#I should draw him with his natural fur/hair? more often | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

angrenwen · 3 months ago

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"I see a child, no more than fourteen. There are scars all over his skin, and he is hungry and thin. Blood drips down his back, from a beating bare hours past. He is clad in rags, and the eyes he lifts to my face are full of suffering. Then I understand the power of the offerings. When a summoner gives all they have, holding nothing back… there is great power in that. These poor offerings are all this child has to give, and half-starved as he is, he may die of hunger for their loss.

I am a creature of wrath. I am always angry, because that is my nature. But this enrages me. My claws lengthen, and so do my teeth. My horns rise, and spikes bristle down my back. The boy trembles in fear, but he does not look away from me. He does not run. He has nowhere to run to. No hope, save me. So I lower my head, and place my hands flat on the dirt, where the claws are not so obvious. “What do you ask of me, child?”

He swallows hard. “You are the mother of monsters,” he says, his voice shaking. “Those who summon you are changed. You give them strength, and power, and their forms change. They grow claws, or fur, or terrible fangs.”

I smile, remembering how angry many of them were to find the power I gave them came at a price. “Yesssss. You know that, and yet you summoned me?”

He falls on his face before me. “Please, Erisidinae! Please make me a monster! Give me the face and form of a terrible beast!”

It startles me. I have often been asked for power, and the monstrous forms were the price I exacted for it. Never has anyone asked to become a monster. “Why?”

When he lifts his grimy face, there are tears running down it. “So I can fight them,” he says, his voice breaking. “So I can fight back. Please. Give me the strength I need to fight.”

I crouch down closer to him, gazing at him with glowing red eyes that should terrify him, and yet he stares at me unafraid. “Who,” I ask, and my voice is hot and rasping with the rage I can barely contain, “has done this to you? Who do you need to fight?”

Words pour out of him in a jumble. Taxes, and oppressive lords, and a cruel king. Laws that crush the weak into the dust, that starve the people while the palace feasts, that beat children for not being able to do as much as a grown man. All he wants is to protect his village. To be strong enough to defy the lord’s soldiers, to not see his family and friends starving slowly around him. He was a clever boy, unable to read but able to remember every word from every tale he’d ever heard. He pieced together enough monster tales to summon me, knowing I might devour him, and counted it a risk worth taking.

I am a demon. I am a creature of darkness and rage. But I am, in truth, what they call me. I am a mother of monsters. When the strong come to me, and demand power, I destroy them. Now that a child comes, asking to be made one of *my* children… that is different. I feel the difference in every fibre of my being, and though my scales shiver and my horns curl with rage, it is not at him. “You cannot save one village,” I tell him. “It will not work. There are other lords, and armies, and I cannot make you invulnerable.”

The circle wasn’t very good. I could have left it at any time. Now I step out of it, and lift the boy gently to his feet, and his trembling eases as I smooth back his filthy hair from his face with a mother’s gentle touch. “But I can give you something better.” I step back and run my hands along my sides, drawing glittering crimson scales away. Again and again I do it, until a hundred scales fill my large, clawed hands. “Take one,” I tell him. “Swallow it, and help it down with the milk.”

He takes one of the scales, a glittering scrap of ruby the size of his thumbnail. He must expect it to hurt to swallow it, but he does not protest, only takes up the cup of milk and swallows both together. The scale does not hurt him – even as he swallows, the magic it was made of softens and flows with the milk to become a part of him. Then he looked up at me. “Will I become a monster, now?”

“Yes.” I incline my head. “But not immediately. In the first moon, your body will heal and grow strong. In the second, you will begin to grow taller. In the third, your magic will become strong. In the fourth, you will begin to change. By the end of the sixth moon, you will be the monster you wish to be.” My hands are full, so I touch the tip of my tail to the cup in his hands, and it changes to become a small, drab wooden box. Carefully, I pour the ninety-nine other scales into the box, and close it, my claws forming a cage around the box and his hand for a moment. “You must find ninety-nine others, boys and girls like you, willing to serve the Mother of Monsters, to fight with you. Be cautious. Tell them that they must sacrifice themselves, as you were willing to sacrifice yourself, that they must give up their humanity and never change back. Only those willing to give their own lives to protect those they care for may take the scale and live. Those who hunger for power in their hearts will be destroyed by it.”

He nodded slowly. “Some of those to whom you gave power were like that. Monsters who destroyed their own kin, their own people.”

“That will not happen this time. They will only die.” I stroke his dirty hair again, and magic slides over his body, healing the wounds he has suffered. “When you have an army of one hundred monsters, their changes complete, summon me again. Then the Mother of Monsters will show her children her true power.”

Time does not pass in my realm as it does in the mortal one, but now I am impatient, and it seems to drag. I summon my own children, the demons and spirits born of my power, and tell them what I have done. One hundred children I have spun of my own essence, and one hundred mortal children have I claimed in the mortal realm. When the summons comes, I tell them, they will come and fight beside their mortal brothers and sisters. They are not gentle, my children, and they relish the chance to feast on mortal flesh. But they are angry, as I am angry, about the boy. About the children. Each one of them grew to adulthood in my realm, loved and nurtured, knowing nothing of pain or fear until the demon’s rage came on them and they were ready to embrace it. Each was taught strength only when they were old enough to be strong. They rage at the cruelty of those who would hurt a child for gain, who would force them to know want and suffering.

When the summons come, I step through. This time, the summoning circle is on a mountainside, not in a field, and when I step through, I see the children who have chosen me for their mother. Torchlight gleams on fangs and scales, on coarse fur and long spines, on wings and tails and horns. They are beautiful, my monstrous children, and when one steps forward and kneels before me, I know him. He is much larger now than he was, a creature of human nightmares standing seven feet tall, with indigo-dark skin and huge, batlike wings, clawed and fearsome. But his eyes are the same dark eyes, lifted to mine now with joy and hope. “Welcome, Mother,” he says, holding out his hands to me. “Your children greet you.”

For a thousand years, men will tell of that time. Of the army of monsters and demons that roared down out of the mountains, slaughtering warriors and nobles. Of seven-headed dragons that stepped past fleeing children to tear a landlord into pieces, of giant wolfmen who fed on the viscera of warriors while their servants stood untouched, of a great winged shadow that snatched a beggar girl out out from under falling wreckage, then turned and ripped out the throat of a rich man. Streets ran with the blood of the wicked, castles burned and palaces crumbled, and at last an army of monsters stood in the remains of the king’s castle before the gathered families of the king and his nobles. Then magic shivered over them again, and they stood in their true forms, peasant boys and girls between ten and sixteen, scarred and thin and dirty… but still surrounded by monsters, for my children stood by their mortal brothers and sisters still.

They will tell of the boy who stepped forward, and told the cowering women and children that those who died had brought it on themselves. That when faced with starvation and suffering and endless misery, even children may choose to become monsters. That subjects who suffer will rise. To be better… or to die.

I do not know if they will record that he turned to me, then, and asked “Mother, why have we changed back? You told us that the change was forever.”

I smile down at him, so proud of the boy and the monster he chose to be, and touch his cheek with a flaming hand that does not burn him. Then I look out at the mortal children who turned to a demon for aid when no God or mortal answered their cries. “I told you that you must be willing to never change back. But you have done well, and Mother is proud, so I leave the choice to all of you. The mortal and the monster are both within you, and which you become will always be your choice. Whatever you choose, you are my children, now and always. The Mother of Monsters does not forget.”

Some choose to return to mortality, some to resume their monstrous forms. Most choose, as my boy does, to retain both natures. When I and my immortal children have left, he is soon proclaimed King, and from then on the country is a peaceful and prosperous one. Over the throne, the face of the Mother of Monsters smiles or snarls, depending on how you see it, and children with the blood of monsters are loved and cared for beside their mortal kin.

It changes me, this summoning, these mortal children. I feel the power their love feeds me, a gentler power than has ever entered my realm before, and the perpetual anger fades. I may even become a goddess, in time. No tame creature of order, for my nature cannot change as much as that, but a wild and unpredictable creature of kindness and cruelty, a protector to the child and a scourge to the strong. My children, too, feel the change, and often return to the kingdom where their mortal brothers and sisters live, to protect it and prey on its wicked.

Other children call on me, now, when desperation shows them no other way out. And I always answer. I am a Mother, after all."

It is difficult to trigger the true Wrath of a demon, given their nature of being inherently angry. As you look at your scarred, malnourished and broken young summoner, a familiar red mist begins to descend over your mind.

#It's Story Time

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azazelsconfessional · 3 years ago

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((so i was gonna open up my askbox again but I got distracted doing this and watching streams i think idr what i did the past few hours, buuut there's something I need to cover first, especially since there are so many new people around! Hello! Especially since so many of you are playing OCs/MCs.

Don't worry, it's a tip to hopefully help you along! It may get a little long, especially as I try and provide examples. . .but hopefully it'll help.

I'm gonna talk a lot about OCs but this applies to canon characters too a bit. It certainly helps.

Tl;dr, you should have a character profile page.

(also remember that tumblr mobile doesn't really have direct access to Pages made with the Pages function on desktop, so you'll have to link them manually in your pinned or description or host them on another site(I used Google Docs in the apst) or in a regular post(this makes it very easy to lose as a forewarning) for maximum accessibility!)

(rules pages are also really really handy if you have alot of resteictions.)

So, in general, OCs have a bit of a lower reception rate in rp. Idk if that'll be the case here with MCs because they're, well, the main character. Housamo is also a series that lends itself well to OCs pretty well, especially non-human ones, but I figured I'd warn for that.

BUT. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play an OC! It just means there are things you need to keep in mind!

Think of all of the OCs you've seen--you all seem to be fun and wonderful people, and your characters are surely interesting. But. . .if you don't tell anybody about them, nobody will know what's going on or where to start, which makes asking questions a little hard, right? That's easier to work around with MC characters--we've played the game, we know the story, we know the characters, so we can figure out questions fairly easily based on that alone and go from there.

But with other OCs, especially those that don't represent charactera from mythology or fiction like many other characters in housamo do, there's like. Nowhere to start. We may see a face or some dialogue, but otherwise we don't have a frame of reference.

That's where a profile comes in!

Azazel-mun, I don't want to share all of the info about my character at once!

What if I don't know everything about my OC yet and want to figure it out along thw way?

The profile doesn't have to be super detailed! At most it shoule include things like the character's name and age and probably things like their location, profession, grade in school or place of work, etc., and anything you'd notice on the surface like their apperance. It's never a bad thing to include a description of their personality too, or a small section about their history/background. Little things that even you should probably know, too.

You can also section your profile off a bit into things like "surface info," "meta info," "things you could easily figure out about them," etc. That way, no one can spoil themself. Making lists like this can help you think these things through if you haven't already as well.

Let's use Azazel, a character that you probably know already, as an example here. I don't have a profile set

Name: Azazel

Species: Fallen Angel; Capra Therian - an anthropomorphic Goat (?)

Gender(pronouns): Male(he/him)

Age: difficult to calculate; several thousand years old?

Apperance age: hard to say, he's not human. Adult.

Origins: banished from his home world of Eden, has been in the human world for several thousand years

Profession: Priest of dubious denomination, most likely Catholic or Protestant; teacher at Daikanyama Academy; de facto head of the Missionaries Non-Profit charity Organization; supervisor of the Aoyama Missionaries

Role & Rule: Watcher; Revelation - allows him to see anything within the territory of the Aoyama Missionaries and anywhere the pages of his Artifact see

Apperance: Azazel is a 5'10"(180cm) tall, anthropomorphic goat of ambiguous breed, with fawn fur all over his body and lighter fur on his head and around his neck. He has brown, riged horns which curve out and back. Though his eyes are often closed, when opened they're red. He always carried around a leather bound bible with an eye on the cover, and is never seen without several chains on his person, although only the one(s) around his neck can be seen unless he's undressed.

He wears a black priest's cassock with a maroon sash and a capelet of the same color, with the same eye as on his bible on the shoulders of the cape, and brown dress shoes. The front of the robe is always open to expose his bare chest and the chains beneath.

Personality: Azazel is kind and doting, very fitting of both a teacher and priest, although his openly flirtatious, lustful, and secretive nature causes others to distrust him. He doesn't mind this at all. He has a strong adoration for humans, and values love in all of its forms more than anything. He's a bit of a passive person, often being unmotivated but working hard regardless, and seems to prefer to watch others and the world go by, although he won't decline most invitations to take part in it. He is always aware of anything that happens within the extensive territory of the Missionaries, and seems to know and see just about everything about anyone he meets, from their surface to their soul. . . .

If you know Azazel, or take note of some of the wording or question marks, you'll note I didn't explain everything(although I may have shared more than you want to.) This is just a bare bones exampe of how I do my profiles--but it can get even more bare!

I'll do two this time, a more vague version of Azazel's, and another that obscures information all together, using the same or a similar format to the above.

Name: Azazel

Species: anthropomorphic goat

Gender(pronouns): male (he/him)

Age: unquestionably an adult

Origins: Eden

Profession: Priest; teacher; head of a charity NPO; member of the Missionaries

Apperance: Horned goatman of slightly above average human height. Light brown fur, blond fur-hair, red eyes. Wears priest robes and a gold chain around his neck and chest. Carries around a bible with an eye on it?

Personality: Kind of eerie, but friendly and affectionate. A little flirtatious, especially towards humans. Seems to know everything about people for some reason?

Compare it to the one before--see how I've left even more things off or left things ambiguous while still sharing what's necessary or surface level? However, it's also not as engaging or as informative as the other one where I gave more information.

As someone who plays him, profiles like this aren't as helpful for me lol since he knows so much about everyone and everything, having a lot of details helps me play my character!

Now, as helpful as this is, this is also a character you probably know. So how about I do this with an OC? Normally I'm extremely detailed in my profiles and such, especially for OCs, sharing headcanons and ideas for relationships between characters. But, again, I'll try and show how you can show some info while leaving some up to people to ask about to later be filled in.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [this is where you would put where you get the art for any icons you use--if you draw it yourself, say so; if you use official art from a series, credit the name of the character and the series; if you use picrews, link the specific picrews. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PERMITTED TO USE. DO NOT STEAL ART. IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE CREDIT, ASK SOMEONE TO HELP YOU, DO NOT JUST SAY THAT IT ISN'T YOURS. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO USE OR THAT ISN'T FROM A SERIES OF SOME SORT.]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: older than she looks?

Origins: Tokyo?

Profession: Professor; Witch

Apperance: A fidgety woman who looks older than she is. She looks anxious and confused as often as she looks curious and confident. Wavy light brown hair. Often carries around schoolbooks and is never alone, always with a Rattus Therian and often with a Nyarlathotep.

Personality: seemingly anxious, but curious and exploratative nonetheless. On the awkward side, but can still keep up with the Nyarls that accompany her. Gets into trouble when she gets ahead of herself in exploring and learning about the arcane, but her Rule allows her to disappear easily.

History: Has always been curious about magic and attempted to run through a Gate when they began to open up. Performed a summon and brought a certain transients to Tokyo and recieved her familiar and the magic to use her Rule as a result. Currently teaches at a college. She stumbled into a certain someone while attempting to explore time, and became a fan ever since.

That tells you a fair amount, doesn't it? Even for someone you don't know? It may even raise some questions that you could ask. At the same time, it doesn't tell you that much, and that can be as much of a hindrance for coming up with questions as saying too much can. It's really up to you what's too much and too little. Here's a more detailed version! Some things have been left vague or confusing in such a way that they could be filled in after being revealed through asks and play. That way, people are encouraged to/given ideas of what to ask--and you can still share things in the long run.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [N/A]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: somewhere in her 30's, maybe even a little older

Origins: Tokyo, with some sort of connection to at least one other world

Profession: Professor of [?] at [?] Academy; Witch

Role & Rule: [?] & [?]

Artifact, Summon, Familiar?: Always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and some sort of man-rat? She also carries around a book that's labeled as a Grimoire, but it's rare for someone to be both a summon-user and an Artifact-user. . . .

Apperance: A fidgety older woman wearing a labcoat and a witch's hat. She looks quite stressed and has trouble sitting still. Her ashy brown hair is thin and a little wavy, with some strands of gray. Although she often squints, she doesn't wear glasses. She carries around a lot of books relating to maths and sciences and one labeled 'Grimoire' decorated with arcane symbols from Gehenna and Old Ones. She's always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and a very short, bearded man who can best be described as a brown rat therian with a human-like face. Sometimes there's a normal rat on her person or in her pockets.

Personality: Kezia is a fidgety and anxious magic practitioner. She's very curious about other worlds and has been since the Gates appeared in this Tokyo since she was a child, however she has been pursuing magic before then. She often appears somewhat confused about or fascenated by even her usual surroundings, but, at other times moves through the world with confidence even in unfamiliar territory. She also likes rats and other rodents, and as such will often avoid felines and birds of prey. She has a tendency to disappear, seeming to walk through walls despite assuredly being alive.

She's a little bit awkward with people, but somehow keeps up with Nyarlathoteps nonetheless. She's a good teacher, once she figures out how to explain things in ways others can understand easily, but can be a bit difficult to follow and flighty up until then. Aware of this, she's rather patient, if a little down on herself at times. However, she most often simply has her mind elsewhere. Despite this and the company she keeps, she's relatively sane. . .most of the time.

She shares a name with a witch from the world of Old Ones who made a pact with Nyarlathotep, believing him to be the Devil. . .and the ratman always at her side uses the same name as that witch's familiar as well. It's. . .probably just a coincidence. . .who would rightfully make a pact with Nyarlathotep?

History: Kezia is an adult human from this Tokyo before the apperance of the Gates and construction of the Walls. She's explored various witchcraft pursuits since she was a child, with what was originally a mere imaginative curiosity and fascination. After the arrival of the Gates when she was still young, she snuck over the fences built around one and attempted to go inside the massive pillar of light, which she attributes to the reason she often seems to struggle with her vision. Several years later, she performed a successful summon and she recieved her familiar, Brown Jenkin, transformed into a somewhat therian form from one of her pet rats, and was given some powers from Nyarlathotep. She has no discernable control over any of the chaotic creatures, however they seem to spend time around her regardless.

At present she's a professor of a subject that interests her at a certain college. She's had other dangerous run-ins due to her excitement over the arcane and "darker" arts, but doesn't seem to show any signs of stopping. However, after an incident in an attempt to explore time itself, she encountered a certain guardian of time and feels reluctant for once to explore it further. . .although she's become quite a big fan of his.

. . .i ran out of steam amd kinda lost track of where i was going. idk if that helped at all really. But maybe it did! I hope it did. You don't need to use any of those things exactly by any means, but that's the kind of thing you usually see in profile pages. Basics like someone's name and birthday and age and apperance and a little about their personality, maybe some history. Oftentimes things like powers and weapons and the like. Interests, hobbies, ways they could be intereacted with, etc. Just stuff that'd help you know the character.

I write everything in paragraph form, but everyone is more than welcome to use a more script format. I love making profiles, myself--it really helps to think about the character and details about them. Normally I make really, really detailed profiles, but maybe I'll try and be more simple about it this time around. depends on how i'm feeling.

I know this seems weirdly hypocritical given I don't have one but when I first made this blog there were like four of us including myself. I didn't see the need for a rules or profile page because I didn't anticipate that there'd be so many of us or, like, people from other fandoms or who aren't familiar with certain characters. I'll rectify that soon hopefully. But I figured I'd pass along this idea/knowledge to others.

. . .I'm gonna go reopen my askbox now. Feel free to send asks again, ask about this, etc! You can send me an IM too if you want. I'll properly close up the guest event tomorrow. I'm real tired rn lol so idk how much i'll get done, but i usually do things super late at night my time, so i have some time to pull my shit together haha))

#ooc #((anyway i'm gonna open the askbox and crawl into a hole))#((i got nothing done lol i was so engaged with something else all week))

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viacursecasting · 4 years ago

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A Blooming Mistake.

{ Read on AO3 }

Summary: Sonic is hiding his hybrid roses, meant for someone special, but Shadow's determined to uncover the truth...

In a way rivals know best.

Radiant light of the full moon streaked through the leafy embraces of forest branches, illuminating freckles upon the well-trodden path for the cobalt quilled hero. His buckled cherry shoes crunched upon dried foliage as he ambled toward his destination. Normally he would’ve utilized his renowned speed, but he was wary of disturbing any critters peacefully slumbering in their nests. Even so, as he heard the pitter-patter of startled animals, he cupped the corner of his lip with a gloved hand, whispering apologies into the darkness.

As he clutched a shovel in one hand and a basket of rose stems in the other, he continued onward through mossy trees and flowering bushes until he reached a clearing, grassy and kempt, overlooking the vast sea, which stretched across the horizon to kiss the distant mountains. The serenade of gentle waves lapping against the cliffside soothed his upright ears. A spring breeze combed through his quills. He inhaled deeply, the aromatic scent filling his nostrils, the air so briny he could practically taste its salt upon his tongue. Moonlight reflected divinely across the waves, a sparkle rivaled only by his toothy grin. No matter how many times he trekked here, it always felt like the first.

