#Regiment Commander Dash

[hurts2think]

hii! Can i req a red x f reader ?I dont rlly have any good plots in mind but maybe like a enemies to lovers trope where red & reader met at auradon prep for the first time and the reader totally caught red’s eye but red denies it and is mean, then gets jealous and confesses in the end

Something like that!

♥️Red Hearts x Fem!Reader♥️

Reader pronouns: She/her

Pairing: Red Hearts x Fem!Reader

Plot: Very low-key rivals to lovers. Reader is a Knight in training who's a rule follower while Red is rebellious and doesn't live by the rules. Red joins R.O.A.R, the fencing inspired game from Descendants 2.

Word Count: 2.6k

Extra: This is the first fanfic I've wrote in a VERY long time and also my first ever x reader fic. So I hope it's good <3 thank you for reading.

Auradon Prep was always your favorite place to be. It felt like a place you could finally fit into. Before you, your parents were knights and protected their kingdom, and they expected the same from you. So naturally you signed up for R.O.A.R aka Royal Order of Auradon Regiment.

R.O.A.R was what you looked forward to the most for your junior year at AP. You heard the horror stories of it being a boys-only sport until the famous Lonnie, daughter of Mulan, once became captain and changed the rules for good. Now R.O.A.R actually became a female dominated sport at AP. Which you didn't really mind either way who was in the team, as long as they were easy to get along with.

Unfortunately, there was a new person on the team this year. You heard of her, everyone has, but you never had any real contact with her. You'd be lying if you said you weren't a little annoyed with her constant sour attitude and the need to break rules. This girl was of course, Princess Red from Wonderland. Her bright red hair and her punk-esque style made her stand out from the rest. You thought she'd be... Mad. Like how everyone supposedly is in Wonderland. But she seemed to just be any other girl with a bad attitude.

"This costume is stupid." The red girl declared, "And is the mask really necessary too?" She complained as she was getting ready for practice in the locker room.

Most people ignored her. Many students were pretty intimidated by her, which made you feel bad to some degree. Even if she wasn't the most well behaved, it was still a pity she didn't seem to make friends easily. So after a moment of silence from the rest of the team, you finally spoke up,

"It's a uniform, not a costume. And it is required. The mask is to keep us safe too." You explained, unintentionally coming off as a little harsh. But that was what most people expected from you. Always by the book, a little cold, and stubborn. Not that you meant to come off that way. But being surrounded by knights your whole life, you kind of picked up that attitude. But really once people got to know you, you were sweet and a lot more easy going.

"Right. Whatever." She shrugged, leaving the locker room once she was dressed and ready.

You sighed and finished getting ready before following everyone else out to the strip where practice would finally begin.

"Okay team, as you know, we have a new member with us so let's make sure she feels welcome and a part of the team." The Captian, Nilly, declared to everyone. And though your eyes stayed fixed on the Captian, you couldn't help but have your gaze dash to Red for a quick moment. She didn't seem too enthused by the 'warm welcome'.

"Now, let's not waste any more time and get started." Nilly said, pairing up everyone to fight each other before her gaze fixed on you as she thought for a moment, "Why don't you go with Red? Show her the ropes?" Really it seemed like Nilly was worried that Red would break some rules or not play fairly. Since you were next to be Captian, it was only fair for you to be the one with her.

You didn't sigh or groan, you just gave a firm nod at the command as Red came over to stand across from you.

Your eyes locked together, her attitude had been nothing but lazy and rude, but now you could see the determination in her face. She definitely wouldn't go down without a fight.

"...lower the point, mask down," you suddenly snapped back from your thoughts to the sound of Nilly's voice. Then the game had started.

Swords clashed, people jumped around, it was overall a pretty chaotic sport like most of the sport in Auradon. But it wasn't a sport you've ever gone defeated in, and maybe that's why it was unexpected that Red seemed to be a total natural. Maybe you let your guard down a little bit and she got the upperhand at first before you really had to focus and lock in.

After a couple minutes of swords clashing and people getting out of the game, it was suddenly just you and Red left. It was pretty shocking to everyone that the new girl made it to the end. You kind of hoped people would assume you were going easy on her since she was new, but really, she was putting up a good fight.

Of course, practice and determination beats beginners luck so in the end you won against her.

You take your mask off and offer her a hand, "Good game, you fight well." You said, as you said pretty much after any match. But you really did mean it. She fought very well, maybe they had something similar in Wonderland so she already had practice because she was very good.

She looked at your hand but didn't take it, "Yeah, you too." She said, walking past you without any other word. Her tone sounded far from sincere which made your brows furrow and a frown appear on your face.

At the end of practice, Nilly announced that she wasn't going to be at school for the next week and that you would be taking spot as temporary captian. You had to hold back your smile, but really you were excited! You would've actually already been Captian this year if it wasn't for all of your honors classes and after school activities that kept you busy last year. But this was a great opportunity to prepare for next year and college!

And as the new temporary Captian, you felt obligated to take full responsibility for every member. Especially the new one. So after dinner, you took it into your own hands to show up at Red's dorm and discuss the expectations and rules of R.O.A.R.

But before you could knock, you heard a noise from inside. A... Spraying noise? You noticed the door was slightly cracked open, peaking inside your eyes widened.

"What..."

Suddenly Red turned around to see your astonished face. Then her eyes narrowed, "what're you doing?" She asked, standing in front of her completely vandalized and spray painted walls.

"What are you doing?! Do you know how much trouble you'll get into??" You asked, accidentally raising your voice before talking in a hushed tone so no one around would get nosey and get her into trouble.

"So? It looks better this way. I couldn't stand the boring yellow walls. Yellow is not my color." She said, looking back at her work with a satisfied smile.

"But— It's—" you struggled to find the words, "If a teacher finds out you'll be in so much trouble." You finally said, giving her a judgemental look.

Red huffed and plopped down on her bed, "Then a teacher won't find out. Don't you ever have any fun in your life? Or are you one of those princesses who only live by the book?"

You couldn't believe this girl's attitude, "First of all, I'm not a princess... I'm a knight." You corrected confidently, to which she rolled her eyes, "And second, people follow the book for a reason! You can have fun without being... Uhm..." You try to find the right word.

"Villainous?"

"Exactly!" You exclaim, "Just..." You see that she was giving you a mocking expression, "Okay. Nevermind. I'm not here to talk about this." You sigh.

"Great. So can you leave?" She asked, but it seemed to be more of a demand than a question.

You simply ignored her and pulled out a small booklet from your coat pocket, sitting on a chair in her room. "As the temporary Captian, I wanted to discuss some things with you. You're an excellent fighter but you broke a couple rules... But it's okay, I'm here to go over all of the rules with you." You smiled for probably the first time at her.

"A rulebook? Seriously? You're cute n' all, princess, but did you miss the entire conversation where I just said rules were boring and that you're boring for following them?" She sat up, looking you straight in the eye, unamused by this topic.

"Well you'll be kicked off the team if you can't follow some basic rules." You replied, sensing this was going to be harder than you imagined.

To Red's demise, you sat there for the next hour, reading every single rule and explaining them to her. She kept her eyes locked on you the whole time, though you felt she might not actually be listening. More like she was studying you as if you were a weird looking bird at a zoo.

She observed the way you sat so properly and the way you spoke and moved was filled with confidence and almost demanded respect. Then she observed your features, your eyes, hair, face, style of clothing. It was all kind of attractive. Though you had a strict attitude, she was sure she could pull you to be more level headed and laid back. But once you finally finished and closed the book, it snapped her back to reality and before her thoughts really ran wild.

"Any questions?" You asked.

She just stared at you for a moment in silence before standing up, "Nope. You explained it so well. This was a very... Informational meeting. I think I learned a lot."

Red was most definitely being sarcastic, but you weren't necessarily the first person to pick up on sarcasm so your face lit up a little when she said that, "Oh! Really? We can go over all of the stances too and—" you suddenly cut yourself off and frowned, "Oh. Sarcasm?"

She nodded, giving a passive aggressively smile, "You can leave now."

You sighed and stood up to leave but not before saying, "You know, Red. I think you really have the opportunity to do great things. Your a great fighter and.." you look at the vandalized walls, ",a great artist too. If you could just do it the right way and—"

"Okay I don't need to be lectured by you." She said, putting a hand on your back to guide you out of her room.

You eventually left and mentally cursed yourself for wasting your time with her. She probably didn't even listen to a single thing you said.

But now Red was left alone in her room with her own thoughts. She couldn't understand how someone could be so by-the-book and proper. It was like that girl really was a knight who did school part time.

But something about her really stuck out to Red. Maybe it was the determination or the way her entire person demanded a respect that most people of real authority didn't have.

----

At the end of the week there was a school dance. Red didn't know why schools seemed to presistent on having a dance every 3 months, but she wasn't really complaining. It's not like she had anyone to go with. She was still relatively new and didn't have any friends. Well, kind of.

After her little meeting with you, she found the knight-in-training barging into her room more and more often this whole week. Offering to help her practice, help with school work, it's like you made it your goal to 'fix' Red or something. But Red secretly found it endearing. Your conversations became more playful and flirtatious, well, on Red's side at least.

She found your reactions entertaining. The way you'd look away from her and your confident attitude suddenly goes weak. A simple arm around the shoulder and wink was enough to make you melt.

Though you never actually considered the fact Red was actually romantically interested, no matter how many times she said "Well, aren't you cute?" To tease you. There was no way she actually felt anything. Right?

This year you were put in charge of doorkeeping so you had to make a guest list of everyone that was attending the dance. And now as the day was ending and people were preparing for tomorrow night, you were making the rounds to all of the people who hadn't signed up to see if they were going.

You found Red at the dining hall and approached her, "Red. You haven't signed up for the dance." You said, getting straight to the point as she was sitting at a table, drawing while eating a bowl of chocolates.

"I'm not going." She said, not even bothering to look up at you.

"What? Why? It's your first dance, and no offense, but you don't have many friends. It could be a good opportunity to make friends." You advised, taking a seat next to her.

"Sounds awful, I'll pass."

You sigh. Before you could say anything else, a girl you recognized took a seat in front of the two of you, "Hey, (y/n)." She greeted with a smile. Her name was Tina and she was a cute girl who talked to you plenty of times but you wouldn't consider yourself friends.

"Hello, Tina." You responded, taking your eyes off Red to look at the girl.

"So... Are you going to the dance?" She asked you, which had Red look up from her drawing for the first time.

"Yes. I'm the doorkeeper this year, but after that I'll be with the rest of you guys." You explained.

"Sweet. I can't wait to see you there. You're not going with anyone, are you?" She asked, leaning towards you and her body language becoming much more flirtatious.

"No. I mostly will just be making the rounds to my friends and hanging out with them." You didn't seem to catch onto the flirting, but Red definitely did. And, man, if looks could kill. Tina would drop dead.

"Well, I can't wait." She smiled before getting up and waving then leaving.

"Dude..." Red said, looking at you.

"What?"

"That girl was definitely trying to ask you to the dance." Red said, though it wasn't in a teasing way. If anything, she didn't look too happy about it.

"Huh? What? Tina? No no. She's just a friend and was probably curious." You said, there was no was Tina of all people wanted to go to the dance with you.

Red just shook her head and sighed, "You're lucky you're so cute. It doesn't matter you're totally oblivious."

Though she said it as an insult, you couldn't help but feel your face heat up at the comment.

"Well... It doesn't matter either way. I'm not interested in her like that." You said, suddenly feeling the need to separate yourself from Tina. You didn't want Red to think you liked Tina at all. But you didn't exactly know why you were suddenly so defensive about it... Obviously Red didn't care... Or maybe she did. You found it very hard to read Red. Which was one of the reasons you liked her so much

Red looked like she suddenly got an idea, "You know what. I think I will go to the dance."

"Really?"

"Yep. Wouldn't it be a shame if someone else was dancing with my Knight-in-shining-armor at the dance?" She smirked, putting an arm around your shoulder.

"Red... Are you asking me to—"

"Don't. Don't say it. I might throw up." She frowned but you smiled.

You took her arm off of you and instead held her hand, leaning against her slightly, "I'd love to go to the dance with you."

Red put her face in her hand, "Gross. Don't make it cheesy." She said, but it was obvious she was trying to hide her flustered face.

"Shut up, it's adorable." You laughed, nudging her arm and she finally smiled at you. An actual genuine smile.

[sednonamoris]

call off the dogs (and come home to me)

Pairing: John Price x gn!reader

Summary: You've quietly yearned after Captain John Price for a long time now, and known him even longer. With each stolen glance and interrupted moment the tension between you grows, but everything comes to a head when a mission gone wrong forces you to confront feelings that have gone unspoken for the better part of a decade.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, strong language, alcohol mention, drunk hookup, a little bit of torture + murder, fingering, porn with plot (smut should read gender neutral but let me know if any changes will make it more inclusive!!), mild angst, mutual pining with a happy ending

Word count: 3,940

A/N: My first foray into smut inspired by the incredibly talented @yeyinde!! Expect more Hound/Price content in the future bc I’m obsessed lol

--

 “Hound,” a familiar voice startles you from the mountain of paperwork on your desk, “what are you still doing here?”

 You raise a challenging brow at your captain. “Couldn’t I ask you the same thing?”

 This exchange has become familiar in the months you’ve spent grounded. Anyone else would take a bullet to the knee as a chance to slow down - switch careers entirely if they were smart - but you’re stubborn. A dog with a bone. Two surgeries and months of rehab that still aren’t finished, frankly you’re lucky to be walking. Luckier still that they let you stay on with the 141; There was a minute there that Laswell threatened you with an honourable discharge. A timely intervention with the physical therapist got you out of it, the only stipulation being that you remain firmly planted behind a desk until the doctors clear you. Having spent the better part of a lifetime hands-on in the field, it’s been hard not to overextend to prove your worth off of it.

 So after-hours paperwork it is. At least the company is good.

 “Touché,” Price huffs a laugh through his whiskers. “Fancy a cuppa? Sounds like we’ll both be here a while yet.”

 “Have I told you lately you’re my favourite? Two sugars and--”

 “--a splash of cream,” he finishes for you. The twinkle in his eye warms you right through, and you smile after him a little bit like an idiot.

 It’s been like this ever since the domestic terrorism scare your team was called in on in Belfast what feels like a lifetime ago. He was only a lieutenant then, and you a sergeant. You were assigned to civilian extraction, but took off when you saw one of the primary suspects make a dash for it through side streets. Price saw you go for him and followed, the two of you giving chase on foot for three blocks before you managed to dive-tackle him in a back alley. It was a major success to take him alive, but your captain at the time wanted blood for the abandoned civilians. Price stood up for you in front of the entire regiment.

Took after ‘im like a bloody hellhound! he’d said. That deserves a medal, not disciplinary action.  

 Just over ten years later you’re still called Hound, and he’s still the subject of your silly, unattainable daydreams. Captain John Price is a name that means something, but to you he will always be the sergeant with fire in his eyes who stood up for you when no one else would. When he asked if you were interested in joining the 141 at its inception you didn’t even hesitate. You’d follow him anywhere.

 “One tea, two sugars, splash of cream,” Price announces when he returns from the kitchenette with two steaming mugs to distract you from your thoughts. Yours is placed ceremoniously on an ARW coaster you ‘borrowed’ from your last commanding officer. “Now I believe you owe me something…?”

 You grin and pull out your secret stash. The false bottom of the drawer is probably meant for sensitive intel, but you’ve found it’s perfect for biscuits. Three are placed in his outstretched hand, and three next to your mug.

 “You’re lucky I’ve got a man on the inside who sends me these,” you scold as he scoffs one down almost immediately.

 “Yeah, tell your granddad I said ‘thanks’.”

 “I can’t. He’d disown me if he knew I was feeding a Brit.”

 That earns you a laugh - a true belly laugh - and you can’t help but feel entirely smug about it.

 “Fuckin’ Paddies.”

 “Ah, go fuck yourself.”

 A companionable silence blankets the room after that, broken only by the sound of shuffled papers and laptop keys. Soft lamplight illuminates your reports so unlike the harsh fluorescents everywhere else on base. You’ve done your best to make the regulation desk homey; bright sticky notes and colored pens and a picture of you and the lads after a successful mission. Occasional hums and huffs and heavy sighs from your captain’s desk across the room breathe life into the space as well. You like to think your incoherent, foul-mouthed muttering does the same for him.

 The clock reads 0100 hours when you look up again. The caffeine from the tea wore off over an hour ago and you can feel yourself starting to fade. A quick peek over at Price reveals much the same.

 You open your mouth to ask if he’s ready to tuck in when he looks up and steals the breath from your lungs. His short hair is mussed where he’s been running his hands through it, that hint of premature grey turned silver at his temples in the low light. Tired eyes crinkle fondly behind the lenses of reading glasses you haven’t stopped teasing him over but can’t get enough of. It’s achingly domestic. A glimpse into a future you’ll never have - not with anyone, and certainly not with him.

 “What are you thinking about over there?” he asks softly.

 “Nothing,” you flash a tired and unconvincing smile. “I’m knackered. Shall I close up shop or will you, Cap?”

 “I’ve got it, you get some shut-eye.”

 Your eyes linger just a bit too long as you bid him goodnight, knowing very well you won’t sleep a wink.

--

 This pub is definitely one of the shittier ones, but its location is convenient enough to pretend that the wallpaper isn’t peeling and the live band of part-time musicians and full-time retirees is any good. The handful of covers they play are indistinguishable from originals sprinkled in, all with that same, washed-out sound of empty bottles and stale dreams.

 The group of hooligans crowded up at the bar sit in stark contrast of the otherwise dour patrons. Even Ghost, who’s taken the corner seat and keeps a lazy watch over the room, is loose enough to be making those terrible jokes of his. Soap and Gaz lean over one another with goofy grins and half-empty glasses before them. Price, true to form, has taken the end seat to nurse a ‘proper pint’ alongside a lit cigar the bartender can’t dispute after lighting up what looks like at least his tenth cigarette of the night behind the bar.  

 “If it isn’t the Bionic Hound!” Gaz calls when he spots you across the poorly-lit room, waving you over with a grin.

 You shake your head, wondering why you agreed to come out tonight. But the second Gaz had started with the puppy-dog eyes there was no denying him. Drinks before leave are a 141 tradition, he’d insisted.

 So here you are.

 “You’re lucky it’s a metal knee and not laser eyes or you’d be in yesterday’s papers,” you wag a finger at him as you take your seat amongst them all.

 Ghost snorts a laugh at the empty threat.

 “Oh, come off it, Hound,” Soap says. “You love us too much.”

 Price chuckles. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

 You glare and wrinkle your nose at the comment, but he just smiles back at you with that damned twinkle in his eye. Prick. Then he wordlessly slides over your usual and you have to be grateful on top of it all. Double prick. One swift gulp and half of it is gone; you’re too sober for this.

 The lads cackle over another awful joke - Soap’s, this time. Price holds his temples.

 The drinks go down easy after that.

 “Any exciting plans for your leave, Cap?” you ask. It’s almost closing time now. This place is never full, anyway, but there’s enough alcohol in your system that you almost buy into the pretense of hearing him better as you edge further and further into his space.

 You’re not sure what you want him to say, exactly. Maybe if he reveals that there’s a cute little family or some stunning girlfriend waiting back home you’ll finally be able to move past the strangled feeling in your throat every time you look at him.  

 “Hardly,” he says around the cigar. The soft glow of it lights his face, makes him look like some sharp-eyed noir detective shrouded in smoke and mystery. “Might get a bit of fishing in, head into Liverpool and catch a game or two. What about you?”

 You wave a dismissive hand. “I make a terrible civilian. After I visit my grandfather and annoy him half to death I’m not sure what I’ll do. Maybe finally get some use out of those Egyptian cotton sheets I spent a bleedin’ fortune on.”

 “Are they nice?” he laughs, leans closer.

 You hum an affirmative, dizzy at the little space between you. He smells like tobacco and wood, whiskey and gunpowder.

“Too nice.” You should stop talking now. “End up on the floor half the time, anyway.”

He doesn’t need to know that.  

 “Sleeping alone, then?”

 His breath fans your face. Yours gets quicker, and you swear you’re more drunk off this shared air than any liquor you’ve had tonight.  

 “Sometimes.” You wet your lips. “Usually.”

 Your lashes leave tender butterfly kisses on your cheekbones as you meet his blue-eyed stare that’s gone impossibly dark, dipping down to see where your lips have parted - breathless, waiting. Wanting. His hand reaches out--

 “Last call!” the bartender’s shout snaps everything back to reality.

 You jump away from one another as though you’ve been burned. It feels a lot like you have.

 Price clears his throat, mutters something about getting back. His voice is rougher than usual. Raw. You look everywhere but him as he proceeds to round up the rest of the lads before you all stumble back to base.

 Your head pounds the whole way back to Ireland the next morning, marching drums in your mind and sandpaper beneath your eyelids. The flight has never felt lonelier.

--

 The man you bring home has blue eyes and brown hair. He’s not tall enough, certainly not broad enough, but he happened to be in the right place at the right time as you drank your sorrows away in some tiny pub up the road from your flat, and you happen to be desperate enough not to care.

 At least that’s what you tell yourself as you back him against your bed.

 When you kiss him it’s relentless and controlling. Mean. You suck a dark bruise on his neck and climb in his lap before he can think to return the favor.

 “Fuck, sweetness,” he groans at the sweet feeling of friction between your bodies. The accent is wrong. So is the endearment.

 You clamp a hand over his mouth. “Shut up and fuck me.”

 It’s a quick and sloppy affair, chasing a half-drunk high like a pair of horny teenagers. When all is said and done, you stare up at the ceiling on too-soft sheets and tell him he can go. He leans over to catch your eye briefly, maybe checking to see if you’re serious. You are. There’s hurt written across his expression - a bit of shock, too - but all you can think about is how his eyes are the wrong shade of blue.

--

 The second the doctors clear you for active duty you all but sprint to Price’s desk, demanding he get you back in the field as soon as possible. He smiles up at you in that sharp way that always makes your heart stutter and promises he’s got something small in the works - perfect to shake the rust off.

