#I need to listen to the knights of dusk again...

[morgan-the-lonely-brick]

I can't even really get back into audio roleplay to help me fall asleep because my preferences are so complicated now that more than half the audios i find are either fucking boring or make me feel weird

[cowgurrrl]

Old Friends Die Hard

Pairing: rockstar!joel miller x actress!reader

Author’s note: WOAH WOAH WOAH (ps fic named after this baller song)

Summary: You go back to work. Decisions are made. But everything’s fine, right? Right? [3.6k]

Warnings: arguing, drama conflama, language, the tiniest bit of spice, PTSD symptoms, I think that’s it??

You leave Joel's the day after movie night with the girls. You watched A Knight's Tale and giggled with them about how cute Heath Ledger is, tucked under Joel's arm as the city sparkled just in the distance. Blankets from around the world covered the four of you as you laid on the couch in one giant heap. Joel covered Ellie's eyes when William and Jocelyn kissed while Sarah squealed excitedly. Then, you slept with your back to Joel, and he drove you home in the morning. 

He apologized after your argument and spending time on different sides of the house, processing your feelings. He said he didn't mean it, that he was sorry, that he was just tired. You apologized, too, and that was that. It was supposed to be that easy. But things feel different now. You tell yourself it's just the terror that flies through your body whenever you hear tires squeal down the road or the concussion that still makes light hurt your eyes. You tell yourself you're still adjusting to letting him take care of you. You tell yourself it's nothing because it has to be nothing, but you've been home for a few days now and had little to no contact with Joel. 

Ellie and Sarah, however, constantly text you, asking you about outfits and homework questions. They send you TikToks they think are funny and will even shoot you songs they're listening to. You respond as often as possible between looking for a new car and reviewing the scenes you're supposed to reshoot. Sarah begs you to come back over, and you respond, "Soon, sweet girl ❤️." You don't know if Joel is aware of how often you talk to his daughters, but if he has a problem with it, he doesn't make it known.

On the day of reshoots, Joel picks you up from your house before the sun is even up, a cup of coffee waiting for you in the cupholder when you climb in. He's wearing square glasses you've never seen before and a plain grey hoodie. He looks exceptionally cozy in the frigid (sixty-three-degree) California dusk, and you smile as you kiss him. His beard scratches your face, and he tastes like coffee, and it feels familiar and safe. 

"You okay?" He asks, and you nod. He tucks a piece of hair behind your ear, his hand lingering on your jaw, and glances over the bumpy scar left behind now that your stitches are out, taking a deep breath. "Are we okay?" His voice is unsure and a little shaky. You bite the inside of your cheek and kiss his wrist.

"We're working toward being okay," you say. He purses his lips a little like that's not the answer he wanted. "Bringing me coffee at five in the morning is, like, at least five points for you." You add, and he chuckles, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

"I got you the biggest one they had."

"I see that." You smile as you look at the huge coffee. There's probably an ungodly amount of espresso in it, and you're sure you'll need two more to get through the day. 

"Y'know, you don't have to go through with this, right?" He asks, the tiniest sliver of hope that you'll get back in bed poking through, and you nod. You don't trust yourself to say anything, not wanting to cause another fight, so you just kiss him again and settle back into your seat. He idles in front of your house for another five seconds before changing gears. He drives slowly and with a hand on your thigh, rubbing soothing circles into your leggings when your chest tightens at intersections. You get to set about ten minutes late because of how careful he was driving, but nobody questions it because Ryan rolls up shortly after you and Joel do. 

All morning, Joel follows you around like a puppy. When you're whisked away to hair and makeup, he shakes Jenna and Alexa's hands and sits on the other side of you and Ryan. He asks them how long they've been working as stylists and what they like about it. He even jokes about taking over when Jenna complains about her hairdresser-induced carpal tunnel, and they eat it up. Before you can leave the trailer, all made up to resemble your character, Alexa grabs you and whispers, "he's perfect," in your ear, and you laugh. On the walk to set, Joel grabs your hand and swings it like a little kid, and you're all smiles and whispered jokes until you get to the sound stage, where a PA stops you. 

"Sorry, sir, we're a closed set today." He says to Joel, and you give him a confused look. You can feel Joel already getting annoyed, so you hold up a hand to let him know you have it handled, and he backs down. So, he has learned something, you think to yourself.

"Why is it a closed set? All the scenes we're filming today don't call for that." 

"Director changed her mind. We're shooting the cabin scene first thing today, thus, a closed set." 

"What's the cabin scene?" Joel asks, and you gape at him, half-hoping that the PA is joking. But, sure enough, when you glance into the stage, there's the set for the room in the cabin, and your intimacy coordinator, Tanya, is talking with Emily, the director. You slowly turn your back to the PA and put gentle hands on Joel's chest.

"You should wait in my trailer until we finish this scene." You say quietly, and Joel gives you a look.

"Why? What's the cabin scene?"

You giggle as you and Ryan stumble into the cabin, drunken blushes painted on both your cheeks. He kisses you the second the door closes behind him, his hands wandering in the choreographed pattern you practiced for months. Your hands land on his wrists and slowly pull them away before you break the kiss, turn, and walk toward the kitchen.

"'M hungry," you whine, Ryan closely following behind you to wrap his arms around your waist and kiss your neck. "You're distracting."

"Good." He says, spinning you so your chests are pressed together, and he's kissing you again. He grabs at the backs of your thighs and carries you to sit on the counter. Then, it all happens in a perfectly rehearsed sequence. You can't feel anything through your three layers of protection on either side, but you wouldn't be able to tell based on the shaky, exaggerated moans leaving both of you and the jerking of Ryan's hips. The scene goes on for another minute before Emily finally calls cuts, and you and Ryan dissolve into a fit of giggles, your hands still on his shoulders as you sit on the counter.

"We have the weirdest fucking job." He says as he kisses your cheek and hugs you tightly. You laugh and rub his back, squeezing him.

"Oh, God, I know." You say. Tanya comes over to check in with both of you and make sure everything went as planned, even offering some alternative actions, which you both listen to intently. You avoid Joel's lingering eyes from the corner the whole time you're talking with her. It's all fake. You don't feel anything. You know that better than anyone, but it still feels weird pretending to have sex with someone else while your boyfriend is not even a hundred yards away. It doesn't help that you're pretending to have sex with one of your best friends. 

Emily, thankfully, breaks for lunch which you both desperately need after running that scene so many goddamn times. At one point, you thought she was just calling for more takes to fuck with you because you ran it so much. As Ryan helps you hop down from the counter for, hopefully, the last time, he glances between you and Joel's looming figure.

"Joel really decided to make a set visit on the worst day, huh?" He says, and you nod.

"I tried to get him to wait in my trailer, but he'd already decided. Not my fault," you say as Joel starts walking over. "Speak of the devil." Ryan turns and shakes hands with Joel before quickly making himself scarce. You know Joel would never say or do anything to Ryan for doing his job, but watching him be scared of Joel is a little funny. You smile and wrap your arms around Joel's neck once he's close enough.

"Hey there, handsome," you say, and he raises his eyebrows before resting his hands on your waist, not caring about who might see. You try to kiss him, but he dodges your lips dramatically. "Joel!"

"I can't believe you're tryna make Ryan and me spit sisters." He says, and you laugh. 

"I can't believe you didn't know you and Ryan have been spit sisters," you say, kissing him firmly. A PA passive-aggressively bumps you with a prop, and you turn to see them taking the set apart. 

"Oh, thank God, you're done with that scene," Joel breathes. You grab his hand and pull him away from the giant moving set pieces. Together, you start walking back to your trailer, occasionally stopping to say hello to someone you haven't seen since you wrapped all your scenes. You wait until you're out of earshot of any eavesdroppers to press into Joel's side.

"Were you jealous, Miller?" You tease, and Joel smirks, shaking his head as he thinks. You disappear between the massive trailers at base camp, and Joel crowds you against your trailer. 

"What if I was?" He asks in a low voice, his hands already teasing the hemline of your skirt. He shifts so his knee is pressing against you, and it takes everything in you to not gasp. With the emergency with Ellie, the car accident, and the fight afterward, it's been a hot second since he's had his hands on you. Based on his uneven breathing and the way his hard cock is lightly poking you, you'd say he thinks the same.

"I would tell you not to be," you whisper, raking your nails down his neck to make him shiver. "Nobody fucks me as good as you do. 'M all yours, Joel." As soon as the words leave your mouth, he kisses you roughly and blindly reaches for the door handle. You have half a mind to laugh about him suddenly not caring about who you've been kissing, but your thoughts are interrupted when he picks you up and carries you into the trailer. It's a miracle he doesn't trip, but the second he can, he lays you down on the couch and reaches under your skirt.

"You have thirty minutes." You manage to get out as you tug at the neck of his shirt.

"I only need twenty." His fingers barely graze the lace of your underwear when someone clears their throat behind you, making you jump away from each other. You turn and find Melanie sitting at the small dining table in the kitchenette, her hands folded in front of her. 

"Mel! What are you doing here?" You ask as you and Joel scramble to get it together. You smooth your skirt down and push him off you so you can stand, feeling a lot like a horny teenager who just got caught by their parents.

"I thought I'd stop in and see how things were going. I didn't know you'd have..." She looks at Joel. "Visitors."

"Joel was just, um..." 

"I was just gonna stop by catering. D'you want anythin'?" He asks, and you shake your head.

"No, I'm okay."

"Okay."

"Okay." You repeat, for some fucking reason, and Joel stands there for another beat before finally walking out the door and probably dying of embarrassment. You sigh and run a hand through your hair as you look at her. Her eyebrows are pinched— or as pinched as they can look with Botox— and she shifts in her seat.

"Were you two going to-"

'Why are you here, Mel?" You cut her off, not ready or willing to even think about trying to explain that to her.

"Right," she starts, getting right down to business like the goddamn professional she is. "So, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

"Bad news."

"Bad news is I don't have any auditions lined up for you." She says like she didn't just drop a bomb on your entire world. Your ears ring, and you blink at her like you didn't hear her correctly.

"What?"

"I tried rescheduling some so you could recover, but nobody wanted to work with me!"

"Did you tell them I was in a car accident?"

"Of course I did, but these studios are on tight schedules. By the time you would've fully recovered, they needed to be getting actors to film locations." She says, and you sigh, pacing the carpet. "But, I'm poking around. I'll find something."

"Is this when you give me the good news?"

"Good news is, Joel's team is really happy with how this is all turning out, and they agreed to terminate the contract earlier than expected. You're free to go on with your life after the premiere." She's almost giddy with the information, but you can't catch your breath. For some reason, you laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"That's it? That's your good news?" You ask, and she stands. 

"I thought you'd be happier," she says. "Honey, you'll go on to do great things without him. You don't need to keep carting him around. You'll be so much better off without him in your life."

"What if I don't want that?"

"What?" She asks, and you put your hands on your hips, gearing for a fight.

"What if I want him to stay in my life? What, then?"

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why?"

"Because that wasn't a part of the contract."

"Bullshit," you spit. "Legally, you can't dictate my relationships outside of this singular contract, and once it's up, I'm free to make my own decisions again, right?"

"Right." She answers through gritted teeth. That picture-perfect attitude is slowly breaking; you can't fight how good that makes you feel.

"So, why don't you think it's a good idea for me to keep seeing him? Is it because I stopped responding to your every beck and call? Or because I'm actually happy and care about someone other than myself, and that threatens my career?"

"I don't think it's a good idea because he's a divorced father of two with a shitty reputation. Do you really think he's gonna keep being the charming guy you see now? He's just doing it for the cameras."

"He stayed overnight in the hospital with me. He let me stay in his house. He let me meet his kids. None of that was for the cameras. Plus, you weren't even there."

"Contrary to popular belief, my world does not revolve around you." Maybe it's how she says it with her familiar venom or because you finally realize how awful she is to you, but you feel the dam of molten anger break in your chest. 

"I could've died, Mel! Ryan and I could've died, and you wanted to know about my fucking schedule! You didn't even ask what hospital I was in or if I was okay! We've known each other for four fucking years, and you can't even ask me how I'm doing?! Do you realize how shitty that is?"

"You wouldn't be anyone without me. We both know that." She snaps, and you scoff, turning away from her. "Look, why don't we just take a breather and come back to this later, okay?" She grabs her bag and makes for the door, but you shake your head.

"You're right," you stop her. "I probably wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for you. I needed someone ruthless to get me started, and you were that person, and I'm grateful for everything you did. But we're done. Once we get through these reshoots, I'm gonna start looking for another manager, and we are gonna go our separate ways." She looks over you like a snake looking at its prey, and you clench your jaw. 

"You're firing me?" She asks, and you nod. "You're firing me because you fell in love with Joel fucking Miller? He will leave you in six months for the next shiny young actress who comes his way, and you're firing me?"

"Yep." 

"You're dumber than I thought you were."

"Goodbye, Melanie." You say, and she scoffs. She stands there for another second before walking to the door in a huff, her heels furiously moving against the carpet.

"I hope he's worth it." She calls over her shoulder before slamming the door behind her, rattling the entire trailer. You let out an unsteady exhale and feel your molars buzzing as your head spins from what just happened. You shake out your hands and sit down on the couch. 

"Me too." You mumble. You've never been in Hollywood without representation. You don't know what comes next. You don't even know if you care enough to worry about it right now. You barely have time to think about anything else or even take another breath before the door opens again. You stand shakily, ready to pretend to be ruthless like her if she came back to yell at you, but you just see Joel with his phone next to his ear.

"Hey, somethin' came up, and I need to go. Can you come over for dinner?" He asks frantically. You struggle to keep up with what he's saying but nod anyways.

"I'll ask Ryan to drop me off."

"Okay, I'll see you later." He says as he pecks your lips and disappears as fast as he appeared. Then, you're standing in the middle of your trailer, feeling like you could throw up, and you're alone. The ache in your core has been replaced with motion sickness, and you slowly sit on the floor. 

Did Joel hear you and Melanie arguing? Did he see her leave? Did anybody else see or hear anything? The contract is up. You have no jobs lined up once you're done with Hyde. You have no manager. You just have Ryan, Carolina, Joel, and the girls. Four years of busting your ass, and you might've (probably) just fucked it all up. The scar from the car accident pulses with pain, and you wonder if your brain is pushing its way out of your skull in an attempt to save itself. You pull your knees to your chest and push your hair out of your face, resting your elbows on your knees.

"What the fuck just happened?" You ask yourself. "I have to talk to Joel."

You're exhausted when Ryan drops you off at Joel's. You got all the reshoots done in one day, which is virtually unheard of, but thankfully, Emily just needed a few scenes done, and she knew exactly what she wanted to change. Still, you were there from before the sun came up until after the sun went down. Oh, and you single-handedly doomed your career, but it's fine. Everything's gonna be fine. You really just want to hug Joel. You imagine you'll probably collapse against his chest and cry and barely be able to get the words out. He'll help you figure out what's next. Maybe you'll watch another movie with the girls. That'd be nice. But, right now, you need to cry and maybe have a huge glass of wine. 

You don't knock on Joel's door. You just open and walk through the door, shrugging off your jacket like it's your own place. Something delicious is cooking in the kitchen and the smell wafts throughout the house. Maybe pasta? You can hear low music playing and the girls giggling as they no doubt push their dad around for space on the stovetop. You smile and feel your shoulders drop and your jaw unclench for the first time since you argued with Mel. Everything's gonna be fine.

You turn the corner to see into the living room and the kitchen and find Ellie and Sarah laughing with a woman you've never seen before. She's tall with beautiful dark skin and brown coily hair. Your heart stops in your chest, and the expansive house is suddenly all too small.

"Alright, I couldn't find pesto, but I did find," Joel says as he exits the garage with a can in his hand, stopping in his tracks when he sees you. He looks shocked and says your name like he forgot the syllables. Ellie, Sarah, and the mystery woman look up from their food, and Sarah lights up, repeating your name excitedly.

"I'm so happy you're here! This is my mom, Angela!"

[theteasetwrites]

Merciless Beauty

Chapter 10: Straight Through My Heart

❧ Pairing: Knight Daryl Dixon x Princess Reader ❧ Era: Medieval fantasy AU ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: war, violence, scary situation, blood and gore, death ❧ Word Count: 9.5k

❧ Before You Read...

❧ Glossary

❧ In this Chapter: Alexandria and the Hilltop's forces besiege the Sanctuary, with three objectives: save the princess, kill Negan, and burn the place to the ground.

❧ A/N: I am so sorry I wasn't able to keep up with the schedule for this chapter, but I have been quite busy with school, work, and life, and this chapter was pretty hard to write because it was so action-heavy, and I am not very good at writing action scenes! So I wanted to make sure I was taking my time and not rushing through it. I really hope you guys like the second to last chapter, and thank you to everyone who waited patiently the last few weeks. I hope it was worth the wait. <3

The sky was stained violet in the twilight that married day to night. It was that strange time of transition, wherein the sun had set beyond the distant hills, leaving only a soft halo of light behind, while the moon still had yet to claim her dominion. 

And it was quiet, that uneasy kind of quiet. The kind that did not settle, but hung in the air with a heaviness, threatening at any moment to implode. 

But the silence in the Sanctuary provided you with the solitude you needed to do all that you knew was left to do: pray.

You could not pray to God, though, for the last time you had, you knew he hadn’t even bothered to hear you. Perhaps you were a sinner. Well, you knew you were. Everyone was a sinner, and you were no exception. In fact, you had more to answer for than most—you’d lied to your own father, lain with a man to whom you weren’t married, and, worst of all, you’d tried to kill someone. 

So why should you pray to God, who would surely not listen anyway? 

But you still believed in Heaven. You still believed that Daryl was in Heaven, even if he, too, had been a sinner. You had to believe he was there, where he walked amongst angels in perpetual bliss. So, you prayed not to God, but to him. 

Your weak knees wobbled on the cool, rough stone underneath you. A faint stream of the last light from the dusk outside crept in through the tiny crack in the old stone wall. You focused on that crack of light, its dying shimmer reminiscent of the sparkle in his eyes of cobalt blue. Just the thought of him, how you’d never see him again, brought forth the tears.

“Daryl,” you said quietly, squeezing your eyes tight as you sniffled. Lowering your head, you clasped your cold hands together, and held them below your chin, just like a prayer. “I do not know if you can hear me…” 

Another sniffle as you shook your head, as if embarrassed by how pitiful you must’ve looked—on your knees in a dark, cold dungeon, wearing only a dirt-stained chemise and a pair of once beautiful pinsons on your aching feet. You’d never felt more ugly than now, not only because you felt filthy, cold, and thin, but because you felt as though all your poise and dignity had been stripped from you, until you were bare. Though you weren’t naked, it very nearly felt like you were.

The lump in your throat could not be held back much longer. With a blubbering burst of tears, you sobbed against your hands, still clasped together in prayer. 

“Oh, my love… I—I do not know what to do.” The only comfort you had was in that last little sliver of blue, that crack in the wall. It was darkening now, almost black as night settled in. You still kept your gaze locked on it, that little bit of hope. “I have tried to be strong… I tried to k-kill that bastard, Negan. I did it because I do not want to feel like a prisoner ever again, but… now look where that got me.”

Your cry almost melted into a laugh at your own failure, but even that could not distract you from the grim situation you found yourself in. In fact, as you sat in momentary silence, with only the constant drip… drip… drip of a nearby drain to entertain you, you could only think of him. 

Though you knew in your heart of hearts that you could not be to blame for his death, you still felt as though you were the catalyst, the cause of your own woe, and the death of the love that you had just barely begun to feel. 

“Most of all… I miss you terribly, and I have not known such pain as this in so many years, to think of how you must have suffered, how you…” You swallowed back a strained gasp, shuddering to think of what had happened to him. “I never wanted you to die for me, Daryl. Never. I only wanted… I just wanted to be free. You set me free, and you did not have to. You did it because you were a good man. You are a good man. You always will be to me. I will always love you.”

Releasing a deep breath that shook you to your fragile core, you wiped your tears with the dirty sleeve of your gown. The pressure made the sensitive bruise around your eye sting. As silence settled in again, you thought of one more thing to say, one more utterance to release into the cool night air, surely never to be heard by anyone but the rats and the maggots that plagued this disgusting prison. Still, if there was a chance that your love could hear you, from wherever he was, you were going to be sure that it would mean something.

“My love,” you spoke again, “I am frightened… and I have often felt alone, before you, but now… I fear there is nothing left, that all that’s left for me is loneliness. All I’d need to believe otherwise is—well, it is silly, but… some kind of sign. Something to show me that there is still hope. If you could, would you show me something? Anything? Please, my sweet knight.”

But there was nothing. Only silence. You shook your head, feeling your tears welling up within you again. After all, what were you expecting? A beam of light, a prophetic vision, an epiphany? “Fool,” you muttered. “He cannot hear you… No one can.” 

As you began to rise to your feet, a sudden rumble echoed from somewhere outside the walls. It seemed distant, and quite faint. It was not a common sound you’d grown accustomed to over the past twenty-four hours you’d been locked away, but it was familiar. It reminded you of the cannon fire from that night, when the Saviors attacked Alexandria.

It couldn’t have been that, though. The cannon fire was much louder, and had shaken the—

Boom! 

You were sent back to the ground, not on your knees but on your side. The ground shook underneath you, while another round of explosions assaulted your ears. Reaching up to cover them, your eyes shot open when you realized. 

“We’re under attack!” a distant voice cried out.

When the shaking subsided, you heard racing footsteps from the floor above you, swords being unsheathed and men shouting at each other, barking orders and arguing in panicked hollers. There were no windows in that dungeon, but there was that sliver—that crack in the stone wall. You lifted yourself in a hurry to cross the cell, closing one eye to look through the jagged fissure. 

All you could make out for several moments was opaque blackness. The night had swallowed what was left of day in the time that had passed, but in the distance, coming over a gentle slope, was a sight you could not believe.

First, you saw the flames, the torches that some of the men carried as they rode on horseback. Much further in the distance, you could make out the silhouette of the bombards mounted on carriages, some being loaded by men in full suits of armor, others being pushed forward, making their assault on the keep. 

They’d already made it past the castle walls, it seemed, as the battlements were all but destroyed, with flames swallowing the remaining rubble. It was too dark to make out their alliance, but you knew it could not be Alexandria. The kingdom was too weak for such a siege, and you’d never seen such bombards before. No, this must have been some foreign faction… Perhaps they even could have been just as evil as Negan and the Saviors. 

You could not allow yourself to have hope of being rescued, but you had asked for a sign. Any sign. Though you were hoping for something more metaphorical, you supposed this would do.

As the armored Friesian’s hooves galloped over a fallen Savior’s writhing body, the knight raised his sword with one hand, and, in one swift motion, sliced the head of another’s clean off before rounding the corner of the keep. 

Through his armet, with only two thin oculariums allowing him to see, he could just make out the great entrance, raised high by a flight of imposing stone steps looking over the besieged castle grounds. The armored Prince Jesus and Duke Richard followed closely behind, each upon their own steeds and slaying every Savior that came barreling towards them. 

“We must go on foot now!” Jesus shouted over the warfare, men-at-arms all around them, some roaring battlecries, others wailing in agony as they writhed in the bloodied earth, Saviors and Alexandrians and Hilltop soldiers alike. “Onward to the keep! That is where your princess will be, and Negan.”

The three men dismounted before their horses ran off, over the debris from the fallen walls and towards the safety of the woods. Sir Daryl watched them as long as he could see them, before they dissolved into the smoky darkness of the night. 

Making their assault on the keep, the three fought through the crowd, knocking men from their horses to rid them of their helms before driving their blades through their faces without too much remorse. These men were all different degrees of evil, but they were all on the same spectrum. They all stole, tortured, killed, raped… There could be no remorse for the Saviors, who had shown no such remorse before.

With each step the knight and his companions get closer, climbing the steep hill towards the entrance to the keep, the other soldiers of Alexandria and Hilltop followed, preparing to assault the keep—Negan’s home. 

They were fueled by vengeance, rage at the ravaging of their homes and the murders of their loved ones. In the distance, Daryl could hear the king shouting above the chaos. “Surround them!” he said, wielding his own sword as he fought amongst the common men. “Push on! To the keep!”

But the mass of soldiers was too thick for the battering ram to get through without conflict, and that door was not going to open by itself. More likely than not, there were Saviors on the other side of that door—likely Negan’s most skilled, trusted guards. 

Seeing this, the king turned to whistle the signal. 

The beast was released from her chains, then, and with a roar, Shiva bounded towards the skirmish, her strong paws pushing the Saviors out of the way before she dug her claws into them, her teeth cutting through the steel of the armor to puncture their flesh. A few Alexandrians and Hilltop fighters were knocked over in the event, but the tiger kept the Saviors down long enough for twelve of the king’s men to run up the steps to the keep as they carried a long, heavy wood beam with the steel head of a ram on its end. 

The knight, the duke, and the prince stood by, their swords held high in preparation to fight the Saviors on the other side. 

The men with the battering ram heaved several times, each time making the door splinter until finally the ram broke through, destroying the door as the men plowed through, dropping the beam to lift their blades and fight.

Daryl went first in afterwards, with Jesus and Richard following behind. Sure enough, the place was crawling with Saviors, armored and wearing the black and red colors of House Smith.

The knight was faced with a particularly skilled Savior, who advanced towards him in a diagonal lunge, his sword swinging with intent to attack the weakest point—the underarm.

But Daryl was quick, parrying for a moment, only to regain his stability and counter the Savior’s next strike with his own. 

Though he had the perfect moment to slash at the briefly exposed skin between his helm and his gorget, instead he seized the opportunity to tackle the man with such force that his weapon clattered to the floor as he pushed him into a hidden alcove beneath the stone staircase, where the Savior fought for freedom from the knight’s attack, but Daryl was using all his strength to keep the man pressed against the wall.

He sheathed his own sword to reach for the misericorde strapped to his leather belt. With the dagger in one hand, he used the other to yank open the visor of the man’s helm, exposing two wide, frightened deep brown eyes. 

The knight was young, probably only just promoted from a squire, but Daryl did not have time to care. He’d already killed plenty of young men tonight, and one more wouldn’t make him any less damned. 

He lifted the blade to the Savior’s left eye, its narrow tip poised to puncture the young knight’s pupil as though it were the center of a target. In the confined space of his helm, he breathed heavily, the heat of his anger and adrenaline burning fumes in the back of his throat as he spoke three simple words, his voice louder than even he had anticipated, but he had no time to repeat himself: “Where’s the princess?”

“I—I know of no princess.”

A low, muffled growl escaped Daryl’s lips. He pressed his chest harder against that of the Savior, his grip on the dagger becoming at once firm and shaky as irrational rage overcame him. It was as though he was looking Negan in the eye right now. Though, this Savior had a kindness in his eyes, one distinctly different from the evil of Sir Negan’s serpentine stare. Still, there was deceit behind those eyes. Years of interrogating prisoners of war had trained him well, despite the psychological toll it had taken on him. At least he could tell when a man was lying. 

