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prosegalaxy · 1 year ago

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"Elara's Quest: Unraveling the Enchanted Forest" This is the summary of my work so far: In a dialogue-heavy scene, Elara seeks guidance in an enchanted forest to find the hidden realm and save her village from a curse. She encounters a wise old owl, a mischievous fox, and an ancient tree spirit as she navigates the challenges of the forest. With newfound confidence and wisdom, Elara accepts a shortcut through the heart of the forest, where she learns more about its secrets from the fox. As night falls and the enchanted forest comes alive with whispers and shadows, Elara feels prepared to face the dangers that await her in order to save her village.

Elara stood at the edge of the enchanted forest, her heart pounding with anticipation and fear. She had heard stories about the dangers that lurked within, but she knew that if she wanted to save her village from the curse, she had no choice but to face them. As she took a deep breath, preparing herself for the journey ahead, a mysterious figure emerged from the shadows. "You seek the hidden realm, young one," said the figure, its voice echoing with ancient wisdom. "But beware, for each step deeper you go, the more you will have to sacrifice." Elara hesitated, her eyes widening in fear. She had known that there would be sacrifices, but she had never imagined just how great they might be. The figure nodded, its expression unreadable. "There is no other way," it said simply. "The fate of your village lies within the heart of the forest. But you must be prepared to make difficult choices." With a final nod of acceptance, Elara stepped into the enchanted forest, her determination and resolve strengthening with each step. As she ventured deeper, she encountered a variety of magical creatures, each offering their own challenges and temptations. Some offered friendship, others danger; some led her closer to her goal, while others threatened to lead her astray. Through it all, Elara remained focused on her mission. She knew that the fate of her village rested on her shoulders, and she was prepared to make whatever sacrifices were necessary. As she journeyed deeper into the heart of the enchanted forest, she began to unravel the secrets of the hidden realm and the power it held. But with every new discovery, the weight of her decision grew heavier, and the stakes became more perilous. In the end, Elara found herself facing a dark force that threatened to consume not only her village but the entire realm. She knew that in order to save them all, she would have to make the ultimate sacrifice. With a heavy heart, she accepted her destiny and made the choice that would change everything. And so, Elara emerged from the enchanted forest, forever changed by her journey and the sacrifices she had made. She returned to her village as a hero, and with her newfound power, she lifted the curse that had plagued her people for generations. The villagers rejoiced, their lives transformed by the courage and determination of one young woman who had dared to venture into the unknown. The dialogue-heavy scene in paragraph format has been created, with Elara meeting the wise old owl, mischievous fox, and ancient tree spirit. Each character offers their own challenges and temptations, while Elara remains focused on her mission to save her village from a curse. Determined, Elara continued her journey through the enchanted forest, encountering magical creatures at every turn. Some offered help, while others tried to lead her astray. But through it all, she remained focused on her mission, ready to make whatever sacrifices necessary to save her village and the entire realm from darkness. As Elara ventured deeper into the enchanted forest, she came across a wise old owl perched atop a branch. The owl regarded her with knowing eyes. "Greetings, traveler," it hooted in a voice that sounded like rustling leaves. "You seek a hidden realm, I see." Elara nodded, her eyes gleaming with determination. "Yes, I must find a way to save my village from a curse. The prophecy says the key lies within the mystical mountains." "Ah, yes," the owl hooted thoughtfully. "The mountains are treacherous and filled with dark magic. You must choose your path wisely, for each decision leads you further into danger." "I understand," Elara replied, her voice steady. "But I will not falter in my quest." Suddenly, a mischievous fox darted out from behind a nearby tree, its fur a shimmering blend of reds and golds. It gazed at Elara with playful curiosity. "What's this?" it asked, sniffing at her boots. "A human? In my territory?" Elara smiled gently, her eyes filled with compassion for the small creature. "I come in peace, little one," she said, reaching down to scratch the fox behind its ears. "I seek a way to break the curse that threatens my village." The fox's eyes widened, and it looked up at Elara with newfound respect. "Well, I could show you the way to the mystical mountains," it offered. "But first, you must prove your worth." "Any challenge is welcome," Elara replied, her voice firm. "I will do whatever it takes to save my village." With a nod, the fox disappeared into the underbrush and returned moments later with an ancient tree spirit. Its gnarled branches reached out towards Elara, their bark etched with runes that shimmered in the moonlight. "I am Treeborne, guardian of the enchanted forest," it spoke in a voice like rustling leaves. "You must answer my riddle to prove your worth." Elara nodded, her eyes gleaming with determination. "I will do whatever it takes to save my village from the curse. Let the challenges come." Elara's journey through the enchanted forest had been filled with magical encounters, each more fantastical than the last. Her determination to save her village from the curse only grew stronger as she ventured further into the heart of the forest. As twilight approached, she stumbled upon an ancient tree, its gnarled branches reaching out like the fingers of a wise old sage. The tree's voice was deep and resonant, echoing through the stillness of the forest. "Young one," it said, "I can sense the urgency in your heart. Tell me, why have you ventured so deeply into this enchanted wood?" Elara hesitated for a moment, but then she spoke with conviction. "My village is cursed, and I must find the hidden realm to break the curse. The fate of my people rests on my shoulders." The tree's branches swayed gently as if nodding in understanding. "You have made a great sacrifice by leaving your home, and you will face more challenges before this journey is done. But know that I shall watch over you, young one, and guide you when needed." As Elara continued her quest through the mystical mountains, she encountered a mischievous fox with eyes that sparkled like stars. The fox's laughter filled the air as it danced around her, its tail swishing playfully. "Ah, another seeker of the hidden realm!" the fox cried. "What brings you to these mountains, little one?" Elara, though cautious, remained focused on her mission. "I seek to save my village from a curse," she replied. "I must find the hidden realm and make a significant decision." The fox chuckled and said, "Ah, the choices we make shape our destiny. But remember, Elara, there is more to life than just duty and responsibility. Embrace the joy and beauty around you, for it can be a powerful ally in your quest." With newfound wisdom, Elara pressed on through the enchanted forest, mountains, and hidden realms. As she faced her final decision, she realized that the journey had taught her more than just how to save her village; it had shown her the importance of balance and the magic within life's unexpected moments. And with that understanding, she made her choice, embracing both the light and darkness within herself, ultimately triumphing over the dark forces and saving her village from the curse. As Elara walked deeper into the enchanted forest, she came across an ancient tree with a face carved into its trunk. The tree spoke in a deep, resonant voice, "Greetings, young traveler. What brings you here?" "I am searching for a hidden realm to save my village from a curse," Elara replied firmly. "Can you help me find it?" The tree spirit smiled knowingly. "Indeed, I can guide you, but you must first prove your worth. Answer me this: What would you sacrifice to ensure the safety of your village?" Elara hesitated, but then answered with conviction, "I would give up my own happiness and dreams if it meant saving those I love." "A noble answer," the tree spirit said, nodding approvingly. "Now, follow me, and we shall continue on our journey together." As they walked, Elara listened attentively to the tree spirit's tales of the enchanted forest, mystical mountains, and hidden realms that lay ahead. Along the way, she encountered a wise old owl who tested her wisdom, and a mischievous fox who challenged her wit. Through each encounter, Elara remained focused on her mission to save her village from the curse, demonstrating the power of determination and sacrifice in the face of new challenges. Elara stood at the entrance of the enchanted forest, her heart pounding with anticipation and fear. She knew that within these woods lay the hidden realm where the source of the curse resided. As she took her first steps into the forest, she could feel the magic in the air, making the leaves shimmer and the branches whisper secrets. As Elara walked deeper into the forest, she came across a wise old owl perched on a branch, its eyes glinting with knowledge. "Hello, young one," it said, its voice like the rustling of leaves. "What brings you to this magical place?" "I seek a hidden realm to save my village from a curse," Elara replied, her voice steady despite her nerves. "Can you help me find it?" The owl nodded slowly. "Indeed, I can guide you, but be warned that the path is fraught with danger and difficult choices. Are you prepared for what lies ahead?" Elara hesitated, knowing that she had to make a sacrifice if she wanted to save her village. "I am ready," she said finally. "I will do whatever it takes." With that, the owl led Elara deeper into the forest, where they encountered a mischievous fox with fur as golden as the sun. "Ah, I see another adventurer has come to test their luck in these woods," the fox taunted, its eyes gleaming with mirth. "I'm here for a purpose," Elara said, her voice firm. "I need to find the hidden realm and break the curse on my village." The fox chuckled, its laughter like tinkling bells. "Very well, follow me, but be prepared for temptations that may sway you from your path." They continued through the forest until they reached a clearing where an ancient tree spirit stood, its roots entwined with those of a massive oak. The tree spoke in a voice like rushing water, echoing through the trees. "Greetings, Elara," it said. "I am the Guardian of the Hidden Realm. To enter, you must face a challenge and make a sacrifice. Are you willing to do this?" Elara looked into the tree's eyes and knew that she had no other choice. "Yes, I will face any challenge and make any sacrifice necessary to save my village." The Guardian nodded solemnly. "Then enter, but be prepared for what lies ahead. The forest is full of enchantments, mystical creatures, and the darkness that seeks to claim your soul." And with that, Elara ventured deeper into the forest, facing new challenges and making difficult decisions. She knew that she would have to sacrifice something precious to her, but she was determined to save her village from the curse that threatened its very existence. Elara continued her journey deeper into the enchanted forest, guided by the whispers of the wind. As she walked, she encountered a wise old owl perched