 Of course he’d think of an unsanctioned, off-the-books capture of a Russian mobster as small. You’re the only two who make the trip; your Russian is miles better than anyone else’s, and more bodies will only attract attention.

 It’s easy to forget how beautiful Moscow is. You don’t come here often, but the sprawling cityscape and romantic spires speak to your soul, set something singing inside you. You try to hold on to that feeling as you and Price make your way into the chipped paint and piss-stained sector of the city. These winding side streets and twisted back alleys are far more fitting for your line of work.

 Your mark, one Mikhail Yanovich, is a low-level enforcer for a high-interest gang that has connections to Makarov. Allegedly. That’s why you’re planning this friendly little chat. Not so much catch-and-release as catch-and-stage-a-believable-accident; if he really is involved, you can’t afford for Makarov to know you’re onto him.

 It feels strange to walk around in civvies with only a thin kevlar vest underneath to protect you. Thank goodness for the cold that makes layering less conspicuous. You look every inch the lost, frozen tourist. Price does too. You don’t think the miserable face he’s pulling beneath the beanie is acting, cheeks and nose flushed raw as they are.

 “Bloody cold out,” he mutters.

 “The fuck did you expect, tropical holidays?”

 He glowers, and you shake your head to hide a smile.

 Thankfully, kidnapping Yanovich is quick work; two bickering tourists hardly seem like the type who will stick you with a needle on your way to work and drag your unconscious body to a stashed van, driving through bad, then worse neighborhoods to reach a secure location to interrogate you.

 He wakes tied to a chair in the basement of an abandoned parking garage you and Price have taken up a temporary residence in. The captain circles him like a vulture, taking in all the details a broad frame and blockish features have to offer. You sit perched on the edge of a shitty folding table set just in the shadows. Patient. Waiting. There’s a case of freshly sharpened knives beside you - the Hound’s fangs, as Ghost likes to call them. So often the glinting threat of harsh light on metal is all it takes to break a man.

 “What can you tell us about Makarov?” Price opens.

 “Go fuck yourself.”

 The blow lands harsh on Yanovich’s cheekbone. Instantly a bruise begins to form, splotchy and plum on pale skin.

 “I asked you a bloody question. I promise you’d rather answer me than Hound over there,” Price looms over him, growls in his ear. “Makarov. Tell me everything you know.”

 There’s a stubborn set to his jaw when he says, “I know nothing.”

 If he really knew nothing he either would have laughed in your face or led with open ignorance. The way he clings to resistance can only mean there’s something to resist telling. As to how much he knows? There’s another echoing crack as Price backhands him.

 You’ll soon find out.

 “Hound,” your name on your captain’s tongue is as much a command as an invitation.

 You lean forward, step into the light. Twirl one of your knives expertly between scarred fingers. Watch it flash in the whites of his eyes.

 “I’ll ask you again: Where is Makarov?” Price demands.

 “I. Don’t. Know.”

 You step between Yanovich’s legs, lean over him and gently trace your blade over his groin with a smile sharper than the knife. He lets out a harsh breath.

 “I said I don’t know. Boss tells me nothing - I’m just a guard.”

 The knife presses, insistent. Not quite hard enough to draw blood yet. A bead of sweat rolls down Yanovich’s forehead. He’s pressed himself as far back into the chair as his bonds will allow.

 “Fine! He comes to club once a month. Speaks to the boss.”

 “What about?”

 “I don’t know-- I swear!” his accent is thick with unfamiliar syllables and fear.

 “When’s he due next?”

 “You just missed him. He always comes last day of month.”

 “Location?”

 “Changes every time,” he says, licks his lips. “I told you all I know - call off your fucking dog!”

 You dig your knife in for good measure just to watch the hate and fear in his eyes before backing off at Price’s nod.

 Turning to step away and table your knife, you don’t miss the way Yanovich mutters darkly after you, “My zdes strelaem vie brodyachikh sobak, suki. Esli ya uviju tebya snova, the mertview.”

 Then a gunshot fires.

 You pull your weapon out of its holster and whip around to cover Price, only to find the smoking gun in his hand and Yanovich’s head splattered on the wall behind him. Captain John Price stands over the body, eyes blazing, chest heaving, gun still aimed. Blood and brain matter speckles his face and clothes.  

 “What the fuck was that?” you demand. “He could have told us more! And what about the cover-up? Blowing his brains six ways to fucking Sunday isn’t exactly a bleedin’ accident!”

 You expect some kind of remorse when he turns to face you, but there’s only a grim, deadly acceptance. “He said--"

 “I heard what he said, I can speak bloody Russian!” you stalk towards him and jab a finger into his chest. “We were gonna kill the cunt anyway. You should have waited.”

 Price snarls, lip curling to bare his teeth. “You didn’t see the way he looked at you.”

 Suddenly you’re hyperaware of how close the two of you are standing. “How did he look at me?”

“He wanted to kill you the slowest way he knew how,” he says, like he’s confessing a sin, “and I’d shoot his fucking face a thousand times over to make sure he never looks at you again.”

 And just like that anything you were going to say dies in your throat, comes out a pathetic whimper. He grabs a fistful of your shirt and hauls you the rest of the short distance to him.

 “Tell me you wouldn’t do the same,” he demands. “Tell me to stop.”

 His hand burns on your chest, an iron-hot brand of possession.

 “John,” you breathe, because you don’t know what else to say. The look in his eyes is magnetic, drawing you in further still with pupils blown wide with want. “Don’t stop.”

 He kisses you rough, teeth and tongue and a certain kind of desperation brought on by the still-warm corpse lying just a few feet away. When you break for air he wastes no time kissing down your neck, every inch of exposed skin branded by his lips and the rough scrape of his beard. Yanovich’s blood smears down the column of your throat.

 “Fuck, John,” you say, “just like that.”

 “Sound so fucking perfect when you say my name,” he growls and bites down on your pulse point, leaving you gasping.

 It’s enough to distract you from his true purpose, large hands cupping beneath your ass and scooping you up into his arms. You hold on tight as three purposeful strides take you across the room to the table. One sweep of his arm has everything tumbling off it before he sets you down to stare up at him with wide eyes and a kiss-swollen mouth.

 When he captures your lips again it’s searing, molten heat rushing through your veins. It pools in your stomach, that too-hot wanting, and it suddenly hits you how much you do want this. Him. Each kiss tastes like so many years of silent longing, of standing too close and staring too long and wanting too much. All suddenly real and within reach.

 You let your hands snake up his shirt, explore the broad plane of his chest and the wiry hair that curls over it. Your fingers run over scars like braille that tell stories of violence and valor. Some of these stories you helped write. There, beneath his ribs, where you had to stitch him up in the field to keep his guts from spilling into the streets of Vienna. The lump where his collarbone never healed right after taking the brunt of a nasty blow meant for you. He shivers under your touch. Then his large, calloused hands cover yours and stop them in their tracks.

 “I’m going to fuck you now,” he says, “because I don’t think I can wait any longer than I already have to feel you.” His voice is even lower and rougher than usual, accent thick with arousal. “Do you want that?”

 You nod, afraid to speak and break the spell.

 “Come on, soldier, use your words.”

 “Yes, Captain. Please.”

 His grip on your hips tightens and he lets out a growl. “That’s my perfect soldier.”

 It’s all the warning you get before he tucks his fingers under the waistband of your trousers and underwear and tugs them down to your thighs, leaving you exposed before him.

 “Fuck, just look at you,” he says under his breath, almost like you aren’t meant to hear.

 You squirm under the scrutiny. A hot flush creeps up your neck as he stares, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t like it. He looks at you like you’re some kind of revelation, like he’s been denied salvation all his life only to find it at the apex of your thighs.

 One, two, then three fingers stretch you open for him quick and dirty. It’s too much too fast but you want it so bad, and the pleasure far outweighs any pain. When he finally unzips his trousers to free his already hard, leaking cock you think you drool a little bit. You knew he’d be big, the way he carries himself, but seeing it is something else. Your insides flutter at the thought of the tight fit. He lines up to your entrance with that same military precision you’ve always admired before pushing in slowly, slowly, slower still. When he bottoms out he does it with a deep groan, your fingernails raking down his back as you keen at the sensation. This small mercy, just a few moments to adjust with his forehead pressed to yours, is all you’re granted before he sets a brutal pace. The obscene slap of skin on skin echoes off cracked concrete. With each thrust he hits someplace deep inside you no one else has managed to find.

 Heat coils in your belly, closer and closer to fever pitch with each expert snap of his hips.

 “John,” you pant, “m’gonna… gonna cum. Feels so good.”

 He says your name like a prayer. “Cum for me, then. Want to see you make a mess of yourself on my cock.”

 Like a tidal wave breaking against a dam you cum fast and hard at his words with a broken sob. He fucks you through the high, brushing a tear from the corner of your eye with a rough thumb.

 “There you are, so good for me,” he says. “Gonna cum all over your pretty little self, make you mine.”

 “I’m yours, John,” you gasp, “all yours.”

 His thrusts turn sloppy chasing his own high, and it doesn’t take long before he pulls out and makes good on his words, covering your stomach in spend as he grinds out your name. Bent over your body, he presses a chaste kiss to the juncture of your neck before pulling back to admire his handiwork. In the afterglow you lay spread out on the table with a sheen of sweat, smeared with his cum and another man’s blood. The way his eyes darken rubbing it into your skin, and the way you shiver at the sensation, you think that you both might like it a little too much.

 “Laswell’s gonna kill us for this,” he murmurs.

 You hum your agreement. “So where shall we hide the body?”

 His eyes shine down on you with adoration and crinkle with wicked humor. “I’m sure we’ll think of something, but let’s be quick about it. The sooner we get home the better.”

 “Yes,” you hear yourself agreeing, “home.”  

 For you, it will always be at his side.

[karasbroken]

Sometimes I think about how Larraq almost immediately recognized that Aeryn was more competent than would be expected for the lieutenant (command staff) of a new-tech regiment she was pretending to be. Ten hours in her company and this extremely experienced, extremely competent, best-of-the-best Marauder captain wanted her on his ship. And it wasn't just him thinking about how she'd hold his pulse cannon! He's into this woman, but his life depends on who he has on his five man crew, and he's ready to put his life in her hands. Based on highly honed instinct, and little more.

Strangers do it to the very end of the series, and D'Argo and Rigel both continuously dismiss Aeryn in the first season as just "infantry" as if she was low-level grunt, uneducated and limited in intellect and experience. Someone who doesn't question and without independent thought prior to her exile. Even John constantly devalues her and makes fun of her plans for being too simple and violent. Yet maybe it just seems that way because she's used to being able to mow down the enemy with a combination of small squad tactics and insane combat skills?

Maybe some of this "Aeryn as just a random soldier" framing is left over from the original casting plans for Aeryn, which was to pair Ben with an even younger, almost ingenue actress. Playing a PK who was inexperienced and naive, ready to have her universe rocked by dashing Earth astronaut John Crichton. (Enter Gilina.) Obviously cinematic magic happened by instead casting a more mature (though still younger) actress able to match Ben's force of personality. But it took a while for the scripts to fully embrace Aeryn as genuinely a commanding force, though by A Bug's Life we've clearly got there.

If you look close, we are given a lot of reasons to think that Aeryn was actually extraordinary, starting with her rank, special commando. As in, not just a normal commando, which if the word meant anything like Earth commandos, is already someone with far more skills, talent, and experience than regular infantry. It's used for elite strike forces operating in small squads behind enemy lines, just like Larraq and his unit.

Even calling her Infantry is a little weird, because she's also very clearly a pilot and a good one. There's no reason to think that all Peacekeeper infantry also have advanced pilot training or that all pilots are also taught how to fight with small and large arms as well as hand to hand. It makes sense for space commandos to be able to fly, and it probably makes sense for command staff to be cross trained on flying ships, especially a command officer assigned to fly a Leviathan with just a two man crew* which was the ruse they were trying to sell. So their plot already marked Aeryn as special, yet Larraq still thought she was being wasted there

(*That alone had to be setting off alarm bells for Larraq, but let's say he was too used to not asking questions and too eager to get the intellent virus into someone else's hands.)

Aeryn has a deep discomfort with the idea of being thought of as special, that shows up later in the flashbacks with Velorek. She's very ready to claim superiority as a matter of her race or her affiliation. But that is a pride outside herself. Aeryn rarely exhibits personal arrogance or self-admiration. It's an interesting twist that I keep coming back to in my writing that she is ambitious, deeply intelligent, very passionate, immensely physically attractive, and yet she doesn't want to admit to or claim any of it She continually dismisses her own obvious technical ability because it doesn't match her expectation of what a commando does. That's some foundational trauma there, convincing her that she had to fit in rather than stand out in her awful dystopian military hierarchy.

Yet over and over and over men in and out of the Peacekeepers find themselves drawn to her, admiring her, desiring her, fearing her, devoted to her, sometimes on the briefest of acquaintances. The radiant Aeryn Sun indeed.

[aimeedaisies]

An excerpt from: As the 'hot equerry' steps down, meet the dashing military hunks the royals can't live without - from 'Major Eye Candy' to the bomb-defusing hero helping Kate back to work after her surgery

Princess Margaret famously fell in love with her father's equerry, Captain Peter Townsend, in a controversial and tumultuous royal romance, while Princess Anne's husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, started his career as equerry to her mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

Captain Stuart Kaye

Equerry to: Princess Anne

Regiment: The Household Cavalry

Captain Stuart Kaye was hand-picked by Princess Anne for his professionalism and aptitude in public duties

Captain Stuart Kaye was hand-picked by Princess Anne for his professionalism and aptitude in public duties

Sandhurst-trained Captain Stuart Kaye, equerry to Princess Anne, has drawn more than a few admiring glances over the years – and recently accompanied his royal mistress to Namibia, where she was attending the funeral of the late president.

Now in his early thirties, Captain Kaye attended King's School Bruton in Somerset before studying politics and modern history at Cardiff University. He went on to do a Master's degree at University College London, starting his career as an intern at the Association of British Insurers, before joining the military in 2018.

The dashing officer has served as Squadron Second-in-Command at Bulford Barracks and Mounted Troop Leader for The Household Cavalry, before being appointed to his equerry role in September 2022.

Princess Anne hand-picked him for his professionalism and aptitude in public duties – though royal watchers have pointed out that he doesn't look half-bad in his ceremonial uniform, complete with silver-plumed helmet, gold tassels and sword, either.

[dorminchu]

Entwirren an den Nähten — Chapter Two

Perhaps this story should've been called Eren Jaeger and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Thanks to @vaegtersang for beta-ing!

ao3. | ffnet.

X.

Since the retaking of Shiganshina, there is nothing tangible left to fight. The soldiers that gave their lives rest in shallow graves. A brittle peace fills the gaps in-between deployment and rest.

Yet the Scouting Regiment is free to explore the island. Paradis, beyond its Walls, is naught but a cemetery. Encampments and stables reclaimed by nature. There's never any sign of life, of bodies rotting in their beds or under the floorboards. The livestock died decades ago or have since moved on.

Toward the southern coast, an edifice towers over the horizon. According to Commander Hanji, it's built from the same material as the Walls. Their previous expedition confirmed its twin on the northern coast. Eren stops his horse, engulfed in the relic's shadow. Craning his neck, he can barely see the top of it. A hard-packed mound of dirt reaches midway and slopes gently down to where they are. There's no blood to stain the grass. No sweet smell of rot. The bones, Hanji suspects, will have already weathered beyond the point of recognisability.

Mikasa's horse stops beside him. The side of Eren's neck prickles. He tightens his grip on the reins.

Armin is in charge of a second squadron, leading the way up top. Mikasa and Eren ready their gear and follow suit. They'll have to use ODM gear to reach the top, but there's a lift that brings them down on the other side. At the base of the Wall, a worn path descends unto a quay. At sea-level the wind does not rip across their faces, but there's a chill in the air.

Armin stares out across the horizon. "They came here on boats," he says after a beat. "Bertholdt, and Reiner and Annie." He glances at Eren who continues to gaze over the horizon. "They probably left the same way."

"Do you think they'll come back?" Mikasa hedges.

Armin tucks his hands into his armpits. "It seems unlikely at this stage."

They both look to Eren.

Zeke is somewhere out there. His father's first mistake. Radicalised and sympathetic to the plight of his long-lost brother. Betrayed as a boy, swept into the cycle of a system who promised him a new life, not in spite of his Eldian blood but because of it. Afraid to renounce his inheritance because without it he is nothing but scum under Marleyan boots. A child who became the outlet for his father's self-flagellation. Zeke lacks the same awareness of his trappings. Perhaps it's become so natural for him to grovel it is no longer shameful. He'll be so glad to hear his half-brother is alive, survived his upbringing in Paradis, that he will not once suspect he is just another proxy.

Just as Armin and Mikasa and the rest refuse to see what is right in front of them until it's too late. Eren has no such luxury. He is the conduit enacting Fritz's will, as his father before Eren Kruger and their forebears. But there's only so much he can speak aloud, before his comrades exchange their helpless looks and he recedes into himself. Time and time again, he finds himself stricken by the limitation of words where memories ebb and flow without pause.

"They were looking for me before," Eren says. "They'll have to come back."

Next morning, the Marleyan ship cuts through the water towards Paradis. There have been a dozen sightings off the southern quay, but this is the first time one of them has attempted to make direct contact. More likely, Hanji says, it's because Zeke has returned to whatever country is sending these naval vessels in the first place.

A flash of illumination briefly outlines the shape of the shoreline. Eren's Titan towers over the naval ship. The devil in his blood has a purpose as the one who was made before.

Soldiers pour from the sides to be dashed apart on the rocks below. The rest cling to the sides of the boat and continue to scream.

Second explosion sends a rippling shock through the water. Must be Armin.

Bodies trampled like ants. The naval forces of Marley are defenceless against a wall of Colossi. The military sends aircrafts over Paradis to blast away the helpless civilians. A war of attrition that is quickly settled once Eren reaches the mainland.

Tiny speckles scattering across the deck of the ship below. The Marleyan captain is shouting for a ceasefire when the bayonet runs through his chest. His look of horror freezes on his face. He's thrown overboard with a splash. The soldier responsible turns and barks, "Stand down!"

At the top of the Wall's dock, Eren and Armin sequester themselves against each other. As Mikasa wipes the blood from Armin's face, he stirs and mutters a thank you. Where Eren has had a year's worth of transformations to become acclimatised, Armin is still getting used to the come-down. The hemic strands cling to his face and leave angry patches, a bloodier contrast to Eren's faded scars.

The enemy POWs are reluctant to accept food or water. Two soldiers are being interrogated. The tall blonde-haired soldier with black eyes and a muscular, lithe build is explaining to Captain Levi that in her home country, they've found a new way to make Titans—only she calls them Pure Titans—using an Eldian's spinal fluid. It tastes a lot like blood, and smells like saltwater, but if you pour a little into a batch of wine it's hard to tell the difference once you're drunk. As soon as it's in the body of the unsuspecting Eldians, all it takes is someone with royal blood to induce a mass-transformation.

The word goes that Marley has been experimenting with "timed" transformations. They've done test-runs, dropping them out of aircrafts. When the Captain asks how Yelena knows this, she says, "Cos' my friend here was the one pulling the lever."

She motions to her colleague, Onyankopon. "It's not like we had much choice," he says quietly. "It was either grovel at the military's feet, or be a good foot soldier. They don't just let anyone in the zeppelins."

"Why not send aircrafts?"

"They're stuck in the middle of a war with other countries," Yelena chimes in. "They sent a group of their Titan Shifters here six years ago, to break in, but they had to come back home. The mission was a failure. So now we've been sent here instead to investigate the situation in Paradis."

"We have someone on the inside, back on Marley," Onyankopon says. "That's how we knew where to go and what to look for."

"He's a Titan Shifter." Yelena's dark eyes take on a shine. "He's like God."

"Zeke Jaeger?"

Yelena tilts her head in his direction, all traces of impassioned zeal gone. "How would you know that name?"

Hanji shoots Eren a look of warning. They're not in the boardroom this time. There is nothing to protect. If they're going to work together, they need a commonality outside of basic diplomacy. "He's my half-brother."

Yelena stares at him. "Are you fucking with me, kid?"

"No, I'm not."

She scoffs. She's still looking at him. "Prove it."

"My father, Grisha Jaeger and his mother Dina Fritz. He'd be twenty six, ten years older than I am."

"So, you're done a little reading."

Eren stands up. "He commands an intelligent Titan, covered in fur. He can turn humans into Titans and command them. He said he'd come back for me one day." Eren glances at Onyankopon and the other soldiers. "Did he send you?"

Yelena stares at him. "Either you're the best liar I've ever seen or you are his brother."

On the lift, it's a tense descent to solid ground. "What the hell was that?" the Captain asks him.

"She knows where Zeke is. If I can convince her I'm on her side, we'll have a better idea of—"

"Jaeger," the Captain says sharply, "she's not your fucking confidant. She's a zealot willing to do whatever she deems necessary for her cause. All you've proven is that you'll barter our intelligence to gain her favour. She's not going to give us jack shit if you play your hand so easily."

Eren stiffens.

"There will be time to corroborate our information with theirs," the Commander says tartly. "Don't give them everything we have."

Mikasa's grip tightens on his forearm. Eren bites his tongue. No matter how many years pass, they'll always be at the same impasse. A year ago, he would've argued. There's no sense in it now. He can visualise the outcome in his head without a Reiss's touch.

XI.

Kneeling atop the Wall, the sun-lit field spans out below them. The cord bites into his wrists where he strains fruitlessly. He cannot clench his fists, what with the gauze around his knuckles. The skin has since begun to itch, caked with dried blood. Packed earth around the bottom of the Wall ensures he won't die from the fall itself.

