#Sapphire Spy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zepskies · 8 months ago

Text

Lesson Learned

Pairing: Soldier Boy (Ben) x F. Reader

Summary: There’s only so much teasing Ben is willing to take. He has no choice but to punish you.

AN: Here we go! lol. This is the highly requested Part 2 to This One’s For You, over in the BMD-verse!

Word Count: 2.2K

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only! Smut, edging, teasing, fluff, and feels.

💚 Break Me Down Masterlist

You gasped, your nails raking through his hair. Your grip threatened to rip out a few strands as you panted into his neck.

“Ben, please…for God’s sake…”

“Please what?” he said. There was grit in his voice when he spoke into your ear, but he was all too controlled. Taunting.

Asshole.

He was relentless, dragging his fingers inside your quivering pussy, rubbing his thumb around your clit, but almost never where you wanted him. Your thighs were shaking on either side of his frame as he had you naked on your back, writhing in the middle of your shared bed. You’d sucked him off until his spine rattled and his eyes nearly crossed, swallowing up as much as you could of what he had to give.

Still, he wasn’t satisfied.

“I’m sorry!” you burst in frustration, but you also had to stifle your laughter. Your husband narrowed his eyes at you, spying the hint of your smile.

“How come I don’t fucking believe you?” said Ben. With his elbow digging into the bed beside your shoulder, his occupied fingers curled inside you, finally brushing against the sensitive ridge of your inner walls. It drew a faltering moan from your lips.

“What exactly are you sorry for?” he demanded. He bowed his head and laid a biting kiss along your throat. “Use your fucking words.”

You exhaled roughly, gripping his hair tight again. Now that he couldn’t see your face, you could allow yourself to grin in amusement.

Three Days Ago…

Ben was tired and more irritable than usual when he stepped into the Flatiron Building. The night before had been a battle of wills between him and his infant daughter, who’d been finnicky, having a hard time going back to sleep. He’d done his best to help her get back to sleep, since you had been dead to the world and unable to leave the bed (or so you’d seemed).

Now, he took the elevator up to the right floor and used his key to get into the office suite, where Butcher and the rest of your delinquent friends were already dicking around.

Some horrible French rap was playing on the Bluetooth speaker. Kimiko was flicking tiny pieces of paper across the dining table, into a “goal” made by Hughie’s hands. Frenchie wore a “Kiss the Cook” apron as he pulled a fresh batch of croissants out of the oven in the kitchenette, while M.M. swept the excess flour stains off the counter.

Annie was trying to get Butcher to smoke his cigarette out on the balcony.

“Really, you had fucking cancer. You’d think you’d try a little harder to take care of yourself,” she said. Butcher gave her a wan smile, and blew a coil of smoke upward between them.

“Nice,” she said flatly.

But all that stopped when Ben strode into the room. They stared at him, each starting to smile, no matter how much some of them tried to hide it (like Kimiko, with a hand over her mouth).

“What the fuck’re you staring at?” Ben snapped. “We got a job, right?”

Butcher cleared his throat and recovered first. He dabbed his cigarette on an ashtray on the dining table and grabbed an iPad to give to the supe.

“Yeah, got us an escapee. Our little slumlord, Sapphire,” he said.

Ben frowned. Sapphire was the supe who nearly vaporized you a couple of years ago, after they broke up her drug ring. While he read the file documenting detailing her escape and what the CIA knew of her whereabouts so far, Hughie shared a look with Kimiko and Annie before he spoke.

“So, uh, how’s Lila doing?”

Ben shot him a look through furrowed brows.

“Fine. She’s with her mother,” he replied. Hughie predictably asked about you, and again, Ben said you were fine at home with the baby.

“Lila’s almost a year old, right?” Hughie asked. “Aw man, that’s gotta be a fun age, right? I mean, fun, but challenging. All the crying, the diaper changing. Getting her to sleep through the night must be tough.”

Ben’s attention piqued at that, and not in a good way. His dark suspicion grew when his gaze flicked up to Hughie’s dumb fucking face, and then the rest of them, with their dumbass smiles. Biting her lip to stop herself from smiling, Annie pressed a button on her phone.

All of a sudden, Ben heard his own voice playing from the speaker.

“H-Hey there, Delilah, what’s it like in New York City?”

“Now ain’t that a lovely warble,” Butcher remarked. Ben shot him a warning glare, but the Brit raised his hands in amused surrender. He crossed his arms and continued to smoke as he watched the scene unfold.

Ben tossed the iPad onto the kitchen counter and strode over to Annie with menacing steps, intending to put an end to this bullshit. She grinned and tossed her phone over to Kimiko, and Ben glowered, changing directions.

“I'm a thousand miles away, but girl, tonight you look so pretty. Yes, you do. Time Square can’t shine as bright as you…I swear it’s true.”

Kimiko’s eyes widened at the angry supe heading toward her. She tossed the phone to Frenchie next. The phone bounced between his flour-stained hands as he yelped in surprise.

“Oh, shit,” he uttered, when Ben began stomping his way.

“Hey there, Delilah, don't you worry about the distance. I'm right there if you get lonely. Give this song another listen…”

“A voice like warm butter,” Frenchie praised. He quickly tried to move from side to side to evade his attacker. “You should be proud, Monsiuer Grincheux! A man soothing his baby is a beautiful thing.”

“Shut your fucking cockhole,” Ben gritted out, but he still reached out when the phone sailed under his arm—only to land in M.M.’s hands. He froze with widened eyes, not wanting to be in the game. But it was too late, for him and Ben.

“Hey there, Delilah, here’s to you,” his voice sang, more quietly, more tender, deep and baritone. “This one’s for you…”

A brief pause. And then—

“What the fuck’re you doing?”

M.M. managed to pause the video. A beat of utter silence, and then...

Everyone burst out into laughter. Hughie started it; he was damn near folded in half, leaning heavily on his girlfriend as he wiped a tear out of his eye. M.M. tossed the phone back to Frenchie, whose entire frame was shaking with restrained glee.

Ben’s jaw worked as he contemplated how exactly he was going to kill every one of these cocksucking morons.

And then you. Because how else had they gotten that video? You had to have sent it somehow before he got ahold of you last night.

“All right, enough!” he bellowed.

The entire room fell silent.

“First of all, erase that shit right now, or it’s coming out your ass,” he barked, pointing at Frenchie. The other man jolted and did as he was told.

“As for the rest of you, I better not hear another fucking word about this, or so help me Christ, I’m gonna do some barbecuing.”

About three days later, Sapphire had been caught and re-imprisoned, and Ben returned home. He found you in the living room. He was taciturn to your happy smile when you welcomed him with a hug around his waist, though your smile fell after he didn’t respond to your kiss.

He slowly lowered his gaze down to you, and you knew.

Biting your lip, you soothed a hand along his cheek. “So, how’d it go?”

“Fine,” he said, but little else.

In fact, Ben didn’t speak to you for most of the evening. You tried cooking him a good hot meal, but he barely said two words to you. The only thing he did, before he was even showered and changed, was venture into the nursery to lay a gentle hand on his daughter’s head as she slept, over her downy brown hair. He bent down to press a kiss to her forehead.

After that, he strode past you in the doorway and slammed the door shut in the bathroom.

Aw shit. Despite yourself, you couldn’t help chortling with laughter. You should’ve known he’d be a great big man child about this.

So you decided to call your mom and see if she could take Lila for the night.

You had some damage control to do.

Now…

He'd brought you to the edge of your pleasure three times before he withdrew his mouth or his hand from your body, not letting you touch yourself, not letting you come—driving you to the point of frustrated tears.

You grabbed his head with both hands and guided him to look you in the eyes.

“Baby, please. Stop torturing me,” you pleaded. You used every tool in your arsenal to make him break, giving him soft, tearful eyes. You leaned up and pressed gentle kisses to his cheek, his chin, the corner of his mouth, and finally his lips.

“I need you,” you whispered, drawing him into deeper, messier kisses. Part of him started to falter. He briefly closed his eyes and breathed into your kiss.

But then, he stubbornly broke from you with a frown.

“Nice try. You’re not getting off that easy,” he said. “Now say it. Why the fuck are you sorry?”

You huffed in aggravation, but you twined your arms around his neck and brushed slightly sweaty strands of his hair away from his forehead.

“I’m sorry for embarrassing you,” you said, even though your mouth began to curve upward. “It was a sweet thing you did, and I’m glad I captured it. But I am sorry that sharing that moment with our friends bothers you so much.”

“First of all, they’re your idiot friends,” he said. You wanted to interject on that one, but you knew he wasn’t in the mood, and you didn’t want to fight with him for real.

“Second of all,” he began…but he didn’t have any more words after that. They were caught between his irritation, and his unwillingness to even voice what it was he felt. Eventually, he found them.

“There’s some shit that needs to stay between us,” he said.

You smiled, but you mercifully drew him down for another slow kiss.

“Okay, okay. I hear you. It’s not that big a deal though. You love your family, and look! Your macho-ness is still very much intact,” you said, gesturing at his very much hard cock pressing against your thigh. “Now are you gonna fuck me like a man, or do I need to find a vibrator that will?”

At that Ben looked down at you with a raise of his brows. His lips twitched, mostly at your audacity. Shaking his head, he slid a hand behind your neck and drew you in for a kiss, fueled by passion and frustration in equal measure.

You wrapped your thighs around his hips, urging him closer. His straining length pressed against your center, the wet tip slipping against your glistening folds. He groaned at the sensation.

“Please,” you repeated, licking into his mouth for a sensuous kiss.

The once-iron grip on his restraint finally broke. Ben slid a hand between you to hold himself to your entrance. With one smooth thrust, his cock buried deep inside you. Your moan of relief echoed his own. If nothing else good came out of this situation, you two hadn’t had the time or the energy to go at it like this in a long time.

He grabbed your thigh and angled you higher, so he could sink in at an even better angle as he began to rut into you.

With all of his earlier edging and teasing, you were already so close. Your inner walls fluttered around him, welcoming him home and gripping him tight. All it took was a few well-placed swipes of his thumb over your clit to have you tumbling over the edge—a delicious cresting of pleasure that made you arch off the bed, biting your nails into his shoulders, a cry caught in your throat.

Ben fucked you through your release, all while chasing his own. His grip on your hip tightened as his thrusts grew ragged, his own breathing shallow and rough, until his balls tightened and his body locked up on him. He spent himself inside you, coating your inner walls until he had nothing left.

He just barely managed to keep himself from smothering you as his body relaxed. You still welcomed his weight on you, soothing your hands up and down his back while you both caught your breath. Your thighs slipped from his hips, your feet meeting bed and sliding out a little.

Ben brushed your sweaty hair away from your face. Looking down on you now, his face gentled from its hardened angles and furrowed brows. You smiled lazily.

“Still mad at me?” you teased.

Ben resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he let out a rough exhale through his nose.

“Something tells me you didn’t learn your lesson,” he said, somewhat incredulous, and yet, amused.

Your smile was undoubtedly cheeky, even as you leaned up to give him a sweeter kiss.

“Sure did, baby,” you said against his lips. And another kiss. “Lesson learned, I promise.”

He really did roll his eyes this time.

AN: 😂 Ben just can't win, can he?

Translation: Monsiuer Grincheux - "Mr. Grumpy" in French

Keep Reading in the BMD-verse:

Coming up next, Ben has his Adventures in Babysitting moment in Green:

Summary: Ben spends the day alone with his daughter, to varying degrees of success. When you get home, it prompts a serious conversation.

▶️ Keep Reading: Green

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lenny-link · 9 months ago

Note

In regards to the SU x TF2 AU:

I have been racking my brain over here trying to understand the decision to make RED Spy a ruby and BLU Spy a sapphire. Nothing about his portrayal seemed to line up with canon depictions of rubies or sapphires, and RED Spy's gem isn't even faceted like a ruby. Also the obvious joke of making him a Bixbite, like the corrupted gem who was a giant crab, seemed obvious. Then it dawned on me.

