#Once again: thank you Anne Carson

[imminent-danger-came]

Theseus: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend.

Herakles: I fear to stain your clothes with blood.

Theseus: Stain them, I don't care.

[pascalsbby]

The Devil & His Brother

Joel x Tommy x You

Prologue / Part I : 6.4K / Part II

Summary: The Devil was begging you to forgive him, and you wanted to. You wanted to bring your palms together and whisper his name through the cracks, hoping he would hear your silent prayer. “Let me stay here, with you.” He would get down on his knees and pray to your altar. He would bless it first, kiss it clean, before he would send two fingers to spread open your love.

Warnings: 18+ mdni, eventual smut. enemies to lovers, slow-burn, angst/comfort/sex, age gap, power imbalance, possessive tendencies, drugs/pills/alcohol, major daddy issues (that’s why you need BOTH miller brother’s instead of 1). talk of death, shit-talking god & the devil himself.

This was a labor of love, please comment, reblog, & let me know what you think <3

I will take a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces of God in me.

- Anne Carson

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Your soul was given to another man before you had even yearned for the rage to scratch it back yourself- have a choice in the matter of your own eternity. Two eyes looking down upon you, gazing into the depth of your skull. Where the fuck was he, when his children were screaming on their knees for his forgiveness, for whatever they had done to deserve this?

You couldn’t remember your own baptism- despite seeing countless bodies pushed underwater, coming back anew. Later in life, not coming back up at all. Drowning sinfully sin-less. You were thankful now, that the hard stuff was done when you weren’t old enough to know it- or deny it. You wouldn’t have washed yourself clean for him, drown for him, now.

You were angry at him- you had every right to be. You were utterly alone in a world that was trying to devour you whole by sinking one tooth into any part of your tender flesh. Your eternal soul was saved (given) to a hand in the sky before you even knew what a God was, what he was capable of, what he would allow, and you had suffered for it during life. But now, when it mattered most, you didn’t have to do a goddamn thing but lay here and die. Yet he wasn’t doing his part. What a fucking surprise.

He never came like all the people said he would, like the Bible said. There was no reckoning. Even he was too scared of what he created.

“I ain’t no God, sweetheart.” The sound reverberated through his throat in a sickly Southern accent. He might as well have been. His thick arms were the ones holding you, warming you against the soft flannel. You haven’t been touched by another human in a long time, and the veins running through his arms were suddenly whispering love stories into your own running blood. His hands were so big.

They refused your pleas. “Please, if you don’t do it just hand me the gun.” Always met with a thickly harsh, “don’t think so,” from the one who shot you. The younger one is somehow quieter than the first. You had been full of anger for years, but it didn't seem as heavy as it normally would, despite barking, “You already tried once and failed, let me do it myself then.” He looked at you, surprised that you wasted your breath in such a manner, it had barely come out of the back of your throat to begin with. He huffed a laugh as he turned his head back to his brother before looking straight into the dark night again, focusing on something that wasn't even there. Focusing on anything that wasn’t you.

You were used to men not following through. Your father was the ‘savior’ (born-again post-outbreak pastor)(liar) of a small group, all now a couple of feet underground, frozen in the decomposing water of themselves- and whoever was lucky enough to be thrown in the dug-up hole on top of them. Baptized over and over as the ground warmed in the spring and froze again in the winter. Perpetually drowning until they become what they were trying to escape all along- food for the earth to devour.

We didn’t burn them, because that would have given us away, invited anyone near to pluck the last of us out, but fire would have been easier. But we don’t do easy, not here. We gather whoever is responsible for your already rotting body and make them throw you into the ground, all in the name of God. You had written a lot into your leather-bound notebook, at first not wanting to fill the pages, because once the paper was gone, there was nowhere else to rip the thoughts out of your head, let them bleed through the pages. You read that specific entry over and over, having memorized it by now, making crinkles in the dusty pages from how many times you turned back to it and prayed to a God that wasn’t there to save them- you.

He was never planning on it.

Your journal was the same color as the Devil’s eyes, darkened honey-brown, alive. You didn’t have many places to look whenever you did have enough spite in you to open your own, body swaying from side to side on a horse that wasn’t yours, in a man's lap that you didn’t know. He looked pretty, even from below, even more so leaning his chin downwards towards your face and gazing up your body. I guess anything safe looks heavenly amidst fire.

Why would they do that? Kill you and then take you along for the ride. They hadn't spoken much for however many days you had been dying, watching as the sun kissed the sky goodnight and welcomed the moon, at least three times. Maybe you were bait for something even bigger- a young woman goes a long way these days. Always has, really.

You had always harbored a deep fear of death. It wasn't exactly the physical suffering that frightened you, but rather the haunting notion of losing loved ones. The consequences of deviating from the life path thrown on you by your parents. There was always this looming presence of the ‘evil’. The Devil… Lucifer, Satan, whatever moniker you choose. In the narrative your parents scripted for you, he was cast as the villain. It was all too funny now, his thighs warming your skin, setting you ablaze.

Lucifer was a beautiful, Southern gentleman- one who spoke quickly and stern. And God sat right next to him, mouth shut, waiting for command. You were so tired of following orders from men but suddenly it’s as if you’ve known all along that his gaze would be the one you melted under. Sludge. Burning flesh. Maybe there was no God. Sure, the other man who sat next to him looked like one, but so does this one. He was an idea, the fear instilled in you, your parents' guilt. But you knew evil more than you knew true good, and the Devil was below you, only cementing that truth further. He was keeping you right here, draped across his lap, and despite your dying, he still caught glimpses of your naked flesh. And you didn’t know if it was eyes burning into you, or the gunshot wound he had so nicely gifted you. You almost wanted to thank him, if that’s what it took for him to wrap himself around you.

Romans 6:4 hung on a carved board in your parent's room after the first wave of death. After your father decided that the group needed someone to lead them, and that your mother wasn’t it, she sat back happily and carved words into worn wood. You had felt safe there, sixteen and under the guise of whatever your parents told you. Young, naive, pure.

‘We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. We’re now dead to the power of sin. Being raised from the water.’ It later hung in the main room of a run-down grocery store turned Church. The church itself was down the street, the rotten door holding in rotten bodies from whoever had come before. Maybe they had sat and awaited the way you all did at first, waiting for their savior. He never rang the doorbell, never knocked. He had just walked right on by, whistling his hymns and being grateful he was above it all.

A new life? If Jesus died for our sins, wouldn’t he be upset with you right now? Laying on your… death horse…. And still not bruising your knees for him? Why can’t he be angry enough to let you slip out of line and take the easier way? I guess suffering wasn’t his go-to, at least outwardly. Fear was more his thing, and fear would eat you alive and cement your veins before true sin ever could. Guilt is what gnaws at your ankles, whispering poetry into your hair. Fear had passed. Anger had too, momentarily. Rage was a common home.

He should have taken you by now, held your hand and kissed your forehead goodnight. But you knew that he wasn’t coming. He never came for your parents either, nor your brother. You waited each time by their bodies, but he never called, never even picked up the goddamn phone.

He promised resurrection to people who needed something to hang on to. Promises made to be broken. God was more comfortable than death. You repeated it over and over as a prayer to those who had lost someone. We all have. Your dads own voice booming through the quiet. Now, you are losing yourself.

But really, there was no more you, not really. Maybe the horse knew too, bucked you off, and laughed as you felt the thud of the ground under your shoulder blades, because suddenly there was no air left in the entire dwindling world. The snow that was kicked up into your face from the weight of your body wasn’t melting as it would have before. You were cold. There was no world. There was just endless pain before a bout of relief. Not even enough to fill your lungs in one breath in or out. Even the horse knew you were dead weight. Every animal fighting for its survival. That’s why you were shot, too.

You scared the Devil and he took it upon himself to punish you.

At least that’s what you convince yourself as you lay dying on the cold, unforgiving ground, the weight of your pain bore down on your frail body- words trying to come out in shallow gasps. He wasn’t coming.

“Please,” you begged.

You heard shuffling, and then a shadow covered the setting moon above you. The all-to-familiar sound of his boots gaining on your still body. You could still smell him, had been able to this entire time you had been on his horse, in his lap. You could feel the pressure of his fingers rapidly squeezing your cheeks, feeling for blood flow, then the burning of his fingers on your neck, looking for signs of life amidst the dark night. Finally, he was touching you again. Maybe now he would kill you, too. His final gift.

“Fuck,” he hissed. That muttered obscenity made you feel more alive. “Get the fuckin’ horse away from her Tommy.” You heard the reins of the animal you were sat upon being pulled, and the hooves cascading further into the night. He returned to you, the coolness of his rings stung against your face, the cool air keeping them cold despite the warmth of his body. The bullseye tattoo, the only indication of who was touching you besides his smell. You had seen it multiple times throughout the rising and falling of the sun. It had cupped your body against his. He holds your face, as he leans into you, bullseye sitting right beneath your chin.

Throw a dart and it would hit you right in the throat- where you wanted him. Where you wanted him to breathe life into you again.

“Please. Help me go home.” Home hasn’t existed in years. You’d been unconscious for days.

“Shhh. No point in talkin' baby. Hurts too much. We’re goin’ home.” You looked up at him and despite the hardness of his exterior, you saw the understanding in his eyes. Just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared back into his skull.

Almost how a lighter ignites, flickers, warms, almost unbearable but not quite. The wind blows the fire to your fingers, stings, then disappears. As did his burning gaze. The feeling of putting out a cigarette as it shoves its last bit of self out into the world, smoke followed by nothing, simultaneously.

That was him, you would come to find out, as his silhouette and his own warmth flees from your touch. As the brown from his eyes turns to black as your own close. He sighs.

The snow crunches under his weight as he assesses how to pick you back up.

“And you ain’t goin’ anywhere but where I take you. Got it?” A half-attempted nod before a sigh of pain.

You didn’t know where you were going- why, you were still alive… or whatever this in-between was. All you know is that you prayed to the Devil. And he answered.

He was the only one who ever answered.

-

The return to Jackson was painful, the remnants of a long-ago shattered world marred the landscape. As they neared home, the journey became colder, perhaps another reason why it remained a well-hidden place- not many people made it there alive. Joel and Tommy, ever vigilant, guided the two horses with unwavering resolve, constantly scanning the horizon for any indications of danger. Meanwhile, they carried the injured girl, whose body was only partially present after being thrown from the horse three days ago, blankets thrown atop. It had been five days since she was shot. Since Joel shot her.

The way you looked up at him every once in a while was breathtaking- it was too much of a painful reminder that he’d lost (or will lose) everything he’s ever cared about. He could see it in your eyes, the confusion of who and where you were. Watching life move through someone's body and out of their eyes used to be a victorious occasion. It meant he succeeded, that he was still alive regardless of the mangled bodies he left behind. But this felt different to him. You were so godamn young and he plays the scream ripping through your throat over and over an- he swears he didn’t pull the trigger. Joel's gruff voice broke through the haze of silence that had fallen upon them days ago and never left. He broke through his own circling thoughts. As he spoke to Tommy a mixture of concern and guilt for your being broke through, he felt it in his throat, his chest. He didn't want to be responsible for this death, but he sure as hell didn’t want to know you either. Because knowing someone only meant more pain.

“We've been carryin’ her for days, Tommy. How much longer can she hold on like this? No point in bringin’ a dead girl home.”

Denial was a motherfucker, wasn’t it?

