#Terribly Tiny Tales

[endlessly-i-drift]

[ashitshowforalot]

a two year old is currently bullying me into putting on toy make up

[holybibly]

𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔏𝔬𝔳𝔢 ℭ𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔩𝔢 | Seonghwa x reader

𝔓𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤: Vampire Prince Seonghwa x Mortal maid reader 𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: You've heard the story since you were a little girl—a beautiful vampire prince living in an ancient Gothic castle covered in thorny roses, waiting for his true love. But you could never have imagined that you were destined to be part of this gloomy story.  𝔊𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢 / 𝔄𝔲 / 𝔗𝔯𝔬𝔭𝔢 : Smut, Dark Romance, Mystery, Doomed lovers!AU, Vampire!AU, Gothic!AU, Soulmate!AU ℜ𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤: 18+ / 21+ / MDNI 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱: 15k

𝔚𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: Vampire sex, master/servant, unprotected sex, corruption kink, fingering, degrading, pet names, size kink, dirty talk, explicit sexual content, explicit language, oral, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, сreampie, rough sex, rough oral, power play, hematolagnia, body worship, bite kink, orgasm delay/denial, wax game, blood kink, blood drinking, multiple orgasms, squirting, face fucking and more.

𝔫𝔢𝔱: @cultofdionysusnet

𝔄|𝔑: And now I've finally completed it and I couldn't be happier. I guess I'm a little too in love with Seonghwa. But can I resist the temptation to give him all my attention? And the bunnies seem a little obsessed with him too, don't they? This is a gothic fairy tale, full of depravity, filth and lust. Are you ready for a prince's cold kiss?

ℌ𝔬𝔩𝔶 𝔅𝔲𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔗𝔞𝔤 𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 Part I @tiny-apocalypse @captain-joongz @alicedawitchbish @woohwababes @wlv-asteria @wisejudgedragonhairdo @mingisprincesss @lavishloving @teagietots @spooo00oky @sousydive @hwapou @bunnliix @softwsan @mjyungi @fantasy2wonderland @noirsfantasy @cassies-cookies @renaholicss @luffypants @hyukssunflower @watermelon2319 @peachygiku @bunnyxoxodarling @stolasisyourparent @soranosnowbunny @certifiedmoa @sanglix @slvtiny @hopefulrascalstatesmantoad @hecateslittlewitchling @xxawl @pastellbunno @starlletsblog @seonghwasstar @hwanring @vtyb23 @pearltinyy @minjaeum @chasevixx @bomi-ja @onedumbho3 @sanglix @cursedeastern @itza-meee @pinkies-things @atinism @mxnsxngie @nenefix-on @therealcuppicake @annafeebou @sharksandminhos @@lixies-pixieboy @@vampzity @0rangemilk @yellow-foxxing ℌ𝔬𝔩𝔶 𝔅𝔲𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔗𝔞𝔤 𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 @unholywriters @hey-syia @hrts4nohee @vnessalau @mlink64 @tessakleine @fr34k4c1dr41n @313hwa @lilyuwon @tiziamattaga @un-knew @wiaxul @siyah-staryis

It's always been this way and always will be: people avoid the village that stands by the sinister Gothic castle in the middle of a dead rose garden, where ancient legend says a beautiful midnight somnambulist holds the guilty legacy of his bloodthirsty ancestors. Dressed in an ancient coronation robe, the magnificent prince of vampires sits all alone in his dark, vast house, under the watchful eye of his mad and terrible ancestors, who stare at him from faded portraits, each of them prolonging their dreary posthumous existence through him. He spreads the tarot cards, tirelessly forming endless constellations of indeterminate probabilities, as if a random card falling on a regal blood-red velvet tablecloth would transport him from this cold, shuttered room to a land of eternal summer and human warmth. As if it would help him to wipe away the age-old sorrow from his unbeating heart, to allow him to feel, at last, the love for which he so desperately longs—the love for someone like him, a creature who embodies life and death at the same time.

His voice is full of distant echoes of long-forgotten love poems, like an echo under the earth: "You've come to a place from which you can't return; you've come to a place from which you can't return." And he himself is like a dark, cold dungeon, filled with the reverberation of a lonely echo, a system of repetition, a vicious circle.

He is so divinely beautiful that his beauty seems unnatural; his beauty is an abnormality, a perfect flaw, for in no hypnotic feature of his face is there a hint of the touching imperfection so natural to human existence. His beauty is a sign of fatal disease, a sign of blood full of poison; his black tears are a sign of his lack of soul.

A night-born beauty who embodies both the sin and the blessing in his existence. The Prince of immortality, lord of grief, master of endless tears.

The elegant hands of the beautiful denizen of darkness skillfully guide the hand of fate. The nails on his hands are long and sharpened to a point as sharp as a dagger of steel. These nails and teeth—magnificent, glistening dangerously in the darkness like white snow under the moonlight—are visible signs of his inescapable destiny, which he desperately tries to escape by using magic and otherworldly powers. His claws and teeth have been honed by centuries of brutal wars and bloody orgies. He is the last descendant of a poisonous, barren tree that took root in a time when humans worshipped blind Gods and believed in the powers of nature. 

As soon as the sun, bleeding with golden ichor, has set, he rises from his voluptuousness bed, which rather more closely resembles a velvety coffin than a lovelorn bed, and goes to the little round table, and, sitting at this table, he plays his leisurely, mirthless game with fate, until hunger awakens in him—an insatiable, bestial, scorching his whole being—hunger.

His lips were intoxicating wine—the scarlet madness of pure seduction. His kiss was as tender as a mother's caress, as suffocating as unspoken words, and as shattering as the agony of dying love, but it was only when his alluringly sensual smile faded in the lips of his victims that they would realise that it was not wine—it was blood—and it tasted as bitter as poisonous wild strawberries and ashes. He slowly savoured each cooling drop of blood until the eyes of his lovers became pale and sombre, like lily flowers submerged in water. The glow of the moonlight that pours in through the boarded-up windows of his castle, on their waxy skin, was their burial garb. 

The Prince's realm stretches for miles and miles, encompassing all the haunted labyrinths of misty forests and mysterious abandoned dwellings, inhabited by ghosts and all manner of midnight creatures. In addition to his poisonous beauty, he has inherited the command of an army of fleshless shadows who inhabit the village at the foot of his sinister castle, which rests in a dead garden of mourning roses like a lover in her eternal sleep, waiting for the beautiful prince to one day kiss her icy lips. These macabre shadows sneak into the woods in the guise of bats and black foxes. They crawl into the corners of the ornate rooms of an abandoned house as thick, menacing spiders that entangle everything around them in the silken canopies of their webs. Their presence is manifested in the sound of sobbing in an abandoned bedroom where a cracked mirror hangs on the wall, reflecting nothing, and in the sense of unease that grips those who wander carelessly into these desolate lands. They torment all the beautiful young maidens, pure as angels from paintings, with fits of inexplicable weakness and madness, forcing them to wander about at night like somnambulists—barefoot and naked—until their frail bodies lie in the bloody sheets of their splendid lord.