He's a color-change sapphire, isn't he? That's why his RED version has a sapphire cut despite supposedly being a ruby? And also potentially why he's the only one we've seen RED and BLU variations of (though I get the impression that's also so one can be paired with Scout's Ma and the other with Engie) when all the others have been RED(-ish) isn't it? Or am I completely off base with this theory?

i LOVE your theory i wish you shared your thoughts before i elaborated the ‘lore’ of the au

but since ive had lots of questions about details id like to mention that:

1. i originally had not planned to make any story behind the su au, so if there’s things that dont make sense, don’t align with canon and stuff, it was not planned soo im working with what i have :p

2. i was hoping no one notices the mistake i made of swapping the gems ruby/sapphire lol its because at first i had drawn Blu(sapphire) Spy in that page, but i thought it was confusing since there was RedSpy x Scout’sMa and Scout next to him, so i just changed the colors and i didnt change the gem bc i was lazy :P

3. the main reason i put both Blu/Red Spy was to create fusion, i thought to add an extra merc with a blu color would be cool for the fusions that isnt from ClassicTeam, and idk i couldn’t think of a better merc to have as a pair than Spy and i thought there is more potential with 2 Spies to work on a story than any other merc idk

(yes i didnt put garnet as the fusion so as not to make confusion with Demoman being a Garnet, and we don’t have an Amethyst anyways so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

4. it is IMPOSSIBLE to align each TF2 character with a SU character, there’s nothing in common between the two medias whatsoever, so the dynamics that im gonna be making for the TF2 au are gonna be a bit mixed, for example: RedSpy and BluSpy having Ruby/Sapphire’s dynamic (kinda), but also they have the same dynamic as Rose/Pearl, for the part where Red would go with a human (Scout’s Ma) and Blu would be jealous (just like pearl), HeavyMedic also would be having Ruby/Sapphire dynamic (the part where they fuse for the first time just like Ruby/Sapphire in the show, im still working on comic about this btw)

5. also im mixing with well TF2 canon story + trying really to make an original story too, soo its a whole mess ik :p im trying just bear with me ^^"

but thank you for pointing that out, it makes me happy knowing people actually pay attention to details thats super fun! ill make sure to not miss any details next time! :D

#tf2 x su au #my art #tf2 #team fortress 2 #lennylink #tf2 spy #fan art #lenny replied #scout ma #tf2 scouts mom #tf2 scout's mom #spy x spy #spycest #tf2 medic #doctor who reference #lol

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faemytho · 3 months ago

Text

Show's Over (AO3)

Fandom: Cookie Run

Relationship: Black Sapphire/Silverbell

Sent by Shadow Milk to plant a lie, Black Sapphire sneaks into the Faerie Kingdom, disguised as one of their own. He meets a certain silver knight, and in a moment of emotional weakness, diverts from the carefully constructed script he'd spent a considerable amount of time crafting for his lord to be allowed to go on this mission. Silverbell was not on the script. And Black Sapphire is tired of lying to him. (At the same time, he doesn't want to let him go.)

WC: 2,742 | M/M | Identity Reveal, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Mid-Canon, Not a Bad Ending, Pre-Canon

"Tell me it isn't true."

Silver moonlight beamed in scattered rays through the trees above. It fell over the two winged figures, both of them standing on a mossy silver bridge that overlooked a giant, silver tree. One was turned away from the other, posed by the edge with one hand on the railing. It was the perfect spotlight to deliver a well crafted speech, to perform, to entertain. The stage was set, the lighting perfect, the actors in place, the tension built, the drama just waiting, begging, to unfold.

He tightened his grip on the silver rail.

For once, Black Sapphire didn't feel like performing.

He turned his head away from the view of the Silver Tree. Silverbell stepped closer, silver lilyvine wings fluttering against his back, gentle chiming bells ringing softly through the air. Tremulous words fell from trembling lips.

"Please tell me it's not true," the faerie pleaded again. "Grapevine Faerie, please."

"And just what is it you're asking about?" Black Sapphire asked, flat and bored. It was a far cry from his usual showmanship. It made Silverbell balk, hesitate, something fragile in his eyes slowly unraveling.

"I heard," Silverbell started, "that you…"

The faerie trailed off, choked up, unable to get the words out.

Black Sapphire sighed. Maybe it was too cruel to make the other say it. He knew very well what Silverbell was talking about.

He'd spread the rumor himself.

"That I am a spy?" Black Sapphire said, the ugly truth hovering in the air between them. Silverbell flinched, and then, with the most imperceptible of movements, gave a tiny nod.

Black Sapphire turned away again, facing the Silver Tree that had once held his master captive. This was why he hated the truth. There was no meaningful flair, no dazzling pizzazz, no way to dress it up and make it sound sweet.

So he didn't.

"It's true," he stated. "I was sent here on behalf of my lord, Shadow Milk Cookie."

"But-" Silverbell made a low noise, pained and dismayed. "But you can't be- What about-? Why?"

The faerie took a step back, stricken with panic. Black Sapphire couldn't bring himself to look. The other had always looked close to tears, but he'd never actually seen the faerie cry, and he wasn't sure he ever wanted to.

"For my lord," he muttered, the words bittersweet on his tongue.

Again, the truth stained the air, stinking and foul. It was true. He'd only come to the faerie kingdom on orders to do so by Shadow Milk himself.

Falling in love with Silverbell had not been on the script.

"How could you-?" Silverbell stifled a sob, choked and strained. The faerie sniffled, and there was a soft rustle of fabric, before the other spoke again, his low, trembling, angry tone sending a chill through the night. "Was any of it real? Did I mean anything to you?"

Black Sapphire's faerie disguise melted away, slow and deliberate. This wasn't on the script either, an uncomfortable twitch rolling through his now exposed leather wings of black and purple. Soft nature, leaves and fruit were replaced by glittering gemstones and sleek black fabric. He turned his true face towards the other.

"You did," he said, the truth, once again, leaving his mouth. "You do. It was real."

Silverbell stared at him, the pale, silvery blue of his eyes darting across his form. Anger tightened the faerie's glare, bold and harsh, but it was fragile, shimmering in his eyes like thin glass.

"How do I know you're not lying about this too?" Silverbell accused, those delicate silver lilyvine wings twitching upward with the soft shimmer of bells. "Just to hurt me more?"

Black Sapphire stayed silent, still for a beat far too much longer than he meant to be.

If he told Silverbell the truth, it would only complicate things, as the truth was wont to do. It was better to lie, to insist that this love had only ever been a trick. The truth would hurt Silverbell more in the long run, knowing it had been real and that Black Sapphire had decided to betray him anyways. If the faerie believed he'd been played for a fool, perhaps he would fare better after Black Sapphire was gone from this place.

So, Black Sapphire lied.

"Congratulations!" he announced, pulling on his show host persona as quickly as he could. His voice, devastatingly, cracked. He cleared his throat, twirling his microphone staff and speaking into it. "You're right! It was a trick, all of it. We have a winner, folks!"

Silverbell flinched back, and the dam broke.

"Please, hold your applause now," he continued, trying to sweep himself away into the familiarity of showmanship, if only to avoid the consequences. "The show's not over yet-"

The tip of a silver arrow was shoved in his face, and he fell abruptly silent. Silverbell's face was streaked with glimmering tears, startlingly beautiful in the light of the moon.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you in," the faerie snapped, the string of his bow drawn back and held by his cheek. Black Sapphire had forgotten, for a moment, that the other was a knight. "One good reason why I shouldn't… why I shouldn't…"

"You wouldn't want to ruin my big moment, would you?" Black Sapphire whispered, afraid that if he spoke any louder, his voice would crack open his chest and spill his heart out into some bloody mess on the mossy silver bridge. Carefully, he pushed the arrow away from his face, stepping aside. Silverbell let him go.

"That's not good enough," the faerie muttered, but let the arrow disappear in a soft chime of magic, the bowstring gently lowered to rest. "Grapevine Faerie… should I even call you that anymore? I feel like such a fool."

Silverbell's wings lowered in defeat. Black Sapphire leaned back against the silver rail of the bridge, watching emotions flit across the other's face.

"Why did you come here?" the silver knight asked, his delicate voice now demanding, but still soft with resignation.

Black Sapphire hesitated. "To cause chaos and sow confusion in the name of my master, of course," he finally settled on, sharp teeth bared in a grin.

"But why me?" Silverbell pressed, the distress in his pale moonlit eyes growing brighter by the second. "If- if that was really your goal this whole time, then why would you-… with me…?"

Black Sapphire stayed silent. Unbidden came memories of the knight's presence by his side, of a warm hand in his, of gentle chiming bells and the shyly stolen touch of soft lips lingering against his. He wanted to linger. He wanted so badly.

"For the drama, of course!" he all but purred instead. He pulled his sharp smile tight, bowing with a grand flourish. "The audience loves some good drama. Who doesn't? Ah, what a show!"

"But- but-" Silverbell stammered. Black Sapphire shook his head, tsking to himself and sighing.

"Show's over, Silverbell," he said, softer and fainter than he meant to say it, turning away from the faerie. "Go home."

He stepped away, bowing his head as he began to walk across the bridge. What a fool he'd been, what a joke. And now, he'd have to return to the spire a failure. If he'd just stuck to the script-

"No," Silverbell burst out. "No, this can't be right- I don't believe you!"

Hands landed on his shoulders. He stiffened up, yelping in an undignified manner when he was spun around and wrapped up close in the embrace of the faerie. Silverbell hugged him, close and firm, his delicate silver lilyvine wings fluttering up the way Black Sapphire knew they did when he was particularly determined about something.

"I don't believe you," Silverbell whispered, almost desperately. "You weren't faking it. You couldn't have been."

"Get off me," Black Sapphire almost growled, pushing half heartedly at Silverbell's chest. "Didn't you hear me? I said, show's over!"

"And I think you're not as good an actor as you think you are," Silverbell argued back. The words were like hot iron through the chest, but despite the hurt they caused, he knew their intentions weren't malicious. "You're lying to me, right now, which means-"

Black Sapphire's face twisted up. "I serve the master of deceit!" he cried, interrupting the faerie before the truth could be spoken. "You're a fool! Why would anything I do ever-?"

His throat closed up, suddenly tight with emotion. Silverbell said nothing, waiting quietly as he choked over intentions that had always been easy to get out.

"Why would anything I do ever be real?" Black Sapphire whispered, still tense and pushing weakly at the faerie. But Silverbell had him in his hold, and he finally slumped in the faerie's embrace, raising his arms to hug the other in return.

Silverbell pulled him closer, gentle and undemanding. The night breeze overhead disturbed the silver-bathed leaves above, the soft whirl and rustle the only sounds in this part of the Faerie Kingdom.

Black Sapphire pushed himself away, and Silverbell let him go. He straightened up, brushing out the wrinkles of his suit coat and adjusting the gem that pinned his cravat in place, all to give himself something to do while the possibilities of things he could say whirled through his mind.

He wiped discreetly at his eyes, sighing, composing himself.

"I suggest forgetting I ever existed," he muttered, unable to look at the face of the faerie. "It will be easier for us both."

"It… It may be easier," Silverbell agreed, before shaking his head. "But I… I don't think I can forget you."

"Silverbell-" Black Sapphire started to say, only to be cut off.

"I can't forget, but I can act like this never happened. I won't turn you in. I-I won't tell anybody you were here."

He looked up. Silverbell's soft face, carved out by moonlight and framed with gentle pale white hair, was hard with determination.

"And why wouldn't you do that?" Black Sapphire asked, baffled. "I- I handed you the perfect opportunity to-"

"Because I love you," Silverbell said, his cheeks darkening under the moonlight from the declaration. He twisted his hands together, averting his gaze. "And… I want to believe that you love me, too."

"I think your naivety is showing," Black Sapphire muttered, but didn't refute it. He wiped at his face again, hoping he at least didn't look like the mess he sounded like. "If you knew what was good for you, you'd turn me in. But hey! I'm not here to tell you what to do!"

"You wouldn't…" Silverbell hesitated. "If you didn't really love me, you wouldn't have told me who you really are. You wouldn't have tried to push me away like that. But you… did. And… maybe some of what was between us wasn't all real, but most of it was. I still… see you."

Black Sapphire's expression twisted up, his wings tense, fingers curling tightly around the staff of his microphone, recoiling from that surprisingly piercing gaze.

"I'll let you go, and I won't tell a soul," Silverbell offered, "if you promise to come back on your own terms someday."

Black Sapphire's wings fell slack with shock.

"That's it?" he asked, incredulous. The faerie nodded.

"That's it." Silverbell stayed standing there, eyes glimmering with hope. Another night breeze passed by, ruffling his pale hair and white knight clothes. The gentle chiming of soft silver bells rang through the air. "Because I want you to choose this time."

"That is a terrible idea," Black Sapphire protested, feeling almost lightheaded. "This is a terrible idea! You would really, truly, throw away the security of the kingdom you serve just to see me again? I am your enemy! I hate this place! I was sent here to tear it down!"

But Silverbell only shook his head.

