#Tales From The Earth And Beyond | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

runariya · 3 months ago

Note

🥸🤫☠️ : JK

He wants something 🤫 as down payment before he lets u inside safe haven (a place where survivors go to seek refuge)

(yandere+smut+apocalypse) part of the prompt game pairing: metro inhabitant!Jungkook x survivor!female reader genre: apocalypse!AU, S2L, yandere-ish? warnings: survival after nuclear fallout, dark creatures, denied prostitution for safety, Jungkook is whipped from the start so that should suffice for yandere, foul language, smut, oral (f. receiving), squirting, JK comes in his pants, fluff, lmk if I forgot smth (still hate writing warnings) word count: 3.239 (upsiiii)

a/n: I couldn't rly make JK more yandere without it feeling a bit too dub-con, so I hope that's alright 💕 also it's heavily inspired by the trilogy '2033' by Dmitri Gluchowski (and to my Russian readers: Московское метро выглядит так круто на фотографиях в интернете, надеюсь, однажды смогу его посетить☺️)

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You’ve been wandering for what feels like years, though it could be months, or perhaps just weeks; time’s an abstract notion now, in this world broken to pieces and baked under a nuclear sun.

With each step you take, the weight of exhaustion and your protective suit presses harder against your bones, but you don’t let it stop you. The world may be a dying beast, choking on its own ash and poison, but you still walk through it, a lone ember that refuses to snuff itself out. The remnants of cities whisper ghost stories to you as you pass, their bones twisted metal and crumbling concrete, charred earth for flesh. The wind sometimes hisses through the ruins, carrying tales of survivors—others like you, fighting, scavenging, enduring—and sometimes it’s silent, as if even the air is holding its breath for fear of what’s out there in the deep silence of the aftermath.

The black creatures—those twisted silhouettes of the apocalypse—roam the earth like shadows unbound from their hosts, moving through the poisoned fog with an unnatural grace that chills your very marrow. They are things of nightmares, remnants of the old world, perhaps, mutated beyond recognition by the fallout or born anew from the hatred that festers in the radioactive soil.

Their eyes, if they have any, are voids, consuming light and hope in equal measure, and their movements are barely perceptible until it’s too late, until they are upon you, whispering your end in a language only the dead would understand. They hunt relentlessly, not for sustenance, not for survival, but as if driven by some primal force deeper than instinct, a desire not just to kill but to erase, to wipe away the last remnants of humanity like dust from the pages of a forgotten book.

And you—battered, exhausted, teetering on the edge of oblivion—cannot rest, not here, not ever, because even in your sleep they find you, crawling into your dreams with their inky tendrils, reminding you that peace is a luxury no longer afforded to the living outside of shelter.

Your gas mask, an old friend now, covers your face like a second skin at this point, the filters clogged and heavy with days of dust, radiation, and fumes. You’ve noticed the way it pulls in air with more effort now, as if it’s trying to remember how to breathe.

You check the filter again. It’s nearly gone, the little red marker ticking closer to empty with every breath you take. You’ll have to find something new soon or you’ll suffocate on the very air that should sustain you.

This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to find shelter. In those early days, the optimism hadn’t yet drained from your veins and the desperation to belong somewhere, anywhere, had clouded your better judgment.

There had been men—those ones with teeth like wolves, eyes like death, always leering, always demanding. You’ve had to pull your knife more than once to remind them that your body isn’t for sale, that safety shouldn’t cost that much. That death, perhaps, is a kinder alternative to what they would have asked of you.

You can still hear their laughter sometimes, echoing in your skull—mocking, cruel. You had fled from them, from their dark gazes and cruel hands, from the taste of fear that licked at your throat when their eyes lingered too long on your body. Better the damnation from outside than their promises of protection.

But today… today you find yourself at the mouth of the metro. The entrance yawns wide like a secret, and the shadow of it draws you in, as though it’s reaching out for you. Your steps falter, but only for a moment—just long enough to recognise the hesitation in your chest, the uncertainty gnawing still on your mind. The thought flickers briefly across your consciousness—what if the people down there are like those others? What if all you find is more violence, more degradation, more proof that humanity has shed its last skin and become nothing more than base instincts and brutality?

But the mask is running low, and you can feel that desperation is creeping back into your bones, burrowing deep. You tighten your grip on the strap of your pack, pushing the fear down, burying it beneath a layer of resolve. You’ve come this far; you won’t turn back now.

The entrance is quiet—eerily so, as you push the tall hermetic door open and step inside, closing it quickly after. You glance around, eyes scanning the wreckage for signs of life. There’s nothing at first, just the silent exhalation of wind and the low hum of the distant, underground world. Then, movement.

You hear him before you see him—a soft shuffling of boots against stone, the faint click of a weapon being cocked. You freeze, instinctively tightening your grip on your knife as he steps into view.

Tall. Taller than most of the men you’ve encountered in these forsaken times. Muscles sculpted from necessity, sinew and strength coiled beneath his clothes like a waiting beast. He’s staring at you through the mask, gun raised, the barrel pointing at your chest. For a second, neither of you move. Then his eyes flicker downward, just for a moment, taking you in, assessing, like all the others. You brace yourself for what’s to come.

But it doesn’t come.

“Take it off,” he commands, voice low, barely more than a growl. His weapon doesn’t waver, and his expression is hidden behind a mask, eyes glinting through the cracked visor.

You hesitate. There’s a moment where you think of running, but there’s nowhere to go. There’s only the metro behind him, and the world ahead, both full of uncertainties, both as equally capable of destroying you. You suck in a breath, let it fill your lungs like a final goodbye to the stale air in the mask, and then you reach up to peel it away from your face, your skin sticking to the rubber for a moment before it falls loose.

The air tastes strange on your lips—metallic, sharp, almost alien after all this time behind the mask. You lift your eyes to his, half-expecting some sort of reaction, maybe disgust, maybe lust. But instead… there’s something different there, something you hadn’t anticipated. His gaze softens, though his grip on the weapon remains steady. He stares at you as though you’re something out of place in this hellscape, something fragile, a curiosity more than a threat. His gun lowers, just slightly, but his eyes don’t leave your face, as he too rids himself of his mask.

He’s younger than you thought. Ink spills across his skin—tattoos that ripple over his arm, dark lines twisting around muscles. You catch a glimpse of two piercings through his lip when he tilts his head slightly, like he’s trying to figure you out, and then his lips curve, ever so slightly, not quite a smile but not quite hostility either.

“Shelter,” you say, your voice rough, the words like stones scraping against the back of your throat. You cough once, clearing the dust away. “I need shelter.”

He eyes you for a moment longer, his gaze wandering down your frame, but it’s not like before—not like the leering stares of the men who sought to take more than they were willing to give. This is different. There’s something almost reverent in the way he looks at you, as though the mere fact that you’re still standing here, after all this, after the end of the world, is enough to stir absolute disbelief in him.

“Alright,” he says, after a pause that seems to stretch out longer than it should. “We’ll see.”

He gestures with his head, motioning for you to follow him into the metro. You hesitate for only a heartbeat before stepping forward. The air inside is cooler, the shadows deeper in the few flickering candle lights, and for a moment, you think you can almost breathe easier.

“Wait here,” he says, nodding towards a bench half-buried in dust. “There’s a process. Need to fill out a form.”

You blink. A form? The absurdity of it almost makes you laugh—almost. But you’re too tired for laughter, too worn down by the world to even consider the possibility of joy. So, instead, you sit with an exhausted plop. You watch as he disappears for a moment, hear the soft scrape of papers being shuffled, and then he’s back, clipboard in hand, a pencil poised like a weapon in his grip.

He doesn’t sit down. Just stands there, towering over you, his presence impressive but not oppressive. You glance up at him, and there’s something about the way he looks at you that makes you feel exposed—not in a dangerous way, but in a way that makes you feel seen for the first time in a long time. It’s unsettling.

He clears his throat, eyes flicking to the clipboard. “Name?”

You give it to him. He writes it down, slow and thoughtful.

“Age?”

Again, you’re honest, coughing right after. He writes again, his eyes lifting to your face between each question as if checking to see if you’re lying, or maybe just to remind himself that you’re real.

“Where did you come from?”

You answer, though the place you once called home feels distant, like something from a dream you can’t quite remember. His pen scratches the paper, and you almost lose yourself in the sound of it, that soft, repetitive scrape, the only noise in the otherwise still part of the metro.

“Any medical conditions? Injuries?”

You shake your head, your body numb to the aches and pains that have become part of you, the exhaustion that’s settled into your bones as permanent as the sorrow for the destroyed outside world.

He writes.

The questions continue. And all the while, his eyes keep returning to you, scanning your face as if he’s trying to commit every line, every shadow, to memory. You can feel his gaze lingering on your skin, not in a way that makes you want to shrink or hide, but in a way that makes you want to ask why he’s looking at you like that, why his lips keep twitching into something that almost resembles a smile, sometimes a pout.

After what feels like an eternity, he finishes writing, his pen stilling against the paper. You think he’s done, that maybe this bizarre interaction will end and you’ll be allowed to rest, to sleep, to breathe for just a moment.

But then he clears his throat again. And this time, when he looks at you, there’s something different in his eyes. Something you can’t quite place.

“There’s one more thing,” he says, and the air between you feels too much like outside, chocking and not fit for you.

You stiffen. You feel that old familiar dread curling up inside your chest again, clawing at your ribs. You’ve been at this stage before, the formality of it, the false promises of security, of kindness. The moment where it all comes crashing down, where the mask slips and you’re left standing there, alone and defenceless against the greed, the hunger that always lurks just beneath the surface of those too desperate to remember what it means to be human.

He sees the shift in you. You know he does. You see it in the way his brow furrows, the way he toys with his lip piercings as though he’s searching for the right words, something to say that won’t make you bolt for the hermetic door. He takes a breath, and for a moment, you think you might run, you think you might grab your mask and take your chances with the toxic air outside because anything—anything—might be better than this.

But then, he speaks.

“I—” His voice falters, and you see the muscles in his throat work as he swallows. His grip on the clipboard tightens, the knuckles going white. “I want to… I want to eat you out.”

The words hit you like a shockwave. You blink, stunned, and for a moment, you’re not sure you heard him correctly. Did he really just—?

You stare at him, your mind racing, trying to process the absurdity of it, the strangeness, the unexpectedness.

He’s looking at you now, eyes wide, almost pleading. There’s no threat in his posture, no demand. Just… want. Raw and unfiltered. Like he’s asking for something he shouldn’t even be allowed to ask, but he can’t help himself. His breath is shallow, and you can see the way his hands tremble slightly, the tension in his body like he’s bracing for you to reject him, to walk away.

And maybe you should. Maybe you should get up, leave this place, leave him behind, leave all of this strangeness and vulnerability and run back into the wasteland where at least the dangers are known, where the air is poison but the intentions are clear. But instead, you sit there, frozen in place, your mind spinning, your heart pounding in your chest as you look at him.

He’s not like the others. That much you know.

He’s so painfully handsome, a rare sight in this broken world, and it’s been so long—too long—since you’ve felt the heat of another body, since before the fallout turned everything to pure survival.

So, when the chance arises, when you catch the hunger in his dark eyes and feel the thrumming ache in your own bones, you seize it like a lifeline in the endless wasteland. Your fingers tremble as you pull the zip of your protective suit down, the rough fabric parting like a sigh, and you free your legs, peeling it off your lower half. You shift on the bench, boots still clinging to your feet as you raise them to rest beside you, and open yourself to him, your legs spread wide, exposing your cunt like a silent offering, need pulsing through your veins.

Jungkook barely hesitates. The clipboard thrown, clattering to the ground behind him, forgotten, his focus now laser-sharp on the sight before him, his eyes flickering wildly between your face and the growing wetness glistening between your thighs. He steps forward with a pull that feels almost sacred, falling heavily to his knees as if the ground beneath him is the only place he belongs. His warm, calloused hands trace their way up your bare legs, the roughness of his skin sparking something primal under your own.

He leans in close, close enough that you can feel his breath ghosting over your slick skin. He takes a deep breath, inhaling you, and the word falls from his lips like a prayer, “Fuck,” and then he’s there, tongue pressing into you with a hunger that’s suffocating, lapping at your cunt as if he’s desperate to prove himself worthy of it, as if he knows exactly how lucky he is to be granted this wish.

A moan escapes your throat, unbidden, as his tongue forces its way into the tight heat of your hole, your hand reaching instinctively for his dark hair, fingers threading through the strands as you push your hips into his eager mouth. The sound that rumbles from deep within his chest vibrates against you, a groan of raw pleasure that seems to send waves of newfound pleasure coursing through your body, arousal dripping from you, coating his tongue.

“Taste so good,” he rasps between breaths, his voice rough and broken with want. “Fucking angel sent from heaven.” His gaze flicks upward, catching yours, his eyes wide with disbelief, adoration simmering beneath the surface despite the fact that you’re strangers, despite the fact that the world outside has crumbled to nothing.

You find yourself moving against him, riding the flat of his tongue, his fingers dancing over your clit in a rhythm that feels almost divine. His other hand grips your thigh, fingers pressing into your flesh with a kind of desperation, as though he’s terrified that if he lets go, you’ll disappear, that this will vanish like a dream.

“Yes,” you cry out, breathless and shaking, as he finds the perfect pace, the perfect pressure, his mouth and hands working together with an almost agonising precision. And neither of you can tear your eyes away from the other, locked in this frantic, desperate exchange of need and lust and something deeper you can’t yet name.

He gives you everything—every ounce of affection and euphoria you’ve been deprived of for months—and you can feel it in the way his own body trembles, the way his hips move mindlessly against nothing, rutting into the air as though he’s just as desperate to be filled with pleasure as you are.

“I’m close,” you gasp, your hand tightening in his hair, pulling him harder against you, urging him on, desperate for more, for him to push you over that edge.

And he listens, his tongue working with relentless skill, circling your clit with a pressure so precise it almost drives you mad, and then you feel it—your orgasm tearing through you with an intensity that leaves you breathless, shockwaves rippling through your body as you squirt onto his tongue, something you’ve never done before, the surprise of it lost in the haze of pleasure. Jungkook groans beneath you, greedily lapping up everything you give him, cleaning you with his mouth like he never wants to stop, his hips stuttering forward as he spills into his pants, caught in his own silent climax.

“Fuck…” he moans thickly and long, collapsing against your stomach as your legs tremble and fall to the floor, muscles too weak to hold them up any longer.

For a long moment, neither of you moves, the silence between you filled only by the sound of your ragged breathing, the disaster of the world momentarily forgotten. But eventually, he pulls himself together, straightening up with a sheepish grin, adjusting his pants which are now damp with his own release, his expression cringing just slightly.