“Wrong answer,” he replied through lips tightly drawn into a snarl. He did not need to harm the knight beyond the suffocating weight he inflicted onto the young man’s chest, he only had to narrow his eyes in a freezing stare. “Wanna try again?”

The young knight swallowed hard as his defense began to crumble, though he still feigned ignorance. “Sh-she is here.”

Daryl huffed as he inched his dagger closer, the tip grazing the Savior’s eyelashes as they fluttered in nervous movements. The knight never did have much patience, and now, with your life and the lives of his men at stake, he couldn’t care less about the chivalry which was supposed to dictate his every action and every word, even in battle. In fact, he’d never been chivalrous enough to care about that before. When it came to war, every man was a savage, and Daryl was no exception. 

“You’ve got about five seconds to tell me where she is ‘fore you lose your damn eye.”

“No, please!” The Savior caved easily, and it was clear that, despite the fact that Negan trusted him enough to be one of his personal guards, he was not particularly loyal. Not if he surrendered that easily. From Daryl’s knowledge of war, a truly loyal soldier would lose his eye and maybe a few other body parts before giving in. “Last I heard she was locked away in the dungeon. Negan gave orders to put her in there just last night. I haven’t heard anything since, that’s all I know. I swear!”

For a good several moments, Daryl did not remove his blade, his lips snarling at the Savior as he processed his words, and contemplated whether or not to kill him. 

He wanted to. No Savior left alive, he repeated in his head like a mantra, but he wasn’t going to be the one to kill him. Something told him not to. Perhaps it was that last bit of gallantry, or perhaps he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

“What’s your name?” he asked the young man, words which he’d never thought he’d ask of an enemy. The man seemed confused by his question, so he jolted him against the wall and demanded again, “What’s your name?”

“Alden.”

“Alden… This place is gonna burn to the ground. If you value your life, you’d leave now and never look back.”

The Savior nodded, his eyes softening as Daryl removed his weight and the knife from his face. As Daryl turned to begin his search for you, Alden said one more thing. “Wait!”

The knight turned, half-expecting the man to turn on him, just as a precaution. 

But he did not attack him. He only held out a large iron key, dangling from the ring in his hand. “You’ll need this.”

You paced back and forth the length of the cell, wringing your hands nervously before you tried again, though you were sure either no one could hear you, or no one cared.

But you had to try, even if every cell in your body was against it. Death seemed inevitable, and perhaps you truly had nothing more to live for, if the world was as dark and cold as it seemed, but you believed that fortune held you in its favor, somehow. The attack was a sign. A sign from Daryl. That’s what you had to believe. There was no time to stand idly by, you had to act. And the only way to act, in your current position, was to shake those bars that held you in your cell, and to scream at the top of your lungs.

“Hey!” you cried out, your voice drowned out by the sounds of warfare outside and above you. “Hey! What is happening?! Let me out!”

As they neared the dungeon, racing down the winding steps that took them underground, the four men plowed through more Saviors, the ones tasked with guarding the dungeon. Despite being nowhere to be seen, Negan must’ve sent extra defenses to protect the subterranean corridors. 

With the help of Jesus and Alden, the duke and the knight tunneled their way through the maze, each corner they turned revealing a new foe, until they found themselves nearing a great iron gate, beyond which Daryl swore he could hear your voice. The fear and confusion pierced his heart like a thorn, though the familiarity in your voice was like the sweetest rose. 

“This way!” cried Alden. “Hurry!”

The four men raced towards the gate, with Alden hurriedly turning the key in the lock. Daryl did not hesitate, throwing the door open with a great echo of the squeaking of hinges. He stepped in quickly, and the other three men followed, though Daryl pushed them back. 

“Stay out here,” he said. “Keep watch. If anyone followed us—”

“Go,” said the duke. “But hurry.”

For the first time in several hours, you heard the creaking of the opening door, the footsteps that echoed through the dark, winding halls of the dungeon. Though you could not see who they belonged to, you had more fear in your heart than hope. 

All you could see beyond the bars of your cell and at the end of the hall was that same glow of that same fire of that same sconce that provided the only light you had in this God forsaken place. As you stepped back, terrified of the slow, heavy footsteps growing increasingly loud, the shadow of the figure played against the stone floor, flickering with the light. 

Surely, you were to die tonight, whether by the hands of a Savior or one of the intruders. You could not see any other way for this to end, though you had wished so much for Daryl’s sign to be true. 

“Please,” was all you could muster, your voice shaky and delicate, close to shattering like thin, weak glass. 

He followed your voice, his vision obscured by his helm that he had forgotten to remove in the haste to locate you. When he turned the corner, finally laying eyes on you, his heart could not bear to waste another moment—he moved as fast as he could in his heavy steel armor, which you could not recognize at all.

It was not the armor of Alexandria, nor of the Saviors. No, it was the Hilltop’s armor, but you’d never seen it in your life. 

All you could see was an unfamiliar man in unfamiliar armor hurriedly jimmying the key in the lock of your cell door, while you cowered in the dusty dark corner, frightened. With nowhere left to go, you sank to the floor in defeat, hugging your knees to your chest for some semblance of comfort. 

“I—I am not one of them,” you stuttered. “Please.”

But the knight did not respond, himself too overwhelmed with emotion to speak. He stood before you now, frozen for a moment, until he kneeled to face you at your level. Between those thin, rectangular windows built into the cold shiny steel of his helmet, you could see a sparkle of cobalt blue, like the reflection of the sunlight that danced upon gentle waves of the sea on a bright summer’s day. For a split second, you swore you recognized that glimmer, the way it made your stomach do somersaults and your chest swell up with air when you’d forget to breathe properly.

Only now, you were sure it was fear that made your body react that way, not the eyes of your lover, so you thought. 

It could not be… And yet, he moved like him, he was built like him, he even very nearly smelled like him—a warm, woody musk. Perhaps it was only your mind playing tricks on you, though, or just wishful thinking.

“Wh-what do you want?” The words were so strangled by the tightness in your barren throat that he could hardly hear you, his helm dulling his senses. “Who are you?”

Just then, Daryl realized how negligent he had been in his stupor. He was still wearing that helmet, and you could not see him for who he was. He could speak, but he feared he’d just cry, and what kind of knight in shining armor would weep before his beloved lady?

You watched with bated breath as the knight lowered his head, his gauntleted hands rising up to either side of his helm. It took some effort to pull the thing off, with it the linen padding and chain mail that protected his head. Left behind was only a curtain of long, shoulder-length hair, chestnut in hue, with subtle streaks of sun-kissed brown and ashy flaxen laced throughout. 

His head still hung, you could not quite make out his face, as it was shrouded in sinuous ripples of hair that so much reminded you of Daryl, but you could not let your mind wander into irrational fantasies of seeing him again, though it was tempting to do so.

With a drag of his hand, he pushed back the hair that hung over his forehead, then lifted his gaze to meet yours, his face blotched with blackish-gray ash and gunpowder from the cannon fire that he’d fought through to get to you. 

But it was not dark enough to disguise him, his features clear as day. Gentle, deep-set eyes of blue shone brighter now without the obscurity of his helm. A short, rounded nose of button shape sat above a pair of panting lips. They were not plump, nor exceptionally thin—there was a softness to them. Around those lips, a smattering of a thin layer of facial hairs, which faded into high cheekbones, defined just enough to bring shape to the otherwise soft curves of his face.

The part of him that made you shudder, though, was the long, reddish scar that split above and below his left eye. You’d traced that scar over in your mind a thousand times, recreated it to perfection whenever the image of your knight’s visage lulled you to sleep in the comfort of your warm feather bed. 

Could it be some cruel trick, some strange sorcery, some facsimile that you’d conjured up in your troubled mind? Or perhaps, and most mercifully, you were dead, too, and this image was an angel sent to carry you into Heaven… Though you knew you were not bound for such a place. No, he was real. You could feel it.

But you could not believe it, not until you touched him, reaching out to hold his ashy cheeks in both of your hands as you leaned closer to him, feeling the heat of his body which you once thought was cold and lifeless. Yet here he was, alive, his heart beating fiercely, as though it yearned to tear itself from his chest and his armor and bury itself next to yours, where it belonged. 

“Daryl?”

When he spoke your name, you could not keep yourself from him much longer, your head dizzy with shock and your heart fragile with the sudden break away from grief and utter despair. Your body melted into his arms, your cheek held firm against the cool hard steel of his pauldron as your tears began to puddle on the surface. 

There were no words between you for a while, only the sound of your gentle cries against his shoulder, and the heavy breaths he panted out as his lips gently grazed your neck, one hand supporting your back while the other tangled in your hair. 

But you could not keep yourself from lifting your head up from his shoulder, letting your eyes dart frantically all over his face. Despite your tears, your lips curled into a smile, with something between a laugh and a cry escaping between sighs. 

He could not handle the separation, though. His eyes squeezed shut, he leaned forward to touch your forehead with his, then the tips of your noses were stuck together like glue, your lips tickling each other’s in featherlight grazes as your breathing synced and your heartbeats seemed to create a harmony from their natural rhythms. Of course, you could not hear it, but you both felt it, deep in your souls. 

“I thought you were…” Hesitation to even speak of the possibility of his death stopped you from continuing, your voice instead softening into a teary sigh, the breath of which he felt on his trembling lips. 

Just the sound of your voice had him in pieces, crumbling like a dried leaf in the palm of your hand, the hand which he held in his, his grip firm but so gentle. And in his arms, you were trembling, cold and tired and hanging onto him as though he was an apparition that could dissolve at any moment, and after everything you had seen, you feared that could be true.

“Are you real?” you whispered, still surrounded by him and his corporeal presence. “Am I dreaming, or are you really my knight, my Daryl?”

“I am real… I am your knight, and I am gonna get you out of here.” Now, he pulled away, the reality of the situation setting in, but his gaze was set on the purple swelling of skin around your right eye. Though you tried to lower your head, as if to hide it from him, he lifted your chin up with his armored hand. Tears trickled down your cheeks, squeezed out as you closed your eyes. 

A burning rage took him over then, that puffy, bruised flesh striking him like lightning that set him ablaze. As he examined you, you swore you saw his top lip twitch into a snarl. The anger was not at you, of course, but at the mark of your assault, and the hand which had committed it.

“He did this?” he asked. “He hurt you?” You had not known such intensity in his voice, or such a menacing fire of fury behind his eyes. Underlying it all, though, was concern. Concern for you. His soothing touch as he stroked up and down your arms proved that. “Did he touch you?”

Though a part of you wanted to lie, to forget about Negan and everything you’d gone through, you could not lie to him, not your love. 

“H-he… Yes.”

You did not have to say more. 

“I’ll kill him. Right now. Son of a bitch is a dead man.” He’d stood to his feet now, with you still clinging to him, and his hands still holding onto your arms as you shook your head. You could not risk losing him again. You’d already gone through the pain of losing him once, and now that you knew that pain, you could never go through it again. 

“No, my love. He is not worth risking your life, not again.”

Of course, he knew you were right—your safety was more important than his desire to kill Negan, and right now, in the catacombs of the Sanctuary, you were anything but safe. His priority now was getting you as far away from Negan and the Saviors as possible, and just hope to God that whoever found Negan killed him slowly, because that’s what he deserved for laying a hand on you.

At the very least, he’d see that you’d never be hurt again so long as he could help it. Pulling his dagger from his belt, he held it by the blade to offer you the handle. “Take this,” he said. You took the misericorde with a shaky, tired hand. 

Before you could speak, the duke’s voice called out: “Let’s go!” he cried. “Now!”

There was no time to even consider it. Daryl took your hand, leaving behind his helm in a hurry to lead you out of the dungeon. You were greeted by the three other men, two of which you had never seen before, one of whom was dressed in Savior armor.

But before you could even ask, the Savior led the way down the cavernous tunnels below the Sanctuary, where footsteps and screams and sounds of cannon fire echoed through the old, winding passageways.

“There’s an escape route through here!” said Sir Alden, pointing further down the underground tunnel, leading into darkness. “It opens into the woods!”

The Saviors, though, were following not far behind, a squadron of them rounding the corner to see the prince, the duke, the knight, the traitor, and the princess, all momentarily frozen to face the dilemma: either stay and fight them off, or keep running until you reached the other side. Either way, they would have to fight at some point. 

One strong hand pushing you back behind him, the knight withdrew his sword, as did the other men, standing firm against the Saviors, but Prince Jesus had another plan.

“Go,” he said. “We’ll keep them busy, you get the princess to safety.”

Daryl hesitated, looking between you and the prince, whose sword was about to strike one of oncoming attackers. “Go!” he called out, still feeling the knight’s presence. It was not honorable to leave an ally to battle alone, but then, it was even more dishonorable to put a princess in danger. 

With only a few more moments’ hesitation, the knight took your hand, spinning you around to pull you further down the tunnel, into darkness.

There was hardly a flash of light to guide you, but somewhere in the distance, a sliver of bright moonlight crept underneath the iron door that surely led out into the woods outside, far from the cannon fire and bloodshed. 

At length, you reached the exit, the knight only letting go of your hand to lift the bar that kept the door sealed from the outside, and to then break the link of the chain lock with the steel of his armor. When the door was thrown open, a gentle, cool breeze awakened you, into the relative peace of the quiet sylvan glade. 

You could only double over for a moment, panting heavily as Daryl closed the door behind you. When you felt his arms lifting you up, you stood upright, falling into his embrace. 

“We’ve got to keep movin’,” he panted, his armor weighing him down and forcing his breath to escape him more strongly. “Further we get the better… The horses aren’t far from here.”

Beyond the gentle slope of a hill, you could see the Sanctuary—plumes of gray smoke illuminating the crumbling parapets and the burning towers that once had stood tall and formidable. Even now, you could faintly hear the voice of your father, commanding the cannons to release more fire upon whatever rubble was left behind. The forces of Alexandria and the Hilltop did not retreat, not even now, but kept pushing, with the intent of killing every armored Savior man big enough to carry a sword. 

Frozen in fear, you were shaken by Daryl’s hands on your shoulders, his touch reminding you where you were, and that you were alive. Free. It was not unlike the feeling you had when you escaped through the tunnels that first time, stepping out into these same woods.

He spoke your name, drawing your attention to him. Wordlessly, you let him guide you, his arm wrapped around you as he practically held half your weight to move you with him. Somewhere in the darkness, you’d lost your slippers. Once you’d relished in the feeling of being barefoot in these woods, but now, your feet were tired, soar, and stinging with cuts from the sharp twigs that your soft soles dragged over. 

But his strength kept you upright, though gravity seemed to be working against you. Just for one moment you wished to stop, to catch your breath and to rest your poor, lacerated feet. “Daryl,” you said. “I—I must stop. Just for a moment.”

He felt your weight begin to sag as he nearly lost his grip on your waist, but he was quick to set you down upon a fallen log, coated with overgrown moss nearly soft enough to feel like some sort of cushion. It was a welcome relief as you struggled to stay sitting upright, despite your desire to lay down and sleep for an eternity or two. 

“Let me see,” said Daryl, lifting your foot by your heel to examine the sole. If you’d been more alert, you’d have been more embarrassed for him to see the state of your feet, bloodied and feeling as though they had been whittled down to the bone. “I will carry you… We can’t tarry long.”

“Just… just a moment, please.”

The pain in your voice carved a new fissure in his heart, your hand clinging to his shoulder, the other gripped tight around the knife at your side as you strained to control your tears. Though you screwed your eyes shut with the tension of your pain, the gentle feeling of his forehead against yours forced them to flutter open, his face a welcome relief from the agony that plagued your sore, tired body. 

It occurred to you again that he was alive, real, that this wasn’t some kind of strange dream. Or maybe it was. You could not tell, with the hazy glow around him as your tired eyes struggled to focus on his visage. “Daryl…”

All pain melted away for a moment as you lifted your hands to feel the warmth of his cheeks. You could feel his smile, both in the lift of his face and the depths of your soul, which you were sure now was tied unbreakably to his, for he was alive, and so were you. 

“I love you,” was all you could say, with so much more fervor and earnestness and purity than you had before, to anyone. You said it once more, this time through a weak laugh that made your voice tremble in delirious glee: “I love you.”

He did not need to reply in words—his soft, featherlight kiss conveyed more than words ever could. It was more coherent, more potent, more true. Your lips conformed to the gentle contours of his as you leaned forward, fully immersed in him and his love, his warmth embracing you like two strong arms of burning hearthfire. It was not an impassioned kiss, but one of comfort, reassurance, and the truest kind of love. 

As he pulled away, you ached to feel his lips once more, but his eyes entranced you. Even in just the light of the full moon, you could still see that crisp blue, enveloping you in his longing. 

“I never stopped thinking of you,” he said.

“Nor did I… Every second I was in that horrible place felt like the world ending all over again. All I wanted was to hear your voice again.” 

On his knees before you, he felt like a pilgrim at the altar of his Goddess, to whom he promised eternal worship and sacrifice—the only divinity he devoted himself to, the only saint worth sanctifying, the only idol he held to such exaltation that he would gladly be nailed to a cross in sacrifice for Her and Her alone. In the temple of your body, he felt your heartbeat against his chest, even beyond the plate of armor that separated him from you. At least, he swore he could. How he missed that feeling.

“I’m here now, princess… And I love you.”

For a while, the space between you seemed to be the entirety of the universe, the center of it all right where your chests met, where your hearts beat. In the bliss of the silent, cool night air, you smiled. “Oh, my sweet knight.”

But the peaceful darkness was broken by the harsh glow of a flame, creeping into your line of vision despite all your focus concentrated on the man before you. Behind him, a figure was silhouetted by the light, moving between the trees on the edge of the forest. 

It was a figure you knew well.

Tall, lean, almost slithering, but much too bold for that—he moved with more arrogance. It was more like a saunter, but with an unmistakable rage in his heavy, ominously slow step. 

Daryl felt the presence, shooting up from his knees to withdraw his sword, his body shielding you from whatever danger lurked. The minute he saw his face, that wide, chortling grin, a strange feeling overcame him. Though it was mostly abject fury, there was a hint of satisfaction, as though the perfect opportunity had befallen him. 

Bloodlust. He’d felt it before, but never like this. Never before did he have such a resolute desire to kill a man, and now the man was before him, he did not have to wish that he could’ve been able to kill Negan himself. He was right there, and just as he knew he would the minute that vile man set his filthy snake eyes on you, he was going to kill him. 

There was no question, no hesitation, no other option. Daryl would have his head for taking you from him, for hurting you, for even looking at you. 

In Negan’s hand was the lit torch from which the light had come. In the other, a sword. He was not heavily armored, only protected by a breastplate and loose chain mail draping over his arms, but the way he glowered at Daryl now, his smile becoming more devious and sinister by the second, you knew he was here to fight. 

With your knife behind your back, you stood to your feet, positioning yourself so you were nearly alongside Daryl, but he quickly moved in front of you, shielding you from the presence of Negan. 

But beyond his shoulder, you could still see the bitterness in his gaze as he approached, sauntering as he swung his sword by his legs. 

“Daryl, I presume?”

For the first time in his life, he made sure that his title was honored. “Sir Daryl.” 

Negan’s eyes widened in amusement and faux impress. “Pardon my inelegance… Sir Daryl, I believe you have taken something from me. Something that belongs to me.”

Behind your snarl was a momentary lapse of fear, only vanquished by smoldering anger and hatred. To think of any universe in which you belonged to that man was nothing short of abject horror. You only hoped that such a universe could never exist. Before you could think about it too long, Negan added another few words to his vile declarations. 

“And I want it back.”

The it in question was you, of course, and the insinuation that you were some kind of object to be passed around only fueled Daryl with more hatred than his heart could stand. Another word from that man might have been fatal to the both of them. 

“You’ll die first,” he said. 

Negan let out a hearty chuckle, underscored by a biting bitterness that cut through the knight’s armor, reminding him of the danger he was up against. Daryl might’ve been a good fighter, but surely Sir Negan was no amateur. He had been knighted once, after all, and he could not have made it to his position as a leader without some battle prowess. It was evident in the way he walked, his sword now held high in both hands, the torch he once carried thrown haphazardly to the dirt and illuminating the scene with the hellish glow of an orange flame. 

“Are you challenging me to a duel, knight?”

“No,” replied Daryl, swinging his sword upright with impressive swiftness and skill. “I won't duel a dishonorable knight… But I am going to kill you.”

As Negan held back another insufferable chuckle, you stood to your bare feet, one hand still holding the knife behind your back, the other upon the knight’s shoulder, as if to pull him away, but he was planted firmly. In fact, he nearly lunged towards the other man, if it weren’t for your touch. 

“Daryl, you do not have to fight him,” you said under your breath, your concern not for the other man, but for the wellbeing of Daryl. You had already believed him to be dead just an hour ago, and you did not possess the strength to face that reality again.  “He is weak now. The Sanctuary has fallen… He has nothing. He cannot take me again.”

But that was not good enough for him. 

Negan was ordered to be killed on sight, and there was no way in Hell he would let that man go with his head still intact. Not after what he had done. The evidence was on your face as he looked back at you, his sight beginning to practically blur with rage. No, it did not matter how powerless Negan was now. All that mattered was ridding the air of his filthy stench. 

“Princess,” Negan said, a bite to his teasing voice that made the bruised flesh around your eye sting. “When I kill your useless knight, you come with me.” There was a crazed desperation in his eyes, and a frantic adrenaline running through his veins until they bulged in his sweat-shined forehead. 

The powerlessness came rushing back, the feeling that you were nothing but property to be claimed by whichever powerful man came along and made his decree. But that would never happen again, not anymore.

You’d spent too long feeling trapped in a world that you had no control over, like a flimsy paper doll subject to the whims of a careless child. Though there was not much you could do now, there was the reassurance that you were ultimately in control of your own destiny—that you were free. 

And Daryl had freed you. Though you had the power in you all along, his love had changed you. It made you stronger, and now you stood in the face of that which threatened your destiny. With whatever power was within you, you would protect that destiny, and that destiny was him. 

“I’m gonna kill him,” Daryl said to you, his voice low and rumbling with the earthquake of fury that rose inside of him. There was nothing else to say, only a steady look cutting through the heavy air between you. With a nod, you clenched your jaw and straightened your back in an attempt to hold back the fear of losing him again, though above all, you had faith in him.

Only three words fell from your trembling, burning lips: “Yes, you will.”

At length, Daryl stepped forward, while Negan matched his movements to the knight opposite of him. As their swords swung up in unison, the tension between them was broken by their sharp blades cutting through to meet, the sharp, stinging sound of silver crossing silver ringing in your ears as you watched, eyes wide and unblinking for fear of one second changing everything.

There was no fear of going back to Negan now, only the fear of losing Daryl.

But he was a good swordsman—that much you knew. And as he advanced forward diagonally, he met Negan’s next swing with a front guard and a heavy step forward to push the lighter man back with his body weight, then striking again in an attempt to lacerate the exposed skin of his opponent’s neck. 

Negan was swift, though, fading backwards only to catch himself with the skill of a trained swordsman. He took a fierce lunge with his sword’s point aimed at the space between Daryl’s breastplate and his underarm, but Daryl blocked the attack with a short guard, his sword held with such force that it propelled Negan’s sword nearly out of his hands. 

Daryl’s movements were equally as swift now, his attack coming quickly as he lunged towards Negan with the offensive. He raised his sword high now, coming at the taller man with a window guard that poised his blade just above his own head, the point headed directly for Negan’s eye. 

If the strike had hit, you were sure you’d be sick to your stomach to see the steel penetrate his face, blood surely spewing in a geyser as the blade would tunnel through the brain and exit out the back of his head, but Negan was too cunning, once again. 

With a pivot, he swiveled himself to the right of Daryl, using his height to his advantage as he turned his sword at an angle, then used the pommel of his hilt to strike at the base of the back of Daryl’s neck, the pain of which elicited a grunt from the man who stumbled forwards. 

A fearful gasp escaped your lips, though only rage burned through you, causing you to grip harder on the handle of the dagger you still held behind your back, waiting only for the right moment to strike. You took to studying the man’s weak points—the spots at which his minimal armor allowed for easy access. His back was only draped in chain mail, which you knew to be weaker than steel plate. 

And the blade Daryl had given you was incredibly sharp, with its point small enough to penetrate through small crevices and weak spots in armor. If you could get through that chain mail, you might puncture his heart from the back… But he moved so fast, his feet conjuring a whirlwind of dust as he slid to and fro above the dirt ground. 

Though Daryl had caught himself before he could fall, he was winded by the hit to his neck. Negan only smiled, swaying his head in arrogant amusement as the knight returned his gaze with a glare. 

Had this been a true duel, Negan’s hit would have been unsanctioned, an unfair and unchivalrous move that would have had him disqualified. Daryl should have known, though, that a dishonored knight would not abide by any code, and that the only way he would be able to defeat Negan was to forgo any last shred of chivalry he could spare. 

A man of Negan’s ilk did not deserve such a privilege anyway.

“You see, my princess,” Negan called out over his shoulder to you, his eyes never leaving the huffing and puffing knight whose face grew more red and more strained with each second that Negan still breathed. As he spoke he swung his sword in haphazard circles through the air in front of him, a slight chuckle rumbling under his voice. “He’s pathetic, a waste of a good sword. How could your so-called knight keep you safe when he can’t even keep his balance?”

Daryl stood still, momentarily paralyzed by unspeakable anger as sweat soaked through his hair and trickled down the hot skin of his face. Heavy pants and an increasingly frantic heartbeat nearly drowned out the man’s loud, brash voice, but it cut through like a hot knife, scorching his burning skin as his words gouged a little deeper with each stinging utterance.

“Oh, but he could not even protect you when the Dead invaded your kingdom… He couldn’t protect you then, and he sure as hell can’t protect you now.”

The man turned towards you now, peeling his aways away from Daryl to saunter slowly in your direction. You stepped back, eyes wide and lips agape with quick pants. As fear overwhelmed you, you kept your hands behind your back, just waiting for him to get a little closer, though he never did. 

Daryl lunged towards him, taking advantage of Negan’s momentary lapse of attention to raise his sword and swing it down just as his opponent turned around. But Negan was quick, retreating with a backwards step and a block that pushed Daryl back too.

And Negan knew what he was doing—weakening Daryl with his words, drawing out his anger to render his technique sloppy and uncoordinated. So he continued, gesturing the tip of his sword towards the knight. 

“You know how this ends,” he said. “You know that I’m gonna win… Because people like me, we always win in this world. People who take what they want and get what they want.”

But none of those words meant anything to Daryl, who could not comprehend anything past the smug grin that split Negan’s face, and the boiling of his blood as he grew nearly faint with rage. 

Through heavy panting breaths, he spoke without even hearing his own voice: “I said… I’m the one who’s gonna kill you… And I am no liar.”