"Do it or don't," the faerie said, turning away. The lilyvine silver wings on his back fluttered, flicking, nervous but set. "But you wouldn't be trying so hard to push me away for no reason. So… Goodbye, Grapevine Faerie. I… hope we get to see each other again."

"Black Sapphire."

His own name was hissed, spat between gritted teeth. Fury and grief welled up in him, contradicting each other and tearing him apart.

Silverbell glanced over his shoulder, before nodded in acknowledgement.

"Black Sapphire," Silverbell murmured, turning and beginning to walk away. "It suits you."

"Oooh, Black Sapphiiiire~!"

Hands landed on his shoulders, and the click of his heels on white, pale blue tile ceased.

"Greetings, my lord," the cookie said, careful to keep his voice steady and even. Shadow Milk peered over his shoulder with mismatched eyes and a sharp grin on his face.

"Did you do it?" the Beast almost purred. Were Black Sapphire not so focused on keeping himself so composed, he might have noticed or even become unnerved by his master's overly gleeful behavior. He'd never known the Beast to be the giddy type.

Black Sapphire shook his head. "There was… an unexpected complication in my mission," he reported, forcing himself not to tense when the Beast's claws dug into his shoulders. "But worry not my lord. Candy Apple is doing now what I was unable to. We should see results in a day or two."

"Ugh, finally!" Shadow Milk groaned, removing his hands from Black Sapphire's shoulders. The cookie had to force himself not to wilt in relief, the Beast successfully pacified for now. "I was wondering what was taking you so long! You were in the faerie kingdom for forever!"

"As I mentioned, my lord, it was an unexpected complication," Black Sapphire assured the Beast. "It won't happen again."

Shadow Milk hovered around to face him, a contemplative look on his face. He almost looked as though he wanted to crack something open, some kind of primal hunger in his eyes that always settled a deep pit of fear in Black Sapphire's chest whenever he saw it.

"You're omitting a crucial detail or two, Black Sapphire Cookie," Shadow Milk said bluntly, amusement flickering across his face. "Deceiving deceit?"

Cold dread pooled in Black Sapphire's stomach. "My lord," he tried, only barely managing to keep his voice composed before the Beast laughed in genuine glee. It made Black Sapphire stop, staring.

"I knew there was a reason I kept you around!" Shadow Milk giggled to himself, before reaching out and patting Black Sapphire's head like one would pet a dog. "Good boy!"

"Thank- thank you, my lord…?" Baffled by the praise, but not one to turn away from it, Black Sapphire enjoyed the touch, brief as it was.

The Beast's expression sharpened.

"You'd better hope Candy Apple's results are pleasing to me," Shadow Milk stated, all of the glee gone from his face.

Recognizing the threat for what it was, Black Sapphire bowed his head. "Yes, my lord."

"Because if they aren't, it won't be her fault. It'll be yours."

"Yes, my lord." Tentatively, he took a risk, opening his mouth to speak more, his faith in the Beast unwavering. "I have full faith in Candy Apple to plant the misinformation we need straight into that cookie's hands. It will be done."

Shadow Milk gave him a long look, one that narrowed into slits, sharp pupils raking over him and prying every last secret from the stitches of his dough. Then, the Beast smiled.

"Good!" he nearly sang, twirling around in midair with a whirl of flowing fabric. "Wouldn't want me to make a personal visit to the faerie kingdom to go see just what prevented you from doing what I asked you to, now would we?"

The dread rose, but Black Sapphire ignored it, bowing his head so that perhaps the Beast wouldn't see the incriminating expression on his face. "Whatever my lord desires."

"Ha!" Shadow Milk laughed, pretending to wipe a tear from his cyan eye. "Ahaha! You're funny. Let's hope it goes your way, mhm? I'm curious to see how exactly this'll play out."

Without giving Black Sapphire a chance to respond, the Beast melted into shadow, zipping away down the hall. Black Sapphire sighed, raising a hand to clutch at his heart.

Shadow Milk knew. Of course he knew. His master knew all, twisting everything into lies and deceit. He had been expecting to receive some kind of punishment upon his return to the spire, but this?

This was as good a blessing as any.

#sapphirebell #silverbell cookie #black sapphire cookie #shadow milk cookie #cookie run kingdom #cookie run fanfic #mae writing #mae writes cookies

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heartzfromel · 4 months ago

Text

undercover

detective!agnes x fem!model!reader

summary; agnes has a bit of trouble in the makeup department. tony is useless, and rio is busy. luckily, miss texas is bored out of her mind in the room next door, and just so happens to be looking for something to do.

tags; queer awakening question mark, age gap but nothing overly crazy

a/n; jen mentioned who cheered, fyi reader doesn’t know she’s queer, also its the 90s so take that as u will, ignore any mistakes

chapter 1 | chapter 2

your stylist, jen, glared daggers into the back of marvin’s head as he paced around the room, answering several phone calls per minute and overall just distracting her from her work, which just so happened to be your hair.

“does he ever stop that?” she mumbled, leaning over your shoulder to grab hairspray.

“i don’t know,” you whispered back, “sometimes i think he’s a robot who got sent to spy on me by my father.”

“wouldn’t put it past him,” jen smirked, combing her fingers through your hair as she fluffed it up, “et voila! all done.”

“thank you kindly jen, your’e a lifesaver.” you grinned, showing her out.

once jen had left, you pushed your door closed and threw yourself onto your bed, rolling over to turn the cd player on, before closing your eyes, basking in your moment of silence.

•☽༻¨:·. ──── ₊☽◯☾₊ ──── .·:¨༺☾��

“what?” agnes deadpanned.

“we don’t have anyone to do your makeup.” tony mumbled, repeating himself.

“are you joking?” she spat.

“no…” he began, “we sorta thought you’d be able to do that yourself.”

“tony.”

“yeah?” he replied terror evident in his expression. he loved agnes dearly, but it didn’t take away from the fact that she was possibly the most terrifying woman to walk on planet earth.

“do i look like the sort of person who would know how to do my own makeup?”

tomy paused. now that he thought about it, he had never in his life witnessed agnes in a dress, nevermind makeup.

“get out.” she spat.

“huh?”

“get out! is that so hard for you to grasp, tony? i said GET OUT.”

•☽༻¨:·. ──── ₊☽◯☾₊ ──── .·:¨༺☾•

you groaned, the sound of a woman yelling filling your ears as you tried to get 20 minutes of sleep. now normally, you would’ve just got annoyed but left the situation alone, but this girl sounded MAD, and you were bored out of your mind by now, so you decided to go investigate.

when you left your hotel room, you realised that the yelling was coming from the room next door. huh, these walls must be thick, you thought to yourself, because the yelling sounded like it had been coming from somewhere a lot further down the hall.

the pristine white door lay wide open, and a man with dark hair was anxiously listening to the woman’s angry voice, before she yelled at him to get out.

before she slammed the door, you caught her.

“hey, everything alright out here?” you asked, shooting her a smile. this was the first time you had gotten a look at her, and quite frankly, you thought she was ethereal. her long dark hair tumbled effortlessly down her shoulders, stopping at her hips, and her skin was glowing, despite the obvious stress she was under. her eyes were piercing and as blue as sapphires, and she was in nothing but a plush white dressing gown.

“oh everything’s fine, hon!” she grinned back, giggling slightly, as she leaned on the doorframe.

“you sure? didn’t sound like it a second ago.” you replied, curiosity getting the better of you.

“well, that was my agent.” she began, “he just came to tell me my makeup artist couldn’t make it on this trip, she had to cancel.”

“oh, well that’s terrible! do you think you can do it yourself?”

“sure! i’ll be fine!” she reassured you, but something in her voice just wasn’t quite right.

“you don’t sound so sure. here, let me come in and help you out.” you offered.

she looked taken aback to say the least, and you were almost worried you had overstepped. that tended to happen with the other pageant girls. you had a really hard time getting them to like you. marvin told you they were just jealous, because after the pageants were over, you had a dozen magazines and perfume shoots booked, but you weren’t so sure, so whenever someone showed any sort of interest in interacting with you, you would jump at the chance, and sometimes you could be a bit much.

you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding in as she stepped out of the way of the doorframe to let you in.

you smiled, and she smiled gratefully back at you as you ushered her to the chair that sat in front of her vanity.

“you got any makeup with you?” you asked.

“i’m afraid i’ve only got this.” she replied, ruffling through her bag, before holding up two bottles, foundation and concealer, looking at them as if she wasn’t fully aware of what they were.

“wait one second.” you grinned, before running back to your room, grabbing your bag and rushing back to the woman’s room.

“i got stuff!” you spoke, excitedly, laying various makeup products out on the vanity.

“oh, thank you doll, you’re a lifesaver.” she sighed, the nickname sending a shockwave through you as it slipped from her lips.

“so- uh, what’s your name, anyway?” you mumbled, trying to brush whatever that feeling was as you kneeled down to her level, pinning her hair out of her face.

“agatha harkness, you?”

“y/n y/l/n.”

“that’s pretty.” she sighed, closing her eyes as you began to apply her foundation to her face.

as you continued to do her makeup, your knees began to get tired, causing you to have to stretch them out every few minutes.

“are you hurting, y/n?” agatha began, “here, get up.” she added, gesturing to the vanity. you let out a sigh ad you sat up onto it. you tried not to notice the fact that her eyes never left you, trailing up and down your body every so often, but you didn’t see that part.

“better?” she asked, and you nodded. as you leaned in to do her eyeshadow, you could feel her breath, caressing your face gently. your own breath hitched as the action, mixed with her unbroken eye contact, sent shivers down your spine. what was happening to you?

you shook it off as you picked your favourite red lipstick off the table, leaning in to paint her lips. as her rich, amber scent enveloped you, all you could think about is how beautiful she was, how inviting her scent was, and how you just wanted to fall into her lap and kiss her right there and then, you hands running through her luscious dark locks and her stunning hands gripping your waist. you tried to shake the feeling off, not knowing what was going on. she’s a girl, you thought to yourself. oh my god, am i-

“am i all done?” agatha asked, staring up at you.

“uh, yeah. all done! i’ll see you later, yeah?” you gushed, not fully aware if you’d been staring at her or not. you quickly rushed out, grabbing your things.

“alright!” she smiled, “thank you!”

•☽༻¨:·. ──── ₊☽◯☾₊ ──── .·:¨༺☾•

agnes was in big trouble. she didn’t know how she’d managed it, but she’d managed to fall for the one person that she couldn’t, and it was made worse by the fact she couldn’t tell anyone. if this didn’t go away, she’d be done for. she had known you for twenty five minutes and was already struggling to keep her composure around you, which was a really bad thing, considering that her whole goal here was to keep her composure.

suddenly, there was a knock at the door. she groaned, moving to open it, before being greeted with tony’s dropped jaw.

“you look fantastic!” he began, “i saw y/n leaving, by the way. how did that go?”

“uhh..”

one thing was right. and that was that agnes o’connor had messed up.

•☽༻¨:·. ──── ₊☽◯☾₊ ──── .·:¨༺☾•

taglist; @hannah-0730 @m1vfs @creaturesaphique @push-on-me @chiar4anna (comment to be added)

#agatha all along #agatha coven of chaos #agatha harkness #agatha harkness x reader #agatha x reader #fem reader #agatha harkness x you #rio vidal x reader #agnes o'connor #wlw fic #wlw #lesbian #lesbian fic #agatha all along x reader #el thoughts 💭#el’s inbox 💌

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jam3sacaster · 6 months ago

Note

I think Rupert would absolutely spoil the reader whether they want him to or not lol😂

But what about reader seeing a dress or something they really love but it's expensive and don't get it and then a few days later it just shows up at their door 👀✨️

most definitely!! 😅 he would honestly spend so much money on you it would be ridiculous 🥰 such a good idea, on it rn!! 🩷

“Forever Yours, R.”

(Rivals) Rupert Campbell-Black x Reader

Suggestion by this sweet anon 🫶🏽 / Rupert seems to have a penchant for gift giving…

18+ FANFIC / Soft Rupert 🥹 Reader character aged at 21.

You much preferred to flick through Rupert’s shopping catalogues than your own. At home, your catalogues were filled with woollen jumpers, middle-aged florals and chunky kitten-heeled boots. Very cute, but very last season. In Rupert’s, there were suave three-piece suits draped on attractive men, tight, breathtaking dresses on even more attractive women, dazzling jewellery and quite possibly the highest heels you have ever seen in your lifetime. “This one’s nice, isn’t it?” You ask Rupert, who was sat beside you on the sofa — puffing hungrily on a thick cigar and flicking through today’s copy of The Scorpion. “Mmm.” He grunted, not looking up from a rather derogatory article about himself, written by a rather familiar journalist.

