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#I’m just thinking about this with a medieval times au
littlexdeaths · 9 days
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like i really love the idea of doing a shared au, where a different writer takes a different character with a different reader but it’s all in the same universe
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ew-selfish-art · 1 year
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DpxDc AU - If his parents are going to treat him like a punk, he might as well lean into it. 
Danny is getting seriously worn down by his parents constantly asking him to explain why he’s gone all the time and why his grades have slipped so far. I mean, sure, it took them months to notice, but now that they have, they’re alluding to the fact that he’s turned into some kind of punk and that he’s not taking life as seriously as he should be. This is what makes Danny kind of snap. 
He cuts his hair, gets Sam to pierce his ears in a few places (which sucked but was nice to catch up with her since Team Phantom didn’t get out much anymore), learns how to skateboard and gets Tuck to help him mask his identity on the internet as he begins online protesting the unethical treatment of ghosts. He makes picket signs that he leaves outside of Fentonworks and it takes days before his parents see them because they’re down in the lab. They go back up immediately after his parents take them down, and he begins tagging buildings with protest sayings and art all over amity park.
No matter how they ground him, the Drs Fenton are at a loss as to what to do to control Danny. Jazz says it’s not her place to interfere and is cheering her little brother on for being passionate about a new hobby. 
Danny’s honestly really vibing with the changes. He always understood why Sam wanted control over her own look, but he’s really leaning into the whole shebang. Ember and Johnny13 have never bonded over anything more than they have the punk transformation of their King. He’s really representing them fr fr- she taught him how to play the bass. 
With enough protests about the Anti-Ecto acts, the JL step in and begin their efforts to lobby change within the US government. Constantine is up to date on the new King being from Earth and thinks they might be able to weasel out a non-apocalyptic scenario if they reach out sooner than later. A letter gets sent through the infinite realms (No way in fuck was John going to try and summon a fucking King excuse you Bats)- Danny gets the letter and decides to let them sweat a bit, sending back his own letter that just says “K.” cause he’s learned that adults/authority figures all suck ass until proven otherwise. After a few days, a portal opens up in the middle of their meeting. 
Ghost King Phantom is rolling in on a skateboard, with the Ring of rage dangling from one of his ear piercings and ice crown floating above his head. He’s drinking an off brand smoothie, wearing a leather jacket that has medieval chainmail on it over his now distressed hazmat suit and his boots steel toed.
“...Sup. Y’all want to do something about this whole situation? I’m an all or nothing kind of guy.” Danny greets them. He means that he’s willing to be diligent in his efforts to disbar the Acts. It gets interpreted as him threatening to end the world, ofc, but that’s an issue he has to deal with later. 
“King Phantom we have been working daily to-” 
“Uh huh. Look, didn’t you guys have like a teenage group? I want to work with them, they’ll probably actually help me get shit done while you fuck around with paper work.” 
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gremlingottoosilly · 11 months
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The Horror and The Wild [Emperor!Konig x fem!Reader] Medieval Fantasy AU
You had a nice, simple life. Serve the princess, obey the princess, protect the princess with your life. You never thought that this nice, simple life would bring you to be kidnapped by the infamous Northern Emperor. Konig never thought that kidnapping a wife would be much easier than courting one. CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2| you're here! Word count: 5317 Tags/Warnings: Medieval fantasy/Alternative European history AU, Age gap, Enemies(one-sided)to lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Forced marriage, Size difference(Konig is absolutely huge), Somewhat one-sided slow burn, Yandere Konig This fic on AO3
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— You’re really quiet, little princess. 
König isn’t ashamed of staring at you the whole horse ride. He isn’t ashamed of touching you, his precious treasure – cupping your breasts through that pathetic excuse of a corset, trying to feel of your legs through the billions of skirts, his touches sprawling across your skin like bruises. He is a soldier in all regards – his touches are far from gentle, far from how he should behave with his bride. You feel like a piece of meat being presented for him to devour. Like an unwilling sacrifice for a benevolent god. 
— Should I scream then?
Snarkiness isn't something that the princess should have – but it's the only weapon you have, although you are not sure if you can even use it. Emperor is laughing, and it is supposed to be a good thing – you were trained to receive such reactions, like a little dog standing and doing tricks on command; you were taught to strive for smiles on the faces of others. But König doesn’t allow you to see his smile, but König laughs all the time while describing to his soldiers the things he wants to do to you. It is almost surely, that he doesn’t think you know his language – you wish you didn’t know. 
— I can give you a reason to scream. — You shall not threaten a… — I’m not threatening you, kleine Katzen. With a good time, maybe. — What are you referring to? — That I would love nothing more but to rip your skirt off and show your cunt a royal treatment, princess.
Emperor has a foul mouth, wandering eyes, and grabby hands – he behaves like a drunk man in a tavern, even though you have never once been in a tavern, and the only drunk men you barely saw were the castle guards on various celebrations. He doesn’t act like a glorious king from the romance novels – and you don’t think that you ever read a novel about a king or an emperor, not about princes and glorious knights. People with this much power don’t deserve love, they already have everything they have – so why would he kidnap you? 
You turn away from him, the obscenity of his mouth makes your whole face burn. You are trying to hide yourself in your hands, you want to grasp something like a little fan or a handkerchief – everything to sustain your dignity. You are wearing the princess’s name and you have to behave like her – even if you don’t think that she would care about how you are behaving yourself. The dread of being exposed lingers in your chest, the only thing that doesn’t allow you to scream and launch on him like a wild cat. Rules and modesty tie you down stronger than any corset could. 
Like a rabbit caught in the hunter’s trap – you steal looks at the nature around you, excited and terrified to see it for the first time – not the perfect greenery of the castle garden, but an untamed nature. You saw the city for the first time – your capital, not burned and agonized under the empire’s boot, but eerie quiet. The city doesn’t know your face, the princess was hidden, kept in the tower as a means to escape the burden of marriage proposals and possible wars for the sake of securing her beauty. Nobody here knows you for your face, and for them, it’s just the empire’s knights, a power from a country too foreign to be worried about, and a random kidnapped girl in a dissarranged dress and tears streaming down her face. 
A hand on your waist secured you in place. No matter how much you squirm and cry, try to forget all the filthy nonsense he is whispering in your ear, you are forced to listen – and you want to cry every time his face hovers over yours. His hands are touching you, too much for comfort, your are still wrapped in his cape, but it’s a very small mercy for your torn dress and fragile body. 
The road is long and short at the same time. Your kingdom was bordering one of Northern Empire territories, but it’s days away – you never once thought that having the Empire right on your border would be such a nuisance, that it would allow them to simply take whatever they want from your tiny country – the rules of politics are never applying to those in power and, unfortunately, you found out the worst way possible. The road is treacherous, with people surrounding you, with soldiers going through the beheaded country like it’s nothing. You were biting your lips the entire first day of the ride, trying not to cry – you do not want to give him the pleasure of seeing your distress, but you can’t help but sob every time he exits the cabin to yell at his soldiers or laugh at something. 
You are not tied up, they trust you too much – they all know you would not be able to run, seeing just a helpless princess, a little war trophy of their emperor. The war trophy without the war, just a doll for him to enjoy. You steal a few glances at him – his spread legs that make you wonder how the poor horse even can handle him riding it, his mighty body, and his muscular arms. He could wrestle a dragon, you think – he could lift up the whole carriage and bring you back to the capital like this. He is a cocky bastard, not even having his sword in his hand whenever you move too much – too confident that this weak princess would not be able to resist him. You don’t want to fall from the horse and so you freeze in your tracks, even when they hit a small pause on the journey.
You can’t, of course – your hands are trained to hold clothes, to braid hair and, sometimes, fetch the water buckets – but you are mostly proficient in holding books, turning pages and embroidering. You can make tea, you can support the conversation, you can faint dramatically whenever the right opportunity occurs, but the ride has been happening for a few hours already, and you fainted three times – for specific reasons, of course, but fainting now would surely be a bit too much. 
— Is little princess too tired to hold herself straight? 
König chuckles in your ear, hands pushing you against his body. You don’t want to say anything, you’d rather continue your ride until you’re completely exhausted – books were never talking about how hard it is to ride a horse, that your rear would feel numb after the first hour, and your head would be bouncing on every little bump on the road. You never thought that the roads of your kingdom were so terribly maintained – and never thought it would be such a problem. 
You grit your teeth, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of confirming just how weak you are – but he stops his horse once you are not responding, a hand slides under your hips to help you get out from the damned animal. You swear to god that you will never ride this foul creature again – but the god, as always, stays silent. 
— What is it? 
— Princess isn’t used to long detours. We’d have to stop before dawn if we want to keep this a secret for now. — Could travel for a few more hours before it’s too bright.
His second-in-command is a weird man, no doubt. Tall, broad, wearing armor with tiger prints all over the metal – although you never saw a tiger in real life, only on various illustrations of the books you were reading for the Princess. He is painfully informal in a way that makes you wonder how he can keep his head on his shoulders – surely, if he’d talk this way to a king, he wouldn’t be such a profound member of the army. König only shakes his head, pointing at you as the reason to stop – as you begged him to get off this bloody thing. — I need my princess with all innards intact. Especially the soft ones.
Emperor laughs, cupping your ass through the skirts. He somehow managed to grope your softness without breaking the corsage, and you’d feel thankful for him, but the dress was ruined anyway – all the hard work of redoing it over and over, every time you had to manage to squish the princess inside of the harsh corset and billion skirts, every little detail you were thinking through together…it feels somehow suitable, to wear a destroyed dress. Fake princess deserves fake luxury, but even the modesty he allows you to have with his coat wrapped around you feels forced.
Stopping right now, when you feel numb and your legs are getting weak and squishy like that weird transparent foreign delicacy, is very considerate of him. So much so you don’t even want to acknowledge it, hoping he’d just continue to go forward until all the traces of your past are gone. You’re too tired to consider anything from escaping to even opening your eyes. Suddenly, being on a horse of this size doesn't sound like something out of a fairytale. Suddenly, you realize that the horses are tall. 
— What’s wrong, princess? 
— I’m not going down.
You are sitting, frozen on top of his horse. One of your hands is keeping his coat wrapped securely around your body while the other squeezes the reins, hoping not to fall miserably to the ground. You hear soldiers laugh – the embarrassment spreads around your cheeks when you understand that a true princess would have horse riding lessons. You two never did – it would give you too much freedom, and your castle would never accommodate to large grounds of free roaming to keep a princess and her loyal maiden entertained. You can only hope they won’t think that the absence of your riding lessons would be too suspicious – and you also hope that he would just allow you to never jump down to the ground that feels horrifyingly far from you. 
— Do you wish to run with my horse? 
— Yes, your Highness. — Run, then. I’ll be waiting, little princess.
There is a laugh in his voice – you squeeze the reins and try to holster them, maybe kick the foul creature to the side so it would take the hint and start running in the direction of the nearest forest. Maybe you would get lucky, and the horse would drop you in front of the house of a kind forest witch that would take you as her student – you can cook, and you can read, so, naturally, any witch would be happy to have you as a disciple. Maybe you will get even more lucky, and the horse will kick you in the head after dropping you, finishing your misery in a tragic road accident. Not a honorable death, but a quick and interesting one. The horse remains frozen in place – just like you. König gently caresses its face, giving it something to eat – an apple, perhaps, a nice and tasty fruit, or sugar cubes, the delicacy that the princess would often indulge in but never gave you, or something of a…ah, this is it – you are starting to get jealous of his horse. Mayhaps, death is the only choice for you now. 
— I will run. 
— Of course you will. 
— Sir, should we prepare the archers? 
— Don’t know it yet. Maybe the princess escape would be too swift for them. 
You feel your whole face burn – they laugh, they all laugh, looking at you like a piece of meat, a funny joke between them. You don’t want to fall from the horse, and you don’t want to stand here either – but every time you look down at the ground that is so, so far away, you can only shake in your seat. You feel like crying once again – and this is what brings you to the edge. With a deep sigh and shaking hands, you jump down swiftly, your eyes closed and your legs getting tangled in the various skirts, dragging you down. ***
The emperor had an understanding of what he was getting into when he kidnapped a princess. Princesses, pretty and young ones especially, are mysterious creatures that should be carefully studied by the imperial scientist in order to determine how in hell they can even exist without killing themselves on something stupid three times per day. This one, however, was a crowned ruler of weird girls – sometimes throughout the journey, he was thinking about returning her to the king and choosing another one. Then he remembered that he beheaded the king – and so, the bloody dot was sealed in the history of relationships between Northern Empire and this tiny shithole in the middle of nowhere. 
Besides, the princess was too adorable to really throw her out. She is smart – for someone like her, anyway; her snarkiness combined with the primal fear of him and his men made him feel strong, more significant than before. It’s funny, in a way – König had defeated countless great warriors and spent his life turning the tiny Empire into the most powerful nation on the blonde, and yet, he never once felt this achieved as when he held the princess in his arms. The emperor never thought of marriage as a necessity, his whole magic endeavors securing that he would never have to worry about leaving an heir or having someone else to rule – but the loneliness can hit you like a royal stallion bred for the purpose of battery ramming into castle doors, and you can find yourself yearning for something that you never thought you’d want. Speaking of royal horses…
The princess is cute, the princess is dumb, and the princess is the most weird and perfect creature in the whole wide world. Makes him wonder just what was you doing in your little castle with your little servants, running around like ants under your dainty heel. You are snarky to him when you know that he is too busy to strike you and too tired to care about his opinion – he likes that about you, little yawns and feeble attempts to appear strong in front of him. He doesn’t, however, like the way you are frozen on top of his horse. He needs his wife helpless, yes, dependant on him in everything – and he also needs her to ask for help when needed, not…well, not jumping from the height of a royal horse in that stupid dress of yours. 
God, hive him strength. 
König, the ruler of the Northern Empire, biggest royal regime on the globe, thought that he overcame his anxiety when he was young, so long ago, he forgot how fast his heart can beat when the situation is going out of his control. He remembers this dreadful feeling now when that stupid brain of yours has decided that jumping from a horse is a good idea. He is fast, swift enough to catch you before you fall to the ground, and he squeezes your hips enough to hear the crack of that stupid dress construction. 
He has to stop himself from yelling. From putting you in your place and slapping you across that perfect face of yours – never the one to beat women, König feels like spanking the shit out of you now. His eyes are flashing with anxiety, and he grabs your shoulders, putting you in front of him – you can’t see his face, covered by his mask, and it’s a small grace for someone like you. He is scary when angry, nostrils flashing with rage when he thinks that you’d rather break your neck than ask him for help. 
— Made others set the camp for tonight. 
Horangi is as perfect as a knight can be – his friend, his partner in crime, one of the only ones who still can survive his temper and not be intimidated by it. He can see the worry in his eyes when König is pushing the little princess down to his hold, draping the various skirts across his hands to rip them away – and he quickly yells at the other soldiers who produced the operation, making them run in various directions to collect wood, stones and set up the tents for tonight. They have to move away from the popular roads, even though nobody in this kingdom would be strong enough to hurt them anyways – but this operation should be a secret, at least relatively, until the princess is secured as his empress, and her body is sprawled across his sheets, withering from pleasure and…
Ah, Scheisse. König cannot stay mad at her when the mere thought of her smile makes his dick twitch in his pants. He survived through horribly throbbing erection against the metal plates of his armor for the whole ride, the small mercy of not having her soft body press against him directly. It didn’t stop him from wanting more, from whispering filthy things, completely undeserving of your virtue. You are bringing him down to his knees – even an emperor is just a man when a pretty girl looks at him, and even at is age, he could feel like a young lover searching for his bride’s hand. 
Oh, but König would love something more than just your hand. 
He should be thankful to his knights for how quickly they made a tent for him to secure the dignity of the first moment between a man and his sweetheart. He usually does everything himself, not wanting to make a lady in waiting out of his knights, but he enjoys their help now – he surely won’t be able to prepare for sleep with his wild cat of a bride in his hands. You are unusually active for a princess, trying to get out of his hands, kicking him with your adorable legs, still wrapped in a ruined skirt. Perhaps you were so mad at him for destroying your dress – he gets it, knowing how sensitive ladies are about this. He’d buy you a new one right away, but, for your stupidity, you deserve to wear only his coat until they are inside the borders of the Empire. 
— Did you hit your head before I got you, princess? What were you thinking? — You told me to run. I did, Your Royal Highness. 
He pinches his nose through the mask, not believing just how arrogant you sound – he wants to push you down, to open that dumb skirt of yours and give your precious ass a few spanks before setting you down, making you sit on the ruined muscle until you’d learn your lesson. The king was definitely not punishing you enough if you still think that you can talk to your betters (and elders) like this. 
— I dared you to run. Thinking you’d accept the consequences with the dignity of a royal lady. 
— Why don’t you kill me then? For belittling your dignity. 
You look too snarky for his liking – he can see how terrified you are, little shakes of your hands and tears in your eyes. You are provoking him, picking the dragon with a stick so he’d burn you to a crisp. König knows that the customs of your kingdom value a good death over everything and just how much you’d love to fall into the grasp of a common tragedy. He also knows that he will not bury his bride before they are even married. 
It’s only natural that the emperor grasps the front of your dress, the edges of the corset you tried to tie down to save some of your dignity. The fabric rips with ridiculous ease, all the gold spent on making it runs with the speed of a thread being torn. Suddenly, your front is exposed, even the underwear is not enough to conceal your privacy. König indulges in the view of your open skin, glossy from sweat and so, so delicious in dim magical light erupting from an artificial candle. He knows that he is playing a dangerous game, that not touching you now would be his greatest accomplishment and greatest torture at the same time – your body meant to be touched, you look like a doll and like a statue, like the greatest treasure and the most desirable slut he ever laid his eyes on. 
The emperor is a man in the end – a war dog, closer to death than to the start of his life, a perfect incarnation of a horrible match to a young princess like you. Too wrathful, too arrogant, with more chips on his shoulders than the hair on your head, and yet, he holds you closely, putting you out of the torture device you are calling a dress. 
You breathe for the first time in forever, and your mouth is shaking from unspoken tears and spoken pleas. He holds himself back from cupping your face in his hands and crushing your lips in a kiss, not because he doesn’t think he deserves it, but because you deserve better than to be fucked on the ground of his tent without proper preparation and some relaxing oils for your body. One kiss would never be enough for him, and he hadn’t touched a woman in far too long to handle himself properly now. 
You look like you need to be ravaged – the greatest temptation König ever experienced. 
— I can do so much to you, little princess. More than you could ever imagine. 
— i’m not…n…not little. Your Highness. 
— You are, compared to me. Should be scared, not snarky. 
— I’m not snarky. 
Just for this, he loses control – your voice, shaking with tears but never losing that arrogant edge, that delicious drawl that cannot be described as something that belongs to a princess, makes him lose all of the composure he had. König had prepared himself for a lady who would fall in his arms and cry the whole night long, he prepared himself for a fierce fighter that would try to kill him immediately – but you are soft and vengeful at the same time, too weak to resist him, but not too helpless to not run his mouth. You speak before you think, and it’s an adorable quality for a princess and horrible – for an empress. good thing you would be his regent, a pretty thing like you should never be annoyed with politics and mingling. König pushes you across his lap, his free hand is tearing through various skirts, and what is left from that awful strick construction you tried to pass as a skirt support. He never understood why anyone would live through this torture – you’d look way nicer in his shirt and nothing more. Or, even better, nothing at all, chained to a bed in his bedroom until he’d think that you are tamed enough to be shown in public. 
You yelp in surprise, precious dumb thing. Just like a princess, you are not accustomed to the consequences of your own actions – you think that you can just run your mouth or do dumb things without his wrath falling upon you…and, little princess, you’re in for quite a shock. Your emperor doesn’t have enough patience for this, even though he did want you as his wife and knew what chaos it could bring. He just never thought that he’d have so much pleasure in looking at your adorable bottoms, all modest and long. Your underpants are adorably white, not stained from multiple washings, crisp and new – he feels the fabric with his fingers and almost thinks to not rip them away, just to appreciate the fine silks that went into constructing it. 
His mercy is cut short by that sweet whimper of yours. You plead with him not to touch you – like you have a saying on this. König defiled the death itself, so why would he even consider such silly things as chastity before marriage? He certainly had enough women in his bed to forbid him from ever going to heaven, and robbing you of your innocence would be a small crime against all the countless sins he already committed. 
But, he doesn’t want you to hate him – and you would, certainly, not in the fiery and passionate way he might enjoy, but a quiet, broken anger. He doesn’t want to turn this fragile thing into the broken shell of the betrothed princess, even if you need to be taught a harsh lesson – and you deserve much better than having your cunt destroyed on the harsh floor of his tent. 
— You’re lucky, little princess. 
He laughs, taking down your underpants – a harsh hand on your bottom, rough fingers that almost burn you without a glove to conceal his touches. You whimper when he lashes on the sensitive skin, stroking sensitive skin. If you knew how hard you make him, you’d run away with his horse already. 
— How am I lucky? You…you killed the king, you destroyed my country, you…
— I killed your father, yes, but I left you alive. 
— To make a show for your soldiers, I assume.. 
— If I wanted to leave you to waste, I would allow them to bounce you on their dicks a while ago. 
— How d…
— You’re lucky because you’re mine, little princess. Not going to share you with anyone. But…
— But? 
Your voice has finally gone down. he can almost taste the dread in your tone. König was burning down villages, destroyed his enemies with nothing more but a rusty sword and hatred in his heart – but he truly feels like a monster when he slaps your ass for the first time and sees your tear-filled eyes staring at him. God, he never was faithful, but hurting you feels like defiling an angel. 
And he loves every second of it. 
— You need to learn a lesson of respect, little princess.
It’s a small grace that he doesn’t make you count his slaps – he simply pushes you down, makes sure that your face is lying on his cloak, just for something soft to rely on, and gives you enough slapping to make the rest of horseriding as painful as possible. Maybe, it would teach you a lesson that if you need help, you’d have to ask him, to beg him for this – and not try to hurt yourself by doing it on your own. You’re awfully independent and resilient for the princess. 
It took him at least five strong, harsh lashes of his hand on your rear to make you cry as loud as he wanted you to. He cups your face in his palm, forcing you up his lap – and smothered your lips with a kiss. König knows he is overstepping; he wouldn’t be able to let go of you after devouring your lips like that, but he doesn’t care, at least for now. He wants to be your everything, to push every thought out of your head and fill it with himself. 
He adores the thought of being your first kiss, your first everything – you’re so inexperienced, so fragile in his hold. Never once thinking of himself as an appreciator of all the thighs dainty and artsy, he wants to worship that pout, your closed eyes, and little prayers of mercy you whisper between each kiss. Your body feels too enticing in his hands, a treasure he needs to keep all to himself. It’s a miracle he didn’t push your underwear down and took you all the way – as much as he wanted to touch you. 
König smiled when you cried into the kiss, trembling in his hold like a caged animal. Never once he thought he’d have this much fun without taking some plumpy woman on his dick, but you are full of surprises. Another five smacks on your ass left you with a bruised bottom and tear-strained, wet face. The look of misery in your eyes made him cackle – god, you were adorable. Continue like this, and he’d spend the rest of his life with you on his lap. 
— We will sleep now. The Empire borders are still days away, and you don’t look like you could handle the road right now. 
You pout, pushing yourself off his lap. Even the hard floor of the tent was better, the cold fabric made your butt sting a bit less. You still couldn’t sit straight, still miserable, with a burning feeling in the depths of your tummy – hate, perhaps, that made your hands shake and your thighs feel a bit too wet and warm for your liking. There is a knot in your lower stomach that makes you feel weird, anxious, that makes you squeeze your legs shut as you push through the pain and get your underpants on again. The soft silks of the princess’s undergarments made you feel a bit better. 
