displeasure evident. She turned back to Copia, angrier than ever. “This disobedience will not be tolerated. You will face the consequences.”

“How?” You said, finally joining in on the conversation to deliver the final blow. “Exposing him means exposing you, too. Would you really want to risk it, Sister?”

A tense silence filled the room as Sister Imperator assessed the situation, her steely gaze shifting between Copia, Sister Evelyn, and you. The balance of power teetered on the brink, and the impending clash of wills hung in the air like a storm about to break. She hated not having the upper hand, not being in control and dominating the underlings. She was, however, a smart woman, who knew when to cut her losses and concede. But if either of you thought this would end here, you’d be wrong. She’d be back with something else, some other way to exert her power and control. But for now she simply muttered, “This isn’t over!” And stormed out, like the world’s worst Scooby Doo villain.

Sister Evelyn, no… Cardinal Evelyn, now with a pep in her step bid the both of you goodbye with the promise of seeing Copia on Monday to make good on his word, leaving the both of you alone in your marital bed.

You climbed on top of Copia’s lap, the bedsheets falling from your body and exposing your nakedness to him in all your glory. “You know, that confidence was very hot of you, Cardinal.” You said, your voice teasing and suggestive.

Copia laughed. “Oh was it, now?”

“Mhmm.”

“How hot?”

“Let me show you.”

And with that, you leaned down and kissed him, a passionate kiss that had him growing hard beneath you again, refractory period now over and ready to take you one final time before you both slept.

Previous Part ⛧ Next Part

Hello, everyone! Mel here.

I just wanted to thank everyone for your continued support since I started posting Kinktober last year, but also now with Lost in Translation. It really means the world to me that you not only read my fics, but also leave comments and share it around, so thank you so, so much! Truly, you don't know how much this means to me.

I also want to thank @zombiesnips-blog for her commission, for her saintly patience, and for trusting me with her idea. This was an incredibly fun piece to work on and I cannot wait for the rest of you to see the next fic we have planned, which will be coming soon!

This is just a quick reminder that commissions are open and I have multiple membership options open, so if you are so kind as to support what I do, then I would be most appreciative. If not, I still am deeply thankful for your time and readership!

Much love!

Commissions are open! ⛧ Memberships ⛧ Tip Jar

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clockwork-ashes · 10 months ago

Text

All You Have Is Your Fire - Part VI

Find Part I here :)

Summary: 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' For the briefest of moments, Lucien wondered if his mate would know exactly when his heart’s steady rhythm came to a sudden stop.

Note: A huge, huge thank you to the lovely @bettdraws who literally deserves all the credit and whose post inspired me to start writing this. I could not stop thinking about this head canon, and it was so kind of you to let me try and make a story from it :)

And a huge thank you to everyone reading!

Tag List: @anishake / @nocasdatsgay / @mybestfriendmademe / @talibunny30 / @halfbutneverwhole

Part VII >>

Elain held tightly to Lucien’s arm, her fingers linked with his, her other hand clutching at his wrist. An anchor, his heartbeat a comfort as they were led down the winding halls of the ancient Forest House.

Lucien looked entirely unbothered, hardly troubled now that he was no longer in the presence of his family. Elain asked herself how, considering she very much felt as though she had woken from a nightmare. Her thoughts were foggy, her knees shaking in relief with every one of her steps. Elain wanted to sob.

Lucien’s thumb traced the curve of her knuckle and Elain breathed in deeply to calm her nerves.

It was almost humiliating, being paraded past the Autumn guards stationed at every corner as she clung to Lucien. She had to remind herself that it was expected of mated couples to behave so attached, that she was not amongst human nobles that would judge her for any open affection that was displayed.

Elain briefly wondered what Cora had done in her absence, and whether the other woman had been made aware of the change in their plans. Elain’s thoughts turned quickly, though, to what her sisters would say. Elain was sure that Nesta, more than Feyre, would be furious.

Elain assumed she would have the Inner Circle’s complete support, but she could only guess at their displeasure with how the night had unfolded.

Elain had told a High Lord that she was marrying his son, and she was only just beginning to realise the weight of such a promise. Elain felt her stomach flip, panic starting to creep along her spine.

Just when Elain’s anxiety started to take root, Lucien’s hand gripped hers more tightly. Elain felt as he tried to reassure her through the bond, and her annoyance was enough to redirect her thoughts.

The Forest House was strange and unlike any place she had ever been to. The rough stone walls were a warm grey, closer to the colour of sheep’s wool than to the cool toned rock she had become used to in Night.

Elain was surprised to see all the wooden furniture considering all the torches, flames dancing and sparks falling but never setting anything alight. She walked by a couple elegant fireplaces set into the walls, but she saw no chimneys, no soot or ashes.

Like the roots of an ancient tree, hallways connected and split off into different directions, an unnavigable maze. Elain wondered how anyone was able to find their way around.

One of the guards shoved Lucien towards a flight of stone steps, urging him to turn. Elain frowned when she felt him tense, thinking perhaps he had been offended by the gesture. It was only as a voice rang out beside them that Elain guessed Lucien had scented someone’s presence.

“Your services are no longer needed,” the words were rough, a demand. “I can take the prince and his lady to their shared suite from here.”

Much to Elain’s surprise, the guards obeyed. In the time it took for them to leave, Elain had turned her attention to the new arrival.

The man was handsome, Elain could admit. His short hair a more copper shade of red, his eyes a bright hazel. He was pale, like most of the people she had seen in Autumn, and he looked battle-worn. A slashing scar cut across his throat, just visible above the fabric of his jacket.

Even if Elain had not just been in a room with Beron Vanserra, she would have still been able to see the resemblance between the High Lord and the man who so obviously was another one of his sons. She took a step beck, knocking into Lucien’s side.

The man raised a brow, but other than a passing glance, he paid her no mind. His focus was on Lucien, the torches on the wall flared. Elain wondered if that always happened, if flames simply responded to those in Autumn, a reflection of their emotions.

“Where’s Eris?” He snapped, like he had no patience for either her or Lucien.

Her mate’s shoulders were stiff. “Is the loyal dog looking for its master?” Lucien’s drawl was taunting, as though he was expecting a reaction from his brother. His words were obviously meant to offend.

Elain could feel Lucien’s shock flooding the bond between them when his brother merely shook his head.

“You always did cause so much trouble, Lucien,” he frowned, looking very much like Eris. With a sigh, he angled his chin to the flight of stairs in front of them. “Follow me.”

Not like they had a choice, Elain thought. She could feel as Lucien turned to look at her, to check in, but she stared at his brother as he led them to a pair of thick oak doors. His attempt to comfort her was appreciated, but Elain truly thought she could not look at him without her anxiety once more taking hold. With a wave of his brother’s beringed hand, the doors opened to reveal a cosy space.

The fireplace was already lit, comfortable carpets covered the stone floor, and by the arched window on the room’s other side was a large bed, fit for two. Elain blushed, forgetting for a moment that Lucien and her were to be married, of course their shared suite would have only one bed.

Elain watched as Lucien’s brother waved his hand once again, this time lighting the candles littered on some of the wooden tables and nightstands. “I hope the rooms have been set to your liking. Should you need anything, let one of the guards know.”

Elain spoke for the first time since having left the throne room, “My lady’s maid was with me, I was wondering…” She trailed off, unsure of what to say next.

“I’ll let Eris know,” the Autumn prince offered. “I’m sure he’s thought of everything.” There was no bitterness to his words, only an acknowledgement of his eldest brother’s very thorough planning.