Your jaw audibly dropped in shock as you flipped the page. There it was. The dress. Electric sapphire blue, pure silk, split hem right up to your pelvis, hugging tightly around the models waist with a plunging neckline. Rupert glanced his eyes towards you at the sound of your lips parting, and quickly transformed his attention back to his paper before you realised. “Wow. That… is… stunning. Look, Rupert! Look how beautiful it is!” You chime, slapping at the glossy paper with widened eyes. “I’ll look in a minute, angel.” He huffed, placing a gentle hand on your knee in order to calm you down. Slightly defeated that your lover didn’t seem to care, you flick to the next page and nonchalantly scan your eyes over the shoes.

Exactly nine days later, the weather was crisp and sharp, and the sun was beaming. Tending gently to your newly-blossomed bush of chrysanthemums in the front garden, Rutshire’s postman trudged his way across the gravelled driveway. “Morning!” He beamed, hauling an overloaded, bulging bag over his shoulder. “Good morning!” You chime back, snipping away at the overgrown weeds with a small pair of shears. “Letters for Rupert?” You ask, looking up towards him and protecting your eyes from the dazzling sun with a neon pink gloved hand.

“No, actually. A parcel for you.” He replied, hushing his tone. “I’ll leave it on the doorstep. See you later!” The charming man grinned. Picking yourself up from the floor and dusting your knees of soil, you sprint towards the front door, pulling your gloves off and throwing them onto the floor as you approach. Pushing the front door open and excitedly making your way into the lounge, collapsing onto the sofa and placing the parcel on your lap. The company name on the shipping label wasn’t one that you recognised, so you hurriedly tore open the box to spy a small, black plastic bag. “Huh?” You ask yourself, beginning to tear it open. Under the layers of plastic, you spy the delicate sapphire silk and run your fingers through the creamy fabric. Placed on top was a small, typed-out card. It read,

‘To my angel,

I told you I would look in a minute.

Forever yours, R’

Salted tears beginning to well in your eyes, you pressed a gentle kiss against the card.

#rivals #rivals fanfic #rivals fanfiction #rupert campbell black fanfic #rupert campbell black x reader #rupert campbell black #rupert campbell-black #my own dreadful writing

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jeonggukwritingrecs · 4 months ago

Text

Completed Tumblr Fic Recommendations Part Six

@inkedtae

Crema Golden Gills Pretty Boy Quiet Rides

@inktae

Blue Orchids Water Ripples

@imagniation

Neighbours

@jamaisjoons

Golden Daddy Jackrabbit Love Alive

@jeongi

Cabin Fever Caught Me

@jeonqkooks

Strictly Platonic Supernova This is How You Fall in Love Valvet Cherry

@jeonsalibi

Begging for Mercy

@jeonsjiddies

Apodyopsis Practice Makes Perfect

@jeonstudios

Between Takes Brown Eyed Baby Deal Dear Stranger Evolution of a Heart Love You, Crazy Summer Nights and Morning Dew To Tame a God What Money Can Buy Wherever There is You Young Spy

@jeonsweetpea

Bite Me Bounce Devoted to Trouble Will it Fit?

@jessikahathaway

Besties for the Resties Cat Got Your Tongue? Star Crossed Tainted Love

@jimilter

The Ferrari Guy

@jiminrings

Fifth Wish Four Seven Eight How Long Will We Fall Mature Pink Sapphire

@jinfizz

Beg. This Mortal Coil

@jincherie

Under the Bridge

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 11 months ago

Text

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 3: The Ones Who Died Without A Name]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Holiday” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

The Tahoe runs out of gas just west of Ashland, Ohio, coasting to a stop along the shoulder of State Route 96, sapphire skies and cotton ball cumulus clouds, emerald fields of Swiss chard and beets slowly being nibbled bare by deer and rabbits, the inheritors of an abandoned earth.

“Well, that’s it,” Baela says, offhand, blasé, as if it’s not a disaster. You’ve sorted this out, it didn’t take long: there are people who aren’t allowed to panic. If they do, it’ll be like a dam crumbling, and the flood will burst through to drown everything, like when Noah’s wrathful God decided it was time for the world to start over. Baela can’t panic. Aemond can’t panic. And maybe you can’t either. Rio gives you a skeptical look—Are we really about to walk to Oregon?—and you slap his thigh encouragingly as you climb over him and out of the Tahoe.

“Everyone gets a gun,” Aemond says as he starts distributing them: Rugers for Rhaena, Baela, and Helaena (although she winces as she obediently takes the revolver, immediately tucking it away into her burlap messenger bag), .22s for Daeron and Aegon, Remington 12 gauges for Jace and Rio, who gives you his M9. You’re better with it anyway. Aemond’s Glock 20 is in a handmade leather holster he took from the cellar of the house back in Distant, Pennsylvania. Luke, still a potential zombie, will not be armed; but Aemond slings the strap of a .22 over his own shoulder for in case Luke recovers.

“Safeties on, right kids?” Rio goes down the line checking everyone’s gun. “Remember what we practiced, use your sights, don’t go pointing the barrel at anyone unless you’re okay with blowing a hole in them. The noise is risky, but getting bit is worse, so use your best judgment.”

“I don’t have any of that,” Aegon says, grinning.

Rio grabs Aegon’s sunburned face roughly and smacks a kiss onto his cheek. “I know, Honey Bun. Don’t you worry. Stick close and I’ll do your thinking for you.”

You spy it up the road a ways on the right, half-obscured by tree limbs: a white and orange sign, a logo shaped like a diamond. “Oh my God. It’s a Stewart’s.”

“A what?” Aemond asks, squinting at the sign. It’s late afternoon, and soon the sun will be sinking into the west like a drowning man through deep water, and like all prey animals you are restless without the promise of shelter.

“A Stewart’s Root Beer. They used to sell hot dogs and barbeque and all these neat soda flavors like key lime and black cherry. We had one where I grew up. That was the fancy place. You knew it was a good day if you ended up at Stewart’s for dinner.”

Aemond considers you, that subtle ceaseless curiosity. “We can stay the night there.”

“I thought we didn’t want to waste any daylight, Aemond,” Jace jabs as he helps Luke—miserable but presently human—out of the Tahoe. “That’s what you said when I wanted to check out that Barnes & Noble, Aemond.”

“What the hell do you need books for?” Aegon says. He’s grabbing clear CD cases out of the center console of the Tahoe. He pounds on the eject button and then punches the CD player when he realizes he won’t be getting that particular disk back. “Oh, you bitch! I had Shakira on there!”

“I would like to preserve my ability to read at higher than a fifth-grade level. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I was going to work for Sullivan & Cromwell, you know.”

“And now you’re a jobless loser just like me. Isn’t life funny?”

“You can’t be serious,” Baela says to Aegon, his arms full of CD cases. “You’re going to carry all those to California? You don’t even have a way to listen to them.”

“I’m not leaving my mixtapes.” Aegon shoves them into a U.S. Army backpack he found at Fort Indiantown Gap and then hoists it onto his back with a grunt.

Aemond tells Jace: “We only have a few hours until the sun starts going down. We don’t know what’s up ahead. We should take advantage of a safe place to sleep if it’s available. Getting caught out in the open after dark is the worst case scenario.”

“Whatever, Aemond. It’s your call. Everything is your fucking call.” Then Jace plods out into a field of rabbit-ravaged Swiss chard to relieve himself semi-privately, his back to the Tahoe.

“Hey, Chips Ahoy,” Aegon says, taking the folded-up map out of the pocket of his shorts, mint green plaid. “Want to tell me if there are any nuclear power plants near our route so we can steer clear of them and not get irradiated?”

“Uh, well, I don’t exactly have them all memorized…” You examine the map, hoping the black-ink cities will jog your memory, trivia you catalogued years ago, snippets you’ve heard from your fellow seamen. “Perry’s in Cleveland. We won’t be anywhere near that one. Fermi is up by Detroit.” You hesitate as your fingertips skate past Chicago. “Braidwood, LaSalle, and Byron are someplace between Chicago and Peoria, but I’m not sure where. And then there are a few others around the border of Illinois and Iowa. West of that, I don’t know. Rio?”

“Cooper’s in Nebraska, dead east of Lincoln. That’s all I got.”

Aegon is nodding, making notes on his map with a glittery forest green gel pen. “Cool, cool. If I don’t end up eaten or a zombie, I can look forward to being a sterile, glow-in-the-dark mutant.”

Luke frets: “What if we accidentally drink contaminated water or something?”

“Then you die an agonizing death, kiddo,” Rio says. “Your cells dissolve and you turn into human Jello and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

Luke swallows noisily. “Awesome.”

“You might just get cancer if the dose is small enough,” you tell him. Luke does not seem pacified. Rhaena gives him a sip of warm Coca-Cola from a plastic bottle from the Wawa.

Jace comes trudging back to the road, zipping up his khaki chino shorts. “Alright, are we ready?”

Helaena is gazing solemnly out over the fields of green leaves, red roots that grow like arteries into the soil. “We should try to find antivenom.”

“Antivenom?” Aemond asks, distracted as he makes sure nothing of importance was left in the Tahoe. The keys are still dangling from the ignition; you won’t need them. There’s no breathing the Tahoe back to life. There’s no returning to Aemond’s house back in Boston. There is only the West, beckoning you to cross rivers and plains and mountains to join her, and to do it as people did two hundred years ago, no cars, no phones, no escape hatches. The only way out is through.

“For the snakes,” Helaena says.

Aemond stares at her. The stitches in his face are dissolving as the flesh weaves back together, jagged maroon scar tissue, beautiful savage ruins, landscapes of improbable survival. “Helaena, antivenom has to be refrigerated. Even if we miraculously found some, it wouldn’t be useable.”

