#TLKFFF2020

[lauwrite1225]

Cold Night || Finan x Reader

TLKFFF2020 @tlkfanficfest​ Imagine 1. Finan, Finan shares his cloak with the reader at the fire to keep them both warm. His hands wander occasionally.

A/N: So here is my first work for TLK FEST ! It is also the first smut that I post so heee, I tried my best and I hope it’s not too bad 🙃. Finan's hand was supposed to occasionally wander, turned out it wasn't that occasional If I dare say lol

Masterlist

Words: 936

Warnings : SMUT and Fluff.

Travelling to Winchester was something you were used to now. Uhtred had always something to do in the great city, things that usually were meetings with Alfred. And so, as Finan, Sihtric and Osferth, you had to follow him. 

But travelling during winter, wasn't as pleasant as in summer. The journey from Coccham to Winchester was two days of rides, meaning you had to spend one night in the woods. And obviously, it was cold. Very cold. 

The fire was crackling in the little clear as you brought woods. You let it fall on the floor and you sigh, little shaky because of the temperature. 

"Gods, it has never been that cold." You complained, leaning your hands towards the flames. 

"If we don't freeze during the night, it will be a miracle." Said Osferth, tightening is fur around his shoulders. 

"Ya're chilly baby monk?" Finan teased him. 

"I am objective, Finan." He replied. 

"That shouldn't be allowed to travel with that cold." Sihtric sighed, changing position in his makeshift bed, trying to find a way to warm his body. 

"Alfred must be nice and warm in his bed." Uhtred added, his voice sleepy. 

"I am not sure, with Lady Aelswith in the same bed." You joked, making the four men laugh. 

You moved away from the fire, rubbing your palms to keep the heat. You laid down on the furs, trying to sleep. But the freezing air wouldn't let you rest. So after turning for the hundredth time to another side, you sighed. 

"Can't sleep?" Finan asked you, throwing a branch in the fire. All the others were asleep now and the Irishman had been assigned to feed the fire for the first part of the night. 

"I am cold." You explained, sitting on your bed. 

Finan turned his face to you and you could notice the smirk on his lips as the flames' light danced on him. 

"Come." He opened one of his arms for you to cuddle against him. 

You pinched your lips, considering the offer. Your eyes traveled on each of your sleepy friends. They were probably aware that you and Finan shared the same bed more than once but you liked to pretend it was a secret. 

You finally stood up to sit next to him. He put his arm around your shoulders, so his cloak was wrapping you as well. You rested your head in his neck, your fingers playing with the fabric of his cloak and his with a lock of your hair. His breath was soothing as you let your eyes lost in the flames. 

His arm left your shoulder and you caught the cape, so It didn't fall, tightening it more around you. Finan's hand wandered from your lower back to your thigh. Finally, it found its way to your waist, first to keep you closer, but soon his fingers searched to go under your clothes. You shivered when you felt his cold fingertips on your skin. 

You frowned and looked up to him, but you couldn't hide the smile on your lips as you already understood what he wanted.

"What are you trying to do?" You softly said, steam escaping from your mouth. 

"Warming ya." He smirked.

His lips were lightly touching yours, his beard tickling your chin. His hand continued to travel down your waist, his fingers leaving goosebumps trails. When he reached the top of your trouser, you fully kissed him, slightly sighing at the feel of his mouth against yours. With his other hand he undid your belt before resting it on your cold and red cheek.  

Your lips parted when he touched your inner thighs, a deep sigh escaping you. He moved away his face to put a finger on your mouth.

"Easy to say." You grumbled. "Now you said you’d warm me. And I am very cold." You added, your voice almost a whisper as you pressed your hips against his hand.

"Shh." He hushed you, smirking ear to ear, satisfied by the noise you made. 

He chuckled a little, before he leaned his head to kiss you again. His fingers started to move between your legs, touching sensitive parts and making your own fingers tensing up. Light moan escaped your mouth, covered by Finan's lips against yours. 

And as promised, the heat started to rise in your body by waves, your toes curling in your boots. Soon it was too hard to restrain yourself and remained the most silent as possible. So you left his lips to hide your face in his neck and wrapped your arms around it.

"Warm enough?" He teased you. 

You couldn't speak, your mind blurred, so you just shook your head, your breath heavy against his skin. He started to move his fingers faster until you reached your higher point, body shaking as you bit the fabric of his cloak, covering your moan of pleasure.

He removed his hand from your trouser and kissed the side of your head as you tried to catch your breath. 

"Better?" You could hear him grin in your ear.

"Much better." You straightened up to catch his lips, your fingers running through his thick hair.

After a moment, you let your arms fell at your sides. You cuddled more against him, your head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around you and he rested his cheek on top of your head. His fingertips made shapes on your hand, appeasing you and making your eyelids felt heavier. 

And you finally fell asleep, your body warmed by the fire, Finan's body and cloak, and pleasure. 

Tag : @geekandbooknerd​ @beowulfsdottir​ @amyyreblogss​ @for-bebbanburg​ @bird-on-a-wire20​ 

[footprintsinthesxnd]

Always

I want to thank @lauwrite1225 for giving me the courage to write my first fanfic. I hope you enjoy. ❤️

Pairings: Osferth x Reader

Prompt: Prompt 71 from @tlkfanficfest ( Osferth wants to kiss the reader all the time.)

Osferth gazed longingly across the camp fire to where (y/n) was laughing with Finan, his arm draped lazily around her should as she doubled over laughing, tears streaming down her face as she tried to control herself. How can he always be so funny? Osferth grumbled to himself.

Her blonde hair catching the light of the dancing flames, blue eyes glistening with tears, an angel sent from heaven in Osferth’s eyes. (Y/n) was shorter than most women and many men wouldn’t have considered her particularly beautiful but to Osferth she was perfect. Having always been kind to him he had like (y/n) from day one and over the coming years he fell madly in love with her. With every waking moment his thoughts were consumed by her. Her laugh, her smile, her eyes, her lips. Yes her lips. Plump and soft and so very very kissable. Unfortunately to Osferth’s dismay he had never plucked up the courage to confess his feelings to her and so he looked on longingly as (y/n) laughed with his friends, who teased him constantly about his predicament.

Almost as if (y/n) sensed his gaze she looked up catching Osferth’s eye and smiling brightly at him. Her eyes danced with life. When he first met (y/n) when Uhtred and his men had rescued her from slave traders she was broken, terrified of men and the word trust was not in her vocabulary. She trusted no one.

Slowly Osferth being the least threatening one of the group gained her trust and they became firm friends but he had always wanted more.

“Well I’m calling that a night.” (Y/n) yawned, standing up and stretching. “I’m going to bed.”

This was his chance, one of the few chances he would get alone with her.

“May I walk you to your tent Lady.”

(Y/n) smiled “always the gentlemen Osferth”

“Hey I can be very gentlemanly when I want too.” Finan slurred, as he waved his arm drunkenly.

Sniggering (y/n) took Osferth’s arm as they left Finan talking to himself.

It was only a short walk to (y/n) tent but Osferth wished it could last forever. They talked the whole way and Osferth always felt like he could be himself with (y/n). When they finally reach (y/n) tent Osferth smiled sadly.

“Well this is me.” (Y/n) mumbled, waving her arm haphazardly at the tent behind her.

“Then I bid you goodnight, Lady.” Osferth said, bowing slightly before turning to leave.

“Osferth wait!”

Before he could turn round (y/n) was in front of him, pulling his face towards her as she pressed her lips firmly to his. Shocked, Osferth didn’t respond at first but soon began to relish in the moment kissing (y/n) back.

Her lips were soft and plump just as he had imagined. The kiss lasted longer than he expected and when they pulled away they were both breathing heavily.

(Y/n) smiled sweetly at him. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long but I’ve never had the courage to do it.” She confessed.

Osferth looked shocked. “You... you feel the same way.”

“How could I not. Your handsome and kind and funny and... Osferth I’m in love with you.”

“I love you too (y/n). Always.”

She kisses him again.

“Always.”

[itslaurenmae]

passages: sigtryggr/stiorra

Written for @tlkfanficfest​ round three - trope: stuck in a siege - read on ao3 here

No warnings, just some softness for these two, speculating on what may have happened during the siege at Winchester - feat. reading aloud, fresh bread, and hair braiding. Enjoy! (gif made by @jennasmarbles​)

Twenty-nine days.

That's how long the siege at Winchester had lasted so far. 

Twenty-nine days she'd spent inside the walls of the palace of the dead king Alfred, reading his chronicle aloud. 

Twenty-nine days spent not keeping score, twenty-nine days eating the same crust of bread. 

Twenty-nine days with Sigtryggr.

Stiorra felt a rush of heat to her cheeks as she caught herself thinking those words, laying on the floor of the room they’d been sitting in. Twenty-nine days with Sigtryggr. The number was not what caused the blush. 

“I’ll be back,” Sigtryggr had said. That was hours ago, and no one had been in since.

Not that she expected visitors. The only other people who ever came in the room besides Sigtryggr and herself were messengers - Danes who would try to lean over Sigtryggyr’s broad shoulders while they played the game she’d taught him or while she read to him. And Eardwulf, that one time, but he’d never be back now. 

“You do not need to lean,” she’d heard him say to the first messenger on day one. Sigtryggr had risen from the spot he was sitting and met Dane messenger eye to eye. “Say what you came to say.” 

He did this with every person who came to speak to him - told them not to lean over him, not to speak in a whisper. He only had to say it once for them to obey. Sigtryggyr had a commanding presence like that. 

It was not lost on her that Sigtryggr did not speak in secret tones with those who came to deliver news or ask advice. Everything related to the siege - how much food they had, where the defenses were being fortified, who was being held and where within the palace walls - he discussed all of these things openly in front of her at a regular volume. No hushes, no whispers. She heard every word.

After two days, she knew it was on purpose. He was showing her who he was. 

He wanted her to know.

On day three, he asked her to read from Alfred’s chronicle to him. 

“Why?” She kicked at the table leg, pretending not to notice the book he’d brought in.

Sigtryggr scooted toward her on the bench, placing his folded hands on top of the table they sat at, side by side. She felt his gaze on the side of her face as she pretended to look out the window. “Because I want to know about him. I want to understand.” He unfolded his hands and pushed the book toward her. “And because I can’t read English. You can.”

Stiorra quirked an eyebrow at him. She’d abhorred all those hours Hild and the other nuns had drilled at her to learn her words when she’d been a child, but now, she saw that perhaps this skill had a purpose. Made her valuable.

She reached for the book, opened it to the first page, and stole a quick look at Sigtryggr. He was smiling, and she mirrored a small smile back at him before clearing her throat. “Bring me water, and I’ll read all day.” 

He’d done just that. Brought her water, and sat and listened to her quietly, attentively. She’d read to him until the sun dipped beneath the horizon and the candles burned their wicks down to their pans. She’d gone to bed that night smiling.

Sigtryggr’s attentiveness was the most disarming thing.

On day four, she read to him some more. He’d crossed to the other side of the room and found a more comfortable place to put his feet up. Stiorra wondered if he was really listening to her, to each and every single word she was reading, or if his mind was wandering elsewhere. She glanced up from the page and saw him looking out a window. 

“And in the year 842, a great turd fell from the sky.” She deadpanned, using in the same tone she’d been reading in, making no show of the silly words she was choosing. 

Immediately, Sigtryggr’s eyes snapped to meet hers, brows knitting together as he narrowed his gaze at her. She ducked her back head down, making as if she’d not looked up from the page at all, but it was too late. He’d caught her.

“A great turd from the sky?” She could hear the grin in his voice again, could picture what it looked like on his handsome face as he took a step from the window. Stiorra kept her eyes on the page but couldn’t help but snicker - as she’d often done when making an off-color joke to the other young women at the abbey. 

She felt his eyes again, but hadn’t looked up to greet them. The bench shifted as he took a seat next to her and leaned back against the table. Hiding her face behind her hair, she heard the smile in Sigtryggr’s voice once again. He leaned toward her, close enough his breath caused her hair to move, but not so close as to touch her. “Tell me, Stiorra Uhtredsdottir. Tell me about this great turd from the sky.” 

Stiorra couldn’t stop herself from giggling onto the page then, unable to contain herself. He really was listening to what she was saying. 

The bench creaked as he reached across the table for the water jug.

“You have great wit,” Sigtryggr said, refilling her glass of water. 

“I do,” she responded, lifting her eyes to meet his. When she took the cup from his hands, their fingers brushed. A spark. “Thank you.”

“Keep reading.” He stood back up and resumed his stance by the window. “I am listening.”

Days four through ten had passed much the same. She read. Sigtryggr listened. 

She taught him to play a favorite game from her childhood and beat him so many times they stopped keeping score. They shared meals. He asked her questions about her father, her mother, her home. “What home?” she’d answered. It wasn’t Coccham, it wasn’t the abbey, it wasn’t Saltwic, and it certainly wasn’t Winchester. She had places she’d lived, but none of those places really felt like home. 

She explained it all. And still, Sigtryggr listened. 

Sigtryggr watched. 

Sigtryggr learned. 

On day eleven, they walked around the halls of the palace together. She’d told him she was tired of sitting, and he said he’d walk with her. Stiorra liked the way their elbows grazed each other when they rounded the first corner.

She wanted to go outside but did not ask. She was a hostage, but hadn’t thought of herself that way for a little while. Sigtryggr never called her that, never referred to her as one when he talked with other people who came into the room. No, the hostages were the nobles, Lord Aethelhelm and his daughter Aelfled, Alfred’s wife - the pious Lady Aelswith, and two children. The one she knew, Aethelstan - who she almost missed - and some other boy, who she did not give a rat’s arse about. Sigtryggr called them the hostages, his men called them the hostages. But not her. Sigtryggr just called her Stiorra. 

She didn’t remember she was a hostage until day eighteen, when she caught Brida’s pointed glare when they passed by her on a walk in the hall. The harshness of the other woman’s stare was powerful, her ire tangible, like tiny knives poking into Stiorra’s face. No, she could not ask to go outside. Not yet.

More reading. 

More games. 

More walks inside. 

More days. 

More time with Sigtryggr.

That was days one through twenty-eight. Today was day twenty-nine, and he’d been gone for hours.

She’d dozed off in the room without meaning to. She was woken by voices in the hallway, some Dane saying that Sigtryggr had gone to the ramparts as another silly volley of Saxons were attempting to rush the gate. It happened so frequently, Stiorra had stopped caring or keeping count of how many times this made. She’d woken up with tangles in her hair, and decided to work new braids atop her head. 

She thought about how she and Sigtryggr spent hours of each day together now. They’d fallen into a rhythm. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they played, sometimes she read from the chronicle and he asked her questions. Sometimes they just sat in the room, together but not. He’d puzzle over maps while she watched the Dane warriors sparring in the courtyard, idly carving runes into a piece of wood he’d brought her from outside.

But right now she was alone. 

She wondered when he’d be back. She took her hair down and brushed it out, marking the silence. There weren’t even birds singing outside.

After tying a new knot on top of her head, she pulled up a smaller section of hair and began passing one section over another, steadily bringing each piece to find its place with the next. The braid began to take shape, and with each new pass, each minute that went by, she began to understand that she missed Sigtryggr.

The shade shifted across the window, marking the passage of time. Stiorra pulled another section of hair to the opposite side of her head and began to work it into a second small plait to match the first. 

She thought for a fleeting moment, somewhere near the midpoint of the second braid, that perhaps she shouldn’t care about him or what he was doing, but the truth was that she did. By the end of the second braid, she resolved to feel no shame in that.

Too much time had gone by. He’d been gone for many hours now, she was sure. She needed something to do with her hands, couldn’t bear to sit and wonder any longer what was delaying him. Stiorra backtracked and began redoing the first braid she’d made after her nap. 

Sigtryggr returned to the room while she worked on a third braid, a plate of apples and fresh bread in hand. She hadn’t heard him, her back to the door as she sat by the window, fingers flitting in and out of the new braid she was making. 

He sat the plate on the table as quietly as he could. He didn’t want to interrupt her at her work. Sigtryggr knew how to remain quiet, how to wait until the right moment. 

Stiorra felt a breeze pass through the room, and with it came the scent of fresh bread. She turned to see where the scent came from and was both surprised and relieved to see Sigtryggr there, one hand on his face, his head cocked to one side as he studied her.