— I’d love nothing more but to run away while we’re still at my home, Butcher.
He smiles under his hood, pushing his hand on your backside. You freeze as he rolls you over, making you fit perfectly against his broad chest. He is a horrible, disgusting human being, clingy and warm around you – his bear-like hold is too strong on your limbs, making you freeze completely. 
— I’m sure you are, Liebling. And I would love to catch you and spank your rear again. 
— I will…you won’t catch me. 
— Someone will. I’ll pay handsomely to any knight or wandering hunter to bring my wife back to me. 
— I’m not y…your wife. 
— Yet. 
You turn away from him – try to, at least. He squeezes you against his chest makes you calm down in his hold like a wild cat he picked up on the side of the road. You don’t want to admit it, but he is warm, cozy, and even the harsh fabric he threw on the ground to make you a bed feels nice compared to the castle floors where you spend so much time. You still squirm, trying to find a good position to lay next to him without feeling like a toy in the hands of a grabby kid. König feels your wounded, perfect ass grinding against him – out of most of his armor, he can’t contain his erection now. Oh, how the strong emperor wished he’d have 
— Stop moving, princess. Unless you want to consummate our marriage early. 
— I’m not…I’m not moving. 
— You are squirming. Is the ground not to your liking?
— I must prefer sleeping in a grave with my papa. — Can’t promise you this…but isn’t sleeping with the Death himself would be enough? — You’re not death, your highness. A blight, maybe. Or a plague. — You’re making me blush, little princess. There is a smile in his voice. You feel your cheeks heat up again, but you can’t say anything. Too many nights sleeping by the princess’s bedspot, always being the first one to greet her at sunrise and the last one to tell her stories before going to sleep. Like a loyal dog on the wooden floor, with a pillow under your cheek for comfort – all of her other handmaidens, precious ladies from good families, had their own quarters and rooms. 
You had a cot by her bed and her endless affection. 
Compared to this, sleeping on the floor of a rich tent with an emperor by your side isn’t as bad. You have to remind yourself that you are sleeping with a murdered, pillager, kidnapper and colonialist – you shouldn’t feel warm by his side. But, he hugs you like a lover. But, he buries his masked face in your hair and inhales your scent – sweet fragrances mixed with the blood and sweat of a long journey. 
You fall asleep in his arms before you can think of something smart to say. 
König doesn’t fall asleep until hour later – too busy looking at your precious form, wrapped so perfectly in his arms. 
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Run Away To Me (III)
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AU MASTERLIST || FINAL CHAPTER
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PAIRING: Blacksmith!Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x F!Runaway Bride!Reader
WORDCOUNT: 5.1k
WARNINGS: Blood, wounds, medieval period-esc standards for women, arranged marriage, toxic family dynamic/relationship, blood, angst, protective Johnny, violence, hurt/comfort, speedy relationship, talks of sex/intimacy (nothing in depth) & virginity pertaining to marriage, religious symbolism & mentions, etc.
A/N: That's it for this AU - onto Werewolf!Ghost next.
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
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You’re kept behind Johnny’s back as you both exit the treeline, and you feel yourself quivering with unease. 
What would Lord Wilkin do to you? Drag you back? As the shelter of the trees leaves you, you tighten your grip on the blacksmith’s tunic, breathing out a shaky puff of air. Cobalt eyes look back at you, trying to reassure you as the first calls start up from the guards.
Johnny whispers out, his accent deep. “It’s gonna be just fine.” 
“She’s here!” 
Hounds dash forward but with a sharp bark of, “Get back!” They skid along the dewy grass and halt with rabid barks instead, fur bristled and spittle flying. The men surge forward, and you gasp as they grapple at Johnny’s arms. 
One tries to snatch at the neck of your cloak, but a strong arm traps the armored wrist and twists it sideways, snapping the bone as you stare wide-eyed as the guard screams; jerking back and stumbling to his knees. With a fluid motion, Johnny grasps the handle of the downed guard’s sword as he writhes with agony, unsheathing the blade and laying it upon the breast of the other with a dim call. 
He glowers and glares, eyes like burning coals. 
“I suggest you step back,” you watch, holding your breath from over his shoulder as the blacksmith leans closer to the man, one arm kept behind him and resting on your hip. “‘Fore this gets bloody.” The guard raises his hands and backs up quickly, fear splashing his eyes. 
All of the others watch nervously from the sidelines, either reigning in steeds or holding their hands to the pommels of their weapons. Waiting. 
You swallow the saliva in your throat and ask, quietly, “Are you alright?” 
“Don’t twist your head about me,” Johnny reassures, eyes traveling around the homestead as the guards shuffle and share glances. The Scot grits his teeth and tries to think of a way out of this. 
If you had run, just as the man had anticipated, they would have caught up in no time.
The clop of hooves from your left draws both of yours’ attention in a quick succession of perked heads and pounding hearts. You feel your blood drop to pool in your feet at the face that meets you. Johnny growls and shoves you farther into his shadow as Lord Wilkin comes closer with a horse of bay coat, decorated with all the finery of his station. Gold, great coat with an embroidered tunic, and riding boots. Strapped at his waist was a dagger encrusted with gems made of blood and diamonds.
Never mind all that wealth, he looked ugly and cruel to you—a glint of arrogance in his eye. You glare and grit your teeth, rage coming off in waves from Johnny as well as yourself. 
Wilkin’s old face is the same you remember smirking down at you as he drove the ceremonial blade into your palm, and your entire hand flinches in memory, digging your nails into the Scot’s waist. 
He puffs a sound of reassurance but otherwise doesn’t move an inch from in front of you.
“And who might this be holding my bride hostage?” The Lord’s voice is sly. Black eyes dart up and down Johnny’s form and the man you latch to has to restrain a rabid grunt of anger. Stay his molten tongue. “A blacksmith?”
“It’s MacTavish, to you,” Johnny calls, tone dead and laced with danger. Your body restrains a shiver as his warm skin sinks into you; the memory of his lips on yours is addictive, even now. “Be best for you to remember it, eh? Considerin’ I’m the one who supplies your fucking guards with arms.” 
Lord Wilkin utterly ignores him, his gaze sliding to you halfway through his sentence. You stay silent, lungs tight inside of your ribs. The unfortunate truth was that Johnny still had more standing here than you did, anything that you said would come up as null and void; in fact, it would be better to be completely mute. 
But with how the Lord was looking at you, your teeth had to bite into your lip to silence yourself. You had to come up with a way out of this. Soon. 
“Take my bride away from this brute. Chain him.” Wilkin hides a smirk, pulling at his steed’s reigns to shift the beast away with a snort and a flick of a dark tail. “I want his head on the block in the town square by tomorrow. I have a wedding to finalize.”
“Let the fires of hell go cold if I go anywhere with you,” you say, stepping out slightly from behind Johnny, much to his hesitation, but still, he watches over you and lets you do as you please. The blacksmith would rather not have this Lord’s eyes anywhere near you if he’s being honest with himself.
This Scot had made you bold—his words gave finality. If he said nothing would happen to you, you believed him. Perhaps that made you foolish, but his word meant far more than anyone else. Johnny kept his promises.
Lord Wilkin’s horse is jerked to a stop, its head snapping back and forth with a frothing mouth. His eyes travel back and a slow sneer pulls at his lips, sitting under a mustache of white hair. You restrain a cringe, and Johnny barks an order to the advancing guards to stay back as his large feet set themselves. 
“If they grab me,” he mutters, speaking over his shoulder, “run, Little Lady. I’ll be sure to give you an opening.”
Your eyes widen in shock and horror, but before you can answer, your husband-to-be calls to you. The Blacksmith’s expression is the picture of defense as he angles the sword in his grip at the far-off Lord when even the barest hint of his tone indicates you.
A low grunt was ringing in his throat like that of an animal—as if the bear fur inside of the house had come to life and was a shield of muscle and iron shavings.
Your eyes blink, and something begins forming in your head, but it’s gone before you can really grasp it.
“My Lady,” Lord Wilkin states, his guards taking up places beside him, glaring. The hounds have still not gone silent, and Johnny eyes them nervously. “I believe you’ve been overcome by some…” He grumbles and gnashes his teeth in rage. “Spell of disobedience. I’ll have a physician examine you and keep you in my home for a stay of recovery—”
“The lady said she’s not goin’ with you,” Johnny seethes, pupils slits. Your hand rests on his back, spread over the swell of his broadness as you feel his pulse. Hot and racing. “So pack the fuck up and scatter! And take the bloody mutts with you!” 
You spare a worried glance at the back of his head. The blacksmith can’t possibly believe that threatening them will make Wilkin pull back, and when he meets your eyes, you know he doesn’t just by the wrinkles by the sides of his lids. 
He’s nervous, shifting his feet in small increments to try and push you nearer to the tree line. Your body hardens. 
You’ve already made your mad dash—there was no more running. Certainly not if your new center of affection and protective build wasn’t coming with you. 
Wilkin raises a brow. “Quite demanding for the man surrounded…Woman!” You flinch at the sudden shout, the quick rage of his snapping head, and the quick switch. Johnny glares and his hands are strangling the hilt of the sword, white and held still. The Lord barks, “Your parents gained valuable gifts for your well-bred hand—would you enjoy them being taken away? I can do so.” Dark eyes sweep over you. A smirk. “Forget this spark of madness and consummate what you know to be done.”
Johnny lunges with a snarl, eyes burning with horrible anger and the intent to cut the head off the snake. The guards meet him as he yells to you, “Run, Dearie!” 
But your feet are stone.
When the man realizes you’re going nowhere without him, his eyes gain a sheen of panic as his blade clashes with sparks of steel with another. A dance of feet and wit that speaks to years of careful study; practice from both parties. Wilkin looks smug as Johnny lets off a loud curse and has to turn his attention back to the fight.
“Seems the woman’s come to her senses. Praise God, perhaps there’s hope for her yet.” You breathe heavily, hands clenched under your cloak. Your mind wished for a dagger—one to show this pathetic excuse of a man how much it hurt to try and have someone mark you for the pleasure of ownership. Like some common branded cow. 
Wilkin nods to you as Johnny gazes on in horror, narrowly dodging a swipe at his side before he elbows a guard in the face, splaying him out along the ground in a heap of leather and fabric.
“What are you doing?” He yells, voice booming out over the forest. You don’t look at him before you suck down a breath and steady your nerves; standing taller and setting back your shoulders. 
The trained grace that had been shoved down your throat on a silver platter came back easily. Forks and spoons sliding under your teeth, all engraved with images depicting holy scenes of sanctity while the blood of your flesh spills at the poke of thorns sitting on your head. A halo of bloody martyrdom. 
A tool. 
You can be a tool, you decide, flinching when Johnny’s body is tackled to the ground; form ricochetting as he growls and writhes. His sword clatters to the ground. They have him in binds, cheek shoved into the dirt, and great shackles that skirt the line between animal and human restraint. A guard’s hand forces his face deeper into the earth and Johnny bellows, ordering with wild eyes, “Run, dammit! Get out of here!” 
Sending a stiff glance, you stare blankly into cobalt eyes and blink away just as quickly, standing and staring down Lord Wilkin as he watches in contentment at the scene of the raging blacksmith and his seemingly placated bride. At the twitch of his lips, you raise your voice high. 
“Release him.” Dark eyes turn to slits before they slowly slither back to you. 
“Pardon?” You grit your teeth and feel Johnny glaring, a snarl ripping out of his mouth as he coughs through the grass. 
“Dearie, no!” A punch hits his stomach as he’s jerked up to his feet and attacked; chains rattling as hounds bay for blood. You sense your gut roll with bile as Johnny fights back—tree-like legs laying a kick square into one's abdomen. 
The two guards hang onto his arms, shouting at each other to try and restrain him further.
“I ask my husband-to-be to release the man that graciously gave me shelter during the storm,” staring hard, you’re trying to stop yourself from running to Johnny. You know you have nothing to help him with—it would be pointless and utterly stupid. 
Your brow raises, but a nervous twinge is still in your voice. “Does My Lord not take pride in the fact that the men of his fiefdom are so open to taking in those less fortunate than themselves?”
Wilkin’s cheeks go tight, skin pulling as the eyes of the free guards travel to him. The struggle gradually dies down across the way; cobalt eyes darting back and forth with panic. 
“Don’t bloody do what I think you’re doin’!” 
A trade would happen, but only for a moment. In your head, you were whipping past possibilities and scenarios. There was something on the cusp of discovery—so close to giving you the upper hand, but what was it? Like a thorn in your foot, you continue to walk over it; ready and willing. 
Johnny had your back last night, it was time you had his.
“Let the honorable blacksmith go,” you level. “And name your price.” 
The response is immediate. A flashing smirk. “Deal. I’ll take my bride back, just as was intended.”
“No!” Johnny’s tunic is all ripped up, tears from gripping hands only making the damage larger—nail scrapes along his hardened flesh from the guard’s ruthless hold. Skin white from the force.
If you look at him, you’ll lose your mind.
Under your cloak, your hands shake as Wilkin descends his horse, coming closer. 
“Keep your fuckin’ bastard hands off of ‘er!” 
Think. His footsteps march closer—thin and sly-looking like a sharp-eyed Egret. Think! 
Before his hand can snap at your wrist your mind sparks in a panicked moment, and you’re exclaiming with a loud voice before you can stop yourself or think the sentence through. You stutter at first but quickly gain your footing. 
“I-In good faith, I cannot accept—I am unfaithful to you, Lord!” 
The entire homestead goes still, and those struggling with Johnny’s binds freeze. Lord Wilkin goes confused, his wrinkled visage peeling in like a rotted corpse. But no faces are quite as good as the blacksmith’s, who goes so pale and wide-eyed before he can school himself in secrecy; his jaw loose. His heart pounds in his breast, shreds of tunic waving in the wind. You continue with utter conviction, so much so that you even start to believe the lie you’ve crafted with a swift mind. “See the evidence upon the blacksmith’s sheets—where we lay last night in the throes of lust; I am no longer a pure bride.” Breaths get caught in throats; eyes bugging to a nonsensical degree. You swear someone choke. Your face burns as you continue, faking a shameful falling of your chin. 
“I cannot marry you!” It’s almost enough to break you, the realization on Johnny’s expression as he darts his vision to your hand—which you hide inside your cloak; wrapped around your waist with false fear. Blood on your hand. 
Blood on the sheets.
“It would be shameful to do so, do you not understand? I am not but a used good.” Fake or not, the last comment still makes Johnny’s hands clench his jaw working itself with a restrained growl. 
But pride furrows his brow. A smirk was forced back from his lips.
You just took away what Wilkin loves more than anything else—control. 
The older man halts, his mouth going agape and a vile sheen coming to his cheeks. He stutters, “I...what?” It’s a violent snarl, but the man balks back from you as if you’re infected. “You dare lie to me, Girl? Play off this fallacy?” 
“It’s no lie,” you say, gaining confidence with how Johnny watches you closely, only once rumbling at the guards that hold him when they tighten their grip. “The evidence is plain as day in the Blacksmith’s bed.” 
Wilkin’s eyes flash, and he barks an order to one of his men to enter the main house. Only when his dark eyes are off of you do you spare a look at Johnny. 
You sag softly, shoulders losing some tension. 
Blue eyes lock with yours, firm. Sending an apologetic squint of your eyes, the man only slightly shakes his head, mouthing out, “Don’t worry your little head about it.” A quick, barely-there smile flashes his lips—but then you have to look away before you let the shaking of your body be known. No matter how hard you plead with your muscles to stop vibrating, they do so instinctually. 
You know what lying about this will cost you, successfully or not. You’d be labeled for the rest of your life; separate. But Johnny’s eyes on you ease the pain. Lets you breathe. If the worst thing that could happen to you was living out your life in his homestead and being at his side, then perhaps social execution was the only thing that pleased you at the moment. 
You just hoped that it didn’t lead to an actual execution.
“Lord!” The guard returns as Johnny continues to watch you, panting, with sweat dripping down his chin. His ribs hurt something awful, but he only glowered at the men holding him and stayed his violent tongue to let you work your strengths like fine iron wrought in the fire of his hearth. 
Wilkin’s lackey was hurriedly carting the length of the Blacksmith’s sheets behind him—clutching in his fist the vibrant red stain of your blood and displaying it to the light. Thinking about what they saw it as, instead of your wound opening, you cringe and restrain a sound of disgust. 
Even being around Johnny for as little time as you had, despite the kiss and infatuation, you had forgotten how crude the rest of these men could be. It’s like this sanctuary of trees and dew-soaked ground was in an entirely different world, and these intruders were wrecking it. By Johnny’s face, he felt the exact same.
Half of the Scot wanted to save your honor and tell them you were lying, but the desperation of the situation was far more serious than that. He couldn’t let you go back to Wilkin—he’d promised. So Johnny took down a tight breath and stayed silent; face burning and glaring at the ground with clenched fists shaking for blood. 
The guards holding his arms slightly release their grip, listening intently themselves.
Blanking, the Lord’s eyes lock onto the stain as the man brings him the fabric. Not a moment later his hand snaps out to drag it to his face, looking daggers into the redness as his eyes snap from place to place.
“...You did this on purpose,” the slow dead tone takes you aback, hands around your abdomen digging further into your flesh as a dread spills into your stomach with blossoming unease. 
“M-my Lord?” Johnny tenses, eyes sharp like a wolf.
“You did this so you could spite me, you little,” the encrusted dagger is unsheathed from its scabbard. “Whore!”
“Shut the fuck up!” The blacksmith bursts with wrath, jerking forward so violently that he drags the guards holding him along the ground, their calls of alarms making the hounds go ballistic. 
You take a small step back as Wilkin gets nearer to you—the point of the blade setting itself right under your chin; tilting your head up. Breath going tight, you stare with wide eyes and a pounding heart. 
He wouldn’t kill you…would he? 
The Lord’s eyes are brimstone and deeper than Hell, holding sinners in the bars of his pupils while devils of brown specks prod the pool of obsidian. If a man could be on fire and still be living, Wilkin was an inferno incarnate. 
“You belong to me,” he grits his teeth as Johnny’s voice blurs in the background, having to be forced to his knees by three men yet still nearly throttling one with the force of his arms. “I paid for you.”
“Then you should find it a lost investment,” you shakily reply, not knowing how you have the strength to stare into Wilkin’s eyes. But you do. You stare and you hold your hands tight into your flesh until the skin under your gifted fabric aches. A small prick of the blade makes you suck in a tight inhalation, a tiny droplet of crimson sneaking down your throat.
It’s a battle of wills, and before you say what you’re thinking, you’re nearly sure that in less than three seconds you’ll be grasping a slit throat. 
You clear your throat softly and speak in a dim whisper. “How will your guards react to you killing a woman in anger?” Expressions freeze. “What does God say about that?” You swallow, throat bobbing. Hit him where it hurts. “...What would the townspeople say? Mercy is not above our great Lord, that is an earthly prospect. I believed that was your greatest quality, is that not what everyone believes?” 
Wilkin stares, his mustache twitching. Dead face. Dead eyes. 
It’s a long, long moment before anything else happens, and when it does, you flinch.
The dagger disappears from your chin and you instantly back up several steps, breathing unevenly. Pointedly, you place your uninjured hand on your slowly dripping skin. 
Johnny’s taken down three of the guards, their faces bloody and your blacksmith’s nose broken. He yells and screams curses. You feel your heart constrict at the sight, pain zooming down your veins in bursts of adrenaline, but it’s seconds later that Wilkin speaks, loudly so that everyone can hear.
“I would never harm a woman,” you hold back a violent scoff as your hands shake, wanting to be taken into Johnny’s arms now more than ever—feel his heat and inhale his scent. Wrapped in a blanket of steel and ash. “In my good graces, I will pray for your salvation, Miss. But being soiled—” 
“Bloody piss off!” You send Johnny a quick glance at the outburst. He’s forced back face-first into the ground with a grunt and sputtering of grass in his mouth. 
“I no longer wish to be joined with you in holy matrimony. It would be dishonorable to my station.” Dark eyes swim with hatred, but the tone of his voice is easy and pliable. The Lord was a good fake—he plasters on an appeasing smile for his men and waves a quick hand in the air as he turns to his horse. “Release the brute. Let the pair roll in their sin of carnal desire. God will be their judge.”
Johnny struggles as they unlock his chains, but the second he’s out he’s springing full-force towards you; his skin sliding across your cloak as you’re guarded far better than any loyal hound or King might be. 
“Johnny,” you grapple at his biceps, sighing raggedly in relief. He doesn’t brush you off, only curling his side around you and angling his head to the mounted horses; pupils slits and lungs heaving. His nose looks awful. “Don’t, don’t,” you plead, “It’s over.”
The man doesn't respond, looking feral as his hair goes this way and that; coiled around your body about to strike at anything that comes close. 
“I’ll kill him,” Johnny grunts. “I’ll rip his damn throat out for speakin’ to you like that—for puttin’ a knife to your throat. I’ll rip him into bloody bits and pieces, you just say the word, Little Lady.”
Your arms encase the one of his you’re holding, dragging the limb to your chest. Cobalt eyes dart back to your face. It’s a long moment, but his expression softens slightly—the wrinkles beside his eyes easing while his lips twitch down. Blood drips off his lower face, spread around his under eyes, and stains his stubble with crimson gore.
“Please,” you mutter. 
He looks down and nods stiffly, even if he doesn’t like it. 
The horses are rallied, the hounds called, and with a throw of dirt from their hooves the convoy is off. Silence returns in slow increments of nothingness. 
Wind, the call of a bird, and the babble of a far-off stream echo through the pines. Only when they’re entirely out of sight and the dust has cleared that Johnny swiftly moves, picking you up into his arm. You squeak as he carries you speedily into the main house, rushing to place your backside on the table. 
His large hands immediately tilt your head up to spy the tiny mark from Wilkin’s blade, and you feel his shuttered breath against your throat as you go heated. 
“J-Johnny, what are you…” But you don’t get an answer, the man disappearing before coming back with a wetted rag. Once more, the man cleans your wounds with delicate presses of the cloth—ridding you of all blood. 
His jaw is clenched, and as you watch, your hand in your lap twitches. 
In a broken act of pain, you lightly run your fingertips over the swelling of his nose. The man stops, but serious eyes stick to your throat—unable to meet your gaze; there’s a red sheen to his neck and ears. Anger or embarrassment, you know not.
“I’m so sorry,” you whisper, guilty, and his widened gaze rips itself to lock with yours. Your vision blurs, afraid to touch him fully as if it might burn him.
“No,” he’s shaking his head. “No, you never tell me that. What you did, Dearie…I,” Johnny stutters, closing his mouth before opening it again. “I should be apologizing to you. It wasn’t fair to make you do that. Any of it.” 
A wobbly smile flicks your lips.
“Are you saying I should have left you?” Johnny moves his face farther into your hand, blood contaminating your skin but you don’t pull away. You let him sag into your palm instead, reveling in the scrape of his stubble against your soft hands. 
“I’d not see you harmed,” is all he answers. 
You sigh and blink away your tears, stealing the man’s rag so you can dab at the bloody nostrils. Johnny’s pulse is still fast under you—like the pound of his hammer. 
“Well,” his eyes dig into yours and you smile. “I believe my priorities are the same. I may have only met you yesterday, but I’ve grown quite fond of you.”