With a strong footing, he threw himself forward with a grunt so loud that it could have suited as a battlecry. His swing was fueled by pure hatred, to the point that he moved even faster than Negan could deflect this time. It made your heart jump in your chest, watching your knight seem to gain the upper hand again, his sword never relenting and his movements swift enough to dodge every stroke that came his way. 

Now, Negan was winded, his long legs seeming to almost shake underneath him as he struggled to keep his body guarded against Daryl’s blade. With a swift advance, calculated yet impassioned by another outburst of anger, he drew Negan’s attention with a false strike, his blade not following through with the swing directed towards his abdomen. 

Negan’s right shoulder was effectively exposed now, displayed for just a millisecond directly before Daryl’s eyes. Where his pauldron slipped, loosened by the movement, a sliver of aged leather was revealed between plates of shining black steel. In a split second, he made a hard strike, the edge of his blade slicing through the leather and gouging open the skin of his shoulder. 

Negan bellowed deeply, groaning in pain as he swung haphazardly while Daryl faded back, narrowly missing the edge of his blade. 

The cut was deep, digging through muscle and ligaments and nearly into bone. If Daryl had swung any harder, his arm might’ve been hanging on only by a thread of blood dripping flesh. 

But there was enough strength in his arm still to raise his sword again, barrelling towards Daryl as fast as his anger could carry him. Daryl deflected his strike with a front guard, but the second blow was strong enough to do the unthinkable.

Your eyes widened as a gasp escaped your lips, the edge of his sword cutting through the air as it flew a yard or two away from your knight’s outstretched hand. With nothing to block against Negan’s next move, Daryl was rendered defenseless.

“Daryl!”

The knight had fallen on his back, struggling to return to his feet just as Negan walked over him, planting his muddied boots on each of his wrists to keep him pinned down, despite his fingers flexing in desperation to reach the handle of the sword that lay just inches from reach. 

And your heart had dropped to your stomach again, your frantic mind scrambling to figure out what to do. There was that blade in your hands, and perhaps you could… No—not perhaps. 

There was no doubt in your mind now what you needed to do, the red cascade of blood beginning to pour over the silver steel of his greaves. Negan’s last swing had been strong enough to slice through the armor, into the flesh of Daryl’s thigh. Without his sword, and without the strength to free himself from underneath Negan’s feet, he could not defend himself against Negan. Even with the wound to his shoulder, he had the upper hand. The final upper hand. 

That fear showed itself again—that same confusion and uncertainty that overtook you and made you freeze when that herd closed around him, a feeling which you knew all too well. Now, he was not surrounded by the Dead, but something much more evil: a man whose selfishness and greed trumped any human decency he once might have had. 

But you would never feel powerless again. Not when you were in control, and that misericord in your trembling hands could put an end to the fear that had held you in its clutch for a decade. All this time, you thought freedom was in leaving the walls of Alexandria, but it was in something else, too. 

Freedom was in putting an end to that which kept you imprisoned in fear. 

As you moved forward, your aching, lacerated feet carried you slowly, silently towards the man whose back was turned to you. With your eyes narrowed on a ring of silver in the center of the chain mail draped over his back. Unblinking and barely breathing, you lifted the small blade, trapped in the clutch of your hand beneath your white knuckles. 

“You’re the one who’s gonna kill me, huh?” Negan’s head tilted slightly as he watched Daryl struggle to free himself, his face displaying the utter amusement that such a sight afforded him. “Now, I just don’t see that happening… You know, you really shouldn’t come to a duel without a sword.”

With a huff, the knight spat a glob of saliva at Negan. A futile exercise in defiance, but what else was he to do? 

“Now, because I am a merciful man,” he continued, the tip of his sword beginning to dig into the skin of Daryl’s neck, just enough to draw a bead of fresh blood onto the already bloodied edge, “I’ll let you make your peace with my princess, whom you so unceremoniously swept away from my castle.”

Without turning completely towards you, he called out your name. “My princess,” he said, “is there anything you’d like to say before I rid your knight of his weary head?”

For a moment, you feared he would turn to see you just inches from him, your knife poised to dig into his back, but just before you lunged forward, you answered him—with the only words you could think to say in response:

“I am not your princess.”

The closeness of your voice widened his eyes, and just before he turned, you’d felt the heaviness of the knife tunneling into his flesh, its sharp tip carving a path straight to his cold, evil heart. 

You swore you could even feel it beating, if it had ever beat at all. 

Negan stumbled backwards, taking you with him as your hands were still grasped tight around the handle of your dagger. 

And the weight was lifted from the knight’s wrists, as Negan’s grip on his own sword faltered and weakened. The blade fell from his hands, but in midair, the knight caught it by its hilt as he leaned up with all his strength.

In just a moment’s time, he swung.

The slice was clean, only a splash of hot blood stinging your cold cheek. Severed with ease, the head flew in midair only for a few moments, landing in the dirt not far from the knight’s fallen sword. 

Negan’s headless body sank to the floor, almost with an eerie consciousness, as though even his body insisted to stand his ground until the last possible moment. With only the distant crackling of the torch and the heavy breaths back and forth between you and him, the silence of the night swallowed the tension that had once lingered in the air. 

Now there was only relief, and whatever was left of the fear you had began to crumble away. 

~

Thanks for reading! Likes, reblogs, and/or comments are always appreciated!

Series Masterlist Next Part ➳

[osric-giroux-ffxiv]

Dusk Vigil - Pt. 2

“Skywatcher said we’d have a few hours of clear weather ‘fore all this snow got here. That wasn’t a few hours.” 

“You worked with companies who did jobs within the Highlands before, Geoffrey. You know as well as the rest of us that the skywatchers provide us with an estimate of how much time we may have. They cannot give us a perfect prediction. The weather here is notoriously unpredictable.”

“I ain’t convinced you don’t got some fancy warmers up in that armor of yours, Silvaire…”

Osric glanced at the pair for barely a moment, their conversation barely noticeable to him as his focus turned once again to the weather outside their makeshift camp and watching for Colson, who had left several minutes before to scout ahead. 

The warming potions the group had brought with them were doing their jobs, and so their temporary camp wasn’t put together out of necessity to stay warm, but as they had continued to trek northward towards the Dusk Vigil something had seemed…off. Things were too still…too quiet. A temporary pause to assess the area seemed prudent. 

Osric’s eyes narrowed as he spotted movement and he reached for his lance, the two men behind him quieting down and reaching for their weapons - Silvaire a sword and shield and Geoffrey his rifle. 

“Easy - all three of you jumpy bastards. ‘S just me. Ain’t nothin’ else out here anyhow.” Colson held his hands up as he shook his head, dislodging no small amount of snow before walking into the small rundown hut, kicking the door closed behind him.

“Well?” 

“Nice to see you too, Silvaire. Yes, it’s bloody cold out there still, in case you’re wondering.”

“Colson.” Osric set his lance aside, glancing back out the window once again before adjusting his coat around his shoulders, listening attentively. “Your report, if you would.”

“Aye.” The shorter man adjusted his own coat, rubbing his arms. “There ain’t a damn thing out there. And when I say not a damn thing, I mean not a damn thing. Abnormally, nothing. Normally I’d expect to see some sign of…anything. That there’s been wildlife, or errant travelers…something. Ain’t a thing. Been snowin’ like hell I understand, but this ain’t right. Someone’s tryin’ real hard to cover things up and keep things clear. Too hard.” 

“You covered your tracks?”

“Course.” 

Osric nodded, finally turning away from the window. “Well, it’s fair to assume the fort won’t be as empty as we would have hoped. We approach with caution. In addition - you are not to use my title.”

 “My lord?” Silvaire blinked slowly. 

“We don’t know who or what is waiting for us, Silvaire. Our objective is to remove all of them, but if one should manage to make it out I don’t want them turning their ire back on my family - on my pregnant wife, her sister, or anyone else within the house. My first name, or you may use Slater if you need to utilize a last name. Nothing is connected to that anymore.” His gaze shifted between the three men, taking time to pause on each one. “Do I make myself clear?”

He waited for each to confirm before grabbing his lance and opening the door, eyes closing as he exhaled slowly, the cold air rushing in. “Well then, Colson…if you’d be so kind as to lead the way - it shouldn’t be much further from here.” 

“Aye. Let’s go see what goodies the fort is hiding, boys.” 

Their approach was cautious, and it was just as Colson had said - eerily quiet…until they were just close enough to see the fort itself.

“Isn’t there normally a Temple Knight stationed  there?”

Osric scowled, spotting no less than three lights moving along the upper ridges of the fort - torches. “Normally there would be, but that was when the fort was unoccupied. It’s a fair assumption that the previously stationed Temple Knight has either been captured or met an untimely end.” He quickly scanned the area, looking for any other lookouts. “Colson…I need you to move up and remove any guards near the door. Geoffrey - see the light moving furthest from us?” 

“Aye.”

“Wait until I’ve removed the other two, then remove it. You’re a good enough shot to do that, correct.”

“Can do.”

“Silvaire - stay with Geoffrey for now, and then once all the lights are out, meet up with Colsen. I’ll find the three of you and we’ll all move in together - quietly.”

“As you say, sir.” 

His only response was a quick nod, before quietly slipping off into the storm, leaving the three men to their assigned tasks. He’d purposely chosen not to wear his Dragoon armor - knowing the noise the plate would make and choosing instead something that would allow him to move without drawing quite as much attention to himself. 

Gaze locked on the movements of the lights above him, Osric waited for one to disappear out of sight before easily making the leap up, landing without a sound and immediately spotting the first of the patrols. Mindful of his steps, he moved up behind the other man, pulling a knife from his belt as reached up to cover the man’s mouth. He made quick work of slitting the lookout’s throat - stomping out the torch before laying down the limp body and turning to find the second look out. 

He didn’t have to search long - the man starting to round the corner as Osric moved to peek around. 

“What the -”

“Too loud.” He reached out, and in one fluid motion grabbed the second man by the collar, pulling him around the corner towards him, and as he had the first, covering his mouth with his hand as he pulled his knife up and slit his throat. Once again, the torch fell to the ground and he made sure it was put out - the corner of his mouth quirking up to a small satisfactory smirk at the quick gunshot that was fired off as soon as the light dissipated, and he dragged the body over next to the first, laying them next to each other before hopping down and heading towards the entrance.

It was a short trek - though he was mindful to cover his tracks - and standing, waiting for him were the three men, weapons drawn.

“Good of you to join us.”

“Had a few things to take care of. Now - mindful as we head in. I’d expect we’re going to find more friends.”

Colson grinned. “Oh, I hope so.”

The gathering hall - ceiling missing and all - was full of empty crates. 

Recently emptied crates. 

They weren’t decayed or frozen. They were new - the wood barely touched by the elements. 

“Spread out, look for any sign of a mark or a symbol - something that indicates where these are from.” And they found many. Each crate had a different mark, a different symbol, and then another symbol that was pressed on top of it.

“A smuggling ring?” Geoffrey glanced around, looking in one of the crates as if something was going to magically appear within it. “Where are all the goods then?”

“That’s what it looks like…I imagine they’re mostly keepin’ things inside…” 

“Which also means the  forces are going to be inside. Let’s keep sharp.” Osric’s grip on his lance tightened, Silvaire beside him tensing. 

“You think they’ve been running off the traders, sir?”

“I imagine we’ll find out shortly. If I remember the layout correctly, the barracks are next. Keep your wits about you…”

Silvaire pushed open the door and moved through first, shield up and at the ready. Satisfied that they were not going to simply be blasted out of the doorway, he waved the other three men through, and they cautiously moved down the hall, checking each of the individual living spaces. 

What one might have expected to be cold, icy…dormant, was warm, clean new bedsheets on new beds, recently replaced furniture, fires in each space - it was clear the fort was being utilized, but by how many - that question remained unanswered. 

“I ain’t seein’ no one…”

“Quiet - they’re here, it’s just a matter of where.”

They continued forward -  the next room would be the Lord Commander’s Seat, if Osric remembered the layout Gaspard had provided well enough, a thought that didn’t inspire confidence as the room was nothing but a wide open space…but if they were to clear the fort.

He inhaled, motioning for the three other men to stand to the side as he pushed open the large door, letting his eyes adjust to the dim room before they widened for a moment, seeing the light just in time to dive out of the way as a lance, not unlike the one he carried, was hurled through the doorway, embedding itself in one of of the wooden posts back behind the small group. 

“Well, boss…so much for the element of surprise…”

“Was wondering when them Temple Knights were gonna come poking around, and it seems we have our answer. So now I’ve got a question for you - whoever you happen to be. You all planning on dying today? Because you could just walk away.” 

“Geoffery.”

“Aye.”

“The big one in the middle…”

“Yeah?”

“Shoot him in the knee for me.”

The man stared at Osric for a long second before shrugging, taking a moment to line up the shot and firing as requested - the howl of pain from the room a fairly good indication that the shot had hit its mark. 

“We could just walk away, or we could simply remove the lot of you - which seems like a much more straightforward option, don’t you think?” 

Osric turned back to his men for a moment. “I’ll draw their attention to me - you three spread out, take out the ones you can. Be quick, efficient  - get the job done, we go home.” 

He could hear movement from the other room, and so with a quick nod he slipped through the doors and leapt up into the air, aiming his lance, and his dive towards the largest group of enemies in the middle of the group.

[teamxdark]

He’s Not Here

More masquerade content but what’s this at the end???

In the grand castle ballroom, surrounded by soft golden light and the countless nobles clad in shimmering fabric, King Arthur was so bored he could cry.

This wasn’t what this night should have been; it was a masquerade party, an opportunity to hide away his identity and mingle among the people 一 okay, the nobility, but he would take what he could get 一 like he was a person instead of a king. Finally he had a chance to dance around until his legs ached, to eat food without worrying about the repercussions to his image should he dare speak with his mouth full or use the wrong spoon, to hold conversations that weren’t about politics or finances or how he was doing the best-or-worst job looking after an entire kingdom with a myriad of people with different needs and opinions. 

So how was it that, out of everyone in that room, he was stuck listening to some dull-voiced stag drone on and on about the rising price of grain?

“This is why pricing is tricky, you have to account for the pests before you ship it out and…”

Arthur fought the urge to dash away, but the instant he tried, he knew he would give himself away. His speed was renowned throughout the land, alongside his golden armor and brilliant blue spines. Those, at least, he had taken care of; Merlina had spent the better part of an hour adjusting his coloring to a warm orange and growing out his spines to disguise him beyond the limits of a simple mask. She had tried so hard to give him a chance to have a night off without people instantly worrying for his favor or trying to get something from him… only for him to be trapped all over again.

Arthur would have happily made an excuse to leave, if the stag would only let him get a single word in. His conversation “partner” seemed not to need to breathe, droning on and on in an endless monotone, offset by the cheerful music and bright lights and flashy costumes.

I’ll never be free of this.

“And now that the price is rising, it leaves me in a strange spot, you see. On the one hand, I sympathize with the people who cannot afford my wares, but on the other hand, it means more profit for myself and my own family.”

Chaos above, Arthur wished he hadn’t bumped into this man. His fingers tapped restlessly against his leg, mildly quelling the urge he had to just flee, to drop everything and everyone he had ever known and flee into the night and into the unknown.

“Not to mention, the cost of labor--”

“Mind if I cut in?”

Arthur’s head snapped over to the new voice, endlessly relieved at the interruption, though the stag continued to drone on, the odious voice still grating his ears even as the king faced the bold newcomer.

It was a tiger clad in elegant black clothing with silver accents, extending a hand out to him, and even though Arthur was eager to take it and be whisked away from this living nightmare, something about him made him take pause. His eyes took in the white fur streaked with blue, the slowly flicking tail that reminded him of Sir Percival 一 was it common among all cats? 一 and the eyes looking gently back at him.

He trusted those eyes. It was the look that they held, a look that reminded him of… 

Arthur mentally slapped himself. He’s not here, he reminded himself as he finally took the hand offered to him.

“Yes, please.”

The tiger seemed to brighten just a fraction at his approval, and he led him away from the trappings of boring conversation to the dancefloor, and Arthur had to try hard not to think about how this felt like being rescued by a knight. Especially not…

He’s not here.

The king was jostled from his thoughts as his new partner started to fit him into a hold, and a brand new anxiety washed down upon him as he tried to remember how to reciprocate the hold. Dancing lessons had never been high on the list of priorities when it came to running a kingdom, and yet somehow Arthur was expected to be able to social dance like a pro when his days were filled from dawn to dusk with meetings and drafting decrees and submitting notices of approval until he passed out on his bed. Arthur swallowed, trying to remind himself that stumbling during a dance was still preferable to listening to that one-sided conversation…

...but his partner didn’t dance like a professional. Well… he did, there was no denying his grace and timing, but he didn’t dance like he expected Arthur to be one as well. The steps were simple, the turns basic, and Arthur’s mind swam in relief as he realized that, somehow, this stranger was leading him through steps that he had managed to pick up on through trial and error.

This chance encounter was proving to be everything he needed.

The stranger led him carefully around the floor, maneuvering slowly around other people rather than weaving expertly between them like so many other couples did. If Arthur closed his eyes, he could easily pretend that he was practicing his basic steps with his brother, or his friends, or his--

He’s not here.

And yet…

Yet it was so easy to picture it, even as the peals of laughter surrounded him and washed into his subconsciousness like a spark of delight for him to enjoy. The strong hold, the careful footwork, the calculated rhythm…

Lancelot…

Arthur’s eyes opened, and though he saw stripes they were the wrong ones, and the bittersweet feeling of missing someone dear to him almost caused him to heave a sigh.

He had it bad, and he knew it. His greatest knight and closest ally and dear friend… Sir Lancelot was beyond compare. From questing as youths to his coronation, and in every disaster thereafter, Lancelot had been there, his pillar of strength in a tumultuous world, always standing nearby to passionately defend him or to spare him a quiet gesture of support. Lancelot had protected him from danger, defended his honor, strived to keep his spirits up for years and years…

Arthur had never considered himself one for romance, but as years went by, Lancelot had claimed more and more of his thoughts, attention and affection until the knight unknowingly held the king’s heart firmly in his hands. Too many times to count had Arthur been struck by the urge to grasp his hands, to sing out the words in his heart to him, to draw him close and see if he could make such a powerful knight’s knees buckle below him with a kiss alone…

One song changed into the next, and Arthur, too swept up in his fantasy, didn’t let go of the stranger, didn’t notice the slight lull in their dance, and so the dream kept going.

Lancelot wasn’t there, but Arthur could lean into this stranger’s hold on him, follow his dance, focus on his attire, concentrate on the energy he exuded, energy that reminded him so strongly of his Lancelot, and Arthur’s mind could so easily turn his dream into something more substantial. An illusion for him to drown in, just like this masquerade offered.

The music kept swelling, the sweet notes tickling his ears and driving him even deeper into his dream like he was in a trance. He kept dancing with the man that reminded him so much of his beloved that a second dance turned into a third, and Arthur clung on to his dream, not even registering that it might seem strange until--

“I mean no offense, but surely there are others who would want to dance with you?”

Arthur blinked, and the dream shattered as the man in his arms shifted back into a stranger. The king’s feet stilled, his gaze dropping to his feet. Arthur had to fight back waves of embarrassment and disgust at himself before he could answer.

“Forgive me, but the way you dance…”

HE’S NOT HERE!

“...it reminds me of someone dear to me.”

“O-Oh.”

His companion seemed at a loss, and Arthur held back another sigh, counting the beats in his head before pulling him along for the next dance, leading him in a very basic, repetitive step around the floor.

“I apologize,” Arthur murmured, knowing that there wasn’t much he could do to salvage the situation. At this point, he could only offer his apologies and an explanation. “I know it’s not fair on you, to imagine you are someone else, but…”

A look of hurt passed over his dance partner’s face, and goodness, even that reminded him painfully of Lancelot.

“...but you remind me so much of him.”

Arthur’s eyes swept over his partner, taking in the paradoxical way that he looked completely unfamiliar and yet he still somehow managed to feel so much like his dear knight. Perhaps the dream hadn’t fled from him quite yet, because now Arthur’s yearning mind was searching for any and every chance to convince himself that this was, somehow, Lancelot whom he was dancing with.

“You dance like he does,” Arthur thought aloud, as his partner remained silent. “Careful and precise.”

Your movements… I know them like I know my own.

“Pardon my asking,” the stranger returned, “but why do you not dance with him tonight?”

Like a weight to his soul that would never truly leave, Arthur’s melancholy came back to embrace him. “Ah… he isn’t here.”

He’s not here he’s not here he’s not here--

“Or at least…”

Arthur looked into the stranger’s eyes, his desperation to go back to his dream nearly choking him with emotion as the tiger’s eyes widened at the sudden look directed at him.

“...I haven’t recognized him, yet.”

Arthur knew it was terrible to put such a fantasy on a stranger at a party, but he wanted so badly to believe that this man was Lancelot. Arthur wanted to believe the ludicrous ideas his mind was supplying him with, that somehow this was Lancelot in front of him, disguised beyond all normal means. The tiger in front of him appeared to fluster, his mouth parting as though wishing to speak, though no words came forth.

“You have stripes like he does, too,” Arthur murmured softly, thoughtfully, and yes, he truly was reaching for every last detail in his pathetic attempt to turn what he had in front of him into what he wanted to see.

“If it pleases you,” the tiger finally said as the third song changed into a fourth one, “I… am not opposed to you pretending that I am he.”

Arthur smiled at that, feeling suddenly hesitant at the idea, now that the stranger, as kind and helpful as he had been, had given him his consent to mentally transform him into someone else, to be a player in this dream of his. It was sad, and unfair, but Arthur knew sadness and injustice. He tried to battle it every day, slowly changing and updating laws as they became outdated, but everything went so slowly and people only kept crying out in pain and Arthur wanted just one day, just one, to take ahold of something that he wanted and to cherish it.

“Thank you,” Arthur whispered as he stepped further into the stranger’s hold, feeling warmth overtake him as he confessed his truth. “I have loved him for a great long time and… perhaps this is the closest I shall get to what I dream of.”

Because that was all this would ever be: a dream.

He’s not here.

Arthur’s eyes closed as his head dipped down to rest on the tiger’s shoulder, a soft smile spreading over his muzzle as he noticed that he was of a similar height to Lancelot, and the dream came back in full swing. Arthur’s arms wrapped around his partner, blocking out any consideration to the lack of spines on his back, and the king focused on his heartbeat as it hammered in and out of sync with the other’s.

“I understand the sentiment,” his partner whispered in response, and Arthur had to hold back what was either a laugh or a sob, morphing it into a hum on its way out.

You speak like him, too.

And so the king held his partner as tightly and tenderly as he would a lover, humming along to the song as the masquerade around him faded into nothing. There was nothing, nothing in his dream, but himself and his Lancelot as they spun around slowly.

He’s here. He’s here, I can feel it.

Arthur’s dream permeated his mind, overtaking his consciousness, and as the fourth song faded into oblivion, he finally let out the sigh he had been carrying all night.

“Lancelot…”

Two pairs of feet stilled as both parties realized what had just been said, and one final word jolted the king from his dream.

“A… Arthur?”

He was here all along.

[lit-in-thy-heart]

‘Lance, love, it’s alright, it’s alright.’

Gwaine was holding back Lancelot’s hair as he leaned over the window, stomach contorting itself, and spat out strings of saliva. His legs were shaking and Gwaine’s other hand was rubbing his back as the other knight’s body kept Lancelot on his feet. Gasping for breath, Lancelot hesitantly raised his head. ‘This isn’t normal, is it?’

‘I don’t think so, love, no.’ Gwaine’s hand was still in Lancelot’s hair. ‘Merlin’s gone to get some water. Do you want to sit down?’

Nodding, Lancelot sank slowly to the floor and closed his eyes, falling against Gwaine. He used his shoulder as a pillow, tilting his head back to allow his airway to open up a little more, and tried to take deep breaths. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hey,’ Gwaine murmured, stroking his hair, ‘it’s not your fault.’

‘I don’t know why it happens though.’

Gwaine hesitated. ‘It’s been a hectic few days. And you haven’t been at ease for most of it, have you?’

‘So you don’t think it’s because I’m sick?’

‘I don’t think so, no. It’s happened before, hasn’t it? Merlin’s mentioned it.’

Lancelot’s voice was barely a whisper. it was an effort to speak when his chest felt so constricted, when he had to pull away from his breathing pattern. ‘Yeah, it’s happened before.’

Gwaine was still stroking his hair. ‘What I think,’ he slowly said, ‘is that it’s your body responding to stress and worry. I’m not a physician, so I don’t know. But they said you thought the last time had been to do with nerves and if you’re worked up about something--’

‘So it’s all in my head.’

‘No, love, that’s not what I meant.’

Several tears glided down Lancelot’s cheeks. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t accusing you--I just hate it. Hate that I can’t do much but wait for it to stop.’

‘It’s stopped now,’ Gwaine softly said, wiping away his tears.

‘For now,’ corrected Lancelot wearily. He pulled closer towards Gwaine, if that was possible, and gripped his hand tightly. ‘It’ll probably come back.’

The door swung open and Merlin entered with a bucket of water, kicking the door shut behind them and dropping to their knees beside their partners. ‘Has anything been brought up at all?’ they asked urgently, feeling Lancelot’s forehead with the back of their hand.

‘Just saliva,’ replied Gwaine, having waited several moments for Lancelot to respond.

Summoning a cup from the other side of the room, Merlin poured out some water and pushed it into Lancelot’s hand. ‘Drink this, love.’

With more difficulty than handling a greatsword with one hand, Lancelot lifted his head and raised the cup to his lips, drinking half of it at a steady pace. Gwaine was still stroking his hair and he closed his eyes again at the action as Merlin began to run their hand up and down his leg. It was as if he had been training in the midday sun but Lancelot didn’t have the energy to take off his clothes -- he didn’t have the energy to do much but drink his water and lie back against Gwaine. His partners were talking and he was trying to listen but his breath was caught in his chest and he was struggling to release it.

Reflexively he squeezed Gwaine’s hand a little harder and Gwaine turned his head immediately. ‘What is it? Do you need to get to the window again?’

Lancelot shook his head once. ‘No, it’s okay, I just can’t breathe.’

After rescuing the cup from his fingers, Merlin interlaced their own with Lancelot’s. ‘I wouldn’t say that not being able to breathe counts as being “okay” but it will be okay, I promise. Just take deep breaths in and out, as slow as you can, and breathe out for longer than you breathe in. Just follow what I do.’

Lancelot opened his eyes and mimicked Merlin’s breaths, feeling his chest open up a little as he became slightly light-headed. Gwaine was still supporting him and was the one to notice that Lancelot was shivering as his body began to cool. As Merlin continued to breathe with him, Gwaine removed his hand from Lancelot’s hair and reached behind to tug a blanket from the bed, draping it around Lancelot’s shoulders.

Feeling like he was reaching the point of unconsciousness, Lancelot ceased to focus on his breathing and fell against Gwaine’s shoulder again. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured.