But the Midnight Prince himself is indifferent to his otherworldly, immense power; instead, he longs to be an ordinary man and to meet his love—predestined and fateful—but he doesn't know if it can happen at all. The Tarot cards are always laid out for him in exactly the same way, always showing him the same painfully familiar pattern: the Magician, Death, the Tower - shattered by violet lightning—mystery, fatality, and destruction. 

In addition to the hundreds of whispering, sexless shadows that waltz through the dusky, gloomy corridors of the hereditary castle, the handsome prince has other living servants. Bleakness somnambulistic the servants in a dumb daze tend the decomposing castle, ensuring that no sunlight enters the dreary, formerly majestic halls and that their immortal master always has fresh, hot blood to satisfy his insatiable, animalistic hunger. They are eager to fulfil his every whim and desire, as vampire minions are supposed to do, and when one of these pale servants dies, turning into an immovable, translucent dried flower, another one takes his place, and the cycle begins all over again. 

They live as long as the prince wants, until he tires of their emotionless, silent presence. He mercifully shares his immortality with them, which moulds with poisonous black blood at the bottom of their exquisite porcelain tea cups. Everything about this otherworldly Prince of the Night justifies his tragic role—lord of sorrow and terror—except the fact that he himself is very reluctant to play this unpleasant role. 

On long, moonless nights, his caring, taciturn caretaker allows him to take a stroll through the garden. This rose garden is a place of extreme darkness and melancholy, lulled into the depths of a thorny maze and a beautiful, centuries-old cemetery where the remains of his cursed family lie beneath nameless marble slabs and faceless angels in empty coffins. 

The roses, once bright and alive, have now grown into a great wall of dead flowers. Behind them, he is trapped in his ancestral castle, like an intricate cage. There is no comfort for him in his ghostly existence, which is a clumsy imitation of real life. And then he returns to the lulling magic of the tarot, slowly shuffling the cards, spreading them out, trying to read them, and then, with a sigh, picking them up and shuffling them again, endlessly guessing at the inevitable fate.

Dressed in his blood-stained lace gown, he lies in his luxurious bed all day, drowning in countless pillows. When the tired, bloody sun disappears behind the vague line of the horizon, taking with it the weight of human life, he rises from his bed to take a bath filled to the brim with rose petals and virgin's blood, which stands in the middle of a room full of mirrors, and then he sits down at his little round table and plays cards until his hunger awakens again. 

It always was, and always will be, until, on one of an endless series of overcast, recurring days, the graceful, waxen fingers of a vampiric prince—as he descended from a sacred icon—turn over a card called 'Lovers'. Never, never before... never before has the prince been a forerunner of love. He shudders and trembles, his huge, hypnotic eyes close with nervously fluttering eyelids pierced by thin, bluish veins. This time, for the first time, the beautiful fortune-teller foretold yourself love—eternal as life and death at the same time.

The prince's luxurious chambers were in a high tower covered with prickly roses, and it was a part of the castle that had not yet been completely destroyed by time and sorrow, retaining some semblance of frightening grandeur. You have never been in this wing until this night, and if it were up to you, you would never want to be here again. This castle is a place of gore and death, a place from which no one has ever come back alive, but that was the last thing on your mind as you ran away into the impenetrable forest in the middle of a moonless night, fleeing further and further into the whispering darkness—to a place where your family would never find you, even if you had to pay for it with your life.

And so here you are. Waltzing through the endless labyrinths of the crumbling family castle of the beautiful lord of darkness and suffering—the midnight vampire prince Seonghwa—serving him and tending to the gloomy halls of his once glorious family legacy.

Ashes to ashes. Blood to blood.

Your pale, trembling hand floated in the air, hesitant to knock on the heavy, solid black oak door that separated the prince's velvet chambers from the rest of the castle. You had been standing there for some time, surrounded by whispering shadows and silken darkness. Their hissing, serpentine voices, coming to your ears from those dusty, darkness corners, where the dim glow of the candles did not reach:"He knows...he hears...he feels you...feels you..."

Even though it was always bone-chillingly freezing cold in the castle, your nervousness caused a clammy, obnoxious sweat to form on your skin, rolling in thick, glistening drops down your neck to the hollow of your plunging neckline, leaving a cooling, transparent trail resembling a ghostly kiss. You swallowed hard, saliva suddenly pooling in your mouth, and drew in a deep breath, mentally counting to ten, trying in vain to calm the frantic pounding of your heart against your ribs. It shouldn't be a big deal. After all, if the Prince had wanted you dead, your exsanguinated body would have been buried deep underground in his beautiful garden by now, which looked more like an exquisite burial ground than anything else.

It was utterly foolish of you to try and delay the inevitable. Seonghwa was waiting for you; he longed to see you. The prince had personally requested your presence in his chambers this evening, and he was probably well aware of how long you had been standing at the door of his bedchamber.

The prince’s velvety, almost purring voice echoed inside the room as your knuckles barely touched the dark wood of the door: "You can come in, my darling."

A shiver ran down your spine at the sound of that hypnotic, enchanting voice. Even though it was muffled by the thickness of the stone walls, you could still clearly feel its otherworldly, terrifying power lurking behind every letter he uttered. The prince's voice was like an angel's plaintive song—beautiful and terrifying at once.

You swallowed hard again and opened the massive oak door, framed in a rich wrought-iron floral design, leaning most of your weight on the hard wood. The thorns of the bronze roses, worn by time, were as sharp as the deadly fangs of a vampire prince. Your entire body shuddered as you stood frozen at the entrance to his private chambers, afraid to step over the threshold. Something ominous and terrifying hung in the air, sending shivers down your spine.

Reflections of blackened family gold caught your eye, emanating from every corner of the room as the flickering candlelight refracted and shattered against the sumptuous antique jewellery. Even more shadows grew and lurked in the corners of the bedroom, hissing and writhing where your gaze couldn't reach them. Every detail in this room spoke of its former glorious majesty.

In awkward cascades of dusty, faded fabric, heavy velvet curtains that had long since lost their rich burgundy colour hung down the walls of the room. Now the home of delicate glass spiders and dead nocturnal butterflies, they were no longer exquisite pieces of decoration. Hanging on the walls, in massive antique gold frames, were the grim, time-worn portraits of the previous owners of this eerie sanctuary of shadow and sorrow, whose veins ran with the same black blood as Seonghwa's. They were a reminder of the vampire prince's cursed legacy. As the bone-chilling wind swept through the room, you could hear the crystal pendants of the chandelier clink. It brought to your ears the whispers of the shadows in languages you had never heard before.