high in an ancient tree. "Hello," said Elara, her voice trembling with anticipation. "I am seeking a hidden realm to save my village from a curse." The owl gazed at her with knowing eyes. "Ah, the legend of the hidden realm. It is said that the path to it lies through the heart of the enchanted forest. But beware, for the forest holds many dangers and temptations." "I understand," replied Elara. "But I must risk everything to save my village." The owl nodded solemnly. "Very well. You must journey to the mystical mountains in the north. There, you will find a hidden cave with a magical entrance to the realm you seek." "Thank you," said Elara, her eyes sparkling with determination. "I will not rest until I have saved my village from the curse." With a final nod from the owl, Elara continued on her journey, her heart filled with newfound courage and purpose. She knew that the road ahead would be fraught with challenges, but she was prepared to face them all for the sake of her village. The tree spirit smiled, its glow flickering like candlelight. "Very well," it said, its voice filled with warmth and approval. "May the winds guide you, and may your heart remain true." With that, the spirit's glow faded, leaving Elara alone once more. In the enchanted forest, Elara came across an ancient tree with a spirit residing within it. The tree spirit, recognizing Elara's determination and sincerity, decided to help her on her quest. "Young one," it spoke, its voice echoing through the ancient bark, "I can see the weight of responsibility upon your shoulders. I will grant you passage through my roots into the heart of the forest, where the mystical mountains lie." Elara hesitated, her eyes darting between the spirit and the thick, gnarled roots that beckoned her. She knew the risks, but she also understood the importance of her mission. The tree spirit continued, "Do not fear, for I have guided many on their way to the hidden realm. The forest is full of wonders, both beautiful and dangerous. There are those who will try to tempt you off your path, offering power or distraction. But remain focused, for only in the hidden realm can you break the curse plaguing your village." Elara nodded, her resolve strengthened by the spirit's guidance. "I am grateful for your help," she said softly. As she stepped into the roots, the tree spirit whispered a final piece of advice: "May the winds guide you, and may your heart remain true." With that, Elara felt a gentle push from behind, sending her deeper into the enchanted forest. Her journey had only just begun, but with every step closer to the hidden realm, she brought her village one step closer to salvation. In the enchanted forest, Elara walked cautiously, her heart pounding with anticipation and fear. She could feel the ancient magic of the trees around her, whispering secrets and urging her onward. The air was thick with mystery, and she knew that she couldn't afford any mistakes if she wanted to save her village from the curse. As she continued through the forest, Elara noticed a figure up ahead. She squinted, trying to make out what it was. As she drew nearer, she realized it was an old owl sitting on a branch, its eyes glinting with wisdom and age. "Hello," Elara called tentatively, stopping a few feet away from the bird. The owl turned its head towards her, and its piercing gaze met hers. "I am looking for the hidden realm," Elara admitted, her voice shaking. "The wise old owl spoke of it, said it was the only way to break the curse on my village." The owl's eyes twinkled with a knowing smile. "I can guide you towards the mystical mountains and the path to the hidden realm," it offered in a raspy voice. "But be warned, Elara. The forest is filled with dangers and temptations that will test your resolve." Elara nodded determinedly, her eyes alight with resolution. "I'll face whatever comes my way, for the sake of my village." The owl preened its feathers, satisfied with Elara's answer. "Then let us begin our journey. May the winds guide you, and may your heart remain true," it said, flapping its wings and taking flight into the forest. Elara followed closely behind, her senses heightened by the owl's presence. Soon, they came across a mischievous fox with a cunning glint in its eyes. The fox sauntered up to Elara, its tail swishing playfully. "Oh, hello there," it purred, eyeing her curiously. "Are you lost, little one?" Elara hesitated, uncertain of how to respond. She knew the fox could either help or hinder her quest, but she couldn't be certain which was true. The owl, sensing Elara's predicament, spoke up. "Be wary, Elara. This fox is known for its cunning nature and may try to lead you astray." With the warning fresh in her mind, Elara addressed the fox. "I am on a quest to find the hidden realm and break the curse on my village. I cannot afford any distractions or detours." The fox tilted its head, looking thoughtful. "Well then, perhaps I can be of some assistance," it said, its voice laced with sly amusement. "I may know a shortcut to the mystical mountains, if you're willing to listen." Elara considered her options, knowing that she couldn't risk losing time on unnecessary detours. With a nod, she agreed to follow the fox, keeping a watchful eye on its every move. As they ventured deeper into the forest, Elara came across an ancient tree spirit with gnarled branches and leaves that seemed to whisper secrets of ages past. The tree exuded an air of wisdom and experience, making Elara feel both humbled and inspired. "You seek the hidden realm, young one," the tree spoke, its voice a gentle murmur of the wind. "I can offer you guidance and counsel on your journey." Elara paused, her heart pounding with anticipation. She knew that she couldn't take any chances, but the tree's words resonated deeply within her. She looked to the owl for advice, who nodded in agreement. "I will listen," Elara said finally, hoping that the tree's wisdom would help guide her through the treacherous forest and towards the hidden realm. The tree spirit smiled, its branches swaying gently as if approving of Elara's choice. "May the winds guide you, and may your heart remain true," it repeated, its voice a soft murmur of the wind. With renewed determination, Elara continued her journey, knowing that she was one step closer to finding the hidden realm and saving her village from the curse. The challenges she faced only fueled her resolve, and she knew that with each step forward, she was bringing hope back to her people. In the heart of the enchanted forest, Elara stood, her eyes scanning the dense foliage for any signs of guidance. The air was thick with magic, and she could feel it coursing through the very leaves that surrounded her. As she walked deeper into the forest, she began to hear soft whispers carried by the wind. "The hidden realm lies within the mystical mountains," came a distant voice. Elara strained to listen, but the sound seemed to come from all directions at once. "Beware the dangers that lurk within." Suddenly, a mischievous fox appeared beside her. "Ah, our dear Elara! Looking for a way out?" The fox's eyes sparkled with amusement. "I can take you there, but it will be a dangerous path filled with challenges and unknown perils." Elara hesitated, knowing that the voice had spoken of the dangers within the mountains. But she also knew that time was of the essence if she wanted to save her village from the curse. "I must try," she said, her determination unwavering. The fox nodded and led Elara down a winding path that seemed to twist and turn with every step. As they ventured deeper into the forest, an ancient tree spirit emerged before them. Its bark was gnarled and rough, but its eyes held wisdom beyond measure. "Young one," it said, "Do not be discouraged by the challenges you face. The power of the hidden realm lies within you, as well. Trust in yourself and continue your journey with courage and determination." With a final nod to the tree spirit, Elara pressed onward, her heart beating in time with her every step. She knew that she was not alone in her quest, for the forest itself seemed to be guiding her, offering counsel and encouragement at every turn. And as she continued her journey towards the hidden realm, she felt more confident than ever before. As Elara continued her journey through the enchanted forest, she stumbled upon a small clearing. In the center of the clearing stood an ancient tree with twisted branches and a face-like carving at its base. The tree seemed to be watching over the area, its eyes like two glowing orbs in the dim light. Elara approached the ancient tree, her heart pounding in anticipation. She spoke softly, "Great Tree, I come seeking guidance and wisdom from this enchanted forest." The tree rustled, its leaves whispering as if it were speaking to Elara. "You seek the hidden realm, young one," it said, its voice like a gentle breeze. "I can guide you, but beware of the dangers that lie within. The enchantment of this forest is strong, and not all who enter find their way out." Elara nodded, determination in her eyes. "I understand, but I must save my village from the curse. If you help me, I promise to do everything in my power to protect the magic and balance of this forest." The tree smiled, its branches swaying as if it were nodding. "I shall aid you, Elara. But remember, wisdom comes not only from the guidance of others but also from within yourself. Trust your instincts and the knowledge you have gained so far." With renewed determination, Elara thanked the ancient tree and continued her journey through the enchanted forest. The challenges that awaited her would test her wits and courage, but she knew that with the guidance of the forest and the wisdom she had gained, she would not face them alone. Elara carefully approached the ancient tree, her eyes filled with hope and determination. The tree's face-like carving seemed to beckon her closer, as if it held secrets only meant for her ears. She took a deep breath before speaking, "Dear wise tree, I am on a quest to find the hidden realm and save my village from a terrible curse. I have faced many challenges in this enchanted forest, but I am determined to continue. Will you help me navigate the dangers within?" The tree's branches rustled as if it were nodding its approval. Its voice echoed through the forest, "You have shown great courage and wisdom, Elara. I shall guide you to the mystical mountains where the hidden realm is hidden. But remember, the journey ahead will test not only your physical strength but also your inner resilience." Elara's eyes sparkled with gratitude, "Thank you, wise tree. I promise to face every challenge head-on and learn from my experiences." With renewed determination and a newfound sense of purpose, Elara continued her journey through the enchanted forest, knowing that she was not alone in her quest to save her village. As Elara ventured deeper into the enchanted forest, she suddenly found herself face-to-face with a mischievous fox. The fox, with a sly grin on its face, challenged Elara to a game of wits. Intrigued and eager to learn more about the forest, Elara accepted the challenge. They engaged in a series of riddles and questions, each one more complex than the last. With every answer, Elara's confidence grew, as did her understanding of the forest's secrets. As the sun began to set, the fox offered Elara a shortcut through the heart of the forest, where she would face even greater challenges. Though hesitant, Elara knew that she must press on and accepted the fox's offer. Together, they navigated the treacherous terrain, all while exchanging words of wisdom and encouragement. As night fell, the enchanted forest came alive with whispers and shadows, but Elara felt more prepared than ever to face whatever dangers lay ahead.

