#THEY WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO SAVE HER.

[icecream4starscream]

Spoiler Warning for Transformers One. Please go see the film, it's great.

Something occurred to me when rewatching Elita-1's firing scene:

Right off the bat, she's presented as an absolute unit in the mines. We see her being a very by-the-book character. She's incredibly competent, strong, serious, focused, and an effective leader.

Maybe a little too effective.

We learn that Sentinel goes out of his way to personally take care of any "anomalies" in his system and does so in a way where the blame always gets shifted away from him.

It's why he personally went to see Pax and D-16 after the Iacon 5000 race. He makes himself out to be the open-minded, compassionate leader he's been parading as.

When Darkwing throws Orion and D-16 into sub-level 50, neither bot suspects Sentinel for their demotion. In fact, they beg Darkwing to talk to Sentinel so he can sort out the "misunderstanding".

It's later confirmed that Sentinel never had any intention of talking with Orion or D-16 after their first meeting. When Orion reunites with his fellow miners later in the film, they mention that Sentinel put out a statement saying that they both died from "racing injuries".

Sentinel might've not even openly ordered Darkwing to dispose of them. Darkwing might've been manipulated into thinking everyone was mocking him for losing the race (thanks to lowly miners) making him want to get rid of them.

Subconsciously manipulating someone like Darkwing would've been easy for Sentinel.

Sentinel clearly does not tolerate anyone rising above the station he imposes on them.

So what does this have to do with Elita-1 being fired?

We see her rigidly following the rules, meeting all quotas, running a tight and efficient crew. She's doing her job as a miner, a role unknowingly forced upon her by Sentinel, perfectly.

Shouldn't Sentinel be happy about that?

Well sure...

If Elita wasn't actively trying to get promoted.

We don't get a lot of information about how promotion works in TFOne's mining system, but we do know that in other iterations of pre-war Cybertron, one of the only ways miners could rise out of the mines was by participating in ridiculously difficult gladiatorial fights in Kaon's pits.

In other iterations, this was how D-16/Megatron was able to escape his station and how he grew to be so strong.

So basically, whatever version you look at, the miners are told "if you work really, reeeeally hard, and do your job perfectly, and don't die in the process (which, odds are, you will) you might, MIGHT get a chance to get out of the caste you were born into."

It's BS.

It's an impossible feat. No one is actually supposed to be able to achieve that goal, but it's the metaphorical carrot dangling in front of the work mules so they don't notice the ever-tightening rope around their necks.

But every so often there's someone extraordinary, like Elita, who actually manages to meet this impossible standard and with whom it becomes increasingly difficult to deny this coveted promotion.

So what can Sentinel do about bots like Elita-1?

Simple.

Wait for a screw-up.

It must happen eventually.

A member of Elita's team, Orion Pax, in clear violation of evacuation protocol, goes back into the mines to save Jazz from getting crushed to death.

Despite managing to escape, the closing mine causes a tunnel support to be flung into nearby machinery (which doesn't look critical and could probably be easily fixed).

Then, right the heck outta nowhere, Darkwing drops in, SECONDS AFTER THE INCIDENT JUST HAPPENED, and immediately fires Elita.

No "What happened?" or "Who's responsible?" or "The supervisor wants to see you", he just pops into the scene and demotes Elita, arguably one of the best workers in the mine, to a bottom-tier waste management position.

As if he'd been on standby, actively waiting for a reason to fire her.

"But Elita herself wasn't the one who screwed up!"

Doesn't matter.

"But she told them to follow protocol!"

Doesn't matter.

"But Orion admitted he was the one at fault!"

Doesn't matter.

"But a bot was saved! Jazz would've died!"

Does. Not. MATTER.

Her firing is presented as the typical "one character says thing won't happen then thing immediately happens" joke, but given how so much thought went into so much of TFOne's background details, I can't help but wonder if this was a hint to how broken the system was and how it was always rigged in a way that ensures the miners will never get out.

Not to mention, once Orion, D-16, and Jazz safely escape, she chews Orion out by saying, "If I get fired for this..." meaning this abrupt, out-of-nowhere, baseless firing is absolutely typical.

That's what makes Elita's "I'm better than you" speech to Orion that much more meaningful, because in many ways, she is better than him.

She's a better worker, better fighter, better at completing the task at hand, better at making sure things run smoothly. She is, ironically enough, an efficient and perfectly-running machine.

But had Orion not dragged Elita to the surface, she probably would've spent her whole life obediently following the rules, never questioning why things were the way they were. She was so focused on rising up within the system that she could never look beyond it.

Elita might be the cog by which other cogs turn.

But Orion is the spark that shows them a better way.

That's why he was given the Matrix.

[burningembers91]

Powder Blue Dress - Cho Hyun-Ju x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: For the first time, Cho Hyun-Ju is living the life she had always wanted. But when you move into her apartment block, will she allow herself to open up?

A/N: This is my first time writing for a transgender character, and I really hope I've done her justice. I adored her character is Squid Game

Warnings: mentions of transphobia, low self-esteem

Cho Hyun-Ju had always known she was different. She couldn’t precisely pinpoint when exactly, but she��d always had an inkling that wasn’t like her family or friends. She’d tried hard to make a life for herself, to pretend that she was happy in a body that felt completely alien to her. She tried to build relationships, shape her career and mould herself into something her family would be proud of. But the more time that passed, the more she realised that she was living a lie. This male body, it didn’t suit her, it wasn’t who she was on the inside. She was tired of looking in the mirror and not recognising the person that stared back, she was tired of people not understanding how uncomfortable she felt in her own skin.

The day she told her family she wanted to transition from male to female was a day she would never forget. There was so much anger, so much shouting. She was ejected from her parent’s house immediately and told in no uncertain terms to never darken their doorway again. She had thought her friends would be a little more understanding, but they too started to distance themselves. They called and texted less, stopped inviting her out with them. She didn’t expect much from her work and wasn’t surprised when they fired her after she told them about her dreams of transitioning into the woman she’d always known she was. she went from being surrounded by a network of family and friends to being utterly alone in the space of three weeks. Hyun-Ju packed up and moved to a small apartment on the other side of the city. She put her past out of her mind and chose to look forward instead. She grew her hair, started experimenting with makeup. She took a job in a warehouse, picking up extra shifts whenever she could to bolster up her savings into order to pay for top surgery and the hormonal medication she needed. It had been tough, and she’d taken out several loans she couldn’t afford, but the debt was worth to finally be able to look in the mirror and recognise the woman she saw smiling back.

Most days were still a challenge; people loved to stare. She understood why though, she was a 6ft female in a dress who still had a six o’clock shadow. Hyun-Ju ignored the stares and the jeers, but life was so lonely now. She found the courage to go and shop in a boutique she’d passed a few times, buying herself a few dresses and a pair of ballet flats. She was desperate to showcase her more feminine look, but where was she supposed to go when everyone was pretending she no longer existed?

She ran into you in the lobby of the apartment block one day, and her world was forever altered. “Cute dress!” you exclaimed, admiring the powder blue cotton with lace details. “It’s absolutely stunning!” Hyun-Ju felt herself blush, and her smile was so wide it made her jaw ache. No one had ever complimented her style, not before or since her transition. She wanted to ask you out for coffee, but something stopped her. Just because a person likes your clothing, it doesn’t mean they like you. But she kept running into you, and every time she did you made her blush and smile all over again. It was you who finally made the first move, inviting her out for cocktails. You were new to Seoul, and the pretty girl in the powder blue dress made your heart sing.

The two of you became inseparable, and Hyun-Ju found herself able to open up to someone for the first time in her life. You were a great listener, and you never once made her feel invalidated or wrong. You made her laugh, and the two of you spent hours together talking about everything and nothing. You were the greatest friend Hyun-Ju had ever known, and she slowly found herself wishing you could be more. But you were the beautiful girl with the sparkle in her eye and the confidence of Beyonce, and she was still scared that you’d turn her down, that she wouldn’t be enough for you.

“You have a beautiful smile,” you told her one evening, after you’d spent the night watching a comedy on Netflix and eating your bodyweight in chocolate. Hyun-Ju didn’t meet your eye as she thanked you, and you wished she could see herself the way you did. She was funny, and kind and so beautiful to you. You wanted to tell her all this, but you were terrified of pushing her away. She’d been so open and honest with you, and you didn’t want her to think you were taking advantage of her.

As she said goodnight to you, and headed back to her own apartment, Hyun-Ju studied her smile in the mirror. She wished she could see what you did, and she wished she could tell you how much you meant to her. But a lifetime of hiding your true feelings had left its mark on her. There was still so much fear and anxiety of opening up. Sure, she’d told you about her past and her transition journey but opening up to someone romantically was something she hadn’t done before. She wasn’t even sure how you felt, and she could have the situation completely wrong.

As she climbed into bed that night, she thought of you. She thought of your melodic laugh, your perfect sense of humour. She thought about the way your eyes crinkled when you smiled, the way your floral perfume wrapped her in the sweetest of hugs. She wondered how it would feel to kiss you, to have you run your hand through her hair. As she looked up at the stars shining over the city, she had no idea you were thinking of her as well.

[httpuckdrop]

ashes – day 5

it really was a coincidence that you already had his number saved in your phone when he texted you.

jack: hey

one of your best friends, jenny, had another friend who came along with you all that night. she was a loud woman with blonde curls called anna and she was, you had now learned, engaged to a hockey player in the local nhl team. you'd never cared much for sports in general, and especially not hockey. anna was quick to catch up on that fact the morning after you met jack, when you were supposed to go out for brunch with jenny and anna happened to tag along.

the boy you were chatting to last night, jack, she had started, sipping her orange juice before continuing. you did get his name, right? he's a good friend of my fiancé, a great player too.

you had thought and hoped that she would be able to read from your uninterested expression that you wished for the conversation to end as soon as it started. however, she had not been the quickest to pick up on your hints.

i've never seen jack look at someone like that before, you should totally hit him up! he's single, you know.

you'd sure hope so, considering the things you were up to in his apartment.

you had told anna that you didn't want anything to do with him, but she had insisted; at least save his number, you never know!

jenny had agreed, going off for a moment about your (empty) love life and how you haven't really looked happy since you broke up with that boyfriend over a year ago. the whole conversation had made you nauseous, and you had eventually agreed to add his number to your contacts just to shut them up.

since then, you'd forgotten about it, until the moment he texted you. you spent about fifteen minutes trying to figure out some kind of response – what even do you say to "hey"?

you: how did you get my number? lol

you felt a little guilty right after sending it, the tone maybe a little harsh; you usually greeted people back when they texted you. but maybe it was for the best. you didn't want him to get any false hopes.

your phone pinged again just a minute later.

jack: from anna! she said you two talked abt me, that i should hit you up

jack: well, i WANTED to hit you up also. :)

it kind of scared you how quick your heart was to flutter in your chest. this was not supposed to happen. before you could even answer, yet another message appeared in the chat.

jack: you free for dinner tonight?

a man not afraid of a triple text should've excited you. instead you shook your head and typed a quick response.

you: dinner?...

jack: i want to take you out for dinner, is that okay?

you shouldn't even have considered it. you never before even considered meeting a one-night-stand again, especially not for dinner. maybe it was because the other part was never interested in it, maybe it was because you thought it was against all and any code of conduct. either way, it was just easier like that.

so why did your fingers suddenly live a life of their own? why was there a message from you saying yes to his request when you looked back down at your phone again?

he surprised you that night. you knew from the first time you met that he was a good listener – though, you had assumed it was just because he was trying to woo you enough to go home with him – but he was a great talker, too. not in the sense that he talked a lot, but in the sense that whenever he did talk, you found yourself realizing he was more complicated than you initially thought. he wasn't just trying to win you over; he was trying to let you see him, piece by piece, each one carefully chosen.

you didn't know what the procedures or rules were when it came to this kind of meeting. was it a date? was it just a pre-hookup meal? was it something more? nonetheless, you weren't surprised that the dinner ended with you following him home to his apartment.

he wasn't just good at listening and talking, but at making you feel good, too. you knew you were already walking on the fine line between a regular hookup and something else – not that you were sure what the other thing would be. friends with benefits (could you even be friends with benefits if you weren't friends to start with?), fuck buddies (is there even such a thing these days?), or something completely different?

curled up into his side with a duvet lazily thrown across your stomach, you distracted yourself from your many thoughts by drawing shapes into his chest. little stars, quirky stick figures, ugly cats. "something on your mind?" he asked, a chuckle rumbling beneath his chest at the sight of you cuddling closer to him.

"this... hockey thing," you started, gazing up at him for the first time in a long while. "you're pretty good, aren't you?"

there was a shrug of his shoulder, though his expression stayed plain. "i guess so."

"you have your own wikipedia page. and you were some kind of first pick, whatever that means." this, however, forced his lips into a grin. "that's not just pretty good. that's amazing."

"i guess so."

he yelped at the feeling of your hand slapping his chest, a groan slipping past his lips. "why didn't you tell me? when we first met?"

"you didn't seem like you cared," he said honestly, and you pushed yourself up a little on the bed to look at him better. "so i didn't think it was necessary. besides, it's a job like any other."

"i told you all about my studies, and you just said that you work with hockey!" you exclaimed, fingers forming quotation marks in the air. "that's hardly fair, and it's not a common job!"

"i was wearing a team cap! i assumed that if you knew, you'd say something!"

you merely shook your head, pausing for a few moments to just stare at him. "i'll forgive you for now," you say, puckering your lips. "for the low price of five kisses."

"taken."

the thing that surprised you the most was how much you enjoyed spending time with him, how easy it felt. he was handsome and had a sweet smile and he was a great lover, sure, but you still hadn't expected to have this good of a time with him. it was almost enough to make you spend the night.

almost.

[neiptune]

et nunc et semper

cw: NSFT, 3k+ wc, female reader, ancient rome au, slavery, mentions of violence, sexual exploitation, power imbalance, intercourse, fingering, reader has greek origins, sae is head of the most gorgeous domus and you, a slave, eventually become his favorite concubine. one that just so happens to fall in love with the person, other than his brother, sae confides in the most: his most trusted slave, oliver

Sae is a good dominus.

When his brother sold you to him, grown bored and easily irritated after so many years of service, you were expecting complete and utter disinterest at best. However, prepared just in case you wouldn’t be as lucky once more, you also braced yourself for the worse scenarios: corporal punishments, torture, sexual exploitation. Rin’s kindness had always rested in his complete indifference and when he announced you were to be sent away, you spent entire nights awake, praying his brother would be just as merciful.

Against all odds, however, Sae grew fond of you. As soon as he learned you were able to speak Greek, he summoned you to his tablinum. You knew being one of the most trusted advisors to the emperor came with immeasurable privileges and richness, something you were reminded each day you spent in that domus: not even Rin’s residency had as many elaborate marble decorations and paneling, grandiose paintings and a garden one could very well get lost in.

The tablinium is where very few slaves are allowed, only the ones Sae trusts enough to let into the room he receives his clients in. The first time you stepped inside, well aware of teal eyes studying your every movement, you tried not to appear too fascinated by the walls decorated with such rich fresco pictures, nor by the busts of the Itoshi family arranged on pedestals on the other end of the room.