Elain dipped her head in thanks, but he had already begun to leave. Elain looked to Lucien as he watched his brother warily, and he hardly seemed surprised when the other man paused at the room’s threshold.

“Congratulations to the both of you on your engagement,” he said flippantly, over his shoulder. Elain could hear a flicker of doubt in his tone, perhaps a suggestion that he was not entirely convinced by their act. She wondered if Eris had mentioned it to him, if they were close enough to have shared such information.

Elain noticed the irritation that flashed in Lucien’s eye, how the other one whirred. “Thank you, Callum.”

It was clear to Elain that there was bad blood between the brothers, and while she was curious, Elain also knew that it would probably be very rude to ask Lucien about it. She watched as Callum left, glad that she no longer needed to play the role she had given herself.

The doors slammed shut behind the Autumn prince, and Elain promptly let go of Lucien’s hand. She already missed the feeling, but to reach for him would be like an admission of how she so often longed for his touch when he was near. She put distance between them, almost tripping on the edge of the carpet in her rush.

“Gods,” she mumbled, running her fingers through her curls. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Lucien’s scent, apples and summer mornings, lingered in the air.

What have I done?

Elain decided that she was a fool for coming to Autumn. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into, had been so desperate to save Lucien’s life that she had doomed them both.

When Elain opened her eyes, she saw Lucien flexing his fingers, like the memory of her hand in his was enough to unsettle him. He had dark bruises along his jaw, clenched in what she thought was concern. There were blood stains, brown and aged, along the collar of his white shirt. A smear of dirt was on his temple and Elain could tell he had been treated poorly until she had come.

Lucien was still the loveliest man Elain had ever seen, and she hated herself for believing it.

“How in the hell did Feyre convince you to come for me?” Lucien asked, voice tired, like his own thoughts were weighing him down.

Elain furrowed her brow, frowning at him. “Feyre?” She echoed, incredulous.

At her question Lucien seemed to anger, only for a moment, before he spoke once more. “Rhysand, then, made you do this?”

“No one made me do anything,” Elain hissed, keeping her voice down, remembering how careful Eris was with his words even when they had been alone. “I came for you because I chose to.” She was frustrated, angry that everyone assumed she could not make decisions for herself. It was with great effort that she kept her hands at her sides, that she did not begin pointing at Lucien with an accusing finger.

“Why would you do such a thing?” Confusion and disbelief lingering in his words.

“Because I felt like it,” she snapped, feeling very much like a child. Elain did not share with him that after so much death, so much change in the last few years, she did not think she could bear more. “And you should be thanking me, not questioning my motives.”

Elain watched as he bent ever so slightly at the waist, the smallest of bows. He did not take his eyes off her as he said, “You have my thanks, Elain.”

At the sound of her name falling from Lucien’s lips, Elain took a step towards him, the movement almost involuntary. “You shouldn’t call me that,” the impropriety of it all had Elain blushing, she attempted to tell herself that was why she could feel her heartbeat quicken. “You don’t have the right—”

“I think I do,” Lucien said with a shrug, “considering we’re about to be married.”

It looked like he wanted to say more, but Elain interrupted. “It means nothing,” she was shocked at how snarled the last word was. “Nothing has changed between us,” her words held a finality to them.

Lucien ran a hand through his hair, “Not for one moment did I believe otherwise.” He sounded exhausted, Elain noticed.

Briefly, Elain felt guilty for being upset with him.

Lucien shook his head, and as he spoke he did not look at her. “You shouldn’t have come to Autumn.” Elain could not say it with certainty, but she could have sworn fear leaked slowly down their shared bond.

“Next time I’ll let you be killed,” Elain waved her hand dismissively. “What’s done is done, I can hardly tell your father I’ve changed my mind.”

“I think we’re well past that,” Lucien confirmed. The silence between them was awkward, and Elain wished they had separate rooms, despite knowing it was for the best that they were together.

She could feel Lucien’s gaze on her, but Elain was looking at the comfortable armchair by the fireplace. She cleared her throat, “You take the bed.”

Lucien did not argue with her, a testament to how utterly drained he must have been, Elain concluded.

“Thank you, Elain,” he said softly, sincerely.

Elain was left with the impression that Lucien was thanking her for more than just the bed.

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #elucien #elain x lucien #elain archeron x lucien vanserra #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #autumn court #vanserra brothers #they finally talk to each other alone #ashes writes sometimes #all you have is your fire

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selkiechild4998 · 29 days ago

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Little Pup

So this actually took me multiple days to write and all sorts of drafts but I think this is my best version. I do plan on writing more about little Dewdrop because I couldn't fit all my ideas for him here. Not everything is sunshine and fluff raising that little demon XD

TW- None

Genre- Fluff

Word Count- 1,118 words

Things had become so stressful within the Ministry. It started with the Clergy learning of Terzo's and Omega's secret relationship, and everything fell after that. Omega was pulled from the Ghost Project, Terzo and Sister have been fighting nonstop, and the Clergy chose to try something new. Old rites had been discovered to switch a ghoul's element, and they had chosen Delta to be their test subject. With Delta recovering in the infirmary, a new water ghoul was needed for the project. Summoning rituals were quickly arranged, and the air buzzed with anticipation as the Clergy prepared to bring forth a new water ghoul.

The room was filled with dim candlelight, casting flickering shadows on the walls as Terzo led the ritual. As the incantations reached their crescendo, the sound of the screeching ghoul within the summoning well was heard, heralding the arrival of the new member of the Ghost Project.

Everything, at first glance, looked to have gone according to plan. The new ghoul did surprise everyone, being a tropical water ghoulette whose appearance looked similar to the blue sea dragon slug. Terzo was ecstatic to have the first ghoulette join the Ghost Project, knowing he can hold this over his brothers' and successor's heads, but that excitement disappeared when those present heard the sound of soft barks coming from the bottom of the well.

The Ministry doesn't summon kits. It was declared centuries ago that it was far too cruel to the ghouls of the Pit to have their young ripped from them. That didn't mean the occasional accident didn't occur. The occurrence was rare, with one kit being summoned once every decade. This just happened to be the unlucky summoning.

The kit pulled from the depths of the summoning well was another water ghoul, still covered in baby pale fluff decorated with red, orange, black, and white stripes. Their amber hair was short and curled from the waters of the Pit, framing their still short ear fins. Along their spine, running down to their short, cubby tail, was a series of small dorsal spines that were standing on end as the pup barked in protest at their new surroundings.

Like all the other kits summoned by accident, the pup was brought to the Ghoul Nursery, where Alpha was pulling a double to cover Delta's recovery period.

"Hey Alpha, got a feisty one," Pebble announced, holding the writhing pup away from his body to avoid the little dorsal spines.

Alpha looked over at that, setting the recently cleaned blankets he was folding down, "I'm guessing the summoning went wrong?" He tilted his head to the side.

"Yes and no," Was Pebble's answer, "The new ghoulette is heading to quarantine right now, but this little guy got dragged up with her."

Alpha's ears perked up at the mention their new band and packmate was a ghoulette, but he pushed his excitement aside for now. He watched as Pebble set the fussy pup down in an available crib, frowning when he saw the kit's element. Delta is, well, was the only water ghoul within the team assigned to the nursery. Water ghoul pups are notorious for how difficult they are to care for, and from what Alpha saw, the pup is a tropical water ghoul.