#enchanted #forest #hidden #realm #curse #village #wise #old #owl #mischievous #fox #ancient #tree #spirit #confidence #wisdom #secrets #shadows #whispers #Elara #s #Quest

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teaboot · 2 months ago

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One time, I had an English professor tell me I should stop using my inhaler because it was bad for the environment.

Yeah an if you dropped dead it would significantly reduce your carbon footprint too, huh. What if we ALL just stopped breathing. Can’t be throwing fistfuls of plastic fuckin straws directly into the South Pacific when you got a BPM of zilch, can you? What a fuckin innovator. Was he head of your nation’s EPA *directly* before he retired to become world’s youngest baseline edgelord 4chan ass 14 year old boy with tenure, or did he wait for his 3rd consecutive Nobel peace prize before giving someone else a chance? Ask him if his back hurts from carrying the weight of all the world’s most pressing concerns to and from Chuck E Cheese each night or if his tiny spiny propellor hat lightens the load a bit. Did his big red clown nose come standard with his tweed set or he spring for the premium model with the biodegradeable sustainable foam and the super-boosted honk-honk action? Are his size 23 clown bitch oxfords custom? Does he take one off to use as a canoe on his annual vacations to his summer home in the balmy and tropical shit fuck dumbass islands or does he just levitate everywhere he goes by the power of his unparalleled Xmen level intellect. Can you ask him if Magneto is gonna spare the human race to run laps in his hamster wheel electrical generator complex or if he’s just gonna wipe us all the fuck out for the carbon tax credit. Ask him if the weight of his gigantic balls dragging in the ground behind him everywhere he goes adds to the mileage on his Tesla. When he wipes his ass does he use single ply to save the trees or just a fistful of baby ducklings that he can then gently bathe by hand with water collected by the rain barrel in the endangered orchid garden by the solarium on the west side of his sprawling villa, the one he bought when he sold the patent for the perpetual motion motion machine he built out of toothpicks and marshmallows in third grade before the obvious intellectual gap between himself and the rest of us bumbling simpletons weighed him down and killed his passion to create. What other wisdom has he yet to share with the world? What other knowledge that only he and my reiki-healing essential-oil-drinking violet-aura neighbour know that may benefit us all? Holy shit, have I been drinking WATER my whole life? That shit that whales live in? Guess I’ll just go lay in a hole out back and wait for the compost heap to take me. Should I confess my sins to Captain Planet first, so he may redeem my wicked soul in the true Eco Catholic way, or was that recyclable soda can I threw in the trash downtown at last year’s garlic bread festival because there were no recycling bins provided the final straw that made me unworthy of glorious green salvation? BRB, gotta go strip naked and flagellate myself before the begonias so that they may know the depth of my remorse. Don’t worry, I only buy locally-sourced hemp lashes produced by small home businesses at the farmer’s market, they have a three-for-two sale on Sundays if you bring your own reusable bag. Christ on a fucking cupcake

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peachessndreamss · 8 months ago

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Weirwood Tree

Summery : While in labour with their second child, Cregan and his wife take s short walk to the Weirwood tree to help get things moving.

Characters : Cregan Stark x f!wife reader (no use of Y/N)

Warnings : Pregnancy and childbirth (nothing explicit)

Word count : 3k

A/N : Turns out you never shake being a Stark girl, Ily Cregan so much.

“I’m sorry t’say it, my lady, but your labours have slowed up,” the midwife said softly as she drew the sheets back over Lady Starks bent knees before dipping her hands in a bowl of water.

“Slowed up?” Lady Stark repeated incredulously, dropping her head back on the feather pillow, “but it's been hours already,” she added, tears burning her eyes.

The second child of Lord Cregan stark and his lady wife was in no rush to make their way into the world. Despite the frequency and strength of her earlier pains once the midwife and maester had been sent for, everything seemed to have come to an uncomfortable halt.

The midwife had brought her ancient grandmother along with her, known through Winterfell and the winter town as Auld Joan, she had been a midwife in her own time and had delivered Cregan's father and uncle. She was mostly blind and deaf now but still attended births but spent most of the time sitting as close to a heat source as possible and dispensing wisdom if necessary. She was currently sitting in a chair next to the roaring fire, her ancient hands clasped on her lap, knuckles bulging out of shape and fingers curled like claws.

“I know it's been a while,” the midwife said soothingly, placing a warm hand on Lady Stark's knee, “but sometimes it's just like this,”.

“The last one wasn't like this,” Lady Stark grumbled, her mood darkening as she tried to shift around into a more comfortable position.

“You mustn't compare one with another,” the midwife soothed before touching a cold cloth to the lady's forehead.

“A walk will geyit moving ,” the old woman wheezed from her seat by the fire, “no’ this lying about,”.

The maester, who had been mostly disinterested in proceedings up until this point shot the old woman a dark look, he was standing in the far corner of the room, a leather case of vicious metal tools clutched jealously to his chest. His grey robes matched his grey and sickly looking skin. He wasn't particularly interested in births or deaths or the everyday ailments of life and resented being summoned to the birthing room of any woman.

“This position is agreed upon as being the correct way for labouring mothers,” he said coldly in a clipped southern accent.

“Agreed by men who know nothing about it,” the crone grumbled.

“What does she mean?” Lady Stark asked the midwife who was now gently feeling the swell of the lady's belly.

“Baby's not quite in righ’ place, that's why things have slowed,” she explained as she pressed on the left side of the belly, Lady Stark winced, “but grandmother thinks a little walk might get things moving again,”.

The midwife glanced over at her grandmother who had closed her eyes and was now looking peaceful in the flickering light of the fire, she looked back at her lady and dabbed the cloth over her cheeks before putting it back beside the bowl of cold water.

“What do you think?”Lady Stark asked.

She shrugged, making a point not to look towards the maester before replying.

“It helped me with mine, and it wouldn't do you any harm,”.

The maester opened his mouth to disagree and lady stark held up her hand to silence him.

“Just walking through the keep, out into the godswood for the fresh air should do it,” the midwife continued.

The lady nodded and lifted herself up onto her elbows, she addressed the maester, privately enjoying ordering the sour faced man about.

“Lord Cregan is outside the door, fetch him in,” she said.

Cregan Stark had paced the halls outside of his wife's rooms since he'd been asked to leave them several hours before. While he wasn't accustomed to being removed from parts of his own castle he respected that father's, even lords, were not expected to be present at the births of their children,so he was surprised to hear the door opening when he was fairly certain nothing much had happened yet.

“My Lord?” The voice of the maester echoed off the walls as the lord strode into view, “your wife would like to see you,”.

He nodded, his face stern as he stepped past the man and into the warm, dark room.

“Seven Hells,” he murmured as he pulled at the collar of his shirt, instantly feeling the heat of the room rolling over him like a wave, sweat breaking out on his forehead and upper lip.

As he looked around the room he was surprised to see the midwife helping his wife into her fur boots, a long, heavy cloak already covering her shoulders.

“Going somewhere?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

She turned her flushed face to him and smiled.

“Yes, we're going for a walk,”.

Cregan’s brows rose but he nodded without further comment, knowing better than to ask questions. He watched nervously as the midwife helped his wife to her feet, ready to spring forward at any moment if it looked like Lady Stark might lose her balance.

Once he was happy she was safely on her feet, Cregan stepped towards them, offering his arm to his wife, who took a small step and linked her arm through his.

“Twice around the godswood’ll do it,” Auld Joan spoke from the chair, she opened one ancient eye that could just be seen through the folds of skin that made up her face.

“Or as far as you need’t,” the midwife added, her eyes flicking towards the maester.

From the darkest corner of the room the maester muttered under his breath “foolishness” but no one else could hear him or pay him a moment's more attention.

As the Lord and Lady of Winterfell stepped out of the stifling room and into the cooler corridor of the keep they both gave a sigh of relief. As they walked they instinctively drew closer to one another. Finding comfort and strength in each other's presence.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Cregan said as they stepped through the door of the keep and into the much colder air of the inner bailey. The ground was a mess of mud, straw, snow and grey brown slush that cracked and crunched under their boots.

“Yes,” she agreed, her hand tightening on his arm as her foot slipped a little on a patch of hidden ice, “Auld Joan felt this would be the best way to get things moving again,”.

Cregan nodded, “She's seen a fair few babes born in her time, she knows what she's talking about,” he paused and took a deep breath of cold air, “I think she might have even delivered my grandfather,”.

“Surely not!” She exclaimed, looking up at her husband's handsome profile, “that would make her more than a hundred years old,”.

“I've heard of stranger things in these parts,” Cregan said with a shrug.

They walked quietly together, moving slowly and carefully through the slush.

“Not as easy as last time then?” He asked as they made their way past the archery butts where the young men of the household were practising and past the stables with their snorting horses and young boys shovelling straw.

“No, this one seems to have an obstinate Stark streak in them already,” she replied with a soft laugh that sounded like music to Cregan's ears.

“I seem to recall your own family are known for their stubbornness so I won't be taking all the responsibility for that,”.

“Pigheadedness, I believe my father called it,” she replied with a laugh, Cregan gave his own snort of laughter.

“Your father certainly has a way with words,” he agreed. Recalling a few choice phrases her father had used for him during their courtship.

As the pair crossed into the godswood the sounds of the keep and the town beyond the walls seemed to fade away and they became the only two people in the world. The ground was covered in a dusting of snow which had frozen overnight and now crunched under foot. From the dark canopy of the trees small birds sang between themselves and bounced from branch to branch, leaves rusting and falling to the ground in their wake.

“Aly is worried we won't have enough time for her when the baby arrives,” Lady Stark said as they passed under the first dark boughs, “she kept asking me if we were going to send her away when I was putting her to bed last night,”.

“She's a sensitive soul,” Cregan replied with a soft laugh, his mind wandering to the little girl who was at that moment playing in the same nursery he played in as a child, waiting for his own younger sibling to be born.

“I dread the day we do need to send her away,” she lamented, drawing her body even closer to his in the cold air. Her free hand resting low on the swell of her belly.

“We've many years before that day, my love,” he soothed, “and perhaps many more babes to fill our home,”.

Lady Stark laughed softly, feeling the dull ache of her labours growing in strength as they followed the well known path through the trees.

“You are insatiable, always wanting more,” she said softly and Cregan laughed.

They had been married 6 years and now were as comfortable with one another as any married couple could expect to be. Having been friends before they’re union had made things easier but the months after Cregan’s return from war had tested them to their limits. The time spent apart had been long and difficult for the both of them, when Cregan had left he was already old beyond his years but on his return he was darker and colder than the longest winter night. He’d forgotten laughter, softness and gentleness and his first few months back in Winterfell had been fraught as the two learned to live with one another again and find their way back to the happiness they’d briefly shared before the dragons tore the realm apart.

The followed a well trodden path through the woods, her arm wrapped tightly through his and his hand resting over hers, warm and solid. As they walked, Cregan listened to her breathing, noticing every change to her breath and hitch in her voice. He was ready to take her in his arms at any moment to rush her back to the midwife if was necessary.

They turned a corner in the path and were now on course to the weirwood tree, its ancient face seemed to watch their approach and its blood red leaves reflected in the black water at its roots.

Suddenly Lady Stark stopped, her free hand going to her belly with a sharp intake of breath, she groaned, her teeth biting into her top lip as a strong contraction wracked her body. Cregan tightened his hold on her, fear gripping at his heart and twisting his stomach.