However, you couldn’t help yourself. You were born a slave but your parents were not: your mother was Greek, could read and write, made it a point to teach you both Latin and her native language. Back then you thought you’d never get to see Piraeus firsthand, hence why you were so drawn to the unusual frescoes Sae chose for his study. Aesop’s fables, represented so beautifully you raised your hand with the intention of tracing outlines you wouldn’t even be allowed to observe in a different household.

“Read for me”, Sae said that afternoon, shaking you from your stupor. He pushed a scroll towards you and it was surprising to suddenly discover his interest in science and philosophy. You were there, standing by his chair for hours, reading Anaximander’s theories and studies out loud, until the room grew dark and your voice hoarse.

It became a daily appointment: each evening, you knew your master’s expectations was to find you in the tablinum right after dinner. Never one to sleep much, sometimes he’d keep you there the entire night, your voice the only sound in a household where slaves were barely allowed to speak if their master happened to be around. You read for him without eating, drinking or sleeping, and when the sun would rise you were simply sent back to your duties.

And then, suddenly, he started asking questions too. What did you think of Aristotle, Herodotus, Plutarch? Was his pronunciation beyond saving? When you switched to poetry, Sae allowed you to sit next to him, so that he could follow along, eyes focused on your finger as it grazed each verse, to make it easier for him. He scoffed at Aristophanes’ comedy, which you suspect was a way to hide actual amusement. He enjoyed Sophocles and his tragedies. Then, he enjoyed watching you, the first time you read lyric poetry for him.

“It’s supposed to be accompanied by music, isn’t it?”, he asked, eyes boring into yours. You just lowered your head further and apologized, briefly stated that you didn’t want to sing for him without asking for permission first. Sae granted that permission.

He started touching you, a gentle brush of the fingers at first, to make sure your hair didn’t hide your profile from him. He’d then grasp your chin and tilt your head back to make sure you looked at him while detailing your impressions over a piece you’d just read. You never grew tense under his touch, not even when he’d grab your jaw if your tone got too low or you paused to clear your throat in the middle of a sentence. You did whatever was expected of you. Let him part your legs and sneak a hand underneath your tunic, obeyed when he ordered you didn’t stop reading as he touched you.

Like his brother, Sae grows restless easily and your submissive nature ended up irritating him. You were a little too unfazed, a little too good at carrying on, as if he wasn’t making a wet mess of you with his expert dexterity.

And so he ordered you’d kiss him, crawled onto his lap with your legs spread wide open for him, gasped and moaned and whined into his mouth. Loud, for all to hear. He wasn’t rough, perhaps it was the most gentle you’d ever been touched by a man, by a dominus. He’d take you right there, on his lap, on the table, on the floor. With time, you learned what he liked. On some days, you were allowed boldness: whispers to his ear of how good he felt, how much you desired him, more than any other man as no one could ever compare. Your fingers would card through his hair and pull at the soft strands right as he throbbed inside you, buried so deep you felt him in your throat as tears he’d lick away stained your cheeks. You’d keep your nails clean for he liked it when you scratched his back, you’d gently bite the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

And then, on some other days, you’d let him use you as he pleased, mouth shut, legs parted. He’d be stressed, angry, sometimes too irritated by either his marriage or matters of politics you’d never understand. You were always there for him, far from being the only slave he fucked, but certainly an interesting exception Sae didn’t want to get rid of and instead kept by his side most nights, in his personal bedroom, arms around your body pressed close to his as he softly asked you’d speak to him in your language.

You thought you could fall in love with him, you really did. He’d bring you with him on his travels and you’d find yourself missing him whenever he’d be back to his main residence, where his wife was. Where his children were. Sae would always come back with gifts, still does, and you know his affection has never been less than sincere. Being his favorite concubine means being draped in a cloak of newfound protectiveness, it means being owned social respect. It means being special. He sees you as more than a slave kept as sexual luxury, he cares about you. Wouldn’t that be enough to make a woman fall in love?

And then, one day, Sae came back and brought his most trusted servant with him. One you had never met before.

While you’d occasionally be with him during journeys or whenever he’d retreat to his country house for a couple of weeks during the summer, Oliver was always by Sae’s side. His mother was Sae and Rin’s father’s slave, he was born in their household and is Sae’s domestic worker. Oliver carries out a range of duties: cleans, prepares food in the kitchens, delivers missives. He’s probably the man, other than his own brother, Sae trusts the most in this life. They have a relationship intimate enough for him to keep Oliver as a secretary and an accountant too. He was the one asking his father to pay for a slave’s education, to make sure he could serve him better. You can imagine the affection he has for Oliver runs deep enough to grant him freedom from ownership, one day.

It was your demise and greatest stroke of luck. You never in a million years could’ve imagined how frail the equilibrium you were relying on was, a crimson thread mercilessly severed by a single touch of his fingers. It was desperate, the way you were drawn to him. When he talks, when he looks at you, you feel like a person and not a possession. A dangerous thought to have, and yet.

The days spent helping him in the kitchens, in the garden, the afternoons you’d catch glimpses of him laughing with other servants, all the times you were forced to be on Sae’s lap while he sat across from you, detailing the latest information about his most pressing affairs, eyes only daring searching yours when your master would be deeply focused on a document or a letter. Oliver had such a way of carrying himself, with a dignity you’d never seen in a slave. He wore a perpetual mask of neutral detachment with his master but when Sae would leave, on the fortunate occasions when he wouldn’t be around and all the eyes and ears of the residency could be considered far enough to grant you enough intimacy, Oliver could drop the act his life depended on.

He’s smart, curious by nature. Speaks Greek with a better accent than your master’s and yet still comically distorts some words, which makes you laugh. He’s knowledgeable about horticulture and spends hours curating the gardens surrounded by the peristylium each day, you’d often observe him from the patio as he tended to violets, saffron, thyme, rosemary, carnations. With expert hands that would leave no place for doubt should another slave or the master himself have noticed, he once plucked a rose and bowed as he offered it to you. A slave bowing to another slave. It made your heart flutter.

You hated yourself for desiring him, not because your mere existence revolved around the axiom of any individual desire being forever forbidden, but because your selfishness could cost him much more than his freedom. If Sae so much as imagined Oliver touching you, he could’ve claimed his life and yours with a light snap of the fingers. 

You didn’t care about your life, not really, but his held so much value. He was about to be freed, there was too much at stake for you to ruin everything.

Oliver is infuriating and stubborn, any attempt at avoiding him went up in smoke as he was just as desperately drawn to you and refused to give up on the one thing he ever wished for himself. Whatever he would do of his freedom with no one to share it with. You had insinuated yourself in his heart like dripping water that hollows out stone and for once in his life he, a person who wasn’t allowed to own anything but his feelings, felt alive.

And yet, he waited, persistence confined by respectful boundaries Oliver never once forced you to cross. He waited, exasperating, confident, beautiful in a way that made you wish there were marble statues and saturnalia dedicated to him. In a way that made Sae dull, someone you couldn’t hold anything but gratitude and affection for. A man you could never love the way you loved Oliver, a man you’d never kiss for the first time on your own accord, brief and sweet in the middle of the night, by the kitchen. You remember his eyes and how dangerously beautiful the moonlight reflected in them was, how searing the second touch of his lips felt against yours, the way he’d silently asked for permission he didn’t need, the uncertainty swarming in those eyes almost bringing you to tears.

You didn’t know what being asked for consent meant and you had no idea what choosing to lie with a man would do, how different the pleasure would feel. Despite being uncomfortably taken against the wall, it was the first time you ejoyed sex. Even on exceptional days when Sae would care about your pleasure too, it always felt like making you finish was a stubborn challenge he’d test himself with. Another proof of his ability, void of any sincere care.

Oliver was different. He strokes your skin with genuine tenderness, never chases his own high without making sure you’re feeling good too, without being absolutely certain he isn’t hurting you somehow, or being unintentionally too rough. Some nights he’d drop to his knees, a servant serving you, making you fall apart on his tongue without ever looking away from your face, so beautiful when contorted in pleasure. He’d catch you when you wouldn’t be able to stand any longer, gently lay your trembling body on the hard ground and push your tunic further up, to be able to still look at you before diving in once more. He wouldn’t ask for anything more on those nights, kissing your palm tenderly when you offered to grant him relief too.

“Get some rest”, he’d whisper against your lips before leaving you cold and alone once more. 

Neither of you expected Sae to free you first.

One day, he’d summoned you to the triclinium, the magnificent dining room where he receives his illustrious guests. Oliver was there, standing by the entrance, expression neutral and eyes never daring finding yours. Rin was there too, reclined on his left side on soft cushions while other slaves served him courses of fruits and warm, sweet wine.

“Lie with me”, Sae’s order surprised you: it wasn’t rare for him to keep you close in front of clients, friends or other servants but members of his family were his only drawn line. Obedient, you positioned yourself in front of him, propped on one elbow on the same couch. 

“She’s worth much more than the amount I paid you, brother”, he murmured into your skin, one hand lazily pushing your tunic to your hips.

Oliver’s love had changed you. Made Sae’s touch intolerable, newfound feelings of guilt and shame churning in the pit of your stomach for the very first time. You didn’t wish for his fingers to explore your skin, you didn’t want Rin to watch, or worse, claim his own fair share.

“What, just because you made her your Greek whore?”, the mockery, for the first time, hurts you. These feelings could get you killed.

“Be respectful of my Greek whore”, Sae buried his face into the crook of your neck and you stayed frozen, “she’s also my liberta, now”.

Your breath hitched in your throat and he chuckled, pulling you possessively against him with an arm around your waist. A liberta. A freedwoman.  

Rin’s scoff didn’t faze you.

“Look at me”, Sae’s grasp on your throat burned as he tilted your head backwards and spoke against your mouth, “you are free. I wish to keep you with me as your patronus. Will you stay?”.

For a moment, you feared you might not be able to speak, too overwhelmed by feelings interlaced within you like both ribbons and snakes.

“You honor me”, you were finally able to whisper.

In a way, this was everything you could ever wish for and the worst thing to ever happen to you. It was perfectly clear what being freed meant: you would forever owe him eternal gratutide and reverence. He made sure you’d remain in a legally defined position of obligation for your entire life, a bond that would last forever. You had never felt more trapped.

“Oliver, serve some wine to your mistress”, Sae’s gaze never left yours as he quietly ordered. Your heart squeezed painfully as you kissed him, doing everything in your power to keep your focus on your patron and nothing else.

Now, on nights like this, when you lie tangled in warm sheets with your lover, you’re even more dreadfully aware of what’s at stake. His freedom, your freedom. Both your heads, probably.

This bedroom in Sae’s domus now belongs to you, along with all the valuable possessions within it. He provides financially for you and finally grants your most intimate moments their due privateness. His slaves are your slaves, you are free to wander around the house as you please, accompany him publicly for everyone to see. Rin once said he’d never seen him treat his own wife with such devotion and Sae simply pulled you closer in response.

“This one’s different”.

He loves you, you know he does. When you read for him the world stops, Rome and perhaps the entire empire dissipating into thin smoke. His own dimension ruled by your voice alone, eyes shut when the pads of your gentle fingers explore him, lips he would start wars for.

But all that ceases to exist when you’re in Oliver’s arms, his nose grazing your neck, the deep rumble of his voice vibrating in a chest pressed to yours.

“Does he hurt you?”, you ask and he peels his weight away from your body, propping himself on one elbow by your side instead.

“No”, he replies quietly and smiles when you reach to grab his other arm and place it around your waist. You then hum, fingers tracing scars you’re familiar with. Faded marks on his chest, his back, his shoulder and arm. Oliver’s gaze softens at your unspoken worry.

“His father”, is the explanation he offers, “Sae never touched me”. His thumb starts stroking the skin above your hip and you sigh, relieved, melting into him like you always do.

“Does he ever hurt you?”, the question makes you chuckle but Oliver is serious, scowl getting deeper.

“No”.

“Does it feel good? Does it feel the same?”.

His hand disappears underneath the sheets and you jolt weakly against him when knuckles graze your bare skin before fingers start collecting the slick that still trickles out of your spent hole. You take his face in your hands and pull him closer to make sure he looks at you, not wanting your next words to sound as if you’re only speaking under the effect of the pleasure he’s providing.

“Never. It could never-”, a gasp when he dips one finger inside you, “it will never”.

For the following minutes, the only sounds in the room are your soft whimpers against his mouth and the increasingly wet, lewd noises produced by his fingers, the increasingly restless roll of your hips barely able to meet movements that drive you insane.

“I love you”, he murmurs, a low groan bubbling up from his throat when he curls his fingers and you see stars, muffle a moan into his neck, one hand closing around his wrist and nails digging into his skin. You’re still shaking when he pulls you into his chest, brings one of your legs around his hips. There’s a familiar hardness pressing against you and you tentatively rub yourself against it, face hidden into the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

“I will buy you”, you whisper, “I will buy you from him and set you free”.

Oliver stills your movements with a gentle hold of your hips, his other hand stroking the small of your back. Having you close is, once more, enough.

“He will never sell me”.

“Then you should stop seeing me. He will grant you freedom one day but if he ever finds out…”.

“What an absurd suggestion”, a quiet laugh shakes him, “giving up on the one thing that gives my life meaning at all”.

“He’ll take your life, Oliver. You could die because of me”.

“Then so be it. I would die after having lived”.

You pull back and meet his only half playful gaze.

“Don’t mock me. And don’t you dare leave me alone in this life”.

“Is that a request or an order, mistress?”.

Your groan elicits a chuckle. Oliver kisses the crown of your head, wraps his fingers in your hair.

“He owns my freedom, everything else is yours. I don’t fear punishment, only an existence void of you”, he speaks in Greek, attentively, and your heart throbs painfully once more. You kiss him, soft and gentle, then decide to be just as playful while your thumb delicately grazes the portion of skin underneath his eye.

“Really?”, you also ask in Greek, “I heard rumors of his wife requesting to lie with you. Does that feel the same?”.

He offers a boyish smile, gently bumping his forehead against yours.

“You’re ridiculous”.

“Not a very convincing answer”.

Oliver sighs.

“It feels like nothing, woman”.

You hum, feigning pensiveness.

“They say she’s beautiful”.

“She is”.

“Just so you know, this conversation is not going well for you”.

Oliver chuckles, lowers his head to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. He stays here, lips brushing against yours, in hopes you’ll swallow his next words and let them take root in every crevice of your body. Maybe then you’ll believe him.

“Aphrodite herself wouldn’t be a match for you”.

“Flatterer”, you whisper, amused. It’s not lost on you, the way he intentionally used her Greek name instead of naming her Roman counterpart, Venus.

Oliver smiles, taking a second to observe features already carved into his very soul. He cups your cheek and thinks he wouldn’t mind dying like this, with you turning your head enough to press your lips to his wrist, eyes softened by sincere adoration.

“In love”, he corrects.

[aggieharkness]

Forever and Always

Pairing: Lilia Calderu x reader

Summary: No one warns you about how dark the abyss at the cliff's edge can be, how hard it would be to hold on to the rocks as they kept falling around you, the weight on your shoulders nearly too much for you. No one ever does, yet she never failed at saving you from dying under it all, her warm embrace like a protection spell.

Warnings: overworked reader, burnt out, screaming, swearing, self-harm. I don't think I need to add anything else here.

