#HOW DARE YOU END IT LIKE THAT 😩😭

[doromoni]

Not Over the Papaya | OP81

⊹ ｡•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ

Ships : Oscar Piastri x Popstar! Reader , Ex!Lando Norris x Popstar! Reader

Genre : Fluff Smau

A/N : I’m back!! am i still sick? yeah a lil~ But I can finally look at my phone 🥹. Thank yall for waiting and supporting NOTP series 🧡.

Face claim : Jennie Kim

Warnings : Cursing, Grammatical Errors

Summary : Y/N and Oscar cope with their own breakups by making the Heartbreak Club.

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

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“I have nothing to say to you”

“Ok, then let me do the talking. Y/N I’m really sorry”

“Lando, you apologizing wont make what you did go away! Can’t you just leave me alone??”

“I will, I promise… i just want to end everything correctly… please let me. Y/N please”

“i’m already happy Lando.”

“I know that Y/N and I’m happy for you! I don’t want everything to be awkward with Oscar when we do see each other.”

“For Oscar…”

Y/N. 3m

story replies

oscarpiastri am i crazy or is the coffee we make in your flat better than this??

Y/N. No lie youre so right, this coffee lowkey is not it.

oscarpiastri I thought I was tweakin. Where are you btw?? I left for the bathroom for 3 mins and ur gone??

Y/N. uhh… im looking for popcorn :DD

oscarpiastri How aren’t you getting a stomachache with the things you eat baffles me .

Y/N. Ion know myself dude 🤷🏼‍♀️ I’m amazing like that

oscarpiastri well no need to look, they have it at the plane. I asked John if the plane stocked popcorn and yes they do

Y/N. Really? You’re literally the bestttt 🥺🫶

Y/bf Y/N L/N when I found out that you’ve died from caffein overdose I wont even be surprised 😀

Y/N. I just wont die, simple as that my dearest best friend.

Y/bf just have fun and give em hell 🤭 . Oh! my chocolates dont forget!! Safe travel luv 🫶

Y/N. Oh they wouldn’t know what hit em. I will bring chaos . I wont forget your chocolates y/bf!!. And thank youu

maxverstappen1 Y/NNnnnnnnnnn I’m sorry 😩

Y/N. Sorry? and you are?

maxverstappen1 I changed my password already! Plsss do not be mad >:((

logansargeant Y/N are you going to the raceeeee???!!

Y/N. well yes I am American Boi

logansargeant why am i always the last to know?!!

Y/N. Sorry (Lmao I’m not)

logansargeant Ur so mean to me >:((

oscarpiastri

story replies

Y/N. 🧡🧡🧡

oscarpiastri food was 🔥 music was 🔥 the pretty girl held my hand also 🔥.

Y/N. Is it safe to assume you liked everything then…. 🫣

oscarpiastri YES i did! I’d wife you up if you’d let me.

Y/N. I haven’t met your family yet SIR. 🤨

oscarpiastri That wasn’t a no. If the last song in your album wasnt a proposal…. 🤭

Y/N. OK! you win. Be grateful I love you. Now stop looking at ut phone you need to focus on your debriefing! I could ser John glaring at you rn!!

charles_leclerc is that Y/N’s Unreleased album????!!!

oscarpiastri why yes father, it is 😌.

charles_leclerc and you and Y/N are not letting me listen?? HOW DARE YOU TWO 😭

oscarpiastri Sorryyy . I get first listens ~ you wait for the release of Heartbreak club like the otherss😛

charles_leclerc even Alex is freaking out!!! comeonnn Son. Just 1 song plsss.

oscarpiastri ask Y/N 🙂‍↕️ She’s the genius behind this masterpiece (that i get to listen to whenever i want 😛😛😛)

charles_leclerc I will revoke your adoption! Oscar Jack Piastri-Leclerc.

logansargeant Heartbreak Club??? Isnt that the name of you and Y/N’s club for people who got cheated on

oscarpiastri the very same HAHAHAHAHA

logansargeant so its about Lando cheating???

oscarpiastri Yes and No… and I’m not allowed to elaborate further!

logansargeant Boi without me there wouldnt even be a club with you and Y/N~ mate yall owe me 🥰😀

f1wags

liked by user1 , user2, and others

f1wags Oscar and Y/N are already in Belgium🫶 .

user1 Oop, is Y/N going to attend the race 🫣

user2 Ohhhh I really hope so! Plss plss

user3 I really miss Y/N in the paddock. Miss ma’am pls mark your territory! Ion like that other girl there 🤡 Ur tainting the McLaren brand pls exit the premises.

user2 The height difference is so 🥰🫶🧡

user3 I offer myself as their child or their pet I dont care. Pls just have me

user4 Their future child would be troy bolton i swear. To sing or to do sports 😩

user5 HAHAHAHAHAHHA I could so imagine it.

user6 BET ON IT!

user7 I SAW THEMMM 😭 they were do cute I can’t!! Y/N was so busy yapping and Oscar was just smiling at her and nodding. Boi is just happy to be there, Oscar same.

user8 I still cant believe that Osc knows the tracks inside Y/N’s album

oscarpiastri

liked by Y/N., mclaren, charles_leclerc , carlossainz55, and other

oscarpiastri Touch down and Landed 🛩️ Excited to get behind the wheel!

charles_leclerc what is with you and spa (wdym landed?? you’re literally here since Tuesday??)

alexandrasaintmleux let him have his fun, babe.

Y/N. Yeah! have your own timeline Lechuck

oscarpiastri listen to the ladies, Mate. It’ll do you good.

charles_leclerc I love my life and the people in it 😀

mclaren Locked and Ready 💪 Let’s go for Podium!!

user1 LETS GO OSC!!

user2 continue the podium streak champ!!

user3 Oscar future WDC , i’m calling it

user4 Oscar looks extra pookie todayyy 🥰

user5. Ah Y/N effect 🙂‍↕️~ I see your man girl!

user6 Y/N’s influence on Osc is really showing fr. Ma’am ur doing amazing work!

Series Taglist : @champagneproblems17 @itsjustfranzi @cheriwritesig @forza-charles @awritingtree @sltwins @gr1mes-cc @hwalllllllelujah @btsfluffsworld @tillyt04 @landotd @booksandflowrs @czennieszn @thatsouthernblondewiththeass @tellybearryyyy @wobblymug @alittlechaotics-blog @bingussthirdtoe @mirrorball-6 @demandealalune @heartsforleclerc @yoongi-holland @maneskin-slave @alenix @forensicheart @bloodyymaryyy @stereading @hahahjej @youre-on-your-ownkid : closed

Maintaglist : @myescapefromthislife @peterholland04 @charlottef1 @fangirl125reader @mel164 @gnarlycore @chloelovesln4 @vickykazuya @merchelsea @ln4author @qzmef @nxk1309 @styl1shl1v @lottalove4evelyn @gr3yhues : closed for now

[holybibly]

i’m literally so obsessed with your work 😭

could you possibly do some sort of shiburi/toy play with san?

i would literally die if you did 😩

Bunnies, I haven't been as active lately as I'd like to be, but today I'm here and Unholy Hours are back on the air.

Hmm, I haven't tried shibari yet, but San is too attractive for me to give up the idea.

"Tied up like that, you look so divine. I can't take my eyes off you, my angel; the way the ropes leave marks on your delicate skin is driving me insane." San practically purrs into your neck before he pulls away from you. No matter how tempting you look at the moment, he is going to have to be patient. He has the whole of the night in front of him, and you are completely in his power.

The soft rope whispers and snakes across your bare skin, hot as sin, each intricate loop pressing tightly against your body, leaving exquisite marks. Through the soft lace of your blindfold, you couldn't see the pattern that San was creating today, but you could imagine each intricate knot being wrapped around your body, all of them evenly spaced and perfectly tied.

In San's eyes, you were nothing less than a work of art.

San left your hands free, but you didn't dare move them. You knew that if you started to squirm or tried to rub your throbbing clit, the slow glide of the rope over your skin would stop immediately. San didn't like it when his princess was disobedient, especially when he was making her beautiful for himself. Of all the dolls he so desperately wanted to play with, you were the most beautiful.

You could feel the rope sliding down just below your chest and then tightening around your rib cage. The slight tension of the rope around you makes your breathing harder and more labored, and heat begins to build in your lower abdomen as you feel the rope digging into your skin. It starts to get wet between the folds of your pussy and you know that soon you are going to start dripping.

The tension of the ropes is perfect; there is nothing to put you in any danger. San always knew how to treat you properly.

"Black is your color, my angel." San purred again, but this time his voice was a little more husky and sultry, like that of a big, contented cat. "But you already had that knowledge, didn't you?"

"Yes, I know that, Daddy."

"This is my angel, all mine." He circles around you like a predator on the prowl.

You smile shyly at his praise as he gently runs his fingers over your round, flushed cheek and then leans down to give you a kiss. You lift your face to meet San's soft lips halfway.

You can hardly remember how it all started. You just woke up one day with the thought that you had to have him, even if you had to hide all the delicious marks on your body that San kindly left on your skin after each 'game'. It's so stupid, such a terrible cliché, like in the most naive of romantic films: a rich, gloomy boy and an innocent nerd who was supposed to be his tutor, but instead San ended up being the one who taught you.

And if San wanted to get you tied up and exposed in the most vulgar of ways tonight, you'd obey whatever he wanted. He would be able to throw you down on the floor and fuck you into the parquet, and you would be grateful to him for it.

San pulls away from your lips, leaving you wanting more, and you lean forward as if in pursuit of his love. He just chuckles at you and holds your cheeks as he straightens up. His feline eyes are soft, but they hide a dark desire.