Joel knew of death- he didn’t believe in shit besides such. He used to be a God-fearing man but knew if he ever had the chance to stand in front of him he’d rip him in two and gnaw on the pieces of his holiness.

-

Tommy knew of death too, even before the outbreak, but the difference was that he also believed in life. He knew exactly why Joel had that scar, even though they’d never talked about it. It was a quiet understanding, one he never pushed or even poked and prodded.

Tommy's response was laced with a fear, for what Joel had done, but empathy for what he knows he sees every single time he looks down upon you. "We're almost there, Joel. She's tough, you know that. She should have died from that wound but she’s still breathin’, that counts f’something. We'll get her to Jackson, n’ she'll have a chance." He kept looking into his brother's eyes before pulling away and looking ahead into the blinding white. If he said what he really wanted, he wouldn’t stop. “You fuckin’ shot her but now you want to save her? Make up your fuckin’ mind.” The least he could do is help him save someone, even if it’s just for Joel’s sake, especially after he couldn't save Sarah. ‘Least he could do is keep his mouth shut.

Joel was the last person he had- the only person. Ellie didn’t even love him like she loved Joel. It’s always the broken, harsh ones that receive the most attention. People spend so much time trying to put broken people back together that they don’t realize the others are teetering with one foot over the edge.

They’d gone outside the walls because funny enough, they thought it would be more safe this time of year, the dead of winter. Ellie had begged for months for the boys to take her out with them and show her this and that. She was getting homesick for a place she never truly loved. She was tired of sitting still inside walls of safety when everyone she had ever loved was buried outside of them. Tess came along too, providing an extra line of safety, ‘just in case’.

Tommy remembers Joel whispering, “There's somethin’ coming.” More so someone, you. A moment later, a gunshot, a thudding body. Joel was normally calm on the trigger, rifle in hand, looking down the barrel of the gun, aimed at his prey. But Ellie was there, Tommy, and Tess. His people. There was no time to fuck around, so he didn’t. Tommy understood. But that didn’t make it right in his head. His brother was never patient in the moments that mattered the most.

-

One evening, about ten hours from wherever the fuck they were taking you, the sun began to set, setting ablaze a warm glow over the frozen landscape. You had been awake, more so than the past couple of days, looking up at the moving clouds in the sky, watching as his chest moved and released more air into the sky, breathing visible and dancing in the cold. The horse beneath you abruptly stopped and the two men descended their spots atop of them, stretching their legs and gaining more control of their tired bodies.

“You’re awake,” the younger one let out, moving his focus from the soft mumbles he was giving to the other man. “‘Bout time we clean your wound again, see how it’s doing.” You let out a faint, “mm” and attempted to sit up. “No. We’ll get ya off the horse. Be still,” the other said. The Devil grabbed the water and reached up to you, his fingers moved across your face as he gathered your wandering hair and moved it away from your lips. He turned the canister upwards, slowly, letting you drink from it. “Thank you,” you managed. It was the first time he heard your voice not mangled with absolute fear. He stared, eyes roaming the silence, looking ever-so surprised that you had said anything at all, and so clearly at that.

The angel moved closer and reached out his hand, thinking now was a good time to introduce himself to you. “Tommy, Miller. This is my brother, Joel.” he looked toward him. Joel forced an upside-down grin and nodded his head toward you. “You…” pointing towards the one called Joel, “you shot me.” Silence followed, it was heavy, thick. “I didn- Thought you were dangerous, came around that corner too fast.”

“I wasn’t even armed, I-“

“Don’t wanna talk bout’ it.” he huffed, almost angrily. You opened your mouth again, wanting to rattle off one of three hundred questions that you had, but he looked you over once more, and then turned around and walked off. Tommy, with gentle hands, tenderly lifted your body off of the saddle and carried you towards the fire Joel was nursing. The crackling of a campfire and the scent of cooked food filled the air as they set to work, tending to your wounds with diligence that spoke to Tommy's belief that you would be okay (You had to be. He couldn’t fail Joel again. Couldn’t watch as his face fell with the realization that you were completely dead).

His fingers were deft as he cleaned your wounds, his touch sending shivers down your spine. He saw the goosebumps rise, and felt them, as the fire lit your skin. You caught glimpses of concern in his eyes, a silent reassurance that he was determined to see you through this. Joel's presence was a constant anchor, as he spoke into the fire, keeping it lit. They laid out blankets, far too many for just two people to be carrying alone, and sat you atop and below them.

The rest of the night had been filled with your echoing screams, Joel’s palm across your mouth, “Stop screamin’ or someone is gonna find us.” Sure, stop screaming while dirty, whiskey-cleaned fingers are prodding at your open wound. Not even a sorry moved past his lips.

Joel laid down on one side of you, Tommy on the other. “M’ sorry,” he whispered towards you. They both smelled of sweat and whiskey. Their chests rolled and fell at different times, Joel murmuring in his sleep once he finally stopped looking around the parameter. You could tell they were brothers.

-

It was night when the three of you arrived ‘home’. You heard a young girl's voice above the gathering crowd.

“Joel!” She parted the gathering crowd as the patter of quickening footsteps approached. His head whipped quickly, finding her immediately.

“What the fuck?”

“Ellie,” he warned.

“You can’t fucking do that Joel, I thought you…We made it home three days ago. Tess dragged me by my hair but I-”

“Good,” he huffed back, “Where is she?” Ellie blustered but gave up arguing.

Multiple men gathered around and took the blankets off your body, the air hissing through your torn clothes. You whimpered as they moved your body off of Joel’s horse. He didn’t say anything to you, instead he turned and followed Ellie out of the crowd, carrying the reins with him.

You were carefully carried to a bigger two-story home on the outskirts of the city. As the night turned towards the morning sun, you found yourself gaining strength. The length of the night had been blurry, chattering voices and hands, everywhere. Needles, bliss, whispers. Stripping you from the blood-ridden clothes and water pouring over your lips. Fingers, hands touching you, always caught in a delicate dance between stoic tenderness and warmth

‘Gonna be jus’ fine, baby.” Tommy had assured you, multiple times.

Suddenly it had been a week. They took turns caring for you, someone sleeping in the same room as you at all times in case you needed something. Always talking about “patrol shifts” and how Tommy was expected to be a leader of some sort. You had overheard a lot of conversations booming through the thin walls of the house. One hurting more than the others.

“Shouldn’t have fuckin’ brought her here in the first place. You know the whole town is gossipin’ about it right now. The Miller brothers bringing in another mouth to feed.”

“Stop it. Sh’can hear you Joel. You know that’s not how anyone thinks of it. She could help this place. Give her a chance.”

“She’s been practically fuckin’ unconscious for a week now, Tommy. You think she’s just gonna get right up n’ run the town?”

“Why did you take her in if you don’t even want to be responsible for her survival?” Tommy threw back at him. He regretted saying it immediately, watching as it hit Joel in the face before he closed his eyes and looked away. Joel was more so there to watch you and make sure you didn’t bleed into his wooden floor, while Tommy tried to provide as much comfort as possible. After realizing that this was Joel’s home, it made sense in what little you knew about him. There were few things on the wall, but there were remnants of him everywhere.

Ellie would come home and sit with you, read to you and then tuck you in after Joel carried you up the stairs and into his bed. You missed Tommy’s gentleness when it wasn’t there, but you missed the warmth from Joel's body, his lap, when he wasn’t there. His breathing, his nervous habit of cracking his fingers. Even though you could tell that every nerve ending in his body wanted you anywhere else but wherever he was- there was still a silent curiosity.

About a week and a half after your arrival, someone knocked on the front door of the tattered house and Joel called for Tommy up the stairs. He walked down them quickly, walking out of the front door with Joel.

He returned a few minutes later, looking at you sitting in the seat you hadn’t left in since you’d been there. He gave you a look, slowly looking towards the ground as he spoke up so you could hear him. “Gotta go for a couple of days. Heard there’s a group who probably followed us close to here, saw their smoke, gonna take care of them before they can make it any further.” You hadn’t spoken much, if at all, the past couple of days. You didn’t think you would make it this far, and now you were sitting with two strangers and a teenager in their house, rotting away. They had poked and prodded, trying to get any information out of you that they could, but you didn’t give in.

You stared out the window and answered meekly whenever spoken to, if at all. You should be ecstatic at the thought of finally being housed somewhere ‘safe’, somewhere with electricity and running water. Somewhere where they gathered the children and let them watch movies in the mess hall (all information coming from Tommy, telling you stories as he changed your bandages)- but you weren’t. You felt like you were still teetering on the edge of death. You felt like a burden to Joel.

You didn’t answer Tommy, just nodded. He packed up a few things and promised to ‘be back in no time, then maybe you can tell me your name.’ And then he was gone out of the termite-ridden front door.

You had fallen asleep, and awoken to Joel in another room somewhere, those same goddamn boots thudding against the creaking wooden floors. His presence was constant, every once in a while getting up from a creaking chair to come look at you. You slept, mostly. Ate the dinner he got from the dining hall. Your rage had returned. But baring your teeth in anger took energy you didn’t have.

-

Joel couldn’t look at you without feeling like he was looking straight through the blood and guts of you(r)(side). Tommy wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone about it before he left. How pretty you were, how there ‘weren’t many pretty faces left n’ you’re tryin’ to kill one?’ He watched as Tommy cooked you with his stare, warming his next meal only to put on his best-dressed suit and bail on the date before he could even pick up the tab. He was glad he was gone for a while, letting him forget about the fact that he had put the bullet in you. He loved his brother, but he knew his games. He knew his inability to stay.

Joel had nursed you back to… alive. At least. He hadn’t really thought about what that entailed after you were stable. He was surprised you were still breathing. He didn’t think about the feeding, changing, and bathing of you. Of hands touching flesh and natural bodily reactions to such.

You could tell he was the older brother. He held the normal stereotypes, sternly telling you what to do. The older one was always more serious, and stoic. The younger, who probably got away with more, but was the loneliest from eyes diverting. But his big brother was always there, begrudgingly present. And he was in this instance too.

Tommy had washed you multiple times before he left, but never your hair or the rest of you. He was more concerned that your stitches didn’t get infected.

Joel probably thought giving you a rag bath was wasting water, but did it anyway, probably tired of your stench in his bed. It’s cold until he heats the towel after noticing you shiver. “Let me draw you an actual bath. Think you can take one now.” He was softer at that moment, more gently with the way he wiped the towel across your chest. Those moments happened least expectedly. But when they did happen, it hurt even deeper. You felt something for him. And that just wouldn’t do. Rather it be lust, loneliness, or your raging fucking daddy issues.

Tommy likes the water cold, and Joel likes it burning to the skin. Of course, he does. He is all or nothing. Hot or cold. Soft or hard. He’s solitude but brings the same warmth of a front door opening to a sea of snow, chimney warm, lights warmer, hot chocolate, and bourbon- he is. In any other world but this one, he would probably be a good man; one to settle down with. One to hold you against himself, despite of raging night.

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a/n: Phew do I have plans for these three…

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[shesjustanothergeek]

His Love

|Aegon II Targaryen x Fem!Reader|

Part Twenty-Four

Masterlist of Series

Summary: Being a bastard born in the slums of Flea Bottom was all you were known for. Not the streak of white you had in your dark hair, the violet ring around your pupils, or how your sharp tongue and skills with the blade resembled your father, Daemon Targaryen. You were just a bastard, nothing more, but to him, to Aegon Targaryen, you were everything. You were his love.