It seemed to you that the air in Seonghwa's private chambers was even colder than the rest of the castle, filled with a sweet, suffocating scent that made you dizzy. Yet some unknown force drew you deeper into the silken darkness of the bedroom, where the beautiful, sinister creature lived her mirthless existence.

"My darling, you've made me wait too long for you. Come here." The command in his languid, seductive voice shot through your body like a whip, leaving your skin burning. Your whole body clenched with fear, paralysed by cold and nervousness, as you hesitantly moved towards the large archway that led into the open, mirrored space of the bathroom.

The faint splash of water was almost drowned out by the sound of the blood rushing through your veins and your heart pounding against your ribs at an almost painful rate. As you paused at the edge of the podium that held a large marble bathtub filled to the brim with rose petals, the knot of anxiety that was slowly forming in your stomach only tightened. The hot steam rising from the water clung to your skin like a lover's caress, filling the air with the intoxicating scent of the flowers, mixed with something unspeakably sweet, something erotic, something animal—a scent that could only belong to Seonghwa himself.

"What can I do for you today, my prince?" You take a deep breath of the freezing air to calm your nerves a little. The faint metallic taste of blood on your tongue.

"First of all, lift your head, my love, so I can have a good look at you." His velvety, seductive voice rolled down the length of your slightly arched spine, spreading a hot, scarlet flush across your flesh as he spoke. You could already feel how the tops of your thighs were starting to get wet with excitement. You were ashamed to admit how your body reacted to him, even though you knew it was part of his vampire personality that allowed him to mesmerise his prey before delivering his deadly, icy kiss.

Every single cell in your body urges you to run as far away as possible, instinctively reacting to the presence of something so evil and dangerous around you. But you ignored your fear and slowly lifted your head to meet the dark, hypnotic gaze of Seonghwa, who leaned back on the edge of the marble bathtub with regal casualness. A grim shiver ran through your entire body at the gaze of those large, gleaming eyes—slanting and predatory like a wild cat's. Your skin tingled at the feeling of the prince's eyes sliding slowly over your body, lingering too long on the heaving ridges of your plump breasts above the deep neckline of the tight corsage. He was staring at you like a rose, tearing you apart in an effort to get to the very core of you, deliberately slow, petal by petal. 

There is a long silence between the two of you, filled only with the loud beating of your heart and the subtle splashing of the water as the prince's long fingers lazily caress the rose petals floating on the surface of the tub. The intense eye contact was unsettling, as if you were looking at a scene that you weren't meant to see, and perhaps that was exactly what it was. 

It was hard to ignore how beautiful the vampire was and how dangerous he was. The lack of any natural flaws was so glaring that it almost made your head spin from the otherworldly perfection of it all. The greatest artists, in their quest for perfect beauty, would not have been able to describe a divine portrait of his face to this earth without even a hint of the incredible reality of his appearances. The verses of the poets could not describe his eyes; the light in them decided the fate of mankind; they had life and death, sinfulness, passion, and sparkling moisture, something that you could never have in human eyes. You didn't know if Seonghwa was the light of heaven or the flames of hell, but you were sure that he was from the first or second world. Seonghwa was either an angel that had fallen from the open heavens or a demon that had risen from hell, or perhaps both at the same time. 

His long arms stretched out on either side of his lithe, slender body, bulging with silky muscles under smooth, moist skin that shimmered like pure gold in the light of burning candle flames, and you swallowed hard at this view. You felt like you'd been lured straight into the lion's den, and he was going to eat you alive. And maybe, just maybe, that was what you wanted so badly. Every night of your stay in this castle, you have had the same dream—the one where Seonghwa feeds on you while he fucks you in front of the huge antique mirror in his dark velvet chambers. Those dreams - so intense and sensual that when you awoke, you could still feel the prince's phantom cold breath on your skin, the lingering touch of his hands on your body, the aching feel of his big cock between your thighs, and the warmth of your blood running down your naked breasts in dark scarlet streams from the small puncture wounds that Songhwa's needle-sharp fangs had left on your neke. And the longer it went on, the stronger this terrible, dark need became to feel the prince's painful, deadly kiss in reality. 

Right now, there was a small part of you that was desperately hoping that Seonhwa's call to you tonight was for that very reason—to feed on you. 

As if reading your thoughts, a sinful, predatory grin formed on Seonghwa's luscious, sensuous lips, and the look in his seductive, half-closed eyes shot through you, making your blood boil with desire. 

Your excitement was so obvious to him, but in spite of this humiliating fact, the thrilling sensation that was fluttering in your lower abdomen and sending shivers of heat between your luscious thighs only intensified. The blood pulsed in your veins so furiously that you could feel its pulse on your neck, and of course Seonghwa felt that seductive throbbing of your life as well. 

"What is your name?" His voice was like a snowy day after a frozen night, smooth as crystal and sparkling like diamonds, when the prince spoke to you again. 

" Y/N." You say it quietly, looking away from the vampire with a little shyness.

" Y/N." When he speaks your name, you get the feeling that it's always belonged to him. Not to you, but to him, it is. His tongue caresses each letter, wrapping around it as if kissing it and licking each syllable as if his sensual mouth were touching the most tender spot between your legs. He fills your name with his own meaning—impossible, forbidden, sinful—a meaning known only to him. 

The soft splashing of the water was the only warning you were given before Seonghwa stood right in front of you in all of his naked glory. Up close, his appearance was even more inhumanly beautiful, devoid of any of the imperfections of nature. He shone like a celestial being bathed in holy light, water droplets dripping down his perfectly smooth golden skin, and part of you longed to lick it. Blood-red petals clung to the chiselled muscles of his chest and stomach in the most seductive way, igniting a roaring heat inside you and fastening a throb in your heart. His long, midnight-black locks seemed to float softly and beautifully on his head, and his skin shimmered with shards of light. No living being could ever be a match for him—beauty, regality, immortality—it was all woven into every bit of his cursed, dark nature. The prince slowly licked his plump, soft lips, and for a moment, one could see the sharp tips of his fangs. 

You had no idea where to look, especially since Seonghwa didn't hide his nakedness but showed it openly. Your gaze slid down the expanse of his bare chest, his sharp collarbones, and his long neck, but you didn't raise your eyes to his godlike face, instead focusing your attention on the silky scarlet rose petals that adorned his skin.