‘It’s okay, love,’ Gwaine said into his neck as Merlin rubbed his hand. ‘It’s okay. Did you want to go to bed?’

‘Can we just...sit here for a bit?’

‘Of course,’ Merlin quietly replied. ‘Of course we can.’ Their thumb had made it up Lancelot’s wrist. ‘But perhaps you should see Gaius in the morning. He might be able to help you. It wears you out and if it’s happening more regularly, too...’

‘We worry about you, Lance,’ Gwaine added. ‘And we don’t want you to have to go through this. You shouldn’t have to.’

‘I’ll see Gaius,’ whispered Lancelot. ‘I promise. And I’m sorry to burden you both--’

‘Your health isn’t a burden, Lance,’ Merlin cut in. ‘We just want you to be okay.’

Nodding, Lancelot squeezed both their hands. He tried to ignore the sensation of someone compressing his head between their palms and focused instead of the steady rise and fall of his partners’ chests. He knew it would pass, like it always did, even if it would inevitably return, but he was so tired. He had no energy to do anything but sit there and simply exist in the company of Merlin and Gwaine, to listen to the sounds of dusk drawing in outside the window, and hope that tomorrow would be a little better.

[johannstutt413]

(requested by mathmaticalknight)

Blemishine was in the Engineering Department, hiding from Zofia with her fellow tech-heads as she often did, the day she first encountered the Nian. She’d heard rumors about the meandering meddling metallurgist and her amorphous armaments, but it was only when the Doctor finally gave in and let her work with the Department that the Kuranta came into contact with her.

“Workshop #3 just sent up the results from their latest alloy test,” Passenger reported matter-of-factly. “No progress.”

“I’m definitely starting to see why we haven’t figured this thing out. It’s like the metal is...alive.” Blemishine was watching VODs of Nian’s combat performance to try and get some new data-

-which meant she was the perfect target when the real Nian arrived and glanced over her shoulder. “Well, you look like you’re having fun.”

“She’s incredible, isn’t she?” The knight looked over her shoulder, realized it was THE Nian standing over her, and with a blush said, “You’re incredible.”

“A lot of people don’t trust me, that’s true. I’m gonna borrow her, alright, Elliot?”

The Liberi waved an arm. “Bring her back in one piece.”

“Oh, you know I’d never hurt a hair on her head.” She hooked one of her arms under one of the Kuranta’s and pulled her out of her chair. “Let’s go.”

“Ehh? O-okay! I’ll be back, Passenger!” And without any resistance, Maria was off on an adventure.

At least, she thought that’s what was happening, though the Nian didn’t exactly explain as they walked through the corridors of Rhodes Island in the direction of the shuttle bay. “What’s your name, kid? I haven’t seen you around much.”

“Blemishine’s my codename, but you can call me Maria.” Honestly, she’d prefer the latter. “Is it true you’re not a Rhodes Island employee? I know you spend a lot of time in Engineering, and I mean, you’d have to be a smith to have a weapon as cool as yours, but I’ve never seen you in person before.”

“Closure offered me a job, but that’s not why I’m here. You like shopping? We’re heading into town.” Now wasn’t the time for worrying about the future; she did that plenty on her own, especially with Dusk around now.

The knight shrugged. “Auntie and I go every now and again, and when I needed new parts for my projects I’d go out to get them, but since I started helping out at the Department I don’t have as much time for that.”

“Projects?” Nian smiled to herself. “Like trying to recreate my weapon? I hope y’all figure it out.”

“Oh, that’s for the Workshop, it’s fun but not really the kind of thing I’d do in my free time, you know? I’m a mechanic at heart, and now that I’m working for the Department, maybe they’ll let me supe up one of the shuttles. I used to have a car that could get some real speed going before I became a competition knight...”

Thinking about the past was just as bad, but fortunately they’d reached the shuttles. “So you wanna mess around with one of these?”

“We’re here already? And yeah, that’d be really fun! They don’t run on quite the same intake system I’m used to, and I’d have to make some openings in the hood to fit everything on I’d need to, and then there’s the nitrous canisters- oh, there I go again.” Blemishine didn’t know many people who actually wanted to listen to her talk about this kind of stuff. “Sorry about that!”

“What do you mean? Keep going! I hate when people try to tamp down on their enthusiasm just to make other people happy, and you were really building up steam there.” Plus, she was super cute when she got excited.

Maria blushed again. “Alright, but only because you asked. So obviously we’d have to start with taking one of these babies apart - I think I could get Broca to help out with that, it really takes two people to get a car onto a maintenance lift when you’re trying to keep the engine cool - because they won’t let me look at the schematics yet even though I asked Closure specifically if I could...”

The entire drive into town was essentially like that; the knight went into the blow-by-blow description of what she wanted the shuttle to look like under the hood when she was done, and Nian only occasionally interrupted with an insight or a question to help her along. She was impressed with how much the Kuranta actually knew despite not having much opportunity to act on that knowledge back in Kazimierz (Nearl’s sister, no question about where she was from), but more than that, she was reminded of some of her old acquaintances who used to get the same gleams in their eyes when talking about sword-smithing or armor-forging. This girl wasn’t like her usual kidnappees for sure.

“-Hey, Nian?” Blemishine looked out the window. “I think we drove past town.”

“Did we? Shit, I guess we did.”

They weren’t turning around. “Are we gonna keep going?”

“Just a little bit.” The Nian smiled to herself. “I was going to take you shopping, but since we’ve been talking about cars, there’s a place I wanna show you. Might help out with this plan you’ve got.”

“Oh, it’s not really a plan, just some ide- is that a junkyard? Out here?!”A sign poked out from behind a dune. Looks like her birthday’d come around early this year.

The smith laughed. “You sound like a kid going to the candy store.”

“Candy can’t take you a hundred kilometers away in an hour, though, and that’s much more exciting than some sugar!” Maria giggled. “Not that I’m against sugar.”

“I can take it or leave it. There was one place I visited that had these cinnamon-pepper candies; those were more my style. Speaking of style...” They pulled into the lot, broken-down vehicles already visible from the entrance, and the tour began.

Well, less of a tour and more of a scavenging run; this wasn’t a museum, after all, and Nian never left home without a few tools. The Kuranta popped the hood on the first ground-level car within eyesight, putting on a pair of goggles and pulling a tool roll seemingly out of thin air. “This one’s in great condition; how’d you end up, little guy? Don’t worry, we’ll be gentle. Hey, Nian, could you help me roll this one forward a bit?”

“I’ve gotcha.” She popped open the door on one side, Blemishine did the same on the other, and the two pushed the car to where there was plenty of room on all sides. “Looking for something specific?”

“Just want to double-check a few things. How’d one of RI’s shuttles end up out here, do you think? I mean, if we had the keys, I’m sure we could get this one to run again, no problem...Do you hear that?”

The Nian sighed. “The rustling from over there? I heard.”

“Hands up!” A gruff voice barked as a small gang of bandits mobilized from behind other junk piles, crossbows trained on the pair. “Thanks for the fresh wheels, ladies. Toss us the keys and leave, and we won’t have to get nasty.”

“What kind of gang sets up shop in a junkyard? You can’t possibly make enough stops to survive,” Maria observed, hands still below her head.

The presumed leader, a Sankta with a black halo, spat on the ground. “Don’t change the subject. Hands, up, or your pretty little friend gets it.”

“Which one of us is little?” The other Defender asked casually, a pool of silver forming around her feet. “We’re about the same height, after all.”

“...Well, boys, can’t say I tried.” The Sankta fired at the Kuranta-

-and missed, partially because his target rolled out of the way, and partially because there was now a lump of metal where his Adam’s apple had been. Nian’s malleable murder-metal formed a curtain around her as she started walking forward with a smile. “Well, boys, you picked the wrong couple to rob.”

“Couple?” Blemishine asked as she reemerged from cover, sword and shield at the ready. “A couple of what?”

“A couple of-” At that moment, a bolt detonated against her tectonic armor, blasting shrapnel through and into her shoulder, and the Beast awoke.

A few minutes later, after the junkyard had had a proper bloodbath, the Nian was sitting on the hood of the car they’d rolled out while Maria patched her up. “Exploding bolts? That’s higher grade gear than your average bandit, isn’t it?” The knight asked

“Probably. Not that we’ve got to worry about it now.” She felt the debris-free gashes knitting back together in the Kuranta’s light. “I need a snack after that. Mind if we head back to town?”

“Nah, I don’t mind; there’s an ice cream shop that Surtr recommended I’ve been meaning to try. We can get a milkshake with two straws, like in the movies.”

Nian would have rolled her eyes if that didn’t sound like something she wanted to try. “You’re the first person I’ve dragged out with me who wanted to make a date out of it.”

“You’re the one who called us a couple,” Maria replied with a momentary smirk. Momentary because she wanted her next words to have the proper gravitas. “But I meant what I said earlier. You really are an incredible person, Nian, and now that we’ve gotten a chance to talk, I know it’s not your weapon we should be trying to emulate at the shop, but your spirit.”

“...I haven’t heard praise like that in a long time.” The Nian slid off the car.

Blemishine stepped off to walk back to their shuttle as the other Defender took her hand. “I don’t know if I’d call it ‘praise-’”

“What else do you call complimenting a goddess?” That stopped the knight in her tracks as Nian walked around her. “And praise of that calibre deserves a blessing.”

“You’re seri-” Whatever thought Maria had loaded up crashed to desktop as the ‘blessing’ in question turned out to be a kiss.

It was a good thing the smith’s eyes had closed before their lips connected; she might’ve gone blind from the Kuranta’s flash of light otherwise.

[anxiouslyfred]

Met in the Woods

for @dukexietyweek‘s prompt Pirates/Adventure, I focused on Adventure

Summary: Remus didn’t run away, he just went on a wander through the woods. Virgil got kicked out of their home and took to the woods to try and survive. Somehow meeting was the calmest part despite Virgil attacking Remus.

Warnings: vague fighting, eldritch being mentioned, self-esteem issues, homophodia mention

/\/\

Remus hadn't run away. Really he'd barely even left home, despite packing the largest pack they had full of survival supplies and taking off into the woods one morning before anyone else woke up. There was no point in writing a note, not when he'd definitely be coming home, at some point, probably.

The woods had always called to him, filled with mysteries and adventure if only he had the time to explore and find it, and finally Remus was following the call. He already knew where the first glade was to make a camp in, after that he could follow the river some knights mentioned when reporting their patrols.

He wasn't expecting the glade to already have a tent in it, or for said tents owner to have him flat out within seconds of emerging from the treeline.

“Who sent you after me? I'm not going back, whatever crap they've told you!” The person had a staff poised to strike and with all of Remus's weapons currently under him and tied to his pack he wasn't too inclined to make it an actual fight. Besides, not being recognised as one of the sons of the areas Lord? It was basically a dream Remus never expected to happen given the amount of public appearances he was bribed into.

“Nobody sent me, not a clue who you are. Can I stick my tent over here? Heading to the river at this time of night is just asking for a patrol to catch us.” Remus shrugged, rolling to stand up again only to jump back when the staff was swiped at his legs. What was with them trying to lay him out?

A snarl curled their lips and Remus was fascinated. Most people couldn't get quite so vicious an expression, not even an enraged Roman had managed it yet, although he did get complimented on being fearsome when rampaging. “Like I'm going to believe that! They kicked me out and now expect to get me dragged back, begging for forgiveness or some shit?”

“Woah, I've never managed to get kicked out before. How did you manage that and can I try? Sounds like the best release from responsibilities ever!” Remus leant forwards, although still staying out of the staffs range.

“Writing in a journal about liking how men look. Seriously, people will kick you out for the most dull stuff. Thinking there's dangers in too thin ice, and telling people to sharpen weapons with them directed away from you to avoid self stabbing, oh that's fine. Like watching spiders and write stories without even showing them to anybody about how hot the guy next door is, nope get the hell out.” Remus frowned while listening to the rant. Those motives really did sound incomprehensible, but the persons frustrated movements did sometimes cause their top to tighten and show off muscles or make his cloak move like bats wings over their arms.

It was enough that Remus was moving forwards, bending to catch the staff as it was swung, holding it still. “Seriously? The Lord's of this land are 2 men together. We've got non-binary folks as tax collectors and both of the Lord's sons are attracted more to masculine physics than feminine and your family kicked you out for that?”

“Explains why they do everything possible to keep us kids stuck to the farm, then.” The mumble was clearly not directed at Remus but he shrugged and nodded until they looked back at him. “So if you aren't someone sent to drag me home what the hell are you doing out here?”

“I'm Remus, and just felt like a wander. Male too by the way. Who are you? I've already gathered that you're here cause you got kicked out so won't ask why.” He answered cheerfully. Whomever this person was, they'd been more interesting than most people Remus encountered.

The suspicious glare that had been fading was back a full force. “Virgil. Human, and who the hell just decides to go wandering with a full pack including a tent?”

“I do. Wanted to escape for a while, and now I'm gonna stick with you too.” Remus decided, shrugging off his pack to start setting his own tent up. “All the better if someone actually does come after you, right?”

/VR\

Virgil didn't trust this guy. Who the hell just attaches themselves to a stranger they meet in the woods? There had to be something going on here, or the guy had to be freaking insane and liable to attack in a moment of rage.

“I'm going into that cave! Are you coming?” Remus cheered, pointing further along the river.

There at least was a cave this time, a large excavation into the cliff face that was on the other side of the river. The last 'cave' Remus had tried to explore had just be a darker type of rock that the mad guy had run head first into before realising.

“It's a cave on the edge of a river. You're going to slip on the rocks and kill yourself, or get attacked by a bear taking shelter in it.” Virgil ground out, but carried on following behind Remus getting closer to the cave with each step. “I'm not willing to die for a maniac who won't leave my side.”

Remus just shot a grin over his shoulder as he finally started wading through the water. “Then why are you still following me? Besides it'd be awesome to battle a bear. Maybe I could get some brilliant scars!”

“It's called self preservation, something you seem to have abandoned already. I'm more likely to survive if I have an idiot who runs into danger when predators decide human smells like a good dinner.” Virgil snarked back, pausing to take off their shoes and roll their trousers up before entering the water. They weren't going to have wet feet for hours, no matter how willing Remus was to get his shoes drenched.

They still weren't happy about entering the cave when hours later they were trudging back out a completely different entrance lugging a chest in addition to their packs. “I told you going in there was dangerous!”

“You didn't get hurt, did you? Only blood on either of us is from that, that, actually what the hell was that? We need to go home just so I can get that thing drawn, painted, memorialised for eternity on the walls and given some kind of name.” Remus was twisting to look back at the cave even as he kept moving, holding the other end of the chest.

“Can we figure out what we're doing with whatever the hell is in here? It's heavy and neither of us are going to be ready to fight with a massive chest carried between us.” Virgil dropped their end, effectively bring them to a stop and threw themself on the ground for a rest.

There was still daylight so they weren't worried about a threat approaching unseen and really needed to stop after the fight they'd just gone through. Any creature with that many limbs should be somewhere out at sea, not in caves nowhere near the shore.

“You take it. You're the one who got kicked out from home and nobody would leave something worthless in a cave like that. Bet you could get a house almost as good as the Lord's manor with the treasure in here.” Remus decided, having sat on the ground nearby for only a second before he was  rooting through the pack from his back. “Snacks, pen, ink and paper. You eat something. I gotta start planning out my paintings.”

Virgil was already shaking their head, backing away from the chest as though it would be forced onto them. “No no no no. I'm not taking all of whatever's in there. We got it together. You should get some of it. How about half each? Or you get 3 quarters and I get the rest since I would literally have been killed when that thing first came out?”

“And here I thought I was just a chance for you to escape when I jumped forwards. You were fighting there too. I guess we could go half each.” Remus sighed as though accepting any of it was a hardship rather than treasure won. “Only if you come home with me. Let me introduce my family to the greatest reluctant best friend ever!”

They gaped at that declaration. If anything Virgil would just call them and Remus acquaintances. Sticking together in the middle of woods when no other people has been seen for days could easily turn to barely acknowledging each other once back in town. “If that's what it takes for you to take the treasure that's rightfully yours then fine I guess.” They agreed, already moving stuff about in their pack to find the empty bags they'd managed to grab when hurrying to leave their old home. At the time they'd expected the bags to be for any belongings or tools they could make and acquire while alone in the woods but the contents of a random chest was what they'd need to hold now.

Virgil left Remus to carry on drawing while attempting and after about 20 different tries, managing to unlock and open the chest. They sat separating the treasure by types and into 2 piles of each, kept as even as possible. With the sky clear and dusk not due for a while, it was a relaxing enough break after the cave systems.

/VR\

Looking up at the manor that Remus had just started leading them up to declaring 'Home!' had Virgil reconsidering everything they knew of the place they grew up in.

That was the Lord's manor and for Remus to live here he had to be... nope, NOPE! Virgil had definitely not just accidentally run into one of the sons of the Lord that ruled over his town. Remus must actually just be like, one of the servants, or maybe a gardener? Places like this had gardeners and knights right? Remus must be something like that and had taken some time off too....

All of their rationalisations to prevent panicking about having attacked and then travelled with a Lord's son proved futile when as soon as Remus opened the doors servants were swarming him, asking where the young sir had been, did he have any injuries, and anything else they'd only do for... The son of the Lord's also hurrying through the hall to greet him.

“I went on an adventure!” Remus proclaimed, waving off the servants and turning to look for Virgil who had fully started panicking and wondering if he could turn and run now. “And I made a friend too. That's Virgil and he's brilliant!”

A servant was immediately coming over, offering to take his bag while the Lord's looked him over curiously, listening to Remus who was still talking utter nonsense; a fairytale of a Virgil that they couldn't fathom how Remus thought was them.

“Well anyone who has Remus as besotted as this is more than welcome to remain with us as long as you care to, Virgil. Are there any titles that you hold?” The Lord asked, smiling at them now and holding a hand up to pause Remus's ramblings.

“No, My Lord. I am estranged from my family currently and would not be in line for any titles even if that weren't the case.” They couldn't come out with a rant about being kicked out in front of a Lord, but to deny that they were probably the lowest of his lands would only lead to worse things later.

The Lord just nodded but Remus glowered. “They've got money though. Helped me fight a beast in a cave and we found this massive chest of treasure that can get him a home and stuff now. Seriously, even while claiming they wouldn't risk death for me they followed me into the cave and fought just as much as I did when this brilliant creature attacked. Someone get my paints set up in the gallery across from my room. I know what's going on the far wall now!”

“Money wasn't our concern, Son. I'll check if there's any titles we can bestow on them for bringing you home safely.” The other Lord spoke up now and Virgil was really wishing their parents had at least mentioned the names of the nobility that ruled over them. Maybe they could ask one of the servants soon, since Remus was likely to forget about them now he was back home and around his family.

It definitely seemed possible since with the comment about finding them a title the Lords were heading to other rooms in the hall and Remus was racing down a different corridor while a few servants came to direct Virgil to somewhere else. They just let themself be led through getting measured for new clothes and settled into rooms that had at some point been requested for them. They could at least work on getting a home here before the hospitality of the Lord's ran out preferably.

/RV\

7 days had passed and Remus was confused. Each morning he'd asked Virgil to come and help him paint, or join him in the science lessons he'd insisted on getting. Each time they'd nod and come along but disappear somewhere on route to where he wanted to go.

His best friend kept hiding from him and it didn't feel like a game or even like something they wanted to do if the wary glances each meal were anything to go by. It was like Virgil was expecting him to tell him to leave, gained some hope whenever Remus asked for them to do something together but gave it up seconds later as a lie. Remus wouldn't lie, especially not over wanting someone's company. He just wanted Virgil to be around him.

Today he was going to put a stop to it. He still chattered through breakfast, arguing with Roman over painting styles and trying to get Virgil to agree with him but he didn't move to get up or say anything after his meal was finished. He just sat, waiting for Virgil to finish eating and hoping he hadn't been cutting their meal short with the invitations.

“Do you not want to be my friend?” Remus blurted once they were the only ones still at the table, making Virgil startle.

“What, of course I, no, I do, definitely do but you, I mean, I thought you wouldn't. I'm just a nobody and you have all these exciting things that's you basically bounce in your seat when you talk about.” Virgil tripped over their words, clearly concerned over Remus's question but not sure how to answer it.

Remus just watched them try to reply, concerned but making himself be calm, still. “Then why do you keep disappearing when I want to share them with you? Sharing them would make any activities like a million times better! Hell just arguing with Roman is way more fun when I've got you beside me.”

“But I'm nothing!” Virgil exclaimed, pushing down on the table. “Why would you want anything to do with me except because of pity?”

“Yeah, definitely, I pitied a guy attacking me with a staff and stuck with him because I thought he needed some charity.” Remus rolled his eyes. “Pretty sure you are more than any scoundrel I could find walking into town just because you don't give a shit who we are, if you think something's dangerous or harmful you're gonna yell about it.”

“And you don't give a damn and do it anyway, claiming there's nothing dangerous that could harm you!” Their response was a glare that just made Remus grin.

He'd missed being told off while Virgil was constantly hiding themself away. “Still take more care than I would without the reminder. Besides I love that, always needed someone to give reasons for why they're upset and you just give them.”

“Love? Besotted? Why is everyone talking like we should be courting now? I don't even have somewhere to live. Get them to stop playing with my heart like that.” Virgil moaned, apparently focused on a word Remus had barely realised he'd spoken. Watching them lean on the desk it was clear there had been more said by the servants too in the last week.

He shrugged leaning back in his seat. “They aren't. If you'd actually let me find you or come to help with my painting this week you might have realised that I am very likely to fall in love with you.” He held back from saying it had already happened while coming back from the cave. It seemed like it would be too much for them, no matter that the painting in his gallery had basically made Virgil his universe, cradled and treasured by the creature they'd battled rather than fighting it.

Lost eyes looked over to him as they processed the words. “So we can be together together? I'm not – not going to get kicked out again for liking you too much?”

“Nope, I mean I made sure our rooms are next to each other deliberately so we could go through the courting without being too far apart.” Remus pointed out. “On that thought, can I actually give you your courting gifts now? I keep trying to but you disappear before I've got them out.”

Virgil nodded mutely for a second, watching him, before leaning forwards for a kiss, barely more than a peck before they were pushing away trying to get more distance between them. “Sorry, should've asked, but um, yes, courting, we can do that!”

“You don't have to ask if you want to kiss me, but if it makes you feel better we can do constantly asking.” Remus couldn't hold back his grin, and knew it was the one servants backed away, concerned over what his manic joy would cause today.

Courting first, and convincing Virgil they were far more than their mind said over time.

[whereflowersbloom]

Meet me at the horizon

Damian has spent nearly three hours inside the meeting room of one of the biggest companies of the Eastern Coast, Wayne Enterprises, the silence was strong after several hours discussing the approval of new projects, majority of them Proposed by Timothy Drake. Tim was a genius in Computer Engineering and Technologies, currently working with Lucious Fox. He just graduated and was already making money developing enterprise digital assistance apps and what not for the company. Unfortunately the silence lasted less than two deep breaths as the board directors, shareholders, his siblings and even his own father were exchanging goodbyes and handshakes, scheduling the next meeting already. His father had promised to take Helena shopping with Selina. His adoptive siblings stayed in the meeting room, deciding to have a much-deserved break, to catch up with their daily activities.

Damian frowned unconsciously, his head was throbbing with the surge of scenes in his head. The scenes he was so used to see in his dreams for the last nine months, but the last three months have been assaulting him any moment of the day, especially close to his eldest brother Richard. The meeting seemed to have opened a door to these dreams and this talk about opening an office in Jump city was making it worse. Jump City. He had the vague sensation he’d been there before...

Tim, Richard and Duke seemed to be too busy speaking about the next big game of Gotham Knights, the hockey team, to notice his troubled expression. They mumbled something about asking Jason to slow down from his intense sportbike racer life and watch the game all together. Damian didn’t bother listening to the rest, he was attacked by images of that younger version of himself in some kind of flashy vigilante costume fighting criminals.

“We should go to the game this weekend. The girl I’m seeing now, Kori said she was interested in learning about traditional sports. She’s been in Gotham for six months now. She’s very enthusiastic about cultural learning.” Richard suggested with a wide smile to his siblings completely excited. Eyes like wildfire lit with the spark of life. He hadn’t met Dick’s girlfriend but he looked happier than he’s ever seen him in years.

“Are you joining, D or you’ve got a date?” Duke asked with a teasing tone in his sardonic voice.

Damian did not retribute the smile his adoptive brother gave him, trying to mask his still throbbing head. He looked at him, threatening gaze was a subtle warning. He didn’t know why this was happening that day, but the talk about Jump City and Dick’s new girlfriend were just bringing more of those images. Most of them weren’t good ones. Gory, brutal, bloody. He liked more the ones that seemed to joyful. The ones with that girl.

“He barely seem to have time to meet someone. He’s a workaholic.” it was Tim who answered with an amused smile on his lips, masking an exhausted mien.

“At this pace he’s close enough to become a celibate monk.” Duke joked elbowing Tim lightly, who laughed in response.

“I tried to set him up with some girls, but I almost end up with a broken jaw.” Dick shrugged slightly as he told them with details how Damian had turned down Kara Danvers, Tim’s girlfriend’s best friend. Admittedly she was a nice-looking woman but not the one he desired.

Damian decided to ignore the moronic comments about his love life from his siblings.

Storming out of the meeting room without uttering a single word. They knew nothing about his romantic life. Tsk. A breath of fresh is what he required, lost in consuming thoughts about the girl.

People form the company knew him as the extremely professional boss that run his department with an almost iron fist, he was fair though, accepting the situation of people that worked under him, but he didn’t accept people trying to take advantages or lacking in his services. And he was indeed workaholic.

The media knew him as the ‘Ice Prince of Gotham’, the young heir that was always looking serious, with a cold aura around him, with no type of relationships or scandals so far. He didn’t have the bad boy aura like Jason, ‘chicks’ seemed to dig it as Duke would crudely express. He appeared distant of people out of his inner circle. However, women followed him like bees to flowers in order to collect nectar.

It was just his Wayne charm he couldn’t turn off, regardless of the situation. Like his father, Damian just attracted female attention like a magnet. But no girlfriend. He's had the odd fling here and there but nobody has ever really caught his eye and he's incredibly busy he hasn't the time to feel that maybe he's missing out. Until he saw her.

All his time, attention and passion have been poured into his work. Not that he loved it exactly but he's never been one to do things by halves. Of course he made time to spend quality time with his family, after all, little Helena was barely ten years old. Perky and tireless, too smart for her age if he added. EHis youngest sister.

He was also known in the sports world as one of the most skilled people on the art of the traditional sword fighting and martial arts. He didn’t know where this passion for sword fighting began, although he would bet all his money that it had something to do with his strange recurrent dreams.

 Although his life was satisfactory in his personal view, he always felt as if something was missing. He felt as lonely as the teenager in his dreams when the girl was not around him. She was missing.