Zeke must be with his grandfather by now. God knows what he's been told about his devil-sympathising mother and father. The same easy lie that stopped working when Faye never came home. Unlike Grisha, Zeke's desire for acceptance borders on obsequiousness. Zeke has a clean record. Zeke is a dutiful patriot through his father's pointless need to atone. He's a standout grandson but it won't bring Faye back. It won't redeem anything. He has become worse than his own father. A misguided attempt to protect his progeny that was only a tool for his own flagellation. Tears prick at his eyes, unshed.

In the chapel, his father would have always injected himself and killed the Reiss family for Eren's sake. Whether he calls out to his son or to his benefactor, there is no difference. Just as he would have always eaten Kruger and failed to save his sister. Just as Eren would have always transformed to save Armin.

Sgt. Gross kicks the man opposite over the edge. He falls and begins to scream before he implodes into a three metre Pure Titan. Beside him, Dina shudders and grits her jaw.

She is kneeling in the same place he'd stood with Armin and Mikasa a few mornings ago. He's so close that he could reach out and touch her trembling shoulder, but the memory would not change. He steps through moments in the lives along the chain of inheritance because they have already happened.

As Sgt. Kruger comes up to her, he holds the syringe to her nape. She finally turns and looks at him. Tears track down her cheeks but she's still as beautiful as the day they met.

"No matter what happens to me," she says, "no matter what I become, Grisha, I'll find you."

The boot connects with her back, and she's falling forwards. The Titan is begotten before it hits the ground. Sgt. Gross takes the moment to light a cigarette.

His chest tightens.

He is laying on his stomach across the canopy bed. A pair of svelte hands pause on his naked back then move away. "Sit up, please."

Even when she commands him, she's gentler. As if it will make up for everything. A lapse in her control, the fleeting relief of being held down and wielded. When he meets her gaze, there's tension in her face, the soft curve of her jaw. A private battle is waged as she averts her eyes.

"I'm going to be married soon." Eren goes still. Historia's face is difficult to read, but her tone is stilted as she moves away from him, towards the draped window. "The Commander-in-Chief assumed you would object to my position as inheritor. It was his wish to shut you out of this matter completely." She's looking right through him. "Given that we were unable to capture your half-brother, this is our only recourse to accessing the Founding Titan's power."

Eren stands up. "What I said in that meeting, I meant every word. I never wanted you involved in this." He grits his teeth and looks away, at his clenched fists. "You should have told me. I could have stopped this. I would have—"

"You'd agree to sire an heir?"

Eren bites his tongue. He'd have tried his best to talk her out of it. Even now his mind shouts that there must be a different way. If this Founding Titan within his blood is so powerful, what's to say it cannot move the very foundation of Paradis with her hands to his back? Why endanger Historia for a fruitless scheme?

"Historia," he says, "I'm going to win this war. You won't have to go through with this. I'll wipe our enemies off the map if that's what it takes."

"Don't throw your life away for me." She glowers at him, but her voice is uneven. "Think about what you are proposing. I could never command you to declare a war in my name."

Creeping dismay pulls at his gut where resentment falters. He finds himself drawn to her and takes her hand. She tenses, but doesn't push him away.

"It won't come to it." He runs his thumb over her knuckles. In all the glimpses of a possible future there is one concurrent certainty. She will never believe this while he is alive, but there's no point in dissuading her now. "I promise you."

"Talk is cheap."

He's seen past the fascia that was Krista Lenz, and she's peered into his own mind where he lacks the capacity for self-reflection. It would be effortless to wound each other. As long as they're sharing the blame, there is no impunity. In this moment, she's not a queen and he's not the harbinger of Paradis's destruction. He kisses her knuckles, the inside of her wrist, and her breathing changes.

"Is this what you want?"

Her mouth thins. "My duty as Queen has very little to do with what you or I want, Eren." She chews on her words before raising her eyes to him, vulnerable and true. "But I'd rather the child be yours than someone else's."

His old man didn't have any trouble. Dina, the Titan that ate his mother, wasn't injected when she had Zeke. One way or another, inheritors of Ymir's power always seem to end up devouring their own progeny. His chest tightens with the thought of her dissected, chained underground, awaiting her consumption. Sentiment twists into a churlish envy.

To spare himself further implications, or any reminder of his father's first wife, Eren lays her down and kisses her cheek as she takes a breath. Mouthing along the smooth skin of her throat. Historia tastes a little like salt, incense. Bitter in the back of his throat if he lingers too long. He runs his palms under her skirts until she intones, "You should undress."

He gets to his feet and does so, watching the progression of her fingers upon buttons and lace of her underclothes. He focuses on the warmth radiating from her. He'd assumed the stress of what he must do would make this difficult, but it's not the case.

Historia, no longer a controller but an equal, gestures to the stays along the back of the chemise and mutters, "Help me out of this, would you?"

When at last he runs a hand along her naked waist she settles back against the pillows with a slow exhale as he kisses a slow trail down from throat to breasts and below.

She's reaching up to bury her fingers in the pillow behind her. He's already hard and so he slowly presses into her. Bracing himself for a flash of memory or interruption, but there's nothing. Just Historia, trembling beneath him as he reaches over to support the small of her back.

He pulls back about halfway and thrusts. Her jaw sets, sucking in air through her teeth. Her eyes are glossier than they were a moment ago. He notes the slow heave of her breast, her fingers buried in the pillow as if resisting the temptation to touch his cheek. Uneven breaths rebound against each other's faces.

"Keep going," she implores, and so he does.

Their sweat cools and dries, sapping the room of an illusive warmth. Historia grants him use of her bathroom.

With his hand on the plain brass knob, Eren turns back to glance at her. She's sitting up, knees to her chest. There's something vacant and disquieted in her expression he cannot place and doesn't try to.

The room is smaller than her bedchamber, but no less ornate for royalty. White marble walls and a sink, an iron tub. He turns on the water, steaming. The sound of the water from the open faucet echoes off the walls until he turns it off. Submerges himself, scrubbing. He'll heal. In the tub with the water up to his chest, his skin pink and stinging. Breathing hard despite the lack of exertion. Pain is just a reminder that he is alive. He is not a monster. Not the enemy of humanity.

Whenever Historia lays her hands upon him, there is a glimpse of the path forward. It is always the same outcome, and each time he expects her to remark upon it. To recoil from his body as though burnt, tears welling in her eyes and unable to speak for the sheer inexorable horror, but she never does. He must accept the possibility that there are some fragments that he can see, while she cannot.

There's always someone else ahead of him, or above. From an icon to a repository of past lives, he's never been much good without a conduit to channel his will. Always putting his trust into the hands of another. Whether they live or die, the culpability falls back on his shoulders. It never gets easier as much as numbing.

A child by the suicidal bastard of the 104th Training Corps and the forgotten bastard of the Reiss family. Maybe that's why she fed into his frailties. Heir of Ymir, his mind supplies, and his teeth grit. Such is the burden they share, the old pull of blood.

Every glimpse into the Founder's past lives has come under her guiding hand. Eren has never interpreted her role as receiver—trapped in the same dilemma as her father; birthing children to devour their parents and uphold Karl Fritz's armistice. His childhood paradigm of black-and-white solutions has been touched by epiphany, but at the heart he remains an idealist.

He gets dressed without looking at himself in the mirror.

Historia's hair is down. She's seated at her dresser, working her fingers through it in slow, languorous strokes where the brush will not suffice. It's grown past her nape, the regulation for ODM gear, to the middle of her back. Such rules do not apply to a queen. Eren has never considered this side of her. All the girls he can name are soldiers.

"You should focus on your duties with the Scouting Regiment, for the time being."

"Is that what you've told the Commander?"

In the reflection, her eyes harden. A counterpoint to her tone, soft and practised from all her years playing the role of a docile farm girl to spare her family's pride. "When I have need of you, I will call for you."

XII.

Captain Levi is standing on the other side of the door. Usually the task of escorting him falls to one of the junior officers, interchangeable from one to the next. The Captain does not speak until they're in the carriage travelling en route to Trost. "Hanji's told me there won't be any meetings for a while." Eren says nothing, staring out the window. Nobles go about their lives in double-breasted suits. Children and women in day-dresses. The streets are clean. There are no corpses to be collected by the Garrison. When it rains, the gutters do not overflow with hemic fluid and feces. "We've put a lot of faith in this experiment, Jaeger. Do you think that's wise?"

Eren glances up. "This is the best chance we've got at understanding what the enemy is up to."

"It's been a week," the Captain says, "so what, exactly, is the problem now?"

Eren stares at a mother and child, hand-in-hand. "It's not always clear. Only flashes of what is going to happen."

Levi scoffs. "So what, you're impotent?"

Eren flinches, "It's not—"

"I don't give a shit about the technical details," the Captain says. "These sessions are a courtesy the Queen has agreed to, in the interest of gathering intelligence. It's your job to make sure you aren't being pushed beyond your limits. You're not a goddam martyr."

Eren sits, allowing his emotions to simmer rather than burst out. He used to be so childish. Quick to flare up. That was only months ago, but it feels like the span of a lifetime. There's no longer a point in hot-blooded, circular arguments that convince nobody of anything. Silence fills the space between them. Midday light streams through the curtains, the Captain looks unsure. To excise Eren from the shell of his Titan is one matter. There is no cutting him loose from his own synapses, no calling him back from the endless void of inheritance dredged up by noble blood.

At HQ he Shifts and practises his hardening techniques against the Thunder Spears. He manages to keep half of his jaw intact, and deflects a direct blow to the Titan's nape, but it's difficult to react. The body is smoking and riddled with holes. He's barely standing by the time Hanji calls quits ten minutes earlier than usual. He's still conscious once he exits the Titan, so he's pulled into Hanji's office for a debrief.

She does not comment on his sub-par performance. "How are your sleep cycles?"

"Can't sleep well."

"The Queen was insistent you be given a rest period in regard to these memory sessions. With respect to her wishes, and your health, I complied." Hanji stands up on the other side of the desk and walks over to him, scrutinizing. He keeps his shoulders straight. "These memories are liable to put psychological stress on you. If it's affecting you to this degre, I think it would be best for you to abstain until further notice."

His guts coil and twist. He swallows a mouthful of saliva. "Commander, I'm fine, really."

Her expression sets. Neither accusatory nor overtly concerned. He's never considered Commander Hanji as one for easy conversation. She's often focused on her work. It's a lot easier to confess to a neutral party than to a childhood friend. She's not as difficult to read as Commander Erwin. "I have to prioritise your well-being. So you'll be working with the other Scouts as usual until I receive word from the Queen."

She walks back over to the desk and takes out a small journal. "That's not the only reason I wanted to speak with you. You haven't had any new memories for a while, is that correct?"

"Yes, ma'am." Eren glances at what she's writing but can't make out her messy scrawl. "They're not usually distinct, so I haven't noticed if anything repeats. The only ones I can differentiate are my father's and Eren Kruger's."

"Perhaps you're thinking too hard about the task at hand?" she muses. "You've had situations in the past when you couldn't transform, for example. It could be similar to that." Eren shrugs. It's worth believing even if he can't convince himself. Hanji taps the pen against the table. "When you remember something from a past life, does it happen unconsciously? Or do you have to concentrate on a certain thought or feeling?"

"No, it's usually immediate."

"Does it happen only when Historia?"

He hesitates. "The mission in Ragako. When Bertholdt and Reiner were trying to get away and the Titans got to them. One of those Titans was the same one who killed my mother. Mikasa and I got separated from the other Scouts in the confusion, and—" he runs a hand over his face "—Mr. Hannes died trying to buy us a few more minutes. It was going to kill me and Mikasa next, and so—I don't know, I punched it. I wanted to tear it apart. There was this flash when we—when my fist connected. All of the Titans stopped moving, even Ymir and Bertholdt and Reiner. I knew somehow without looking at them. But I wanted to tear it apart, and the Pure Titans all went after her." He folds his hands. "She—was trying to find my dad."

Hanji looks at him closely. "She?"

Eren flinches and looks away. "She was—I saw her, in my father's memories," he whispers. "She was his first wife. She got—sent to Heaven because she was colluding with an Eldian Restorationist. Marley found out." He gesticulates to the desk. "It's in the journals."

Hanji nods. "Dina Fritz. Where was she when she was sent to Heaven?"

"Over by that dock to the south of the island. We were just there a few days ago."

"Could you describe that memory to me?"

He tells her about Eren Kruger and his father, sitting on the edge of Paradis's southern dock. After Sgt. Gross stopped screaming, the Titan who used to be one of Grisha's old friends stared up at them, chewing morosely.

Pure Titans usually have some recollection of what they have lost. Inside every Pure Titan, every Aberrant, there is an Eldian trying to get back home. It's as if their individual wills are all connected at a source that no man can touch or identify with a naked eye.

Commander Hanji brings up a few examples to corroborate. Around the time Ragako was lost, a solitary Titan was found collapsed on top of Connie Springer's childhood home. Springer would swear up and down that it spoke. Dina Fritz went searching for her husband in Shiganshina and found the progeny instead. Eren can pinpoint several of the Titans in Trost to respective Eldian Restorationists who were sent to heaven twenty five years ago. But all of them have since been cut down.

Hanji looks at him with a shine to her working eye. "Who would have guessed you'd ascertain such a vital piece of intel from these memories?"

Should he be truthful? How to explain that, during Historia's coronation, when he kissed the back of her hand, he saw a vision of the Walls crumbling to dust. Thousands of Colossi breaching the shores of a country hitherto unknown. The image of himself, buried in hemic tissue, grooved scarring along his jaws and spine, deep enough to score the bones. Afterwards, when he touched his face and found only unbroken skin and a cold clench in his breast, he couldn't convince himself it was only a dream.

Eren says, "I don't seem to have much control over which memory arises."

She pauses to scribble in her notebook. "Three months ago, we had no idea there was a world beyond Wall Maria. If it wasn't for your father's transcriptions, and your confirmation by his memories, we would be no closer than we were five years ago. You've given us a lot more to go on than you realise."

Before he's dismissed, Commander Hanji hands him a journal. Eren hesitates to take it, and she says, "It's all right. I have a few spares. In the event a different memory comes to you, it would be prudent to document them as it happens."

He gets to his feet. "Thank you, Commander."

XIII.

The seasons change. Marleyan ships begin flooding into their harbours. In a year, in two, they will assimilate as civilians under the guise of diplomacy but their customs, their foods and dialects, will always remain foreign.

There's talk among the military brass of sending over Paradis's best for the sake of diplomacy. The better to keep the peace as well as corroborate Eren's memories. The Commander-in-Chief has granted Hanji's request, at any rate.

Some of the expats talk of peace, like Onyankopon. They think in the short-term. They'll only learn to live alongside each other in tolerance. Orphans flood the poorhouses, thanks to Historia's push for reform. The underground is going to be hospitable by 858. The Military Police has its hands full.

A redevelopment scheme is of little use to Eren. But for now, thanks to Historia, the men running Mitras have no choice but to adopt a more transparent policy. The press is free to reveal the truth about the nature of Pure Titans and the thousand-year war without censorship.

"Only because they're allowed to," Floch Forster says with a scoff. "You think they're really free? Civil unrest is all but inevitable. All it takes is one disaster. Then war breaks out. The Marleyans and their dissenters get shoved into the underground or rounded up by the military police and executed. It would be another mass-culling, just like the operation to "retake" Wall Maria."

Floch is from the 105th Training Corps division. He's eager for reform as much as retribution for Paradis, and has latched onto the Scouting Regiment as a means of achieving this goal. There's an arrogant streak beneath his sense of duty that turns Eren's stomach. Nobody from the 104th is keen to speak to him.

Armin says, "It's been corrupt for decades. Changing the direction of a regime doesn't happen overnight."

"Unless your military has got an army of guys like you," Yelena motions towards Eren, "this island is pretty S.O.L."

Eren and Armin exchange a glance. Yelena scoffs. "Would either of you be soft on a Titan?" she asks. "Would you let it live because it's not hurting anyone in captivity?"

Eren grits his jaw. Her slow-dawning smile is answer enough.

That evening, through the bars, the sky turns blood-red in the light of the setting sun. Sleep evades them, so Armin visits his cell and reads Eldian novels to him. This week, it's The Turn of the Screw. Eren lays his head on his shoulder and follows the rhythm of Armin's voice without really listening.

To receive the Progenitor is to resign oneself as an interloper. Illusions of choice and culpability are for those who do not endure the gift of omnipotence. Even if one could avoid their fate, the Progenitor would simply imbue itself into a different host upon the previous one's expiration. It has no lungs, cannot drown or be destroyed. It drifts along the abyss of its creation, like something unfinished. A single life or millions extinguished can only prolong the inevitable.

"When I put my hands on your back, what comes naturally to you?"

At the desk in his cell, there's a message on the paper for him:

874 - Another batch of prisoners sent to Heaven. Contact in the Marleyan military expressed concern that too many Marleyans are wont to begin rounding up their Eldian neighbours.

The handwriting is nothing like his own scrawl. It's too precise.

"Armin?"

Armin stirs in the dark. Eren must have gotten up, careful not to disturb him. Now he's sitting here. There's no point he can recall in between the moment before this and the present.

"Armin," he hisses, turning as Armin's wide eyes find his in the dark, "I need to show you something."

They look over it together by the lamp, Armin jotting half-a-page's worth of observations in his personal notebook. "Perhaps it's simply a consequence of your brain attempting to rationalise an influx of stimulus from your subconscious." Eren stares at him. "In other words, it is possible your emotions and memories are mixing with the memories of the past and creating false ones." He shrugs. "I would definitely bring this to the Commander's attention. I imagine Historia can give you an idea as well."

Eren rolls his shoulders. "Yeah. Maybe."

XIV.

The Queen has decreed a railway system be implemented to ensure faster travel between the Walls. Eren spends myriad afternoons hammering nails into earth along with the other Scouts. In the evenings they ride back. None of the other Scouts ask what he has been up to, but they're careful not to exclude him.

There was a simplicity to the lie imbued into them as children, eking out their days as the last remnants of humanity. Child soldiers in the eyes of their superiors, assuming roles they could only comprehend in terms of duty. Despite the Attack Titan's strength, his unflinching tenacity, he cannot swallow the world itself whole. He'd rather die than subject the ones dear to him to his own ruination. Their faces are all he has left.

Without the conduit of a guiding hand, the silence roars in his ears like blood. It is no longer a comforting lull. He has tasted death and decay. He pieces together some semblance of identity among the whole, clings to purity. An easier time, when his only concern was killing as many Titans as possible, when he would've asked Annie to marry him. Sure, they'd have to wait a couple of years. But it was possible then, shiny and idealistic as the rest of his unfounded dreams.

The old lie is the better part of him, the one that attends training with the other soldiers and speaks when addressed, while the truth lies squirming at the bottom of his gut like an overgrown maggot he cannot burn away or starve.

His demeanor wears on his allies.

"Don't you care what happens to you, anymore? What about Mikasa, or me, or anyone else you care about?"

"You don't have to change the subject. I've heard it all before."

"The Queen won't live forever," Jean presses.

"You think I don't know that?" He's had enough of all of them for one day. "I've got four years left. There's no point in thinking beyond that, unless another Titan eats one of us, which is close to impossible."

"I don't know what else to do," Armin says abruptly, and then he keeps talking. "I don't know if there's anything I can do to reach you. Mikasa's worried sick, she can't stand to see you like this. The Captain thought it'd be best if you were given a little space, after what happened."

Eren scowls."The Queen isn't going to ask for me again. We're wasting time with this documentation and this goddam railroad when we should be over there, finding out as much as we can about Marley."

"We've got allies," Jean cuts in. "Hizuru and those Anti-Marleyan soldiers. We agree on that front, surely." Eren looks at him. "If you feel so strongly about this, why don't you volunteer to be part of the negotiations?"

"Marley is run by scum that think we're less than human. The rest of the world contents itself with that lie, and Marley's people are too busy self-flagellating to think twice." His teeth bare. "They're a defective strain that should've been eradicated back when Karl Fritz was alive. There needn't have been a war to begin with."

Jean doesn't flinch but he's gone pale in the light of the setting sun. A shadow passes over Armin's face. He won't look at Eren directly. Connie and Sasha flinch when he turns his head, but he's not looking at them.

"They've made up their minds," he says. "If we don't strike first, they will not stop until we are all eradicated."

"But you don't know that," Sasha cuts in tentatively. "Not for sure. How could you?"

Eren leans back against the cart. He cannot rebel against the very concept of his own mortality. It is a moment set in stone, long before he ever possessed the means to conceptualise it. He cannot find fault in his father, who looked away from the truth the same as Kruger, each man after his own selfish approximation of the same goal. Its resolution is never outright stated.

If he cedes, it'll be all for nothing. No one in this cart, in all of Paradis, deserves to share in his fate. It's his and his alone.

XV.

That evening, Mikasa comes along and he lays his head in her lap like he's a kid again. Commander Hanji has been in a flurry of meetings alongside Historia, contending with Marleyan diplomats, but promises she will get back to him about Armin's notes and how they compare to his father's journal. The Captain probably told her enough was enough.

There are certain truths in life you take for granted until you reroute into your deceased stepmother and your father, torn apart under your own jaws. Some things never meant to be discovered, but once they are unearthed there's no burying them again. Zeke must've been born out of wedlock. His parents were already in love, so it was serendipitous.

"How are you sure they were already in love?" Mikasa asks.

"He's smiling in the photographs. I don't remember him doing that with mum."

She tries to smile but she just looks tired. "You'd know better than I would."

Lately he's been too weary to record. The next best thing is to recuperate. But his mind races, with glimpses from the past or a future that might be. It's intangible at times, leaving only the impression upon waking.

It's not something he can talk to Mikasa about. She has enough on her plate without him confirming all of her unspoken worries. In a sense, there's no harm in letting her dote on him a little. It used to get on his nerves, having to keep up with her when he ought to be the one looking after her. But it's the only sense of peace he can give her. He stifles down his own insecurities, cursing his previous self for being so bullheaded.