Authors note: I read your post @madamspellmans-met-tet and I thought of writing this. I hope that it is what you had in mind and that it helps your friend find comfort :) If there is anything at all that you don't like, tell me and I'll change it, I wouldn't want to write something hurtful. I hope you like it.

Forever and Always

Rereading the message that had popped up on your phone you just couldn’t believe it. The bright light shone inside the cabin of Lilia’s old car, which she allowed you to borrow so you could get to work and your classes, your eyes going over the words three times before you let your head fall onto the steering wheel nearly making the horn go off. You could feel the tension increasing in every single muscle of your body, the pressure that had been inside your sinuses and the dull nausea that you had carried all day suddenly feeling as if they could wipe you out, frustration filling up every cell down to atomic levels, but you just couldn’t let it pass, it had to be finished tonight, no matter what. Unlocking your phone, you answered Amanda and told her that it was fine, that you could finish her part of the project and send it before twelve tomorrow, but in your mind you were cursing her and her ancestors and her ancestors’ ancestors and beyond. You knew she wasn’t sick, a friend you had in common had told you that she was going down to a party in New York and she would stay there for like three days or so. You could have told her to go and fuck herself but she hadn’t done shit in the past month, and the project needed to be handed out the next day, so you had to stay up all night now, maybe even beg your teacher to let you hand in the assignment one day late and pray that he didn’t deduct points because of it. And on top of that you had to do a double shift down at the coffee shop tomorrow because one of the girls had to have emergency surgery after a skiing accident and you were even more short staffed.

Your fingers were twitching when you picked up your bag from the passenger’s seat, throwing it over your shoulder as you pushed the door open and stepped out into the cold night, your breath steaming up in puffs that twirled up in the air as you locked the car. Your body ached, every bone seemed to hurt, and your throat itched so bad that you had had like three gulps of cough syrups and at least one Tylenol about six hours ago to try and get rid of it, to no avail. Resting your back against the car you closed your eyes for a moment. You were not ready for the disappointed look that Lilia was going to give you the instant you stepped into the shop, but your manager had practically ordered you to lock up tonight and you had had to label also the new arrival of milks and cookies in the freezer, which turned the extra hour into two and a half. You had been supposed to get home at seven and it was now close to ten, and you had hardly been able to tell her that you were going to be late, just a single message that’s she had left on read. With a heavy sigh you crossed the street from the car to the front door, pulling out your keys and pushing the glass open until the warmth of the heating system embraced you, but it didn’t relax you as much as you had expected, you still felt as if you were absolutely freezing. Noises were coming from the back, the clutter of dishes you thought, stopping for a moment when the bell that hung from the ceiling rung melodiously before they returned, unbothered by your entrance it seemed.

In normal circumstances you would have thrown your bag next to the door, not giving two shits, but you needed the books and notes that you had in there, so with heavy steps you made your way to the beady curtain, gently moving it aside, finally arriving home. Lilia was washing the dishes, her back to you. Seeing her body moving as she scrubbed hard, her shoulders square and obviously tense as she worked you wondered if maybe she was mad at you, but there wasn’t really anything you could do when you had to stay late, it was that or unemployment, and you needed the money to pay for college, so there really was no reason why she should be angry. At least you had bothered to warn her this time. But even if she was pissed at you she was far too alluring, and your eyes could not stop watching the way those veiny hands held onto the sponge and plate hard, knuckles nearly white, the way her gown held onto her curves gently as her robe had been discarded over the back of a chair, the flowy material swaying around her bare feet as she rinsed and left the plate on the drying rack. In the air a salty smell lingered, your stomach rumbling at it but the nausea that was still clinging to your insides seeming to disagree with how hungry you felt, the thought of food both appealing and at the same time a horrible idea, though your train of thought derailed when you felt your phone vibrating in your pocket, the quiet moment you were having shattered. Fucking Amanda again you saw, a new text telling you that she was very sorry and that she would make it up to you which you knew was bullshit, followed by a new message saying that Tom, another person you were doing this assignment with, could not finish his part either as he was sick with the same thing she had. Was that code for I’m taking him to New York to fuck him? She had to be kidding.

You were quick to respond, eyebrows furrowed as you typed an answer, telling her that you weren’t sure if you could handle it all, but she retorted that Tom would end up in the hospital if he did any work. Was she for real? Did she think you lived under a fucking rock or something, that you didn’t talk to people? Apparently so, because she finished by saying that she was going to be sick from all that talking and went offline. You hadn’t noticed how Lilia had turned around and was staring at you, drying her hands with a tea towel, the frown that had adorned her forehead turning into worry when she saw your pissed off face as you furiously typed. She hadn’t noticed how pale you were looking, or how deep the bags under your eyes were, but then again you applied so much make up in the morning that it was nearly impossible for her to have noticed when she woke up, perhaps five minutes before you were due to leave for work. She had seen you sick several times in all the time you had been together, but she had never seen you look so run down before, and that worried her. The frustration you were feeling was reaching a breaking point, but you could not afford a bad mark to taint your record, you needed to be a straight A student otherwise you would not get scholarships to investigate, just like you had always dreamt of, you had to push through. You would rest when all this was over, you thought, a little white lie that you had been telling yourself for years now.

Dumping your bag on the kitchen table you hadn’t even looked up to meet Lilia’s eyes, you were far too focused on getting the work done before you collapsed, pulling out several thick books you had borrowed from the library along with the close to four hundred pages worth of notes you had been taking since the beginning of the year, photocopies, schemes and drawings included. Lilia had not moved from her spot, not even an inch, her head following your frame as you headed for the drawers next to the TV and pulled out an old laptop you had been gifted like three years ago, turning back to the table only to lock eyes with her. She looked so beautiful tonight, why did she look so pretty? It wasn’t your anniversary or her birthday, maybe it wasn’t a special occasion, maybe she looked like that always and you had only noticed now, after not having properly looked at her in over a week. There was pang of guilt in your heart, but you couldn’t waste more time, and yet breaking her gaze was such a hard task, she seemed to be pulling you into her arms simply by raising her eyebrows ever so slightly, almost in a questioning manner, but you looked away and sat down. You were actively avoiding talking to her? She felt as if you were pushing her aside, away from you with this behaviour, hurt and anger mingling in her chest, fury glazing her vision as she bent to open the oven. It took the computer a few minutes to unlock, but once the wallpaper and icons were staring back at you, a picture of you and Lilia during a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon, you quickly clicked on the Word document titled “Ontogeny in Ammonoids”, the twenty pages you had written greeting you.

You loved your degree, but you hated it at the same time, scrolling through the pictures and diagrams you had both taken from books and done yourself with the information collected and provided by your teacher. You had loved it when you had first started it, but now you had to add at least twenty more pages, and you didn’t even know where to begin, your head resting on your hands for an instant, closing your eyes as you felt a heavy headache forming. What were you supposed to write? God, you had no fucking clue what their parts were, it was as if your brain had turned to sudden mush and you could not even comprehend a basic sentence, let alone carry on with this bloody project. Suddenly there was a loud bang right next to the computer, your head jerking up so fast that a whipping feeling hit your neck, rendering you immobile for a few moments, eyes looking at an oven tray that had landed on top of your notes, the dark sauce of a rotisserie chicken splattered over the words, staining and making some of the ink run.

-Lilia! What the hell?! – you pushed the tray hurriedly to the side, inspecting the damage done as anger rose in your veins. Looking up briefly at her you saw an angry smirk on her lips, hands on her hips. So now she wanted to be a bitch, great, as if you needed more people testing your patience.

-Oh, you are home, I didn’t see you there.

-What the fuck?!

-Don’t curse at me Y/N!

-What the hell do you expect when you’ve ruined my notes?!

-I expect you to look at me when you come home, for you to give me an explanation as to why you its ten and you’ve just only arrived!

-I can’t say no to my manager Lilia, you know this! – some of the words were unintelligible, impossible to fix unless you redid the entire page, front and back, anger spiking to the point that you feared anything at all could make it burst. And to top it all you were wasting time! You had deadlines and you need to be at the coffee shop at seven! You were going to have to pull an all-nighter– Fuck, I’m going to have to redo this.

-As if you do anything else.

You glared up at her, but the anger subsided when suddenly you had a coughing fit, turning your face away from her and covering your mouth with your hand. Lilia had turned around at the speed of light upon hearing you, bending her body over the kitchen table to check on you, worry painting her features. All the fight had left your body after that, the exhaustion slamming onto your body without mercy, as you let it fall back onto the chair. Lilia was still upset with you, but after what she had just seen it was obvious that you weren’t just tired, no, you were getting sick, and yet you turned your attention back to the computer, sighing deeply when you looked at your notes and then back at the screen. She felt quite guilty about what she had done, thinking that perhaps it had been rather childish form her part, so in an attempt to fix it she moved the tray away to plate some of the chicken along with the sauce, putting it aside while she went to grab a glass of water, adding a bit of lemon and a hint of honey, a little remedy she had been using for centuries now. Once that was done, she turned and rounded one of the corners of the table to sit on the only chair that laid facing you, but your eyes were glued to the screen, typing and then deleting only to type again, and you still didn’t like what you were writing. The touch of Lilia’s soft skin on your hand made you pause, turning your blurry eyes in her direction. Maybe you had been rude, but you had spent a lot of time working on those notes, rewriting them would take a couple of hours for sure.

-Tell me the truth Y/N, are you okay?

-I’m fine, I’m just tired.

-I’ve seen you tired, and you are never like this.

-I’m sorry, but what you did was really shitty.

-I know, I’m sorry. I was angry; you’ve never come home like this, without even saying a word. Maybe you need to stop and sleep.

-I would love to, but I can’t. Amanda and Tom bailed on me, and we have to upload this to the net tomorrow and there’s so much work left.

-Can’t you talk with your teacher, get an extension?

-He’s an ass, he won’t do it, he doesn’t care. I just need to finish this, Lilia. I promise I’ll rest when I’m done.

-I’m giving you one hour, if you are not done in an hour, I’m sorry, but you are not finishing it, I’m dragging you to bed.

-Fine. Just… let me get on with it.

-Alright. You have dinner behind your computer, and don’t tell me that you are not hungry because I know that you haven’t had a bite to eat since lunch time, if you’ve had lunch. Just eat, okay?

You nodded without much effort, knowing perfectly well that you were not really going to have much of the chicken, but you did grab the water, the warm liquid soothing your sore throat slightly. Lilia could feel the way you were melting, the way your resolution was slipping, but she also knew that you were not going to really stop, you were unable to, she had to let you get to a certain point, she just hoped that she didn’t accidentally let you go past said point. With a quiet sigh she stood and kissed your forehead, heading back to tidy the dishes and clean the sink as you poured yourself back into the assignment. Word after word you seemed to be filling up pages, adding pictures and moving in between the text and the references, but your body was giving up on you. You could feel the way your fingers were heavy over the keyboard, how your eyesight was becoming blurry, the paragraphs you had written dancing before you, coughing every few minutes into the crook of your elbow and yet you did not stop, you couldn’t stop. Lilia’s alarms were going off every time she heard you, but she had promised you an hour, though it was becoming harder and harder to keep her promise when her eyes could see from her spot on the couch how you were getting progressively worse, to the point that half of your precious notes had slipped down to the floor and you hadn’t even noticed.

She should have stopped you then, a mistake from her part, she had simply thought it a slip up, but when she heard you curse under your breath and beginning to delete like a maniac, a frustrated huff escaping your lips before you banged your head on the kitchen table, she knew she had stop you right away.  It had not even been thirty minutes, but she just couldn’t let you carry on, pushing herself off the couch and walking towards your spot with quick steps. The wood dug onto your forehead, but you didn’t care about it much, not when you had spent three whole pages writing about the wrong group of cephalopods and your whole head throbbed as your headache worsened, a pulsating feeling behind your eyes that increased the pressure on your sinuses as well. You felt like utter shit, actually that might not even cover it, your face squashed against the table, your arms hanging from your sides like ropes that seemed to weight as if they were lead, so heavy that you just couldn’t lift them back onto the table. Sitting once again on the chair that was facing you, Lilia took your face in between her hands and pushed you up until you were resting against the back of the chair, cradling your cheeks, noticing that your eyes were glassy, your face slightly clammy to the touch, cheeks blushing but it wasn’t due to something cheeky she had said, no, Lilia could feel how hot your skin felt against her palm. That’s it, she thought.

-You are done, darling. – her voice was quiet, nearly a whisper, but it boomed against the bones of your skull.

-What? No, I still have at least six other points that I need to address.

-I don’t care Y/N. You are sick, you need to sleep.

-No, I don’t! – you pushed her touch from you, missing the coolness of her hands against your skin the instant they left you even though they were still holding onto your hands, fingers intertwined, but you needed to carry on. She had said an hour, and it had only been twenty minutes, you could push through, you could do it. – I need to get this done or I will fail.

-Then fail.

-What? – there was the anger again, rising and bubbling inside your chest as you pushed her hands off your body completely, sitting properly back in front of the computer while still looking at Lilia utterly dumbfounded at her words. - You know how important this is for me!

-Yes, but I’m not going to let it practically kill you!

-Wow, that’s just being overdramatic, don’t you think?

-Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?! You are two seconds away from collapsing on me Y/N!

-I’m perfectly fine, I’m just tired! Honestly, I make a mistake and get frustrated and suddenly I’m an instant away from laying in a coffin?!

-If you don’t stop you might! Just leave it, it’s not that important Y/N.

-It might not be to you! Can’t you understand that if I finish this and I get an A I will have a perfect record?! I will get scholarships and job offers!

-So some job in a boring office is more important than your health?!

-Don’t act so surprised, as if you didn’t know that I’ve done it before. I will rest when I’m done, so please Lilia, let me finish the fucking thing!

-Don’t curse Y/N. And no, you are very much done. – without warning she closed up the laptop and grabbed it, your hands far too slow to hold on to it before she could actually remove it from the table, the thick book you had resting next to it closing with a loud thud. She had stood and moved away from the kitchen area into the living room, rounding the couch and muttering something under her breath so that an instant later two thick yellow chains appeared wrapping themselves around the computer, letting it rest on top of the coffee table. She had to be fucking kidding; you thought she would understand! Lifting yourself from the chair had been a harder task than you had anticipated, the world around you faintly, but you still stood on slightly shaky legs and headed her way, fury seeping from every pore in your body as you knelt over the carpet.

-Don’t play with me Lilia! Open it!

-No. I don’t like using my magic like this, but if it’s the only way to get you stop, I will.

-DON’T DO THIS TO ME LILIA! OPEN IT!

-Don’t scream at me! I won’t tolerate it! I’m doing this for your own good.

-Please Lilia, I need to finish this, please!

-I’m sorry, I can’t.

-You are such a bitch!

-Excuse me?!

-You heard me! You are being a bitch! – the temperature in the room was absolutely scorching, your jacket coming off, your hands throwing it onto the couch without you even noticing, as if your movements were on autopilot, nails trying to pry the laptop open, but it didn’t do any good, it was perfectly shut. In anger you turned your head to look at her, tears stinging your eyes. - What do you want?! All my attention, that’s why you are trying to ruin my life?!

-NO! Can’t you see what all this is doing to you?! I want you to stop killing yourself! You don’t deserve it Y/N.