Author's Note: I hope y'all like this chapter. It's an interesting one. Just remember to stay with me and that everything will be alright. Well, as okay as an ending within this fandom can be. xD Just a quick FYI, this chapter takes place over a few months. Thank you so much for reading!

Chapter Warnings: violence, blood, technically SA but it's very blurry, the reader is in her revenge era. 

"You remember too much, my mother said to me recently.

Why hold onto all that? And I said,

where can I put it down?

She said,

When you see these horrible images, why do you stay with them?

Why keep watching? Why not

go away? I was amazed.

Go away where? I said.

This seems to me a good question." - Anne Carson, The Glass Essay.

You fastened the last button of your gown, having already dismissed your maids for the day after your midday meal. It was an easy slip-on dress that didn't require assistance, and they bid you "good day" after nodding their heads once you assured them you would summon them for supper.

The council had adjourned for the day, the meeting ending with your ideas redirected and brushed aside. The Lords only cared for thoughts of war, taxes, and whether the scheduled shipments of Dornish wine had made it unharmed. It was not your first time bringing the impoverished inhabitants of Kings Landing to the table. More than once, you had suggested diverting the crown's frivolous spending habits toward a food program for those in need or gathering an entourage of the castle Maesters to provide medical care for the sick.

Ser Otto hadn't shot your ideas down per se; he did not see them worthy enough of a thought to decline. His priorities lay elsewhere, ensuring his lordlings and courtly allies were well satisfied. He did not need the support of the small folk, for when he supplanted Aegon on the throne, only those willing to die and sacrifice themselves for the inevitable war of succession.

You debated, bringing Viserys to the chambers again, but his health was finally on the mend, and you needn't put more stress on him than he was in.

With the passing of Grand Maester Mellos in the winter, Orwyle took his place. You had nothing against the deceased man other than his treatments. They were popular in the older generations of the Citadel, Orwyle told you, but the younger Maester explained different techniques, herbs, and potions brought over from Essos that he had seen work on Lepers. However, he refused to say the disease out loud. Lepers were only found in the slums of the poorest sections of Westeros, not within the land's nobility, let alone the King himself.

You observed your reflection in the vanity mirror, inhaling a calming breath that deliciously stretched the muscles of your abdomen. Your outfit was simple and purposely so. No pearls sewn into the fabric, no gemstones decorating the bodice. You need not be dripping in opulence as you typically were. For once, you wanted to avoid being seen, or at least not attract any more attention than you would already gather with your presence.

Slipping two golden hoop earrings into your ears, you stood, grabbing the embroidery loom you had asked your maids to get a few days prior. You knew how to sew before it was engrained into your head by your Septa. It was expensive to take the whores dresses to a sewist when you could barely even afford food, so you learned the essential art out of necessity rather than as a hobby like all the other noble women. However, you last picked up a needle and thread nearly three years ago. There were more important things than sewing.

You traveled along the carpeted halls of the Red Keep, your buckled shoes softly thudding over the imported rugs. Your noiseless footfalls soon turned into a light rapping on the red rock steps to the training yard, stopping your movements on the last landing to rest on a chiseled sandstone bench, the circlet and thread placed in your lap.

All that was left now was to wait and be patient, which came naturally. You were a lion flattened within the tall grass, lean muscles rippling as it crept closer and stalked lower, learning the patterns and movements of its prey to know the right moment to pounce.

***

The royal library was something unfrequented by the inhabitants of the Keep save for a few Maesters and Lords. You immensely enjoyed the silence of it. The only sounds heard were occasional deep inhaleings when you realized you hadn't taken a breath and the flipping of pages. Ser Arryk sat at a simple carved wooden table between the aisles of tomes, polishing his longsword as you rested against a cushioned window seat with a book.

It was just past high noon, and your stomach was full of soft cheeses, meats, and pastries after your luncheon with Helaena. It was an excellent start to your day and left an elated feeling in your stomach as you finished your chapter on Constitutional Laws of The Crown, your mind thoroughly bored with the plain prose of the text.

Your sworn shield turned to face you at the light sound of your book closing, doing one last swipe of cloth to metal as he put his sword in its sheath.

"You are dismissed for the day, Ser Arryk," you announced in silence. He stared, his hazelnut brows furrowed in confusion. "Ser Cargyll, I am giving you the afternoon to yourself. Take it."

The knight was unsure what to do, stunned by his unusual dismissal. He had nothing else planned. His days were filled endlessly with protecting the Princess, forever by her side and only away when it was time to rest. Arryk was her sworn protector and was required to be in her presence to do that. She couldn't dismiss him... Could she?

"If it will ease your conscious, Ser, I will be in the training yard with countless Gold Cloaks and Kingsguard. Should anything happen to me I am certain a dozen men could handle it," you offered with a crooked smile, hoping to appease his overprotective nature.

Arryk felt his heart skip in his chest, your perfect lips sending him a grin he had seen reserved for familial letters and Princess Helaena. He knew he should protest. Explain that men at arms can be just as dangerous as those with lower morals and values, but his will soften at your sweet expression. Ser Arryk would do anything for you if he saw that same look.

"As you wish, Princess," he acquiesced, standing from his seat with a bow and slight flush hidden under his facial hair.

You hid your smirk until he was no longer in eyesight, rolling your eyes and shaking your head.

That was easier than you expected. Usually, the kingsguardmen would put up a resistance to your desire to be alone. It annoyed you to no end, but you understood it was Arryk's duty, which you felt was unnecessary when you already knew how to defend yourself, but he didn't know. No one did in King's Landing beside the Queen and Ser Criston, and they only heard it when you brought the Prince back. Aegon was the only one who knew the true extent of your capabilities, having regularly attended your late-night training sessions.

A sudden stabbing struck through your chest, your fingers white-knuckling the window seat as your palm began to rub the affected area. You shook your head as if that would rid you of the sting, letting a sharp breath through your nose as you stood. You needed to focus on the task, grunting and ignoring the ache within your ribcage as you trekked to the training grounds.

***

Today, you decided to move from your usual spot on the landing, ensuring your presence was known to all who spared on the packed dirt of the yard. There was another bench of sandstone resting against the wall of the high steps, far enough away that you wouldn't be intruding but close enough to be seen.

Your fingers busied themselves with your current project of a dragon black as coal and piercing green eyes. You were sure the Cannibal would be proud of how you portrayed his likeness once you were finished, holding the taught square of fabric to the blazing sun.

"The training yard is no place for a Lady such as yourself, your Grace," a voice sneered from above.

You finished your last stitch, pulling the dark thread with a harsh tug and placing the circle in your lap. Looking up at the tall Dornish man, you smiled, though it was strained and did not meet your eyes.

"I am not training, Ser Cole. Simply observing. It gets rather boring sitting in council meetings all day." He hummed, glancing at your work before returning to your snarky expression.

"I see. Enjoy your observations. I hope the men are to your liking," Ser Criston said stiffly, bowing his head in farewell.

Your smile dropped as soon as he turned, unable to hide your exasperation for the man. You knew Cole would be here, but you hadn't thought the man brazen to approach you in front of his fellow men. He should've learned you were a woman, not so easily scared. However, the knight's little display did show to be advantageous. Every man had turned to see where he went, each countenance staring at the only person wearing a dress in a sea of trousers.

Your eyes danced across as many as you could, halting as you spotted one you would never forget. Withholding a searing gaze, you smiled slightly at the man, your brown and violet orbs flitting away as you fluttered your lashes. The man whose name you had yet to find out looked back, a smirk on his face as the whites of his teeth showed, bowing before resuming his tasks.

Unable to find the other one, you returned to your sewing. Initially, it was supposed to be your dragon, a love portrait for your sweet Cannibal, but an idea struck you. It would be much more fitting to display Cannibal's prowess. All were beneath him, even his fellow species, and showcasing his strength in the art felt right. Mentally, you mapped out the type of stitching you would use, the colors silver, cream, black, and gold, and the amount of space it would take up on your canvas.

The embroidery would be your finest work, and once finished, you would display it for all to admire.

***

You returned to the same spot you had yesterday, with all your supplies in tow, but today, you would only spend a little time on your craft. You observed silently as men in varying states of dress fought each other. Some sparring with thin silver breastplates and shin guards, others wrestling their brethren into the dirt.

It was chaos from the outside perspective, but you knew the complexities and talent it took to defeat an opponent. You had to keep your mind sharp, vision dancing across your rivals' forms, plan your moves, anticipate theirs, and ensure each limb was out of striking distance, all while trying to win. Despite what many arrogant Lords believed, swordplay and hand-to-hand combat took time to learn.

Ser Criston was nowhere to be seen today, a welcomed absence. Your plan worked around the knight's presence; it was a given he would be with his fellow men, so it was a relief that today he was not.

You stood from the chiseled bench, walking across the training yard to one of the weapons racks. Your fingers danced over each of them, admiring the dull practice blades, daggers, and flails. It had been some time since you saw the weapons in daylight, having been forced by the Queen to train at the hour of the bat. Unable to have a sparing partner, you had neglected swordplay, focusing more on the sharpened cutlass and archery.

It was so dull to be your only opponent, competing with yourself to see how many bullseyes you could get in a row. At one point, you had resorted to running endless laps around the training yard to at least feel some challenge.

"May I help you, your Grace?" A voice rang above the sounds of clashing swords and grunting men.

You traced the peaked line of a blade with the pad of your finger, slowly turning your head to them. Your expression of indifferent self-satisfaction quickly morphed into surprise, seeing the face of the man who held your Aunt's chains. You swiftly schooled your presentation into a practiced, polite one.

"If you would be so kind," you prompted coyly. The flush of anger on your cheeks was easily mistaken as one of abashment as the Gold Cloak took the sword you were admiring. "What is it?" you asked, feigning ignorance.

"It's called a spatha. 'Tis the most common doubled-edged sword among warriors. Swords have different uses, but this one is perfect for thrusting and slashing." The Watchmen punctuated each word with its respective motion, causing you to jump back and clutch your hands to your breasts.

He explained each weapon as if speaking to a tot, showing the intricate contrasts between a flamberge, a claymore, a seax, and a shamshir and then onto daggers. You hung onto every word like a young squire speaking to its higher-ranking knight, smiling, nodding, and giving small gasps and squeals when necessary. You felt like a fool from smiling so hard, your cheeks burning from the strain until you could no longer bear it.

"I never got your name, Ser." Your feminine voice was like the toll of the city bells in the mass of masculine sounds.

"My apologies, my lady," he said, placing the flail in his grasp onto the wooden rack. "Edder Dalt is what my mother named me, but you may call me Ed, your Grace. "

You plastered on your signature smile, looking up at the man as you repeated his name. "It's nice to meet you, ser. You've been such a pleasure speaking to me about weapons, though I fear your knowledge is far greater than my mind is capable of understanding." You dipped your head sheepishly, hiding the pink on your cheekbones.

"Oh, nonsense, Princess, the pleasure is all mine. Not many ladies desire to learn swordsmanship, and that alone is proof enough that you're brighter than you believe." Your lips turned into a grateful pout as you peered at him from under your thick lashes, taking a step closer to him as you saw his eyes flicker downwards.

"You are too kind, Ser Edder." You placed your fist delicately on his bicep, feeling the muscles ripple underneath your touch. "If it would not be trouble, could I hold one of them?" Your hand slid down to his elbow as you took another step closer, gaze wide and pleading.