All of the stories that you had heard from the people of your village were absolutely true. Not a single living soul had been able to leave that gloomy, grief-filled Gothic castle, and you couldn't imagine anyone willingly refusing Seonghwa's cold kiss, even if it was the last thing they would ever experience in their lives. Your attraction to him was magnetic, as natural as gravity, as natural as breathing, and so achingly tangible that you could feel it in every part of your body. 

There was complete silence in the room for a moment before his hand came up to your face, and the cold, wet touch of his fingers against your cheek sent a shiver down your spine. You tried not to breathe as he gently ran the tips of his fingers down the length of your cheek. At Seonghwa's silent command, you obediently lifted your head to look straight into those hypnotic, feline eyes, framed by the velvety lace of wet lashes. Your face burned, but at the same time, his mesmerising, bottomless gaze made you want to press your lips to the back of his palm and kiss the silky tips of his long fingers. The embarrassing thought made your mouth dry and your heart beat twice as fast in your chest.

"Aren't you beautiful, my love?" Seonghwa purred in a low, seductive tone. His luscious lips curled into a devilish smile that screamed danger and didn't bode well for you. But that sensual, soft curve of his mouth filled you with a semblance of imaginary safety, as if you were in no danger at all around him. In this scene, you're just a little mouse, and he's a snake, a coiled ring snake, ready to lethal strike.

"I…my prince, you shouldn't say that…" It was hard for you to get any words out of your mouth. You felt as if you were transparent, as if there was no longer any barrier between the air and your body.

"But it is, isn't it? You are so warm, so full of life. It's just too tempting for me to resist." He runs his long, slender fingers along your lips, pressing lightly until his sharp claws dig into the soft, pliant flesh, causing small drops of blood to rise. "I could kiss you right here." He bends down so that he's level with your face and his long tongue sticking out just to lick the blood drops from your lips. As soon as he has tasted you, Seonghwa lets out a deep, fulfilled groan and looks up at you with heavy, bottomless eyes full of animal hunger. "Or here..." Now his godlike face bends down to your neck, and his perfectly sculpted lips touch the spot where he can feel your pulse beating beneath thin skin.

A muffled half-moan escapes from your chest as his sharp incisors scrape lightly against you before Seonghwa begins to suck persistently at this sensitive area. His actions are making you squeeze your thighs together in an attempt to ease the warm throbbing of your pussy. The way your body reacts to his touch almost embarrasses you, but even if it weren't for his deeply sexual vampire nature that made everyone lose their mind with lust, you're not sure you'd react any differently. Vampire or not, there was no denying the temptation you felt for Seonghwa. 

"Or even here..." With light kisses, he moved down the length of your neck to the heaving ridges of your breasts above the deep neckline of your corsage. His tongue licked slowly over your skin, leaving a glistening trail of saliva in its wake. This sent a rush of pleasure through your veins and the excited heat flooded your face with a scarlet flush. "You thought about that when you came here this evening, didn't you? Did you imagine how I would drink from you, how I would fuck you?" He asks you in a voice that sounds like that of a dark angel. God, what he's doing to you makes you feel so needy and devastated. You're sure that if he asked you to get on your knees before him, you'd do it in a heartbeat. "You know, I can feel how wet you are for me, my love."

And what would you have been supposed to say to that? He was absolutely right about all of it, and you were so ashamed of this magnetic, otherworldly attraction that you felt for the prince.

"I... I don't know, my prince. I'm so sorry..." You whispered, your voice quivering with both embarrassment and excitement. Seonghwa's magnificent eyes sank into yours, and for a moment you thought you saw stars shining in them before he drew a long fingernail, a line down the column of your throat, past your collarbones, down to the centre of your chest. The vampire tilted his head thoughtfully, and you watched as a mischievous grin appeared on his plump, sensual lips.

"You're sorry, how sweet." He immerses himself fully in the water once more and then returns to his original position on the far side of the tub. "Take your clothes off. I want you to join me." 

The sudden shock of his words running through your body paralyses you for a moment, robbing you of any ability to respond to him at all. The silence between you lingers, and you swallow loudly when his eyes narrow and the mischievous expression disappears from his face, and you open your mouth to try to squeeze out words from yourself. 

"I'm not sure I can do that, my prince. Servants aren't supposed to..." Seonghwa didn't let you finish; he cut off your words with an elegant wave of his hand. 

"A servant is not allowed to disobey his master, and that is all you need to know. Now get undressed and come here; otherwise, I'll do it myself, and sweetheart, I can't guarantee that I'll be gentle with you." 

It was useless to argue with him any further, and instead you began to obediently unbutton your corsage, but every move seemed to be an extra effort, especially as Seonghwa's hypnotic, velvety gaze never left you for a second. Your hands trembled as you pulled your clothes off your warm skin, but you couldn't tell if it was from shame that Seonghwa would see you completely undressed or from the thrill of facing the most seductive predator that had ever existed. Or maybe it was from lust as dark and raw as the look in the prince's hypnotic feline eyes. 

The cool air hit your naked body as your clothes and underwear fell in an unnecessary heap at your feet, leaving you nude before him. 

"Don't make me repeat myself, my darling." Obeying his wish, you cautiously stepped over the edge of the luxurious bathtub and slowly lowered yourself into the warm water, which was full of blood-red rose petals. You pressed yourself against the cold marble behind you, trying to put as much distance between you as possible. Maybe it was the contrast in temperature, or maybe it was Seonghwa's intense gaze that gave your skin goosebumps.

The vampire sprawled out on the edge of the bathtub again, like a large wild cat. His body was curled up in the most seductive way, so that you could see every single muscle underneath his smooth, golden skin. Like everything about Seonghwa, his body was absolutely perfect—he was lean but strong, muscular but lean; every inch of his body was brought to painful perfection by something divine, something that you would never be able to understand because of your ordinariness, your humanity. 

"Come closer to me, my love." 

The rose petals swirled around you as you slowly approached him, your heart pounding in your chest at the impossibility of what was about to happen. Perhaps this was all just a dream, like hundreds of others like it—full of lewd images and lingering touches—and you could wake up any minute, cold and alone in your small bed, with a throbbing need between your legs like every other night you'd spent in this gothic castle. You still kept a small distance between you, hesitating to move any closer to him, and it was obvious that he didn't like it as he reached his clawed hand forward to grab hold of your elbow. 

"I said come closer..." Seonghwa growled in a low voice and pulled you towards him so that your back was pressed against his bare chest. His skin was as cold and smooth as marble, and you shuddered as the tips of his sharp nails ran along the length of your shoulder. 

On the opposite side of the bathtub was a huge mirror, framed in a massive gold frame and lit by a hundred or so melted candles. In the slightly hazy reflection, you could see the beautiful face of Seonghwa as he leaned over to you until his soft lips touched your ear. Your breath caught as the sharp edges of his teeth burned the delicate skin of your earlobe and his fingers slid across your collarbone. 