While Armin is assuming the role of Hanji's second in-command in a diplomatic sense, it's not as if Eren can confide in him either. More often, when Eren looks at his childhood friend, he sees flashes of another persona. Tics, mannerisms. Every time Annie's name comes up, Armin gets a little flustered. Eren has never heard him talk much about Annie before, outside of her Titan's abilities and the question of how she obtained Marco's gear. Armin has never expressed a serious interest in girls to begin with.

He's tried to bring it up to Mikasa before, but she doesn't have much to say. Probably she just doesn't know what to say, least of all about the soldiers who turned traitors.

As far as Mikasa seems to think, Annie is just the girl in the rock. They knew her in Academy, but she joined the Military Police. Then she was revealed to be the Female Titan, and we failed to capture her. Reiner and Zeke must have thought she wasn't worth saving.

As long as they're alive, he cannot rest. Whatever lies in their hometown, be it Marley or elsewhere, Eren has to see it with his own eyes. His half-brother's promise, however vague, is something he can hold onto. Same as the key, the basement. There is always a new goal to strive towards.

Eren hasn't let himself think about the dungeon in Stohess since she was first moved down there. Between Bertholdt and Reiner's betrayal, Historia's father, the civil war going on in the interior, there has been little time to worry about a single defector in the greater scheme of things. She never seemed that close to anyone, despite Bertholdt's outburst on her behalf. The look in his eyes, when Armin spun that lie, the way his whole body flinched as if it were him being vivisected instead, is a shadow of the same one Eren catches now and again. A stranger's persona in his best friend's body.

Perhaps this is a fitting punishment, to never be rid of her, Bertholdt and Reiner by proxy.

She is still in the crystal, as far as he's been told. Armin visits.

In dreams she worms her way into his head as a simulacrum. His faded recollection—an impression of warmth, no callouses on her palms. The bruises on her shins that healed too quickly. The patchwork of bruises from the ODM harness, gone in a day. With an understanding of her true nature, there's commonality.

There is a distant memory of broken noses that did not steam away. Knees that scraped and scabbed over. A busted lip, the taste of iron that did not burn in the back of his throat when swallowed.

In the void of his dreams there's no key against his breast. A starless expanse before him. They've sparred so often he's checking for bruises when he wakes.

A ghost, at least, cannot betray him. They're rotting away together, mind and body. What he would give just to hear her speak. It is enough to hold her, to tell her things he's never told anyone. That he cannot bear the thought of outlasting his companions. He languishes that his destiny is to be reborn in the body of another child. Hers, then, is stagnation. A fate worse than rebirth and consumption. He laments his lack of power, despite his part in Paradis's accomplishments.

XVI.

Sitting in the mess hall next morning, shoulder to shoulder with Armin. The mess of potato-and-meat akin to viscera. He closes his eyes against the flash of imagery but his mind refuses to settle. He can taste the copper-and-salt. He's taken a chunk out of his forearm before to see if that would help, but he just vomited it back up. He isn't hungry now.

The barrel of the Mauser C96 juts against his forehead. She will pull the trigger if he doesn't call her bluff. Even in that case, he'll be able to transform.

He pushes into it until he's standing over her, looks into her eyes. There's no fear. Just the same callous certainty he adheres for all of his enemies.

"How's Annie?" he asks. His voice comes from a dead throat.

"She's where she always is." Well, it's not as if she's going anywhere. Armin frowns. "You've not asked me in a while. I just..."

Assumed you didn't care much. That it was too painful to look your old mentor in the eye and see the enemy. Figured you'd take it as well as you did Reiner and Bertholdt's betrayal, now that the sheen of sentiment has worn down into impartiality. Mentor or friend, she's the same as the rest when you really get down to it.

With hindsight, there is only his faded recollection of clues—the lack of callouses on her palms. The bruises on her shins that healed too quickly. The patchwork of bruises from the ODM harness, gone in a day. An understanding of her true nature leaves room for commonality. What Eren would give just to hear her speak again. He cannot bear the thought that he might outlast his companions, that his fate is to be reborn in the body of another child. He's no doubt that she would understand. There is a distant memory of broken noses that did not steam away. Knees that scraped and scabbed over. A busted lip, the taste of iron that did not burn in the back of his throat when swallowed.

"It's all right," Eren says. "I know it's important to you."

"We've tried to reach her before. The crystal is impenetrable with our current weapons."

Eren flexes his hand. "I've gained more abilities since then. So have you. What better time is there than now?"

"She's not used to a lot of people visiting."

Eren bristles. "Armin, she's asleep. It's not as if she can actually hear you."

Armin pauses, frowning. "Enough time has passed that we can paint her as a victim of circumstance. Just following orders, like Reiner and Bertholdt." His mouth thins. "There's no telling what she'll do if we could get her out. As far as I'm concerned, there's no harm in leaving Annie where she is. As a Titan, you can already do much of what she can. You've learnt from her. The only advantage in disturbing her now is as a bartering chip with Marley."

"Marley won't leave its own Warriors behind," Eren says quietly. "They'll reinherit the Female Titan even if they have to dash the crystal to pieces." His hands curl into his palms. "If Ymir were here, she could break it with her Titan. But she's gone too."

Armin draws back, a furrow in his brow. "I don't understand what you're getting at."

His childhood friend. Or the enemy, flustered. Like upturning a rock and exposing the crawling, festering insects that scatter in the light.

"You never even mentioned her before," Eren says. "You never visited her, before you ate Bertholdt. Now you can't stay away from her."

Armin's jaw sets, but he says nothing.

"You're compromised," Eren insists.

Armin scoffs. "Listen to yourself. I wasn't the one who begged Commander Erwin to reconsider before our operation to capture the Female Titan. You couldn't transform. You hesitated, and it cost us a source of intel. You flew into a blind rage against Bertholdt and Reiner and got yourself captured until we managed to catch up with you. If anyone here is compromised—"

"—I was a kid then," Eren snaps, "but then I had to grow up like anyone else."

XVII.

Behind closed eyes, he's being carried. The smell of his father's jacket imbues his senses into a temporary relief. Perhaps he is only dreaming. This moment will go on until he has to open his eyes, and he'll be back with Mikasa and Armin again. It's selfish, to stay in this moment and cling to what he once had. His father promised they'd visit the basement.

He's already lost his home and his mother. He cannot go through that again. He will not allow it.

"Dad," he says, his voice congested with sleep.

His father's breathing changes. He grips Eren tight enough that it's uncomfortable and he opens his eyes.

"Where's Armin?" he mumbles.

"He's safe," his father says. "Mikasa is with him."

The sky is clear above the trees, what little he can make out. The moon shines ivory through tiny holes in the sky. A chill seeps beneath his clothes, incurring gooseflesh. The smell of soil and foliage. Are they still in Wall Maria?

"Mom's dead."

His father stops. Lowers him to the ground. "Hannes told me what happened." His expression is difficult to read, like when he's about to tell a patient he's done his best but there's nothing that can be done. "I was with a patient," he says. "I only learnt what had happened after the Wall fell. I took a boat afterwards and caught up to you."

His father isn't making any sense. The harbor was closed off after Wall Maria was breached.

The chapel. Bodies crushed like insects across glossy crystal. Grisha on his knees, begging for repentance that will not come. The taste of blood and salt.

Grisha's hand reaching, clasping the boy's arm. Wars are not won through wishing, but making the choices that no one else can. One day, if Eren lives long enough to discover the basement, he'll come to appreciate his father's sacrifice.

The key. The boy stares avidly at it, desperate to assign a purpose to his father's mania.

"If you want to save them — Armin, Mikasa and the others — you must master this power."

Grisha is younger, nursing his bloodied, mangled palms.

"Make a home there," says Krueger. "Love someone within the Walls."

Needle presses into his arm with a gentle sting. The boy tries to pull away but his father won't let him go. His eyes gleaming as he smiles, a rictus grin. His voice trembles and it's difficult to tell if he's on the verge of laughing or crying. "One day, you'll be able to rid the world of this curse."

No.

Get away.

Get away from me.

The boy is begging for help but his father says nothing. He clutches his forearm. Blood drips down the puncture. Crumpling to his knees with a high scream. His skin on fire. The skeleton explodes around his body, called up from his will alone.

When the transformation is complete, the titan regards its maker with something close to accusation before it reaches down crushing the life from his body.

Two streams of consciousness run parallel. One is severed.

A glint among the brush. The boy reaches for it, staring at the pair of cracked, singed spectacles.

There's a gap in his memory, like a book missing half its pages.

His skin, beneath his clothes, feels sticky. It isn't sweat. His heart pounds so fast it starts to hurt and he can't move his fingers well, almost dropping the spectacles. He folds them up into his fist and shoves them into his chino pocket. Taste of copper on his tongue. The air is blessedly cool. He feels raw all over like the world's worst sunburn.

His cheeks are wet. When he touches them, there are grooves hewn into his skin like rivulets. Steam rolling from the decaying skeleton behind him. His arms and legs, singed pink with heat. Humans don't make steam so it must be from whatever that animal is. Was.

When he swallows, his stomach heaves. He doubles over on the grass which bites into his palms and retches. It looks like spit but it's pink.

He's so tired. He curls up on the ground and starts to shiver.

In the barracks he jerks awake, tears stinging his eyes. The key burns against his breast when he gropes for it. Armin snores lightly above him. Eren focuses on the sound itself. The crickets beyond the window. Moonlight bleeding through the clouds. His throat constricts. He turns on his side, away from the window and screws his eyes shut.

XVIII.

A week before they're due to leave for Marley, Hanji pulls them aside.

Annie's crystal has been compromised. The soldiers on post insist that it just gave way. Like a rotting piece of fruit or a chrysalis, she melted out of her self-made prison. Semi-conscious and unresponsive, they've been carefully monitoring over the last forty-eight hours. She's lucid and able to understand when spoken to, but weak.

With any luck, they'll be able to exonerate her and bring her along to Marley without a hitch. It'll take nothing short of a miracle. Ever since Erwin's death, it's been pretty straightforward to convince Darius Zachary to concede.

Eren says, "Where is she being held?"

Cell door scrapes against stone. Ringing silence. Eren steps through, carrying a tray. Bread and soup and a glass of water.

"I don't know what you think this will accomplish." Her voice is hoarse, eerily familiar after all this time like he's stepped right into a waking dream. Her clothes are damp and cling to her frame. She's been taken out of the crystal a few days ago. "If I were in your place, I'd have done what was necessary a long time ago."

"Don't be stupid," Eren says tersely. "I'm not here to kill you."

"You're the one with all the power," she says vaguely. "I might as well go along with whatever you say."

Eren can't find the energy to remain angry with her. Exasperated, but not angry. She's just cornered and frightened and saying whatever she can to lower his guard. His only power rests in their shared condition. Two child soldiers, forced into someone else's battle. He's here to offer her an out.

"Maybe that's how you feel now. I want to understand why you did everything."

"I didn't have a choice."

"You didn't," Eren says. "That was before. We've come a long way while you were imprisoned."

"Armin came to visit me sometimes. He'd read to me. The guards would make fun of him, because they thought I was sleeping and couldn't hear." Her shoulders hunch. "Maybe it was just Bertholdt talking."

Eren stiffens. "He told you—?"

"He broke down and told me whatever Armin had to do. Or Bertholdt had to. Armin was never interested in me like that before." She looks at him implicitly. "Was this your idea of exacting revenge? Do you want to make me feel as terrible as you did?"

She isn't making sense. "Why would I—Annie, I don't want revenge."

Her laughter is a strange bark of a thing, harsh and high. "If I go back home, they'll just have someone else inherit my powers." A twist plays on her mouth. "Reiner used to forget himself. He was meant to be our leader." Her teeth bare. "I'm just a scapegoat."

"So you'd rather die as a pawn? Just another vessel for Ymir?"

"You don't get the final say in what happens to me."

She doesn't seem to understand. "I can keep you safe. They won't touch you. No one will hurt you."

All at once, her expression falters. When he comes near the bars she shrinks against the wall. Her eyes scan the space on either side of him. With her arms bound, she can't transform short of biting her tongue.

"I never hated you," he says. "I couldn't."

Broken pine. Failure hums in his blood, in each laboured breath. The enemy looks through one unblemished eye, and when he raises his shattered fist, there's the same question he'll avoid for years within his own reflection.

The next blow might crush its face in but it won't resurrect Petra. Or Oluo. Or Gunther or Eld. There is nothing to do but avenge them.

A name is forming in his mind, but all that comes out of his mouth is blood that isn't his. It's stained down his shirt and jacket and the Captain will be less than pleased that it's not going to evaporate.

HIgh-pitched keening rebounds off the walls. He has heard it before. The last thread separating him from his fate is begotten and destroyed in a single breath.

Something crumples to the floor. Eren catches a glimpse of the tattered jacket. The insignia on the shoulder. He attempts to back away but instead stumbles over the sticky dungeon floor and kicks aside broken glass. Catching himself against the nearest wall, he turns and looks again as if anything will change.

Eren throws up.

XIX.

It takes two soldiers to restrain Armin from entering the cell. Mikasa detaches from what is in front of her. She's no stranger to death, nor taking a human life to spare her comrades. The MP elites in the interior, the degenerate who molested Armin, the would-be trafficker to save herself and Eren. For the good of humanity, there are times that a man needs to be cut down.

Armin has been inconsolable since he found Eren, and all anyone can do is wait for him to accept the truth. Eren never visited the crystalline tomb. Eren defended Annie once, to spare his own vitriol. His feelings have been holding him back from duty. It's not an enviable position to find oneself in. Mikasa doubts she'd be any better if it was her holding the blade to Eren's nape.

But Annie is—was—still the enemy of humanity. The traitor that was in over her head and sacrificed everything to keep quiet. She'd been given a choice and rebuked it for the sake of whatever pride or power she fooled herself into having. Whether she expected to die or not, it hardly matters. When Mikasa cut her down from Wall Sina, eye-to-eye with the enemy, she was never able to figure out if it was fear in the Titan's eyes or just surprise.

Eren is the one who spoke of her so highly. Her fighting techniques. Her conflict. Her nature as a frustrating enigma he would never be able to grasp and gave up trying. To Armin, Annie may as well have been just a name in a ledger until Shiganshina. Mikasa is no fool. This change in both of them has been sitting in the back of her mind, but there's never been a time to bring it up despite Eren's grievances. His feelings for the enemy got in the way before. If not for Mikasa's intervention, Annie would have escaped.

Since Trost he has never struck out at her or anyone else. He would never lay a hand on anyone he deemed an ally. It stands to reason he's decided Annie must be an enemy. As much as it might pain him to accept, the boon of humanity's persistence is greater than one traitor. Just as his impassioned vitriol for Reiner and Bertholdt has cooled into resignation, there's no more room to hesitate. His disgust for Marley has transposed into a viable target.

Mikasa runs this over in her head, but can't make it stick. Armin's horrified scream is fresh in her mind. So is the smell of blood and bodily waste and Eren vomiting over himself. He's been catatonic ever since they shoved him in a holding cell at gunpoint.

"He's beyond reason," the Captain says, pacing a path along the floorboards in Hanji's office. Looking to the Commander, he adds, "There's only one way this can end."

"I'll do it," Arlert supplies.

The Captain and Commander both look over at him as if they've misheard. "That's out of the question," the Captain says. "We already have one Titan out of his mind. We don't need another."

"It's undeniable that his Titan's abilities have surpassed Annie's," Hanji says in a slow and uneasy tone. "And likewise we've learnt more thanks to his memory inheritance. She was given numerous opportunities to share whatever information she might have possessed, and she remained uncooperative. It's going to be a much easier sell during the tribunal that Eren agreed to eat her under those conditions. That it was a difficult choice but ultimately undertaken for the sake of—"

"Commander," Arlert says in a shaking voice, "there weren't any guards. You sent him in to see her—did you guess what would happen?" Hanji says nothing. Arlert's expression twists as he looks at the Captain with barely contained disgust. "You let Annie die."

Hanji holds his gaze. "I swore that I would do what was necessary as the Commander of the Scouting Regiment. Annie lived and died as an enemy to humanity."

"Do you hear yourself?" Arlert cries. "All you can talk about is how to spin this to the top brass!"

"Arlert," the Captain says curtly, "that's enough." There's been a nagging question in the back of his mind, ever since escorting Jaeger back from the Queen.

Because Jaeger hasn't been keeping up his diary, Hanji's been poring over his notes in her spare time. She and Levi both agree that keeping Jaeger busy to occupy his mind is better than letting him ponder. The Queen's influence has unlocked a phenomenon that might as well be madness. It's spiraled, and it is grisly, but not out of control. Arlert must understand that much. It was his idea to bring the notebooks to Hanji in the first place. It was also his suggestion to Levi that Eren might be losing track of himself, much like the blackouts during the stress of repetitive Titan experiments. That it would be prudent to monitor him from here on out.

The Arlert that pulled Jaeger from the Titan's shell in Trost and talked his way into convincing Leonhardt to assist is a far cry from the one that balks under the possibility that she is expendable. He's not as stalwart as Jaeger and not stupid enough to argue directly, but there's a seething glint to his eyes that the Captain hasn't ever placed before.

Ever since the retaking of Shiganshina, the bond between Arlert and Jaeger has fractured. Initially it was simple to chalk up to maturity. The pair of them have been forced to reconcile their worldview in the face of such a monumental lie. It's only natural their idealistic natures have sent them in different directions, and Ackermann would try her best to keep them from shattering completely. But neither she nor the Captain is equipped to deal with whatever fucked up phenomenon is unfolding before their eyes.

Arlert is dismissed. Silence falls over the room. Levi halts.

"I never expected him to kill her," Hanji mutters, as if he is not there at all. "Certainly not like this. He's always been adamant that she be protected."

"If Leonhardt were to be exonerated, she'd not be free." Levi squares his shoulders. "We'd just as quickly use her as an inheritor than sacrifice Jaeger or Arlert." He pauses. "Like a mother who poisons her child before his father comes home and hacks them both to pieces. If you could spare someone a worse death, you wouldn't hesitate."

Hanji recoils.

Levi finds his attention drawn to the notebook. Used to be Moblit's but, as Hanji told him once, there's no sense in the waste of blank paper when more pressing matters are at hand.

"He's lost control before. Who knows if he'll drift into another memory and try to take a chunk out of someone else?" He looks at her as though expecting a reproach but Hanji readjusts her glasses with a weary sigh. "I'll handle it. Arlert's compromised, and Ackermann is too close to both of them to remain objective."

"No. We'll take him to court," says Hanji coldly.

"Because it's what Erwin would've done?"

"Eren has had these episodes before," Hanji says, "and it didn't drive him mad. We've sentenced our own soldiers to death, we've lied to the people. There are few lines left to cross. Sticking to any semblance of protocol is the difference between preserving humanity and abandoning it, even if we must discard our own. What's another dead enemy in the face of attaining that knowledge which will protect Paradis?" As soon as she is done speaking comprehension washes over her face. She seems to shrink slightly into her chair, removing her glasses and passing a hand over her face. "It was all so much more straightforward," she says, "when they were only mindless Titans."

Levi nods. He turns away so that she may find her composure. "I'll speak with the Queen."

XX.

Later as she sits in the carriage with Captain Levi, Mikasa's throat tightens with the memory. Her reservations towards Annie do not preclude a lack of sympathy. What Eren chose to do defies her understanding.

Nothing he's been saying makes any sense, as of late. He's receding deeper into himself and no matter what she says or does it only seems to upset him. But there is a certain tone that he gets, sometimes when she cuts him from the Titan with hemic tissue clinging to his face, or from a waking nightmare, and the only way to help him is to lead him out gently. She can't shock him with the truth just yet. She might not get him back.

Armin is not much better. The eyes in his head don't belong to the boy she grew up with for five years. They're closer to the eyes within the hands of the Armoured Titan, imploring his enemies to understand the indefensible as Mikasa cut her way through.

She's so far apart from the both of them now. Or maybe the nature of every Subject of Ymir is to cast aside their humanity in pursuit of some greater, lofty ideal. It's never sat right with her from the start and now, she's borderline convinced that acceptance will mean losing them permanently.

The Captain must be thinking about it as well. He's close enough to get a few words out of Eren, more than she can manage. She used to resent him more often, back when they didn't understand one another. She never figured someday it would be the inverse.

Historia is already waiting for them.

"Something's happened to Eren," Mikasa says. "I believe it was after he stopped seeing you. I don't know the cause. But I'm sure that this change in him is connected to his actions." She closes her fists and opens them again. The Captain's eyes drill into the side of her neck. She swallows dryly. "Is there any record of a Titan Shifter becoming influenced by someone he or she had eaten?"

The Queen seems to freeze in place. "My half-sister," she says, so quietly Mikasa almost doesn't hear. "Before the massacre, Frieda was the original inheritor. And sometimes, she would… it was like she was speaking through someone else. As a child, my father told me it was mercury poisoning but she didn't have any dental implants of the sort. I always wondered why he'd lie about it. And—her eyes would change colour. He told me too that it was only a trick of the light."

Mikasa strides over to the desk. "Why did you keep this to yourself?"

"I did not anticipate what Eren would do," Historia responds coolly. "The question you should be asking is why Armin hasn't followed suit?"

"Evidently you suspect something has been done to him," the Captain says. "Can it be undone?"

Historia draws herself up to her full height. Despite Mikasa towering over her, she doesn't seem in the least bit intimidated. "He's safer in a cell than he is in my presence."

The Captain scoffs. "So he'll be a prisoner of his own mind? That's no loss."

Historia's mouth thins. "Would it be merciful, to have put him in front of a firing squad and be done with it?" She inclines her head. "I imagine Armin would have to become the sole inheritor. And that's too vast of a burden for any one person."

"But not too much for Eren?"

Historia shakes her head. "It is the inevitable fate of each inheritor who takes on the Founding Titan's will. My father wrote about it while he was still alive." She winces. "I… I've read through plenty of what he had to say about Karl Fritz. And if you read it too, you'll see that what I'm doing for Eren is a courtesy. If you don't want to believe it, then I can't force you to. But I've passed along everything I know to the Commander and Captain in the meantime." She inclines her head. "If I would have known what would happen, I would never have agreed to let him near her, Mikasa."