Refreshed from admiring the landscape, he then glanced at the bundle of stems in hand. This species was a unique hybrid, one that bloomed crimson petals with ebony splatters. The hedgehog recalled the laborious hours he poured into growing these for weeks on end—planting monochrome roses adjacently, watering them each day, breeding the resulting hybrids into super hybrids, not to mention the painstaking chore of pulling out weeds and debris by burying his knees in the dirt. If the buds successfully bloomed, he would take it as a sign to pursue his crush. Was all this effort going to be worth it?

More importantly, could he handle the answer?

As he set the woven basket down he simply… stared. At nothing in particular. Why he couldn’t bring himself to start the final stage of planting the crossbred stems, he didn’t know. He groaned, rubbing his temples as if just now realizing what a ridiculous idea this was.

What are you doing here?

He thought his inner voice was berating him until his ears perked at the unmistakable sound of a familiar, confident gait.

“I said, what are you doing here?”

He swore his heart raced faster than his feet ever have as he peered into the forest, searching for the source of the low voice. Then, as if materializing from the shadows, a jet black lifeform stepped into view, his rosy highlights complementing his fiery gaze.

“Shadow?” The royal blue hedgehog blinked repeatedly to make sure his emerald eyes weren’t playing tricks on him from lack of sleep.

Once he realized this was no illusion, Sonic discreetly held the shovel behind his quills, subtly adjusting his footing to hide the basket at his heels. But there was no fooling his dark counterpart, who analyzed his body language suspiciously.

Shadow crossed his arms. His cool and collected tone sent chills down Sonic’s spine. “Don’t toy with me, hedgehog. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” Sonic blurted. “What are you hiding?”

The agent rolled his carmine eyes at the feeble attempt to deflect the question. As he took several steps closer he glanced toward his rocket skates, feeling the ground get considerably flatter, devoid of twigs and stones. He observed, “This clearing appears to have been tended to.”

Sonic laughed nervously. “Nature at its finest, I guess.”

“Is that so?” Shadow humored him. The closer he got to his parallel, the softer the earth felt with every step. “I suppose nature also watered this specific plot despite having no rain all week?”

Sonic glimpsed skyward, feigning a motion as if he felt a raindrop despite the unassuming clouds. “It could start pouring any minute. We should head back—”

He stifled a breath as Shadow, nose to nose with Sonic, scrutinized him as if he could find the answer in his irises, green as a hill zone. Suddenly he reached around Sonic’s waist, fingers brushing against the underside of his back spikes.

Sonic’s muzzle reddened intensely. “Wait, what are you—?”

Shadow seized the digging tool from his rival’s grip. “Look what we have here.” He chided with a smirk, “Shame on you, hedgehog. Wrecking the beauty of nature so you can play buried treasure.”

“This isn’t a game!” Sonic cried. “Now give that back!”

Shadow kept his foe at bay with an extended arm against his chest. As Sonic clawed the air in an attempt to retrieve the shovel just out of reach, the agent spotted the basket of greenery at Sonic’s contrasting sneakers. Shadow halted, curiosity getting the better of him as his counterpart finally yanked the tool from his grasp.

But that was the least of Shadow’s worries.

Before he could get a closer look inside the rattan basket, a glowing streak of cyan made it disappear and then reappear a few feet away in Sonic’s grip.

Shadow glared at the speedster, at first with annoyance. Why would he hide a few measly plants? Then it dawned on him. Slowly his expression turned into one of horror, staring wide-eyed at the so-called hero.

But Sonic paid no mind as he refused to make eye contact, red with embarrassment. He could practically feel that scarlet gaze burning his azure fur. “Please, Shadow. Just go home.”

“Sonic.”

Shadow said it with such bleeding concern that his sapphire twin regarded him. Aghast, the ebony hedgehog paled as if he’d seen a ghost, troubling Sonic. “Stop looking at me like that, Shads. You’re scaring me.”

Shadow ignored the request. “Is that what I think it is?”

Sonic tightened his clammy grip on the wicker handle. “What do you think it is?”

Shadow’s hesitation was brief, as if his hypothesis would somehow become true if he voiced his suspicions. “Performance-enhancing drugs.”

Sonic laughed at the notion. He had never touched a drug let alone taken one. He wasn’t even sure he knew what one looked like. “Don’t be ridiculous—”

“That’s why you’ve been so secretive,” Shadow mulled distantly, rubbing his fingers under his chin as if he solved the case. “Either you plan on outperforming me, or you’ve been taking these to get on my level.”

Sonic’s expression twisted into one of confusion. “What? No! You’ve got it all wrong!”

Shadow remained skeptical, requiring proof. His eyes bore into his foe like daggers stained crimson. “Then hand it over,” he demanded, the golden power inhibitor on his wrist gleaming menacingly around his outstretched hand.

Sonic’s heart seized at the thought. His fingers clenched the woven handle so tightly he nearly bled. He swallowed before replying, “I can’t.”

Neither of them wavered. Not even the void’s icy breeze could make them flinch. Was that the wind or Sonic’s internal cry for help?

Then Shadow sighed, tightening his gloves as if foreseeing this outcome. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

In a flash he leapt forward, trailing an amber aura in his wake. Sonic’s mind deconstructed the act in slow motion, perceiving Shadow’s feet leave the ground, his limbs curl into a ball, his attack home in on Sonic’s beating organ.

Sonic dropped his possessions, steeling himself to block the spindash with crossed arms, the force so powerful his heels dug trenches in the dirt. He grunted with the effort of holding Shadow off as the high-pitched rev of the spinball deafened his ears. It was like preventing a screeching tire from burning rubber on his vitals.

Seeing as this was getting him nowhere, Shadow performed a backflip, landing gracefully on his feet. “Hmph. I’m just warming up.”

Sonic chuckled, stretching his legs like a marathon runner in a show of confidence. “Sure thing, faker,” he emphasized, knowing this would warrant some aggression.

Shadow couldn’t help but clench his fist with ire, drawing his arm back before zooming forward with a punch.

The blue blur easily sidestepped to dodge but Shadow expected this, extending another blow at the last second, hitting his opponent square in the jaw.

Sonic reeled back, more out of shock than pain, rubbing the soreness away. Regardless, he found himself smiling. It wasn’t often he brawled someone who matched his abilities. After crushing laughable badniks for days on end, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t itching for some excitement. “Lucky shot.”

“Calculated shot,” the agent corrected. “Are you as slow in the brain as you are with your feet?”

Sonic gasped dramatically, tossing the back of his hand to his forehead. “Alas! You have discovered my fatal flaw!” He bowed humbly. “Teach me, O Wise One.”

Just as Sonic was about to straighten, his opposer kneed him in the abdomen. He doubled over with a groan, sinking to his knees.

“Lesson one,” Shadow advised, “never let your guard down.”

In his kneeling position, Sonic took the opportunity to grab Shadow’s ankle and yank him to the dirt, knocking the wind out of him as he landed on his back. Shadow coughed, attempting to regain control of his lungs as Sonic loomed over him, boasting, “Lesson two, surpass the master.”

Shadow sprung to his feet. Meanwhile Sonic revved up into a concussive ball, billowing dust, and charged forward to knock over his contender like a bowling pin. But Shadow performed a handless frontflip like a gold-medal gymnast, easily dodging it.

“Chaos Spear!”

Upon hearing Shadow’s battle cry, Sonic serpentined throughout the clearing to avoid numerous bolts of energy the agent’s palms emitted. But no matter how quickly Shadow fired, Sonic managed to evade every shot by a hair.

At one point the blue blur skidded to a halt, and suddenly a glowing spear jutted out of a tree right before his face.

Sonic let out a nervous chuckle, grateful to still have a nose. “Someone’s getting antsy.”

He ducked in the nick of time to avoid a jet-boosted roundhouse kick to the head. Sonic then swept his leg to trip his assailant, but to no avail as Shadow leapt high into the air, backlit by the witnessing moon, before clasping his hands together to pummel Sonic into the ground.

CRUUUSH!

The hero narrowly somersaulted clear, shaking dirt from his quills. When he looked up to see the crater Shadow formed with his fists, his stomach churned. “Whoa, Shads, take it easy!”

Tired of this dance, the lifeform was tempted to execute a Chaos Blast right then and there, but instead he sneered, “Not until I get what I want.”

He dashed forward. His parallel instinctively did the same. However, a vine caught Sonic’s toe, hurtling him straight into Shadow. The hedgehogs were a mass of flailing punches and kicks, their limbs a blur as their tangled bodies rolled in the grass like a prickly tumbleweed.

Their careening stopped dead in its tracks as Shadow straddled Sonic, their panting faces inches apart, their arms wrestling for dominance with Shadow’s fists against Sonic’s palms.

Through grunts, Sonic tried to reason with him. “Okay, Shadow… hff… This was fun at first… hff… but now—” He cried out as his wrists bent at a dangerous angle.

“It was never a game, Sonic.” Using gravity to his advantage, Shadow pushed harder.

Pain shot through Sonic’s arms. “Shadow, stop!” he pleaded, his biceps nearly giving out. “It’s not what you think!”

Shadow snarled, his fangs gleaming like dual blades. “Don’t lie to me!”

Sonic’s muscles screamed. He didn’t remember his counterpart being this strong, didn’t understand where such passion was coming from. “Why are you so worked up?”

“I won’t let you destroy yourself!”

Shadow’s guttural cry echoed throughout the crisp air, followed by a chorus of flapping from retreating crows. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he almost wished Sonic would run away, too, as he shut his eyes tight to suppress his hot tears.

Witnessing such raw emotion made Sonic yield, letting Shadow pin his wrists to the dirt beside his spiky head. Though Sonic took shallow breaths, his peach torso still brushed against his rival’s ivory chest fur, soft and full, making his back spines prickle. “If it matters so much to you,” Sonic relented, “then you can take what’s in the basket.”

No sense of victory hailed Shadow as he sulked from revealing a shred of vulnerability. Instead a numbness washed over him like a waterfall. He crawled off the sapphire hedgehog, taking a few steps to retrieve what he thought was a performance-enhancing substance. But what he found was much more tame.

Perplexed, Shadow inspected a leafy stalk carefully. “These look like rose stems.”

As Sonic stood to brush grass off his quills, he could feel his face grow warm, resorting to sarcasm as a defense mechanism. “That’s because they are rose stems, genius.” He almost laughed. This was G.U.N.’s best agent?

It still didn’t add up. “Why were you hiding these from me?” When Sonic failed to answer, Shadow read his flustered face instead. “Are they intended for Amy?” Sonic shook his head. “Blaze?” Another shake. “Knuckles? You are aware he’s in love with a rock—”

“It’s you!” Sonic blurted, immediately slapping his palm over his mouth. He had to say something—he felt as if he were going to explode any second. But the regret was instant. He wanted to be cremated right then and there and have his ashes flung over the cliff into the depths of the sea below, dissolving into nothingness.

Shadow was taken aback but quickly composed himself, clearing his throat. “I see. Yellow roses?” he surmised, knowing that this flower hue symbolized a strong bond among friends.

“No,” Sonic replied, downcast. There was no point in lying anymore. “They’re a hybrid. Black for eternity and red for luh—! …Ove.”

That last word caught in his throat, so foreign on his tongue. Unconsciously he rambled, desperate for some sense of control again. “I thought that maybe once these bloomed, I’d have the courage to… ask you out.”

Shadow had difficulty masking his bewilderment. He opened his mouth as if to say something but failed to express a coherent thought, unable to recall the last time someone rendered him speechless.

Sonic rubbed the back of his neck, elaborating, “I know it’s stupid. Even though you get on my nerves, you also… get me, you know?” He reminisced over the moments they were forced to team up against a greater evil, racing side by side, occasionally stealing sidelong glances at each other.

Then images of the Finalhazard flashed in his mind, followed by the harrowing sight of Shadow plummeting to his supposed death. “When I thought I would never see you again, it made me realize I had taken you for granted.”

I should just stop talking, Sonic told himself. But his lips betrayed him. “Since then, I just couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

What are you doing? “I mean, look at your speed. Your strength. Everything about you screams danger.”

Shut. Up. “But instead of running away from you, why is my heart telling me—”

Shut up shut up shut up!

He growled, yelling over his thoughts, “—to run with you!?”

Sonic was practically on the verge of a cardiac arrest. His breath was short, his ears were numb. He felt as if an anchor pulled him by the pit of his chest to claim him as part of the earth’s core. He expected a witty comeback. A kick to the stomach. Anything! But what he got was worse. Shadow stared at Sonic as intently as a sniper through the lens of his scope. As pervasive as a bullet, what really killed Sonic was the silence.

Sonic shook his head to clear his mind. It was all so ridiculous, devoting so much time and effort and emotion to someone who couldn’t care less. “But it doesn’t matter.” He hastily gathered his belongings and began to head homeward. “Clearly you don’t feel the same way so let’s just move on and pretend none of this ever happened—”

“Wait.”

Sonic froze, feeling Shadow’s grip around the crook of his elbow. His heartbeat pounded so incessantly he thought his eardrums would burst. “Yeah?”

The crimson-eyed hedgehog averted his gaze, though Sonic thought he spotted a faint rosy tint across his tan muzzle. “It appears as though your sentiments mirror mine.”

Cogs slowly turned in Sonic’s mind, trying to process the confession. But then he laughed in denial. “Come on, Shads. You’re not serious.”

Shadow squeezed Sonic’s arm in affirmation, finally locking his ruby irises with his counterpart’s emeralds.

Fixated, Sonic read no hesitation, no amusement in that scorching gaze, straight as a gun barrel. That’s when he knew Shadow was indeed telling the truth.

It finally clicked. Then Sonic turned bright red, realizing just how close Shadow was standing, feeling his warm breath on his lips.

Shadow stroked Sonic’s cheek with the back of a curled finger, a touch that was extra gentle in case he miscalculated his own strength, before resting it under Sonic’s chin to slightly crane his neck. The agent found his blush quite endearing, and being its trigger was icing on the cake. They were in such close proximity that Shadow could breathe in his admirer’s scent, sweet as freshly cut grass. Shadow’s blood pumped so madly he thought Sonic could hear it. He briefly wondered if he would ever get used to the hero’s presence. Perhaps he would find out at a later date.

If so, it would be a date to die for.

With slowly lidding eyes, Shadow leaned in, parting his lips just as their muzzles were a quill’s breadth apart—

“Shadow, come in!” urged an electronic voice.

The hedgehogs jumped out of their trances. Shadow cursed under his breath, realizing the command came from his wrist communicator. He pressed a button as he spoke into it. “Yes, Rouge?”

“You’re supposed to report every hour so we know you’re safe while patrolling,” his bat coworker scolded.

Shadow grimaced. “I can take care of myself.”

“It’s just a precaution,” Rouge stated. “In any case, that cheery attitude of yours lets me know you’re fine. Bye~!” The call ended with a beep.

A forlorn sigh escaped Shadow’s lips, the moment officially tainted.

But with his ever-present smile, Sonic brushed off any disappointment he may have had. “You should get back to work.”

Shadow glared at the blue hedgehog, feigning annoyance. “This area is well within my jurisdiction, and I haven’t finished inspecting it,” he claimed, watching Sonic’s grin grow wider, so contagious he wore a hint of a smile himself. He then graciously took the shovel from Sonic’s grasp, walking toward the primed plot. “Come. I hate leaving a job unfinished.”

#via drawing #via writing #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonic fanart #sth #sonadow #fanfics #a blooming mistake

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portiaadams · 3 years ago

Text

Meyer and Charlie Smut

I wrote Lanskiano smut. It’s embedded in my Richard Harrow/Clara Thompson story. For those who don’t care about Richard and my OC, here is Charlie and Meyer having a moment

December 31st, 1921

The sound of the engine and the clacking of the train against the rails filled the room, but could not overcome the roaring silence between the room's inhabitants. Charlie adjusted his legs once more, trying to find some way to fit them on the single bed. God damn it, this was a bed for a child not a grown fucking man. The Darmody kid was probably too big for it. Charlie wasn't sure how long he'd been awake-this time-but it was one of many things really pissing him off.

From the larger bed there was a quick flash of light and then the scent of sulfur and tobacco. "I offered to take that bed," Meyer said after a slow exhale.

"Them shoulders of yours wouldn't have even fit," Charlie groused.

Determining Charlie's mood came as naturally to him as determining the weather before he stepped off his stoop. Certainly, Charlie's moods could be as mercurial as the weather. And at the moment, Charlie's mood registered as stormy.

"Charlie," Meyer began.

"Can it, Meyer," Charlie answered and swung his legs off the bed, stumbling in the dark for his own cigarettes and lighter.

"You are being irrational," Meyer responded.

"That brutto figlio di puttana bastardo was up your ass all night. You enjoyed though, didn't ya?"

Meyer sighed. Charlie acted like he was the only one who wanted. Meyer's first memory was wanting. Wanting enough to eat, wanting a warmer fire, wanting. Those years when his father was gone and he did all a kid could do to keep his mother and siblings fed and warm.

But wanting. Wanting in America was sharper, brighter, different. There was so much more to want. From the moment he stepped off the ship he moved as fast as his little legs would carry him. He moved to learn English, to get out of the classroom full of tiny children and catch up with his peers, he moved to learn the streets and determine how to make money any way he could. He moved as fast as he could because he knew the goal was to leave the Lower East Side behind him. To move fast enough that one day he could even outrun wanting.

But nothing, not a lifetime of yearning for acceptance and security, held a candle to his ever-present need for Charlie. There was no part of him that did not want every part of Charlie. And as much as his wants dictated every carefully crafted move of his life, there was nothing he wanted more than Charlie. In his life, in his office, in his bed. Even if it made no sense. Even if it had no place in his plan.

"He was circling round you like a bitch in heat," Charlie continued.

"The way Gillian Darmody circled around you? The way the chorus girls do?" Meyer snapped back. He spent years, he spent agonizing nights, watching Charlie charm women whose desire for him was as clear as the powder on their faces.

"That's different, and you know it well as me."

"How?"

"They're broads, Meyer! It don't matter like..." Charlie stopped talking, not knowing how to put into words what mattered. They was just broads. They wasn't in his mind like Meyer was. Even Meyer wasn't with him he could still hear the little addin' machine in his head, telling him to be smart. Telling him to think.

Being with those women was like grabbing a dog from a cart and eating it on the street. Scratched the itch of need. Satisfying enough at the moment.

Being with Meyer was different and Meyer damn well knew it. They was friends and they was more and when more changed to be even more...It ain't like people understood their friendship anyway. The Jew and the Italian. They was supposed to be mortal enemies, not friends for life. Not...whatever they was.

"I gotta keep up appearances," Charlie said because that was also a true thing. He hadn't told Meyer that Clara knew. No need to introduce complications. They was careful. They was always careful. "That's why I can't believe you let the guy get near you like that."

Meyer shook his head. "Charlie, he's married. To Lady Rose. I think he's just an adventurer."

"Yeah. I know what adventure he's after," Charlie responded.

"A man like that..."

"What? You think you ain't good enough for a fonferer like that cercatore d'oro? What, you just good enough for the likes of me, that it?"

The petulance in Charlie's voice was so familiar. "Charlie, come here."

"Mey, I ain't in the mood."

Meyer doubted that. Charlie was rarely not in the mood. "Charlie," he said again.

Charlie heard the gruff tone in Meyer's voice. He was angry, he was still angry, but that tone in Meyer's voice always did the same thing to him. Instinct drove him to Meyer's side.

Didn't mean he wasn't still angry, though. He sat next to Meyer silently. One man wearing an undershirt that buttons with sleeves that come down to his elbows, although the width of his shoulders and upper arms often mean the seams ripped and tore and stretched due to the strain placed upon them. The other man wore the new kind of undershirt-knit, sleeveless, no buttons.

Charlie told Meyer all the time he should switch. Be more modern. But Meyer couldn't quite break away from tradition in some matters.

"There will always be others, won't there, Charlie?" Meyer asks, and even though he knew the answer for a moment he willed Charlie to lie to him. "After all, we'll have to marry one day, won't we?"

"I ain't. Look at Harrow and Clara."

Meyer turned to stare at Charlie. Personally, he thought Harrow had chained himself to a klafte in pearls. But the man seemed to love her. And Clara seemed as happy as he thought her capable of being.

"Harrow seems content enough."

"That ain't the thing, Mey. They love each other. But we all know how this ends. Clara sobbing over a morgue slab with Darmody's brat and a baby or two besides clinging to her. I ain't gonna do that to a woman."

Such a delicate jaw in such a strong face, Meyer thought idly before bringing Charlie's face to his. Charlie didn't fight it, and soon their mouths were finishing the disagreement. Charlie fell first-Charlie always fell first-letting his mouth open and Meyer plunder its depths.