Why this bothered him so much, he couldn’t find a logical reason that made any sense. It was just a simple dream, and that girl wasn’t much more than that. A dream. But why he felt that way? That need to look around every time he was in a place full of people hoping to get a glimpse of those shinning amethyst eyes looking at him like she did in his dreams with such profound emotion. Or his necessity to look for her around the world as if he was sure he could find her. She was etched in his bones, buried in down his bronze skin, burning in his chest leaving him out of breath. The images were flooding his mind again. More than absurd dreams, they were a recollection of memories...from a different lifetime perhaps.

They had something briefly, he gathered from the persistent dreams. It was intense, passionate. It was only something he could describe as love. But suddenly they parted ways, forced to be away from the other. They lost contact. The images were so vivid. They felt so real. A first last kiss filled with sorrow, powerlessness, genuine affection. It was carved into his mind until he memorized it. That moment. The warmth and scent of her breath put him in an hypnotic daze. Her lips parted softly, and he could taste faint traces salt from her tears when her soft lips pressed against his. He could feel lightning coursing through his veins, as if his entire world had been set ablaze only lasting seconds. Then it was gone. The ghost of a promise of a second chance. He’d grown tired of waiting for her to appear before his eyes. Every damn second felt like an eternity in itself. With every passing moment, his patience waned a little more and his heart sank a little further.

The haunting pain, endless longing, fear of losing her, the regret of leaving her behind first. They were all real. It was a silent torture.

At first, foolishly he believed these feelings would eventually fade and he would no longer be haunted by her phantom presence. Only memories he thought as he closed his emerald eyes. And her pale, heart-shaped, beautiful face flitted across his mind. Damian had spent his entire life being in control. But every time he met her in his dreams, he seemed to lose his grasp on his emotions, his life, and sometimes, even his destiny. He had to find her.

The wind howling through halls of old memories, piercing through solitude, skin and bone until there’s nothing but heavy emotions and melancholy. Walking with a heart that’s taken too many hits, never too fragile but refusing to be held in the hands of another’s that don’t belong to hers. In his chest remained an ache, a longing for what was or could have been. What he let slip.

“I am sorry we did not have time, Raven.” He mumbled almost in a whisper to nothingness. It felt like a heartfelt apology a thousand years too late. Maybe more or less. A lifetime too late. If their hearts and destiny were entwined surely they would find their back to each other no matter what. Damian carried that hope in his heart, always his constant companion. If He were to walk to the ends of the earth and waited for her on the horizon after the sun has set, would she be there? At the point where the land and sky meets. Could they be together once again?

Raven. The girl. He thought of her during the long hours between dusk and dawn, as he ate dinner alone or read next to the window. She was an ever present fixture in his mind and never more so than today. He considered what he might say to her once he found her, but what rational excuse could he offer to a stranger? He doubted she would find comfort in the ridiculous phrases he might string together about meeting in a past lifetime or those dreams. What if she had them too? If it wasn’t some breathtakingly realistic illusion and she was so where in this city or Jump City or anywhere else looking for him. It was silly to entertain such notions, he knew it well. But that didn’t stop his mind from wandering from time to time when he found a poignant passage of poetry that tugged at his heart, or a new book that fascinated him. She loved books how he knew that, he was not sure. What he wouldn’t give to have long days spent indulging their mutual passion for literature, poetry, history and ancient languages.

He’s been walking around for longer than he imagined, looking at his watch it’s last 6:00 pm. It was out of instinct or some magnetic pull forcing his body to look at the flower shop, whatever universal spirit or energy did it. He was thankful. The shop was tiny, a sliver of space between a cafe and bookstore, and would have disappeared into the surrounding stone and woodwork had it not been for the white and lavender exterior. Eyes quickly scanning surroundings. It was exquisite and untamed, thorny blackberry brambles mingle with fresh citrusy kumquats wrapped languidly around overhanging light fixtures for a wild, yet utterly magnificent and unique look. It had a three-panel glass window boasting an avant-garde display of blush dahlias, blizzard hydrangeas, soft purple lilacs, a mixture of green stems and leaves that balanced everything out. He had been here before but never spotted the shop. The shop was definitely new and if Damian hadn’t known this neighborhood so well, the faint smell of fresh paint would have given it away.

Her hair was a deep navy blue sprinkled with white, like starlight in winter. Her heart-shaped had matured beautifully, moonlight skin. She was a flashing star born with striking surreal violet orbs. She was holding astilbe flowers in white and soft pink. She set the flowers on the counter carefully, her fingers hovering in the space around them, like she wanted to guard them, to protect every petal from the possibility of being crushed. As if they were more than blooms of colour, like there were uniquely cherishable aspects to each one that is not present in the next. He could see that type of caring in her. This was his Raven. This can’t be real, Right? The world wouldn’t be this cruel to him, playing mind tricks on him. She was here. O

Damian thought of every slow-motion, heart-stopping, head-spinning scene in every romance movie or show or novel and how he’d always assumed they were stupid, nothing but rubbish. But here he was standing astonished literally staring at the woman of his dreams. Speak with her. Just hear her low and calming voice. That was all his mind would permit him to focus on, the single-minded determination to see her again.

He moved with driving purpose, his legs propelling him to go inside the little store and tell her everything about his dreams, recollection of old memories. The thought crossed his mind so briefly he scarcely dwelt on it, but that was how it had been for him in the months since dreaming of Raven. His pace slowed as he was stopped by the entrance door, opening it slowly, willing his heart to steady the gallop rhythm of its beats. The sun was shining brightly through the shop’s windows, soft classical music played through the serene and scented atmosphere.

The anticipation rushing through his veins felt like burning his tongue on Earl Grey too hot-tea a chilly rainy day, a dry mouth after sleepless night tossing and turning because other side of his bed looked too empty, trees in the park swayed and shuddered by the afternoon air before lighting fractures the sky and shakes earth, like he’s been waiting a million of breaths for this moment. In his twenty-one years of existence never experienced this wild and frantic emotion.

He swallowed around a very dry throat when he let the door swing shut behind him as his short, hesitant strides brought him directly up to the counter. Now they were face to face. Mustering the courage to say anything. Anything that dint make her think he was insane. But when his gaze met hers. Damian found himself awe-struck by the intensity behind familiar amethyst eyes. The stars couldn’t compare. The world and moon would crumble away. The sun would collapse into itself at this dazzling and glorious constellation that she was. Lilac pools hiding something mystic and ancient in their depth.

She leaned in closer to him in such a natural way, raising her head just to meet his. Her smile was sincere and expectant, pupils blown wide, but they’re focused, dark and determined, nearly drowning out the violet glint of her irises. His lips ached to reach for hers in a hungry kiss but refrained. Speechless, heart pounding in chest, peculiar fluttering sensation in his stomach, waiting for her to speak. Finally she took a deep and long breath before whispering. “Hello Damian. It’s been quite a long time.”

I rewrote this and hope you all like it. I can’t find it in me to update stories right now but have this short prompt. Specially written for @chromium7sky @ravenfan1242 @xaphrin @alerialblu @niahti and all my friends and readers. I’m so sorry some of you have been getting hate but we stand strong and together. 💜❤️❤️🥺🥺

@deep-in-mind67 @kallura-juniblade @bourniebna @timid-soot-sprite @deepbreadlover @tweepunkgrl @srose-foxfire

[lordoftermites]

The Fox & the Thornbush | Part 3

Pairing: Roiben x Kaye Rating: M for violence and bleedy bits Summary: This is it. The Undersea Attack. Maybe eventually I'll go back and do more with it but. This took... a lot to write and honestly I can't even write a summary for it. I'm sorry in advance.

part 1. // part 2.

Faerie is a deadly place, he had told her once.

Kaye hadn’t believed him then—or, more despairingly, she had believed him, and was just far too willful to listen.

Even after the coronation in Elfhame, when Balekin had slaughtered near to every member of the royal family in a coup to usurp the throne, Kaye had persisted. She left her coffee shop, her dreams, abandoned her life in the light of the mortal world to live with him in the damp darkness of the Palace of Termites.

For her sake, Roiben had tried to convince himself that it would be a good change. That it was true—he had grown weary of having to steal away like some thief in the night to see her so sparingly, only to come back to a cold bed under a cold hill, alone.

After a while he began to believe that, perhaps, now that Kaye was at his side, within his reach at all times, that the frigid ache in his chest would abate—that he could finally be content.

Perhaps faeries couldn’t speak a lie with their own mouths, but Roiben had been telling himself untruths for longer than he could remember.

Kaye rolls over onto her side, burrowing farther beneath the coverlet. Her wild hair splays in lush, green tangles over the pillow. She sleeps soundly, verdant lips parted, once in a while letting out a small sigh here or near-inaudible word there. Roiben watches her from his place on the bed—their bed, he reminds himself—as though if he were to look away, she might very well disappear with one of those sighs.

He’s been awake for hours now, ripped from yet another nightmare, his chest heaving, his stomach threatening to upend the acrid bile in the back of his throat, while morbid death stares burned behind his eyes. They were the spectres of his sins, reminding him the blood on his hands has not, and shall not, wash away.

At least, this time, there had been no screaming.

A lock of deep green hair lies across Kaye’s face. It flutters slightly when she exhales, only to fall back against her lips. Her nose crinkles in her sleep, disturbed and perhaps dreaming of something else. Roiben reaches to brush it away but stops himself short, his fingers hovering mid-air. He ought to let her just sleep, he knows.

Yet, before he can convince himself not to, he’s leaning down, brushing the hair back with his mouth instead.

Kaye stirs and makes a light, disgruntled noise, until she seems to realize what’s happening. Then she’s lazily kissing him back, pressing her lips against his, parting just enough for him to sweep her mouth. One of her hands comes up to rest on the nape of his neck, her long fingers tangling in the hair there. Roiben sighs against her lips at the feeling; it’s light and comforting, warming that chill in his bones she alone has ever been able touch.

As often as he scorns himself for giving in to her decision to stay here permanently with him in Faerie, it’s selfish moments like this that he wouldn’t have her anywhere else. He can face the demons waiting in his nightmares—so long as she’s with him.

“Well, good morning to you, too,” Kaye says drowsily, black eyes fluttering up to his, lidded with sleep and something else. Roiben hovers over her, grinning. “What was that for? I mean, not that I mind or anything.”

He shakes his head, still unused to the lightness of his newly-cropped hair. “A compulsion, I suppose,” he answers, and lowers himself again to bury his face in the crook of her neck, breathing deep the scents of moss and clover. He can’t quite bring himself to admit aloud that it was more to solidify her presence—to give himself physical reassurance that she isn’t part of a cruel trick his mind so often played on him.

Kaye strokes the back of his head gently, as if she already knows, as if perhaps she too needs the reminder that neither of them are made of phantoms and longing. Roiben kisses the column of her green neck, an arm curling under her, pulling her closer and yet still not close enough. She tilts her head with a soft hum of encouragement. “Whatever it is, I could get used to waking up like this.”

Her hands slide over his shoulders, down his bare arms, along his spine. Roiben shivers and shifts his weight, caging her body beneath him. His mouth drifts along the line of her clavicle to the base of her throat. One of his hands slips under the coverlet to the silklike flesh of her thigh, drawing it up to bracket his hip, while his lips brush against the flushed swell of her chest. Kaye’s hushed sighs as he arches against her spark a flame behind his navel, galvanizing him into urgent desire.

What he wouldn’t do to just simply stay here with her forever, to revel in her touch, her warmth, her love. Let the crowns decay. Let the duties and the demands and the courts crumble to nothing; let him be only a knight and a man again, to be content. Unburdened.

As if the fates decided he needed reminding of his reality, a light rapping at the door to his chambers breaks through their intimate solace.

Roiben ignores it at first, tells himself whatever it is will go away. Surely a herald, one of his knights, or even his chamberlain can handle it—not every small thing ought to be a king's concern, especially not when his council members are already far more inclined to do his duty for him. He doesn't cease his kisses, and instead channels into them the denial of obligations and the desires of his soul. His fingers grip Kaye's thigh tighter in desperation, attempting to tether himself to her and this moment alone. Leave us, his mind pleads. Find another doorway to darken.

But the knocking comes again, this time carrying a touch more confidence and urgency.

Suddenly furious, unfulfilled, and ultimately defeated, Roiben growls against Kaye's skin before pushing himself up. She watches him with heady eyes, seeming just as exasperated at the interruption as he. Her hand lingers on his arm. "Just tell them to fuck off," she suggests, though it's half-hearted. She knows as well as he does that it's very seldom anything he can simply wave or wish away.

"If we're fortunate," he sighs, bending down to give her one last kiss and then forcing himself to rise from the bed, "it will be nothing but our breakfast.” In a moment, he’s crossed the room and wrenched the heavy door open. Ruddles himself is there, hand raised as though he had just been about to give another, less-timid knock; he lowers the hand, and himself before Roiben, bowing low enough that his nose might brush the floor if given another half inch.

“My King,” the hob greets in his usual rasp before straightening. He seems to realize his king’s half-naked appearance and forced even breathing, but carries on. “I apologize for the disturbance at such an early hour, but I assumed you would want to be informed we’ve had a messenger come and go without our receiving him.”

Propping an arm against the door, Roiben barely suppresses a roll of his eyes. “It is not an uncommon thing for a courier to go missed.“ He knows his tone is clipped, but he doesn’t bother to correct it. “Why does this time require my chamberlain coming to my private rooms, when clearly whatever message left was not of enough import to be received in the first place?”

That seems to bristle the hob, who takes a rather deliberate, offended breath through his sharply-pointed nose. “Because, the message was left while the entire hill slept,” Ruddles answers gruffly. His brows are furrowed as if there really is something to be worried about, and his sovereign is, as usual, too unconcerned. “No one saw the messenger arrive, nor did they witness his departure.”

It’s Roiben’s turn to frown. That couldn’t be right: since the rebuilding of the Palace of Termites, they had sentries posted through dawn and dusk, and as many guards patrolling the hill. Surely someone ought to have seen this phantom envoy. Foreboding gnaws at his gut; he doesn’t like mystery, and he likes even less when that mystery involves his playing the part of the ignorant fool.

“What was this message? Did you bring it with you?”

Ruddles shakes his tawny head and wrings his hands. “It was a parcel, a large one, addressed to the Lord of the Court of Termites. We left it where it was found—” he pauses, the troubled expression on his face doing nothing to quell the rising uneasiness Roiben feels—”in the throne room… more pointedly, on your throne.”

A deliberate act, and a bold one. The thought of it sets Roiben’s teeth on edge. “I see,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his jaw, deliberating.

From behind him, Kaye yawns. Roiben turns back to look at her, where she’s stretching and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, green hair falling over her shoulders. Just the sight of her, wrapped in his spider silk coverlet and little else, makes him ache with longing. It takes everything he can muster not to bolt the door in Ruddles' face.

She squints at him, as if attempting to focus her vision or read his thoughts, tilts her head in a question. Roiben tries a casual smile and holds up a finger, before turning back to his chamberlain. “Gather Dulcamara and Ellebere,” he instructs. “See if either of them know anything. I’ll meet the three of you in the throne room presently, and we’ll see just exactly what gift our shadow messenger has left us.”

The hob gives a shallow bow and backs away before turning on his heel and setting back off through the corridor. When Roiben closes the heavy wooden door, he leans against it momentarily, breathing a long sigh that does nothing to relieve any of the pressure in his chest.

How exhausted he is of intrigues and suspicions, of forging treaties that seem as stable as a thread stretched above a candle flame. Roiben himself feels like that thread—fraying at both ends while trying to hold his kingdom between his teeth, at any moment about to burn up with the burden of it all.

Take this from me, he had once thought, after his coronation as the Unseelie ruler. I do not want to be your king.

Now, he had two crowns, each heavy as a boulder on their own. Together, they are a mountain, and may very well crush him beneath their weight.

“What was that about?” Kaye’s voice calls from the bed. Roiben moves from the door and crosses the room to sit beside her. When he goes to kiss her cheek, he takes a selfish moment to breathe in the smell of her again, something to take with him. “I’m not entirely sure,” he replies, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I expect nothing but trouble, as usual. But I won’t be gone a moment—” he leans in again, grazing his lips against her neck with a promise—”and when I return, we can forget them all again.”

Before he can lose himself, Roiben pushes off of the bed. He pulls on a fresh set of clothing—a simple black tunic with trousers to match, and a pair of boots. From the chair beside his bed, he takes up his curved sword and straps it to his waist. Its weight is one he is used to, cold and secure at his hip.

With an apologetic glance back at Kaye, who shoos him with a small wave before shuffling back under the coverlet, he slips through the door.

Dulcamara is perched on the dais when he arrives in the throne room, clad in her beetle-black armor, polishing a dagger while her pink glare remains fixed on the throne. She stands when Roiben enters, however, and gives him a small bow of her head; as reverent a gesture as he likes, if he must be revered at all. “The hob is off searching for Ellebere,” she tells him in her gravel-scraping voice. “Must we wait for our curiosities to be sated?” Her head bobs in the direction of the throne.

As proficient a knight as Dulcamara is, her impatience often wills out, even when it comes to the one she serves.

Roiben shakes his head with a snort. “I suppose it isn’t a requirement,” he admits, stepping up onto the dais. “Though I doubt Ruddles will be much pleased when we solve the mystery without him.” Even so, eyeing the parcel, Roiben finds himself every bit as curious as he is wary.

As Ruddles said, what’s been placed on his throne is no small thing: it covers nearly half the seat itself, dome-shaped and wrapped in a cloth of deep blue velvet, tied together at the top with golden string. It certainly looks like a gift. Yet, as Roiben reaches out to take the small slip of folded parchment resting beside it, his title addressed in a dark blue flourish across the front, an icy dread seeps into his bones. When he opens the letter, he has to clutch the arm of the throne as the dais pitches up to meet him.

From behind him, Dulcamara’s voice seems distant, distorted. “What does it say?” Without turning, Roiben holds the note out to her, suddenly finding it difficult to swallow—or tear his gaze from the parcel. His hand trembles as he reaches to undo the string, to look upon what he already knows lies inside the elaborate wrapping.

“‘Let us see how easily you unwind the wire of your own cage’,” Dulcamara reads. “What sort of riddle—”

“It is no riddle.” He's clenching his jaw hard enough to hurt. His hand goes to grip the blade at his hip. “It is a threat.”

Unwrapped and glinting in the candlelight, just as he remembers, is the gilded birdcage that once held his friend and subject, Lutie-Loo—the very one he freed her from in Balekin’s office less than a year ago. Roiben had made a fool of the would-be king then, promising fealty when he’d already sworn to Prince Dain. Now it would seem his trickery is finally being repaid.

“Dulcamara,” Roiben starts, whirling around, “we need—”

An eruption of sound outside the throne room cuts off whatever order might have given. Before either of them have time to move, Ellebere barrels into the hall, sword in one hand, the other covering his side. Blood and dirt streak his pale face, only adding to the intensity of his frantic expression. “The Undersea,” the knight stammers, “they’re here. They’ve been here.”

Ruddles’ words echo dully in Roiben’s mind. No one saw the messenger arrive, nor did anyone witness his departure.

As Ellebere clambers up onto the dais, Roiben is reminded with a turning in his stomach of the last time he saw the knight in such a state, when Silarial made her move on the court. They had nearly been destroyed because of his underestimating and overconfidence. Has he once again brought ruin to his people? To…

“Kaye.”

The brugh swirls around him. His breath is trapped in his lungs.

As a swarm of bodies pours into the hall, the sharp clashing of metal against metal resounding through the hollow hill, Roiben can see none of it; only Kaye’s face, bloodied and lifeless.

Dead, because of him.

Something solid shoves into him, nearly knocking him to the ground before his legs catch him. Jolted back to the present, he jerks his head up just as Dulcamara brings her blade down in an arc across the front of an advancing selkie; the faerie crumples at her feet, black blood spilling onto the already gore-stained floor of the dais. It had gotten that close, and Roiben hadn’t even seen it. Dulcamara whips around to look at him, pink glare ablaze. Before she can scold him, he shakes his head and grips the sword he can’t remember drawing.

“I have to get to Kaye,” he shouts above the skirmish, already retreating down the other side of the dais, cutting through another Undersea soldier as it hurtles toward him. He is already charging down the hall before she can protest or follow, fear propelling his steps and his blade.

The battle seems to be more focused on the throne room, thankfully; Roiben is stalled only once, by a selkie warrior wielding a longsword of shark bone. Though he takes a slash to the thigh, the other faerie is not nearly as fortunate. He falls to his knees, clutching the gaping hole in his chest when Roiben withdraws his blade.

Biting through the searing pain in his leg, Roiben pushes on, repeating silent pleas that he not be too late.

As he comes to the door of his chambers, a fresh wave of glacial panic seizes him; the door has been thrown wide open and is hanging from the hinges. From the other side he can hear crashing, breaking. A struggle, and then a scream.

Kaye is screaming.

Roiben never feels himself move. He sees nothing but the flash of his sword, slicing through the gray-blue neck of an Undersea knight; hears nothing but his own cry of wild rage, his own deafening heartbeat in his ears. In less than breath, both Kaye and her attacker lie on the floor in a pool of mingling black and crimson.

It has happened, yet Roiben cannot shake the fog of unreality that strangles his breathing, weakens his legs, clouds his vision. His sword falls from his hand, and he collapses to his knees beside Kaye. He stares down in horror at the deep red gash from her throat to her sternum. Someone is sobbing. Blood streams from the wound—too much. There is too much blood.

He pulls her into his lap, holds her gently, covers what he can with a trembling hand. Dark, ruby warmth spills through his fingers and over his wrist. “Kaye,” he chokes, reaching to touch her cheek. His fingers are wet with blood and he has to brace against the sick twisting of his stomach.

Her black eyes are wild and unfocused, but she finds him. Grasps his arm desperately, gasping. She opens her mouth to speak, the beginning of his name on her ashen lips, but it comes out a fearful, small sound, and she doesn’t finish. Roiben strokes her hair and hushes her softly, bringing a kiss to her cool, damp forehead. When he pulls back, the unhinged terror in her eyes burrows like a dagger into his heart. “It’s...“

It’s going to be alright, he tries to tell her. The words will not form.

He cannot force back the sob at realizing why he can't say it. It could be a lie, and Kaye might die right here, in his room. In his arms. Dead before their life together had barely begun. Dead because he hadn't been fast enough. Because he had allowed it—because he had caused it.

Roiben can console himself no more than he can console her.

Faerie is a deadly place, he had told her once.

[sabraeal]

A Home Between Two Breaths

[He Who Fell in the Sea | Read on Ao3]

The snow starts just out of Luidas– big, thick flakes. A dusting, at first; they settle on Miss’s hair like fine lace, melting before she can brush them off. But now the horses wade through the drifts, nickering with displeasure when snow crumples beneath their hooves. His own coat sags, a thick, wet film against his skin, but Miss–

Well, Miss sits snugly beneath a bridled pelt, one hand absently brushing along the edge. His chest tingles with every sweep of her fingers, a shiver trembling down his spine that has nothing to do with the cold. Her heat’s been his constantly companion these past few hours, keeping him warm and wary long past when his own coat abandons him. But the colder he gets, well, the more he’s tempted to stop, to haul up to one of the inns they pass and see if they can’t generate their own heat between them.

His teeth grit down, jaw aching. If only he could bring himself to love a woman whose heart wasn’t already spoken for, given to a man who could keep her warm with far more than just the pelt off his back.

Still, taking shelter isn’t a bad idea, not when there’s no telling how long the storm will last. Lamps burns brightly in the distance, up the hill but not too far. He remembers the place; it’s not one of their usual stops– too close to the checkpoint to bother with, mostly made more for lords with carriages and delicate constitutions to care for. Pricey, and with the weather, the innkeep will be sure to wring them for more than two beds are worth, but, well–

He’s going to go crazy if she doesn’t stop petting him like this. Obi tugs at his reins, bringing himself up alongside Miss. Their knees don’t knock– he’s too careful a rider for that, even if she’s not– but he’s close enough to be heard over the howling winds. “We should stop.”

A contemplative pout settles on her cold-stung lips; she’s doing the complex calculations he’d mulled over moments ago. It’s not quite dusk– on a fairer day, they’d be on the road for another hour or two at least– but with the storm only growing stronger at their backs…

“It’ll get worse before it gets better.” The darkening sky hangs heavy overhead, only adding a more dire edge to his warning, but Miss’s jaw still sets stubbornly, the I can keep going loud in her silence. “We should think of the horses.”

“Oh!” She frowns down at her mare’s mane, snow tangling in the long, frozen ropes its settled into, and nods. “Of course. Is there some place near?”

His cowl is raised, covering his lips, but he smothers his smile, just in case. Miss might press on past wisdom if it were only herself she had to worry about, but bring the horses into it…

“Just there.” He points, voice struggling against the wind. “Up on the rise. Hopefully they’ll have two rooms ready to go.”

Miss coughs, ducking her head to cover it. Her next words are mumbled, lost in the wool of her scarf and the roar of the storm, but the winds twist and turn as they press on and he could swear–

Well, he could swear he hears, “We could do with less.”

“Two rooms,” Miss says, trying to raise her voice over the din. They’re far from the only weary travelers escaping the storm; the common room is packed wall-to-wall with boisterous custom, their coats damp but spirits as warm as the brew in their mugs. “If you please.”

“I do.” The innkeep’s round-faced, cheery, but with enough height to convey that she could, if pressed, handle rowdy customers right to the door. The kind of woman Obi would like, if her smile wasn’t already saying exactly what he didn’t want to hear. “But I’m afraid we’ve only got the one left. Busy night, you know.”

“Two beds?” he asks, already knowing the answer. If Master had been with them, three would have appeared from thin air with rooms to keep them. But with just a court herbalist and a knight, the only title between them a friendship to the wrong crown–

“One.” The innkeep’s kind enough to offer a sorrowful smile. “A nice one, though, if I do say so myself.”

A slender finger traces down his chest, as if there were not three layers of clothes and a safe distance between them, and he yelps out, “A cot?”

“‘Fraid not.” The innkeep brushes some flour off her apron, brusque yet strangely sympathetic at the same time. “All spoken for. You’re hardly the only ones who’ve had to make due with less than you came in wanting.”

Still that finger runs, collar to breast, following the length of his sternum. It should be lulling, comforting, but instead he just– “Maybe there’s space in the barn?”

Miss’s hand stills, eyes too wide, too green as she peers up at him. He can’t bear to look, not when he’s in danger of losing himself in them. The last time they’d been in the room with a bed–

Well, there’s a reminder twitching right against his thigh about that. “I’m not above a good night in the hay.”

The innkeep’s brows lift in amusement. “Full up to the manger.”

His sigh hollows him out, leaving him to slouch over the remains of his chest. “I could–”

“We’ll take it,” Miss says, stepping up in front of him. The dir glitter in her palm as she lays them on the counter. “The room, that is. And the bed.”

Obi lets out a plaintive whine, lost in the noise. “Extra blankets?”