"I can't care for him," Alpha stated flatly.

"What? Alph, you're practically the kit whisperer here!" Pebble protested.

"Pebble. I am a fire ghoul; the pup's a water ghoul. Tropical at that. He'll dry out the moment I try handling him."

"Just give it a try? Please? The little guy's already not having a good time."

Alpha huffed as he looked at the pup, his tail flicking from side to side as the little one barked and whined in distress. He fought with himself for a moment before letting out a groan.

"Alright, but only till Delta is up on his feet," He reluctantly agreed. How bad could it be?

He'd come to regret temping whatever cruel being with thinking caring for that pup was easy. That pup, for lack of better terms, was a little devil. And he thought Ifrit was bad when he was an emberling. This kit was constantly screeching and barking, and when he wasn't screaming, he would bite and chew on anything in sight, which was almost always Alpha. It reminded him of feral kittens, hissing and spitting at any threat despite their tiny size.

"You're a little shit, you know that?" Alpha smiled in amusement, carefully feeding the kit small slices of raw fish. The pup's only answer was a hissing growl, snatching the fish from Alpha's claws. The older ghoul couldn't help but chuckle before his ear perked up at a voice.

"Having fun over there, Alph?" Pebble snickered as he walked up to Alpha's side.

"You sure this little guy is a water ghoul? He acts like an emberling," Alpha smiled as he looked over at the smallest of the earth ghouls.

"I'm sure," Pebble chuckled as he reached out to pat the pup on his head, only to get a spitting hiss and high-pitched growl while clutching the slice of fish in his mouth, "Damn, little droplet really does act like a fire ghoul."

"Told you," Alpha snickered out before thinking for a moment, "Hmm…"

"You're thinking."

"I know, dangerous."

"Well, what are you thinking about?"

Alpha's ears perked at the question, glancing at the kit, "Well, the little guy doesn't have a name yet."

"You haven't named him?" Pebble raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, I handle ten other kits daily," Alpha frowned before continuing, "But why not call him Dewdrop?"

"Why Dewdrop?"

"Look," Alpha smiled, holding a slice of fish up, the pup chirping and reaching out with tiny clawed hands. With the pup looking up, it was easier to see the white spots on his cheeks, "Looks like someone flicked some dew on him."

"He does!"

Alpha chuckled as he let the pup snatch the fish from his hands, smiling as he tilted his head to the side, "What about it bud; like Dewdrop?" he asked, expecting a little growl, but instead, the pup looked up at him, wolfing down the fish given to him. The pup then let out a high-pitched coo, reaching up to Alpha.

"I think he likes it," Pebble smiled, watching as Alpha lifted the pup into his arms after wrapping a nearby soaked, but warmed towel around the pup.

"Dewdrop it is then," Alpha nodded, his tail wagging lazily from side to side as he held little Dewdrop close, the pup curling up in his arms to settle down for a nap and for the first time since the little pup was summoned. Alpha heard a tiny purr.

#the band ghost #ghost band #ghost bc #nameless ghouls #my post #dewdrop ghoul #pebble ghoul #alpha ghoul #my fic #mist ghoulette #ghost headcanons #papa emeritus terzo #papa terzo #papa emeritus iii

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wawamouse · 4 months ago

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Oz Rewatch 3: S5E04: Next Stop Valhalla

Storylines

Jaime tries to kill Guerra and is killed instead; Miguel feels guilty; Alicia Hinden comes to Oz with the dog training program; Augustus, Penders, and Miguel are selected

Miss Sally’s Schoolyard to become Sallycise; Brass confirms to Rebadow he bought the lottery ticket; Martinez hits Brass with a shit cocktail; Gloria tries to get Martinez put in the hospital and then beats him up when he keeps touching her face

Beecher and Schillinger fight during an interaction session; Schillinger antagonises Schibetta;

Peter Marie visits Keller; McClain visits Keller

Winthrop and Guenzel arrive at Oz; Guenzel is taken under Beecher’s wing while Winthrop becomes a prag for the Aryans in Unit B

Frank Urbano arrives at Oz; Beecher asks Pancamo for the Italians help in protecting Guenzel; the Aryans and Italians get into a fight

Gloria tells Ryan he has to tell his mother about his crimes; Ryan breakdances instead; Shupe tells O’Reily that Li going to rape his mom; Ryan and Cyril kill Li

Augustus continues to grieve his mother and ends up breaking his sobriety

Omar annoys Emerald City and Said with his singing, McManus gives him a supply closet to practice in; Redding demands Omar use it to sell drugs; Lalar and Arif complain to Said that he’s neglecting his role as leader; Robson tortures and kills Lalar

Sister: That’s why they gotta stop announcing everything they do in this show, like...

Sister: I feel like [Norma’s] just dead at this point.

Sister: I feel like they’re leading up to him being like a mass shooter or something. Me: You think he’s gonna snap? Sister: He seems like the type...

Sister: …I think being free would making him happy. I mean, [Toby] had that whole vision about being free that did not include [Chris], so I think he’ll be fine.

Sister: You can just tell them anything and they’ll let you through…

Sister: What’s wrong with this guy? What’s he in for? Me: Hate crimes… Murder, officially, I think. Sister: Hate crime? What’s he sniffing people for? Me: He's just a perv...

Sister: …That’s so gross… In my sickened state*, I can’t even summon a bleugh. Me: [Retching noise] Sister: Thanks. (*We got some booster shots yesterday and Sister always gets sick afterward lol)

Sister: When are they going to address that guy whose wife also died? Me: Never. Sister: So why did they introduce her?! To spout off some facts and get shushed by the priest?? Me: Maybe there was originally supposed to be more of a story to it and it go cut. Sister: No, they just wanted to do their little after school special moment and then not deal with it. You know, if any of the Muslims should be having the issues in these episodes, it should be the other guy (Arif), not Mr. Said... Me: They could have issues together. Sister: Yeah. Kill the Nazi helper dude. The one who's egging everything on. Schillinger doesn't even really do stuff on his own anymore. Before, he didn't want to fight and wanted to become a Jesus freak and it was always that guy whispering in his ear. And now look.

Sister: How we know he’s not gonna build a bomb in there? … Oh, I guess they took away all the cleaning supplies…

Stray Thoughts

Sister says Jia Kenmin and Li Chen’s plan to provoke Ryan so they could kill him in self defense was really not thought-out

Sister is convinced that someone is going to die for one of the dogs

Sister believes that killing Robson would get rid of most of the Aryans’ bite since she views him as being the worst out of all the Aryans

Final thoughts

The scene where Robson and what’s his face torture Lalar is the toughest scene to watch in the entire show, imo. And it pisses me off (like, I’m actually getting mad thinking about it right now, lol) that Robson gets more expansion in terms of character as the show progresses, too, because whooooooooo gives a shit about a Nazi?! They still haven’t followed up on Arif’s wife LMAO. Also Urbano gets introduced this episode and they don’t end up doing shit with him, really, either. But let’s learn about this asshole!!

Sister: I feel like they’ve run out of storylines with the Muslims and are just repeating past ones. Wasn’t it [Arif] who was the one complaining about Said’s leadership the last time? And then he couldn’t handle it which caused the whole thing… and now he’s doing it again? Me: I think they just don’t like when Said helps other people. They complained when Said was spending time on Beecher, too… Sister: Yeah, [Arif] is so needy… He’s like “you’re spending too much time with your roommate who you have to stay in a cell with” and also every time he is around, [Said] just wants [Omar] to be quiet anyway…

#oz hbo #oz rewatch

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fullscoreshenanigans · 3 months ago

Note

What ages do you think each GP member was shipped out?