Charlie's mouth tasted of hot honey and something deeper, sweeter, more savory. It was the taste and sensation he spent a lifetime chasing down in penny candy bins and bakeries and sweet shops. Much like with the candy he had kept in his pockets from the first time he had spare pennies, he knew he'd never have enough of it.

It was the sweetness he'd always craved.

The hard, taut muscles of Charlie Luciano's body, the ones that struck fear around the underworld (and occasionally in the upper echelons) of New York went soft and loose as something else grew hard. Without realizing it, Meyer turned Charlie so he was on his knees, his head laying on the soft Irish linen pillowcase embroidered with the ever-present P.

Meyer's left hand drifted over the hard muscles of Charlie's stomach down to the mother of pearl buttons on Charlie's beloved silk boxers. His fingers drifted over the buttons but didn't try to undo them. Instead, he reached down to the impossibly soft skin of Charlie's inner thigh and began drawing lazy circles. His right hand combed through Charlie's thick dark curls before yanking sharply so Charlie had to turn his face to Meyer to save his hair, their faces so close they were breathing in each other's breaths.

"Tell me, Charlie. Tell me why I'm different from Gillian and those broads."

Charlie's breath was hot and fast. "God damn it, Mey. Just touch me."

"Tell me the things I do to you I'll never do to Dennis Malley," Meyer said, his hand cupping over Charlie's bulge momentarily before going back to stroking his inner thigh.

"You do lots of stuff I'd fucking kill anybody else for," Charlie said, knowing they were journeying into uncharted territory. "You knot up my god damn hands with your tie."

Meyer leaned over so his face was against the smooth back of Charlie's neck, wanting to inhale Charlie's scent, wanting to inhale Charlie. "Yes, true. What else," he asked while his hand slid under the paisley silk to caress the very tip of Charlie's cock.

Charlie tried to push his hips into Meyer's fingers but Meyer removed his hand from Charlie's hair and grabbed him around the hips. "Don't even try it," Meyer whispered harshly.

"You put your prick in my mouth and push it in until I choke. You like it when I choke."

True, Meyer thought, because who wouldn't want Charlie on his knees? Who wouldn't want to see those pretty lips wrapped around their cock? He rewarded Charlie with a quick tug that made both of them momentarily forget to breathe.

"You make me grab my own prick and you watch. Sometimes you put your fingers in...god damn it, Meyer, you know where you put your fingers."

For a moment Meyer's hands brushed back against the buttons. What did it matter, he decided, Charlie bought his silk underwear by the gross. He yanked on them so hard that the mother of pearl buttons scattered across the thick antique rug. Filled with a need to feel the silky soft flesh of Charlie's back under the thick fur of his chest he first pushed up Charlie's undershirt until it was wrapped around Charlie's shoulders before Meyer sat back on his own knees to more carefully remove his own underthings. After all, he'd spent good money on them. No need for carelessness.

"For our mutual benefit you should continue," Meyer growled, fighting the urge to have Charlie right now.

Charlie licked his lips. Meyer was leaning over him to grab something from the bag on the floor, causing Meyer's dick to press against his lower back. It gave him some satisfaction to realize Meyer was as hard as he was. He writhed under Meyer and was rewarded by Meyer groaning above him. He heard the sound of glass and the knowledge of what was in Meyer's hand made precum start leaking out of the tip of his dick.

"You put on oil on your fingers and then you put oil on me and sometimes you put oil on my hand so I can rub it on your dick," Charlie finally managed to say.

Meyer's hand was covered with oil as it started massaging the top of Charlie's ass. Charlie groaned as Meyer's fingers slipped into his crack.

The light coming in the edges of the curtains was changing but Meyer was too distracted by the sight in front of him to think about what that meant. He was intoxicated by the scent, sight, and feel of Charlie. "What else?"

The linen of the pillowcase was now being crushed between Charlie's fingers. The fuck if he was going to ruin this moment like a damn kid. "You put me on my side," Charlie continued after taking a deep breath and Meyer moved him so quickly he fell onto his side with a thump.

After positioning Charlie's legs to his liking Meyer continued to let his hand move down.

"You push your fingers inside me," Charlie managed to gasp out as he felt one of Meyer's fingers breach him. "Mey, your fingers are so fucking thick."

Meyer lowered his mouth onto the top of Charlie's shoulders, his own breath coming at an incredibly thick pace, overtaken by the need to taste Charlie's flesh salty and warm under his tongue. Neither man noticed the bedside clock striking six.

Nor did they notice the train was no longer rocking beneath them.

With great care Meyer worked in a second finger and started scissoring, looking for the spot that always made Charlie howl.

Charlie howled. Meyer pressed harder.

"God damn it, Meyer, god damn it..." Charlie pleaded.

"Say it," Meyer begged, his breath hot against Charlie's ear, the game having rebounded until his need was as raw and urgent as Charlie's own.

"I want you, Mey, please," Charlie finally sobbed out. "You fuck me, you fuck me, holy mother of god please just fuck me."

"Charlie, god," Meyer breathed out, his heart hammering in his chest.

The words falling from Charlie's mouth dissolved into nonsense. For a moment their faces were pressed together, letting Meyer feel the pulse in Charlie's temple in the bones of his own face.

Once more Meyer pressed his fingertips against Charlie's jaw and their mouths opened to each other. There was no more dominance or one-upmanship. Instead, there was the slow slide of their mouths melding together until Meyer can no longer determine where he ends and Charlie begins.

One hand gripped Charlie's hip, holding him in place. Meyer could feel the tenseness in Charlie when he first breached him and the pain hit, but after a moment he could feel Charlie's muscles relaxing under his hand.

"I gotta move, tesoro," Meyer finally breathed out.

One of Charlie's hands braced against the soft mossy velvet of the headboard while his other reached back for any part of Meyer he could touch. It didn't matter that Meyer was ever so slowly moving ever deeper inside him. He needed more. He wanted everything.

"Move, libster. Damn it, move," Charlie answered, his hand finally finding Meyer's ass to pull him closer, to pull him further in.

Time lost meaning. Seconds, minutes, hours, days fell away. There was just this. Meyer's hand finally came around to touch Charlie in the way Charlie had wanted since the game began, since time began.

Finally, they fell into the soaked sheets, the ruins of Charlie's underthings trapped beneath them, their legs and hands twisted together, both of them breathless and boneless. Their faces were still pressed together and as Meyer relaxed back into sleep he realized their faces were wet.

He wasn't sure who had cried.

#boardwalk empire #boardwalk fic #charlie luciano #meyer lansky #soulmates in crime #lanskiano #otp: friends since childhood #gangster husbands #smut

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studiesinconnoisseurship · 4 years ago

Text

Sicily's Triumph of Death

Triumph of Death – Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo

Palazzo Sclafani, Palermo

The Triumph of Death – il Trionfo della Morte – is a huge fresco filling most of the end wall of a large and lofty hall in Palazzo Abbatellis, the National Gallery of Sicily in Palermo. It was not painted for that room, but for a wall of the courtyard of another palazzo in the city, Palazzo Sclafani, still standing and still to be seen, though not visited, close to a public garden east of the Cathedral. That palazzo was built in 1330, originally for a Count, Matteo Sclafani, but exactly a hundred years later, in 1440, the City Administration (the Senate), wishing to rationalise its hospital provision and have one big hospital rather than seven small ones, requisitioned the palazzo, by then in a poor state, and set about converting it into the main hospital for the city. This development evidently included commissions for artists, and one of those was given to the painter of the Triumph. It is unfortunate that the commission document has never been found, but we can be thankful that aerial bombardment of Palazzo Sclafani in 1943 did not destroy, only damaged, the fresco, which was soon after removed, restored and displayed where it now is.

Details from Triumph of Death (clockwise from top): Death rides of a skeletal horse; The Fountain of Life; Death’s Victims; Lute Player

The painter’s choice of subject was a natural one for the courtyard of a hospital in those days. Sclafani’s palazzo dated from the time of the Black Death, but in Sicily, as in mainland Italy and the rest of Europe, Death in the form of plague had galloped back into people’s lives unpredictably and most often fatally ever since. Skeletal Death rides his skeletal horse full tilt across the fresco; his victims lie in a heap at the bottom of the picture. There is, however, Life, a Fountain of Life, beside which a harpist plays his silent music. Elegant ladies converse with animated gestures of shared alarm; there are men to the left, young and old, but, one observes, no children. Above the men a menacing wolfhound and another dog strain at the leash. Death, in short, threatens Life, for the mitred as for the unmitred, but Life is there. Memento Mori, you who enter this place and may not leave it alive; but remember, too, that you have lived, and life, with all its music and conversation, will continue after you.

Such is the general message. I have chosen this work as the focus of my latest Studies in Connoisseurship partly because we are living through a global pandemic. The hospitals of Palermo, as of many other cities in Italy and beyond, have once more been filled with very ill people dying, or threatened with dying, as life outside them struggles to continue.

As a connoisseur my motive is different. The fresco, unsurprisingly, has captivated many visitors and inspired some writers, but the fact that without a surviving contract or other document from the early 1440s we still do not know who painted this work surely plays its part in our fascination: we see it as a unique phenomenon, sui generis. This of course is unreal: someone painted it. Sicilians wonder if he was Sicilian. The last owner of Palazzo Sclafani lived in Spain; could he have proposed a Spanish artist? Some, bizarrely, have suggested that the painter may have come from the Netherlands. If he was Sicilian, did he afterwards leave the island to seek his fortune, like Antonello da Messina, on the mainland? Or did he come from the mainland, invited by the hospital’s rector, Pietro Speciale, or someone else who was commissioning works of art for it? A work like the Triumph of Death does not appear from nowhere; what other works by its creator preceded it?

I cannot answer these questions, but privately I have shared the quest for answers over many years, and I think I can at least contribute to our understanding of this anonymous artist by adding other works that may reasonably be attributed to him. As with all exercises in connoisseurship, what is ‘reasonable’ is what can be argued visually through juxtaposition of images.

First, a general observation should be made about the work from an aesthetic point of view. Iconographically, the Triumph of Death is well known and quite a lot has been written about antecedent examples of the theme, at the Campo Santo at Pisa, in the work of Orcagna, and elsewhere. In this case, however, the horse and the rider are not enough to pull the composition together, because all around them are disparate groups of figures and animals and objects that relate awkwardly to each other and fail to bond into a coherent whole. Whatever else he was, this artist cannot be said to be a great composer. Seen from a distance – as the fresco can be – it reminds one of some large and similarly incoherent tapestries. This is a serious defect which no doubt excludes it, as a whole, from the very highest rank of artistic achievement.

Details from Triumph of Death (clockwise from top left) – Death’s Horse; The King; a Survivor of Death; Death’s Victims

The words ‘as a whole’ are to be emphasised, though, because as soon as we draw close and our eyes take in the details (as would those of anyone standing or walking under the arcade of that hospital courtyard in 1442), they are everywhere amazed by what they discover in the sphere of draughtsmanship. There the artist excels, both in ‘disegno’, his brilliant invention of representational forms, and in the extraordinary refinement and elegance of his line, whether in the tail of the hound, the head of the horse (like something out of Guernica), in the aristocratic ladies or, most originally of all, in the heads of the dead tumbled together at the bottom. It is the quality of this artist’s drawing, rather than his colour or composition, that makes it less important that all the colour reproductions offered here are of questionable fidelity.

Comparing drawings at the Louvre (top left and top centre) with details of the noble women from Triumph of Death

Comparing the similar hand gesture of the drawing of a Lady (left) and a Survivor of Death (right)

To pick out the draughtsmanship is, I believe, to pick up the key that can unlock the mystery of what else this artist did. Over many years of intermittent study I have kept a look-out for any drawings that might be associated with him by virtue of their extreme linear elegance combined with a certain oddity. Among the drawings in the Vallardi Album at the Louvre are a few that are not by Pisanello, and among these is a pair of profiles, one of a mature Lady, the other of an older Man. The one of the Lady is the more developed and the more remarkable, for the fine lines of the hair and the purity of contour in her profile. Compare this drawing with the depiction of the aristocratic ladies in the Trionfo, especially the one seen in profile who likewise wears an eardrop, and I think a definite similarity is observable. It is confirmed when we turn to the raised left hand of the Lady in the drawing. Artists describe hands and their gestures in such interestingly different ways: this one favours two fingers (first and second) straight, two fingers (third and fourth) bent. Anyone who tries to put their own fingers into the same position will soon realise that it is not natural and not sustainable; but there it is, not only in the drawing but in the Trionfo, exactly in one instance, and to varying degrees of bentness in many more. To anyone acquainted with the history of connoisseurship this could be a textbook illustration of Giovanni Morelli’s ‘method’.

Drawing of a Man with a Fur Collar (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München)

Comparing the Louvre Drawing (left) and Munich drawing (right) with faces from Triumph

At the Print Room at Munich (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung) there is another drawing, this time of a Man with a Fur Collar seen close-up, his head turned to our left, his neck emerging from a fur collar encircling it. this is not finished, but those fine lines drawn in long parallel strokes that distinguished the tresses of the Lady in the Vallardi Album are also here, along with a very particular shape given to the eye (upper lid and corner nearest to the nose) and to the ear, philtrum> and lips. These features are most clearly matched in the face of the young man on the extreme left of the Trionfo, and that of his companion.

Portrait of a Lady – Johnson Collection, Philadelphia

Comparing the Drawings from the Louvre (Top Left and Bottom Right) and Munich (Bottom Left) with the Painting of the Lady at Washington

At this point in my quest for drawings by the Trionfo Master the trail goes cold. There is, however, a painting in the Johnson Collection at Philadelphia, attributed, unconvincingly in my view, to Ercole de Roberti, which exhibits exactly the eye-shape, ear-shape, lips and philtrum of the Munich drawing, as well as the sharp, rounded eyebrows of the Vallardi Lady and the ear of the Vallardi Man.The Johnson painting has morphological similarities with the Trionfo, but it seems to belong to a later period, and there is reason for thinking that it does. It may indeed be the link between the Trionfo and a whole body of much later work by this artist, not in Sicily but in Ferrara.

Comparing faces with fresco in Palazzo di Schifanoia of Virgo recumbant with her Decani (bottom panels)

In the Salone dei Mesi of the Palazzo di Schifanoia in Ferrara it is possible to distinguish fairly clearly the work of Francesco del Cossa, but there is another artist, credited with many of the Months whose identity has always puzzled art historians. He has been called the ‘Maestro di Ercole’ or the ‘Maestro degli Occhi Spalancati’, but these names have not led to much development of an oeuvre for an artist of such weird imagination and invention, a man capable, as Cossa was not, of creating extraordinary images like the figure of Virgo, for August, the giant lobster, for June, or the sign of Libra, for September.

Scenes from the Fresco at Palazzo Schifanoia: Virgo in the Allegory of August (top); The Lobster from the Allegory of June (centre); Libra from the Allegory of September (bottom)

From Palazzo Sclafani to Palazzo Schifanoia is not only a leap of geography; there must also be a gap of many years, perhaps a quarter of a century. It is frustrating and unsatisfactory that there is, as yet, so little to fill that gap. I do believe, nevertheless, that Palermo and Ferrara are connected in the career of this painter. The argument depends as always on a juxtaposition such as this one: the Munich drawing, the Johnson portrait, the heads of Virgo.

Detail of Virgo (top left) to compare with the Lady in Philadelphia (top centre) and the Man in Munich (top right), and comparisons of the horse from Triumph of Death (bottom left) and horses from the Allegory of March (bottom right)

From August we can move to other Months in the astrological zodiac, and discover that the eccentricity manifest at Palermo has not deserted this artist, but it has changed. In the many years that have elapsed he has developed, for example, a bizarre way of representing drapery – like sharply creased paper folded one way and then another – and rocks – like laminated tombstones. Despite the lapse of years there is a horse’s head whose structure can still remind us of the one at Palermo.

The Allegory of August, Triumph of Ceres and representation of Virgo – Palazzo Schifanoia

The Allegory of September (top) and detail of Mars in bed with a Nymph (bottom) – Palazzo Schifanoia

There is also a change of theme. The work at Palermo is dominated, very obviously, by Death, his work at Ferrara quite largely by Sex, especially so in August. The bare-breasted figure of Ceres brandishes the reaped corn and then, recumbent, sprawls luxuriously across three divisions while looking out seductively at the spectator. In September Mars is in bed with a nymph, Ylia, and the figure of Libra is set between two figures of a physique reminiscent of male ballet dancers, their calves developed like athletes on Greek pots. Sex, yes, but also, to complete the trinity, War. There is now a definite martial streak to the artist’s imagination, no doubt fuelled by the idea of ‘triumph’ and expressed in images of Mars, Vulcan’s Forge, armour.

Detail of Vulcan’s Forge from The Allegory of September

His contributions to the Triumph scenes are at least as ill-composed as the Triumph at Palermo, but under them, in the Months, he wisely sets his figures and creatures against plain dark backdrops. We remember them all the better for their standing out pale, even white, against the deep blues and browns. At Palermo this had only begun to happen in the upper left quadrant and behind the horse.

Clearly I and others must look diligently for other works by this artist that will allow us to see how he developed between the two periods of activity and what he was doing before the first one. The drawings that I have proposed as his must belong to the earlier, Palermitan phase of his career, but how did he draw in later years? His name is more likely to be discovered by historians and archivists. I would like him to be a Sicilian – the island has too few major artists besides Antonello da Messina – but I must declare a doubt that he was. We need the evidence in any case to tell us whether he was brought to Palermo from the mainland or was native to the island at the time of the Sclafani commission. Without the facts we are left in ignorance. If the thesis presented here, of a connection between Palermo and Ferrara, should find acceptance, I hope that it will have armed us with a little more understanding of his character as an artist. He has an abundance of character. As painter, as draughtsman, as inventor of images, he appears to be one of the great eccentrics of European art, and one that can speak to us, of life and death and love, in another dark time.

#triumph of death #sicily #italian art #palazzo schifanoia #palazzo sclafani #palermo #studies in connoisseurship #connoisseurship #art history #art secrets

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ginger-danica-snapps · 4 years ago

Text

The Wolf Queen and Her Crow Prince

By Ginger D. Snapped

Written for @jonsaseasonalbash day 3 - 24 April: crow and little bird/king and queen/stone and snow.

I was out of town unexpectedly for Day Three, but here is my completion for the Jonsa Seasonal Bash, using the prompt King and Queen. This is written as snapshots of the time when the freefolk began to gather and the end of the long night. This is not betaed, so please be gentle.

You can also read on my AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/30930386

Summary: Sansa knows she didn’t always live beyond the wall. Mance and his wife were not her parents, but she was freefolk to her bones and it didn’t matter who discovered her. She would save her people from the Night King and never kneel to a Southern King or Queen.

Sansa knew there was a time in her life that she didn’t live beyond the wall. She knew the same way that she knew what lemon tasted like and that somewhere there were people who were not always fighting the cold. Where people were fed when hungry and she was loved. The only thing she remembered from that life was her name being Sansa.

Not that she was not loved by her people. Mance and his wife had been good to her. They had even told her some of the truth of how she came to be with the Freefolk. It was not a pretty story and she knew she had basically been stolen long before she was ready to be taken as a wife. Mance had killed the man that brought her beyond the wall, but worried about what would happen if he took her back across.

So, she stayed with Mance and Dalla and learned the way of the freefolk. She became a sister to Val and while she did not have the fighting ability of many of the spearwives, she could hold her own well enough to dissuade any more men who came to steal her away.

Still, she found her way across the great white to peer upon the wall several times in her growing years. She would stare upon the great monstrosity and wonder who beyond it would remember her. Was she missed? Was she loved?

It made her melancholy in a way that was hard to explain, though Val tried to understand.

Something else began to settle into the freefolk’s general attitude towards her in the latter year. She’d been one of them for so long that when she was happened upon by a shadowcat and thought herself dead that she was grateful to have lived free. It was not her day to die, however, as a gigantic beast flew from the rocks above them.

She had scrambled backwards on her hands and bottom, boots scuffling against the ice and snow. Val, Mance, and Ygritte reaching her just as she stood and she leaned gratefully into Val’s own warmth. The cat was now had by the neck with what Sansa realized was a gigantic grey and white direwolf.

They had seen only trackings of the great beasts before and often avoided the area they were found.

When the cat was obviously dead, Sansa pushed Ygritte to the side when the girl went to draw back her bow string.

“NO!” she cried out before she had formed a thought for what she was going to do. Then she was pulling away from Val and rushing forward to the wolf.

She hit her knees as she reached forward, kneeling before the wolf, and realized for a moment she felt a savage joy at destroying the shadowcat and tasted blood in her own mouth, though there was none. The beast leant to her and rubbed it’s humongous face against hers. She let a giggle escape her before she was flinging her arms around the wolf.

“Nothing to be said for it now. The rumours about the Stark girl going missing were true,” Val murmured and Sansa looked up to Mance. He looked as if he had aged twenty years in the span of moments. As if he had already not been struggling over their people going missing by the tribes, clans, and societies.