"You're so in need of me, angel." He coos in a loving way. "Do you want my lips, my fingers, or my cock so badly, little princess?" San muses and uses his thumb to smear some saliva over your plump lower lip. He lifts your head up again, and you give him a kiss on the thumb.

"I'll take anything you give me, Daddy." You whimper softly.

"Such a good girl." San senses how much you need to be touched, worshipped, and played with, and he is more than happy to satisfy your needs.

His warm hands begin to slide down the length of your body. San runs his fingers along the textured rope, just feeling and enjoying the sensations, gently rubbing against your skin under the tight tangle of ropes, leaving ghostly warm marks where they touch your skin.

Your skin tingles where the hot texture snakes into a pattern, and you feel another loop begin to slide across your body. You still can't make out what kind of pattern San is tying around you, but you can tell he's creating something like a corset. Each loop of rope lies directly under the previous one, with the knots neatly tied in the center of your torso. Each knot is more intricate than the one before it, and it probably frames your body in the most beautiful way possible.

There will be a brief tug on the rope before the pressure is released and the next knot is tied around you.

San's hot breath kisses the skin of your bare shoulder, and you moan softly, rubbing your thighs lightly against each other in the hope that it will ease your excitement.

"You are so beautiful, my angel." He whispers in your ear in a low voice. "I love seeing you like this—all bound up and just for me. You were made for this—to be adorned and decorated by my hands. You are my very own little masterpiece, Princess."

The praise licks over your body like fire and pools in a liquid, viscous warmth between your thighs. You have the feeling you're even wetter, if that's even possible. Your breathing is getting harder; the thought of how beautiful you look to San turns you on, and perhaps it might not last as long as you'd like, but right now you're perfect for him, and that's all that matters. These thoughts cause you to rub your thighs against each other again, desperate for any kind of friction that might help you ease the aching excitement in your cunt.

San digs his hands into the soft flesh of your thighs and spreads them apart with a growl. He doesn't want you to cum too soon; you've just started playing. His strong, slightly rough hands slide over your thick thighs and then brush lightly against the wet, slippery folds of your pussy, allowing you to enjoy some pressure where you need it so much, your hips rocking as you ride his palm. Excitement drips from your hole like a waterfall and spreads over San's palm.

You whine pitifully as his hand leaves you and San goes back to tying knots on your body, and you stay like that—horny to the max and in need of some relief.

"Shhh, angel, it's okay. You are a good little princess, and Daddy will give you anything you want. Now sit still and let me make you beautiful. Let me make you so perfect for me, my angel."

You obediently freeze in place, the world around you blurring as you melt under his praise. San's voice is so deep and calm, but you hear those hot, dark notes in it that tell you he is just as horny as you are. In his arms, you always feel like sex personified, as San does whatever he wants to your body, molding it to suit his own desires and kinks.

You feel the last loop around your waist before the remaining rope runs down your soft belly, the slightly rough texture rubbing nicely against your skin. The tightness of the rope prevents you from thinking; all thoughts fade as you let the fuzzy sensation in your stomach from being bound spread through your mind. Your fall into subspace is slow and gradual, and your breathing is deepening as if you were on the verge of sleep. San is skilled at luring you deeper and deeper into a web of lust and depravity.

San's hot hands squeeze your thigh, lightly scratching it with his nails before he wraps the rope around it. It's so hard for you to maintain any kind of coherence, so far down, especially when you hear the quiet whisper of a hoarse, purring voice: "my beautiful angel" and "sugar bunny" on your thighs, along with wet kisses and long, slow licks, which literally make your pussy literally dripping with arousal.

San pulls another length of rope through the center of your makeshift corset. You're not quite sure what to expect from him when he slips the loose end of the rope between your legs as they are spread apart. He moves around you and kneels down behind you, pressing his hot body against your back. San was wearing nothing but a pair of ripped black jeans and a leather belt with a heavy metal buckle. He preferred to feel the coolness of the room against his skin, and he refused to wear a shirt or t-shirt. It's wonderful to feel the warmth of his smooth, golden skin and the pulsing muscles that stretch and contract as he moves. His hard, massive cock presses against the softness of your plump ass, rubbing lightly against you, trying to ease the painful arousal. You can't bear to look at him with the lace blindfold that is tightly fastened over your eyes, but it makes you feel good to know you've had such an effect on him.

San stretches the rope between your beras, and you shiver a little as the rough texture of it slides between your labia. His fingers part your wet folds so he can place the rope where he wants it. San gently pulls the rope upwards, watching as the knot rubs directly against your clit, causing a burst of stars to explode from behind your closed eyelids as you finally get the stimulation that you so desperately need.

As San attaches the end of the rope to the back of your exquisitely woven corset, taking his time tightening it to tease you while keeping you safe, the intricate knot continues to rub against your swollen clit in the most delicious way.

He finally finishes tying you up and makes sure all the loose ends are securely tied to the back of the corset. San rises to his feet again, and you feel a chill run down your spine as his hot body moves away from you. He walks around you in a circle, like a graceful cat of prey, admiring the work he has done.

"Do you have any idea how bloody perfect you look, my angel? A perfect little toy for me to play with. I want you to see yourself, Princess." San helps you to your feet and guides you closer to the mirror. Then, in one swift motion, he unties the lace blindfold over your eyes, allowing you to see how beautiful you are right now.

As soon as you caught sight of your reflection in the mirror, you let out a long, drawn-out moan. You looked much more beautiful than you could have imagined, the black silk rope wrapping around your body like a smooth snake, contrasting perfectly with the soft pale tone of your skin and leaving bright scarlet marks on the most sensitive and delicate areas.

You were right—the pattern San had created on your body did indeed resemble a corset—the rope, tied in exquisite loops, ran from your chest to your waist. The tightness of the knit made your breasts look astonishingly voluptuous and lifted them up in the most seductive way possible. The rope goes down to make it look like you're wearing sexy lingerie, wrapping around your hips like a garter belt. Another piece of rope is placed between the labia of your pussy. The tight knot of the rope presses perfectly against your clitor and stimulates it with your slightest movement.

You look and feel absolutely beautiful and safe with the black silk rope tied around you and the warmth of San's large body behind you. His handsome, sculpted face is rubbing on your shoulders and neck like a contented cat, and he is purring admiringly in your ear. You were truly his perfect little plaything—the sweet plaything of a big, feline predator.

San's hands trace the intricate pattern of the rope, enjoying how it feels to wrap around your body, sometimes gently squeezing your sides.

"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever owned, my little angel. You look like a beautiful fallen angel, but that won't stop me from destroying you." San whispers in your ear like velvet. You turn your head to look at San and fall into the dark, magnetic trap of his eyes in an instant. Never before in your life have you seen someone who looked so much like a real cat in the form of a human.

Everything about him—from his mesmerizingly sharp eyes, high cheekbones, and chiselled jawline to his purring voice, sensual personality, and elegant movements—was the embodiment of a little predator. And you—you were his little mouse, the one he could play with whenever he felt like it.

San grabbed your chin with his fingers and turned your head back towards the mirror. With his other hand, he pulled on the rope between your wet folds, the tight knot rubbing against your swollen clit. You almost choked at the sudden pull of the rope as its thick texture slid over your sensitive cunt.

San moves away from you and sits down on the bed in an elegant manner, leaving you standing alone in front of the mirror. At the moment you are so confused that you don't understand at all why he has left you standing there - tied up and excited. You look over your shoulder and see San sitting on the bed, legs spread wide, stroking his thick, hard cock lazily as he watches you. He enjoys the way your body looks wrapped in his ropey silk masterpiece.

You moaned loudly, you were so excited, you want to cum right now, and San's hot, dark eyes sliding over your skin didn't make it any easier. You knew that you weren't allowed to use your hands to ease the tension between your thighs until San gave you permission to do so.

A seductive smile spreads across San's soft, plump lips as he watches you from where he sits on the bed. He slows the movement of his hand on his cock, running the pad of his thumb over the wet head. His eyes roll back in his head, and his mouth opens in a soft, sweet moan.

He nods gently in the direction of the mirror behind you, indicating that you should turn to face the mirror once more. You obediently follow his silent instructions and turn to face your reflection. You look at yourself once more and feel your pussy throbbing with desire. It only seems to increase the intensity of the stimulation as the juices flowing from you are absorbed by the rope stretched between your labia.

You feel so empty and so desperate to want San to use you, for him to sit you on his cock, to pull the ropes around your body as he fucks you deep and slow. From these thoughts, your hands begin to slide down your thighs in an unconscious way, and even this light touch makes you let out a sigh of pleasure.

"Don't you dare touch what is mine." San hisses. "If my little rope bunny wants to come, it'll be from the rope between those thick, juicy thighs or nothing at all."

You're moaning at his words, both enjoying his praise and completely disappointed that he didn't let you touch yourself. But you know San better than anyone else, and you are not going to try to awaken his dark side. You begin to squeeze your thighs together, and thick muscles tense with the effort, causing the rope to stretch tightly between the soft folds of your wet cunt. Your hips begin to rock seductively, the tight knot of rope clinging deliciously to your clit with each successive movement of your hips. Completely overwhelmed by the sensation, you throw your head back in ecstasy and let out loud and long moans. You can feel the viscosity of the moisture starting to flow out of your hole.

"Look at yourself in the mirror, angel, as you try to cum. Don't you want to see the rope sliding down your sweet little cunt while you are desperately humping it like a needy little whore?"