You quickly dress again, pulling your suit back into place, feeling a flush of heat creeping into your cheeks. There’s an embarrassment there, sure, but not disgust—not even close. If anything, there’s a strange sense of satisfaction, of relief, and you catch yourself hoping this won’t be the last time you see him, that he isn’t bored now that his hunger has been sated.

But as you reach for your pack, Jungkook’s voice breaks through the quiet, and he gestures for you to follow him deeper into the metro, his arm draping casually around your shoulders as if he can’t quite bring himself to stop touching you. “I’m Jungkook, by the way,” he says, a grin spreading across his face, his eyes bright with something that looks almost like joy—something you haven’t seen in anyone since the fallout. “You can stay with me if you want.”

There’s a pause, your heart skipping a beat at his offer, and you hesitate only for a second before whispering, “I’d like to stay with you, if that’s okay.”

He beams down at you, stars shining in his dark eyes like you haven’t seen in months, and he takes the opportunity to press a gentle kiss to your sweaty forehead. “Good,” he says softly. “I’d like that too.”

PART 2

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jessamine-rose · 8 months ago

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˖⋆˚♱ଘ Angel’s Tears ଓ♱˚⋆˖

*cries* I thought I was done with Church AU after Priest! Dottore yet here I am with more unholy ideas. Welp, Guardian Angel! Capitano x Nonbeliever! Darling, here we go (；ω；)

Tw:: yandere, psychological trauma, blood, violence, death, religious abuse, MDNI

Note:: fictional depictions of religion

♡ 3.8k words under the cut ♡

♡ From the moment of their creation, angels are classified into the Nine Orders. This hierarchy determines their roles in Heaven and Earth, with higher ranks assigned greater levels of power and authority. A special exception is The Strongest Angel, an individual who is neither a Seraph nor an angel from the First Sphere. Rather, the moniker belongs to Il Capitano, the leader of the Powers.

♡ The legitimacy of his title has never been questioned. As a warrior angel, Capitano’s purpose is to vanquish evil. He is the chivalrous knight in bloodstained armor, the nigh-invincible being who strikes fear into the hearts of demons, the ever-righteous angel bound by a paradoxical duty to partake in violence for the sake of everlasting peace.

♡ It is in a small town in Mondstadt, following his victory over a legion of demons, that Capitano encounters you. It is the hour of mass yet you are nowhere near the Church; rather, you have taken sanctuary in a secluded meadow. A book sits on your lap, not a religious text but a tale of dark fantasy. There is a saintlike quality to your countenance, an air of melancholy as delicate as the flowers which surround you.

✿ ⚘

The moment Capitano appears before you, all peace leaves the meadow.

No, this isn’t right. It is normal for humans to feel fear in the divine presence of angels, yet he is donning his human guise. Nonetheless, as soon as his shadow touches your form, you look up and suppress a shriek, your face losing its veil of apathy.

So what exactly did he do wrong?

For your benefit, he remains rooted to his spot. Clarity comes in the form of your gaze flitting to your book, its title printed on the cover in conspicuous letters, the whispers which leave trembling lips.

“I…I can explain! This book—it’s just fiction! There are no real curses or spells inscribed in the text; it doesn’t promote any form of blasphemy!”

Ah, now he understands. You weren’t afraid of him.

Carefully, Capitano takes a step forward and raises his hand in a calming gesture. A gentle expression adorns his false face.

“Be not afraid.”

✿ ⚘

♡ It doesn’t take long for him to understand your wariness. A glimpse into your soul, paired with your quiet explanation, tells the story of an orphan raised by the Church. Only, your Church is one of many founded on distorted beliefs, of violence preached in the name of a cruel god. As a result, your upbringing was marked by strict rules, corporal punishments, and sermons which painted the image of a hopeless child with a weakness for temptation.

♡ Knowing this, Capitano can’t fault you for forsaking God and your Church. Still in his human guise, he promises his silence and leaves the meadow. But once he returns to Heaven, his first course of action is to apply for a position as your guardian angel. It is an easy process—while that role is typically reserved for the lower ranks, there is no shortage of humans in need of spiritual guidance and protection. He only questions why an angel wasn’t assigned to you when you were in greatest need of one.

♡ Henceforth, Capitano becomes a recurring character in your life. Every week, he visits you in the meadow. When you ask for his identity, he claims to be a progressive believer from another town. But rather than enlighten you with the true Word of God, he simply keeps you company and indulges your “vices,” leading to hours spent reading together. Beyond those meetings, he also watches over you to ward off any demons or humans seeking to harm you.

♡ From your end, you slowly warm up to your mysterious companion. He is a man of few words, but his actions always convey a sense of kindness. And despite his faith, he genuinely respects your beliefs and accepts you as you are. At one point, he even gives you a special gift, a quill pen of exceptional quality. The feather, pure white with a soft radiance, must have been sourced from a rare bird of prey.

♡ Over time, however, something changes. Capitano can’t deny that the faults lies with him. His visits, his constant thoughts of you, the ever-blurring line between want and duty…nothing of his behavior can be attributed to an angel’s inherent love for humanity. If that were the case, his love wouldn’t beget heartache. His love wouldn’t beget the temptation to harm others, rooted not in the name of justice but for your own safety. His love wouldn’t beget lust, guilt, dishonor, desires so sinfully evocative of his own fallibility.

♡ The truth is, you were never in need of spiritual salvation. From the moment he first laid eyes on you, what Capitano saw was a pure soul—a good person unlikely to commit evil nor fall into true temptation. Moreover, he knows that your sin of disbelief is forgivable unlike your Church’s sins of violence. That so long as you remain as you are, your soul will not be denied paradise, albeit in a realm of Heaven beyond Capitano’s jurisdiction. So why is he incapable of leaving your side?

✿ ⚘

“I had a long, long dream. I dreamed that you and I met again in the pure white world that we created.”

As you read the final line, your gaze leaves the book and returns to Capitano.

“What did you think of the story?”

Your shoulder brushes against his own, a tempting sensation. It is all he can do to remain still, to think against seeking out more of your touch, to remind himself that your close proximity is a mere necessity for your current activity.

The left side of the book, bearing the story’s ending, rests in your left hand. The other side is held in Capitano’s right hand, a blank page devoid of hope for a happy ending. When he turns the page, you seamlessly catch it under your thumb to show the next page.

Who knew of the casual intimacies imbued in the act of reading together?

“It was a well-written novel,” he says simply. “Though her sins tarnished her honor, Rosalyne’s sacrifice was an act of love. Her loss did not hinder her faithfulness to Rostam.”

“I feel the same way,” you muse. “Now I understand why this book was banned centuries ago. Forbidden love between angels and humans…it certainly goes against what the Church taught us about angels. I have to give the author credit for their imagination.”

It’s just the two of you again, this time in the library. At the start of winter, you invited Capitano to your workplace. There, in your greatest show of trust, you brought him to a secret room dedicated to texts banned by the Church for promoting “blasphemy.” Fantasy, erotica, anti-Church publications, first editions of censored books, stories which merely deviated from the Church’s popular depictions of spiritual beings.

Molten Moment belongs to the last category. Little do you know that it was based on a true story, that the author had really formed a pact with a demon called La Signora. Capitano himself is mentioned in the story under his true name.

He was one of the few angels who noticed the changes in Rosalyne’s behavior. She used to be a Throne, an angel with no connection to Earth nor humanity. Yet by some twist of fate, she laid eyes on a brave knight from Mondstadt and began to meet him in her human guise.

He was the first to hear of Rosalyne’s sin, that being she saved Rostam’s life during a battle. It was a direct violation of God’s orders: Angels and demons may influence humans, but they are forbidden from directly altering a human’s lifespan.

He was a silent witness to Rosalyne’s descent. She fell from Heaven, burned by her own flames, yet she had never appeared more ecstatic. In the following years, she married Rostam and lived a happy life with him on Earth.

He was the last to recognize Rostam’s soul at the pearly gates, forever separated from his fallen lover. Such had been Rosalyne’s divine punishment, worsened by her knowledge of this possibility. But what else was she to do? To let Rostam know of her true nature? To drag his soul down to Hell, where he’d be subjected to an eternity of undeserved suffering?

Capitano is no fool. As he read Molten Moment, he began to understand Rosalyne’s sin in a new light. Half the time, he couldn’t even concentrate on the text, his human eyes repeatedly drifting to your intense reading expression.

He closes the book, leaving it in your sole grasp. But before he can stand up from the sofa, you scoot closer and lean your weight on him. The book is placed on a nearby table, forgotten.

“Do you mind?” you whisper. Your right hand, empty since the prologue, traces his left hand.

A moment of silence precedes his response. “You may.”

Wordlessly, you take his hand and intertwine your fingers. A gesture of intimacy, an unspoken confession. Yet as he savors your touch, Capitano wonders if you would harbor the same level of comfort around his true form.

He doubts it. As a Power, he bears an inhuman appearance on par with that of his superiors. It is his true image which has earned him the title of monster by witnessing humans.

Still, he allows himself to indulge in the blessing that is your oblivion. When you look into his two human eyes, there is a soft light in your gaze wholly free of fear.

“Spring is coming soon,” you mutter. “I can’t wait to see the flowers again. Come to think of it, there’s a variety of narcissus which grows only in late spring. It’s very pretty.”

Against his better judgment, Capitano strengthens his grip on your hand. “Shall I take it as an invitation to resume our meetings in the meadow?”

“Sure.” That is when you look up, a small smile adorning your face. “And if you can’t visit for whatever reason, I’ll pick a bouquet and preserve it for you.”

For once, Capitano is rendered speechless.

Rarely do you ever smile. Even to him, you retain your listless disposition—whether it is out of habit or lingering distance, he has yet to discern your reasons. But that is what makes it all the more special, those few instances when he is beholden to your expressions.

He wonders if this is what humans feel in the divine presence of angels, when they are borne witness to all things holy and beautiful.

Your smile is a phenomenon reserved only for the worthiest of souls. And in your grace, he has never felt more undeserving.

✿ ⚘

♡ At the end of winter, a religious war is authorized by the Church of Mondstadt. Shortly after the news reaches your town, Capitano informs you that he will be busy with “work.” He says it during another reading date, featuring Heart of Clear Springs. Before leaving, he kisses your hand and gives you a kind smile. There is a sad look in his eyes, but you don’t inquire further.

♡ In late spring, your town is attacked. With the entire area under fire, from your home to the meadow, you find yourself running back to the sacred building which you’d avoided for years. After all, though the enemy soldiers belong to a different denomination, they still worship the same god as you. In the present, the church is the only place on Earth where you can claim asylum and pray for your survival.

♡ Except every entrance is locked, including the doors to the orphanage. As the army reaches the town square, all you can do is bang on the front doors and beg to be let in. From inside, you can hear the voices of the people that luckily attended mass before the invasion. Some tell you to hide elsewhere, others beg you for forgiveness, a few sound like the nuns and caretakers who tormented you in the past.

♡ Before you can think of another sanctuary, a soldier strikes you. Pain…it has never felt more intense. Through your fading consciousness, you register your body falling and your head hitting the concrete. Blood pools from your forehead and trickles down the steps of the church, tainting it red.

♡ Life flashes before your eyes in a blurry sequence. The static images of God, sermons and bruises, unanswered prayers, people who never believed you or simply didn’t care. A birthday celebrated with your departure from the Church. Sanctuary found in the library followed by the meadow. Yet the numbness remained, each day bleeding into the next in a gloomy haze. In all those years, did you ever feel God’s love?

♡ It doesn’t matter at this point. A small part of you wonders if you should have retained your faith, continued your prayers, sought out salvation in the safety of your solitude. At least then, at the hour of your death, you wouldn’t be confronted with the fact of your humanity. The primal fear of death, the spiritual fear of ending up in Hell no matter Capitano’s reassurances.

♡ Capitano…where is he? Weakly, you call out to him but he doesn’t appear. Of course, why would he? You should feel thankful; it means he is probably safe, wherever he is. Still, you can’t help but wish he were here—if not to save you, as he has done by simply keeping you company, but to comfort you one last time. And those are the thoughts which plague you in your final moments, an unheard prayer on the tip of your tongue.

“I pray that we meet again, myself and the first person who truly loved me.”

♡ ______ died on a cloudy day, one of many people persecuted in the name of God. After the Church was destroyed and its followers slaughtered, their body was buried in a mass grave that once flourished with nature. There was a poignant quality to their countenance, an air of distress as transient as the flowers planted above them.

♡ At least, that is how your story ends from the perspectives of the survivors. But to the angels and demons who witnessed the destruction of your town, your death was only the end of a chapter in your life. In their eyes, Capitano had been present all throughout, an invisible witness to your death, absolute in his refusal to perform an unauthorized miracle.

♡ He remained by your side until the light faded from your eyes. That was when he took notice of the bouquet of narcissus clutched in your hand, tainted with blood despite your feeble efforts to save his gift. A soldier approached your corpse, intending to drag it down the steps for burial; but before they could touch you, Capitano appeared before them.

♡ It was only for a brief second, but the soldier drew back and cowered in fear. In the following days, they were haunted by the memory of the angelic figure who appeared outside the Church of Mondstadt. Or more precisely, the monster who prayed over a bloodstained corpse and took a bouquet of ruined flowers out of their grasp.

✿ ⚘

From the moment you wake up, all peace leaves the meadow.

What happened? Your memory comes back in hazy fragments—death, darkness, blinding light, pearly gates, ethereal figures. Most vivid is the sensation of strong arms and soft feathers, a familiar warmth which accompanied you throughout your journey.

As for your current surroundings, you are in a meadow so beautiful that it brings to mind the Garden of Eden. Flowers of every variety bloom across the scenery, some out of season. The sky is bright, sunless, a canvas of multiple colors. There are no other signs of life.

Internally, too, something feels off. A nearby pond provides a glimpse of your reflection—white garments, gold scars in place of your fatal injuries, your disoriented countenance. If this place is what you think it is…shouldn’t you feel at peace, happy even? And why are you alone?

Your gaze lands on a patch of flowers. Pure white, perianth petals, cup-shaped coronas…the same type of narcissus which grew in your favorite meadow. The flowers point in different directions, as though searching for a sun that does not exist.

“You are awake.”

A shadow touches your form, engulfing you in darkness. It bears a large, unrecognizable shape but such details evade you as you recognize the voice behind you.

“Capitano!” Immediately, you turn around, only to gasp and suppress a scream.

The person before you…can you even call him human? He is incredibly tall, to the point that you must crane your neck to see his face—assuming there is one beneath his iron mask. His body is clad in silver armor, stained blood in some places. A halo, shaped like a crown of thorns, shines behind his head.

But what shocks you are his wings. A single pair covered in radiant white feathers and eerily dark blue eyes. Each eye seems to glow with an uncanny aura.

Dark blue eyes with a striking resemblance to Capitano’s. What more for his long black hair and his solemn manner of speaking?