Sansa was not stupid.

If a Stark child had gone missing some years before and now she had a direwolf in front of her who seemed to want to keep her, then by all rational thinking she was this Stark girl.

Amazingly, for the first time in many years, Sansa saw a flash of something in her memory. A grey and white flag with a direwolf upon it.

She wrinkled her nose as she realized what this meant.

She had always known she was born to someone below the wall, but she was not just the child of a kneeler. She was a child of someone that the people kneeled to.

“Child,” Mance’s voice reached her and she looked up with a tilted head. She huffed as she realized he was worried about her reaction.

That was stupid and she told him so. If he, a deserter of the crows, toted her back to the wall they would have thanked him, taken her, and then promptly hung him for desertion. Then it was likely they would have drummed up the support of these Lords and Ladies she was apparently blood kin too and brought an army into their home to kill indiscriminately.

“It is fine, stop being stupid. I understand that it was even more important to not return me if I was...am...this Stark girl,” she finally murmured.

They made their way back to the camp Sansa kept her hand on the nape of the direwolf.

“Whaddya gonna name her?” Ygritte asked eventually and Sansa looked over in surprise. She truly had not thought about it.

She looked at the wolf and then thought about how she hit her knees in front of her. She grinned savagely and laughed.

“Well, I kneeled before her, so I guess she must be a Lady,” Sansa answered and Mance barked out a laugh.

“Lady it is,” he chuckled and they made their way back to their tents, the freefolk around them all giving them wide eyes.

-------------

It was three moons later when the world went to shit.

Their people, those that called Mance King and those that did not, were being slaughtered by these dead creatures. Sansa had seen three of her milk siblings rise and attack the same as that which had killed them.

She’d cut the head off of one herself with Val thrusting a lit torch against the creature and setting it aflame. They’d barely managed to hold Dalla between them before Lady had returned from wherever she had been hunting. They all clamoured on top of the direwolf, gripping hands into the fur, and Sansa murmured an order for Lady to run.

They’d met with Vance and many of the others who had been hunting and Sansa had to shut her eyes at the cries of those who realized that they had lost all their elderly and the children too young to join the hunt.

“No one is left?” Mance asked quietly as Sansa helped Dalla down.

“No, it was slaughter. We need to be moving,” Sansa whispered back harshly, pushing aside all feelings for the time being.

Mance nodded, “Aye, we make for Frostfangs.”

“This will be happening everywhere, Mance,” Val added as they began to lead their people away.

Mance grunted, “Maybe now they will listen.”

Sansa was sitting before the fire, Lady beside her, working her needle through the last of the seal skin that had come at the same time as the whale blubber that Val was stirring to render over the low flame. There was not much brought by the last traveler and Sansa knew this would be the last they would receive here.

It would not be long until they’d made their bid to make it over the wall. There had been rumors of ill tidings in the kingdom of the kneelers. A king dead, rebellion, and only little Starks in Winterfell.

Over the last moon, Mance had taught her all he could of the world below the wall.

He said just in case, but Sansa could read his wishes between the words unspoken.

In case all else fails, use her name to the best of her ability, and take care of their people.

The tent flap few open and they all looked up, Sansa’s hand automatically reaching for the spear she kept beside her at all times now. Lady was up on her feet as well and lips already pulled back in a snarl.

“Ygritte!” she exclaimed as the girl came in and eyes settled on Mance. Sansa settled back down into her chair when she realized there was no immediate danger.

“What is it? Why are you back?” Mance gruffly asked.

Ygritte hesitated only momentarily before stating, “I brought a crow. Says he has forsworn his vows and wishes to join our people.”

Sansa watched as Mance’s eyebrows raised, “Well, bring him in.”

Ygritte hesitated again, “He has a wolf like our girl. Big old white thing with red eyes. Says it's the companion of members of his family.”

Sansa stood again, her spear dropping to a clatter this time as she grabbed at the fabric of her tunic.

“He’s a Stark?” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Ygritte grunted in agreement, “Said something about natural and true, but I couldn’t tell you what his lips were flappin’ about. Seemed to be important to him though.”

“He’s a natural born son of House Stark. The bastard brought back from the war against the Targaryen’s by the Warden of the North,” Mance mused before adding, “Your half brother. I don’t remember his name.”

“Jon,” Sansa murmured as Ygritte answered as well, “Snow, Jon Snow.”

Sansa looked up with wide-eyes. She remembered his name and suddenly a young boy was in front of her young self with dark curly hair and solemn eyes. The same spectral boy she dreamt of on a nightly basis. She had thought him nought but her imagination.

“You should not climb that, Lady Sansa. Your mother would be quite cross.”

Then before she could say another word, a man was coming through the tent flap. Sansa’s breath caught as she knew without a doubt that this was the man from her dreams. This was Jon Snow, her brother, and she realized without a doubt that he was her downfall.

She felt her heart beat faster, her palms growing sweaty, and when his eyes met hers Sansa was lost in the darkness.

“It...it can’t be,” her crow brother whispered as his eyes darted to Lady and back up, “Sansa?”

“Hello Jon,” she responded without thinking and then she could think no more as she was swept into strong arms and she was inhaling deep the scent of her kin.

-----------

Sansa stared at Mance with a gaping mouth.

“Absolutely not,” she bit out.

Mance did not look impressed, “Absolutely so. Every leader, chieftain, and speaker has decided. I have stepped back and you are the Queen-Beyond-The-Wall.”

Sansa shook her head fiercely.

She’d spent the last three days just getting to know her brother. She’d already decided to steal him for her own as soon as the chance arose. After all, he was only her half-brother, and it was not unheard of among the Freefolk.

Menfolk were sometimes in low commodity and surviving had been more important than the sharing of a parent.

Still, Jon was sweet, if a bit naive.

Ygritte had told her of her advances on Jon on the way to Frostfangs and she didn’t quite believe the man was truthful in his defection. This surprised Sansa not one bit. She had already come to that opinion in the three days she’d spent with him.

It was only the wildness in his eyes and the obvious wish for the freedom of her people that burned in him brightly that kept Sansa from truly speaking out about his duplicity. Brother or not, she had an entire people to protect from the crows and those below the wall.

“This is a mistake,” Sansa finally muttered.

Mance shook his head, “No. This is the only way to get most of us past the wall with little to no bloodshed.”

Sansa snorted in derision, “Whether the slaughter happens this side of the wall or once we’ve settled in some nice little field and are betrayed, the kneelers will betray us,” then she sat on a stool and lowered her face into her hands.

“Are we even positive that Jon can help? That he will be listened to?” she asked quietly, at almost a whisper.

Mance made an encouraging noise and sat down in front of her, “They say his brother became a king before dying and that the entirety of the kingdom is at war. We will take back proof of the dead and show the watch. I am hopeful your presence will encourage less hostility. If they decide to be fuckers all around, then I’ll take the people over the wall the way we planned and take the castle.”

Sansa sighed and stood again, “Then I suppose I should explain the truth of things to Jon. I get the feeling he expects to return me to the stone houses to wear pretty dresses and sew little pieces of cloth with no purpose all day.”

Mance chuckled and leaned in and kissed her forehead. She turned and went to join her brother in the tent they’d been keeping him in.

She could not help but laugh when she entered and found Tormund and Ygritte keeping guard. Jon had apparently said or done something they didn’ t appreciate, because he was trussed up like one of the wild boars they hadn’t seen in years.

She pulled her knife from her belt and slipped it through the ropes at his wrist. She gave him a leering smile and watched, pleased, as he turned the same color as her hair.

“Leave us,” she demanded and didn’t bother to look and see if they obeyed. The soft falls of feet and the fabric flapping closed gave her all the answer she needed.

“Will your crows listen?” she demanded and Jon looked at her confused.

She huffed in response, “Your crow people and the southerner’s, will they listen when we tell them of the dead and allow us to give proof. The wall holds for now, but that will not be forever. It will fall and when it does then this is all of our problems. If you leave my people to fall behind the wall then the force that rises will be unstoppable.”

“Sansa, you are a Stark. The last living Stark as far as I know and the Lady of Winterfell,” her crow kin told her and Sansa resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“I am the Queen-Beyond-the-Wall, chosen by my people here, and I will not forsake them for stone walls and kneeling sycophants,” she muttered.

“You're the Queen? I thought Mance…,” Jon began but Sansa held up a hand to stop him.

This time he glared at her and Sansa resisted the urge to snarl back at him.

“I am now the Queen. The people decided just this morning and I will be the one to deal with your people. Now, answer my question and none of this manure about you supporting the freefolk. We are not stupid and you might have the heart to be free, but your mind is terribly chained up,” Sansa demanded.

Then Jon motioned for her to sit. Sansa moved to sit and crossed her legs underneath her and they began to hammer out an accord.

--------

Four moons later, Sansa found herself sitting across from a man with a sterner face than any she’d ever seen.

“You are a Stark and I am your rightful King,” the man said gruffly.

Sansa sniffed, “I choose to be Freefolk and I am their chosen Queen. I cannot be this Stark you want to put in that stone cage and you cannot be my King. We are not married and your wife is unlikely to take kindly to the idea of you taking another one.”

The man called Stannis, who she had taken to just calling the Southern King in her head, was now resembling one of the fish with whiskers that she’d been served since coming through the wall.

“Put my brother in it. He seems to be fond of stone cages,” she added.

“He’s a bastard,” the wannabe king growled.

Sansa barked out a laugh, “You think these Northern people will accept a Stark raised as Freefolk over a bastard raised as a Stark? You must be stupider than you look. Make my brother this Lord Stark and offer my people the right to live below the wall if they fight for you and this chair you want so badly without kneeling. They’ll agree to follow the law of these lands while we are here and will allow Jon to be the direct voice to yourself. I speak for my people to Jon and he speaks for me to you. Problem solved.”

She stated her demands and leaned back in the chair, folding her hands in her lap, and just stared at the man.

“Your father…,” he began again, but she didn’t even let him make another excuse.

Sansa stood and turned to walk out. She looked back over her shoulder before she exited.

“I do not remember my father, nor my mother, nor most of my siblings. Apparently there were two I never even met. Appealing to my sense of familial ties will do nothing but frustrate me. Give me what my people need and we have a deal. Otherwise, there is no reason to send for me again.”

With that Sansa exited the room as calmly as she could. She stopped briefly on the outside and listed as the fire witch spoke to Stannis.

“I believe she is correct. We now know where the war truly is,” the woman said.

Stannis made a noise of derision, “Her brother already turned down my pardon of his vows, legitimisation, and being the Warden of the North. I need to place a Stark back in Winterfell or I will never draw enough support to take the throne. We need the kingdom to fight this damn war you are speaking of.”

“Then do as the fire commanded,” the woman responded.

“Now see here,” the man that Stannis called his Hand, though Sansa did not understand why he needed someone’s else’s when he had two himself that worked just fine, “You can’t just marry a man to his sister, half or prophesied, regardless.”

Sansa wanted to choke. What had her idiot kin done now?

Swallowing hard, she marched off to find Jon.

------------

“I made a vow,” Jon was now glaring at her and Sansa was getting rather tired of people glaring at her and speaking to her of words that were someone more important than doing what was necessary to survive.

She gave him an unimpressed look, “So, did the majority of the men in this stone cage currently, but they sure seem to enjoy getting their cock wet with my spearwives.”

“Do you know the whole of what is being asked, Sansa? Or are you going to stand there and lecture me? Marriage, Sansa, he wants us to marry,” Jon growled out and Sansa stood to meet him when he began to move away.

She pressed her hands into his chest and pushed back with all his strength, “You will listen to me, Jon Snow. You made a vow to protect the realm of men. Staying on this stupid wall, freezing, with a bunch of other stupid men is not going to keep this realm safe. You all already apparently forgot who the actual enemy the wall was built to stop was, nevertheless leaving my people as fodder to build an army the likes of which you’ve never seen. Taking Winterfell and Stannis’s offer, regardless of what it is, will protect the realm of men.”

Jon gaped at her, speechless, and Sansa took it as a sign to do something. She stepped closer, not letting him escape her gaze, and pressed her lips against his. He made a sound that reminded her of a dying man’s last breath, before suddenly kissing her back with a fury. Sansa gasped as he lifted her and sat her upon the table.

She had just managed to get her fingers under his leathers and was about to yank at laces when he stepped back with a panicked look on his face. Sansa wanted to scream at his ridiculous morals.

He turned to run from the room, but she stood swiftly and passed him, sweeping her leg under his to send him sprawling down. She slammed the door closed and bolted it. Looking around, Sansa made herself not grumble at the lack of furs or a bed.

Beds were the thing she could grow used to the most. Although Jon had said the beds here were nothing like in this Winterfell. Sansa could not imagine anything softer.

She looked down at Jon and reached behind her to undo her laces.

“Sansa…” he said hoarsely, staring up at her. Sansa ignored the plea in his eyes and let her dress fall from her shoulders.

The dress had been a juxtaposition of painful and enjoyable of being below the wall instead of behind it. She’d run her fingers over the soft material when it had been gifted to her to wear instead of her leather breeches and fur jerkins. She thought Val would have liked it, for all the girl would have argued.

She’d have liked the monstrosity they called a bathtub too.

It all made Sansa incredibly uncomfortable at the reminders of what she had been born into and sometimes, in the darkest part of night, she could see the sweet, innocent, stupid thing she would have been. She both was grateful to not be her and mournful of what could have been.

“Now, if you can truly say you do not want me, then I will redress and walk out of this room. If you cannot honestly admit that, though, then I’m taking you for my husband, you’re taking the offer of this Stannis, and we’re going to let my people behind the wall,” She murmured as she knelt in front of him, her braid falling over her shoulder and brushing against the top of her breast.

She watched his eyes track the movement and grinned at the heat in his eyes. She knew without a doubt that Ygritte had been correct. Jon was definitely a pure man and Sansa ignored the heat that flooded her core, causing her to grow quickly wet, at the thought that he was going to be her man to have.

No one else would have him again, unless she was dead and buried. She’d had lovers before, occasionally a spearwife and at times a man from another clan, but never one she wanted to keep.

Jon was staring at her still, this time with some sort of worshipful awe, when her fingers reached to his breaches and unlaced him.

“Sansa,” he whispered, this time more like whispered words of love.

She pulled him free and pulled herself over him to straddle. Lowering herself slowly, Sansa sat on his cock and groaned at the stretch of his girth. She wondered if these Southern boys compared cocks the way the youth of the freefolk did and if Jon realized how blessed the gods had been to him.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that she was helping him break his vows as it would be a travesty to waste such a cock. She began to move her hips in a languid, smooth motion, rocking against him hard on the downfall to press her button into his groin. She added a longer roll as she grew hotter and hotter.

Then without warning, Jon decided to be an active participant. He surged up, hand cupping the back of her head, as he moved them over. Sansa was pleased to find he had unclipped his cloak and she was now laid out against it. She moaned in pleasure as he immediately set to fucking into her.

Then his mouth was against hers and she was shoving her own hips up to meet his furious pace. Sansa chased the feeling that was building inside of her and she refused to allow his control to stop her pleasure. She grabbed one of his hands and pulled it down to her button and pressed against his palm as she felt his cock inside of her as she ground upwards.

“Sansa,” Jon groaned as she felt herself begin falling.

“Jon!” she screamed as pleasure ripped through her body and she felt him respond to her own cry with wetness flooding inside of her.

She prepared for him to collapse on top of her as most men she’d taken her pleasure from were apt to do. She found herself moved and cradled against him as he laid back on the floor.

“I don’t know if Ygritte explained how this works, but I took you for my husband,” she said succinctly and dared him to argue with her stare.

He sighed and looked over at her, “Our father and your mother will probably crawl out of their graves to kill me, but aye, I accept you as my wife. The North will not love this, but they will accept it to get a Stark back in Winterfell. Now, I can take my wife’s name instead of legitimation from Stannis. That will make them even more accepting. We have to take Winterfell first, though. Without Winterfell we will not be seen as legitimate. They might balk a southern king releasing me from my vows.”

Sansa sighed against him. The man knew nothing of bed talk. Sitting up she pulled him after her. If he wanted to talk business then they should get to it.

Cutting her eyes back over to view his backside before she slid her dress over her head, Sansa also thought that the sooner they finished the business then they could get back to the fucking.

A voice inside her head added, and baby making.

------------

They meet with Stannis...it’s about as enjoyable as Sansa had imagined. They reach an accord.

They go beyond the wall and speak to her people about the agreement to help take back the Northern key that was supposed to be her birthright and then the truly southern city where Stannis has his stupid chair. Then Stannis will bring the full force of the kingdom North to handle the enemy beyond the wall. That discussion is even less enjoyable with much yelling and even one clan defecting completely and leaving.

Sansa says a prayer to the old gods that they find their way to somehow burn in one of the red witch’s fires before they join the army of the dead. Stupid fools.

Stannis and Jon both choke when she tells them that there are at least 85,000 fighting men and women. The rest are too old to be an asset or too young to understand how to tell the difference between two living enemies.

They both insist the women don’t fight and Sansa plans to ignore them. If the enemy doesn’t care about killing women, why should they care about fighting them?

Finally, they send ravens. So many ravens and Sansa is astounded how the birds manage to find the people and return with a warg to guide and control them. Jon is astounded to learn that wargs exist and that he has the ability. He does it regularly with Ghost but had thought it was a dream. Sansa and he both begin to learn together with a freefolk skinchanger.

Jon and her marry before the red witch in part of their agreement with Stannis and Jon is released from his vows to the watch and officially becomes Jon Stark. Then they wed again before the heart tree beyond the wall and Sansa imagines for a moment that her forgotten parents are watching.

Mance, Dalla, Val, and Ygritte are there in the flesh though and Mance tells her later, when they are all huddled around a fire, that he is proud of the free woman she is. Dalla and he both ask if something happens to them that she takes care of Val and the baby Dalla has yet to birth.

She drags him back to the heart tree alone and vows before it that she will save as many as she can, but she will watch for Val and the unborn babe with every breath she has.

He is the only father she can remember.

Her people agree, as long as they are allowed to have the truth north back as soon as the final war is over and it not be a part of the southern kingdom. They will not kneel.

Sansa will not give her crown until the war is over and her people are safe.

By then it would not be necessary as her people would have no need for one when they are free in their home and not in danger of the dead.

Jon and she share a bed every night and Sansa is pleased to learn that her husband is a quick study. She also thinks her men are sharing ways to please a woman, because he attacks her center with fingers, lips, tongue, and teeth that is clumsy, but not knowledgeable in the fundamentals.

If she was the type of woman she was born to be, she’d demure her eyes and shyly thank the wives of the men. She’s not that woman though and she makes sure her own clan of people receive three casts of the shit ale the night watch’s call a drink and leads the toast herself. Ygritte claims the majority of the thanks.

She will never tire of Jon’s blush.

Two men and a boy try to kill her husband by tricking him into an ambush, claiming his uncle has survived.

She calls bullshit and when the idiot tries to go rushing down, she draws her blade and motions for the ten men and women she’d chosen to guard her and her husband follow. She’d thought it ridiculous when Stannis told her that she should have an honor guard of some sort since he was recognizing her as a queen and it was only proper.

Her own clan had sent ten forward without hesitancy. Ygritte and Tormund among them.

Ygritte is the one who shoots the boy, her husband’s steward, when Jon cannot do it. He cries into her breast that night and Sansa runs her fingers through his hair and comforts him the best she can.

Tormund somehow decides that her husband should be brought closer to her people after this and begins to heckle him at every opportunity. Sansa finds them fighting in the yard most mornings now.

Jon fits her people more than he wishes to admit. Sansa tries not to think of the day they will send them back beyond the wall.

They begin the march to Winterfell. A winter storm takes them by surprise, but the Freefolk laugh at the southern men in Stannis’s army. Very few Northmen answered their call, but Sansa is not particularly surprised. Jon is only half Stark and she was raised among the Freefolk. Even together they won’t draw the North to them until they sit in Winterfell and the dead is more known.

The freefolk begin to teach the southerners how to best pad their armor and they stop before dusk every night and her people train them how to move on snow and ice. Stannis, his hand, and witch take dinner every night with Jon, Sansa, and Mance.

It’s an odd group, but they make it work.

Melisandre is oddly good at helping keep everyone focused on the real war. She watches Jon in a way that Sansa is not happy about, however. It was on one of the later nights that Melisandre finally addressed whatever it was she had been pondering. Stannis and the others were already abed in their tents and it was only her guard, Jon, and Melisandre left around the fire.

“Your mother, do you know who your mother was?” the witch asked and Sansa resisted the urge to scratch her eyes out when her husband almost immediately became sullen. It was a particular talent of his.

“No, My Lady, Lord Stark never deemed it the time. He promised he would the next I saw him, but you know what happened with that,” Jon said quietly.