Edder swallowed, his throat bobbing as he stared with fidgeting eyes, looking as if he was about to flee at any moment. You knew what you were doing. Touching a man who lacked the caress of a woman, a noble one at that, you let your fist slide just out of his reach, your warmth a whisper without your skin.

"Of course, Princess," he answered shakily, focusing on the armaments beside him.

He picked the lightest sword, the type Daemon made you use at the beginning of your training, and you had to bite back a laugh at the thought. Edder gently placed the feather-like hilt in your fist as if it were still in the process of being cast, supporting it underneath. Flashing him with an exultant grin whenever he relinquished his assistance, he stood back, observing with his fists on his waist as you held the instrument he believed would be too heavy.

As if on queue, your arms shook, and the blade nearly fell to the ground but was stopped by Edder's firm grasp.

"Easy there, my Lady. I fear your Father would have my head if you lost a toe," he jested, though his voice had some worry.

You giggled in what you hoped was a delightful sound, not the forced way you felt, the Gold Cloak shuffling behind you to help distribute the weapon's weight.

"Thank you, Ser Edder. Perhaps I overestimated my strength. I am grateful you are here to help me," you chortled bashfully, adjusting the hilt in your palm. "What is this one for again? There are so many," you questioned airily, turning your head to meet his regard.

His nose was mere centimeters away from yours, and the startled gasp you let out was not deceitful, promptly spinning your face away to look forward. You felt the rumble of his laugh against your back, your breath slightly hitching before you crushed your unease like an insect beneath your pretty boot. You would let him think you were just some hoydenish maiden, wide-eyed and in awe of his masculine knowledge, as you released a nervous giggle.

"This is a rapier, Princess. 'Tis the lightest blade one can carry, and even the common person can use it, especially for dueling." You tilted your crown upward in recognition as he continued. "It's used for fast reactions, slicing and thrusting your opponent down before they can reach their weapon."

Edder punctuated each word with a movement, causing diminutive gasps to leave your mouth as he moved forward with it. Though you were toward the back of the training yard, near the enormous stalwart oak doors, you felt like you were being watched like one of the many butterflies Helaena kept within a glass frame, their wings pinned with needles and on display for all to see. You hastily glanced around, trying to find the source of your tension but seeing the men still within their worlds, punching and swinging at one another.

It did not feel right to let someone watch you freely, their gaze penetrating your skull like a pick, and you decided, partially due to pride and the other apprehension, that you would find who they were and give them the same treatment. Hopefully, you scanned the shadows to spot the specific clubbed foot culprit known for this situation. Still, you did not see him, Ser Edder, continuing his monologue about the history of the rapier.

A glint caught your eyesight, the flash of an ornate metal in the afternoon sun as it moved. Aegon stood above you on the steps to the Keep, staring down his nose at the people before him as he nursed a goblet that seemed to be permanently attached to his hand. You felt your heart stop, your stomach falling to your feet, and momentarily forgetting the act you were putting on. Your bright, carefree expression slipped, a scowl taking place as you clenched the sword's hilt.

It had been nearly a fortnight since you last saw the Prince, and it was only in passing as you witnessed him lead a scullery maid into a secluded alcove. You still had to return to that part of the castle since then, even if it meant taking a longer route to your destinations. You would at least expect him to approach you and attempt to make some feeble apology that you wouldn't accept, but he didn't. He won't, you told yourself. Aegon went back to his old ways of drinking, gambling, and whoring without much thought, like it was his second nature, and perhaps it was.

Aegon was a pathetic excuse of a man, and you loathed yourself for feeling an ounce of anything but hatred for him. He didn't deserve your kindness or your love.

Edder noticed your abrupt shift in mood, following your line of sight to see where it was. You felt the man's grip stiffen over your fists, pulling you closer to his body as if it were a means to protect you. You nearly vomited onto the packed dirt below as if you needed his protection-- as if he needed to protect you. You could kill the Gold Cloak here and now if you choose to. You mentally grimaced.

"You needn't pay him mind, Princess," Ser Edder declared into your hair, causing your eye to twitch unconsciously. "He is a lecher, but his tastes tend to lead more toward the Silk Lanes and poor folk of Flea Bottom." This time, you did not hide how you bristled at his words.

"I am from Flea Bottom," you screamed, but your mouth did not move.

Aegon downed the rest of his drink in one gulp, wiping the remnants that escaped from his lips before throwing his brass goblet to the ground. Your mind lurched to go after him, to rub his brow that creased whenever he was upset, to smooth his sheared hair down his head as you held him close to your chest and whispered nothing but praises to him. You shook the thought, replacing your glare with a delicate gaze as you looked at Ser Edder.

***

Ser Edder introduced you to a few of his fellow men at arms in days past, one so happening to be the man that had given you a wolfish grin the day Ser Criston spoke to you. His name was Lorgan Sunderly, and judging by the fleeting moments you spent with him and the others, you could tell he had an appetite similar to Aegon's but knew better than to act on it. Despite being a bastard, you held a title above him, and if he wanted to keep his cock, he would have to think with his head.

You asked them to show some fighting stances since you 'admired their talents,' and each man was delighted to display them for you. Ser Lorgan was more skilled than Edder between the two City Watchmen, but his ego and brash movements blinded him. Lorgan was the Gold Cloak you would run from in the markets, the one your fellow inhabitants at Flea Bottom would fear, while Edder was fair, the one people would pray to be caught by if they were stealing.

Edder suddenly landed a harsh punch to Lorgan's gut that caused all the men around you to leer. They had removed their breastplates and were left only in their underclothes as they sparred in hand-to-hand combat. It seemed to be more of a pissing contest than training, and if your Father knew this was how his former soldiers acted, you were confident he would whip them literally and figuratively.

There was a break within the two grunting men where Lorgan began to taunt Edder, slightly hunched over as he spouted insults about his mother before shifting to you. You waved an ornate fan to the side of your face; your thin, lilac Myrish lace dress cut just above your ankles to release the trapped summer heat.

"Let's say whoever wins this bout gets a kiss from the Princess," Ser Lorgan announced.

You hid your offense at the unconsented offer behind the raising of your surprised brows, looking between the men. Edder glanced back at you, uncertainty written into the hard lines of his pale face.

"If the Princess agrees, then, yes."

You tilt your head to the side, unable to bite back the snarky remark before it forms. "You think yourself worthy of my kiss?"

Ser Lorgan barks a laugh as he circles his opponent, Edder's cheeks a flaming red.

"I do not need to be a champion to know I am worthy of your lips," Lorgan states, a marauding grin on his face. "Though, I do not believe Ed to be the same." You hum in response, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"I will decide at the end whether one of you shall receive my affections. A lady's kiss is a thing to be treasured, sers, something not to be taken lightly." The arrogant knight guffaws, pretending to lunge forward to tackle Edder.

In the end, Ser Lorgan is victorious, and you press a chaste kiss to his damp cheek, much to Edder's chagrin. You tell the sulking man that he may have lost to Lorgan today, but there is always a possibility he may earn your lips, a mischievous glint in your eyes, as your nails dug crescents into your palms. He brightened exponentially at the prospect before you bid them a good day, heading to your rooms within the heart of the Red Keep.

***

This morning is like any other, waking to the blinding sun through green curtains and the smell of food. You groan at the sudden brightness louder than necessary, catching the attention of Jeyne and Fiorra. They exchange glances but continue with their early-day tasks until one of the maids pulls a chair, its wooden legs screeching across the stone floor.

"Please, my Ladies," you strain out in what you hope is convincing, "my head aches, and noise only worsens it."

Before you know it, Jeyne is perched on the side of your bed, raising the back of her hand to her forehead. "You do not have a fever, Princess. Is it something you ate?"

"Jeyne, please," you beg like a sickly child, wiggling further into the covers.

The oldest maid sighs, brushing the stands of hair that came loose from your sleep style, her touch as gentle as a mother's. "She's having one of her bouts again. Rain must be coming soon," she said to her counterpart, voice much softer. Jeyne rose from the mattress, the quiet rappings of her footfalls becoming near silent as she reached Fiorra. "You know what we must do. Go to the Maester and gather peppermint oil, lemon oil, and her tea. I'll be sure she eats something."

You don't hear a response from Fiorra, assuming she answered wordlessly as the door to your chambers creaks open and takes longer to shut than usual.

"Come now, Princess, you must eat to regain your strength." Jeyns assists you in leaving the bed, putting more weight on her than required as she plops you down at the wooden table to break your fast.

Once your maids ensure you have everything you need to battle what they believe to be a headache, they leave you with a large pitcher of cool water and a matching basin sitting next to it, promising to return at midday to bring you a light repast. You lay underneath the warm blankets of your bed, enjoying their comfort until you're sure the maids won't suddenly be returning. Seeing you dressed in your black attire, dagger strapped to your shin, and hair plaited to the best of your ability would shock them as you peeked through your chamber doors.

It was too premature for Ser Arryk to be at his post, though you knew it would only be a matter of minutes before the silver and white figure would stand guard. You had to be swift. It was the first rotation in daylight, and you needed to take advantage of the momentary disarray of men walking to different parts of the Keep, some finally going to rest after the night's watch, which Ser Lorgan so happened to be coming off of.

The court had yet to rise, leaving the halls nearly barren except for the few servants adorned in red as they bustled about with their duties. You were still on edge, ducking around every corner, looking left, right, and behind in case you caught a pair of unwanted eyes as you made your way to the White Sword Tower.

You knew Lorgan would be exhausted when he returned to his quarters. On more than one occasion when he had the nightwatch, the man complained relentlessly of how tired he was, how he would be unable to sleep properly for the rest of the sennight because of it. At the time, you answered his gripes with comforting words and hands, soothing the brute's unease as you provided an ear to confide in. It was hard not to roll your eyes as the rant continued throughout your time in the training yard, but you kept your annoyance at bay, beaming and nodding like the good little maiden they believed you to be.

Briefly, you glanced down the halls once more before knocking twice on the crudely carved door of the Gold Cloak's barracks. You could hear scuffling, the unhappy timber of a baritone voice through the wooden door, and the click of a lock unturning as you greeted with a scowling Ser Lorgan Sunderly in only his underclothes. His expression soon changed when he realized it was you, brows shooting to his hairline.

"Princess," he said breathlessly, "what brings you to my door?"

You smiled sheepishly, showing him the tiny bundle of cheese, bread, fruit, and boiled eggs in a large cloth. "I thought I might accompany you in breaking your fast. I know you had the night watch and how you detest it."

He gazed down at you with pleasant surprise, his green eyes widening before he stepped away from the door, wordlessly bidding you to enter. You took in the modest surroundings. For some reason, you envisioned a much more chaotic state of living for Lorgan, but nothing was out of place.

There was a small bookshelf on one end of his room, but no tomes lined it, and instead filled with small trinkets, one would collect over time. A small cot on the other end with wrinkled, scratchy woolen sheets tucked underneath the straw mattress, his sword and shield resting at the end of it.

Lorgan pulled out your chair as you placed the food on his small square table, organizing it on the cloth.

"Princess," he started, tentatively pulling a piece of bread from the loaf. "I must confess, I'm surprised to see you here. I considered you a pious maiden who would not venture to these parts of the Keep unchaperoned. Take no offense, my Lady."

You giggled, following his actions by peeling an egg. "Ser Lorgan, you know I am a bastard, correct? My mere existence is a contradiction of piety."

The Gold Cloak hollered a laugh too loud for the small space, causing you to dig into the delicate shell harder than intended, taking a chunk of the white with it. Lorgan pulled a trunk from the side of his room, having only one seat as he grabbed more food from the cloth. A neutral silence blanketed the knight's quarters, the only sound being his loud chewing.