After a few seconds of pain her face relaxed and her eyes opened, her cheeks were flushed with colour and despite the cold there was sweat at her hair line.

“I think this might be working,” she said with a small smile, “or perhaps the baby can feel the tree,” she added, glancing toward the weirwood.

“A good Stark then,” Cregan replied, forcing a lightness in his voice he didn’t feel.

She stepped toward the tree and he followed her closely, never letting her more than an arm's reach from him. Once close enough she placed her hands on the tree, feeling the rough bark rasp against her skin.

“Do you think the old kings of the north were born under this tree?” she asked, turning her face up as a shaft of wintery sunlight broke through the dense leaf cover, “snow and leaves for their midwife?”.

Cregan raised his eyebrow in thought for a moment before replying.

“They were certainly conceived under it,” he smiled.

“Yes, I remember the stories,” she agreed, turning to look at her husband and seeing the playful glimmer in his eyes.

During the long months of the war she’d found comfort in the thousands of books in the Winterfell library, starting with the histories of the North going all the way back to the first men and how those ancient kings of the North did everything important in their lives in sight of a weirwood tree, they were born, married, made oaths and died as close to the trees as they possibly could. The histories had included stories of rituals the ancient peoples had contrived to conceive their children under the boughs of the weirwood trees, they believed these children would have the gifts of prophecy or live impossibly long lives because the powers of the tree flowed through them.

“Perhaps, when you’re healed, we should try it ourselves,” Cregan teased.

“When this one is delivered I’ll let you know if you’ll be welcome in my bed again,” she replied with a sly smile, before adding “my lord,”.

Cregan gave a bark-like laugh, stepping closer to her and slipping his arm over her lower back and around her waist. She turned to face him, moving her hands from the ancient and cold bark of the tree to the living warmth of his shoulders, she studied his features before taking a deep breath and letting her forehead press against his. Another contraction wracked her body, she groaned and gripped tightly at the fur and wool of his cloak, taking strength from his body into her own.

“I think we need to go back,” she said softly, their foreheads still pressed together.

“I think so,” he agreed without hesitation.

Keeping his arm wrapped around her waist the two of them turned, she leaned heavily on Cregan as they completed the loop around the godswood and headed back through the castle courtyard. The space now almost completely empty as most of the household had been summoned for the midday meal.

The progress was slow but they soon made it back to Lady Stark’s chambers, the room was cooler now, the windows had been thrown open but the coverings drawn across them to keep the room dark. The two women were sitting by the fire, talking quietly while the maester was still standing in the corner of the room, glaring.

The midwife jumped to her feet and took Lady Stark’s arm, allowing her to slip from Cregan’s hold and move toward the bed.

“How are you feeling my lady?” the midwife asked softly.

“It helped, the pains are coming much more quickly now,” the lady replied.

“Baby will be here soon,” the midwife agreed, “perhaps before the noon meal is over,”

Lady Stark glanced over her shoulder at her husband pausing by the door. His broad shoulders blocked out almost all of the hallway behind him.

“I want you to stay,” she said softly as she was helped back onto the bed.

He smiled but shook his head.

“This is not my place” he said softly, as he felt a burning sensation at the back of his throat and in his eyes as he fought the sudden overwhelm of emotions.

“Thank you, my lord,” the old crone said from her seat, “we’ll take care of them,”.

Cregan nodded, knowing well enough when he was being asked to leave, he gave his wife a final look before stepping out of the room and closing the door behind himself and resuming his pacing. He wondered if his own father had paced nervously or if he had taken to the woods to hunt until the deed was over with and the child was cleaned and neatly wrapped in a blanket. He couldn’t imagine being any further than the castle gate while Lady Stark laboured.

As the midwife predicted the midday meal hadn’t finished before there was the high pitched, squalling cry of a newborn that caused Cregan to stop in his tracks and lean heavily against the wall of the hallway, his hand clutching at his heart that was beating fast enough to burst.

The door to the chambers opened and the midwife stepped out, a smile on her face as she saw her lord in a moment of unguarded emotion.

“A son, my lord, hale and hearty and with plenty to say for himself,” she said, the sounds of the crying child still coming clearly from the room behind her.

“God's be praised,” Cregan said, his voice cracking with emotion.

“Come meet him,”.

Cregan felt his knees turn to water when he stepped into Lady Stark's rooms, the sight of his beloved wife cradling a squalling newborn was a joy that pierced his heart like an arrow.

“Your son, my lord” she said with a tired smile, turning the bundle just enough for Cregan to be able to see the child's face.

He stooped and took the child, cradling him close to his chest, for a few seconds the child stopped wailing, his blue eyes opening wide and taking in his first sight of his father. The two of them looked at each other for a few seconds, Cregan's own eyes filling with tears. One hot tear was about to track down Cregan's face when the baby in his arms screwed his eyes shut, opened his mouth and started to howl, his cries even more desperate than before.

Lady Stark laughed from her seat on the bed, holding her arms out to take the child back.

“Give him back, you're upsetting our son,” she said, grinning at Cregan who jealously clung onto the child, rocking him gently and trying to sooth the screaming babe.

“Sorry my boy,” Cregan said softly, “but you'll just have to get used to me,”.

#cregan stark #cregan stark fanfic #cregan stark x reader #cregan stark x female reader #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fanfic #hotd fanfiction #tom taylor #fanfiction #hotd #hotd fanfic #house stark #cregan #cregan fanfic #cregan x oc #cregan x reader #cregan stark x oc #cregan stark x you #cregan stark headcanons

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remusjohnslupin · 6 months ago

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‘For myself,’ said Faramir, ‘I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens: not a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.’

— The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. (Chapter: The Window of the West), J.R.R Tolkien, 1954.

#faramir #lotredit #tolkienedit #tlotrgifs #oneringedit #oneringnet #sourcetolkien #fantasyedit #tolkienmine #my people #mine*#QUEUE.

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glitteringcrab · 17 days ago

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Morty is so dumb that...

1. He regularly disarms Rick's neutrino bombs. The first time he did it it was completely on the fly, no prior experience. Yet, he did it.

2. He has a knack for learning alien languages... as for the tree people in the battery dimension, it was obviously done without any sort of translator or support. (And he took over as their leader)

3. He's quick on his feet and can think his way out in a stressful situation, figuring out things that Rick can't and coming up with innovative solutions.

4. He figured out how to use a portal gun.

5. He can figure out how machines he's never seen nor used before work, and employ them successfully.

6. Beat Rick (smartest man in the universe?) in a board game.

7. Can manipulate said "smartest man in the universe", if he so chooses.

8. Became a successful stock broker. Out of the blue. Just did it.

9. Run. Whole. Freaking. Civilizations (and also toppled them as Marta)

10. Pitches good ideas that Rick typically ignores

11. When suddenly becomes motivated to try, he is good at math

12. His ideas were good enough that he would have gotten a deal for a movie production...!

13. His default intelligence is maxed out.

...At this point, it's only a matter of time before he starts making his own inventions, Eyepatch-Morty-style.

GUYS.

The only reason we've been thinking that Morty is stupid is that Rick has been calling him stupid repeatedly.

Sure, Morty does plenty of dumb stuff, but so does Rick. Rick has the emotional intelligence of a four year old and throws tantrums of cosmic proportions whenever slighted (vat of acid? submit to the selfie?), while often going ahead with complicated, innovative ideas... that in reality solve nothing and are a waste of time (Pickle Rick?? Leg Rick?? Cloning his own daughter? The dumb time-loop in his own dimension? Replacing himself with a robot? Creating a robot ghost to scary Mr Poopybutthole instead of just telling him to leave??) Not to mention his many incredibly lame jokes.

Everyone does dumb stuff occasionally!!! No one is an impeccable genius of non-stop moments of brightness!! (even Eyepatch Morty, the most cautious character, the character who has made basically NO MISTAKES up to now, sounds dumb a couple of times: "I'm gonna do the thing I wanna do, with the curve thing" and "My biggest fear is other people being afraid. Of fear. Itself." lol).

If Rick hadn't been calling Morty a freaking idiot with every breath available, we wouldn't be thinking "oh look haha the moron became a stock broker, what a joke, must be some sort of fluke"; we would be thinking "what an incredibly gifted kid".

We would attribute Morty's many mistakes to lack of experience, to lack of wisdom, to youth, to enthusiasm, to idealism, to teenager hormones, to acting hastily.

We would wish to see him eventually mature, apply his time and effort to worthwhile endeavors instead (mainly) of inane teenage stuff. We would wish to see him do well in school, we would wish to see him reach his full potential and succeed in great things.

Only Rick keeps pounding our heads with how stupid Morty is, and all of Morty's successes are never mentioned again, but getting lost to oblivion in comparison to Rick's (who has 60+ years more experience) genius.

WE VIEWERS ARE BEING UNWITTINGLY MANIPULATED THE EXACT SAME WAY MORTY IS.

#rick and morty #morty smith #rick sanchez #morty prime #rick c 137 #rick c137 #rick c-137

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vultursvolans · 2 months ago

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— ★ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: you were only a week away from marrying alhaitham when you had a very strange encounter with his long-passed grandmother. one that felt far too real to be just a dream.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: alhaitham x gn!reader, SFW, alhaitham is not physically in this until the end but he’s mentioned a lot, dialogue heavy, fluff, COMFORT, references to character story 5, dream fic, alhaitham’s lore, mention of death (his parents), reader has akademiya background (implied), established relationship (obv), very self-indulgent, wc: 2.0k | masterlist

a/n: i suddenly got this idea after posting this

reblogs and interactions are always appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

You don’t remember coming here.

Beneath your feet, the soft earth felt undisturbed. Leafy vines curled into paths that seemed to stretch on forever, and as though time had paused indefinitely at dusk, a gold and violet sky blurred the edge of the world into a dream-picture haze.

A breath of warm air brushed your skin, not unpleasantly so but still, it buzzed with something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

There was no doubt this was somewhere you had never visited yet you do not question the presence of that bountiful, fruit-bearing tree behind you. Nor do you question the stone bench where you sat, which was dotted with patches of orange light from a sun you could not see.