“Aye, well, everyone will know how fond soon enough.” He’s more worried about this than you are, a stubborn and almost grumbly tone to his words. 
“Is my purity that much of a sore point for you?” You can’t help but tease him, even in the circumstances. “I had no idea.”
His face goes more crimson than his own blood, and he blinks at you rapidly. 
“I…That isn’t what I…” You chuckle gently and press your forehead to his, whispering. 
“I was just joking.” He sags with relief, his hands coming up to rest on your hips with the care of a man unbefitting to his station. Again, you have to ask yourself how an individual so intimidating can be, at the same instance, kind and generous. 
His lips mutter, brows tight. “Are ya sure you’re alright, Hen?” 
You think, wondering about the run through the forest when this all began, the plea for shelter. Such a deep coincidence that you’d end up here—perhaps the most safe place in the entire fiefdom. Everything had lined up perfectly, barring a few bumps in the road. You doubted Wilkin will mess with this place after the spreading of your ‘promiscuous’ behavior.
He was too sly for outright violence if given the option.
“Yes,” you know, and thin your lips. “What about your nose? A-and everything else?”
“Don’t think about it,” the Scot smiles, eyes still glinting with worry. So many hours and you’d barely gotten any sort of break. “I just want you to rest, then, eh?” 
Maybe it was outwardly obvious, but the entire ordeal had left you drained; shaky, and still coming off of panic. What if they had killed Johnny…? 
You’d go back to Wilkin and live as his wife, producing heirs and locked away in his estate for the remainder of your life. What kind of existence was that? No, you knew, you’d never live like that. 
You’d never live like that here. 
With a shaky breath, you watch Johnny’s eyes flash with concern for a moment by your silence, but before he can speak you’re pressing your lips to his in a firm and honest kiss—sinking in every emotion you could. 
The man grunts in surprise, but doesn’t move back; if anything, his grip on your hips increases, sliding up to your waist. 
After a moment of tasting flesh, you pull back and whisper, “Thank you.”
Johnny breathes heavily, a glimmer in his blues, “Well,” he grumbles, “I’d say you did most of the work.” 
You both share a chuckle before you’re lifted again, carried gently over to the bed without sheets. You’re placed atop the bear fur and wrapped in that instead after your cloak is unclipped and folded neatly, set on the floor. Outside, the call of a far-off storm hits your ears and you blink to the window. 
“Stay with me?” You ask before you can stop yourself or can even think. 
The blacksmith’s breath catches, his fingers flinching as they were pulling the fur tighter around your neck. 
It’s a moment before he asks in a quiet tone. 
“You sure you want this, Dearie?” His lips go tight, eyes narrowing in inner conflict. You stare and already know the answer just by how he speaks to you. “I’m no King. I…I can’t give you fine jewelry or fancy clothes. There’ll be no grand suppers beyond the game I catch or what I can afford to buy. Long winters.” 
The air goes quiet with worship, and your eyes go wide with care. His broken nose is crooked, but it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. You wonder if that was for your sake or his.
“I’m not someone worthy of your beauty,” he rubs at the back of his head, bending down by the edge of the bed. “Certainly not your smarts. I’m only a blacksmith, Little Lady.”
“Only?” You huff a chuckle. Johnny looks at you in confusion as the black clouds outside roll in, seen through the window of this quaint and lovely home. The hearth is warm, the scent of food still in the air, and the memory of a dash through the forest behind you. 
“If you’re only a blacksmith, Mr. MacTavish,” you’re sent a fake stern look as the back of a hand goes to brush your cheek. You shiver. “Then I’m only a runaway bride.”
“Aye,” Johnny admits with a growing smile of adoration, “but still a bonnie one, at that.” 
“...Stay with me?” You ask again. 
The man breathes out, “Tell me why.”
“The trees do not deny what they need to make them whole, Blacksmith,” you whisper. “Why should I?” 
He’s clambering under the fur, wrecked clothes, and blood on his face but never feeling more whole. Is so little a time enough to fall in love with someone? What deity had tied your souls together so soon with ribbon soaked in rainwater—tinged with blood? 
His lips meet yours as you sigh into him, hands gripping his arms as they circle your waist tightly. Johnny breathes you in and lets his hands span your back, fingertips digging into your clothes. Into his mouth, you whine a plea for him to keep you close and hold you tight. It’s all your need from him. It’s all you want. 
For the wise know best: there is nothing better than a simple life.
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dreamwritesimagines · 21 days
Text
The Eye of the Hurricane [34] - Cage
A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback, you made my day! ❤️I hope you’ll like this chapter as well, and please don’t forget to tell me what you think! ❤️
Summary: Lack of honesty can cause resentment.
Word Count: 2700
Pairing: MobBoss!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader
Warnings: Violence, guns, crime, blood, explicit language, dysfunctional relationship, mentions of sex. This is an AU, friendly reminder that I don’t condone any of the actions depicted on this story and please read with care.
Series Masterlist
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If anything, your day started out pretty calm.
You were petting Alpine with one hand while scribbling on the paper with the other, and you stole a look at Bucky when he entered the kitchen. He ran a hand through his damp hair and you inhaled the scent of his aftershave as subtly as you could, pretending to be busy with the file in front of you while he made his way to the coffee machine to fill himself a cup of coffee.
You could feel his glances on you as he leaned back on the counter, sipping his coffee but you ignored him until he cleared his throat.
“So when is that asshole leaving?”
You stopped petting Alpine and lifted your head to look at him better.
“Who, Rhett?” you asked. “He just got here.”
“Doesn’t he have a city to rule?”
“He left his right hand in his place, apparently,” you told him. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
You hummed, spinning your pen between your fingers.
“You should be nicer to him, you know.”
He scoffed into his coffee mug. “Yeah sorry, I’m not capable of being nice to dickheads who gaze at my wife longingly.”
“What?”
“I’m already being civil by not shooting him, and that’s only because you told me not to.”
“You’re not going to shoot—he doesn’t gaze at me longingly, Bucky.”
“Oh he does,” he shot back. “In fact, I bet he has a plan.”
Your frown deepened. “What plan?”
“He wants to—he wants to take you to Chicago,” he said, motioning vaguely and you tilted your head, your mouth slightly open. “Yeah, he’ll feed you some bullshit about never being over you—”
“He is very much over me.”
“And he will ask you to go rule Chicago with him, and then I’ll shoot him and feed his fucking body to the dogs—”
“Can I just interrupt that very creative theory with some truth?” you asked him as Alpine jumped from the counter to the floor. “Number one, even if he weren’t over me, it wouldn’t fucking matter because I am over him.”
His eyes searched yours as if he was trying to see if you were telling the truth. “…Are you?”
“Absolutely,” you said. “Number two, whoever he is with -which is not going to be me, by the way- will not be ruling Chicago with him. Chicago’s rules are different, the crown moves through blood there. Spouses are irrelevant, they’re treated worse than heirs, or right arms. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the bitch who he’s going to marry because she’s a terrible person, but I kind of feel bad for her too because no one will ever take her seriously. King consort or queen consort, doesn’t matter because they have zero power, except for providing heirs and strengthening the loyalty of families.”
Bucky blinked a couple of times. “Jesus, and we say we have medieval rules.”   
“Exactly,” you said. “And number three, I know we both keep forgetting it but we are in fact married. Even if I weren’t over him, me going to Chicago would be grounds for war and only an idiot—”
“Trojan War started the same way, didn’t stop anyone.”
“I appreciate the compliment but I’m not the underworld edition of Helen of Troy,” you pointed out. “That’s not what’s going to happen here. Unless Eric Bana shows up, that is.”
“Which one was he in that movie, Paris?”
“Hector,” you said with a sigh. “The things I’d do to him…”
“I’m glad we had this conversation because now I will have to add him to my hitlist as well.”
You rolled your eyes at him.
“The point is,” you said. “I’m not starting a war between Chicago and New York for an ex. Because that’s what Rhett is. An ex.”
“He doesn’t see you as just an ex,” Bucky told you. “You said it yourself. He trusts you.”
The sight of Rhett’s car by the campus outside your building made you stop dead in your tracks only for a moment. You could feel the smile pulling your lips as you approached him, and he took off his sunglasses to grin at you.
“Hey stranger.”
“Hey,” you said. “Look at that, you survived.”
“Mm hm.”
“I take it the same can’t be said for Lucas?”
“For him or any of his men,” he stated, leaning back to his car. “He was waiting exactly where you said he was.”
You nodded your head. “How pissed off was your father?”
“Very pissed off,” he said. “But I think it worked out pretty well, you know? Now we have sent a message.”
“The ultimate golden heir is not to be crossed or challenged,” you teased him with a small smirk. “That’s a good message.”
He heaved a sigh, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Hm?”
“Why did you warn me?” he asked. “I mean, aside from the orgasms I gave you—”
“That was a mutual transaction,” you pointed out, making him let out a chuckle and hold up his hands.
“It really was,” he said. “But seriously, we were broken up. And I know what promise he dangled in front of you. What, you didn’t even consider it?”
You made a face, shaking your head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“New York values loyalty over power,” you said. “That’s what I grew up with. I don’t do business with greedy backstabbers, neither would my father or anyone else in New York. Once a traitor, always a traitor.”
Rhett’s gaze was fixed on you, a light crossing his eyes as he let out a breath.
“Jesus…” he muttered. “One last transaction, cupcake?”
“Nope,” you said with a laugh. “Then we will get attached and we can’t have that. You have a city to take over, and I’m too smart to be put in the background in someone else’s empire.”
Rhett smiled softly.
“My father won’t do business with anyone in New York,” he said, and you shrugged your shoulders.
“I know. Everyone knows.”
“Neither will I,” Rhett said. “Until you need my help.”
Your eyes shot up to his, your stomach doing a happy flip.
“You’d do that for me?” you asked and he nodded.
“You saved my life, and proved that I can in fact trust you,” he said. “Chicago values loyalty above everything else. The least I can do is pay back the favor.”
A smile warmed your face. “I’ll come to collect, Rhett.”
“Looking forward to it,” he said and extended his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you, cupcake.”
You let out a giggle, and shook his hand.
“Yeah,” you said. “Likewise.”  
“Because I earned his trust,” you told him as his phone vibrated and he checked the screen, then typed something. Even if you wanted to ask who it was, you managed to control yourself, biting inside your cheek.
“Dr. Raynor rescheduled the therapy session for the evening,” you told him. “Your assistant told you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I have a meeting with Anna before that so I might be a bit late but I’ll be there.”
Your brows shot up, that familiar bitterness burning your mouth. “With Anna?”
“Mm hm,” he said. “Gotta go, I’ll see you there,”
With that, he walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind him, and Alpine jumped back on the counter, meowing at you in a very demanding manner. You heaved a sigh, stroking over her soft fur.
“We’re not going to threaten Anna,” you told her, “Because that’s a fucking insane thing to do, and we’re very logical, rational individuals, right Alpine?”
Alpine meowed again and you nodded your head.
“Mm hm,” you muttered. “Exactly.”
                                               *
“I mean it’s not that I’m jealous,” you assured Becca who only watched you with her brows raised. “Obviously that’s not what’s happening here.”
She hummed, sipping her coffee.
“It’s just that she’s a bit too friendly with him I feel like.”
“Like Rhett is a bit too friendly with you?”
“That’s very different!” you protested. “Rhett and I are going to make a deal!”
“Anna already has a deal with Bucky.”
“Whose side are you on?” you asked, sulking and she let out a laugh.
“Yours, obviously,” she said. “But I’m just saying, maybe before pointing fingers, acknowledge the fact that Rhett liked you. A lot.”
“Liked,” you repeated. “Back then. Besides, I have no feelings for him and as I told Bucky, he will get married.”
“And he will have mistresses.”
“Probably,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. “Alice will kill them I’m guessing. She was quite obsessed with him even while we were dating and now that Rhett says he will marry her, I do not want to think about the lengths she’d go to.”
 Your phone buzzed on the table and you checked the screen, then tilted your head. “Huh.”
“Who is it?”
“Ethan,” you said. “We haven’t talked in forever, apparently he was too busy and so was I. He wants to grab coffee sometime.”
“What is it with all your exes wanting to fuck you?” Becca asked, making your jaw drop.
“That’s not true!”
“No seriously, what are you doing to those guys?”
“I don’t do anything to them—you know what, we’re changing the subject,” you said as you put your phone back on the table. “Do you think I’ll be able to pull it off?”
“The deal?” Becca asked, “I’d say you already have.”
“Nothing is on paper yet.”
“It doesn’t matter, he flew here for that deal. He will make it.”
You drummed your fingernails on the table. “My father will have so many things to say about it I’m sure.”
“He can say whatever he wants—oh!” she sat up straighter. “Guess what I heard.”
“What?”
“Apparently, Ian is learning how to fight.”
You pulled your brows together. “I’m sorry?”
“Mm hm. His right hand is teaching him, the hot Hercules guy—”
“Ryan.”
“Yeah, him.”
You scoffed a laugh. “How did you hear about that?”
“Your father told my father and my father told my mom at breakfast,” she said. “Never too late to start I guess?”
“I mean he’s the heir,” you said with a sigh. “If the cage fight is happening…”
“You know how I feel about the cage fight tradition but for Ian’s case only, I will enjoy it,” she said. “I hate the son of a bitch.”
You squeezed her hand. “How Leila?”
“That’s actually why I wanted to meet up with you,” she said, huffing out a breath. “My mom kind of forced my hand.”
“How?”
“She and me and Leila are having brunch tomorrow.”
Your eyes widened. “What?”
“So I need you to tell me Leila won’t decide to dump me tomorrow.”
A small laugh escaped from your lips and you shook your head.
“She won’t,” you assured her. “Do you want me to be there? I will invite myself to that brunch, I don’t care what Winnifred thinks.”
 She looked like she was genuinely considering the idea before she made a face, then shook her head.
“Nah, I need to deal with this myself,” she muttered and you pressed a hand over your chest.
“Aw,” you said with a grin. “They grow up so fast.”
“Shut it,” she said, kicking at your shoe with hers, making you gasp. “But I’m going to need all the moral support I can get, so you will be by the phone the whole time, alright?”
You let out a laugh. “Deal.”
                                                    *
Bucky was late to the therapy session as he said he would be by fifteen minutes, and when he got there, he was rather tense. Even if you wanted to ask what had happened, you knew you couldn’t in front of the therapist so you raised your brows at him but he shook his head.
“So,” Dr. Raynor said, “Let’s pick up from where we left off the last time. How have things progressed in terms of your communication with your ex-boyfriend in the picture?”
“Him being my ex-boyfriend doesn’t play a part in our communication or lack thereof,” you said quickly and Bucky clicked his tongue.
“It definitely does.”
“I think what plays an important part in our communication is the fact that Bucky doesn’t exactly trust me.”
Bucky blinked a couple of times and turned to look at you better.
“I don’t think you should be pointing fingers here, Charm.”
“I do trust you!” you protested, making him scoff.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“You know what, if you’re being like this because I didn’t give you one tiny little detail about my plan—”
“One tiny little detail?” Bucky repeated with a laugh. “Try the whole plan.”
“You wouldn’t even spare me a glance if I pulled the shit you did back in that back alley,” you finished your sentence as if he didn’t cut you off and that seemed to take him by surprise. He gawked at you, then licked his lips, shaking his head.
“Are you serious right now?”
“What happened in the back alley?” Dr. Raynor asked, her voice almost too calm and Bucky gritted his teeth, leaning back in the couch as if he was uncomfortable all of a sudden.
“It was ages ago,” he said curtly and you hummed.
“And you never apologized.”
“I did apologize—”
“Asking me if I’m still mad via text does not count as an apology, Bucky.”
“What happened?” Dr. Raynor asked and you took a deep breath, then crossed your arms.
“I had a silly little crush on Bucky years and years ago,” you said. “Before I left for college, I made the mistake of telling him about it.”
“Charm.”
“And it’d be fine if he only turned me down but nope,” you spat, that bitter taste burning your throat again. “He had to humiliate me.”
“I didn’t humiliate—”
“Yes you did,” you cut him off and he ran a hand over his face, then motioned at Dr. Raynor.
“Are we seriously going to do this in front of her?”
“Why not?” you said. “That’s what the therapy is for.”
“And you resent him for it, Y/N?” Dr. Raynor asked and Bucky scoffed a laugh.
“Oh she hates me for it,” he corrected her and you shrugged your shoulders.
“I’m not saying I don’t trust you, I’m just saying that if I didn’t trust you, it would be with a reason.”
“Right.”
“Was there a reason behind it, Bucky?”
“No there wasn’t, other than the fact that he wanted to humiliate me.”
“Charm.”
“Y/N, open communication is very important and a huge part of it is listening,” Dr. Raynor said, making you shake your head.
“No, he really didn’t have a reason other than the fact that he was the city’s golden prince who thought—”
“My father wanted us to end up together,” Bucky cut you off, making you pull your brows together in confusion and you turned your head to gawk at him.
“What?” you asked after a beat and Bucky clicked his tongue.
“Yeah,” he said. “He kept talking about how it would be good for the business, how I should visit you in Chicago when you’d leave for college and…all that bullshit.”
You blinked a couple of times in complete silence and Bucky bit inside his cheek.
“I mean obviously I didn’t see you that way back then, but I wouldn’t have been that much of an asshole to you if that was the only reason,” he told you, his voice almost inaudible. “I thought…I thought you were yet another cage he would drag me into, that’s it.”
You could barely hear anything from the way your heart was pounding in your ears and Bucky swallowed thickly, then stole a look at Dr. Raynor and took a deep breath.
“Yeah no, I’m not doing this shit in front of a stranger,” he muttered and got up from the couch as if he was too restless, then walked out of the office and slammed the door behind him. The sound snapped you out of your haze and you jumped on your feet, grabbing your purse.
“Thanks Dr. Raynor,” you said in a haste and walked out of the office as well but by the time you stepped outside, Bucky’s car had already driven off. You let out a breath, then leaned back to the wall on the building and rubbed at your eyes.
“Oh…” you murmured more to yourself. “Fuck.”
Chapter 35
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Winter's King 13
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No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.
Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, cheating, violence, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: You are a maid to the Duke of Debray, a lord of the Summer Kingdom. That is, until the king of Winter appears with his particular air of coldness. (Medieval AU)
Characters: Geralt of Rivia
Note: Ahhh! I almost own a house.
As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.
Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.
I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖
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The queen struts down the hall, the white satin limning her figure. She is shameless as she passes soldiers but she needn’t worry for their judgments. You peek up at the few errant eyes that follow her, though many pass without even a glance in her direction. Servants course through the corridors, busy with preparations for the morrow’s departure. 
You think of asking Queen Jazlene whether now is not the best time. If she should be more concerned with her venture north. Of all she’s acquired of the queen’s former possessions, there is not a fur among her chests. Nothing more than a trim of squirrel or rabbit along a collar. The summer kingdom does not warrant the need. And certainly, you think, the king must be equally busied by the pending journey. 
As ever, your duty keeps you silent. You do not know better than a queen. You bide her whims, not your own. You follow the soft whisk of the robes hem and your mind wanders in your stead. You think of the dark gardens and the king’s words. 
‘Should I remain any longer, I might give it all up.’ He must be eager to return home. You can’t help but harbour your own impatience. For all you’ve heard of the Hinterlands, you cannot picture them well. You want to see them yourself. It is the only time in your life you really ever longed to see something entirely unfamiliar. 
The queen stops and the soldiers on either side of the door shift, alert at her approach. The do not look welcoming. You wring your hands behind your back. What can you do but let the queen proceed? 
“Let me through,” she demands, “I must see the king.” 
“Your highness,” the rusty-haired soldier drawls, “he is not receiving--” 
“He is my husband,” she sneers, “I am the queen.” She points to herself, “I give you orders, sir. Not the reverse.” 
The other man huffs and tilts his head to the other as if to say, ‘don’t bother’. The first soldier raises his elbow to hit the door beside him. 
“Your highness, you have a visitor,” he calls through. 
“A visitor?” Jazlene scoffs and steps forward, grabbing the handles of the doors to try to force her way through. “I am more--” She shakes the doors as they offer resistance from the other side. You can see clearly through the crack between them that they are latched within. 
The metal grinds inside as the lock is slid out of place. The queen blusters through as a dark-haired man stands by the left door, watching behind her as she blows in like a storm. You pause in the doorway, uncertain if you should go further. 
The king sits at the table of his receiving chamber, maps unfurled and kept unrolled by heavy ornaments. He has one arm on the chair and his other hand against the tabletop. He watches his wife with his golden eyes, his lips straight and unamused. The man who opened the door, watches with a crooked grin. 
“Husband, I have come to see you. As we have much travel ahead, I figured it was the best time for us to--” 
“The best time?” King Geralt ponders flatly, “we ready for the ride north. We must anticipate the remaining rebels and assuage lingering acrimony. We must also account for the snows that will meet us in the Hinterland. This campaign has kept me long and the winter will be there to greet us.” 
“Let the servants trouble for it,” she insists. 
The man by the door flutters his fingers at you, “in?” He mouths. 
You blink, uncertain. You step inside hesitantly and step to the edge of the other door. He pushes the left one shut and turns to watch the interaction with glee. 
“You should trouble for it,” the king reproaches, “you should act as queen and so you should think of your people.” 
“Husband, do not presume to educate me. I have had tutors all my life. I understand these things. I was borne to be a lady, to mind a castle--” 
“A castle not a realm,” he shakes his head, “this is no banquet.” 
“Ugh,” she huffs, “what has gotten into you? Last night--” 
“It is today,” he insists over her, “I am occupied.” He shifts his chair pointed and frames an area on the maps with his large hands. “Jaskier,” he calls, “come, we must determine our way through Hare’s Pass.” 
“Your highness,” the man jaunts forward bouncily and as he nears the table, he pulls out a chair, “Queen Jazlene, please, have my seat.” 
The king looks at his companion with a deathly glimmer. The lord in his cornflower jacket is unbothered by the distaste aimed in his direction. He smirks back defiantly. 
“Thank you, sir,” Jazlene simpers and sits with her back straight and her chest pushed out, “I think I’ve forgotten which one you are.” 
“Lord Jaskier,” he intones, “I held the capital while the king claimed his beautiful wife.” 
She giggles and runs her hand along the front of her robe, “oh, how valiant, sir.” 
“Jaskier,” the king growls again, “put your mind back to the road--” 
“We have it figured, your highness,” the lord rebuffs, “surely you should enjoy this time you have in one place with your wife.” Jaskier takes another stool and sits at the table, “I should very much like to know this summer queen better. You secret her away--” 
The king sighs. His fingers tap in irritation on the table. He sits back and throws his hand up. 
“I see you are no help, as usual,” the king snips. 
“And you are tedious,” the lord smirks again. “My queen,” the man sits forward, his attention on Jazlene, “I traveled the summer lands once before. You see, I fancy myself a musician and as a young boy, I would play for the courts. I never ventured to Debray but I was at Harlowe. It is closeby.” 
“I know Harlowe,” Jazlene brightens, forgetting her mission for talk of herself. “Yes, I went there often for their harvest fairs. Were you there when Lord Edmund was still alive?” 
“Ah, yes, I believe he wasn’t there long after I left for the next county,” Jaskier artfully feeds her self-importance. 
“He was a good man. Of the few my father respected,” she mourns with her hand to her chest. She shakes her head and pauses with a sullen sigh, “maid,” she snaps her head up, “bring wine for us.” 
“No wine,” King Geralt counters swiftly. 
“We have a guest, husband, surely we should entertain him according to etiquette. In these summer lands, we offer sustenance to our guests,” she argues. 