“Sigtryggr.” She dropped her hands from her hair and made to stand, pausing her work. Startled. Happy to see him. “You brought bread.”

A small shake of his head. “Do not stop.” 

Her eyes locked onto him, and he held her gaze as he crossed the room. How he could be so deft, so quiet, so graceful and so powerful at the same time - she wondered if she’d ever know. She swore her insides were melting with every step he took in her direction.

Stiorra sank back into the chair, disarmed by him as he moved toward her, catlike. She pieced together the remaining sections of her braid, her breath slow, not breaking his eye contact as he stepped to her. She searched for something to say, but no words came. Nothing but a lump in her throat and the slow cadence of her own breath, rising and falling.

He knelt to her eye level and held himself in a squat next to her. Sigtryggr faced her, but did not crowd her. He never crowded her. Not that first day, when she’d tried to cut herself and he’d disarmed her, both with his words and also with his hands - not when he’d stepped in to to protected her from Eardwulf, not when he sat next to her on the bench, and not now. 

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks as he placed his left hand flat on the chair next to her leg, gentle but solid. She knew her ears would be turning crimson, knew he’d be able to see the effect he had on her from this close. She briefly thought to turn away from him, to move her hair to cover the flush, but the way the air had collapsed around them kept her from doing so. Too locked into him and his brown eyes and his handsome face, she met him with her own studied look.

Sigtryggr reached his right hand up, keeping the left flat on the chair to the side of her leg, chaste but firm. His fingers ghosted over the side of her face, his thumb lightly brushed over her cheekbone. She felt him reach up and take hold of the braid she’d just finished. Her breath caught in her throat. 

Sigtryggr took the braid in his hand, running it between his thumb and forefinger, handling it like it was holy, the way she’d seen him touch Thor’s hammer around his neck. She could hear his own breathing, so close to her she thought she might burst into flame. She couldn’t stop from thinking about what it might be like to feel his even breath closer to her, over her cheek, on her neck, in the hollow of her collarbone, in her ear as he whispered her name. 

She gulped, feeling a new rush of heat to her cheeks and a warm tingle deep inside her chest. He was so close. So close she could see the fan of his eyelashes, the ridges of the scar on his face, proud and regal, the scent of fresh bread still in the air. 

“You must show me.”

“Show you?” she gulped.

“You must show me how you do this.” 

Stiorra blinked. Without warning, she scooted back in the chair, which caused Sigtryggr to lose his balance a little and force him to brace his hand on the ground as he caught himself. 

“Turn around, then,” she directed, her voice higher in pitch than usual but unwavering. “Sit.”

He laughed, eyes only briefly dropping to the floor with a sigh as he did as she asked.

Sigtryggr listened. 

He sat on the ground in front of her, between her knees. He crossed his legs and straightened his spine. 

“Can you see?” she asked as she reached for her brush.

“Yes,” he nodded, and his reflection in the window nodded back.

“Good. Now, this is called a braid,” Stiorra said, taking his hair into her hand, brushing it the way she’d done for herself, for Aelfwynn sometimes when she’d lived at Saltwic. She was surprised by the texture of his hair, of how much of it there was. It was softer than it looked like it would be, and it smelled like wood and wheat and outside.

“I know what a braid is.”

“This is not just any braid.” She began to thread her fingers through Sigtryggr’s hair, taking a small section from his temple into her hands. “This is the braid my mother would make for my father when he returned home from a long absence.”

Sigtryggr didn’t say anything. He sat still, but not stiff. She saw the rise and fall of his shoulders in the reflection of the window in front of them, marked the way his lips were parted while she separated the section of hair into three smaller pieces.

“Well, that’s what she told me it was when she taught me to do it.” 

She began to move one piece over another, and saw Sigtryggyr’s shoulders sag just a little, to relax as she began. 

“He’d come home after fighting some battle or settling some dispute somewhere, and she’d make him wash, and while his hair dried, she’d put this braid in his hair.” She worked steadily as she crossed the first few passes. A flock of birds passed by the window.

Sigtryggr said nothing. His breathing had fallen into an easy cadence, and she found herself mirroring it.

“To keep it out of his face,” she continued. “My mother couldn’t stand when his hair was in his face...” 

She trailed off briefly, remembering Gisela telling her this very thing time and time again as she’d worked a braid into Stiorra’s hair. And do you know, Stiorra, with every pass I made in your father’s hair, I weaved in my care for him? My hope for his continued safety? My joy for his return?  

Stiorra felt a lump of pride in her throat, a quick sting rising in her eyes. She didn’t want Sigtryggr to see that, though. It wasn’t for him - it was for Gisela, the mother she missed so much - for the life Stiorra and her family didn’t get to have, for the fear she secretly carried - the fear that she, too, would die young like her mother. 

He was looking at her reflection in the window, eyes open and eager. Not wanting to pull him into her sadness, Stiorra made another pass of Sigtryggr’s hair and quietly quipped, “I can’t stand when your hair is in your face, either. It always is.”

At that, Sigtryggr laughed, shattering the unspoken tension, bright and warm and alive. 

Stiorra smiled back at him into their reflections in the window. The warmth from the late afternoon sun shone on their faces, clear and bright in the window glass. She blinked back the sting at her eyes, happy to have made him laugh. She wanted to make him laugh like that more. 

With every pass, every placement, every strand, Stiorra weaved her own hopes into the braid she made for Sigtryggr that twenty-ninth day. Hopes that he’d stay safe. Hopes that her father was still alive out there, hopes that one day, there would be a world where it didn’t matter - being a Saxon or a Dane - hopes that she could be both, that she could be more. Hopes that perhaps, she and Sigtryggr could be more, together.

Stiorra continued working, sweeping the plait to one side of his handsome brow. She checked her work in the reflection and rested her hands on his shoulders, relished the sight of his peaceful face.  

“I am pleased,” he said. 

“Good,” Stiorra replied, fastening the end with a silver bead from her own hair. “It suits you.”

“But you did not show me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You did this for me, but you did not show me how to do this for you.”

The sun began to slip behind the wall of the courtyard. It wasn’t night yet, but it would be shortly. Stiorra beamed.

“You want to braid my hair?”

“Yes,” Sigtryggr answered. He rose from the floor and stood before her. He lifted her chin with his finger. “Yes, I do.”

So passed the twenty-ninth day. 

This work is largely inspired by a conversation I had with @jeynepoole​ about how much I can't stand Sigtryggr's wig in season four. I've started calling it his Hermione hair. It's poofy and ridiculous, and I can't be super sure, but I'm fairly certain he doesn't have a braid on the one side before the siege at Winchester begins, but I think he's got one by episode ten. I don't think it's out of the question that Stiorra could have braided his hair for him in that time. 

Thank you for reading!

[jade-masquerade]

Simply Stricken

Written for @tlkfanficfest 2020 Round 2 for the prompt “Stiorra/Sigtryggr and their first kiss”

Stiorra sighed, the book in front of her no longer holding her attention. There were only so many dusty old tomes full of endless burh descriptions and donations made to the church and counts of barley yields she could read, and she glanced away from the words that had long since begun to blur together.

 Instead, her eyes wandered to the most interesting part of this dull, drab room: Sigtryggr himself.

 After Eardwulf had barged through those doors and she’d spent days listening to Brida demanding her head and all sorts of her body parts in turn, Stiorra had admitted in a moment of weakness that she felt safer with him here, and he’d spent as much time in here with her and the books and table games as outside training with swords and shields ever since.  

 She knew she should have hated him. She knew that she should have been angry and afraid. She knew he was dangerous, that he had killed. But so have Father and his men, whispered that conspiratorial voice she fought often these days. Maybe it was her mother’s strength or her father’s impetuousness, but Stiorra found she couldn’t muster a semblance of fear or ire anymore, at least not when they were here alone like this.

Once she’d been certain he hadn’t intended to harm her, she had asked if she was free to go. He insisted she was if she wished, her chambers evidently not well guarded if Eardwulf deep in his cups had managed to stagger served as proof enough of that. In that moment, though, she’d realized the entire city was full of men like that waiting beyond these walls, with nothing better to occupy their time than drinking and whoring and fighting in the streets. Besides, it was far better here than out there where she imagined Brida sat contemplating a thousand ways for her to die, and if she waited here, Stiorra knew somewhere deep down that her father would come for her. And until then, the stories Sigtryggr told were far more fascinating than listening to children whining or watching Finan and Sihtric playing dice for the thousandth time.

 Sigtryggr was an odd sort of Dane, Stiorra had to admit. He strangely seemed to have taken as much of an interest in scrolls and her stories as the sprawling palace and the chests of silver they had gathered from Winchester’s stores. Sometimes he would bring an object—a relic from the chapel, a platter with a verse inscribed upon it, a painting of a saint—from somewhere in the castle, or something to occupy himself, polishing his boots or scabbard, weaving together a hempen rope, the kind of work she’d expect a handmaiden to do, not a warlord, and he would sit and listen to what she had to say, whether it was telling him about the beliefs of the Christian faith, talking about her childhood, or teasing him about if Winchester had turned out to be all he dreamed. He entertained all sorts of her questions in turn, about his homeland and Irland and the sea and all he’d seen along the way, and she couldn’t help but be drawn into his tales of the world beyond the walls of Saltwic and Coccham.

 And she wasn’t blind either, regardless of what Brida threatened. It hadn’t escaped her attention that Sigtryggr was rather handsome, with his long hair and his armbands, clad in functional leather rather than a cape embroidered with gold or jewelry that served to do little other than belie exorbitant wealth. He looked so different from the shorn haired Saxons she’d been raised alongside, and perhaps most importantly, also unlike them he clearly washed.

 “Are you overcome with admiration?”

 She shook her head when she realized she must have been staring. “No. I’m bored.”

He smirked. Then there was that, too, those smiles that would have surely bewitched her in an instant had she been a weaker woman. “So I’ve heard.”

 She rolled her eyes. “My father’s stories made all of this seem exciting. And all that’s here is a list of dead men and their vassals and their lands and who cares.”

 “Lady Aelswith has assured me that her husband was a great man,” Sigtryggr said.

 “Oh, have you been spending a great deal of time with Lady Aelswith now?” She took her turn to smirk now, and then offered mercy at the look of bewilderment he wore. “He was, I suppose. He ruled with fairness and strength and love for his people.”

 “But?”

 She could not deny he was coming to know her well. “But it wasn’t as if he did these things all himself. He didn’t fight the battles, he didn’t bring in the harvests, he didn’t build the burhs. There’s scarcely even a mention of Lady Aelswith, either.”

 “Would there be? She tells me Wessex has no such thing as a queen. Aelflaed tells me different, of course.”  

 “Does it matter? Being a queen seems utterly boring, too.”

 The corners of his mouth quirked up. “Don’t all girls wish to grow up and become queen?”

 “No,” she shuddered. “I certainly didn’t. It seems awful, to do nothing but spend your days bowing and curtsying locked up in some palace. And I don’t want children, much less a kingdom.”

 “Oh? Have you discussed this with your intended?”

 She wrinkled her nose. “My intended?”

 “The man to whom you are betrothed. That’s what Saxons like to do, is it not? Find someone who can make them richer, give them power, or grant them lands, and marry their daughters off to them in exchange for their favor.”

 “Yes,” she admitted. It all sounded rather crude when he put it that way, and she supposed it was. Her mother had told her once of the man she’d nearly been forced to marry, her father’s cruel uncle who had stolen Bebbanberg, and how her brother, Guthred, arranged the match to solidify an alliance and receive reinforcements of men with no regard for his sister’s well-being or her wishes, and how her father had returned in time to disrupt the completion of the ceremony. Knowing her father, Stiorra suspected she left out some of the gorier details to make it fit for the ears of a child, but the passion of the act had always stuck with her, the reminder of the fierce devotion and the love they shared, and how so few were ever permitted to follow their hearts as they had. “Sometimes.”

 “So your betrothed…?” Sigtryggr prompted.

 They had spoken at length about family, hers and his alike, but this was the first time their conversation has strayed into this territory. “I don’t have one,” she said. “There’s no husband waiting for me. I’m not sure I even wish to marry, either.”

 “Ah, so you have preferred to take lovers instead, Stiorra Uhtredsdottir,” he said, winking.

 She felt her face flame. “No, I never even so much as… I’ve never taken a lover.”

Stiorra expected him to laugh, for him to look at her as a child just like everyone else, maybe to tease about her evident prudishness as she’d seen her father’s men rib each other often enough. But he only nodded, though he must have read her embarrassment, for he asked, “Are all Saxons so shy about these matters, too?”

 “I’m not a Saxon,” she said for what must have been the thousandth time, but this time she said it with a smile.

 “Then your Danish mother did not tell you of the joys that can be found with another?”

 “My mother died when I was still too young to talk of such things,” she said. “And the nuns and priests in Saltwic only droned on about purity and maintaining virtue… which makes Lady Aethelflaed herself quite the deviant if half of what they say about her and my father is true.”

 She grinned, though such a secret was scarcely one anymore, not for anyone who had seem them together with their own two eyes, and she flushed at the memory of how she had stumbled upon them kissing one time when she had come to bid him a farewell on his visit to Saltwic. Stiorra turned and ran before they noticed her interruption, and while it had been a bit awkward, she owed much to Lady Aethelflaed’s kindness and wished only happiness for her.

 “Lord Uhtred and Lady Aethelflaed? The daughter of King Alfred and Lady Aelswith?” Sigtryggr seemed amused at the prospect.  

 Stiorra nodded. “My father loved her, and she him. But they say before, she loved a Dane once. That he truly fathered her daughter, not Lord Aethelred.”

 She had never been bold enough to ask Lady Aethelflaed of it, but hearing of the tale had always excited her, and retelling it now was no different. She couldn’t help but think it romantic, despite its beginning and end and the loss of what could have been.

 “A smart woman, then,” Sigtryggr said. “Except if she loved your father, then why do they whisper he waits outside these walls when he could be the ruling Lord of Mercia?”

 “Lady Aethelflaed promised to remain chaste to placate the ealdormen and their god too, I suppose.”  

 He furrowed his brow in confusion. “Their god truly wants piety and obedience rather than free will and happiness?”

 “I don’t know what their god wants,” she shook her head. “For me to devote my life to a nunnery? Or am I instead to save myself for some repulsive old man and his bags of gold? Or some cruel lord with the right name and advantageous lands?”

 “You do not believe in their god?”

 She’d long ago lost faith in the god the Christians worshipped, the one King Alfred had tried to impress upon her to punish her father, but she’d also lost count of how many times she’d asked him, pleaded with the gods of her ancestors, begged anyone who was listening to free her from the boredom of first Coccham and then Saltwic, for someone to come along, anyone, and take her somewhere else, anywhere else, back to Winchester or Northumbria, and bring her adventure. Sometimes the gods had a funny way of showing their will.

 “I don’t want to believe in the existence of a god who takes that much interest in my cunt,” she said bluntly.

  He laughed, and soon she found herself laughing along with him.

 “It’s true,” she insisted. “I don’t care what they say about pagans, if we’re barbaric and wicked. At least our gods are not petty and selfish.”  

 “Our gods don’t care so much what we do so long as we entertain them,” he said.

 “Then they also must be rather bored with this siege,” she said, though she felt anything but now with the way she felt the air shift between them.

 Sigtryggr stood up and walked towards her slowly, nearing where she sat upon the table, books discarded at her side that couldn’t hold a candle compared to the way he seemed to study her now. “Then perhaps we should take it upon ourselves to amuse them?”

 She was struck by how he was even more handsome this way, stunning, strikingly. He was utterly compelling this close, tall, imposing with his scar streaking past his eye, and strong, her gaze following the muscles from his shoulders down to his forearms. At this distance, he was only himself, not a warlord, not more god than man as some of the others seemed to tell it.

 He hadn’t touched her since he’d taken the broken glass from her hand and talked her down from using it to mar her face, but she still remembered the way his skin felt against hers, warm and rough. He was even more hesitant this time as he reached first for her hand, and when she let her fingers thread through his, he brought the other up to stroke her cheek.

 It was nothing, really, no more than what perhaps a hundred other men had done to her, claiming they wished to admire her beauty or looking for a shadow of her father in her face or attempting to evoke a memory of her mother, yet the simple touch sent heat flooding through her.