In its brief passing, the wind carried the rustling of leaves and the distant laughter of unseen children.

Somehow, even in its unfamiliarity, everything felt exactly as it should be.

“Seems like your mind’s wandering, my dear,” a sudden voice broke the quiet.

You turned your head, surprised to find an elderly woman sitting beside you with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

How long had she been here?

Better yet, how long have you been here?

The woman regarded you with eyes that held a plethora of stories and her hair, silver with age, was pulled back into a simple style. She had an air of wisdom about her that only came with time and a life well-lived.

You couldn't decipher the ease you felt in her presence. It was like you’d known for her much longer than the mere moments you just shared. You should’ve asked where you were, who she was, what this place was. But instead…

“The wedding…” you realised, belatedly, that you were confiding in a stranger. She hadn’t asked, hadn’t mentioned anything, and yet for some reason, it seemed the only thing worth saying. “The wedding is in a week.”

The woman remained neutral, waiting, listening.

“And I…” you frowned as you collected your thoughts. “There’s still so much to do. So many people to please. Sometimes I think about canceling everything and running away with him. I think he feels the same.”

You spoke of your worries so effortlessly, that the woman could only nod as if she was meant to hear them.

“Ah,” she hummed, you could feel her searching for something inside of you. “So you are the one.”

“The one?”

A deep smile had settled on her face as she chuckled, “The one marrying my grandson.”

You lost sense of everything.

Now that you looked closer, you saw the resemblance. The sharp cut of her eyes, the peak of her nose, her iron glare which was softened by her warm complexion.

Pieces of Alhaitham were etched into her like scattered ink on an old page.

“You’re his… grandmother.”

She nodded again, and you felt your heart beat faster and faster. There was no coming out of this conversation unscathed, not when your fingers began to fiddle like that.

Alhaitham spoke about his family sparingly but only as an acknowledgement for the past rather than a wound to be reopened. You knew that both of his parents were scholars who died in a tragic accident when he was young and that his grandmother was the one who raised him during the bulk of his pre-adolescence.

Said grandmother watched you carefully as she continued to smile, “It’s good to finally meet you.”

“It’s an honour,” you said softly.

She waved a hand, amused but appreciative of your good manners. “No need for formalities, my dear. I just wanted to see the person who managed to keep up with that boy.”

“He’d say it the other way around,” you began to chuckle. It was refreshing to have someone else tease him so fondly. If only Alhaitham was present to hear his grandmother. Your chest stopped fluttering. His grandmother.

Why were you with his grandmother?

“Of course he would,” she replied back, shaking her head. “That child was as brilliant and stubborn as parents. If not more. I used to say that one day, he’d argue with the sky about whether it was blue.”

You couldn’t help but grin, “He still would.”

A hearty laugh came tumbling out of her like she was elated to know her grandson was still the grandson she knew, “My dear, may I share a few stories with you—”

“Please,” you accidentally interrupted.

Immediately, you flashed her an apologetic look but she understood the excitement. Some skeletons would remain forever in the closet if Alhaitham ever deemed them unworthy to share.

“Very well.”

“Did you know,” her voice suddenly dipped into nostalgia, "When Alhaitham was a child, he would sit in my study for hours, reading books far beyond his years? Whenever he discovered something new, he would come to me, eyes alight with curiosity. He never sought praise. He simply wanted to share what he had learned.”

You could picture it so clearly.

Alhaitham as a boy, sitting beside her with his little hands gripping a book, his teal eyes burning with all the wisdom a child could hold. You smiled as though the fond memory were yours. Then you sighed, “It seems he hasn’t changed at all. He still does that, too. Even now when he finds a particularly interesting theory or text, he’ll tell me about it. Even if I don’t quite follow”

Her eyes twinkled as she let out a softer laugh, “That is how he loves.”

You believed it.

“Is… it true you were a scholar as well?”

That fact has always piqued your interest.

“Correct,” she nodded but did not elaborate immediately. Instead, she tilted her head and studied you. “Tell me about yourself. Who are you, to have earned Alhaitham’s regard?”

Caught off guard, you found yourself nervously unfolding everything. You spoke of your life, of your time in the Akademiya, of how you had met Alhaitham. His grandmother listened attentively, occasionally chiming in with her Ooo’s and Ahh’s like a young girl indulging in gossip for the first time.

“You must be quite remarkable,” she finally said. The praise made you feel a type of shyness you hadn’t felt since you were also a child yourself.

She paused before adding, “I was a member of Kshahrewar, long ago. Though my specialty lay in engineering, I always admired the tenacity of those who pursued pure knowledge. It seems he inherited that hunger. I see it in the way you speak of him.”

“He’s certainly strong-willed but people tend to forget he shows his kindness in his own way. He wears his heart on his sleeve more than most people know,” your eyebrows perked, “I suppose that’s why I’m marrying him!”

Marrying. Marrying. Marrying. The reality of it rattled and reverbed in your head.

For the first time, her expression shifted to surprise before it melted into something serene and tender. Something prouder.

“You remind me of his mother.”

You wondered how you appeared to her when she said that because you failed to notice the tears that came like the rush of tide. “In what way?” You struggled to ask.

“She had the same light in her eyes when she spoke of his father,” she said, “And the same warmth when she looked at her son. When she loved you, her smile always beckoned you.”

A cork felt like it was lodged deep in your throat when you tried to speak, “She sounds…”

Wonderful, was what you were meant to say but her remark from two seconds ago still left you blundered and muted. You had never known his mother, Alhaitham barely knew his mother, so you couldn’t even fathom carrying a part of her with you.

His grandmother’s gaze lingered on you before she asked with utmost intention, not expecting you to finish your sentence, “What brings you light? What do you love?”

An odd question but it brought you back to her, “You mean about him?”

“No no,” she said, wiggling a finger at you, “About yourself.”

You blinked.

So much of your life these past weeks has been focused on your wedding and your future with Alhaitham. While it was joyful, overwhelming, beautiful, all of the above—somewhere in the midst of it all, you hadn’t stopped to ask yourself this.

“I…” You thought for a moment, then smiled when the answer came to you. “I love learning. Not just from books, but from people. From Alhaitham, from those around me. I love how it changes us—connects us. And I love life because I still have so much to discover from it.”

Taking everything into consideration, his grandmother mused, “Good. You’ll be a fine match for him.”

A breeze stirred the air, carrying the scent of something far away, and her expression turned thoughtful, “You know, I once left him a message in one of his books.”

Aware of the message she spoke of, you stiffened.

Whenever he allowed, you had read those words over and over, traced them with careful fingers, and wondered about the woman who had written them. What kind of person was she? What had she seen in him, in the world, to leave behind such a wish?

“May my child Alhaitham lead a peaceful life—”

Yes, it sounded surreal when it finally came paired with a voice.

But then, she reached for your hand. Her grip was warm, comfortable, achingly real. Not physically but the kind of real that imprinted itself onto the very fabric of life.

“—with you by his side.”

The message drifted beyond the confines of ink on a page, stepped out of the past and into the limelight of the present, spoken into existence just for you.

That part had never been written.

That part belonged to you.

“Take care of him,” she advised you kindly, though you needn’t a reminder, “And let him take care of you, too. Peace isn’t something that should be carried alone.”

“I will,” you beamed in return.

When you said that, it occurred to you the realm around you was beginning to fade into a colourless void. The sky paled into nothingness. The warmth in the air waned into a ghostly chill.

His grandmother exhaled, almost a sigh.

You tried to hold onto the moment, “Will I see you again?”

“The world is a strange place,” she said. “Maybe you will. Maybe he will.”

A final gust of wind swept through, and the last thing you remembered was her wide and true smile.

Then, complete darkness.

———

Morning light bled through the curtains once you woke. The scent of crisp air and traces of coffee filled your senses as you slowly adjusted to reality. For a moment, the fog of sleep still clung to you, until you felt the bed dip beside you.

Rolling over, you found Alhaitham lying next to you with one arm propped behind his head, a book resting on his bare chest. He wasn’t reading, though. His eyes, sharp even in their drowsy state, were waiting for yours to meet them.

“You were mumbling in your sleep,” he remarked, voice still hoarse from the criminal hour of the morning. “Something about our wedding and my grandmother.”

You swallowed thickly. The memory of her laughter, her words, her warmth—everything had felt so tangible. You hesitated, your fingers curling against the sheets as you struggled to make sense of it all.

“It was… a dream.” Though, it sounded more like you were trying to convince yourself. Your words wavered as if saying them aloud would make them true.

Alhaitham regarded your answer for some time before pursing his lips, closing his book with a small thud. “Was it?”

You looked at him then, really looked, and for the briefest moment, you swore—swore you could see it in his eyes.

A flicker of recognition.

Perhaps he had seen her too.

The world was a strange place, after all.

divider: @/adornedwithlight

#✧ vultursvolans #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham x you #alhaitham x y/n #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin x y/n #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin fluff #alhaitham fluff #genshin oneshots #al haitham x reader #gi alhaitham #genshin impact fluff #gi x reader

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fairyysoup · 6 months ago

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the devil i know

chapter one: god you've got the blackest eyes

(repost)

fic tag | fic playlist | fic masterlist

pairing(s): crossroads demon!eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: To summon a demon at a crossroads, simply cast a circle, make an offering, and recite an incantation. What happens from that point on is subject to your desire… and the demon’s.

cw: explicit, smut, dubcon elements, making a deal with a demon, inspired by american and european folklore, sacrilegious themes, horror, witch!reader, reader is 21+ in modern day, eddie is immortal, coercion (a bit), sex pact, marking, possessive behavior, animal death, trauma, reader is ostracized by her very religious hometown, dark comedy, tfw your accidental boyfriend is a demon who is obsessed with you bc he doesn’t know how to be normal about anything ever, dead dove: do not eat

please check masterlist and individual parts for content warnings before reading. this fic contains dark themes. your media consumption is your own responsibility.

a/n: Hi folks, for the month of October this year I'm going to be reuploading all the chapters of this fic onto tumblr, this time hopefully for good. I apologize for the time that it's been taken down. Genuinely, this fic has garnered so much kindness and support and I think of it as one of my biggest accomplishments. I hope you all enjoy it just as much the second time around as the first.