She nods, eyes wide and glazed, still peering into the fields, into the earth.

~~~~~~~~~~

A hand brushing the loose strands of hair out of your face, a whisper through the dissipating indigo of sleep: “Guess what today is.”

You startle awake and yelp as you bolt from your assailant. Aegon is watching you without any shame whatsoever. People are laughing as they gather up supplies so you all can get moving again, brushing teeth, arranging hair, drinking glass bottles of Stewart’s soda found last night in crates in the storeroom, snacking on bags of Utz chips. Sunlight is streaming in through the windows; specks of dust glimmer in the air like comets through the inhospitable void of outer space.

Luke says from where he is sitting on the floor, his arms and legs tethered: “Hopefully the day when somebody’s going to untie me.”

“It’s my birthday!” Aegon announces.

You’re still blinking at him, disoriented. “What…?”

“Aegon, I told you,” Aemond says, sipping a bottle of Stewart’s key lime soda. “It’s not your birthday. It’s not the 23rd.”

“It’s the 20th, right?” Rhaena says.

Rio looks to you, bewildered. “Isn’t it like the 25th?”

“We’re still in June?” Luke says. Now Aemond is hacking through his ropes with a hunting knife from the cellar in Distant, Pennsylvania.

“Your hand is healing up. Your color is good, your temperature is normal. I guess we can officially declare you human for the foreseeable future.”

“I knew it,” Jace says, combative so no one will see the desperate relief underneath.

Aemond examines your hands next, calloused over where the heat of the transmission tower burned the skin. There is no pretext for needing to tend to them any longer, no antiseptic or ointment or gauze. Aemond nods somberly at your palms, as if he isn’t entirely happy to pronounce them cured. His hands linger on yours for slow, unnecessary seconds.

“So what are we going to do special for my birthday?” Aegon presses eagerly.

“We’re going to walk between ten and twenty miles towards California,” Baela says.

“That’s not a birthday activity!”

Daeron groans as he inspects the screws and bolts of his compound bow. “Aegon, it’s not your birthday!”

“Shut up. You can’t even apply to get a credit card.”

“No one can get a credit card now! Currency is worthless!”

Rio offers you a cherries and cream soda. You take it and say: “Aegon, how old are you? On today, your alleged birthday?”

He hesitates. “That’s not the important part.”

Aemond smiles as he tells you, mock-whispering: “He’s thirty.”

“Thirty?!” Rio exclaims. “That’s like, an actual adult age. Marriage and a mortgage, shit like that. What were you doing before everything went insane?”

Aegon gestures vaguely. “I was considering a number of opportunities.”

“He was living on my couch,” Aemond says.

Rio shakes his head, grinning. “No job? No school? No nothing?”

“I wasn’t doing nothing. I played a lot of golf.”

“He was totally doing nothing,” Jace says. “I was in my third year of law school at Harvard, Baela was getting a master’s in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, Rhaena just started an Anthropology PhD, Luke was getting a master’s in Screenwriting at Boston University—he was going to be very sad and very broke, but still, he had a plan—and Aegon was doing…nothing.”

“I’ve never had a real birthday party before,” Aegon tells you; and there is something in his murky blue eyes that is tremendously sad, wounded, childlike. “I might not get another chance.”

“What do you want to do?” Now people are alarmed, skittish glances and mouths open to object. You are encouraging him.

“I don’t know yet,” Aegon says. But he’s glad you bothered to ask. You can see it on his face.

It’s not until several hours later—after noon, the sun high and blazing, everyone’s unpracticed feet aching and blistering in their shoes—that Aegon experiences a revelation like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary or Sir Isaac Newton extrapolating gravity from an apple falling on his head. Aegon’s epiphany appears in the form of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio called Luxury Lanes. It is remarkably unluxurious, a nondescript black rectangular building with a few doors in the front, one small tinted window on each, and no other openings. To Aegon, it is an oasis in a desert.

“I want to go bowling!”

“Aegon, we’re not going bowling,” Baela says, breathing heavily but trying to hide it, her hands massaging the small of her back. Aemond is watching her worriedly. Baela is the only person not burdened with carrying any supplies beyond her hammer and shiny new Ruger—and she resisted this accommodation at first—but still, she suffers more than anyone.

“Once again, it is my birthday—”

“Aren’t bowling allies soundproofed?” Rio asks Aemond. “You know, so they don’t get noise complaints?”

“Uh, I guess so…?”

“It’s kind of a fortress, isn’t it?” Rio continues. “Not many ways in or out. We wouldn’t be seen or heard. Might be a good place to stop for the night. ”

“Yeah!” Aegon says. “Right, Aemond?”

Aemond looks at you. It takes you a moment to figure out why. “I think the bowling alley is a good idea,” you tell him. “It’ll be safe, assuming we can clear it. And Aegon can have his party.”

Aemond is skeptical. “A party?”

“Survival isn’t just about not dying. It’s also about holding onto the things that make us human.”

“Like bowling!” Rhaena says excitedly. “It’s preserving a tradition! And I used to be so good at bowling. I bowled a 250 game once.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Aegon says, still delighted to have her on his side.

“There’s a sign for a Walmart maybe half a mile up the road,” Daeron points out. “We could search it for supplies and then double back here.”

Aemond polls the audience. Everyone agrees.

Shenandoah is tiny, rural, religious, and out of the way from the major highways. The Walmart doors are chained shut with padlocks, and amazingly no one has taken that as an invitation to drive their car through them or otherwise shatter the glass yet. Rio is honored to be the first. He takes the butt of his Remington shotgun and punches through the glass of the locked doors, kicks away loose shards, whistles and shouts to lure out any zombies. A dozen of them come reeling out of the aisles and towards the doorway. Daeron shoots down most of them with his compound bow. Rio kills two with the butt of his Remington, his new favorite toy. Aegon, the birthday boy, uses his golf club to beat in the skull of a teenager who is still wearing glittery pink nail polish and fake eyelashes. According to her nametag, her friends and family once called her Raelynn.

Inside the Walmart, Jace and Aemond take one side of the store, you and Rio the other, doing a quick sweep to make sure you didn’t miss any undead employees or customers waiting for the chance to sink their teeth into you. And when that’s done, you begin shopping.

The shelves are probably two-thirds empty, but there are still treasures to be found. You push carts through the aisles and fill them with candles, lighters, Chef Boyardee, Doritos, canned soup, fruit snacks, tuna pouches, 5 gum, bottles of Snapple, socks and underwear, hair ties, t-shirts and shorts, Kleenex tissues, pads and tampons, toilet paper. Baela finds some cute maternity dresses. Helaena picks through the pharmacy for useful medications, Aemond shadowing her with a baseball bat in his hands and his Glock at his waist.

“Chips, they got Cheddar Whales!” Rio exclaims, tossing several boxes into your cart.

“I miss grocery stores,” Rhaena says as she climbs the shelves to get the last box of Teddy Grahams.

“I miss going to the mall and getting Auntie Anne’s pretzel nuggets,” Aegon commiserates. Then he stumbles upon the liquor aisle and his eyes light up like high beams. “Aemond!”

Aemond appears—perhaps a bit flustered—and deliberates for a while as he browses the selection, Aegon waiting anxiously, before he decides: “Since it is allegedly your birthday, you can drink tonight. And you can pick one other person to drink with you. But only one.”

“Rio,” Aegon says immediately.

“Come on!” Daeron whines.

Aegon is already putting bottles of Captain Morgan rum into a cart. “Sorry. Illegal. Underage.”

“I’ve helped you butcher countless zombies, but I can’t drink?!”

“Just Say No, as Nancy Reagan would tell an innocent child such as yourself.”

Jace strides over, sly and playful, gnawing on a Twizzler. “Aemond, were you over there rummaging through the medicine aisles again? What do you keep looking for? Condoms?”

There is an awkward silence, an extremely awkward silence. Aemond glares at Jace. Jace’s eyes go wide.

“Oh, I, uh…I was definitely joking. But…congrats on the possible future sex!”

“I already checked,” Luke tells Aemond apologetically. “You know condoms were the first thing to get bought up or looted everywhere.”

“Okay, great,” Aemond says quickly, willing the conversation to be over. There is blood, hot and mortified, flaring in his cheeks. He was thinking of you, he had to be; the only other single woman here is his sister, and obviously that’s not an option.

Jace takes another bite of his Twizzler. “Just pull out, man.”

Baela, incredulous, gestures to her belly. “Because that worked out super well for us.”

“I told you to stop riding me!”

“Yeah, a whole two seconds before you impregnated me with your super-swimmer Michael Phelps sperm.”

“Please don’t make me listen to this,” Luke begs. “I’m starting to wish I really was bitten.”

“Don’t you know all the tricks to not getting someone pregnant, Aemond?” Jace says. “Wasn’t that going to be your specialty? You wanted to be a vagina doctor? So don’t you know all the mysteries of the vagina, Aemond?”

“He was going to be an OB/GYN,” Baela says, unamused.

“Really?” Rio turns to Aemond. “Why would you want to do that?”

“So he gets to look at pussies all day,” Aegon says morosely, as if heartbroken that such a path is inaccessible to him.

“That’s not why,” Aemond insists, mostly to you.

You smile. “I didn’t think so. What’s the actual reason?”

“Interns do rotations in different departments so we can figure out what we enjoy and what we’re best suited for. I knew within two days of my OB/GYN rotation that that’s where I wanted to be. Giving birth is the only life-threatening trauma that is necessary for humanity to continue. I wanted to help people get through it as safely and painlessly as possible.” Then his gaze darts to Baela. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound worse—”

“No, it’s okay, I’m very much aware. It hurts like hell, people die. Believe me, I’d be thinking about that even if you hadn’t said it. I think about it all the time.”

“I have an idea you’re not going to like.”

“What?” Baela says. Aemond nods to the nearest shopping cart. “No way. You’re not going to push me around in one of those.”

“I believe it’s an adequate solution until an alternative appears.”

She sighs. “I’ve lost my body, my career, my society, my parents…must I lose my dignity too?”

Aemond winks. “Only when you’re too tired to walk.”

“Alright, Aemond. I realize you’re under the impression that this is a favor. So thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Let me give you a favor in return.” Then Baela begins shooing everyone except you and Aemond out of the liquor aisle. “Grab anything else you want, we’re leaving in five minutes! Jace, come look at the baby clothes with me…”

When the two of you are alone, Aemond says: “I really hope that didn’t make you feel too weird. I’m not someone who gets uncomfortable about the…um…the subject matter in general. But I wouldn’t want you to think that I was trying to…I don’t know. Assume anything or pressure you into something that you weren’t already open to. Obviously I like…um…I mean, enthusiastic consent is essential, and I just…I would never try to convince anybody or…you know what, I’m just going to stop talking now. Okay?”

“Aemond, I’m fine. I didn’t think it was weird.”

“It’s a compliment,” he confesses, flushing pink again, touching his chin, perspiration gleaming at his temples.

Now you have to show interest so he knows you’re on the same page. You’ve never had to think this way before, you’ve never liked anyone enough to play the game. “So hypothetically, if someone didn’t want to get pregnant but there were no condoms, pills, etcetera…what are the options?”

He looks at you, pleasantly surprised. “Well, there’s the rhythm method. It’s not perfect, but it’s been around forever and is reasonably reliable if done correctly.”

You are only vaguely familiar. “We didn’t get a lot of sex ed down in Kentucky.”

Aemond chuckles then leans in, a mischievous curl of his lips, a craving in the crystalline river blue of his eye. He grips the shelf above your head, his arm a canopy. His voice is hushed. The front windows of the Walmart face west where the sun is setting; golden light floods in to illuminate the store. “Is your cycle regular?”

“It is, actually.” This should be embarrassing, but it’s not; it’s exhilarating. You’re imagining him seeing you, touching you, unearthing secrets you’ve never been tempted to share with anyone else.

“So if we imagine it like a circle…” He draws one on the back of your hand, invisible, mesmerizing, blue-white lightning crackling up the path of your metacarpals, wrist, ulna and radius, humerus and clavicle, descending ribs like the rungs of a ladder to jolt the sinus rhythm of your heart. “The start of your period would be Day One.”

“Okay,” you say, hypnotized as his fingerprint skates in an arc across the bumps of your knuckles.

“Ovulation doesn’t happen until around Day Fourteen. You might have noticed some increased arousal and…wetness. Clear in color, elastic consistency.”

Your eyes are trapped in his face, smooth skin, jagged scar tissue. You tease him back, stepping closer. You can hear people snickering in the next aisle as they eavesdrop. You don’t care about them, and neither does Aemond anymore. “Now that you mention it…”

“That’s nature trying to trick you into reproducing. Day Fourteen is crunch time. Once ovulation occurs, the egg is only good for up to twenty-four hours. And then the rest of the cycle you’re effectively useless, as far as making miniature humans is concerned.”

“Wait, you’re telling me people can only get pregnant one day a month?” This seems improbable. “How has the species managed to survive this long?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Aemond admits. “Depending on the health of the specimens, sperm can survive up to five days inside a woman’s body. And it’s difficult to tell exactly when ovulation occurs. So, in practice, there’s basically one week a month when you’d want to avoid a man…completing the act, if you will.” He’s still smiling, taunting, famished, imagining the same scenes you are. You know this with a categorical certainty, as if you’re reading his thoughts like stark stripes of distance on a measuring tape. “And that’s also the week when your hormones are demanding you have sex, inspiring you to make all sorts of impulsive yet extremely consequential decisions.”

“Don’t I know it,” Baela laments from the next aisle, and there is a rupture of wild giggles.