Sansa’s eyes narrowed as Melisandre stood and asked for his hand. Jon, the stupid fool, didn’t hesitate and then yelped when Melisandre obviously pierced him in the palm. She was sopping the blood up with a scrap of fabric before he could move back and Sansa stood angrily.

The witch just held up her hand and walked to the fire with the fabric before anyone could say anything.

“For the night is dark and full of terrors,” the witch murmured and tossed the cloth in.

Sansa could not help but find herself intrigued as the fire almost doubled in size and suddenly there were images. Jon and a short, blond woman standing before huge beast’s that could only be dragons. Jon wearing black and red and flying on the dragon. Then nothing.

She looked to Melisandre, who looked back at both of them before sighing.

“I fear that I might have misinterpreted the flames in regards to Stannis,” the woman said as if announcing what she wanted for breakfast, “It’s you who is our prince or the girl.”

“Who was that woman?” Sansa asked.

Melisandre sat and began to draw in the sand a rudimentary symbol of three creatures wrapped around one another.

Jon whispered, “House Targaryen. That is their sigil.”

“Yes, Jon, and the only interpretation left to us is that you are a member of said house, or atleast of their blood. That woman was Daenerys Targaryen, the lost Targaryen Princess, who swears to return to Westeros with fire and blood to reclaim what she says is hers.” Melisandre finished.

Sansa raised an eyebrow, “Well, don’t be telling Stannis that. You’ve told him that he was the promised one or some other rot. Best to let him keep thinking that.”

“Lyanna Stark is my mother,” Jon whispered and Sansa looked at him in confusion.

Jon swallowed hard, “Lyanna was your father’s sister. They say Rhaegar Targaryen took her away and our Uncle Brandon and Grandfather went to King’s Landing to demand her back. Aerys...oh gods, he was my grandfather...burned them alive before demanding that Jon Arryn bring him the heads of your father and Robert Baratheon. It’s why they went to war and deposed him...deposed House Targaryen.”

“Deposed or not, you are Targaryen and Stark, the culmination of the song of ice and fire,” Melisandre said, “Your blood is the blood of kings, the blood of the dragon.”

“I am not a dragon,” Jon snarled and stood with such a quickness and fury that Sansa found herself preparing for battle, “I am the bastard of a deposed house that holds no right to anything in Westeros unless this Daenerys Targaryen returns to conquer it again. It will not be me.”

Melisandre hummed under her breath and Sansa watched the witch consider his words with a sense of trepidation. Sansa reached into her skirts to put her fingers on her knife. If the witch made to do something that would expose her husband, then Sansa would slit her throat before she could speak it.

“Yes, My Lord Stark. You have married into the house of wolves and therefore, I suppose, you are not a dragon any longer. There would be no reason to discourage King Stannis from battle and if Daenerys Targaryen returns, R’hllor will bless the one who is supposed to sit the Iron Throne,” Melisandre finally said and with a quick dip of her own skirts, she moved to head back to her tent.

Sansa let her fingers fall from the hilt and went to stand before her husband and cousin. This made her think of something and so she reached up to cup his head.

“Now you don’t have to worry the Gods will strike you down for fucking your sister, cousin. Do these southerner’s marry cousins?” she said with a smile and grinned when he choked in surprise and met her eyes.

“You do realize your still in the north beneath the wall?” he asked incredulously.

Sansa snorted, “The North is not a place, it’s a people, and those people are the Freefolk. There might be some among the kneeler’s whose heart is Northern and for that they are more my people, than Stannis’s or this Dragon Aunt Lady.”

Sansa tartly turned and made way back to their tents.

-----------

They were crossing beside a large lake when Sansa thought to ask.

“How did this Theon Greyjoy take Winterfell if it is as large a fortress as you say it is?”

She was sandwiched in between Stannis and Jon, riding a grey garron that was older, but sturdy. Melisandre, Mance, and Davos behind them.

“Trickery,” Jon muttered, “He had a force attack a nearby vassal and when Winterfell sent the majority of their fighting men to stop it, Theon led a small group over the wall and took the keep.”

Sansa hummed, “And this Dreadfort, the Bolton’s own keep is not but a bit over 100 leagues from here?”

“Yes…” Jon said cautiously and Sansa could see that he recognized something in her face, “What are you thinking?”

Sansa thought of her men and the number they said were at Winterfell. There could not be many left at the Bolton’s keep, but these southerner’s seemed very attached to their stone houses.

“Could we not do something similar? Surely this Roose and Ramsey have heard of our army marching, but they might not know it is made up mainly of my people. They probably assume it to be your own army and one not used to fighting battle in this terrain. Send a group of my own to take this Dreadfort and draw these pretenders from Winterfell. They would easily be taken care of by ambush on the journey between Winterfell and their own ancestral stones. Then we take a smaller contingent and take back Winterfell,” she said aloud and tried to ignore the way Jon was staring at her.

“You would have us be as dishonorable as a filthy ironborn?” Stannis said incredulously.

Sansa could not help but roll her eyes, ”I’d see as few of our combined men and women die as possible so that we may better survive the long night, but call it what you will. I care not for your southern ideals of morals beyond a night’s enjoyment of listening to pretty songs and fables.”

“Lord Stark was honorable, Robb was honorable and it got their heads cut from their body and practically destroyed the North. I say we go with Sansa. Roose Bolton broke guestright and his own oath to his King, he has no honor to be dishonored,” Jon quietly said.

Stannis was quiet for a bit and Sansa wondered what demons of his own he was fighting in his head. Then he turned and looked at Jon, before sighing.

“Select your men that will go to the Dreadfort, Queen Sansa. I will do the same among mine. You know Winterfell best, Lord Stark, so you select the contingency that will take the keep once the men are gone,” Stannis gritted out as if being forced to say the words. Then he turned and galloped back.

----------

It was nearly a moon more when a large number of the Bolton forces left Winterfell and marched towards the Dreadfort. There were forty of her people with her and several men Jon had chosen hiding among the thickness of the recent snow. They made way carefully at the hour of the wolf.

It took no time at all to catch the walls with their hooks and scale the wall.

Sansa took great amusement in the idea that they were taking back her ancestral home the same way they had originally planned to scale the wall itself. She watched amused as Jon kept her behind him and they made their way further in.

Her people made quick work of all watchmen that came near before they began to move into the keep that Jon pointed out. It was when they were in what appeared to be the living quarters of the family that Sansa had her first moment of recognition. A woman with hair a similar shade as her own was standing in front of Sansa and curly haired boy and waving her finger. Sansa knew it was her mother and she could almost hear a soft, singing voice in the back of her head.

Shaking herself out of her memory, Sansa stopped at the end of a hall and motioned for two of her people to go forward and kill the men standing guard in front of a specific set of chambers. They made quick work and the men did not even have a chance to raise an alarm of any type of sound.

She stood by Jon, who had drawn his sword, as their people busted through the double doors.

A rather pretty, but thick woman jumped from the bed as an older man did the same. His hand went immediately to a crossbow, but Tormund threw a blade to pierce at the palm of the man.

“Who the…” the man began but was pressed into the floor onto his knees.

“Take the woman and find a place to secure her until this is over,” Jon ordered as he stepped forward with Longclaw. He looked at the man on his knees and then around the room. His hand reaching out to caress the wooden bed frame. Sansa realized it was a carved wolf and she wondered if this had been her parent’s chambers.

“Do you know who I am?” her husband asked as he stepped forward into the light of the moon shining through a window. The man glared and took him in from head to toe.

“You must be the bastard. You're too old to be any of the others if they had been still alive. Did you break your vows to the wall to be here?” he said in a low voice.

Sansa finally just laughed, the dramatics of everything was too much.

“He is Lord Stark, but you should be more worried about me,” she said with a light voice as she stepped forward.

“Stannis named you Lord and legitimized you. The north will never follow a bastard,” the man ignored her and continued to stare at Jon. Sansa narrowed her own eyes as responded again, not giving Jon a chance to speak.

“My name is Sansa Stark, Lord Bolton, I presume?” she icily demanded and when the man’s eyes widened.

“Good,” she answered at his obvious identity when the man refused to speak, “I was planning to let Jon just cut off your head since he thinks that's the way to do this, but I think we might see how you’ve been treating the people here that served the Starks. Let’s see if your House has lived up to its words. You see, even my people, go around your lands when escaping the land of always winter. I think after we discover the worst of what you have done here, then we will do the same.”

With that Sansa stepped forward one more time and brought her foot down hard against his face. Roose Bolton fell to the ground in a heap.

“Secure him until we finish sweeping the keep and clearing it out of Bolton men,” Jon ordered, “And open the gates to the rest of our people.”

Hours later, Sansa and Jon stood facing one another in the rooms that had been her parents. Staring into her eyes, Jon pulled her tight against him and pressed his lips to hers in a fevered kiss.

“Winterfell is yours, Lord Stark,” Sansa whispered against them.

Jon made a noise of discouragement, “No, My Queen, Winterfell is yours as is my heart, now and always.”

-----------

It was almost three years later when Sansa stood before her father's statue in the Stark Crypts. It would not be long now till her husband and herself would return to their people beyond the wall. They still called her queen and Sansa would honor their choice everyday of her life. Jon's responsibility to the North would soon be over and they could be free. Between bringing the North the heel in time to prepare for the dead, Jon and her people attempting to help Stannis take the throne only for him and many of his people to be blown up on ships, and reminding a dragon queen that it really did not matter if the North knelt or not since the dead were coming for them all. Sansa grinned as she remembered Jon standing before the black glass throne and telling it to the woman's face that she was welcome to take her people back across the sea if she wanted to wait to die where it was warmer.

Then the green dragon slamming in front of Jon and putting his wing down and the secret being blown. Thankfully the dragon queen had played nice till after the long night and when Sansa refused to kneel to her, Jon took to the skies with Rhaegal. By the time the fight was over, both Drogon and the dragon queen were dead and Jon encouraged Daenerys's people to leave with Rhaegal. They were not happy, but they did as they were bid, except for the Dothraki left. They seemed to think that Jon's battle meant that he was their new Khal. Jon and Sansa just combined them with their own people and sent them beyond the wall.

Then the great rebuilding began and continued until the day a raven came that announced that Cersei Lannister was dead, along with the remaining Kingsguard, Jaime Lannister, and several other members of the small council.

A crunching noise drew her attention back to the present.

“When the snows fall and white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”

The girl that spoke to Sansa was a brunette with short cropped hair and she held a small sword and wore breeches. There was a familiar look in her grey eyes and Sansa tilted her head as she considered the strange girl who had come upon her in the crypts of her bloodkin.

Ygritte stood back in the shadows and Sansa knew she had her bow out with an arrow knocked, but Sansa held her hand out to stay any sudden shots.

The girl laughed.

“I will not hurt your freefolk guard, although this place is for Starks and Stark blood alone. You are the lost Stark daughter, arrived home as the Queen-Beyond-The-Wall. Do you know who I am?”

Sansa felt herself smile, probably showing a little too much teeth, “Grey eyes as serious as a widow made five-times-over having her sixth husband die mysteriously, what appears to be more brashness than commonsense, and a wild look about you that reminds me of my husband’s fury when his aunt tried to kill us after the long night?”

She paused and stepped closer, “That would make you my supposedly dead sister, Arya.”

The girl tilted her head and considered Sansa, “You are not what I expected. The septa always said I was never enough of a lady and it was a shame that you had disappeared as you were nothing but a lady.”

Sansa barked out a laugh, “There’s not room for ladies beyond the wall. Welcome home, Arya. My husband, your cousin, will be glad of your survival. Bran came home before the long night and Rickon was brought home by a fat lord from the sea.”

“Lord Manderly, I heard. I’m sorry I didn’t make it home before the battle that happened. I did not hear of it until it was over and I was in King’s Landing,” Arya murmured as they turned and made way from the crypts.

Sansa’s eyebrow raised, “What were you doing in King’s Landing?”

“Killing a queen. That last name on my final list before coming home,” Arya said as they climbed out and into the coolness of the spring night, “Is it true that Jon and you are going back beyond the wall once Rickon is settled in as King in the North with Bran as his regent?”

Sansa startled at her sister’s knowledge, “Aye, Jon and I will be returning North to settle our people now that the threat is gone. It seems that enough of the old guard died that we will perhaps be able to establish some sort of relations beyond the wall and North Westeros.”

“Can I come with you?” Arya said as they entered the keep.

Sansa smiled as a shout came from the head table and her husband began rushing forward.

“I think I would like that. Who better to help the bond between the Queen-Beyond-The-Wall and the King in the North than a sister of them both,” Sansa managed to answer as Arya was immediately swept away from her side and into her husband's arms.

#jonsaspringautumn #jonsa fic #jonsa centric #stark strong #freefolk #jon x sansa #sansa stark #jon snow #not daenerys friendly #anti daenerys #jonsa

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kuredono · 4 years ago

Text

Sing Sing Sing [part 1 of penpals] | Fushiguro x gn!(clarinettist)reader

TW: mentions of throwing up, hospital despite the TW this is v fluffy! basically you and Meg have been penpals and you meet for the first time! but not in the way either of you would’ve imagined...

"i think they're coming around now..."

"hello..?"

all you remember was taking a wrong turn down an empty alley on a sunny day, then you were in a cold building with an ugly looking monster holding the back of your neck.

you grasped at a knee, or maybe an arm, squeezing as your felt your stomach churn, though you kept your lips pursed together, willing for it to stay down.

"i think they're gonna be sick..."

"GOJO-SENSEI! HELP! THE CIVILIAN IS GOING TO THROW UP!"

fresh air suddenly hit your face and you threw up in a bush before everything went black again.

"-the thing up. afterwards it was pretty easy to deal with."

"you say that, but the civilian still got injured."

"hey! i didn't see you trying to catch them."

"i had my hands full already!"

your eyes were immediately assaulted with the bright sunshine as you tried to crack them open. you decidedly kept them shut and moved your lead weighted arms to cover your eyes.

"oh?"

"you awake?"

"what happened?" was all you could ask. you had tried to beat the ugly thing with-

"my clarinet!" you bolted up, eyes wide open and met with three equally wide ones (person one had a black blindfold?), but suddenly your head exploded with pain.

"go slowly. you hit your head pretty hard." a voice said as you groaned, squeezing your temples with your trembling hands. "do you remember what happened?"

"got lost walking back. woke up in a weird building and there was a funky looking thing. tried to run away, then some people turned up and the thing exploded. kinda gross."

"gross?!"

"i mean, they are super gross."

"where are we? what's going on?" you dared to open your eyes again, more slowly, as you took in your surroundings. you were sat on the floor, leaning against a big black dog. how cute. you nuzzled your head into its fur, easing your killer headache.

"we're in Akihabara, and i think you're concussed. we'd like to take you to a hospital." the one with white hair and the blindfold spoke with a kind smile.

"who are you?" you furrowed your brows together, feeling like you should run away because stranger danger ! but the dog was comfy, lulling you to sleep.

"ah, i'm Gojo Satoru, i'm a teacher at the Tokyo Jujutsu Tech High School, and they are my first year students. we were out on a field trip when we found you." the white haired male answered again. he was a teacher? you'd never be able to guess.

"Jujutsu Tech High School?" you repeated, the name distantly ringing bells. you turned your attention to the students. "i recognise that uniform."

"we've been in Akihabara and around Tokyo before! did you see us then?" the pink haired boy asked with a bright smile. you buried your face into the dog with a thoughtful hum.

"it's only natural we stand out you know!" amother voice voice sung.

"never in a good way." a calmer voice grumbled.

"i guess i just exude that kind of eye-catching aura."

"it's easy recognise beauty such as mine."

how did you get here? why was this happening to you? you were just performing with a marching band this morning, doing your absolute best and playing your loudest for someone. you wanted to stand out for someone. he said he'd come by but didn't. you weren't disappointed... well... you were, but you understood he had his reasons. he probably had classes because it's Thursday.

"Megumi Fushiguro?" you mumbled, the students around you falling silent.

"what did you say?"

"oh yeah, in Japan you say it the other way round don't you?" you chuckled, remembering how embarrassed you were when Megumi cared to point that out when you were discussing nicknames. "Fushiguro Megumi. think he goes to your school."

it was quiet for a moment before the students erupted into excited chatter,

"Fushiguro! you know them?"

"why didn't you tell us!"

"what? i - i don't—" the calm voice was not calm, but his breath stuttered, "Y - Y/N?"

you had first met Fushiguro via letter in first year middle school, your middle schools partners for a penpal project. you had sent the first letter and even went through the extra effort to try and make a translation, though your characters were very messy so you made sure to also send the English original in case it was unreadable. it was nearly a month before your class got their responses, and it appeared you were the most lucky as Fushiguro's English was far better than your Japanese, and when comparing letters with your classmates, you had the most interesting response.

nearly a year and 7 more letters later, you were the only one in your class still in touch with your penpal, and with the year drawing to a close, the teachers explained that you could only send one more letter. so with a wish, you sent your phone number and downloaded several Japanese chatting apps. sure enough, 2 weeks later, there was a friend request on LINE from a Megumi Fushiguro. his profile picture was just a night sky, but you couldn't say anything, yours was sheet music. this anonymity continued indefinitely. at first you had no idea how often he was okay with you messaging him, and you added the Tokyo timezone to your clock app so you didn't message him at ungodly hours, but after a few months, Megumi would be your first thought when you saw a cute cat or something and you'd quickly snap a photo to send him. he also did the same, mostly pictures of the sky.

on Megumi's birthday, you sent a recording of you playing his favourite piece on clarinet, and for your birthday he sent you a playlist of songs he thought you would like. from then on, you continued to send him your repertoire and small recordings of your practices. then one day, when you talked to him about your most recent performance, Fushiguro asked for the link to the video. you did, but didn't tell him which clarinet player you were. he didn't ask either. you toed the border of your anonymity when you first moved to high school with a picture of you in your new marching band uniform, but from the neck down. you weren't expecting a photo back, but he surprisingly sent one back of his uniform from the neck down. his uniform looked much comfier.

then a spot for a Japanese high school exchange opened (one of the main reasons you chose to attend the high school you did), and though it was for second years, you fought and won the spot. you immediately messaged Fushiguro without checking the time in Japan. and as if that wasn't enough, the wind band in your Japanese high school were having a performance in Tokyo! Fushiguro was in Tokyo! you told Fushiguro, but then dread began to pool in your stomach. what if he didn't want to meet? you were totally fine with that. but you wanted to so badly! you remember your elation when he stopped you mid-anxious text ramble to say he would meet you.

you woke up to a white ceiling and the potent smell of disinfectant. the hospital curtain slid open to reveal a beautiful boy with deep blue hair and long eyelashes, his eyes widening at you.

"ah- good afternoon."

"good afternoon, how can i help?" you smiled, "i think you might have the wrong bay?"

"no. i- uh- do you remember what happened? do you, do you remember me?"

"um... no? i'm not really sure what you mean? i mean, i recognise your uniform- do you go to Tokyo Jujutsu Tech High School by any chance?"

"they said you would be concussed and you might have some memory problems..." the boy mumbled, "is it alright if i sit down?" your eyes darted to the curtain in panic, "ah, i'll leave the curtain open, our teacher is just signing you out the hospital, i'm Fushiguro Megumi."

"Megumi?!" you gasped, the boy smiling softly as you fumbled for words, "i- you- huh?"

"yeah... we have a lot to talk about."

"then, please! sit! i can't believe!" you covered your mouth with your hand, which did nothing to muffle your delighted squeal as he sat in the chair next to your bed. "wow. i mean, it's so nice to finally meet you in person!"

Megumi couldn't help smiling too.

"it's nice to see you too... and i'm sorry i didn't make it to your performance."

"hey, it's okay! we still met up!" you grinned brightly. Megumi then found his hands very interesting.

"and, um... your clarinet is broken..."

"that--" will be very expensive, the thought alone bringing tears to your eyes- your precious baby! it was worth more than your entire wardrobe and shoes! but you shoved that thought away until later. Megumi was here now, visiting you in hospital. "-actually, why am i here? what happened?"

Megumi thankfully didn't push the topic of your clarinet and gladly filled you in on what had happened. by the end of his explanation, you had your face buried in your hands.

"i'm so sorry you had to see that."

"it's fine, i've seen worse. besides, you were concussed, it's normal."

"still..." you whined, peeking between your fingers to find him offering you a hint of a reassuring smile. you gave in with a sigh, "i must say, that's some weird religion you have and they teach you, no offence."

Megumi chuckled, eyes distant, "you're right, it is pretty weird."

"but, um, thank you for saving me Megumi." said boy snapped back into reality very quickly, his cheeks flushing red as it dawned on you that everyone probably called him by his last name. "or do you prefer Fushiguro? am i pronouncing it right? sorry, i got used to-"

"it's fine." he uttered out, "Megumi is fine."

"what about honourifics?"

"whatever you're comfortable with."

"then... Megumi-kun? or is that too weird?"

the boy's cheeks darkened, "it's fine..."

"then you can call me Y/N-chan! then it's not as weird right?" you suggested, starting to feel the second-hand embarrassment.