 Stiorra wondered what he would do if she was bold enough to do the same to him, and gathering her courage, she decided to find out. She began with tracing over his scar, her fingertip lightly following the curved line, skirting around the edge of his mouth, skimming along his jaw, and then continuing over the hair that brushed his shoulders until her fingers slid against the leather covering his chest and curled around the hammer of Thor he wore.

 She found herself drawn to funny things this close: his eyelashes, the bob of his throat, the wisps of a beard gracing his chin, and when she had looked her fill, she brought her eyes up to meet his. She felt as though he saw her—not Lord Uhtred’s daughter, whether that was for good or for bad, not a captive or an enemy, and certainly not a child.

 “May I…”

“Yes.” She didn’t entirely know what she was agreeing to, nor did she care; she only knew that she wanted, anticipation thrumming beneath her skin.  

 The touch of his lips to hers was softer even than the feel of his hand on her cheek. It was strange at first, all of this, the way it felt, how he moved firm but gentle, slow and deliberate, even the fact that they stood in a room where King Alfred’s scribes had written of her father’s victories and the conquests of the Saxons.  

 It was nice, though, even as she wondered how she’d know, given she had nothing with which to compare it. She felt as though she was fumbling through the motions at first, merely attempting to mirror what he did, but then it smoothed into something even more pleasant, something synchronous as they found a sort of rhythm, and she paused only when she was certain she needed to breathe.

 This time she initiated as they resumed, one of her hands winding around his wrist, the other still entwined with his coming up to rest on his chest between them. Their kisses grew quicker, deeper, more desperate until he slowed the pace again.

 He lingered there against her, and seconds or minutes or hours could have passed, but Stiorra still was not expecting it when he pulled away, and it was so sudden she didn’t even have a chance to mask her disappointment.  

 Perhaps he’d stopped for an entirely different reason, though, and before she could stifle them, the words escaped. “Was I awful?”

 He grinned at her, his eyes darkened, and when he spoke again, his voice was deep, a low rumble in his chest, and it made her want more. “No. I simply find myself stricken.”

Stiorra nodded in understanding, her breath catching as his free hand slipped from her cheek to her hip. It had been just a kiss, but it didn’t feel like just anything as Stiorra reached up and swiped her finger over where his lips had touched hers. It felt like it could be something, could be everything.

 All her life Stiorra had been told of how she resembled her mother—in her looks, her strength, her wit—and she’d been told, too, of the gift of prophecy she’d possessed, of how Gisela could cast her rune sticks and see fate in the way they fell. That had always seemed like a strange business to Stiorra, but in that moment she wondered if she had inherited something else from her mother after all because as she looked back up at Sigtryggr again and returned his soft smile, she suspected she could see a glimpse of hers.

[valhallasubstitute]

That One

TLKFanFicFest

Based on the prompt: Enemies to Lovers, smut should definitely take place. They have been on opposite sides for years until one day changes everything forever.

@tlkfanficfest - I hope ya’ll enjoy it :)

WARNINGS: SMUT 18+, bondage, rough sex, oral (F receiving), mentions of injury, mentions of violence, unprotected sex - it’s the ninth century, they have an excuse, you don’t

Wc: 1993, super long soz

The ground beneath your feet had already converted to mud, coating your boots and the bottom of your shield as it dug into the earth. You could practically taste the battle to come, the violence, the bloodshed, your Lord’s desperate need for victory. You would not voice it but you did not have much hope for victory, but you were loyal so you stayed.

Unlike the man you had locked eyes on across the field.

You had first met Sihtric years ago, he had walked into your camp and gained your lords trust with reports of the Dane Slayer. Then he had betrayed him, killed him with Uhtred like his time with you had meant nothing. Had the two of you not been friends? Had you not cared for him?

After that each time your paths cross the hostility between you continued to grow, glares had turned into snide comments, insults had turned to the two of you being pulled apart to keep the peace.

A tiny scar on the right side of your neck a constant reminder of your last encounter. Amongst the hot rage you felt towards Sihtric you could still feel the cold press of his dagger against your throat. Your only satisfaction was that a dagger of your own had nicked his arm, deep enough you hoped to leave a matching mark.

‘Which one will you take first Y/N? I think I will have ugly one with the crooked nose.’ You snorted a little, you had fought in many battles and before each Sigrud was by your side, asking you to choose which man was yours to send to Valhalla.

You choice today was simple. Obvious to the others in the way your eyes burned and your voice dripped with venom.

‘That one.’

The path your sword carved was clear, the tip pointing directly at Sihtric.

He had not seen you yet, but he would.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

You could not see the ground for bodies, bodies of men and women you knew as well as horses and Saxons. All were dead or dying, sent to their heaven or hell.

Or to Valhalla – the thought was almost welcomed. You were tried and defeat seemed inevitable, your lord would not be long for this world. The Dane Slayer may be a man of honour but you knew of men’s kindness, their mercy.

Despite the ache in your bones the sight of Sihtric on the ground, axe hurtling towards him and fear on his face, had you sprinting. He wasn’t meant to die by that oaf’s axe, he was yours.

With a fierce kick the man above him was sent sprawling to the clearing floor.

‘HE IS MINE!’ You spat the words from your mouth like arrows from a bow and your message hit its target, the warrior eyed you but did not protest – he would take another’s life instead, let the she-wolf have her way with the rat, he thought.

Sihtric scrambled from the ground, axe in hand and teeth bared. There was confusion in his wide eyes. You readjusted the grip on your blade, heart hammering as you stepped towards him. Each time the two of you had fought you had been evenly matched. But this wasn’t a alehouse brawl nor a swapping of sharp words – he was yours in this moment and your sword felt impossibly heavy.

You were so caught in the moment, the rush and the fear you almost missed the way his eyes flicked to your left and the raise of his weapon. Your eyes left his as your sword met Saxon steel, another blow following it, and another and the fight you were about to have with Sihtric was over before it begun.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

You did not see Sihtric again until you were paraded through the courtyard, chains around your ankles and your sword stripped from you along with any sense of dignity you had left.

Your lord’s demise had been laughable, you had heard through taunts that he had fought with as much fire in his belly as a priest. He had been weak in his last moments and the shame would be felt by you and his other warriors until you found a new lord, that is, if you were allowed to live.

The look in Sihtric’s eyes told you that living wasn’t a likely outcome.

They bound you to the wall by your wrists, your hands going numb as the blood rushed from your strung up arms. The room they kept you in was dark and separate from the others.

After what felt like hours you finally heard footsteps coming your way, and despite whatever implications you were desperate for human interaction. That was until Sihtric opened the door.

‘Are you hungry?’  You watched him drink you in, eyes languidly following your form from the shackles that bound you to your boots that barely scraped the floor. At your silence he scoffed and closed the door behind him. It felt wrong to be shut in with him, no one to hold you apart, no one to temper the desire to tear each other apart.

‘Do you need to piss then? Answer me-

‘Or what? What will you do Kjartanson hmm? You’re nothing but the Dane Slayers dog, a lost little puppy.’ The hurt you felt, the memory of his betrayal sharpened your tongue.

‘I am a warrior!’

‘Is that why I found you on your back in the middle of battle, what a threat you must be.’ You knew the mocking would rile him and you smiled with satisfaction as he strode towards you.

‘If I am no threat then why did you spare me, what sort of warrior does that make you?’

‘Release me from these chains and find out.’ His face was inches from yours, hot puffs of breath fanning your face as his eyes bore into yours. There was anger there, danger and challenge. You couldn’t help the way your eyes flicked to his lips, half curled in a snarl but no less inviting.

The desire in your eyes must have been obvious, Sihtric didn’t hesitate to smash his lips into yours. As your tongues danced you fought against your chains, the desire to touch him was overwhelming. His hands where everywhere, gripping, pulling, making life pulse through your veins when hours ago you had been so certain of death.

You pushed your body flush against Sihtric’s and took pleasure in the way he moaned. Despite your restraints you could feel his arousal staining against his breeches. With his hands on your breasts you rubbed yourself against him, groaning against his mouth at the friction.

It was not enough and Sihtric seemed to sense it, his touch becoming more demanding, tugging at your belts . You whined at the loss of his lips and gasped as he yanked your trousers down to your ankles, exposing the part of you that craved him most.

You watched with bated breath as he dropped to his knees, half growling as he pressed his face between your thighs. His hands pushed your legs apart and his tongue lapped at your core as if he was a man starved. The curses that fell from your lips only seemed to spur him on and once he found your clit the only thing that kept you up right were the shackles that chained you to the wall. You could feel your climax building, coming closer and closer with each swipe of Sihtric’s tongue.

He pulled away abruptly and you flailed your arms in protest, the sound of rattling metal merging with a frustrated whine.

He stood before you, chest heaving and eyes set ablaze. As he hands trailed over your exposed skin the question in his look became obvious. The heat and passion and hate melted away and for a moment you could see that it was not hate at all.

But you were still in chains and while you could cry with want, you would not back down from any battle with Sihtric.

‘I would have you beg for it.’ The words were whispered but heavy.

You watched his lips curl into a snarl once more. His eyes darted from your flushed face to his belts as he undid them in haste and then he was picking up and slamming you onto his cock. He filled you completely, stretching you, pushing in and out, giving you no time to adjust.

You wrapped your legs around Sihtric’s waist, digging your heels into his lower back  as he gripped your arse. Each time he pounded into you it was like the anger you felt towards each other came to a head, each threat, each insult all leading to this moment.

You were fighting each other once more, using pleasure as your weapon. The prize was to watch the other fall apart.

His head rested on your shoulder as yours was thrown back, his teeth scraped against your skin and you could feel the coil in your stomach begin to tighten once more. You clenched around him and he …stopped? You groaned and slammed your head against his shoulder, trying your hardest to drag yourself along his length.

You could feel him smile against your neck, his lips coming to brush against your ear.

‘Beg for it…’ He nipped at the shell of your ear before trailing his lips back to yours for a bruising kiss. When you broke apart you were wanton. ‘Beg. For. Me.’ He emphasized each word with a deep thrust.

And you did, as his pace resumed his name fell from your lips like a Saxon prayer. You came undone with a blinding orgasm, the call of Sihtric’s name echoed off the walls and your legs felt weak. Your whole body felt drained and all you needed was to see Sihtric come before you could allow yourself to embrace the bliss.

His face twisted in pleasure, you dared not close your eyes for fear of missing a second of it. He slipped out of you with a sigh, his forehead resting against yours.

‘What happens tomorrow?’ He brought his lips to yours briefly, softly.

‘I don’t know, Uhtred hasn’t said what he plans to do with the prisoners.’ He must have seen your face fall, you hadn’t meant for your fear to show but after feeling so alive, so liberated from the fight and the violence and your own hurt, to die now would be beyond cruel. Even for the Gods. ‘He is a good man.’

‘You know that for sure?’ He smiled at you then, pulling up your breeches and re-lacing them.

‘I do.’

He left then, his gaze lingering before he closed the door.

*-*-*-*-*-*

You slept until morning and at first light your arms were released and your ankles bound once more.

Uhtred and his men stood on one side of the courtyard, they stopped talking as the last of you arrived. You found Sihtric in the crowd, your body still fresh with the memory of him and your heart aching with something you’d never felt before.

Uhtred stepped forward then, his voice demanding every mans attention.

‘Your Lord is dead. He died a coward and a fool…Lucky for you the rest of you fought with bravery and for that I offer you a second chance. Some of you have skill and that makes you valuable. Join me, pledge yourself loyal to Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Your past will be forgiven, your lords shame forgotten and you will be welcomed. All you need to do is step forward.’

He smiled as he finished talking but the tension was heavy and you could feel your men’s eyes falling to you. You were respected, skilled and sound of mind. The weight of their expectation would have crushed a lesser warrior.

It didn’t matter. None of that mattered.

Your eyes had found Sihtric’s and everything else seemed to melt away.

You stepped forward without a second thought.

[tlkfanficfest]

TLKFanficFest Prompts - Round 1

This round will be open for two weeks and be done on July 5. 

All the prompts are alphabetized below, into different categories. Anyone can try writing any prompt and all prompts may be filled by multiple people! 

Please remember to tag your completed prompt fill with #TLKFFF2020 and @tlkfanficfest so they can be included in the Fill Post. 

If you write only on AO3 please send your links and what prompt it was for to tlkfanficfest@gmail.com to be included.  

PAIRINGS

Aelswith/Alfred, first meeting

Aethelflaed/Aldhelm, “Why are you awake right now?”

Aethelflaed/Aldhelm, “you have bewitched me, body and soul.”

Aethelflaed/Uhtred, “Ask me what I did while you were gone; I promise I can draw every action I took back to you.”

Eadith/Finan, Eadith trusts Finan with her life, but she needs to convince him she trusts him with her body.

Eadith/Finan, Finan watches Eadith and Aethelstan and wonders how he got so lucky for a second chance at a family.

Eadith/Finan, he teaches her some self defense

Eadith/Finan, it was never about pleasure for Eadith until Finan

Eadith/Finan/Uhtred, After a run in with some Welsh raiders, Eadith tends to both Finan and Uhtred’s wounds.

Eadith/Finan/Uhtred, relationship negotiations

Eadith/Finan/Uhtred, Uhtred won’t intrude on the relationship building between Eadith/Finan, even though they’ve both expressed interest in him joining so they hatch a plan to seduce him, together.

Ealswith (Sihtric's wife)/Sihtric, first meeting!

Finan and Uhtred roadtrip

Finan/Eadith: “I never get a full nights sleep around you.”

Finan/Sihtric, a jealous Sihtric but not the "bad" jealous type, more like insecurity. and Finan being oblivious to it until they talk and actually communicate (so angst with a happy ending i guess haha)

Finan/Sihtric, that first night after Finan knows Sihtric didn't really abandon them.

Finan/Sihtric: "You fought for me."

Finan/Uhtred with Uhtred catching the common cold and Finan loosing it because he thinks it’s “the sickness”.

Finan/Uhtred, “I’m worried about you”

Finan/Uhtred, stuck in a confessional box. Can be as naughty as you like. Bonus for Aelswith coming to pray whilst they're stuck.

Finan/Uhtred, they know each other like the back of their hands.

Finan/Uhtred, we are bound.

Finan/Uhtred/Gisela, Uhtred returns a changed man, but Gisela doesn't mind the Irish warrior he brings with him

Gisela/Hild, hurt/comfort

Gisela/Iseult/Uhtred, Isuelt lives, she travels north with Uhtred and meets the beautiful Danish girl, Gisela. The women want to take their friendship further, will Uhtred mind? And will he be allowed to partake? The women weave a special pagan magic together.

Uhtred/Gisela/Finan is a thing and they need to figure out who is the baby daddy now that Gisela is pregnant.

Uhtred/OC, OC is from Irland and her name is Brigid (like the Celtic goddess) and Finan is like “Lord, we have to take her with us, she needs our help. And I’ll not ‘ave ye cursing us for a second time.” Because he is paranoid if they don’t take her and help her than the Celtic gods will curse the harvest at Coccham.

NO SPECIFIC PAIRING

"A mad ardour upon you to race horses, where the serried host is ranged around; very splendid is the bounty of the cattle-pond, the iris is gold because of it." - from an Irish poem, 'May-time', 9th-10th century, author unknown

"Keen is the wind, bare the hill, it is difficult to find shelter; the ford is marred, the lake freezes, a man could stand on a single stalk." - from a Welsh poem, 'Winter', c.11th century, author unknown

"The ocean is full, the sea is in flood, lovely is the home of ships ... the rudder is swift upon the wide sea." - from an 11th century Irish poem, A Storm at Sea, author unknown

A night with Erik

Aldhelm has a Nice Day for once

Aldhelm, resting and thinking back on his life, Finan and Sihtric come across him. They talk.

An Aethelflaed focused story inspired by Queen of Peace by Florence and the Machine

Any pairing welcome, but Osferth would be a great pick, It’s too cold outside and we should share body heat. For survival only of course. Or not... hehe !

Coccham crew get drunk and start flyting against each other

Coccham squad in a naturist camp

Father Pyrlig sneaks healer reader out of King Edwards court for Uhtred and his men to keep safe. She has made an enemy out of Aethelhelm.