Mikasa turns around. Her gut instinct tells her that she can't hear another word of this but she's not going to walk out on the Queen. She turns in spite of herself, to where Historia is silhouetted by the midday sun. "How long has the Founder's power been passed down?"

"Since before I was born," Historia says with a twist to her mouth. "They wouldn't have entrusted that power to a bastard. But it hardly matters. Even if Eren was lucid, he wouldn't be able to utilise the Founder's true power outside of a momentary flash. It would have to be a Reiss."

The prospect of Eren's death looms all the way back to HQ. Another inevitability, only there's no time to grasp it while they are alive. Mikasa refuses to sit by and accept this as a certainty. There must be another way to save Eren. His reasons for acting are not beyond explanation. If the Queen is right, if there's a chance Eren has trapped himself within the confines of his inheritance, it's Mikasa's job to draw him out. Not only for the good of humanity. It was the last thing she ever promised Aunt Karla and she'll be damned if she allows Eren to slip away for the sake of upholding some meaningless treaty.

Mikasa is the first who's agreed to watch over him, because Armin won't listen to reason and the rest of the Scouts can't bear to look at him.

He says nothing. He's just sitting on the bed. Annie was the enemy, but Mikasa cannot take any pleasure in the circumstances of her death or what it's wrought.

She couldn't regenerate, Commander Hanji surmises, because she'd spent so much time healing her wounds. Trapped in the crystal her body atrophied. When she was kept shackled in a cell, much like Sawney and Bean, she grew weaker. The prospect of Eren sensing that weakness, using it to his advantage, is a point Hanji brings up and no one acknowledges, save for the Captain.

The boy nearly-a-man who was pulled out of Annie's cell and the boy she's put so much faith in are disparate.

Floch is the only other one who volunteered. Mikasa has no strong feelings towards him. Eren and he never seemed to get along, but that was before Eren ripped out the enemy's carotid artery with his teeth and nails.

"It's me, Eren."

Her voice wavers. She grits her teeth.

No response. Her pulse throbs in her head.

"Eren?"

He raises his head. He doesn't acknowledge her. There's life behind the eyes, but something missing. That aspect of Eren Jaeger does not exist. "She's safe," says Eren quietly. "I made sure of it."

Mikasa takes an unsteady breath. He doesn't flinch. His shoulders hunch.

"I was running out of time," he whispers. He's rocking uneasily back and forth on the bed. "I didn't have a choice."

Her throat tightens. She shoves down her weakness. If he'll talk to her, she has a chance at getting through to the Commander. "What are you talking about?"

Eren runs his hands through his hair. His entire body rigid. Their eyes lock.

She steps back, struck by the illogical notion that he's going to tear the bars off and rip out her throat.

His breath snags. He's staring down at himself. He starts to tremble.

"I had to do it," his voice cracks, jumps an octave. He screams, "They'd kill her if I didn't do it, don't any of you understand," but there's a wretched desperation in his voice and all she really sees is the ten year old crumpling on the cobblestones, powerless to save his mother.

Marrying Karla is an easy decision. She keeps a clean house and she's pleasant company, treating him no differently outside of the bar than inside it. She keeps a steady rapport with colleagues in Shiganshina's corner market. The man who found him, Keith Shadis, is busy in the Scouting Regiment.

When the wave of tuberculosis strikes Shiganshina, Karla is understanding of his absences. Many quiet dinners where she'll excuse herself and go to bed. Despite her exhaustion, she.

The influx of patients necessitates he'll be working overnight. Hospitals in Wall Maria are notorious for being understaffed and underfunded. Civilians live on top of each other in narrow streets. Here, he is only a doctor. Staff alongside him are amicable but indifferent towards their circumstances. The situation in Maria has always been slanted in favor of the inner Walls. If the Titans were to get in, there would be less mouths to feed and less posturing for the middle class in Rose.

The girl's hair clings to her face. Waterlogged and pale and speckled with bruises.

Of course, he has to work.

That night, when he got home she was quiet as usual. She's talking about her day. With. He nods.

"Are you even listening?" Her golden eyes bright and shimmering. "All the women will talk about now are the robberies between Trost and Yarvil. If not that, it's this damned illness. Each time you go away, I wonder if it will be the last time."

"I didn't—" realise you were so deeply affected "—consider how you felt. I'm sorry."

Karla emits a sound between a laugh and a shudder. His cue to do something. He stands and walks slowly around the table to touch her forearm. She turns her head into his breast.

She says she's sorry. That she's only worried for him. She wraps her arms around his waist but he never leans into her touch. A child will not salvage this marriage, nor make up for his lengthy absences.

He's always so warm, she whispers. Like a furnace.

After Dina, he cannot bring himself to care for another person so deeply and intrinsically. Karla is her antithesis; headstrong and optimistic. Karla need only be aware of his role.

Now that he is well-established, he says, he feels as though he is in a better position to provide for them, as a family.

It's their duty to eke out an existence within these walls, this house. Something to look back on and be proud of. Not for humanity's sake, but for their own. Life should go on inside Paradis, no matter how many Titans were on the other side.

He stroked her hair, watching her sleep. He told her, some half-true variation of the story that ate at him every day. That his sister was found by Military Police. That his parents would marry her off to some wealthy businessman, if not the officer who raped her and fed her to his dogs.

Dina would flinch away from him. So blinded with his desperation to mould his child into the perfect double-agent, he never saw her as anything more than a means to an end.

Without the burden of zealotry, Karla only absorbs what she is told. She listens until his words dissipate into pinched silence. He was only a boy, she says. Overpowered by an officer, it was not his fault. He shouldn't carry that guilt for the rest of his life.

A memory seeps into his mind's eye outside of his control. Her hair is longer, kept in a bun. Her features, not allowed to grow into a sallow beauty. She's wearing the old uniform from her hometown, the one he's only ever seen in flashes. Her armband is yellow where his father's was grey—Eren Kruger's a hemic red. The name Liberio forms on his tongue.

When he opens his eyes he can taste the copper-and-salt.

In the cell, there's nothing to stop him from hitting the wall, something tangible that cannot be harmed. His wrist judders against the unyielding stone; sharp, violent pain that pierces the skin. His knuckles come away bloody, hissing with steam. The flesh and sinew knitting back together, the bone aligns itself.

Pain brings him to his knees, his vision flashing. He retches but nothing comes up. The cell door scrapes against stone.

He clutches his broken hand, flinching at her voice, the rising pitch of distress. Mikasa only sees a wound that needs fixing. She's strong enough to lead her own division, but she cannot protect him from his own mind. She crouches down next to him, doesn't touch, hovering close enough to feel her breath wavering on his cheek.

"Eren," she says in a small voice, "I don't know—what I'm supposed to do to help you. The Commander." Her voice shatters. If he were to reach out through the bars and touch her she'd be shaking with sobs. "I don't know what to do anymore."

They are on the opposite end of a long tunnel, and he's still clutching his hand and looking up at the blinding light of day, too late to warn her of what's coming.

XXI.

The sky is blood-red in the light of the setting sun. Mikasa is over in Mitras, fighting for the two of them. Even without knowing when or how the end will come to be, it remains inevitable.

Arms drawn over his knees, his body covered by a thin layer of sweat.

The door to his cell unlocks. A tall woman enters, brandishing a lantern. "Floch told me what happened."

Eren looks sharply to the boy behind her. Floch is simple-minded but not without his uses. Eager to get into Eren's good graces. If his comrades won't listen, if the Captain and Commander are busy with all of this planning towards an uncertain future, maybe the only way to move forward is a change of approach.

"The Captain seems to believe you have already surpassed Annie in respect to her Titan's ability. There was nothing to gain from your actions."

"Don't—" he seethes, because she's done enough, she's done more than enough, peeling apart his mind in ways he would rather not admit to anyone "—don't talk about her like that."

Yelena hesitates. "I don't know what you expect me to tell you. A formal apology on the Queen's behalf is hardly going to fix this." She sets the lantern down. "That's not why I'm here. There are routes to the mainland even from Paradis. The only way you'll be able to access the Founder's powers is to find your brother. And we just so happen to be in contact with him."

"I'm listening," Eren says, not taking his eyes off of Floch, who has not moved away from the door since Yelena began talking.

She glances back with a tsk and says, "Lock the door, Forster. He's not going to rip your throat out."

Eren's attention turns back to her as she has a seat at the table.

"Let's go over the plan."

XXII.

Footsteps creak across the open space. The flutter of breath against his unshaven jaw. A clammy hand cups the nape of his neck, nails crusted with blood that isn't hers. His eyes trace the serrated shape hewn into her jugular, and his breath sticks in his throat.

"What did you want me to do?" His voice croaks with disuse. "They were going to kill you. I couldn't let that happen."

Annie doesn't say anything, but then again she never does.

Three years ago it would've been difficult to imagine her as small or frail when he's seen her disarm Reiner. He's been on the receiving end of her blows and kicks long enough to hold his own. At nineteen, when he stands up, the top of her head barely reaches his sternum.

He reaches out to touch her face. Empty air.

In the belly of the cargo ship Eren wakes up. His muscles cramp. He's slumped against the boxes at an awkward angle.

His left eye prickles. Once he gets to the mainland, he'll have to fix it.

XXIII.

"As a child bride," Zeke says, "Ymir Fritz was kept as breeding stock for a king whom did not care for her beyond her inherent worth to him. The day she was bound to The Progenitor completely, she became more than a subject of Ymir."

Cigarette smoke wafts upon the riverbank.

"I must admit, I underestimated how far you would go to satiate your urge for destruction."

Eren says nothing.

"Subjects of Ymir must have the opportunity to inherit the Founder's genetic information. There is a living candidate in Historia Reiss, and her child. If one of these were to be injected—"

"That won't happen."

Zeke pauses in the middle of taking a drag. "You're not a Reiss. Nor a Fritz. So even if you were to eat the candidate, you wouldn't be able to use the Founder's power. Only a subject of royal blood will work."

"An Eldian's connection to the Paths cannot be severed with his or her death," Eren says. "So in that sense, it wouldn't matter who inherits the Progenitor outside of its intended use. It can never truly die, only delay the circumstances of its resurrection into the body of another Eldian."

Zeke's lip curls. "You've thought this through."

A month from now Reiner will fall to his knees sobbing quietly at his feet in the cellar of the tenement. The boy Eren has yet to meet stares from the wall, captive to his own execution. Eren says nothing for a moment, Wilhem Tybur speaking over them. When he leans forward to place his hand on Reiner's shoulder, the other man shrinks from the contact like he's been burnt.

"Look at me, Reiner."

The gash in his palm oozes against Reiner's unshaven cheek, the nape of his neck. He does not get up from the floor but begins to shake.

"I see you," Eren whispers. "I'm the same as you."

"Of course," Eren says, reaching for the crutch. "I won't get another chance like this. Why take it for granted?"

— FINIS —

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The artist and the soldier: the unlikely friendship of Lucian Freud and Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.

- Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud’s majestic The Brigadier, painted between 2003 and 2004, is a powerful, intimate, portrait of Brigadier Andrew-Parker Bowles, a dashing cavalry officer and ex-husband of  Queen Consort Camilla, and thus a venerable member of the British establishment and aristocracy.

Steeped in the traditions of military portrayals, Freud’s painting of a British army brigadier is transformed into a resolutely contemporary painting by his legendary attention to detail and lucid brushstrokes. It evokes the spirit of the grand military portraits that populate art history, yet in Freud’s hands the lucid brushstrokes produce a portrait that captures the contradictions of the modern world in a very contemporary way.

But the portrait also tells a story of a most unlikely friendship struck up by an artist and his subject. They made an unlikely pair: the roguish painter in his eighties, who famously enjoyed a flutter and a fight, and the highly decorated soldier with impeccable royal connections.

Although Freud died in 2011, Parker Bowles is always ready to share his story of his friendship with the uncompromising and difficult late artist. He most famously tells of one story when, “‘At one stage a group of Americans were taking flash photos, which Lucian hated, so he threw a bread roll at one of them. The man complained,’ recalls Parker Bowles. And how did you react? ‘Well,’ he pauses. ‘I was just a tiny bit embarrassed.’ Luckily, the proprietor was on hand to mediate. ‘He came over and said to the American, “I’m terribly sorry but Mr Freud is allowed to do that.” That was it.’ That always gets a bellyful laugh out of the ex-brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles (APB as he’s often tagged).

If you visit Parker Bowles’ cottage in the Cotswolds, you’ll see many interests bits of memorabilia. The last British Union flag that flew in Rhodesia, where he served, is resting on a radiator. Nestled on a shelf amidst medals and trophies is a small bottle of stitches preserved in brine – wrenched from Parker Bowles’ back after he broke it during the hurdle race at Ascot. In another is a lump of cartilage extracted from his knee and pickled for posterity (the culmination of rugby knocks and jumping out of a plane). All, in their own way, are emblems of the rugged masculinity and swashbuckling adventure he exudes even at 83 years old. One can see why the irascible Lucian Freud liked him.

But in the corner of one room are photographs of his old friend, Lucian Freud. They hang next to a bronze bust of Freud’s head and a framed letter: ‘My dear Andrew, since even your more foolish actions have their reasons – why is it that I haven’t seen you for so long? Can we have a ride, a drink, a jaunt or a fight? Please write. Lucian.’

The pair first met in 1983, when Parker Bowles, then Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, received a request from Lucian Freud, who wanted to paint a horse. Parker Bowles chose the horse he thought was best at staying still and Lucian painted away. ‘When he finished, he gave the trooper holding the horse a sketch and said, “Don’t just throw it away, if you want to sell it, go to my agent and he’ll buy it off you.”’ With the money, the trooper bought a house. ‘A rather nice start. I got nothing as a result,’ says Parker Bowles in mock dismay. ‘Except I got to know him.’

Before long, a friendship blossomed. Together, they’d go riding, galloping around Hyde Park, Freud’s scruffy suit covered in paint, his white silk scarf billowing in the wind. ‘Freud wouldn’t wear a hard hat. So it would be me chasing after him, trying to slow him down. Him going flat out.’

Over the years, they’d visit the National Portrait Gallery at night, which would be opened especially for Freud. They went to Paris for an exhibition and to Ireland to see Freud’s bookmaker, who had accrued more than 20 pictures in lieu of gambling debts. They watched the Ascot races, and ‘as I recall, he lost a million pounds betting.’ Eventually Freud stopped gambling. ‘When I asked why, he said, “Well, now I have enough money.” The joy and fun was being short of money and losing it and having people hammering on his door.’ Those debtors, it was said, included the notorious East End gangsters, the Krays.

And yet, amongst all the liveliness, Freud also found the time to work prolifically. He painted well into his eighties, burning through sittings - a nude mother one morning, her nude daughter in the afternoon. Perhaps it was only inevitable that one day the bell would toll for Andrew Parker-Bowles.

It was 2003. At first APB said no. he said, “Look, I have things to do.”’ He had recently left the army and was putting together a few business prospects. No matter, said Freud: “It will only take a few months. It’s a head and shoulders.”’

They’d talked about James Jacques Tissot’s glamorous portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of Colonel Fred Burnaby, a moustachioed war hero who served in the same regiment as Parker Bowles. It would be the inspiration.

So APB went back to the Knightsbridge Barracks and borrowed his old uniform. To his surprise, he discovered that it no longer fitted as comfortably. ‘I’d put on a bit of weight, or otherwise it’d shrunk,’ APB would laugh at recalling his embarrassment. ‘The first morning it was so hot, and the uniform was so tight, I undid it. That’s when Freud said, “That’s it, hold it, that’s what we want.”’

The three-month mark came and went, and the picture continued to grow in size. As APB would recall, ‘He kept on adding canvas. My heart sunk. Soon it was seven feet high.’

By his own admission he was a fidgety sitter and Freud was ‘incredibly slow.’ Parker Bowles got by with plenty of Diet Coke and regular breaks. ‘As you can see from the picture I had rather an inane look on my face. You can’t have someone smiling because you can’t hold a smile for 18 months.’

Freud liked to work in silence. ‘Every so often he would come quite close to you.’ He gestures his hand to his nose. ‘Look at you, and go back.’

When Freud wanted to rest, he’d stop and talk. ‘But then he wouldn’t paint. One was torn between wanting him to get on with it and listening to what he had to say about things.’

At one stage Parker Bowles caught a glimpse of the portrait He didn’t like APB seeing what he’d done, but it was such a big picture that APB couldn’t help but look at it, and complained that his friend had been unkind in the likeness of his size. Freud gleefully painted an extra inch of fat on to Parker Bowles’ middle. ‘He did it to shut me up.’

Freud’s tempers were infamous, yet he and Andrew never argued. ‘Discussions yes, arguments no. In his relationships, the minute something went wrong, he’d cut you off and wouldn’t ever speak to you again. Luckily, he didn’t do it to me. But he did with some of the girls he painted.’

Instead, Freud was ‘great company’ and a routine emerged. ‘It would be breakfast at Clarke’s, then we’d go back and I’d climb into my uniform. Even if he was just painting my face, he still wanted me to wear the whole uniform.’ Lunch might be at Clarke’s again and then back to the studio. If it sounds intense, it wasn’t constant: twice weekly for the sittings. ‘Then he’d wheel in the next victim.’

The starriest of these included Jerry Hall and Kate Moss, though perhaps one of Freud’s most talked-about paintings, unveiled in 2001, was of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Many were critical of the royal portrait, which was, even by the most anodyne description, unforgiving. One newspaper called it a ‘travesty’. Parker Bowles is more sanguine about it. He said in one interview, ‘You have to say it’s accurate. I once asked Her Majesty, the Queen what she thought about Mr Freud’s picture and she replied, “Very interesting.” Which is a very clever answer, really.’

And what of his own portrait? Did it require diplomacy? After 18 long months the oil painting was finished and titled The Brigadier. One critic described the painting as ‘insolent’, ‘scathing’ and ‘melancholic’. He went on to describe its subject as looking ‘saddened and wiped out’. Flattering? Admittedly perhaps not, but a masterpiece, said many. Parker Bowles - who divorced Camilla in 1995 - was a fan of the work, and the painting’s naturalism is one of the reasons why it is so popular. Parker Bowles might have bought it. Instead, it was installed in someone else’s house and eventually sold by Christie’s in 2015 for $35m – a record figure.

Andrew Parker Bowles has always been stoic about missing on buying his own portrait but he lacked the funds by a country mile on his military pension and other holdings. He conceded that he didn’t fancy the idea of, “a seven-foot picture of myself looking rather red-faced and fat wasn’t my idea of fun”.

So there’s no Brigadier hanging in the Cotswolds, but a picture of a friendship emerges and endures. Freud lived to be 88. Parker Bowles went to see his friend as he lay dying in the summer of 2011. Three of his daughters were there; Freud had 14 acknowledged children. Parker Bowles went in. He was unconscious and APB held his hand. They went next door with Freud’s assistant David Dawson and their Irish friend Pat Doherty, whom Freud had also painted, and they had dinner and Freud died that night.

Andrew Parker Bowles continues to have fond memories of his most unlikely friendship with one of Britain’s distinguished artists. He said once in a newspaper profile. ‘Freud was a fascinating man. I wouldn’t say he was a particularly kind man, he was often quite cruel. But his whole life was painting, really, right to the end.’

[mlmxreader]

What's So Great About War? | Alex Keller x m!reader

『••✎••』

↳ ❝ I have a suggestion for a fanfic. How about a WW1 scenario. The reader can be German or allies. They’re a pilot who crashed into no man’s land. The character whether it be Gaz or Alex. Any character will do you can choose. The character will help them since if the reader is German the uniform is so badly mangled it’s hard to determine who’s side their on or if they’re allies/ on the same side as the character maybe the character has seen them on the air field while they were headed to the trenches. Hope you enjoy and have fun with that idea! ❞

: ̗̀➛ During the First World War, Alex is stationed with the American Shock Troops, and finds himself torn between loyalty and duty.

: ̗̀➛ graphic depictions of death, graphic depictions of injury, graphic descriptions, toxic gas, plane crashes, swearing, smoking, gun violence

↳ PROSHIP/PROFIC/ETC DO NOT INTERACT

•───────────────★•♛•★──────────────•

The war had been raging for all too long, it seemed as if it had been going on since the dawn of time and would never end. Leaving fields that were once green and bursting with life empty and barren and grey.

Desolate of everything except rotten pikes that held up the barbed wire and the scattered limbs and bones that were gnawed on by rats and mice.

It was easy to hear their cries, begging and pleading for a bullet in the head so they didn’t have to feel the rats burrow and chew through their stomachs and intestines throughout the night.

Many of the politicians called it the war to end all wars, and kept pushing for more and more needless and senseless death.

Yet they would not fight themselves and nor would they send their own sons to war either.

Sun Tzu would have wept if he saw what was happening.

On the Eastern Front, men were being gassed as they protected fortresses; rising and gargling on their blood and vomit as they tried to march forward.

On the Western Front, it was so much worse. The bodies of men and horses stunk as they rotted, torn apart and frayed from shells, grenades, and heavy machine gun fire.

It had been so long that Alex had forgotten how much of his time had been spent fighting; he at least still remembered who he fought with.

It was the Devil Dogs - the U.S Marines - at first.

They soon transferred him to the 141st British Regiment - which Alex absolutely despised due to MacTavish’s constant preaching of propaganda and talking about how the Welsh were “bugger all except sheep shagging scum who speak gibberish.”

Then at last, he was sent to the American Shock Troops - who were often called the Ghosts.

There, he was still stationed.

Several men made up the force of the Ghosts, as well as their mercy dog Riley.

But Alex was thankful, as he never really spent much time with them except during raids, so he never got to find out if they were as bad as MacTavish or not.

Quite often, though, Alex would find himself sitting at the edge of the trench and smoking too many cigarettes, his gaze turned to the sky as he thought about the man he used to know so well.