“Anyway.” Aemond lifts his finger from the back of your hand and you have to stop yourself from reaching for him as he recedes from you. “There’s a basic overview.”

“It was very educational.” You follow him out of the liquor aisle.

“I’ve used the rhythm method for years,” Rhaena says as everyone makes their way towards the front of the store with their carts. “Clearly that’s just anecdotal, so don’t think I’m officially endorsing it. When I’m in my fertile week we add condoms. Well…we used to. Back when we could get them.”

“Ugh, I hate condoms,” Baela grumbles.

“We can tell,” Aegon says.

“I hate the way they feel, I hate the way they smell…”

“They’ve never bothered me,” Rhaena says. “I don’t notice that much of a difference. And it can be fun to try different kinds.”

“Are you on drugs?” Baela whirls to you. “Seriously, what is wrong with her? I’m right, aren’t I? Condoms are awful.”

Rio gives you a cautious look, uncharacteristically reticent. He’s not going to be the one to reveal it. He doesn’t know if it’s something you’re willing to share. But if anything is going to happen with Aemond—and you want it to, already you know you want him—then it’s something you think you should be honest about. You want him to know about you. You don’t want to have to create some false version of yourself to wear like a pelt, heavy, smothering, something that will inevitably need to be taken off.

“I am regretfully not qualified to say.”

“You’ve never used condoms?” Baela asks, a bit dubious.

“I’ve never done any of it.”

Everyone freezes at the defunct checkout counters and turns to gawk at you. “No sex?” Jace says. “No nothing?”

You shrug, smiling a little self-consciously. “I made out with a guy once.”

“The Marine from Corpus Christi?” Baela asks. They’re obsessed with him, they’re convinced there’s some lore to be excavated, translated, displayed like a relic in a museum. There isn’t. Sometimes people pass in and out of your life as seamlessly as shadows or sunlight, no weight, no indentations, nothing to recall or relay. He existed and then he didn’t. He was an airplane drawing contrails in the sky that faded before the blood red fire of dusk filled the horizon.

“No. Someone from home. Just a guy, not even worth mentioning.”

“Girl, you gotta fix that, soon, pronto, like yesterday.” Jace seems genuinely horrified. “You can’t die a virgin.”

“You really can’t,” Daeron adds, and Aegon pretends to be distraught over the loss of his youngest brother’s virtue.

“That’s what I’m always telling her!” Rio says.

“Not everybody wants to have sex,” Helaena murmurs as she records today’s findings in her spider notebook.

“True,” Jace concedes. “And that is totally legit. Mother Teresa, Queen Elizabeth, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Joan of Arc, Sir Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, the Jonas Brothers for a while, all great people. But Chips is not celibate by choice, correct?”

“Buddha had a wife and son,” Aemond says, preoccupied. He isn’t looking at you now, which is concerning; he’s peering down at where his hands grip his shopping cart, his brow creased with…what is that? Unease, disapproval, concern, thoughtfulness, fear?

“It’s not some big thing,” you backpedal. “I don’t have a hangup about it, I just never met a guy I liked enough, and enlisted men, they’re…well, a lot of them are taken, or cheaters, or idiots. Or all three.”

“Not to worry, Chipper.” Aegon claps a hand on your shoulder; and you aren’t sure if it is his purpose to break the tension, but he seems to have that effect regardless. “If you ever wish to be initiated into the art of lovemaking by a slightly below average and entirely unintimidating penis, I’d be thrilled to assist you. I love condoms. But in their absence, I am the king of pulling out. 100% success rate. Zero bastard children running around to my knowledge.”

“You should give Jace lessons,” Baela says.

And the last thing Aegon takes from the Walmart is a green battery-powered Toshiba CD player so he can blast to his mixtapes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Flickering candles lining the middle lane, drinks and snacks strewn across the tables, Rio’s Moonbeam propped up so it’s aimed at the disco ball still hanging from the ceiling from a time before the dead started devouring the living. Daeron is at the end of the lanes to reset the pins after each player’s turn. Helaena is keeping score in her notebook; Rhaena is currently in the lead by a massive 80 points. Aegon is wasted, dancing on a table and crunching Cool Ranch Doritos beneath his bare feet, his blonde hair flopping. Each time it’s his turn to bowl, Aegon has to roll the ball down the lane with two hands like a child. Rio, several shots deep but unable to feel much shy of half a bottle, is singing along with him to Cruise by Florida Georgia Line, but it’s really more like shouting, each sentence an off-key monstrosity that makes you laugh.

“Baby, you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise!

Down a back road, blowin’ stop signs through the middle, every little farm town with you!

And this brand new Chevy with a lift kit, would look a hell of a lot better with you up in it!

So baby, you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise!”

You cleared Luxury Lanes easily; the only difficult part was figuring out how to get into the area called the pit where, in normal times, felled pins were mechanically collected and sorted. There were two former employees roaming around back there in their tattered uniforms, snarling and drooling blood. Both were rapidly neutralized.

Someone always has to be by the front doors, watching through the small tinted windows for signs of trouble, whether from zombies or living humans. Aemond is currently on guard, nursing a Snapple. According to the bottle, the flavor is called Takes 2 To Mango. You grab your own Snapple—plain and simple Lemon Tea, no charming gimmicks—and walk over to join him.

“So now I guess it’s my turn to say I hope that conversation didn’t make you feel weird.”

He smiles politely, glancing out the window. “No, I’m completely fine.”

“Good. Because I don’t want you to look at me differently than you would any other girl, like I’m better than them, or worse than them, or like there’s anything wrong with me, because it really isn’t something I consider to be paramount to my identity, and people always seem to get all twisted up about it, but it’s a pretty boring story, I just…”

“You’ve never liked someone enough to take the risk. I get it. I don’t think you’re a freak or anything.”

“Okay. Good.” The next song on Aegon’s mixtape is Shaboozey’s A Bar Song. Jace is dancing with Baela, spinning her around as she giggles. With Rhaena’s coaching, Luke bowls his first strike. You rest your head on the door as you gaze up at Aemond, the phantom of a smile on your lips. “I might like you enough.”

And he says as if it’s the worst thing in the world, a plague, an infection, an apocalypse: “You’d fall in love with me.”

It hurts, of course it does, this flippant rejection. He burns you, he cuts you, he stitches you up with no anesthetic. You try not to show it. “You’re…confident.”

“No, I don’t mean because of anything specific I would do, it’s just…it’s natural to form a certain…attachment. To the first person you’re with. It leaves an impression.” Not an impression like a first judgment, superficial and swift; an impression like an imprint, a hollow, a prehistoric fossil that is preserved through eons. “That was already true before. And everything is more intense now, because life is so…” Aemond takes a while to settle on a word. “Precarious.”

You say like a challenge: “Are you still in love with the first girl you slept with?”

A shadow that ripples through his face, a flinching he tries to hide. You shouldn’t have asked. Still, you feel like you need to know, like you’ll run out of oxygen if you don’t. “I think I’ve gotten enough distance from it to realize that she wasn’t…wasn’t good for me in a lot of ways. It was an unconventional situation. But I still carry all these pieces of her around with me, yes. I don’t think that will ever go away.”

“Aemond,” you say gently. “Who was she?”

He is evasive, smirking. “It’s a cliché.”

“Was she a patient? That’s very Grey’s Anatomy of you.”

“No. She was my professor.”

An older woman, wise and experienced and captivating and sophisticated. He’s cut you again, a blade slicing effortlessly through veins like soft butter. “Oh. From med school?”

“Undergrad.”

“You were really young,” you say, a little startled.

He nods. “I was eighteen when it started. I was this shy, insecure, friendless freshman, she was married with two kids around my age. And it was off and on, but there was never anyone else for me, she took up too much space in my head, in my chest, like I couldn’t breathe unless I knew we were okay.”

“It went on for seven years?”

This seems to stun him, hearing how much of his existence she bottled like a terrarium. “I guess so.”

Is she dead? Missing? Safe somewhere with her husband and kids? “Is she…gone?”

His gaze drops to the floor. “Yeah.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“I was the one who killed her when she turned.”

It’s indescribably horrible; you don’t know what to say. “Aemond, I’m…I’m really sorry…”

He is abruptly nonchalant, the blue of his eye cool and dispassionate. “Look, I’m not prepared for this to be anything more than casual. And I don’t think casual is really in the cards for us. So it’s probably best to leave it alone.”

“Right,” you agree numbly, not meaning it.

“We’re headed different places, I’m going to California, you’re planning to end up in Oregon, it’s just…a bad idea to muddy the waters, I think.”

“Because I haven’t done this before.”

He shrugs ambiguously. “It’s a contributing factor.”

“Well you seemed pretty interested before you found that out, so.”

“I don’t mean to offend you.”

“You aren’t offending me. You’re disappointing me.”

Now Aemond is offended. “By trying to protect us?”

“No, by saying you don’t think I’m a freak when you clearly do, and by having some savior complex, or a whore-Madonna complex, or whatever’s going on in your head, it’s always such a mystery to everyone else.”

He downs the rest of his Snapple and shoves the bottle into the nearest trash can. You hear it thump against the bottom, no garbage bag. “Alright. This was fun.”

“Maybe you’re afraid of making a mistake, just like I always was.”

“Maybe I don’t want to have to teach you how to do everything,” Aemond snaps.

“I taught you how to shoot.”

“The fact that you don’t realize how wildly different those two situations are proves you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, bye. Sorry about your zombie girlfriend.”

Aemond glares at you, shocked, furious. “That was so fucking low.”

It was. You regret it. But you can’t bring yourself to tell him that. You flee to the far end of the bowling alley and sit alone at a table draped in shadows. After a while, Rio notices and ventures over to see what’s wrong, a bottle of Captain Morgan swinging from one hand. He’s tipsy now.

Rio sighs as he takes a seat beside you, reaching over to rub your back. His hands are large and indelicate; what he means to be comforting is more like getting manhandled. Sometimes he leaves bruises, but it’s not his fault. Nature gave Rio the body of a killer. If anyone is going to survive the zombie apocalypse, it’s him. “What’s going on, Chips?”

Your voice breaks as you say it; tears sting in your eyes. “I hate caring about people.”

He bursts out laughing. “Yeah, it’s the worst, isn’t it? But once in a while it works out.”

“Bryan.”

And now he knows you’re serious. You have his full attention, large dark eyes fixed on your face, lines etching into his brow beneath the artificial starlight of the disco ball. “What are you asking me?”

“We can’t leave them and walk to the West Coast ourselves, can we?”

“I mean, technically we could, but it would be really stupid. Everything’s so much easier with ten people. And also I think I’d have to kidnap Aegon and take him with us, I love that little dude. Why? Do you really want to leave them?”

“No.”

“I figured.” He offers you the half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan.

“I’m not drinking that.”

“Come on. It’ll take the edge off.”

You look at him. Rio looks back, smiling now.

“I’ll watch out for you,” he says. “And if you get bit I’ll shoot you dead, no hesitation, swear to God. I remember our promise. I won’t let you die alone.”

“You’re a good guy.”

“I know.” He nudges your arm with the bottle of Captain Morgan. “A few swigs won’t hurt. It’ll help you sleep.”

You take the bottle, twist off the cap, drink down amber-gold poison that burns like gasoline, like fire.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond targaryen #aemond x y/n #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n

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angstywaifu · 8 months ago

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Black Dahlia - 14. Little Girl Gone.

Dahlia has survived and bonded a dragon, but now she must face her father who awaits her back in the flight field. With a dragon very much known to the both of them.

Set Pre Fourth Wing/Books

Garrick Tavis x OC (Dahlia Aetos)

Black Dahlia Masterlist | Masterlist

”It will do for now.” I joke back, his breath wafting over me as he chuckles behind me.

I can’t help but feel a sense of Deja vu as I turn to face him. The clearing so similar to the one all those years ago as I take him in. Only this time he’s far closer than he was that day. Ironically it almost feels like a dream seeing him here in front of me. Like I would wake up any moment back in my bed.

But he was real. And he was mine. As if sensing my thoughts he inhales loudly, his chest puffing out proudly with the movement. His sapphire blue scales catching the setting sun as the silence settles around us.

”We should start heading back. You’ve ventured a fair way in.” His voice startling out of my trance.

I raise an eyebrow at him before taking a few steps back to prepare to mount him. “No thanks to you.” I retort.

He lowers his head, eyes narrowing at me at my words. I know he won’t harm me, but I can’t help the panic that briefly sets in as he eyes me.

”You survived didn’t you?” He snaps at me before extending his leg out for me to mount.

”For the most part.”

I now knew what the gauntlet had prepared us for. The last part almost perfectly replicating the run I needed to do to mount him. Though clearly it was made for dragons a fair bit smaller than my own. I take off, doing what I can to gain as much speed as I can before grasping onto his scales and climbing up his back.

”I can see. You might want to clear up that blood before we head back.”

Shit, I’d nearly forgotten about my nose. I slowly reach up and touch it. It hurts, but it’s luckily not broken. I grasp the sleeve of my shirt, tearing it off to wipe away the blood. I definitely didn’t get all of it, but hopefully it looked better than it did. I lower myself down onto the smooth divot of his back, reaching out to grab the thick ridge of scales Kaori had referred to as the pommel.