The innkeep smiles at him, wide and wry. “Now that I can do.”

After all his years on the road, Obi considers himself a connoisseur of lodging. A adept of accommodations. A man who knows what a coin might bring him, greasing the right palm. Someone who speaks the lingo, one might say.

So when a proprietor of sleeping arrangements says one bed, he knows there’s a connotation to that. One bed, of course, but enough mattress to be shared between two. The sort of thing where one could divide between the pillows and trust that, without a very adventurous sleeper on the other side, he could expect to wake up undisturbed.

This is not that.

“Well,” Miss murmurs, taking a ponderous step into the room. “There certainly is…one.”

He’s seen bigger in the garrison. It’s only a little wider than a standard cot– meant to fit one and half maids, if only so the help might feel kingly for a night as well–

“Ah, isn’t that just our luck, Miss.” Obi lets out a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a swan song. “In an inn full of lordly accommodations, we get…the servant’s quarters.”

Another room might have a sofa, a chaise, or, failing that, a hard-backed chair that he could at least make a credible attempt at sleep in. But this– this is a room meant for sleeping, not entertaining. At least, not if he wasn’t planning on doing it horizontal.

Which he isn’t. Not at all. That’s not what’s happening here. Between them. Ever. No matter what happened before. Master may not be here now, but Obi won’t forget him.

Again.

“It’s fine,” Miss blusters, as if he can’t hear her voice squeak up at the top of her range. “We’ll make do.”

She draws herself up, utilizing every scant inch, and officiously scurries over to the edge of the mattress, giving it the sort of calculating stare generals leveled on fields of battle. With a steeling breath, her shoulders lift, and in a smooth motion, toss his pelt wholesale onto the covers.

The wind knocks out of him, for more than one reason. “I was going to use that.”

“You are going to be using it,” she agrees primly, letting her own cloak fall, sopping, in to her arms. “In the bed. Tonight.”

His mouth works as she crosses to the one ladder-backed chair that the room provides, spreading the wet wool across it. “I was going to sleep on the floor.”

The gaze she turns to him may be wide-eyed, but it’s knowing too, braced. This isn’t a misunderstanding, it’s a negotiation. “Why would you do that? It’s freezing, Obi.”

Again, his mouth can only open and close, words picked up and quickly abandoned in his search for something other than, don’t you remember? Or worse, how could you forget?

He couldn’t, not when he’d spent the night staring up at a ceiling he hardly remembered the pattern of, listening to the soft lull of Master’s breath and wondering why, why he has to ruin everything he touches. It would be better if he listened to the songs of his sisters, letting them guide him back to the sea, pelt wrapped around him and life brought back to the simple sensation of the water against his fur–

But he’d miss her. And he can control himself just fine, as long as there’s some space between them. Which there won’t be if they’re in that bed together, his skin covering them as one body.

“I just–” he flounders under her inquisitive confusion; it doesn’t help that she’s taken off her dress as well, left in only in her underthings, every shapely curve bared to him– “it would be best.”

Miss’s fingers still on her stays, head cocked, considering. Her gaze sweeps from the pelt on the bed to her own state of undress, hesitating a moment before she takes in his position against the door.

With a long, thoughtful breath, she exhales a very firm, “No.”

“No?” His mouth works, at a loss, and she takes the opportunity to place a single, bare leg on the mattress, right along his spine. Hell, that is making it a little hard to breathe, let alone think. “That is my skin, you know.”

“And you’re going to be using it,” she informs him, unimpressed, as she drags another tantalizing calf beneath her, warmth radiating along his back. It’s the last thing he needs when she’s got that stubborn pout on her lips. “You can’t sleep on the floor, Obi. Even with seal skin, you’ll freeze.”

He’s lived in water colder and darker than nights like these, dove into deeper currents than the Lilias’s winds could ever drop, but it’s impossible to explain to that to Miss, who has only this one, soft skin. The kind that is begging him to touch it with his own, to press her between his pelt and his body, and–

“I have extra blankets,” he mutters dumbly, thrusting them out in front of him like they might ward off her arguments. It’s a weak volley, a desperate measure to avoid the inevitable rout, and she deflects it with barely more than a dubious glance.

His shoulders slump, wet fur sopping around his neck. By the victorious glint in Miss’s eyes, she doesn’t miss the moment of his defeat.

“Your should take off your coat, at least,” she tells him, so innocent. “It’d be no good for you to come to bed wet.”

Obi can’t, unfortunately, argue with her logic. He lays his shield down, the thick quilts the innkeep pressed on him falling in a slumped pile against the footboard. And with a sweep of his arms, the first of his armor falls as well, arranged flat on hearth’s screen.

It’s a relief to be rid of its damp weight; warm as it is, another creature’s fur sits strangely on him, as if his body wants to take its shape as well. And when it’s almost clinging to him, dripping sweat and ice down his spine– well, it’s a new layer of discomfort.

His boots follow, stockings soon after, though their removal is another battle, the wool sticking to every inch. When his feet finally press bare to stone– ah, the cold seeped through him more than he’d thought. For all his talk, his soles stretch against its ambient warmth and, oh, how they burn. Maybe Miss was right about sleeping on the floor; as a seal, his blubber would protect him, but as a man–

Well, he certainly lacked a certain sleekness over these bones. It was easier to forget now that he was allowed both.

Obi hesitates, thumbs hooked into the waistband of his pants. They were wet too– damp at the knees and clinging to his thighs at parts– but still…

“Are you coming to bed?” Miss inquires, muffled. He glances back, and there she is, smothered in blankets, radiating warmth along his back. “It’s warm in here.”

The smart thing would be to take his blankets and suffer as best he could by the fire. Or take the invitation but keep the clothes, hoping they would dry in the warmth of the blankets. But Obi–

Well, Obi hadn’t ended up on shore by being more clever than bold. He strips down to his skivvies, laying his clothes beside Miss’s on the stone. It left him far from naked– his woolens might leave little to the imagination, but they were still as thick and warm as his pelt– but the way Miss watches him–

Maybe he should risk the floor.

He shakes himself. Too late to change his mind now.

Soft fur tickles his hands as he slips into bed beside her, Miss extending from a pleasant, abstract warmth along his back, to a present, insistent heat along his side. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

“Beneath?” he manages after a moment. “I thought you enjoyed it as a blanket.”

“We have plenty of those.” Her eyes glitter guilelessly in the dim, fingers stroking the pelt in mindless, soothing circles. “Having it under us will stop any heat from escaping through the mattress. Like a little oven!”

“Oh,” he murmurs, watching her fingers carve runnels through his fur. “Smart.”

“I thought so,” she says with no little pride. “Blow out the lamp?”

He nods, reaching over to turn the wick down, watching the flame gutter behind the glass. Even when it’s out, the fire keeps a low, merry glow, and beneath his shirt–

“Oh!” The cord lies tangled in his chain, tag and stone knotted together in a way that takes a good moment of patience and another of dexterity to sort out. Still, it’s easy work, and with a few quick loops he lifts it over his head, stone pulsing gently in the dark. “Here you go.”

He’s seen his miss in firelight, but the stone’s glow does something to the shape of her face, to the round of her eye. In her hushed awe, it’s as if he’s never seen her before. “This…?”

“Sorry I borrowed it for so long.” Her gaze darts to his, and he can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking the same. “Thanks for lending it to me.”

“Ah!” Her fingers reach, plucking the cord from his grasp, an infinite amount of stones glittering in her eyes. “The stone! Did you–?” She hesitates, mouth rounding around words she doesn’t say. “Did you use it for something?”

He’d hung it on a darker night than this, moon blotted out by thick, reaching branches, but as it swings in her grip, a slow, pendulous spin– well, it’s hard not to think of the shadow that approached. How confidently the assassin had slipped through the trees, fleet and sure-footed as any night creature. And then for him to pull up short, surprise writ large in those dark, fearful eyes–

“It would be a good reference point,” Miss presses, breathless. “For the future.”

He huffs out a laugh, head dropping onto the pillow. Ah, yes, he can see it now. Uses: luring assassins out of hiding. “I don’t think it’ll be much help to any of you scholars, but it worked perfectly when I used it.”

The crystal sets her face into harder angles; her cheeks sit sharp, carved from marble, and her jaw settles into a contemplative pout. It’s not answer enough, he knows, not for her, but she’s never been one to push, not even when she held a pelt in her hand.

“I’d say it was thanks to that thing that I made it to Master’s side in time.” Her eyes turn to him, wide, but it’s the least he can give her, when she’s put both his freedom and her trust into his bloodied hands. “And I was also able to pass on Mitsuhide’s message.”

“Because of this?” She cradles the stone in her hand, tender, but it’s him that she turns to, satisfaction curling her lips. “So it was helpful? I mean– it was worth having?”

“Of course.” If his grin is easy, it’s only because he’s so practiced at giving it. At least, instead of kissing her. “It would have been worth having just because it gave it to me. The rest was gravy, Miss.”

Her sigh is heavy, contented, the tension eking out of her shoulders with each second that passes until she’s settled fully into the pillow’s soft down.

“Obi?” He almost doesn’t catch her soft hum, muffled as it is. But one of her hands has dropped between them, fingers gently stroking in those small, soothing circles, and even part of him is attuned to every molecule of air in this room, if only because there doesn’t seem to be enough. “Come over here?”

He rolls up onto his elbow, so close a deep breath might make them touch if he weren’t careful. But he is. Always. “Hm?”

In a single, smooth swoop, she loops the cord right around his neck. “Eh–?”

Her smile is too much, mischief honing it sharper than any other knife he’s taken between his ribs. He hardly even feels the stab. “I bequeath this to you.”

“Eh?” he tries again, fingers plucking at the leather, since she clearly didn’t hear him the first time.

“I want you to have it.” Her gaze settles where it dangles between them, and he’s not ready for how his chest tightens with the softening of her smile. “If it was helpful to you at Sereg, I’d like you to keep it.”

He stares. But it’s precious, he nearly says, but it’s no use, not when he can’t survive her inevitable answer, the one clear in her eyes already–

So are you, Obi.

“Miss.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, stilted and too low. “A while back, you asked about this scar.”

The neck of his woolens swoops low enough for a ragged edge to peep through, stark white against the shadow of his skin. He hooks a finger round it still, pulling it lower until he can feel the meat of that gnarled ruin against the tip of his fingers. In the pale light of the stone, he can see the way her eyes fix to it, body tense beside his.

“I never cared about getting injured.” The dark loosens his lips better than any bottle. “Or coming back. There wasn’t–” he licks his lips, only a wry smile left behind– “there wasn’t any point.”

Why worry about this strange skin when no matter how well he performed for them, his masters would never yield his reward. His pelt always laid under lock and key, a carrot and stick both: a well done job held the hope of seeing a glimpse of it, a chance to snatch it from their grasp; and a failed one–

Well, there were so many accidents that could happen to a beautiful pelt like this one. Fire. Scissors. A blade.

Obi might not have cared what happened to this body, but he could never return to his sisters with the proof of this life etched upon his skin,

His fingers clench in his fur. “Didn’t really see it as a drawback.”

The stone’s glow isn’t enough to illuminate the whole of Miss’s face, so he doesn’t so much see her jaw work as feel it, her restraint dragging her teeth down with a soft click. Her urge to speak is palpable, drawing the space between them to a taut thread but–

But Miss has always had that sense, the kind good healers always did, of when a wound needed salve or stitching, and when it just…needed to breathe. Which is what she does, muscles melting into the mattress beneath her, her fingers picking up those slow, soothing circles over his fur. If all this feeling is a festering poison, well– he needs to get it all out himself.

“I lived like that for a long time.” The words leave him on a sigh, back stretching into her touch, wrong skin as it is. “But then when I came back, and I saw your face…”

The memory burns brighter than the stone in his eyes; even now he can picture the way she stood, half turned toward him, fingers flexed in disbelief. The way steam had rose from her rounded mouth, clouding the air between them. How she had run, falling just short of being in his arms–

– and how she’d just narrowly missed the same later, her nails dragging through his pelt, jaw slack–

Ah, that’s really not what he should be thinking about now. Not when she’s pressed so tight against him.

“All I could think,” he rasps, meeting the dark evergreen of her eyes, “was how glad I was that I didn’t get seriously injured. So I could…”

Come back to you. He can’t make the words leave him; it’s too much, too far, but Miss–

She hears them anyway. Her breath catches, hand flexing flat on his pelt, a brand against his spine.

“So,” he breathes, heart pounding in his throat, “I guess I’m– haah.”

His hips jerk hard as his miss rakes runnels slowly down his spine. Every inch of his skin shivers, hair and teeth on edge, and it’s definitely…good. Too good for what he’s trying to say.

“You’re being distracting.” The warning rumbles out of him, and even to his own ears, it sounds more promising than scolding.

Miss hums, too innocent, too interested. “Should I stop?”

She does, as a demonstration.

“No!” He coughs, glad there’s no possible way she can see the heat slapped across his cheeks. “I’m just trying to–” have a serious conversation– “and you’re–” making it hard– “it’s hard enough, talking like this, when we’re on…”

Me. He can’t say that either, not when she’s looking up at him so guilelessly, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

“I think,” he grits out, finally, “that maybe I haven’t properly explained the, ah, connotations of touching…that.”

Her eyelashes flutter in the dark. “You like it, don’t you?”

“Yes.” It hisses out of him, not enough but also entirely too much. “A lot. More than I think you–”

“I almost made you…” Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and oh, how he wishes that were him. “Ah…come?”

He jerks, hands clenching in his fur to keep him still, keep him grounded. More than ‘almost,’  he nearly says, but even he isn’t so foolish. “You did.”

“Obi.” She squirms dangerously close, near enough that his cock, already hard, twitches like a mutt on a leash. “I am laying on it.”

Obi blinks, confused, but it comes to him– either keep your hand on the pelt, or lay on it.

Now his face burns. He’d said that, control hanging by a thread. Broken so effortlessly by her fingers in his hair.

“I…” His mind is blank, every thought static, but he manages, “I just wanted…”

She really, really doesn’t need to look so invested in what he wants. Not when he’s already flirting so closely with the shore.

He clears his throat. “I just wanted to say, I’ve come back.” To you is too dangerous to say. “I’m…home.”

Her chest rises in a long, hopeful breath, gaze fixed to him.

“Obi,” she breathes, laying her hand on his cheek. “Welcome home.”

He watches as her eyes flutter, heavy-lidded to half-mast, as her lips just barely part, chin angling upward, and– and on any other woman he’d know what that means. On any other woman he’d close this space between them, show her just what this man’s body could do, if he asked it, but with her–

It’s impossible. How can he fill the place Master already occupies?

He should move; he should roll back onto his side and leave her to do the same; he should know better than to have let them get this close again. “Miss–”

Her fingers sliding from the angle of his cheek into the bristle of his hair, and static sparks over the surface of his skin, chasing through his veins, curling his toes, filling him up until there’s nothing left but to ground himself at the source. He’s never been able to resist her, anyway.

He reaches for her, palm gently cupping the back of her head, but she reaches for him too, pulling him to her, and when their lips meet it’s not gentle. It’s no princely kiss, oh no, but hungry mouths needing to devour, tearing a groan from him that belongs to neither of his bodies but a different animal entirely.

She’s not close enough, not even when she rises up on her own side, pushing their bodies flush together, only cloth keeping them from the delicious friction he craves. He wants her, the proof of it obvious and hard against her hip now, but she doesn’t shy, only bucks into it, making sparks trail up his spine, behind his eyelids–

“Miss,” he tries again, but there’s nothing more to say, not when she squirms up him, pressing her lips even more fully against his. Nothing more to think when she scrapes her nails so deliciously over his scalp, moaning into his mouth.

His palm grips her hip, hard enough for him to swallow a gasp as he rolls her under him, aligning them the way they both want– at least, Miss doesn’t seem to be complaining, not when her legs wrap around his his, dragging him to her. She doesn’t complain when his tongue tests the gap between her lips, when he slips it inside her mouth entirely, and–

It’s not close enough, not when it’s never felt so right, when her body molds to fit his to perfectly. When even now he can feel her both above and below, his own skin calling to him in a way that it never has before, like he might wrap him and her in it both–

“Miss,” he moans, twisting his head away. It’s the only thing that keeps her from following him. “We should–we should stop.”

She blinks up at him, and even in the glow of the stone between them, her eyes are dark. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No! No.” He can’t imagine how she could think that, with his cock twitching against the curve of her hip. “I…you’re perfect.”

He can feel her breath catch beneath his ribs, as if it were his own, and oh, they are too close to be having this conversation. Still, he can’t bear to pull himself away, not when she bites her lip so anxiously and asks, “If you tell me what to do, I could–”

“No, Miss, it’s not–” he coughs, glad she can’t see his face– “I’m very, very interested in continuing…this.”

Her head tilts, curious, as are the fingers creeping beneath the hem of his shirt. “Then why do we have to stop?”

That’s becoming a more pressing question with every stroke of her fingers. “I’m just…” He licks his lips, mouth dry as they drift closer to his spine. His actual spine, not just…by proxy. “Maybe this isn’t something we should jump into this with both feet.”

“Ah.” Her smile is soft in the stone’s light, playful. “Do selkies get cold feet?”

A laugh huffs out of him. “We get nothing but.”

Her palm presses like a brand against his spine, drawing a low groan from his lips. “But you’ve always been so warm, Obi.”

“You are making a good case, Miss,” he admits, his hips rolling without his permission. It takes a concerted effort not to try to get Miss to repeat the noise she makes. “But I– I don’t know how this works.”

She stares, incredulous.

“I mean, obviously I know how to light fires. And tend to them,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss to her neck. “But I mean, the rest. With my…” He lets out a huff, frustrated. “I wasn’t old enough when I was…”

When he was taken from his sisters. It seems like the wrong time to be bringing up family when Miss is rubbing her bare leg against his. “I don’t know what this means, when I feel like this.”

“Obi?” Miss blinks, still beneath him. Her fingers trace the scar across his chest. “What do you feel?”

“A lot.” The admission bothers him more than he would like. “More than with…anyone else.” His breath hisses between his teeth, and finally he manages, “It’s never felt good when someone touches my pelt before.”

“Oh.” Her mouth rounds, and oh, how he wishes that were more of an invitation than it was. “Only…?”

He nods, cheeks burning. “Only you.”

“Ah.” Her palm flexes against his back. “So maybe…slower?”

“Yes,” he sighs, relief making his body sag. “ I just don’t know–” what this means– “what I can give you.”

“Obi…” He fingers trace those smooth, soothing circles, only this time on his skin. “You’re more than enough for me.”

“But I…”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Obi.” Her steady hands guide him beside her, fingers fanning out over his expanding ribs. “We don’t need to worry about tomorrow until the dawn. As long as I have you, we’ll take the days as they come.”

Miss squirms close, head resting on his chest, arm thrown tightly over him. “Goodnight, Obi. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

A breath shudders out from him. “Goodnight, Miss.”

Her breath evens into sleep, so quickly he might laugh, it not for–

For the way his pelt tempts him, for the way the night wind calls. Even now, Miss in his arms, he hears the song of his sisters, smells the salt of the sea.  

As long as I have you.

That’s exactly what he’s afraid of.

[simplyshelbs16xoxo]

'Madder Than a Hatter' Chapter 2: Where is my Mind?

FFN | Ao3 | Buy Me a Coffee?

.

.

Hatter looked so deeply into the looking glass, it was almost as if he was willing himself to see the world on the other side. “Alright. Wish me luck, Charlie.” He stepped up to it, and—

“Stop!” Jack Heart shouted. “I think I know where she is.”

Charlie bowed. “Your Highness.”

With a turn and a hop down, Hatter waited for Jack to elaborate.

The King looked a bit worse for wear, worry lines etched in his face. “She’s in the Wastelands.”

“No,” Hatter muttered in disbelief. “You don’t mean—“

“I’m afraid so,” Jack replied.

If Alice was in the Wastelands, she was in imminent danger. There is where the old asylum still stands, decrepit and abandoned. It came into existence in an even darker period of Wonderland’s history—a time, which thankfully, Hatter hadn’t lived through. The silence in the Looking Glass Hall was deafening. Everyone knew how perilous it was over there. The Wastelands fed on fear, and anyone who used it as a weapon was inhumane, even more so than Jack’s mother.

Charlie appeared paler than usual, but despite his fear, he would do whatever he could to help Alice. “We better get going, Harbinger.”

“Yes, of course,” Hatter replied, his voice breaking. If Alice was still alive, she was very strong, indeed. He had to believe she was still breathing even if he hardly could breathe, himself.

.

.

Alice was hypnotized by the flames of the fire; bright orange and yellow, the logs crackling and popping. She felt another’s hand on hers, squeezing it affectionately. Looking up, she was captivated by his eyes, the way he gazed at her. She loved him, but she couldn’t remember his name. It kept getting lost, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was just happy to be with her. “I wish I could stay here with you.”

He smiled sadly. “As much as I wish that too, you can’t. You need to break free, Alice. Don’t take the pills.”

“I stopped, but it didn’t work,” she told him, her fear reflected in her eyes. “Have I truly gone mad?”

“No,” he said softly. “Someone is trying to hurt you. Wake up, Alice. You need to wake up.”

Gasping for air, Alice woke forcefully. Tears slid down her cheeks and then she saw the blood. She screamed.

.

.

By the time Charlie and Hatter made it to the Forest of Wabe, it was already dusk. They decided to at least travel to the old camp so they would have a place to sleep. Upon arrival, Hatter took in everything, memories of his time here with Alice invading his mind. This is where they felt safe during that time, where they argued, and where he fell in love with her. He climbed off his horse, heading straight for the bed where she had once slept.

“I shall hunt for borogove,” Charlie announced. His face fell at the sight of his heartbroken friend. “Will you be alright, Harbinger?”

“Me? Yeah.” His voice went up an octave. It was an obvious tell that he was just trying to mask his pain. “I’ll be fine. Go on. I’ll start a fire.”

Hatter went to pick up a few logs when he heard a mischievous laugh. It almost sounded like it was coming from…above? He waited, staying silent for a few moments, but nothing else happened. With a shake of his head, muttering about imaginin’ things, he began building the fire. Just as the spark took, he heard the laugh again. This time when he looked up, there was a bright, wide smile floating between the branches of a tree.

Stripe by stripe, the Cheshire Cat revealed himself. “Hatter,” he greeted. “Why so glum?”

“As if you don’t know,” he accused. “You know everything that goes on in Wonderland, but you always keep it to yourself.”

Cheshire twirled, his head remaining still. “A shame about poor Alice,” he remarked, noticing the way Hatter stiffened at the mention of her. “Such a waste of a most curious mind.”

Hatter rolled his eyes. “Enough! Are you gonna be straight with me, or not?”

With a grin, Cheshire presented himself flat as a board and straight as an arrow at Hatter’s feet.

“For cryin’ out loud,” he said, kicking a small rock toward the fire.

“In all seriousness, Hatter, I have helped more than you know,” Cheshire informed him. “All you have to do is listen.”

Before Hatter could get another word in, the blasted cat had disappeared without a trace. “Bloody nuisance.”

.

.

As Charlie slept in his hammock, Cheshire’s words were keeping Hatter awake. He was determined to find some deeper meaning in them. There usually was, though it was never obvious enough for his liking. He felt his eyelids drooping, sleep ready to take over until it hit him. “Charlie!!”

Charlie fell out of his hammock. “What is the meaning of your rude awakening?!”

Hatter jumped out of the bed. “I know where Alice is: the old asylum in the Wastelands.”

Charlie’s eyes widened with fright. “But…that’s certain death. Who, with the exception of the old queen, would want to take Alice there?”

“Mary Heart is dead, but perhaps, she had a few loyal supporters. It could be them,” Hatter suggested. “It’s a long shot, but I’m more concerned with finding Alice than who is behind it.”

The old knight nodded in agreement. “But first, sleep. We need all of our strength, Harbinger. All is not lost yet. The Oracle…it tells me Just Alice is still alive. I can feel it deep within my bones.”

In the past, Hatter had scoffed at the old man’s trust in the black arts, but it had helped them on several occasions. If the Oracle said she was alive, then he knew she was. The only question was, how long did they have before it would no longer be true?

.

.

The blood was everywhere; on the floor, on the walls, on her hands. Before she knew it, she was on her knees beside the body in the middle of it all. It was him…the man in her dreams. Why couldn’t she remember his name? Why couldn’t she remember him? Surely they once knew each other. Alice couldn’t help but feel he was an important piece of this puzzle.

She cried out in anguish, her heart recognizing the agonizing pain the sight before her caused. “Not him. Please not him.” Uncaring if she would be soaked in the blood, Alice reached out, holding his face between her hands. “Don’t leave me. You can’t leave. Come back to me.” Nothing. She knew it was futile, but being mad with grief, logic was unrecognizable.

Briefly distracted by the screams from the other cells, Alice looked over at the tray by the door. The pills still sat in the little plastic cup, but the water made her realize how parched she was from screaming. When she looked back down, the body and the blood were gone. Slowly, she sat back and rubbed the tears from her eyes. “I’m not mad. I’m hallucinating, but I’m not mad.” Grabbing the cup of water, she downed it quickly. It soothed her throat, but she felt funny.

Eyes wide, she dropped the cup to the ground. Alice took a pill and tentatively licked one side of it. She laughed in disbelief, sounding almost crazed. It was a sugar pill. It was actually made of sugar. The water—there was something in it. Whatever it was, it must be causing her hallucinations. Avoiding the pills never helped, but she always drank the water. Who knew how long it would take to leave her system. One thing she knew for certain was that she needed to get out of this place.

[pastelsandpining]

Bittersweet

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Summary: Link stays a moment with a friend to think about the princess and her valiant, endless fight against evil incarnate--and what she might mean to him.

Words: 2112

Warnings: questioning of faith, survivor’s guilt if you squint, let me know if there’s anything I missed, it’s kind of just super bittersweet haha

Masterlist

Please do not comment anything HWAOC related as I do not want to be spoiled! :)

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“Master Link, are you alright?”

The Rito bard meant well. He was one of the many who’d been nothing but kind and helpful towards him since the very beginning. Yet his question made Link pause the drumming of his fingers against the wooden platform and frown.

“I’m just thinking,” he decided to say as he looked up.

“Ah,” sighed the bard, who turned his gaze towards the vast expanse of Hyrule. “Yes, happens to the best of us. Would you perhaps like some company?”

Link shrugged with a gesture to the open area besides him. 

“I apologize if I overwhelmed you with my song,” spoke Kass again as he took a seat. “But I suppose everything is a little overwhelming.”

“That’s generous,” Link replied simply and busied his fingers with the Sheikah Slate. He tapped through the compendium, through the photo album, through the map, just to have something to look at other than his friend. And after a moment of thought, he shuffled back from the edge of the platform. “She’d kill me herself if I dropped this.”

“Do you remember much about her?” Kass asked, ending another stretch of silence. 

Link frowned again, tracing the swirling patterns with his fingers. What could he say, really?