San is absolutely right—you do look like one. On the silver surface of the mirror, your reflection is completely depraved. Your hair is dishevelled, and your eyes are clouded with lust. Your skin is red from the tension of the ropes that are tied around your body, and it glistens with sweat. All in all, it can feel as if you've been fucked for hours on end, but San hasn't even touched you the way you'd like him to.

You begin to rub harder and harder against the rope between your legs, your face contorting in pleasure every time the knot of the rope presses against your clit, the rough texture sliding over your sensitive folds. A particularly strong movement and a tight squeeze on your thighs brings you to your climax.

"Oh God, San…" You moan loudly as you literally fall forward onto the mirror, your hands shooting up into the air as you grab hold of the massive frame to keep yourself on your feet as your whole body shakes with orgasm. Your juices flow copiously down your thighs and drip onto the floor, some being absorbed by the rope still pressed tightly against your pussy.

You barely have time to catch your breath before you are pushed forward by San's rough touch, causing you to literally press your chest against the mirror. The coldness of the reflective surface on your nipples makes them harden in an instant, making them more sensitive to any kind of touch.

"My pretty Angel..." San's voice is silky as he whispers into your ear when he presses his naked chest against your back, trapping you between the mirror and his hot body. "It was so hard for me to stop myself from cum while I was watching you enjoy yourself, but there is a better place for my load of sperm, isn't there, angel?" San emphasises his words by stimulating your clit, still throbbing from the previous orgasm, with a sharp tug on the rope between your labia. You let out a loud cry and squeezed your fingers together on the heavy frame of the mirror until your hands were white.

His tongue begins to slide slowly down the length of your neck, pressing lightly on your pulse point, which is why he can feel how fast your heart is beating at the moment. San leaves hot, wet kisses on your skin, gradually turning into dark hickeys as he continues to stimulate your pussy with a rope, sometimes pulling hard, then releasing. You feel San rubbing his big, thick dick against your buttocks, smearing pre-cum all over the tender, plump flesh, and you want to get down on your knees in front of him and lick that bittersweet wetness off his hard length. You want to hear him moan, and you want to enjoy his beautiful face as it is contorted with pleasure.

But right now you're desperate for him to fill that void inside you, and the thought of him stretching you and stuffing you with his thick cock until you can see the bulge of his length against your belly makes your pussy throb and contract, spouting fluid. The textured knot of the rope continues to press against your kitor every time San pulls on the rope, but even this delicious sensation is not enough to satisfy you. You need him to fuck you so hard. Fiercely.

You're on the verge of another orgasm when San pulls back and unties the rope from your corset. He presses you harder against the mirror with his body, biting the skin on the back of your neck, and you feel the swollen head of his dick slide between your wet folds until it is pressed against your quivering hole.

San enters you in one smooth motion, his pelvis touching your ass as his whole thick, hot length ends up inside of you. He lets out a low moan as he feels the rope garter belt around your hips, brushing against his hips with every move he makes. He loves fucking you like this—bound, helpless, completely controlled by him. San immediately picks up the pace and starts fucking you hard and fast—just the way you want him to do it.

He grabs hold of the back of your rope corset and uses it as leverage to fuck you even harder. You look at yourself in the mirror once more and lock eyes with San as he fucks you from the back. His eyes are too dark for you to understand the emotion that is hidden behind the black, gleaming irises, but you are sure that it is something deeper and more dangerous than just ordinary lust.

Your breasts bounce with each hard thrust, and your breathing becomes heavy as San's hand clasps your throat, cutting off some oxygen. This action only serves to push you even closer to your orgasm.

You can feel San's hot length pulsating inside of you as it rubs against your sensitive, smooth walls with every powerful thrust of his hips. The sound that fills the room is sickeningly wet and loud, intertwined with your screams and moans and San's deep, purring groans. It sounds like fucking porn.

The tension inside you is growing with each passing second, and the walls of your pussy are beginning to shrink as you try to hold his dick in and make it harder for him to move. Every time you squeeze his cock, bringing him closer to his own orgasm, San hisses behind you. For a second, you're completely lost in what's happening. San's hand is squeezing your throat so tightly that black spots start to dance in front of your eyes - while the head of his cock hits your G-spot every time he enters you. Tears begin to flow from your eyes, and your mouth opens slightly, either to catch your breath or to try and moan his name. You're so close to cum.

San tightens the rope loops of your corset even further and pulls you against his body before his teeth sink into your shoulder, and he pushes into you with a rough, powerful thrust. He growls like a cat as he clenches his teeth on your skin, making it bleed as he fills you with his thick, warm cum. Such an animal act of power pushes you over the edge, and you come on his cock, your eyes rolling back in and choking on your moans.

San watches your orgasmic expression through the mirror, lazily licking the bleeding wounds of his teeth on your skin. Your sensitive walls tremble with stimulation as he continues to thrust weakly into you. Some of his cum, mixed with your juices, begins to leak from your used cunt and drip onto the floor.

You remain in this position for a few more minutes as you catch your breath from the intense orgasm you have just experienced. San pulls out of you, and this causes even more of his cum to flow out of your hole. He turns you over so that you are facing him, tangles his fingers in your hair, and tilts your head back so that you are looking into his eyes.

"You're absolutely beautiful, my angel." His lips are soft and too tender as he plants a kiss on you. This is the kind of kiss that can make you fall in love, and falling in love with San is as dangerous as a voluntary refusal of oxygen. Fatal. When he leaves your lips, the look in his eyes is dark and utterly evil, and you don't know what else to call him if he's not the devil himself. "You still look too pure and sweet for me; it seems I'm going to need to work harder to get you destroyed, my princess."

[m1ckeyb3rry]

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

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

── SWORD OF THE SAINT

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

Event Masterlist

Pairing: Kaiser x Reader

Word Count: 18.1k

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Michael,” she breathed out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s right,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What does that mean?” the guard said.

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

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

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

“Certainly not,” the guard said.

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

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

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

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

“Michael,” the guard said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” you said miserably. “Father.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What have you come here in search of?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it important to you?” he said.

“It’s a courtesy,” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, I knew that already,” he said.

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

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

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

“What a beautiful scene,” he said. 

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

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

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

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

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

“Who indeed?” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

“Did you light them?” you said.

“They were already lit,” he said.

“Hm,” you said. “It wasn’t me.”

“Naturally,” he said.

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

“What will you do about it?” he said.

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

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

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

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

“Ah,” he said. 

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

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

“Was your mother a moth?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There is still time?” he said.

“We can hope,” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You were awake?” you said.

“Yes,” he said. 

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

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

“Because of their uncanny strength?” you tried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” he said. “It’s true.”

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

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

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

“Everyone knows that,” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Next time?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” you said. “I don’t disagree.”

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

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

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

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

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

“There was nothing before that,” you said. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It does not absolve them,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You won’t be alone,” he said.

“You don’t know that,” you said.

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

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

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

“Then I will believe you,” you said. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Once or twice,” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So soon?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t I?” he said.

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

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

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

“Why is that?” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” you said. 

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

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

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

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

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

“No,” you said. “Come — ah, what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hm,” you said drowsily. “Why?”

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

“And you cannot?” you said.

“I can,” he said. “All too easily.”

“Then?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What does that mean?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Much improved,” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I cannot,” you said. 

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

“Don’t,” you said. “Please don’t.”

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

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

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

“Who is?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you alright?” he said.

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

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

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

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

“What is your name, sir?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?” you said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I will not forgive you,” you said. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

[xzinbdg]

enhypen as songs from my playlist!

✮⋆˙ heeseung

woo -rihanna

"send for meeee" this whole song is the heeseung everyone thinks he is if you get what I mean 😭😭😭😭

mind games - sickick

okay so if u listen to this song close your eyes and imagine heeseung....doesn't sickick sound like heeseung here???? or am I just crazy....

all mine - plaza

it's the heeseung vibes like i can't really explain it but this song screams hee 🥹 "and I hit it like it's all mine" if he's not your bias he's your wrecker let's be real

✮⋆˙ jay

end of beginning - djo

this song is very much overplayed but this doesn't mean i hate it and i feel like jay would listen to it and relate??? to it somehow 🥹

bad habit - steve lacy

this just screams jay in my opinion!!!! it might be the guitar tbh

perfect man - shinhwa

HE IS!!!!!!!! THE MOST PERFECT MAN!!!! jays future wife lucky as hell

✮⋆˙ jake

the color violet - tory lanez

tell me this song isn't jake coded i dare u "she likes my watch my droptop and my persona" 😵‍💫

is there someone else? - the weeknd

do I think jake is a jealous man? yes. does it make me go insane? absolutely.

heaven and back - chase atlantic

i had to put some aussie energy here cmon and this song is perfect for jake in my opinion

✮⋆˙ sunghoon

chaconne - enhypen

okay so i wasn't going to use enha songs here but sunghoon owns chaconne (along with sunoo) FIGHT ME!!!

i wanna be yours - arctic monkeys

that's just me to hoon tbh like who wouldn't want to be with the sunghoon 😭

good luck, babe! - chappell roan

now when I found out this man listens to chappell i was screaming!!!! we love taste!!

✮⋆˙ sunoo

break it off - pinkpantheress

i could put any pinkpantheress song for sunoo and it would fit 😭😭😭

say yes to heaven - lana del ray

ah yes sunoo is definitely heavenly like this is the prettiest man i have ever seen idk if I wanna be him or be with him...

so anxious - ginuwine

this will just turn into emi being a sunoo simp but he is majestic let's be real and he also makes me sooooo anxious...