“Bring warm milk then. You needn’t be glazed over with wine on the morrow--” 
“I am the queen and I am grown, I will have wine,” Jazlene waves her hand at you tersely, “maid!” 
The king glances at you. You stand in indecision. You can defy neither but in that moment, you must choose one or the other. His golden eyes drift over to the queen and back to you. 
“Go, fetch wine,” he relents. 
You bow your head and spin to set off on the task. Your thankful to escape the tension that floods the room. You can sense that the queen’s intrusion is unwelcome and yet that lord ignores the king’s mood. Almost as if he means to agitate him. 
You weave through the disarray of the corridors down to the kitchen. Barrels of pickled foods and crates of dried goods are stacked, waiting to be loaded onto carts for the distance ahead. The king must still think of feeding his army, and now, a royal retinue. 
You claim a bottle of wine amid the hectic furor and some goblets. You’re out of breath as you return to the upper floors and slow yourself to regain composure as you approach the king’s chamber. You’re let within without obstruction. Just the maid. 
You cross to the table and set the goblets upright, then the heavy bottle. Jazlene ahems and taps the brim impatient before you can uncork the bottle. The neck moves away from your reach as Lord Jaskier snatches it instead. He opens it easily and pours the queen a cup as the king leans heavily on an elbow. As you glance over, you meet his golden eyes and quickly shy away. You see he is not happy. You thought by Jazlene’s measure, thing’s might have been improving. 
You take your place by the wall. The king sighs. He does that a lot, as if he means to say something but will not. Lord Jaskier slides a goblet towards him. 
“Drink and let loose, your highness, you can’t be surly upon the road,” Jaskier chides. 
The king does not move. He glares at his company then looks at the ceiling. Queen Jazlene slurps loudly. 
“How charming you are, my lord, a wonder his highness likes you so much,” she chirps. 
“A surprise to me as well but I think my loyalty more tolerable than my other traits. Yet, you’ve yet to the king bellowing the most bawdy ballad. He is particular lively after a battle,” Jaskier winks at his liege tauntingly and receives nothing in return. “Mm, how about a game? The king is fond of those. How about it, then?” 
The lord lifts his cup and holds it before his lips, watching the king in his cantankerous glower. Another sigh as he sits forwards and tilts a hand indifferently.  
“If it keeps you from chattering,” the king mutters as he clears the heavy ornaments and rolls the map up. He focuses on that as Jaskier pulls a pouch free of his belt. 
“This is one he taught me. The old king before him was fond of it too. The mind’s of rulers, hm?” Jaskier explains as he loosens the tie of the bag and pours out similar pieces to the ones in Geralt’s purse. “Have you played it?” 
Jazlene keeps her hand on her cup. The king continues to clear the table, pushing aside the cup meant for him as he shifts the bottle off another map. He stands and gathers the rolled parchment. He approaches you. 
“Bring these to my bedchamber,” he bids under his breath. 
As you take them, your sleeves brush his and his fingers drag along the fabric of your dress. He stares down at you, his breath fuming like a hearth. You hug the maps and he backs away, returning to the table. You take your order and find your way through the east door into his bed chamber. 
You set down the maps on the chest near the foot of the grand bed. His sword leans against the frame, tall in its sheath. You stop to admire the thick handle and its well-hewn grooves. It must be heavy. 
You tear your admiration from the weapon and return to the receiving chamber. Jaskier reviews the rules as Geralt rolls his fingers against the armrest, bored by the explanation. You resume your vigil and stare at the wall. 
Pieces are dolled out, dice are counted, and the round begins. The king is let to have the first turn. He plays the same as he did against you. It must be some strategy. The queen is prompted to have her go but she is silent. She hums and stares down at the table. Jaskier whispers behind his hand, drawing your gaze. 
“Let her play her own turn,” the king insists, “isn’t any fun playing against two of you.” 
“Your highness, I was only doing my duty as a royal advisor,” Jaskier returns playfully. “By all means, my beautiful queen, I am certain you are as a clever as you are elegant.” 
Jazlene preens in the praise. She drinks some more wine then rolls a dice, seemingly without thought. Several of her pieces are plucked up by both king and lord. She pouts. 
“Wait, what happened?” She mopes. 
“Rules,” Geralt grumbles. “Jaskier, go on then, take my bronze.” 
“I know your tricks,” the lord replies, “I will not fall for it. I’ll have your silver.” 
Jaskier rolls the diamond dice and groans. The king takes his silver instead. 
“You’ve switched out the dice, certainly,” Jaskier accuses. 
“You whine about chance,” the king rebukes and rolls, taking even more silver from his advisor. “And again.” 
He gestures to Jazlene and her brow ripples. You can see she doesn’t understand. She will want to use the square dice then, she might have the iron back that she lost. She uses the slightly rounded die instead. Jaskier is already counting her gold. 
“I don’t understand,” she crosses her arms, “this game makes no sense.” 
“It is your first attempt,” Jaskier assures her, “you will get better.” 
“It’s boring,” she sits back and drinks more wine. 
Jaskier has a swig of his own as he rolls. He claims his silver back from the king and some from Jazlene. She shakes her head and waves you over with her hand. You can see her goblet is empty as you near. You lift the bottle to pour as the king has his turn. He loses a few iron but doesn’t seem to mind. 
The queen’s turn comes and you linger, examining her pieces. Your lips move slightly. Square, square, square. Your eyes flit up and find the king’s watching you. Oh no. 
“Wine, maid,” Jaskier clunks down his cup with a hollow noise. 
You move around Jazlene’s chair as she snarls under her breath. She rolls the triangle die. Her gold is all gone. She slaps her hands down and you rescind the bottle before you can pour as Jaskier’s cup wobbles. He laughs at the queen’s dismay and she sweeps away her pieces and dice before she can lose. 
“It isn’t fair! I don’t understand.” 
“If you don’t understand, ask. Do not be impetulant,” King Geralt reprimands. “You make a mess like a child.” 
“Do not speak to me as one,” she spits back. “I am not!” 
“Your behaviour would suggest otherwise,” the king says. 
“Now, now, perhaps it would be fairer with a forth, eh? Trios always do prove imbalanced,” Jaskier intones.  
As you go to pour the wine, you are suddenly pulled off your feet. You land in his lap and nearly drop the bottle. You hug it close as you notice the king lurch, sitting straight, only to stop himself on the edge of his chair. 
“Eh, do not handle the maid as such,” he demands. “She serves the queen.” 
“She may join us, yes? The queen could have an ally. We will play as pairs.” 
“Let the maid go,” the king grits. 
“Oh, do settle,” Jaskier unhooks his arm from around you. You stand and let your nerves settle, steadying your hands to pour the wine. “You are no fun, your highness.” 
Jazlene giggles, “oh he certainly is not. So dour,” she sounds like Lady Rezlyn in that moment. Often the duchess would throw barbs at her husband shamelessly. “Even his games are dull.” 
“You needn’t play,” King Geralt shoves his chair back and stands, “it was not my suggestion.” 
“She is right. You are much too serious,” Jaskier remarks. 
You leave the wine and back away. The air is thick. You feel as if you should go but cannot without dismissal. The king roils hotly as he exhales loudly. 
“Far too serious,” Jazlene trills, “he hasn’t time for any sort of fun, has he? He must attend his kingly duties and yet, he neglects his husbandly ones.” 
The king lets out a growl. He sneers at his wife as Jaskier’s laughter subsides. The lord looks alarmed as he peeks between the royal couples. 
“Mm, suppose it is time I see to my own luggage,” he rises. 
“No, stay, drink your wine,” King Geralt insists brusquely, “you and the queen can have mine,” he grips the goblet by the brim and shoves it towards Jazlene as the contents slosh. “You will find me attending my dour kingly duties, should you think to recall your own.” 
The king spins and stalks off, hands in fists, and bulls through the doors. They slam behind him and make you jump. You blink at the wood as your heart pounds. For as much as the queen wants her marriage to improve, she is hardly helping herself. 
“Ah,” Jaskier sits with a tut, “he can be a touch sensitive, can’t he?” 
Jazlene laughs, though you hear the nervous rattle in it, “can’t he?” 
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Steddie Upside-down AU Part 29
Part 1 Part 28
“I��m going,” Eddie asserts.
“This isn’t up for debate, kid,” Hopper sighs.
“You’re right because I’m going!”
Eddie’s shouting at the chief of police and can’t be bothered to care. All he can think about is Supergirl shouting Steve’s name with desperation. Steve curled into a ball in his closet; the place he’d dragged Eddie on instinct. The place he’d gone to keep himself safe.
Hopper glares at him before clearly giving him up as a lost cause and turning his glare on Wayne.
Wayne holds up his hands, palms out, saying, “don’t look at me. That boy’s been obstinate since the day he was born. If he’s set on going, I’m gonna go with him.”
Wayne pats the shotgun slung over his shoulder as if to remind himself it’s there. Eddie blows out his breath, shoulders slumping in relief. He is not in this alone.
“Wonder where he got that from,” Hopper mutters, turning and stalking over to where Joyce is standing beside Will. “Stay and watch the kids.” He says it like an order, ignoring Joyce’s exasperated expression as he heads toward the exit. No wonder the guy’s single.
Wayne and Eddie share a glance before following in his wake.
He looks back once, to where the kids are still seated on the bleachers to get one last look at Will. The fishhook in his sternum is pulling him in two directions, like a medieval torture device. But Will nods, so he goes even as it hurts.
Eddie grumbles half-heartedly as he levers himself into the back of Hopper’s police truck, Wayne and Hopper settling much more comfortably in the front seats.
“This brings back memories,” Eddie says, looking fondly down at the black burn on Hopper’s upholstery where Eddie had put out his cigarette as a pissed off fourteen-year-old.
“Shut the hell up,” Hopper replies while Wayne just laughs.
It’s a short drive, the way anything in a small town takes about ten minutes to get to. Hopper cuts the headlights early, slows his truck to a crawl to keep from veering off the dark road. Eddie’s knee is jumping up and down with the need to move.
When they stop, it’s not at a building or a gate, or anywhere much at all. Hopper pulls his truck off the road, half-hardy putting it in park behind a grove of trees. Eddie resists the urge to shake Wayne’s seat back and forth like an unruly child when the man takes his time to get his old bones out of the car and set Eddie free.
Hopper fishes a pair of bolt cutters out of the back and leads them into the forest. It’s dark. A normal, dark forest, with the right kind of shadows and the right kind of wildlife. It should feel like relief. It doesn’t. It doesn’t take long to come to a nondescript bit of chain-link fence.
It becomes clear what the bolt cutters are for quickly.
“This is your plan?” Eddie asks, incredulous. “A little B & E?”
“It worked last time, didn’t it?” Hopper asks, not looking over at him, concentrating on snipping away the fence and entirely missing the point.
“Did it?” Wayne asks.
Hopper lets out a quiet, “mmhmm,” as he finishes cutting away enough of the fence for them to slip though. “Come on, trust me.” He slips through the hole, shirt getting briefly snagged before pulling free.
Eddie follows immediately, Wayne following behind with his usual quiet grumbling about being too old for this.
They start walking, nothing to differentiate one side of the fence from the other. Eddie huddles close to Wayne as they walk, feeling the breeze kick up through the same ratty jacket and vest he’s been wearing for almost a week now. He wonders if Steve’s cold, or if he grabbed a blanket before bundling up and waiting for rescue.
The trees have just started thinning when beams of light are suddenly jumping around the forest. For a second, Eddie thinks they’ve already somehow made it into that other place, the Upside-Down, and someone is walking over their graves, but then a voice yells, “freeze!”
Wayne yanks Eddie behind him with the lapel of his vest before raising his hands. Hopper steps in front of them both, raising his hands as well, palms wide and far apart. Eddie knows when to take his cues. He raises his hands.
“Let me do the talking,” Hopper says quietly.
Eddie scoffs. “Yeah, because you’re so charming.”
Hopper’s fingers flex, like he wants to clench them into fists before he thinks better of it. “Trust me,” he hisses.
With no other options, Eddie sighs out a quiet, “fine,” just before his hands are wrenched behind his back and handcuffed.
It’s not a long walk until the building looms in front of them. He’s not sure if it’s the gun pressed into his back, or the tidbits he’d caught about how the super-powered girl came to be, but the building seems to loom over them ominously, more the mouth of a monster than the pulsing red doorway into the Upside-Down ever was.
Eddie doesn’t struggle until Uncle Wayne and Hopper are lead down one hallway while he’s yanked down another by the crook of his arm.
“Let me go,” he snarls, ignoring the gun still aimed at him, and the way the chain digs into his wrist as he struggles. “Uncle Wayne!” He hates the way his voice cracks on the words.
“Hang tight,” Wayne calls. “We’ll be back.”
He says it like he’s in charge of the situation. As if he’s not also handcuffed and being led away at gunpoint. It makes Eddie’s shoulders loosen anyway, panic receding just enough that he lets himself be shoved through a doorway and into a chair, hands uncuffed just long enough to cuff him to the back of the chair instead.
The room is small and sterile – grey walls, grey table, grey chair. Black camera recording him from the corner of the room. Eddie slumps, trying to look glib and uncaring, curling his fingers hard into the chain of his cuffs to stop his fingers from trembling.
Everything just keeps going wrong. He got out of the Upside-Down, but Steve was still stuck there. They get a plan to get him out and are immediately held at gunpoint and shoved into separate pseudo prison cells.
Steve could be dead my now. Will’s out of his sight. And the last he’d seen of Uncle Wayne was him striding down the hallway with a gun to his head.
Eddie takes deep breaths, trying to stay calm. Counting to four breathing in, counting to six breathing out. He loosens his hands, softens his shoulders, softens his brow. Closes his eyes. Breaths. Keeps breathing until the door opens, then closes with a metallic clang.
A nondescript older man with white hair walks into the room. He’s got a dark grey suit on, matching tie, button-down shirt tucked into pants that look like they’ve been ironed. He stands like he’s used to being listened to. Posture as straight as the line of his mouth as he takes a seat on the chair across from Eddie, crossing his legs at the ankle.
“You must be Eddie Munson,” he says, raising his mouth in a smile. It makes Eddie shiver. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Eddie doesn’t respond, doesn’t look away from the predator in the room.
“We know you were there,” the man says, crossing his hands atop the table. When Eddie still doesn’t say anything, he continues. “Six.”
The silence grows stilted. Uncomfortable. Eddie’s not sure the other man is even blinking. Or maybe he’s somehow blinking at the exact same time as Eddie?
His throat is dry – it makes an audible clicking nice as he swallows, before finally speaking. “What?”
“Six people have been taken this week. This thing that took you. Took Steve Harrington and Will Byers?” he says, leaning forward in his chair, back still straight as he looms over Eddie. “We don’t really understand tt.”
The last line comes out in a whisper, like he’s an extra in a horror movie, trying to spook the main characters into running away before the final confrontation with a great evil. Eddie’s pretty sure the greatest evil is sitting right in front of him.
“But its behavior is predictable. Like all animals, it eats.”
Eddie is unpleasantly reminded of Nancy’s spiel in the Byers dining room, watching her string together observations like she could wrench the facts out of them. She would make a far more dangerous villain than this schmuck. It makes him sit up straighter, made more confidant by the thought of Nancy Wheeler kicking his ass. Who would’ve thought?
“It will take more children,” the man continues. “I want to save them. I want to save your friend, but I can’t do that. Not without your help.”
Abruptly, Eddie is furious that this man would come in here and try to put this all on him. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, voice quiet. When the man lifts an eyebrow, he continues, voice growing louder with ever word. “You had a funeral for fucking Will Byers, let Steve Harrington rot in a different world, probably unleashed that fucking thing on Hawkins in the first place, and now you’re asking for my help?”
The man’s face is made of stone. He doesn’t acknowledge Eddie’s comments, just sits there placidly waiting for him to bend. To break. He’s clearly never met a Munson. They don’t fucking bend for anyone. Eddie spits in the man’s face.
He doesn’t react beyond a sedate smile as he gets up and leaves the room without another word, leaving Eddie alone with his spinning thoughts and dry throat.
Part 30
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try-set-me-on-fire · 4 months
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Tagged by @doeeyeseddie and @eddiebabygirldiaz for seven sentence Sunday! Since I haven’t been posting much for tag games lately, here’s significantly more sentences than that from bucktommy acquire a child au. Warning for mentions of past child abuse in Tommy’s family.
Tommy stares down at the dotted line, pen hovering, running the name through his head over and over again and feeling kind of stupid for it. There’s no meaningful difference, at this point, between this last signature and any other of the seemingly dozens of pieces of paper they’ve signed tonight. Nothing really counts until Buck hands it over to the lawyer on his way to work tomorrow. He could sign and then tear the thing up, toss it in the trash. Find someone better to take this on. Take his name out of it, at the very least, hand the kid over to Evan entirely.
Evan, sitting next to him close enough that their knees are pressed tougher, bony, under the table. “What are you thinking?”
Tommy sighs and sets the pen down, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling. “Can’t we just use… I don’t know, Diaz? I don’t want to give the poor kid my name.”
Buck laughs, just a little, still mostly serious. “I mean, I’m sure Eddie’d say yes if we asked, but- You gave me your name, why’s it a problem now?”
Tommy slides his fingers between Buck’s, surprised as he always is at how well they fit together. “You’re an adult, you can- handle it, carry it. Kinard children have historically been miserable things.”
Evan tilts his head, probably thinking about what Tommy is thinking about: Tommy, beat by his dad who was beat by his dad who was beat by- etc, etc, going back the entire horrible line of them. He’s imagined it before, some medieval peasant kid somewhere, crying into a hay bale or whatever the fuck it is poor folk slept on back then. Evan’d probably know. Maybe farther back than that. A caveman all the other cavemen side-eyed ‘cause he threw his kid in the path of a sabertooth or something.
“Okay,” is what Evan says. “I could get all pop psychology about, like, breaking cycles or whatever, but actually-” he points down the hall. “When I put him to bed tonight he talked literally right up until he was unconscious about all the stuff we saw at the zoo today, that I was in fact there for. Passed out mid word about how we got ice cream and saw a bird. Just a regular bird, that pigeon that landed on the table next to us. I think he was as excited about that as he was about, like, actual lions.”
Tommy laughs, despite his mood. “He was excited about the pigeon.” Milo had been so fascinated by it his ice cream had mostly melted by the time they could successfully prompt him to eat it.
Buck grins. “That kid- our kid- is happy, Tommy. Another talking point? How you carried him everywhere. He got to be so tall, he said you showed him everything.”
“I always hated being too short to see past crowds of people,” Tommy says quietly. “All those legs, everybody strangers.”
“I think most kids hate that,” Buck nods. He leans in to kiss Tommy’s cheek. “You’re not having second thoughts about this?”
“No,” Tommy says, immediate, breathy like it got punched out of him. “No. More than sure.”
Evan nods again. “He’s happy, and safe, and loved because of you. Sign the paper. It’s just a name, and one that I like very much actually.”
“Just a name,” Tommy raises an eyebrow. “So you would’ve been fine with him becoming a Buckley if we had done this the other way?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Buck says, face twisting up lemon-sour as Tommy laughs.
“You hypocrite.”
“Hey, you should have come up with a new name when you married me,” Buck sticks his tongue out, leaning back in his chair like a pleased cat. “Combined them maybe? We could have been… the Binards?”
Tommy squints at him. “No.”
“The Kuckleys?”
“Evan,” Tommy snorts. “No- that’s terrible.”
Buck grins. “Yeah. We really should have just asked Eddie. All be Diazes, it’d fix everything.”
“Imagine the kid’s family tree project at school,” Tommy says, picking up the pen, signing his name as fast as he can before doubt creeps back in. “We’re gonna have to teach him the words ‘non-conventional family structure’.”
Buck laughs and laughs, leaning into Tommy’s side until he kisses up the sound.
Tagging @shitouttabuck @bigfootsmom @iinryer @chronicowboy @butchdiaz @homerforsure if ya got anything to share!
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pumpkinstrawbrew · 1 month
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𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔩𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥𝔱 ℑ 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔪𝔞𝔨𝔢 𝔦𝔱 𝔯𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱, 𝔅𝔲𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲'𝔯𝔢 𝔣𝔞𝔯 𝔱𝔬𝔬 𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔰𝔬𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔪𝔢. 𝔖𝔲𝔠𝔥 𝔞 𝔣𝔬𝔬𝔩 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔨 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 ℑ 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔲𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔶 𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔩 𝔶𝔬𝔲. 🥀
...
(this is prob the most girliest thing i drawn so far. but i always had an inkling for classic fairy tales set ups. less for the story itself, more for the aesthetics. an’ i’m also weak for armour an’ knights / medieval related stuff on main. everything during that era looked so pretty, even if it wasn’t super practical. 
i was thinking about various arts / figures, that depict bruce dressed in actual knight's armor, an’ thought about his an’ crane’s situation in arkhamverse. comparison between a pretty princess, who needs a savior cannot be further away from who jonathan is, but at the same time, there are some interesting lil parallels to such stories an’ his narrative. as jon’s mantra in arkhamverse was literally related to this. ‘no more savior. no more hope. no more batman.’ he wasn’t even secretive about it or anything. all those 3 things are intertwined an’ related inside his mind. all of those things make an outline of who the bat was for him. 
i thought about the time, jon had crawled out from the sewers. mangled an’ shocked, an’ in pain. the anger came after. at first, there was a need to do basic things first. to treat the wounds. he’s bleeding pretty badly an’ his leg hurts. his face….i imagine, that it wasn’t pleasant to see in the mirror what became of it. those days are probably hazy for him. he mostly sleeps an’ tends to his re-opening injuries. then, once his mind is clear enough an’ pain is numbers down by meds, he thinks about what happened. how it happened. an' at this point, comes a disbelief that the bat just…let this happen to him. that he just left him to die an’ drown. that he did nothing to prevent this from happening.
crane would doubt this at first. maybe, he just remembers it wrong? but he looks at himself, feeling how he can barely move his leg, how his face is barely a face anymore. an’ no, there is no doubt. the bat had turned away from him, refusing to save him *that’s how he imagines it was, at least* jonathan never realized how much he idealized the bat, how much he relied on him coming to his rescue. with rage, enters a brief grief too. that’s the end of the line, bc if the bat won’t deem him worthy of saving, if he won’t save him anymore, won’t bring jon even a sliver of hope, then he should no longer be batman at all. 
this was basically the concept behind the first art. an encapsulated moment of jon’s hope breaking for the last time. things as intense as they are bleak. the plan is being formed. their mutual un-happy ending creeps near. but in that moment, it's just kinda painful. being abandoned by the only person, who seemed to care enough to at least not let him die.
the second art is more heavily connected with the song itself. in a way, this is an AU concept of them being the prince, who is also a dark knight in secret an’ the lonely, wicked alchemist. the main idea is the same as their story in arkhamverse. jonathan gets to know the knight an’ becomes somewhat dependent on their ‘shared roles’, feeling betrayed an’ scornful, when the knight fails to save him from uh. a dragon. so he returns with a scheme to destroy his once savior, in the end finding out that his failed knight was prince all along. i suppose, the only big difference in this AU be that jon’s ft needle glove is similar to needle in sleeping beauty story, an’ once you get a ‘taste’ of it, you fell into nightmares, but like, literally fall asleep. it’s pretty much similar to what happened to him in the actual arkhamverse as he appeared to be borderline unfunctional in the end. 
but since in this AU they have a bit more time to themselves vs just plot, plot, plot. bruce actually has a chance to grasp jon’s emotions a tad better. having a more clear idea why he was so viciously upset with him. it won’t fix anything, knowing the reason when it’s too late. nothing can be undone with a kiss here. bruce was revealed as brooding prince, who took the persona of mysterious knight an’ jon is in a kind of slumber, that prob cannot be broken.
no happy ending here, either. but it’s a bit softer in nature. as there are just two of them in the ivory tower. the dawn comes, but doesn’t manage to bring any comfort nor break the spell.
at first, i drawn bruce’s mask similar to what a knight’s helmet might look like, but i thought that i actually like it more, when it’s unclear if he’s in the mask or not. when it's hard to tell who he is in the moment, when he looks down at jon. the fallen knight or broken prince. i also like how in arkham knight jonathan saw maskless bruce in his batman attire still, so it's a bit of a call back to this too.
like, this is one version of what happening there. i suppose, this also can be some sort of fever dream, that either *or both of them* have. in the end, it’s free for interpretations. i just wanted to draw smth kinda 'poetic', even if sad for them. i do appreciate all the gloom misery in arkhamverse, but i also like more sappy-ish an’ beautiful things too. esp bc with villains like crane or mysterio, it feels kinda wrong to not use tropes, that they might be familiar with via books / movies. an' that they hiliriously enough often fits into, despite being bitter, twisted middle aged men.
aaaan' that’s about it. 2 takes on arkhamverse canonical events. one is more grounded, the other one is flew off the rails lol. regardless, i actually really like these 2 drawings! i was messing around with colors, trying to use the shades an’ tones, that i usually avoiding. at some point, both of arts were greenish, but it was just such a wrong mood. an' i guess, otp holding each other in their arms is like one of my fav poses ever. it's just so precious to me.)