Finan and Uhtred roadtrip

Finan has to reconcile his past as conversations with Irland bring his brother back into his life.

Finan, "Don't pretend like you're asleep. Should I find a way to wake you up?"(obvs on the smutty side... I can see it already!)

Hild watches the guys train. They show off for her.

Jealous possessive Finan please!

Mafia AU, any pairings

Osferth saves Finan and Sihtric’s life from Danes and has a little smirk at the end.

Osferth, Edward, and Aethelflaed following Alfred's burial

Radio station AU of any description. Wessex FM, Bebbanburg Beats, Mercia Magic...

Sihtric and Osferth bonding over being bastards

Someone attempts to kidnap Osferth much to his friends dismay. They want revenge against Uhtred.

The Coccham crew get a little tipsy and Sihtric ends up with his most interesting haircut yet

The Cookham squad mourn the death of Steapa.

Uhtred has the hiccups

Uhtred is visited by the actual Night Walker and they have a philosophical conversation around the campfire.

Alfred requests Uhtred's company on a brief pilgrimage to the sea at the south of Wessex. Uhtred is suspicious of his motivations, especially given the dissenting nature of their religions, but he soon realizes that perhaps Alfred has a bit more than God on his mind when he's praying.

IMAGINES

Finan, Finan shares his cloak with the reader at the fire to keep them both warm. His hands wander occasionally.

Finan, him being soft and him caring for kids in my life

Finan, reader makes sexual noises to turn him on

Finan, with a Dane reader

Finan/Reader, Finan comes home to find reader gone. They had gotten into a fight that day before he was to go off to battle with Uhtred. She told him that if he left she wouldn't be there when he got back. Lots of angst with a sad ending.

Sigfried, reader saves Siegfried from an assassin.

Sihtric rescues the reader from drowning.

Sihtric/Reader, Enemies to Lovers, smut should definitely take place. They have been on opposite sides for years until one day changes everything forever.

Sihtric/Reader, reader is a spy sent by Haesten to spy on Uhtred and his men. Sihtric finds her and marches her back to their camp by sword.

Uhtred, the reader is half trapped underneath a horse and Uhtred stays with her while Osferth goes for help. Uhtred flirts and comforts her.

Young Ragnar/Reader, ex-lovers meet again on one fateful day. There is some angst but it has a happy ending.

RPF

Alex/Eliza, accidental kiss at dusk

Alex/Eliza/Mark, it kind of just happens

Alex/Mark, Alex is in love with Mark, Mark is oblivious. Alex comes up with more and more excuses for them to rehearse together. How long can Mark hide his feelings when they rehearse hugging scenes AGAIN?!?

Alex/Mark, unspoken promises

Eliza/Everyone, Eliza’s just touchy feely with her friends

Ensemble (any pairings), some of the cast goes to a music festival for the weekend

Mark raids Eliza’s closet and tries on a few things. (bonus points if what he tries on is garters/suspenders)

[superprincesspea]

Winchester’s Finest

Finan helps Eadith wrap her ribs and their bond goes beyond friendship.

Written for the @tlkfanficfest​ Prompts Challenge

Prompt 8- Eadith/Finan, it was never about pleasure for Eadith until Finan.

Fluff, Smut, Romance

Word Count: 1906

“If only someone who cared for me was here to see it,” Eadith said, her voice laced with sadness.

Finan paused, a sinking feeling weighing him down. Since the moment she’d stepped into Winchester he’d thought of only her. Even before that, even the very first time he saw her, she consumed him. So radiant her beauty, so clever her wit and so brave her courage. 

When he was a boy his mother told him girls with red hair were sprites in disguise and he was the superstitious type. Eadith certainly seemed like an ethereal being, much too precious for his dirty warriors hands. But, as he bound her wounds, he could see clearer than ever that she was flesh and blood, just like him.

“I care,” he said, opening his heart for the first time in a long while.

She smiled, her hand covering his. Her fingers, so slender and delicate against his.

“Thank you,” she told him and he didn’t press her. She was hurt and though part of him burned to show her how much he cared, the other part knew he could wait. He’d waited this long.

When she was bandaged to the best of his ability, he left her with the baby monk while he headed into town to find a suitable room for rent. The one he found wasn’t much. But it was reasonably clean and had a comfortable bed so after paying the landlord he went back to collect her.

“I can’t afford this,” she complained as he scooped her into his arms to carry her up the stairs.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She winced as he lay her on the mattress, looking even weaker now than he’d first thought. She needed food, water and he began walking away to find both.

“Finan,” she called after him.

He turned to look at her, “what’s the matter?”

“Don’t leave.”

A smile quirked at his lips, “I’m not leaving, I’m just gonna find something for you to eat.”

She nodded, sighing as she closed her eyes and settled into the bed.

When he returned she was sleeping so he placed the food and ale on the table and made himself comfortable on the floor. After so much stress and worry over the past few weeks, he welcomed sleep and fell into it easily.

It was just before dawn when he heard a soft voice whispering his name, lulling him gently awake but his dreams had not been so peaceful. They never were. He ripped himself from sleep with a start, hand reaching for his sword. He was on his feet and prepared to fight before his eyes had barely opened. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Eadith said, her voice no longer a whisper. 

“It's a force of habit,” he replied, dragging his hand over his face and rubbing his eyes. 

She watched him nervously and with a yawn he replaced his sword in his belt, “how are you feeling?”

“Sore,” her eyes flicked to the bowl and cup on the table, “hungry.”

“Winchesters finest,” he said, smiling as he handed her the ale. The bowl he kept, stirring the contents before settling beside her and offering her a spoonful. 

“I’m not completely lame,” she laughed, looking at the spoon of food in his hand.

“Of course not.” What was he thinking? Blood rushed to his cheeks as he quickly handed over the bowl. 

“So where will you go now that the fighting is over?” she asked, picking at her food.

“No plans as of yet.” He laughed nervously- “are you trying to get rid of me, Lady Eadith?”

“No, I-” her gaze focused on the bowl, she seemed to be trying to find the right words to say and he had time to wait. He had all the time in the world for her. 

“I suppose, I’m wondering how long you will stay. I do not wish to be here alone.”

“You’re one of us now, you don’t have to be alone again. Not on my watch.”

She nodded, meeting his gaze, her hand stretching across the bed towards him. 

Was it an invitation? 

He swallowed the nervous lump in his throat, his fingers tentative as they brushed over hers. She didn’t move away, her hand clasped his and held him tightly. “I care about you too, Finan. I should have said it yesterday and I regretted not doing so.”

“You never have to do anything you’re not ready for with me.”

“I know,” she smiled, her hand slipping from his and her attention back to the bowl of food as if her words hadn’t changed everything.

He wanted to say more but he didn’t know what or how to say it. So he just smiled, resuming his place on the floor and staring at the ceiling as she ate her food and drank the ale. 

Over the next few days, her injuries healed while Finan spent night after night laying on the floor beside her, wishing he was in the bed. 

Now it was dark outside and before settling down for another night on the floor, he lit the last of the candles and took a seat on the bed.

“We’re thinking of heading back to Coccham soon, if you’re wanting to join us?” he said.

“Without you here, there’s no reason for me to stay in Winchester.”

He smiled, “I’ll have to tell Sihtric to find you a horse then.”

“And where will I live in Coccham?”

He knew what he wanted the answer to be and said it, even at the risk of being shot down. “You could live with me...”

“Good,” she said.

“Good,” he replied, surprised but pleased.

She looked like she was going to say something so he watched her with interest. But she changed her mind and soon they were both merely staring, silence filling the air. He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again when words wouldn’t form. The silence was beyond awkward now yet he couldn’t look away. 

He wasn’t sure who made the move, maybe it was both of them, leaning closer and closer until their lips were in reach and they settled into their first tentative kiss. Kissing was certainly better than talking or not talking. Kissing said everything they needed to say and it felt right.

Eadith was everything he dreamed. Her lips were soft and inviting and when he tilted her head to deepen their kiss she moaned happily, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull him closer.  

“Be gentle with me,” she told him and he swallowed hard.

Finan had been content enough just to kiss her. But her fingers began pulling the fastenings of her dress and it seemed she wanted more. Much more. “Always,” he managed to say, unbuckling his belt and letting his sword clatter to the floor. 

It was no secret Eadith had spent the night with Aethelred and it was no secret the former Lord of Mercia was a monster and a brute. Finan would never be like that, not with her, not with anyone.

Slowly they shed each other's clothes and he admired every inch of Eadith’s skin with fascination. So creamy and soft, barely a freckle or scar and her nipples delicately pink. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and perhaps he didn’t deserve her but he could not deny himself this treasure.

He let his calloused warriors touch stroke across her body, eliciting sweet sighs and moans. He hardly knew where to start, so he started at the bottom. His lips gently grazing her foot, her legs, her stomach, her breasts and then her lips. He could get lost in her sweet, perfect lips. 

“You’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted you,” he told her, cupping her breasts, his tongue swirling around the outline of her nipples before sucking them. 

They had all night and he intended to use it. He wanted to feel every part of her, to know every inch had been covered in the scent of his skin and the feel of his lips. With every kiss and caress, she grew more and more needy, writhing on the bed, gasping at every touch.

“I need… more. Please Finan.”

It wasn’t every day he had a woman begging for him and he wasn’t one to deny a Lady. He sank between her thighs, spreading them over his shoulders, angling her body so he could taste her sweet, wet cunt. He’d bet gold she’d never been kissed here before and he would be the first. Not some Lord or a King, him. 

“Finan,” she gasped as his tongue pressed against her. Swirling, flicking, settling into a torturous rhythm. 

The noises she made urged him and he couldn’t wait to feel how ready she was to take his cock. He slipped a finger inside, pumping in and out, in time with his tongue. She was deliciously wet and his cock throbbed desperately to replace his fingers.

With every flick of his tongue, he could feel her drawing nearer and nearer to climax but he denied her, he wanted to be inside when her walls tightened with pleasure. 

She moaned when his tongue stopped its rhythm and he smiled, crawling along her body to kiss her.

“Are you sure you want this?” he whispered, his heart hammering in his chest and his cock almost ready to burst with desire.

She opened her eyes and panted a breathy, “yes, yes, please.”

He smiled, kissing her again. It might have killed him to stop but he would have done it. For her. 

He rubbed his cock over her cunt, coating himself in her slickness before slowly inching inside. 

She was so soft and hugged him tightly, drawing him in. After he was fully sheathed he pulled himself almost all the way out so he could take her again and it felt just as good as the first time. 

“Jesus, Eadith,” he groaned, every thrust coiling pleasure tighter and tighter within him. Already it was almost unbearable to stop himself from releasing but he wanted it to last. He wanted her to feel better than she’d ever felt before.

Eadith’s legs wrapped around his waist and her arms clung to him as he drove into her over and over again. Delirious with the sounds she was making and the feel of her tight wet cunt. 

He kissed her, stealing the moans from her lips before commanding her to come for him.

She arched her back, her legs squeezing him tighter and her climax shuddering across her body with his name on her lips. 

He couldn’t stop himself now even if he wanted to, pressure released, his body jerking, squeezing every ounce inside her.

Breathlessly he settled his head onto her chest and she cradled him. It had been a long time since he’d felt this content. 

“Well that was a grand old time, wasn’t it?” he joked after a while, making light of the mass of butterflies he felt fluttering in his stomach. 

“Don’t feel you have to owe me anything now, Finan,” she said, worry creasing her brow.

“I don’t,” he replied, quickly, foolishly. “I mean-” he took her hand, “there’s nothing you’ll ever want that I won’t wanna give you.”

She smiled, her cheeks tinged with pink, “then perhaps… we could do more…”

His eyes caressed her body, “oh we could definitely do more…”

[lannisterdaddyissues]

rolls off the tongue - aelswith/alfred

For the @tlkfanficfest.

A/N: Sorry this is late, I thought the deadline was July 6 and not July 5. Oops. Anyway, I was originally going to let @tsukkinami fill this prompt because I was too lazy and afraid to write it myself, but the KissFest was like a second chance for me! I will write a different pairing for the KissFest so don’t think you’ve seen the last of me ❤️

Prompt filled for: Pairings, 1. Aelswith/Alfred, first meeting

“You may call me Lord Alfred, or ‘my Lord’ if you prefer.” Aelswith’s betrothed nods gravely at her, face neutral and betraying nothing. It frustrates her to be faced with such unyielding ambivalence; pray, what does he think of her?

The Mercian recalls what her father told her only the day before, with a stern pinch in his brow.

“My dear, this union is for the good of Mercia. You will marry Lord Alfred and do your duty to your country. If God is good, he will be a good husband to you. If God has no mercy, then...”

Then she must be a good wife.

Alfred lifts his hand in a dismissive gesture. The rest of the room’s occupants bow their heads respectfully before retreating through the door and leaving it closed.

Aelswith dips low before him with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Lord Alfred does not sound very well, she decides. It doesn’t roll pleasingly off the tongue.

Her eyes roam over his person as she contemplates the man before her. Lord Alfred is of a height with her father, though the former’s physique is slight and almost gaunt whereas her father is large of girth. He has a boyish face, pale skin and blotches of red on his cheeks, but his eyes are weary for all his nineteen years. He cannot be a boy with eyes like those. 

It twists her good Christian heart to see such eyes.

“We are alone now,” he says, breaking the silence that has settled. When he speaks, his voice is soft, quiet, but it is not from timidity. He has the look of a thoughtful man, one who thinks before he speaks and weighs his words with care not to say the wrong thing. “Speak.”

What does he expect her to say? Aelswith had determined to play the part of a dutiful wife with all the grace of a woman of her station, but now that she is facing the man her life will be spent beside, her throat is dry and devoid of words.

“Wessex has been quite welcoming,” she eventually manages, twining her fingers together at her belly as she glances down demurely. He would have expected her to say that — she is doing her duty thus far. “It is a country that I can see myself at home in, some time in the future.”

Alfred inclines his head, acknowledging the compliment for what it is worth. She waits for him to say more. It is not the Lady’s place to address a man. He studies her intently, gaze traveling probingly over her person as though he can discern her every thought. It intimidates her.

You are a Christian?” Alfred inquires, eyes alighting upon the cross round her neck. Light glimmers in his eyes where before there was fog and mist. Aelswith smiles more genuinely this time, for her faith is her greatest pride.

“All good people are called by God to be Christian, my Lord,” she says piously. Alfred returns her smile with a ghost of his own.

“That is correct,” he says, and Aelswith warms to him. A Christian husband will be a good husband. 

The shroud of silence that separates them before returns, and Aelswith wishes to banish it. Her eyes roam about the room in search of something to focus upon, eventually landing upon the scrolls on the table. Curiosity arises.

Alfred’s eyes follow hers and he brushes his fingertips over them reverently. They are manuscripts,” he says by way of explanation. Aelswith had understood that much. He continues, “The history of Wessex is written within them — history my brother writes, that I write.” 

“History, my Lord?” Aelswith asks.

“History that we make.” Alfred’s face is serious now. “The Word of God is remembered and practised centuries after His life. To write oneself into history is to live forever within these pages. People will know of my brother and they will know of me.”

His words carry the weight of a crown now, the Lady thinks.

Alfred steps around the table to her side and their eyes meet, a storm of blue to earthen brown.

“Do you dream, Aelswith?” he asks seriously. Before she can respond, he resumes speaking.

“I dream of England,” Alfred says, “Wessex will one day become England, and when it happens, I will write the birth of England into this chronicle. It will be remembered.”

She believes him.

“One day I will rule, and it will be my duty to unite the kingdoms under a single God. This union is the first step to that dream,” he murmurs.

“Then I will share that dream with you,” she whispers. She is called as his wife-to-be to support him in all matters, to be his constant companion and salvation, but it would not be a hardship to see such a dream as Alfred’s realized. It is a lofty, noble dream, one that seems too large for his thin shoulders. Aelswith will offer her shoulder too and carry the burden.

She tilts her head to his, parting her lips in a silent invitation. His eyes flicker to them, gleaming with intent. It makes her belly twists with an unfamiliar want.

Their noses brush together in a tentative kiss, lips grazing light as feathers, and Aelswith’s firm and unyielding heart wavers. Alfred has the look of a priest, but he captures her mouth in his with a prince’s confidence. 