✮⋆˙ jungwon

talk - beabadoobee

is the whole vibe of the song that gives me huge jungwon vibes!!! from start to finish it just hits 😩

you get me so high - the neighborhood

"used to stick together you're my best friend I'll love you forever" this right here is how I feel about jungwon he has the ultimate best friend energy

moonlight - chase atlantic

i can imagine a late night on a hill with a full moon and beautiful stars just laying there with wonie admiring the view (him or the stars and moon u pick) 🤭

✮⋆˙ ni-ki

humble. - kendrick lamar

everytime I hear this song and specifically the "be humble sit down" i see that crazy ass transition he pulled out his ass in the aotm 😭

lovers rock - TV girl

"are you sick of me? would you like to be?" i will forever see riki as this little kid that came to i-land and i will also never forgive people for making him lose his beautiful smile

heartless - the weeknd

i just feel like he would like this song but also the "cause im heartless and I'm back to my ways cause im heartless" gives me people saying he's a bully :(

enhypen masterlist

[footballlover8]

Ibiza//Insta Au || Pablo Gavi

@Y/n.González

Liked by Pedri, Mikkykiemeney, pablogavi, Vanessa_vasquez and 362.628 others

Y/n.González: I know y’all are just here for Pablo, so here’s a little pic of him in the end🫶🏼 @pablogavi

Tap too View comments…

Vanessa_vasquez: Fuck Gavi, I want you babe😻

|

Pablogavi:Back tf up, she’s mine🫸

Pedri:My boyfriend looking extra handsome in that shirt 😍😩

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Y/n.González: Bruh, now you can back tf up😀

Pablogavi:mi amor😍

Pablogavi:Who let you look this pretty?😍❤️

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Pedri: Me, I did. She has my genes, so thank me 😘

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Y/n.González: Eyo, get tf outta here😬

Taia.belloli: Tan hermosa😻😘

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Y/n.González: Te quiero mucho❤️

Fan6:Marry me please??😍

Fan77:She's not really lying, I'm only here for Gavi

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Fan54:Bruh Then get tf outta here and get on his page instead, tf?

Mikkykiemeney:mi Bonita major amiga😻❤️

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Y/n.González: Mi Bebe😘❤️

Gavilover6:Gavi be looking extra good in that pice

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Not.Y/n:Of course you would say that, he could be puking his guts out and you'd say he'd look good.

Tap to view more comments...

@Pablogavi

Liked by raphinia, Y/n.González, julian_araujo, Pedri and 875.826 others

Pablogavi:Mi Princesa😍❤️ @Y/n.González

Tap too View comments...

Jkeey4:Mom and dad👩‍👩‍👦

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Y/n.González: JULES THATS TO GIRLS

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Jkeey4:my bad 👨‍👩‍👦****

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Pablogavi: Whatthe fuck...

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Fan66: Jules is on drugs

Mikkykiemeney:Sweetest girl on earth!🥰Protect her like your life depends on it Pablo...it really does, I have a gang, I'll send them on you😗

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Pablogavi:you got it miss😅

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Taia.belloli:^^^

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Katrinefrogtfriis:Preach^^^

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Annalewandowska:What's she said,

Watch it boy

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Coralsimanovich:Amen^^^

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Daniterstegen:^^^

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Nuriacunillera81: We're watching you☺️

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abioliivera: Word^

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Clauuudiape: exactly^^

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Joms_:^^^

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Sirakessie:We're capable of killing, so watch out

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Elenagalera:I couldn't agree more🥰

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romarey_ventura: So if you dare hurt her we will kill you slowly

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RI9:@pablogavi just so you know, we're in on this too👍

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Y/n.González:I love you guys so much!You guys are my favorite people ❤️though I think you scared Pablo a little...

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Fan98:Awww I love how they all are just backing herrrrrr!🥰❤️

Tap too view more comments...

@Y/n.González

Liked by Mikkykiemeney, pablogavi,Pedri and 214.111 others

Y/n.Gonzáléz: Me and my girlies🥰Also me and @Mikkykiemeney in the two first pictures🤌🤌🤌 @taia.belloli @katrinefogtfriis

Tap too view comments…

Mikkykiemeney: We look smashable🤤

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Y/n.González: We were/are

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Pablogavi: l remember, you were very smashable😉

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Y/n.González:DO YOU KEEP FORGETTING THAT THIS IS A PUBLIC ACCOUNT!??😟

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Pablogavi:Only a little🤯

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Frenkiedejong:I agree with Gavi though..

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Mikkykiemeney:FRENKIE!!!

Fan38:What have these boys been taking??🥶

Febarcelona:our wags😍

Aurorapaezg: you guys are just so gorgeous😍😘

Belengavira79: My beautiful daughter in law🥰🥰

Tap too View comments...

@Pablogavi

Liked by Pedri, ansufati, Y/n.Gonzalez and 864.643 others

Pablogavi:so happy that I walked in on you on accident at pedri's house😍❤️

Tap too View comments...

Y/n. Gonzalez:PABLITO! DO YOU KNOW HOW WRONG THAT SOUNDS!????

Pedri: You walked in on my sister???????Have I missed something?😀

Fan53:Gavi what?😬

Vanessa_vasquez: hah! I've walked in on her way more times than your ass bitch 😙

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Y/n. González:You know my boyfriend is kind of aggressive right?🙃

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Vanessa_vasquez: Yes😛

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Pablogavi: I'm gonna fucking murder your dumb ass🤗

Pedri:what the fuck happened in the 3.Picture??

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Pablogavi:She passed out 😴

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Pedri: At a club???😨

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Y/n.González: yes in a club🙄 now go too sleep bitch

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Ferrrrr:y/n! Be nice!

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Pedri:Yes y/n, be nice😙

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Ferrrrr:You too you ass 🙄

Adrifebles_:how tf did you fall asleep in a fucking club?😭 @Y/n.González

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Rosylopez78: You made her fall asleep in her food one time so l'm not really surprised

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Y/n.González:MAMA!

Fan79: can't with this!😭

Fans32:Their relationship is so elite 😭I love them sm🤣

Tap too view more comments...

@Y/n.González

Liked by pablogavi, taia.belloli, ferrrrrr, Pedri and 357.655 others

Y/n.González: Look at my beautiful godson!💙😍

Tap too View comments...

Rosylopez78:look at my sweet little girl🥰😍

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Y/n.González:Te quiero mami❤️

Fans65:Awww I love babies! I want one🥰😭

Adrifebles_:marco is so fucking cute🥹

Pedri:IS THAT THE ONESIE YOU USED TO WEAR ALL THE TIME WHEN YOU WERE A LITTLE BABY!????

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Fan2:Pedri are you doing okey?😀

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Y/n.González: How tf do you remember that?

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Pedri:because | was like 4 or 5 😞

AndreaMartinez:We love you!😘😘

Mikkykiemeney: that's gonna be your and gavi's baby one day🥰

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Y/n.González :STOPPPPPP🤭

Pablogavi: IT'S A PUSSY ON A PUSSY🐱

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Y/n.González: PABLO MARTIN PAÉZ

GAVIRA THERE IS NO WAY YOU JUST SAID THAT ON YOUR PUBLIC ACCOUNT

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Pablogavi:NOW PEOPLE ARE GONNA TRY TO GIND MY PRIVATE ACCOUNT YOU CUTE LITTLE SHIT

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Pedri: You know I wanna murder your ass right now right?

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Pablogavi:Yeah... had my assumptions hehe😅

Pabloismine:There is no fucking way he just said that?? What the fuck😶

Pablotorre:Gavi what the fuck is wrong with you?

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Pablogavi:Shut up

Alejandrobalde:| swear the doctors did something wrong when you were born

[mssorceressupreme]

hi again i was the one who asked for the last one. ty n i loved it, I actually loved the end ty for that as well!! ALSO SRRY I GOT SHY REQ IT SO IT WAS HALF BAKED so imma req a nice fluff one 😭

so fem!reader is a cold person who always had a mean and stoic look on her face since arriving in the box. after a while of living there, her attitude hasnt changed much, even ridiculing the other boys over small little things like their lingo, but the other gladers took notice that she is MUCH nicer to minho than the others. ofc minho doesn’t notice since hes so busy with the maze. so one bonfire night, reader gets tipsy and drunkenly confesses to minho, which leaves reader flustered upon realizing what she did and minho too since hes shared the same feelings. how it ends is up to you im indecisive lol.

ty in advance!!!

glad I could satisfy ur prompt love 🥰🥰 HAHAHA girl don’t even worry, I love it when u guys send requests!! keep em coming 🥹🫶🏼 also this is such a cute prompt, who doesn’t love Minho honestly 😩🤌🏼

——

That’s Enough

Pairing: Minho x Reader

Summary: cold and stoic on the outside, you had built a wall to protect yourself. But what happens when that wall is broken one night and you find yourself doing things you never would’ve done before. Things like dancing sensually in front of the gladers, and oh boy, a confession.

Warnings: subtle sexualisation of reader, spice if you squint but not really

——

Life in the glade had made you tougher than you ever were. From the moment you arrived, you decided that the only way to survive was to keep everyone at a distance. Ultimately, you figured that the only way for you to do this was to put in a cold, mean and stoic exterior, and it worked.

To your victory, the boys left you alone, wary of your sharp tongue and icy demeanour. Well, for the most part at least. The gladers still teased you on the odd occasion, but it wasn’t to an extreme extent.

There were only a handful who managed to break through the ice wall you had built. Alby, Newt, and Fry to name a few. Oh, and Minho.

Though you had barely interacted because he was always out in the maze, every time you did, it felt like time had stopped. There was something about him that drew you in, you were like a moth to a flame.