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yeowangies · 3 months
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mutual understanding
Chapter I | Chapter II | CHAPTER III: As curious as a dead cat | IV | V
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PAIRING: Kenpachi/AFAB!Reader CONTENTS: AU - Fantasy, Medieval, Royalty, Arranged Marriage, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Pining, Explicit Sexual Content, Virginity Loss. WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER: Explicit sexual content, Cunnilingus, First time (I think, kinda). WORDCOUNT: 3221
Summary:
You had assumed you would have been intimate with him on your wedding night, and you were hoping that it would happen anytime soon after that first kiss.
Notes:
FINALLY what probably everyone had been waiting for!
Let me know if you wanna be tagged!
header by me, divider by @/saradika
taglist: @actuallysaiyan @lol-ktr @vrgelivvvv @pennameyoruichiii
@hikariandptakchleb @thebestgirlever2
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Kenpachi didn’t make any indication of wanting to touch more than you had allowed him to, only sliding his hands up and down your sides, and that was a relief that night you kissed for the first time. 
You started to reconsider it as the days went by.
Spending more time with Kenpachi had actually opened your eyes about a lot of things about him that you had misjudged. He spoked crudely, but he simply did so because it was a part of him (and you figured it had a lot to do with his past; since he wasn’t royalty, he probably never had an education). His hardened expression was just natural as well, it did not mean that he was angry all the time. Better yet, it was actually attractive how stoic he was sometimes. You had been a fool for a long time; he wasn’t as cold, distant or violent as you initially assumed. At least not violent towards you, or anyone who couldn’t defend themselves, and that was all you cared about. 
You had assumed you would have been intimate with him on your wedding night. Even if that didn’t end up happening at that moment, you were hoping that it would happen anytime soon after that first kiss. You weren’t ignorant about what it was supposed to happen, you weren’t even ignorant about your own body. He had awoken certain sensations that you had never felt, and you were more than curious about what it’d be like to actually lay with someone. And nothing as exciting as doing it with your husband when you had newfound affection for him. 
Which made you conclude that you liked Kenpachi more than you would like to admit. Albeit you had jumped to conclusions about him from the beginning; once a little light came through, you saw him differently, and you couldn’t deny it anymore. Especially after you started kissing more regularly, something in your stomach bubbled (besides sexual excitement) every time. And you just wanted, needed, more. 
You eyed him as discreetly as possible whenever he got to the bedroom at night, taking off his clothes as he readied himself to sleep. Callous skin for sure, but with curves and dips and defined muscles, with broad shoulders and ample chest. You couldn’t even help yourself but stare at him; you were as curious as a dead cat, but you wouldn’t mind being dead at all if it meant laying with such a man. He was your spouse, after all. 
Kenpachi walked in later than usual one night. The colder days had crept in, and snow was inevitable to happen soon. You had insisted he take a bath in the bedroom several times, it was warmer than any other room (you wouldn’t admit to any ulterior motives), but he kept denying it for no apparent reason; he usually was ready to sleep as soon as he walked in. 
You stayed in silence for a few minutes, watching him from the bed as he sat down in the chair by the fireplace, taking off his eyepatch and running his hand through his hair before cracking his neck to the side.
“Did you think I had kids of my own?” Kenpachi suddenly asked without even turning his eyes to you, but you couldn’t help but look at him in surprise. 
He was talking about Yachiru and the moment you found out about her. You felt your face heat up just remembering it.
“I had no idea what… what to think, if I’m being honest.” You answered vaguely. 
“You were shocked when you thought I had children.” He said, looking at you with an amused grin.
“Yes.” You finally admitted, blushing deeper. “I knew nothing about you, so I was surprised!”
“You could’ve just asked.” Kenpachi said with a chuckle. “But it was a funny way to introduce yourself to my men.”
“Please, I could barely look them in the eye afterwards.” You replied, covering your face. The sound of his laugh took you by surprise, and it only made you smile. “What’s the purpose of bringing this up now?”
“Didn’t think my wife who didn’t want to marry me would care about that shit.” 
“Any wife would care if her husband was sleeping around!” You complained, rolling your eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
“What do you think?” 
When Kenpachi walked over to you, you tensed up in anticipation. He sat beside you on the bed before promptly kissing you, slamming his lips against yours. He never failed to take you by surprise; he was rarely soft or gentle, usually slowing down after a while, but his kisses were always urgent. You hadn’t kissed anyone before him so you could mold yourself to his pace, but you were positive this was just his own personality seeping through in the way he kissed you. If anything, he was always authentic. 
You were breathless when he pulled away, and you watched him, dizzy-eyed as he stood up to remove his tunic before slipping beside you on the bed. You stared at him expectantly, and sighed when it was obvious when he just wanted to sleep. 
You knew nothing about seduction, so you didn’t exactly know how to proceed; you didn’t want to explicitly ask for Kenpachi to touch you, you had your pride as well. Sighing loudly again, you wished him good night before blowing out the candle in your bedside table, to which he only responded with a grunt. 
It took you a while to fall asleep that night, and you were too tempted to get up and take a walk around the castle but quickly gave up on the idea, too nervous to wake Kenpachi up if you were to get out. Though in the few days you had been sharing a bed, it was almost an obvious fact that he slept like a log; you could play the drums and he would not even notice. 
When you woke up early in the morning, the first thing you noticed was the snow outside the window, covering the sill. You watched, between sleepiness and wonderment, as small drops of snow slowly fell from the sky, stretching your legs along the warmth of the bed. 
“Have you never seen snow?” Kenpachi’s hoarse voice startled you, making you turn to him in surprise. 
“It rarely snows in the palace.” You replied, clearing your voice to avoid sounding too sleepy, and pulling the covers over your shoulders when you noticed he was only covering his lower half with the sheets, bare chest completely exposed. “I’ve only seen snow a couple of times.”
He only grunted in response, and you took a minute to watch his face; you almost never got to see him wake up at the same time as you. His hair was just as wild as it was during the day, you’ve seen him comb it yet stay the same, so it must naturally look that messy. You were fond of that look, it just added to his overall aggressive appearance. 
The scar down the side of his face always caught your attention. Kenpachi was regarded as the strongest man in the kingdom, but who had been strong enough to harm him?
“You’re staring too much.” He said, fixing his eyes on yours. You immediately felt your temperature raise, and swallowed quietly. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Your scar-”
“Well, I can’t do anything about that.”
“No.” You chuckled as he grinned, equally amused. “How did you get it?”
“A woman gave it to me.”
“A woman?!” You raised your voice in surprise. “She must have been remarkable to have inflicted such harm to you.”
“Yeah…” 
When Kenpachi didn’t add anything else, you became nervous, fidgeting under the covers. He was the one who wouldn’t stop staring at you then. 
You gasped when he suddenly rolled on top of you, bracing his arms on each side of your head, looking down at you with eyes that turned darker with each passing moment. The heat emanating from his body invaded you, even through the sheets and covers in between your bodies.
“Are you still unwilling?” Kenpachi asked in a surprisingly cautious tone. 
There wasn’t any need to clarify what he meant when he asked, and you didn’t need to consider your answer. 
“No, I have been… willing for a while now.” You answered, embarrassed yet enthusiastic.
You could have kept talking if it wasn’t for Kenpachi’s insistent mouth covering yours in the blink of an eye. His kisses had always been hungry, as if he was trying to devour you, but you could tell the difference between his usual ones and the kiss he was giving you at that moment. He was excited for you, fervently gliding his lips over yours as his tongue explored the inside of your mouth, swallowing down the little noises you made as he pressed his body to yours. 
That was when you felt his erection pressing against your thigh. If you could feel it through all the fabrics, you couldn’t even imagine what his size would be like. 
Kenpachi only pulled back to remove the covers, attaching his lips to yours soon afterward. He groaned lowly when one of his hands found your chest, groping your breast roughly through your nightgown and making you gasp as you wrapped your arms around his neck. 
Your heart pounded fast inside your chest, too nervous, excited and scared at the same time when he pulled your nightgown over your head, discarding it haphazardly, leaving you completely exposed. The cool air created goosebumps on your skin, and you shivered from trepidation. He stared at you, eyes traveling down your chest and lower, and you felt the need to cover yourself the longer he kept his gaze on you. 
A few seconds seemed like an eternity, and you were about to pull the sheets over yourself when he spoke. 
“You must be a siren sent to tempt me,” Kenpachi grunted, and you looked at him with eyes wide open. “Look what you fucking do to me.”
The air was knocked out of you when he crashed his lips to yours, pinning you to the mattress with the weight of his body, forcing you to part your legs. His erection was much more obvious as he ground his hips against yours, the fabric of his pants creating friction that you’ve never felt before, making you whimper.
Kenpachi dragged his tongue down your jaw and neck, pressing open mouth kisses every now and then as his hands wandered up your sides to cup your breasts. You didn’t know how a simple touch could ignite a fire within you, but when he swiped his thumbs over your nipples, jolts of pleasure traveled through your body, causing your back to arch. 
“You like that?” He chuckled darkly before kissing you, rolling one of your nipples between his fingers. 
Your answer was the whine that slipped past your lips as you tried to kiss him back, a difficult task when you felt his other hand wander down your hips to roughly grab your butt. Kenpachi dragged his lips down your chin and neck until he reached your chest, nibbling at the curve of your tit before taking one of your nipples into his mouth. 
The sounds that came from your lips were strange. You had made noises when you touched yourself in the past but it was different; you felt more vulnerable when such a man was causing them as he sucked and grazed his teeth on your supple skin, surely leaving marks for days. Closing your eyes, you covered your mouth for a second before Kenpach firmly grabbed your wrist, pulling your hand away from your face.
“I wanna hear you.” He smirked salaciously, sending shivers up your spine. “I’ve been thinking about this for too long for you to be quiet. Be as loud as you want.”
Biting on the curve of your breast hard, you squeaked loudly. You blushed, ashamed of the sound you made, and tugged at his hair, knowing fully well he had done that on purpose. Kenpachi only looked at you with dark eyes and a wicked smile, running his tongue over your nipple and making you gasp. 
His lips trailed down your abdomen, making you giggle when his tongue traced your belly button before he got to your hips. He pulled away to part your legs, strong hands holding your thighs, and your entire body burned up underneath his gaze. 
“Why do you keep staring at me so much?!” You yelled in a hushed tone.
“Because you drive me fucking crazy.”
The frenzied look in his eyes and the wide grin on his lips made your heart skip a beat.
Maybe you were going just as crazy for him as he was for you. 
“This part right here,” He went on, licking his lips as one of his hands glided over your entrance, making you yelp. “It’s calling for me. Do you know how fucking gorgeous you are down here?”
“That-That’s not-! I don’t-!” You stammered, embarrassed and in shock the more he kept talking. Did people talk so much when they had sex?
He laughed boisterously at your reaction, and you gasped when his fingers dipped into your folds. 
“It’s your bad luck that you have a lecherous man for a husband.”
When Kenpachi leaned down, burying his face between your thighs, you gaped at him in shock, too stunned to react until his tongue slid over your slit. You whimpered, one hand threading through his hair, unsure of what to do. 
Wet warmth glided over your entrance, and it was strange but not unpleasant. It was as if he was somehow worshipping you, especially with the look he had in his eyes, completely clouded by dark lust as he gazed at you. He dragged his tongue over every inch of skin he could reach, even delving between your folds until you felt pleasure pulsing through your veins when he prod your clit. 
You moaned, long and loud, as your legs shuddered when Kenpachi pressed the tip of his tongue to your clit again. He chuckled smugly, focusing his attention on that spot, and soon turning your brain into mush. He was persistent and enthusiastic, licking and slurping like a starving man, with no shame about the mess he was making. You were completely drenched in your own arousal and his saliva, slowly dripping down your thighs and onto the sheets. 
The sounds that left your mouth were uncontrollable. Even if he hadn’t commanded you to be loud, you still wouldn’t have been able to help yourself. The sparkles that traveled through your body every time his tongue dragged over your clit made you see stars, thighs jolting and attempting to squeeze his head between them if it wasn’t for one of his hands keeping you in place. The heat in your abdomen that had been steadily growing was close to bursting, muscles tightening with every move he made.
When two of his fingers effortlessly slipped inside you, you wailed, tugging harshly at his hair, as if simultaneously asking him to keep going and stop. Kenpachi only laughed quietly against your skin as he started to pump his digits, slow and hard, while attentively licking your clit. 
You couldn’t have warned him about your orgasm even if you wanted to, your mind going blank before you felt your release washing over you. You let out a shaky moan when you came, toes curling and body trembling, nothing but pleasure and his name resonating in your head. Your hips stammered against his face as he kept gliding his fingers until you stopped moving, panting once he slid out his digits. 
Kenpachi pulled away and you watched him lick his fingers, his leer not subduing even when he had your slick adorning his face. Wrapping one arm around your waist, he leaned down, resting his forehead over yours as he looked deep into your eyes. 
“Your taste is so fucking addictive.”
He looked just as feral as he did before, or even more so. You wondered how it was possible that he had the same look on his face as he did when he was enjoying a fight; and how it was possible that it pulled at your heartstrings to see him be like that for you. 
You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him hard, humming against his lips when you tasted yourself in them. You felt him smirk into the kiss, returning it hungrily as he rubbed his clothed erection over the damp, sensitive skin between your legs. 
Kenpachi hooked his fingers under the waistband of his pants before the booming knock at the door startled you.
“Captain!” Ikkaku yelled while insistently knocking on the door. 
“Fuck off!” Kenpachi hollered, making you jump in his arms. 
“I can’t, Captain! Official soldiers are here!”
“Tell them to get lost!”
“Ken!” You called for him, cupping his face as he looked at you with unfocused eyes. “This is probably urgent!”
“For fuck’s sake, is the kingdom under attack?!” Kenpachi screamed at the door, making you jolt again. 
“No, Captain…” Ikkaku’s unsure voice replied from the other side of the door. 
“Then tell them to fucking leave!”
You laughed, pushing at his shoulders to get him off you, though he didn’t budge an inch, only looking at you with the deepest frown you’ve ever seen. 
“You should go, it must be important.” 
“You can’t be serious!”
When you pressed your hands against his shoulders again, Kenpachi pulled away, sitting up as you pulled the blankets over your body to cover yourself. 
“I’ll still be here when you come back.” You reassured him, wrapping your hand around his arm. 
You kissed him sweetly, just pressing your lips against his briefly, after all it was a small comfort, you didn’t want to tempt him. 
“You better be, I can’t hold back any longer.”
You blinked, surprised. 
Funny. Was he ever holding back?
“Captain!” Ikkaku yelled again urgently.
“Shut the fuck up, I’m going!”
You watched, amused, as Kenpachi sat on the edge of the bed, grumbling under his breath before getting up and putting his clothes on. He only spared you one quick glance before walking out the room, slamming the door on his way out. 
You sighed, covering yourself with the blankets and furs, staring at the ceiling in awe. You were sticky, sweaty and fully drenched in between your legs, and you had an amazing orgasm yet still wanted more. It had been a difficult decision to convince him to leave when you didn’t even want him to in the first place. You wanted to see him fully bare in front of you as he climbed over your body before taking you. Just picturing a scene like that made your insides tingle. 
Was what you just did, sex? You only knew so much, and you couldn’t even believe where Kenpachi’s mouth had been (but you hoped he’d do it again in the future). The main event had been postponed, and while nervousness was still in your mind, a fluttering feeling in your stomach made you excited about seeing him for the next time, the last words he said hanging in the air.
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vodika-vibes · 4 months
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Hello! Congratulations on making it to 650! Your fics are some of the best and you deserve all the love and attention.
Okay, could I ask for a romance with Jango Fett in a medieval or fantasy AU? I don’t know; the idea of Jango dressed in warrior king attire just waltzed through my mind and won’t leave me alone. Maybe something along the lines of the relationship started as purely political, but it turns out you’re good for one another and it’s just mutually falling for each other.
For The Dancing
Summary: Your marriage to Jango Fett was decided long before you were old enough to understand what was happening. And it was supposed to be a purely political marriage. Love was never meant to be part of the hand you were dealt. You’re not upset, however, when love appears.
Pairing: Jango Fett x F!Reader
AU Prompt: Fantasy/Medieval AU
Word Count: 1550
Warnings: Arranged Marriage, reader is referred to as wife
Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly
A/N: Alright, so here is the first fic of my new event, and naturally I had to start with Jango! I hope you like it~
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“You seem troubled, wife.” You don’t pull your gaze away from the garnet colored wine that you’re sipping when you hear your husband’s voice from the doorway behind you.
“Not troubled,” You reassure after a moment, as you finally lower your glass back to the table, “Just pensive, I think.”
“May I join you?”
You finally turn your attention towards the man waiting in the doorway, an amused tilt to your lips, “You hardly need to ask for permission, Jango.” He’s dressed down, his ceremonial armor likely sitting neatly on it’s stand.
Oh, how far you and he have come since the day of your wedding.
There was a time when Jango would never dream of allowing you to see him without his armor.
You watch him as he steps onto the balcony and sinks into the chair across from you. Your expression doesn’t waver as he almost falls into the seat, as though there’s a massive weight on his shoulders.
“The talks went poorly then?” You ask, taking in the tension in his frame and the stress lines on his face.
He shifts in his seat and rests his cheek on his hand, “Don’t they always?” His dark gaze scans your face, “The Duchess asked after you.”
“Of course she did.” You reply dismissively, “Likely worrying about how I’ve been treated by you...godless heathens.” You add with an amused smile.
Jango’s lips quirk up into a small smile, “Those were her exact words.”
You shake your head, exasperated. “Honestly, you’d think she’d be better at this by now.”
He chuckles and leans back, “If it helps, she did seem to be genuinely concerned as to your well-being.”
“Hm. Yes, I don’t doubt that at all.”
“You have no intention of seeing her, I take it.”
You lift your wine glass again and absently twist the stem between your fingers, “There’s no point. Satine and I haven’t been close since we were children. And the last time we spoke, she had some things to say to me in regards to our marriage.”
“You’ve mentioned that before.” Jango allows, “Is that why you’re wallowing, wife?”
“Wallowing?” There’s a hint of laughter in your voice, “I suppose it must seem like I’m sulking a little bit.”
“Miles says that you haven’t left our wing since Satine and her entourage arrived.” Jango murmurs, “I am...concerned.”
You regard him fondly, “I have little love for large gatherings, Jango. You know that.”
“I would never dream of asking you to interact with people who cause you distress, wife. Were it in my power, I would cast Satine and her entourage out of our kingdom so that you might be less distressed.”
“It is in your power,” You remind him with an adoring smile, “But I would never dream of asking such a thing. You need these talks to go well.”
Jango taps a rhythm out on the table, “Is that what is troubling you?”
You pause, “The Kyr’tsad have become more bold with each passing day. Entire families have gone missing from the mining villages. Our people are afraid, husband.”
Jango grimaces and rubs the back of his neck, “I know. My hands are tied until Satine and her…” He makes a face and mutters something in Mando’a, “Until she agrees that we need to take decisive action.”
You straighten, “And what, pray tell, is my honorable cousin’s suggestion for dealing with the situation?”
“She would like us to talk.”
“...I...what?” For the first time, in a very long time, you’re properly befuddled.
He chuckles, “That has been the reaction of a lot of people. Including the Jedi who she brought with her to act as mediators.” Jango shakes his head, “The Jedi told her that her suggestion was a fool’s suggestion and that she needed to take the talks seriously, and she doubled down-” He sighs and rubs the back of his neck again.
You set your wine glass back on the table and smoothly stand to walk around the table. Gently, you settle your hands on his shoulders and start working out the tension in his shoulders and neck.
“I am not so eager to become a widow, Jango.” You murmur as he all but melts under your careful touch.
Jango tilts his head back so that his dark gaze is able to lock with your worried one. His hand comes up and presses against one of your hands, “I have no intention of leaving you a widow, wife. I will always come back to you, that I promise.”
“Gods willing,” You murmur in reply.
Slowly Jango turns the chair so that he’s facing you properly, and he stands so you’re standing chest to chest. He reaches out and lightly cups your cheeks with his warm hands. “Have you so little faith in my skills, wife?” He rumbles low in his chest.
Your eyes close as the scent and feel of Jango surrounds you, “It is not your skills that I have no faith in, Jango.” You press your hands over his, “Marching into battle with unwilling soldiers at your side-”
“That will never happen. You needn’t fret, wife.”
Your breath hitches as he presses his forehead against yours, and your eyes slide shut, “Satine is a fool, and she would see Mandalore lost before she gives up her ideals.”
“You know her better than I.” Jango says after a moment, “Would she truly sacrifice our homeland for the sake of her pacifism?”
“She believes that her way is the best way and that everyone will be better following her rules.” You murmur, “In a way, she’s just as fanatic as Pre Vizsla, just in the opposite direction.”
“Are you allowed to say that?” Jango asks, amused. “You are her cousin after all.”
You open your eyes and make a face, “I’ve always been a bit more even-keeled than Satine.”
“And I am grateful for it,” Jango admits, “And so our people.” He lightly strokes your cheek with his thumb and there’s something soft in his gaze. “While I would never dream of asking you to do something that you’re not willing to do, wife, I could use your silver tongue in the meetings tomorrow.”
You hum softly, “Then you shall have it.”
“Thank the stars,” He mutters, “Between you and the Jedi, I think the meeting will be less contentious tomorrow.”
You smile at him and lean into his warmth, “You are still so tense, husband.”
“It has been a very long day.”
“How can I help?”
Slowly, Jango drags his hands down from your cheeks, over your shoulders, and down your arms, until he’s cradling both of your hands with his own. “How long has it been since we last danced?” He asks as he lightly guides you from the balcony and back into the safety of your shared quarters.
“It’s been a couple of weeks, at least. You’ve been busy.”
“Well, that’s no excuse.” He twirls you into his arms, and starts dancing with you around the bedroom. There’s no music, but it’s perfect all the same.