You swallowed the last bit of the yellow-green yolk, the dry, almost powdery contents getting stuck in your throat. Lorgan looked up at you, concerned, wrinkling his brow as you sputtered and coughed.

"Water," you managed to speak, bringing your fist to your chest.

The Gold Cloak jumped from his lower position, running to the pitcher on his bedside table and pouring you a cup. You down the contents quickly, rubbing your throat as the liquid fell from the sides of your lips, unable to swallow all of it.

"Princess? Princess!" Lorgan called, crouching next to you and placing a comforting hand on your upper back. "Breathe. Do not die on me, my Lady, I could not handle the loss of such a beauty within my chambers."

Gods. Now, you were choking, but this time on your vomit at his nauseating words. You sputtered a few more moments as you held down your bile, clearing your throat and wiping at your chin.

"Thank you, Ser Lorgan. I'm unsure what I would've done if you hadn't been here," you blushed, rubbing at the front of your throat in mock pain.

"No need to thank me, my Lady. It is my duty as a member of the City Watch to protect its inhabitants." You graciously smiled, placing your hand on his shoulder as you faced him.

"But please, ser. Had you not acted as swiftly as you did, I would most certainly be meeting the Stranger." Your legs flushed with his, your palm slowly gliding up his neck and onto his cheek. Lorgan stayed crouched below you, a light dusting of pink blooming on his ears as they brushed against his stubble. "You are most worthy of my kisses," you offered timidly, your lashes fluttering as you leaned closer. "If you'll allow me."

The soldier below you grinned rapaciously, his teeth wet and shining in the candlelight. You took his expression as consent, closing the distance with your lips pressed against his. Unable to hold any longer, you ducked away, only for Lorgan to bring his fist to the back of your head, pulling against him again. Your free hand clenched your skirt, your nails nearly piercing through the fabric as you attempted to ground yourself. This is what you wanted. This is what you planned. It was all a means to an end, and it didn't matter how you went about it, but it did not make things more painless.

Ser Lorgan Sunderly was a horrible kisser, his mouth nearly engulfing your own as he moved his tongue against yours. It was nothing like before, and though you would never admit it to him or yourself, you were glad Aegon was your first kiss. You felt no desire churning in your belly with the Watchmen, no heat and insatiable yearning between your legs as you had with the Prince many times before. And so you proceeded into the recesses of your mind, becoming a spectator to your actions as you rose from your seat and to the small cot, Lorgan following your lead.

You placed the burley man onto the straw mattress and straddled his waist, having met no resistance. His hands went to your waist, and you had to refrain from the instinctual reflex to pry them off as he moved your clothed core along his hardening length. You could see yourself above him, your braids still neatly pinned back as Lorgan began to paw at your breasts. You couldn't stop the way you immediately went to move them but quickly disguised your disgust by placing them back on your hips, leaning down to kiss him again.

"I have never done this before," you whispered against his lips, your arm slowly slinking down your curves. "Will you be gentle with me?"

Lorgan's stomach tensed at your words, nodding feverishly as he chased your mouth with his. "Of course, my Lady." He could feel how your hand hiked up your skirt, his soon following along.

"Thank you."

You smiled against his lips, unsheathing your dagger as you plunged it into his chest. You didn't see the blade break through his skin before you stuck it in again, again, and again. The Gold Cloak watched in horror, his eyes wide and mouth agape as he released involuntary grunts, the air leaking from his punctured lungs. Unable to move and protect himself, you quickly removed the knife from his sternum, his blood flinging from the blade and onto his cheek before it found home in his

throat.

Red sprayed onto your face and dress, darkening the fabric further as you yanked it out. Lorgan's hand immediately pressed on the wound, his mouth opening and closing as words fought to break free. You didn't see his face before you, leaking the crimson liquid from his lips as you sliced through the side of his neck, his essence further showering your exposed skin like fresh spring rain.

The flesh easily split for your dagger as you sawed through muscle and tendons, the sound of your labored breathing covering that of slicing meat. You met resistance when you reached his bones, the tiny circular columns attaching his tissue to the rest of his body. Letting out a displeased grunt, you repeated your actions on the other side, snapping his neck from the nerves with your hands.

You stared at the Gold Cloak's lifeless face, his brown hair tangled between your white and crimson knuckled, his once lively green orbs glassy and looking upwards as blood still leaked from his mouth onto the flat pillow. The desire to place his head atop the same battlements Lyra's and Sara's were crossed your mind. A poetic justice, you thought. But that would be too risky, and it was already dangerous enough being within the apartments of the White Sword Tower. Kingsguard lurked around every corner and slept in every bed, and you wouldn't doubt their loyalty to their ruler outweighed any fear a bastard of Daemon Targaryen could inspire.

Surprisingly, guilt did not consume you as you worried it would at your immoral actions. A vindicated sense of triumph welled in its place as you stared at the decapitated corpse of Ser Lorgan Sunderly, smearing the excess blood from your hands onto his tunic.

You knew Lyra and Sara would not be proud of what you did if they were still here, but they weren't. They couldn't feel or think anything; Otto Hightower and the Queen's inaction ensured that. Lorgan's death was on their hands, and if they had not sentenced two innocents to a cruel fate, the Gold Cloaks would still have their brother.

Walking over to the small table, you sat at the same seat as before, pouring water and popping a slice of cheese into your mouth. You needed to use the cloth the food sat on to clean yourself, and there was no chance that you would place the snacks on a dirty, unvarnished table where a man had put god knows what on it. Besides, you needed to wait until the following guard change. Being caught was not an option, so you stayed, ate, made sure not a speck of blood dusted your skin, and cleaned your dagger while the lifeless pile of man soaked his sheets with red.

Masterlist of Series

I hope you guys liked this chapter. We're getting to the parts of the story where you will either love or hate it. I'm very worked up about this chapter and the next, and that's partially why I had a hard time writing for a little bit. You have no idea how worked up I am about whether y'all will like this, so if you do, pretty please let me know. I live for praise. xD

Tagged Peeps: @zeennnnnnn, @malfoytargaryen, @targaryencore, @justasmallbean, @omgsuperstarg, @sommornyte, @silverslive, @prettykinkysoul, @duesobabe, @djlexi, @ynbutbetter, @legolas017, @iiamthehybrid, @dd122004dd, @ladybug0095, @millies0bsimp, @kalfild, @sheislonelyalways, @tempt-ress, @minttea07, @trikigirl271, @esposadomd, @prettywhenicry4, @daenerysqueenofhearts, @justarandomflowerchildofthenight, @please-buckme, @pastelorangeskies, @existential-echo, @priyajoyy, @merovingianprincess, @candy12110, @w3ird11, @ruhjkie, @somemydayy, @marikkjj, @zillahvathek, @sunfyresrider, @heavenly1927, @prettylittlelady, @hjgdhghoe, @im-sidney, @aurorathi, @marihoneywk

[ssaemilyhotchner]

R for the alphabet thing! Congrats on the milestone! ❤️

thank you for participating, @purplejellosg1 <3 I loved writing this one and hope you enjoy it, too.

OTHER 1K DRABBLES | Read on AO3 Join the celebration by requesting a letter!

letter: R | prompt: reunion | wc: 0.5k | a/n: AU where Emily tracks down Doyle from France and takes him down solo (i.e. Declan’s never abducted by Lachlan and Chloe).

Please do not repost (reblogs welcome) or otherwise claim as your own.

--

“A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.”  ― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

--

In March, they bury Emily Prentiss and everything changes.

In April, she arrives in France. She crops her hair short almost immediately, but for weeks, her fingers search for the phantom strands each time she runs a brush through her hair or takes a shower.

In June, she misses her first check-in. cheetobreath logs on for a game of online Scrabble with gothsergio that never happens.

In September, Ian Doyle turns up dead in Belarus. Cause of death varies depending on the agency filing the report, but while Hotch and Clyde have their suspicions, they can’t be certain.

In September, they can’t be certain because it’s been three months since anyone has heard a word from her. No high-point words played, qwerty or jukebox or exorcize. No sightings, France or Belarus or elsewhere. No transactions under other identities, Eva or Manon or Alice. Nothing.

In September, three months after official channels classify Emily as missing in action, Hotch is assigned mandatory anger management classes after punching the agent who suggests she may be dead.

In October, everything changes again.

--

Knocking back his second glass of scotch and contemplating a third, Aaron Hotchner fell onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, his eyes eventually falling closed as the alcohol mingled with his blood. 

She wandered into his thoughts then, as she always did when his inhibitions were lowered: Emily tilting her head back in laughter at something Reid had said. Emily curled up on the jet reading Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red for the hundredth time. Emily letting tears fall in the observation room at a victim’s statement, reaching for his hand to steady herself.

Emily on the warehouse floor. Emily in surgery at Bethesda. Emily’s eulogy heavy in his mouth.

Hotch clenched his fists around the duvet in a means of grounding himself and blocking out the pain, but it only made things worse: in his mind's eye, he could see her fists clenching around these very same sheets, her moving beneath him, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed. He could hear a knock at the door, feel her arms wrapping securely around his waist to keep him from answering it, don’t go, Aaron whispered against his jaw.

Strangely, the knocking persisted, long enough for him to realize that it was no longer in his thoughts and that someone really was at his door.

Hotch rose and walked toward the sound in a daze. When he looked through the peephole, however, he felt his breathing become shallow and his heart stop beating. 

It can’t be.

In a flurry of opening locks and disarming alarms, he let the door swing open, revealing the slender figure leaning against the doorframe.

It was.

"Emily," he breathed.

He watched as her lips, those lips he had dreamt of for months, curved into a timid smile. 

"Hi, Aaron."

--

“And there it was one of those moments that is the opposite of blindness.” ― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

[adoracora-elizabeth]

Music made me love you, chapter 40

The last curl was put up by O'Brien. "Your hair is ready, Milady."

This whole morning Cora was called Milady, and she had a tough time adjusting to it. This woman had hoovered around her, helping her with literally everything. It had come in handy with her dress and she had done wonders to her hair. O'Brien had created a masterpiece.

"Thank you, O'Brien, can you leave her Ladyship and me alone now," Rosamund said, sending Sarah away.

"Can you just send them away like that? It does seem unkind. And I am not married yet, so how come you call me her Ladyship?"

Rosamund stood behind Cora and put her veil in her hair. "For the staff, you are already 'her Ladyship' and yes, once you think they can go, you send them away."

"It does feel very unkind."

"You will get used to it." Rosamund stepped back to look at Cora. "You look like a princess. Robert will be stunned when he sees you."

Cora was relieved that Robert and she would not live at Downton right away. They had found a nice house close to the Chiswick Bridge. It was an old house, built in the 14th century, with a later added Queen Anne facade. The detached house was big, over 7000 sq. ft with seven bedrooms, three reception rooms and two bathrooms. Cora had thought it to be too big for them, but Robert had insisted. And Cora had loved the charm of the rooms.

"Are you going to hire staff once you move to 'West Hall Manor'?" Rosamund helped Cora up and fixed her train.

"Robert does want staff, but I can cook myself. I even like cooking. But I have agreed with a gardener and some girls to keep the house tidy and in order. So, there is more time for me to write and eventually care for little ones."

"Is there one coming already?" Rosamund asked surprised. "Is Peter getting a niece or nephew?"