Or perhaps not a flame, he was more like honey? You wanted to taste him, to confide in him, have him be the first person he embraces when he returns from the maze.

You admired him in silence every time he returned from the maze, panting, the way the sunlight reflected on his sweat, giving him a healthy glow. The way he gave orders to other runners, his bravery, authority, the leadership skills he possessed, and not to mention how he was such a gentleman.

But you would never dare admit that aloud, not to anyone. You would take this to your grave with you if you could.

——

“Better not klunk your pants greenie!” Gally teased the new dark haired greenie. He wore a light blue shirt and greyish-green cargos.

The greenie furrowed his brows at Gally, “Stop calling me greenie.”

You paused from helping Newt in the garden and walked over to them. “Remember when you first entered the maze because you wanted to be a runner but ran back out immediately because you klunked your pants, Gally? I do. Let me also remind you that—”

“Alright! I get it,” Gally interjected, “just teasing the greenie that’s all.” He scoffed, raising his hands in the air while he dispersed.

You turned to the newbie, “I’m sure he has a decent side. Give him time.”

The greenie stood still, “Thanks.”

“Ignore his use of slang, some terms are pretty weird, took a while to get use to them myself.” You confessed.

“Like?”

“Lately, Gally’s been obsessed with using ‘klunk’, just means poop. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it in no time.”

He listened intensely, trying to grasp how life in the glade worked. You explained a few more terms before deciding it was time to get back to work.

As you were about to return to the other track-hoes, the greenie called out, “Wait-uh, what’s your name?”

“Y/N.”

“Thomas,” he introduced himself, “Good to know there’s someone with a brain around here.”

The both of you shared a moment of laughter, before you saw caught a glimpse of the runners returning from their daily exploration. Your gaze softened, there he was, Minho.

Your eyes followed him until they disappeared, heading to the runners hut. You inhaled, “I should get back to work.”

“How can I be of help?” Thomas asked, ready to take on any task.

“Oh, no no, you should rest up Thomas. It’s bonfire night tonight, we throw a celebration for the greenie each month, this month that’s you. Last month it was me, the month before it was Chuck, and next month it’ll be someone else.”

He nodded slowly, “I see.”

“See you tonight then, greenie.” You teased, both of you sharing another moment of laughter. From then, you knew that Thomas would be another glader who managed to get past your wall.

——

It was a rare night of celebration, a bonfire crackling in the centre of the glade, casting a warm luminary light and shadows.

You sat with Newt, Alby, Frypan, and Thomas, a cup of homemade brew in your hand. You weren’t much of a drinker but tonight you felt the need to let loose a little.

The alcohol loosened your usual defences, and you found yourself laughing and joking with more gladers, a far cry from your typical aloof self.

Across the bonfire, Minho mingled with the other runners, including Ben. You stole glances at him, feeling a flutter in your chest every time you saw his face illuminated by the firelight.

“You should talk to him.” Newt encouraged, leaning over.

You shook your head, “He doesn’t see me as anything! I don’t like him that way…plus we barely interact.”

“You’re kidding, it’s so obvious. Everyone knows that you have a soft spot for him.”

Your cheeks began to heat up, “Whatever Newt.” You brush him off and he shrugs in defeat.

As the night progressed, you had more, and more, and more to drink. It made you bold, you were laughing louder, throwing more jokes around, being unintentionally physical with other gladers—touching their shoulder while laughing or throwing occasional light punches.

“Come on, let’s not sit down all day! My butt’s getting numb!” You ushered the boys to stand up and let loose.

Everything was a blur but you cherished every second of it, you saw a tall and wide stump from a tree the builders had just cut down. Feeling daring, you stood on the stump and began dancing sensually.

You closed your eyes and cheered, getting lost in the moment. “Come dance with me!”

The boys stood by the stump, cheering you on and whistling. Obviously enjoying this newly unveiled side of you, and not to mentioned some of them got turned on by the way you moved.

“WOOOHOO!!!” You cheered, practically shrieking but everyone joined in. This might have been the most entertaining bonfire for them.

You felt powerful, free from the fear that usually kept you guarded. But then you caught sight of Minho, his expression darkening as he watched you.

Brushing it off, you continued indulging in your dance, earning excited roars from the gladers.

Minho gave Ben his drink, and pushed through the crowd towards you. Before you could react, Minho was at your side, lifting you effortlessly and slinging you over his shoulder.

The boys’ cheers turned into laughter and catcalls, but you were too tipsy to care.

“That’s enough,” Minho growled, carrying you toward your hammock. His grip firm and unyielding.

You giggled, finding the whole situation funny. “Minho, you’re so strong,” you teased, your voice flirtatious.

“You’re drunk.” He remarked, still carrying you.

“Put me down now!” You demanded, “I want to continue dancing with the others, pleaseee!”

He sighed, ignoring your request, “No.”

A thought crossed your mind and you smirked, “Are you jealous? Was I having too much fun with other people and not you?”

“What? No!” He retorted, tightening his grip on you.

“You’re mean,” you pouted, “I’ve liked you for so long but you always ignore me. Always out in the maze and never with me.”

He paused for a moment, “You’re drunk Y/N, save your thoughts for later.”

You leaned against him, your fingers tracing patterns on his arm. “Why don’t you love me?”

When he set you down, you stumbled slightly but he caught you, stabilising you and laying you gently on your hammock.

Minho froze, his eyes widening slightly before he continued, “Who said I didn’t?” He response confident while he tucked you in.

“I love you.” You muttered, shutting your eyes as you shifted comfortably into your pillow.

“You love me?”

You nodded, your heartbeat getting heavier and louder as the alcohol-fueled confidence began to wane. You were reverting back to your normal self.

“I do. I always have, Minho. There’s something about you…” you cut yourself off, loosing confidence as you started to gain further consciousness.

He stared at you, eyes scanning your flushed face, to him, it was the sweetest sight in the world, “I didn’t know,” He began, and your heart dropped, “I feel the same way about you.” What?

A rush of emotions surged through you, causing to you to jerk up, “You do?”

He nodded, “I do. I’ve just been so busy with the maze, I never realised….”

Before he could finish, you closed the distance between you, standing up to meet him. You pressed your lips to his in a kiss that was both tender and passionate. Minho’s arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer till your bodies pressed against each other. His lips moved against yours with a fervour that took your breath away.

When you finally broke apart, your breaths mingled in the cool night air. “Stay with me tonight,” you whispered, voice filled with longing.

He guided you towards his hammock, as it was slightly larger, able to fit two people. You snuggled against him, feeling the warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart.

“I can’t believe I confessed like that,” you murmured, a blush creeping up your cheeks as you nuzzled your face into his chest.

Minho chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest, “It’s okay,” he stroked your hair gently, “I’m glad you did. I’ve wanted to tell you how I feel for so long.”

“It’s just…I know I come off as tough and aloof, but truth be told…I’m scared…” you confessed.

“Being the only girl must be really hard. I tried to, but I should’ve done more to protect you,” He continued stroking my hair softly, “You’re going to be okay Y/N, I’m sure of it.”

“I’ve been keeping my distance for so long, trying to protect myself, but…I don’t want to do that anymore. Not with you.” You made your new intentions known.

Minho’s arms tightened around you, “You don’t have to anymore. I’ll keep you safe.” He hummed.

You looked up at him, eyes shining as the moonlight casted a perfect ray over the two of you, “I love you, Minho.”

“I love you too,” he whispered, before planting a kiss on my forehead, “And I promise, I’ll always be here for you.”

As you drifted off to sleep in Minho’s arms, the fear and loneliness that had haunted you since arriving in the glade melted away. For the first time, you felt truly at home, knowing that you were loved and cherished by one person who mattered most.

The bonfire’s glow and buzz from the other gladers softened in the distance, a warm reminder of the night that had changed everything.

[blood-smiles]

smile i am literally so in love w/ your yan!doll why is he the cutest ever and why is the entire concept so fucking cool your mind is genuinely everything actually,,

AND YOUR WRITING!!!! 'his heart beats blood for you' IM FUCKING SCREAMING THAT'S SO POETIC I ALMOST CRIED😭💔 him thinking the ps4 is a light up box is literally so precious (how dare he set my nintendo on fire but like he was jealous of it which is also adorable i can't be mad😩😩😩) WHEN HE CRIED BC WE WERE HURT???? he's my sweet little pecan pie now i'm sorry i'm gonna nom on him

WAIT DAR STAWPP IM BLUSHING WAHAHHA YOU ARE SUCG A CUTEY PATOOTIE, YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MY MEDIOCRE ABSOLUTELY GOOFY AHH WRITING??

I was cooking myself some food one night and I was looking at my egg cooking and the thought popped into my head,

BUT THANK YOU HEHE IM ACTUALLY SO HONORED

I decided I needed a jealous gf in my bunch and ended up being Angelo, he is the mix between an ancient demon and a needy girl,

give him a phone and he WILL light it on fire, he is actually like a grandpa with technology and will think that it is sentient, type of dude to spray raid on it whenever it beeps or buzzes

[maybege]

I love your A/B/O's so much 😩 I just had a thought, like, we all know how tall and big he is but imagine him standing/hovering behind omega reader while giving a " menancing aura " towards those talking to them. Also just imagine that ramped up when reader ends up pregnant and hes fumbling around and dotting on them 😭💖💖 my heart can't take it.

Oh I love that so much!

Paz is incredibly protective of you and so especially when you are talking to someone where the atmosphere is particularly tense. Paz just hovers behind you, daring the other person to offend you. You come to realize when he is behind you, not only from his scent, but also the hesitation on other people's faces.