She breathes hot into his mouth and his hands grasp at her shoulders, pulling her closer as he deepens the kiss with a fervor she had not expected of him. It steals all the air from her lungs and Aelswith has to pull away in order to breathe. Alfred gasps as she breaks the kiss and he stares at her, eyes brightening as though he is seeing her through new eyes. Aelswith feels rather the same.

His hand reaches for hers and he twines their fingers together. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles at her and Aelswith’s lips curve upward into a smile of her own.

“One day you will be queen,” Alfred says with conviction, squeezing her hand. “Queen of Wessex and later, Queen of England.” She likes the sound of that. “I would have you by my side,” he adds. She likes the sound of that even better.

“Yes, my Lord,” is all Aelswith can say, though inside her are many words that she could have said. He releases her palm from his grasp and Aelswith hopes to hold it again the next time.

Alfred dismisses her with another one of his crinkling smiles instead of a wave of the hand. Aelswith bows her head dutifully before closing the door to allow him his privacy. 

As she departs from her betrothed’s writing room, Aelswith allows herself one last private smile. 

Lord Alfred may not roll so pleasingly off the tongue, but perhaps the title of King would suit — King Alfred, though, now that sounded well.

tagging: @tsukkinami @seaberrycloudberry @myenglandmylove @sihtric @hislivinglegacy @cocchamscrew @bird-on-a-wire20 @for-bebbanburg @limenal @othermoony @nightskyfangirl @lauwrite1225 

[tsukkinami]

like the back of my hand

fandom: The Last Kingdom (TV)

pairing: finan / uhtred

rating: Mature (for implied sexual content)

chapters: 1/1

Written for The Last Kingdom Fanfic Fest Round 1:

“21. Finan/Uhtred, they know each other like the back of their hands.”

read on ao3 here

@lauwrite1225 @finantheagile @tlkfanficfest @limenal @minimartian @bird-on-a-wire20 @sihtric

If you haven’t checked out the prompt list, you can find it here! 

—

It’s not just on the battlefield, though in the years spent at one another’s side, fighting has no longer become a simple action for Finan and Uhtred. It is a synchrony, a dance, the rawest expression of loyalty they are capable of giving one another. It is the silent, screaming vow of never straying, of choosing the path they walk along not because it is easy, but because they are on it together. For Finan, it is never needing to look over his shoulder, because he knows who stands behind him, and he knows whose back he feels pressed against his own.

But it is more than that; it is everything in between those moments of blinding adrenaline and bloodlust. It’s the long days of travel, the tired looks and easy smiles, the catching of thrown weapons without a glance to see the aim, the handing off of a flask just as the other grows thirsty. It is knowing when to speak and when to listen, when to hold fast and when to let be. It is quiet shared in the dark with naught but a flickering light between them, no words spoken aloud but a lifetime of tragedy playing over in their heads in perfect simultaneity. It is laughter, caught and thrown like a ball at play in a volley of jovial jests. It is the finishing of sentences. It is the words left to wander off into silence.

And sometimes, it’s a touch; a trail of the fingertips across ride-worn breeches, a soft bump of shoulders when one of them leans in to find solace in a loyal embrace, although the fire casting amber glows upon their skin would do well enough to keep them warm. It’s a press of lips, to cheek or mouth in kind, followed quickly by roaming hands over leather straps.

Uhtred, he uses his words—the press of his forehead against Finan’s jaw, murmuring praise and promise into the bite-darkened skin of his collar while Finan pants into his ear. His voice is a siren song, and he, the Lorelei drawing Finan to the cliffside where he would gladly drown beneath the choppy depths of the Rhine, if only to glimpse the face of such perfection. When Finan is at his peak, it is Uhtred’s sweet encouragement that takes his hand and brings him to the edge, only for him to leap without fear. And when the waters calm, he is the lullaby gathering Finan in his arms and plucking his mind from his body to the stars, to rest inside the curve of the crescent moon smiling down from its inky perch.

Finan lets his body speak for him. Being Irish, it tends to shout.

Uhtred can keep his rallying tongue, can let his silken words weave round his kiss-bruised lips all he likes—when it’s just the two of them, Finan is pleased to let him do the talking while he puts his mouth to better use. Sometimes it’s a private peck behind the tent when they wake up in the morning, dismantling camp and giggling where they think the others cannot hear. Often it’s a desperate union, the first thing Finan’s mind will let him do when he spots Uhtred blood-soaked and wide-eyed, chest heaving as the wind of battle leaves him. Those ones are rough, lined with teeth and misfired to land amidst the iron taste of blood let run down cheeks. They are the loudest Finan gets without saying a word, and he knows—he knows Uhtred hears every last syllable.

But his favorite way to speak, his favorite reassurance to his Lord that they are one, bound in blood and sorrow and victory, the skin on each other's bruised knuckles calloused by decades of hardship and committed to memory, is on his knees.

It’s a little like worship, though Finan gets the feeling that a priest might string him up for idolatry if he could bear witness. Uhtred’s fingers card through Finan’s hair like anointing oil, trickling down smooth and heavy. He would bristle should Finan tell him how much his mutterings sound like the Lord’s prayer, and so Finan contents himself with smirking around the scarred skin of Uhtred’s abdomen, letting his tongue trace old wounds with reverent attention. Finan’s thumbs draw shapes and signs into Uhtred’s hips, leaving ghosts behind when they move to clasp around his thighs and hook one or both over his broad shoulders. 

Uhtred arches like a cresting wave, and Finan meets him at the shoreline with a steady foothold in the cool sand. He rides the choppy waters with honor, waiting for the storm to break and the sight of the auburn sky to draw him home again. Uhtred fights the way he fights in battle, swift and impossible to pin, nothing but Finan’s sure weight and ministrations to mollify him, to keep the threat of swords and Val Halla at bay. His fingers move to Finan’s nape, running over his sunkissed collar and tracing the freckles high up on his back, and they tense when Finan’s tongue curls. The Irishman wonders which constellations Uhtred sees in him.

When Finan’s mouth has said all it can, right around when Uhtred’s has begun to beg, Finan lets his hands take over, lets them burn and heal and worship like he would the cross still dangling from his neck. His fingers sing songs where they run along the fringe of Uhtred’s skin, his hips joining in the chorus as they settle where Uhtred’s legs part. Finan always forgets the melody when they begin to move as one, and that’s when Uhtred chimes in to harmonize, to hum sweet praise and moan honeyed ecstasy until Finan can carry a tune again.

It’s easy when it’s just them, when it's the same rhapsody they’ve played for one another time and time again, filled to bursting with endearment and dogged loyalty. Finan knows it by muscle memory now, every twitch and rut and grazing touch that send Uhtred’s ankles digging into the small of his back, his brows pinching at the middle and lashes fluttering over dewed skin. It’s a feast for the body and soul, for the eyes and the heart, and if Finan could find a way to bottle it, to grow drunk on it night after night, by God, he would. Not the sweetest, headiest wine would ever compare.

They reach their highest note together, and for once, Finan falls silent to enjoy the fountaining keen of his Lord, lapping it up with a swipe of his tongue over his lips as they fall apart and reassemble, breathless and awash in Heaven’s basking light. Uhtred’s words are as gentle as Finan’s touch when they twine together, as they succor one another with fond gazes and private laughter. They drift in unison, Uhtred’s chin tucked over Finan’s head, lazy kisses floating like flower petals down a river on his crown.

It’s not something he could find anywhere else but in the perfect comfort of Uhtred’s pleasant company. It’s the space between their fingers where, when slotted, fit one another perfectly. It’s the slow breathing matched in rhythm and the soft rumbles of sleep talk echoed back and forth between them as they lie entangled, draped in furs and fellow feeling. It’s home.

It’s love.

[osferth]

day out

prompt : "5. Aldhelm has a Nice Day for once" bc he deserves it :)

pairing: aldhelm x aethelflaed

for @tlkfanficfest !!

tagging: @tsukkinami @othermoony @lauwrite1225 @minimartian @seaberrycloudberry @ucancallmechlo @beowulfsdottir

Aldhelm had once served Aethelred and only Aethelred, listened to his every demand without complaint, and schemed alongside him, but those days were over, and had been for quite a while.

These days, it was all he could do to resist reaching over to his lord and giving him a well-deserved slap in the face.

He had fallen in love with his lord’s estranged wife, the lady Aethelflaed, during the time Aethelred had ordered him to arrange her death and never once looked back at his old self, whom he rather despised. Aldhelm privately considered himself to be serving Mercia above all else, and if it weren’t for that thought, along with the prospect of seeing Aethelflaed again, he wondered how he would have managed to continue serving as Aethelred’s advisor. The man was frankly unbearable to be around any longer, he thought. 

One morning, Aethelred, half-hidden behind his door and wearing only a robe, informed his advisor that his services would not be required that day. This left Aldhelm perplexed for a few moments until he heard giggles coming from within the room, and immediately understood.

“Of course, Lord,” he merely said, and turned away with a small smile as the door closed behind him. That left him free for the entire day, something that had not happened in a long time.

He decided to head down to the alehouse for a drink and some peace of mind, which was well-deserved after all he’d been putting up with. It was still early, he thought, and the regular drunkards wouldn’t be there yet, making a racket like they always did by the end of the night.

It was just as Aldhelm had predicted - the alehouse had only a few patrons scattered around, some nodding their heads in acknowledgement as he passed them and stood at the counter. Aldhelm was glad of it - he could do with some peace and quiet. He slid some coins across and the barmaid poured him a mug of ale, which he gratefully took, and was about to find a table to sit at when he saw Uhtred and his men trooping in.

Aldhelm sighed and turned away immediately, hoping they would not notice him. They were good men, but they were not synonymous with Aldhelm's vision of peace and quiet.

“Is there anything else, Lord?” the barmaid asked him, raising an eyebrow.

He shook his head.

“No, thank you,” he said, and forced himself to turn around and find a table, preparing for his name to be called.

When that never happened, he found himself turning to see where they were. The four men were standing together at the counter and laughing with each other, having plainly not spotted Aldhelm.

He took a swig of his ale and smiled. His luck seemed to be improving by the minute, especially when the men seated themselves as far away from him as possible, still not having noticed his presence.

As soon as Aldhelm finished his drink, he decided to pay Aethelflaed a visit at her estate in Saltwic. It was only a short distance from there on horseback, but even if she was many miles away he still would have made the journey that day. In any case, it had been several weeks since he had last seen Aethelflaed in person and he had missed her badly, though Aethelred could not know it. 

Aldhelm felt slightly bad about the fact that he had not written to Aethelflaed prior about his visit to her that day, but as he rode into the gates and saw Aethelflaed outside with her young daughter Aelfwynn, he forgot all about it. She looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see him there, and without Aethelred anywhere in sight.

“Aldhelm, what are you doing here?” she asked, picking up her daughter and walking over to greet him.

He beamed at them both.

“I thought I would pay you a visit,” he said, “if it isn’t any trouble for you, Lady.” The smile on Aethelflaed’s face made him wonder how on earth Aethelred could hate her as much as he did, for she was the loveliest woman he had ever known; beautiful, smart, brave and vivacious.

She was everything her husband was not, and Aldhelm loved that about her.

“Of course not, we don’t mind,” Aethelflaed said brightly. “Aelfwynn, sweetheart, say hello to Aldhelm.” She adjusted the little girl on her hip, who cooed at Aldhelm and smiled.

His heart swelled as the child reached out to him, and Aethelflaed handed her over to him. “Shall we go inside?” she suggested, and Aldhelm nodded, smiling when Aelfwynn started to play with the clasp on his cloak.

“Does Aethelred not require your services today?” Aethelflaed asked once they were seated at the table. She had sent everyone out of the room, so she could be alone with him and her daughter. “Or did he send you here?”

Aldhelm chuckled. “He told me I would not be needed today,” he said. “Lady, I promise I am here of my own accord.” 

“I believe you,” Aethelflaed smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, Aldhelm. It is nice to see you again, and I can see Aelfwynn missed you too.” 

“I missed her too,” Aldhelm said, glancing at Aelfwynn, who was sitting on top of the table and playing with her toys, before looking back at her mother. He loved Aethelflaed so ardently he would risk anything for her, but the only thing that dampened his spirits was that she was ignorant of his feelings.

The idea of telling her honestly frightened him, for it could never possibly come to anything as long as Aethelred lived... but he could dream. Spending time with her and her daughter like this was the closest he could get, as rare as it was, and he cherished every moment of it. It almost felt as though they were a little family in that room.

Aethelflaed passed him a cup of wine which he accepted with a smile, his cheeks turning slightly pink as their fingers momentarily brushed. “Thank you, Lady,” he smiled. “What news?”

“Nothing of any importance,” Aethelflaed told him. “Still, each day I get to spend without Aethelred is a better one, though I wish he would accept his daughter. He is not willing to even see her.”

She sighed. “Tell me, Aldhelm,” she added suddenly, smiling, “has he said anything concerning either of us recently?”

“Other than the usual remarks, no,” Aldhelm said, fighting a smile. “He likes to say he is glad you are living on your own estate among other things whenever he is in a particularly foul mood, but nothing major we need to worry about.”

“We, Aldhelm?” Aethelflaed asked, looking rather amused when his face reddened.

“Your wellbeing is as much my concern as anything else, Lady,” he said quickly. “You must know that Mercia prospers not because of anything Aethelred has accomplished, but your fair judgement and leadership. I respect you more than anyone,” he added quietly, meeting her eye, “and I will not let you be harmed by the recklessness of your husband.”

Aethelflaed reached out and took his hand in a moment of sheer impulsiveness, but it was not one she regretted. “Thank you, Aldhelm,” she said sincerely. “I consider myself lucky that you have my best interests at heart.”

Aldhelm smiled. “Of course, Lady,” he replied, trying to keep his voice steady, even as his heart was hammering in his chest at the feeling of his hand in hers. “You know I would do anything for you and Lady Aelfwynn."

Aethelflaed looked up at him as he said this and Aldhelm willed himself not to look away, even as his face burned. He was rewarded with a smile and a squeeze of his hand.

A long silence passed after that, both of them alternating between gazing at each other and watching Aelfwynn playing with her toys, but neither minded it.

It was Aelfwynn who ended up breaking the silence. Having grown tired of playing alone, she toddled over to Aldhelm and pulled on his sleeve. He lifted her up at once and sat her on his knee. "I suppose she hasn't been out much, has she, Lady?" he asked Aethelflaed.

She shook her head.

"You are the first to visit us in a while," she said. "I think she prefers you being here."

So do I, Aldhelm thought wistfully. 

"What if we went out into the garden for a little while?" he suggested. "We could bring some of Aelfwynn's toys with us, in case she asks for them."

"That sounds like an excellent idea, Aldhelm," Aethelflaed said, her face lighting up at once. "And Aelfwynn could really use the fresh air, couldn't you, sweetheart?" She held out her arms, and Aldhelm handed her daughter over to her. 

They headed outside, after Aethelflaed quietly informed a maid of where they were going, and soon Aelfwynn was running out in front of them as fast as her legs could carry her. Aldhelm smiled at her excitement, the disdain he had once held at the idea of having children melting away. 

Aethelflaed sat down under a tree, away from the heat of the sun, and at first Aldhelm stood uncertain of whether to sit beside her, before she looked up at him expectantly and he threw all caution to the wind. 

"I'm glad you brought us out here," she told him as he sat beside her. "She loves having company, other than the nuns and the servants. And you're very good with her, far better than her own father." 

Aldhelm smiled. "Anything to see you both happy, Lady." 

Aelfwynn ran over to them both then with a bunch of wild daisies clasped in her hand, and extended it to show them. "Look!" she said, smiling toothily. 

"They're lovely, darling," Aethelflaed smiled, as Aelfwynn reached out to perch the daisies in her mother's hair. Aldhelm watched them fondly, though he certainly had not been expecting her to tuck a flower behind his own ear.

Aelfwynn stood back as if to admire her handiwork, before turning and running back to the patch of daisies growing a few feet away.

"Well, I think that look suits you," Aethelflaed laughed, as both turned to see what the other looked like.

"I'm half-tempted to return to Lord Aethelred tonight like this and watch his reaction," Aldhelm said, grinning slightly.