You were dragged into the war before he was, and he could still remember the feel of your hands in his as he begged you to stay alive and to make it through the war so he could see you again.

The last time he told you that he loved you, quickly kissing you before you were shoved onto the train; he chased after it until he fell over, calling your name and promising that he would see you again.

He would make it home to you.

You wrote to one another very often, though - Alex knew all about your dark green and white Albatross and how you had painted it the same pattern as an orca, just as he knew all about your time with the Flying Circus under the command of the infamous Manfred Von Richthofen, The Red Baron.

You were credited with sixty victories and the newspapers in your home country even gave you a dashing new nickname fit for your reputation - The Green Shark.

But that did not stop you from seeing the truth behind the war.

All the wasted lives and broken dreams. All the mothers mourning children they could never bury.

All the men who would not go home. There was no enemy - only men and boys, sons and fathers, brothers and uncles and nephews, turned to ash for nothing.

There would never be victory - only decay and death. There would never be glory - only blood.

None of it was ever going to be justified, it was a pointless and horrific war.

Alex could never disagree with you on that, he never would believe in such a vile and heinous thing, such an apocalyptic event. And all for what?

What was it all for?

Why did millions have to die?

Why did so many have to give their lives?

Why?

Two shots had changed the world, and millions were going to pay for it.

One man’s death was paid for by the suffering and deaths of millions more - coins made of blood and skin.

So what was so fucking great about it?

Swiping a hand down his face, Alex tried to push it from his mind, knowing that thoughts of such a calibre would get him killed.

He tossed the end of his cigarette away, but just as he was about to stand, he was thrust forward into the muddy waters face-first.

A great orange light was flying over him.

He kept his head low for a moment before scrambling over the top of the trench. Immediately, he charged across the barren wasteland as fast as he could, his lip quivering when he saw the dark green plane.

It was all a blur as he grabbed the limp pilot and dragged him back to the trench, putting him down on a cot and screaming for Elias. Alex was soon dragged away by Ajax and Kick.

He spent hours trying to get to the pilot, desperate and on the verge of starting a war on his own, but it wasn’t until dawn that he was allowed.

“Do you know this man?” Elias asked sternly, glaring at Alex.

He nodded, swallowing thickly. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good,” Elias nodded back curtly as he cleared his throat. “Is he friend or foe? His uniform’s torn and burnt, so I can’t tell - but you know him, so you must know.”

“Friendly,” Alex answered quietly, chewing the inside of his lip, “he’s on our side, Sir.”

Such a lie could get him shot and killed, Alex was all too aware of that - but what was he meant to do?

Your life was not suddenly worth less than his because of the fact that your country was fighting on the opposite side of a pointless war.

He had to lie to keep you alive and safe, even if it meant risking his own in the process.

But the Ghosts soon left, letting Alex stay with you; you were in bad shape.

Burns and gashes all over your face, some of them so deep that he could see where the flames from your downed plane had scorched the fat layer of your wounds.

Rendering the flesh blistered and weeping openly.

Deep wounds covered your hands and arms and legs; with ease, Alex could see the particularly gnarly laceration on your left leg.

It was open, the bone pressing against what little flesh was left; cracked and dried blood crackled when it spasmed upon feeling the soft winds.

Alex wanted to look away, but when he saw the scorch marks on the bone, he frowned.

What was left of your uniform was black from the burns, and stained with dark splodges that smelled like iron.

But you were awake, groaning and trying to move until he gently pushed you down, shaking his head. 

“You’re still alive,” you coughed weakly.

Alex nodded, letting his hand rest on your chest as he did his best to smile reassuringly. “For now… I had to tell them you were one of ours, they haven’t seen your plane yet.”

“I can pretend,” you agreed softly. “It’s alright.”

“We are going to see the end of this war,” he promised, licking his lips and clearing his throat. “And I will keep you safe. I promise.”

“I don’t want to fight,” you grumbled softly, shaking your head and coughing again. “I don’t want to be part of this war.”

“Darling,” Alex whispered. “You don’t have to any more. I promise. When this war is over, you’re coming home with me.”

“So demanding,” your laugh sounded more like a death rattle than anything else. “But I will always go where you do…”

“I promised you when you left on that train, I would find you again… didn’t think it’d be in such a fucking shitty predicament,” he sighed, gently patting your chest. “Sleep now. You need your rest and I need to convince Elias to let me stay with you while you heal… but I love you, you know, and I’m going to get us both home. I promise.”

“Keller,” you mumbled, holding his hand as tightly as you could, although your grip was still all too limp. “I love you, too… don’t go… please?”

Alex leaned back a little, taking a look behind him before lighting up a cigarette. “I’ll stay for as long as I can.”

He couldn’t have known, neither of you could have ever known, that the end of the war would not come for a long time, and that you would both watch the Ghosts die; you would see Hesh clinging onto Logan’s body as he screamed for their mother, begging for her to come and save them.

You would see Elias torn apart by rats as he did his best to usher the others back to the trenches.

You would see Ajax and Kick choke on toxic gas as they howled and rasped as their lungs collapsed.

You would see Merrick spread across No Man’s Land during heavy shelling.

The only one to make it out would be Riley. 

So, what would ever be so fucking great about the war?

“Come on,” Alex murmured as he gently shoved you over so he could lie down next to you, offering you his cigarette. “If I’m staying, I want some space.”

You shuffled and groaned, sharp pains shooting through you until you wept and nearly begged for death. Through choked up tears, you managed to say, “you always did hog the bed.”

[lotzzoforangezoutside]

30-Fic Rec Challenge

I did this last year.

Here’s my list for 30 recommended X-Files fanfic. I’ll try to not repeat on the authors. 

and they are, of course, all MSR.

1. Currently reading: Genius by Kipler. Summary: The story of a young girl who disappears and returns smarter than she was before.

2. A short fic you like: the truth or a Pomeranian by seek_its_opposite (@seek-its-opposite​) Summary: It occurs to them both too late that nice suburban couples don’t have dogs named after Melville characters.

3. A novel-length fic you like: Puppets by Madeleine Partous Summary: None provided by the author.

4. An AU fic that you like: By the Dim and Flaring Lamps by sunflowerseedsandscience  ( @sunflowerseedsandscience) Summary: Captain Fox Mulder, the abolitionist son of a Virginia plantation owner and slaveholder, has turned his back on his family and everything he's ever known in order to fight for the Union, rather than joining the ranks of the Confederacy alongside his fellow Virginians. He runs off to Pennsylvania to join a newly-formed regiment in the spring of 1863, and there, he meets and quickly befriends the enigmatic young Daniel Scully, a private under his command. Private Scully's steady shooting and bravery in battle have proven him to be a far more capable soldier than his age would suggest. But in the days immediately following Gettysburg, Mulder discovers that Private Scully is hiding a secret, one that could change their friendship- and Mulder's entire life- in ways he couldn't possibly imagine.              

5. A fic you like that has a person’s name in the title: The Divine Professor M. by Flynn Summary: "They exist as separate individuals .... but they aren't truly complete until they're together."

6. A fic that made you feel nostalgic: Energy and Light by Oracle Summary: our girls have vanished, each one on a different night. Each one by the light of a full moon. Is it just a coincidence? 

7. A fic that made you cried: 7 Days in May by prufrock's love Summary: It might be the end of the world. Fox Mulder had a psychic vampire on the loose, a six-year-old son in tow, a ton of emotional baggage, and an FBI budget, but at least he wasn't dead. Mulder felt things were looking up - romantically and apocalyptically.

8. A fic you like that’s written by an author that’s passed away: Past is Prologue by Brandon D. Ray Summary: An encounter with two strangers changes Dana Scully's life forever. Pre-XF.

9. A fic you like that has a title of less than three words: Ghosts by Anjou Summary: An early December 2002 tale, originally supposed to be a drabble, totally spun out of control. A post-series 'what if' where Mulder was irrevocably altered, replicants were the new reality, and the clock was ticking down to 2012.

10.A post-episode fic you like: A Less Certain World by Sarah Segretti Summary: A fragile and frightened Mulder, traumatized by the events of "Biogenesis," turns to an unexpected source for help.

11.A fic that you wish to be televise: The Boy on the Beach by cecily_sass ( (@cecilysass) Summary: One moment she was sitting in the chair. Her chin up, her expression ice. And the next moment she was gone.No one had to tell Mulder something had gone wrong. No one had to tell him the difference between having Scully and lacking Scully. In that distinction he was expert.

12.A cute fic: Home, home by onpaperfirst Summary: post-the truth, pre-iwtb, weirdo domesticitywhere seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day

13.A fic that made your heart raced: Miracle by Tesla Summary: None provided by the author.

14.A scary fic: then the bomb by all_these_ghosts (@all-these-ghosts) Summary: "Do you ever worry about the end of the world, Scully?" "Yes," she said. "But I don't think it's going to happen fast." She would remember that, later.

15.A fic you like that has the word love in the title: Love's Savage Sea Spray by MaybeAmanda & Foxsong & LaVa, Jacquie Summary: The dashing Lt. Fox Mulder saves the Lady Dana Scully from the  lustful clutches of the pirate Captain Skinner and other assorted meanies.

16. One of the first fics you remember really liking: Dumbo by Chimerical Chameleon Summary: Mulder's obsession...(it's not what you think it is)

17. A good casefile: In a Flash by TCS 1121 Summary: In a flash, life changes.

18. A fic you like that has a color in the title: Gold and Silver by dreamingofscully (@dreamingofscully) Summary: Scully does something spontaneous to honor her sister’s memory.

19. A fic you that you’ve read several times: No More Demons by Penny Daza Summary: Mulder and Scully find a way to keep the nightmares away. 20. A fic in your ‘to-read’ list: Love In All The Wrong Places by SisterSpooky1013 (@sisterspooky1013​ ) Summary: Mulder and Scully try their hand at online chat rooms, and each meet a compelling stranger who is perhaps no stranger after all.

21. A *classic* fic that you’ve not read but have been meaning to read: Memorial Day by Brandon D. Ray and shannono Summary: The Date is here ...

22. A fic you read as a WIP or the author did not finish: Speechless by Anjou Summary: A road trip with Mulder and Scully; a trip inside their heads and hearts.  While on assignment to A.D. Kersh on a seemingly innocuous case in Nebraska, Mulder and Scully reflect on their relationship and its progress. Slots into the US6 timeline post-Tithonus, and assumes a general level of knowledge of all preceding action and, unlike what we saw onscreen, there is sufficient time for Scully to have healed between cases.

23. A fic you’d recommend to a Phile who doesn’t read fic: 20 by syntax6 Summary: 20 years in the life of Mulder and Scully, one year at a time.

24. A dark fic: After the Colors Fade by Deborah L. Wells   Summary: Mulder must fulfill a desperate promise he made to Scully. Which could cost them both their lives.

25. A fic you like that has an element of time in the title: if I had to perish twice  by seek_its_opposite Summary: He thinks maybe they’re working backwards to something like new love.

26. A fic you like that was written before 2000: Tinfoil by Loch Ness Summary: None provided by the author.

27. A fic you read a while ago that stayed in your head: Objects Are Closer Than They Appear by Wayward Summary: Arcadia post-ep story

28. A fic that you wish was longer, or hope for sequels: Knock by Gnatalie Summary: "They were a perfect match, since neither of them was getting what they really wanted."

29. The last fic you finished: The Great Outdoors by agoodwoman Summary:Picking up a few weeks after Planes Trains and Automobiles left off, Mulder and Scully have met the luckiest man alive and faced off with Pfaster again. This story begins after Mulder and Scully decide to pack a bag and get out of her apartment. Except they don't spend another weekend in bed together - they deal with the demons from Pfaster and the wake of his turmoil in their lives. They also, of course, get sent on another assignment to The Great Outdoors.

30. A fic you want to recommend just because: The Fox Mulder Phonetic Alphabet by storybycorey (@storybycorey) Summary:The ABC’s, as told by Fox Mulder.

**Bonus: Light Don't Sleep by wonderland (@amplifyme) Summary: " ... I don't want this to end. I want to stay like this forever. Just the three of us, right here in this bed. Not a care in the world." REASON: I have a feeling not many people have read this. But it’s so cute.

[verybadatwriting]

The Healer 2

Teen!ReaderxAvengers

Summary: Y/n adjusts to life in the tower and the people they share it with.

Warnings: Bad sleep schedule. References to past trauma (kidnapping, murder of parents, etc.)

Gn!reader

Word count: 2,477

    Steve and you sat at the table, having just finished breakfast, and he outlined the plan for today. Having spent 14 years with a strictly regimented schedule, you found it helpful to have an idea what was happening on any given day.

    “In the morning I’d like you to meet someone, my friend Bucky. He’s a bit shy, but I think the two of you will get along. Then around noon Wanda wanted to take you out for lunch,” Steve said, “If you would like to go.”

    “That sounds nice.” You replied, “And after that?”

    “I don’t have any plans for the afternoon, if you and Wanda want to have an afternoon out, that’s fine by me. Be back by dinner though, there is a movie night afterwards.”

    “What’s that?”

    “We all get into comfortable clothing and watch a movie with a bunch of snacks.” Wanda said, as she popped into the room, “I think it’s one of our best Saturday traditions. Unless Stark chooses the movie.”

    “I can’t wait!” You said, “Today’s gonna be great.” Steve left the room, leaving you and Wanda to chat. After you’d finalized your plans for the afternoon, FRIDAY delivered an invitation to join Steve and his friend in the living room. You said goodbye to Wanda, and skipped to the living room.

    Steve sat facing the doorway, and across the coffee table from him was his friend Bucky. He had his back towards you. All you could see was his shoulder-length hair and the faint glint of metal on his left shoulder.

    “Ah, Y/n,” Steve said, “This is Bucky.” The second man turned around and – to your horror – you recognized his face. Thousands of thoughts rushed through your mind. Pure terror made you turn heel and sprint away. You dashed through the corridors in a confusing zig-zag, sprinting up stairs, until you found yourself on a deserted floor of the Tower. You looked for the most hidden spot and closed yourself in.

    A few minutes later, you heard FRIDAY ask where you were. You dared not speak, even to her. You heard people moving around the building, presumably searching for you. At one point Steve went room by room on the same floor as you. He opened the closet you were in, and peeked inside. 

    “Oh hey there.” Steve said, “Are you okay?” He took your silence as a no.

    “That’s fine. Do you wanna talk about what happened?” He asked, “I just wanna make sure you know you’re safe.”

    “I-I…” you choked up, “I knew him.”

    “Bucky?” Steve seemed taken aback, “When did you meet him?”

    “The first time, I think I was about two,” You said, “Was when HYDRA captured me. It was a pitch black fall night. Cold too. Somehow my parents managed to convince me to run into the woods and hide before HYDRA got inside. There was a small cave, barely wide enough for a toddler to fit inside of, and I wedged myself in.

    “I heard the shots that silenced my family. They were crisp and clear. Then his footsteps came crunching across the leaves, closer and closer. He found the cave, and looked inside. His eyes were empty. Lifeless. Nothing behind them.” You shuddered.

    “He reached in, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and… And…”

    “It’s ok Y/n.” Steve said. “That sounds terrifying. He’s not the same man.”

    “People don’t change that much.” You replied.

    “No,” Steve said, “His mind isn’t the same. Back then he was under the complete command of HYDRA. They called him the Winter Soldier and wiped his memories. Whatever they said, he did. They controlled him like a puppet.”

    “If they completely controlled him, how did he get to be here?” You asked suspiciously.

    “Three years ago HYDRA sent him out to kill me,” Steve said, “Seeing me sparked some recognition, since we’d been childhood friends. After we battled he ran away from HYDRA. It was just last year that I finally found him again.”

    “I see.” You said, “Steve… does he remember what he– no, The Soldier – did?”

    “Yes and no.” Steve said, “The details are fuzzy for him, but he says he remembers every single person he’d hurt.”

    “Oh God…” You murmured, “That must be horrible… Remembering so many you’ve injured… Knowing it was your hands, and yet not your mind…”

    Both of you sat for a few minutes until FRIDAY interrupted.

    “Message from Sam Wilson: Has anyone found them?”

    “FRIDAY,” Steve said to her, “Please tell them that I found them.” Steve walked you to your room.

    “Lunch is planned for an hour from now,” He said, “If you still want to go with Wanda.”

    “Yeah…” You replied, “I’ll be ready by then.”

    You and Wanda ate at a little hole-in-the-wall Shawarma restaurant. Afterwards, you settled at a park and relaxed for a bit. You were seated on a bench underneath a tree and shared a bag of candied fruits. The conversation drifted from topic to topic, most of them were light, like what your favorite flavor of ice cream was.

    Eventually it drifted to the events of earlier that day. You explained the situation to Wanda, your abduction fourteen years ago and the shock of seeing him today.

    “I think I understand.” Wanda said, “You have every right to feel angry at him.”

    “I… I don’t know if I am. Angry, that is. I definitely feel something. I don't know what exactly it is.”

    “If you’re okay with it, Y/n, I could go through your mind with you.” She suggested, “I do this often when people need help figuring out emotions.”

    “No, thanks.” You said, “I’ve almost got it. I think I just need time to think.”

    “That’s normal.” Wanda reassured you, “Whatever emotions you decide you’re feeling, I assure you you’re more than within your right to feel them. Angry, sad, scared. Happy even.”

    “Really?”

    “Yeah,” She said nonchalantly, “They’re your emotions.”

    “Yeah… I guess you’re right.” You thought for a moment. “Are you going to the movie night?”

    “Of course!” Wanda said, “What about you?”

    “I think I’ll go.” 

    “That’s great, do you wanna sit by me or Steve?”

    “Depends on who’s holding the snacks.” You smiled.

    “Good point…” Wanda said, “I might have to rethink the seating arrangements…” You and Wanda hung out at the park until the bag of candied fruits was empty. The two of you drifted back to the Tower, about an hour before dinner. Sam was making dinner, and the smell guided you to the kitchen.

    “Hey Sam.” You said, “What’s cooking?” 

    “Very funny.” He grinned, adding spices to a bubbling pot. 

    “I wasn’t joking. What’s for dinner?”

    “Oh, you were serious.” Sam said, “It’s jambalaya.”

    “Cool.”

    “Anything else?” 

    “Eh.” You shrugged, and after a moment asked, “Have you talked with Steve’s friend much?”

    “Bucky? Yeah, a little.” He said, “We’ve gone on half a dozen missions together. He’s not very talkative at first, once you get to know him he’s kind of an idiot. I understand if you don’t wanna interact with him. Steve didn’t tell me exactly what happened between you two, but I know something happened.”

    “Yeah, the Winter Soldier kidnapped me when I was two.” You said, “The Soldier’s not really him, is it? So it would be mean of me to hold it against him.”

    “Trauma manifests itself in different ways,” Sam put the lid back on the pot, “If seeing his face is what sets you off, then you probably should stay away from each other. On the other hand, if knowing they’re different people is enough to make you okay with him, that’s cool too. Now scoot on out of here! I’ve got a lot of cooking to do!”

    You left the kitchen, meandered through the dining room, then went downstairs to one of the quieter living rooms. Loki, who was apparently a god, was seated in the nook by the window.

    “Hello.” He said, barely glancing up from his book.

    “Hi.” You said, “What’re you reading?”

    “Carlo Goldoni.”

    “Which one?”

    “The Servant of Two Masters.”

    “Oh cool! Antony really liked that one. He even taught me some of the lines.”

    “Anthony Stark read Goldoni?” Loki asked skeptically.

    “No, not Anthony, Antony.” You shook your head, “He was like a father to me, back when I was imprisoned.”

    “What happened to him?” Loki asked, as he marked his page and set down his book.

“Oh you know…” You shrugged, “Death got him at the battle when we escaped.”

“I’m so sorry little one.”

“Eh, not the first time I’ve lost a father-figure.” You said, tears welling up. “Has to happen sooner or later, so why not just get it out of the way?” You wiped your tears with your sleeve, since you’d failed at holding them in.

Visibly unsure what to do, Loki stood up.

“Uh. Would you like a… hug?” He finally asked. You nodded and hugged him. Loki sat back down to be eye-to-eye with you.

“Y/n,” He said, “I need you to know that your childhood has not been normal. Most people don’t have to lose their parents until they are middle-aged. You’ve lost three parents before turning 18. You’ve fought against international evils. You have been through more physical injuries than most people go through in a lifetime. You have been through more than your fair share of pain, physical and mental. You are strong.”

“Thank you.” You said. You cried a bit more. Once you stopped Loki spoke again.

“If it’s any consolation,” He said, “My sister is the Goddess of Death. I’m sure she will be welcoming to such a noble fighter as Antony was.” His tone shifted to playfully menacing, “If you ever tell Stark, my brother, or anyone else that I hugged you, I will deny it. I have a reputation to uphold.” You laughed a little, then read with him until dinnertime. 

After everyone had eaten their fill of jambalaya, and had their desert of bananas foster, they migrated to the living room. Instead of watching in one of the many movie theaters in the Tower, the living room was the chosen area. The blankets and pillows could be stacked as high as needed, and snacks were only a little ways away.

You ended up sitting on a couch between Wanda and Steve. Steve had buttered popcorn while Wanda had a bowl of gummies. The first movie was Castle in the Sky. Right before it started, you noticed Bucky walk by the door. He contemplated joining, and decided against it when he saw you.

The movie was a blast, even though the team didn’t have the best history with robots and flying cities. Especially ones that threaten to end the world. Around midnight the movies wrapped up, and you headed to bed. Stark wanted to stay up later. Ms. Potts convinced him to get some sleep. (“Anthony Howard Stark, if you don’t get to bed right this instant I will remove your access to the lab.”)

You crawled into bed but only got two and a half hours of sleep. That’s when you instinctively woke up to get water. Your legs felt like they needed a little stretch, so you walked down to the kitchen. 

Over the first two nights you had memorized the path and the room, so you didn’t need to turn on the lights until you needed to get a glass down. This meant that you didn’t see the man on the floor as you passed him by. You flicked the light on, and he sat bolt-upright.