A soft moan slips from your pink, plush lips as you unconsciously arch up in Seonghwa's arms, pushing your large, plump breasts forward and pressing your ass against his massive, hard cock under the water. His beautiful hands cradle your boobs, squeezing them hard in the palms of his hands, and you almost gasp for breath as the prince presses his sensual mouth to your throat. 

"Look at me, my love. Don't you dare to close your eyes for even a second." You whimper at the sensation of his sharp teeth clawing at your skin, and a sharp, delicious shiver of pleasure runs between your legs. "Otherwise..." He kisses a sensitive spot on the side of your neck, just below your ear. A kiss that makes your pussy all wet and sticky. "I'm going to bite you, but it feels to me like it's exactly what you want so badly. I'm right, aren't I, sweetheart?" In the reflection of the mirror, you could see the way that his hands were slowly massaging your breasts. The light touch of his thumbs on your hard, sensitive nipples made you squirm and writhe. "You're so perfect." Seonghwa purred. "So warm and fragile, and you moan for me like a whore, even though you know that I hold your fleeting human life in the palm of my hand. I could kill you now, but considering how wet your pretty pussy is, that thought only turns you on, doesn't it?" The tone of his voice dropped to a whisper that was as eerily beautiful as the rustling of a thousand dead rose petals. 

Seonghwa's sharp teeth sink a little deeper into your neck, practically tearing the thin skin and drawing blood from it. 

Your mind tries desperately to find a coherent excuse for his words, and you unconsciously close your eyes. Your pulse speeds up as vivid images of Seonghwa drinking from you, slowly consuming your life, sip by sip as he fucks you, fill your mind, and send sparks of excitement flying across your skin. 

Seonghwa growls low, pulling you harder against him, and before you know it, his hand is around your throat, long clawed fingers clenching at the sides of your neck, cutting off the supply of oxygen to your airways. Your eyes roll back in ecstasy, the mixture of pain and pleasure threatening to send you into oblivion and some inexplicable part of you wishes he would squeeze his fingers more tighter.

"I told you to keep your eyes open for me." Seonghwa's cool breath touches your ear. "I am tired of your disobedience, my love. How dare you disobey your prince?" His fingers squeezed harder at your throat, and your eyes opened wide - big and frightened - as you began to gasp for air. Just as you felt the blackness coming to the edges of your vision and your consciousness starting to fog up, Seonghwa let go of you and let you breathe.

Trying to connect your thoughts is like wading through a swamp as the prince unclenches his fingers and pulls them away from your neck. Your eyes begin to water and your fingers clench into his hand, as if it might help you to breathe normally again. But Seonghwa doesn't seem to be finished punishing you for disobeying his orders. He grabs your swollen nipple and pinches it roughly, making you sob pitifully at the pleasantly painful sensation.

You still don't answer to him, and with each passing minute of your silence, Seonghwa's displeasure grows, and there is something dark and utterly evil in his eyes. His fingers moved slowly down the length of your thigh, leaving a trail of scalding cold in their wake, despite the fact that you were now in a warm bath. His lazy touches continued until they slid over the delicate, trembling folds of your pussy. And just like that, the pleasant heat that had been building up in your lower abdomen turned into lava that made you melt at the touch of his hand.

"Shall I forgive your disobedience, my love?" Seonghwa slides his fingers over your cunt, touching every inch of your sensitive skin, from your throbbing clit to your tight, wet entrance, spreading your essence over your folds, making them smooth and shiny. Each time they linger over your little hole, you tense reflexively in preparation for his penetration. "Or should I punish you? Should I teach you a lesson in the proper way to treat your prince?" 

"I... I... I think you should punish me, my prince." A gasping moan slips from your lips as your head rests on his shoulder, exposing most of your pale throat to him as Seonghwa slides a long finger inside you, pressing hard against the spongy front wall of your vagina. 

"You see? It's not so hard to do the right thing, dear. You could really use some discipline, you little slut." The prince pulls his finger out of your warm little pussy, and then abruptly stands up on his feet and pulls you up behind him until you are sitting in his arms. He carefully steps out of the tub, pulling you tightly against his wet, hard chest, and steps down from the podium where the marble bathtub stands. 

Seonghwa walks over to a large, time-worn chair that looks like a throne, lowers himself into it, and turns you over. You find yourself face down in his lap, your arse held up. As his fingers slide down your thighs, leaving red marks from his sharp claws, you let out a treacherous half-moan. 

"You look so good, all flushed, my love." Seonghwa's hands cupped your buttocks and squeezed them a few times before spreading them apart, exposing your glistening wet pussy to his gaze. The feel of the cold air on your delicate folds caused your hole to clench involuntarily.

Watching your juices flowing from your pussy, Seonghwa can't help but imagine how you would taste on his tongue and how it would feel to have your pretty pink cunt smothering him as you rock on his face while he eats your sweet dripping pussy juices. Seonghwa can't help but think what you would taste like when he sank his fangs into your little mound and mixed the rich, intoxicating taste of your blood with the essence of you. These thoughts cause him to let out a deep, velvety moan as he digs his fingers deeper into the plump flesh of your buttocks.

"Look at you love, you're absolutely wet, your pussy is literally flowing for me. Are you so excited to be punished? So desperate want to be an obedient, beautiful servant for me?"

"My prince…" The lust flowing through your veins is too strong for your brain to formulate the right words. When you feel Seonghwa's cold breath on your pussy, your pulse accelerates to the point where you almost feel dizzy. He blows lightly on your sticky, soft folds, making you twitch a little.

Nothing could have prepared you for the scalding sensation of his palm coming down hard on your bottom. You scream at the top of your lungs at the throbbing pain, but still more fluid flows from your pussy. Three more slaps land on your bottom, each one leaving a delicious ache. You savoured every second of this bliss that was supposed to be your punishment, although you were terribly ashamed to admit it. He continued to spank you until your screams turned into loud, pitiful sobs and your body began to shake. 

"You are shivering, my love. Are you cold?" Seonghwa let out a grim chuckle, knowing exactly what was making you shiver and squirm. "Then let me keep you warm, my love."

As you unconsciously braced yourself for another slap, a loud scream escaped your trembling lips, as instead of the scalding cold of his palm, you felt small drops of hot wax on your bottom. Each drop that fell on your skin left a throbbing pain in its wake, mixed with a strong sense of pleasure that made you sob and wriggle in his lap. The liquid wax was almost too hot for you. Almost. But if you wanted Seonghwa to drink from you, let alone fuck you, you had to get used to the pleasure of pain. 