"He would simply be jealous that he could never look as dashing," she said, giggling at the thought. Though she had said it jokingly, Aldhelm blushed a little at the compliment.

"Why thank you, Lady," he smiled. In the same vein, he added, "though you look lovely too. Daisies suit you." He was severely understating his thoughts - his breath had hitched for a second when she had faced him; the flowers framed her face and, in his mind, made her look like an angel that had fallen from the heavens.

She was almost impossibly beautiful, and it took everything within him to finally look away.

“Thank you, Aldhelm,” Aethelflaed said, beaming at him, and Aldhelm could not help but think just how radiant she looked, happy and carefree like this.

If only it could always be like this, he thought, just the three of them together as a little family.  

They sat and made idle talk while watching Aelfwynn play, until she soon tired herself out and returned to their side. 

"Are you tired, Lady?" Aldhelm asked her gently. She nodded, yawning, and he smiled as he opened her arms to her. Aelfwynn held on to him as he cradled her and she was soon fast asleep. "She's worn herself out, hasn't she?" he chuckled.

"She's just excited to see you," Aethelflaed smiled, and rested her head on his shoulder, unknowingly setting his heart racing. "And so am I."

"You are?" Aldhelm asked, and he felt her nod.

"It's been weeks since I- since we've seen you," she said, "and we both missed you dearly."

"I've missed you too, Lady," he replied quietly. She lifted her head up and looked at him then, and the urge to kiss her was overwhelming. It was Aethelflaed who leaned in first, however, and pressed a small kiss on his lips. He smiled, and moved down to kiss her this time, determined to show her just how much he loved and cared about her. They only broke away when Aelfwynn stirred a little. 

"I suppose this is the right time to tell you, then, Lady," Aldhelm said, taking a breath. "That I love you, that I have loved you for so long now."

"Oh, Aldhelm," was all she said, before she leaned up and kissed him again, her hand cupping his face. “How I wish I had married you instead,” she sighed afterwards. “Perhaps life would be easier for the both of us.”

“It would,” he agreed wistfully, taking her hand, “but I promise you, Lady, I will visit you as often as I can, and when I cannot I’ll write to you and-”

“I don’t want you to endanger yourself for me, Aldhelm,” Aethelflaed told him earnestly, to which he only smiled.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” he assured her, the term of respect becoming one of endearment without him realising it, “I will do everything I can to keep you and your daughter safe. And as for me… it is truly nothing I cannot handle. Aethelred will not know about this.”

She smiled at him then, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I do not know what I have done to deserve you,” she said softly.

“No, my lady,” he murmured, “it is I that does not deserve you.”

“You are a good man, Aldhelm,” she said, and rested her head upon his shoulder once more. Aldhelm smiled, and put his free arm around her. Aelfwynn was still fast asleep, her hand curled up on his chest, and he finally felt at peace.

That day could not have been any more perfect.

[vermilionskiinmorning]

@tlkfanficfest​

Prompt fill for TLKFFF2020: Jealous possessive Finan please!

an: I may do another fill for this prompt with my OC from my fic Oaths of Loyalty bc writing this gave me an idea for that as well, but I hope you all enjoy my little contribution here :)

Pairing: Finan/Unnamed OC

Words:1586

So lovely and kind and he was just a man -a lonely man at that. He fell in love with her before he even knew it. She was a servant in Uhtred’s house; looking after the children, cooking, and cleaning since Gisela had passed. How he had not noticed her before was beyond him, but the new frequency with which he saw her made it difficult not to. They came to know each other over idle chatter as she went about her chores. Finan even began to think she might have a fondness for him.

She was scrubbing clothes in a wash bin as they chatted idly. Finan had just finished a rather ridiculous story causing her to chuckle lightly at him. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat and eyes shining when she paused to look up at him. He was grinning back at her.

“Ya liked tha’ one did ya?” he asked cheekily.

“I did,” she replied. “Though I cannot be sure how much is a stretch!”

“You wound me lass!” Finan retorted.

She was smiling again as she shook her head, her face full of amusement.

“Oh, if I could wound your ego I should be astounded.”

The wind caught a piece of her unbound hair then and blew it into her eyes. She reached for a cloth to wipe her hands before fixing the hair but was stopped by Finan’s hand. Gently he tucked the hair back behind her ear and they were quite close then. He was looking deeply into her eyes still a more subdued smile taking the place of his previous one.

“Or instead ya could be astounded at my foolishness,” he drawled lowly, his fingers trailing along her cheek lightly. “Fer my not having noticed ya sooner.”

Then they were called away to war. He did not have the chance to say goodbye before they left. A small detail of warriors was left behind to personally guard the Lord’s family and home though so he knew at least she would be safe.

When they returned Finan had hoped she would be waiting for him as news of their return was sent on a day ahead of their arrival. It was done to give the servants and villagers time to prepare. So, it was not unreasonable for him to hope. And his hopes did not go unnoticed by his friends either.

“Eager to return?” Uhtred asked Finan in a deceptively off handed tone.

“Of course, he is,” Sihtric snickered. “Can’t wait to see his sweetheart I expect.”

Finan shot a look of daggers at Sihtric. He supposed it was payback. After all he had teased the young Dane mercilessly over how smitten he had been with his own wife before they married. He was in fact still smitten with her. The joy of teasing Sihtric had grown old though as the young man’s skin had thickened to it over time, but that did not mean he had forgotten his embarrassment.

“His sweetheart?” Uhtred asked as if he did not know.

“Oh yes Lord you know that lovely servant girl he spends all his free time following around like a puppy after it’s mother!” Sihtric teased.

Without warning, Finan reached out and punched Sihtric nearly knocking him from his horse and causing Sihtric to laugh even louder. Meanwhile Uhtred was snickering in amusement and Osferth frowned slightly.

“You shouldn’t tease like that,” Father Beocca said with a long-suffering sort of look.

The teasing calmed some after that as they were nearing the open gates by then. As they rode into town Finan could not help himself but look for her which only caused Sihtric to snicker again. They reached the stables without any sign of a welcoming party so upon handing off their horses the men headed to the great hall. Outside waiting were Sihtric’s family as well as those warriors who had stayed behind and Uhtred’s children alongside a nurse.

Off to the far side, there she was which he thought was odd as she ought to have been with the nurse and other house servants awaiting their return. She stood closely to a young man of about her own age. The man, Finan recognized, was called Cenric. He was one of the warriors left behind for defense. Cenric’s hand rested on her shoulder and she was smiling at him as they spoke quietly among themselves. It seemed the two had not even noticed their victorious return.

Finan could hardly take his eyes from them. Vaguely he recognized Uhtred was speaking to him, but he could not rightly hear the words for how focused he was on the two. Finally, someone shook him, but when he turned to look at the culprit, he was blind. Not properly blind, but jealousy did that to a man; it made them blind. It was similar to love in that way. Two of the world’s most powerful emotions and they could make one utterly and completely blind to reality. And Finan was deep in both.

Without warning, Finan huffed and stormed off toward the tavern giving no explanation for his sudden departure. Though, it did not take long for his comrades to realize what had caused the Irishman such sudden distress. So wrapped up in his dark thoughts, Finan did not noticed the girl abruptly turning to watch his departure with a confused expression. She even made to go after him but was stopped by Cenric who furrowed his brow and held fast to her shoulder to impede her following.

Sometime later in the early evening, Finan sat outside the tavern with a jug of ale stewing in his disappointment. He had thought her fond of him, but he had only been gone a few short months. Cenric was not a bad fellow Finan supposed. But seeing her so familiar with another when he had thought, no he had felt, something was between them; well, it had caused a familiar sort of pain that sent him over the edge. That pain faded swiftly though leaving the sting of angry jealousy which had prompted his sudden flight and leading him there to drink.

Soft footsteps stirred his muddled mind though causing Finan to look up. And there she was in the fading light of the early evening, looking down at him with that sweet puzzled face. He glowered at her. How could she look at him like that?

“Finan?” she spoke cautiously. “Can I sit?”

He said nothing. Just stared at her like he could not understand what she was doing there. Shouldn’t she be off at the great hall celebrating everyone’s return with Cenric?

Fucking Cenric.

Cenric was younger than him. Taller than him also. Though, perhaps he was not more handsome, but it was a small consolation.

When Finan did not answer after a few moments, she sat anyway. Her expression changed as she gazed across the table at him. Where she had been puzzled, she now looked a little hurt.

“Will you not speak to me?” she asked.

“Why’re ya here?” he snapped.

“Why…should I not be here?” her brow furrowed.

“Should ya not be with Cenric,” Finan nearly spat.

“Cenric?” she said the name slowly her confusion clear in her voice. “You mean my brother, Cenric?”

Finan who had been staring down into his ale looked up sharply at that. His brows knitted together lips turned down into a slight frown. “Your what?”

“My brother?”

“Cenric is yer brother?” Finan asked looking absolutely bewildered.

She nodded slowly.

“So…you?” he could not even think of what to say. “I thought he was…”

She sighed heavily. “No.” She paused, a small amused smile blooming on her face. “You thought he was my man.”

Finan’s cheeks burned with embarrassment and he could not meet her eyes.

“Were you jealous Irishman?” she asked.

Quite suddenly Finan jerked his hand knocking the jug of ale to the floor. Instinctively she bent to fetch the jug, but her hand was caught by Finan before she could reach it. She looked up into his deep brown eyes. Finan swallowed thickly flexing his grip on her wrist slightly.

“I had thought I was fond of ya,” he murmured softly. “But seein’ ya this afternoon…it is more.”

She bit her lip. Twisting in his grip, she maneuvered so she was holding his wrist as well.

“It was you that we spoke of…,” she said barely above a whisper. “Cenric was assuring me that you were safe and that you would be with those who returned. I worried the whole time you were away…Perhaps I have more than a fondness for you as well.”

Finan blinked. Almost unbelieving of what he heard. Releasing her hand, he cupped her steadily reddening cheek with care and tilted her chin up towards him. She looked like she was about to say something else, but Finan cut her off by pressing his lips hungrily to hers. A soft yelp of surprise came from her throat, but she relaxed quickly into his warm embrace. Her hand slid around his shoulders drawing him closer to her as they both knelt there in the dirt the forgotten jug lying between them. The kiss though intimate stayed passively chaste until they both had to come up for air after some time.

“I have come to think of you as my Irishman,” she murmured, pressing her forehead against his.

Tipping her chin upward slightly, Finan place a peck on her lips.

“I am,” he said in a husky voice.

[limenal]

Ealhswith hovered in the doorway, one hand resting flat against the wall as she considered the Dane that stood before her, and the small bouquet of wildflowers in his grasp. She had mentioned once how much she loved them and with each visit following, without fail, he would show up with a little bundle of whatever he could find outside the gates of Winchester and she would place them in a vase near her bed as a reminder of what existed beyond the walls of the inn.

“You are a surprise,” she said, a lilt of laughter to her tone.

“The King requested a meeting of the Witan,” he told her and a smirk tugged at his lips. “I am meant to be tending to the horses.”

“Will you tend to me, instead?” she asked, playfully.

“I will do anything you’d like,” Sihtric replied and the earnest nature of his response brought a flutter of something unusual to her chest, Ealhswith pressing her palm against her chest as her features softened.

“I would like to walk.”

@tlkfanficfest​

[jade-masquerade]

the altar is my hips

Written for @tlkfanficfest 2020 for the prompt “it was never about pleasure for Eadith until Finan”

Eadith has been many things.

She’s been the daughter of an ealdorman and a disgrace, called a lady and a whore, and served as a sister and a spy.

She’s been pushed out of her home and has stood at the side of a self-declared king, stripped naked and been draped in jewelry and silks and velvet, treated as property and played nursemaid to a princess.

 She’s been told to shut up and look pretty, commanded to call men all sorts of names abed and ordered to simply lay there, pushed down and taken from behind.

 But never, ever has she done this, and for someone who has seen so much and been so many places, Eadith can’t believe it’s this of all things that suddenly makes her nervous.

Nervous, but curious, and—

 “Oh,” she sighs when she doesn’t have words for this anymore, doesn’t think anymore as Finan’s tongue glides between her legs.

 It’s a far cry from the fantasies she had as a girl about silly things, of handsome lords and a castle of her own, of an elaborate courtship and true love, dreams that had been long ago snuffed out by the men who’d used her for their own gain, their own pleasure, but this is better than she could have imagined then in all her naivety. Money, power, reputation, their whims are endless; it’s never been about her… until now.

 This isn’t even a proper chair she sits upon, rather an overturned barrel of some kind, yet she finds that fitting because there is nothing proper about this at all. She’d caught a glimpse of a bed in the corner, the only real furniture, when Finan had thrown open the door and led her inside, but she had tried to push that thought away as he’d pressed her up against the door and kissed her, and it had been completely and swiftly driven from her mind once he’d lifted her skirts and sunk to his knees, crossing her ankles behind his back.

 Whatever it is, she’d be rendered boneless without its sturdy frame to hold her up, and Eadith grips the edge as she leans back, her body arching beneath his touch. She’d thought his beard would tickle, but instead it’s a delicious scrape against her soft skin, a contrast between the smooth heat of his tongue and its rugged coarseness.

 Finan stops her every time she tries to reach for him, and maybe it’s the strangeness of that more than anything that confuses her about this.  

 “Just enjoy, all right?” he says, his voice muffled from where he kneels between her legs, but she swears it’s deeper too, raspier, and the sound sends another burst of heat spiking through her.

 She reaches down then to touch the parts of him he’ll allow, her hand in his hair, palms sliding over the muscles of his shoulders, fingernails digging into his back as his mouth passes over her again and again, the pressure just right, just where she wants it. She’s wetter than she’s ever been in her life, she’s aware of that much, even with his hot, slick tongue against her cunt, and he flicks it almost lazily now while it makes her feel anything but.  

 Eadith was glad he’d waited til now for this, whatever it was called, with the way her chest heaved and her body writhed; any sooner and she would have been in agony with her battered ribs. God knew she wanted more than the stolen kisses they’d shared along the road from Winchester to Coccham, hidden in forests and behind barns and the shadowed corners of taverns, but the thought that he’d been sweet enough to wait was as foreign as the pleasure slinking down her spine.

 Those kisses had only been teasing, she knows now, a taste of what he’s really capable of, and that knowledge makes her greedy, and she wants more, all of it, all of him. He seems to read her mind, something that seems to be becoming all too frequent nowadays, or maybe it’s just in the way she cants her hips, or how she tugs at his hair, spurred on by her desire. Either way, his palm slides to the inside of her thigh to join his mouth and pushes her legs further apart. His hand is large and warm, his touch firm but gentle, and she can’t help the squeak that escapes her as his fingers find the spot just above her slit.

 Eadith attempts to tame her voice—Coccham is not large, and the feast to celebrate their lord’s homecoming still continues on despite their absence. For Finan to leave while the ale still flowed, to ask if she’d like help to change her bandages when they both knew full well it had been days, thankfully, since she’d needed that… Well, that had been also something of a revelation to her, too. Though she knows the others suspect, it’ll still be embarrassing come tomorrow’s breakfast to face Sihtric’s sly smiles and Osferth blushing and Uhtred’s brusque japes if they somehow managed to overhear the kinds of obscene noises that threaten to spill from her throat.  

 Finan seems to have no such qualms, however, and to be determined to do the opposite instead. She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her moans, and he reaches up with his free one and eases it away, and they continue back and forth until she laughs, the sound breathless and airy, and she can’t remember feeling this way with a man before either, so flippant and carefree and liberated.  

 He relents and presses a finger into her, and she lets herself gasp at that, and the sound is utterly wanton in the way it seems to hang in the air in this small space, yet it makes this feel even better somehow. Other men had seemed not to care if she did little more than lie there or make any noise at all, and in fact, many appeared to prefer it that way, but Finan seems encouraged by it, groaning in response when she does, the vibration reverberating through her sensitive flesh.

 “Yes,” she moans next, and that’s even better than better, especially when it prompts him to slide another finger into her. She only wishes she could hear him too, the sound of that brogue she’s come to crave, how sometimes it drops to a growl or a deep rumble when he whispers in her ear, and the ribald things he says with it, if his mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied.  

 “Don’t stop,” she pants in a desperate voice that doesn’t even sound like her own, so full of passion and want, not at all like the feigned pleading and praising she’s used to providing to make her partners feel sated and pleased with themselves when they’d done so little for her.