"yeah." Megumi flinched too much when his phone chimed, and he hurriedly read it over. "Gojo-sensei -my teacher- said he's signed what you need to let you out. you just need to sign a few things before you go."

"right." well, the moment had to end at some point. you couldn't stay in the hospital bay forever. it was just an amazing coincidence that you had met Megumi, so you should be thankful you even had the opportunity to speak to him like this. "am i okay to move?"

"um, i'll call a nurse."

Megumi stepped out as you were examined by the nurse, and you saw him again in reception as you gave him and his teacher a thumbs up before signing the hospital forms.

"thank you very much for everything you've done. i'm so grateful. and please pass my thanks on to the other first years!" you bowed formally to the pair, Megumi flushing red while his teacher just waved you off.

"no worries. sorry about your clarinet and the concussion." the teacher responded.

"it's fine, i was always told i have a thick skull! comes in handy sometimes."

"i have to go now, but Megumi will walk you to the station, right?"

Megumi scowled at his teacher with an unreadable look in his eyes which seemed to make the teacher's smile brighten.

"well it was nice to meet you sir!" you bowed again at the adult, who nodded to you.

"nice to meet you too! hope you enjoy Japan. Megumi, be nice."

Megumi glared at the older man as he skipped away, seemingly pleased with himself for winding the younger up. Said male sighed.

"you don't have to walk me back if you're busy, i have GPS on my phone."

The boy startled at your comment, brows furrowed, before shaking his head, "it's fine, it's no trouble. i would feel better if i walked you to the station at least."

you couldn't stop the wide smile stretching on your lips, "thanks!"

"it's nothing."

you mentally thanked all the deities for letting you spend a little longer with your penpal, chatting easily as if you hadn't just met him less than 10 hours ago. by the time you had made it to the station, you had mentally prepared to part.

"so... i guess this is it?"

"yeah..."

"it was so nice to meet you- i cannot fully explain how nice this has been! even if i did spend a while in a hospital." Megumi chuckled at your words. you felt your cheeks heat up, his smile squeezing at your heart.

"i feel the same."

your train arrived.

"well. i'll message you later then?" you grinned hopefully, Megumi nodding. "hug? or do you not do those? i don't mind."

you nearly burst out laughing at the rush of emotions that flickered in Megumi's eyes- mostly panic. he blinked out his state when a giggle slipped out. he flushed red but nodded stiffly, opening his arms for you. you smiled as you wrapped your arms around him, feeling his wrap behind you too, surprisingly quickly considering how awkward he was at first. keeping it short because of the train behind you, you pulled away to find him also smiling. so he did like hugs.

"until next time?"

"yeah."

the doors shut and you waved to him as the train set off. and that was that.

your phone buzzed in your pocket.

Megumi: the school offered to pay compensation for the damages to your clarinet, so please let me know if and when you're free to go to a music shop in Tokyo to buy a new one.

sorry this hasn’t been proofread and the ending is kinda rushed because i just really wanted to publish it hahaha (catch me constantly editing this for DAYS now, so i probably shouldn’t post it but we die like men)

#penpals #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu sorcerer #fushiguro megumi #x reader #gojo sensei #itadori yuuji #kugisaki nobara #fluff #idk how to tag: a series #just wanted to write fluff #high school romance #hospitalisation #concussion #jjk megumi #jjk #jjk x reader

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veiledsilver · 3 years ago

Note

Top five moments you've felt like the universe was messing with you.

Oh boy everyone get ready this is a long list. In descending order, from mildly funny looking back on it to "oh god oh shit oh fuck":

5. Catfishing: College Edition

In 6th grade, I decided to apply to colleges early to see how they were like. I was scared that if they knew I was too young, they'd arrest me. So I created a gmail account as my persona, a white 12th grader named Emilie Alexander. Emilie was planning to go into nursing, dating a high school linebacker named Kyle Kenderson, and deathly allergic to bee stings. If she even came near a bee, she would die.

This part was of the utmost importance.

See, I was constantly paranoid that one day, the jig would be up- I might forget that my fake last name was Alexander. Or the college dean might come knocking at my door and tear up my home in his mad search for Emilie. If that happened I would fake her tragic death, presumably caused by one big fucking bee.

I secretly collected my information. What nearby states were the prettiest to visit. Which colleges were the safest and most affordable. How often they held courses that I liked. In my emails with colleges I tried to sound as mature and professional as possible.

Then, one day, a college member asked me what high school I was in, so they could check my records.

My blood froze.

It was time to bring out the bee.

In response to their question, I sent an email that was like this:

"Dear Mr. McLaughlin, I was a proud graduate of- ugh! Ah! Kyaaaa! Uwaa! W-w-what's this... huge goddamn bee doing here?! Eek, pardon my foul language! It's just that, as I told you earlier, being stung by a bee would kill me.... and now it's stung me thrice (three times)!!

What do I do?! I can't die... I've always wanted to attend your beautiful college...

But this is... the end...

Mr. McLaughlin...

*looks at you sadly*

Tell... my mother... I loved her...

*dies*"

He never responded, probably because he was rendered speechless, but I never touched that account again.

My private gmail for fun stuff like tumblr still has "Alexander" as a surname, though.

4. Wild and Authentic

Alright. Alright. So. My art teacher in middle school.

Right off the bat, they endeared themselves to the tumblr art kids- they proudly used they/them pronouns, dyed their hair vibrant colors, deeply encouraged OC creation, and was chill with any art style even if it was anime. Mx. Mason was very cool, except for one thing.

We had complete artistic freedom when it came to their assignments, EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.

Drumroll, please.

Take a deep breath if you must.

Ready?

...

Cats had to have extremely distinct whisker pores.

YES, they believed that modern depictions of cats were too streamlined. Too... idealized. As a cat owner themselves, they were convinced that society's vision of cats did not do their feral feline ancestors justice. In making their faces flawlessly smooth-furred, we were stripping the cat of its true nature.

I found this out the hard way, when I was drawing warrior cats fanart for class (it was of Firestar cuddled in the arms of an orange haired anime catgirl who was his reincarnation in my first ever comic series, Warriors Neko Desu! ♡ Heart Academy Dokidoki).

Mx. Mason came over to look at my magnum opus, and I expected them to have their socks knocked off at my artistic talent. They lifted up my drawing for all to see, and I smugly leaned back in my seat.

Only for them to launch into a passionate lecture about how, in neglecting to draw whisker pores on cats, I was DENYING THIS FICTIONAL CAT OF ITS WILD AUTHENTIC SELF.

My friends absolutely lost it when I told them this story, and there was a period of time when all our discord nicknames were wild and authentic too.

As for Firestar and his counterpart Hoshineko Orenji-chan, I never did give them wild authentic whisker holes, but that's to be expected of a kittypet, I guess.

3. Stan Jungkook Or Whatever

A couple years ago, my family and I flew to Seoul, South Korea, to visit our relatives and teach me more about my heritage. It was very nice! I got to visit shrines and festivals and palaces, and I was in awe that this was what my ancestors had once seen in their daily lives.

Then, when we went to the modern side of Korea, I realized just how much I didn't fit in.

It was clear that I didn't know how to act, or how to speak Korean, and I spent my days fumbling around and getting scammed multiple times by salesmen. But I clowned myself the most... during an interactive event with kpop stars.

They had this experimental event where holograms of the boys would sing onstage and dance in place of the actual idols. Before the show began, girls could stand in booths that scanned their appearances, and holograms of THEM could dance onstage with the hologram boys.

I didn't know this.

When Cousin Ae-cha told me to step inside one of the machines, I thought I'd be hilarious and stand backwards, so it would scan the back of me instead of my front. As I walked out, I saw other girls putting on their best makeup, cutest clothes, and most expensive accessories, and I slowly realized that I was in danger.

But the danger didn't come until halfway through the concert, where the boys looked eagerly off-stage and a holy staircase appeared and all the hologram girls descended from heaven. There were cherry blossoms. There were roses. There was me, among the crowd of beautiful airbrushed girls, walking backwards.

I felt the judgemental gazes of twenty girls and their mothers.

Each boy danced with a girl, who got a cute animated moment with special effects, and sang about how they found a dream girl to have a true love romance with. Finally, all the girls vanished except one, and it was me.

One of the boys didn't dance with any girls, and now he was all alone in the rain, feeling dejected that HE did not find his true love girl to have a dream romance with. Then the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I emerged. Still backwards.

He was thrilled and sang about how my face (that he didn't see) stole his heart, and now everyone in the audience was giggling, and he slowly brought me very close to kiss me... but because I was backwards, his nose was cutely nuzzling my hair.

The audience members- at least the adults- were now laughing their asses off. His lips met the back of my head, and together we vanished into the wind.

I'd say I couldn't show my face there ever again, but I never did show my face, so... hm...

2. Horrid Little Temptress

If I wasn't a minor, I'd need a drink before starting this story. Sadly, I cannot drown my sorrows- and neither should you after you hear this, because it's only fair.

Mrs. Appleby was my Spanish teacher in like, 9th grade. Even the wild and authentic art teacher thought she was insane. Appleby forced kids to brew tea for her and yelled at them when they didn't get it right, and I thought she had a chronic squint until I realised she just did that to mock me and my Asian eye-folds. She forced us to watch Dora the Explorer to "absorb knowledge." Everyone fucking hated Mrs. Appleby.

But the worst thing she ever did... was during the school festival.

See, whenever she's angry, she zooms right into kids' faces to scream at them. Her wrinkled flesh would blot out the goddamn sun and all you see are her bloodshot yellow eyeballs so victims just stayed rooted to the spot like cornered animals or something similar. This is important.

Because when she was sampling her own brownies (read: hoarding them so no one else could eat them), one parent foolishly decided to grab one and she thought it was a student and she grabbed his wrist so hard she could've nearly snapped it and... and... zoomed into his face.

Except she underestimated his height and kissed him by accident, but it was more like her mouth was sucking in his face like a vacuum.

His wife was shrieking like an ape. His kid, my classmate, saw his social life flash before his eyes.

In her defense, she did not mouth to mouth with him on purpose and afterwards she cried in the bathroom and when I foolishly followed her in to comfort her, because I am a teacher's pet through and through, she snatched the paper towels I got for her and wailed that she was a-

A-

HORRID LITTLE TEMPTRESS.

If I had decided to not be kind, I never would've heard that string of fucking words. But I did. And I paid for it dearly. The end.

1. Violence IS The Answer, Sometimes

Thomas, my dearly detested.

Back in sixth grade, I used to have a crush on him because he had the surfer boy look with nicely tanned skin and pale blond hair and the clearest aquamarine eyes I've ever seen. He also liked surfing and swimming. He seemed like the perfect little trophy waifu except for one absolute dealbreaker.

He and his parents were extremely conservative and so, when I told him I liked him, his response was basically "haha no you're a [slur] and would probably eat my dog."

I was horrified and ran away to cry. But then, by the next day, I decided I needed to punish him. Thomas walked in before class started and I was waiting for him with these hands. I kicked him so he doubled over, slammed his face into his chair's seat, and quickly clambered on top of him to SIT ON THE BACK OF HIS HEAD. He started shaking and twitching and trying to pry me off, but eventually he went limp and stopped moving.

I thought he fell asleep, but Mohammed, another classmate who was bullied by Thomas, told me that Thomas might never wake up again (not that he was very sad about this. I didn't know until later, but Thomas said slurs at him too).

While I was sitting on the guy, he'd straight up passed out from the lack of oxygen.

Screaming and crying, I told our homeroom teacher that Thomas suddenly fainted, and she was the type of Caucasian that thought all little Asian kids were sweet and innocent, so it didn't even cross her mind that? It might've been me? Who sat on his head when she walked in?

He was sent home early that day. I had to go to a different school next year because Thomas's mom threatened legal action. The only reason I didn't get punished further was because my rich cousins out-Karen'd her and donated a huge amount of money to the school to keep them quiet.

Anyway, I never did anything that insane ever again, because something like that is enough for a lifetime. My cousins made it clear they would never back me up again. I was sure this whole event would be put behind me, too.

But last fall, during my first day of online learning... who did I see in my zoom meeting... BUT THOMAS! I had my mic and camera off, but the moment he saw my name, his face went pale. His soul would've left his body, but then it would've gone to hell, so it wisely decided to stay inside.

Still, out of shame and embarrassment, I never turned my camera on for the rest of the school year.

#asks #there you have it #i feel like I'm confessing my sins to the pope

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bunny-wk-fanfic · 3 years ago

Text

This Is Brought To You By

The door opened to a rustic cabin, the natural wood glowing amber thanks to a roaring fire. Worn dark leather seating seemed hazy thanks to said fire light, each piled with plush pillows and draped with cozy throws or blankets. A low table had been laid out with candles, a bottle of wine was being kept chilled in a classy and slightly modern ice bucket with two glasses just off to the side. The only splash of color amongst the glow of the fire, the natural wood and stone textures were a small handful of red roses, loose petals just lightly scattered about. With the help of the slow jazz playing softly in the background, it made for a very romantic atmosphere.

"Well, hello there." the male voice was a slightly low purring drawl, drawing attention to the male figure sprawled across an almost stereotypical bear rug. "Deadpool here. Hopefully, while reading this, you're hearing the voice of a certain sexy male Canadian. I'm sure you know the one. And I don't mean the short, hairy one with anger issues and kitty claws and a fondness for cigars. Unless of course said angry man is being represented by a beautiful, beautiful wild Australian man. Because if then, well, lather me in hot sauce and spank my Chimichanga. But I'm getting off track here."

Fingers drummed against a knee, drawing the attention to the missing and familiar red and black outfit, and more importantly, to the lack of proper attire.

"Yes, my current outfit has to do with the reason we are here today. It's come to my attention, that it's been some time since we last met, or that our beloved writer has written anything involving our favorite woman. And more importantly, our favorite woman when involved with me." a single white rose was plucked from behind, waved about as if a magic wand, and dragged across a scarcely clad male thigh that was pocked with fresh wounds that were instantly scaring. "As such, I decided to… encourage our beloved writer into bringing us all together once again."

With a dramatic wave of limbs, he moved from reclining on his side, that screamed 'Paint my like your French women', to leaning back on his elbows. The pale pink satin nighty, the atmosphere, and the pose would have been more than alluring were the one in said pose a woman. With the male, the nighty was rather comically stretched across his frame, though covering everything important, the sheer robe with fluffy cuffs only adding to the oddity of the entire situation. It clashed with the fact that he still wore his iconic red and black full head cowl.

"Now, our lovely writer might say otherwise about my encouragement, calling it nagging, whining or say I simply began to annoy her until she finally relented. Ignore those words and continue to read mine with the amazing drawl of a voice provided by the Canadian sex symbol; my pal, my bosom buddy, Ryan Reynolds." the white rose bobbed to the beat of the low music, tapping against a hip every so often.

"Now, back unto the reason why we're here. Honestly? I was lonely and wanted some cuddles with my lovely, lovely Kagome." noticing that it was just the male lounging in the open living space, he was quick to wave a hand. "Don't worry, don't worry! My girl is currently enjoying a much-needed hot bubble bath. One, I wish I was taking part of, but felt this little conversation was, at the time, more prudent. How could I feel that? Simple. I had the desire that everyone read this in Reynolds voice, nothing more and nothing less. Though if we are asking for more, and I know what you all want, I on the other hand, wouldn't mind lathering my girl in rich and real Canadian maple syrup and eating my midnight pancake snacks off of her, but maybe later. So while Kagome is taking this time to prepare for a very adventurous night right here on this vegan friendly-faux-bear fur rug, I'll fill that time with hanging out with you lovely little readers. Because without you, though more so my unannounced arrival and delayed departure, we wouldn't be here right now."

Happy humming could now be heard from behind a closed door just off to the side, the male giving a little jiggle in his spot in excitement. The rose momentarily used to fan himself, though just how useful it was as such, needed to be questioned at a later time.

"Now I'm sure there are a few things you all wish to talk about; my last movie with the fridge trope, which I myself can only say thanks to the writers for that one. Thanks guys, I've always wanted more trauma and torture to sprinkled in my life." a finger was wagged, tongue tisking against his teeth, though the sound was slightly muffled due to his mask.

"Or when my next film will come out, and if so, will it be part of the Marvel Universe. This is where you show your true love and devotion. I ask you, lovely readers, to go out and use the internet, haul out the trolls if need be, and ask, beg, and cry for me to be part of Marvel. Not that I want to, not really, it's just principle. What with their large budgets, CGI teams, writers, directors and a full cast. Honestly, a whole school of mutants gone save for three at a single extended time? For what purpose, 'cause I doubt they all went on some sort of field trip or vacation, but what do I know, I failed out of 5th grade. But, not really." his head tipped to the side, possibly staring in the direction of where the bathroom was, it was hard to tell with his face actually covered to know for sure.

"I mean, who wants to be part of that depressing team? All that self-sacrificing for the greater good?" he gave a few bobs of the rose in his hand as his head tipped back, almost as if in contemplation. "Though let's be honest, we all know I would survive an alien with a California Raisin on steroids for a chin, snapping their fingers. And then I'd introduce said alien to my Desert Eagles Mark XIX while recruiting Ant-Man to tickle where the sun never shines before becoming�� Anti-Ant-Man? I honestly don't know what to call him in his Ultraman form, wait, does that make him a magical-boy or a science-boy? Right, Ant-Man shrinking to tickle where sun don't shine for hurting my favorite Web-Head super bro." the rose now tapped where his mouth was, though again, it was hidden by his mask. "And it would be super hot to watch Kagome kick his ass. I wonder what she would wear… Something skin tight? Revealing? Her old school uniform?"

A door opening, even though quiet, drowned out his muttering, the candles flickered as steam billowed out of the bathroom before quickly dissipating the further it billowed into the open space. "Are you talking to White and Yellow again?" a female figure left the dark bathroom, her form covered with a short semi sheer dark pink bathrobe of her own. Her hands were raised just enough to free her hair from beneath the robe, though she paused when she really took a look at the sprawled out male. "...I thought that was supposed to be a gift for me?"

Snickering, he trailed the rose down from his mouth, his neck, down his chest stopping just above his stomach. "Don't you think I look sexy in this?" it was always so amusing to tease and rile her when he wore risqué outfits, namely hers.

Finishing in freeing her hair, she eyed his form. Yes, his skin was pocked and disfigured from him constantly getting open sores and his abilities nearly immediately healing them. But beyond that, his form was all carved muscle, no doubt from years of being a mercenary. While yes, he was larger with the shoulders strong, he had a slight swimmer's build. It didn't lack-

"Ah, sorry for the intermission. Our writer took a few days to… deal with life I guess. How boring." shoulders shrugged, waving off the confused expression from his fairer companion. "Of course, it would happen when describing my awesome and amazingly sexy self." an actual pout could be seen through his mask.

"I will admit, you are sexy." the purring drawl from Kagome drew his attention again, her words and tone revealing she either decided she was going to ignore him going off tangent or just that she was used to it at this point, body freezing when her hands began with removing the sash that kept her own coverings secure. "I'm just not sure that shade of pink is quite your color. Maybe you should stick to your usual colors?"

The moment, the robe dropped and pooled around her feet, revealed a feminine figure dripping in curves with subtle musculature that showed she kept up with her own training, he froze. She wore a set of red and black satin and lace that covered pale skin. It covered a little more than what most would normally deem sexy lingerie, with slightly wider straps, but they accentuated her curves, drawing attention to them. And the thin ribbons that accompanied and mimicked, as well as help the lace that helped cover stiffening peeks, made her look more like a present just waiting to be unwrapped.

"Well, what do you think of my gift to you?" legs crossed slightly as hands once again rose to lift her hair to both reveal her neck and shoulders as well as lift her chest, she stood posed before him, basking in the golden glow of the fireplace behind him.

The white rose that had been resting near his hip instantly perked up, a white petal flying off at the somewhat harsh and sudden movement. Despite it being a mask, the white 'eyes' widened as the mask shifted to show that his jaw dropped.

"I'll take your silence as a, 'I likey'?" she giggled as she dropped her hands, they followed the curves of her body, no doubt drawing his gaze from behind the mask to follow with. Slowly, with a slight predator grace, she lowered to her knees and began to crawl up his form, leaving a trail of kisses behind her that glittered from both the fire light as well as her own abilities to help heal him.

Tossing the rose without a care, he reached forward to trace her curves for himself, not stopping as her own hands reached forward to lift and remove his mask. Lips curved up when she reached forward to kiss him. It was sweet, a simple press of her lips against his own. His smile grew when he quickly ended the sweetness by reaching for that delightful curve of her ass that shook playfully in his grasp.

The gasp that was let out was easily and eagerly swallowed, tongue dipping between lush lips to tangle with her own. With where his grip was, he pulled her closer to settle in his lap. Trailing lips away from her own to nip down her jaw and neck, he smirked against her warm skin.