"You have to see yourself now, my love. You are so submissive, so warm, and so wet, you excited little slut that you are. Was this what you wanted? You wanted me to punish you, my little darling. To make this slutty pussy all swollen and wet? Look at yourself." Suddenly, Seonghwa lifts you up and turns you around so that your back is pressed against his chest again. He runs his fingers lightly down your thighs before digging into the soft flesh and spreading your legs as wide as he can so that your wet folds are beautifully exposed and you can see your dripping cunt fully reflected in the mirror. 

He reaches down with one hand and slips two fingers into your hole while using the fingers of his other hand to massage your aching clit, making deliciously tight circles that make your hips buck unconsciously in an attempt to get more of that amazing feeling. 

"I have never been able to understand why you mortals take such pleasure in being treated like toys. Why you have such a craving for it..." Seonghwa purred in your ear and curled his fingers inside you, finding the point where you began to see stars and applying the perfect amount of pressure. Silenced by the soft whispers of shadows swirling in the darkness, the moan you let out echoed through the lord's chambers. "But seeing how desperate and pathetic you look now, how needy, I'm beginning to understand. You want someone to take control of you—someone powerful to rule you at will. And my love, you are so lucky that I can bring anyone I want to their knees. And you are no exception." He abruptly pulls his fingers out of you with an embarrassingly loud, wet sound, and you involuntarily let out a cry of loss. In the reflection of the mirror, you can see long, clear strands of your own slime dripping down his fingers. 

He brings the wet fingers to his sensual lips before his long tongue slips out of his mouth and wraps around them, licking up your juices. As he begins to taste you, Seonghwa lets out a deep moan of pleasure. 

"Now show me how beautiful you look on your knees before me, my little slut."

"At your command, my prince." You obediently obey Seonghwa's command and let yourself slip from Seonghwa's lap onto the cold stone floor. From your new position, the aching throbbing between your thighs becomes even more pronounced. As did the burning sensation on your inflamed buttocks.

Slowly, your eyes slid up the length of his delicious thighs before coming to rest on the massive, velvety length of his cock. Of course, his cock was as magnificent as the prince himself—large, wiry, and glistening with the abundant pre-cum that flowed from the dark pink, swollen head. You had had a few lovers before your escape from the village, but none of them had been anything like Seonghwa. Although you weren't a virgin and you knew how to treat a man and how to give him pleasure, you weren't sure if your meagre knowledge would be enough to please the gorgeous vampire prince.

You looked up at him with your big, shining eyes, and unconsciously, you licked your plump lips. You wanted to lick his cock. You wanted to take it in your warm mouth until you were choking on it. You wanted to make him proud of you, to want you to be that one who warmed his cold, solitary bed. But most of all, you wanted to be the source of his life, the immortal vessel that he would drink your life from like precious wine. All of these desires and feelings you had for the prince were humiliatingly embarrassing, and if it hadn't been for the way he looked at you—like a predator catching the tantalising scent of the prey he was about to hunt down—you would have burned with shame. But you were wrong about one thing: Seonghwa didn't look like a predator; he was a predator and the most dangerous and seductive one that ever existed. 

"My sweet little lady, you look so desperate right now." Seonghwa purred, one hand digging into the softness of your hair to pull your face even closer to his cock. "You can have a taste if you want it so badly."

You lean forward and gently stroke the wet and flushed head of his cock with your tongue, teasing it with light, cat-like licks. His chiselled chest, covered in glistening water droplets and soft rose petals, rises and falls with deep breaths. The textured muscles of his abdomen tense as you run your tongue along the silky length of his cock, outlining the seductively swollen vein with the tip of your tongue.

"You look so beautiful like this, kneeling in front of me with your soft lips wrapped around my cock." Seonghwa whispers in a voice so dark and deep that it hits you right in your cunt. It's precious—a sweet jewel of praise from the beautiful vampire prince, which you will wear like a good servant. But in spite of the sweet praise, you hear his direct command: "Take my cock in your mouth.".

It's unlikely you'll be able to get his thick cock all the way down your throat, but you wanted to try. Your lips open and the head of his cock slides easily into your mouth and for a second your tongue rests against his slit and you taste the thick, sweet taste of his cum. Seonghwa moans softly as the head of his cock is completely enveloped in the soft flesh of your lips. A seductive sound runs through your body like a thousand scalding kisses and you raise your eyes to look up at Seonghwa.

He is watching you, looking utterly wicked and like a god himself, wrapped in the thin skin of a man. The flames of the candle danced on the perfect features of his face, shining like a full moon in a world of endless night. His eyes were stars of otherworldly shadow - a depth of infinity that could crush the souls of those far more resilient than you. But it was his lips that most attracted you. They were unjustly obscene, swollen and sinfully scarlet. Temptation and lust are one, and you crave to taste it.

These thoughts make you swallow and unconsciously let his cock slide deeper into the silkiness of your mouth and the tightness of your throat. The nasty gagging sound that you make is so sexy that Seonghwa can't get enough of it. You look absolutely sinful, and it makes him want to possess every part of you. He wants to taste you in every sense, bind you to him, sink his sharp teeth into you, make you his immortal likeness, and then rape you to the deepest depths of time, making you scream like a whore—his whore.

"Come on, darling, take it deeper. Don't worry, every fluid in a vampire's body acts as an aphrodisiac. You'll be able to take my cock all the way down your pretty little throat. Now open your mouth wide for your prince. Seonghwa said and an evil gleam flashed in his eyes.

You could feel the velvety softness of his cock on your tongue, surrounded by the warmth of your mouth as you relaxed your jaw and let his cock slide deeper into your mouth. You take him halfway before you start to choke. Tears burn in your eyes as your lips stretch beautifully around his thick girth. Seonghwa's cock is so damn big for you. It's so heavy, pulsating in the melted, wet juices of your mouth. You wrap your hand around his balls, gently massaging and sometimes touching the base of the dick with your nails. You suck diligently on the head, occasionally letting your flexible tongue run along the slit where the pre-cum oozes out.

"That feels so damn good." The words fell from Seonghwa's plush lips as he threw his head back and rocked his hips a little. The long, midnight-coloured strands of his hair shone like a halo around the top of his head. "You're doing so well, my love. Just... just take my cock like a good maiden." His grip on your hair tightened, and you looked up at him with big, watery eyes, your cunt clenching at how dark the tone of his voice had become. 

"I'll do anything for you..." You moan loudly, drinking in every reaction Seonghwa gives you. Your desire to please him grows and grows.

You so desperately want to touch yourself between your legs, a small, shiny puddle of your mucus forming on the stone floor beneath you. You want to climb back onto his lap and let him fill you with his big, thick cock. You want to feel him in your belly, in your heart, and in your blood. 