It takes some time for him to grow less weary and more convinced that nothing will suddenly happen to you when he is not near. But as as soon as you know you're pregnant, Paz is on Protection Mode 1000. 😂 He rarely leaves your side, making sure you are safe and comfortable and happy and whenever any council meeting are, he just has you either in his lap or tucked into his side because he is so proud to be part of a little family now 🥹

[addisonstars]

“ice cream and trouble”

written for day 21 of august for @wolfstarmicrofic with the prompt “ice cream”

555 words!

“Dada, dada! I want ice cream!” Estella yells, as soon as she hears the ice cream truck. “Ice cream, ice cream!” She chants as she runs to the ice cream truck.

Sirius picked her up before she could get too far and held her in his arms. “Ok, my little star, you can have some ice cream.” Sirius said, kissing her on the forehead. “But you can’t tell papa alright? You know he doesn’t like you having all these sweets.” He says, booping her on her nose.

“ ‘K dada,” Estella says, smiling, showing off her two missing front teeth.

Sirius smiles too and says, “Let’s go get that ice cream.”

Once they get to the ice cream truck, Stella picks out a popsicle, one of the bomb pops. And Sirius said that he wouldn’t get any, but he ends up getting one of those cookie ice cream sandwiches.

They walk back to their flat and eat their ice cream on the way, and Stellas ends up half on the sidewalk and half on her face. Sirius munches down on his so when they get inside he can quickly clean her up before Rem gets home.

“Come on,” he says as they step inside their flat, “let’s get you cleaned up.”

Sirius sits Estella up on the counter and grabs a paper towel and lightly wets it to wipe her mouth off. Just as he went to wipe her mouth though, he heard the front door opening.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Remus said, smiling as he set down his bags, moving to kiss Sirius hello.

“Dada said I could I have some!” Estella exclaimed pointing at her dada before Sirius could come up with an excuse. “Andddd,” she added, drawing out the ‘d’, “to not tell you.”

Remus scoffs in mock offense. “How dare you.” Stella giggles.

“Ooo papas in troubleeee.” Stella sings.

“Hey! I thought we were on the same team!” Sirius exclaims, getting ratted out by his almost 8 year old daughter.

“Papas not in trouble, stella.” Remus says calmly. “Papas just gonna get what he deserves later.” Remus lays his hand on Sirius’s shoulder.

Sirius raises his eyebrows, looking at Remus, who has a smug look on his face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Siri!”

“What?!” He utters, then realization dawns on him. “Oh.”

“I told you to stop cursing in front of Stells,” Remus dotes, “Now you’re in actual trouble.”

“Sorry Stella, but we don’t say those words ok? Dada wasn’t supposed to say those words and now he’s in trouble,” he glares at Remus as he moves to pick Stella up off the counter, and he washes their hands. “Say you won’t say those bad words for me, Estella.”

“I won’t say bad words Daddy,” She says totally serious.

“Thank you.” Sirius said, and he turned the tap off and dried off her and his hands.

Remus moved further into the kitchen and opened up the fridge, looking at what there is for dinner.

“Alfredo sound good?” It was pretty much all they had, Remus was going to have to make a grocery run tomorrow.

“I’m not really hungry papa.” Stella says, frowning. At the mention of those words, Remus sends Sirius a glare, sending a message of “I told you,” with his eyes.

wolfstar dads are so special to me you don’t understandd 😩

a.n.: we’re gonna ignore the completely unoriginal title, i couldn’t think of anything 😭

-a.s.

[fionarara]

omg fifi i loved your dissertation on my selfship answers 😭 let’s talk about it!!

Taka having to grow up raising two sisters seems to be a dead giveaway to his ability to be patient!! mana and luna probably had their share of mood swings, pouty episodes, etc. not to mention, boy seems to be pretty familiar with depression and crazy family issues (bc of the shiba’s). i’m the type of person who would constantly give him an “out” because i go through waves of emotion sometimes, but GODDAMMIT Taka is just that type to keep holding your hand, rub your back, help you take a breath… how is one person so fkn composed?! 😭 he’d make your your favorite meal and run you a bath— man does he make little butterflies flap around in my stomach 😵‍💫😩

i also love that you love my tickle headcanon for Shuji. yk this guy being such a hardened delinquent and probably kept everyone at an arms length at all times, imagine his shock when you wiggle your hands into his sides and he jumps like two feet in the air like “what the fuck was that” and i just… personally i feel like he deserves to laugh and be a giggly goofy guy 🥲

and don’t EVER apologize for saying a lot bc i also have a lot to say about all these fine ass gang members 😌🤭

♡♡♡ EVERYBODY LISTEN UP ! I WANT IT SPREAD FAR AND WIDE ACROSS THIS FANDOM THAT SIN AND PUNISHMENT HAVER AKA HANMA SHUJI IS A CANON TICKLISH BISH (affectionate), little tickly fingers are his achilles heel which he has gone thru great lengths to hide, has spent a considerable amount of time trying to do so—not even kisaki knows—the only person that does know is the one he's dating,,, and whenever you do end up finding out that very first time, he just pounces you, wild and wide-eyed, pinning you to the couch. one playful tatted hand is clamped over your giggly mouth and his other has a tense singular index finger bolted up and out where it's then pointedly directed down at your face, while you're giddy and squirming beneath him, as he gleefully glowers down at you, it's a goofy lil threat, "—but don't you dare tell a fuckin soul ! " and oh mitsuya definitely has the best soft dom game out of the TR-verse, ~aftercare master extraordinaire~ ,,, only closely rivaled by draken's game, buuut tbh that's probably why they were bffs from way back ^_^ u know when they both had mohawks together ? they like gravitated toward each others' energy bc they have v similar nurturing dispositions\tendencies and sensed it in each other like finding your kin in the wild, since YEA they actually both grew up around vulnerable females, taka w his baby sisters, ken in the brothel, but i digress,,,lalala no no, rly, lex u speak big truths about mitsuya's love language: huge ACTS OF SERVICE guy, and when he's done running you a bath he will even brush the tangles out of your damp hair so gently because he is so practiced at it, please he fucking LIVES for that soft labor. . + .

[ddarker-dreams]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ajakalndjdla

My brain is in mush and my heart in shambles. Obligatory hug to n darling #5

From last chapter's ending I knew the fallout was going go hard and it definitely did not disappoint.

First, so much suspense. That first section with Kafka deliberately speaking to Darling, taunting her inside Blade memories as it slowly builds up to the reveal made me go from "huh what?" to "oh shieeeet that explains it". It was all part of the damn script.

As you mentioned, Bladie really gets to show off multiple sides. Unfortunately none of them are quite selfless enough to just GO AWAY🙄🤣 also that little snippet with Baiheng and the cloud quintet 😢

Him going "yes it's that easy for me" and daring her to repeat her words was another chilling moment, the sheer lengths he's willing to go for this...

The last part with their "deal" and promise felt like a cruel parody down to the way Lear addressed her 😩 the one comfort I will take is knowing Darling and Lear got to bang and that her "boyfriend" will forever live rent-free in Blade's mind

I love Darling for doing her best. She's gone through so much, she IS going through so much but her priority is still making sure her home and Lear and Nona are safe, even if she has to sell her soul and dignity to not one but TWO devils😭😭

Nexus was a really fun (if painful) journey to go through, the setting of Eris itself was interesting and the characters too! Loved the ride to sexy pain city. Lock writing too good, tonight I'll sleep with Thoughts ™️

And as always, take care Lock and bun bun! ♥️ Have a good day~

AA i'm glad to hear that the suspense came across ... it might sound weird from a writer who primarily writes horror/thriller, but whenever i'm working on scenes like that, i wonder if they'll come across how i intended. this one in particular i really wanted to get right since i wrote the entire story mostly for the ending dsjfgksgj so thank you very much!!!

n darling is in her kaneki ken era... she's able to hold it together though, knowing that lear and nona's well-beings rely on her. it's interesting that what landed her in this situation to begin with is also what sustains her through it. otherwise she'd just constantly be trying to scratch blade's eyes out like a feral cat.

'Loved the ride to sexy pain city' LMAOO i love this description sgjkdgk i think that sums up the Tone™ pretty well.

thank you very much for reading and sharing your thoughts!! there is nothing more i could ask for 🥺💖

[yeostars]

ATEEZ: GOLDEN HOUR PT. 2 ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY IS IMMACULATE, FILLED WITH ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECES.

I need each and every track injected in my veins and I'm being so srs.

lemme yap a lil about my most fav parts from each song bc why not ;))) (I love the ENTIRE song btw, but there are just gonna be some parts that keep playing in my mind over & over again ever since the album has released bc they're SO.DAMN.ADDICTIVE)

1. DEEP DIVE

THE INSANE INSTRUMENTALS OF DEEP DIVE LITERALLY MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I'M A SWIMMER, diving in deep into the ocean & the sound of water resonating in my ears 😭 YUNHO'S line which was revealed in the album showcase live, the one that obviously left hotteoks & atinys w their jaw on the floor ever since. THE WAY HE PRONOUNCES "BODY" AND "TOXIC" IN THOSE LINES. HOLY SHITTTTT, THAT line keeps repeating in my mind with yunho's vocals there 😭 I also really loved when san said "higher hights than deeper lows" 🙏 SO GOOD. Joong and mingi's rap parts here >>>>>>>>

2. ICE ON MY TEETH

I have been TOTALLY obssessed with the entire song itself, even more bc of the insane MV we've got. But what has me totally hooked are the violin instrumentals throughout this entire masterpiece. Ice on my teeth itself is such a new & unique concept, idek how they manage to give us smth new EVERY time - something we can't even predict or expect. AND it has us going nuts everytime & all they deserve is immense appreciation for this level of authenticity.