It doesn’t make your revelation any less unsettling.

“Capitano.” Your voice comes out in a nervous whisper. “Is it really you? You’re a…”

“An angel,” he confesses. He takes a step back, widening the distance between your bodies. “I ask that you pardon my appearance. Such was my sacrifice—for my true form, in all of its monstrosity, to be my sole image.”

His human face comes to mind, along with the kind gaze you fell in love with.

You feel the weight of multiple gazes on you. “What do you mean?”

“Is this realm to your satisfaction?” he asks. “I beseeched God to create a special paradise for you, cut off from the rest of Heaven. The price is that your capacity to feel negative emotions remains in this realm…though that is preferable.”

Preferable? How so? Right now, you can barely process what he is telling you. You are dead. Your companion is an angel. Your soul is in paradise, but not exactly.

After everything you’ve been through, you were still deemed worthy of a place in Heaven.

“I am sorry.”

Capitano’s voice brings you back to reality. He has never sounded more serious, emotional, repentant. And when you look up…

Is he crying?

Most of his eyes remain open, focusing on you with a fervent stare. But others are downcast, as if unable to face you. And a few appear glossy, blinking back iridescent tears.

“I am truly sorry.” He bows his head in shame, wings folded. “What I did to you was cruel, an absolute injustice.”

You don’t know which eyes to make contact with. “You—”

“It must have been painful,” he continues. “Even if I were to justify my actions, the truth lies in the fact that I tolerated your suffering for my own selfish desires. And that is why I ask not for your forgiveness, knowing I am the one at fault.”

Silence. In light of Capitano’s confession, all you can do is stare at him and comprehend the weight of your situation. What exactly are you supposed to feel, knowing his betrayal? Knowing that regardless of your feelings, you have nowhere else to go in the afterlife?

Yet despite it all, your prayer came true. The two of you were able to meet again.

And that is what compels you to take a step forward, to come closer until you are standing in front of him. “Hey, it’s…don’t cry.”

A delicate sensation blesses his wings—your hands carefully tracing his feathers to wipe away his tears. Several eyes widen in surprise, but all he can see in your gaze is sympathy.

“I’ll admit, it was painful,” you tell him. “Dying alone. But maybe it’s…better this way. If I survived, I’d have to deal with the loss of my home. And who knows what kind of living hell the other Church would’ve put me through?”

Above all, Capitano is the only person whose love you can believe in.

Hesitantly, you take his hand and intertwine your fingers. The next words to leave your lips are spoken with certainty, bringing fresh tears to his eyes.

“I’m sure it was an act of love on your part.”

His reaction is sudden, incurring your surprise. But all you can do is surrender to Capitano’s embrace, allow his free arm to hold your waist and pull you closer to him. His wings wrap around you, caging you in soft feathers and eerie blue orbs.

“Capitano?” You can only look up at him, peering into the contents of his mask.

…It’s like staring into an abyss, a night sky dotted with twinkling blue stars. But in the absence of a human likeness, his words express what a face cannot.

“Never again,” he vows, “shall I allow harm to befall you. That is a promise.”

The hand on your waist moves upwards to caress your face. His touch is light, more hesitant than his previous gestures.

“You need not serve God nor partake in fruitful labor like the other souls in Heaven. All I ask is that you rest, indulge yourself, enjoy this paradise to the fullest.”

A flower is pinned to his armor, right above his heart. You recognize it instantly—a narcissus in full bloom, stained with your blood.

“If you desire a flower, it shall grow at once. If there are any books you would like to read, they shall be brought to you shortly.”

What was the name of that variety again? Narcissus triandrus. Angel’s tears.

“If you are in need of my presence, I shall appear before you, so long as I am not in the midst of battle. And should you ever desire the opposite, I can promise my distance.”

When Capitano looks into your eyes, all he can see is his own reflection. Whatever emotion colors your gaze, it casts his true image in a compassionate light.

“I shall do everything in my power to bring you joy for all of eternity. Such will be my penance.”

“...All right.” With that, you close your eyes and lean into his touch. He feels warm, comfortingly familiar. “I’ll trust you on that.”

Rest in peace, ______.

Think not of your mortal body in the beginning stages of decay.

Think not of your tormentors who are paying for their sins in Hell.

Think only of eternity with your beloved savior.

♡

More Church AU here!! Dottore ๑ Arlecchino ๑ Pantalone ๑ Pierro ๑ Dainsleif

Note:: Please do not send me any Church AU asks/ requests involving other characters or dynamics who are not listed in my masterlist.

Aahhhh it's done....this idea turned out much heavier than expected, but I'm glad that I was able to write this!! I hope you all cried over enjoyed the story of Angel! Capitano and his damsel. They were truly a delight to write for~

Tag a Capitano enjoyer!! @diodellet @navxry @leftdestiny-posts @beloved-blaiddyd @bye-bye-sunbird @yandere-romanticaa @harmonysanreads @mochinon-yah @oofasleep @micchikari @whispereons @thescribeoflostmemories

#il capitano #capitano #capitano x reader #yandere capitano x reader #yandere capitano #fatui x reader #yandere fatui harbingers #yandere genshin #genshin x reader #tw: yandere #tw: blood #tw: violence #tw: death #mdni #g/n reader #jessamine-writing

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soweirdondisney · 2 years ago

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Titles Being Removed from Disney+ and Hulu

Deadline has listed what will be removed from Hulu and Disney+. As of Friday May 26th these will no longer be available:

(in alphabetical order)

A Spark Story [Disney+]

Be Our Chef [Disney+]

Best in Dough [Hulu]

Best in Snow [Hulu]

Big Shot [Disney+]

Black Beauty [Disney+]

Cheaper by the Dozen remake [Disney+]

Clouds [Disney+]

Diary of a Future President [Disney+]

Disney Fairy Tale Weddings [Disney+]

Dollface [Hulu]

Earth to Ned [Disney+]

Encore! [Disney+]

Everything’s Trash [Hulu]

Foodtastic [Disney+]

Howard [Disney+]

It’s a Dog’s Life with Bill Farmer [Disney+]

Just Beyond [Disney+]

Little Demon [FX/Hulu]

Love in the Time of Corona [Hulu]

Maggie [Hulu]

Magic Camp [Disney+]

Marvel’s MPower [Disney+]

Marvel’s Project Hero [Disney]

Marvel’s Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever [Disney+]

Pistol [FX/Hulu]

Rosaline [Disney+]

Stargirl [Disney+]

Stuntman [Disney+]

The Hot Zone [Nat Geo/Hulu]

The Making Of Willow [Disney+]

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers [Disney+]

The Mysterious Benedict Society [Disney+]

The One and Only Ivan [Disney+]

The Premise [Hulu]

The Quest [Hulu]

The World According to Jeff Goldblum [Disney+]

Timmy Failure [Disney+]

Turner & Hooch [Disney+]

Weird but True! [Disney+]

Willow [Disney+]

Wolfgang [Disney+]

Y: The Last Man [FX/Hulu]

So Weird and DCOMs are safe for now. The list is primarily focused on short-lived series, specials, and movies that went direct to streaming.

According to John Bickerstaff, whose production of Willow is on the list, this is Disney’s way to get out of paying residuals in the middle of the WGA Strike that began May 2, 2023 and is still ongoing.

#disney+#disney plus #hulu #writers strike #wga #john bickerstaff #willow

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blood-teeth · 8 months ago

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E N T E R T H E L A B Y R I N T H

In the Labyrinth, they talk of gods.

They whisper between their fingers and sweeten their breath with the tales of titans of old who once stood so tall that a single breath would cause earth-tremors, their steps reshaping the ground trod beneath them. Their fingers were the tools that smoothed the mountains into points, shaped and carved the ridges and valleys in between. If you hike far enough, one woman claims, if you travel to a point where the oxygen is thin and your vision blacks, you can make out a partial print against the mountainside. You can run your own fingers along its length and still feel the titan’s warmth as if his palm were pressed right against yours.

The woman says, It is a thing of worship. It is a thing of devotion.

In the Labyrinth, they ask you to make your body anew before the King of the High Hills. They say that you are alive because you must suffer for the life and love of the Lord, that you must open your body and let him lick along your flesh so that he may taste the endlessness of his perpetual reign.

In the Labyrinth, there is no escape from his touch.

“You have a heavy burden upon you,” the headmaster was saying, teeth and eyes all a glitter under the amber cast candles. “I am not unsympathetic to the arduous path ahead of you—but please understand that this suffering must be experienced for the longevity of the king, for the beautiful life ahead of him. Only he is the one who can shed mortality and raise to the gods, because he is the only one strong enough, courageous enough, to count the cost of living forever. You must succeed where others have failed. You, this class, this is our last chance to mend what has been made broken. You must. You must.”

The Mouths of Elysium is a dark-academia fantasy created with Twine where your choices matter to the story. You live inside the Labyrinth, a maze that hates to become known with walls and paths that change every hour. The center of the Labyrinth sits a university that has been there since the beginning of time; its only purpose is to recruit students who can solve the puzzle of life, who can create an elixir that would allow the King of the High Hills to live past the length of forever. Failure means a fate worse than death.

You are one of those students.

Althea Callaghan - You know her in death. She has been the taste of rot against your tongue, the anger and hurt in your palms. You see the nice, beautiful lines of her teeth and become a creature of grief unfolding unto yourself. Debase yourself with the fervent want of her. Bend at your waist and beg for forgiveness.

You hate her. You want to watch her bleed. She feels the exact same about you, but what she doesn't know is that every waking moment of your life is dedicated to her.

The Princess/Prince - The forgotten child of the throne. The 405th child of His glorious reign. Divinity runs through their veins, the heir to so much power, but they will never see themselves rule the unforgiving landscape of the Labyrinth. Their fate is to die and be buried amongst the endless graves of their dead brothers and sisters. They must do this so the King may live forever.

A fully customizable MC including gender, appearance, and sexuality

A landscape of horror. A landscape that hates you and everyone who might try to understand it. Go beyond the walls and be witness to a reality worse than death

Key choices that will influence your game and experience. Will you succeed or fail?

Learn what it means to be forgiven. Learn what it means to suffer. Become devotion. Become loyalty. Make your body anew before the King of the High Hills

DEMO (updated 6/10/24)

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aixeko · 2 months ago

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──────‹𝟹 SINNERS SAVAGERY ༄ Ѽ✧

IF I'M YOUR SALVATION, WELCOME TO HELL.

2024 Halloween Event | Art credit: Efferwescent on Twitter

𖤐 SINNERS SAVAGERY | or ERISETOBER is an event that is a mix of Kinktober, Whumptober and Flufftober in a nutshell SMUT, ANGST & FLUFF with Halloween aspects. All prompts are made by me but some of the ones that inspired me are whumptober ofc, and this list.

𖤐 ONLY HONKAI STAR RAIL AND GENSHIN WOMEN For this year

𖤐 This will be my first time doing the October prompts stuff + I have another event going on so bare with me haha.

𖤐 !! WEEK 1 starts 6 to 13 !! !! WEEK 2 starts 13 to 19 !! !! WEEK 3 starts 20 to 26 !! !! WEEK 4 starts 27 to 31 !!

WEEK 1 | MONSTER AU | | ONESHOT

| Film | TILL DEATH DO US PART | Starring | Kafka as alien symbiote “Venom” x Host!Reader | Synopsis | A livelihood ripped away by the greed of humankind and faced with impending doom, an alien symbiote by the name of "Kafka" entered your life and made you her host. Originally, the monstrous being harbored one goal: to destroy everything planet Earth had to offer, but plans changed upon meeting you and thus, with her power, you both do whatever it takes to save the planet. Loathing was all that was bestowed toward the extraterrestrial parasitic, but as time passes, a long-lost feeling resurfaces, one that hasn't manifested since your heartbreak; of course, you would rather be brutally killed than confess your endearment. Unbeknownst to you, the woman has suspected you of such intimacy and, with her incredible adaptability to the complex human emotion, has a ploy to make you profess those three special words.

| Film | YOUR LORDSHIP | Starring | Yelan as Leviathan x Mortal!Reader | Synopsis | When the tempestuous waves crash against the shore and the sky turns a foreboding grey, human shells cower in fear as the mighty lord of the seas, Leviathan, awakens from the darkest pit of the deep, seeking for a human companion to aid her lonely voyage.

WEEK 2 | MYTHOLOGICAL AU | | ONESHOT

| Film | BEYOND THE IMAGINABLE | Starring | Clorinde as Medusa x Blind!Reader | Synopsis | Despised and misunderstood by the world, she was a victim of a scandalous man's wrongdoing, unfairly punished by heaven despite her innocence. During one fortunate day, the woman whose heart had turned to stone melt under the accursed spell of love, wholly captivated by a blind mortal who fell in love with her for who she truly was; even without sight, the virtuous human saw the very essence of her, the beauty within her soul.

| Film | OFFERING OF PURITY | Starring | Raiden Ei as Hades x Mortal!Reader | Synopsis | The townsfolk tell tales of a legend that speaks of how, once in a century, the moon would adorn itself in a deep crimson hue and illuminate its shade onto the world. Under its wrathful light, the god of hell emerges to wreak havoc, and the only way to banish such evil is to offer a youthful virgin mortal; only then will humankind live in another century of prosperity and peace.

WEEK 3 | ANIMATRONICS AU | | SMUTSHOT

| Film | FIVE NIGHTS AT STAR RAIL | Starring | Kafka, Himeko, Blackswan, and Acheron as the FNAF Classic Animatronics x Night-guard!Reader | Synopsis | A newspaper arrives at your doorstep, featuring a job opening for a night guard position at the famous Star Rail Pizzeria. Struggling financially, you quickly seize the golden opportunity. The job's only requirement is 5 nights of work, and if you succeed, you'll be hired as an official employee; what could possibly go wrong?

WEEK 4 | SLASHER/SERIAL KILLER AU

| Film | MINDFUCK | Starring | Slasher!Arlecchino x Investigative-Psychologist!Reader | Synopsis | Demons linger where shadows play; in silence, hearts betray, whispers echo, and desires catch fire in the haunting depths of the night. With every kiss, a scythe may cut, in which terror envelops one's gut; together they dance on the edge of fate, finding beauty in a love that is too late. So let the night weave its spell, for in the dark they know so well, and though demons are whispering fright, in their twilight, the lights are ignited.

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tropes-and-tales · 2 months ago

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Of Every Kinnë Tre

(Pero Tovar x F!Reader)

CW: Angst (death); smut (dubious consent, maybe, but I don't know if medieval times cared much for intoxicated sex acts; loss of virginity; oblique talk of sex; fingering, PiV, unprotected), 18+ only.

Word Count: 8370

AN: This was originally requested by @justreblogginfics!

AN2: The title of this is taken from an anonymous medieval love poem called, in modern English, "Of Every Kind of Tree."