Everything from the mossy trees to the breath that sustained life carried the Princess of Hyrule with it. There were bits of her everywhere. 

She was nothing more than another ghost in the beginning—a face he couldn’t make out, a voice that called from nothing, a girl he should know but could not recall. But when he stood under the arching gate of Lanayru Promenade, with the overgrown grass scratching his boots and chilled wind from the mountain biting his nose, her face became as clear as crystal.

And suddenly, every petal of a Silent Princess carried her name, and every gust of wind echoed her voice, and every touch of the sun’s light mimicked her smile, and every Hot Footed Frog was a hypothesis, and every piece of Sheikah technology he uncovered was her passion, and every drop of rain was her grief, and every deactivated guardian was a totem of her power, and every glance towards the castle was a token of her love.

There were glimpses of her hiding a smile behind her hand. There were glimpses of her fingers brushing so softly against his that he wasn’t sure any of it was real. There were glimpses of his fingers tracing gentle lines over the shapes of her face while she slept. A kiss, light as a feather, to the inside of her wrist. A grab of her hand as they ran for safety. She was the heartbeat that kept Hyrule alive, and there were so few who knew that—but he did.

“She’s everywhere,” Link answered softly, wondering vaguely if she could see him or hear him from the confines of her prison. If she could, the wind was quiet.

Kass gave no response, but his gaze was something understanding, and he was compelled to continue speaking.

“I don’t remember everything,” he said and fiddled with the Slate again. “I don’t think I ever will. I didn’t know where to start at first. But she left me pictures and now everything reminds me of her. Sometimes she’s the only thing I know, and I don’t even know her.”

“Would you like to?” Kass asked, as if he really had a choice in the matter.

“I don’t even know if she’s alive,” Link spoke, but it wasn’t quite true. He couldn’t be certain, but a part of him simply felt that Zelda was, somehow, very much alive. It came with every warning she whispered out when the blood red moon was high in the sky. It came with every tap to the Sheikah Slate, which she once held and studied so dearly. It came with every glance towards Hyrule Castle, and each feeling of dread, of guilt that it caused. It came with every memory of her, whether she be submerged in a spring or invested in her studies. It came with the very life that filled the kingdom—the life that she’d been draining herself of for the past century.

“She is stronger than anyone gave her credit for. I would love to meet her.”

“She’s smart,” Link added, turning his gaze back to the ancient piece of technology in his hands. “Too smart. Research was her passion, and all that remains of it is with me. I hate to keep her waiting.”

“For you, Master Link, I believe she would wait however long it takes.”

If it were possible, she would. But fighting took so much that she didn’t have a forever to give. She’d served enough time.

“You said she loved me,” Link spoke at last. The words made his heart twist violently, like it wanted to wring out all of the pain. 

“Loves, yes,” Kass said softly, setting a feathered wing on his shoulder. “She loves many things and many people, and she loves very deeply. I believe it was my teacher’s one mistake—her sacrifice was not solely for you. Yet one does not throw themselves into the aim of a kill without harboring a deep connection.”

Link turned his gaze towards the castle again, wondering not for the first time if perhaps he’d loved her too. He woke with nothing, with hardly a name to himself, and still he followed her. She was but an echo in a vast and darkened tomb, and still he was compelled to listen to her, to obey her, to call out to this being that filled him with such a foreign familiarity. He’d never met her—not in this Hyrule, but he craved getting her back from the thing that had separated them a century ago. And he knew that simply being a knight devoted to his kingdom didn’t sink this far. Her voice was a comfort, her face in his memories was a safety he didn’t know he’d lost, and a simple knight attendant wouldn’t dream to see her smile, rumored as warm as the sun, with his own eyes.

And faintly, he could remember the feeling of her lips on his—a moment of clarity in what must’ve been the worst birthday on record. Goddesses, what he wouldn’t do to have her back.

“Can you love someone you don’t know?” Link wondered aloud, watching the clouds move slowly over the darkening backdrop of the sky. 

“There are little rules that love follows. Once you accept that, I think, then answers come easy.”

A soft sigh slipped past his lips. Kass was right of course, just as he always was, even if he didn’t know what to say to someone with a situation as twisted as his.

He knew Zelda before, had loved her before—and if the demon of destruction Calamity Ganon had become could surpass lifetimes on hatred alone, then why couldn’t love last past a century? It made him all the more anxious to end this, because only then would he know for sure. Only seeing her before him, feeling if she was truly solid, would answer his questions. And she was the only tie he had to his life over one hundred years ago.

“And if I fail? Again?” Link asked, and the weight of the Master Sword doubled, like the burden had never left his shoulders after all—because it hadn’t.

Everyone he’d met, they were all depending on him. And if he failed, then the events of a century ago would repeat. There would be no resurrection shrine this time, no sacred princess to hold the Calamity back as they waited for their hero. 

“I believe our fates have been set out long before us. There’s no changing what the goddesses have in store. Whatever happens was always meant to happen, and no fault for that lies on your shoulders, Master Link.”

“Would they let their kingdom burn?” Link said, gripping the Slate so tightly that his knuckles whitened. “Would they turn their backs on us again, on Zelda, after we’ve done nothing but show them loyalty?”

“Do you believe they would?”

He turned his gaze away, because he did. They’d already done so in the years they ignored Zelda’s pleadings. They’d already done so by allowing the slaughtering of Hyrule as their princess begged and cried for those same people to be saved. They’d done so by making their goddess incarnate wonder whether or not she was meant to be who she was. And they’d done so by ripping him from her grasp, then dropping him back into existence with nothing but a body and a deep, foreign sense of grief. And maybe this anger, this blame he felt towards the goddesses was not helping them to grant him the kindness he knew he needed for this journey. They’d taken everything from him, and now they expected him to turn to them for help and grovel at their feet and beg them to save their own kingdom.

How cruel the deities could be.

“It’s alright,” Kass continued, as if he simply knew. “I think everyone doubts their faith at times. With the suffering you’ve endured, how could you not?”

“What do you think?” Link asked. “About the gods.”

For once, the bard did not have an immediate reply. He hummed as he thought, and Link took to watching the first few stars peek through the dusk. A light twinkling at the end of the darkness. The irony was not lost on him.

“I think the more time that passes, the more clouded it becomes,” the Rito said at last. “The details of the goddesses become fuzzy, and we take to retelling victories alone. I think the gods of our world are very old, and communications have dwindled even in hours like these because they, too, are tired. But I know that we will never truly understand the gods. Oh, we may have our theories, but they have existed far longer than us.”

Link wondered partially if that was true. The sword told the tale of a thousand lifetimes, with a hero’s spirit tied to each one. And with every hero, there was a daughter of Hylia to go with them.

At this point, living a century after the time he once belonged in, he absolutely felt like a god that had lived forever. 

“I’m angry,” Link admitted, though he was sure he didn’t have to. “I’m angry they turned their back on us, and I’m angry for Zelda—that she’s had to fight alone for the past century after everything else she’d been through.”

“Are you also not fighting alone?” Kass asked. 

“No.” His reply was immediate, coming without a second thought, because he’d never truly been alone for any of this. Even before he met his newfound friends, Zelda guided him. And he could do no more than whisper into the air and hope that it carried on the winds to her, and that she was listening. “I’m not alone.”

“Neither is she,” the bard assured. “As long as there are people who remember her, and as long as you stand with intentions to help her, she will never be alone.”

The words made his voice catch and his lip tremble, so Link ducked his head and fiddled with the gloves over his hands. 

Zelda deserved the world as soon as she got out of her prison. It was time he stopped with his fears, because she was counting on him. All of Hyrule was counting on him—again. And he needed her like he’d known her his whole life.

“You'll be the first to meet her,” Link promised as he glanced to his friend. “She’ll love you.”

“It would be my honor, truly. And perhaps then I will write my own song about a boy who traversed mountains and deserts for the girl he held dear, and a girl who brought destruction to its knees for the people she loved.”

Link cracked a smile and said, “As long as I’m the first to hear it.”

“Oh, of course.”

He turned his gaze back towards the sky. The moon was just beginning to peak over the horizon, as big and white and calming as it belonged. He wondered vaguely if, wherever she was within that castle, she could see it too.

“I think I do love her,” he said softly.

“And there is no shame in that,” Kass replied. Another feathered wing was set upon his shoulder. He was grateful for the comfort. “I have faith that you will get her back for us. For you.”

“I’ll do anything.”

And he meant it.

[gremlin-writes-angst]

The Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

TW: Homophobia, internalized homophobia, implied transphobia(very brief), religious trauma

If I missed a trigger or if you spot a spelling mistake, please let me know. Feedback is encouraged.

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There was so much going on and yet it wasn't overwhelming, it was almost perfect. There were sounds of people happily chatting, wedding bells, and songs slightly louder played in the distance. The colorful glass from the church window shined on the people in the church. The church was packed for a royal wedding and at the altar, there was prince Kaminari but instead of a beautiful bride opposite him, there was a handsome knight from the enemy kingdom. The priest started the ceremony, the two grooms said their vows and kissed. It was anything less than magical. The priest began to announce the kingdoms’ new rulers.

"Lady's and Gent’s I introduce to you, your new Kings. King Denki Kaminari and King Eijiro Kiris--"

Before the priest finished his announcement the large church doors were opened and the...priest who was previously standing next to the kings, had teleported to the church’s entrance.

" I will not follow the rule of sinners like you" 

Suddenly all the happy wedding goers disappeared and reappeared behind the angry priest, joining him in ridiculing of the two kings

"We will not follow the devil"

"Our prince has been tainted by the devil"

The priest raises his hand and the crowd quiets down, Denki questions the priest

"What are you doing? You were just announcing us as the new kings and know you're over there protesting our marriage? YOU’RE THE MARRIAGE OFFICIANT?"

The priest ignored his King’s questions.

" Denki listen to me, the thing you married is the devil, he used his powers to make you believe you love him, but I know that you could never fall for another man. I can help you, just come to my side and I can exorcise that demon." 

The priest offers his hand out, then the rest of the people behind him do the same.

" Denki, they're lying, you know that they are trying to get in your head. I do love and you love me." 

Kirishima stood closer to Denki, also offering his hand to Denki. Denki looked between the two choices, he looks at the priest’s group, he sees his friends and family inside the crowd, telling him that the love of his life is the devil and he knows that they'll leave him if he stays with Kirishima. Could they be right? Did he love Kirishima, or was it just a trick? He meant every word of what he said in his vows, he spent days on his vows, he wanted to make sure Kirishima knew how much he loved him.  So they were wrong, he did love Kirishima, their love for each other was no trick. But if he chooses Kirishima he’ll lose all his friends, family, and his whole kingdom. Denki stressed over who to choose, the mob became louder and more aggressive while he thought but before he could make a choice, Denki woke up.

A dream? A nightmare? Why was I getting married, to a man, to a knight from the enemy kingdom? Why was I married to Eijiro Kirishima? It was a stupid dream, I would never marry a man, the kingdom was right, Eijiro Kirishima was the devil, the dream must be a warning to avoid the knight in the cellar. It can't be that hard, he’s just in the cellar that's in the basement dungeon, the key to said dungeon door was on the wall and the guard was always asleep. Ok, this was going to be hard, it's just too easy not to visit the Red Riot.

The day goes by quickly, but then night falls and I remember how easy it is to get to the cellar, how my dream is just a dream. How handsome the knight is. How sweet his voice is. How he waits up for me. How he stopped me from hitting my head. Before I knew it I was in front of the dungeon door with the keys in hand, but the thought of losing everything I know stopped me from going down. I silently returned the keys and went back to my room and slept, the dream repeated that night, and yet the pressure to choose felt even more stressful.

It was dusk again, I don’t remember the hours before now, but I was back at the door with the keys. I stand there for a while until eventually, I think

“It was just a dream.” 

So I unlock the door and descend down the stairs. Every step I take makes me more anxious, I repeat to myself that it was just a dream, my friends won’t leave me, I won’t be banished. I mean it doesn’t even make sense, I would never marry a guy, especially that brute in our dungeon, I barely even know him, and it's sinful.

“Then why are you going to see him?”

It’s a question in the back of my mind, and I don’t have an answer. It’s definitely not because he has a smooth husky voice or his muscular body, and it has nothing to do with his caring words that match his action. I am broken from my thoughts when said husky voice speaks

“If you keep walking you’ll end up hitting the wall”

I must have been so caught in thought because he was right, I walked right past him and was about to walk into the wall. I stay facing this wall, I wasn’t ready to face him, I mean I married him twice in my dreams, it is disgusting.

“Thanks, I guess”

“ No problem but are you going to turn around, I mean it’s kind of weird talking to the back of your head, especially when the front is so beautiful.”

I forget about the dream and why I was reluctant to turn around and l whip my body around and march towards his cell while accusing him of my dream.

“It’s your fault, you’re the reason, I’m not the evil one, it’s because you’re the devil. You sit there and you spew compliments at me, another man, from a rivaling kingdom, such words should be said to a woman!”

“ Sorry if I offended you, I was just telling the truth and if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stop but I thought it was mutual” “What in the hell gave you that idea”

“uh the lustful gaze you keep giving me”

“Lus-lustful gaze, I do no such thing, and especially not to you”

“So then what was that look on your face when you heard my voice, why did you constantly look at my arms like they were turkey legs”

“ it -it - it was ugggg”

“Because that’s the same look the women give me…which is unfortunate for them because I’ve only ever looked at men with such a gaze.”

“ But that’s sinful, you are tainted, I should leave and never return.”

I walk to the stairwell with the full intent of doing what I just said.

“That won’t stop the feelings you are having”

I turn back around, full of frustration, I reach through the bars and pull the hunk closer to me.

“Then take your stupid spell off, I can-cant be . . . I can’t be like you, I just can’t, you understand right. Even as the devil you have to understand what this will do to me, I don’t deserve that, I don’t want god to hate me or my family or friends. I deserve to love who I want without feeling like the worst human in existence!”

I pause and quickly whip the tears off my face. I look up at the knight, his face is full of sorrow, he looks sad . . . for me. I let go and fall to my knees, replay what I said, I try to find justification for it, I think of the dream. I was happy, I was loved and I was loving someone else. What if I am like the knight? The knight leans down

“ I can’t say I understand the mental fight that’s happening in your brain because I came from a palace where this wasn’t something I need to worry about but listen.”

The knight’s hand slowly reaches for my chin, his hands are calloused like most knights, yet his hands are still comfortable and somehow soft. I let him lift my chin up so I’m looking into his eyes, there like rubies, or sapphires

“Or like the pits of hell”

I ignore the thought and continue to stare into the knight’s eyes as he tries to comfort me.

“ The person you love isn’t a choice, it’s fate, and if God hates you for what you can’t control, then he isn’t manly nor does he deserve such a title. Hate is a choice, love isn’t.”

I get lost in his eyes for a little bit, but when I realize it I turn away, a little more aggressively than I wanted to. I move away and take a seat on the bench that is meant for the guards, I don’t want to leave but I can’t find it in me to talk, even though I hate the silence. I sit there staring at the ground feeling awkward, the knight must have felt the same way about silence because he started talking.

“ um back at my kingdom, the Toyomitsu kingdom, there real accepting of such things, like I’m our queen was born a prince”

I’ve heard of a man loving a man or woman loving a woman but this wasn’t something I had heard of. With my eyes still planted to the ground, I asked.

“ What does that mean?”

I could hear shifting from the cell but I refused to lookup 

“Oh uh sorry, I forget that our kingdom is more progressive and more diverse. So basically our queen was born like us, she had our body parts, but she wasn’t.”

“I still don’t understand”

“Ugg this is hard, so she felt like her brain and body weren’t the same, like her brain said, ‘Your a girl’ but her body parts were male parts.”

“So she is a girl but had a body similar to ours”

“ Yeah exactly, but she’s better at explaining it because, well she lives through it.”

“ So she’s your queen, what about children, whos going to take over the throne”

“ Oh her and the king have a kid, he’s just adopted but he’s still their son and still the rightful prince, he's gonna be a great king. Oh, anyways I was gonna say that our kingdom is really accepting and if you need they’ll probably let you in if you ever wanted to leave here.”

In shock, I lift my head for the first time since I sat on this bench

“Even though I'm the prince of the rival kingdom?”

“ We don’t care that much about this rivalry. So yeah you would be fine”

“ If they don’t care why are you here?”

“ Well because our kingdom is so diverse and recently outside kingdoms have discovered that the queen is trans, which is the term for that situation, by the way, I think I forgot to mention that. Anyway, the King is worried about future attack’s so he sent out multiple knights to different kingdoms.”

“Oh so we’re not your only threat”

“Your not even a threat, your kingdom is crumbling”

“Oh wow thanks, I’ll remember that when I become king.”

“ You mean IF you become king”

“What is that suppose to mean ‘Red Riot’”

For the rest of the night, I joked and listened to Kirishima’s stories. I wish to see his home kingdom one day it sounds pretty cool. Before I knew it I was asleep and having another dream. It was different, there were no choices or stress. It was just Kirishima and me out on a hill having a picnic, eating food together, he fed me strawberries and the dream ended with a kiss, maybe falling for the knight wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe my wedding dream was a warning about my kingdom and not Kirishima. I woke up and realized I was still in the dungeon, and that it was almost time for the guards check up on Kirishima, so I started to sneak back up to my room, I successfully avoided the guards on my way there, I acted as if nothing happened, I’m a pretty good actor if I do say so myself.

In the king’s throne room, a royal knight is kneeling before his king, he comes with important information.

“Lord Kaminari, I found the dungeon door unlocked and the keys on the guard bench this morning”

“ Well don’t leave them there”

“ I didn’t sir, I believe someone is sneaking into the dungeon at night.”

“ How would that be possible, we have Shinsou guarding the keys at night?”

“ I believe that he may have fallen asleep on duty.”

“ Well we can’t afford to get new guards or to switch any of the guard’s jobs, just move the keys to a new location along with Shinsou, Shinsou will continue to guard them. I want you to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“Yes Sir”

“You are now dismissed Monoma.”

All characters belong to Horikoshi and his series Boku No Hero Academia

[a-libra-writes]

When the GoT Characters Realize They’re In Love With You

LETS be CUTE. ended up longer than I intended? o well. this was requested! if i forgot a fav, just look longingly into my ask box.

In this preference, the following characters will be figuring their shit out: Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Benjen Stark, Jory Cassel, Dolorous Edd, Mance Rayder, Tormund Giantsbane, Theon Greyjoy, Yara Greyjoy, Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont, Missandei, Grey Worm, Tywin Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Jamie Lannister, Sandor Clegane, Bronn, Petyr Baelish, Stannis Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, Margaery Tyrell, Brynden Tully, Edmure Tully, Brienne of Tarth, Ramsay Bolton, Roose Bolton, Oberyn Martell, Beric Dondarrion

NED STARK

When you two were “courting” - really, it was mostly long walks and you both talking and grinning for hours - Ned wondered if the happy, comforted feeling he got around you was love. He didn’t have much experience, admittedly, but he knew he wanted to marry you and be around you like this all the time. When you two finally did marry and he held you in his arms that evening, he wondered about it again. This must have been love; the feeling was stronger now. He almost didn’t want to let you go in the morning.

This seemed to keep happening. Each time he was sure, you’d do something lovely and charming all over again. Whether it was as simple as giving him sweet encouragement before he left you for the day or gently teasing him while you both curled up in bed, Ned just kept wanting and loving you more. If you ever asked him when he fell for you, Ned didn’t think he could answer. It felt more like his feelings kept snowballing from the moment you two met.

ROBB STARK

Robb had liked you a lot from the first day he met you, many years ago. You were a lot like Arya, wanting to run and play with the other children at Winterfell, heedless of how dirty your dresses and face were by the end of the day. You hit each other with sticks while playing knights, you explored the Godswood with Jon and pretended not to be scared when dusk started falling, and you were the worst about pulling Robb into your pranks on Theon.

Your father became sick, and you couldn’t visit Winterfell as often anymore. Robb was surprised how much he missed you. Even when you sent letters and he wrote back, they just made him feel gloomy. Even after years passed and the letters trickled to nothing, Robb thought about you with a full heart. When King Robert was coming to Winterfell, he heard you were, too, and the young lord was admittedly more excited about the latter. 

You arrived at Winterfell with your family, almost in slow motion. Robb couldn’t believe the cute, small girl he played with had become a beautiful young lady, in a fine silk gown and furs. You gave him a big hug, like you always used to do, and Robb felt like his heart was going to pop as he returned it. His feelings overwhelmed him, but he knew they were true. He just needed a good time to tell you.

SANSA STARK

You two hit it off right away at King’s Landing, far before her world fell to pieces. Sansa was drawn to your beauty and easygoingness right away, and you two became inseparable. It was different from her friendship with Jeyne, and the little chats she had with other ladies growing up. You were her dearest friend, she told herself. Later, when it all became dark and horrible, you were the only one still there, risking your life and your family’s just to help a “traitor’s sister”. You were her very, very dearest friend.

On the terrible days, she’d think on how protective and kind-hearted you were, a real knight hiding in a silk dress. One evening you sneaked into her bedchamber, bringing treats she liked and brushing her hair in an attempt to cheer her. You thought you were doing a poor job, but Sansa held you close and rested her head against your chest. As you pet her hair and brought her close, she had a sudden wish that you’d kiss her. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of it before, and so Sansa sat there, snuggling into you and hoping somehow you’d understand her feelings.

JON SNOW

It hadn’t been too hard for Jon to form a little crush on you once he figured out you were actually a girl disguised as a brother of the Night’s Watch. It felt a little silly, because it’s not as if he liked you just because of gender. You were friendly and helpful, treating him fairly from the first day he arrived, and he was impressed with your skill with the sword. No, his crush started up because of all these things, and once he learned your secret, it was like you both had a bond. You could rely on each other more, and he felt like you were more free around him. You didn’t have to mask your voice or keep your head down as much.

The crush began to grow into something more without his realization. It grew every time you two shared a joke, every time you mended his clothes with such care, or messed up his hair and bluntly told him to cut it already. Jon was willing to admit it to himself, fine, he was in love. He didn’t want to tell you. First, it would make things complicated with the vows you both took, and secondly, he didn’t want to mess up a friendship he held so dear. It didn’t stop him from sulking or looking wistfully after you when he thought no one was looking - more than once Edd had to pull him back to reality with a hit to the head.

BENJEN STARK

It was actually adorable how you stammered when he mentioned knowing your little secret. How did you manage to fool the whole Night’s Watch, with a reaction like that? Benjen assured you that he wouldn’t tell, but he made it clear he thought you had made a mistake. The Wall wasn’t a place for a woman, but he’d heard good things from the others. You worked hard. Out of a sense of protectiveness, Benjen always visited you when he came back from rangering. Just a few times he’d taken you with him, but that’s when you really got to know each other. Benjen found that he liked the sassiness you hid from the others, and you were more than glad to give him lip when you felt he deserved it.

Benjen initially thought of you as something of a little sister, but those feelings began to dull and be replaced with something stronger. The more you smiled, rolled your eyes or even shoved him whenever you both joked, the more he craved it. Sometimes Benjen would laugh off his feelings, shaking his head at how foolish he was being. Other times, usually when he was alone and without you, he’d dwell on them with more solemnity. There was never one moment when he had a realization, it was almost as if the idea began whispering to him, day after day, and he steadily listened more and more. 

JORY CASSEL

Jory’s feelings initially started friendly, as he was often cordial with the visiting lords and ladies of Winterfell. Right away he liked your own friendliness and willingness to talk, especially since some of the better off ladies often glanced right past him. You were so easy to talk to, and pretty, to be blunt about it. When you visited, he was always pleasantly surprised you remembered to come see him.

Something shifted in your friendship eventually, or maybe it was Jory’s feelings that were changing. He started to notice the dresses you wore, his eyes lingering on your hips, and how soft your hands were when you took his. He remembered the things that made you laugh, and he found himself taking you places around Winterfell and Winter Town he thought you’d like. He dared to ask when you’d come back to Winterfell, and then he’d wait for you. Jory had to face his feelings when his uncle good naturedly joked about how often you two were together, “like there’s a wedding on the way”, and after blushing to his ears, Jory couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

DOLORUS EDD

Liking the only girl in the Night’s Watch - one who was disguised as a man, no less - was so cliche that it almost gave Edd a headache to think about. Thank the gods the others were too stupid to figure it out, and although you eventually trusted Jon and Sam with your secret, Edd was the first. The three of them made a point to protect you, and while Sam and Jon might occassionally blush at your smile or something you said, Edd was positive he was the only one feeling these stupid things.

You two were together the most, after all, having the same work assignments. Even if you were painfully optimistic and sometimes a bit naive, you were sweet. Dressing as shoddy as the rest of them and enduring the same conditions did little to diminish the way your eyes twinkled, as if you weren’t stranded on the forgotten edge of the world. Edd spent many nights, often bunking right next to you, grumbling and cursing his luck. He’d rather not ruin the friendship he admittedly cherished, and at least he could admit that. 

MANCE RAYDER

He knew you were clever right from the start, like you could see through him and all the men around you. You wouldn't say much, just watch him with those eyes he liked so much. Eventually you became part of Mance's inner circle, trusted as much as Tormund, a trusted advisor who became a friend. Sometimes in the evenings you'd lean on him and he'd run a hand through your hair while humming one of his silly songs, or he'd play that damned lute and wink at you from across the room. 

Mance was quite aware of his growing crush on you, and he didn't hide it. He wouldn't call it "love" just yet, but it didn't take long before he would. He wasn't sure when it started, but suddenly things felt a little duller when you were away. When you leaned on him, he couldn't resist giving a peck on your brow. He figured he had plenty of time to tell you. 

TORMUND GIANTSBANE

You already knew Tormund liked you, he hardly made a secret of it. He was always loudly telling others how great you two would be together, he often tried to impress you in battle or during spars, and you knew he admired your skills in battle as well as your beauty. Tormund didn’t want to rush you into anything, of course, but he also couldn’t help but wear his feelings on his sleeves. It was just the sort of man he was. Even if you didn’t want him, he’d still want to fight alongside you, and drink with you afterward. You were a fun and lively person, a damned good warrior, and his wounded pride would get over it.

As Mance’s plans began to progress and the cold crept closer, Tormund began to feel differently. He started to worry about you and became protective. The future was becoming uncertain, and even among that uncertainty, you were rallying your men and keeping that fearless look he loved so much. He could admit that to himself, he did love you, and he’d do his damnedest to fight by your side until the very end.

THEON GREYJOY

Theon was a master of deflecting his feelings and lying to himself. A seasoned artist, one could say, and he certainly wasn’t going to fall over his feet for some girl. Granted, this was the most spirited girl he’d ever known, someone who didn’t glare daggers or whisper behind his back when he arrived at Winterfell all those years ago. A girl who didn’t take his shit, often dragged him to play with her as often as she pulled him to the archery range and demanded lessons. A girl who started whooping and hugging him when she hit her first bullseye.