Ever since the album preview, HONGJOONG'S "I got diamonds at my dentist" has me going particularly insane. Reason? It sounds so damn addictive??? Wooyo, yun and san got the same lyrics/lines in the song i believe and they made it sound so addictive too😩🙏 I also really love jongho's parts in the entire song. Bro ate it up w them golden vocals🙏

3. MAN ON FIRE

so I'll get straight to the point for this ond. The lyrics. THE GOD DAMN LYRICS. the second half of the song is literally them singing over & over again "I need you so bad, want you so bad." LIKE HELLO????? ATEEZ WHAT RHE FUCK

San and hwa's chorus sounds soo powerful, starting with "I got no way" and the "never no way" is soo addictive too. 🔥

MINGI'S RAP HERE IS INSANEEEEE AS HELL. 💥💥💥💥

yeosang's "I'll walk into these flames if it's for you" I HYPERVENTILATED WHEN I HEARD THAT FOR THE FIRST TIME

4. Selfish Waltz

Jdjsusjdjdjfjjfjf. Sjsushshdjfjfjfjdjjjdjfjcjfjfjjg. JSJXJXJDJDJDJNDJDIDUDJFJFJGKGKKF

Sorry but the keyboard smash above by your one & only is valid. BECAUSE THIS IS SELFISH WALTZ WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. DARE I SAY THE BEST B-SIDE OF THE CENTURY BC WTFFFFF? hongjoong you absolute GENIUS, creating this masterpiece 3 years ago, bless you for giving this masterpiece to us at the perfect time🤧

Hwa, yun and yeo's vocals at the very start and the lyrics are sooooo insane😭 smth that i definitely wanted in a song titled "selfish waltz"

UNDOUBTEDLY, MY MOST FAVOURITE PART IS WOOYOUNG'S CHORUS 😭😭😭😭😭😭 it literally might be my most favourite part from all songs of this album combined fr. THE WAY HE SINGS "machi, machi" in the start and the switch between his normal and high pitched vocals. PERFECTION. I am soooo glad wooyo is shining so much in this album w them underrated vocals

ANOTHER PART THAT MADE ME GO BATSHIT CRAZY. the ending chorussss 😭😭😭😭😭😭 the part right after wooyoung and jongho's lines, joong starts his rap at the end after that "love songggg~" AND the part where yunho and jongho's vocals combine beautifully. HEAVENLY ASFFF

5. Enough

For Enough, I'd say that the song as a whole is my absolute fav 💖 I really, really love how majority of the song has English lyrics except for joong and mingi's rap lyrics in kr (which have great meaning too😭)

The lyrics for enough had me switching up from crying to feeling like I'm on top of the world. Idek how to explain it, it's like I'm being comforted and triggered all at once 😭

Seriously tho, the lyrics for this one is something we all needed, it comforted all of us because it's RELATABLE STUFF.

The bridge lyrics: "When there is no one for you, when you just need a friend, when you're just feeling lonely, I'll be there."

WELL DAMN, GUESS WHO'S CRYING WATERFALLS NOW 😭😭😭😭😭

ALSOOO, ever since the album preview was released, I was so hooked onto the "GOD! DANG! Hold on to your ground" part by wooyo and san. It makes the song sound POWERFUL. 🔥🙏

In conclusion: each and every track deserves world-wide recognition and for achieving that goal, tinys, let's streammmm and make this a hell of an era for ATEEZ and us, both. Our 8 precious gems deserve all the love, appreciation and support for this fantastic album 💘

[winterchimez]

describe your moots as tbz members <33

hiya anon 👋🏻 im so sorry it took me the longest time to reply to your ask cs me needed to do some ✨thinking✨ on this shdjd but here it goes!

@stealanity as sangyeon

our mother our unnie!!! matty just takes care of all of us so well (i mean the entire deoboyznet might just be her kids by now) and she’s super sweet always making sure we’re doing great & safe & healthy 🥹

@flwoie & @hanniluvi as jacob

no cs these two have literally been nothing but the sweetest ever to me ever since we became moots 🥹 you both have been with me from the very beginning of my writing journey and i def wouldn’t be where im at now without you guys 😭 im always so so grateful to you both truly 🤧💕

@wuahae as younghoon

idk abt yall but cat just screams hoonie vibes to me. despite being really sweet she’s also so so cute and pretty irl!!! and we all know hoonie is the sweetest and one of the darn good looking guys ever 😩

@daisyvisions as hyunjae

ahhh my fav sangyeon stan!!! daisy is just so outgoing and friendly like hyunjae is, and ofc ✨ahem✨ as wild as hyunjae can be 🤪 she’s always sending me some sangyeon ✨GOOD FOOD✨ (with some hyunjae at the side cs we both sangmil girlies 😩) thanks for always feeding my delusions ig 🤧🫶🏻

@juyeonszn as juyeon

fawn is literally just the sweetest and nicest ever!!! and her writing?? OMG. PURE TALENT JUST LIKE JUYO HIMSELF 😤 yall should def check out her works if you haven’t PERIODT ✨ and i look forward to having more convos with you 😉💕

@sungbeam as kevin/changmin

ah there’s my fiery elmo twin!!! 🔥 i mean there’s literally NOTHING this girl can’t do, from making such high quality banners to dropping i dare say THE BEST fics you’ll ever find here we love a talented queen ✨ and also she’s always spitting some random facts and memes and that’s exactly like kevin on weverse/bubble lmao

putting in a sprinkle of changmin just cs. changmin spits fire and she does that to me all the time 😔

@heemingyu as chanhee

sana is just as savage as chanhee is LMAO ive became a joke for her to the point she practically LIVES for my reaction whenever she sends me ✨ahem✨ daddy sangyeon content 😔 (but she can be as sweet and caring as chanhee does so some bonus points ig :p)

@invuwrld as changmin

mona has unfortunately became besties with sana in terms of sending me daddy sangyeon content bcs lemme tell you they’re literally partners-in-crime when it comes to b*llying moi 😔 (i mean the large amount of sangyeon in her album is for me so 😔😔) hence they’re literally just kyunew. i said what i said 😤 (but at the end of the day i go back to loving and protecting mona cs im a very responsible unnie 🤧)

@cupidjyu & @zzoguri as haknyeon

hakkie is the sweetest little bean & literally my comfort person ever & that’s exactly yumi & moni!! yumi is just the sweetest and cutest lil 妹妹 and there’s nothing i wanna do then to give her cuddles and protect her at all cost 💖 and ofc moni. bless your kindest soul ever cs you’re always just so so nice to me :(((( and ofc i bawled my eyes out reading moni’s changmin fic cs i was going through things at that time and i literally spammed moni’s dms telling how much it has helped me loads 🥹 so yes im eternally grateful for that & thank you for listening to my story too 🤧 (which btw yall should check out the fic if you haven’t!!!)

@justalildumpling as sunwoo

my emotional support buddy j!!! 💪 yknow how sunwoo’s the type where you’d just feel so comfortable starting a convo with even tho you’ve just met? j is literally that and im so so glad we hit off so well!! tbh ive seen you on my dash a lot & im more than thrilled when we became moots 😭 and cs we’re both delusional so we can become besties and get our phd from the delulu boy himself 😔 (i’ll forever remember our lipstick convo lmao 💄)

@i520cm as eric

ah the maknae of all maknaes. lmao ipah is just as outgoing as eric is, and she literally pops into the gc and drops some random ass topic which makes everyone laugh their asses off most of the time 🤣 and umm… ipah does overshare sometimes but its good we love that energy and poor kiddo is always being bullied LMAO its ok your kakak’s got your back always 😭😭😭🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

[joocomics]

So I’ve been thinking about this…. The fluffy hair while he’s laying on his back…..!!

Imagine the two of you were watching a movie, laying comfortably on the bed or couch or whatever. You’re intertwined in his arms with your head on his chest and your knees are on either side of him, but your focus is entirely on the movie. Junhan on the other hand…… his mind is completely on the way your hips are perfectly centered over his; your ass against his half-hard bulge that you’ve yet to notice somehow while his hands are beginning to get hasty. He’s gliding the palms of his hands up and down your pretty waist, head still at the tv but he really wasn’t paying attention. Your don’t notice his silent advances until he’s dipping his fingertips into the top of your sweats, twanging the stretchy hem against your skin with light taps. Suddenly you’re facing him, a bit confused. His hair is prettily fanned out and his lips are curling up into a cocky smile you could recognize anywhere— the smile and confidence he always carried when he was horny. And that’s when you finally noticed the way his cock was practically twitching against your inner thigh and his eyes were on you, almost daring you to say something. The movie is long forgotten now as you delicately kiss his lips, testing the waters only for him to return the kiss with vigor and passion that has you immediately choking on air. And now as the movies final climax played on the screen the two of you are making out (rather intensely😭) with your hands in his hair, tugging and gripping to hear those delicious moans he let out each time you did, your clothed sexes rubbing against each other behind the thin layers of clothes. It’s only when the ending credits begin to play that you’re moaning into his mouth as his hands slip into your panties and he’s fucking you nice and good with his long digits, breathing into your mouth about how pliant and obedient you are for him and he didn’t even have to say anything. And your hands are clutching greedily at his soft hoodie, the wool clinging to your sweaty palms as you whimpered softly. When you’re begging to cum he’s taking his fingers out of you, your orgasm slipping away before your poor eyes, your lips jutting into a pout as you still clung to him. But before you can even protest he’s undoing his sweats and taking his cock out, sliding your clothes down your hips enough to give him room from beneath. The way he puts it in is so deliberate and quick, not even giving you a second to comprehend what is happening until you could feel him fully sheathed. Now he’s moaning out curses and breathless “baby” as you begin lazily fucking yourself on his dick, mostly grinding down on him with slowly movements because your orgasm is already coming back to you! It’s overwhelming in the best way! Now he’s running his hands through his pretty hair and encouraging you with “fuck, just like that” and “dammit love when you do that.” When you cum (rather quickly) hes snickering and now it’s his turn to use you as he pleases, gripping your hips from below and pounding into your overstimulated cunt as the end credits scene plays unheard in the background<//3

anyway………… 😮‍💨 sorry I’ve been thinking real hard about this 😭 I just need him so badddd

i love how you wrote this marvellous piece just because of the look of his hair WHAT IS HE DOING TO US

this is SOOOO hot oh my freaking god!!!! you and him craving each other so badly that you don’t even think of taking your clothes off is so !!!!#%!js’!! no words 😩 maybe you’d just unzip the hoodie so you can sneak your hands under his shirt to gently scratch his warm skin while you ride him. his face would look so pretty and relaxed, just slightly scrunched up with his lips parted enough to release soft grunts and hisses from pleasure 🤤

i’ve been thinking real hard about the WHOLE video since the day it came out like… it’s a curse and a blessing