AN3: Tropes is playing fast and loose with historical fact here (and geography, and linguistics, etc. etc).

Pero Tovar never counted marriage as something written into his fate.

Starvation? Possibly. Plague? There was a chance. Death in war or battle or in a misunderstanding on the road to China and back?

All too certain.

But marriage? Never.

Until it was foisted on him, quite unexpectedly, as he made his way back to Europa from his trials at the Great Wall.

-----

Tales from Pero Tovar’s time were largely passed down through the oral tradition: great speakers and orators stood in front of captive audiences, or ordinary men and women sat around fires and told stories to while away the dark hours, the cold hours. To brighten their lives.

These stories usually began like this:

Lo! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes’ achievements!

Harken, my brethren, while I tell you the tale of Igor, son of Svyatoslav.

Pwyll Prince of Dyved was lord of the seven Cantrevs of Dyved; and once upon a time he was at Narberth his chief palace…

So we will begin our tale the same way, as the people of Pero’s time would have told it: around the fire, in the deep of winter’s cold—for it is a love story, and love is most appreciated when the days are short and the nights are long.

-----

Gather, friends, as I tell the tale of Pero Tovar, an orphan in want of a heel of bread, who became a sell-sword in want of coin, who became a lord who possessed the greatest treasure of all.

Pero was born in Galicia, and his entry into our world was what harried his dear mother into the next. Motherless, the babe Pero was given to a cousin to care for him, though she had her own children and gave Pero only the remainder of anything she had. Pero’s father, a brute of a blacksmith, was dispatched by a horse’s kick to the head when Pero was just a boy, and so he found himself an orphan.

The cousin’s house was meanly built, and the cousin’s husband was a miser who counted every peseta thrice before tucking it away in the pouch he always kept on his person. Pero was often cold, more often hungry, and when he reached the age of ten, he heard of a boy’s army that was forming to retake the Holy Land for the Christians.

Pero ran away from the cousin’s house, and while he never made it to Levant, he found that he had a talent for survival in the rough company of sell-swords, and it became his life for the next decades.

Unlike his fellow sell-swords, though, Pero had a talent for saving his coin. His compatriots caroused, whored, drank themselves stupid the moment a coin crossed their palm.

Pero? Perhaps he had learned a lesson from the cousin’s miserly husband. He held his coin, he spent little beyond the care of himself and his horse, and he saved. He had an idea to leave his life as a sell-sword before he lost it, to retire to some quiet green place and toil in the earth for whatever years remained to him.

To this end, he kept his coin safe with a certain prior in a certain priory. For a portion of what Pero earned, the prior tucked away the rest and guarded it, kept it protected in an iron box secured with a cunning lock that only he had the key to.

Pero saw much of God’s earth and beyond: into the Emirate of Mosul, the Buyid Emirate, where leagues of golden sand stretched beyond one’s vision, and where a lush green paradise could be found over the next rise. Then Sena, Bagan, the Kingdom of Bali—where he could not fathom the tongues in which they spoke, but where work could be found, as it seemed men across all lands always needed swords for coin. Then further east where the Song Dynasty ruled, and here Pero faced monsters from Revelation and survived.

With the coin he earned from fighting beasts, Pero calculated that he had enough now to retire from this life. He could find a patch of land and till it. He could hitch his warhorse to a plow and plant seeds that would sustain him, and when it was time for him to die, he could lay down in the furrows and pass with the blue firmament over his head.

-----

When Pero returned to the priory to collect his accumulated wealth, however, he found that disaster had struck.

The old prior, a gentle and pious man, had died, and his successor was the son of a bishop, a wastrel and spendthrift whose first order of business had been to set an inventory of the prior’s wealth. This inventory included the iron box where Pero's savings where stored.

The new prior's second order of business was to take that wealth and spend it on sinful pursuits.

Which meant Pero found himself with little beyond the payment from the Song people, a handful of treasures from his journeys, and a stretch of long years in front of him where he’d have to continue selling his sword to survive.

-----

Which was how Pero found himself outside of the Holy Roman Empire, to the east where the people spoke Latin but with a thick tongue, where many kept with the old gods and customs, and where the borders changed every fortnight as men grappled for land, consolidated their holding of scattered tribes and strongholds into what would pass for a kingdom or duchy further west.

Pero took work that winter, guarding the storehouse of a league of merchants who strove to protect their wares from both marauders and quarreling nobles alike. In this way, Pero came to understand the local tongue and customs, and he learned of the Princeling named Radomil, whose eldest half-brother had just died.

“They say Radomil murdered his kin as he slept,” spat one man in a tavern. “Just as he slayed his own father, years before.”

Another man lifted his hand, two fingers forked to ward off the Devil. “There will be hard times ahead, should he gain control.”

In this way, by keeping his head down and his ears open, Pero came to learn of the cowardly murderous Prince Radomil, now King. He came to learn that the people feared what this murderous king may do to his half-sister.

In some way that Pero would never learn, though, King Radomil came to learn of him in turn, and within a score of days, Pero found himself summoned to the squat stone fortress for an audience with the new King.

-----

The proposal was simple, once it was put to Pero in a tongue he could grasp better.

King Radomil wanted to see his half-sister wed. A kindness, it was said, in light of her recent loss. She was a widow with a small babe, and King Radomil in his infinite love and benevolence, saw fit to arrange such a match. Pero had been measured and found just such a match.

Pero, always blunt, asked, “why me?”

The King’s advisor talked at length, and though Pero was not especially versed in court intrigue, he knew enough of flattery and lies when he heard it.

“You are a noble man,” the advisor said, bowing his head at Pero. “We have it on good authority that you are descended from the family of Alfonso el Monje, King of León. Ancient blood proves out, despite your meager circumstances now.”

When Pero tried to argue and claim that he was from Galicia, son of a drunkard blacksmith, the advisor waved him away.

“We have priests who have studied your lineage and found it to not be so,” he said.

It was only later that evening that another advisor, an older man with a bald pate but a long beard set Pero straight in hushed tones and darting glances.

“The King cannot kill his sister,” he told Pero. “She is beloved by the people, and the killing of a woman would unravel his already tenuous hold on the region.”

“Why kill her at all?” Pero remembered that the sister was a widow, and he imagined an old woman, hunched back, white hair tucked under a veil. He could not fathom the risk she posed, but then again, he was in unfamiliar lands.

“She is a tool that others would use. Her father the King was beloved as well, and her mother had an ancient claim to royalty in her own right. The Princess could be snatched up by a rival for the throne, and her blood could bolster any claim. But if her brother the King could marry her off to a nobody, no one else could claim her.”

Pero remembered a certain game from his journey to the east, a way for the idle to while away the hours. It was war in miniature, a board with pieces, and while he watched it played many times, Pero never quite grasped how to win at shatranj. But he knew enough to recognize it now.

“Marrying her to me would remove her from the field,” Pero replied, understanding at last.

The old advisor nodded. “And it would keep her alive. Consider it seriously, Tovar. You would save not just her life but the life of her babe, and you would come out of it a wealthy man. You could claim her inheritance that her mother the Queen left her.”

“What inheritance?”

The old advisor glanced into the shadows, then said, “on her mother’s side, she is nobility. There is a handsome manor far from here, further north, that belongs to the Princess. It would be yours, should you marry her.”

In this way, Pero Tovar came to be married.

-----

The marriage took place on a rainy evening, and the ceremonies were doubled: one performed in the Latin rite by a priest in a grease-stained cassock, the other performed by a wise-man of the local custom. The latter, it must be said, was more boisterous—it involved winding a cord around the hand of the Princess and Pero’s, linking the two together in the eyes of the local gods. Then, to seal it, a feast where Pero and the Princess fed each other and gave each other drink. The drink was a local concoction, dark plum spirits that went down easier with each subsequent sip.

The Princess only took a mouthful when Pero held the cup to her mouth.

Pero took deep swallows and drained the cup when she held it to his.

Then there was dancing, and the dancing led to the great hall spinning, and from the spinning Pero found himself being carried away, up and floating away from the music, borne by the king’s men. When he turned his head, he saw the Princess - his wife - being borne away beside him, the newlyweds floating, and he did not realize—as she did—that this was the bedding ceremony.

How could Pero know? He had never laid with a woman before.

*****

You understood your circumstances.

You have always understood your circumstances.

Your mother died when you were young. Too young to make any memories of her beyond a general impression of loveliness, of gentleness before the fever took her and your unborn sister to the underworld. Your father remarried soon after, and he had a son with your stepmother, but she was a scheming woman, grasping, and your circumstances were clear forever after.

Your father, at least, lived long enough to marry you off to an ally. Your first husband had been much older, silver in his beard, but kind. Extraordinarily kind, in fact, and you wondered sometimes if your father knew he had given you to a man who made you a woman gently, who made you a mother to his daughter just as gently, and who died from an ague only last summer.

It was the only time he hurt you, dying as he did.

Your second husband? Well, you understood your circumstances. You knew it was a farce, a noble lineage hung on the shoulders of a sell-sword. You knew your brother’s motives when he and his advisors found you and informed you of your impending marriage. You knew it would keep you safe, being tucked away with some rough peasant, but as you observed this Tovar—his rough looks, his rougher manner—you wondered if death would perhaps be a kinder fate.

-----

Like your first marriage, you did not properly meet your intended until the ceremonies themselves.

Unlike your first marriage, this Tovar did not seem to understand the potency of the rakija. Unless he was a drunkard as well as a sell-sword.

Like your first marriage, you did not properly exchange a word beyond the ceremonies until you were locked in the chamber for the bedding ceremony.

Unlike your first marriage, this Tovar did not say, as your first husband had, “please trust in me, little princess. I will do you no harm.”

Instead, this Tovar stared at you, swayed on his feet, and mumbled, “fuck, how did this happen?”

Your first marriage, you left your bedding ceremony with far more pleasure than pain—the former a revelation that your body could produce such sensations, and the latter just a faint ache between your legs.

Your second marriage, you left your bedding ceremony with neither pleasure nor pain. You left it with confusion, at first, then understanding, then a bemusement that would one day cede to love.

This Tovar understood enough to undress himself. He shed the embroidered surcoat, the fine-woven shirt, the doe-skin trousers. The linen smallclothes. He stood before you unabashed, naked, swaying still on his feet. His manhood stood to proud attention, and you studied him. He was not unappealing, you thought, so long as he didn’t spew from the drink.

But he made no further move, and you lifted your hands to undress yourself too. You lifted away the headdress sewn with seed pearls and small gems. The outer robe, heavy with brocade. The inner dress, the woolen slippers, then the shift, and you stood as proudly as you could but felt a shyness overtake you, so you wrapped your arm around yourself and hid what you could.

Perhaps you misunderstood the sell-sword, though. A man, you thought, would take what was his, but this Tovar only stared at you—his cock twitching—and he made no further move.

“Perhaps,” you said, tentative. “We could lie down on the bed?”

He nodded and gestured for you to lead. You stretched out on the coverlet, but when he joined you, he only laid beside you, like two corpses in the tomb. The moment grew long, and there was no noise other than each of you breathing and the distant merriment of the wedding feast in the great hall.

“Tovar, we must…you must bed me for it to be legal,” you finally told him. Quietly, though. He was drunk, and you knew enough of men to know that drunkenness made them violent. And at your words, he shook his head and turned to face you, and his expression was dark.

“Pero,” he whispered harshly. “My given name is Pero.”

“P-Pero.” You didn’t mean to stammer, but his face was like a thundercloud, like the storm god that men worshiped here—

Saying his name made his expression soften in an instant, though. The thunderhead passed, and his face was like dawn’s light.

“My mother named me Pero,” he explained. “Tovar is what my father gave me.”

“Your mother…is she kind?”

“She is dead.”

“Oh.” You bit your lip and studied him; the darkness was edging back into his expression, so you added, “mine is dead too.”

“Mine died in my birthing.”

“Mine died when I was young, as she birthed my sister.” You paused, added, “she died too.”

Pero’s eyes had a glassy quality to them, whether it be the drink or the sorrow of his mother, so you reminded him, just as gently, that the bedding ceremony needed to be complete before your brother the Usurper would let you both leave. Before he returned your young daughter to you and let the three of you leave for your mother’s homeland.

To aid Pero, you reached out a hand to him, thinking you could lead him to you, but he misunderstood. He took your hand in his, much like at the wedding ceremony, and he raised it to his mouth. His mustache tickled against your skin as he pressed wet kisses to the back of it, to your wrist, to the inside of your forearm.

His kisses were sloppy, like a child playing at love. You thought it was the drink.

Little by little, you led him, or tried to. An hour passed, you judged from where the tall tapers burned in their pewter holders. Each moment saw the man get nowhere closer to consummating the thing; he only pressed his mouth to your hands and arms, and when he got breathless, which was often, he gazed over at you. Sometimes he touched your face with his calloused fingertips, and once he leaned forward and nuzzled his face in your unbound hair, but the time passed, and you felt your daughter—your freedom, your life—slipping away bit by bit.

“For the love of the gods, man,” you finally snapped. “Finish the thing!”

It made Pero rear back his head from where he nuzzled against you, and his expression was not thunderous so much as baleful.

“It is uncharted waters,” he muttered.

“The terrain from one woman to another is much the same, I imagine,” you retorted, then you reached for him in earnest, took him by his shoulder and urged him to climb onto you, which he did, clumsily. It felt so much the same, though, the warm touch of another’s body against yours, and the first real flower of desire bloomed in you.

“Perhaps,” you thought, “this may be a successful marriage.”

But Pero seemed confused still, still too addled by the strong plum brandy, and he moved awkwardly, muttered near your ear that he could map the hillocks and dales of this territory, but was unsure of the way home—

“Here,” you breathed into his ear, and your hand found where he strained, hot and heavy and ready to join to you. You took him by the root and tried to lead him to you, but your touch alone made him groan against your neck, made him mutter some word you didn’t know, and then you felt him go rigid above you.

Your second bedding ceremony, then: your new husband’s slack weight against you, his spend, hastily given from the mere touch of your palm, cooling against your hip.

Still, it was enough for your brother the Usurper and his flock of advisors in their dusty, moth-eaten robes. The usual inspection of the bedchamber come morning, the usual sly smiles and off-hand jokes…and then you were away, your daughter restored to your arms and your new husband—and his aching head—off to the lands of your mother.

-----

“What is her name?” Pero asked, startling you out of your thoughts. When you glanced at him, he nodded at your daughter dozing against your side.

“Vesna,” you replied. “It means ‘dawn.’”

He stared at you both for a long moment, this woman and her daughter that he got at a bargain.

“Her father…was he a good man?”

You nodded. “He was.”

“How did he die?”

You turned away and looked at the landscape from the narrow window of the carriage. “A fever took him.

“You cared for him?”

You nodded again. “I did.”