-I’m doing what I’ve always done, Lilia, I can’t afford a slip up like this!

-And I can’t let you carry on. You need to stop, you are sick, you’ve overworked yourself so much that you’ve made yourself sick. Why can’t you understand that?

-Why can’t YOU understand that if I can’t stop! I’ve never stopped, I don’t know how to!

The tears were running down your cheeks now, burning your skin as if they were molten lava, leaving streaks on your clammy flesh as they fell drop by drop onto your lap, your hands letting go of the laptop in defeat as your body dropped onto the carpet, back resting on the couch. How did one stop, how could anyone stop what they’ve only known for their entire life? You had never done anything but work and study, you had never simply sat down to do nothing for whole weeks at a time, there was always some shift at the coffee shop, some assignment, some presentation that needed to be done for the next day. You only knew how to work yourself down to the bone and beyond and you knew that it was reaching a breaking point, but you just didn’t know what to do. Lilia saw you crumbling in front of her eyes, rushing and kneeling next to you to gather your shaking frame in her arms, swaying back and forth in a soothing motion. She had expected this to happen since she had seen you come in, and yet she felt so unprepared, unsure of what to say but if there was one thing she was sure about was that you needed her, and she would be there. Her eyes were looking at nothing, zoned out as every fibre of her being concentrated on you and the way your tears soaked her dress, your face pressed against her chest.

She might have been rude, cruel even, but you needed to hear it, needed to realise just how fucked up it was for people to overwork you like this, until you were so burnt out that you couldn’t even keep your immune system healthy and strong. You could not help being like this, doing the only thing you knew, but that didn’t mean Lilia could not help you see beyond, after all that was her thing as a divination witch. Looking down at you she could not help noticing some purple marks that painted the skin of your forearms, squinting to try and get a better look, distinguishing the blistered skin and burnt flesh surrounding each circular mark. They didn’t seem to be fresh, as if they had happened today or the day before, but they were certainly not old wounds. Carefully she pushed you away from her body, your eyes blinking through the tears in confusion, feeling how she took your wrist gently with one hand and pushed your sleeve up so she could take a better look. Oh, crap, you had totally forgotten about them.

-Y/N? – you turned your head towards the floor, unable to hold her gaze, those deep eyes watching you with worry, but she took hold of your chin and tenderly lifted your head. – What happened?

-I swear I didn’t do it on purpose… the first time. – you felt so ashamed about it all, how had you let your life become this… this sea of torment just to get the life you thought you were supposed to have. This wasn’t the way to do it, it couldn’t be. Your hand had travelled up to your mouth out of its on accord, the nail of your thumb in between your teeth as if the motion could make you feel less of the embarrassment that was coursing through your limbs. – I was at the shop, and I bumped into Jerry out in the terrace and his cigarette hit my arm. It was an accident but then… I bought a packet and… did it myself.

-You’ve been hurting yourself? Why?

-I… I’m not sure. When Jerry’s cigarette hit my skin, I felt… something and…

-And what?

-The pain somehow helped me push through, carry on with everything. I wanted that. I needed it.

-Darling.

-I know what you are going to say. I should have been more careful; I shouldn’t have continued.

-No, love, you should have asked for help.

-Help?

-All this is too much for you, you can’t do it all, you are only human.  – it was so tenderly the way she cradled your face in her hands again, her fingers twirling your hair in between them as her thumbs wiped the tears that were still falling. -You can’t hurt yourself so that the adrenaline helps you carry on. You can’t hide the exhaustion and the frustration behind a veil of pain Y/N.

-How do I stop Lilia?

-By saying no. People take advantage of you, they think that since you are efficient, they can simply tell you to do it all, but you can’t let them do that. Learning how to say no will help you in the long run, trust me.

-So, I simply fail?

-You tell your teacher what happened and if he doesn’t like it, I will personally talk with him and request an extension. But it won’t be tomorrow; I was not kidding when I said that you were sick, you are running a temperature, darling. You are closing your books for today and going to sleep.

-And work? I have a double shift tomorrow.

-You’ve got sick days, use them. Let me carry what you can’t, Y/N.

She always knew what to say, what to do to make you feel like the world wasn’t crushing you under its weight when you very much felt as if it were, and with your hands holding onto the neckline of her gown you pushed yourself against her chest to hide your tears back into the warmth of her soft bosom. You had wanted nothing more than to cross the threshold of the beady curtain and let your exhausted body fall into her embrace, the silence of the room broken only by her sweet words, whispered lovingly in your ear as you both fell on the couch, the coolness of her skin comforting the tears that had gathered in your eyes. Those same tears that you were now crying as you let your walls crumble around you. Lilia wrapped her arms around your form, letting you break, fall apart. You had been holding on for far too long, you had been dangling from the top of a building with only on finger to keep you there for years now, you had to let yourself fall, you had to let your body step away from all that was destroying you and simply feel gravity pulling you down onto the ground, because once you reached it there would be no blood, no bones breaking over the pavement, only the soft gentle touch of Lilia keeping you safe and nestle in her arms. Both of you swayed back and forth on the floor, the carpet digging on Lilia’s knees, but she would not move, not until you were ready, and by the way you were holding onto her it would be a long time before she would part from you. With a kiss to the top of your head she pressed her cheek to your soft locks, her fingers rubbing your back and drawing lazy patterns over your t-shirt.

-Promise me one thing Y/N.

-What? – your voice was muffled by her chest, the vibrations reverberating through her body, but she still understood you, a small smile painting her lips for a moment.

-You will never hurt yourself again.

-I promise.

-And please, if you need help, if you need me, tell me. I’m always here for you, darling. Always.

[pompomchihuahua]

So, I've seen a Twitter thread making the rounds about Yuichirou being in the right for not trusting Amane which you can read here. Overall, I think it nicely covered why Yuichirou was so "mean" to her: a strange woman shows up at their home trying to recruit two vulnerable 11-year-old boys who just lost their parents. She starts talking about demons and them being descended from swordsmen and being able to save people and in Muichirou's hopeful little heart it strikes a chord.

But Yuichirou says that he's certain she's just going to use them, that she's plotting something, which, from a story telling perspective, is an interesting seed to plant in the viewers mind.

What I mainly want to focus on in this thread is Kagaya Ubuyashiki, as he is the one who ultimately sends Amane to recruit the Tokitou twins (though, yes, she is complicit in the recruitment of child soldiers. The average age of soldiers in 1912 Japan was 17-20 not 11).

Putting aside that he ends up recruiting Muichirou anyway after he's made almost impossibly more vulnerable (just lost his last remaining family, critically injured, just lost his memories and also, once again, an 11 year old CHILD being coerced by an adult into fighting mythical monsters) Kagaya has a way of appearing to the Hashira at their most vulnerable moments to recruit them (aside from Rengoku who was basically born and raised into the role which is a whole other can of worms).

Another thing I'd like to point out is the cruelty and impracticality of final selection, something that is exemplified perfectly with Sabito. How many slayers with the potential to do something great's lives were wasted in final selection? Considering the sheer amount that goes in and how few come out and the lack of any kind of age limit, I'm going to guess quite a few. Why exactly is the system set up like this?

They essentially set up a demon buffet featuring children as the main course. Did they know about the demon growing out of control on the final selection grounds? Most likely, and if not that's highly irresponsible to not at least monitor your supposed testing grounds.

Why not have them fight against other, higher-level slayers? If they fail the test, they'd be sent back into training or dismissed entirely instead of just... killed. And Ubuyashiki seems fine with this! And I'm truly curious- he mentions memorizing the names of every slayer that dies in the line of duty, but does that include the dozens of people that don't even get to become official slayers because they die in the very baffling final selection meat grinder?

I'm getting off track.

What I mean is that Ubuyashiki is shown to have questionable moral decision-making when it comes to the pursuit of defeating Muzan: it seems his goal is to kill Muzan at all costs.

Later, Muzan says this: "That schemer! Like a viper, his rage and hatred toward me... was coiling inside his pitch-black heart!"

As the viewer we're, of course, meant to take this with a grain of salt. We know Ubuyashiki didn't have a "pitch-black heart," but I think there's a grain of truth to be found in Ubuyashiki harboring rage and hatred toward Muzan.

We know the reason the Ubuyashiki clan started to hunt Muzan in the first place was to save themselves from the curse (and along the way I think they genuinely believed it was for the greater good as well).

But I think it sets Ubuyashiki up as the perfect morally ambiguous foil to Muzan. Yes, he is supposed to represent humanity, but what is more human than the endless moral struggle between the greater good and what's right for the individual? Ubuyashiki points out that in the thousands of years of Muzan's existence, the corps has never been wiped out but this is because the corps inherently preys on those who are at their most vulnerable. It is built on the back of tragedy.

Everything down to even just their life span is meant to be equal but opposite from Muzan's immortality to the Ubuyashiki's ephemeral life spans. Even their clothing choice, with Muzan picking darker colors and Ubuyashiki clad in white. Muzan is beautiful and unmarred while Kagaya is consumed by the curse of their bloodline yet their appearance is described as "twin-like" in the Kimetsu extras. Yet they are also equal, once again returning to their supposedly identical features, they both have a tendency to appear to those that serve them at their most vulnerable.

This is not a "Kagaya is evil" post at the end of the day. This is a "Kagaya is not a morally pure character and that's a good thing" post. And, I think, had the author had more time, they would have explored this fully. We all know the ending was a tad bit rushed due to the author having a family emergency and I will never blame them for that, but just looking at the story they built even on that time crunch I can only imagine they narrative they could have built given unlimited time.

I feel like they could have explored Kagaya's character more which they set up as being Muzan's equal but opposite: equally scheming but thankfully on humanity's side. He had empathy for the children, yes, but he still, at the end of the day, used people at their most vulnerable to do what he couldn't on his own.

And I didn't even get to START on the implications of his magical "voice" and foresight powers, but this post is already so long that I'm gonna end it here.

TLDR: Ubuyashiki is so much more complex than your stock "Greater good" character. He's Muzan's equal but opposite force, conniving but empathetic, morally ambiguous. Had the author had more time, I feel this would have been explored in more depth.

[doodledrawsthings]

Why are the remaining Solarians particularly unhappy with Yi, as opposed to "The Sols" in general? I know he's not a people person and went on a rampage but it was exactly that that saved them from a mutant fate. There is proof of that splattered all around the Empyrean district. He is the only reason they got to have a conscious thought again, and will ever be able to find rest, and I think that would be pretty apparent? And hey if they agree with Eigong they can still drink the pink water.

Yi is the one who spearheaded the Eternal Cauldron project. Secondhand to Eigong, who was the head of the endeavor. He also just… had the misfortune of being The One To Wake Them Up, which- I know, don’t shoot the messenger yadda yadda, but it’s hard not to when they had such a big hand in what happened.

Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t particularly happy with Goumang or Kuafu, either, but because they are a little more diplomatic and also have a more approachable demeanor, they’re a little more willing to work with them. They eventually are able to work with and accept Yi, too, it’s just that… Yi will never have the benefit of being generally approachable.

The feelings toward the Sols altogether is… complicated. Yes, they were “saved,” but no, they don’t have to be HAPPY about the situation at hand. And to expect them to be would feel. naive. To me, at least. If you’ve read the prequel comic with Chien, you’d know that not everyone who boarded were particularly well off. People gave up everything, desperate for a spot on New Kunlun. And like Yi, like Chiens mother, (as upsetting as her decision was), like Kuafu, and basically everyone, people left loved ones behind for it, too. They trusted the Sols with their hopes, their lives, their futures, to get them through the Tianhuo disaster, and the Sols failed them. Only to be woken up 500 years in the future, just to be told it was all for nothing, the project failed, and they gave up on finding a cure.

And as a cherry on top, they can’t even go back home to mourn. How else are you supposed to feel about the end of everything?

[hexy-lynesdein]

The Traveler & her Path Behind

“Wounds suffered, lessons learned.”

I think the most prominent part about episode 4 other than it being Alice's trial— wherein she was able to ended her generational curse for once and for all; changing something that she thinks “wasn't real”, is that you get to see how it affecting her.

How Alice realizes that she was angry at her mom who was only trying to save her. Lorna did everything in her power to protect Alice in any way she could. So that even if she was no longer present on Alice's life— her protection through the song, in which she pours all of her love for her daughter into, would persist. Thanks to the people who sang that song with as much passion as how Lorna is writing it for Alice.

And I love how she learned all of this from a journey with a broken coven, each filled with covenless witches who had their own issues. But even though they are hardly a “true” coven— they were there for Alice. They sat there with her on that campfire, talking about each scars that they had, so that she wouldn't feel so bad about hers. And for once, she felt that hole in her heart was slowly filled with warmth. That similar type of warmth that she's been missing for ages.

Alice has always been angry all her life. It's easier for her to get angry and blame something instead of grieving it. Because being angry is relatively easier than grieving because you feel like you are in control of your life, you get this power to push through from that fire burning in you. But unlike anger, grief is far from that. It's that feeling of hollow and emptiness— that you acknowledge something was no longer yours. It's gone and you have to accept that. You will eventually move on and there might be something else that will replace it. You will learn to live side by side with this pit that sits with you and it will left you in a vulnerable state, and that's not alright. It's hard to said it'll be alright when it clearly didn't. But eventually, you'd move on. People always do. That's just how life is always been.

And for once, when the cause of Alice's angers was no longer there— and that she was finally free from it after a long time of suffering, she felt nothing but sadness.

This is a simple phrase if it were to be said by anyone. However, it held much bigger weight when it was Lilia who said that.

Lilia being the oldest witch from the coven. Lilia who's been alive for 400+ years. Lilia who made it this far in life, seeing all the horrors, and the tragedies that humanity experienced— the malice that lurked in their hearts. She's seen it all. She saw their path and “destination”; but mostly their destination because of her gift. That's almost all the thing she ever saw throughout her life up until now. Not to mention the flow of time that seems to be never standing with her.

It makes her angry. Because she saw it all. Lilia has seen their death. The causes and what's about to happen. But there is nothing she could do about it. She warns them. She tells them. And it didn't change anything. There's nothing she could do about the outcome. Because her task as a seer isn't supposed to change. She's there to observe — to see. And that alone upsets her. She turned away from her gift. Unwilling to use something that is a part of herself. For years. Decades. Probably centuries. Because why would she be? Death is all she'd seen. Why would she want to subject herself into something that would hurt her? Something that would only make her sad? And that's why, in the end, she resorted into being a con artist. Masking herself behind something that was not Lilia Calderu the chased-out-of-every-village-for-accurately-predicting-tragedies; running away from her true self.

Lilia already lost count on how many days and nights that she yearns for a change. To be able to do something for once. Flashes upon flashes would appear on the peripheral of her vision. About her coven. Her family. Her sister in the craft. And often times she wondered if a miracle would happened again in her life.

And it finally did.

When Agatha Harkness recruited Lilia to joined her coven, she almost wanted to spat. No one with a sane mind would willingly joined her coven. But fate always has its own ways with Lilia as her future self went back into that fateful day, where she write down the name of her new coven. Assigning herself to embark into a treacherous journey with a group of people that she, somehow, has quite a lot in common.