Pausing, brown eyes narrowed as he turned away from the purring woman in his lap. "Oi, what are you still doing here? This ain't no peep-show! Go away. Read a book, play a game, watch a movie. I hear that new one about a guy named Guy wanting to be free or something, is worth the watch. And if my pal Ryan is in it, ya know it's good. Now," a hand reluctantly left the span of leg it had been caressing with a waving motion. "Shoo."

Turning away, leaving behind the couple and the sounds of giggles and kissing echoed loudly over the crackles and pops from the fireplace. A quick squeal that turned into laughter that was followed by a masculine whine at the sound of fabric tearing just set the pace of what was to come. And who was in charge of this nights shenanigans. A door closing muffled the sounds as the cool evening draped across the forest, leaving only the crickets in the distance and even further off cries of wolves the only sounds to echo.

Message delivered, though the exacts of what the message actually was seemed to have been lost. But it had been shared, and that seemed to be all that had been important. It did leave questions of what the future held, and if there would be any further important messages that would need to be shared. Who knows. Guess the game of 'wait and see' was going to have to be played.

AN: Don't ask. Please don't. I will say this, I was at work when I literally/figuratively heard Deadpool/Ryan Reynold's voice pop out from no where and bug me until I started writing this down. And when I lost the flow for a few days, it came back until I managed to finish it. So now I'm posting it here and cleaning my hands of it. I hope you can find some enjoyment in, I know I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet.

As always; read, enjoy, and please review! - BunnyWK

#fanfiction #crossover #Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairytale #Deadpool #Wade Wilson #Kagome Higurashi #anime #marvel #comics #movies

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aenwoedbeannaa · 5 years ago

Text

Talking to Horses | Geralt x Reader

Summary: You work at a small inn in a middle of nowhere village in Novigrad. Your job consists mostly of serving travelers – the only people that come to this god-forsaken place – but you manage to find a way to spend most of your time in the stables. One night, while you’re holed up there talking to your horse, a new stranger arrives; but you recognize him from the traveling bard, Jaskier’s, songs immediately – the famous Witcher, Geralt of Rivia.

Word Count: 2,533

Warnings: None; this is literally just the fluffiest fluff.

Notes: I promise I’ll get back to my series soon; but it’s been a busy week and I’m sad and right now I just want to write Geralt fluff lol.

* * *

It is growing late, and you are still in the barn, as usual. You don’t mind, though. You much prefer it here than in the stuffy inn. No matter how rude the customer, their horses were always nice enough. You keep your own horse here, as well – a mare named Immi. She is a sweet little thing, though she's quite skittish and will do almost nothing without getting a treat first, but you don’t mind much. It is rare that you have the opportunity to travel, and the roads around your little village are safe enough.

You are surprised when Immi’s ears prick up slightly, the way that they do when a visitor approaches the stables. Of course, travelers came in at all hours of the day, but it wasn’t too often when one showed up extremely late at night. Relatively unbothered, you continue brushing her speckled fur, waiting for the loud crunch of the stablemaster’s boots on the ground. Honestly, no one could possibly walk as loudly as that man.

So, you are surprised when you hear the sound of approaching hooves and soft, barely perceptible footsteps. Curious, you peek your head out from the stall to see a white-haired stranger leading a horse gently by the reins. You’ve never seen him here before – but again, that is not unusual. Most people who pass through here once don’t have much reason to pass through again. It is a painfully boring town. What makes this one stand out, however, are the two swords slung across his back.

However, between the white hair and the two swords, the mysterious stranger suddenly becomes far less mysterious – at least as far as his identity goes. The chances of someone matching his exact description seem relatively unlikely. Even from a distance, you can tell that he is huge, all muscle. Hard to find any ordinary human who looks like that; doubly as hard to find any ordinary human who looks like that and happens to have long white hair and two swords on his back. So, you are pretty positive you are correct.

As he draws closer, you lean back on the open door to Immi’s stall, arms crossed across your chest and head cocked slightly to one side.

“You’re Geralt of Rivia.” You say it as a statement, not a question. You are very rarely wrong, and unafraid to embrace that. Mamma used to scold you for being brash, and you’d been called arrogant and brazen by a few of the passing travelers – but it doesn't bother you much.

“And you better not start singing that damn song.”

You smirk, kicking open the free stall across from Immi’s with a scuffed leather boot, “No ‘hello’?” you ask, shaking your head. “Not even a nice ‘and you are?”

The Witcher doesn’t seem particularly amused, but he takes the bait anyway.

“Hello,” he says, exaggerating and speaking the words exactly how you’d spoken them, “And you are?” Mrs. Leigh, who owns the inn, constantly tells you that you shouldn’t pester the guests, but there is a slight tug at the corner of the Witcher’s lips that tells you he isn’t particularly irritated. And anyway, you don’t listen to much of what Mrs. Leigh says or you’d die of boredom.

“Y/N,” you say before adding sarcastically, “Of Novigrad.”

“Pleasure,” he says absentmindedly as he begins getting his horse settled.

You could easily get back to your work, but in such a boring village, you’ve got to take advantage of any entertainment while you can, so you lean against the door, peering at his horse, which you can tell is clearly taken very good care of.

“What’s your horse’s name?”

“Roach.”

“Interesting name for a horse,” you say, watching him remove the saddle.

Immi, likely feeling betrayed because you have turned your attention from the mare for more than a minute, whinnies and lightly stomps one hoof.

“Immi!” you scold her in the gentle way you always do, turning and walking back to her stall.

You are slightly surprised to hear the Witcher speak again, “Is she yours?”

You nod, pulling an apple from your back, which you left hanging on a nail on the door. At seeing it, Immi huffs and looks at you with wide, begging eyes.

“She is,” you say, rather proudly. It is not a wealthy village, and most young women working as barmaids and stable hands cannot afford horses of their own. Of course, you didn’t actually buy her – one of the Leigh’s mares had a baby, four years ago now. It was the year your mother died of plague when it hit the village, and you’d already been working for Mrs. Leigh for three years by then and they knew your affinity for working in the stables. They told you she was yours, and suddenly life seemed a little less dull.

You hold the apple up to her snout, and she quickly devours the whole thing.

“You always feed her human food?” The Witcher’s voice is closer now; you turn to see that he’s standing outside the stall he’s set Roach up in. You get the sense that he’s appraising you, his yellow eyes settled on yours, one eyebrow raised as Immi chomps loudly behind you, finishing the treat.

You cross your arms, fully facing him now, staring right back. “Yes, I do,” you say, “And before you ask, of course I talk to her.”

At that, the Witcher laughs, but he doesn’t seem to be mocking you. You narrow your eyes slightly, questioning.

“I talk to my horse, too,” he admits. “Roach is great to talk to, because he doesn’t talk back.”

You grin, face flushing slightly at the warm gleam in the Witcher’s yellow eyes. “Exactly. No unwanted advice, no ordering me around, no demanding a third cup of ale when she’s already piss drunk.”

“So, you work in the inn, too?”

You nod in response, “Yep. Unfortunately, we don’t get enough travelers through here to make much money as a stable hand. We make our money the way every other inn does; selling overpriced ale to travelers who don’t have any other options.”

“It's even worse in the cities,” the Witcher responds. “Plenty of options, but all overpriced.”

“Hm,” you shrug, “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been to one of the big cities. But humans are the same everywhere, I guess.”

“You’re right about that,” he says, looking somewhat lost in thought.

“Still,” you muse as you grab your bag and shut the door to Immi’s stall, “I’d like to see them.”

You sigh, looking past the Witcher and out into the field outside, the starlit road beyond it. “The cities, I mean. Just... Seems a waste, to spend a whole life here.” Now you’re just rambling – another thing Mamma used to tell you not to do, especially with strangers – but you can’t help it. “Must be fun, to be a Witcher; you’ve probably seen all sorts of places.”

The Witcher gives you a wry smile, “And all sorts of monsters.”

“Eh,” you respond quickly, following him out of the stables and towards the inn, “You don’t have to travel to see monsters.” He stops walking for a moment and cocks his head in thought, looking down at you.

“You’re right again,” he says.

“You should meet Mr. Allen,” you say with your voice lowered, “He’s the mayor and he’s hear most every night, drinking Mrs. Leigh out of house and home, yelling at everyone, and—well, never mind—but his poor wife, though.” You shudder, thinking about his roaming eyes and careless hands, but you snap out of it quickly enough.

“Ah, suppose it is fitting. Shit mayor for a shit town.”

Once you reach the entrance, you push open the door, the Witcher following behind you. You turn to him, whispering under your breath, “Guy in the back corner.” He raises his eyebrows and goes, to your surprise, to sit at the table right in front of Mr. Allen’s. Not a choice that you would have advised, but likely to be an entertaining one.

“Please tell me you were not harassing that man out in the stables,” Mrs. Leigh says as you head behind the counter, filling up a few earthenware tankards to drop at the tables that your boss has wasted no time pointing to.

“Me?” you ask, with fake innocence.

“Y/N, honestly. We need the business.”

Grabbing as may tankards as possible – an impressive five – you glance back at your boss and roll your eyes. “Please,” you say with a smirk, “I’m half the reason these guys buy as much alcohol as they do.” A little flirting does wonders, and gods know Mrs. Leigh isn’t going to do it.

You drop off three tankards at one table; a thankfully quiet one. There are two women, one of whom you can tell from her painfully beautiful features must be half-elf. There’s one man with them, lanky and quiet. Probably the human’s brother, if you had to guess.

The other two mugs of ale were, of course, for Mayor Allen. He must have just arrived, then.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he says with a hideous smile as you set them down. You just mumble some form of no problem as you walk off. He doesn’t pay, so there’s no point in flirting with him. Besides, the Witcher’s table is next, and you cannot deny that you are dying to talk to him.

Putting on your usual flirty smile, you head over to his table, leaning on the old wood. For some reason, though, the flirtatious nature that usually comes easy to you feels a little bit different – like you actually care what this stranger thinks about you. You decide to put it down to the fact that he is famous, and famous people rarely pass through the village.

“Can I get you anything?” you ask, smile faltering slightly, but only for a moment.

The Witcher looks at you, yellow eyes locking on yours. “Two mugs of ale, please,” his lips curve into a smirk, “And your company.” You quirk an eyebrow, feeling your cheeks redden once again.

Before you have to disappoint him – and mainly yourself – by telling him that you can’t just sit down at work, he places a handful of gold pieces on the table. Definitely enough to cover the two beers, and as much as you’d bring in for the night.

“Coming right up,” you say, throwing him a glance over your shoulder as you carry the coins over to the counter.

“You’re welcome,” you say, admittedly rather arrogantly as you set the coins down on the counter next to Mrs. Leigh. She watches you with somewhat horrified eyes as you round the counter to fill up to mugs of ale.

“This is not a brothel,” she says pointedly, glancing from you and across the room at the white-haired Witcher.

“And I’d charge more for a night than that,” you retort, glancing down at the coins still on the table.

Mrs. Leigh does not respond as you grab the two mugs and head back to the Witcher’s table.

“Your ale,” you say, sliding it over to him, “And my excellent company,” you add with an impish grin, sitting down across from him. “Though, to be honest, you seem more like the Sit and Drink Alone type,” you say, studying him.

“You aren’t wrong there,” he says, but his yellow eyes hint that he very much does not want to sit and drink alone tonight. Well, that and the fact that he asked you to sit with him.

“Then why ask me to disturb your blessed silence?” you ask, genuinely curious.

“Because,” he says, pausing to take a draught of ale, “I find you interesting.”

You nearly choke on your ale when you laugh. Out of all of the interesting creatures and people the Witcher meets, you cannot fathom why he would find you in particular interesting.

“Oh, come on,” he said, shaking his head. “You walk around like you own this place. Don’t pretend to be the shy type.”

You blush again, looking down at your cup and taking a swig before you look back up at him. Thankfully, you can blame the flush on your cheeks on the ale. “Oh, come on,” you quip back, “You’ve been in plenty of inns, I’m sure. It’s all part of business.”

Geralt eyes you curiously and shrugs. Then silence settles over the two of you, somehow ringing louder in your ears than the rowdy crowd of the crowded pub.

Finally, he speaks.

“Actually, I have a proposition.”

Your head shoots up, eyes wide as you stare at him. Maybe the gold was for what Mrs. Leigh insinuated. And while the Witcher was, without a doubt, the most attractive man you’d ever seen, Mrs. Leigh was right – this was not a brothel, and you were not… Well, that was not your profession.

“Don’t worry, it’s not about that.”

You breathe a sigh of relief, and slight disappointment, but now you are incredibly curious. What could this Witcher want from you?

“I’m not travelling far,” he explains, “And I have a high suspicion that the haunting I am investigating has little to do with dangerous spirits and everything to do with humans being humans.”

Your mouth falls open, hardly able to believe what you are hearing, and unable to form any words.

“You said you wanted to see some of the world, and I take it you can ride,” he says.

“I—well, yes, I do want to… But, I mean, I have to wor—”

“It’s a decent contract. You can half of it.”

“I mean,” you begin, “I… I couldn’t take the coin!”

“You’re not taking it, you’re doing a job,” the Witcher points out. “I can’t watch Roach all the time.”

You consider his words for a few moments before your face breaks out into a wide smile.

* * *

You are bursting with excitement as you head out of your back room, pack full of your most precious personal items, of which there are relatively few. As promised, Geralt is already out in the stable, saddling Roach.

“Good morning,” he says, that same deep, gravely voice you’d grown familiar with last night as the two of you stayed up talking until far too late.

“Good morning!” you greet him, heading over to saddle Immi, despite her somewhat confused whinnies. You rarely rode out this early. But she didn’t seem to mind all that much, as you handed her another apple from your pack.

“Hm,” Geralt says, eying you, “Cheery.”

“Not a morning person?” you ask him.

“No particular feelings about any time of day,” he says with a shrug.

You lead Immi out of the stables behind Geralt and Roach, still somewhat mystified by the man.

“Ah yes,” you say after a moment, “I hear you Witchers don’t have emotions.”

At those words, Geralt turns around to face you, only a few inches between you. “Now there, dear Y/N, you are wrong.”

The look on his face has your stomach filled with butterflies as the two of you ride off side-by-side into the early morning light.

***

Taglist: @divaroze @fairytale07 @geeksareunique @jesseswartzwelder @unnamedmaincharacter @lazilyscentedwerewolf @evyiione @valkyriepuff

#geralt of rivia x reader #geralt x reader #one shot #geralt one shot #fluff #geralt fluff #the witcher fanfication #geralt fanfiction #the witcher fluff

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plumoh · 3 years ago

Text

[NatsuYuu] along the seams of shadows

Rating: G

Word count: 2079

Summary: Natsume Reiko is a pitiful and lonely human.

Note: AO3 link. A look at Reiko through Madara’s eyes.

Madara’s ears twitch when the tree branch starts creaking and the leaves fall down in a whirlwind of irritating pests. He’s two seconds away from threatening whoever is disturbing his nap when laughter reaches him—a plain, boisterous laughter that leans towards mockery instead of pure joy.

“You really are just a cat, Madara!” the voice says, as close to his face as ever. “Napping on a nice patch of grass, under the sunlight?”

Madara cracks one eye open. The sun is still high in the sky and the breeze that ruffles his fur is a pleasant addition, accompanying his solitary nap far away from noisy and ridiculous small fry. But he can never escape the unpredictability of an annoying, weak human.

“If you say another word you will become my afternoon snack,” Madara warns.

The laughter becomes louder, and in the sunlight that makes shadows bigger, pale hair shines brightly while unnatural eyes glimmer with an even more vivid color.

“I’d like to see you try, you big lump of fluff.”

Natsume Reiko smells like mischief, power and loneliness.

***

This forest isn’t big enough to swallow all the rumors that float around. There is no god protecting it and spreading rules to abide by, which means that everyone is free to do as they like, much to Madara’s displeasure. He’s a magnificent beast with strength that rivals that of a god, capable of destroying entire areas of nature and banishing youkais, but people here treat him like he’s the latest entertainment, to be jeered at by everyone and nobody.

He is not a simple creature that lazes around, and he definitely is not a human child’s pet.

“You should have eaten her long ago if you’re so irritated by these rumors,” Hinoe tells him, looking far too too smug for someone who is, without a doubt, clinging the most to that girl.

“It requires too much effort,” Madara growls, flicking his tail impatiently. “Reiko probably doesn’t taste good anyway. I don’t like my prey jumping and running around, it’s exhausting to look at.”

“You are the most boring beast I know.”

Madara rolls his eyes, turning his head away. “That’s a bold accusation when Misuzu is right here.”

“Misuzu is funny, at least. You, on the other hand, are boring.”

Hinoe draws from her pipe and exhales noisily, chuckling when some of the smoke gets into Madara’s eyes. Madara groans and rises on his paws, lifting a cloud of dust and dirt along with him, and a few little plant youkais scamper off deeper into the forest with squeaks. Madara watches them flee for their lives, feeling vindicated.

“I am a respected and intimidating beast, that’s what I am,” he huffs.

“Yeah, a beast that still refuses to play a game with me because he’s scared.”

Hinoe bursts out laughing while Madara tries his hardest not to simply snap and leave. Reiko jumps down from a tree (why is she always climbing trees?) and lands onto Madara’s back, her lips curled into a grin that could have been fueled by the sun’s spite, bold but burning.

Sometimes, Madara finds himself unable to make sense out of this girl appearing and disappearing from his life like a tornado.

“I told you I don’t have time to waste on your ridiculous games,” Madara says.

Reiko tilts her head, never ceasing to be the arrogant and confident person she poses as whenever she makes her words sharp and cutting.

“Hinoe is right, you are boring,” she snickers.

Madara’s tail hits the ground in annoyance, and he shows the barest hint of his teeth.

“Don’t you have human things to do, instead of bothering me during my peaceful rest?”

Reiko shrugs, sliding off Madara. She smooths over her skirt and passes a hand through her hair, as if they’ve never seen her in a dishevelled state or covered in mud after an encounter with rambunctious youkais. She stays silent, her smile frozen, but her eyes are blazing with a quiet, raging fire that sends chills down Madara’s spine. She’s only a young girl, inexperienced and foolish, running around and upsetting the natural order of things in this forest—but behind all this brashness, Madara senses something deeply unsettling.

“Human things aren’t as interesting as coming here and hearing you grouch like an old man,” Reiko answers. “Hinoe, you said you wanted to show me a new curse.”

Madara ignores the way Hinoe coos at Reiko like she is the most precious creature she’s ever seen, and observes. Reiko is someone they shouldn’t mess with, that is for certain; Madara doesn’t quite know yet why he cannot shake off the feeling she’s wrapping them around her finger.

***

Madara being Reiko’s pet becomes more of a joke than a real fact believed by everyone, and ultimately it doesn’t change anything in the way Madara’s strength is perceived. The others make fun of him for letting her live in spite of the influence she has on his image as the greatest beast of the forest, but for the time being he’s one of the very few who didn’t get his name down in the stupid book, so there.

There has been some turmoil and unrest in the neighborhood, lately. A vicious youkai destroying everything standing in its way, threatening small fry for information and leaving behind trails of blood that scare the weakest of them. Madara doesn’t feel particularly concerned about this kind of rampage, which happens a lot more often than people would believe. It’s best to let it pass and not get involved in this youkai’s affairs.

That is what he would have done, were he alone. In times like these, Madara remembers why he chose to live in solitude and not surrounded by other beings who have the survival instincts of insignificant bugs.

“The destroyed trees fall down and block some roads in the forest,” Reiko grumbles, tapping her foot. “People can’t circulate anymore, and cleaning that mess up will take many weeks.”

Madara sighs, glancing at the area of destruction. The claw marks on the trunks indicate that whoever they’re going to go up against might rival Madara in size, while the pace at which the forest is being attacked tells them it’s also nimble on its feet. Not an ideal situation, then.

“Why do you care about that?” Madara asks, turning back his head to look at her. “You don’t like the people of this town, and they don’t wander in the forest as frequently as you do.”

Sometimes, imperceptibly, Madara catches a flicker of pain in Reiko’s eyes at the mere mention of her own desires. It’s not a physical pain, nor is it a pain associated with the events she’s currently dealing with—it comes from within, deep from her soul and emerging in her gaze for one second. She hides it well. She carries this pain everywhere she goes, but she hides it well.

Madara never comments on it. He watches her school the features of her face back into ones she’s crafted over the years, all mischieviousness and no nonsense. Reiko grins and acts like the royal princess she has become in this tiny pocket of otherworldly space she is the only one to trespass into.

“I don’t like seeing people do whatever they want, like they’re owning this place,” she declares, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “The smaller youkais have been pestering me to do something about it. And it’s destroying my napping spots, too. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have your favorite tree cut down either.”

She’s an odd girl and a mystery Madara doesn’t pretend to understand. She’s confidence and contradiction and selfishness all at once, making it impossible to untangle the knots of her emotions—she uses words and rash actions to cover it up, like a nice tapestry concealing the damage done by a kid’s tantrum.