I have a headcanon that the older members (Oliver, zack, Paula) are neurodivergent because they were shipped at a young age and probably didn’t do well at standardized testing of grand valley because they have been at goldy pond for years

(rather than months compared to some newer members. I think Pepe was the most recent?)

You're right about Pepe!

(Chapter 69 & 70 Extras | Mystic Code Book Chapter 3 Q&A)

He's the only one whose shipment age is officially confirmed.

My guesses:

1. Adam: 14 at most, but probably younger (shipped in late 2045) 2. Gillian: 7 (2037) 3. Nigel: 8 (2037) 4. Oliver: 7/8 (2036; confirmed to have been at GP the longest) 5. Paula: 8 (2036) 6. Pepe: 16 (2045) 7. Sandy: 12 (2040) 8. Sonya: 8 (Early 2037) 9. Theo: 12 (Late 2045/January 2046) 10. Violet: 10-12 (2042-2044) 11. Zack: 9 (2036)

Without exact dates, the ages and years might be a bit off because I'm mostly focusing on their birth years, but within a year of error hopefully for everyone except Sandy and Violet, for whom I have the least amount of information to go off of so it's just personal vibes.

Reasoning under the cut:

Oliver, Paula, and Zack have been a part of the most recent incarnation of the Goldy Pond Resistance the longest, with Oliver being there the longest out of the three per the chapter 69 extra. We also see flashbacks of them together.

(Chapter 85 | Chapter 95)

From here, all we have to go on is the "Two Wills" story of the third light novel that focuses on Gillian and Nigel.

In this conversation with Emma on January 29, 2046, Nigel says it took him eight years to create one of the guns they use in their plan.

I'm assuming the ages provided in the extras are their ages on the day they met Emma, so a few months later on March 27 of that year Nigel turns seventeen. 2045 (when he's sixteen) minus eight is 2037, when he's eight years old.

Depending on how long it took Oliver and companions to recognize his technical knowledge, which probably wasn't more than a few hunts in.

Similar to how it didn't take long for Gillian's sister to be recruited for the cause.

Gillian and Nigel arrived at Goldy Pond within a few days of each other, if not on the same day, for the two of them, Nigel's younger sister Lala, and Emilia to all experience their first hunt together. Gillian is a year younger than Nigel, so she's shipped to Goldy Pond when she's seven.

"A boy a little older than [Nigel]" is referring to Oliver, who's already shown an aptitude for leadership for him to start taking on the duty of announcements to the new arrivals, couldn't have been there for too much longer than Nigel, so my guess is he arrived at Goldy Pond in 2036 prior to his October 25 birthday when he turned eight.

Sonya is also shown to have arrived before Nigel and Gillian, yet she arrived after Oliver, Paula, and Zack, as she's not featured in any of those early flashbacks with them, so my guess is she also arrived in the first half of 2037 before she turned nine on June 3 of that year.

This only thing that throws me off with all this is this page from chapter 77 because of how small and young Lala looks at the time of her death while Nigel looks like he's the same as he does in the present.

And shortly after she's murdered is when Gillian and Nigel go off on their own to try and kill Luce with an unfinished gun and fail, but the description makes it sound like it's near completion with the damage it's able to do to Luce's mask. It's hard to say, but with the light novel being published in October 2020 and the Goldy Pond arc being published in 2018, it's possible they retconned Lala into being older, or that there was actually a much larger gap between then and Nigel finally perfecting the weapon and ammunition.

But whenever this incident occurs, Sandy has also been around long enough to be integrated into the Resistance.

As this is the only time he's mentioned throughout the entire light novel. Violet's only mentioned during the conversations in the present day when Emma's talking to Gillian and Nigel about their pasts, so it seems safe to say she's the newest member of the Resistance after Pepe and has probably been with them for at least a year, so she was shipped out in 2044 at the latest.

My arbitrary designation for her shipment is sometime between 2042 and 2044 because of my personal headcanon that she only realized she was a trans girl after being shipped out, but she's had enough time to settle into her identity in her new environment surrounded by the new friends who support her. With the farms being symbols of oppression, I like the symbolism of kids coming into themselves once they've been removed from the farm environments they grew up in when they were unaware of the reality of their world.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 3)

Your headcanon of neurodivergence being a factor in determining which kids are shipped out early before 17 at Grand Valley could also fall into this, which I think is cool. Thrown away due to narrow, arbitrary metrics of success, and becoming the menace that dismantles them thanks to the very reasons they were discarded.

Back to Sandy, he has to arrive sometime before Violet, so 2040 when he's 12. Just because.

Finally, there's Adam, who was at Lambda at least until November 2045 because he sees Norman there.

(Chapter 75)

But he has to have been at Goldy Pond for a bit for him to become the doorman for the resistance, so he was probably sent there in November or December of 2045.

(Chapter 72 | Chapter 73 | Mystic Code Book Chapter 3 Q&A)

Lambda 7214 did not exist fifteen years ago when James left this message, and the timeline in the mystic code book doesn't provide us with a date for when it was completed, though it's probably in the 2030s.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 5)

With the experiments that take place at Lambda resulting in Hayato and Jin being born two days before Conny's shipment on October 12, 2045, and having them look as old as teenagers in October 2047 when Emma's group meets them, Adam could be anywhere from one to fourteen when he arrives at Goldy Pond. I go with eleven if I'm indulging in the Adam and Norman are twins theory.

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shesjustanothergeek · 2 years ago

Text

His Love

|Aegon II Targaryen x Fem!Reader|

Part Fifteen

Master List of Series

Summary: Being a bastard born in the slums of Flea Bottom was all you were known for. Not the streak of white you had in your dark hair, the violet ring around your pupils, or how your sharp tongue and skills with the blade resembled your father, Daemon Targaryen. You were just a bastard, nothing more, but to him, to Aegon Targaryen, you were everything. You were his love.

Author's Note: Hey, besties! Guess who passed their State Board Exams…? ME! I DID! Now, all I gotta do is fill out some paperwork, and I'll be licensed. I've started working already, but it's only three days a week right now, so pretty good! Don't hesitate to comment or ask me questions. I love hearing them and seeing others discuss them. Happy reading, everyone, and let the celebrations commence!

Chapter Warnings: Violence

The celebrations of Aegon's birth had finally arrived. All the Great Houses were expected to come—all but one. The Velaryons and part of the Targaryen faction were not extended an invitation. Rhaenys had taken this as a political slight by Queen Alicent. She was collateral damage in the cold war between Rhaenyra and her old friend. Guilty by association.

Lord Corlys was still fighting for control of the Stepstones and had put his loyal Lady Wife on the Driftwood throne to rule in his stead. The alliance of the Triarchy and House Martell of Dorne was of much concern, and without the aid of the King's fleet, the battle was all but lost. Yet, through it all, the Sea Snake remained on the collection of islands, fighting tooth and nail against those who wished control of his rightful territory.

Princess Rhaenys did not know of your efforts inside the Keep, slowly but surely attempting to send help to the losing battles. The day she was crowned the "Queen Who Never Was" came to mind. She felt abandoned by her cousins, Daemon and Viserys, for refusing to take a stance on the insurgents. Baela was her only solace, her heart missing the pieces her children used to occupy. She would never forgive them if her husband died.