From there, she learns again what it feels to have a coven and be in a coven. Each trials they faced with death and their worst nightmare following in their step. But at least they are together this time. Lilia is not alone and maybe she could actually count on these people. Perhaps the walk down on this road with the infamous Agatha Harkness is going to change her. Maybe she still couldn't prevent deaths but at least she could piece up something that she has been missing. A part of herself that she was trying so hard to ignore— a part of herself that yearns for some form of connections through sisterhood.

And she finally got it again. She saw Jennifer who's capable of saving a life while being bound. Changing the outcome of Teen's life. She saw Alice fighting, oh ever so bravely, and full of fire. Ending her family's generational curse for once and for all — changing something that she thought she couldn't. She's seen all the struggles and how it impacts them.

And there they sat in that campfire, after the fire-trial. Sharing their own scars as an attempt to make Alice felt better about herself. Lilia saw the sadness that lingered on the once fierce and full of fire woman. She's seen it and she acknowledge it, she knows that feeling all too well. Lilia feels like she saw a piece of herself on her new coven members yet again, and she felt the urge to give Alice one last words of comfort, “Sad is better than angry”. And maybe that words is not enough to fully filled the hole in Alice's heart on its own, but as long as it means that Lilia could have a chance to do something for her sisters in the craft instead of running away again or being indifferent like how she always do— then that's fine. It's okay. She will take those chances.

And Alice? Alice is grateful to hear that from Lilia— who lives longer than her, who suffers worse things than her, and who knows so much more than her. Because to be loved, is to be seen and heard. And now Alice is surrounded with love.

[loving-family-poll]

2nd Ultimate Incest Tournament - Round 2

Propaganda under the cut:

Anna/Elsa:

THE juggernaut Frozen ship, and I will never forget our glory days!! Anna's act of true love canonically saving Elsa, and then them having a bunch of children from Elsa's sneezes in the Frozen short… Iconic. They will ALWAYS be the most important thing in each other's lives (remember the time Kristoff was trying to propose to Anna, and she was like "Hmm did you see how Elsa was acting weird? I need to go investigate")

Staple for the incest and yuri fandom of the 2010s. Ridiculously romantic storyline of having the kind of true love that's stuff of legends, capable of trumping fear and breaking curses. They are willing to sacrifice anything for each other and we even have a dumbfounded person looking at how beautiful the other is atop of the stairs. Olaf is their baby I guess.

In their attempt to pander to homophobic fans and make a movie about sisterly love instead of lesbians, Disney accidentally made the most beautiful incestuous love story of all time. I just KNOW they were fantasizing about each other while Elsa was locked in her room for all those years. Yes, it's supposed to be a family-friendly princess movie. True sickos know that that's the point.

Elsa and Anna. Two sisters who are separated for thirteen years and yet those thirteen years only entangle them deeper – Anna haunting Elsa because Elsa will not let herself forget the night of the accident, holding Anna close as a child and sobbing… Elsa’s whole life after that moment defined by that moment, defined by protecting Anna and keeping her distance from Anna while yearning to be near to her as the years go by… Elsa sacrificing her everything in the desperate hope that Anna will be safe… If “love is putting someone else’s needs before yours,” then Elsa does that over and over for thirteen years even as she suffers from wanting all the time to be with her sister… – Elsa haunting Anna because Anna is separated from her sister but does not know why, separated from her sister but longing for her sister – and to both of them, the thought of the other becomes something to worship – until Anna gives her life to throw herself before Elsa and stop the falling sword – until Elsa can finally, finally touch Anna again but now Anna is frozen to solid ice, so the only thing Elsa can touch is the reminder that she killed the person she loves most in this world. And then Anna thaws and they cling to each other, united by love – by a desperate, all-consuming, true love that thaws Arendelle around them – and they still carry the thousand wounds from their childhood but they have each other, they love each other, they are in each other’s arms.

I cannot stress enough how intense the film’s focus on touch makes things for incest shippers. Not only are the sister’s separated, but Elsa cannot touch Anna skin to skin, must always wear the gloves, must always keep a barrier between herself and the one she most longs to hold, to touch. Imagine the exhilaration of that first embrace on the fjord. Being able to touch without fear for the first time in years. Imagine the relief.

I also want to cite this, from an anonymous submission to a headcanon blog:

"However, since protecting Anna also required her to stay away from Anna at all times, Anna became sacred, in a sense: something fragile and special to be watched over but never touched or spoken to. She would come to love Anna in much the same way people come to love religious icons: Anna had always been there and had never been there. She loved Elsa and did not know Elsa. She was warm and kind and dedicated and was under no circumstances to be tainted with Elsa’s presence unless she kept the tightest possible control over herself."

That fear of destroying Anna, of corrupting Anna by touching her, of letting loose the repressed part of herself - all of it comes together so exquisitely for an incest ship.

And after they rediscover each other, in Frozen 2? Their bond remains just as intense. The last word on Elsa’s lips before freezing is Anna’s name. Anna, when she realizes Elsa’s “death,” sings a heartbreaking song that includes the lyrics:

“I can't find my direction, I'm all alone The only star that guided me was you How to rise from the floor When it's not you I'm rising for?”

Their pain is born of their love, and their love for each other drives them both forward."

Lestat/Gabrielle:

what if you were a 21 yo blonde guy turned into a vampire against your will and you turned your terminally ill emotionally unavailable 50 yo mother in a vampire also and she immediately started to dress as a beautiful man (she is eerily similar to you…) and you thought that you weren't alone finally and she would understand you and finally accept you and you made out nasty style but then she realized that she still doesn't really give a fuck about you. and ran away into the forest. to sleep in the dirt.

conversely what if you were a noblewoman that hates all of her children and feels completely and absolutely alone all of the time and trapped in a life you do not want but then your least hated son (who looks exactly like you and who you feel insanely jealous of because he is able to live the life you cannot) turns you into a vampire and for an evening you feel happiness and you experience true freedom until you realize that this new more powerful existence which frees you from the social norms of your time ALSO makes you unable to change anything about yourself so you can't even CUT YOUR HAIR LIKE THE MAN YOU ARE. and ALSO your annoying fucking crybaby son is there still and you hate him a little because despite being what you WISH you were he does not accept that freedom? and insists on living among humans? so you run away to live in the forest and sleep in the dirt

Flamboyant bi son and emotionally distant transmasc mom duo who bond to survive abusive circumstances and start making out after he turns her into a vampire (which technically makes him her dad as well). Lestat describes her boobs in lurid detail and literally refers to them as "lovers kissing" in canon. Gabrielle ends up abandoning her sonlover after a couple years on the road together, causing him to literally bury himself under a house out of sheer misery. If they try to smooth any of this over in the books I will riot.

freaky, freaky man and his genderqueer mother who he’s totally normal about. they kiss on the mouth many times and are described as lovers

[one-little-nerd-stayed-home]

Sorry sorry I haven't even met her yet and I can't stop thinking about Queen of IronDeep Jaina Bronzebeard cause

I quite literally never stop thinking about how she wasn't really even supposed to survive campaign one. Losing Gemma was supposed to drive her mad. And then it DIDNT. Because of Moonshine and Hardwon and now shes the literal queen of Iron Deep and I just hgngbngnfnfn

Also none of this is helped by the fact that I listened to Tilted Crown by Sam Williams and 'Heavy is the head. That wears these gems around.and all I know about Fair is once a year it blows through town. Cause The grace and the Shame that came with the name that I got handed down...'

I'm.

This is fine.

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

Til sunrise

Word count: 847

Fandom: Lolirock

Characters: Talia, Amaru

Other: Pre-Canon, continuation of episode 6 - Xeris, angst, abandonment, optimistic ending

Created for the first prompts of @whumptober and #lolirocktober (prompts here and here)

She never realised just how cold the castle walls were, but now, hidden by a broken passage, she could feel the chill seeping in through her thin dress. She was still trembling, even when she ran out of tears to cry.

She watched her own reflection in the dark crystal until it got too dark to see anymore, and then she just stared into the blank night. She didn't remember the nights ever being this dark. Was it another spell of Gramorr's? If he could cover the ground with dark crystals, maybe he did something to the sky too? Or it was simply the smoke.

She coughed with another breath and the sound echoed through the empty rooms- ruins. She immediately covered her mouth with her hand. She listened. Her body was tense and she repeated Crystal Collidum in her mind, to execute it perfectly if she had to protect herself. She regretted not remembering any more spells.

Finally after minutes or hours she let her guard down. It was slowly getting brighter and she was now sure that there wasn't anyone but her around. At least not a living soul.

She closed her eyes when she caught a glimpse of another translucent figure with the corner of her eye. She was cold, she was lonely and she was scared. But the darkness under her eyelids was more pleasant than the darkness around her and she finally admitted to herself that above all, she was tired.

She shot up after what felt like mere seconds. Her heart was racing and her eyes darted around, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Why was she sleeping on the ground...?

As soon as her gaze fell on the dark crystal before her, the horrors of last night came back to her. She felt a new wave of tears flood her eyes and she hid her face in her knees to at least not have to look at herself as she cried. It would only remind her that there's nobody here to comfort her.

Suddenly, through her own sobs she heard something that filled her both with hope and fear. It was a voice.

"Over there! Can you hear it too?" It was coming from above, from where the main hall used to be.

"The little guy seems to, at least. You really think someone would be here so soon after the attack?" There were more of them.

She pushed herself into the corner and tried to hold her breath but then she felt like suffocating, which would only make her breath more loudly, which would definitely make them hear her, and suddenly she was barely able to breath at all.

The sound of many footsteps was getting closer and she could now distinguish the sound of soft paws on stone among them.

Did Gramorr come back to get her too? Was it Banes?

She squeezed her sister's amulet in one hand and extended the other, trying to calm down enough to summon her magic circle.

"Everyone be ready. It's probably just a looter but..."

But how was she supposed to be calm? Her heart was louder than the patter of the approaching paws.

Her circle flickered and went out and so did her hope. Was he going to eat her? Did Banes eat princesses? Did he eat Izira too?

She clutched the amulet with both hands and squeezed her eyes shut, repeating in her mind all the prayers to the good stars for someone - for her sister - to come save her.

But she didn't feel sharp teeth bite into her flesh, or vicious claws tear her apart. Instead, something soft rubbed over her leg.

She risked opening her eyes.

A pair of big green eyes looked back at her.

She's never actually seen Banes, but she knew it couldn't be him. Banes was giant, could breath fire and was very, very evil. And this little puff of white and purple fur couldn't be evil in the slightest.

It put its paws on her knees and moved closer to sniff her. Its wet nose touched hers and it sneezed, knocking itself over in the process. Talia giggled.

"So who do we have here, little guy?" A pair of boots came into her view and a man bent down into her hiding spot. "Oh. Hello there."

Talia recoiled and her hands went back to the amulet.

The man instinctively reached for her but then stopped and instead put his hands up so she could see that he was unarmed. He knelt down far enough for her not to feel cornered but - as she realised when she was finally brave enough to look at him again - still close enough to obscure the horrible dark crystal.

"Hey, it's alright, we're not here to hurt you." He smiled gently. "You're safe now, the rescue mission is here."

The purple puff climbed back into her lap and Talia finally allowed herself to pet it. It was soft and she was starting to believe that perhaps the man was actually telling the truth.

[oneiro-nautical]

...

[cleolinda]

AITA for banning my husband and father in law from the delivery room due to their intensely stressful/creepy behavior during my pregnancy?

There’s a famous Reddit post from 2020 where a pregnant woman wrote that her husband and father-in-law were a little too comfortable with their certainty that she was absolutely going to die in childbirth just like her husband’s late mother. It was to the point where her FIL was insisting that she go ahead and put all her clothes into storage, because she was obviously going to die in the hospital and it would save them the grief of packing up her things afterwards. Like. It was WILD.

When I tell my husband [that she feels suspicious of her FIL], he calls me paranoid, but I feel like my FIL WANTS me to die; his whole life identity for the past 35 years has been “amazing single dad” (never dated or had close friends or even hobbies really), and it seems like he’s looking forward to being able to guide my husband through what he went through. At this point, I’d honestly be happy to never see my FIL again, and I certainly don’t want him in the delivery room, especially since he told me he was “putting [his] foot down” about me not being “allowed” to have an epidural…. My husband, in addition to backing his dad on everything, acts like my due date is my death date, and has completely pulled away from me.

The commenters (and me, honestly) were convinced that the husband and FIL were either going to kill her outright to fulfill this expectation, or just make decisions about her care that might conveniently let her die.

And then she never posted again.

Over the last four years, people have frequently mentioned that post, always leading to a thread of people saying, “Oh god, I still worry about that woman.” I did too. It became one of those famous unresolved posts that people always wondered about.

Until yesterday, when someone on r/BestOfRedditorUpdates dug up a 2022 update she had posted on a different account:

TLDR; I had a beautiful and healthy baby girl, and I divorced my ex-husband. I lived, obviously.

She writes that she put her foot down about having her own mother in the delivery room rather than her FIL (!), and she WOULD be getting an epidural. Her husband lost his shit. And in his outburst, he let slip--

I admittedly lost my temper, and told him that I wasn’t going to die- it wasn’t my fault his father’s trauma wormed it’s way into his head, and that he needed to fix it without taking it out on me. He yelled at me that he didn’t need therapy. That caught me a little off guard; I asked him why he went to his therapist and was given advice about my death if he felt he didn’t need it. His expression gave it away, and he caved not long after. It turns out there was no therapist. It was just his dad. During the times he was supposed to be at therapy, he was with his dad. I’m still fuming.

And that was when she got the fuck out.

I’ll wrap this up- I’ve got an adorable little toddler tugging at my leg atm. I’m alive, I’m happy, and I’ve got my baby in my arms. Life is good.

I truly never thought we'd see a resolution to this, and I feel like there's probably a good number of people who remember it, so I thought you might want to know.

ETA: Brilliantly, I put the link in at the top; here it is again for convenience.

[tteokdoroki]

✎ᝰ. OCT 22ND ★ SOMNOPHILIA - seishiro nagi .ᐟ

[CHAPTER TWENTY TWO SLEEPING BEAUTY ] once upon a time, a brave knight, destined to marry someone she’d never met, says fuck it and plans to reap the rewards of saving the prince from eternal slumber. without realising that he’s already awake… ( 8.8K ).

✧ chapter contents - minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact ! nsfw, heavy smut, characters in their 20s, sleeping beauty!au, somnophilia, hold the moan, overstimulation, cockwarming, dacryphilia, outer-course, handjobs, blowjobs, pussyjobs, free use, dub con, cumplay, creampies, not beta read, knight + fem!reader, aurora!seishiro nagi.