You take him deeper, relaxing your throat and bending your head down until your nose touches the smooth skin of his pubic bone. Reflexively, you swallow around him, eliciting deep moans of pleasure from his sensual lips.

"Bloody hell... Mmm. You are such a good little slut." Hwa purrs as he begins to thrust his hips into your mouth. 

His cock plunges down your throat again and again, leaking copious amounts of pre-cum mixed with your drool, filling your mouth with intoxicating sweetness each time he pulls his cock out, until only the silky hot head is left in your mouth and your tongue rests against his slit. As his cock sank fully back into your throat, his hand slid down to massage your distended throat, feeling the bulging hardness of his own cock through the delicate wall of your neke.

Whatever restraint he had before was broken by the feeling of the warm walls of your throat contracting around him and the pleasurable pressure of his hand on your neck. Seonghwa begins to thrust his cock down your throat fast and hard, a flood of praise from his lips that makes you glow with pleasure.

"You have such a perfect mouth for me, my love. It is perfect for me to fuck. Make me come, my love. I want to fill your mouth with my cum." The combination of his gorgeous body above you, glistening from the water and decorated with rose petals, the sensual praise—full of dirty, lewd words—and the way he uses your throat make you even wetter. You feel a new load of mucus pouring out of your pussy. " Look at how your throat is swelling from my cock and how the saliva is dripping from your mouth. You're enjoying this too much, aren't you? You have made such a mess on the floor; do you want me to force you to lick it up with your tongue?

You moo in response to his words. The contraction of your throat around his cock almost makes you gasp as the tender walls fit tightly around the thick, velvety length, clenching incredibly hard around it. His hips twitch, his cock pulsates, and the grip on your hair becomes brutal, but it only elicits more moans from you, vibrating along the length of his cock in the most amazing way. 

Seonghwa pushed his dick into your mouth once more before he came. It was a mesmerising sight, almost hypnotic: the thrusts of his hips were interrupted, his soft, obscenely sensual, swollen lips parted in a deep, ecstatic moan, and his body shook as his orgasm overwhelmed him. A thick, sweet cum shot down your throat, and you began to swallow the copious stream of his pleasure. His sperm was nothing like the salty, almost bitter taste of human sperm, and you marvelled again at how everything about vampires was designed to lure and intoxicate their victims in every way possible. 

As he pulled away, his sperm began to spill out of your mouth, running down your chin and dripping onto the floor, where the puddle of your slime grew larger. Seonghwa reached his hand up to your face and ran his fingers over your swollen lips. He gathered the thick, pearly liquid on his fingertips, then pushed it into your open, pliable mouth.

"Such a good girl." Seonghwa murmured as your tongue wrapped around his fingers and cleaned them. 

When he pulled his fingers out of your mouth with a slight 'pop', you lifted your watery eyes back to his. Long trails of tears shone like diamonds across the puffy, flushed cheeks of your face. 

"My prince, I beg you. I need to come so badly. Please let me come, my prince, please. My pussy so needs it." You begged, almost whimpering, as you lay at his feet. In the bliss that followed his orgasm, he gently cupped your cheek, even stroking your hair lightly with his other hand, and looked lovingly at you with his bottomless dark eyes. His long, fluffy lashes fluttered like a dying sun in the purple twilight, glittering in all the colours of the spectrum in the dim light of the bath.

"Oh, my little lady, let your prince make you feel better." Seonghwa cooed. His voice was a velvety purr wrapped in darkness.

Seonghwa rises up from his chair in an elegant manner and holds out a graceful hand for you to help you to your feet. Your fingers tremble as you take his hand and slowly rise, almost stumbling on your wobbly, shaky legs, but Seonghwa's firm grip prevents you from falling. The prince's tall, naked body towers over you like an ancient, dark deity, making you feel small and vulnerable under the weight of his bottomless, black gaze. He wraps his long, cold fingers around your chin and lifts your face up so that you're looking straight at him. 

At that moment, the room seems to shrink, and the air is filled with something sensual, hot, and dark. Something that almost makes your skin tingle with a sharp, glass-like arousal. The otherworldly presence of the prince was undeniable—a dangerous dance between living and dying. A loud sob escaped from your lips, which were still covered in the remnants of semen, as Seonghwa leaned closer to you, his beautiful, plump lips hovering just a few inches away from yours. 

"Now it's my turn to have a taste of you, my love." The first touch of his plush lips against yours sent a dizzying rush of excitement up and down your spine. You let out a loud moan into his beautiful, soft mouth as Seonghwa's long tongue pushed your lips apart and immediately took hold of your mouth. His kiss is all-consuming and devouring, as if he wants to devour your very soul and take you over the edge of life with him. He ravages your soft lips with an intensity that borders on sadistic pleasure, and you are so intoxicated by the kiss that you almost don't notice when his sharp teeth sink into your innocent lower lip and your mouth fills with thick blood.

When too much of the viscous, saturated liquid gathers in your mouth, you reflexively swallow, feeling a lingering metallic taste on your tongue, which disappears almost immediately, licked away by Seonghwa's long, flexible tongue, which wraps around your tongue like a snake. One of his hands is tangled in your hair, long fingers tugging painfully at the soft strands, causing a palpable burning sensation on the delicate skin of your head. With his other hand, he wraps around your waist and pulls you closer to his cold, hard body, using this rough grip to restrict your movements. 

You give a little moan against his lips, almost relishing the pain you're feeling—the hot excitement in your stomach twisted into a knot—too tight and painful to ignore. The insides of your thighs are uncomfortably sticky and wet, and you have to squeeze your legs together to ease the throbbing in your needy cunt. 

Your blood tastes of black roses, forgotten poems, confessions of love—it burns all of Seonghwa's senses, and you feel rather than hear him purr softly with pleasure—a velvety, decadent, almost animal sound coming from deep inside his chest. He continues to greedily lap up the blood from your mouth, sliding his tongue over your palate, your gums, and the inside of your cheek. Seonghwa roughly pulls your wounded lower lip into his vicious mouth, only to bite down on it with his sharp teeth, causing more of your blood to drip onto his tongue. 

The kiss seems endless, and your mind begins to drift; you feel like you're delirious from the feeling of the cold heat of his beautiful, sensual mouth. The spiral of lust inside you tightens; the pressure builds until it becomes too much for you to bear, and for a long, eternal moment, it seems to you that Seonghwa wants to keep you at that height forever. You barely notice when his hand releases your waist and slips between your bodies, and you squeal loudly, pulling yourself away from his incredibly seductive lips as his cold fingers suddenly pinch your sensitive clit. 