You sat at the exponentially smaller desk in your room, the maids you had yet to become familiar with brushing your silky hair as you read two pieces of parchment.

Jace and your father had sent you letters. Daemons were curt, mentioning nothing about how he missed or thought of you while away. It was as if he was speaking to a fellow warrior, not his daughter. Only ensuring you were still on track with your efforts, wanting to know how far the influence of the Hightowers reached and when to expect words regarding the Stepstones. You ignored him for now, folding it in threes and placing it in the side drawer of your desk as you read your brother's.

"Dear Sister,

Jealousy became me when I bid you farewell a few days ago. I knew what I said was wrong as the words lept from my tongue. I am not proud, and regret has haunted me since. I express my sincerest and deepest apologies.

You have always been open and honest with your emotions, and I wish to do the same. I love you, sissy, despite what my words may have alluded to. You have experienced hardships that no child of that age should witness, and you did not grow to resent your family for it. I cannot say the same for me if something similar happened.

I wish the Queen did not invite you to Kings Landing, not because I am jealous, but because I haven't a clue what I mean to do without you. Father wants me to be strong, like you. He wants me to practice swords like you. He wants me to listen to Mother's audiences like you, but I am not you. I am a boy whose lineage is clouded with stolen kisses and an accidental fire.

I wish you were still here so I could feel your embrace. I do not believe I can handle Daemon for much longer. How have you done it for so long?

The days cannot go fast enough as I await your return. I intend to give you a proper apology once you are home. Perhaps we can spend some time in Aegon the Conqueror's Garden as I grovel? I will arrange a picnic for when I do. I don't want to beg on an empty stomach.

Missing you,

Jacaerys Velaryon, your wretched little brother."

His endearing letter did not help the ache for Dragonstone. A smile burned your cheeks as you rubbed the dry paper between your fingers. You could smell the brimstone on the fibers, the sulfuric scent taking you home.

"My Lady," a servant gained your attention, taking your focus off the sweet words. "The men should be returning from their hunts in the Kingswood soon. I would suggest we start readying you for the tourney later today."

You nodded wordlessly, giving them a tight-lipped smile as you put Jace's letter next to Daemon's. You will be sure to write them both later.

You were confident Jace would love to hear how the tourney went. He had always gravitated toward stories of knights in shining armor valiantly jousting for a lady's favor. He had spoken several times about wanting to participate in the events. That was the only thing that pushed him to pursue the sword, other than your mother's and father's orders.

You could picture your little brother atop a white steed, armor resembling a dragon with a lance in his hand, asking for the favor of one special noble girl. The image brought a genuine grin to your face. Jace was always the gentleman his Mother taught him to be.

You wanted to stand out amongst the crowd of green royals you were sure to be seated with. It was to be your first public appearance since your legitimization, and you had to make an impression. You allowed your ladies to bathe you, and upon your exit from the tub, you requested one to show you the variety of gowns you had brought. Black was always the most innovative option, representing the colors of your House, and there were plenty to choose from, thankfully. It was only a matter of which one.

You decide to help your decision by considering the weather and environment. Most of the gowns you had were thick for the constant chill of Dragonstone and would indeed have you draped over a chair with a fan to cool off despite the changing seasons. That had only left you with a few options, which immensely helped. It had revealed a dress you once deemed too scandalous to wear in your family's presence.

It was not typical Westerosi fashion. Rhaenyra had commissioned a tailor in Dorne to create a gown when you officially became of bedding age.

You could tell it was something she had longed to wear as a girl, a freeing and rebellious design, but etiquette and her position would not allow her to wear such exotic clothing. You did agree with her that it was stunning. The deep plunging 'v' of the neckline certainly accentuated your breasts and made them much more pleasing to the eye as your maids tightened the strings in the back.

The fabric was a combination of red with an overlay of black lace. Golden thread held the seams together, and a matching cape to your shoulders, leaving your arms bare. Pieces of Aurelian were sewn on the shoulder pads of it, looking like crumpled yellow leaves that cascaded down your biceps. A circled belt of silver was delicately snitched around your waist, the excess of the metal resting between your legs.

After you were dressed, the servants ushered you to the vanity, holding the draping fabric so it did not catch as they began to fix your ebony hair. They elected not to put it in its usual braided style, instead rolling and twisting the long strands onto themselves until they reached the base of your head, pinning it to your head. It was simple, and you immensely enjoyed the freedom it gave to your range of motion.

Next, they adorned you with matching jewelry and a delicate headpiece that arched over the crown of your head. A necklace of a curled golden dragon wrapped around the hollow of your throat, a long needlelike chain attached to it as a polished metal fang hung at the end. They then slid a hammered bronze cuff on your wrist and rings of the same color, dragonglass, and rubies for its gems. The ladies applied the final touch of makeup to your skin, a fine powder to rid the shine from your nose, a dusting of rouge, and a hint of rose-colored balm to your lips.

You felt like the Targaryen princesses of centuries past, the blood of old Valeryia pumping your heart.

You would give anything for your Mother to see you now, dressed in the traditional colors of her House. Though you couldn't hide your relief in Daemon not being here, you were sure he would've made you change or barred your door to stop you from escaping in such scandalous garb. You stood, finding the dagger Daemon had gifted you and the belt it was connected with. You hooked it around your waist, adjusting it to be just out of view.

Your servants stared at you in awe, more amazed by their work than you as you grabbed the wreath of black charm lilies and black crystal pansies you requested to give your favor to the knights who asked. You didn't believe any of them would but knew it was proper to have one nonetheless. You smiled at your ladies, conveying your gratefulness through your unusual eyes. You turned, facing the three women, your cape resembling a waterfall.

"I believe I haven't inquired of your names yet," you prompted, looking them over. The youngest of three fiddled with the hem of her white apron, avoiding your gaze. "I do apologize for that. You all have been very kind to me."

"I am Jeyne," the oldest spoke first, giving you a curtsy. Grey hair poked from under her servant cap, wrinkles creasing the corners of her eyes.

"I am Fiora," the next one spoke, bowing. She appeared not much older than you, with bright green eyes and a splash of tan freckles on her nose and cheekbones.

You would guess the youngest girl, around Jace's age, continued playing with her clothes, muttering a meek "Dyana" and quickly bending her legs. You frowned at her response, sensing her anxiety, and reached for her tiny fingers, rough and dry with callouses.

"You need not be frightened, Dyana. I am not as wicked as the whispers claim me to be," you jested with a grin. She returned it, but it did not reach her eyes. A pang of sadness struck your chest as your gaze flicked over her as if you could understand the reason for her apprehension at a glance.

"My Ladies," you said, standing and clasping your hands in front of you as you bowed your head. "It is a pleasure to become acquainted finally. I am sure we will become close during my stay here." You smiled at all of them once more, your attention resting briefly on the meek fair skinned girl. "If any of you need something from me in the meantime, no matter how small or trivial, I will be at your service as you are to me."

The three shared bewildered expressions, Fiora's mouth agape as all muttered their thanks.

You supposed their reaction was understandable. They had never been treated like people before, almost making you feel bad for your motives.

Your plan would not hurt them in the long run. If anything, they would most likely be grateful to have a princess as an ally. Most nobles did not realize how much of their life depended upon the people serving them, not considering that they saw and heard everything within their homes. You would be a fool not to take advantage of that during such tumultuous times.