✧ fairy godmother's note - this is so late i'm so sorry, i think i might start posting kinktober towards the end of the week and into november, enjoy me loves. miss u loads! - m.list ⋆ kinktober m.list ⋆ taglist ☆

you hardly remember the day that prince nagi was born — despite most definitely being there for the ceremony that commemorated it. at the time, you were hardly out of your own leading strings, still babbling dumbly and clinging to your mother’s garments whenever someone poked their nose in your face. obviously far too young to remember the curse placed on him by that wicked witch maleficent. 

prince seishiro nagi was beloved by all and affection for him was widespread throughout the kingdom. he was born deep into the night, at a time where the sky had been painted with deep blue and midnight hues, with hair as silky and pale as the silver moon and eyes like the glittering starry sky. so they said. at least that’s what your been told. while present at the time, you would hardly know — you were too young to remember how he looked nor the very moment you were promised to him as a baby yourself. 

from the moment you were born, your fate was signed away before your very first breath and once you arrived and took two steps you were instantly reared to become prince seishiro’s future wife. to help join two kingdoms in harmonious union. from the moment you could talk, you’d spent your entire life training to become the wife of a man you hardly knew. there were lessons in perfect posture, dainty dancing and simple sewing. not to mention how to serve a king and please a husband  — who apparently had unnatural beauty, the softest voice and the kindest of hearts. outside of nagi, you hadn’t a single hobby or interest that didn’t concern him, solely born and bred for his best interest. how were you supposed to know if any of those spoken traits were really true and not just word of mouth when nobody had any idea where the prince actually was. 

rumour had it, that the silver haired royal had been whisked away to the woods to be raised by the very fairies that blessed him — with hopes of avoiding maleficent’s malevolent curse in which seishiro was destined to prick his finger on a poisoned spinning wheel by age twenty three. in an attempt to undo the wicked spell, the fairies had combined their magic and made it so that only a true love's kiss would be able to wake up their beloved prince. which soon became your duty, by the time you came of age too. 

since then, and for twenty two years after, there was not a peep from the prince — to his people and his kingdom, he’d practically vanished overnight, becoming one with the moon and stars they prayed to each night. holding out hope for his return to the throne. 

in turn, you had no idea when your duty would come to fruition. maleficent's thunderous mountain, shrouded in a thick layer of green, jealous smog that was sure to suck the life from any innocent soul still raged on — meaning her curse hadn’t come true. she still hadn’t found the prince. no one had.

no one except for you. 

unknowingly, you’d met nagi humming amongst pointed shrubbery and wild flowers deep in the forest — absentmindedly complaining about tne berries he was forced to forage for his uncles back home. for you, it was instant, as though an invisible force had drawn you two him like the the two poles of a magnet. prince seishiro was a sight to behold, even before you knew who he was, the timbre trill of his voice filled you with a wave of unfamiliar butterflies that battled their way into your throat — trapping your voice. his eyes were an enchanting pool of riches, frightened of your presence at first, but filled with stripes of silver you were sure had to be stolen from the moon. 

for you, it was love at first sight. a powerful urge to be near him building up in your lungs like fluid in a sick person. you were sure he felt the same — the emotion obvious in the way he tentatively touched you as you talked about nothing and everything at all. the way he swooped down to your height to listen to tales of land and fortune he could only have dreamed of.

in those hours that you spent alone together; pressed into one another’s side’s amongst intertwined tree branches like two lovers' limbs after a night of improper passion  — you’d felt the most seen you had in all your life. for the first time in forever, someone saw you as more than just a bargaining chip or a trophy to be paraded around royal courts in honour of union. someone saw you as a whole, read your story from start to finish and still wanted to know more. you weren’t just a knight made to save a prince. to nagi, you were so much more.

and to you, nagi was a breath of fresh air — someone who craved a more exciting life rather than being banished to a life of greenery and foliage. despite his charming air of laziness and naivety, he expressed to you a burning sense of eager deep within. it was innocent, inquisitive but nagi’s thoughts called out to you like the bird song of two mates. the worlds you came from were different, clearly, but you just made sense to one another.

but back then, in those quiet moment with your head on his shoulder and nothing but the sound of oak leaves swaying in the gentle summer breeze — you’d had no idea that the silver haired stranger was just prince seishiro living under a different name. you thought him a commoner and he thought you a random huntress on a horse. no one had any idea that he was the crown prince, that he’d been snuck back into the castle on the day of his twenty third birthday to regain his title and his crown… only to be lulled by the cruel call of a sinister stranger  shortly — pricking his finger just like maleficent had planned. 

you were meant to marry. you were supposed to go back for seishiro and run away together, live apart from the expectations bestowed upon you as children. unfortunately, you wouldn’t find out until returned to the spot where you’d first met him, and were met with the face of the villain herself. instead of your lover. that’s when you realised the gravity of it all. who seishiro was. who you were meant to be. 

deep down, you knew this was a love too sacred to pass by, and with the white haired prince counting on you —  you would do everything in your power to save him. save the prince and the kingdom from sleeping soundly for the next one hundred years.

with the help of the fairies who raised nagi, you were able to take down the terrible maleficent — grateful that your parents had at least made you handy with a sword. through the flames of the beast above you, you wielded your weapon with a strength and bravery that would go down into the history books of lands far and wide. killing maleficent in the form of the dragon had been no easy feat but you fought, with screaming muscles and a bloody face — fulfilling the duty you had been born to do. trained to do. for nagi and for your kingdom. 

the difference was, this time, you were doing all of this for love. not just for honour.

after winning the flaming battle, you staggered your way through the kingdom despite your burns and free bleeding wounds, making your way up to the tower where your silver-moon haired lover slept. part of you felt envious of the slumbering kingdom, the eternal rest they had slipped under while your body burned and ached with every step that you took… but as soon as you laid eyes on your handsome prince — sleeping like a fallen angel crowned by scattered lights. the glinting particles of dust forming a shining halo over his sleep the steel hair. 

the beat of your heart quickens as you approach the bed tucked deep within his quarters — rivalling the speed of the finest royal race horse and the world completely falls away until the all that remains are you and seishiro. your prince. your love. even while he sleeps, he’s unfairly handsome, grey lashes dusted with starlight just barely brushing the apples of his milky-toned cheeks, his hair curls against his forehead and his lips, rose-tinted, part with each gentle exhale his body takes to keep him alive. without even thinking, your finger trails the slopes and contours of nagi’s delicate features, brushing over his Cupid’s bow that seems damp with the condensation of his warm breaths. the sensation stokes a fire within you while your mind wanders to less than pleasant thoughts.

how would his lips feel if you were to kiss him? how would they taste? how would seishiro kiss you back? the questions swirl around in the calcium cage of your skull like a storm untapped, fuelled by the remnants of adrenaline that simmers in your veins from the fight. it would be wrong, to do what you’re thinking of doing — to press your lips to the seam of his and run your tongue every inch in his hot mouth, behind his teeth and over his own pink muscle. maybe even to cup his throat and feel every breath he takes. it would be so wrong… and yet, your moral compass and previous duties seem to be out of working order, thus, losing the war the flickering desirous flame within you. one that rivals the breath of the dragon slaid outside.

no one would really care if you were to have the way with the crown prince. after all, you would need to be rewarded for your self sacrifice and service to the kingdom that could have very well been burned to the ground if it hadn’t been for your bravery. you deserved this, you deserved him and the chance to appease your growing appetite for the sleeping beauty before you. right now, there were no barriers… no servants and squires and maids or men to tell you what was proper of a knight or of a promised woman, and there certainly weren’t any barriers to the body of the silver haired prince. without any blankets, there wasn’t much to stop you from trailing a hand over seishiro’s clothed stomach and over the hills of his princely dress pants.

your fingertips grazed the taut muscles of his thick thighs as you teased yourself. teased the slumbering royalty. daring tug at the belt loops and thick leather her bound his trousers to his unfairly slender waist. with your lip caught between the sharp edge of your teeth, you unbuckle his belt and pull down his pants inch by inch, a tidal wave of goosebumps erupting over the surface of your body like freshly plucked chicken skin as you reveal more and more of his milky, toned flesh. he’s smooth all over, blueish veins apparent as they spiral underneath his skin, but nagi is just as soft as you remember, as warm brushing up against you as he was the day you first met in the woods.

saliva spreads across your tongue like a sheet of rain during a storm or a flash flood when his undergarments come down with the hem of his trousers, revealing a snow white path of pubic hair that curls prettily against his pelvis. there’s a craving for more that sloshes into the dips and deficits of your brain, like a dark haze that shrouds your brain in nothing but lust — so you act on the feeling, pulling more and more fabric away from seishiro’s most intimate parts until his cock, half hard and already leaking, is able to spring free. 

the sleeping beauty’s breath hitches and catches on the edges of his throat as his hard-on first hits the cool air shrouding his chambers. whatever preconceived notion you’d had of the prince’s body beforehand is quickly tossed away when you finally set your sights on his girth — he is as long as he is thick, chubby against the softness of his tummy with a pink tip that already oozes a thick stream of cream caused by the ghost of your touch over him. a warmth spreads through your entire body, an urge to taste him washing over you in a poor attempt to cool your need down. if you taste him, would that be part of your reward? would it matter to anyone if you put your mouth on the prince while he innocently slept… especially after you’d saved everyone?

you still cannot find it within yourself to care. 

perhaps the wounds maleficent inflicted upon you have left traces of her bad energy, for you continue to disregard your own morals and good intentions by crawling onto nagi’s bed ( careful with your movements while he shifts in his slumber ) and you keep your touch tender when taking him into your hold, the supple pads of your fingers wrapping around the length of the prince’s shaft while you smooth the pad of your thumb into the slit on his cockhead. rubbing the precum into it sweetly. now up close and personal with his most intimate parts, you’re able to catch the scent of nagi… which only worsens your hunger for him. he smells so good, the musky scent of his arousal almost sending your eyes into the back of your skull — acting like fumes of a pretty wildflower in the forest you once met. 

it hypnotises you, takes over your every thought and action in the heat of the moment. every sensation you once felt is now heightened by your own arousal, the feeling of your tongue behind your teeth and the silken sheets against your knees and the blistering temperature of seishirou’s girth in your palm. adjusting your grip on him to something more firm, soft little hands dwarfed by the sheer size and thickness of him, and accidentally pull a tiny moan from your sleeping lover. any trepidation mingling with the air in your lungs is quickly eradicated once you finally give in, flicking your tongue over the cream gathering at nagi’s mushroomed cockhead that burns a painful shade of deep red.

opening your mouth, you take seishiro down your throat as though it’s the easiest thing in the world, your tongue flexing against the bluish purple forked veins that spiral down his heavy shaft. all you want to do is make him harder, feel the blood rush from his slumbering brain to his balls so you can take him properly, elsewhere, later on. what doesn’t fit past the seams of your chapped lips, you continue to palm, setting a steady pace to the rhythm of your hands jerking the silver-haired prince off. its slick and easy, aided by the thick globs of precum that spill over your knuckles and sink into the lines in your palms — seishiro may be asleep, but his body reacts, hips bucking into your closed fist while he squeaks and sighs lazily. 

his head remains tacked to the pillow tucked behind it, starlight locks splayed out across the cooling silk fabric — perfectly tousled despite being slightly out of place as he writhes under the sinful prison of your hot, wet mouth. even you have to moan as you sink down on him, his heavy and pulsating balls meeting your chin while your nose nudges the prickliness of his happy trail. if he were awake, you wonder if nagi would be the type to coax you through giving him head — soft whimpers glossed in his lips while those moonshine grey eyes hold your gaze. or would he push your head down on him and fuck your mouth lazily as though it were another hole to fill with his cum.

part of you wants to rouse him right now, with the kiss of true love the fairies said would work on him, but only to hear how much louder he’d cry and moan for you. you want to hear how the Prince would praise you for taking him so well, slurping the early seed from his tip and hollowing your perfect pudgy cheeks as you gargle him down your eager throat. your imagination runs ahead of your actions as you bob your head faster and faster without regard for your lover sleeping soundly above you lewd slurping sounds echo throughout the room as you picture him looking down at you with flushed cheeks and lidded moonlit eyes — coaxing you to take more of him. 

the heat between your thighs returns, an unbearable searing ache pulsating through your clit as blood carrying lust and other happy hormones shoot straight to it. in one swift motion, you shove a single hand past the waistband of your own pants and undergarments to toy with the sensitive bud, smearing whatever remained of his precum and pre-release against your awaiting cunt. your eyes flutter shut at the taste and heaviness of nagi on your tongue, his viscous arousal flowing down your throat in saltine waves. the flavour was addictive and you found yourself bobbing your head faster, and faster — matching it to the pace at which you stroked your own sticky slit.

lavishly, you run your tongue back and forth over the opening of seishiro’s bulbous cockhead, humming happily around his thick shaft when he involuntarily bucks into the hellish fire of your mouth — it makes your heart swell to know that his body is reacting to you and you alone, how it could very well be this way for the rest of your lives. while you hump your own fingers, their tips pruning with how wet you are as you circle your clit, the sleepy beauty’s balls batter your chin as his taut hips thrust upwards instinctively to chase your dripping tongue and mouth.

drool pours from the corners of it, just as you leak against the seat of your panties — your juices hot and viscous while you finger fuck yourself and get off to the sensation of blowing the sleepy prince while he rests. everything is so sloppy, so messy and wet and you can’t help but to spit down on nagi as his dick swells against your tongue, the frothy mixture clinging to the prominent blood flushed veins that sprinkle from the tip down to his base. 

your release sneaks up on you like a silent figure in the night; hiding from the moonlight and a dirty moan slips from between your lips as you let go of your lover with a lewd pop, your jaw aches deliciously and your tongue is sore from running circles over his tip — as is your wrist from being down your pants to bully shapes into your clit but you don’t mind the pain, it’s all worth it to make yourself feel good. to make nagi feel good so you can use him later on, turning him from a prince into a sex doll. dopamine continues to spark across your brain as you switch from sucking to jerking nagi off, keeping the rhythm of your slick palm wrapped around him in tune with the one that rolls your clit between your fingertips and pinches your swollen folds. 

you don’t last much longer, not when you’re able to watch the moonlit prince fall apart above you even when the depths of sleep cling to the fine lines of his soul. the last remaining thread of your sanity snaps before you’re cumming against your own digits, gushing through the gusset of your panties and straight through the layer or your pants — even while you shiver and shake from the force of your own orgasm, you manage to find a the mobility to tap nagi’s cockhead lewdly against your pink tongue, grinning with an open mouth as his own orgasm rips through his unconscious form. 

warm and viscous seed paints a pretty picture against your strawberry tastebuds as it spurts copiously from his ravaged, fully erect cock. even hitting the back of your throat. 

but it’s not enough, it’s still not enough. a fire of desire still burns bright inside of you and nagi is still as hard as a rock in your hand. so you don’t see a point in stopping, not when you still want him and he clearly still wants you. 

in a whirlwind of fabric, you quickly abandon the lower half of your clothes — even though your legs are violently shaking and there’s a fizz in your brain that makes your vision go blurry from your orgasm, you find the strength to clamber into the prince’s lap and straddle him. a pulse of excitement runs through you as your bare ass meet his half dressed thighs and you set your palms flat against his chest to steady yourself above him. you’re barely able to contain the wavering moan that rumbles in the back of your throat as seishiro’s erection jumps against your sluice sex, as if coaxing you to lower yourself down onto him.

without an air of guilt, you do just that; indulging your sleeping lover’s underlying plea as you slip a hand between your temperate bodies to position his creamy cock at your weeping entrance — you run it back and forth over your slit a few times whilst holding back a quivering hiss, letting him dip in and out of your unused hole. you can’t help but squeak adorably when you start to rock your hips down, sucking him in and stretching over the thick circumference of his tip. you even manage to clench down on seishiro, trapping him inside with each inch you manage to take.

your head hangs low and you steady yourself against nagi again; nails forming pink crescent moons against his pearlescent skin because you’re not sure how much of this burn you can take. he’s so big, yet his cock is so helpless against your sticky walls — it’ll take a lot of work just to reach the hilt. “oh, fuck,” you whimper to yourself quietly, not wanting to be caught taking advantage of the kingdom’s slumbering royalty. you try to stablwlisw your breathing, hold onto your sanity by only fucking yourself over his tip because right now… it’s all you can manage. getting used delicious stretch to your pussy and the resistance of your hole as nagi slips into your tightness. 

in order to ground yourself, you press yourself against the moonlit prince until you’re both chest to chest — allowing your body to relax against is as you slide further down his cock. and, with this change in position, you easily dot feather light kisses from the pale skin, unmarked skin of seishiro’s neck up to his jawline — licking the light layer of perspiration that added diamonds to his skin. his pulse is slow, languid under your lips, just as the rise and fall of his chest is. nagi still sound asleep as you bathed his cock in all of your syrupy wetness. eventually, you reach his lips and hardly hesitate in kissing them, lapping over the seam of them with your tongue as if you’re asking for entrance when you don’t really need to.

not when his body is so willing to give into you, even while seishiro rests.

you swear you feel his lips twitch apart against your own, parting specifically for you to pour your withering moans into him and breathe life into his unconscious soul — your tongue licks at his, relishing in the flavour and slight sweetness to his mouth, letting it distract you from the twinge between your thighs as you finally seat yourself on his girth fully; breeders balls nestled comfortably against the curve of your ass. a feeling of content washes over you, feeling the chubbiness of his girth press hotly against your ribbed walls that catch on his prominent veins there. 

panting lightly, a ripple of desire is the next sensation that you feel, experimentally clenching around the prince below you — bottoming out as your cunt drools down on him. somehow, you find the strength in your thighs to lift your hips and thrust back down, a wet slap bouncing off of all four walls in response. it’s insane how tight, warm and wet you are — how thick, heavy and nagi is, constantly pressed up against your g-spot before you’ve really even moved. you splutter and hiccup as you begin the slow bounce of your hips and allow yourself the grace to accommodate for your sleeping lover’s size, his bright red and possibly overstimulated cockhead nudging feverishly against the pleasure spots that decorate your temperate silken walls. 