“Ah!” You said, “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bucky mumbled, “You didn’t expect to see someone in the kitchen at two thirty in the morning. I’ll leave.”

“No, it’s okay.” You said, “You’re free to go wherever you please.” He sat on the floor for a few more moments, and you drank a couple glasses of water.

“Why are you on the floor anyway?” You asked.

“Uh…” Bucky hesitated, “The bed feels too soft.” He admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah, like I’m going to fall right through it.”

“Huh,” You shrugged, “It was the exact opposite for me. I absolutely adore everything soft and comfortable.” Silence fell, and you sat on the countertop.

“I’m sorry.” He eventually said, “I’m a monster… I’ve killed so many… Your parents, too.”

“If it’s any comfort,” You said, “You’ve never been anything but kind to me.”

“Really?” Bucky asked, “I literally killed your parents.”

“Was it really you? Steve told me about the Winter Soldier and brainwashing. At least the way he described it, they took your mind away.”

“That’s one way to describe it.”

“Do you remember abducting me?”

“I remember faces…” He said, “Not much else.”

“The Soldier pulled up outside our house, my parents were watching. They knew something was coming. They pushed me out the back door and insisted I go hide in the woods. That’s what I did. Pushed myself into a thin crevice in the rocks. While running I dropped my stuffed animal, a small elephant.

“When the Soldier found me, his eyes were empty. He couldn’t reach far enough into the cave to grab me. The elephant on the ground caught his attention, and he picked it up. For a split second there was something in his eyes and he offered it to me. He whispered ‘It’s okay, you’re okay,’ and promised me another elephant if I left the cave. I crawled towards him, his eyes went empty again, and he grabbed me.”

“So I abducted you as a small child?”

“No. The Soldier did. For that moment you had your mind, when there was something in your eyes, your first instinct was to comfort a scared child.” You both sat in silence for another moment.

“My sister was once stuck in between two houses.” Bucky recalled, “Nobody could reach her, she was terrified. Finally, I had to convince her to come out by offering her a doll.”

“That does sound awfully similar to what happened to me. Maybe that’s how you were able to break away, even if just for a moment.”

“Maybe.” 

“I forgive you.” You said, “Even if it doesn’t change anything, I can’t let you believe that I hold any of it against you.”

“Thank you.” His voice cracked. Hearing someone he’d truly hurt forgive him was different than listening to his friend say 'it wasn’t you.' There was no denial that someone had been hurt. It wasn’t a friend trying to comfort a friend. This was a real person he had deeply affected telling him it’s in the past.

You slipped off the counter and went back upstairs to bed, leaving him with a “Goodnight Bucky.”

“‘Night Y/n.” As soon as you’d turned the corner his silent tears fell. It was freeing for both of you. Forgiving and being forgiven, equally liberating, but in different ways.

Part 1, Part 3

[ricardian-werewolf]

5. Sometimes we walk hand in hand by the sea.

Ao3 link

Summary;

The Winter Fête comes, and with it, Alina is forced to see where her loyalties lie, and what will become of her when push comes to shove. Nikolai is forced to wrestle with his feelings, and Genya plots and plans in the background.

Chapter below the cut.

Alina approached the idea of the Winter Fête with a sense of palpable anxiety.

No matter that she could summon fully after her explosion on the lake, but what filled her with fear now was what the Darkling planned to do with her. She’d kissed him one night on the lake sometime after - her memories from the time before her powers breaking through were fragmented - but this silence from him scared her. Not even Genya’s gossip sessions in her office could bring Alina out from her state of imposed anxious isolation. She’d shunned her studies and classes, locking herself in her room for days. It’d taken Nikolai’s offer of tea with him and Baghra in the old woman’s hut to coax Alina from her hole.

Now, she sat on her window seat in her room and watched the indentured inferni serfs light the lamps that stretched down to the gates. Soon, the carriage-way would be filled with horses and wagons containing Ravkan nobles, their servants and indententured Grisha sold out to wealthy families. Alina winced. Wasn’t that her purpose in Nikolai’s household? He’d given her a generous salary to use freely, food, clothes, and housing, but at the end of the day she served him.

In a way, she served the Darkling too. It seemed that no matter where she turned, there was always a man who held her puppets' strings in his fingers. Brushing her hands against the velvet of her bedrobe, Alina tilted her head back and glanced up at the atrium light. Stars glittered dimly in the distance, pushed to the far reaches of the sky from the gas-lamps that trickled in through the Fold’s crossings. Around her bed, gas fixtures had been exchanged for a flameless lamp set that Nikolai called Anbaric light.

“There you are!” Genya crowed, pushing the double doors of Alina’s bedchamber open. Alina’s head twisted to regard the ginger-haired Tailor and gave a soft smile, though pain clouded it easily enough. “Ready for the night?”

“No.” Alina breathed. “My Kefta still isn’t here yet…”

“Luckily, I have it!” Genya held out the box, wrapped with an emerald green ribbon. “It seems there was a bit of a fumble with regards to which kefta you were supposed to wear. I wouldn’t be half shocked if Nikolai and the Darkling were out having fisticuffs in the Palace courtyard.”

“Over what I’m supposed to wear?” Alina blinked. She knew, instinctively, why. Nikolai held command over her, yet the Darkling was her commanding officer. She had a feeling Nikolai had much better taste than the Darkling, though her feelings towards him complicated all of this. However could one woman fall in love with two men at once?!

Except… She didn’t really love the Darkling. Part of him scared her senseless. His wantings for her to have Morozova’s stag’s antlers frightened her. Was it out of goodness or a desire to control her? And why make the antlers a collar? Why not a crown? Or a fragment of the larger antler? Or a bone of the bloody creature?

“Lost in thought?”

Alina jumped in her seat at the sound of Nikolai’s voice and looked up, smiling at the sight of him in the doorway. He wore something that surprised her - an emerald green hussar uniform with the pelisse swung easily over his left shoulder. The miles and miles of braid and buttons had to have been his work.

“I didn’t know you served in a hussar regiment.” She quirked a brow.

“I was in the 22nd for a good few years, yes, but I did develop a love for the hussars. Spent a few months with a Russian regiment…” He trailed off and fiddled with one of the buttons. His court sword rested at his waist, the gold hilt and guard embossed with a fox running under a crescent moon. Emeralds studded the sword’s hiltpoint.

“You look dashing.” Genya breathed. “And so will you-” bopping Alina’s nose, Genya lifted the box-lid of Alina’s kefta. In the depths, under a layer of soft green tissue paper, was an emerald green and gold kefta. The twin to Nikolai’s hussar uniform, the gold embroidery was done all the way down the front and side panels to resemble a sun-burst. The strands twirled their way down the bodice and stretched around to the back, which draped down into a long, long train. That train pooled behind Alina in a single sweep of emerald velvet and satin blend, brightened with a fabrikator’s touch.

“H-how?”

“Consider it a gift.” Nikolai poked Alina towards the wooden screen for her to change. Genya helped her with the kefta, buttoning it up the front and fluffing out the train and belt. The gold center-pin of a sunne in splendour glittered in the lamp-light. “Hair…” Genya murmured as Alina was poked over to her dressing table. “Nikolasha, ideas?”

“None.” Nikolai replied from where he’d perched himself on Alina’s sofa and sat sipping tea while watching Genya comb, brush and whack Alina’s hair into form. Alina’s hair was long and thick enough to be braided into an elaborate chignon and pinned up with several gold-hairpins edged with seed pearls.

“Whatever did the Darkling send?” Alina asked, turning to look at Nikolai as he lifted the lid on the second box and pulled out a black and gold Kefta emblazoned with more gold embroidery and dangling from the collar, his symbol.

“Ugh, put it back.” Genya shuddered. Alina got up and went over, touching the water-like silk and satin blend with a gentle finger. “He kissed me, at the lake, a few nights back.” She confessed, looking up to see two sets of eyes locked on her. “Must be why he sent this…” She flinched.

“Did you ask for that kiss?” Genya whispered

“No.” Alina’s gaze locked on Nikolai, who nodded firmly and sipped more of his tea. “That settles it.” He glanced at Genya, who sighed and wrung her hands. Something was shared between them, something Alina would never experience.

“It felt nice, but wrong. Like he was trying to take something from me.” Alina ran her fingers over her rouged lips and blinked in confusion. “I’ve never been kissed before, so…”

“It’s not supposed to feel like that.” Genya supplied. “I mean…” She looked at Nikolai again and he nodded. “She’s right. Here’s my advice for tonight. Give him a berth of about..” He tilted his head up to look at Genya through his lashes.

“30 feet,”

“And go from there. If he continues to pursue, alert a servant. We’ve all had our fair share of ugly pursuers.” Genya murmured, rubbing at the back of her neck with her hand. Alina blinked, confused. Then, it fell into place.

“The King’s raped you. That’s why he’s sick.” She got to her feet and glanced at Nikolai, who looked not at Genya, but the empty space where the royal portrait would’ve been. His eyes hardened, full of hate and rage. “What’d you do?”

“I did it.” Nikolai replied. “Dominik and I. We’re not blind, Alina. He’s been lusting after Genya since we were all about ten or eleven. She was just too young. But once she turned 16, all bets were off.” He winced. “My mother let it happen.” the glass in his hand cracked. His thumb effortlessly healed the fissures.

“We should get going, or we’ll be late. They’re lighting the lamps.” Genya looked out from the bay windows to the garden path, and moved back to the other two. “I’ll need to go see what the Queen needs. I trust you two can get downstairs without too much error?”

Alina nodded, poking Nikolai in the ribs. He snorted, and offered his arm. Alina took it, and let Genya pin the kefta’s matching fur cloak at her neck. Then, they were off. Genya broke off from the group at a servants' passage and Alina and Nikolai turned to go down the winding stairs of the Great Palace. As they moved, unevenly matched for height, Alina opened her mouth, remembering the Apparat’s words to her in the infirmary.

“When I was sick, after Zoya gave me that concussion…” She began, watching Nikolai’s face. “The Apparat came to my room. I don’t know why. He’s been following me. Saying how I’m destined for greatness or some other such thing.” She shivered. The coldness of that memory seeped into her bones and she gripped the marble bannister for balance.

“He’s worse than the Darkling.” Nikolai murmured in her ear, watching the little knots of gathered foreign diginitaries, Grisha and Ravkan noble families below them. “He and I have… an old history.” He hinged, then moved to change the topic suddenly.

“Chin up. You’re glowering, sunshine.”

“I’m nervous.” She bit back. “And a bit… afraid. What if the performance doesn’t go well?” She almost tilted forwards too far and risked falling down the stairs in a jagged, broken heap. Nikolai pulled her back by her arm and held her close to him. “No such chance. Besides, if you do faint or blow up something, that’s nothing. I did worse at your age.”

“Like what?” She breathed. His easy charm always seemed to calm her, and she found herself needing it now more than ever. Looking up into his hazel eyes, she wondered what being inside his mind was like. This chaotic, charming prince who was her liege lord, friend… and crush.

Oh Saints. If I confess that, I’ll be the laughing stock from here to Kiribirsk!

“I once, at fourteen, switched out the salt and sugar service for tea after the dinner for the fete and sent the Fjerdan delegation into cardiac arrest. I did it partly because I’d gotten so badly… shunned by Vasily for any potential partners.” He winced and looked behind them to see if they were being followed.

“Oh.” Alina looked down. “Well if its any consolation, I’d be happy to dance with you tonight.”

“Really? Sunshine, you flatter me.” Nikolai’s grin, so open and warm, sent a jolt through her.In a way, they were two sides of the same coin. Once they finally reached the ballroom, Nikolai escorted her through several smaller salons stuffed with visitors who oohed and aahed over the sight of the Sun summoner so healthy and clad in emerald green and gold. Normally, she’d been in Etheralki blue, but concessions had to be made.

“Why emerald green?”

“Old royal colors.” Nikolai explained as he effortlessly plucked two crystal glasses of champagne off a passing tray and handed Alina one. “Not my favorite, but I suspect this is your first time?” He murmured, indicating the glass in her hands.

Alina sniffed the glass and then sipped it hesitantly. Her puckered face, expecting something dry like kvas, softened at the sweetness. “It’s good. Really good.” She took another sip. “Imported from the champagne region of France. Very expensive.” Nikolai informed her as they worked the room. He introduced her to generals and members of the Tsar’s cabinet, representatives of the two houses of the Duma, foreign ministers, and civil service workers prestigious enough to come to such an event. Alina could see through the crowd on the raised dias, the Tsaritsa and Tsar presiding over all.

“Vasily?”

“Drunk somewhere with a whole harem of courtesans.” Nikolai replied automatically. “I clocked him leaving as we were coming in.” They wove their way through a crowd of fawning debutants, who coyly tried for Nikolai’s hand.

“No, ladies, apologies, my hands are occupied tonight.” He waved his dance card in the air and made vaguely compassionate sounds at the womens respective cries of agony. Alina privately thought they were all going to rip his clothes off and shame him for not opening offers of marriage.

“Are you… courting?” Alina asked as soon as they were drifting through the ranks of officers of the First and Second Armies. This was much more Alina’s prefered clique. She could mingle easily with generals and officers who’d actually fought their battles instead of preaching from on high.

Nikolai snorted into his champagne.

“Not a chance, Miss Starkov. Not a chance.”

“Really?” Alina blinked in surprise. “But…”

“Nope.” He shook his head, something coming over his expression that made Alina shut her mouth. She knew that she was set to present her powers to the court… but when? She looked up at Nikolai as he talked with General Pensky, discussing the new repeating rifle Fjerda was improving in low tones. She hovered nearby for a few moments, then pushed through the crowd and began to circle the room alone. Across the hall, she could see Nadia and Adrik speaking about something in low tones, their sapphire blue keftas winking in the candle-light overhead.

Alina’s eyes rose to regard the ceiling above, painted in a fresco of the Firebird, wings spread wide over the expanse as it flew over the steeples of the old Os Alta. The Old city had been burned to the ground by Fjerdan forces in their invasion in 1453, with the fall of Constantinople and end of the Byzantine Empire. Vauban had rebuilt and reinforced the old city’s walls before his death in 1707, the last job he’d undertaken in his lifetime. The odd, star-shaped pattern of the old city was not lost on the Russian dignitaries of Peter the Great who visited after the Tsar’s ascendancy in 1721. Catherine had been a great patron of the Ravkan court before the treaty of Os Kervo that split Ravka from a russian protecterate to an independent nation state.

Now, the great bear was at the gates again, with the Fjerdan dire-wolf and Shu Han phoenix eating away at Ravka’s borders. But it’d always been like this. Sandwiched between two great powers, Ravka was losing the war it had fought over centuries. Alina’s gaze lowered and she spotted Genya crossing the ballroom floor to speak with a fellow servant. With whatever being secured, she crossed to the dias and took her place at the Tsarina’s shoulder, winking at Alina as the crowd parted around her.

“Ah, Miss Starkov.” The velvety tones of the Darkling’s voice reached her ear before Alina even had time to register it. She jerked her eyes up to look him straight in the face and blinked in wide-eyed fear. The expression on his face was one of pure shock and anger.

“I see you’ve chosen to wear… the royal colors tonight.” He growled in her ear as he grabbed her left arm in his hand. His fingers encircled her elbow, digging tight into the flesh. “I thought I gave Miss Safin specific orders to burn this wretched piece of cloth.”

“And was your black kefta not the same?” Alina breathed. She didn’t want to be pulled away to some dark corner and beaten into submission. Whatever feelings of affection Alina had for him evaporated. Something within him frightened her senseless, and she twisted in his grasp. She was supposed to keep 30 feet away from him tonight, and yet, she’d let him pounce like some predatory animal.

“What’re you here for?” She asked, looking him in the eye and raising her voice to do so. Her features furrowed into a mask of calm acceptance, though every cell in her body was itching to blind him and kick him out from under her. Somewhere, she desperately hoped that Nikolai was watching everything.

“To escort you to the stage for your little performance.” He jerked her forwards, unsteadying her. Aina would’ve fallen flat had her boot not hit Nikolai’s. She smashed straight into his left side and he grabbed her, effortlessly scooping her up and placing her back on her feet without a murmur of protest.

“Kirigan.” Nikolai smirked.

“Moi Tsarevich.”

“I see you’ve rather upset Miss Starkov. Mind unhanding her?” His voice dropped, turning colder than Alina had ever heard it. The Darkling flinched visibly and the vice grip on Alina’s arm fell. Turning to thank him, she didn’t get the chance for the Darkling had Feydor and Ivan escort her to the stage. As she passed through the crowd, Alina saw Nikolai’s hazel eyes well with pain, adoration and something like love.

Then, she was swallowed up by the glittering gowns and colored keftas, and he melted back into the emerald and olive grove of the First Army. Alina wanted to reach for him, to pull him back. Most of all, she wanted to confess her innermost thoughts and feelings about her fox-prince. But, she couldn’t.

As the light spilled from her hands and filled the ballroom with golden light, all Alina thought of was the Darkling’s dark glare upon her. Never again would she fall into his good graces. Never would she in good conscience be safe with him. But some part of her, foolish and frightened as it was, wanted him. She wanted to be as powerful as he was, to rule alongside him. But logic had to win out in this case, certainly?

She raised her hands regardless, letting her light fill the room and decking their visitors in golden warmth. Let them feel the sunlight for once, let them realize that it was in this single moment that her holiness was something to be cherished. But the Darkling would use it for power. Certainly he wanted to destroy the Fold, but she was little more than the piece that would unlock a world beyond Kiribirisk. She was his queen, his Sol Koroleva. She would have no future if she would not bend the knee - to survive meant submission.

So, she did. With some scraping and bowing, Alina found herself being dragged from the ballroom in a cloak of shadows. She tried desperately not to think of what the Darkling intended for her as his lips found hers in his darkened office. His hands on her kefta’s folds, proclaiming the emerald silk as a sin… all of that heat made her forget just how much she hated him.

Get up. Wake up, Alina

But she couldn’t. His kisses were like opium, dragging her under into a whirlpool of deceit and danger. If she forgot herself, she’d be lost forever. Too soon for his liking, Alina was pulling back, putting her hand up to deflect his affections.

“No.” She whimpered. “Please, no.”

“You shift so suddenly, Milaya.” The Darkling growled, reaching up to touch her cheek. “Are your affections perhaps… misplaced?”

“N-no!” She stammered, feeling the sharp bite of the wooden armoire she’d been so easily shoved into by his greedy hands. Outside, raucous song and laughter pierced the air and someone bumping into the door made Alina stir for hope of an interruption. Yet, the Darkling’s arm to steady the door dashed her desires into shards.

A swift knock at the inner door to the Darkling’s western sitting room stirred him from his hungry langour and he snapped:

“Who is it?”

“Ivan, *Moi Soveryeni. The trackers have arrived with news of Morozova’s Herd. I showed them to the library.”

“Bring them here. At once.”

“Yes,” Ivan murmured from behind the blackened oak wood, and Alina twisted in the Darkling’s grasp as his footsteps receded.

Within minutes, Ivan had returned with a team of trackers… and Mal.

Alina, who’d not seen her childhood friend in half a year, stilled dead at the sight of him. She, her kefta and skirts hiked up to her knees, being pinned against an armoire in rooms so certainly the Black Generals, made Mal’s face whiten, then flush with color.

“Alina.” He snapped, coming to her as the Darkling was quickly distracted by an incoming telegram. “What in the Saints name-”

“I didn’t ask for this!” She hissed, her voice filled with panic and fear. She looked up at him in hopes that he’d be on her side, but suddenly, the cold look on his face frightened her. His face was a mask of pure fury, and he looked down at her gloved hands in disgust and pity.

“Shameful, spreading your legs. Have you no honor?” He leered. “And I saw you in that throne room with all your pretty little lights. You’re a freak.”

“F-freak.” She stammered, rage filling her. “I am this blasted country’s savior, you ass.” She growled. Her anger of months of no letters and the hunger of being held back by a need to protect him exploded out in a verbal diatribe that went deep and hard.

Mal barely blinked. He shifted easily from foot to foot as she snarled and snapped her teeth, looking strangely bored. Then, when she’d finished and leaned against the Darkling’s desk with her eyes popped wide, he struck back. The Darkling had vacated his rooms in search of Feydor and a proper map of Northern Ravka, so only Alina heard Mal’s cruel, pointed and poisoned words.

“I know you don’t really feel that way, Alina. You’ve just been isolated for too long. Stuck up in this palace. You don’t know what you’re saying, what you’re feeling. Evidently this grisha magic’s gotten into your head. It made you think and see things that aren’t really happening.” He scoffed.

“Besides, how could anyone really love you? You’re just some weak stick from Kermazin who got lucky one day. You’re probably half mad with hysteria. You of all girls know how easy it is to get one's humors unbalanced.” He added, turning on his heel. Alina’s eyes swam with tears and she vainly threw a hand over her mouth to suppress her broken sobs.

“N-no, I am not mad!” She cried, lurching after him on her unsteady feet. “I’m not! Please, Mal, I’m sorry!”

“Besides, what do you matter to me anyways? You seem to have settled in nicely in this grand palace and forgotten all about us in the First Army. Typical, bratty Alina, always doing what’s best for her and no one else.” He sniffed, his hand on the door. As he watched her limp towards him, Mal laughed cruelly.

“Still trailing after me like some wet, damp, floundering puppy. Enjoy the rest of your Saint Nikolai feast day, Sobachka.” He winked, then slammed the door shut. The strength of his movement extinguished the lamps and Alina fell to her knees in tears. She pressed her forehead to her sweating palms and wept openly. Her pain made her curl in on herself as the rage and sadness of so many months in splendid isolation crept over her like some dark fog.

Raising her head, Alina glared up at the skylight to the moon overhead, and opened her palm. A faint glimmer of light pulsed there, and she closed her fist around it. Tucking her hand to her chest, she leaned forwards and laid her head against the cold obsidian and marble checkered floor. The coldness of the stone leached the warmth from her skin, and Alina briefly wondered if she could die here of a broken heart.