"Well," you clapped your palms together, giddy to finally have that out of the way, "I have grown rather famished and wish for some snacks before I watch men get rammed with sticks." Jeyne grinned, and Fiora bit her pink lips at your crude words. "I know that this is not proper, but I truly am in the dark. If you would not mind, could you lead me to the kitchens? I frequented them much at Dragonstone, as midnight snacking is a vice of mine, and wish to know where they are when the cravings emerge."

Knowing your next moves hinged on their response, you had planned those words carefully. You needed to tell them something that they believed was a secret. Daemon had told you once that revealing something one would deem embarrassing, that displaying vulnerability to a fellow human would have them drop their defenses, but if they were smart enough to realize this, it would ruin everything.

Fiora gave a toothy grin, nodding vigorously before looking at her companions. The other two shared the same smile. Through those actions, you could quickly tell what her personality was. She was a giddy and sweet girl, albeit a bit more susceptible than someone of her age should be. The other women followed along. Her joy was contagious as they approached the kitchens with you on their heels.

A self-satisfied smirk replaced the kind smile you wore for your servants.

Everything was going according to how you imagined it. Your maids took kindly to you, and as you traversed the long hallways and steps of the Keep, each passing nobleman and servant noticed your presence. One Lady gasped as you rounded a corner and met face-to-face, quickly scurrying away like a scared field mouse. A man who stood over a full head taller than you raked his eyes over your form, his attention staying on your breasts long enough for Jeyne to notice. She silently stepped before you could truly capture his face, only noting his long black hair and eyes.

Servants bustled throughout the kitchens, some throwing large pieces of dough on a floured table, others running with plates of food and ingredients in their hands. None of them paid attention as you entered, hidden behind the uniformed girls, having to duck beneath a misplaced stone in the stairwell ceiling.

Jeyne, Dyana, and Fiora led you through an archway into a room filled with even more people who still did not notice you, peeling carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables. You felt your chest deflate in defeat at your seemingly unimportant presence, not anticipating them to continue their tasks and not spare you a glance. It was not every day a member of the royal family graced them with their appearance.

It almost felt like the servants of the Keep did not see you as a Targaryen but as just another one of them. Your mouth soured at the thought, digging your nails into your palms until they left imprints. It would be best if you were happy to see them collectively agree you were not like the rest of your kin, but still, not receiving the recognition you tried so hard for was gutting. You could feel your body deflating, curling in on itself as your previous confidence dwindled.

No matter, you told yourself. This can work to my advantage.

They saw you as not someone to be feared, and perhaps you could extend those same opinions toward your Mother. Rhaenyra needed everyone who resided in the Red Keep to be on her side when she ascended the throne, the nobles who lived at court, and the knights who protected and defended the Targaryen name. Everyone was needed.

Jeyne handed you a peach from off the wooden table a male servant used to cut some vegetables, smiling as your thumb stroked the fuzzy skin. You could still remember when fruits such as that were unavailable to you, though these memories were faint and grew more difficult to recall as time passed. Dyana then found a jug of cider, filling a small goblet up to wash down the sweet taste that danced on your tongue, and Fiora used the corner of her apron to wipe the stray juices that dribbled out of the corner of your mouth. You smiled at them both gratefully, fighting on the inside not to swat their doting hands away, feeling like a child again.

You sucked the last bit of the pulp from the large seed before removing it from your lips and throwing it in the bucket they used for scraps. You continued to sip on the brass goblet Dyana had given you, following them from out of the kitchens and into a courtyard you had never seen before. It was lined with pens filled with livestock. Sheep, pigs, goats, and chickens belting, chirping, and snorting as you passed.

You were still determining exactly where the tourney would be held but had yet to hear of the vast and spacious arena it was. You knew you would be sitting inside the royal box next to the other noble members of your family, and you couldn't hide how less than joyful that made you feel. You did wonder if the King would be there, knowing that what the Maester and Otto said were complete lies about his health. Some of you still held onto hope that there was some truth in their deceitfulness. Indeed, they couldn't be so bold as to say something that could easily be disproven with one's eyes. The next Council meeting would undoubtedly be an eventful one.

Your ladies led you back inside an entrance of the castle you had never seen before, urging you to follow their steps and assuring you were close. Soon, the low rumbling of voices could be heard. Different pitches and accents all melted into one continuous barrage of sound as you ascended the stairs to your seat.

The first leg of the tourney was set to begin in a short while, and most of the royal family had already made their appearance. Even the eldest prince sat in a high back chair, practically falling asleep with a cup of wine in his hand. A slight grin formed on your face at the endearing sight, appearing as if you were looking at a babe rather than a man grown. His perfectly pink lips stuck out in a pout, a sigh escaping as he adjusted in his seat.

You were standing above him diagonally on the top riser and could see every huff, and every scoff he made as his Mother spoke to him, but Aegon could not see you. Queen Alicent said straight ahead, not looking at him as you saw her permanent scowl. It was her firstborn's name day, which should be celebrated with nothing but smiles and laughs. One would think she would be happy for such an occasion.

Aegon said something to his Mother that made her snap her head in his direction, ready to offer him some choice words as she saw you.

You could hear the gasp leaving Alicent clutching the pointed star of the Seven glued to her neck. You swore by the sound she made she had not seen you but the Stranger himself as her face paled. The Queen whispered something as she quickly looked away. Aegon was just as shocked as you regarding his Mother's reaction. He thought she might faint as he swiftly turned to see what it was all about.

Your gazes looked at one another, and your cheeks reddened under his stare. You felt your heart flutter in your chest, offering him a quick curtsey as you walked to an open seat at the lowest riser, crossing your legs as you adjusted the dagger at your hip.

Aegon had died. Well, it certainly felt like it when he laid his eyes on you. For once, his vision was clear and not yet clouded by the drink, and he could see your perfectly crafted body. He immediately went to the plunging neckline of your dress; how could he not? Your breasts were right there where he could see, noticing how much bigger they were than he initially imagined. He then noticed the curled golden dragon around your neck, reminding him of his own, Sunfyre. Had you chosen that for him? Did you purposefully put that on with him in mind? Aegon could feel his cock harden at the thought.

He watched you descend the giant stone steps, holding your skirts up so you did not trip as he saw your bare ankles. He could hardly contain the twitch of his hips at the sight. Aegon had been with many women in his life, too many to count, and yet seeing just a peak of your hidden skin had him nearly spilling in his breeches.

He thought back to your moment in the Godswood. Underneath the Heart Tree, the fragments of the sunrise peeking through the leaves dotted your skin with beautiful rays of yellow. One had been over your eyes, and Aegon had seen your pupils shrink and reveal more of the purple that bathed there. He never wanted to leave that moment with you. He wanted to stay forever underneath that tree, trace the scars on your skin, and kiss every part of you until he had you squirm underneath him.

Aegon remembered how your breathing hastened as your jaw trembled at his touch, your face contorted into a gorgeous pout as he pulled your lip with his thumb. He noticed how you were clenching your thighs together even though you had no idea. Nothing had changed between the two of you, he realized. Aegon knew you desired him as much as he desired you. You just did not know it yet.

Gods. He wanted to take the empty seat next to you so badly but knew what his Mother would say if he did-- what she would do if he did. So, instead, he signaled for a serving girl to fill his chalice to the brim, drowning his sorrows in Arbor Red.

***

You felt rather pathetic as you shifted in your seat, the wood creaking with your weight as you still held your wreath of flowers. You could sense everyone's eyes on you and the empty chairs positioned at your sides. No one wanted to sit next to the bastard, you mocked in your head, feeling as if your eyes would pop out of your skull if you rolled them any harder.