Pero made a noise at that, a grumble at the back of his throat that you couldn’t discern the meaning of. “Why did you care for him?”

“Why would you ask?” It was an impossible question to answer anyway, how you cared for your first husband and why. Because he was strong and wise, but gentle in equal measure. That he sat in council with your father, then your elder brother, his face stern and grave, then returned home and played with your daughter, pulled faces and allowed her to ride him as a pony, her small chubby fists tugging at his hair.

Pero must have heard the edge in your voice, because he answered softly, “I only hope to model my behavior on his own.” He paused. “I’ve never had a wife. I should like to do well by you.”

Vesna grumbled in her sleep and turned deeper in your side before she settled. “Will you do well by her too, Tovar?”

“Pero,” he corrected you gently. “And I would. I would be a father to her, and I would have her call me father as I would call her daughter.”

You laughed, the bitterness heavy in your mouth. “Sweet words, until you have a child of your own. Once you have your own blood, you’ll seek to cast her away.”

The man scowled but shook his head. “You have the wrong of it, wife.”

“I’ve yet to meet a person in a second marriage to do otherwise.”

“But you’ve met me,” he snapped. “And I am not your father’s second wife, nor her treacherous son.” His face softened, that ebb and flow of darkness that you recognized now from your wedding night. “I am just a blacksmith’s son, an orphan in my own right. I would not make an orphan of her, no matter what you think.”

He sounded so injured, stung from your accusation that you nodded at his words, then reached across the carriage and laid a soft hand on his arm.

“Peace, Pero,” you replied. “I meant no harm.”

“No one would blame you if you did. But I will prove you wrong, with both her—” Here, he jerked his chin in the direction of your sleeping daughter. “And with our own children. My hands may have slain many men, but I would cradle any child of yours, or any child of ours, as softly as a bird’s egg.”

You could not help the smile. “You have a gift of language, husband.”

He smiled back, though it looked uncertain, like he was unfamiliar with the motion of lifting his lips into the expression.

“Perhaps you already carry my child,” he said, a bit shyly. His gaze drifted to your belly under its thick woolen cloak. “Perhaps I bred you on our wedding night.”

You could not help the laugh this time. “I think not.”

At that, his smile fled. “Why not?”

“Because…” You watched him, uncertain. Perhaps he had been so drunk he didn’t realize. “Because you did not…complete the act.”

“I did!”

You shook your head. “Pero, you drank so much, I trust you must not remember, but you did not.”

“I…” He hesitated, glanced at Vesna to see that she was still fast asleep. He dropped his voice to a rough whisper. “Wife, I spilled my seed. I remember as much. The King’s advisors confirmed as much.”

“You did, but outside of me. Not inside.”

You realized it far too late, but you would be forgiven for never considering it. How many men had you ever known to enter their marriages as virgins? Especially a sell-sword who had traveled the world, who had likely been tempted by women of all shades and hues, of all sizes and temperaments.

You realized it when Pero, your husband, looked at you. Bewildered, he asked, “does not that count, wife?”

-----

“I do not understand how you could not know,” you told him that evening. You were lodged in a lord’s house, a friend of your late father, and Vesna had been tucked into her cot in an adjoining room.

“I did not.” Pero sat on the edge of the bed, his arms crossed. He looked much like a petulant child, not unlike Vesna when she was in a sulk.

“But you are a grown man, and you’ve kept rough company.”

“I have fought with rough company and traveled with rough company, but I’ve never fucked with rough company.”

You winced at the crude word for it. “You have never laid with even a woman for coin? Not once? Or some sweetheart, back in León?”

“Galicia,” he muttered. “And no. I fled home before I could grow hair on my balls, and I held my coin too dear to waste it on pretend love.”

“And you never traveled with a woman, perhaps? You were never tempted in the rough travel to curl up with a woman—”

“The only women that ever traveled with us were whores and wives. I would not waste my coin on the first and I would not waste my life on the second.”

You were unsure how to proceed. True, your marriage was not consummated, but that hardly registered with you. You did not know this Pero Tovar, in truth, beyond the handful of days you had spent together on the road. You knew little—just the few conversations, but it was more of his actions that spoke to who he was.

There was a moment early in the journey, just a half day’s ride out, that he had caught Vesna when her little boot caught in the carriage step. How Pero had swept her up, some fatherly instinct that made it a game for the little girl, a moment to pretend she was flying instead of stumbling.

When you fell asleep and woke to find his cloak tucked around you.

When you entered an unproven tavern for a late meal, how Pero had stood between you and Vesna and the rest of the room, like a loyal cur protecting its flock.

He was rough in his ways, but there was a gentleness to him, and it was as much what he didn’t do—he got drunk on your wedding night and had been as gentle as a lamb. And now, this line of questioning that frustrated him—he only sat and sulked with his arms crossed, when many men would strike you for being so blunt with his discomfort.

Pero Tovar, you wondered, could perhaps simply be a gentle man who fell into a rough life, and shouldn’t you foster that gentleness, now that he was yours?

“Husband, will you let me show you?” you asked quietly, and when his eyes found yours, you smiled at him. You held out your hands, and after a moment of hesitation, he took them in his own. His calloused hands, only recently washed of all the blood they had spilled.

“Please, wife,” he replied. “Please do.”

-----

The first time that night, it was much like the bedding ceremony: the moment your hand found Pero’s cock, he groaned, then erupted in your palm.

This time, though, he was sober enough to know what had happened.

“Shit!” he hissed, and he rolled away from you. You sensed that this was a defining moment in your marriage, the entire enterprise teetering on a knife’s edge. Fall one way, a life of stilted exchanges, closed-off conversations, miscommunications. Fall the other way?

“Pero, please.” You took a cloth from near the bed and wiped your hand, then reached for his deflated manhood. You wiped him off gently, and you smiled to feel the answering twitch to it, even so soon afterwards.

“The gods did not make us like dogs, rutting in the street, with only one chance in a while,” you whispered to him. “We can rest and try again, as many times as we like.”

“Did your other husband spill like a boy?” he asked, his voice an angry growl. You sensed better the way this may fall, how Pero seemed to compare himself to your first husband and found himself wanting.

“My other husband had been married before,” you replied. You set the soiled cloth aside, and you laid your hand on the side of Pero’s face so you could look him in the eyes. He avoided your gaze, so you sighed and stroked his hair back from his face, ran your thumb over his bristly cheek. And Pero, cur that he was, turned into your touch despite his low mood.

“I was not my husband’s first wife,” you explained. “He and his first wife had many years together, until she died from a wasting disease. But he was patient with me, and he taught me, just as I will be patient with you. Just as I will teach you.”

“It is a poor husband who must be taught by his wife.”

You hummed thoughtful at that, then leaned forward to press your lips to his. You let your breasts brush over his bare arm, and you took in the sharp inhale he made at the touch.

“Such a poor husband,” you chanced to tease. “Yet such fun in the teaching, hmm?”

“Did I marry a princess or a temptress?” he grumbled back, but there was a teasing tone to his voice.

“Perhaps you should take her counsel and decide for yourself.”

Pero turned onto his side and faced you, and his eyes finally sought yours. “I would be a good husband to you,” he said. “I would be a man who could give you pleasure.”

“Would you be humble enough for your wife to teach you then?”

He nodded, and his eyes grew darker with desire.

“Consider me humble. Consider me your pupil.” His voice fell to a lower register, and it sent a frisson of heat through you.

-----

Your lessons, as you came to call them, were strenuously applied and practiced until the pupil became a master in his own right.

You taught him the pleasure of simple touch: of feather-light strokes and firm grasping, of where to caress and where to lightly pinch, where to soothe and where to worry.

You taught him how to use his mouth—such a sulking, pouting mouth with such full lips, and with such a wicked tongue. You taught him how to suckle and lick, how to lap against which parts of you, and you taught him how to kiss with more skill and finesse than that first night together.

You taught him too how to receive the pleasure you could give him beyond the mating. You used your own hands and mouth in turn, and by the time he strained against you again, his cock ruddy and leaking from its broad tip, Pero was a panting, pleading mess.

“Please, wife,” he cried against your shoulder as you stroked him, then stopped, then stroked him again. “Please, show me—”

“Here.” You took his hand and led him to the place between your thighs, let him feel where he should seat himself. “Just here, husband.”

“It is slippery, your cunt,” he whispered, his voice wracked with awe. His blunt finger prodded at you, slipped inside, and his groan was a twin to your own.

“It m-makes the joining easier.”

Pero slid more of his finger inside you, then pulled it out, then sunk it back in. A preview, you supposed, from your eager pupil. You moaned again when he added a second finger, and you felt his eyes on you, peering down at you.

“Does that give you pleasure?” he asked without a bit of guile.

You nodded. It did.

He furrowed his brow. “I would mount you now, but I may spill too soon.”

“I would not care a whit, Pero. We have the time to master it together.”

He nodded, then pulled his fingers from you. He made to climb between your legs, and you parted them for him, spread yourself wide to fit him in the cradle of your hips. When he lowered himself, you felt his cock brush against you, and he reached down to grasp himself.

It only took him two tries. Just as you opened your mouth to guide him, he found your entrance, and then he pushed into you, the searing heat of him finally inside you. Pero groaned to feel you, but he did not spill—he stilled once he was buried in your depths, and he lifted his head to gaze down at you. The look on his face was somewhere between stupefaction and bliss, and you imagined you looked much the same.

“There,” you told him, brushing your fingertips over the planes of his handsome face. “Now we are wed, husband.”

*****

In this way, Pero Tovar became a man in love, who was loved in turn by his wife. Their journey to her mother’s homeland lost much of its earlier speed, and it took them far longer to arrive. Their servants—the carriage driver, the footman, the guards and lady’s maid, and child’s nurse—could guess the reason for their delay. After all, Pero and his wife were newlyweds, and they often stayed abed until late in the morning, though no one supposed they slept.

In this way, Pero Tovar came to be a father, the seed planted on that journey quickening in his wife’s belly months later. The daughter that followed thereafter, and the sons that came after that, and then a final daughter who looked so much like her father that despite the name her parents chose for her, she was forever known as Peročka.

True to his word, Pero never treated little Vesna as anything other than his own child. It had to be said that when the girl was grown and married off to a boy in a nearby city, Pero was the one who openly wept at the loss of her.

In the tales of this time, once the dragon is slain or the kingdom regained or the treasure earned, the tale ends. And so should ours, except to remind that Pero Tovar had traveled the known world only to end up with a treasure beyond compare in his wife and the family they created together. He never found the life he sought for himself—that spot of green land, dirt to furrow, plants to coax into life. Instead, he found a better life with a wife and children, with a community of people who came to value his wisdom…though he did end up with a garden where he tended to a grove of small plum trees and distilled their sweet fruits into a brandy that young men often toasted with on their wedding days.

If there is a lesson to Pero Tovar’s story, then, it’s this: sometimes the life we desire is not the life we need.

And to add that when his wife died from a wasting disease when only a bit of silver threaded through her hair, Pero spared no expense in building her the finest stone crypt to hold her bones. He had her dressed in the gown she wore to marry him so long ago. In her hair, he tucked the small jade and enamel comb that had somehow survived his journey from the Far East when he fought monsters in another life entirely. As was the custom in his adopted home, his children and grandchildren took hawthorn branches—in full bloom, as his beloved wife died in spring—and laid them in the crypt with her.

And to add too, when Pero himself died from a fever years later, his children and grandchildren dressed him in his finest tunic and opened the crypt so he could be laid beside his beloved. As was the custom, they took hawthorn branches —laden with red berries, as he died in the autumn—and laid them in the crypt with him.

And to add finally, Vesna, by then a mother in her own right, reached into the crypt and adjusted the two bodies so that their hands were clasped in their eternal rest. How could she do otherwise? They had loved each other fiercely in this life, and she prayed to the gods that they would do so in the next life too. Her mother and her father both, and she did not hide the tears that fell as her brothers and husband slid the heavy stone lid in place, sealing both Pero and his beloved in their shared tomb.

*****

He only has a single evening, and the surfeit of options in D.C. paralyzes him with choice. The Phillips Collection? The Renwick Gallery? Or the National Gallery of Art?

He mentions it to Ruiz, who laughs and says, “c’mon, man. The National Gallery, obviously.”

“I’d like something a little more off the beaten path,” Marcus replies.

Ruiz studies him, thinks on it. Finally says, “you know, I know a woman over there. She’s curating this huge exhibit that’s coming out next year. You want something unique, why don’t I set you up?”

“The exhibit isn’t even up yet?”

Ruiz waves him off. “Nah, but it might be fun to see how the sausage is made, right?”

-----

Which is how FBI Agent Marcus Pike comes to meet you. Ruiz is on your bar trivia team (he’s your ace in the hole on sports trivia), and when he calls with a favor, the call on speaker between Ruiz and Marcus, you happily agree to show him around your budding exhibit.

“It’s called ‘Stronger than Death,’” you tell him after you hold your hand out to shake. “After the Thomas Mann quote. ‘It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.’ Which is cheesy, admittedly, but it’s my first big solo exhibit I’m pulling together, and it’s the culmination of years of research and work.”

Marcus smiles. “I don’t think it’s cheesy at all.”

“Tell Tony that.”

“Eh, Ruiz is just jaded.” Marcus follows you into the storage area where some crates have already been unloaded and unpacked. “Tell me about this exhibit. Ruiz said it already has a lot of buzz.”

If Marcus thought your smile was lovely when you introduced yourself, he finds it utterly beautiful now, because you are passionate about your exhibit. An intersection of art and architecture and history, across time and distance, focused on the two most human emotions, you explain: love and grief.

“No matter when or where, it’s the two constants, you know?” You gesture widely, taking in the breadth of the crates, but even further too: the breadth of human history across the globe. “If you’re talking about humans in fourteenth century Iran or Berber tribes in the twelfth century or a Lutheran and Catholic couple during the heart of reformation, the story is the same. The details change, but the love is the same, and the grief when death comes is the same.”

“So the exhibit is…” Marcus trails off, and you take a deep breath. You’ve gone breathless in your explanation, a fact that charms him. Then you continue. Your exhibit is everything that encompasses that central idea of grief when love is ended by death, and how grief is an outpouring of that endless love. You have everything from big pieces to ephemera. There’s Victorian memorial photography. There’s a gravestone from a Catholic cemetery that edged against a Protestant one, the stone bridging the two graves because neither church allowed the couple to be buried together. There’s a letter found in a grave from the 1500’s in Korea, where the woman pours out her grief and love for her husband who is buried there.

You show him the artifacts already unpacked and catalogued. You hand him a pair of cotton gloves and allow him to touch some of the sturdier pieces, and you’ve pulled him into your wavelength because as he touches each piece, he feels weak in the knees, heavy with kinship he feels with strangers separated from him by centuries and thousands of miles.