“Careful, Jango.” You murmur as he spins you and then tugs you so you’re flush against his body, “You run the risk of making me fall in love with you.”
“Are you not already? Then I’m not trying hard enough.”
You laugh softly, and lightly brush your lips against his jaw. His hand, settled lightly on your hip, tightens. You’re no fool. You know that Jango loves you, you can tell in the way that he touches you, the way he looks at you, the way he protects you.
In truth, you love him too. You wouldn’t worry so much about him if you didn’t.
And he knows it.
The words are unnecessary at this point.
“I love dancing with you,” Jango murmurs, as he draws you closer to him and tilts your head back so his lips hover just over yours, “Have since the day of our wedding.”
“I feel the same way,” You murmur, “You’re the perfect dance partner.”
Jango closes the gap between your lips and his. He kisses you like you’re his most valued treasure, his lips warm and gentle against your own, though there’s a hint, just a hint, of roughness behind his lips.
Someday, you’re going to push him to see what he looks like when he’s not trying to be gentle with you. But not today.
He breaks the kiss and bumps his forehead against yours one more time, “When this crisis is over,” Jango murmurs, “I would like to speak with you about having a child.”
You blink at him, surprised, and then you smile, soft and slow, “A baby Jango.” You murmur.
“A baby you,” He corrects, “With your clever tongue and my strength.”
“He’ll be perfect.” You murmur with a warm smile.
“Yes. She will.”
You laugh, and slide your arms around him, “Alright, alright. As soon as this is dealt with, we can start trying for a baby.”
Jango grins, “Well, now I’m motivated.”
And then he sweeps you into a deep kiss, and you wrap your arms around him and allow yourself to be lost in him.
Love might not have been in the cards when you married him, but it’s in the cards now. And nothing could make you happier.
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gremlingottoosilly · 11 months
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The horror and the wild (Emperor!Konig x fem!Reader) Medieval Fantasy AU
You had a nice, simple life. Serve the princess, obey the princess, protect the princess with your life. You never thought that this nice, simple life would bring you to be kidnapped by the infamous Northern Emperor. Konig never thought that kidnapping a wife would be much easier than courting one. CHAPTER 1 Word count: 4906 Tags/Warnings: Medieval fantasy/Alternative European history AU, Age gap, Enemies(one-sided)to lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Forced marriage, Size difference(Konig is absolutely huge), Somewhat one-sided slow burn, Yandere Konig
This fic on AO3
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— I do not wish to speak about politics before breakfast!
— Your Highness, I’m afraid, politics would not be waiting patiently until you’re finished with your sweet pastries. 
— What do you mean? 
— The Emperor’s army is on our doorstep. 
The look on the face of the Princess – your Princess – was priceless. First, it was a surprise, her adorable features all twisted in a very unladylike gasp. Then, it was terror – the first time you saw her ever express that emotion since the palace was always clear of anything that could scare her royal highness, from mice and snakes, and up to severely ugly people(poor, poor Elvin – he’d a good life if it weren’t for his pointy slabby jaw). Then, and it was the final emotion on her illustrious face – it was anger. To nobody’s surprise, the anger was mostly coming at you. 
You see – you’re a Princess's most loyal handmaiden. Raised under her crib, going to the same classes, doing everything in favor of your royal highness, from warming up her jewelry and to trying the food first to see if it’s poisoned – your whole life’s goal is to make sure that the Princess is as comfortable as possible. You’re her shadow, her servant, the closest to a friend she can have – and if you were the bearer of the bad news, it’s only natural that she would be angry at you in the first instance, and not at the imperial army clashing down at your tiny bordering kingdom. 
— Where are the guards?!
— Judging by the screams I am not sure if there are any left in the outer levels of the castle. And if the King didn’t come with a usual note after breakfast, it’s safe to assume that he is more busy. 
With a trained movement, you quickly duck under the table when the Princess, naturally, throws a plate in your direction. You knew she wasn’t meaning it – your poor, innocent darling Princess, she was just as scared as you were but had not learned of how to hide her emotions under sarcasm and false calmness. Your job is to keep her safe – and calm – even if there is no royal family to serve anymore. You don’t want to think of the possible outcomes – King took you in, a simple peasant girl with no talents whatsoever, and gave you an illustrious education, the most sought job in the whole kingdom, and an allowance that would allow you to study in the real collegium, were they to accept women. You don’t want this place to fall in Northern Empire clutches – and you especially don’t want the Princess to learn the harmful ways of two pretty young women trapped in a castle full of enemy soldiers. 
— How could this happen?!
— I’d have an answer for this question, Your Highness, but you ordered to urn any mail from the Northen Empire. Perhaps, they send us quite a bit of war declarations before finally going down. 
Your hand goes to the side of your skirt, clutching on the suicide dagger – if something happens, you’d have to kill the Princess first, take the sin of killing oneself from her innocent soul – and then go down after her, hoping that your dog-like loyalty would allow you to serve her in heaven. 
The Princess has many things that she’d like to take with her to the afterlife. You better start preparing her package soon – this castle wasn’t built to be protected from the army of beasts, hiding under human skin – your kingdom never provoked any wars, always trying to search for the opportunity of negotiations – and now this comes to bite you right in your soft rear, without a sufficient amount of guards or a suitable army to protect itself. 
You’d pray for the god, but your god wants you to die. 
— Princess, we need to…
Before you could say anything else, an explosion erupts somewhere in the southern tower – the closest place to enter the Princess chambers. You can hear screaming, you can hear laughing – a foreign language, the one you are proficient with, but it never made it less barbaric, less harsh. These people talk like swords clangs against each other – like a harsh metal against your skull. You’d give up anything to not understand what they are talking about. 
There is something to be done before the soldiers arrive, finding only a few guards and two pretty, terrified young things. You might not be afraid of death, but you sure are terrified of what will come before their blades would slit your throat. You do not wish to die with blood between your legs. You do not wish that fate for the Princess either. 
“The Princess should be here.”
“Did Lord say anything about trophies?”
“Don’t take anything now. Tiger said we were never here – he would pay us later”
“What about…”
“Don’t kill the Princess either. Emperor want her to himself, remember?”
“Come on, are we here for a whore?”
“A royal whore, dumbass. Now shut up before Emperor hears you.”
They laugh and you can hear the Princess whimpering, crying softly – all of the layers of harshness are washed away with every tear rolling down her perfect cheek. You move to them as fast as you can – these stupid clothes allow you at least some freedom of movement, saved from the excessive decorations and expensive, heavy fabrics – you are only as few levels higher than cleaning rags. you could probably rip away the lower levels of your skirt and run – the Princess wouldn’t even be able to move without your hand steadying herself. 
You need strength to not slap her right now – you know that the pain on her perfect puffy cheek would help get her to listen, but nothing in your body moves to ever hurt her, no matter the cause. You push yourself to the door, thinking – your castle isn’t the highest one in the whole world, if anything, the Princess would be able to escape either via the window or the secret tunnels – but they would search for her, they would never accept defeat like that. Even if you’d stall them for long enough, pulling every bit of luck you don’t have – they wouldn’t stop if they had the goal of catching the Princess. 
— Your radiance, we have to go!
— Where? The castle is going to crumble any second now, and Mama and Papa are…
You press your ear against the tough wood, listening to the soldier’s speaking – language is even harsher now when the adrenaline runs through your veins instead of blood. You would give up anything to be strong – to have your dancing and embroidering lessons switched to sword fighting, to archery, to read dark arcana books instead of romance novels that you and Her Preciousness liked so much. Your hands are soft and delicate, only a bit harsh from occasional cleaning and serving – you’re a shame to any servant in the castle, a house pet made to entertain and please, not to fight and work. 
The Princess is a cherished treasure for your kingdom. Protected and hidden away, the King was smart enough to know that a royal gem like her would make all the old rulers of kingdoms surrounding yours go into a frenzy – so Her Radiancy wasn’t ever allowed to any royal mingling and balls until she’d reach the age of at least 21. Her birthday was next month – a small mercy, knowing that there was a possibility of never getting of that age. 
“Is that a Princess?”
You hear a woman – probably one of the higher members of the court, considering her high-pitched accented whimpers with a familiar voice. God bless her soul and dedicate her a quick death – you don’t want to think what would come of her if not for this prayer.
“Princess should be in her quarters. This one definitely doesn’t speak like a royal meat”
“How do we even know which one is the Princess?”
“She should speak like one. Would be easier if her family ordered a fucking portrait.” 
But…you were with the Princess your whole life. You know how to act like her, you know how she talks, how all royals talk. You know how manners, you know how to sing, how to dance, you received the education that allowed her to copy your study work and give it to her personal teachers – her own reflection wouldn’t copy her better than you would. 
You’re young, like a Princess, you’re pretty, almost like a Princess – and you’re loyal like a dog, itching to pay your debt to the royal family. 
— Your Highness! You need to run, please, just take the secret route through the walls and…
It was the most horrible moment for her to put her foot down.
— I…I live to serve the royal family. Dying for you will be the greatest of honors. 
— I will not just leave you here!
— They’d defile and kill us both, Your Highness. But if I just pretend to be you, they won’t come looking for you, won’t they? They would have what they wanted and you will be free.
— What about you? 
You’d feel hurt for how quickly she ran to the secret tunnel – if such feelings were normal for a servant to have. You’d feel betrayed if it wasn’t the life or death situation – if you weren’t putting on her dress as swiftly as possible before the soldiers would come running for you. It’s funny, how you always wanted to try her dress – how you were jealous of everything she had, even if you were the closest to her – you pride yourself in not caring about such silly mortal possessions, and yet, you always wanted to try something as beautiful as her dress. 
You stare at yourself in the mirror – terrified, small, ready to die at any point or to be hauled back to the Northern Empire like a piece of meat. Dress suits you, the bright pink would tell about innocence and radiance – but not it smells of blood and betrayal. If the soldiers thought that the Princess killed herself in her room, they would surely not think about trying to find her. 
You push the tiny dagger against your wrist, praying to all of your knowledge of medicine that your death will be quick and as painless as possible. You left out a silent prayer – knowing that the god would only welcome you after your death. 
Not a war, Horangi corrects himself – a massacre. 
***
Tiger of the North was fucking tired.
This whole mission – declaring war that no one seen and no one wanted, marching through the street without an army behind him, felt more like a bandit’s doing than something that a general of the best army in the world would do. This whole operation is a stunt, an order from the Emperor that no one expected – seriously, sometimes he still felt like a child with new, exciting toys. For all he knew, König never saw a Princess – yet, he sent his best men to take her out, not caring that this would mean a war on the bordering kingdom.
Not his fault this shithole didn’t even bother to reply to any of the Emperor’s letters regarding the marital status of the Princess. Not his fault they don’t even have a proper army – the king died, gutted like a fucking pig, and the queen followed soon after. Their unit can count less than 20 people, with royal hounds and other animals to help – yet, no one was able to foresee them entering the castle and butchering it. It’s a hunt, not a war or even an assassination – a hunt for the Princess, the useless fucking thing. 
If they’d only bothered to get at least some portraits – something to tell what she looks like. Perhaps, she is ugly, a mix of a toad that fucked a pile of shit. Perhaps, she is crazy and eats pillows and keeps her handmaidens' heads like a trophy. Perhaps, she don’t fucking exist and the king just didn’t want to say out loud that his dick was never working enough to produce an heir. 
— Search the quarters! I don’t want them to have time to know that their precious king is dead. 
The low rumble of König beside his almost makes him dart from surprise. He wears a mask, of course, not even trusting his people to see how he looks like – perhaps, he is as ugly as a toad that…ah, shit, he is using the same comparison again. 
A faceless ruler and a faceless Princess – a match made in heaven. 
— You think other kingdoms would send their condolences? 
— I’m sure that Price is already aching to write a congratulatory letter for the expansion of the empire. A nice addition to the title, ja? 
The emperor laughs, a sword in his hand, dark from the king’s blood. Horangi still doesn’t understand why he would decide to go on such a dangerous operation – if anything, they could haul the Princess back to the capital, or at least the nearest Empire territories – but no, König decided to go here himself, searching for a Princess that would, surely, not be worthy his attention. If this man didn’t want to marry all the options other kingdoms offered him, he surely wouldn’t be satisfied with a girl from this shithole of a country. Their land is barely enough for a normal castle, let alone all of the riches that the Empire provided. 
Yet, König stumbles in every room, searching for something – for someone. Other soldiers don’t dare to take trophies in front of their emperor, knowing that this operation should be as secretive as possible – no other rulers would bat an eye for a mysterious royal passing and the quick marriage of the Princess of this kingdom, but Graves would be quite concerned and bitching about the Northern Empire coming close to his kingdom. God, if König could just bathe every last one of them in blood, he would have. 
— Sir, I believe the Princess should be here Unless she killed herself already. 
— Those people honor death more than they do life. Better be fast before I’d have to marry a corpse. 
— We could bring her back. 
— Nothing can wash off the dead smell even after resurrection. You think why Krueger can only have sex with common whores? 
They both have to suppress their laugh at the thought of the royal advisor. Poor, dead Krueger, serving a contract that even death would not be able to break – it’s a good thing to have it on their side. Provides a good amount of jokes just from being around him. 
König rushes to the door that looks the most guarded – judging only by the amount of dead servants around it. The Princess must be here and, knowing the traditions of your kingdom, he has about a minute before you’d kill yourself, yelling something ridiculous about finding solace in death and that they would never take you alive. The door comes crashing down ridiculously easy – or it’s his strength challenging in the form of barbaric savagery. When he pushed into the room, he didn’t see what he was expecting to see. 
He sees something better. 
You look divine in the moonlight, your form, draped in an expensive dress that you only managed to take on halfway through, getting stuck in that stupid corset and billions of tiny bows and cutting jewels. You look majestic, godlike, you look like something from a fairytale. He was anxious before this, thinking if it was worth it – overthinking every bit of the operations, evaluating if the enemy kingdoms would be fine with him just taking you. König wasn’t sleeping a good few nights before this – now he looks at you and wants to kneel in front of your perfect form. 
— No wonder they didn’t have portraits. They wouldn’t capture your beauty. 
He shook the knife – little thing, as dainty as you are – from your trembling hands. Poor thing terrified of him – he’d pick you up and haul you on your shoulder already, but he wants to take a moment and just admire the comparison between his huge, muscular arms and your fragile form. He knows he is big, imposing, threatening – but compared to you, he feels like a war god paying tribute to his newest sacrifice. 
You shake in his grasp, not fighting it – Princess wouldn’t fight, you remind yourself. If killing yourself is not possible, if your dignity is tarnished, the death and torture shall be met with silence – you put your lips together, as firmly as you can. Still, you can’t stop yourself from sobbing when his hand goes to cup your face – a faint trace of your makeup staining his dark gloves. 
— This is the declaration of war. You were…
— This is no war, meine Liebe. How could we fight the nation with a dead king? 
The Princess would cry, learning about the death of her parents. You try to force more tears, making yourself look as miserable as possible – it isn’t hard in this brute’s hands, with his soldiers surrounding you – but, for some reason, he doesn’t look surprised when you are not crying immediately at the mention of the death of your supposed parents. 
He laughs, cupping your face in a rough, crude gesture. He shouldn’t treat Princess like this – even you are not used to men being this vile, to speak of such lewd matters with his men. They surround you, laughing, not even bothering to pay the least bit of respect in front of their Emperor. 
He wears a hood and it makes him look like an executioner, not a ruler. But, perhaps, you would welcome a butcherer more than you would a husband. 
— Let me go! The guards shall rise to my abduction and they will not leave thou to…
You don’t even need to force yourself to speak like her – you’re royal by any means, other than blood and service. You can imitate her your whole life if needed, shadowing her your whole short existence – it only hurts you more when you are praying that the Princess, dressed up in your garments, would be able to escape. You know that someone will save her, and take care of her – it’s just like the plot of your favorite romance book. An abandoned Princess of the burned kingdom rises to be the wife of a mysterious, masked blood knight, saving him from pushing his soul into the darkness. You, in this story, would be just a minor victim for the author to kill.
— The guards would rise if they weren’t dead, Princess. Too late to call for them now. 
He sneers at this “Princess” like a snake, ready to sink her teeth into your soft, limp body. You whimper, finally trying to get your knife from his hand – as gracefully as you can, remembering that you are to stall the time for her to escape, not to actually save yourself. He laughs and lets you go suddenly – only to pick you up like you weigh nothing. Pick you up like a bride, not a pig for him to gut. 
The tip of your ears is burning – your whole face is burning, you feel ashamed, embarrassed, angry, every emotion swirls in your head as he doesn’t even try to be subtle about his affection. You thank god for the layers of skirt you are wearing – but the upper part of the dress is barely holding together, showing a scandalous amount of shoulder. You are tainted – a scandal in the court, if there was a court alive. 
— Put me down this instant. My kingdom will not just accept these levels of disrespect!
You say this weakly than you wanted to. He laughs – thunder and bear roar, ocean waves against the mountains – you whimper when his hand goes to rip the upper part of your dress entirely, leaving you barely covered, with only three layers of clothing and a corset between you and his horrible, dangerous hands. A lady should not be seen by men when she is in less than five layers of clothing – still, you feel much better when the heavy fabric lets go of your skin. Still, you feel mortified, knowing, what would happen when he started to take off your clothes. 
Well…you think you know what will happen. You and Her Highness read books with a scandalous amount of intimacy – touches, hugs, kisses even, the last book having record five instants of the main heroes being in close proximity with each other – you also know that whenever a male enemy soldier captures a woman, he is doing…something before killing them. Not quite sure what, but obviously torturous. 
— The only kingdom that is left for you, your Highness, is what lies between your legs. I’ll be sure to pay my regards later.
Before you could say something – anything for that matter, he already hauls you away, still stuck in his hands like a trophy. You thank god that he doesn’t see the difference between you and the Princess. You never knew your acting talents would be of this amount, but nonetheless, you feel complete, knowing that the Princess is safe and sound. 
— What is the purpose of your actions? 
You are weak, voice whimpering and quiet. You don’t want to touch him, but the hungry gazes of his soldiers make you weak and fragile – you cling to him, trying to cover your modesty. The corset is a part of the wardrobe that no fine lady should ever show to men – yet, this is the only thing now that is keeping your tits together, saving at least some of your dignity. The heavy skirt of the torn dress lingers on your legs, covering you as much as barely holding up fabric can. König’s chest rumbles with a laugh when he notices you clinging onto him like a helpless kitten. 
— I’m taking my bride as your parents were not kind enough to answer any of the proposals.
— Why didn’t you just visit? 
If it were for him, he would just sprawl you on the ground and take what he wants. He would, were he a simple soldier, not the North Emperor – he would if there weren’t any witnesses if there were no intentions of marrying you later. But alas, he needs your hands in marriage – he needs you whole in marriage, from head to toe, from your heart to your soul, from your pussy to that sweet mouth of yours – and he can’t have all that unless he is patient. 
— I did. Right now, for that matter.
— As the only heir to the throne, this would mean the death of my country. You can’t just…
— Who is there to stop me, little one? Your parents? Dead. Your army? They would kneel for my men were we at actual war. 
You close your mouth. He laughs again, this terrifying hood of his moving when he shakes his head. You sob, tears flowing freely down your cheeks – it’s a wonder you can still talk while crying like this, but you need to keep up the act and you need to stall the time as much as possible. His hand goes to wipe away your tears and, for a second, you almost want to bite him. But, Princesses don’t bite – they lay in the hands of their captors and wait for princes to save them. 
— The other kingdoms would protect us, we had war pacts!
— Were you loved enough to start a war with the Empire to protect you from getting married? 
— I shall…
— You’re too young to speak like a queen, Liebe. Leave that to me, ja? 
You open your mouth. 
You close your mouth. 
You open your mouth again. 
— Please, let me go. 
This is a quiet, soft sob – König stops for a second, looking at your fragile, vulnerable expression. You’re as weak as a kitten, as adorable as a bunny – and precious, his little treasure, tucked away nicely in the deepest corners of this kingdom. He almost feels bad for breaking you, for taking you away. He killed many men, the king included, and he captured more land than his father ever could dream of – the biggest empire lies at his hands and yet, he feels weak when you cry in his hands. 
It still suits you more – a pained expression, pure terror, all the emotions that a young woman like you should experience when she is captured by someone like him – he believes in terror through submission and the tears streaming down your face makes his cock twitch in his pants. 
— I have all the right for you, little one. It’s your father’s fault that you were not protected more. 
He laughs, his large, imposing hand goes to cup your ass – you don’t even understand how his touch manages to get through this many layers of clothing. Your skirt is in complete disarray when he touches your legs, squishing and destroying the crinoline parts and whale bones. So much went into creating this skirt, a horrifying construct that never allowed the Princess to move freely, stuck in one place like a glorified little dolly – now it becomes your grave, mortifying and freezing you in one place. 
— You can’t…no, please, don’t…
He grabs your hips with the ferocity of a warrior, not an emperor. Rulers shouldn’t kidnap Princesses from neighboring countries, and they shouldn’t lead their troops on an operation that would destroy any diplomatic relationships with them – but he stands here, no more than a normal soldier, and you were never this terrified in your life before. He is a monster, a beast, an anomaly that shouldn’t exist in this world – even your desire to protect the Princess isn’t stopping you from crying and shaking. You bite your lips and sob softly, quietly, hoping he won’t just throw you to his men. 
— This is what politics leads to, no? Your father decided to stop being diplomatic…and I did too. 
He isn’t my father, you want to scream. He did nothing but take you from the streets, and slums you were scrambling aimlessly like nothing more but a tiny critter under his boots – he gave you everything, any book you wanted, the best company in the whole kingdom. He isn’t your father, still, but you pay for his mistakes – mistakes that you had no idea of. Princess ordered you to ignore any mail that would come from “This Northern brute” and you didn’t know that it could come to this. 
If only you were to steal those letters and read them instead of throwing them away…but what would it come to? Princess wouldn’t marry someone like König, she had no like for the emperor twice her age, for the human who defiled the very laws of nature, sitting in his high castle, ordering the undead soldiers around. Monster with, probably, three heads and two faces, with four hands hiding under his magnificent armor. A beast who is…
A best who is cradling you in his arms like you were his lover, not his victim. 
— Put me down. Please. 
— I’m getting tired of listening to little Princesses wailing. Tell me, Liebling, do you wish to continue this journey quietly or unconsciously? 
His hand goes to your neck – no doubt, he would be able to squish the life out of you if he so wished. No doubt, you are fucked – utterly and completely, with his ability to do whatever he wants your inability to stop him in any way. Sobbing softly, not wanting for him to continue this humiliation, you simply nod – to whatever option he deems appropriate. Princess would be screaming, yelling for help, and she would stomp her adorable feet on the ground until she’d get what she wanted – but you are no Princess, and playing pretend already makes you miserable enough. 
— I do not wish to see the destruction of my kingdom. 
— It’s not destroyed, little Princess. Merely defiled, captured and burned down. 
— You didn’t…
— Of course not, kleine Hase. I wouldn’t dare to burn the newest addition to my empire…unless you would make me to. 
It’s not a threat – it’s a promise, poorly concealed by the obvious smile in his voice. You cling to his chest and hear the rumble of his laugh when he pushes his cape over your shivering form. It’s a small form of comfort, but an unwelcome one – you’d rather be shivering, naked, and exposed in front of his troops than find comfort in the way he treats you. His cloak is heavy, more suited for the harsh weather of the central parts of the Empire – not your kingdom, mostly warm and wet, with bountiful rains and plentiful soil. You understand why he would want this land – you don’t understand why he would want you. 