"No." Cora responded. "Not yet. For now, we enjoy the cuddles we can get from Peter. He is growing up so fast. I saw that he lost his baby roles."

Rosamund got an extremely sweet look in her eyes. "He is growing up so fast and he is so smart already." She looked at Cora. "Now let us go down."

Cora had been installed in the room she would get after her marriage with Robert. Next to it was a small dressing room for Robert. This setup was still from the old times when husband and wife did not sleep in the same bedroom. The room was very spacious, and the bed looked extremely comfortable, tonight she would know how comfortable. Robert had suggested staying the night at Downton before going on their honeymoon.

+++

Music started playing when Cora walked down the stairs. All heads were turned, and she heard a collective aww. Robert was not in her sight yet. Once downstairs, Rosamund adjusted her train again, kissed her on her cheek and wished her good luck. Harold was waiting for her to take his arm.

"Are you ready for this next step?" He asked quietly.

Cora chuckled. "It is a bit late to have regrets."

Harold put his other hand on top of Cora’s. "Are you having doubts?"

This made Cora look up at him and with the biggest smile she answered. "Far from it."

"Good." They had reached the end of the great hall, where Robert was waiting for her. On the chairs, she saw her mother with Sorcha next to her. On the other side of the aisle was Violet with Patrick. Next to them were Rosamund and Marmaduke. She saw some familiar faces from the staff, Mrs. Hughes and Carson were accompanied by other people she had not met before.

+++

Robert felt his nerves getting worse when the guests all turned towards the grand staircase, he heard them gasp audible. He could not see Cora yet and that made him nervous. He was trying to imagine what kind of dress she was wearing. Would she have a big ballroom gown, or was it a very slim-fitting dress? He had not the faintest idea what she had chosen. He had tried to get it out of Rosamund, but he had not had much luck. She only told him the colour. An off-white dress it would be. She gave him a piece of the fabric so he could find a dress shirt in the same colour or a tie.

Finally, she came around the corner, holding her brother's arm. He almost grabbed John's arm, who was standing next to him. She was breathtakingly beautiful; her dress was nothing he could have imagined. It was fitted around her body perfectly, not too slim fitting but also not a ballroom gown. She was gliding towards him it felt. All the faces around her disappeared and he only saw her. Harold kissed her cheek before handing her to him.

Robert felt her gloved hand glide in his and he was relieved she was wearing gloves so she would not feel his sweaty palm. She softly squeezed his hand, while listening to the officiant.

+++

"You can now kiss the bride."

Robert turned towards Cora and carefully lifted her veil. Her lips were coloured with a soft pink. Her hyacinth-blue eyes were shining, she had a soft pink shade of eyeshadow on her eyelids. It was as if time stood still, and he saw every small detail on her face. Her mouth slightly twitched into a smile. Her nose that she crunched and her eyes, oh her eyes were full of love and anticipation. His hand softly on her jaw and cheeks, he pulled her close. He touched her lips briefly. "My wife." He murmured before kissing her more intense.

Suddenly the room around him came back to life and he was startled by the sound of applause. He broke his kiss and looked Cora in the eye. "Hello Mrs. Crawley." He smiled at her.

"Hello, my husband." She smiled back.

Robert felt Cora’s hand on his stomach and a second later she was kissing him again.

+++

Peter was trying to grab Cora’s earring, but she managed to keep it out of his reach. "You are growing so fast." She said in a soft affectionate tone.

"Guests are waiting to congratulate you, can you please join Robert." Violet stood in front of Cora with eyes cold as ice.

"Mama, it is their wedding day. Can you please calm down and be nice today." Rosamund said annoyed while taking Peter back in her arms.

Cora gave her a thankful look. "I am coming Lady Grantham."

Violet huffed and walked away.

"She is lady Grantham, is she not?" Cora was surprised by her response. She tried to address her in the right way, she did not want to mess up, especially not on her special day. But since this morning Violet had been on her nerves.

"She is indeed." Rosamund winked. "Mama is just not used to not getting things done in her way. Especially not with Robert who always followed her wishes, but since he met you, he is finally standing up for himself."

Cora sighed, she had been worried about Violet, and this did not make things better. She walked towards Robert who gave her such an adorable look that she almost forgot about Violet’s treatment of her.

"My dear, let me introduce you to Lord Flintshire, his father is the Marquess of Flintshire."

A good-looking man from around the same age as Robert was.

"Hugh has been a dear friend since we were children." Robert continued. Next to Hugh was a woman, she did not look happy Cora thought.

"Nice to meet you, Lord Flintshire." Cora said formal.

"You can call me Hugh. I am only a Lord for other people, not for friends. This is Susan, my fiancée." Hugh put his arm at Susan's back, who reluctantly shook Cora’s hand. "Robert, I know this is your wedding day, but can we talk for a minute or two?"

Robert looked at Cora for her approval. She kissed his cheek. "I will be fine; in the meantime, I can get to know Susan." Cora hoped that making friends in Robert’s circle would please Violet.

"Is that Lady Lancashire." Susan said, when Cora turned towards her to ask a question. A bit stunned, Cora was left alone. She looked around the great hall. All the chairs had been moved to the side and there was a small dance floor. She had loved twirling around in Robert's arm during their opening dance. He had chosen a slow waltz. A soft hand was placed on her arm, she saw Rosamund standing next to her.

"Time to say goodbye to your favourite nephew." She said, while handing Peter to Cora. "Do not feel bad about Susan. Hugh is a very nice man, but he asked a peculiar woman to marry him."

+++

"Why did you send O'Brien upstairs? I thought you only hired her for the day to help Cora get dressed and styled?" Patrick asked Violet while she wheeled him into his bedroom.

"Cora can use some help getting all those pins out of her hair and that dress is also not easy."

"You make it sound as if it is a nice thing you did. But you realise that it is their wedding night? Robert would love to help her I think."

"Patrick!" Violet said shocked.

"Dear, as if we do not know they enjoy each other company already and how do you think you will get grandchildren."

Violet hummed but did not say a word. She started to untie his shoes.

"Maybe I should ask Carson to help me? Or one of our boys, there are some potential future valets under them."

"You do not want me to help you?" Violet stopped and looked up.

"I want you to leave your son at peace with his new wife. That is all I am asking of you."

"He married the wrong girl; how can you be so calm and just let it all happen. I do not understand you." She pulled the first shoe off.

"Dear, we talked about this. You promised me to be more forgiving and you also promised me that you would not make her uncomfortable or feel unwelcome."

Violet threw both his shoes in a corner. "I just cannot believe Robert did not like Isabella and chose Cora instead. Can you imagine, marrying an American girl, when you can have a nice English Lady."

"Your son made a choice with his heart. And I am positive that Cora is a lady, and she will be an amazing Lady Grantham in the future."

"That we will see."

+++

Robert scooped Cora in his arms, when they reached the first landing on the stairs, this erupted a high-pitched shriek from Cora.

"You scared me." she giggled.

"Let us hurry upstairs, nobody has seen us escape."

Cora sighed, while wrapping her arms around his neck. "It feels like we are escaping indeed."

"Were you able to enjoy this day?" Robert lowered Cora back on her feet when they reached her new bedroom. Mrs. Hughes promised to make the room cosy and romantic for tonight. Cora's arms were still wrapped around his neck.

"I am now allowed to call me your wife, your Mrs. Crawley and that fills me with joy." She kissed him passionately, while reaching for the doorknob behind her. "Can we please get me out of this dress."

Robert growled and pushed Cora into the room once she opened the door.

"Oh my God!"

Robert let go off Cora so abruptly that she almost fell on the ground. He could grab her arm to keep her upright. They both looked in horror at O'Brien who was standing in the room.

"Why are you here?" Robert managed to ask.

"Lady Grantham had send me up earlier tonight, she said that Mrs. Crawley had asked for help taking off her dress and unpinning her hair."

To Robert's annoyance this woman did not even blush and she had a smug smile on her face. "Obviously she does not need help, especially not on her wedding day. Now please leave." he tried to keep his voice calm, but he was steaming. Why did his mother do this, why did she try to ruin things for him. What was it that made her feel she needed to do this.

Cora stepped close to Robert, when O'Brien closed the door, she brushed with her hands over his chest. "Do not let this upset you darling. It does not matter."

"But Cora." he now sounded sad. "It does matter. This shows that my mother does not have respect for you or even for me."

She now started to take of his jacket. She let it fall to the ground, she than pulled his tie lose and with that pulled him closer to her. She raised her chin, her lips hovering in front of his lips. "I only want to think about what you are going to do with me tonight." She kissed him on his lips. She left a trail of kisses when she moved to his neck.

"Oh Cora."

"Now please help me out of this dress." She turned around, in the meantime her hands were reaching for the pins holding up her hair.

"Please Milady. Let me help you to take of your lovely dress, brush your hair and then show you how heaven can be like."

[margaritadaemonelix]

Hi!! I've been a lurker + fan of your fics since like. 2020 and as a writer myself, I always admire how you do your descriptions and worldbuilding... do you have any book/reading recs that inspire you? or tips?? and this is also unrrelated but I'd love to hear about what current wips you're working on!!

whjkwhkhww come off anon and talk to me plz, thank you so much for reading my fics??? i'm in shambles anon you are so kind know that i am psychically beaming you a hug

oh boy uhhhh worldbuilding and descriptions. tbh that's less a function of what i read and more a function of what i enjoy. i'm a big proponent of mundane joys like cooking and eating and dressings up, so i feel like it stands that those things tend to reflect the most in my writing. tbh i feel like i struggle with balancing worldbuilding/description with plot because i tend to hyperfixate on the small details, but a lot of people like it??? so i will continue trucking on

so if i had to give any advice, it's like. fall in love with some part of living, and then try to narrate what it is that you love about it. i love the writing with fountain pens because drawing ink into the reservoir makes me feel like a witch mixing potions, and i love baking because that first slice of my spatula through the dry and wet ingredients crunches so wonderfully, and i love wearing mamianqun because the swish of my hems when i walk makes up for the struggle of dripping over them when i go up stairs. little things like that really bring your writing to life

in terms of reading recs for things that have inspired me, i have to say. 90% of it is other fics. there are so many fics that have inspired me over the years and i always try to analyze what it is i love about them in terms of narrative structure, use of language, etc. uhhhh that said i've had my fingers in a lot of fandom pies over the years, and also i minored in english so i'm like. a little bit fussy about my analyses. that said:

if you want some beautiful prose, my favourite book of all time has to be This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (yes, the bigolas dickolas one)

a great example of narrative voice and unreliable narration that i love to bits is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, it's so different from the movie and is SO funny.

aside from that, lately i've been rereading Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet, which is a literary discourse on the depiction of desire in the fragments of Sappho + later poets.

my current wips... there are Many. i am trying to play cleanup with them and i've been bouncing across ten different wips, not to mention the abandoned ones that are never seeing the light of day again. rn the main wip is this is our eden-in-flames, a direct sequel to within the ruins of me which i finished last year. i've also got a smattering of other wips in the ruination series, a few misc ffxiv fics, and a smattering of hsr fics.

once again, thank you so much anon ;-; good luck with your own writing endeavours!

[hopeworth]

Hi! I absolutely love your writing like, so much. You reference a lot of other literary works and I’d like to ask, what are your favourites? And also, how do you find the quotes you reference in your works, are they favourites collected over the years?