It was the fifth round of the tourney, and five men had been knocked off their horses, but no fighting had ensued. Bracken, Tully, Arryn, Tyrell, and Blackwood boys had to skulk back to the stables knowing they had lost.

The King had still yet to show if he was ever going to, and you had given a fierce glare at Otto Hightower a few rows up when he announced the tournament had officially started. You had caught the stare of Princess Helaena in the process and immediately softened, returning her kind smile before the One-Eyed Prince stole her. You made a mental note to see her at the feast the following evening, perhaps share a dance or two.

With the end of the fifth round started the sixth, and the vibrant lion banners of House Lannister were prominently displayed as Ser Tyland entered the arena. He sat atop his chestnut horse, trotting over to the squire that held his lance. He approached the royal box, and you thought for a moment he might ask you for your favor. You couldn't hide the distance as he smiled up at you but turned his face away, looking at someone behind you.

"I am Ser Tyland of House Lannister," he announced.

Yes, you twat, you said internally, we know who you are. You live here.

"Princess Helaena," he called, and she looked up from her fingers to the man below her. His voice nearly made you vomit. "Would you do me the honor of bestowing your favor for the next round, Princess?" he asked chivalrously.

She glanced at her grandsire beside her, and he nodded in approval as she stood, her pale yellow dress shining in the autumn sun.

"Of course," she smiled, walking to the steps to place her ring of white and blue flowers on the pole of his lance.

"I thank you, your Grace," he replied and then trotted back to the waiting young squire.

Helaena stood there momentarily, her eyes glassy as she looked at you. It didn't feel like her gaze was on you, but more looking through you as she whispered. "Heed the beast within the deep. Rock runs red, and rocks bleed."

You looked at her confused, brows furrowing, and reached for her hand, asking her to speak louder. She quickly smacked it away, her eyes widening in fear as if she was suddenly woken from a dream, and she hurried up the steps.

You didn't have time to dwell on Helaena's outburst as Ser Tyland Lannister's opponent entered the wring. His armor was an impenetrable crepuscule steel and as shiny as the scales that covered your dragon's flesh, a helmet the same color with a mane of yellow hairs spanning from his crown to the base of his neck. His banners were ones you had only seen on paper. Most of the fabric was black, just like his thick armor, but the sigil was a deep golden kraken with ten long tentacles, nearly spanning the entire flag. The squid-like beasts of House Greyjoy were said to terrorize the depths of the oceans and sink the ships of those unsuspecting.

You were unsure of which Greyjoy it was. Dalton or Veron or maybe a cousin or some distant kin that shared the name. You didn't care who it was. They were just another lord or knight seeking fame inside a wood and dirt stadium.

You signaled for a servant, and he gave you a chalice of wine as you slumped in your seat. You didn't want to cloud your mind with alcohol, always the one to be alert and observe things other people may not notice, but this was getting rather irksome, and you needed something to do other than sit and look pretty.

"Ser Dalton of House Greyjoy," the knight said, his horse a dusty grey color as he lifted his helmet off his head. You ignored him with confidence that it was not you he was speaking to, taking another gulp of wine as you swirled the drink.

Dalton was a fierce and ruthless man. You had heard his stories of his youth sailing the Basilisk Isles with his late uncle, pillaging the towns there. He had somehow claimed a Valyrian steel sword named Nightfall during those plunders. At one point, he had aided in the battle of the Stepstones as a sellsail, where his uncle was murdered. It had been rumored in a fit of vengeance, he killed every enemy within his sight and emerged from the battle victorious and drenched in blood. Since then, he bore the title of the Red Kraken.

"I come seeking the favor of the bastard girl the court speaks so much of." A collective gasp sounded in the royal box, shocked at his words.

You barked out a laugh at Ser Dalton, attempting not to choke on the liquid you just swallowed. You should have been insulted at him for calling you such a name. In the eyes of the law and the Seven, you were no longer a bastard, but clearly, that did not stop people from claiming you as such.

"You have found her, Ser Dalton of House Greyjoy," you mocked, crossing your legs as you began to play with a small leaf. You smiled as you noticed the maroon outline of his House sigil on his breastplate.

Everything thing about him was dark and menacing. He radiated an aura of malevolence from the inside as if you would cut him open; he would not bleed the same red. "Though, I do not think you deserve my favor after calling me such a name." Men and women released more gasps, and you could hear someone muttering a soft "Gods be good" under their breath.

You waited for the following apology, but it did not come, leaving you sitting there like a fool. You hummed in disapproval, pushing yourself upright.

"I am no longer a bastard girl," you stood, holding the flower wreath between your fingers, "but that of a woman born from a night of sinful heat and passion. I am skilled with the blade and well-read. I study history, philosophy, and the politics of the realm." Ser Dalton's onyx gaze crept from your leather slippers to the white streak in your hair. He watched you step closer and lean over the railing so only he could hear you. "I am not just a simple fucking bastard girl."

He watched the words roll off your tongue, gripping his lance tighter with parted lips as you placed the circle of black and wine-colored flowers on it.

You fixed your spine, staring down your nose at the bannerman before you. "Win this joust Ser Dalton of House Greyjoy, and I will forgive the slight you have made upon me. For I am afraid if you do not, the sand of the Iron Islands shall turn to glass, and your Salt Wives will finally be free. You have my favor and my luck." You flicked your wrist as you walked back to your seat. "Off with you."

"Thank you, Princess. You honor me deeply." He lifted the fist that carried his helmet and crossed it over his chest, bowing his head with an amused smirk.

You sat down, grabbed the cup you had been working on, and asked the servant to fill it again, unbothered with his courtly manners. Ser Dalton placed his helmet back on and readied his horse for the first bout.

You almost chuckled at the sight, drink to your lips. Sitting on his horse, he looked like a nasty black pony with a yellow mane, ready to bite and kick anyone nearby. His whole get-up was quite ridiculous as you continued to watch.

Ser Tyland's armor was so very much... Lannister. There was no other word to describe the style. He wore a long red flowing cape, his dense silver breastplate trimmed with gold in the shape of a lion.

An announcer with a sizeable brass horn stepped onto a wooden platform a few meters before the royal box. He wore a plum-colored hat with a dyed feather and an off-white tunic dampened with sweat and stained with dust as he shouted the outlining phrases for the beginning of this round. He introduced each House and their respective ranks within them.

"Ser Dalton of House Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, conqueror of thirteen Salt Wives, Lord of the Iron Islands," he boomed into the sky, swaying his hand to the right side of the arena to where the man was. He paused to let the crowd shout their praises.

Screams and hollers of people echoed loudly, drowning out the announcer as he introduced Tyland next. You could see the proud Lannister boy's ego was hurt at the apparent favoritism, and you feigned a pout at the sight.

Finally, he blew his horn, signaling they could begin. Ser Dalton did not waste a breath in fear as he charged at Ser Tyland, his yellow-striped lance already bent and ready to take his opponent off his horse. You scoffed, taking another sip of the sickly sweet wine.

If he planned to knock Tyland down on his first try, he clearly did not comprehend the point of a joust. You did not understand why the audience would love him if he intended to get this over swiftly. This was supposed to be entertainment and not battle. It was meant to be a spectacle for the crowd, a break from the mundane life of the court.