— Don’t hurt my people. 
— Be nice then. You can be nice to your husband, ja? 
If you weren’t a Princess, you’d claw his fucking eyes out – get your dainty hands under his hood and scrap the pulsating flesh, turn his face into a mush of blood and gore. If you were real Princess, you would declare war on the Empire and die the protector of your kingdom – not a terrified girl. 
But you’re neither a Princess nor a commoner. 
You push your lips together, allowing König to take you away. Accepting your fate not with dignity, but with quiet, fearful acceptance. 
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nexahexagon · 21 days
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hiii can you tell me more about your redstone & skulk royalty au? i love love the idea and would love to hear anytjing you have to say about it! /nf
:DD OFC!!! This is gonna be a bit of a ramble as I dump all my thoughts here!! I’ll try organizing them somehow!!
I don’t have much on the world of it, I mainly made it bc I wanted to dress them up for some fancy ball and it was the first excuse my mind ran to (I still haven’t even drawn that)
BUT!! I have some character analysis? I’m not really educated in royalty, kingdom affairs, or medieval ideology so take everything with a grain of salt!! And lmk if something just doesn’t work generally!!
I know that if there are many heirs to the throne, the younger siblings usually become commanders or have some high ranking authority in the kingdom. I imagine Tanguish, very much hating the idea of seeing blood in of itself, took on some advisory role for Tango, kinda like a part of his personal council. He was very, very content on being Tango’s shadow, not having to bear a ton of responsibilities!! He (and Tango) also thought that he wasn’t much of a target for ransoms, so he never had any personal protection.
Tango, on the other hand, was the heir, the crowned prince! The king and/or queen are not in the picture at the moment (I can’t figure out who to put there), so Tango is running the kingdom, and therefore has a personal guard, Welsknight!! I like to imagine that Wels and Tanguish’s one-sided beef started with Tanguish being caught looking very, very guilty at an attempted assassination on the crown (poisoned food/drink?? Poor little guy was at the wrong place at the wrong time) and Wels is completely convinced Tanguish tried to take the crown for himself(poor little guy was stuttering up a storm!!). Tango is having none of it, ofc, so there’s a ton of animosity when Wels sees Tanguish, but he can’t do anything.
Tanguish sneaks out of the castle!! He enjoys dressing down (still far too clean for the common folk, and he’s aware but he doesn’t want to be caught in dirty common clothes or it’ll out him completely!!) He sneaks most of the way through the castle, then climbs up and down some of the walls to avoid patrols (he has them roughly memorized). He enjoys running across the rooftops and watching the people mill about below him! He’s too far up for people to recognize, especially with his change of clothes and loss of royal attire. No one looks at him like he’s worth more than he feels, and no one expects anything of him then!! It’s a freeing feeling for him, even if he only sneaks late at night and doesn’t see the busy streets of the afternoon!
And Tango knows about him sneaking out. It’s not every night, but it’s frequent enough. And he noticed Tanguish’s small collection of trinkets he’d “liberated” from the common people, that Tango knew could only have come from the town. He’s not bothered by it, Tanguish is just having fun! And he still shows up on time when Tango needs him, so what’s the big deal? Wels doesn’t agree at ALL, and thinks it’s another confession of guilt (he finds out much later than Tango) but still the knight can do nothing! (Yet?)
Tango joins Tanguish once, and ends up badly hurt. He just wanted to run away from his duties for a day! But it didn’t work out well :[. Tanguish, in a rush of panic, tried finding anyone to help (he tried avoiding guards a little, but knew he’d probably need to go to them. He didn’t want to run in with Wels, though). Enter Helsknight!!
Helsknight isn’t from the kingdom. He’s more of a freelance knight looking for work in my head! My brain kinda separated kingdoms by churches? So Tango’s kingdom is under the Church of Remembrance, and Helsknight comes from a kingdom that followed the Saint of Blood and Steel!! I don’t know if that’s how it works, but my brain thought that as very very logical and I haven’t questioned it yet.
Anyways. Tanguish finds Helsknight (through some insane luck) and Helsknight helps Tango. He was a bit reluctant at first (would you follow some harrowed, shaking guy with blood on his hands to some dark corner of the town?). He at first tells Tanguish to deal with his own mess, but follows eventually out of curiosity and because he felt uncomfortable with the amount of begging Tanguish was willing to do. After helping Tango, he then finds out that they’re the princes of the kingdom (he’s the mc of a Webtoon now lmao, living that y/n life).
Tango thinks he’s scary at first. With Wels in his ear telling him how suspicious it is that Helsknight just “happened to be sat there, waiting for them”(he became very paranoid since he wasn’t there to protect his prince). Wels also quickly connected Helsknight to Tanguish, and thought it was another assassination attempt (Tanguish has got to stop looking so guilty!!). At Tanguish’s constant insistence that Helsknight isn’t evil and he trusts(?) him, Tango allows him to be Tanguish’s guard, as a kind of test maybe? Wels is NOT a fan.
Helsknight was a bit peeved, not really wanting to be in such a huge position. He was looking for something smaller than protecting a prince. He and Tanguish were not friends for a while. And the story is getting a little fuzzy now!!
The first time they really sat down comfortably in each other’s presence was Tanguish sneaking out to escape the pressure and hostility he felt within the castle walls! And Helsknight followed. They have a nice heart-to-heart during this time, I’d like to think!
And Helsknight and Wels conflict! That hate each other! Helsknight thinks Wels is too cocky, that his position gave him a big head. Wels thinks Helsknight is evil, point-blank. Large gap in my brain here story-wise cuz I can’t think of anything good!!
As antagonists, I think Wels is more of a threat within the castle, a place Tanguish was meant to feel safe. And the Demon is a threat outside the castle! Someone Helsknight knew, but was greedy. And thought the price of a Prince’s head was worth it. And, Tanguish would come to find out, he’d apparently stolen from the Demon before, and the Demon recognized him. The Demon was just going to kill him or chop his hands off as a thief, until he realized he was a prince!
Word kinda relayed a bit to the castle, more a nuance than a “real problem”. I kinda see it as “blasphemy! Our prince would never do such a thing!” And people shrug it off. Wels doesn’t. One rough fight later and Tanguish is fleeing the castle the next night. He had Helsknight pack things up and meet him on the other side of the city, with no explanation as to why. Tango, who knows Tanguish’s route, stops him. Questions him about leaving the kingdom and abandoning him, which Tanguish fervently refuses! He’ll be back, he just needs time! Tango lets him go and that’s that!
Helsknight and Tanguish travel a little! They stay within the Kingdoms borders, but Tanguish is learning more about, everything!! To his dismay, that includes fighting. Helsknight can’t fight off every bandit that stops them (he can, but he won’t always be there). They also meet more of Helsknight’s friends! (Colosseum Crew guys!!! I’m not sure what to put them as though, just yet!!) Tanguish learns to be a person rather than a shadow! Yippee!!
I wrote a TON more than I expected lol. If you’d like to use the idea, feel free to bend anything the way you’d like!! I don’t mind if you take snippets of my ideas or use this loose idea for anything!
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Winter's King 14
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No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.
Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, cheating, violence, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: You are a maid to the Duke of Debray, a lord of the Summer Kingdom. That is, until the king of Winter appears with his particular air of coldness. (Medieval AU)
Characters: Geralt of Rivia
Note: Another work week :(
As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.
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Not long after the king’s departure, Lord Jaskier excuses himself to see to his horse. Queen Jazlene sends him off with a similar quip about serious matters. You don’t quite understand her. She should be concerned with the weeks of travel ahead of her, not only of the time, but of the climate. 
She finishes the bottle on her own. Much of it went to her cup. You think of warning her but it isn’t your place. You can only watch her head wobble as that hazy look softens her features. On her last gulp, a droplet trickles down her chin. You suspect she might be as unhappy as her husband claimed of himself the previous night. They make a rather sad pairing. 
It’s early still. Perhaps once they are settled, it won’t be so tense. They will have a chance to know each other better without the stresses of a war or the road ahead. 
Your thoughts stray and your vision fogs as you stare at a blue tapestry. Jazlene continues to babble and suddenly, the clink of her cup jolts you from your trance. You look at her as she slumps against the table. Her shoulders are slack, her arms bent around her head as it droops onto the wood. You can see her breath as she hunches weakly in her chair. 
“Your highness?” You call to her. You sway on your feet as you watch her. Come on, move. “Your highness?” You take a step toward her, “Lady Jazlene?” 
She groans and slips to the side. You rush around without a thought to catch her. She garbles drunkenly as you hold her in her arms, one leg still on the seat as her other hangs limply. She’s heavier than you would expect. 
“Your highness?” You squeak as you struggle to keep her off the ground. You can’t drop the queen. 
Her head lolls as her lashes flutter. She is certainly not conscious. The acrid scent of wine rises from her lips. You try to hike her higher, slinging her arm around your shoulder as you grunt. She’s not that big, you’re just weak. You can carry a cask or a chest, but a person is a much different matter. 
You wrap your arms around her and haul her around the table. Her slippers drag and you clatter into the chairs and nearly trip on the edge of the rug. Your leg muscles thrum with the effort and your back racks. You look around. The bedchamber is too far. 
You turn and little by little, step by step, drag her to the couch. Her feet loudly scrape across the floor. You angle her around with another laboured grunt and as you do, the hinges whine and the left door opens. You look up as the king enters and your lips part in surprise. You’ve been caught. Rather, the queen has. 
He stares at you and eases shut the door. He comes around as your arms quake. He wordlessly takes his wife from your grasp and lays her across the sofa. You put a pillow under her head and back up, rubbing your upper arms. 
“Your highness, she was not feeling well,” you say. 
“She has drunk herself into a stupor,” he snarls as he backs up, crossing his arms as he glares down at her. “Do not lie, especially on her behalf. It does not become you.” 
“Your highness, I apologise. I only worry for her--” 
“You shouldn’t,” he intones, “she doesn’t worry for you. Or me. Or anyone but herself.” He turns and goes to the table. He rights the overturned cup and you reproach yourself for not doing so first. “But I do appreciate you attending to her. I’d rather not have found her upon the floor.” 
“Your highness,” you bow your head. 
He’s quiet. You’re unsure what to do next. Should you leave him with Jazlene or stay to tend to her? He will need sleep for the ride. 
“Little maid, you will send to have a bath drawn. There will be little chance to wash upon the road,” he commands. 
“As you wish, your highness.” 
“Mm, if only,” he murmurs as she sits and grabs the empty bottle, sneering at its hollowness. 
You set off to have water brought to his chamber. You assist the other servants in carrying the vessels of steaming water. All the while, the king ruminates at the table. He picks at his index finger and his cheek ticks. When at last the tub is full, you go to trail out after the castle servants. 
“Little maid, I require assistance,” he says. 
You remain and the doors close in the tension. You watch the king, your fingers twined together as you cautiously approach. He glowers at his fingers and huffs. 
“You have small hands,” he rests his palm open on the table, “please, I would have use of them.” 
Curious, you move towards him. He turns to you and holds out his large hand. He pokes his index fingers up and hisses. 
“I got it on the door. A splinter,” he explains. 
You see the dark spot, just the minuscule tip of it poking above his rough skin. The skin around it is inflamed, both from the sliver and his fussing. You bring your hands to cradle his single one and lean to have a closer look. You keep one hand under his and slip the other down the side of his palm. 
You brush your fingertips over the lines of his knuckles. He’s quiet as he lets you gently squeeze. You glance up beneath your lashes. 
“It might hurt, your highness. Apologies.” 
His cheek twitches, “I’ve had worse than a maid’s touch.” 
You squeeze until his flesh his taut. You pinch the tip of the splinter with your other fingers, using your nails to get a grip of it. You pull slowly. Very slowly, terrified of losing hold and having it go deeper. The wooden sliver slides out and before you can examine it, it falls to the floor, disappearing into the fabric of the rug. 
The king sighs, “better.” He brings his other hand over yours and covers your small ones with his, “many thanks, little maid.” 
He lets you go, his calloused skin brushing your sleeves, and he hums grimly. He bends his head forward and his white waves shift on his shoulders. He pushes his hair back and raises his head again. His eyes almost glow as he looks at you. 
“I should fetch some water for the queen in case she stirs--” 
“Later,” he dismisses, “might I ask another favour of such delicate hands?” 
You dip your chin down, “I serve you and the queen, your highness.” 
“Mm, yes, you recall, the knot in my shoulder, where I carry my sword,” he points along his shoulder, “if it isn’t trouble, I might have you loosen it before I must ride anon.” 
“Your highness,” you acquiesce, curling your fingers into your palms. You remember that first night you met him, as he sat in the steaming tub and had you touch him. You sweat at the memory. 
“It would be best before I soak,” he reaches to untie the laces of his tunic. 
You watch him, helpless. As with the queen, you can only heed his whims. At least he is gentler in his mastery. He pulls his tunic above his head and strips it away completely. He lets it hang over one leg and squares his shoulders as he sits back in the chair. 
You go around him and he moves his hair to his other shoulder. Your hands tremble slightly before you touch him. His muscles are thick and his skin taught across everyone. His arms are rounded with bulk and his neck is bullish in girth. He carries so much strength and power as if it is nothing. 
You squeeze the muscles gently with one hand, pressing the other behind it. You knead carefully, gradually putting more behind it, responding to the soft breaths and low grunts rising from the king. You hit a spot with some resistance and he growls. 
“There,” he grits as he drops his head forward. “Harder.” 
You push your thumb against the little pearl of tension you feel along his shoulder. He exhales deeply and lets out a wolfish snarl. He grips his thigh as you work his flesh. Your hands move without much thought. Lady Rezlyn often requested to have her feet done, a much less ideal task. 
“Mm, treasure...” he breathes though his words aren’t entirely clear. 
Another noise rises from him, sharper than before. You stop, frightened. 
“Your highness, have I hurt you?” You utter. 
Before you can retract your hand, he has a hold of you. He lifts his head and hangs it back, his hair spilling down. He looks up at you with his bright eyes as he clings to your hand. He presses it flat and moves it over his shoulder. He drags it down against his chest where you can feel his heartbeat. 
You’re caught in his gaze and his grasp. You just stand there, entranced by his golden irises. Each time you see them, they are more brilliant than the last. Your own chest tightens and binds up your breath. 
“You can never hurt me,” he rasps. You gulp as he lightens his hold and pets your hand. He closes his eyes and winces. “Little maid...” he sits forward and gently moves your hand away from his chest, “you must go now. You must face the road with us and you will require rest.” He lets you go completely and stands. “I trust my wife will have many a demand to keep you busy.” 
“Yes, your highness,” you murmur. 
“Now,” he insists. “You must go now.” 
He crosses the chamber and stops in the door to his bedchamber. You quickly flit over to the doors that lead out to the corridor. You pause and glance over as you sense him move. He stares at you, his eyes licking with flames. His chest rises and falls, trimmed in thick hair that trails down his hard stomach. 
“Go...” 
You obey and heave open the door. The soldiers on the other side snort. It is late, they must’ve dozed. You don’t think much of that as you harry down the corridor, not looking back. The king’s timber nips at your ears. The way he spoke; ‘go’. It was more than just a word; it was a warning. 
⚔️
You rise with the castle, quickly falling into the tumult of the impending departure. When you arrive at the king’s chambers that morning, you are sent away. You find Jazlene in her own. He must have taken her back before the sun. 
She is groggy and sombre as you help her dress. The pain in her skull leaks out in pathetic moans. You offer her lemons water and a cool cloth for her head. You see the difference as she accepts but she remains weak. It will be difficult for her to ride. 
Horses fill the courtyard and the luggage carts crowd around the stables and rear of the castle. The scene reminds you of Debray. You only hope Queen Jazlene does not cause a similar scene. You don’t believe she can. 
You accompany her to the front of the train. The king is not there. The queen clutches her throat as if she might be sick as the smell of the horses is stirred by their whipping tails. She grumbles and calls for a water skin. You find one and she shooes you away. 
“Enough of you,” she snips.  
You stay close, keeping watch should she signal for anything else. She can barely lift her head to do more than drink thirstily. Lords and ladies as good as ignore the queen as she mutters to her horse. 
“Eh, mouse, there y’are,” Bryce’s voice undercuts your pity. “I’ve been looking for ya.” 
You face him and the weight slips from your shoulders, “you have?” 
“What are you insinuating?” He challenges, “Daisy’s missing ya.” 
“Oh,” your brows raise, “well, it just so happens I miss her too.” 
“We’ll be off soon. You should come claim your place with the luggage.” 
“Should,” you agree. 
You follow him through the press of bodies. You get further down, away from the pages and soldiers, see Daisy lazily hoofing at the ground. She chews on a sparse bit of grass in the dust. As you near, you notice that her holster is thicker than it was. She is attached to a small cart. 
“What is this?” You ask as you stop short. 
“It’s yours, mouse,” Bryce says staunchly, “isn’t right you riding with the chests. Not for so far as we need to go.” 
“You... you did this for me?” You ask. "But... what about--” 
“Found a spare horse. He’s a bit less friendly than our beloved but he’ll do fine enough,” he explains, “’sides, Daisy needs a respite. She don’t needa be carrying around my hefty behind much longer.” 
“Oh, my,” you put your hand to your cheek and go to the cart, “Sir Bryce, you are a true knight.” 
“Don’t you get sappy with me,” he tuts as he follows. “Look inside, will ya?” 
You look inside the cart. There’s a long cushion and a pack. It’s a lot compared to what you came with; nothing. Bryce reaches in and tugs something from beneath the cushion. You watch the fur ripple out as he reveals the cloak. It’s thick and long and hooded. He holds it up. 
“When we get to the Hinterlands, you’ll be needing this,” he says. 
You touch the fur, it’s soft. You blink and feel it between your fingers. Your eyes sting. 
“Sir,” you bat your lashes, “it is too much for me.” 
“It isn’t very much, you are just too humble, mouse,” he folds and holds it out to you. “Now, don’t you be telling anyone this was my doin’. I got a reputation to uphold.” 
“Oh,” you clamp your lips shut as you try to hold back your emotion. 
A smile breaks through and you bare your teeth. Your cheeks hurt from the joy bursting forth. You hug the cloak and rock, looking around. As you do, you falter at a familiar face.  
The king leads a dark horse along the edge of the yard. He is looking at you, or so it seems. You let your expression slip and tamp down your glee. You bow your head in King Geralt’s direction. 
When you look up again, he is gone. 
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[8.45]
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― pairing : Hyunjin x fem! reader ― content warnings : angst with a happy ending, smut, fluff, royals au, Hyunjin is a Prince, arranged marriage, medieval settings, ⚠️exhibitionism/voyeurism, don’t read if you don’t feel comfortable with it⚠️unprotected sex (wrap it up y’all), fantasy au ― word count : 5.467
― notes : this fic looks familiar?it is! I’m reposting ALL my works on this brand new blog and therefore please, bear with me! as always, askbox is always open and feedbacks are always welcome 💌
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👑 ROYALS! STRAY KIDS SERIES
Chris // Changbin // Jisung // Hyunjin // Seungmin // Minho // Felix part one | part two // Jeongin
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The Princess’ unfaltering decision of refusing her arranged marriage was definitely the most entertaining talk of the Castle for the whole month of January.
Nobody but you – her lady in waiting, knew the reason why she was so stubborn with her choice, and your mouth was sealed in loyalty to what was your future Queen - and regardless, always treated you as her friend. You spent every day with her, and in the evening, you would brush her hair as he kept talking about her beloved Duke with a dreamy and enamoured voice, giggling and blushing as she told you every detail about how their forbidden meetings went. You couldn’t help but smile at her, the secret hope that her love would bloom and come true, even if you knew that probably, their secret encounters would never lead to a marriage.
What you obviously did not know, was that while the Princess kept throwing her temper tantrum, the Royal Council kept having meetings, secretly deciding to send a maid in her place, in order to get married to the foreign Prince. Needless to say, said maid was you.
As the King and his Counsellor told you about it, you instinctively sat back in horror on the velvet chair behind you, a hand placed on your hammering heart.
«Your Majesty,» you breathed, your voice shaking weakly as you spoke. «I don’t think I am suited for-»
«I will not tolerate any dissent on your part.» his gruff and authoritative voice interrupted your sentence, and you close your eyes in silent resignation, a lone tear escaping your eyes. «You spent enough time with my daughter to know how a Princess shall behave.»
«Don’t you want to serve your Kingdom?» the Counsellor added, and few men from the royal council murmured among themselves intelligible sentences which you obviously couldn’t understand. You shook your head, giving in, knowing you couldn’t do otherwise.
As you wish, your Highness.» and with that, you excused yourself in order to storm back into your room, not bothering to justify to the other maids and butlers working at the Castle why you were so pale and on the verge of crying.
As soon as you accepted, the news spreaded around even faster than the fact that Princess Illezra was dating a Duke, and that was the main talk for the whole month of February, which you spent refining your manners, since now you had to act like a proper Princess. Illezra developed the habit of sleeping with you, holding your hand and repeating soft «I’m so sorry.» to which you shook your head every time.
«Don’t blame yourself,» you’d say. «I’m just scared.» Illezra would nod, just to repeat the same sentence every day right before falling asleep, and the two of you fell into a peaceful slumber with your fingers tightly interlocked.
Truth was, you weren’t just scared, you were terrified. First of all, you had to pretend to be someone you were not for your whole life, you were being forced into a marriage which you definitely didn’t ask for and most importantly, you didn’t know what your future husband looked like.
For all you knew, he could be a boy around your age, but the chances of him being an old, bald unattractive and evil man were also pretty high. The other Kingdom’s silence was disturbing; they never sent a portrait of your future husband, not even once.
«What if he’s handsome and he thinks I’m ugly?» you whined, pinching the bridge of your nose. «What if I screw up?»
«Language, your Highness!» Illezra giggled, mocking what she had been told countless times. «You’re gorgeous,» she said, sitting behind you on the bed in order to brush your hair, «and if he thinks otherwise, he’s an idiot.»
«What if he’s old and-» you whined, on the verge of crying once again. «I don’t want to think about it, I can’t bring myself to think about it.»
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The day of your departing came sooner than you thought and so, during a chill March morning, you were sitting in an expensive carriage headed to your neighbour Kingdom, your heart sinking in your stomach the further you got from the town where you’ve lived all your life. You tried your best to avoid thinking about your future husband and your future life, and so you opted to engaging a small talk with the butler assigned to stay with you until the day of your marriage.
«What if he finds out everything?» you asked him, anxiety bubbling up in your stomach as you met his sharp yet kind gaze.
«He won’t.» he smiled politely, «No one from their Kingdom ever saw the Princess before.» his words somehow managed to reassure you, and before you realized, almost a day of travelling went by.
The first thing you noticed when your personal butler helped you out of the carriage was that their Castle looked way more expensive than the one you lived in, and the second one was the tall boy with jet black hair which was looking at you with an unreadable expression.
The King immediately welcomed you, introducing himself and the Queen as well, before gesturing to the boy.
«He’s Prince Hyunjin,» he said, «Your future husband.» you politely bowed to him, and he respectfully reached out to kiss the top of your gloved hand.
«Those portrait didn’t do any justice to your beauty.» he said, basically only for you to hear, and the unexpected kind tone of his voice made you wonder if he had been forced to say such a cliché pick up line. Your introductions went smoothly, and the Queen informed about a welcoming banquet being hosted in few hours, so you decided to take up her offer and freshen up.