Clearly happy I’m seated properly, he bends slightly before launching us up into the sky. I try to hold back the yelp that escapes my lips, but it escapes before I can stop it. Nothing could have prepared me for this moment. But at the same time it feels so natural to me. As if I was made to sit on this dragons back. As if this was what I was always made to do. The sound of his beating wings and the rush of air is all I can hear as we rise above the trees.

As I look around I spy a few other dragons with riders heading towards the flight field. But with how few there are and the setting sun, I know we’re one of the last ones to head back. Meaning anyone still down there is most likely unbonded or dead. With the dragons too far away, I’m unable to tell with riders are on their backs. I hope Bodhi, Austin and Liz made it. No, they did. They would all be down in that flight field waiting for me.

”Why did you protect me the other day?” I ask as we bank towards the flight field.

It had been a question on my mind since Presentation Day. And honestly a question on everyone’s minds. No dragon had ever protected a cadet on Presentation Day. Especially not like that. But it was extremely rare a cadet would have met or known their dragon prior to that day. Only a handful like myself, a child of a Dragon Rider, had seen a dragon up close before coming here.

”I thought it would have been obvious to you by now.” I had a feeling if I could see his face, his words would have been accompanied by an eye roll. Can dragons even roll their eyes?

”Well it’s been a few years. Wasn’t sure if you actually remembered me.” I retort before he throws us into another bank, causing my to fumble for my grip on the pommel. Bastard.

”Little flower, I watched you grow up for most of your life. You might be older but you still look the same.”

”That doesn’t answer why you defended me. And stop calling me little flower.” I snap back as we level out, starting out decent to the flight field.

”I defended you because I knew you we’re my rider. I have been waiting for you since the day my last rider passed. I would have done anything to make sure no harm came to you little flower.”

Clearly we were not giving up on the little flower nickname.

Without warning his wings starting beating faster and faster before launching us upwards at an alarming rate. It’s now I remember Kaori had warned us all the dragons would put us through our paces, making sure we could keep our seat and to put on a show for those below. I sneak a glance to my left, below us hundreds of dragons and riders line the field. Most likely all with their eyes on the last of us to make it back.

His wings stop beating as we hand in mid air, a weird feeling of weightlessness falling over me. I feel the slight change in gravity as we go to drop, but instead of falling with it he spreads his wings beating them loudly as we flip backwards into our decent, another yelp escaping my lips as we start falling towards the ground in a spinning motion. I was now secretly glad I’d barely eaten breakfast as I would no doubt be struggling to keep it down right now.

Just when I think we’re going to crash into the ground he spreads his wings wide, pulling us upright as we descend into the ground. A ferocious roar of celebration echoes around us as we descend. Hundreds of dragons line the edge of the field, as well as spectators who have filled the stands to watch the bonded riders. As we touch down onto the ground, I notice the formation of dragons. On our side are the new first years with their newly bonded dragons. Across from us are the dragons and riders in second and third year. If it wasn’t for the fact he was my squad leader, I would have thought my dragon picked out spot based on the other dragons colour. Across from us is a dragon I’d only heard Bodhi and others speak about. The biggest and most ruthless dragon in the quadrant. Sgaeyl. Though with how she was eyeing us off, I had a feeling we now rivalled that position.

As my feet touch the ground, I’m met with a different set of eyes. The ones belonging to the rider of Sgaeyl. Xaden. He offers me one of his signature smirks and a brief nod of his head before his attention shifts to his right, where another set of eyes are looking at me. Garrick, who has his usual unimpressed look on his face as I meet his eyes. I give him a vulgar gesture which only worsens the look on his face before I turn to my way down to the roll keeper.

”Do I want to know what you’re problem is with him?”

”Everything. Now what do I call you before I make a fool of myself in front of the roll keeper and that thing I call a father.” I snap back as I start down the make shift path down the middle of the flight field where a line of cadets waits to give their dragons name.

Movement on the dais catches my attention. I knew he would be here. Knew he would be waiting for Dain and I to bond our dragon. I hadn’t even bothered to see if Dain had made it back on my way down. And I wasn’t turning my back on my father to check.

His eyes don’t meet mine. Still too focused on the dragon behind me. I don’t have to be an inninstic to know what he’s thinking. I know exactly what he’s thinking and the lecture I’m definitely getting after I tell the roll keeper his name.

The rider ahead of me finishes telling the roll keeper their dragons name, moving aside to let me move forward. She looks up and offers me a smile. “Ah, Dahlia Aetos. Congratulations on bonding a dragon.” She says as she writes my name down. “For the record, please tell me the name of the dragon who chose you.”

Behind her my father steps forward, close enough to hear the name leave my mouth. I hold my ground, shifting my eyes from the roll keeper to his. The same brown eyes Dain and I inherited. Eyes that I cowered under as a kid. Eyes I had hoped and wanted to look at me with love and adoration while I was a kid. But not now. Now I couldn’t care less how he looked at me, as long as I proved him wrong.

“Now would be a good time to tell me your name.”

”Prothoenor.”

I square my shoulders and lift my chin, the corner of my mouth lifting into a smirk I know my father hates before I announce his name.

”His name is Prothoenor.”

She nods happily, before writing down his name next to mine and motioning for me to move along. I pivot on my heal, tearing my gaze from my fathers. I barely get ten steps away before I hear rushed steps behind me as a hand roughly grabs my arm and spins me around.

I resist the urge to shove my hands out and shove my father away, knowing I will face far worse punishment for disrespecting leadership. It didn’t matter if he was my father. I was a rider and he was a Colonel who out ranked me. It seems the last few days were out to get me with Deja Vu. The last time I had seen so much hatred and rage in his eyes was back in that clearing. The day mother had died. They had he had told me I was no daughter of his.

”What are you playing at bonding that dragon?” He snarls at me as he tightens his grip on my arm as I try to tug it free.

”I am not playing at anything.” I snap back.

”Don’t mess with me girl. You know who that dragon belong to before you.”

I tug again on my arm, finally succeeding at getting it free as I step back. “Yes I am aware who his rider was before me. He was the last family I had left before his suspicious death.”

He recoils slightly at my words before leaning back towards me and pointing a finger at me. “Your grandfathers death was not suspicious. And as I’ve told you before, we will not be discussing his death ever again.”

”You can’t tell me, that sending his squad to an abandoned outpost near no enemy activity and none of them surviving isn’t suspicious.”

Everything about his death sent alarm bells off in my head, especially as I got older. Something never sat quite right with me about it. But any time I’d brought it up I was locked in my room until he’d seen fit to let me out again. And now I had bonded his dragon, I knew his was scared I might find out the truth behind it all.

He goes to step towards me but comes up short as he averts his gaze over my head. Gasps sound around me as those around us turn their gaze behind me. So far our little conversation had gone unnoticed. Until now. The familiar shake of the ground tells me who is approaching. His words from earlier echoing in my head.

I would have done anything to make sure no harm came to you little flower.

And apparently that also extended to my own father. My father who quickly steps back, giving me a fleeting glare before walking back to his place on the dais.

@imtoanonymousforyou @simplyme-fornow @omalmal @lalaluch @wolfbc97 @leptitlu @fullmoon-94 @the-fandom-ness

#fourth wing fanfic #fourth wing #garrick tavis #garrick tavis x reader #garrick tavis imagine #the fourth wing #the empyrean #garrick tavis x oc #fourth wing x reader #fourth wing imagine #dain aetos #colonel aetos #xaden riorson #bodhi durran

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cimoris · 17 days ago

Text

- ⚜︎ Pre-Beast Yeast Era ⚜︎ -

A reference sheet ============================================== Characters: Black Sapphire Cookie, Y/n, Candy Apple Cookie, Pure Vanilla Cookie, GingerBrave, Wizard Coookie, Strawberry Cookie Series/AU: Chasing Home [Masterlist] ==============================================

After Pure Vanilla Cookie disappeared in the Dark Flour War, Y/n is reunited with Black Sapphire Cookie. She is finally introduced to Candy Apple Cookie.

Now with the same goal, the trio siblings finally have some time to bond and reconcile.

Y/n feels guilty for betraying and leaving Candy Apple Cookie behind, so she spoils the girl rotten. (She trades the gifts and trinkets she received from the Ancients for money, making sure that none of her siblings will ever starve again.)

Candy Apple Cookie absolutely adores Y/n. Totally not because Y/n spoils her.

Black Sapphire Cookie does not trust Y/n due to her previous attachment to the Ancient. Thus, he places surveillance over her.

During one of their investigation, the trio ran into Pure Vanilla Cookie. They tried to discreetly slip away, but Pure Vanilla can recognize Y/n in the crowds.

Pure Vanilla Cookie was ecstatic and quickly introduced Y/n as his mentee to the three kids who joined him in his adventure. Y/n is slightly overwhelmed.

Black Sapphire Cookie and Candy Apple Cookie watched from afar as Y/n was being welcomed back by her old father figure, and Black Sapphire Cookie expected Y/n to betray them again. But their sister sneaks out of the little ragtag group and meets them in the middle of the night, saying she is loyal to them. She will not betray them again.

With the reassurance, Y/n is sent back to the ragtag group to join them as a spy, since there is a mention of visiting Beast Yeast.

Wizard Cookie immediately becomes Y/n's favourite. Mostly because he is so curious about absolutely everything about magic.

Like her father, Y/n is eager to teach.

GingerBrave and Strawberry Cookie looked up to Y/n. They think that she is really cool and look up at her like some sort of big sister.

Y/n feels guilty for betraying this ragtag group, but her family comes first.

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heliads · 21 days ago

Text

A Sea of Lies (1) - nikolai lantsov

As a Second Army Tidemaker, you're certain your latest mission to go undercover as a Ravkan spy in Sturmhond's fleet is nothing more than a fool's errand. The dread privateer certainly has tricks up his teal sleeves, but maybe not the ones you'd expected.

masterlist / part two

You start your day thinking the Darkling is making a joke, and that is how you know your life is over.

Nothing about today was a laughing matter, you should have sensed it from the start. You’ve been sleeping off your last mission for the last week, alternating between stopping by the Healers to fix up your wounds and helping to train some of the new Etherealki as Baghra loses her patience, but you’ve managed to piece together plenty of time to rest. The Second Army is always low on soldiers, whether from enemy attacks, or, shamefully enough, friendly fire from the First, so there’s never as much time to recover as you’d like.

The Darkling had called you into his War Room to receive your latest assignment. As one of his best spies, you’ve gained enough of his begrudging respect to be allowed into this hallowed hall of secrets, but you know better than to peer too closely at anything. Grisha have disappeared for less.

You swear it’s always colder in here, far from the never-silent throngs of Grisha outside, coaxed away from the slightest hints of sunlight. Maybe it’s just him. Regardless, you pull the sapphire fabric of your kefta closer to you, fingers running nervously over the fine blue stitching. You knew you were a Tidemaker ever since you were a child, and you could hardly be anything else now. The Darkling keeps you too busy to forget a thing like that.

He’s waiting for you when you arrive, dark eyes as shrewd as always, and he doesn’t say a word until the heavy door closes behind you. “Good morning, Y/N. I trust you’ve had enough time to recover since your last assignment?”

You nod on instinct. “Yes, thank you.”

It’s a lie. Your bones still ache from where you’d been thrown, the fractures so fresh from healing that you can feel the joins from standing alone. The Darkling isn’t interested in excuses, though. All he wants is a soldier, and you are that.

He inclines his head in acceptance. “I’m glad to hear it. I have use of your talents as a Tidemaker, although this time not on the warfront.”

You lean forward curiously, unable to stop yourself. “Sir?”

The Darkling gestures for you to come closer, indicating a map of Ravka and its harbors on the table in front of him. Several areas along the coastline have been marked with red, even stretching so far as to touch the borders of Fjerda up north and Shu Han down below you.

“These markings indicate targets of recent attacks by the pirate, Sturmhond, and his armies. He’s been intercepting merchant or military ships, often ones carrying Grisha, and taking their vessels and crews under his command. He’s grown more bold during recent months, enough to garner my attention and that of the king.”

The Darkling’s tone sours when he mentions the king, and you can’t help but share his sympathies. It is well known that the king of Ravka is nothing more than a greasy tyrant, but he’s a greasy tyrant that controls the fate of the Little Palace and all the Grisha within, so the Darkling must tolerate his whims, even when it obviously causes him great pain.

The Darkling clears his throat once and continues. “I’m interested in the great number of Grisha he’s managed to amass, which is why you’re going to be the one to get me information on them. You’ll head to the harbors and find a reason to convince Sturmhond to let you join his crew. Once he sees your abilities as a Tidemaker, he should be more than eager to let you aboard. After that, you’ll send me regular updates on the number of Grisha under his rule, as well as their designations and levels of expertise.”

It’s so absurd you almost laugh, and you’re glad you don’t, because the look in the Darkling’s eyes is nothing less than serious. “You want me to lie to one of the greatest liars on the True Sea?”