Again, your writing is pure joy 🫶🏼🫶🏼

thank you so much!! really happy to hear that. i'm guessing you probably came from some of my old DC works where i make a lot of references haha. i don't really have an archive of selected quotes that i reference or something like that; i think when you reference/quote other works it can't be done in a vacuum because it has to have meaning - why are you quoting something else? what does that link to another work say about yours? sometimes it's straightforward like me always quoting percy shelley's stanzas written in dejection because it's a sad poem and the characters are sad lmao. (and also because i love overusing that turn of phrase lmao). so no it's not like favourites i've collected over the years, but when i look at jason todd hamlet and frankenstein immediately comes to mind and i reference them so.

but, once again, do whatever you want forever and quote things that in context have nothing to do with it at all the world is your playground

as for my favourites - well, the reason this ask was sitting in my askbox for a while was because i was trying to get into the mood to write a rec list but that still won't happen for a long time lmao. so i'll have to be basic and (assuming by literary works you mean canonical texts) say: frankenstein, any shakespeare (yes i know, but he really is that good. if you can't get into shakespeare find a performance of the text you're reading, it helps a lot), anne carson's translation of the oresteia, emily wilson's the odyssey, robin robertson's medea, uhhhh that's it off the top of my head

for more modern ones, also off the top of my head: ocean vuong, hanif abdurraqib

[rainstormcolors]

I know I just sent one but also, 3, 17, 37 and 41 for Seto Kaiba? Please and thank you!

Hello again! I don’t mind answering another ask from you at all. You’re sweet. I previously answered 17 and 37 for Seto, and I’ll copy/paste the answers at the bottom after the two new questions.

3. Obscure headcanon

I’m not sure what counts as “obscure.” I feel like writing fanfiction ends up developing our ideas outside of canon. I’ve encountered more than once the idea that Seto’s biological father may also have committed suicide, whether actively or passively, and even I’ve played with that idea in my head before. Readings of young child Seto seem to vary. I personally tend to lean towards a melancholy and more socially cold reading of him. These don’t feel obscure to me as ideas though.

I once included Seto not eating any roasted carrots in a fanfic, and a little detail like that feels more obscure to me.

41. If they could have lunch with anyone in the world (living or dead, from any fictional universe or the real world), who would it be?

Man… this feels like a loaded question for Seto with all the ghosts in his life. I feel like some of them he’d be afraid to see and others he holds so many thoughts and questions for.

“Atem” kind of feels like an answer he gave in part of canon admittedly.

--

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

The song The Last Day by Moby is a go-to for both Seto Kaiba and Noa Kaiba. The song Dark Star by Moby also feels Seto-ish to me.

For a poem, The Committee Weighs In by Andrea Cohen.

Some quotes:

“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.” Euripides, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides, tr. Anne Carson

“No greater desire exists than a wounded person’s desire for another wound.” Georges Battaille, Ecstasy, from Guilty, tr. Bruce Boone

“I burn, I freeze; I am never warm. I am rigid; I forgot softness because it did not serve me.” Catherynne M Valente, from Deathless

“I wasted so many years being miserable because I assumed that was the only way to be.” Bojack Horseman, from Bojack Horseman

37. What they really think about themselves

Seto’s mind and heart are cloudy and tangled places in canon. I think he wants to see himself as strong and powerful and capable and that he does not feel lonely and that he does not need friends or warmth or love. He’s very defensive to cling to those ideas about himself. He holds himself to a standard he cannot reach. I think he has very complicated feelings about Gozaburo he can’t examine closely – it was easiest to ignore those feelings after Gozaburo’s death at first and then to realize how much he hated Gozaburo and to focus on that. The complications of these feelings leached out regardless. That Seto is lonely and feels his weakness leaches out regardless. If Seto himself answered this question, I think he’d write down lies he tells himself are true. I also think he does know on some level that something is wrong here and that he needs to change. He is trying to save himself but he's very clumsy at it. He does reach out to others at times but he does so in self-sabotaging ways.

[nebulous-bitch]

To Stay and Let Go

"I don't know what to do with it,

with all the love I have for her.

I don't know where to put it now."

Why am I still carrying it all?

("where can I put it down?")

My hands are overflowing but they're bleeding, too,

and I've bitten my nails down to the quick

but you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands

because I can't seem to make my fingers release- what?

"I'm afraid I will spend entire years trying not to need you."

(I already have)

And you say that you're a cringey poet now

but my thoughts have always been poetry around you

and I feel like i'm trying to scrub it away so that

we might get to somewhere where it didn't actually happen

but I can't unwrite the words that you carved into my heart

with soft touches and goofy laughs.

("I just want to make you laugh.

can't that be the whole poem?

I just want to make you laugh.")

And Jesus you're so beautiful

that it makes my chest hurt sometimes

and I feel like a failure because somehow

I stopped holding on

even though I've forgotten how to let go.

And I'm lying in a bland hotel room

reading Anne Carson and looking out the window

at the rows of rooms on the building next door

and I think I read something once

about cutting open a heart and finding only love instead of blood.

I don't think you're all that I am

and I'm certainly getting better at living without you

but I'm still debating if that's just because

I've successfully scaffolded the gaping hole inside of me

into something that can be ignored for the most part

aside from the continuous thoughts of you that

keep slipping through the gaps.

And you wouldn't even let me blame myself. Of course.

I hate you (no I don't).

I couldn't even bring myself to do that

and I'm getting worse and worse at faking it.

I always thought that it would kill me to lose you.

I am somehow disappointed that it hasn't yet.

And to be honest this doesn't really feel like getting over you

more like circling something over and over again

hoping that it will get blacked out.

My hands keep shaking and

I wish I could stop you affecting me like this

because I keep thinking that if I'd only known you better

if I'd only noticed sooner so you didn't have to tell me

if I'd only never met you so I wouldn't be standing here

heart ripped open like a pair of old jeans

knowing you won't even beg for it.

Knowing that you'd never ask me to stay.

I told you not to, you see

and I was always too good at asking and

you were always too good at doing

but of course none of that

applied to the things that mattered, in the end.

Maybe we never should have been here

but neither of us were ever very good at

controlling ourselves, were we

because it's hard to judge where to cut from this angle,

and now the knife's slipped and i'm spread open

because you always did know me better than anyone else.

I would’ve thought you’d have put a bit more effort

into not hurting me, then.

(Who let the fire start though, honestly?

Maybe we'll never know)

And you know what hurts the most is that

somehow, even after all of it,

it seems that the fact that you lied

still doesn't fix the fact that I love you

and you are so well woven into my life

that I wouldn't even know where to start trying to cut you out.

------

@gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss thanks for bullying me into this ig

@florida-preposterously words!! (idk if you'll appreciate the tag but i hope so)

@not-perry-the-platypus i don't think you've seen this one yet

[beatfreesmysoul]

REPOST & LIST 6 SONGS THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE

+ Drift Away - Dobie Gray - | Thanks for the joy that you've given me | I want you to know I believe in your song | And rhythm and rhyme and harmony | You've helped me along | Makin' me strong | Oh, give me the beat boys and free my soul | I wanna get lost in your rock 'n' roll and drift away |

+ September - Earth, Wind & Fire - | Do you remember the 21st night of September? | Love was changing the mind of pretenders while chasing the clouds away | Our hearts were ringing in the key that our souls were singing | As we danced in the night, remember | How the stars stole the night away |

+ Dream On - Aerosmith - | Lived and learned from fools and sages | You know it's true | All the things come back to you | Sing with me | sing for the year | sing for the laughter and sing for the tear | Sing with me if it's just for today | Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away |

+ Digital Love - Daft Punk - | Last night I had a dream about you | In this dream I'm dancing right beside you | And it looked like everyone was having fun | The kind of feeling I've waited so long | Don't stop come a little closer | As we jam the rhythm gets stronger | There's nothing wrong with just a little little fun | We were dancing all night long |

+ Stupid Deep - Jon Bellion | What if who I hoped to be was always me? | And the love I fought to feel was always free? | What if all the things I've done | Were just attempts at earning love? Yeah | 'Cause the hole inside my heart is stupid deep | Oh, stupid deep |

+ Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - The Smiths | Haven't had a dream in the long time | See the life I've had | Can make a good man bad | So for once in my life | Let me get what I want | Lord knows it would be the first time | Lord knows it would be the first time |

& 6 QUOTES THAT INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE YOUR MUSE.

+ "Usually life takes more than it gives, but not today. Today it's givin' us something, it's givin' us a chance--to give a shit, for once." - Peter Quill

+ “I’ve found that no matter what life throws at me, music softens the blow.” – Bryce Anderson

+ "I'm not afraid of dying. Pieces of me die all the time." - Sage Francis

+ “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” – Maya Angelou 

+ "A time to laugh, a time to weep. A time to mourn...and there is a time to dance." - Ren, Footloose.

+ "To never see her face again is what grief is." - Euripides, tr. by Anne Carson

tagged by: @eideticspider tagging: @innerwar @insidemyblood @survivics and anyone else that wants to!

[harrowscore]

best books read in 2022 by yours truly, in no particular order:

the seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle by stuart turton (technically started in 2021 but finished in early january 2022, so it counts). murder mystery + time loop + redemption themes = perfect mix, 10/10 recommend

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone: space lesbians but what if they were enemies? lovely, lovely prose. one flaw tho: more of a ~i'm being poetic for the sake of being poetic~ than a character story. still, interesting read.

the plague by albert camus: i couldn't not include him. 5/5 stars, he's easily becoming one of my favorite authors.

hygiène de l'assassin by amélie nothomb: a female journalist succeeds where everyone else fails and interviews an old misanthropic and cynical nobel-winner author. but not everything is as it seems... insane little book, great characterization for the female protagonist. perfect ending. i couldn't put it down, thankfully it's quite short.

carmilla by j. sheridan le fanu: this doesn't need introductions, does it? :)

hedda gabler by henrik ibsen: a play revolving around a woman - daughter of a general, unsatisfied by her current circumstances and marriage. a fascinating female protagonist, especially for the time; the kind of writing you usually get for male characters, and a role every actress would give everything to play at least once.

salomé by oscar wilde: one act only, but it stays with you. particularly incisive adaptation of the biblical story; wilde's writing as usual is stunning.

an oresteia (agamemnon by aeschylus, elektra by sophokles, orestes by euripides) by anne carson: another read that doesn't need introductions.

the hours by michael cunningham: somehow based on mrs dalloway, it is about one day (and the life) of three women in three different time periods; among them, virginia woolf herself. lovely prose.

the cycle of earthsea by ursula k. le guin: series of 5 books (including one of short stories) masterfully written by ms le guin. the first book is a sort of fantasy buldingsroman about a young wizard named ged who, because of his hubris, makes a peculiar sort of enemy... the next books follow ged as he becomes an adult, a middle-aged, and an old man + a varied cast of characters (most importantly tenar, introduced in book 2). original worldbuilding and story (especially for the time - the first novel was published in the 60s), lovely prose and themes (light/dark as yin/yang, necessary to each other's existence - sw wishes it had what earthsea has) + beautiful love story in the last volumes. bonus: most characters in earthsea are very much not white. again, very avant-garde for the 60s, and something all adaptations deliberately ignored.

grendel by john gardner: based on the beowulf poem - the story told by the antagonist's point of view. just striking, and oh my god the themes. couldn't stop thinking about it for days.

in the night garden by catherynne m. valente: a girl trapped in a garden spins a labyrinth of fairy tales for a boy - the only person willing to listen to her - a la scheherazade. told in the usual beautiful prose made in valente, amazing settings and atmospheres.

the sundering duology by jacqueline carey. (thanks for the rec, @queen-zimraphel ❤️) basically a lotr retelling told by the Bad Guys' povs. the inspiration is clear but also it's meant to be a mirror and say 'what if?'. grey morality everywhere, elegant but simple prose + death and the maiden vibes from the local tormented dark lord/the beautiful elf lady. (tho the main love story is not about them specifically... but still.) a great tragedy, but masterfully told - this is how characters who were dead from the beginning and given a role to play in the narrative by a fate larger than them should be written.

honorary mentions to áqua viva by clarice lispector, waiting for godot by samuel beckett, enrico iv by luigi pirandello, and then there were none by agatha christie, sharp objects and gone girl by gillian flynn, in the margins by elena ferrante, ficciones by jorge luis borges, and obviously demons by fyodor dostoeveskij <3

[ginkovskij]

☕ translations of your favourite books

Inch resting question, Small R, you know I'm very opinionated about translations I love you!!