“…gods,” comes your shaky voice, trapped behind the prison of your teeth in a weak attempt to hold in your moans. “s-seishiro, f-feel so good…” though you speak to no one in particular, using the sound of your own wailing voice to get yourself, you can feel the white-haired royal underneath you buck upwards as though he wants to fuck you back — driven by tired strings of lust and desire as though he’s a puppet on a set of strings for your own pleasure. collapsing forward, you nestle your head underneath his chin so that the only part of your body moving is your hips working up and down on nagi’s pulsating cock at break-neck speeds. in this position, your murky breaths of exertion coast over his pearlescent skin and your eyes grow misty at the perfect angle. your stream of thrusts are constant like a rushing river, allowing his bulbous leaky tip to barrage into your sex and pull squelching, lewd noises from your poor pussy.

you’re already so sensitive, it’d be a miracle if you last much longer riding your lover like this and to your heart’s content. slumped over him, chewing on your chapped lips to hide the debauched noises that slosh over your tongue and are churned up in your mouth with the drool there. it’s pathetic, really, but your mind is too hazy and high on the drug of ecstasy to care. to pacify yourself and the growing fire that burns the butterflies in your tummy, you switch from bouncing on his fat girth to grinding against it, dancing with your partner in a sensual sticky grind where only you are able to lead. every stroke of his cock within your sluice, pulsating walls makes it harder for you to keep quiet or keep still — the bed creaking beneath the weight of your movement becomes a loud wail and harmonises perfectly with the tune or skin slapping on skin and your pathetic bleats of bliss. 

sweat from the exertion of pounding your mound down on the curve of his cock begins to bead at your hairline, pearling in opaque orbs that form your own halo. one that belongs to a fallen angel. it drips down the side of your face onto the prince below you, another way that you mark him, just as your juices do — droplets of it trailing down his shaft, balls and even his ass. if someone were to walk in now, they’d set their sights on an obscene display of sin, their perfect prince defiled by his knight to be, but you don’t care, your mind and exhausted limbs buzzing with wanton. you’ll use him until cum, claim your prize and work your selfish pussy over him until you know every constellation by heart because of how many times you’ve used seishiro to make yourself see stars.

every sensation overwhelms you, the creamy and tackiness to his cock between your slicked up thighs and the pressure of his purpling cockhead as it digs disgustingly against your g-spot in the most perfect of ways because you clench down on him every now and again. static rings loud in your ears that burn with both shame and lechery for taking advantage of your sleeping lover, the notes from the tune your fat pussy pap-pap-papping as it connects with stitchers of nagi’s bare flesh has a tingling sensation spreading under your skin too. even when he bucks instinctively into you, your entire body jolts in response because there’s no greater relief than knowing that you are yearned for… even within the clutches of unconsciousness.

when nagi whimpers in his sleep, you have to bite his shoulder — keeping your wailing mouth occupied even if you’ll leave teeth marks against him in place. someone could hear the way you beg him to fuck you, muffling yourself as you whisper dirty fantasies to yourself and split your swollen nether lips open on his drippy dick. you’re not sure if that is a good or bad thing to want, to be heard.  “f-fuck me sei… p-please my prince,” everything feels so depraved and so wrong, while you whine sweetly against saltine skin. however, you don’t see yourself stopping — not until you can no longer feel your legs from riding him and your cunt aches from cumming so hard. “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!”

the back and forth of your sluice sex over nagi’s lap tampers with your system, sending orgasmic shockwaves down your spine and happy hormones into your bloodstream. you alternate, once more peeling your soaked thighs away from his and lift your fluttering entrance higher and higher up his shaft until there’s barely an inch of the white haired royal left inside of you. the emptiness makes you miss him, a choked sob weaving its way like a vine through the gaps in your ribs as it claws its way out of your throat. it’s a shuddering noise that you suppress by locking lips with seishiro again, wet on the seam of them as you lift your head to kiss him. 

“i wanna cum, nagi!”

the words are just about to melt in his mouth but…

…but euphoria is quick to slip into your veins like a welcomed chill on a hot day when nagi suddenly rouses from his slumber — following a natural compulsion to snap his hips upwards with a powerful force and filling you in one fluid motion. he’s awake. one of his hands, extremely strong and veiny and firm takes you by surprise as it clamps down on the back of your neck  so that he can keep you in place too. it was almost as if he was chasing the snugness of your oozing, squelchy mound. an incredulous gasp drifts warmly from your mouth and condenses in nagi’s, for a second you worry that he might push you off and yell for help… but recognition registers on the slope of his handsome features. 

he’s awake…how long has seishiro been awake? 

moonlight lashes flutter against your face from your proximity and murky grey eyes, littered with exhaustion between their flecks, light up with a sprinkling of hearts as then open to look at you. slowly but surely their gaze drifts downwards, honing in on the point at which his milky cock repeatedly disappears into your puffy pussy, the glaze of your essence on his rock hard cock and clinging to his pubes put on display. 

groaning hoarsely and deeply, nagi’s freehand shoots down to the bouncing flesh of your ass without a lick of hesitation and pulls you the rest of the way down his pulsing girth. then up again. then back down — giving him all of the control to pummel your pussy to the high heavens. hard and fast. “i thought… thought you wanted to cum,” the moonlit prince mumbles, voice still puppeteered by the last strings of sleep. “don’t make it a hassle by holding back now… fuck your self down on my cock ‘n cum…”

he’s awake… how much of this has seishiro been awake for? 

nagi builds up a formidable momentum inside of you, dragging his seedy tip along your ravaged walls, shocking for someone who had essentially just woken up from a curse of eternal slumber. he doesn’t seem to mind that you’ve been using him like a toy for your own sexual desires, but how could he? not when you’re dousing him in your sweet nectar, slapping your soaked sex down on him and squeezing his aching shaft just like that. how can a man, no less a prince, whine about waking up to such a good fuck?

all you can do is reply with a high pitched squeal, your body jerking and jolting on top of nagi as you struggle to keep up with thrusts. “come now, don’t make me do all of the work,” white starts to froth at the base of his cock, bubbling up while it streaks over your ruined pussy lips and clit. “after all, you started this… took advantage of me while i slept. s’only fair, angel,” he adds nonchalantly and makes you gush unbelievable amounts of arousal at the condescending air about his words.

he’s awake and now seishiro wants you to cum for him.

you do try your very best to do as nagi says, selfishly squeezing down on him and locking his precum bleeding tip inside your gummy walls, but your hips fumble their rhythm as soon as he looks up at you — sweaty hair splayed out in the sheets like an angel, lips parted in both curiosity and awe, cock bulging in your lower stomach. you’re choking the life out of seishiro and he likes it, feeling like he’s been rewarded for just being a pretty prince. 

all you want is for him to make you scream and squirt — your clit smears against his pelvis while you buck down on him feverishly. he barely lets you lift of his erection at this point. “‘m close… s-seishiro, please! c-can’t…”

it’s the first time you’ve spoken his name directly to him since your love-at-first-sight encounter in the woods and it flips a switch in the peaceful prince of the night. “y-yeah you can, angel. of course you can…” with a breathy, almost whiny moan, seishiro uses his newfound energy to assault your cunt with a barrage of wild thrusts. jackhammering into you, jerking you about on his throbbing length, coated in a milky mix of your shared arousals. “had no problem… fixing yourself on my cock before. ‘m sure you can make yourself cum on it now that i’m here to help,” he adds through gritted teeth, never letting up on his incredible speed. “shouldn’t be a hassle.” 

that’s all you really need to hear before you’re thrown into the deep end, the dark abyss of the night. while the ropes in your tummy unravel and unwind, the tune of sinful sex reaches its final crescendo and the world around you fades away as you’re thrown over the edge and temporarily black out — you practically squirt in an aggressive, clear stream and renders you a cum soaked mess in the prince’s lap. he forces your head into the junction between his neck and jaw, utilising his hold on you to help muffle the scream that burns at the sore edges of your voice as you cum for him. practically drowning nagi in everything you have to give. 

as if chasing something, your lover speeds up his thrusts, trying to make sure he isn’t left behind while you cum for him. growls and grunts spill over his lips, nagi’s pink tongue darting out the flavour you’d left on him as he slept. he buries himself deep inside of you, lunging into that one special spot nestled deep within your walls so that he can prolong your release — working hard even though he was just roused from what seemed like an eternal night.

the aftershocks of your high and heavenly spasms of your hole around nagi simply aren’t enough to satisfy him however — whatever remains of an orgasm he had coming fade away like embers of a dying flame while you come down. in fact, before you can even collapse on the white haired royal fully, he uses a strength you were unaware that he possessed to immediately flip you onto your back — manhandling you into the position he desires most. your thighs pushed together, knees pushed into your chest and him… towering over you menacingly.

only now do you realise how… large seishiro is. how much more dominant he is over you. how it may have been a mistake to think you could steal pleasure from him while he slept as a personal reward and not expect consequence. or at least a consequence you might enjoy too. “such a waste,” he comments groggily, pulling his cream soaked cock from its home within your pretty pussy with a hiss. using one hand, nagi grabs at his ravaged shaft and taps it against the swell of your thighs pushed together. “how can you use me like that…and still fail to make me cum? i’ll have to do it myself. what a bother, angel.”

your breath catches in your throat, indicating your surprise. “seishiro…w-wait,” you plead, lips parting in a quiet moan at every squeeze of your flesh and tug of hips to get your body into place. you don’t even know what you’re asking for or why you’re asking him to stop, you still don’t care about the consequences. all you want is for the sleeping beauty above you to fall apart, to hear your name on the tip of his tongue, to feel him cum wherever that may be. “‘m sorry…i-i didn’t know you were awake!”

“don’t care darlin’,” seishiro’s breathy words hang between the pearliness of his teeth, shaggy hair tickling the skin on your calves as he positions them over his shoulders instead of in the air. “don’t r’member much… just my finger gettin’ pricked ‘n then you… using me. on top of me…” his cock makes a home between your plush thighs, pushing back and forth against the flesh to relieve his painfully hard erection. the action itself paints the canvas of your body with remainders of your arousal and essence — thick stringy globs of white forming tracks against soft skin. “f-fuck angel, you put in all this work to make yourself cum using me… now it’s my turn.” 

eyes that mirror the silver light of the moon flutter shut and nagi’s nose judges against your ankle — lips grazing the pointed bone and in their wake leave a trail of inflamed bites from where he leaves his mark on you, hoping that they’ll be present on the morning to remind you of who you belong to. his pink tongue peeks out to lick, loll over and soorje what he nips at, but the wet sensation doesn’t distract from curious finger tips that dance their way down and pinch your arousal soaked, fat folds together. neediness streams into your tone as you whimper out for more and your hips arch up to chase the feeling. 

in response a lazy grin twitches at the corner of your prince’s mouth, playing with the tackiness your cunt leaves against his hand before he spreads it over his bright red tip as lube. “quit squirming angel, s’too much of a bother to keep you pinned down,” seishiro then adjusts his knees on the bed and his hips begin to brutally rut into you, dragging his sloppy length back and forth, back and forth through the makeshift pocket pussy he’s made out of your quivering limbs. his precum loaded tip prods at the softness of your tummy and earns you a symphony of high pitched moans and heaving pants, harmonised with heavy balls slapping wetly against your clit over and over again. to the point where you fear you may be overcome with another orgasm all too soon.

being used like this, it feels humiliating, shame burns like paper held to a flame underneath the surface of your skin and tears begin to sting in your lower lash line as your entire body jolts up the bed — nagi throwing you about like a rag while he plunges his hips against your doughy thighs. his stamina impresses you too, but you find it hard to dwell on how quickly your lover was able to be riled up after rising from the constraints of an all powerful curse. you don’t mind the aching pulse to your untouched pussy when you get to watch nagi hang over you and hungrily hump your shaky legs — his usually kind eyes are swamped with darkness of lust the back of his pupil practically eclipsing the grey colour. 

his head darkens at the roots from how much he’s sweating, droplets crowning his head and running down his back like water on a glass windowpane. he’s a sight to behold, he makes your holes drool and mouth water, the both of you completely wrecked by a little thigh fucking and humping. between his merciless pace and the creaks from the bed, nagi jams a veiny hand between the sensual bump and grind of your bodies to grasp at his thick, temperate shaft — pulling it down to run through the entire length of your slippery before tapping it greedily against your puffy clit and snack between your thighs.

the sweet squeak you release has the prince repeating his action over and over, blood rushing through the purpling veins that spiral down his chubby cock. you’re the perfect sticky little fleshlight for him to fuck, to hold and love, and he hisses, jutting his hips forward in order to chase the euphoria coursing for his veins like the next best drug — all while he pounds your thighs to the starry heavens and back. 

juicy, wet sounds fill the room to the brim, a concert and performance of moans and whimpers to match and accompany nagi pounding away at your thighs, grinding against your sex. the white haired man leaks copious amounts of precum, milky like his hair and loose from his sore and sensitive rouge tip, that can’t stop weeping, oozing. his arousal makes each of his movements easier and more fluid, slipping and sliding between your legs and just grazing your sobbing mound. this way; you’re reminded of the sheet sheer size of your lover from the woods — be throbs, swollen and fat with an oncoming orgasm, with the seed that weighs down his balls that swing with each rut of his hips.

a hearty sob escapes you each time they press against you, dragging over your clit that begs for attention. the visage of your prince above you — flushed at the cheeks ( if they’ve been kissed by the petals of a rose), white brows knitted together st the centre of his forehead while ruby lined lips appear bitten and bruised  — begins to blur from your saltine tears. you can no longer hold back, raw and rough desire washing away your ability to control your body and your voice.

the way you cry wracks your body with the case of the shakes because of the wild whines resounding from deep within seishiro’s hard chest. each sound makes your cunt quiver, your juices darkening the sheets below and clinging to his snow while pubes, all the while, the prince ravishes you pulling you apart molecule by molecule before he pieces you back together with just a lazy shape drawn against your hardening clit. 