The Darkling stares at you coldly. “Are you questioning my assignment, Y/N?”

Your breath freezes in your chest. “Of course not,” you say hastily, “I just want– I want to be sure I understand the full expectations, that’s all. Won’t he be suspicious that someone from Ravka suddenly wants to join his ship?”

The Darkling waves this away. “Sell him a sob story about inhumane treatment from your homeland, I’m sure that damned pirate will eat it up. Criminals like him are more interested in a show than clear reason.”

You find this difficult to believe given that Sturmhond has been nothing if not faithful in his blockades and captures, but you know better than to argue with the Darkling. “Of course. And when do I leave?”

“Tomorrow at dawn,” the Darkling answers calmly. “There’s an early morning passage through the Shadow Fold, and from there you’ll make your way to the harbor. I’ll have other spies ready to guide you on your way, and they’ll be the ones to receive your reports whenever Sturmhond’s ship docks.”

Tomorrow at dawn. It’s so soon for your life to descend into chaos. “I won’t let you down, sir.”

“I know you won’t,” the Darkling says, eyeing you as you leave the room.

You retire back to your chambers and start to freak out. Sturmhond is infamous even without the Darkling’s description of his exploits. He’s legendary for backstabbings and betrayals, raids and attacks and mutines. This is no easy job. You’ve killed before, being an active spy in the midst of a war does that to you, but engaging with Sturmhond will require cruelty of a level you’re not sure you possess. And the Darkling expects you to lie to a man like that? You’re sure you’d have better luck trying to drown yourself in the Unsea.

Still, it’s not as if you have a choice. When the Darkling speaks, Grisha answer. You pack your bags mechanically, say goodbye to your friends, and take your last look at the Little Palace as you leave at dawn the next day. You can’t shake the feeling that you’ll never see it again. You’ve had dangerous missions before, yes, but this– this feels like suicide.

Even the journey to Sturmhond comes with its perils. You have to cross the Shadow Fold to even make it to the ocean. The moment the Fold swallows you whole, the darkness presses upon you, every shadow like a tangible weight on your back. You swear you hold your breath the whole trip, especially when the cries of volcra echo around you, but you’re lucky and no one gets hurt.

From there, the only thing to do is establish your cover, and try to find the most famous privateer across the whole of the True Sea. You sadly left your kefta behind in West Ravka, and miss its comforting weight already, the feel of the embroidery against your fingertips. You’re dressed instead in the typical garb of the locals, albeit with several knives hidden on your person. You may be quite powerful as a Tidemaker, but it’s not always best to make that obvious.

The Darkling had sent you to this specific town because he’d heard rumors that Sturmhond would be docking nearby, and as per usual, his information was good. Although it costs you a few drinks to win over enough informants, you find out where you could find his crew, and hopefully even the captain himself. You thank your sources kindly, and head out.

By now, it’s well into the evening, the moon casting milky ripples onto the dark water of the harbor. You can’t help yourself and take a few moments to breathe in the smell of the sea, content with the familiar feeling of so much water around you, all tugging gently at your mind with the promise of being yours to command. It is in this moment of stillness that you hear something off behind you. It sounds like a scuffle.

Your soldier’s training makes you search for the source of the disturbance in the dark. You promise yourself that you’ll let it go if it’s just a few drunken louts looking for a quick bit of trouble, but you’re glad you looked when you draw closer and realize it’s a few locals harassing a Grisha. By the looks of it, a traveling Inferni had tried to use his gifts to warm his hands, and had attracted the notice of a few less than welcoming otkazat’sya.

You’re on them in a moment, you can’t help it. You have to help other Grisha, solidarity among practitioners of the Small Science is all any of you have. You call up a thick curl of water from the bay, and thrust it between the unfriendly parties, slamming the otkazat’sya attackers to the ground in a rush of dark sea. They’re out cold in a second’s flash.

The Inferni blinks up at you, startled. “Thanks for the rescue,” they mumble at last, eyes wide in the dark night.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say, extending a hand to help them up.

They take it gladly enough, and it gives you enough time to take in their clothing. It’s mussed, rumpled, like it’s spent the better part of a few months wadded up in a trunk, and the cloth itself is bleached from excess time in the sun. It could just be your own fortuitous good luck, but you might have stumbled upon a member of the very crew you’ve been hoping to find.

You decide to take a risk. “You wouldn’t happen to sail on one of these ships, would you?”

The Inferni regards you warily. “So what if I do?”

You hold up your hands in mock surrender. “I’m not like those idiots, I’m not looking for a fight. Actually, I’m trying to find a way out of Ravka. You might not have noticed it, but it’s not always nice to be Grisha in these parts.”

A ghost of a smile flickers over the Inferni’s face. “Alright, I might know something. My ship is good for Grisha, too. You’re in luck, we’re looking for a few new sailors. I’m headed back there right now if you want to talk to the captain.”

You’d love to talk to the captain. “I’d be quite grateful if you could make that happen. What ship do you sail on?”

The words out of the Inferni’s lips are music to your ears. “The Volkvolny. I sail for Sturmhond. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

You have to be careful not to let your grin stretch too broadly. “Not in the slightest.”

The Inferni– Dobrin, you find out his name along the way– has served with Sturmhond for about a year now. He’s fleeing similar circumstances as you supposedly are. Whenever money runs low in a small town, Grisha are the first ones blamed. Sturmhond is apparently quite welcoming of Grisha. Dobrin claims the Volkvolny is the first place he’s actually felt at home with so many other Grisha. It makes you feel a pang of nostalgia for the Little Palace.

The Little Palace– you’d been there since you were a child, so you can hardly remember life without it. The few memories you do have of the time before Os Alta are often terrifying, full of disapproving town elders and an absolute horror over the power you couldn’t yet control. Your family sent you to the Darkling when you were very small, and haven’t yet tried to find you again. It’s about as silent and obvious as any door slammed in your face could be.

Once your powers as a Tidemaker became apparent, you were quickly sent on missions. There’s no age limit for soldiers, not in a war, and certainly not for the Second Army. You were needed. That’s what mattered. It’s impossible to imagine the Little Palace without coupling it with the battlefield. It was home but not, more of a stylized version of military barracks than anything else. Recently, you’ve been there less and less, typically only staying around for a week or so before receiving a new assignment. This latest trip was your shortest yet.

Hearing Dobrin talk about how he gets to practice his powers with the other Grisha on the safety of their ship, though, you start thinking about what it was like in your classes as a child, how for those first few sacred years all you knew were your limits and what it felt like to break them. You weren’t a soldier yet, just a Grisha, and it was wonderful. You’d never felt more free.

You assumed Sturmhond’s Grisha would be no better than glorified Grisha soldiers, albeit working against the law instead of for it, and you’re certain Dobrin isn’t telling you anything important or risky yet, but you can’t stop a pang in your heart imagining what it could be like to grow up free on the seas instead of as a young member of the Second Army.

There’s no use in imagining what-ifs, however, and soon enough you’re forcing yourself to focus again as Dobrin leads you onto the Volkvolny. It’s hidden cleverly in a far annex of the harbor, disguised by what you’re certain is a combination of Fabrikator skill and Squaller fog. You can just make out the shapes of several figures through the shifting gloom of night and small science as you make your way aboard. You wonder how many of them are Grisha, and how many of them suspect you already.

Dobrin guides you further into the depths of the ship, stopping at last before a door and knocking smartly on it. “I’ve gone recruiting again,” he says, mirth bubbling over in his voice, and you get the sense this has happened more than a few times.

He’s answered readily enough by someone inside calling you both to enter. Dobrin pushes open the door to the captain’s quarters and nods at you to follow him. You do so warily, looking around you for other seamen in case of an attack.

All that’s waiting inside for you is a single man. His hair is dark like rust, rough from sea-breeze yet somehow tousled in a way that feels intentionally charming. The lamplight casts harsh shadows on his face, but the effect is cut by the roguish grin on his face, as well as the lurid teal coat he somehow pulls off. This can only be Sturmhond.

Sturmhond stares at you intently, and although the Darkling’s spies were certain he was otkazat’sya, you can’t shake the feeling that he’s regarding you with a Corporalki’s sense for blood. You’re certain he can see right through your alibi to the truth of your situation, to the truth of you. Only one kind of man can make an empire on the cold and bloody seas, and it’s not the type to take betrayal lightly. You have sealed your fate. All that’s left to do is see how long Sturmhond gives you before he slits your throat.

“Who have you brought me this time, Dobrin?” Sturmhond asks, not taking his eyes off you.

Dobrin answers immediately. “A Tidemaker, and a powerful one at that. She got me out of a tricky situation with some thugs down by the docks, and mentioned she needed a new place to stay. One a bit friendlier to Grisha, to say the least.”

“Well, I’m nothing if not approachable,” the True Sea’s most dangerous privateer hums. “That’s awfully good timing on your part, Tidemaker, to stumble across my hapless friend here just when he needed help. The Saints must be on your side.”

His words are deliberate and slow, the silent accusation obvious.

“If there are any Saints out there, they left me for dead a long time ago,” you answer steadily. “Maybe your crewmate was just lucky enough to time his catastrophe when a Tidemaker happened to be walking by.”

Sturmhond’s face splits in a laugh, although his eyes remain icy. “She’s got you there, Dobrin.”

Dobrin rolls his eyes, although he doesn’t seem annoyed. “Apologies, sir. I’ll try to burn otkazat’sya soldiers to ash next time. That’ll go over well.”

Sturmhond gestures between the two of you, the picture of innocence. “We find ourselves with a conundrum, Tidemaker. I cannot insist he commit such an obvious act of violence when we’re trying not to make enemies with the beautiful people of this town, but I do insist that my crew be safe. How do you suggest we handle this?”

“Let me stick around,” you counter. “It’s a lot easier to blame dead drunks on a misstep into the harbor than full-body immolation.”

Sturmhond claps once, twice, and you have to fight not to flinch. The sound is sudden and jarring in his quiet office, and rings around you like a parade drum. “There you have it, Dobrin. Negotiation. The last trick of the witty. I’m convinced, are you?”

“Quite,” Dobrin answers, winking at you when you manage to wrest your glance from Sturmhond long enough to glance his way.

“Wonderful,” Sturmhond says, drawing out the first syllable as long as possible before continuing, “We’ll start you on a probationary period, my dear Tidemaker, and re-evaluate after a few weeks. We’ll set sail in the morning, so you’d best stay the night here lest you miss our departure. There’s a few open hammocks, Dobrin will show you the way. Oh– one last thing.”

Sturmhond stands up slowly, deliberately, and walks around the table until he’s hardly a breath away. He regards you coolly, and just when you’re certain you’re about to die, he holds out his hand. “We’ve forgotten a proper introduction. They call me Sturmhond.”

You stare at his hand; tanned and wiry, strengthened by callouses from guns or knives or swords or all of the above, and certainly capable of killing you within moments, powers or lack thereof be damned.

“Y/N,” you say at last.

“A lovely name,” he says. “I look forward to getting to know you better, Y/N.”

You reach out and shake his hand. “Likewise.”

His grip is strong but not overly so, just enough to remind you who he is before he lets go again, allowing Dobrin to lead you from his office once more. You glance over your shoulder one last time before disappearing down the hold and see that he’s still watching you, eyes searching yet– amused, somehow. Like he knows something you don’t. Like he’s already heard this story before, but is still quite delighted by the ending.

Then the door shuts behind you and he’s cut off at once. You do your best to focus on Dobrin giving you a hasty tour and congratulating you on joining the crew. You’re introduced to a few other crewmates you pass as well, although on a ship with Squallers aboard, you’re certain whispers of your arrival have already flown from one end to the next. You’re shown to a hammock alongside the rest of the crew, and prepare to settle in for the night.

By all accounts, your mission is a success so far. However, the ease in which you were able to join Sturmhond’s crew makes you hesitate. If you wanted, you could have killed the dread privateer in a heartbeat, and if it weren’t for the fact that you want him alive for now, you would have. He has to know that, has to expect danger from all sides. Why would he possibly allow a stranger into the very heart of his ship with so little questioning? It’s as if he already knew what to expect, as if he already knew you, but that’s impossible. You’re certain you’d remember a face like that.

Yet when you think back to your last glimpse of him, you can’t help but remember his expression– entertained, somehow, but prepared. One doesn’t become the unlawful king of the seas without extensive ability to handle threats. Somehow, you get the sense that Sturmhond has the advantage over you, even though you’re the one sent to spy on him. You’ll have to turn the tables on him soon enough, but how do you trick a liar and a crook?

You’ve done all you can for the night. What matters is that you’re on board and ready to set sail. All that’s left to do is attempt to get some sleep and prepare yourself for the morning. Whatever dawn brings you, you’ll have to be up for anything, even the devious machinations of Sturmhond himself.

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