Here I have some considerations about two of my favourite books:

Bacchae: I got my first little copy of this tragedy when I was fifteen and I am very fond of it. It's in Italian, has a very nice and poetic translation which is probably my favourite because it manages to keep the greecity of the original text in a way that I prefer to others. I don't know exactly how to put this feeling into words (surely there is an academic way to speak of it), but to me there is nothing more beautiful than to be able to feel the original language even in translation, and for me the best translation for Greek and Latin literature maintain their character in the way of structure and vocabulary. This is by the way the main reason I found the English translations I read so far disappointing. The one I usually refer to (forgot the translator and publisher, wow) is not half bad, but there's this incredibly annoying addition of stage directions!! Aurrgh!! And to name names I don't like Anne Carson's work, which I may be wrong but it's more a rewriting than a translation? Surely it reads like such. Her Bacchae is frustratingly bad: there are cuts everywhere and I cannot say this enough the poetification of the text makes it plain and ugly. Way to wipe away once again the idea of god-induced madness staining a man and being passed by the touch like a disease. Great, truly.

Note to the People: if anyone has a good English or German translation to recommend please do!!

Crime and Punishment: This one I needed to actually read from several translation at a time because this one single Italian translation was at traits not very good. But as the second one I got (super funk edition with drafts and notes written by the Dostoevskij himself!!) was better, it didn't offer the super interesting notes about the original Russian text and the explanation of the many clever word plays and puns, which is sad. Two examples: in the first translation a note indicates that "Dostoevskij uses the recurring adjective dikij, which properly means wild, but in his writing it assumes the meaning of extraordinary, fearsome, delirious, etc." it's a little extra but lets the reader appreciate a peculiar choice of words that would be otherwise lost; in the second translation "batjuška" is actually translated into "dear". Little things that make me a little sad, because once again it missed the uh russian-ity? Whatever. Thank God I'm not mentally well and kept switching in between books.

At this time I also picked an English edition, but it was unfortunately Garnett's and we all know that's not good. Characters in the middle of 19th century St. Petersburg speaking like British dandies? No thanks. Pevear and Vocholonskij's work in translation is far better and in general they are my favourite couple for English editions.

I also have two different translations to German, which I have quickly read without brainwork behind it.

I wanted to add a third book, imagine how much I love it I don't remember which one it was (:

send me ☕️ + [topic] and i’ll tell you my opinion on it

[wheel-of-hyperfixation]

my elementary school had an audio copy of Ella Enchanted, this old mp3 player type device that we could take out for only a week once we were in 4th grade.

i think i was one of the only people who ever took it out, because i had that every couple of weeks without fail. I got a copy of the book for myself, well used and clearly loved. In 4th and 5th grade alone i listened to/read that story nine times.

I have my own digital copy of it to listen to now and come back to it again least once a year. (The movie too i love, tho it’s storyline is quite different from that of the book, but i’m a sucker for anything starring Anne Hathaway.) When someone asks what my favorite book is and I’m thinking about it I always have to mention this story because it’s brought a special peace to my life. No matter where I’ve been and the things I’ve gone through, it’s been a place of comfort Ive known I can fall into for nearly ten years.

Thank you Gail Carson Levine <3

what's a book you read as a teenager that was so magical and personally profound to you it literally changed your life, doesnt matter if the book was actually well written or not. mine's probably the catcher in the rye

[noxtms]

dear rachel ; we are pleased to inform you that your application for ASTORIA GREENGRASS has been accepted to 𝐧𝐨𝐱 ! go min si is now taken. you have twenty four hours to submit your account, or else your role will be reopened !

⧼   go min si, cis woman, she & her   /   dead girl in the pool by girl in red + once upon a time, 호랑이 담배 피우던 시절에, latha bha seo, a gallant king and beautiful queen long thought to be barren finally welcomed three bonny daughters and their kingdom rejoiced with the ringing of the bells. the king held a christening feast unlike any seen before and invited the three fairies in the land to join in the celebrations, secretly hoping that they would bestow the most magical gifts upon his children. a great storm rolled in on the eve that the owls were sent to deliver the invitations and one was blown off course ; it was a harmless mistake. the youngest fairy stepped forward as the eldest child was presented to court and bowed low. "this princess," she proclaimed, "will be wealthy in wisdom." the king and queen, of course, thanked her greatly. the middle fairy stepped forward as the middle child was presented to court and bowed lower. "this princess," she said, "will have the courage to change." the king and queen, of course, thanked her profusely. only when the youngest child was presented and the eldest fairy was nowhere to be seen did the king and queen realise the blunder, with the dawning horror that there would be no more gifts to give. "this princess," the eldest fairy might've announced, "will be the fairest of them all." i say might because, of course, the eldest fairy found herself busy elsewhere on that particular day. this is the part of the story where everything goes wrong. fairytales always have rules ; if one princess is clever and the other is brave, the last will almost always be doomed. sorry - beautiful. but also doomed.   /   INTERLUDE #1 : anne carson wrote, "a golden flower of a girl; a precarious girl."   /   spoiler alert : that girl is going to die. at least that's what they're saying on the internet. have you ever heard of a little trope called 'fridging'? don't let yourself get too attached to the most unfortunate princess, now, because there's a world of ways in which the narrator can and will take her from you ; a wicked witch burst in to place a rotten curse on her, her mother's love smothered her in her sleep, the goddess of love was in a particularly bad mood that day, a man needed some character development and no one could think of anything better than a slow, painful end for the unlucky lady. god forbid she looks pretty in pictures - extra, extra, read all about it! 'BEAUTY SLAIN!'   /   INTERLUDE #2 : ALWAYS AN ANGEL, NEVER A GOD, ALWAYS AN ANGEL, NEVER A GOD, ALWAYS AN ANGEL, NEVER A GOD, ALWAYS AN ANGEL, NEVER A GOD-   /   even her name tells her what you need to know. derived from the german surname 'astor' or perhaps the name of the titan goddess 'asteria' in greek mythology. from the latin astur, meaning a species of hawk ( a hawk is a predator with good eyesight and a short, hooked beak ; a predator is a creature that hunts, kills and eats other animals, known as prey ; this, to a hawk, would be small birds and rodents easily clasped in the death trap of sharp talons ; this, on second thought, is rather unpleasant to think about, but you can already sort of see the irony ) or the ancient greek aster, meaning star ( a star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma born from the gravitational collapse of a gaseous nebula - that's a mouthful, isn't it? try again ; a star is a luminous ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity. the sun is the closest star to earth ; the sun is the star at the centre of our solar system ; our solar system is a gravitationally bound system of objects, meaning the planets, circling the sun ; someone told me once that by the time the light of a star reaches us here on earth it's already dead & if the sun ever happened to change its mind about shining and collapse in upon itself then we'd all die, too ; bottom line, they're all beautiful, but doomed. ring a bell? )   /   INTERLUDE #3 : in the words of friedrich nietzche, "you have always approached everything terrible trustfully. you have wanted to pet every monster."   /   the princess wants a better story. who can blame her, right? it begun so promisingly. what if the bells at the start of the story woke a sleeping witch? the storm still rolled in and the owl still got blown off course and the eldest fairy still decided she had something better to do with her time but on the day of the grand christening feast, this witch got curious and wandered into the midst of the celebrations in time to see the king and queen exchange terrified looks. she's a bit rusty, but surely something, maybe even anything, is better than nothing. "this princess," she says, and all eyes turn to look at her, "will have the strength to persevere." still doomed, then, but given a fighting chance. maybe that's the best they could hope for.   /   FINALE : in a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.   ⧽   ━━   hey, isn’t that ASTORIA GREENGRASS? i read a daily prophet article on them, once ; the TWENTY FIVE year old pure blood WITCH is a HUFFLEPUFF alumnus who has gone on to be an OWL POSTAL WORKER. i’ve heard they can be quite WHIMSICAL & EBULLIENT, but i don’t know… they came off very SCATTERBRAINED & HEDONISTIC in that interview. it really is hard to know what to believe these days though, isn’t it?   [   rachel, twenty four, gmt, she / they   ]

[camgoloud]

5, 9, & 24 for the book ask :)

(side note inside problems is soooooo good omg your writing is incredible)

ahhhh thank you! that's seriously so nice i'm really happy you liked it <333

5. What genre did you read the most of?

Pretty easily sci-fi/fantasy for this one, I think! (I will forever at the core of me be a genre nerd 😊)

9. Did you get into any new genres?

Probably can't call it "new" exactly, but I read more plays within a few-months window this year than I ever have since the Shakespeare class I took once... and had a lot of fun doing it! For next year it's really a goal of mine to 1. Sit down and finally read some of the major Greek tragedies—I got ahold of a copy of Anne Carson's Oresteia (of "It's rotten work / Not to me. Not if it's you" fame!) recently and I am SERIOUSLY excited to give that a go... and 2. catch up on my Shakespeare comedies/romances, because I genuinely think the only one I've ever read is Midsummer?? and this just seems Not Correct????

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

I rarely make the conscious decision to DNF something unless it, like, actively offends me or something—and too often not even then—but there are definitely a couple things that I tried to start, made it a couple of chapters into, and then ran out of steam on before they had to go back to the library or some such... Children of Dune comes to mind (I swear I'm coming back for it soon!) and so does The Steerswoman. Also: I am embarrassed to admit that I did NOT keep up with my Dracula Daily past the first couple of weeks and found myself lacking motivation to catch up later on... so that's another thing on my agenda to try again next year!

[end-of-year book ask: send me a number!]

[soracities]

hi, can u share some of ur fave one liners from books? something that struck u most, something that has stayed with u even after a long time of first reading it. thank u :)

“A loveless world is a dead world.” (Albert Camus, The Plague)

"Once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much." (Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things) 

“Love is not consolation. It is light.” (Simone Weil, Gravity & Grace)

“Mother, heart of my heart, truly each of us is guilty before everyone and for everyone, only people do not know it.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

“But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter House 5)

"His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.” (Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber)

"(we are not single, we are one)" (Virginia Woolf, The Waves)

“You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince)

“Herakles’ gaze on him was like a gold tongue. Magma rising.” (Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red)

“She needs me. She needs me more than I need untainted hands.” (Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, the Serial Killer)

“His face, which carried the entire tale of his years, was of the brown tint of Dublin streets.” (James Joyce, Dubliners)

"What good is a writer if he can’t destroy literature?” (Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch)

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?” (Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic)

“It’s not that we have hope; we shelter it.” (John Berger, From A to X)