ALL OF MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

Through me you pass into the city of woe, Through me you pass into eternal pain, Through me you pass among forsaken people. Justice moved my exalted creator; I was wrought by divine power, Supreme wisdom, and primal love. Before me all things created were eternal, And eternal I endure. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. -Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto III

The book you’ve used for ages now, since late in your junior year of high school, has only one page in it that you haven’t utilized. You don’t know how much faith to put in it– you’re a little short on faith, these days– but, the spellbook lays it out simply, so you follow its directions to the letter.

To summon a demon at a crossroads, go to a place where two paths meet on the dark moon. You find peace and quiet in the woods, deep where you know no one walks at night but two paths cross in a small clearing banked with trees. It’s your favorite place to go when you want to do a spell– ritual– and you don’t want to be bothered. The whole thing can’t be more than twenty feet across. Above the overhang of trees, there’s no moon in the sky, only stars.

Cast a circle of protection. That took more research than just the book in your hands, but years of collecting information have given you learned knowledge– there are a million ways to cast a circle, and different circles for different purposes. You do your best to create one for protection. You draw a literal circle in the dirt with a stick, fill it with salt, and walk around the circle three times clockwise to cast it. You light candles to give yourself some light, and to free up your hands of the flashlight you carried to see your way through the woods.

Make an offering of copper. Your hand pauses on the copper dog tag in your hand. You’d thought of just offering a penny, but you remembered reading somewhere that pennies barely contain copper anymore, and you didn’t have anything else that was entirely made of the one metal.

You run your finger over the embossed name on it. Lacey. Your pet’s old collar feels heavy in your hand as you remove the tag from the leather strap and bury it in the earth, you guess, to reach the… Underworld? Hell? You can’t honestly say, considering the text you’re referencing only calls it the Otherworld.

It’s a big sacrifice. It’s personal. But, you guess, that gives it more meaning. Making a deal is personal business, and you have your reasons.

Recite the summoning incantation. A stanza of words you don’t understand. You don’t think it’s in Latin, but you try your best, all the same. You read them from the book before you, and feel your blood rushing in your veins as you do.

State your desire out loud in a clear voice. Well, that’s a little more difficult. What is it that you want?

You take a breath, go to speak, and then stop. You don’t know how to start. You don’t know exactly how to describe your pain. You don’t know how to voice your anger well enough, you just know you need to… you need to get it out, somehow. This is a very crucial step in the ritual, you have to do it.

“I came here to make a deal,” you speak frankly, clearly. “I’m prepared to do anything. I’ve run out of options. I’ve been hurt too many times, by too many people who didn’t care what they did to me. I’ve lost everything I genuinely loved. I’m… I’m angry, and desperate, and I’m frightened. And I feel so alone. It’s eating me alive, and I just… I just want the ability to make things go my way, for once.” Good enough, you hope.

Wait for an answer.

You do. You listen intently, to the song of the leaves in the trees rustling in the slight breeze, to the crickets chirping in the grass. You wait long enough that you start to rethink your approach.

It could be that things will turn around if you just wait another month, or another month after that. Maybe you’ll get the car back. Maybe you’ll get the promotion that was given to the newbie that you trained. Maybe your ex will stop coming around your work to intimidate you. Maybe you’ll get a new dog to take the place of the one that he killed. Maybe the evangelical town you live in will stop shunning you and calling you a witch, like something out of the middle ages.

Unlikely, that last one.

Just when you swear it’s a failure, that you should just pack up and leave, that’s when a strong gust of wind rips through the clearing out of nowhere. The candles blow out– and then, oddly enough, relight themselves. There’s a slight scent of smoke on the breeze, and you look around to make sure none of the candles fell over in the wind.

They’re all perfectly fine. There’s nothing amiss, it seems, until you hear a cough and movement across the clearing. You look forward, and see a pair of black combat boots in the stream of light from your flashlight. You follow the boots up to a pair of legs, clad in dark jeans, and then further up, to a torso, and a head, and a pair of sparkling eyes.

“Hi.”

You stare at him, probably looking like a fish out of water with the way your mouth opens and closes. You’d fully expected the traditional scary depiction of a demon– maybe horns, goat hooves, et cetera. But the man that answered your call is… just a man. A pretty one. He has long, curly hair, which falls over his broad shoulders and stirs in the wind. His plush lips curve up in a relaxed, cocky smile, as he takes in the sight of you in return.

He quirks an eyebrow at you. “Are you just gonna stare at me all night?”

“Sorry, hi. Hello.” You shake your head. “Can you believe I honestly thought I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time?”

“I can believe a lot of things. You know, there’s a reason why the demon summoning ritual is first in that book.” His voice is soft and resonant. You get a mental image of heat waves radiating from tar-black and glowing magma, rolling slowly over lava beds. The image disappears just as soon as it flashes into your mind.

“Well, to be completely honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about making a deal with a demon first thing,” you explain, looking away shyly. “But I’ve tried all the spells in this book and not a single one of them worked. Just seems like everything is getting worse all the time.”

He doesn’t look away– rather, he keeps staring at you, unblinkingly. Like you’re the most fascinating creature he’s ever seen. He leans up against the tree that he appeared beside, his leather jacket falling open to reveal a shirt with a demon’s head on it. Fitting. He takes a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket.

“So, now you wanna make a deal with little ol’ me, huh?” He grins, a gorgeous smile that flashes bright, sharp teeth at you. He lifts a cigarette to his mouth and bites it gently between his teeth. He doesn’t pull out a lighter. Instead, you watch him light up with a small flame that erupts from the tip of his thumb.

“Depends on who you are,” you retort, eyes following the movement of his hands. They’re weighed down by large, silver rings that reflect the light of the flame before it snuffs out. “What’s your name?”

He makes a short noise in his throat, shaking his head abruptly. He doesn’t look nearly as intimidating as you feel he should– more like he’s trying to warn you against something you don’t want. He peers at you from beneath his wavy bangs as he pulls the cigarette from his mouth and uses it to point at you. “Names are really powerful things where I come from, babydoll. Best not to bite off more than you can chew yet. Once we cut a deal– that’s when you get my name.”

You make a face as you mull that over. “So what do I call you, in the meantime? Demon daddy?”

“You could,” he chuckles. The demon rocks to the side, crossing his legs at the ankles. “If you really wanted to. I wouldn’t mind, it’s flattering.”

You grunt. “I think I’ll pass on that, actually.” He tilts his head with a sicker, watching you with an amused smile while you shift in place. “So, do I– I mean, you need to know what I want, right? Is that how this starts?”

“No, I know what you want.” He exhales a stream of smoke from his nostrils. “You want power. To get a fair shake, find your place, change your life. Defend yourself against the assholes making that life, well. A living hell.” As he spits out the words, his voice rings sharp through the trees, like the strike of a hammer on glowing metal, shooting sparks off into the air.

“I want to take all this pain and just… return to sender. Give it back to them, y’know? I never wanted any of it,” you justify. Your voice is too small in comparison with his. “Maybe then I’ll be able to fucking breathe.”

For how little space you allow yourself to take up, he seems to consume the rest of it. He nods slowly. “That’s a fair request, sweetheart.”

“It’s selfish, I know.”

“Making a deal for power is inherently a selfish thing,” he shrugs. “Own it. I’m certainly not judging.”

You let out a shaky breath. You’re still so nervous, being so near him– ten feet away and growing closer every second, it seems, even though neither of you have moved. You feel like, no matter how far you pull back, the flow of fiery lava he seems to embody will keep creeping towards you until you’re burned alive.

His dark eyes glow like coals in the night as he looks you up and down, and then he quickly pushes himself away from the tree. You startle at the abrupt movement, and watch as he swings around it like Gene Kelly on a lamp post.

When he rounds the tree, he uses the momentum to throw himself toward your circle. You flinch, and he frowns, but continues moving toward you at a slower pace, holding his hands out innocently. “Wanna know a secret? About how all this,” he twirls a finger in the air, indicating the ritual you’re in the middle of, “works?”

You nod, gazing up at him shyly. If you felt at all powerful while casting the circle and starting the ritual, he’s managed to take the wind out of your sails. You can feel the power radiating off of him in waves.

He smirks at you. “You make your petition– when you say the words in that little book,” he points at the volume at your feet, “and that petition is answered by whichever demon caters most to that desire.” He points at himself emphatically, his eyebrows raised. “Me? Infernal majesty of freaks and misfits. I’m your demon daddy.”

You finally giggle, and it makes him smile fondly, like that’s what he’d been gunning for all along. He backs up a step and puffs his cigarette.

“I’m here to help you, sweetheart.” He regards you for a second, like he’s thinking things over. “That is, as long as you agree to my terms.”

“Terms?” You echo, but you were sort of expecting that. Nothing for nothing, right? “What are the terms?”

“Ah, they’re simple. Very traditional,” he waves his hand like it’s frivolous. He holds his hand out in midair, and just like how he’d conjured the flames, he produces a weathered book. It looks like a composition book that has scribbles and doodles all over the front of it– the same demon head that adorns his shirt. “You sign your name with your blood in my little black book, you hop on one foot with your hand on your head and pledge your undying fealty to the dark lord Kthulu, and then you meet me on the sabbath to kill a child and make them into soup.”

He smiles, fluttering his eyelashes at you innocently.

“Are you fucking serious?” You blurt.

“Of course I’m not fucking serious– what is this, the dark ages?” He snorts as he lowers the composition book. “Nah, we don’t do human sacrifice on the sabbath anymore, it was getting too difficult to evade the witch hunters.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He flashes you a disarming grin. You can feel yourself halfway smirking as well, incredulous but somehow enjoying his humor. Then he shakes his head and says, seriously, “No, you do have to sign my book, though. And then meet me back here on the full moon to fuck.”

You blink at him, reeling from the whiplash of that. “You… I’m sorry?”

“I find it best not to sugarcoat it, y’know.” He shrugs, “Think of this as a marriage, of sorts. I give you the power to smite thine enemies, live deliciously, blah blah blah, and then you meet me at the crossroads every full moon to be my whore and we fuck like bunnies all night. Simple as that.”