At the last second, as Dalton and Tyland were about to collide stick to the chest, Ser Dalton lifted his lance straight. Ser Tyland's breezed past his rival, completely missing his goal with a cheer from the crowd. You mirrored their sentiments but did not show it on the outside, only adjusting in your seat with a soft sigh. You saw Dalton to the left now, and if you did not know any better, smirked at you. Arrogant, just like the Lannisters.

They went at it again, the hooves of their steeds thundering on the packed earth. This time neither of them started with their poles down, only for Ser Tyland to raise it at the last moment and knock Ser Dalton in the shoulder. Sadly, he did not fall off his horse and only lost his grip on the lance, dragging a line in the dirt. You laughed, pleased to have witnessed at least some bruising to the man's pride.

You tried your best to ignore the stares of those behind you. They had been on you since you sat. No doubt, if you looked, you would only be met with aversion and disgust. You steeled yourself, moving from your slouched position to rest your hands on the arms of the chair.

Aegon was part of the stares, though his expression differed significantly from the others. His Mother had cast him a sidelong glance at his reaction, and only then did he outwardly calm. He had been inside his mind until the squid boy approached you, asking for your favor. He even had the gull to call you a bastard! In front of nearly the entire court of the Red Keep! Oh, how Aegon wanted to call his dragon and burn the fish to pieces.

It also did nothing to soothe him when he saw you lean over the box fence, telling the squid boy only something he could hear. He knew your breasts were on display for the man judging by his hungry gaze. At one point, Aegon swore he saw him adjust his stance in the saddle.

Aegon was furious. His nails dug into his seat's material, feeling splinters wedge underneath them. He stole a pitcher of wine from a servant, keeping it on his lap so he could have continued access to it.

He was so, so furious as he watched your sudden interest in the tournament. He knew you were only mesmerized by the men in front of you because Ser Dalton gave you attention. Aegon wasn't upset over that; no, he was upset over the fact that the Lord of Pyke had won the round by hitting Tyland Lannister straight into the chest, sending him flying into the dust. He noticed how your shoulders lifted with barely contained excitement as he watched Ser Dalton send a bow your way.

He groaned, not filtering his discontent for the rest of the rounds that unfolded, which, sadly, each one Ser Dalton was the victor of. Eventually, the final bout started. His opponent was a Glover boy from the north, unsure of which one, but it didn't matter as he witnessed the Red Kraken get thrown from his horse. Aegon couldn't help but cheer theatrically at the sound of the lance splintering when colliding with his stomach.

He had caught your sudden gaze then, brown eyes flitting over how he stood and clapped his hands. You didn't smile but gave him a look of confusion, your thick brows furrowing. He had felt his jubilance subside, but only slightly.

Suddenly, Ser Dalton shouted, yanking a sword and shield from his squire and challenging the victor to a duel. Aegon felt his stomach sink into his chair as a strand of his blonde mane obscured his vision. Oh, splendid, he mused; the squid has pride.

The Glover had taken up the challenge without strife, still proudly wearing the banner of his House on his back. Aegon wondered if you had ever witnessed a duel before. He knew you had taken a life, but it was not the same as watching someone do it. Selfishly, he dreamed you would turn away at the sight and seek comfort from him, but that was all it was... a dream.

You watched with surprise as the Glover's and Dalton's swords clashed, the clang ringing in your ears. Each slash and thud of their metal longswords sent a jolt through your bones, curling your toes and squeezing your drink in a vice-like grip. You hated to admit that you felt nervous, your heart beating just a little too fast to be considered normal.

Ser Dalton's swings were wild but held a skillful precision, connecting with the Glover's side. It knocked the wind out of the poor boy's lungs and had him raising his shield as Dalton kicked it, sending him stumbling further.

He was so savage, so bloodthirsty that it made you shiver. You finally understood why he was called the Red Kraken, and you feared for the Glover's life. Surely, he wouldn't kill the boy; you hoped he wouldn't. The poor lad looked like he had just become a man. He was much shorter than Dalton but still taller than you, and he looked like this was his first tourney. You wished he would yield.

Ser Dalton swung at the boy, his armored fist connecting to his jaw with a nauseating crunch of bone and metal. Confidently, he kicked to disoriented teen in the stomach, knocking him to the ground, his sword falling just out of reach. He went to pull his shield to defend himself, but Dalton stomped on the arm that carried it. You could see how the Kraken stood over the Armored Glove, unable to hear what he said to him. You didn't need to. You knew what came next, and it did not frighten you. The Glover lost the duel as the Greyjoy raised his sword, cutting off the words that attempted to leave his tongue with a blade to the throat.

It was bloody. So very bloody. The essence of the Glovers' life force spurted from his body onto the face of Ser Dalton Greyjoy, dripping from his chin. You heard the gasps of those around you, a platter dropping at the horrific show as the ground became saturated with red. You didn't feel sad as you watched two people drag his body away, the crowd bursting into cheers and applause. In fact, you felt hardly anything, sitting as if nothing had happened as the announcer raised Ser Dalton's hand in triumph. You were used to death by now.

To the outside person, you looked alright, but Aegon knew you were anything but. Your knuckles blanched around your drink, resting it in your lap. He felt foolish to think you would shy away from such things. He knew you were much more robust than that, but still, he hoped you would run to him.

Everything next seemed to happen in slow motion. Aegon watched the crown of roses intended for the Queen of Love and Beauty be placed into Dalton's bloodied palms, strutting over to the royal box as he called out the most beautiful name he had ever heard... Yours.

His little one. His love.

Aegon went to jump out of his seat, but the firm hand of his Mother yanked his arm, abruptly pulling him back down before he could mock the royal family with his outburst. He wanted to rip his Mother off him and run to you. He wished to hide you from the hundreds of eyes staring at you. This wasn't right. He panicked. This cannot be right. You were his, and he was yours until the end of days.

He pictured what Ser Dalton's head would look like on a spike as you walked down the stairs and onto the small platform below. He watched the Salt Lord's eyes rake across your body as he placed the crown on your head, whispering something that made you clench your fists.

Everyone knew what this meant grandiose display meant. The Lord Reaper of Pyke intended to court his pretty girl and make a Salt Wife out of her. No, Aegon thought. That will never do.

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I hope y'all liked this chapter. It's an exciting one! We've met a new character, Dalton Greyjoy. He plays a big part in The Dance of Dragons. I won't spoil it for anyone, but let's say his heart runs black… The next chapter is the feast for our baby boy's 20th birthday! Let's hope Aegon gets everything he wishes for.

Tagged Peeps: @zeennnnnnn, @malfoytargaryen, @targaryencore, @justasmallbean, @alexandra-001, @omgsuperstarg, @sommornyte, @silverslive, @unclecrunkle, @prettykinkysoul, @duesobabe, @djlexi, @ynbutbetter, @honestlykat, @graykageyama, @legolas017, @iiamthehybrid, @brezzybfan, @dd122004dd, @ladybug0095, @millies0bsimp, @kalfild, @sheislonelyalways, @tempt-ress, @bellameshipper, @minttea07, @trikigirl271, @esposadomd, @buckylahey, @justarandomflowerchildofthenight, @partypoison00, @please-buckme, @pastelorangeskies, @joliettes, @existential-echo, @priyajoyy, @valaenatargaryensdragon, @merovingianprincess, @rachelnicolee, @candy12110, @w3ird11, @ruhjkie, @fatalewomen, @somemydayy, @ariana-dumbledore8, @marikkjj, @zillahvathek, @sunfyresrider, @sunny-boy-06

Bold means I couldn't tag you for some reason :(

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