There is kindness in her selfishness, Madara thinks. Reiko obeys no one’s rules, and she makes up her own for her silly games, but her heart isn’t as corrupted as it may seem. And for this lost human shunned by everyone, doing small services unseen by her peers, Madara only feels pity.

He huffs, and takes off to find the troublesome youkai, whose name will end up tied to a piece of paper.

***

“That book of yours is useless if you’re not using its intended purpose.”

“Its intended purpose is to show off and to instill fear in my enemies.”

“You don’t have natural enemies, foolish girl, you’re creating them yourself.”

Reiko tips her head backwards and laughs, a sound carrying over the wind and echoing against the stone walls. She looks at Madara like he’s the one who has said idiotic things.

“It’s preemptive,” she says. “I’ve never felt that powerful before inventing the book.”

“The words that come out of your mouth are incomprehensible to me,” Madara grunts. “Humans are so unnecessarily complicated and confusing.”

“Don’t talk like you know how humans behave. You’ve barely had any contact with them.”

“And this is exactly why I find them annoying.”

Reiko smiles. She has her legs plunged into the cold but clear water of the lake, on this summer day that feels both too hot and too humid. Madara himself is lying down, head pillowed on his front legs and enjoying the slow pace of his day. He warned Reiko that playful and impish youkais would steal her shoes, that she had carelessly thrown in the grass, but she shrugged and didn’t find it particularly upsetting.

How strange, and how perplexing, to encounter someone who doesn’t adhere to any of the world concepts Madara knows. Reiko doesn’t belong to the realm of ordinary humans, and she has no knowledge of the exorcist community; she is an entity dancing on the blurred hinge of these worlds.

“I don’t need to use the power of their names, since I’ll never see them again,” Reiko finally says. “It’s only awkward if I happen to meet one of them and can’t remember who they are.”

“So you admit this book is useless to you,” Madara snorts. “Give it to me, then.”

Reiko scoops up water between her hands, and flicks it at Madara’s eyes. Madara wrinkles his nose and staggers back, glaring at Reiko’s self-satisfied expression.

“You’re a nuisance,” he tells her.

“And you’re not fun,” Reiko replies. “It’s my Book of Friends, so you don’t get to steal it from me. Attaching a name to a face makes it easier to call them friends.”

A pitiful human, truly.

“...They’re not your friends,” Madara says.

Reiko’s shrug feels measured. She gets out of the water, doesn’t bother drying her feet before retrieving her shoes (that are still where she left them) and putting them on. Madara’s eyes follow her movements, choosing to remain where he is.

“Maybe not,” Reiko concedes, her back turned on Madara. “I wouldn’t want to, anyway. But they gave me their names. Names are important, right?”

Natsume Reiko barges into their life without prompting and wrecks havoc on everything they know. She rips away their routine and replaces it with unpredictable events, summoned by her presence alone in these lands. She moves like nothing ties her down anywhere, but she’s restless. The tightness around her shoulders makes her small and fragile, when her entire attitude seems to prove she is none of that.

Madara doesn’t understand her. Her words and her actions are hard to parse, and he’s not sure she understands herself sometimes. She is simply grander than life itself.

“I hope you’ll play a game with me one day, Madara.” Reiko doesn’t fully face him but a small smile pulls up her lips. “You can’t run away from me forever!”

“Hmpf. I’m not interested in these childish games.”

“You’ll change your mind eventually!”

Reiko waves her hand and disappears in the forest, probably heading back to the home of her caretakers. Madara actually doesn’t know if she does live with them—she could have taken up residence in one of the old shrines with how often she visits them, for all he knows.

Madara curls up and closes his eyes. The Book of Friends, she’s called it. Such an innocent name for what is probably the most dangerous weapon against youkais—and it is simply used by a sentimental girl as a personal reassurance she is not alone.

Natsume Reiko already has friends. She just chooses not to see it.

#natsuyuu #natsume yuujinchou #natsume reiko #nyanko sensei #madara #rattles the bars of my cage i want to know what their relationship was like!!#i love the idea of sensei finding reiko interesting but also feeling sad for her #please @ midorikawa i need answers

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myhusbandsasemni · 4 years ago

Text

A meeting of wolves

CW: dead animals (?)

WC:1515

.........................

The sounds of the forest and the birds were drowned out by the voices of the people around the prisoner. He had a dazed look about him. He had been found outside the village, on the verge of dehydration and death several weeks ago. One of the elderly ladies had taken him in and nursed him back to health to find he spoke broken common and had no memories of where he’d come from. He only knew his name was Rin and a couple of other vague details about himself.

So, when the horrid wolf god of the woods went on a rampage again, and the villagers knew they would have to sacrifice someone to it, the confused stranger was the best option. They could only hope that he figured out who he was in the next life.

The old lady brought up the back of the procession, wiping her eyes on a handkerchief. If she were a bit stronger and younger, she would have stopped them. As it was, she was one of the top on the list of possible sacrifices due to her bad eyesight and memory, as well as how often she wound up sick.

The group came into a clearing with trees carved with symbols and a sturdy rod shoved into the ground at the very center. The maroon haired stranger was forced to his knees by a pole, his arms bound behind it. He stared up at the strange men, unable to completely understand them. He looked to the old lady to see her crying. He teared up a little as well. He knew he was probably going to die. That much he understood. He didn’t want to leave Elia. She had treated him so kindly and he’d wanted to help as much as he could in return. Now she would be forced to do all the chores herself and wear herself out till she collapsed and died. Hardly the death worthy of a lady of such kindness and wisdom.

Other people from the village set out carcasses of small animals around the clearing to draw the wolf to this place. When that was all done, the procession stared at Rin for a moment. “May Irene have mercy on his soul,” the priest said before turning and leaving. People filtered out of the clearing quickly, as if afraid of being caught there. Elia was the last to turn away from Rin.

“Elia!” Rin called in heavily accented Common. He cleared his throat nervously as she glanced back. “I love you. Thank you, much.”

She let out an enormous sob and hobbled back to him to kiss him on the forehead lovingly. She let go of his face and hurried as much as she could after villagers so she wouldn’t get caught by some wild creature who saw she was weaker than all the others.

Rin sat quietly in the sunlight, fiddling with the rope without any idea of how to escape. Or even if he wanted to. Now that he was alone with his thoughts, without any chores to distract him, he was forced to face the empty gap in his mind where his memories should be. He closed his eyes with a shuddering breath. He knew his name was Rin. He knew he was not from here, as was evident in his broken common and the fact that he knew how to speak two completely different languages that no one else seemed to understand.

Besides that, he was lost. He had no real sense of self. He had nothing to cling to besides Elia, and now he didn’t even have that.

He leaned into the pole, confused and anxious. He wasn’t sure what to think about. Thinking about chores in the village and Elia just hurt now. He stared at the grass and watched an ant as it went about its day.

He lifted his head as he heard something moving through the trees. Something shadowy was moving quickly towards him. It lumbered on giant paws, standing at about 10 feet in height. The creature slid to a stop in the clearing and began ripping into the carcasses on the edges of the clearing. Rin watched, drawing his legs to his chest. His heart pounded in his ears with a primal fear as the beast ate, rippling with frost which melted as flames flowed down through its fur. It looked over at him, blood covering its snout. He watched nervously as it began to come nearer. It had scratches and cuts all over its body and blood dripped down one of its front legs.

It slowly limped over to him. Rin couldn’t take his eyes off of it and froze. It stopped in front of him. It’s breath was hot and smelled like carrion. He whined ever so slightly as it pushed nearer. It’s wet nose went to his chest, leaving blood and snot on his collar bone. He gasped at the simultaneously hot and cold touch. Then his world flipped as fire rushed inside of him. He screamed as his body changed, his bones aching with new growth. He fell forward as whatever it was finished. He twitched and jumped when he felt something very different. He was stronger now. When he opened his eyes, everything was colored a little differently. He twitched again and something soft brushed his hand. It took a moment, but he identified the new appendage as a fur covered tail. His ears were different. He could hear everything. He could hear heartbeats and breathing. He was a werewolf. He sat in shock when he felt something fall into his lap.

He looked down and found a girl there. Her clothes were rags at this point. She was bleeding heavily, though it was slowly healing. She seemed to be a werewolf and smelled just like the wolf that had been standing over him. She looked so small now that she had a more human form.

With little effort, flames rippled down Rin’s arms and the ropes disintegrated into ashes. He flexed his hand and got his arms under the woman. She seemed to have been heavy set by nature, but her arms were skinny with malnutrition and she was extremely pale. Rin slowly lifted her up as he stood. He set her down in a softer patch of grass before examining her. She had dark bags under her eyes and bruises all over. Strangely, she had two tails, rather than one. She obviously wasn’t a normal werewolf, that much was clear. Especially considering she’d just turned him into a werewolf.

Rin paused. How did he even know what a werewolf was? As far as he knew, he’d never seen one and he’d never been told about them. He even had their proper name, lupus’luk, in his head. He pushed that thought aside and gently shook the woman.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him, a bit dazed and exhausted. She stared at him with a strange kind of awe for a moment. “Do… do I know you?” she whispered.

Rin shrugged. “I don’t even know myself. Are you okay?”

Tears welled up in the woman’s eyes, almost hidden by her unkempt brown hair, curled and slightly dead looking in the way it sat on her face. She curled up against him, shaking. He slowly settled in the grass by her, rubbing her back. He couldn’t get his new orange and black tail to stop flicking. He finally grabbed it, trying not to be weirded out by the new limb.

The woman took at least an hour to calm down. She slowly got up and Rin followed. He knew he couldn’t go back to the village. He picked up one of the dead animals on the way past.

The two walked in silence in the green shadows of the forest. Rin picked along a path with his bare feet, wincing every once in a while when he stepped on a stick or a stone. The woman ahead of him wasn’t wearing shoes either, but he could see thick calluses on her feet when she picked them up high to step over a dip in the ground or a fallen branch. They reached a cave in the woods after a few minutes of walking and the woman walked in. Rin followed carefully. There was a small fire still going that seemed to glow brighter as Rin approached it. He used a couple of sticks to poke through the meat and hang over the fire. He was hungry. He just hoped there weren’t any bugs that got into it. Though, as a werewolf he was sure he’d be able to handle tainted meat.

“Who are you?” the woman whispered, curled up fearfully.

“I’m Rin,” he said, trying to make his lanky frame smaller. “Who are you?”

“I think…. I think I’m Kiera.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” He picked at a scab and looked up at her. “Is.. it alright if I stay with you.”

Kiera shrugged.

Rin took that as a yes.

The Adventurers tag list: @dowings @writeblrfantasy @artrayasnow93 @doubi-ixi @extraisthmus @thethistlegirlwrites @thepotatowriter

#writing #wip the adventurers #rin #kiera #wolf

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deathonyourtongue · 4 years ago

Text

Winter Passing | Chapter 10

Summary: After car accident leaves him at the base of a mountain with no sign of civilization for miles, a breakup is the least of Henry’s problems. Just as death’s icy fingers begin to coil around him, salvation presents itself in the form of an old cabin in a clearing. Despite years of being told fairy tales and ghost stories that warn against such things, he uses his last of his strength to reach the cottage. When he wakes, he finds not a demon, but an angel, long removed from the insanity of the modern world. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 2K Warnings: None, for once. A/N : I think my tag list broke during the last update. Should be fixed now. Like what I do? Buy me a coffee!

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Send me a PM me if you’d like to be added/removed from the tag list!

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Foraging in the winter was a skill to be honed, and after finishing the morning work on the property, Henry followed Olivia out towards the wilds of the forest that took up the back end of her home.

“I didn’t think anything grew in winter, especially out here,” he murmured, watching her intently, keen to learn and-as he tended to be more and more often with each passing day-in awe of how she moved, how she lived.

“Technically nothing grows in winter, but there’s plenty to gather,” Olivia explained as she opened her hand, showing Henry a seed pod that resembled a dancing flame.

“The pancakes we had the other day? Were made with flour from these Hornbeam seeds. And here? These are delicious when you prepare them correctly,” Olivia explained, her other hand holding a few crabapples.

Eyebrows up in amazement, Henry dutifully turned around, letting Olivia put more foraged goods into the backpack she’d strapped him into. “What about poisonous stuff? Or stuff that you can use for...You know…” He made a face and Olivia couldn’t help but laugh, cupping Henry’s cheek and reaching up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss as they continued their walk through the forest, protected from the elements by the thick overhead cover of the ancient trees.

“That too. Holly and Mistletoe, though I personally have little use for them as nature intended,” Olivia nodded, her smile growing bigger as she felt Henry tuck her in under his arm, pulling her close as they fell in step with one another.

“Tell me a story from when you were...Before you were a witch?” Henry asked, his voice soft and tinged with reticence, lest he say the wrong thing.

“I was born a witch, sweetheart. It’s not like vampires. You don’t get turned into one at the peak of your life,” Olivia laughed sweetly, squeezing his waist with one hand while the other rubbed gently over his chest. “And before you ask, no vampires do not exist. Some of us do blood magic, which is pretty close, but none of us have fangs...That I know of.” Gazing up at him with amusement, she leaned into his strong form as they continued to walk.

“A story from when I was younger. Let’s see...When I first became aware of my powers, my favorite thing to do was hide things up in the trees. I started small; little bits of fur, some meat, one of my mother’s hair combs. No one noticed at first, of course, but then I started to get bolder. My father’s saddle was the first thing anyone really noticed, because, well, we only had one at the time. My crowning achievement though, was putting the family goat in the tallest tree of our village. It lasted all of an hour before the goat began to bleat, and a crowd formed. My parents were none too impressed. I’ll never forget my father having to climb up there, only to throw the poor thing down into an elk skin a few of our neighbors held out.”

“You were-”

“A little shit, yeah.” Olivia grinned proudly up at Henry, earning a laugh and a playful kiss, neither her nor Henry paying much attention to their surroundings, too wrapped up in the moment to care about what might be headed their way.

“Well, you turned out alright, that’s what matters, no?” Henry chuckled, giving her a warm squeeze and another kiss to the temple.

Olivia couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt more at peace and more elated. Looking up at him, she knew Henry was the root cause, but after centuries of solitude and suffering, Olivia refused to let the fear of the unknown take hold. What they had was all she’d ever wanted, and she wasn’t about to let it slip from between her fingers.

The choice, however, didn’t seem to be hers.

As they rounded the path into a smaller clearing just west of the cottage, the woods turned silent. Though it was winter, the forest still tended to be a cacophony of sounds, from bird calls to deer munching on berries. The silence was unnerving, and looking over her shoulder, Olivia’s unease grew into fear as she watched Gunnar go into a low crouch. Eyes fixed on the clearing, the husky bared his teeth and raised his hackles, on the defensive.

Olivia had barely turned back around when she caught sight of the apparition. Despite the cloud-covered sunlight that streamed into the clearing, the creature still terrified her, as the light allowed her to see her mother’s visage in greater detail.

Henry’s hold on her tightened instinctively, his eyes fixed on the ghostly image before him. “Liv, darling, what do we do?” He whispered, his concern growing when he felt Olivia begin to tremble.

Hiding her face in his chest a moment, Olivia worked to get her breathing back under control, fighting off every urge to run, knowing that doing so would only aggravate the apparition. Instead, she felt an anger grow inside her, usurping the fear as she forced herself to remember that this land was hers. With a push away from Henry, she turned her full attention to the spirit, drawing it closer with her actions.

“Gunnar, stay.” She commanded when she heard the husky stalk closer, a low rumble making it clear he was ready to attack at any moment.

“You’re not welcome here. Leave. Now.” Olivia spoke firmly, taking off her gloves. Henry’s eyes went wide when he noticed the aquamarine waves entwining around Olivia’s fingers. Moving like the ocean itself, they crashed and flowed, gathering in strength and fury until they created a stormy swell between her hands. There was no doubt, even to Henry, that if she let go, whoever was on the receiving end of the rush of water, would be in for a terrible time.

“Last chance, wretch. Tell me who summoned you and from whence you came, or suffer even more than you already have.”

The water between her hands began to glow, and upon closer inspection, Henry realized there was fire beneath the waves and the true nature of Olivia’s threat became clear. Being hit with a jet of water was one thing, but if that water were hotter than an open flame, spurned by anger, it was something else entirely.

Frozen in place, Henry couldn’t stop his cry of fear as the apparition suddenly lunged forward, screeching when it was hit full on by Olivia’s fury. To his surprise, the thing began to disintegrate once more, although this time, the process seemed far more grotesque. Instead of fading, the water seemed to eat away at the apparition, like acid on metal. It turned his stomach, but he couldn’t look away, fascinated and appalled in equal measure.

Just before its face melted away, the creature let out another ear-piercing wail, the singular word it spoke chilling Henry to the bone.

TABITHA!!

Unable to keep from shivering, Henry only found himself able to move when Gunnar nuzzled at his thigh, the husky’s demeanor back to normal as he sat at Henry’s feet.

“Tabitha? Who’s Tabitha?” Olivia asked as she shook off her own chill, the creature’s all-white stare one that would be burned into her memory for a very long time. Moving back to where Henry stood shell shocked, she rubbed his back, knowing full well this could be his breaking point.

“T-Tabitha’s my ex-girlfriend’s name. I w-was leaving her the day you saved me.”

Olivia could feel the chill in his body, the fear in his heart as he made the connection. Though she had no idea how long they’d been together, the betrayal and astonishment Henry felt coursed through every vein, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that Tabitha had kept her true nature a secret from her lover.

Taking Henry’s hand in hers, Olivia turned them in the direction of home, hoping the hearth, some tea, and her thickest blanket would be enough to ease the pain she knew was imminent in Henry’s very tender heart.

“What I don’t understand is...Why’d she have your mother’s face?” Henry mumbled long after his tea was gone, his gaze still despondent as he sat curled up on the couch, as close to the hearth as he could manage.

“If she’s as strong as she seems, Tabitha will have seen me with you. It doesn’t take a lot of work to conjure up a family line, even one as old as mine. She’d have found my mother’s face in my thoughts without breaking much of a sweat.”

A visible shiver went through Henry and he shook his head, looking for all the world like he might cry at any moment. Frowning, Olivia curled up next to him, making sure he could feel her arms squeezing tightly around his torso, hoping the contact would ground him.

“Am I cursed?” Henry’s question made Olivia’s laugh spill out before she could stop it.

“I wouldn’t say that. After all, only one of us is sending threats, and from what little you’ve told me, it sounds like she wasn’t the most pleasant person to begin with.” Shifting easily with Henry, Olivia let him settle as they both laid out on the couch. With his head between her breasts, she finally felt Henry’s anxiety ease and his heart rate slow.

The crash against the window sent them both flying off the couch, once more on high alert.

“Oh my god, it’s just an owl. Christ, where’s Dyster when you need him?” Olivia muttered to herself as she moved to the window, opening it to let the bird in. Scrambling up the couch and as far away from the black-and-white-feathered creature as possible, Henry’s wide-eyed look matched the owl’s, the two staring at one another for a long moment before the bird turned its attention to Olivia.

“I come on behalf of--”

“Theofina, right? Yeah, I get it. I’m wanted in Rome. Since it seems I don’t have much of a choice, tell her to ready my apartments, and that I’ll be bringing a guest not of our order. How’s your beak? You hit pretty hard.”

“It’s fine, ma’am. Just wasn’t paying attention as there was a mouse and, well, I’m hungry.” The difference between the two emissaries couldn’t have been more blatant, and not for the first time, Olivia wondered just how much had truly changed in her former home.

“Here, I have some rabbit to spare. Warm yourself by the fire. Are you pressed for time?” Olivia asked, doing her best to ignore Henry’s befuddled expression as she pulled some raw rabbit from the floor cooler, cutting it in half before meeting the bird by the hearth.

“What’s your name?” She asked, stroking over his head gently, surprised when she still felt a chill in his feathers.

“Atrix, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Atrix bowed his head for a moment before taking the offered meat and downing it in go.

“Are you treated well?”

“I’m given a home, food, and responsibility, ma’am. That’s all I require.” Atrix nodded, his eyes closing in peaceful enjoyment of the food in his belly, the heat from the fire, and Olivia’s caring touch.

“Good. Go when you’re ready. I’ll leave the window open.” Olivia spoke softly, feeding Atrix the second half of the rabbit before moving to wash her hands.

“Thank you, ma’am. You’ve been most kind. Is this the guest you intend to bring, in the typical way?” Atrix questioned, his eyes going as wide as saucers before he turned his head nearly all the way around to look at Henry.

“Yes. It might be uncomfortable, but it’s the quickest way there, and I know he’s strong enough to endure it.”

“Endure? Endure what?” Henry asked, eyes still fixed on the owl, unsure of what was being talked about, given he could only hear one half of the conversation.

“How do you feel about a quick trip to Rome with me?”

#henry cavill #henry x ofc #henry cavill fic #fic #deathonyourtongueoriginals #winter passing

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