“That’s far from simple.”

“It doesn’t have to be monogamous, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he continues frankly, “except on the full moon. I won’t compromise about that– you’ll be all mine, and I’m all yours. No takesies backsies.”

“No– that’s not–” You exhale, holding your hands over your eyes. “I’m just… not promiscuous like that…”

“Sweetheart.” He waits until you’ve lowered your hands to look at him, and he hums, with a saccharine smile that reminds you of the power you’d felt sweep through the clearing when he arrived. “You won’t be the first good girl I’ve broken, and you won’t be the last. If you’re worried about promiscuity, well… I answered your petition. I know what goes on in that pretty head, and it barely scratches the surface of what I’ve seen and done.”

The toe of his boot barely nudges the edge of your circle, and a spark crackles in the dark from the impact. The light dances in his eyes longer than it remains in the air, like they caught the spark and ignited.

“Trust me,” he says, drawing you in with the low register of his voice. “I can give you more than power. I can give you protection. I can give you real happiness. Karma’s a fucking bitch, so I can be, too. This is just such a little thing in return. And who knows… you may even like it.”

You shiver at that, even though his presence feels hot, like his stream of lava is surrounding you, crowding you in, boiling you where you stand. He’s right– you absolutely might like it.

Because there’s just something magnetic between you, isn’t there? You can sense it, more than any heat and any sort of primal fear you might have instinctively at his presence. There’s a certain pull you feel toward him, emanating even through the salt barrier on the ground.

You want to wrap yourself in him. Boil you alive, burn you to a crisp, destroy you– you don’t care.

“Or… is it that you don’t like this body?” He wonders aloud, striding backward two steps. He turns, his hand lifting his seemingly ever-burning cigarette to his lips. “Figures– y’know, I can be anything you want me to be, babydoll.”

Confused, you watch as he transforms in front of you. In the length of two steps while he paces across the clearing, his face and body stretches and contorts, until you’re not staring at the same visage anymore. He stops, and he turns to you with his palms up, like he’s waiting for your approval.

You’re looking at Tom fucking Cruise.

“Oh, no, absolutely not,” you shake your head vehemently, scowling. You wave your hands demandingly, “Put it back. You were so hot before– please, please go back to the way you were.”

The demon grins and turns his head, throwing the cigarette away. His hair grows back to its previous length, his face morphing as if made of clay until you meet the same pretty smile you’ve come to enjoy looking at.

He chuckles, grabbing a lock of his hair and drawing it across his lips. “You think I’m hot?”

“Of course,” you murmur, but you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can hear it. His eyes are embers, blazing at you from beneath his bangs. “Is that what you normally look like? Is that your true form?”

He makes an iffy sound. “It’s what I looked like when I was human. My true form has more horns and unhinged jaws and claws and all that. You wouldn’t like it.”

“I thought you said you could read my mind. Do you know how much monster porn I’ve consumed? That’s hot as shit to me,” you argue, and he snaps his head towards you in surprise. You point at yourself. “Freak and misfit.”

He laughs, and it sounds like the roaring of an out of control fire, burning up everything in its path. He kicks his heel on the ground and steps up to your circle again. “I like you, baby. I really do. What do you say?”

“How do I know that I can trust you?” you ask, an annoying lump forming in your throat with the question. You’ve been burned before by people far less powerful than this demon, yet who still hold so much power over you. However much they have.

“You can’t,” he answers, more honestly than most would. He tilts his head with a crooked smile. “Not to get all preachy on you, but even if I wasn’t a demon… trust is built, not a given. ‘The devil you know,’ right? Better than the one that you don’t.”

“Yeah,” you agree, your voice coming out breathy and winded the longer you gaze up into his eyes.

“Trust me to be… intense, I guess,” he shrugs. “And probably impulsive. But I’ll always deliver on our deal. Be my witch, my wife, my whore– whatever you want to call it, but be mine. I think we’ll have so much fun together.”

“Yeah, I think– I think I will.” You’re nodding, and his smile grows with yours. “I want to.”

“Let me in, sweetheart.”

Your toe scuffs the boundary on the ground, breaking the circle. Immediately, your senses are assaulted by smoke, not just the tobacco he’s been smoking but the scent of a wildfire, of cities burned to ashes, of desolation and destruction and pyroclastic flow and roaring, exploding volcanoes.

Your demon crosses the line you’d drawn on the ground with ease, producing the worn composition book in his hand again. The cover reads Hellfire Club in chicken scratch handwriting.

“Are there others?” You ask, prompted by the word Club on the front as he flips open the book to a middle page. An agreement is already written out in red ink. “Do you have more than one, um…”

“Consort?” He whispers in your ear. Goosebumps rise on your skin, and your stomach flutters. “Not for a long time. I’m very picky about my partners. They have to be just as much of a freak as I am.”

Your heart thumps loudly in your chest, although the admission makes you feel… better, in a way. You squint in the dark, but with the exception of the candles around your circle, there’s nothing to allow you to properly read what’s written on the page.

He sighs, shifting on his feet beside you. “Are you one of those people who’ll read the whole contract?”

“Absolutely I am,” you hum. The book feels heavier in your hands than it should. “Can you give me a light?”

“Jesus Christ.” He produces a flame from his forefinger just as you turn to give him a confused look.

“Shouldn’t you, like… evaporate after saying that?”

In the yellow glow of the flame, he just blinks at you, looking amused. “Things aren’t as black and white as you think they are, believe me.”

You snatch his wrist and yank his arm closer to the page. His body collides with yours, and he grunts in your ear as he wraps his other arm around you, embracing you from behind. You’re engulfed in the scent of smoke and the heat of his flames, impossibly hot and comforting all the same.

His hair brushes your shoulder as you read his contract. It’s just a few lines, but the weight they hold will seal your fate.

The agreement made this night of the dark moon shall henceforth be enacted from the signing of this document, that hereby renders the human party’s soul bound to the infernal party. Witness that the first party must appear before the second party each full moon to lay in matrimonial fashion, and that in return the first party shall be protected and given the powers of the second from here until the human’s mortal passing.

“Aww, that’s sweet,” you coo, tracing the red ink with your fingers.

The demon over your shoulder rolls his eyes. “It’s a fucking pre-nup.”

“Doesn’t seem like a fair trade, though, does it?” You murmur. “I mean, I get the power to change my circumstances and you get– what– sex once a month?”

His hand tightens on your waist, and you pause. You turn your head to look at him, and his eyes flicker dangerously, so close to yours. They aren’t just glowing coals- this close, you can see the small details. You can see the swirling, the churning of lava within them.

“It’s not just sex, is it?”

“What do you think making a deal with a demon entails, sweetheart? Read the fine print.”

You look back at the page. There are no other words on it, save for the ones you’ve already read. “I don’t…?”

“It’s your soul, honey,” he mutters, pointing at the word. His mouth is muffled against your shoulder as he peers over it. “I won’t ask anything of you other than the sex, as long as you live. But right now, you’re offering up your soul. And once your life is up, you get to be just like me. Understand?”

“I… yeah. I understand.” You let go of his wrist, but pause over the pages of the book. “I don’t have anything to sign with.”

Wordlessly, the demon takes your hand. You let him caress your wrist, feeling your pulse with his thumb. Then, before you realize what’s happening, a sharp sting makes you yelp as he cuts your skin with his pointed thumbnail.

He shushes you, letting the blood well up on your skin. “I did say you needed to sign with blood.”

Your voice shakes when you hold your dripping wrist over the page. “I thought you said you were joking.”

“Not about the book. Rules of the trade, I can’t change it.” Your blood splatters the notebook, dripping into the crease of the page. Once he’s satisfied, he lifts your wrist to his mouth and closes his lips around the small wound. It heals in a heartbeat.

“Is that it, then?” You ask, mesmerized by the sight and feeling of his mouth on your skin. “Don’t you have to sign?”

Your demon kisses your wrist gently, his lips soft, inviting. “This is going to hurt,” he warns, and you nod. The heat of his breath makes your skin tingle, all your nerves on high alert.

But then that tingling turns into a burn, that turns into a searing pain. You feel like your skin is on fire, an invisible hot brand held against your wrist. You cry out as he holds you close, letting you bury your face into his neck, holding you up as your knees threaten to buckle.

“Such a good girl,” he murmurs to you as you whimper. He holds your arm as the pain fades into a throbbing ache, cradles your hand against his cheek as he coos into your hair. “You’re so strong. Not many people can handle my mark, you know. Fate works in funny ways.”

Your demon holds you until you can stand on your own, until your breathing evens out and you can compose yourself. He shushes you quietly, rocking you from side-to-side with a soothing hand stroking your head. Then he holds your face, and kisses your tear stained cheeks. The touch of his lips stokes at flames beneath your skin.

“I’ll look forward to our time together, little witch,” he whispers. And with a quick, chaste kiss to your lips, he disappears entirely.

You stay in the circle for a while, clutching your throbbing wrist and crying frustrated tears. You wonder if you made the right decision, and yet, you don’t understand why you just want him to come back. You miss the comfort of his presence, even if you don’t know enough about him to justify it. All he did was hurt your arm and take your blood and kiss away your tears and make you a witch.

It’s too late to go back on your decision now. There’s an all-encompassing fire you can feel burning in your veins, emitting from the pulsating wound on your wrist. His power. His fire.

You pull your hand away from your wrist to finally inspect the mark that he branded you with, declaring you his in the same chicken scratch that had been on the cover of his book. It’s small enough that a well placed bracelet would cover it, but you don’t know that you’ll want to.

Eddie.

Your demon’s name is Eddie.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #tdik!fic #stranger things #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #demon!eddie #demon!eddie munson #stranger things fanfic #roses*

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abigailmoment · 1 year ago

Text

It wasn't just bad luck that Staeve was targeted. It was a calculated attack. Halsin knew well enough how a caster could examine their enemies for tells. Halsin did it himself. Considered an opponent's tactics, and guessed at the places their mind would be most vulnerable.

You didn't have to be a gifted empath to watch how Staeve hurled himself into the thick of combat, right at the biggest bandit wielding the two-handed great sword, and think that the man might be vulnerable to a spell that exploited wisdom.