“Here’s an interesting piece,” you tell him, and you lead him to a smaller crate that’s been opened, its packing material piled in a small snowdrift around the box. On the table beside it, there’s a smaller box. You open it and pull out a delicate-looking piece, and Marcus holds out his palm, flat. You lay it there, and he studies it in the light.

“Jade?”

You hum in agreement. “And enamel. It’s consistent with craftsmanship from the Song Dynasty.”

Marcus reaches back through his memory to his eastern histories and civilizations course. “Is that…. eleven hundred A.D.?”

“In part. It lasted over three hundred years.”

Marcus peers at it closer. “It’s amazingly preserved.”

“It was found in a grave in Latvia last year.”

He looks at you in surprise. “Seriously? How?”

“Trade wasn’t unheard of then, east from west. It was far more popular in the Holy Roman Empire, though. This part of Latvia was rural in that period. A collection of city-states and loosely-stitched tribes.”

“The comb must have been buried later then.”

You shake your head and take the comb from him, lie it gently back in its box. “That’s the story. It was buried around the year one thousand A.D. Archeologists found the grave five years ago. A bunch of kids were riding dirt bikes around the countryside in Latvia. One kid hits something, goes flying. It turns out it was a stone, but when they look at it, it’s carved. Too square, right? Has markings on it. It turns out, it’s this perfectly preserved medieval town. The archeologists did all their digging and carbon testing. They are still digging, honestly. But it looks like through soil samples, the best theory is that a tributary to the Daugava flooded at some point in twelve-hundred A.D and buried the entire place.”

“I never heard about it.”

You snort. “Yeah, a rare well-preserved medieval village will never hit the front page when there’s war and political scandals.”

You reach for a large envelope on the table and open it. You pull out a sheaf of photos, high resolution, and Marcus sees the link between the delicate jade comb and the overall theme of your exhibit.

The photos show the grave, a carved stone tomb that the river mud preserved for nearly a thousand years. It is simple by today’s standards, but Marcus can guess the care and expense of it. There are flowers and trees carved into the lid of it, a flat-faced woman who was probably a saint or local goddess to the time.

Then the photos cede to shots inside the opened grave. Again, the river buried the village and preserved it for Marcus and you to stare at it now: the pair of skeletons, on their sides and facing each other, their empty eye sockets seeming to stare at each other, the tiny bones of their hands a jumble as they were clearly buried together.

“They died together,” Marcus muses. “Plague, maybe?”

You shrug. “Who can say? But if it’s plague, it was several years apart. That’s why I’m putting them in the eastern corner of my exhibit. The archeologists spent a lot of time on this tomb, since it’s such a rare find. The skeleton on the left was a woman, roughly forty years old when she died. She was buried with the comb, and the archeologists found hawthorn branches with her.”

You tap the other side of the photo. “This one was a man, died around his sixties. Also buried with hawthorn branches.”

“So, how do we know they were buried at different times?”

“That’s the punchline. Archeologists found flower petals on her branches, but berries on his. They were buried at different times of the year, at least. Which means that the tomb was reopened to put the latter one in, and they were turned to face each other. Their hands were clasped together. It’s significant, especially when records seem to indicate that many burials of that time and place were cremations.”

Marcus turns to the next photo, a closeup of the hands. Sure enough, he can see the dusty, dried remnants of blossoms, the wizened berries. His eyes drift to their hands, the delicate bones a jumble to where he could not tell who’s belonged to which skeleton.

“Can you imagine the love they must have had for each other? First to build such an elaborate tomb for such a rural area that likely lacked craftsmen of this caliber. To choose to bury instead of cremating. And then to reopen the tomb and place the second body in, to turn them towards each other instead of facing up to face heaven or down to face the underworld. The jade comb is only a device to open the story, but the real story is the most common one across time. It’s love, and grief when the love is ended by death.”

“It’s beautiful,” he says, his voice low. “Sad, but beautiful.”

“We’ll never know their names, you know? We’ll never know what they looked like, or even really what language they spoke. If they had children or what they did. But we know…” You pause, take a breath. “We know they loved each other, and they died but the proof of that love can be witnessed by us a millennium later. And here we are with smart phones and airplanes and dating apps, but if you boil us down, we are just the same as them. Exactly the same.”

What can Marcus say to that? He agrees with you completely. When your voice cracks on the word exactly, his own throat grows a lump in it. He’s always been a romantic anyway, but the scope and scale of this project makes him feel like he could easily be pushed into tearing up too.

“This exhibit is going to be amazing,” he finally tells you. “Honestly. People are going to love it.”

You grin at him, and your eyes are a little glazed with tears, but Marcus wonders what would push you to take such an interest in this topic. Many curators home in on a much narrower niche, but yours is universal, so broad it could be sloppy or unfocused. But you seem to be taking a broad cross-section of artifacts, an attentive lens at different times and places and cultures.

“Thanks, Marcus. I appreciate it.” You turn and slide the photographs back into their envelope. “Ruiz didn’t say much about why you wanted to check this out.”

Marcus follows you out of the storeroom. “I didn’t, really. I’m only in town for the evening. I fly out in the morning.”

“Where to?”

“Texas. I live there. I’m just in town for an interview.”

You lead him back to your office where his coat is stashed, and you hand it to him. You grab your own, grab your purse, and lock up. Together, you walk out of the building and into the evening. D.C. glitters: it must have rained while you were inside, and the lights sparkle on the wet pavement and buildings. You walk together for a few blocks, chatting amiably.

“Ruiz said you were FBI too?”

“Yeah, I’m in the Art Squad.”

You laugh. “Art Squad. I love it. You armed with an FBI-issued oil pastel?”

When Marcus starts to explain that he investigates stolen art and artifacts, you elbow him gently and cut him off. “I was teasing. I know what you do.”

He chuckles, shakes his head. He can feel his face flush a bit. “Anyway, there’s an open position here, and I thought it might be a good move, career-wise.” He pauses. “We’ll see how it goes.”

“Texas to D.C. It could be a fun move.”

He agrees, but before he can stop himself, he’s talking about Teresa, how he has fallen in love, how he has a ring picked out and an idea of proposing—and you listen to it, nodding sympathetically, cooing when he sings Teresa’s virtues. Agreeing when he says his life is finally shaping out the way he always wanted: career and love, both moving forward in wonderful ways.

“That’s really great,” you reply. “I’m happy for you.”

He feels slightly asshole-ish, rambling about his life. He asks, more charitably, “what about you? Married?”

You laugh, a dry single ‘ha.’ “No.”

“Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“No.” You glance at him. “Let’s just say I’m married to my work and leave it at that.”

He lifts his palms in surrender and in apology. “Fair. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be.” You pause. “But Teresa sounds great, and you’re lovely, so when the two of you come to D.C., look me up and you’ll give you both a private tour, okay?”

Marcus smiles at the thought of him and Teresa together in the capitol, hand in hand at your wonderful exhibit. “Deal.”

You stop in your tracks and point at the intersection. “I’m this way. It was really nice to meet you, Marcus.”

He holds out his hand and you take it. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I enjoyed it.”

“For one of Ruiz’s buddies? Anytime. And for real—you and your girl. Private tour, on me.”

The private tour, obviously, will never happen with Marcus and Teresa. Marcus will move to D.C. and Teresa will never follow. He’ll go through a dark period that he assumes will last the rest of his life, but it hardly lasts at all because by then, the city is plastered with advertisements for your exhibit, which is as big as Marcus predicted.

The private tour will happen with just Marcus, and it will hit different to see it laid out with the lighting, the flow, the signage.

It will hit different considering his recent breakup and recent heartache.

It will hit different when he shakes your hand again, when he takes in your soft, steady voice as you explain every artifact, as you offer him that lovely smile that turns beautiful as you talk about your work.

And it will hit different as you lead him through the history of love and grief, the history of what makes him no different from, say, a man who lived and loved and died a thousand years earlier. A man, perhaps, who thought his life would venture into one direction but instead went in another: how the life he desired was not the life he needed, but how it ended in love all the same.

In that way, Marcus and Pero, separated by a millennium are the same.

#kinktober2024 #clear the inbox 2024 #tropes and #tropes and tales #pero tovar #pero tovar imagine #pero tovar x reader #the great wall

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thevoidstaredback · 2 months ago

Text

Tales of Conquest, Warnings of Fools:

Letters Between Brothers

Dear Damian Wayne, Dec. 19, 2011

There really isn’t a good way to say any of this, especially via a letter. If I’m being completely honest, which I am, I would much rather be saying this to you in person. For both our safety, though, this was the best way I found to contact you.

First off, congratulations on being brought into the Wayne household! I never would’ve considered imagining that Bruce Wayne would be our father, but, here we are. Unless you’re there undercover? I doubt that, though.

Now, I should probably cut to the chase, no matter how much I want to stall. You might not remember me, but I’m your brother. Don’t freak out! Please, just finish reading this, at least. If you don’t believe me or you don’t want to ever talk to or see me again, then that’s fine. I completely understand.

You probably hate me, and I don’t blame you, but I couldn’t stay there. When we got separated on that mission, I ended up nearly killed. Some civilians found me and took me to a hospital to get my injuries treated. I realized, after I woke up, that this was the life I wanted. Leaving you hurt me so much more than I could ever describe in any language, but going back to Grandfather and Mother was a death sentence. I hated doing that to you, but I couldn’t do that to myself.

God, I suck at this.

I love you, Dami, I really do. I’ve wanted, for years, to come back to you, but I didn’t because I’m a coward. A selfish coward who can’t even face his own brother properly.

Forgiveness is a luxury I have no right to ask you of, but I’m going to anyway. So, can you? Can you ever forgive me for leaving you alone? Can you ever forgive me for leaving you to think I died? Can you ever forgive me for making you go back to that place alone? Can you forgive me for being so selfish?

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you then, and I don’t mean to hurt you now. I’m beyond ecstatic that you made it out. I’m so happy that you’re with father now. I hope you never have to go back to Nanda Parbat ever again.

شكراً لكونك أخي

Danyal ‘Danny’ Fenton

(xxx) xxx-xxxx

***

There was a time that Danny only ever referred to as Before. Before he’d come to America; Before he’d been taken in by the Fenton Family; Before he’d lost himself to the life he’d never envisioned. He could remember it well.

He’d grown up in Nanda Parbat , high in the Himalayan Mountains. Beautiful buildings made of golden sandstone bricks, roofs made of the redist clay shingles, untouched snow for as far as the eye could see, and mountain peaks stretching high above the little valley.

There were greenhouses, too, filled with plants of all kinds from everywhere! Food, poisons, antidotes, it was all grown in Nanda Parbat. Clean water was pulled from the wells and the snow as though nature herself was giving her best to this one place. Truly a heaven on earth. The Garden of Eden, some people called it.

The residents were known to very few, only ever coming down when they found themselves with visitors. The towns at the base of the mountain ranges had plenty of legends about the People of the Mountains, but even fewer still knew their real secrets.

The League of Assassins, founded by Ra’s al Ghul himself, had made Nanda Parbat their home base, though neither Ra’s nor his daughter, Talia, made a habit of staying for too long or visiting often. No, Nanda Parbat had been claimed to raise the heirs and guard the Lazarus Pits.

Danny had been born in those very halls, buried deep within the protective embrace of the mountains, mere minutes after his brother. He knew nothing but Nanda Parbat, half convinced that his instructors were lying about the outside world. After all, could it really exist if he’d never seen it?

Grandfather and Mother came by thrice a year. Once to check on or use the Lazarus Pits, once to check on the Demon Heirs, and once to instruct lessons of their own. It was how it had always been done, so Danyal and Damian knew nothing else.

Grandfather would tell tales of conquest, instructing them on how to mold their very surroundings to their wills. Mother shared her missions, warning against how others would try and use them to get to her and Grandfather, seeing them as the weakest link. Damian and Danyal taught each other, on the nights when they could escape prying eyes, the importance of secrets. No one to trust but yourself, both Grandfather and Mother had pushed, anyone will betray you when given the right incentive.

The day came when Mother and Grandfather came to check on the Pits. The week-long stay had been the same every year, but their instructors had announced a change. Danyal would be going with Mother while Damian would be going with Grandfather. They would return to continue their studies in Nanda Parbat by the next full moon.

Danny had been excited. He was going to the outside world! He’d never been there before! He’d only ever seen pictures of it! Such fun! The only disappointment he held was that he was not going to share the moments with Damian. Yes, they would be leaving together, but they wouldn’t be together. Mother and Grandfather stayed at separate bases, after all.

The night before they were set to depart their Himalayan Paradise, Danyal had snuck to the roof with his brother.

“I’m scared, ahki,” he whispered, the wind hiding his voice from all but his brother.

“Don’t be, ahki,” Damian had assured, “You will be with Mother. She will keep you safe.”

“But the instructors say that we will be on our own!” Danyal said, “Besides, I do not know Mother.”

Damian did not pause. “Of course you know Mother. She gave us life. She teaches us.”

“Yes, but I don’t know her. I know you, and I know the birds, but I do not know Mother nor Grandfather.”

“Perhaps,” Damian had suggested, “we do not need to know them as we know each other? Perhaps, we only need to know that Grandfather is Ra’s al Ghul and the Mother is Talia al Ghul.”

“Then that means you’re Damian al Ghul!” Danny smiled, emotion his instructors had tirelessly trained out of him bleeding into the privacy shared between him and his brother.

Damian nodded, “And you are Danyal al Ghul.” A beat. “We will be fine tomorrow and the day after and the days to follow. When we return to Nanda Parbat, we will sit in this very spot and share our adventures.”

“Tales of conquest?” Danyal asked.

“Warnings of fools.” Damian responded.

A tale as old as the dirt beneath his feet. Before had been five years ago. So long in the past, but only a few pages back. Sometimes, it was as though he’d never left Before behind him. His training, for all that it was minimal in his limited time within the snow valley, was carved into his very soul. Not even the wear of time could pull him away from a weapon or the scan for immediate exit points or the caution when dealing with new people and places.

Jazz had explained to him that his responses to certain situations should not be that cautious or violent. She’d tried again and again to tell him that he was safe; that he wasn’t where he had been Before.

He knew that, obviously. Nanda Parbat was free of the disgusting urbanization of the modern world. This place was free of the untouched beauty of the hidden gems. He could see the beauty in the contradictions and in what he had been taught to scorn, he was not an idiot, but he could not appreciate it the way people born there could.

The Doctors Fenton, only Masters in their fields at the time, had picked him up at the base of the Italian Appalachian Mountains. They’d treated his wounds, introduced him to their daughter Jazz, and given him the opportunity to escape where he had been.

The Fentons had taken his hesitation as confusion for the situation; amnesia. They told him, as gently as they could, that all signs pointed to an abusive home. They wanted to help him get out as soon as they could.