Yet, a movement got her up. She was barely able to register what was happening, but suddenly strong arms wrapped around her. Alina found herself being dragged through a hidden bookshelf doorway in the Darkling’s library. Down a steep set of spiral staircases she was carried, her booted feet hitting the step at each turn. Whoever was carrying her groaned from the pain.

“W-where are you taking me?” She asked.

“Away.” The voice replied, and Alina realized that Baghra was carrying her.

“Baghra?” Alina breathed, craning her head.

“Put your head down, or your jugular’ll get cut open when we get down to the basement. There’s stalgamites down here, girl.” With a swift wrench of her hand, Baghra had yanked Alina’s gloves off and dumped her like a sack of potatoes onto the floor. Looking up at her, Alina breathed in wide-eyed amazement. She’d seen Baghra looking younger the day her power had finally manifested, but this… this was different.

Inky black curls poured down the woman’s back and her face was youthful, perhaps a few years Alina’s senior. She adjusted her mourning sarafan and paisley shawl, then leaned forwards in her black leather button-boots.

“Get up and do cease looking so gormless. Now, what can you tell me, girl?”

“A-about what?” Alina looked confused, glancing around her. A flickering candle lent them only a little light, and she had to squint to see. Baghra’s expression remained hardened and her lips thinned into a line. Suddenly, the stick that the old woman had so recently used as a crutch came down upon Alina’s leg with a hard thwack

“Ow!”

“The stag, Girl! I don’t care if the Darkling tried to rid your head of conscious thought, but you must’ve learned something!”

Alina blinked, remembering the words before Mal’s outburst. She blinked rapidly, trying to recall it, then the memories came unbidden and she lurched forwards. Gripping her kefta’s skirts in her hand, Alina shuddered and shook her head.

“H-he found the herd. The trackers he sent… did.” She breathed, then noted Baghra’s whitened face. “I-is that bad? I thought that the stag was a good thing-”

“No, you foolish girl, it is not! If the Darkling gains power over the stag and places it on your neck, he controls your power. What is given freely is also taken freely. Like calls to like and all of that old nonsense.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and paced back and forth.

“Nikolai! Genya!” She called out suddenly. Alina’s eyes widened as Nikolai emerged first, brushing shadows from his coat like they were lint dust. At his shoulder, Genya emerged secondly, dressed in a peasant’s sarafan and brightly colored shawl. Both of them were dressed in peasant clothes and looked entirely joyous about it.

“We don’t have much time. I need you out of these clothes. Put on the sarafan and hide your hair. The moment you’re ready, I’ll explain.” Baghra shoved Alina behind a worn wooden changing screen, and the sun summoner quickly tore off her kefta and pulled on the weathered peasant dress and matching shoes. Her hair was left untouched, though she did pull a headscarf over it.

As soon as she was done, Alina poked her head out and blinked owlishly at Baghra.

“Yes?”

“Right. Your main job is to get to West Ravka, and from there, safety.” Baghra explained, casting a pointed glance at Nikolai, who nodded and offered her a courtly bow and grin. “Oh, do stop it, Sobachka.” She smacked his arm fondly, though a grim smile did cross her face.

“W-what about the Stag?” Alina asked. “Shouldn’t we intercept the hunting part-”

“Not a chance.” Baghra snapped, looking now to Genya. “Your job is to get to safety as quickly as you can. The travelling troupes are leaving before the midnight bell. There’s a caravan of Kerch who’ve come to replay the Komedie Brute. Their carriage is large enough to hide three peasant adults.” She pulled out three small coin bags and passed them each to their respective owners, then handed off three different items.

For Nikolai, she gave him a collapsible long-glass, which he slipped into a pants pocket. Genya received several vials of plant matter, which she tied to her own belt alongside her coin purse. Alina received a new pair of gloves, except not fitted with mirrors. Hers were fingerless, and stitched with gold thread in the shapes of little sunbeams.

“Fabrikator made. They’ll help dull your light when you cast.” Baghra explained gruffly. She made a vague shooing motion, a soft smile finally cracking her face. “Travel well, you three. May the saints watch over your wretched souls.” She paused, then looked to Nikolai.

“Nikolasha?” She asked as Genya helped Alina button her coat. Nikolai turned from examining his new long-glass and stared Baghra in the eye. “Keep an eye out for hawks in the trees, and shadows in your path.” She kissed his cheek, and to his ears alone, added: “I love you, Moi Lyubov. I will always be your mother whenever you need me.”

Her face hardened again and she nodded curtly at Alina. “Travel safely, Sun Summoner. May good fortune find you in the West.” She murmured, the traditional parting greeting for travelers. Alina smiled, bowed her head.

“And may peace find you in the eastern rays of the morning sun.” She repeated, giving the old woman a little wave of farewell. Genya kissed both of Baghra’s cheeks and received a whispered exchange of adoration. Then, something else:

“I’ll ensure that he never comes to touch you again. You are safe now, Moya Milaya.”

Genya sniffled, and gently kissed Baghra’s cheek affectionately. Then, with a wave of her hand, Alina led them off into the darkness of the caverns below the palace. Before them lay West Ravka, and behind lay only pain, fear and the threat of loss of everything dear.

It was with heavy hearts and light feet that the three misfits and bastards fled to the sanctuary they so deserved - Os Kervo, and beyond that, the whole world.

End of chapter 5.

[argumate]

A New York Times (NYT) investigation of Russian military documents supports ISW’s longstanding assessments about how flawed Russian planning assumptions and campaign design decisions plagued Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from its onset. ISW has long assessed that faulty Russian planning assumptions, campaign design decisions, and Russian violations of Russia’s own military doctrine undermined Russian operations. The NYT acquired and published logbooks, timetables, orders, and other documents of elements of the 76th Airborne Division and 1st Guards Tank Army related to the early days of the war on December 16. The documents demonstrate that Russian military planners expected Russian units to be able to capture significant Ukrainian territory with little to no Ukrainian military opposition. The documents indicate that elements of the 76th Airborne Division and Eastern Military District were ordered to depart Belarus and reach Kyiv within 18 hours against little resistance; Russian planners placed OMON riot police and SOBR Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) special police elements (essentially a Russian SWAT equivalent) within the first column of a maneuver element of the 104th Air Assault Regiment of the 76th Airborne Division. Riot police are not suitable lead elements for a large maneuver force in a conventional force-on-force war because they are not trained to conduct combined arms or mechanized warfare. The decision to place riot police in the lead column is a violation of Russian (or any normal) doctrine and indicates that Russian planners did not expect significant organized Ukrainian resistance. A separate set of orders indicates that Russian planners expected unsupported elements of the Russian 26th Tank Regiment (of the 47th Tank Division, 1st Guards Tank Army) to conduct a mostly uninhibited, 24-hour dash from Ukraine’s border with Russia to a point across the Dnipro River, about 400 kilometers away. Ukrainian forces destroyed elements of the 26th Tank Regiment in Kharkiv Oblast, hundreds of kilometers short of its intended destination on March 17.

The NYT investigation also supports ISW’s assessments that Russian strategic commanders have been micromanaging operational commanders' decisions on tactical matters and that Russian morale is very low. The investigation supported existing reporting that Russian soldiers in Belarus did not know they were going to attack Ukraine until February 23—the day before the invasion—and that some soldiers did not know about the invasion until one hour before the invasion began.

[khokhlofucker]

The Caucasian Native Mounted Division, better known in history as the "Wild" Division, was formed on the basis of the supreme decree on August 23, 1914 on the territory of the North Caucasus and staffed by mountain volunteers. The division included six regiments of four hundred personnel: Kabardian, 2nd Dagestan, Chechen, Tatar (from the inhabitants of Azerbaijan), Circassian and Ingush.The tsar's younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, was appointed commander, and Colonel Yakov Davidovich Yuzefovich, a Lithuanian Tatar of the Mohammedan faith, who served in the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander, was appointed chief of staff of the division. The "natives" were distinguished by desperate bravery and terrified the enemy with their dashing attacks in horse formation.

[wolf97]

"By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhtúrov - that same modest little Dokhtúrov whom no one has described to us as drawing up plans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering crosses on batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was spoken of as undecided and undiscerning - but whom we find commanding wherever the position was most difficult all through the Russo-French wars from Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he remained last at the Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what was possible when all were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear-guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to defend the town against Napoleon's whole amy. In Smolensk, at the Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he was awakened by the bombardment of the town-and Smolensk held ou all day long. At the battle of Borodinó when Bagratión was killed and nine-tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the French artillery fire was directed against it, the man sent there was this same irresolute and undiscerning Dokhtirov-Kutuzov hastening to rectify a mistake he had made by sending someone se there first. And the quiet little Dokhtúrov rode thither, and Borodinó became the greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to us in verse and prose, but of Dokhtúrov scarcely a word has been said.

It was Dokhtúrov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there to Malo- Yarodivets, the place where the last battle with the French was fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army began; and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of the campaign, but of Dokhtúrov nothing or very little is said and that dubiously. And this silence about Dokhtúrov is the clearest testimony to his merit.

It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a machine to age that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance and is interfering with its action and sing about in it, is its most important part."

Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace

[adedots]

DCLM daily manna 24th February 2023 devotional -- JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY

DCLM daily manna 24th February 2023 devotional -- JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY DCLM DAILY MANNA 24th February 2023 DAILY DEVOTIONAL FOR TODAY BY PASTOR W.F KUMUYI -- JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY DCLM DAILY LIFE 24th February 2023 DAILY DEVOTIONAL FOR TODAY BY PASTOR W.F KUMUYI -- JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY DEEPER LIFE DAILY LIFE DCLM 24th February 2023 BY PASTOR W.F KUMUYI -- JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY More Of DCLM Daily Manna messages Here You May Also like: Dclm daily manna devotional - Needless Suffering You May Also like: Dclm daily manna devotional - No partisan spirit please You May Also like: knowledge is power by Pastor Kumuyi TOPIC: JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY DCLM Daily Manna for today 24th February 2023 Devotional | JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY You May Also like: DCLM Daily Manna by Pastor Kumuyi -- What is missing? DCLM Daily Manna for today 24th February 2023 Devotional | JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY DCLM Daily Manna 24 February 2023 Devotional | JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY

DCLM DAILY MANNA 24 February 2023 DEVOTIONAL

DCLM Daily Manna Devotional for today By Pastor W.F Kumuyi - JEHOVAH, OUR SECURITY You May Also like: Dclm daily manna devotional - Power in the name of Jesus Click here for more DCLM daily manna for today 2023 devotional It is advisable that you prayerfully and meditatively read the text first TEXT: Psalm 91:1-16 (KJV) He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. 3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. 4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. 5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; 6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. 7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. 8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. 9 Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; 10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. 11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. 12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. 14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. 15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. You May Also like: DCLM Daily Manna by Pastor Kumuyi -- Divine command against divorce KEY VERSE: “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” – (Psalm 91:7) You May Also Read: From sinking to singing DCLM Daily Manna by Pastor Kumuyi here You May Also Read: past DCLM Daily Manna by Pastor Kumuyi here You May Also Read: Yesterday's DCLM Daily Manna by Pastor Kumuyi here (Deeper life daily manna dclm 2022)

DCLM DAILY MANNA 24th February 2023 DEVOTIONAL

MESSAGE: In her book, “Pray and Grow Rich,” Catherine Ponder tells the story of a British regiment commander, Colonel Whittlesey, who served in World War 1 for more than four years without losing a man. When asked how his regiment achieved the feat, Colonel Whittlesey said it was because the officers and men in that regiment memorized and repeated regularly the 91st Psalm, which they called their “Psalm of Protection”. In this Psalm, God presents Himself as the mighty One who protects His people from all evil, as they abide in the secret place of the Most High”. The “shadow of the Almighty” will protect them as He covers them with His feathers. God’s people are expected to trust Him as their refuge and fortress while holding on to the truth of His revelations. Then they will not be afraid of the “terror by night nor for the arrow that flieth by day…” He promised to give His angels charge over His people, answer their prayers and satisfy them with long life. Entering into “the secret place of the Most High” is through salvation from sin a gift that God gives to everyone who repents from their sins and confesses Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Every child of God is entitled to this protection that comes from Jehovah God. But then, as with all the promises of God, this blessing must be appropriated by faith. Our World War story tells us that the officers and men of the regiment “memorized and repeated regularly” the Psalm for it to work for them. Today, as the Lord sends His people out as “sheep in the midst of wolves”, He has also assured them of His abiding presence: “and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”. The thief comes to steal, and to kill and to destroy, but the eternal God remains our refuge and underneath us are His everlasting arms. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: God’s presence dispels all dangers. BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Luke 20-21 DCLM DAILY MANNA 24 February 2023 DEVOTIONAL You May Also like: Dclm daily manna devotional - Envy is dangerous MEDITATION: You May Also like: Declare your triumph by Pastor Kumuyi DCLM DAILY MANNA 24 February 2023 DEVOTIONAL PRAYER POINTS: HYMN: You May Also like: Deeper life daily devotional - excess provision in famine by Pastor Kumuyi (daily manna for today 2022)

DEEPER LIFE DAILY MANNA DCLM 24th February 2023 DEVOTIONAL

Click here for more DCLM daily manna for today 2023 devotional The sweetest and biggest thing to ever happen to you is to make a decision to be saved through JESUS CHRIST. If you have not made that decision. Please make that decision now and say " Lord Jesus forgive me for my sins and have mercy on me, thank you for dying for me on the cross, take me as your son / daughter and be my father. THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME, in JESUS CHRIST NAME AMEN. If you just prayed this prayer of salvation now, please find a bible believing church where you can grow in the love and the Word of God and fellowship with them. God bless you Please don't forget to share with your friends and families on social media so they can be blessed and be blessings to others. God bless you Click here for more deeper life daily manna DCLM devotional DEEPER LIFE DAILY MANNA DCLM DEVOTIONAL WAS WRITTEN BY PASTOR W F KUMUYI who is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church.

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[impetuous-impulse]

LOOK Y'ALL. We are not letting old Karl go UNCONTESTED on the last day. VOTE FOR JABŁONOWSKI!!! The bastard child from an English mother and legally adopted by her Polish husband, this aristocrat led a dashing life his birth to his death at age thirty-two.

See how Jan Pachoński describes his background in the book Poland's Caribbean tragedy (1986), cw language:

Banger line from Jabłonowski Senior! He treated J Junior like his own son (very sexy of him!!!!) despite increasing prejudice against Black people, sending the boy to Brienne when he was fourteen. There, his schoolmates were, you guessed it: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AND DAVOUT. It's a small world!!! More from the book:

Like son, like father!! Jabłonowski Junior was too delivering banger quotes at a young age. Did Karl have any banger lines? Not that I know of!! Another reason to vote for Jabłonowski!!

Not only did Jablonowski have wit and soul, but he had great determination and will. Although he had generally frail health (which led to him losing his lieutenant's commission with the Royal Allemand Regiment), he continued on the hard soldiering life. In 1794, he joined the Kościuszko Insurrection against Russia and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was wounded in the siege of Warsaw and conspired against the invaders of Poland in Galicia. Most importantly, he joined Bonaparte's campaign against Austria as a general of the Polish Legions formed in Italy in 1797:

Say what you will, but it takes guts to drag yourself to your duty on crutches. And then complain to your superior, the First Consul, about your men's living conditions (instead of just sucking it up). Hats off to Jabłonowski's hard-headedness!

Finally, as the French army was reorganised and Jabłonowski made destitute, he requested an assignment to colonial services, as it was the only possible path for rapid advancements. Bonaparte, in a twist of sick irony (and on Berthier's advice), assigned him to Saint-Domingue. Here, Jabłonowski completes his apotheosis of Certified Romantic Sexyman, because 1) he fights for a doomed cause while the Haitian Revolution will triumph, 2) this is where yellow fever will claim him while he is young and sexy, and 3) he brings with him his morgantic lover, Anna Penot, who he has tried to marry before departing, and who he will never marry...

Here is a touching excerpt of the letter she wrote to the commander Rochambeau, asking for help after Jabłonowski's death. Her earnest love of Jabłonowski shines through every word. Alas, they were never to join in holy matrimony!

After his death, Jabłonowksi gained multiple noms-de-guerre, as his comrades tell it:

All the above proves that our tragic sexyman deserves to advance to round two. Habsburgs are dime a dozen, but there is only ONE Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski!!

VOTE FOR JABŁONOWSKI NOW!!!

Archduke Karl:

The man who handed Napoleon his first significant defeat at Aspern, which has to be sexy to someone. His equestrian portrait and the statue on the Heldenplatz are both very cool. He also the unenviable task of trying to talk about reform to Franz II/I and Metternich, so you have to feel for the guy a bit. Had seven children, so a sexyman to his wife at the very least. Definitely a much sexier man than Franz II/I, but that might not be saying very much.

Admin note: the equestrian portrait:

And him with his five of those seven children:

Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski:

[no propaganda submitted]

[ink-and-dagger]

Dearest Darlings🖤

At risk of sounding like a broken record, Chapter 15 of DWM is behaving like a wriggly little whore. I'm doing my best to spank it into submission, but it seems to be into that or something, idk. Point is that it doesn't want to co-operate, so is going to be a while longer yet.

But to celebrate the week anniversary of setting my fic on fire in a blaze of angsty glory, I'll offer you another sneak peek.

DWM Chapter 15 Sneak Peek

[edits may be made in the final draft]

Your gown flows to the floor; draped artfully upon the curves of your body like fine spun spider-silk. 

Couples dance gracefully in time with the orchestral music which soars to the ogival arches high above you. Regimental lines of white stone pillars run the length of the ballroom, each one adorned with flickering candles and crystal trinkets that catch the light and reflect it further – dappling the walls with pinpricks of luminosity like suspended raindrops.

Every single face that twirls past you is hidden behind a mask of porcelain or leather, lace or felt. A dizzying array of designs both fantastical and artistic. Adorned with pearls or feathers or jewels. Overlaid with satin or silk or lace.

You’re certain it would all be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, were your attention not so thoroughly captured by the tall, thin man standing across the dance floor – gazing at you as though you’re a rare and precious treasure that’s just been unearthed.

He’s young. Handsome. Raven hair styled effortlessly back, and wearing the finest suit you’ve ever laid eyes upon. Made from a red so rich that your mind cannot comprehend such a shade, and black so dark it seems to swallow the light around it. The top left side of his face is covered with a mask edged in gold leaf, with an unfurled rose where the eyehole should be. Leaving only half a gaze visible to you; vibrant turquoise, brimming with passion and sly mischief.

Surrounded as you may be by opulence and splendour - in your eyes, he puts everything in this room to shame.

The crowd parts readily for him as he stalks directly towards you, moving with a lithe grace that commands attention and exudes power.

His arrival culminates in the extension of a long, elegant hand; palm up.

And you take it, without hesitation.

It’s the most natural thing in the world to step within his embrace. His arm winds around your waist, holding you close as he leads you with easy confidence in a slow, indulgent waltz.

His voice is as velvet and rich as the lapels on his suit jacket, and more beautiful than the music which echos around you in haunting swells.

“I’ve been looking for you, Darling.”

You nod, “I’ve been looking for you too.”

He smiles. And you smile too.

You’ve never felt more content than you do in this moment. Peaceful. Happy. You don’t know how you know, but you’re flooded with the unquestionable certainty that this is exactly where you’re supposed to be.

The press of his brow against yours is achingly tender, and he tilts his face to capture you with a kiss that’s soft and sweet.

“Do you want me?” He asks, each word brushing featherlight against your lips.

“Yes."

You expect him to be happy with your answer. But the corner of his mouth ticks downwards just a little – now sliced with a scar you hadn’t noticed before. And when you look up to his aqua eye, you find the hollow beneath it more prominent. Lines trace the skin that was so smooth mere moments ago, and his raven temples are dashed through with silver.

“How about now?”

“Yes.”

He guides your hand towards the mask he wears. Your fingers slip beneath the gilded edge, and you carefully peel it away. Beneath lies an expanse of mottled grey skin which sweeps to his hairline, and set within the centre like a crowning carnelian jewel is an unblinking hellfire eye. Your fingertips gently trace the ridges and grooves, committing the pattern and texture to memory.

“And now?”

“Yes.”

You’re left suddenly cold. His arms no longer around you.

The warm candle glow becomes frigid and pale; watery daylight shining through grimy, broken windows.

The stone arches above you nothing more than rusted girders and corrugated metal.

Ornamental stone pillars gone, leaving behind only crumbling concrete walls.

An abandoned warehouse. Yes. You’ve been here once before.

He stands in the middle of the space with his back to you.

Blood drips rhythmically from the crimson coated blade in his hand. Each drop clinging to the tip for a second before falling to join the steadily growing pool upon the floor – seeping ever closer to the sundered body at his feet.

His head cocks slightly, predatorily, peering over his shoulder at you with one cold-water eye.

“Do you still want me now?”

“Yes.”

Why can’t he see that you mean what you say?

The dead body at his feet becomes only one of dozens, multiplying each time you dare to blink.

“Are you so sure?” There’s a cruel lilt to his voice. It teases. Toys. And yet still your answer is immediate and unequivocal.

“Yes.”

Your feet catch and tangle with the bodies that litter the floor. Treading upon purple veins which emit a shimmering vapour as you pass. Your body is weighted and slow, but you desperately battle it all to reach him.

You clutch his shoulder, and turn him to face you fully.

The skin around his left eye is no longer scarred, but scaled. 

Each charcoal plate is finished with an opalescent shine, and layered around a garnet eye; cut vertically with a thin, serpentine pupil. And when he speaks, you catch sight of teeth which are just a little too sharp.

“Do you really want me, Sweetheart?”

Your hands rise to caress the silken scales which gradually spread until his entire face is coated, “Yes. I want you, Silco.”

Claw-tipped fingers slide lovingly to your throat, long enough to wrap easily around the entirety of your neck. Talons puncture skin as he steadily begins to squeeze.

“You shouldn’t.”