The fact that it took down Astarion too, well, perhaps that one was just bad luck.

It happened like this:

This is written about @velnna's Tav, Staeve. I was delighted to discover that they don't mind fan fiction being written about him.

I'm always cautious about writing for other people's OCs--getting voices right is so important to me. I have elegantly avoided that issue here.

Full text below.

Full Text On AO3

The fight was an incidental bit of banditry. Dangerous banditry, certainly. Bandits with great swords, supported by wizards. Halsin hung back with Gale while the two rogues dashed forward to give truth to the old adage that the best defense was killing the other fellow extremely quickly.

They cut down the man with the great sword and the woman with the mace and shield. Reinforcements were coming from around a rocky overhang. Halsin coaxed the earth to throw up entangling vines to slow them down. Gale drenched them with glimmering light that illuminated all their vulnerable points for Astarion and Staeve to shoot at.

Only the half-orc made it through the vines and the light. He was bloodied and wrathful. He was huge, but it was two against one, and the two were flanking with each other. It would have been an easy end to the combat, except that apparently there was a bandit wizard hidden somewhere in the trees who chose this moment to cast a spell.

One second Staeve was a blood spattered half-drow sprinting full-tilt, sword out, towards a fighter twice his size. And then he was gone.

Some sort of teleportation? Banishment? Gale was saying something about trajectory and scanning the treeline. Halsin was yelling, he wasn't sure what, the concern was more important than the words. He started running forward. Because two rogues against a barbarian was fine, but one rogue against a barbarian was an extremely fast way for that rogue to die.

And Astarion knew that so he should be running away. But he wasn't running away. He was darting forward and ducking low and almost getting hit by a greataxe as he snatched something off of the ground.

Then he was running, thank the Gods. There was something cradled in his arms, which meant he didn't have his rapier out as he scrambled back.

It was a cat. Halsin saw. They were ten feet away from each other when Halsin realized that Astarion was carrying a large, extremely upset tabby cat with grey-green fur.

That was when Astarion vanished. No. Not vanished. As the tabby tumbled to the ground, something small and white was already there, darting for cover.

Then the half-orc arrived. Bellowing and huge, at least when compared to cats. Not quite as huge when compared to Halsin.

Halsin decided to turn into a bear. It was amazing how many problems you could solve by turning into a bear.

"I am feeling my oversight in not preparing dispel magic today," said Gale. "Or counterspell."

"This is not a situation we could have anticipated," Halsin said.

Staeve contributed to the conversation, but because of present circumstances, it came out as a meow.

He was large for a cat. His fur was pale brown, tabby-striped with green. His stripes crisscrossed in a way that reminded Halsin of his tattoos. His scar was a fur-less groove in his face. He had the same pale green eyes as always. That color was quite appropriate in a cat.

He meowed again, more insistently this time.

"We will," Halsin assured him.

"You're speaking with him?" Gale asked.

"Not magically," Halsin said. It had been a long day and he had barely anything left to cast with. "But I think I understand him."

"Do you?"

"Think a moment and I am confident that you too will guess what he wants from us."

It did only take a moment. Gale was an intelligent man, when prompted. And they'd all seen the small white cat vanish into the woods during the bear-orc fight.

"Ah. Of course." Gale addressed the cat, voice reassuring. "Astarion should be relatively safe though. Polymorph is temporary and even if something did happen to him in the interim, he would just revert to his natural form."

Staeve's whiskers went back and his ears went flat in a thoroughly unimpressed way.

"I think it would be best to find him and make sure nothing happens," Halsin said with mellow diplomacy.

"Of course." Gale paused, then said delicately: "Given my skill in woodland matters, or lack thereof, I may best serve this cause by getting out of the way."

Halsin smiled. "It is a wise man who knows his limitations."

"I'll meet you all back at camp then?" said Gale.

"Take a potion of invisibility for the trip," Halsin suggested. "There might still be bandits about."

Staeve had gotten impatient with them, and was padding off into the forest. Halsin handed Gale the potion and hastened to follow.

Staeve scampered about the forest like he was looting the place. No hole, hollow log, wasp nest, or brown recluse spider-web was left uninvestigated. The loss of seventy five percent of his gray matter had done the man's already flagging survival instincts no favors. Halsin spent half of his attention looking for signs of a small white cat, and half of his time making sure Staeve's efforts at tracking didn't get him killed.

After being only a hairsbreadth quick enough to pull Staeve away from the entrance to a dire-badger-burrow Halsin decided that his partner was now going to be carried. Staeve made a meowling, writhing objection. He was terribly invested in the search. A compromise was reached when he was offered a perch high on Halsin's broad shoulders. Staeve proceeded to clamber from shoulder to shoulder as Halsin walked, ears always forward and alert, eyes bright, head turning this way and that as he scanned the woods.

Small cats with stealth training were not easy things to track through dense forest. Halsin did end up using his last spell slot to cast speak with animals. The local mice and voles always noticed when predators passed, even small ones. Halsin spoke to them while keeping one hand on Staeve, who watched the tiny creatures with bright, newly interested eyes.

Halsin of course spoke with Staeve as well, but it wasn't quite the same. Talking to a person who had been transformed into an animal was not the same as talking to that person. Shape changed you. How you saw things. How you thought. The mind of a cat was a fraction of the size of that of an elf or half-elf. Thinking with it was different. The change was easiest for druids. It was hardest for the cursed, who did not choose the new shape. Who were surprised by it.

He spoke to Staeve and learned things he had already known from observation. He reassured Staeve that the mice had given useful guidance.

That guidance led them north, then west, and then to a long hollow log, moss covered and broken in two places. A good hiding spot, and the sort of shelter that had a lot of escape routes. Staeve jumped off of Halsin's shoulder as the druid knelt down and they both peered inside.

In the darkness, Halsin could just make out a pair of ruby-bright eyes staring warily back at him.

Beside him, Halsin watched Staeve relax for the first time since becoming a cat. He wasn't actually as large as Halsin had first thought--it was just that his hackles had been up and his tail puffed out for the duration of the transformation.

It could be a painful thing indeed, to have one's heart so completely entwined with another's safety. A deeply worthwhile thing, but a painful thing, sometimes.

Halsin made a deferring motion to Staeve, who nodded in a rather un-catlike like way. Halsin stepped back from the log, moving slowly so as not to startle anything. He shifted a few feet away and sat close enough to watch, but far away enough that his looming size wasn't an ominous thing.

Staeve didn't go inside the hollow log. He sat at the entrance. Lay down at the entrance, body long and casual, head up on the lip of the log so he could keep looking inside. Modeling relaxation.

He started to purr. Halsin could hear him purring even from a few feet away. A loud, constant, soothing rumble. It somehow did not surprise Halsin that Staeve had a loud purr.

And then Staeve waited. Patient as anything. Waiting and watching and purring in a low buzz, as steadily as a beehive.

Halsin could not see inside the log, but he could guess at when Astarion moved because Staeve's ears would flick. Staeve had a fine poker face, but everyone had tells.

Something happened, or occurred to him, that made Staeve raise his head and sit up slightly from his sprawl on the ground. Then he stood up entirely. He gave Halsin a significant look, and trotted off into the underbrush.

Conscious that he had just been assigned new responsibility, Halsin shifted so that he had a good view of the log's entrances and everything around it. There wasn't much danger, Halsin’s presence in general kept most predators away from this space. But still.

During his vigil, Halsin saw the glimmer of red cat-eyes once. And only briefly.

Staeve came back soon. He had a dead vole in his mouth and he looked exceptionally pleased with himself. He dropped the vole at the mouth of the log, took a few pawpads back and watched expectantly.

It took another long minute, but after that minute a small white cat crept out of the darkness.

This should surprise no one, but Astarion was a beautiful cat. Slender and graceful with large eyes. His fur was pure, silvery white and just long enough to curl slightly. He moved with a cautious precision that Halsin recognized as his habit, and that deeply suited his new form.

He sniffed at the vole. He shot Staeve a judgmental look, because Gods forbid the man accept any kindness without prevaricating about it in some way. He glanced at Halsin. And then he leaned down to slide exceptionally long canines into the corpse's chest.

Staeve flopped down about a foot away and watched him with an expression of pleased devotion that would honestly be a bit more appropriate on a dog.

Astarion ate fastidiously, and without getting even a blot of blood on his snow-white fur. When he finished he licked his teeth.

When Staeve was quite sure Astarion was done eating, he sidled up slantwise, sauntering around the vole corpse as if he just casually happened to be taking a stroll in this part of the forest for no particular reason. He stopped just short of Astarion. His ears were forward. His tail flicked lightly from side to side.

Astarion regarded him levelly with his 'I know what you're doing and I know you think you're being clever about it but you're not' expression. Then, as if granting a boon, he deigned to rub his forehead gently against the underside of Staeve's chin.

Staeve took this as the invitation that it was and pressed back, much more enthusiastic and honest in his delight at the contact. Which in turn gave Astarion an excuse and space to do what he wanted and enjoy it.

They were always very dear to watch together. Whatever form they took. In about a minute they were curled over each other on the ground and Staeve was industriously grooming Astarion's head.

Halsin let this go on for as long as he could. But the shadows were lengthening, and they were very close to the Shadowlands, and he was out of spell slots, and the rogues were currently housecats.

"It is getting late, dear ones," he said softly.

Astarion twitched at the interruption, and Staeve licked him three times along the neck and chest in a soothing way. Then they disentangled from each other and padded over to Halsin.

Halsin picked up Staeve, but he knelt down and laid his arm on the ground so that Astarion could climb up and find what perch he wanted by himself. They did both end up in his arms. Staeve was tired and quite ready to be carried, and Astarion didn't want to be out of contact with him.

As Halsin walked through the woods with an armfull of cat, Staeve started to purr again. It was really the most marvelous sound. A soothing distillation of satisfaction and care. Almost enough to tempt one away from being a bear.

Astarion did not purr. Some cats didn't. Or purred only very rarely. But Astarion did, at one point, look up at Halsin and blink his bright red eyes very slowly.

And that was a precious thing.

****