The first thing you thought as you stepped into your new room was that there was an obvious mistake; the room was huge and decorated with furniture that looked so expensive that you wondered what the Queen’s room would look like. You were particularly happy about the small balcony attached to your room that directly faced the garden, which you would soon find out to remain enlightened all night, thanks to the numerous torches spreaded around.
When shortly after, two maids came to dress you up and do your hair, you thought you could make it work.
When you were sitting at the table while a significant number of people were occasionally staring at you before mumbling things among themselves, you thought you could never make it work.
«Relax,» Hyunjin’s unexpected soft whisper distracted your ministrations of staring blankly at your fork with a bite of food on it. «I promise we’ll excuse ourselves right after the desserts,» he added, before naturally placing his golden caliche in front of his lips, hiding his mouth in order to keep his words even more secret. «They’re probably saying you’re beautiful and wondering when we’re going to produce a heir.» he added, his tone somehow annoyed as he pronounced the last part of the sentence, making you almost choke on your bite of food before you mimicked his action of coveting your mouth with the golden chalice placed in front of you.
«Isn’t it a little bit too soon to talk about an heir?» you asked, noticing that while talking, both you and Hyunjin managed to inch closer, and you also couldn’t help but notice how insanely good he looked up close.
«It is,» Hyunjin chuckled, «but the Royal Counsellor is desperately waiting for heirs.» he smiled at your confused face, before adding a quick «The one completely dressed in purple and looking like an ogre. I bet he’s looking at you.» you tried not to giggle as you met said men’s gaze, before looking back at Hyunjin’s smiling face once again, and he playfully winked at you.
Your heart felt a little lighter knowing that your future husband was at least friendly, and you felt even better when, exactly as he promised, Hyunjin politely excused the both of you before leading you towards the garden.
«Thoughts on the welcoming party?» Hyunjin asked, sitting next to you on a marble bench cornered by small bushes of white roses.
«Definitely… intense.» you offered a small smile, not used to so many people looking at you while studying your every move since you’ve never been a Princess in the first place.
«We’re both obviously new to this,» Hyunjin nodded, before scratching the back of his head in a shy manner. «But I promise I’ll do my best to make it work.» you smiled at him, silently thanking the heaves for your luck, before reciprocating his promise.
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If three months ago, the day you cried yourself to sleep at the unexpected news, someone would have told you that you’d be finding yourself falling in love with your future husband, you would have probably curse at them in a very un-lady like manner.
But yet, there you were, involuntary playing hide and seek with Hyunjin in the small maze inside their garden, trying to find a decent hiding spot while trying to hold back your laughter.
«Really?» Hyunjin asked as he almost appeared out of thin air, walking out from the turn next to yours. «You think I wouldn’t catch up?» he asked, and with a rush of adrenaline, you sprinted out from the blind spot where you were hiding, only for him to almost immediately stop your foolish and useless escape by tightly holding your waist; knowing that there was no use trying to outwit him when he probably knew the maze’s pattern by heart, you gave in with a small yelp as soon as your back crashed against his body due to him pulling your frame to his. With a small pout, you let Hyunjin turn you around, his arms still loosely hugging your waist.  
«I could walk around here with my eyes closed,» Hyunjin said, faking an arrogant tone, a slight pant in his breath matching yours.
«So?» you asked, your hands on his chest and your gaze locking in a silent challenge.
«So,» Hyunjin’s voice lowered to a mumble, «Running away from me is useless.» he added, and his lips slowly inched towards yours, searching in your eyes any kind of doubt or refusal, leaving you all the time in the world to walk away from his embrace. Hyunjin never found a trace of doubt in your eyes, and so you stood on your tiptoes, closing the space between you and felt Hyunjin smile into the kiss as he held you closer to his body.
That kiss was the first one of many, countless, infinite kisses shared between the two of you, with innocent hearts full of love.
Even if you loved and trusted Hyunjin, you never told him the truth; even if you thought that you couldn’t live a lie for your whole life, you still couldn’t bring yourself to face the consequences of him finding out about your identity.
Deep down, you knew that Hyunjin didn’t fall in love with you for your status and you doubted he would care whether you were born in the royal family or not, but you also knew that this kind of lie was classified as treason, and you couldn’t bring yourself to face Hyunjin’s disappointment towards you.
Illezra kept sending you letters, and you had a very secret correspondence with her, which apparently was trying to let her parents accept her relationship and make her a Duchess so that her and her lover could be together. Despite being happy for her, these letters were the constant reminder of your lies, and Hyunjin never said anything as he saw you glancing sadly out of the window. He would simply hug you, kiss your head and mumbling that since you were homesick, as soon as you got married, he would love to visit your kingdom, too. Hyunjin’s kindness made you wonder if you really deserved him.
Approximatively six months after your arrival, strange rumours started to spread out among the royal council. Needless to say, those rumours completely revolved around your identity, but you’d never heard about them until eventually, it was too late.
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By now, Hyunjin had sneaked into your bedroom a countless times, only to leave in order to return to his before morning came – his room was adjacent to yours, so he just needed to open a small door and throw himself in the bed of the communicant room right before his butler came to wake him up.
As cliché as it was, you believed you could never get enough of the feeling of Hyunjin’s warm body against yours, and for him, it was just the same. There was something about Hyunjin moaning your name as he came while trying to keep his voice low that you couldn’t help but love; there was something about the sense of intimacy of Hyunjin passionately making love to you every night that you could not help but wish for those moments to last forever.
Happiness proved itself to be such a fleeting feeling, as one day you returned to your room, only to see Hyunjin partially leaning against your desk, an unreadable expression on his face while holding an envelope you immediately recognized.
«What are you doing?» you asked, your voice trembling in fear as your hands weakly gripped the door’s golden handle behind your back.
«Why are you reading my-» with a rush of emotion, you tried to approach him with the intent of taking the letter out of his hands – even if you knew it was probably too late, when Hyunjin held his hand in mid-air, signalling you to stop.
«This letter comes from the Princess,» Hyunjin said, and your heart sank as you heard his cold tone, «which is very weird, because I’m marrying her in three days.» you felt the blood drain from your face, Hyunjin was about to find out the truth and all you could do was standing there, petrified. You held Hyunjin’s emotionless gaze while tears started to cloud your view, realizing that Hyunjin was blocking you out and showing you the face he showed to everyone else, and not the innocent eyes full of emotion you fell in love with.
Hyunjin effortlessly broke the royal sealing wax while still holding your gaze, the small noise of wax being torn was the only sound echoing in the room.
«Dear Princess,» Hyunjin began to read Illezra’s neat calligraphy, «I deeply wish your marriage is working out, and your fiancée is half as good as mine. I will never stop reminding you that I’m sorry, and that I’m infinitely thankful to you for taking my place.» Hyunjin scoffed, before throwing the letter on the table without bothering to read the rest of it. «Care to explain?» his harsh tone softened for a moment at the sight of your panicked state, but his disappointment was too great. 
Hyunjin politely waited for you to talk with his hands crossed in front of his chest, as if the gesture would have helped him to keep in one place the world about to crash on him. You did not know why, but still you could not bring yourself to say a word; the thoughts of having disappointed both the man you loved and your kingdom were the only thoughts swirling around your head and with another scoff, Hyunjin stood up, walking past your frame and in his room without sharing another word.
For the first time since you arrived there, Hyunjin locked the door connecting your rooms, and you broke down in silent tears, kneeling in the middle of your room oh a Thursday morning, three days before your marriage.
You knew that you both did not have any task for the day, since you could hear Hyunjin moving around in the room next to yours. You spent half of your day sitting next to the door, not even bothering to change in more informal clothes, before few drops of common sense decided to silently make their way back into your head.
«Would Illezra go down without a fight?» you whispered to yourself. «Neither am I.» you sighed and stood up, walking to your nightstand and taking out a small key and a big amount of letters tied up with a silk ribbon from the top drawer.
«I have a spare key, Hyunjin,» you said loudly as you approached the door, «And I’m not afraid to use it.» you politely waited, deciding that if he didn’t unlock the door by himself, you would have done that. You were about to marry, but most importantly, you were in love; you’d never let anything walk between the two of you.
Surprisingly enough, Hyunjin unlocked the door few seconds later, and you stormed into his room and immediately sat on his bed, facing him, which was staring at you, confused at your sudden bravery and wondering why you decided to bring so many letters along.
When Hyunjin first asked you to explain, you wondered for a moment about lying through your teeth, but who would want a marriage based on lies? Certainly, not you.
Therefore, with that thought resonating in your head and in your heart, you told Hyunjin everything. With hesitant steps, Hyunjin slowly sat next to you on his canopy bed, as he listened to anything and everything you had to say; you told him about how the news crashed down on you and how about since then, you have felt pressured of living by the standards of living and behaving like people expected and imposed you to do. Hyunjin held your hand as your confession of you being terrified of this whole situation, but also the fact of not wanting to get married to a stranger.
«You could have been anyone,» you said, wiping another tear that effortlessly escaped your now puffy eyes, «I was terrified of you being old and ugly and evil.» you admitted, a small and sad smile appearing on Hyunjin’s lips which you didn’t see, too busy playing with his fingers interlocked with yours.
Hyunjin politely waited for you to finish your outburst, while never letting go or stop caressing your hand. «I can’t find a reason to blame you, but» Hyunjin’s gentle voice said. «I want to know if you meant what happened between us, or it was just part of what your King ordered you to do.» he asked, and as your eyes locked for the first time after you walked into his room, you saw Hyunjin looking so vulnerable you felt your heart tremble.
«It wasn’t a lie.» you quickly shook your head, relaxing a bit seeing Hyunjin’s soft smile once again. «I could never lie about loving you.» you admitted, and Hyunjin hugged you, affectionately kissing the side of your head as you wiped the last tears escaping your eyes.
«Then, I don’t care, the rumours will eventually stop.» Hyunjin sighed. «You’re going to be my wife, and married couples are allowed to keep secrets.» you nodded, hugging him back and wondering what were the chances of you finding such a gentle and caring boy as Hyunjin as your future husband.
«I’m sorry, too.» Hyunjin broke the comfortable silence that enveloped the two of you, now cuddling on his bed – with some difficulty, due to your formal clothes. «I was too focused on the fact that you lied, that I didn’t consider that you had more than valid reasons to do so.» Hyunjin’s words were soft and sincere, and you instantly cuddled closer to his chest, whispering not to worry.
«I never believed I would fall in love,» he chuckled, talking more to himself, «And yet, here I am.»
«Here we are.» you gently pointed out, and he simply answered by kissing the top of your head.
«Yeah, here we are.» Hyunjin mumbled softly, few moments later.
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Now, if you thought that Hyunjin’s Castle and the room you have been given were expensive looking, you definitely did not expect the wedding to look so… extravagant.
If you were still living as a lady in waiting, your marriage would have been a humble ceremony into the town’s chapel but as a Princess, you were about to walk into the Capital’s Cathedral, your path surrounded by sumptuous and expensive decorations and unknown faces focusing on any detail from your hair to your dress, which made you look like as if you walked out from a fairy tale – a bit too much for your tastes, but Hyunjin’s face as he saw you was enough to forget everything, from your doubt about the veil being too long, to your discomfort at being once again the centre of attention, to your fears about tripping on your feet.
«You look stunning.» Hyunjin mouthed as soon as you stopped in front of him, and you instantly rolled your eyes as a wide blush covered your cheeks.
The ceremony went smoothly and rather quickly, unlike what you expected. Hyunjin kissed you longer than he was supposed to, with both his hands on your cheeks, and since then you couldn’t focus on anything else but the lingering taste of his lips on yours and the feeling of absolute happiness you felt anytime your eyes met.
«Organizing a surprise in three days is almost impossible, but I hope you’re going to like my special gift.» Hyunjin smiled as he led you away from the crowd of people attending your wedding reception, and your brows furrowed in confusion. 
Hyunjin slightly turned towards you only to offer you a wink, looking even more handsome now that he had unbuttoned the first two buttons of his white shirt; even if you asked him few times what he meant, he never gave you a proper answer, and so you trusted him, until he led you to the marble bench where you comfortably sat under the moonlight on the first night you met.
Hyunjin abruptly stopped and you almost crashed against his body, but managed to stop just in time; you were about to ask him why did he stop so suddenly, when your attention was caught by a very familiar figure now standing up from the bench.
There was no way you could confuse her petite figure, the way she held her fan, or simply the way she brushed his gown exactly two seconds after she stood up; after all, you spent years living with her, and you knew that probably at some point, even your heartbeats were synchronized.
«Illezra?!» you asked, dumbfounded, but also feeling your heart speed up with excitement; you looked at Hyunjin, asking for a silent confirmation that you weren’t having hallucinations due to your corset being too tight, and as soon as he nodded, you ran towards her.
Illezra immediately hugged you close, her sweet perfume enveloping you and making you feel like you were in the privacy of her sumptuous bedroom instead of a Castle’s garden, you hugged her even closer, and the two of you stayed like that for a while. The hug you and Illezra shared held a silent conversation full of “I’m sorry”, “I’m glad this worked out”, in base of how tight you were hugging each other; a small cough caught your attention, and you shifted your attention to the figure behind Illezra, before detaching from her, which still tightly held your hand.
«You’d be happy to hear that we can freely hang out with Duchess Illezra and her husband, from now on.» Hyunjin’s soft voice said as he gently wrapped his arm around your waist.
«Duchess?» you incredulously asked her, your eyes widening in surprise. Illezra simply nodded, and officially introduced you to the Duke, which you’ve heard her talk about for countless nights.
«I owe you a lot,» Illezra said, clutching your intertwined fingers against her chest, but you simply shook your head. The four of you spent part of the afternoon by yourselves, before joining once again the other guests and excusing yourselves for having ran off; you could not stop thanking Hyunjin for this surprise – you never thought you could meet Illezra in public ever again, but he simply shrugged anytime you mentioned it, leaning in to peck your lips in a soft and sweet kiss.
Despite the day went great and you felt the happiest you’ve ever felt, there was a thing you actually feared: your first night as a married couple. You and Hyunjin have made love a countless number of times by now, hidden in the shadows of your bedroom, but you knew about a particular fucked up tradition that royals had.
Apparently, both for good auspicious and in order to verify the first night of marriage was consumed, the heavy curtains of the canopy bed would be tightly closed while outside; few members of the court would wait for the couple to finish their intercourse.
Of course, both you and Hyunjin weren’t exactly happy about it, but you both knew that refusing this stupid ceremony meant that someone could have contested the veracity of the marriage.
Hyunjin sat right in front of you on the soft mattress of the room you’ll be sharing from now on, his legs crossed while mirroring your posture, looking at you with an amused yet shy smile. You shrugged, covering your eyes in embarrassment knowing that a layer of fabric was separating you and your husband from indiscreet eyes; you opted for re-adjust your positions in order to cuddle, chuckling at how surreal this situation was.
«I’m really not fond of having an audience.» you mumbled, caressing Hyunjin’s hair while he had his head on your chest; you felt him nod against your skin.
«Neither I am,» he admitted, shifting just enough to place his chin on top of your breast to look at you. «We don’t have to do anything, if you’re not comfortable.» he added, and you loved how considerate he was being once again. You sighed a little too loudly, immediately covering your mouth since that sigh could be misinterpreted, and Hyunjin’s head followed your chest’s movement with an amused smile on his lips.  
«As long as you hold my hand, I suppose I’m gonna be okay.» you furrowed your brows, running your hand through Hyunjin’s long and soft hair, and he closed his eyes in bliss at the sensation of your fingers playing with it.
«We can stop anytime,» Hyunjin mumbled, supporting his weight on his arms while hovering above you, «and just jump on the bed while moaning randomly.» he added, barely above a whisper, and you couldn’t help but giggle at his childish yet mischievous expression.
A thing Hyunjin was exceptionally good was keeping promises; for the whole night, he kept holding your hand, from the moment his fingers were buried deep inside you, to the moment where his length was moving with hard and deep strokes. Hyunjin had one hand buried in the mattress, right next to your head, while the other was tightly intertwined with yours; while your free hand was tightly placed in front of your mouth to muffle your moans, despite the sound of the bed creaking and slamming against the wall was giving away pretty obviously that you decided to act up to your duties. 
Hyunjin was staring at you with hooded eyes, silently loving how your body was so responsive and sensitive to his touch; his eyes glanced to his left, and he stilled his hips inside you with a harsh thrust, making you whine while arching your back and closing your legs around his hips in the desperate attempt to make him sink deeper. Opening your eyes, you saw Hyunjin’s mischievous eyes focusing on the hand in front of your mouth, before he eventually shifted to partially support his weight on his elbow, his sweaty and hot body now pressed flush against yours, making you instinctively clench around his length.
«Let them hear, sweetie.» Hyunjin sinfully mumbled against your hear, slowly placing his right hand over the one you had on your mouth in order to slowly moving it away, allowing you to decide if you were comfortable with it. Once again, Hyunjin saw no trace of doubts in your eyes as he slowly leaned back, and he just smirked, moving his hips in order to create some friction between your bodies; you shut your eyes with a deep intake of breath, his stiff length filling you up just perfectly. «Let them know who’s make you feel so good» he added, leaving open mouthed kisses on your neck as his warm, big hand delicately caressed your body only for it to stop under your left tight just to lift it up while slightly spreading it even more. «Who’s making you this wet.» Hyunjin’s soft moans in your ear were about to make you see stars, and you sank your nails in his left hand – which was still interlocked with yours, as he proved his point with a harsh thrust which only made you whimper a loud «Please.»
Hyunjin’s cocky attitude only came out when you were having sex, so the fact that he kept moving in slow strokes while raising his eyebrow and mumbling an innocent «Please, what?» didn’t surprise you, on the contrary, it made you even wetter, if possible. If you thought that there was something fucked up about part of the royal court waiting for two people to finish their sexual intercourse while standing outside a canopy bed staring at some closed curtains, you also believed that there was something fucked up about both you and Hyunjin obviously enjoying it. There was something about Hyunjin’s body – how perfectly it moved against yours and how you felt like two puzzle pieces finally connecting, which always had the ability to bring you on your knees, figuratively and metaphorically.
«I’m yours, please.» you whined, already too far gone to properly answer to Hyunjin’s request, but he complied nonetheless, and he started to move at a slight faster place while holding your left leg higher, in order to have a deeper access into you.
The surreal situation you were in, added to Hyunjin’s praises on how good you were and how perfectly tight you felt, accompanied by the harsh movements of his hips, quickly helped you to build up your orgasm, and in return, your loud moans and pleads added to the fact that you kept writhing in pleasure under your husband’s body in order to feel even closer to him, quickly helped Hyunjin to quickly approach his own. Hyunjin came with a loud groan, his brows furrowed together and his eyes tightly closed as he buried himself inside you, and that vision alone triggered your orgasm as well. Hyunjin welcomed you back from your post orgasm state while rubbing your noses together, and you leaned in to peck his lips with a soft giggle while your heart softened at the feeling of your hands still locked together.
Both of you turned your attention to the sound of steps hurriedly exiting the room, and as the door closed, leaving you two finally alone, Hyunjin captured your lips in a sweet and passionate kiss, his long strands of hair resting on your forehead in the process; you gently pushed on his shoulder, signalling him to roll back, and he eagerly complied, careful to not slid out of you as you were now sitting on top of him.
«Always so eager,» Hyunjin mumbled, his hands naturally gripping your hips as your mouth came in contact with the bare and sweaty skin of his neck, marking it up to your heart’s content. Now, you finally had the night for yourselves.
The following day, you and Hyunjin couldn’t help but giggle to yourselves as apparently, the court’s member couldn’t hold your gaze any longer.
«Do you think we somehow scared them?» you whispered to him, hiding part of your face behind your pastel green fan.
«Probably,» Hyunjin chuckled, «And this is why I believe,» he said, circling your hips with his strong arms, «That in order to remind them who’s in charge, we should renew our vows every ten years.»
«You’re an pervert,» You blushed, hitting his shoulder with your now closed fan, «Once was more than enough.» Hyunjin hummed, giving you a playful smirk, «You definitely looked like you were enjoying it-»
«Hyunjin!» you laughed, placing a hand on his lips, in order to prevent him from finishing his sentence, and you quickly glanced around just in case someone could have heard. Something wet met the palm of your hand, and you retreated it, looking at Hyunjin with an incredulous yet amused expression.
«Did you just lick my hand?» you asked, and Hyunjin shrugged, before you both laughed together.
At least, your marriage wasn’t going to be boring.
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@anininas I’ll answer your ask (which TOOOOOOTALLY isn’t almost a month old NOPE) here to keep things organised but I. Dived into a little bit of a rabbit hole with this one and debated posting about it for a bit cuz I realised WAY TOO LATE Oh. You probably mean like. Fantasy cowboys not real-world cowboys HXNSHENDJDJ but let me ramble anyways!!!!
So the origin of ‘cowboys’ as a concept comes from Mexico but more specifically when the Spanish colonised Mexico they brought with them a bunch of cattle that obviously needed to be hearded so over time the Vaquero tradition of horse-mounted herding evolved from there, which is more or less how we’ve gotten the modern idea of stereotypical rootin-tootin cowboys. That’s obviously like a VEEEEEEEEEEERY watered down explanation and I would REEEALLY recommend you go researching the topic yourself if you’re interested cuz I am FAR from a historian HXBDBDNDNXN [Heres the Wikipedia article (I know) if you need a starting point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaquero just keep in mind it’s also pretty bare-bones too]
But it’s why you’ll often see a similar floral pattern on Luis’ jacket on Western saddles
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It’s a kind of leather carving that was APPARENTLY inspired by old medieval Spanish saddles, which would make sense cuz Y’know,,,,, it was Spain that colonised Mexico BCNDNNDS
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I’m gonna make a post specifically about this and the designs on Luis’ jacket later so hold onto that thought BUT ANYWAYS. IF WE’RE TALKING LIKE. FANTASY COWOYS. FICTIONAL NO-CONSEQUENCES COWBOYS I HAVE A LOT TO SAY
I imagine even in canon Luis PROOOOBABLY knows how to ride horses. I don’t think we actually SEEE any horses in Valdelobos but it’s a mountain terrain village with the nearest town being god knows how far away so I don’t think it’d be totally unreasonable to assume Luis knows how to ride a horse which is PERFECT FOR US cuz then we don’t have to wonder how he learnt in a theoretical cowboy au
I can also imagine Luis- now hear me out- being more of a dressage rider than a cattle herder. Have you ever seen those funny videos of the horses at the olympics doing a silly dance to rave music???? That’s dressage, which originated vaaaaguely around Spain and France during the medieval period and people SAY it was to evade attacks during battle but like. How true that actually is is up for debate BCNDBENSJJ
But dressage is a lot like dancing. Which Luis. Obviously knows how to do BXNSHNSS so in MY HEAD they make a perfect duo- which makes the mental image of Luis becoming some kind of outlaw similar to canon VERY funny BCNDHSNSJ like I don’t think it’s be very hard to spot the man on his dancing horse Y’know but I digress. I can imagine he probably got taught how to ride by his Grandfather and then got taught how to be a rough-and-tough cowboy by Leon even with his pretty boy fancy horse which IF WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HORSES
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Andalusians were bred in Andalusia, Spain (duh) and are used in dressage and showings A LOT. Like go to any big regional tournament and you’ll probably find at least one amongst the crowd. I have no clue realistically how popular they’d be in 18th century America if they were there at all even, but I literally can’t think of a better horse for Luis
ANYWAYS UHHHH THATS IT. THATS ALL IVE GOT. THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME RAMBLE ANI I WILL FOREVER BE IN YOUR DEBT
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