“w-what a waste of tears, i thought you wanted to use me,” nagi stutters out, breath condescending against your ankles. it makes him pulse between your thighs, knowing that he’s the one able to reduce you to a mess of cum and tears — even if you did half the work for him while he slept soundly. the fact that you threaten to break, still holding onto your inhibitions and desperate moans, only serves to make home rut his creamy cock against you faster. “you should give it up angel, m-much less of a hassle if you give into me.”

and with that, seishiro leans down to kiss you, his swiftness akin to a starved man. he manhandles your thighs to sit either side of his unfairly slender waist, granting him the room to swoop down until you’re chest to chest — his wide, large frame hiding your shaky one away from the world underneath him as his teeth sink into your bottom lip. he licks into your mouth as you open up with a shy mewl, devious tongue wrapping itself around your own as he tastes himself there. “thank you for waking me up, angel,” spit slings between your eager mouths, movements a little out of sync and languid since they’re so driven by a raw passion that simmers underneath the sleepy fog clouding the prince’s brain. “wakin’ me up to do this,”

he settles back on his haunches after coming up for air, laughing tiredly at the pout on your lips from the loss of contact. 

but now that you’re spread eagle with your cunt drooling openly on the bed and glistening under the moon’s light — the white haired royal angles his hips just right, shuddering from head to toe as his sex soiled girth slots between your swollen folds perfectly. his bulbous tip peeks out against your clit and he circles it against you, desperate to hear you wail like the wind again. “feels so good against you, s’not fair how good you feel,” he says under his stuttering breath, using a thumb and forefinger to spread your pussy lips apart — groaning at the strings of clear slick that tie them together. ““later on, when i’ve got more energy, i’m going to fuck this pretty hole. make sure i really have my turn.” nagi promises and swallows thickly at the raunchy sight of you, viscous drops of your treacle like nectar running over your slit and down to your puckered asshole.

you’re grateful for his touch, the friction you’re about to receive… but you miss seishiro’s lips and his tongue so deep in your mouth he might as well have been fucking it too. why do you miss those luscious lips? because they keep you quiet, muffle your embarrassingly high moans and withering screams of pleasure, cover up your glass shattering cries that accompany your teary face. he’s so heavy and raw against you, grinding his shaft that shoots tiny spirts of precum onto your cunt while you match his rhythm — it’s a wonder why you’re crying right now. not to mention the rounds of overstimulation he’s put you through. 

“you were so quiet before, angel, what happened?” a condescending tone fills out the weight in nagi’s voice, punctuated by the harsh lunges of his hips forwards as he smothers his girth in the juicy offerings from your folds. part of the prince wants to selfishly keep you writhing against his hot and heavy dick for all of eternity, adoring the way you bleat and cry for him through bleary Bambi eyes. hes sure you wouldn’t mind it either, but he’s too far gone to keep edging you both forever. “does it feel that good? so fucking good that you can’t help but whine and whimper for me… s’too much of hassle to hold back, angel. go one, cry pretty f’me, pretty girl…”

you burst into tears, letting your emotions overwhelm you. “feels so, so good, my prince,” you slur back as that familiar twinge of pleasure begins to rapidly mount within your tummy once more — throwing an avid, heated look his way. “s-sei, ‘m close,” one of your shaky hands take purchase in the silvery roots of his hair while the other grasps him shoulder so that you have the leverage to grind into him — rocking your hips in a fluid motion like a boat on rapid waves. sanity slips away from you under nagi, his energy completely unmatched as you struggle to keep up with his pace. the way he chases your sweltering, souse sex with the speed of the kingdom’s finest race horse. he pushes forward when you pull back and it goes both ways — one moment can’t happen without the other. 

nagi simpers above you, smirking lazily as he pushes back the sweaty snowy white roots of his hair — drinking in the sight of you. “that so? you’re close? wanna feel it’s, s’too much effort to have you hold it…not when you sound so wet…” both of you move with increased vigour the closer you get to cloud nine, seishiro cooing to you like over the crude sound of your sexes slipping over each other. “…y’should be embarrassed, yanno,” he presses against you, whimpering happily at the feeling of your breasts bouncing against his chest with each thrust, his breath hot against the tips of your ears and weakly grinds against you clit now — his own orgasm on the horizon.  “taking advantage of me like that. using me. s’naughty princess. such a hassle.” 

he tucks his face against your neck, teeth grazing over the skin while he listens out for your hiccuped sobs and heaving chest — you’re so loud when you’re close and it pleases nagi. he can’t stop tapping your clit and nipping at your flesh — desperate to hear how much louder you can get without holding back. a gargled gasp from you has his cock twitching and threatening to burst with release, while the condescending gripes that vibrate in his chest shoot straight to you’re swollen clit. 

listening to you cry and settling his greyed gaze on your puffy eyes is more than enough for nagi to cum, the string of his own sanity snapping as you scream for him. “you look like you’re about to cum, angel,” he purrs lowly, panting between each word. “mmmh, don’t you think i deserve to go first? fuuuuck i’m close…so close. do you want it inside? i won’t ruin the bed that way… wont need to clean it up…” seishiro rambles over the spit pooling pathetically on his tongue, bucking faster and harder against your slippery cunt with each syllable he manages to get out. “…wanna put it inside you as you cum.” 

you barely have it in you to respond and you can hardly make sense of it all, brain running a mile a minute. the feeling of your orgasm twists in your lower stomach, stacking painfully in your pelvis at a rapid pace you can’t even comprehend. “yes…! want it inside, gods yes!” you sigh out, voice rising several octaves. “want you inside!”

though it’s entirely selfish of you to make demands in the moment, after how you so sinfully used the sleeping prince as your prize — nagi relents, slipping the delicious curve of his cock past your puckered, fluttering entrance just as he reaches his peak. it makes him shake as though the gods have stepped down from the heavens and set foot on earth and he really can’t help it, how much he cums. there's so much of it, white hot seed that spews into you hotly, so pent up from all the pleasure you’d given him while he slept. his heavy load pulses against your sensitive, ribbed walls and sticks — lubing up your insides while he pushes his milky cock deeper into your bare cunt. 

“f-fuck!” the white haired prince curses loud enough to rouse his loyal subjects within a ten mile radius with one final swing of his hips. “f-fuck angel… gods!”  strings of opaque seed tie the veins on his shaft to your precious hole and as he twitches with the last spurts of his orgasm — your own high is triggered.

white flashes behind your eyes and the dam breaks for the third and final time — your release trickles out of you in small waves and you let out a borderline pornographic moan. nagi hums happily at the feeling of you squirting around him, Essen e clinging to his pubic hair too. 

for a second or two, seishiro relishes in the way you convulse around him, giving you a moment to calm down while he pacifies your high pitched squeals with gentle kisses along the side of your head. you’re still quivering when he collapses on top of you exhausted — neither of you having the capacity to speak properly. “d-don’t move… jus’ lay here with me,” he murmurs, tripping on his words. “‘m tired… don’t wanna move,”

you hardly have the strength to deny seishiro or push him off, snuggling into him as the pair of you roll onto your sides. “you’re tired… you almost slept for an eternity!” a laugh escapes you in reply.

“and guess who woke me up and made me work to cum. s’on you not me. fair is fair.” nagi quips back, burying his face into your neck.

you suppose that he has a point, nuzzling him from below as the two of you drift off without the fear of never waking up, of succumbing to lifelong sleep  — content, happy and fucked out by your sleeping beauty.

the end.

꒰ end. — all rights reserved © tteokdoroki 2024. do not copy, repost, translate, feed into ai & recommend elsewhere.

[bravesaboteur]

The more I think about it, the more Laios and Falin's different perceptions of their parents are a case of "same parents, different childhood".

Whenever someone asks Laios about his and Falin's family, he comments on how they treated Falin but never comments about how how their childhood affected him - in fact, he kind of glosses over it. It's Falin that everyone is rallying to save, it's Falin that's Marcille's friend, it's Falin that everyone has a positive opinion of - he's just the weirdo brother that gets to share some of her light sometimes. He's the one who's only tolerated when he's useful in a dungeon. Falin's treatment is a large part of the reason that he left, but it's the symptom of a larger issue.

When we see Laios' thoughts of his parents in his nightmares, it's all about the expectations that he's supposed to live up to: the expectation to stop being "childish", the expectation to get married (to who his parents picked) and have children, the expectation to take over from his father as the village chief, the expectation to adapt to something that he isn't able to be in the way that people want him to. And these are all things that he has had to be told in some way: he had to be told that Shuro didn't like him, he had to be told that told that the gold-peelers were taking advantage of him - these aren't thoughts that just appeared on their own, these are all failures that someone has explicitly pointed out to him and they haunt him. Some of the things he considers his biggest failures are his failure to provide for and protect Falin and those have very tangible examples he can point to.

We get a glimpse of what happens when he fails to live up to his father's expectations when Falin is born. He expects a certain reaction from Laios and when he fails to give that reaction he physically puts him down, dismisses him, and underestimates how much he understands.

And that's something that's shown to be a bit of a sore point for him - people thinking that he doesn't understand something because he doesn't express himself like people expect. The few times we see him snap at people are because people think he isn't understanding something because he isn't reacting "normally".

On Falin's side, the expectations seem to be a lot different - she's the younger one, for one, she's a girl, and she was so young when the fallout from her having magic happened. She too had an arranged engagement, but that was broken off when she was sent away to magic school and since then, their parents only seem to be passively involved in her life. She's mostly been freed of the expectations that their parents had for her in her village - she won't be coming back after all. She understands why they sent her away, she wasn't completely oblivious to the villagers treatment of her and it was, arguably, for the best so she is at peace with what their relationship is for now. But she still wants to go to her hometown and see for herself with adult eyes because she has never really had the space to do that.

I don't think their parents are inherently evil people - the truth is probably somewhere between Laios and Falin's version of the story, Laios' side tinged by too much cynicism and Falin's by too much naivete.

It just strikes me that when he tried to provide the "normal" way he failed, but given the space to do something similar to what people expected of him, but in his own way, he succeeded. He isn't perfect but his efforts are ultimately fruitful and he is able to carve out a place for himself, Falin, and others who had been ostracized like them to call home.

[yuukiiqwq]

Satoru Gojo was more than ready to propose to you. For you to be his pretty little wife. For you to take his last name. To see you walk down the aisle in a white dress. He has spent weeks picking out a ring for you. Weeks finding the perfect place to propose. Weeks just for this moment. He knows you'll say yes.

Today was the day he would propose. He had everything all set up and ready. The ring box is in his pocket. He just needs to come home to you and get you ready for the date. He had long made a promise to himself. He'll make you happy because you are the world to him.

He then felt a vibration in his pocket from his phone, immediately snapping him out of his thoughts. He opened his phone to see that Shoko had called him. He accepted the call and was about to ask Shoko what she needed before she interrupted him.

"Satoru."

Satoru immediately freezes. Shoko had never called him by his first name. It was always Gojo.

"Come to my office," was the only thing Shoko said before ending the call. Her voice was shaking.

Dread filled Satoru's body. A chill was sent down his spine. Something was wrong, so he immediately teleported to Shoko's office. He was greeted with the sight of Shoko, his students, and you. The students' eyes red from crying. Shoko is unable to look him in the eyes. You covered in blood. Your curse energy completely diminished. Your lifeless body is on the table.

Oh. Oh.

"I'm sorry, sensei! It's all my fault!" Yuji apologies as he cries.

"She saved us." Nobara whispered as she continued to wipe her endless tears.

"We let our guard down." Megumi looks down. He was holding in his pain. "It's my fault. I was careless. They were wrong about–"

Satoru doesn't register the rest of Megumi's word. His ears were ringing, and his vision was blurring. A void in replacement of his heart. The ring in his pocket felt a lot heavier. He stares at your body before closing his eyes. He then turned toward his students with a smile.

"Hey, hey! It's alright, guys. It's not your fault. It was an accident! Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault at all. How about you guys take the next few days to relax! I'm sure this was very traumatic for you to lose a teacher in front of your eyes!"

"Gojo–" Megumi started, but he was pushed out the door with his friends before he could utter another word.

"Here, take my card and buy some stuff to help you take your mind off this, yeah? You guys need rest!" Satoru says as he closes the door. He's glad that he has his blindfold on so the students couldn't see the grief and pain in his eyes. He waited until he could no longer sense their curse energy before turning around towards you and Shoko.

"Shoko. Can you leave too? Just for a bit?" He asked. No. He pleaded. His voice was no higher than a whisper. He can't cry yet. Not in front of anyone but you. He's the strongest.

Shoko nodded and walked towards the door. "I'm sorry, Satoru. I tried to save her. I know today was suppose–" Shoko stopped before she finished the sentence. She bit the bottom of her lips before apologizing once more and then left.

Now, Satoru was left alone in the room with your lifeless body. He took off his blindfold and walked up to you. He held your once warm hand in his. He caressed your cheek as the tears that he was holding back finally fall down his face. He was going to propose to you today. You were supposed to be his wife. You were supposed to be with him until the day he died. But now... he would no longer see you. Your smile. Your laugh. You would no longer be smiling at him. In his arms. In his embrace. He wouldn't get to see your beautiful eyes open. Your voice. He wouldn't be able to hear your love for him. He won't be able to hear your "I love you, Satoru." You would no longer call his name. Oh, how he loved his name coming from your lips. It was supposed to be one of his happiest days. If he could only go back to yesterday. Where you were still in his arms, the two of you whispering your love to one another. Kisses being exchanged. Where you were still warm and alive. Where he can still stretch out his hand and reach you.

Fate loves taunting him with his loved ones. It loves to ruin him. To tear him apart. To rip his heart out and shred it to pieces because he's the strongest. So he'll always fail to protect the ones he loves. Fate is laughing at him because he is a joke. Fate is celebrating his grief. He has losted and fate has won again.

He doesn't know how much time has passed. Him next to your lifeless body, praying that you would just wake up. He wants to join you. Join you in the afterlife. To see you. To be with you. But he can't. He knows you'll never forgive him if he did. He still has his students to look after. A world to save. A revenge to sought after. He wiped his tears away because you would hate seeing him cry. He kissed you gently for the last time and whispered his eternal love towards you and a "I'll see you soon."

He then reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring. Your ring. He slipped it onto your ring finger and asked– "Will you marry me?"

A yes forever unspoken.