 That’s all a world away from this, though. If anything hurts now, it’s because she’s too aroused, too wound up, with the way she burns for his touch and how she’s clenched tight around his fingers, the fabric of her skirts cloying around her hips and the bodice of her dress too taut across her breasts. She feels her legs tremble, and her breath catch, but there’s no hesitation, no worry anymore.  

 It’s all pleasure, only pleasure, sheer and sharp, divine and irresistible, and he curls his fingers and then it’s shuddering through her as she peaks, fluttering around his hand and against his mouth.

 “That ought to help with the pain,” Finan says, his voice serious but his mouth curving in a smirk, his mouth that had just been on her, his mouth that he now uses to lick clean his fingers.  

 He rises and kisses her, and Eadith tastes herself on him, tangy and slightly sweet.  

 “Of course, I’ve always known wine to do the same,” he adds hastily, looking uncertain for all his eagerness before, glancing at the closed door from which behind they can hear the revelry continuing on late into the night, as though Eadith might have thought that would have been a better use of her time instead. “Or it might have to wait til morning, but there’s a field a short ride away full of poppy, too, and Ealhswith makes a strong poppyseed tea—”

 “No.” Eadith grabs his hand, and now he seems more than content to let her spear her fingers through his beard, work the laces out of his tunic, run her hands down his chest, and she makes sure he catches her eye when she smiles. “This is perfect.”  

[iseultdeservedbetter]

Cooking Your Heart Out

(A/N): Hello there, lovelies!

This is my entry for the @tlkfanficfest (I do hope that I did everything alright, Gosh this is my first time in it, so I hope to have done everything alright, if I didn’t just let me know).

I chose the prompt ‘Osferth, he tells people he loves them (platonically) by the food he cooks.’ and I hope that this won’t be cringy or anything, I hope you’ll like it!

(also this is set up in the same modern AU as this fic, if you are ever interested)

SUMMARY: Osferth find much more changing his job and discovering a few new flavors of his life.

WORDS: 4, 2 K

WARNINGS: Family Drama, Domestic Abuse, Talk of Infedelity, Slightly OOC Osferth-Aethelflaed

Osferth, he tells people he loves them (platonically) by the food he cooks.

It wasn’t that Osferth didn’t have emotions.

If anything, it was just the contrary.

He had too many emotions and didn’t know how to describe them, being slow in a way that was related solely to his emotions, as if he couldn’t think about them and rearrange them fast enough, before he had to act on them.

He had to think before expressing himself, and when he ended up finally figuring out what he was feeling and what he felt like saying, the person that he wanted to share those feelings with ended up losing their patience and leaving him alone.

And as a child Osferth had been a very alone child, enough that the cooks of the seminary where he had grown up in had taken pity on him and taught him a few of the many mysteries of the kitchen.

Osferth had been quite a quick learner, soon being able to peel potatoes, cut tomatoes and managed to bake a good loaf of breath.

And by the age he had moved away of the seminary, he was able to properly survive on his own without having to go back to instant noodles and take out.

And most importantly he had learnt a way to communicate his feeling.

A healthy way.

He had started at first cooking for his fellow friends over at the seminary, stealing a few pieces of loaves and a bit of chocolate cookies that he had ‘helped’ make and then he had moved onto preparing the dinner for the priests, even trying to corrupt a few of te teachers with food.

Do take them by the guts, they said.

But when his small world had become less restricted, once he had chosen not to follow up with his vows and enjoy a mundane life with the life allowance that a long-distant uncle had left him, in case he preferred college over seminary, parties over prayers, he had started truly delving in his passion.

He had set up himself in a business degree, although he had started working as a side job in a few restaurants, both as a waiter and both as a help in the kitchen, although he had the bases but not the true experience, and yet he picked up quickly and he loved cooking.

And even more than that he loved expressing his feelings through food.

Although he might be slow at communicating his feelings, he certainly was good at recognizing the one of others.

After he had joined the college life, he had found himself living with three men that were the portrayal of virility, Finan with his kisses to his mirrored image, Uhtred and his desire to fucking conquer back his family property and finally Sihtric and his work at risk as a professional hacker.

Although they did act as ‘true alpha males’, Osferth had learned to recognize exactly when they were down and when they needed a bit of comfort.

And gave it to them through food.

Finan had a rather confusing love life, and it wasn’t unusual that sometimes he might end up being the one with his heartbroken (but could you seriously blame the other poor idiot on the other side, probably having heard one too many cock joke?) and Osferth knew all too well that the best solution for a broken heart was anything with chocolate, experimenting new receipts with it, solely for him.

Uhtred, instead, could be the hardest on himself, not knowing what he was and not knowing what he truly wanted, but following a path that had been carved for him by someone else, so Osferth went softly with him, an homely meal that gave him some resemblance of an home he had never known.

Sihtric, lately, had a crush for a girl.

They all speculated about it, like some old ladies at a tea club, seeing the way he’d just stare at the computer, before blushing intensely at the screen, grabbing his head in his hands and then breathing loudly.

And then he’d go back to his work, like nothing happened.

Well, he got something spicy to get him to gain the confidence he was missing.

When Osferth had finished college, he had thought of following up his dream of continuing to express his emotions through food.

The fact that he was becoming quite good at it did help quite a bit.

But he hadn’t many references and neither he had a license that proved his talent, ending up in smaller restaurants and simple bars.

Although clients keep on flooding there.

An old lady had once insisted on waiting for Osferth’s turn for a whole hour and then admitting to the shy boy that ‘she loved his cooking because he certainly expressed his heart through it’.

Never a compliment had made him feel better.

And never had he been happier when his boss, in the last restaurant he had worked in, had bought him back a small ticket to him, alongside a hefty tip.

At first, he had felt quite awkward seeing it was a number and all his friends in the kitchen had made fun of him, saying ‘how easily he could pick up girls with his wonderous cuisine’.

And then he had turned around the ticket, discovering that it belonged to Aetheflaled Wessex, the daughter of Alfred Wessex, one of the richest people in the whole city, owning quite a few buildings, but much more a lot of restaurants.

And he had left one in particular to his daughter, as a wedding present.

The Mercia.

It wasn’t a big restaurant and not as big as her father’s own ones and her brother’s, but Aethelflaed was told to have the economical genius of her father and everybody wouldn’t have been surprised to see the restaurant become much more famous that her father’s in a few years.

If not months.

Hence he had been surprised that from all the expensive chefs she could choose, she had taken the time to learn about him, taking a meal at his shit of a place, nothing important and neither remarkable, simply to eat one of his dishes, leave him her number and quite the tip.

The small ticket had her number on one side and a small indication of the interest that Aetheflaed felt for his culinary skills, suggesting that she met him at the Mercia to taste truly his talent, although she had already been impressed to learn what he could do in a poor-piss restaurant.

And although the proposal was tantalizing, it had taken him quite a few days to actually pick up the phone and contact Aetheflaed, being directed to her by an elegant male voice.

He was surprised that it wasn’t any secretary to take care of his appointment but instead Aetheflaed in person replied and talked with him to take the appointment, and although Osferth had reasoned that she probably preferred to hand-pick and take care personally of each thing, he was still surprised by the way she seemed truly interested in everything he said.

Even going as far as concluding the call with ‘I was truly hoping you’d give me a call’.

He couldn’t have scored a point with a girl like that, for sure.

So it wasn’t that.

And he wasn’t anyway famous to be called over by people like her.

Maybe she was a psycho although she didn’t look like one.

And in the end, his big dream of learning more about cooking and the professional kitchen, won over his own self-preserving instincts (helped by a few screams and ‘threats of encouragement’ from his beloved roommates).

The day he had met Aetheflaed at ‘The Mercia’ he had found her trying to set up the main hall with tables and chairs, deciding its formation alongside the male voice he had heard over the phone, recognizing him as Aldhelm, a private lawyer, probably working for Aetheflaled and her husband, Aethelred.

Who was nowhere to see it.

But were the rumors true, in that wedding there wasn’t much love.

But he shouldn’t stick his nose in that.

He was supposed to work in the kitchen, and he should have stuck to that.

Again, as soon as Aetheflaed raised her head to meet his face, she immediately repeated ‘how glad she was of finally meeting him in person’, making Osferth, inevitably blush, although he could detect a pretty shade of red on her cheeks as well, obviously feeling as awkward as him.

For which he was almost glad.

Almost as much as when he realized he hadn’t to talk much, because she started explaining pretty quickly the role, saying that she knew he hadn’t any true experience in a ‘proper restaurant’, but he certainly didn’t lack of creativity and passion, which were two things that she hoped to valorize in her restaurant.

‘… if you accept, I do think that it’ll be a good learning experience’ she explained, a focused expression scrunching up on her face, nothing in her was insecure as she slowly continued with the explanation ‘… the pay is good, if it is something that you are worried about it and we can talk about the hours and when you can start’.

‘I am in’.

It was a quick choice, because he had thought about it from the start of it all and he couldn’t help but want to try new things, even more when the chance was right in front of him, offered to him.

And although even Aetehflaled seemed surprised by it, she soon seemed to come back from the shock and smirked, immediately involving him in a soft hug, in which he didn’t know what to do, growing tight underneath her, enough to make her understand his own uncomfortableness and she immediately released him.

‘Sorry, I am just excited!’ she had apologized, and again that awkwardness appeared in Aetehflaled’s eyes, but Osferth was used from the time in seminary to work with his lowered head, so he didn’t say too much.

And in the end the work was indeed a learning experience, enough for him to discover new meals and new ways to express himself, although the turns were of long hours and since they were a new restaurant they hadn’t much free time or free space for mistakes.

Even more when Aetheflaled’s husband, Aethelred, the one who owned half of the actions of the restaurant, certainly wasn’t happy of its opening, thinking that it was a loss and ‘a business that wouldn’t have made them much money’.

He put everybody in the restaurant, Aetheflaed comprehended, at unease.

But everyone was even more determined to prove him wrong.

Starting from Osferth.

Although there was no interest in him for Aetheflaed he admired dearly the woman, a bit younger than him and already so strong and determined in everything she started, wanting everything and taking it for herself, with the help of Aldhelm, who shared her similar views.

Osferth got along quite well with both and many times than not he found himself dining with Aethelflaed, at the end of long hours, and Aldhelm, alongside the kitchen staff, exchanging small trivial thoughts and talks that made her seem more earthly.

And although Osferth had been for a long time sure that he knew nobody who acted like him, certainly Aethelflaed had a few characteristics that reminded him of himself, like his stubbornness and his shyness, although she hid quite them well.

‘When your father is Alfred Wessex… sadly there isn’t space for much shyness’ she had once commented and for a moment she had looked at him, a moment too long to be simply accidental.

But he hadn’t commented it.

Not wanting either of them to feel uncomfortable for something that maybe he had only seen.

But once he had heard something and he had been able to simply blame it on his tired mind.

Although he knew that it was bad to listen on a private conversation between Aethelred and Aethelflaed, he couldn’t do much when they screamed like they thought they were the only ones in the restaurant.

Which was partially true, because the staff had been sent home for the night, but Osferth had slipped inside to take the gloves he had forgotten back in the place.

He had bene exiting the kitchen lockers’ section when he was startled by two voices hurling insults against each other.

‘… I can’t fucking believe that you won’t consider fucking closing this place’ Aethelred’s tone was arrogant in a way that immediately made him unlikable, but he couldn’t deny that he mostly sounded like ‘clichey second-class Disney villain’.

‘Father gifted it to me!’ insisted loudly Aethefllaed, her tone loud with passion and hurt ‘… and I’ll do what I want with it’.

‘We are losing money fast…’ shot back Aethelred and as much as he hated hearing that, it was true.

Aldhelm, who took care of these things, certainly wasn’t very positive about their earnings, but insisted that it was simply the beginning and they were slowly setting up their own clientele, which was extremely difficult to do without losing any money.

“… and changing this whole place in the nightclub you wanted won’t make us regain the money lost!” she replied shouting loudly, as she looked at the man in the eyes, before regaining her composure, but without backing away from him “… this is my place, you have dozen of other things to play with, leave me at least this one…”.

Something on Aethelred’s face softened in some way, almost as if he had been taken by surprise by her comment, by the way that sounded like a plead, and then his face roughed up in a horrible smirk.

Worse than a Disney villain’s one.

“I don’t fucking care” it was so full of disdain that even Osferth, who wasn’t inside the conversation shuddered “… I didn’t marry you, because of your fucking business knowledge, I married you for your fucking money and if I don’t have those, I can easily divorce you and take everything with it!”.

Aetheflaed shivered, but again, she didn’t lose any confidence.

Which was quite amazing, according to Osferth.

Had it been Osferth he would have pretended nothing happened.

Had it been Uhtred he would have punched Aethelred in the face.

Which was something that he shouldn’t have done, since he used Uhtred as a measure to avoid doing stupid things.

‘Would Uhtred do it?’ he asked himself and then he wouldn’t do what he had come up with.

He started to get uncomfortable by the conversation, mostly because it started getting much more personal as Aetheflaed backed up her discourse and pretenses with the knowledge of Aethelred’s multiple affairs, as he presented her the same ones.

But suddenly something caught him off guard.

‘… and you know what? The fact that you are a fucking shitty businesswoman is shown by the knowledge that you hired that shitty cook just because he is your fucking half-brother, a bastard’.

And he didn’t have to do the math to realize who he was talking about him.

And yet the surprise hit him all over again, small hints that had been left on his journey suddenly revealing themselves to him, as he slowly reasoned with them, thinking about whether they were true or fruit of his imagination.

But soon, he had much more to worry about, when Aethelred slapped Aethelflaed.

The woman was surprised by the slap, and Osferth was halfway through to intervene, not certainly to fight the blondie cliché, but to put himself between them to stop any other fight to erupt.

But before he could do something, Aethelflaed answered tenfold the slap with one of her own, enough to make Aethelred back off, then moving another hand to his stomach, but stopping it before it could do some further damage, Aethelred immediately bending himself as if to stop the hit.

“Fucking touch me, again, you, coward, and believe me I won’t give you a warning” the words sounded so tight that he was sure that Aethelflaed’s now conjoined fingers could have snapped broken.

But it certainly was of quite impact on Aethelred, running away as a coward.

The promise of a lawyer, his last words, as Aethelflaed relaxed her expression, some kind of restless tiredness written in her face.

Aethelred might have been a coward, but he was a creepy one.

And one that did need law.

Had he been her, he would have also been worried.

But he had much more traumatic things to take care-

Was he… seriously Aethelflaed’s half-brother?

He hadn’t ever met his father.

His mother had said that it had been a ‘wrong night’, calling Osferth an ‘happy incident’, in her most ‘hyppie’ tone.

He had been too young to properly ask questions and then he had been pushed in the seminary, where every child was a ‘child of God’ and his questions about his paternity had been pushed back, alongside many feelings that he didn’t feel like expressing.

But the knowledge that Alfred Wessex had spawned him was crazy.

To start with the fact that Alfred Wessex was one of the most morally righteous people he had ever read about, truly an enlightened businessman, and he didn’t know how his mother had met Alfred and how she could have hidden such a secret for so long.

And how Aethelflaed might have discovered.

He must have heard wrong.

And whatever it was he had researches to do, at home.

Not where he could easily be discovered as a Peeping Tom.

He was halfway through waiting for Aethelflaed to leave, when the woman moved to also grab something from the lockers, and she caught him.

And that was awkward.

And the normally quiet Osferth found himself trying to stutter some kind of reply.

“… I didn’t… I just…” and then with the highest shriek he could have ever mustered up he uttered “… my gloves!”.

And showed her his faux leather biking gloves, a Christmas gift that Finan had thought funny for the ‘pacifist’ of their group.

“… you heard everything, right?” Aethelflaed’s approach was much more fatalistic.

But she didn’t seem angry.

Although, from what he had heard from Uhtred, a very unreliable source, when women weren’t angry when they should be… it meant you were fucked.

Thoroughly fucked.

“… yes” and his honesty most of the time didn’t pay off, but Aetheflaed simply nodded away, pushing his gaze off of him in a way that seemed thoughtful, as if she was evaluating the entire situation.

And Osferth was sure he’d be fired.