But, that wasn’t right. Danny, in all his six years, knew exactly what an abusive relationship was. It was one of the things his Mother had taught him about when he’d first left Nanda Parbat with her when he was four! He didn’t come from an abusive home or an abusive relationship! Damian would never put him through that, and the ninja all knew better than to do anything untoward to him and Damian.

“And what about your parents?” Jazz, being only eight years old, had not held her tongue as Danny had been taught to. “Or any other adults?”

Now that, that was definitely a thought. But, no. No one within the confines of Nanda Parbat or within the League of Shadows as a whole had ever hurt him outside of training. The injuries they had treated were from a mission, not from his Grandfather or Mother or brother hurting him!

His attempts at clearing the misunderstanding had been brushed off as his imagination trying to protect him. Repressing and changing trauma, Jazz had translated.

He had thought, at the time, that everyone was wrong. He had come from a perfectly normal place! Though, the week he spent in the hospital had him second guessing. He was the only one looking for every possible exit in case of any possible situation at any given time. He was the only one prepared to slit the throats of everyone in the room if they got in the way of his escape. He was the only one to actively check for weapons to use or be used against him.

During his stay in the hospital, because they wouldn’t let him leave before he was cleared by the doctors who worked there, the Fentons had exposed him to many things that made him question his upbringing. But, now that he knew the truth, he’d never be able to go back.

The Fentons had promised him, the night before he was cleared to go, that they would help him stay away from the people who had hurt him, so long as he allowed them to. And how could he not accept? Too many questions had invaded his mind. The only way to answer them was to do as his Mother had taught him: learn from experience. So, he relented, leaning into the ‘trauma induced amnesia’ everyone had assumed he had, and went along with the Fenton Family.

But what about Damian? Surely, he was safe. Surely, he’d gotten back to Nanda Parbat and reported to Grandfather and Mother that Danyla had been killed! He could not go back, not yet. And maybe, a tiny, selfish part of him that he hid in the darkest corners of his brain, was glad he wouldn’t be going back for any reason. To make himself feel better, he’d told himself that he’d go back for Damian once he was sure he wouldn’t be caught and killed for treason.

The plans laid within the floorboards under his bed with the katana and daggers the Fentons had let him keep.

Exactly four months after turning ten, Danny had turned on the TV. It was just to provide white noise while his adoptive parents were out, so he didn’t really care about the channel. Jazz hadn’t cared, either. If she had, she hadn’t said anything.

The channel had been one for national news. The covered story was in Gotham, New Jersey. Not unusual, but concerning until none of the names of the city’s rogues had been named. Bruce Wayne was holding a gala to officially introduce his youngest son to the world. That is what dragged Danny to sit and watch attentively.

Danny knew the name Bruce Wayne very well. His Mother had told him, no less than six times, that he was to go to Bruce Wayne if he ever found himself in a situation where the League of Shadows couldn’t help him. Bruce Wayne was his go-to if he ever needed because he is his father.

When Danny first met the Fentons, something had kept him from escaping. He could have, but he didn't. Something had compelled him to stay. That same something had told him to avoid Bruce Wayne when he was ten. That same something was now telling him to go to his father.

Danny didn’t listen to that something. Instead, he watched his brother stand beside their father and his other children. He followed his brother’s public persona studiously. When he pieced together Damian being Robin, meaning that Bruce Wayne was likely Batman, he followed his vigilante life, too. All the while, he was too much of a coward to actually reach out to them.

After all, what would they get out of having a relationship with him? He was a traitor to the Shadows, dead by all accounts that mattered. They already had an established family, so why would they want Danny? So, he stayed away.

It wasn’t until the week before his and Damian’s eleventh birthday that he finally managed to write a letter to his older brother. He timed it so that the letter would arrive the day of their birthday. A part of him hoped that Damian would get, read, and respond to the letter. A bigger part of him hoped that it would be lost amongst the birthday cards that were surely being sent to Damian now that he was living with their father.

Damian’s father. Danny already had a father. Well, a dad. He also had a mom and a sister. He even had an aunt! Not to mention the friend he made. He’s never had a friend before! So, yeah. Danny had a mom, a dad, a sister, and a friend. He wanted Damian, but he wasn’t going to get his hopes up. If Damian didn’t want him, then that meant that he wouldn’t have a brother or Grandfather or Mother or a father. Or three more brothers, apparently. He couldn’t really find it in himself to be upset about any potential loss that wasn’t Damian.

“Please respond, please respond, please respond!” Danny chanted under his breath as he opened the mailbox. There were four letters inside, three for his parents and one for his sister. “La naiba!” he swore.

“What’s wrong?” Jazz asked as she came up behind him. She’d learned early on that it was near impossible to sneak up on him.

Danny shoved the three envelopes into her hands. “There’s nothing there for me.”

“Why would there be anything in there for you?” She raised an eyebrow. “Did you order something without telling mom or dad?”

He scoffed. “No. I sent a letter and I’m waiting for a response.”

Her head tilted to the left slightly. “When’d you send it?”

“Three days ago.”

“There’s no way you’re ever gonna get a response in three days.” She scolded lightly, leading the way into the house, “Just be patient.”

He followed her. “Easy for you to say!”

“Who’d you send it to anyway?”

“None of your business.”

Jazz turned on him, her expression as unimpressed as a twelve year old could be. Slowly, and without breaking eye contact, she raised her right eyebrow and tilted her head to the left again and slightly forward. When that didn’t get her what she wanted, she crossed her arms, her feet planted firmly in place. She’d picked up several things since Danny was brought into the family. This was one of them.

Danny hated it when Jazz did this. She reminded him so much of Damian that he had nearly cried the first few times she’d taken this exact stance to get what she wanted. Was it an older sibling thing? Regardless, it wasn’t very long before he cracked. “Okay, fine! But we talk in my room, okay?”

She smiled, losing the pose and opening the front door. “I can work with that. Do you want a snack?”

“Sure,” he huffed. He’d meet her in his room. If she wanted answers, she was going to have to bribe him. It was a subtle tactic, one that didn’t work because it wasn’t really bribery if he was already going to do what she wanted, but he needed to make himself feel better about it somehow.

It took exactly five minutes and thirteen seconds for Jazz to enter Danny’s room with some chips, crackers, and bottled waters from the pantry. Not that he was counting. They set up camp in the middle of the floor, the snacks on the floor between them and their homework set out to work on. Whether either of them would use the paper distraction was yet to be determined, but it had become common practice to have a distraction when a conversation seemed like it would take more than a few minutes. And this was definitely one of those conversations.

As soon as they were both settled, Danny took a deep and obvious breath. “I didn’t ever have amnesia.”

Jazz blinked. “What?”

What a way to start, Danny. Another breath. “When you guys first found me, the doctors said I had amnesia; that my brain locked away the memories of Before because I couldn’t handle the stress of it. I went along with it because that seemed like the best course of action at the time. But, I didn’t lose my memories. I still had them. I still have them.” He didn’t look up from the floor.

Jazz leaned forward and took a chip out from the bowl and popped it in her mouth, the crunch of her chewing doing nothing to cut the tension in the room. She swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? We could’ve had the people who hurt you arrested!”

Danny shook his head. “No. I…I thought, when I was growing up with Grandfather and Mother, that everyone was raised like that. It was all I knew. But then you guys found me and took me to the hospital and suddenly, things weren’t adding up. I decided to go with you guys because I knew I couldn’t return to Grandfather and Mother with my thoughts all messed up like that.”

To her credit, Jazz was taking this all in stride. She took another chip. “Why didn’t you leave when you got your thoughts all sorted out?”

“Honestly?” he huffed, “I realized that I didn’t want to live that life anymore.”

“Then why keep the weapons?”

“Would you believe me if I said ‘sentimental value’?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

They let silence reign over them again for a bit, focusing on their homework and eating the food set out between them. Finally, after they were both finished, Jazz put her things back in her backpack and leaned against the wall behind her, taking the bowl of chips and a water bottle with her. “What was it like, your home Before?”

Danny smiled and slipped his own things away, leaning against his bed with the bowl of crackers and his own bottle of water. This was a topic he could talk about for hours. “I was born in Pakistan, in the Himalayan Mountains, specifically. Very secluded. My brother and I were the only two kids there.”

“Brother?”

“Yeah, his name’s Damian. He’s older than me by a few minutes.”

“Why wasn’t he with you when we found you?”

“Because we got separated.”

“Do we need to go find him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s with our father now.”

“Is he the one you sent the letter to?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” A beat. “Tell me more about where you were born?”

“Sure,” he smiled, “It’s a valley of snow, nestled between peaks in the Pakistanian end of the Himalayan Mountain Range. The buildings were all connected by roofed gravel walkways, yellow sandstone bricks and red clay shingles and dark wood pillars and floors and doors. The green houses were always my favorite. Any plant you could possibly think of was probably grown there! Damian always preferred the stables and pasture, though. He got along better with animals than actual people, I was the exception. When the weather was good, we’d take our lessons outside. If the weather was bad, then we’d study in the arena or the library.

“Sometimes, whenever Grandfather or Mother came to visit, they’d tell us stories about their adventures. My favorite stories, though, were of how Mother met my father and their adventures together. Grandfather doesn’t like those stories, though. He doesn’t like my father much.

“Me and Damian were the only kids there, so we had to play with each other. There weren’t any games we could play because adults are boring, so we made stuff up as we went along. Sometimes, we’d sneak into the stables and pet the horses! Other times, we’d sneak out of our rooms and climb to the roof to watch the stars.

“The stars were so pretty there! They’re the same stars that we see here, but they were so much brighter in Pakistan; more visible, y’know? The sky was so clear and it was so quiet- One of the people staying there gave me a book about the stars before he left.”

“Is that what started your fascination with space?” Jazz asked.

Danny nodded, “Yeah, it was. Damian would listen to me retell the same stories for hours whenever we climbed to the roof, but he never asked me to stop. I don’t think he ever looked at them and saw what I saw, though.”

“What did you see when you looked at the stars?”

“I saw something just barely out of my reach that I know I could grab if I was just a little bit taller, a little bit stronger, a little bit better.”

“Is that what you see now?”

“No.”

“Oh, then what do you see now?”

“I see the past, and I see a hope for the future.” He paused. “It was a competition between me and Dami, trying to be better than each other because whoever was the best was Grandfather’s and Mother’s favorite.”

She frowned. “You guys were kids! You shouldn’t’ve had to compete for attention like that!”

“I know that now,” he shot back, “But we didn’t then. We were raised to compete with everyone to hold Grandfather’s and Mother’s attention and favor. If we lost it, if we did anything that Grandfather deemed unworthy of the family name, then we were punished.”

“That’s horrible.”

“I know, but it’s what we knew.” A beat. “It was a big family, so not everyone stayed at the one compound.” The League was very far from being a family, but it’s the best way to describe it without exposing it to anyone. “Me and Damian were born and raised in the main compound in Pakistan. Grandfather, the head of the family, stayed and led from a compound in China. Mother stayed at a compound in Bangladesh. When we were four, I went and spent a month with Mother and Damian went and spent a month with Grandfather before we were sent back to Pakistan. When we turned five, I went with Grandfather and Damian went with Mother. When we turned six, we were both sent to spend time with family here in the states. I got separated from Damian and-”

“-me and mom and dad found you.” Jazz finished for him.

“Yep.”

“But, how did you get so hurt?”

Before he could answer, the front door burst open, their parents announcing their arrival carrying through the house. “A story for another time, I guess,” he shrugged.

Jazz wasn’t happy to have been interrupted, but she didn’t push. Instead, she took the empty bowls and went downstairs to greet their parents.

Danny leaned his head back against his bed, lost in the memories of his time with his brother. He wishes that Damian would send a reply already. He had remembered to put a return address, right? Maybe he should’ve just used the house’s address instead of setting up that PO box in the next town over! It’s not like anyone ever claimed to be reliable delivery persons!

Waiting was always the worst part of anything. Waiting for Grandfather to speak when he’d called an audience; waiting for Mother to tell them the end of her story; waiting for the guards to show any weak point to sneak past; waiting for a mission to start. It was always agonizing.

The morning was cold. Colder than it had been, but not as cold as it could be. Unfortunately, the cold meant snow. Snow meant that it was way too bright outside. And, despite it not being the morning of a school day, Jazz had elected to wake Danny up at the horrible time of six-thirty in the morning. Later than the normal five-forty-five, but still way too early to reasonably be awake. Honestly, Danny had thought he was done with getting up with the sun, but Jazz had proved him wrong time and time again for nearly five years now.

She pulled the curtains open, letting in the light from the sun that reflected off the white embodiment of cold. When that only caused him to burrow deeper into his three blankets and two pillows and his dog plush, Jazz decided to pull all three layers off of him.

“Hey!” he yelped, falling off the bed with a thud. “What the heck!”

Jaz dropped the blankets with a smile. “Rise and shine sleeping beauty! Mom and dad are in the lab again-”

“Another ‘breakthrough’?”

“-so I’m making breakfast! What do you want?”

Danny groaned and pulled himself off the floor, resetting the blankets on his bed in a mock of making it look neat. “Something warm.”

“How does hot chocolate and pancakes sound?”

“Can I have coffee instead?”

“No.”

“Dang.”

Jazz shook her head and left the room. “Don’t go back to sleep, okay? I wanna go to the library today.” She didn’t close the door behind her.

“Isn’t it closed today?” he called into the hall.

“Tomorrow!”

“Ah.” He closed the door himself, letting out a small puff of air. Turning to the room at large with his hands on his hips, Danny sighed. It was gonna be a long day. The first thing he did was straighten out his bed so it looked properly not slept in. Just as Mother had taught him. Then, he changed from his pajamas and into some jeans and a long sleeve shirt. Leaving his room, he made his way to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, only really bothering to push a hand through his hair. Not at all like Mother had taught him, but he really didn’t care right now.

Danny made his way down the stairs sluggishly. He’d never been a morning person, much preferring to stay awake until the early hours of the morning watching stars, but he’d had to hide that little quirk when he was with Grandfather and Mother. He’d realized, about half a year after the Fentons picked him up, that he didn’t need to hide his preference for night over day. Infact, his mom encouraged it! She let him sit up on the roof and stargaze until one or two in the morning before forcing him to bed. And then Jazz got into the habit of waking him at six in the morning for school. He’s definitely run on less sleep than four-ish hours, but he’d rather get as much as he can, which is what breaks are for! Unfortunately, Jazz has it in her head that he has to get up at the same time every day without fail, lest he irreparably mess up his sleeping schedule.

With a groan, he plopped down on his chair - in a bout of pettiness a year and a half after arriving, he carved his name into the wood of the backrest - at the table and laid his head down. His sister worked efficiently on the pancakes as the water for their hot chocolate boiled in the electric kettle.