[sunderedazem]

Hey! It's been a while :D I've been off the Internet for a bit but just know both of your updates have been giving me essential bits of life energy, even though I haven't had time to type something out in appreciation until now. First things first I absolutely love what you wrote for the 'stay?' prompt, it's exactly what I hoped and imagined what could have happened if things hadn't gone so wrong back then. Seriously, it's like you took a look into my brain, I was really imagining scenarios of helios coming back and taking care of an exhausted emet selch 😩 such good food thanks so much for that.

Okay so back to the actual ao3 updates, I couldn't believe that you guys did the tempering cure so early XD ahhhhhh it was so good! The way it was just a slight shift of perception, how emet selch goes off just barely holding it together, the line "I always believed I would see them again" broke me so bad like how dare you 😭 but honestly finally processing his grief now is great cause it'll be so much better when Hyth comes back 😈 iirc that that's happening. One of my favourite bits was emet selch having company while the cure was being administered, idk there's always something about having support while you're healing. Corrain's writing is superb as always, in the tempering fic as well as the Sharlayan one, he comforted emet selch so well and it was very interesting to see his point of view when he snapped at thancred, poor guy needs a long break and so much therapy. I haven't read the most recent lelesu writings yet but ahhhhhh she has such big sister energy? Such a solid anchor, it's so great every time she gives support.

I think that's all my thoughts for now, so that this doesn't get too long. Thanks so much for the new content, and I hope the both of you are doing well!! Many well wishes <3

Okay! Now it's time to sob over this ask so excuse me while i

And YEAH we couldn't wait to untemper that bastard man and break him even worse. Like imagine waking up and the thing you've been working towards for the last thirteen thousand years is not only principally opposed to what you believe is right, but also now you have to accept that everyone you'd ever loved is dead and gone and will not come back.

(And then they do. Because we are stealing Hyth. And then also stealing Elidibus from Pandaemonium like sorry Athena that man is ours now. And then Hyth is spotting Lahabrea's soul mixed in with Nidhogg and they are Stealing (and helping him put himself back together, and confiscating his wife's evil space rock) him too. And we are stealing the Sundered Ascians as we find them and curing and collecting them, because they all deserve a chance to recover from the literal apocalypse knowing that the star is actually safe. Anyway. I have emotions about the first Final Days and how nobody who lived then deserved what the world and Hydaelyn ended up giving them, no matter if it was necessary or not.)

To be fair it most likely only feels fast because most of what happens in Shadowbringers and the post 5.0 patches happens as it does in canon and tby rewriting all the Same Stuff seems kinda jejune so we skipped it XD. There are a few more pieces from SHB in process though, we just have to finish them.

And YEAH GOD. Corrain can be very cruel on occasion, and him snapping at Thancred for having EXTREMELY JUSTIFIABLE RESERVATIONS (even if he was a jackass about it) wasn't his finest moment. He doesn't even honestly feel so upset about Minfilia, he liked her alright as a person, and she WAS kind to him, but in the moment he's purely reacting in anger, and it dredges up some really nasty parts of him. This is a trait Helios had as well, if uh. You read the Final Days breakup fic XD.

And YEAH I ALSO NEED MORE LELESU ALWAYS. She is so SASSY sometimes. Hey @azems-familiar give us your girl. Grabby hands.

Honestly I know I'm late actually answering but this made my week last week 🥺🥺🥺💙💙💙

[akaikali]

Hello! I just finished reading "Are You Mr. Schadenfreude?" on Ao3! And dare i say it is the best fic I've ever read yet, LIKE I'M NOT KIDDING the amount of suspense, thriller and horror.. I was at the edge of my seat and not to mention how well written the whole story is and the lore itself is just so 😩😩😩.. I am not familiar with vocaloid and even the music video (sorry!) itself but I did watch it just after reading the fic and how impressed I was that you came up with your own version and even wrote it in a MONTH 80k words and all, kudos to you <3.

I was having goosebumps throughout reading the fic! I LOVE the dynamic between wonhan and especially I've been addicted their 'This Man' album since it was released and how they were stuck together like glue and the moments they share together was adorable and as a jeonghan biased myself (i have 6 biases actually hehe) i love every bit of it and I fell in love with the characters and the fic itself. Another thing I'd like to point out is the way you portrayed their relationships that can be interpreted as romantic and/or platonic so that readers can enjoy more of the story. Aside from wonhan, i also adored the dynamic each members have with each other and then there's verkwan VERKWAN FOR THE WIN! I was devastated when both of them died and I was awestruck to find out that seungkwan did it to avoid vernon from suffering the same fate with the others and that my friends is love and if that's not love I don't know what is. I was saddened that all of them have met their deaths whether they were murdered or have ended themselves BUUUUUT HELLO THE PLOT TWIST??? I was clearly not expecting for wonwoo to wake up and then it goes back to beginning but then I understand it was his turn to break the cycle like wonwoo was the real mvp here, basically the whole story was supposed to be in hoshi's timeline but man's was sidetracked and ended getting killed earlier in the story (still love him tho but a huge facepalm for him). At the beginning of the fic I was caught off guard that jun had died immediately like it was so sudden but I was pleasantly surprised to find him still alive the end and was working below the church to try and help his friends and speaking of the devil... I really can't put my finger on it but since the beginning I've been very suspicious of minghao, but I did suspect either jeonghan or wonwoo to be the devil but I was more suspicious of minghao and the scream I let out when it was actually him who the was the devil though I have to admit it was pretty conflicting but in a good way lol.

It was fun spotting easter eggs all throughout the fic that connects with gose and for real though the fic was definitely a mix of bad clue, don't lie and ego as the og lore is similar to a mafia game and I absolutely ADORE how you came up with your twist. I'm gonna be honest it was the BEST read, I've been so invested in a fic before like how invested I was in the fic and not to mention the endless roller coaster of emotions I've read throughout, you really did pour all your hard work on this one and I really really appreciate it!!! ('appreciate' is an understatement) There are a lot more words to say but I think I'll stop here, I've been rambling too much lol. Please excuse my English as it's not my mother tongue.

HELLO???? OMG THIS IS SO SWEET IM GONNA SCREAM

I'm so flattered oh my lord I was kicking my feet and giggling as I read this you're SO sweet

I'll be totally honest, there was one specific scene that really made me want to write this and I actually drew it here. This was the catalyst for this whole fic I saw this scene and I was like "wonhan. i need to draw wonhan like this" and yeah here we are. honestly I was NOT expecting it to be like 88k, I thought I'd have barely enough for 30k 😭😭

Wonhan has been a new recent obsession for me (same as you, This Man really made me go OH HELLO WONHAN) their dynamic reminds me a lot of a ship I like (wangxian from MDZS, jeonghan reminds me of wei wuxian and wonwoo reminds me of lan wangji). I actually wrote a wonhan fic based on wonhan (and I'm gonna add a chapter to it soon as well ehehe)

Writing their relationships as ambiguous was so nice as an aroace person who feels strong feelings that aren't entirely romantic but not platonic either. Jeonghan-biases unite, as I was writing it I literally went "if I'm in love with him, everyone is in love with him". Verkwan are sooooo they're so soulmates (in whatever way)

Wonwoo being the one to figure it out is kind of like him in Ego because he figured out almost everything but he just got caught by the time limit. If it weren't for that, I think Wonwoo could have figured it out.

As for Jun, I really love seeing his caring side because he cares SO MUCH for the members. That's why I wrote him quietly helping his friends because that reminds me of him in the early days, even when he couldn't communicate, he was always silently helping everyone.

As for Myungho, I wanted to channel the energy he had in Bad Clue because the final confrontation between him and Mingyu was sooooo like it had me SWEATING. But at the same time, I couldn't make him ACTUALLY want to hurt his friends, Myungho would never do that. Hence the binding ritual ending I came up with. But I'm so glad you like my plot twists!!

The Easter eggs were my favorite part everytime I wrote one I was giggling a little bit.

Thank you so much, seriously, I'm so glad you enjoyed it so much, especially since I think this was probably one of my favorite fics I've written, so it makes me so happy that you like it so much!!

(Idk how much svt I will write other than my ongoing kpopfic Only You and adding a chapter to my wonhan fic, but I'm glad you enjoyed this!)