“I didn’t… I won’t say anything” he muttered, also making the awkward sign of zipping up his mouth.

“I don’t worry about that” she commented, before another tired and annoyed breath left her lips “… actually it is nice to have witnesses for when I’ll eat up my husband in court, if he is serious about the divorce thing…”.

“He is an asshole” again that bluntness wouldn’t have saved him, but Aethelflaed smiled sadly at him.

“You are kind of right” she commented “… he wasn’t… he might seem all that prince charming bullshit when I first met him. But believe me those are the worse. I married him as a naïve girl and I grew up too fast with him, not as a wife but as a martyr”.

“… I am sorry” and if there was one way that he could express his emotion other than food it was through one-liners.

Still Aethelflaed seemed to realize the strength of the words and their genuineness.

“Not your fault” she muttered, before she spoke right about the elephant in the room “… did you hear everything everything?”.

‘Don’t say it! Don’t say it, Osferth’ his mind screamed inside of him ‘… don’t ruin yourself more than you already have done’.

“… I did hear about me being your brother”.

What the heck?!

Did he seriously have two different paths between his mouth and his brain?

“Oh” Aethelflaed was too nice to mumble the obvious ‘oh shit’ that followed “… I… this is… “.

“I won’t say anything to anyone” commented tightly Osferth, trying to slowly undo all the wrongs he had done “… I don’t even understand if it is true or just…”.

“It is true” commented lapidary Aethelflaed.

And this time Osferth wasn’t able to stop the ‘oh shit’ from leaving his mouth.

“Oh shit, indeed” commented softly Aetheflaed, echoing his thoughts perfectly “… if it helps… I had a mental breakdown when I discovered it…”.

“How? When? What?” it must be all a joke.

Where were the candid cameras?

“Your mother worked over in my father’s staff in our house, and apparently my father didn’t have the morality he has now back then… your mother fell pregnant with the fruit of an affair with my father” his shocked looked must have been enough to ask for more info “… I found it through… Facebook, you were in the ‘people you should know’ or something like that… and you looked familiar, I checked in you… I admit that I stalked a bit”.

Was he even more confused, now?

Probably.

“… the similarity with me was quite striking and I couldn’t… couldn’t just put it down” she mumbled “… you have to know that before I had this place and everything… I was going through a bad period and I … investigating on you helped me”.

“… I run some check through the staff, I thought that maybe you had worked with us, but I found your mother and let’s just say that I kind of had an hitch about what might have happened, remembering that my mother mentioned about having had problems with the staff back then…” her reasoning was slowly starting to make sense, which made everything much more confused “… and I just put one plus one together, hearing about you and through Leofric… and my father”.

Did Alfred know that he was his child?

Had his rich uncle ever existed or had Alfred simply funded his son’s studies?

But right now, all he could focus on was the fact that Alfred had rejected him, and although he had had his own reasons and had his mind been clearer he would have agreed upon them…

… it still hurt.

And it was a new sensation.

He didn’t know which meal he could cook to soothe it.

“.. I swear I didn’t want to stalk you, but I found out you worked in that bar and you seemed so much interested in food and I needed a cook…” now it was Aethelflaed that was rambling “… I swear that what Aethelred said wasn’t true! I didn’t choose you for nepotism… you are really talented…”.

But Osferth had much more pressing matters at heart.

Like understanding why.

“Why did you search for me?” he didn’t mean to sound that rough, but she had to understand him: he had just discovered of having a father… and a sister, and although the former hadn’t ever wanted to meet him, meanwhile Aethelflaed had fought through much to meet him again, and he didn’t understand why “… don’t you have already a brother?”.

The words seemed to hit deeply Aethelflaed and for a moment he was scared of having hurt her.

“… I do…” her tone was unsure “… but I just… as I have said, I had a tough period…”.

“So, I am a charity case”.

He didn’t mean to sound that intolerable, but if there was one reason why he had repressed many of his emotions was that he knew he was able to accidentally blurt out things like that when he was nervous and under pressure.

The first thing in his mind would be the first on his tongue.

And although people said to appreciate honesty, it wasn’t true on the long run.

“No, you aren’t” now Aetehflaed’s voice was definitely uncomfortable and pleading as if she was the one who had been left shocked by the news.

And he had to reason that maybe it was the truth, indeed.

“… I just…” she didn’t know what to say, and Osferth couldn’t help but recognize that that gesture ran in the family “… I just wished to maybe see you… maybe see if we could get along… I just…”.

And although she didn’t mean anything at all, it had a meaning to him, a meaning he understood.

And even worse than the rambling came soon the tears, as stubborn as their own owners, as if they didn’t want to fall from her eyes, staying there and being held there.

“… I just wanted to get to know you, although it is something crazy to say”.

The words rolled off her tongue with pure honesty and he couldn’t help but feel, indeed, that matching piece settle in his puzzled chest.

The truth was that they were indeed siblings.

And he could have done much with that knowledge.

But for now, he focused on doing what he did best.

‘… do you think they’ll hate us if we use the kitchen for a midnight snack?’

Aetheflaled’s sad smile was a mirror of his own.

And he knew that she meant what she said.

Because he did.

---

@volvaaslaug​ (I really hope that is will be at least barely tolerable!)

[sihtric]

Caged Birds Flying Free

A/N: This was almost too late so that's why it's so short, but it's for @tlkfanficfest . Also, I kinda want to write a part 2?

Prompt: Aldhelm has a nice day for once

Words: 1511

Warnings: none

Aldhelm found himself in the stables preparing for a midday adventure after a long morning of rain, reflection, and prayers. He was light on his feet as he circled his gelding, adjusting the mount and reins. His rides were an escape from Saltwic and everything associated with it — every political concern and every bit of feelings he had for the Lady Aethelflaed.

The stables were typically empty on Sunday afternoons, so Aldhelm was able to enjoy moments of peace with his horse before setting off. However, today there were two individuals in the stall beside his, voices raised argumentatively. He tried not to listen in on their conversation as he tightened his gelding’s reins, but his curiosity got the better of him. After all, what kind of scoundrels would disturb the peace on the Lord’s day? One, a female, raised her silvery voice in indignation.

“Lord Eowahl, I have done all that was asked of me! I have prayed in the chapel with the Lady Aethelflaed, I have read scripture, and I have delivered alms to the poor. All I am asking for now is the opportunity to go out on a ride and explore the land.”

Aldhelm’s brows raised. He recognized the voice as that of Lady Enid, a visiting Breton noblewoman. She had not been in Saltwic long, having arrived only a fortnight ago on her father’s orders. He wished to have her serve under the Queen of Mercia, where she would surely learn a thing or two about politics and Saxon civility. Aethelflaed was delighted to accept Enid into her household and here she was now — arguing with a Saxon guard in the stables while Aldhelm eavesdropped.

“Lady, this is no time for a jaunt outside the gates. You need to be protected, and much of the guard is busy,” Eowahl countered.

“Oh, just let me go alone. I know how to ride and use a dirk. I think I can manage.”

Aldhelm couldn’t help the small smile in amusement at her words. A noblewoman, using a dirk? He supposed the Waelisc did things differently. He didn’t mind, however, having become accustomed to the sight of Aethelflaed in the midst of battle, wetting her own blade with the blood of another.

Eowahl cleared his throat and responded, voice decidedly harsher this time, “M’lady, you know I cannot do that. The captain of the guard would have my head if I allowed the fairer sex to roam the land alone. You’d go feral, Lady.”

Here was Aldhelm’s opportunity to make his presence known. He let go of his gelding’s reins and gave him a quick stroke. It was only a few paces before he rounded the corner and came face to face with the raven-haired guard and the Lady Enid.

“Lord Aldhelm! I did not know you would be here. I- I was just telling Lady Enid she could not leave the gates,” Eowahl explained hurriedly, his face flushing slightly in surprise.

Aldhelm’s inquisitive gaze flitted from Eowahl to Enid, whose grey-green eyes lit up with something close to hope. “And why not, pray tell?” He questioned.

“You- I- well, Lord, it is not proper for a lady to go out unaccompanied,” Eowahl announced, as if it were the most scandalous concept he had ever heard. Beside him, Enid wrung her hands, visibly restless, and rolled her eyes.

He was at a crossroads. He could leave the lady here and go out for his midday ride on his own, or he could set her free. She was like a caged bird, singing a sweet, melancholic song. His heart softened as he met her pleading gaze once more. He would set her free, he decided.

“She is not unaccompanied.”

The corners of Enid’s lips curled up instantly and her eyes were alight with excitement. “Thank you, Lord!” She squealed. Eowahl gave her a judgemental side eye but kept silent, instead choosing to huff in resignation and march out of the stall.

When they were alone, Lady Enid bowed her head. “I appreciate the gesture, Lord. I have been waiting ages to leave these walls and get some fresh air.”

Aldhelm offered her a small smile in reply, folding his hands. “Well- I suppose we should go?”

It took them only a matter of minutes to leave the stable, as Enid had already prepared her own gelding. Once they cleared the gate, Aldhelm threw a glance over his shoulder at her. “I’d like to take you somewhere.”

“Oh?”

During the fortnight she had been at Saltwic, Aldhelm had interacted minimally with Enid but had seen her plenty. He had seen the way her shoulders were rigid as she took her place beside Aethelflaed in the main hall. He had noticed how she was always restless and fidgety during mealtimes. It hadn’t been lost on him how out of place she seemed amidst a crowd of Saxons. She was a stranger in a strange land. The least Aldhelm could do was show her the spot he liked to go when he needed his space.

With a click of his tongue, he was off with Enid close behind. The warm rays of the sun bathed them as they traversed the idyllic countryside, headed for the treeline in the distance. Aldhelm felt like he was flying as the soft breeze rippled his tunic. With each stride, he felt a piece of himself take flight. As much as he loved Mercia and his duties, he understood what Enid was feeling. The difference was, he’d felt that way for years.

As they rode, they exchanged looks. Enid looked at peace, the sun’s golden rays complimenting her loose chestnut locks. She wore a wide smile for most of the ride which cut into her flushed cheeks.

After some time galloping along a dirt path in the forest, Aldhelm signaled his gelding to slow and made a sharp turn to the left. They picked their way through the thick undergrowth covering the footpath. Aldhelm had to duck under a swath of low hanging branches which had not been there last time. It wasn’t long before he could hear the soothing trickle of a stream, which turned into the burble of a waterfall. Between the thick greenery, the waterfall could now be seen.

Enid associated the sound of the waterfall with release. The soft splash of water meeting water welcomed her. Her heart fluttered with excitement. A stream meant swimming, even if it was seen as improper to a man like Lord Aldhelm. To hell with what Saxon men found ladylike had been her mantra since arriving in Mercia. When their horses broke through the trees and into the open clearing, Enid flew off hers and bounded for the water.

“Lady!” Aldhelm called after her, amused at the flash of chestnut and pale blue that passed him. He grabbed both horses’ reins and led them to the water’s edge for a much needed drink. In that time, Enid had rid herself of most of her clothing and waded into the cool water. She let it envelop her, wading deeper until the small waves lapped at her waist.

When the horses had drunk their fill, Aldhelm tied their leads to a tree nearby and fetched a manuscript from his saddlebag. He seated himself against the trunk of a tree and peeled it open, studying the page he had marked. He loved the look of the dark ink and the light colors which danced on the parchment pages. The history of the land had been documented well in this manuscript, one of Aldhelm’s favorites. The stories of kings and queens were being told in long, flowing verses.

Aldhelm traced a finger over the image of the cross etched on the page. He couldn’t help but let his mind wander as he studied the dated manuscript before him. He wondered what his place would be in history, if his life would even be a story worth telling. It was inevitable , having a greater concern for the future than for the present. After all he’d been through with Aethelred, and now Aethelflaed, he wondered where he’d fit into everything, where he’d make a contribution worth noting. Lord Aldhelm, a skilled soldier and advisor to two Mercian rulers — one of whom he was in love with.

Suddenly he was dragged from his reverie by the sound of Enid’s voice, light and feathery, almost singsong, “Lord Aldhelm, would you care to join me?”

His eyes moved from the pages to the noblewoman, almost completely submerged now. Most of her hair was wet and clung to her bosom. Aldhelm couldn’t stop the momentary blush on his cheeks and forced himself to meet her eyes. After all, she was a lady.

Ah, but she was not like most other ladies, barring the Lady Aethelflaed herself. Before he could raise any more objections to himself, he set the book aside, rose to his feet, and headed for the shore.

They were caged birds no longer, and Aldhelm would truly enjoy his freedom this time.

...

TAGGING: @othermoony @lauwrite1225 @ucancallmechlo @cocchamscrew @n0rthumbria @hislivinglegacy @softestark @volvaaslaug

[superprincesspea]

Morning Love

Finan doesn’t want you to leave his bed.

Written for @tlkfanficfest​ Prompt 67-  Finan/woman (OC or Canon character, early morning sexy times.)

Finan/Reader, Smut, Fluff

Word Count: 743

Morning reached through the window, dragging you from the bliss of sleep. You know you should have left Finan’s bed last night, but you’d been too comfortable and far too satisfied.

Now, in the cool light of day, you could not hide from your indiscretions so easily. The longer you remained, the more people would awake to see you sneaking from his room like a thief in the night. So, with a sigh, you pried yourself from his arms and searched for your clothes which were scattered about the floor. 

“I didn’t say you could leave the bed, muirnīn,” Finan muttered sleepily.

“And you’re in charge of me now, are you?” you teased, pulling on your woollen stockings. He was certainly in charge of you last night and every night you spent in his arms.

At your words, he rolled from the bed with a smirk, his hands gripping the backs of your thighs to pick you up and wrap your legs around his waist. “Aye,” he whispered, nuzzling a kiss against your neck. 

“I need to go,” you protested as his lips encouraged you to stay, trailing an intricate path along your skin. 

When he dropped you on the bed, you gasped, your stomach fluttering at the suddenness of the fall. The way he laughed at you, his eyes warm with happiness, made your stomach flutter for altogether different reasons. 

So for a moment you embraced the warmth which filled you from top to toe and spread your arms across the soft blankets, letting them caress your skin. You’d stay here all day if you could. 

But you couldn’t. 

“My father won’t appreciate me sneaking home at this hour.”

“Then don’t go back,” he said, kneeling between your thighs, his cock hard as he stroked it. 

Already desire tingled across your body, but you at least tried to be rational. “You know I can’t do that.” You would be ruined. Everyone would know you’d lain with a man out of wedlock. 

He leaned forward, his lips claiming yours until you could barely breathe. “You’re mine, muirnīn and I want everyone to know it.”

His words made your heart stop, “are you asking me to marry you, Finan?”

A smile quirked at his lips. “That depends…” he whispered, his fingers slowly teasing between your legs.

“On what?” you managed to say as he found just the right spot, pressing down and releasing the pressure in a slow torturous rhythm. 

“On your answer.” 

But his words were lost to you now. You couldn’t hold any coherent thoughts as he took you to the brink before grabbing his cock and thrusting deep inside.

All you could do was feel, surrendering to him and the way his body moved with yours. After a night of pleasure, you’d thought yourself spent but it seemed you were far from it. 

Resting back on his ankles, he pulled you with him. Seating you on his thighs, your legs around his waist. You liked it like this. You liked being able to run your fingers through his hair and sink your tongue into his mouth. You liked the feel of his hands cupping your behind, guiding you over his cock in long strokes. Mostly you enjoyed the brush of your nipples against his chest, the sensation only heightening the swell of pleasure between your legs. 

“Finan,” you moaned, unable to stop your climax as it rushed across your body like wildfire. 

When it was over you melted into his arms and he finished, filling you with his seed, holding you tightly. 

“You haven’t given me an answer,” he said after a while, still holding you, still inside of you.

You would have imagined him asking you this question outside of the bedroom. But any chance you had of being alone together, you always ended up in bed. This was where you connected, where you made love rather than said it. So in a way, it was perfect. 

“Yes,” you said. Always yes when it came to Finan. 

He smiled, brushing his nose against yours before kissing you softly. “Now you can stay, muirnīn and I’ll play hell with your father for it later.”

You laughed. He wouldn’t be so confident when your father reached for his sword and demanded his head. But you were too deliriously happy to think about that. 

So, as the world woke up, you crawled back under the covers. Wrapped in Finan’s arms where you belonged.