The two sat and worked in a quiet peace. Jazz’s bustling around the kitchen faded into the background as white noise with the constant hum of electricity throughout the house and the occasional controlled explosion from the basement lab. It was well fortified, so the house wasn’t in danger.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes of laying on the table with his eyes closed, Jazz put a plate by Danny’s head, a mug of hot chocolate with a candy cane beside it. Then, she sat opposite him with her own food.

“Thanks,” he mumbled groggily, pulling the food and drink towards him.

“You’re welcome.” Jazz said around a bite.

Danny would be the first to admit that Jazz wasn’t the best cook, but he was also the first to praise her cooking. Jack Fenton couldn’t make anything, that wasn’t fudge, for the life of him. Any food he tries to make, somehow turns to fudge. Kind of like King Midas’ Golden Touch. Maddie Fenton was a pretty good cook, when she remembered to actually feed herself and her family. She could make cookies worthy of the gods, though. Whenever the Fenton parents weren’t in their basement lab for one reason or another, they ordered takeout to eat with their kids. Those times were, unfortunately, few and far between.

Finishing his meal, Danny was wide awake, the food doing wonders for waking him. And, while the caffeine in chocolate was nothing compared to the coffee his dad would sometimes let him drink, there was just enough to wake him up just a bit more. Don’t tell Jazz, though, or she might take away chocolate, too.

“Do you,” he hesitated, the words caught in his throat for a moment, “Do you think mom and dad will be up to celebrating this year?”

When he was seven, he learned that the Fentons didn’t celebrate any holiday, no matter what it was. They had up until Jazz was five, but then work became more important. Jack and Maddie had claimed breakthroughs in their research, pushing everything and everyone aside if it or they didn’t directly help their life’s work.

That same year, he’d been trying to acclimate himself better. One of the biggest things in American culture is holidays, so he decided to ask to celebrate Christmas. It was mainstream and was derived from one of the only holidays he was allowed to celebrate back in Nanda Parbat.

Jack and Maddie had agreed, of course, and he and Jazz had pulled out all the old decorations to dress the house. When December twenty-fourth came around, though, their parents had gotten into a huge fight about whether to tell Danny and Jazz that Santa wasn’t real. Jack had said it was a right of passage for little kids to figure it out all on their lonesome, while Maddie had argued that she wasn’t going to let her children believe in fairy tales that parents tell to get their kids to sleep faster. They were loud enough that Jazz and Danny had both heard every word.

The two tried, every holiday, to get their parents to spend time with them, at least, but it failed every time. Something or other aways came up.

“I don’t know, Danny,” she sighed, putting her fork on her now empty plate, “You can try, but I doubt it.” She’d given up last year, right around the time that she’d picked up on reading parenting books.

Danny didn’t say anything. He simply stood and gathered the dishes, taking them to the sink to be washed before putting them away. The dishwasher had been ripped apart and repurposed for parts in the lab.

“I know that you want to celebrate like the other kids in town,” Jazz said from the table, “but mom and dad are way too focused right now. Mom mentioned something about working on the portal some more.”

Danny put the cup down carefully, a loud click sounding through the kitchen. With a controlled breath, he closed his eyes and turned off the tap. “There were exactly two holidays that me and my brother were allowed to celebrate when we were children. Christmas is taken from one of those holidays. Forgive me for just wanting to share a piece of that with them.”

He could feel Jazz’s sad gaze on his back. “What holidays?”

“Forget it,” he shook his head, “Let’s just go to the library.”

She let it drop. “It doesn’t open for a few more hours.”

He started up the stairs. “Then come get me when it’s time to go.” Danny ignored Jazz’s responding sigh as he walked up to his room. Closing the door behind him, he grabbed some paper and a pencil.

In Nanda Parbat, one of the instructors was set to teach Danny and his brother the Fine Arts. From writing to painting to instruments to acting. All so that they could adapt to any mold for any mission. Because they were the heirs, the Demon Twins of the monster that was the organization, they were expected to be perfect. Anything less was punished.

Damian had always excelled at the Arts, especially drawing and its counterparts. He could work with any median, but charcoal had always been his favorite. Danny, too, had excelled with the Arts, but anything that happened on a stage had been his specialty.

Whenever he missed his brother, or any aspect of Before, too much, Danny would sit down and draw. He’d thought about asking his parents for an instrument of some kind, the cello always having been his favorite, but he decided against it. So, he drew. He didn’t have a dedicated sketch book, and no one but himself would ever see anything he made, but it was a nice outlet.

He wondered if Damian did something similar, now that he was with father. Did he play instruments or read plays when he thought of Danny? Did he allow his new siblings to see what he made or listen to his voice?

Three hours passed by in a blink, only one page being covered. It was a nice memory he’d drawn of the blacksmith’s hut away from the main base. In the picture, he and Damian were learning to forge their own daggers. Damian’s had turned out unbalanced and two inches too short. Danny’s had been only half an inch too long with a slightly too short grip.

Jazz knocked on the door as she cracked it open. “Hey,” she greeted quietly.

Danny covered tha paper. “Hey.”

“Are you ready to head out? We can stop by Tasty Burger for lunch?”

“Sure,” he nodded, moving to stand in a way that prevented the paper from showing to Jazz. He hid it in his nightstand to be moved to the box with the others later. “Let’s go.”

Nodding, she led the way.

It was a quick walk, only twenty minutes from their house to the library, but it was cold and bright. The snow only made the area brighter, but it was comfortable to him; familiar. What was really irritating was the cars and the people and the buildings. Danny had been raised very far from all of these things, only ever going near them when on a mission, and it was only a few hours at a time in those instances. No matter how long he lived in a city or town, whatever it was called, though, he would never get used to the noise.

The sidewalks were crowded with holiday shoppers not insane enough to go out on the twenty-fourth, but crazy enough to go out on the twenty-third. The streets were slick and traffic was slow, especially for a morning. Christmas decorations lined every window and tree and building face, holiday music carried on the wind four or five different songs mixing into one over and under the voices of the people on the sidewalks.

“C’mon,” Jazz tugged him into the public library by his hand. She had four books tucked under her arm, two on psychology, one on parenting, and one on dragons.

Danny followed after her, not quite dragging his feet, but making it apparent that he would rather not be there.

“Good morning, you two!” the librarian smiled when they made their way to her desk. She was a cheerful woman, always wearing a smile, though she had never once worn a nametag or introduced herself.

“Good morning!” Jazz matched the woman’s energy with a smile, dropping Danny’s hand and putting the four books up on the counter.

The woman took the books to scan them back into the system. “Are you looking to check out more books today?”

“Yep! Just so I have something to do over Winter Break.”

“You’re a kid, there’s lots for you to do!”

“I know, but I like reading.”

“I get it. Let me know if you need any help, okay?”

“Okay, we will!” Jazz took Danny’s hand again and pulled him off into the forest of shelves, straight to the parenting section.

Danny hid his scowl as he watched Jazz search through the parenting books. “You’re twelve, Jazz-”

“Almost thirteen.”

“-you’re not supposed to be looking at these kinds of books until eighteen at the earliest.”

She didn’t stop her search. “You’re eleven, Danny, you should be acting like a kid.”

“But I wasn’t raised as a kid.”

“Exactly why you should take the opportunity now!”

He groaned. It was an ongoing argument between the two. “I don’t need you to look after me, Jazz. We’re both kids, so we should be reading books that kids do! Leave the parenting up to our parents.”

“Our parents who don’t even celebrate holidays?”

“Jazz-”

“Look, Danny, I know you’re worried about me growing up too fast or whatever, but I like these books.” She pulled one off the shelf before turning to look at him. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll only get one parenting book.”

It didn’t. He’d rather her get none. “Okay.”

“I’m gonna get some psychology books, though, and you can’t stop me.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” he said. She ignored him.

“The human mind is really interesting. Did you know that the size of a human brain has decreased since the time when we were hunters and gatherers?”

“Has it?” He loved when she got like this, talking about things that interest her.

She nodded rapidly. “Mhmm! By a whole ten percent!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! And most artists like working at night because humans are more creative during the night rather than during the day.”

“What?” He raised his eyebrow in good humor to tell her that he was joking, “There’s no way that’s true.”

“It is!” she insisted, leading the way over to the tables in the middle of the large room with two psychology books and a parenting book under her arm. “And, look!” she grabbed a paper and pencil and wrote down ‘Yuo cna’t sotp me form radenig prnatneig bokos.’ in big letters. “Because we read words instead of individual letters, as long as the first and last letters are in the proper spots, and all the letters are there, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the word looks like, especially if you’ve been reading for a while or if you’re reading fast. You’re still able to read the word as though it were completely correct.”

“That’s actually really cool.”

“Right?” Her grin was so worth it. Her grin would always be worth it. “C’mon, let’s go get yo some books now.”

Danny grabbed Jazz’s hand and led the way this time. He took them over to the books about space and started to look through them. He’d always loved space as a whole, but stars had always held a special place for him.

He picked a book about astrology. “I heard some of the girls at school talking about magic and stuff and how people’s personalities are affected by what star sign they were born under.”

Jazz scrunched her nose a bit. “I’ve heard some people at school talk about that stuff, too. Do you think it’s true?”

“I think it’d be worth a look.” He took another book off the shelf, this one talking about both ancient and modern witchcraft. “The psychological implications are interesting, too.” That would get her to show a bit more interest.

“Really?”

“Really.”

She paused. “Mind if I take a look when you’re done?”

“I’d be happy to have a whole conversation about it when we’ve both finished reading our books.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

The last stop before checking out their chosen books was in the fairy tail section of the library. Their dad loved fairy tales, but their mom refused to let them have any of the books in the house. She claimed that there was no such thing as magic and that any ‘magic’ was done by ghosts. Danny had to hide his amusement whenever that particular argument was bright up because he knew for a fact that the supernatural and magic go hand in hand more often than not. He wasn’t about to tell her that, though.

The book they chose was one they both wanted to read, not wanting to risk mom finding one fairy tale in the house, let alone two. It was a compilation of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. Dark stories, they both knew, but that just made them all the more enticing.

Checking out went much the same as checking in, with the added bonus of the librarian giving them a cloth tote bag to carry their six books in. She also gave them the name of a small magic shop on the other side of town that had some tarot cards in stock if Danny was interested.

As promised, Jazz had taken some money from their mom’s purse to stop by the Tasty Burger for lunch. They both ordered the chicken nuggets and a milkshake, Jazz getting chocolate and Danny getting strawberry. Then, when they were done eating, they walked hand in hand back to their home.

Danny stopped at the mailbox, not moving to follow Jazz or to open the thing. Did he dare check? He didn’t want to get his hopes up. What if Damian hadn’t gotten the letter like he both feared and hoped? What if he had? Would there be a response? Would Damian ever want a relationship with him?

“Hey,” Jazz tugged his hand, “What’s wrong?”

He bit his lip, a show of nervousness that would’ve been punished in Nanda Parbat. He inhaled. “What if there’s no response? What if he doesn’t want to talk to me? It’s been almost five years.”

It took a moment before Jazz clocked what he was talking about. She let go of his hand to hold his shoulders. “How about this; You go inside and wait and I’ll get the mail, okay?”

Danny nodded and slowly trudged into the house. Why had he even sent that stupid letter? He flopped onto the couch. Damian probably hates him for not returning to his side.

He didn’t have time to mope any longer because Jaz threw the front door open with a shout. “Danny!” She was suddenly right beside him, shoving a letter into his hands. “There’s a letter for you!”

After a moment to process, Danny’s shaky hands ripped the envelope open and pulled out the paper inside. The single sheet was folded into three perfect rectangles, the black ink of a pen unsmudged and perfectly spaced. Just as Mother had taught.

***

Danyal ‘Danny’ Fenton, Dec. 21, 2011

You have a very extravagant story. Whatever made you believe that exchanging letters was the most secure way of contact? An idiotic move that my brother would, unfortunately, absolutely make. Either you are him, or you are a clone. Either way, I’m not likely to believe you, so do not mistake this as such. Your admitted honesty is welcomed, though not believed.

My welcome into the Wayne Family was quite a public affair and aired all over the country, so I guess I should thank you for the congratulations, as is socially acceptable in this situation as well as others like it. Bruce Wayne being my father is not a surprise, given his public image and his tendency to take any stray whelp he sees into his home. Though I will have you know that I am the only blood child in the household.

Announcing your stalling while writing a letter is completely unnecessary, especially as that was your first correspondence. Had you simply left that out, I would never have been the wiser. Another mistake you’ve made in accordance with my brother.

Having read over your letter several times, I have come to several conclusions. With the resources I have at my disposal, I have determined that there is a good chance you are who you say you are. Understanding who I am, and who my brother is, the rest of this response is written under the foolish ̶h̶o̶p̶e̶ assumption that you are who you claim to be.

I could never hate you, Danyal, nor could I ever ignore this chance I have been presented with. Getting out was the best thing you could’ve done for yourself. Coming back from that mission, having failed and lost you, broke something in Mother. She was both harsher and more clingy, hovering whenever she could and pushing more than ever. Grandfather was even less pleased that you hadn’t returned, though he only ever acknowledged you as a failure and a mistake. He made it known that he would’ve killed you, had you ever miraculously returned to Nanda Parbat.

I am glad that you got help. I am glad that you are living safely and that you have found a place to be at peace.

You are a coward, but you are more deserving of praise and forgiveness than you seem to believe. I thought you had died on that mission, Danyal. For that, I can’t ever forgive you, but I could never hate you. I can forgive you for making me return on my own. I can forgive you for being selfish and leaving me alone, but I will never forgive you for making me mourn you. You hurt me in ways that I never thought I could ever be hurt, in ways that I may never be hurt again.

Grandfather and Mother never allowed a grave to be made. They didn’t let me keep anything of yours either. They erased you. It was like you had never been there. I was never allowed to properly mourn you. That alone almost ended me.

Father knows nothing of you. Mother did not tell him, nor will I. I did not wish to make him or our siblings mourn a child they would never meet. If you so choose to tell him, then you may. I, however, will not be playing the messenger.

أرجو أن تسامحني على اعتقادي بأنك ميت. أرجوك سامحني لأنني لم أحزن عليك كما ينبغي. أرجوك سامحني لأنني لم أبحث عنك، فالعودة لم تكن خياراً متاحاً. كان يجب أن أجعله خياراً Damian Wayne

Translation 1 - Arabic :: Thank you for being my brother.

Translation 2 - Romanian :: Damn it!

Translation 3 - Arabic :: Please forgive me for thinking you were dead. Please forgive me for not mourning you properly. Please forgive me for not looking for you, coming back was not an option. I should have made it an option

Storyboard Part 2 Artwork

#Tales of Conquest. Warnings of Fools #Letters Between Brothers #part 1 #word count: 8k #my writing #ao3 #ao3 writer #fanfic #dc x dp #ghouls and gang writing event 2024 #dpxdcbang2024 #g&g24

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