A girl who was a young woman now, one who still whooped when she hit her mark and looked at him with a smirk. You still elbowed him for being a jerk, but now you’d kiss him when he said something sweet. You both still liked to sit on the top of Winterfell’s walls and watch the sunset, but now Theon had to start admitting to himself that he was spending more time watching the sun reflect off your eyes and hair than paying attention to what you were saying.

YARA GREYJOY

Yara was already fond of you on her ship and in bed - for the former, you were reliable and fierce but could follow orders. For the latter, it was the same, although she preferred it when you acted up and told her what to do. You and Yara did little to hide your relationship, and anyone opposing it would be lucky to get just a fist to the teeth. You both weren’t exclusive, and you hadn’t talked about any “deep” feelings. She was more often than not with you, drinking and fighting and screwing. 

You began to notice how irritable she was becoming when you'd flirt with others, especially women. Neither of you acknowledged jealousy, because that would mean acknowledging other things. Those nameless feelings ended up hitting Yara hard one evening, when you were sitting on her bed in nothing but her shirt. You were discussing something about the ships, but she kept focusing on the hickeys she left on your neck and thighs. The fact that you could leave tomorrow and be with someone else, anyone else, was filling her with discomfort. It didn’t feel like possessiveness; Yara wasn’t that sort of woman … but it did feel like something she had to finally address.

DAENERYS TARGARYEN

Daenerys was fond of your boldness. No matter if you were facing opponents in battle or butting heads with Jorah, you said what you meant, often with a furrowed brow and pouting lips that were too cute. You were many other things, too, capable and intelligent and kind. When she was still mourning her sun and stars, travelling across that vast desert of nothing, all the deceit in Qarth - you were there at her side, with that boldness and honesty that sometimes drove her up a wall. 

You were a close friend, the closest she’s ever had, and it was only sometimes that she daydreamed about you sharing her bed. On an otherwise normal morning, you came back from scouting with a wound. Daenerys tended it herself while scolding you. You just smiled at her, a little embarrassed at getting a “told you so” from your khaleesi. Drogon interrupted by perching on your shoulder and curiously picking at your hair. Daenerys was stunned, as he was the most temperamental of the three dragonlings and he allowed you to touch his neck and snout. 

“Sometimes when you’re away he’ll come see me.” You shrugged. “He never stays long. I think he just wants my food.”

It brightened her to see her favorite person being accepted by her children, and all at once the indecision in her mind stopped. If her dragons trusted and accepted you, then she’d let her feelings blossom. 

JORAH MORMONT

It was easy enough to get a fluttering in his heart whenever you smiled at him or nudged him, telling him to lighten up a little, so Jorah didn’t think too much of it. You were a pretty, young girl who gave her kindness easily. It was also easy enough to get a little twinge of jealousy when you joked with others the way you did him, but it was a foolish feeling to set aside. He began to notice that you’d only go to him for certain things, like training with a sword like Westerosi did, help with treating a wounded man, or to ask a myriad of questions about what it was like across the sea. 

He felt his feelings were a bit inappropriate, given the age difference, but Jorah was often at mercy to them. He at least knew when his crush had grown to something much deeper; he could pinpoint the moment. During a great feast the Dothraki were throwing, he stayed up with you, and you dozed off on his shoulder, holding onto his arm. Even when Jorah tried to move you somewhere comfortable, you stubbornly clung to him. It was just so endearing and unexpected, his cheeks were flushed the whole time as he finally pried you off and carried you to your tent.

MISSANDEI

She initially regarded you as another loyal follower to Daenerys, albeit one who used her sword more than her words. As Missandei began to gradually lower her walls and learn to be a person again, she found herself appreciating your outgoing personality, even if it could be overwhelming at times. You certainly went out of your way to help her feel more comfortable with new situations, you liked explaining things to her, and you listened and appreciated when she did the same for you. It was odd to have smiles come so easily now, she just couldn’t help it when you said something funny or gave her such genuine gratitude. 

Truthfully, Missandei didn’t think she’d have a chance to feel something like this. It was scary, but exciting. It was something she could call her’s. The idea was so novel that Missandei almost didn’t notice just how much her feelings were growing. On a whim, she decided to wear a necklace with a little charm you carved for her. It made her happy, but what was even better was the look on your face when you noticed her wearing it. Missandei realized she wanted to see that silly, precious look on your face all the time, and she was proud she was the cause of it.

GREY WORM

This was a strange new path he found himself in, but he’d follow it head on and never look back. Grey Worm had a name that was his now, a leader he could follow, although not everything was so simple. This new world he was let into could be confusing and sometimes overwhelming, but you were there to guide him with patience. You were another warrior of the khaleesi, and he admired the strength of your resolve paired with a gentleness he soaked up. Grey Worm had something to look forward to: The impromptu reading lessons you gave him, some new fruit you wanted him to try, even just telling him to look up and ask what he saw in the clouds. Every day you gave him something new. 

Missandei was the one who brought it up when Grey Worm described his feelings. It was painful and wonderful at the same time. He needed words to attach to these strange new sensations. Missandei suggested that he think for a long time about you, and what you meant to him. It didn’t take long for Grey Worm to come up with that - you were someone special and irreplaceable, someone he wanted to protect. The word “future” was one he liked, the idea that he could be at your side, from days to months to years.

TYWIN LANNISTER

You had taken to the role of “second wife” better than anyone anticipated, including Tywin himself. You had a serene grace, a quiet dignity, an elegance to all you did. All fine traits for a lady, but it was that razor cunning that he never accounted for. It continued to take him off guard, when he thought he was well beyond surprising. You handled the household, courtiers and lords with equal competence and refinement.

There was a parlor you favored because it’s massive windows overlooked the sea. Initially, Tywin rarely bothered you at these times, even if it was on the way to his study. Now he found himself lingering in the doorway. Like always, you rested against a collection of pillows, a book in your lap, a fine dress of crimson pooled around your legs.

In him grew an old foreign feeling, a searing emotion that felt more than fondness, one he didn’t want to name.You glanced up and noticed him there, and gave him a smile that just made the longing worse. The Lady of Casterly Rock, not “the second wife”, regarding her husband with a distinct warmth in her eyes. Tywin wouldn’t join you just then, but that evening you’d notice a tenderness as he held you. 

TYRION LANNISTER

Tyrion was anticipating you’d cry. Maybe throw a few glasses around, scream or try to beg. Maybe he had been spending too much time around his sister in the months as Hand - you did no such thing. Instead, you greeted him with civility. The marriage was thought up by both your fathers, sprung upon the two of you out of nowhere. You were such a pretty girl, Tyrion thought. He pitied you, but you had no such pity in your eyes. 

You made an effort in getting to know him. Tyrion felt he should return the same effort, but his walls began to steadily fall as you two talked and visited more. You had similar taste in books, for one. Tyrion was proud of how he could get you in stitches, and you liked the discussions you two held long into the night. This is good, Tyrion thought. An arranged marriage, where the two parties respected one another, even became friends? You two were luckier than most.

Still, it sat strangely with Tyrion after a while. On an evening when he was reading in bed, you rested your head on his chest and you talked for a while. He was sure his hammering heart would wake you up, and right when he was about to blurt it all out … you were asleep. Tyrion was sure he wouldn’t sleep the whole night, but that was fine. He’d tell you when the time was right. For now, he felt like the luckiest man to be the one to stroke your back while you dreamed.

JAIME LANNISTER

It was just a fun game. Plenty of ladies still mooned after him in spite of the way their fathers and brothers whispered behind his back. Sure, you weren’t the mooning type, or one to gossip. You spoke to Jaime like any other respectable Kingsguard, actually, although you weren’t above teasing here and there. Cersei encouraged it, urging him to get information from you. Supposedly, your family was plotting against the throne. Jaime wasn’t clear on the details, but he didn’t need them. It would be easy enough.

It was easy to laugh along with your jokes, because many of them were genuinely funny. Pretending his affection and fake flirting was also easy, because you had such a cute blush and you could dish out as well as you got. It was fine if he blushed too, or kissed you without thinking about it, because that would fool you better. Sharing your bed wasn’t at all part of the plan, but that made getting information easier, too - not that he thought to ask. You were precious in the candlelight, giving him nothing but affection, and he had plenty of time to ask later. Later, he told Cersei when she came itching for information. He’d have it later.

When later came, you had confessed to him, curled in his arms and sweet as ever. Jaime had to return the confession, of course, keep up the game, but the realization hit him like a charging boar. It wasn’t a game anymore. He wanted to keep you in his arms, and his bed, and that was a terrifying thought.

SANDOR CLEGANE

He wished you weren’t so damned nice to him. It was one thing to speak on such friendly terms with your fellow ladies in court, it was another thing to give a dog the time of day. He hated that you sought him out, tried again and again to speak to him. All those sweet things left a pain in his chest that he’d rather not think of. Sandor didn’t want to give into the kindness and brightness in your eyes, so he tried distracting himself with drink and whores, although it just left him with a far worse, more sour pain. It was easy enough to avoid you, even if it didn’t help the pain much. 

When the city came under attack during the Battle for Blackwater, the idea to flee was immediately accompanied by the idea to get you the hell out. It sent Sandor in a near panic to imagine you being killed or worse by the invading soldiers. He couldn’t leave behind the woman he loved - okay, fine, he’d admit that. Maybe not to you, but to himself, and that spurred him on to find you. Once he did, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. You both were getting out of the Red Keep, getting far away from King’s Landing. The whole damned place could burn, for all he cared, but he wasn’t leaving you before that happened.

BRONN

Bronn was not a “feelings” man, and he’d laugh himself into a fit if anyone suggested it, let alone thinking it himself. He certainly didn’t get feelings for perfumed highborn ladies, as beautiful and wicked as they were. You played the dutiful daughter, but you delighted in running about with Bronn. He was more than happy to indulge a lady in her little rebellion, but somewhere down the line it got blurry. Sharing his bed started to become different, something less passionate and more… tender. He found his thoughts drifting to you at the strangest times, especially if he glanced at something that reminded him of you. Worse yet, he was beginning to lose his appetite for whores. When he yearned for a body, not just anyone would do. Even the priciest whores wouldn’t have that smile with mischievous eyes to match, or the graceful fingers that ran through his mess of hair and scolded him for letting it get wild. 

Bronn was contemplating this with some irritation as he waited for Tyrion to exit Littlefinger’s famed establishment. The Lannister had a grin like cat playing with a canary. “What’s the matter, Bronn? There’s plenty of lovely ladies - well, perhaps they aren’t a certain lady. I can see why you’d be disappointed.”

The realization hit Bronn like a fist to the face, and he aggressively tried to shove it all down. He managed to snark back at Tyrion with a shrug of his shoulders, but he hated how the little shit figured it out before he did. 

PETYR BAELISH

He liked the way you called him “my lord”, as though you meant it, and he was even more amused when he realized you did. You were a lady of easy courtesy and grace, used to wearing fine things and being chased by lords with far less fine things. You’d grown up in this court, and while many wrote you off as just another pretty - albeit rich - courtier, he could see much more. He’d made a point to be kind to you, even give you advice in an almost brotherly way, although he certainly never had any familial intentions for you. 

He liked how learned you were, how much you read and wanted to debate this or that, but then you’d be so adorably naive about other things. It was a little mean to lead you on, he’d think, but then he couldn’t help himself from complimenting your gown or gently tucking your hair into place. Maybe he could have a little fun, but then he’d mercilessly keep any suitors with the same thoughts away from you. Petyr was willing to fool himself for so long, until he asked a harmless question. Your father was so protective of you, so why did he allow you to visit with him?

You replied with some embarrassment, and he knew right away, even before you began speaking. He wasn’t considered a threat. Even with his position, he had no real lands, no real lordly title worth anything. He hid it well, but the indignation hit Petyr at once, and plans already began to spin in head.

STANNIS BARATHEON

He’d been feeling all sorts of … things toward you for some time. He was still stubbornly telling himself that he must’ve been imagining it, you were just being a dutiful wife - albeit a very sweet, considerate and thoughtful one. The denial dropped on a seemingly innocuous morning. He’d woken up at an ungodly hour to sail to Dragonstone, tending to business in a castle that was technically his but one he found no pleasure in seeing. 

You were suddenly at his side, and before he could ask what you were doing up, you kissed him. You bade him safe travels, and almost seemed sullen as you said you’d miss him. It seemed genuine, not something to say out of obligation or courtesy - for gods’ sake, dawn had just barely begun to break, and you were still in your nightclothes. You’d hurried all the way here in that nightgown, past servants and knights, just to make sure you didn’t miss him. 

Stannis’ cheeks burned, only getting worse when you kissed him again and asked him to write. The fact he had to sail to Dragonstone, attend business there and sail back alone, without waking up to these kisses and smiles, was a downright dreary thought. 

DAVOS SEAWORTH

He thought he was too old for silly crushes, so Davos didn’t think much of how much he liked your smile and admired your kindness. You were a lovely young woman who would be quite wicked and cunning when she needed, but always in pursuit of helping others. You often visited together and discussed the war, as your father was exceedingly loyal to Stannis. As you two became closer, he listened to worries you had and comforted you, while you did the same for him. A friendship was more than enough, he told himself. You were much younger, and no doubt you’d be married off soon. You’d have to move away to your husband’s keep, and that thought saddened Davos, but maybe you’d be kind enough to remember him and send a letter or two.

He started to become more and more uncomfortable with that train of thought the longer the war went on. On the eve of the invasion of King’s Landing, before he boarded the ship, he knew he had to see you. You both sought each other out at the same time, and Davos felt his heart break as you took his calloused, world-weary hands in your own soft ones. The fact he may not come back hit him, but he would - he would, Davos promised you, and he’d tell you something he’d been thinking about for a long time.

MARGAERY TYRELL

Margaery is the sort of lady who appreciates wit, humor and beauty. Right off the bat, she knew you had all three, and she wanted to be your friend right away. You two would spend hours together in Highgarden, attending big exciting balls or just having lowkey walks through the rose gardens. It was no secret that you were Margaery’s favorite, and she’d long begun to put aside other ladies her age to spend time with you instead.

One of her favorite things to do with you was get ready for feasts in her lavish bedroom. It was hours before the event, so the handmaidens hadn’t even arrived to style your hair. You and Margaery were just laughing and joking while she looked through her closet. She’d talked you into wearing a dress she insisted on.

Margaery was a little too excited to shimmy you out of what you were wearing, she definitely looked and she was glad you didn’t shy away or ask her to turn around. She helped you clasp the back and the smell of your shampoo and the closeness of your body made her fumble the clasps more than once. She knew it was time to stop kidding herself; she was in love with you.

BRYNDEN TULLY

Your friendship with Bryden was odd but it came easily. Despite the difference in status - you were a lady, but your house was minor compared to the Tullys - and the more obvious age difference, you two got along like birds and summer. Your laughter was something beautiful, and Brynden enjoyed being the one having you in stitches. You’d dish out sharp remarks and wit to men who bothered you, which humored him more than it should have. Even if you two had a game of being the dutiful knight to the charming lady, the feelings he was catching were not very knightly. He brushed off your lingering touches as something he was overthinking and tried to tell himself your subtle flirtations were unintentional. He wasn’t sure when his crush turned to an ache, but he was determined to ignore it. 

The breaking point came when he heard a rumor you were well and truly engaged, already being packed up to Dorne - Dorne! it was so far from the Vale - and the panic, dread and rage hit him all at once... He learned sometime later it was just a rumor. The relief hit him all at once, and Brynden finally admitted to himself that he, an old knight who should have known better, was in love with you. He’d have to do something quick, too, because he couldn’t take another shock like that. What if the next one wasn’t a rumor? 

EDMURE TULLY

Your family was one of the poorer Riverlands houses, and one of the farther ones. They weren’t always able to attend the feasts and celebrations at Riverrun, not when your mother had to sell her jewels so your household could eat. Not when you’d be showing up in the same gown as the last time, albeit shorter and tighter because you’d grown out of it. The shame your family felt was a far thought now that the war was on. They’d defend their land and lord with everything they had, little as it was.

You were just as fierce as your father and brothers, with a cunning for strategy that even Robb and Brynden took notice of. Edmure was all admiration, and he’d tell you as much after you both spent an hour discussing a plan of attack. He realized he was hopelessly, foolishly smitten after Catlyn had offered you one of her old gowns. You had been staying in Riverrun for some time as their guest, and she insisted. It was one thing for you to be so capable and witty, now you were looking stunning in a gown of deep navy blue, with your hair tied back and braided to match. Edmure was alternating between blessing and cursing his sister for doing such a thing.

BRIENNE OF TARTH

The idea of guarding an especially wealthy highborn lady had brought some dismay to Brienne, as if your family thought she was some sellsword. The first time she met you, she was taken aback by your bright smile. In the following months, her surprise at your kindness and goodness began to form into admiration, and from there she was becoming smitten. Brienne wouldn’t dare admit such a thing to herself, but her heart was a traitor. Anytime you took her hand and asked after her injuries or you proudly called her your knight, without a trace of shame, it would beat so fast she’d almost get dizzy.

Brienne finally let herself admit her feelings, and fall fully in love, on a seemingly average day. She was supposed to be on duty, but you’d hear none of it, insisting she sit next to you in the gardens. You were delighted by the latest book you were reading, and you had to share it with her. It was some sweet love story, and Brienne just smiled gently and listened as you read it to her. It would be okay if you never knew, the knight told herself, as long as you’d always hold her dear like this. 

RAMSAY BOLTON

You didn’t cry. You didn’t get angry. You often ignored him. Sometimes he could get a glare or a heavy sigh, but for the most part, the wife his father arranged for him didn’t indulge in his attempts to frighten her. He’d try all sorts of way to upset you and throw you off, but you weren’t afraid, not even of blood or bodies. He was sullen, like a child being ignored, and his usual women became boring in comparison. He knew how they’d react, but what about you? 

And sometimes you’d do strange things. You’d treat wounds he received, try to fix his clothes when he had to appear before lords, even brush his hair if you felt like he hadn’t done a proper job. Even if you were scolding him the whole time, Ramsay liked it. You were finally giving him the attention he craved. And finally, you smiled. You had a beautiful smile, especially when it was just for him. 

ROOSE BOLTON

Roose had known from your first meeting that he coveted you, in the way a boy covets a friendly hound or a first sword. He was in need of a wife, and here you were, beautiful and young, from a good family that could be easily persuaded. It wouldn’t be more than that, he thought. But you kept surprising him. It started with your wit, which you hid underneath courtesies, and then your temper, which you hid with charming smiles. You played coy to his intentions and Roose kept up with the tempo you’d set to this dance of cat and mouse. 

Even when he strong-armed your family into accepting the match, it didn’t feel like he “won”. It was just a new phase to the game, new dances with your cleverness, which he admittedly underestimated. He may have had you in his bed, but even underneath him, you could capture his heart with a smirk and a kiss. He didn’t say it outright, nor did you comment on his feelings. It was a hard fact he couldn’t look away from: His lady wife had him wrapped around her pretty fingers.

OBERYN MARTELL

Oberyn is the type of man to have fleeting passions and easy affections, but the matter of “love” was something quite different. In fact, he avoided such attachments, and he discouraged them when he noticed someone catching feelings for him. He thought you two had a perfectly agreeable arrangement - you both enjoyed each other’s company, both in and out of the bedroom, and neither of you pushed to define your relationship.

He thought of you often - in the company of others, when he was alone. Wondering what you were doing and missing your easy laugh and smiles. He didn’t care if you two were just talking in the gardens or walking the markets. One morning he woke up alone, and went looking for you. You were basking by a windowsill, looking like some kind of goddess as the sun wreathed you in light. You were just reading and idly running a finger through your hair, but Oberyn couldn’t look away, and after several minutes, you glanced up and winked at him. Oberyn felt like the luckiest man, then. He wanted to see you and have your smiles every morning.

BERIC DONDARRION

He already liked you from the start, and made an effort to try to get to know you and speak with you when you joined the Brotherhood. You had a good heart, even if the war had begun to wear on your spirit. You agreed to follow the Brotherhood for the sake of protection and got to know the unusual former lord and the red priest. It didn't take long for Beric to get a little crush, and he knew it. Beric was fine not telling you, even as his feelings became stronger with each day.

He told himself it was because you two had plenty of time, and he didn't want to push you. Perhaps it was fate when the next time he "died", you were there to witness it, and his resurrection. Beric woke up to your arms wrapped tight around him, your face buried in his bloodied tunic and coat. Thoros was trying to reassure you, but you wouldn't be still until Beric opened his eyes and said your name.

The relief hit him at once as he remembered it, and he remembered his feelings. They seemed stronger than before, and he couldn't hide them anymore. There must have been a reason his feelings remained, he decided, while his other memories slowly faded with each resurrection. 

[twosidesofthesameidiot]

Fifteen Seconds

Summary: Gwen and Elyan take Leon frog hunting. Warnings: none Characters : Gwen; Elyan ; Leon Words : 1304 Tags, I guess : Fluff; Pre-canon A/N : This was written for week one of the 2021 Gwen Fest. This week's prompt was 'Canon-Era', so based on a single line that I can't remember the episode of, I present Kid! Gwen, Elyan and Leon going frog hunting.  AO3 Link : will be in the reblogs @gwenfest 

Gwen drummed her heels against the well worn stone of the short wall.

 Leon was late.

 If it were anyone else Gwen would have left by now, however she knew that Leon was not, even at only thirteen years old, the type of person to be late. The only reason for his not being here was that something had happened.  

If, she decided, he had not appeared within the next ten minutes then she would go and find him.

Five minutes passed. Gwen counted them the way her father had been teaching her and Elyan. One - Camelot-and, Two-Camelot-and.. 

There were sixty Camelots in a minute. It only took fifteen Camelots to quench a blade that had been in the making for at least three days. Those fifteen seconds were the make or break moment, quite literally, when it came to forging a sword. 

There were 45 Camelots left for Leon to appear, and as far as she could see in the rapidly fading light there was nothing but field all around.

Thirty and it was slightly darker with still no sign of the blonde haired boy. 

Fifteen left. 

Gwen slid off the wall and dusted her hands on her skirt. 

Ten. 

There was a blurry movement in the distance and Gwen dropped into a slight crouch. It would not be good if she was found here by anyone except Leon. 

Five, and there was a figure moving towards her. 

Zero. 

Gwen breathed a sigh of relief as she registered the golden curls tumbling out of the scarf Leon had wrapped, inexpertly, around his head in an attempt to hide the tell-tale hair. 

Despite his failed attempts to hide his hair, the rest of Leon's clothes helped him blend into the dusk and Gwen smiled. 

He was near enough now to see her if she stood and so Gwen did, calling his name softly. 

Hearing her voice Leon turned her direction, a wide smile on his face, "Gwen!"

She smiled in answer, and his dropped slightly, "Sorry I took so long," he kicked at the ground a little, "I almost ran into some of the guests and had to hide until they left the room I was in, " he sighed, "then I had to take some meat from the kitchen to bribe the dogs with so they wouldn't bark. You weren't here too long I hope?"

He worried his bottom lip a bit and Gwen thought it was very sweet of him to be concerned about how long she had been there. 

"You'll make a good knight one day Leo," she smiled, " you've already got the chivalry down."

"There's more to being a knight than being chivalrous, Gwen." His eyes widened slightly, "One must be courageous and kind and- "

"Yes, yes I know Leon," Gwen turned to climb back over the wall. She knew that if she left him Leon would recite all the virtues a knight should have, and how those virtues should be shown, with examples of actual knights. As long as she had known him, Leon's greatest wish was to become a knight. 

"Tonight though, you are going to learn something that no knight can teach you," Gwen beckoned for him to come closer, "we're going to teach you how to catch frogs!"

Finding she could not quite reach his head, Leon dropped to one knee and Gwen fussed with the scarf for a few moments before patting the top of his head and stepping back in satisfaction. 

Gwen led Leon down and through the lower town, where she lived with her parents and brother, and to the small river that supplied their water. 

The moon was full that night, illuminating the figures of frogs and children alike spread out randomly around the river. 

It took barely a moment to find Elyan and the trio moved a little ways away from the main part of the river to the twins' favourite frog spot. The ground was a little more marshy here, the frogs preferred that, and sometimes they found other interesting creatures or unusual frogs. 

Elyan, as always, was the first to spot a frog. When she realised what her twin was doing Gwen paused her own hunt for a moment and nudged Leon, motioning in Elyan's general direction. 

Leon watched Elyan with fascination. He tracked the frog first with his eyes, then with soft careful steps so as not to alert the creature to his presence. When he deemed himself close enough, Elyan would squat down and grab at the frog. Sometimes he would miss, or the frog would jump and Elyan would grab at it again but overbalance and land in the soft mud. Most of the time he would get the frog and then stare at it for a moment before either throwing it towards the river or putting it in a little bag that he had laid on a flat rock. 

After a few failed attempts of his own Leon decided to watch Gwen instead and hopefully acquire a less muddy way of trying to capture the amphibians. 

Gwen was more methodical in her hunt. She had a little pouch of pebbles tied to her waist and a net. She wasn't as careful as Elyan about concealing her presence from the frogs and her steps were firm and steady. 

When she spotted a frog, Gwen would take a moment to observe it. The way it was facing was the most important thing to note, that would let you know the general direction that the frog would move. Next she would toss a pebble near the frog, close enough to cause it to tense up, but far enough so it did not jump yet. The moment after, Gwen threw a second pebble and the net at the same time. The frog would jump, meet the net and then the ground. Gwen then calmly walked over and retrieved the animal, studying it in a manner similar to Elyan before releasing or bagging it. 

Leon reluctantly returned to Elyan's method of frog trapping. Gwen was in full focus mode and no explanation would be forthcoming at the moment, Leon knew. 

By the end of two hours Leon had one frog, Elyan had three and Gwen had managed to catch another three and found a salamander. 

Leon surrendered his frog to Gwen, who handed the bags to Elyan as they parted ways. 

As they walked back through the town, moon now high in the inky sky, Gwen explained her method to an intrigued Leon. 

It took fifteen seconds, once the frog was located. 

The first five were spent observing the frog. You have to know where the frog will jump. 

At eight seconds the first pebble is tossed. If the frog is going to change its direction, it will do it now. 

At nine seconds the second pebble is tossed, it needs to land as close behind the frog as possible. This will make it jump. 

At ten seconds the net is thrown. 

The last five seconds are out of your hands, literally. If you've thrown the net right and the frog jumps in the direction you thought it would then at 12 seconds the frog would meet the net, and at fifteen seconds they would both be on the ground again, leaving you free to collect the frog. 

Listening to her talk, Leon couldn't help but feel a slight shiver of fear run down his spine. There was no doubt in his mind that Gwen would be able to achieve anything she set her mind to. 

The fear was replaced with awe when Gwen turned and smiled at him, wishing him a good night and hugging him before melting into the shadows and he understood now  that she chose to be kind and helpful despite how easy the alternative would be.