"Oh, my God. That's so... Too m-m-much...' You stammer out your words, unable to form sentences; the pain and the pleasure mix together, and you feel completely intoxicated. 'My prince, please...' As his fingers rub relentlessly against your clit, you can't stop yourself from moaning loudly. The pressure inside you increases as you rise higher and higher, but the lack of any particular rhythm makes it difficult for you to come to the edge, and the intensity of his touch becomes almost overwhelming for you.

"What's the matter, my darling? Does your sweet pussy still hurt? Don't I make it easier for you? Or are you just a greedy little bitch that has a craving for more?" The deep purr of his voice vibrates through your body as his fingers begin to roughly squeeze your clit. 

You let out a helpless moan in response to his words; the sound you make is full of both need and desire. All you can think of now is that Seonghwa is using you, that he is destroying you so thoroughly and so brutally that his mark will be imprinted on your body and your soul forever. 

"Oh, I can see it now. You're just like all the thousands of other people—a pathetic, ungrateful whore." Seonghwa suddenly lets go of your hair, and your head falls back like a doll's. And God, in all of his eternity, Seonghwa has never seen anyone more beautiful than you, especially when you have crystal tears rolling down your soft, flushed cheeks. You remind him of a broken porcelain doll, fragile and delicate, which he can glue back together in any way he likes.

"Please forgive me... Forgive me, my  prince." In the midst of this chaos of sensations, you catch a glimpse of his eyes. The Prince's black velvet eyes, heavy and clouded, his sensual lips, swollen and smeared with your blood, and his magnificent face have taken on a kind of waxy appearance—features smoothed to a painful perfection that could never exist among the living, like the face of a saint descended from an icon. It's almost frightening, but at the same time, it makes you want to beg him all the more desperately. Please let me cum, my prince. I need to cum so badly...'

"Oh, my love...' Seonghwa purrs indulgently, admiring the hot tears that are rolling down your face as his cold fingers continue to circle around your swollen clit. Your legs are trembling from his touch, and you have the feeling you could faint at any moment. As his two long fingers, wet with your own slime, slide into your quivering hole, you catch your breath and gasp for air. You're so sensitive to the slightest touch, and Seonghwa takes advantage of that, pressing his fingers against the silky walls of your pussy, causing you to arch your hips towards him in the hope of more stimulation. "Just look at you, my little darling. You're crying so sweetly for me. Begging so sweetly for your prince charming to have his way with your pretty pussy." The tone of his voice is like velvet wrapped in the darkness of the night, and his feline eyes glow with a kind of otherworldly evil that can barely be contained in the black, unfathomable depths of his irises. 

The heavy fog of lust completely envelops your mind, and you barely register his words. The prince's fingers dig deep into the tightness of your plush, plump cunt, and Seonghwa draws the cold, velvety pads of his fingers to press and rub the sweet, sticky spot in your pussy. He does it roughly and sharply, and he doesn't stop stimulating the over-excited, spongy walls of your cunt until your mucus begins to flow into the palm of his hand.

"It's too much... It's too much, my prince. I can't take it anymore. I can't. Ah, please, please! Seonghwa."

"But am I not merciful to you, my dear? Does not the touch of my hand soothe the pain, my love?" With his other hand, he cups your breast, squeezing and twisting the tender nipple between his fingers as he goes. "Do you want me to stop?" He asks as he relentlessly inserts a third finger into your squelching pussy, and the stretching of your little hole becomes both agonising and pleasurable at the same time.

'No!' You cry out, shaking your head desperately, the walls of your cunt clinging to his fingers, clenching and throbbing around the long appendages that are adorned with massive rings of precious stones, as the wave of pleasure slowly begins to roll over you. "No. Don't stop... Please don't stop, my prince. I want you to keep going... I'm too close."

Seonghwa laughs darkly as she leans down to your neck and lightly bites down on the spot where your pulse beats with her sharp teeth, almost feeling your orgasm on her tongue. 

"Will you cum for me? Cum on the fingers of your prince?" You feel like you're soaring, higher and higher, and just when you have the feeling you're about to reach your peak, the pleasure evaporates and you plummet. The loss of your orgasm makes you give a pathetic whimper.

"No, I beg you. Please, my prince...' You sob as Seonghwa pulls his fingers out of you completely, leaving your greedy, needy hole clutching at nothing, desperately trying to hold on to the melting remains of your orgasm. You collapse next to him, becoming like a beautiful, broken thing in his hands, looking up at him with your beautiful, crying eyes, begging for his mercy. 'Sonhawa...' His name tastes of violence, of the Middle Ages, holiness, and sex, and it leaves a stigma on your lips the moment you utter it. 

'Oh, my poor little girl.' A fake sense of pity fills his voice as he ignores the way your wounded lower lip quivers at the loss of relief and the way more tears flow from your eyes. A devilish smile blossoms on his gorgeous, plump lips before his hand returns to your wet clit and begins to rub the super-sensitive bundle of nerves in slow, hard, figure-eight motions. "I'm so sorry, my love, but it's not up to you whether you can have an orgasm or not. You should be grateful for what I am giving you." The vampire purrs, running his tongue along the sweet spots of your neck before sinking his teeth into the soft skin. Under the pressure of fangs as sharp as broken glass, the skin tears like paper. You squeal at the pain that ripples through your veins, but the sensation fades quickly as his fingers sink back into the silky warmth of your tight cunt. 

Seonghwa pushes his thumb down to press it against your slippery clit and rubs it roughly. And you instinctively squeeze your legs together, squeezing the plump flesh around his forearm as if that will stop the relentless stimulation of his fingers on your G-spot and his thumb on your swollen, throbbing clit. He lets out a deep, dark moan into your skin, kisses your neck, and licks the protruding drops of blood from you.

You're such a mess; your cum is dripping down the inside of your thighs, dripping onto the floor, and the sound your cunt makes every time his fingers go in and out of you is disgustingly wet, squelching, and utterly sinful. 

The prince watches you go dumb and twitchy under his touch. He plunges his long fingers even deeper into the wet, velvety walls of your cunt and bends them so that the pads of his fingers press perfectly against your golden spot, causing your sticky, wet fluid to squirt profusely all around you. He laughs as you squeal and squirm.

"That's right, my love, make me dirty. Fill this room with the divine fragrance of your excitement." He rubs your cunt randomly, and it makes your legs shake. You gasp at the sobs and moans that echo through his bathtub, echoing with such a loud, deafening echo that you're sure the sound is reverberating throughout the castle. Your brain is clouded in a haze, and all you can feel is Seonghwa, Seonghwa, Seonghwa....

As if he hadn't just ripped the most intense orgasm out of you, the prince pushes his fingers back into your plump cunt, and you shudder, your pussy clenching and a pearly, slippery drop dripping from your wounded hole. 

"I can't take it anymore... don't need to...' He ignores you, preferring to sink his fingers deeper into your plush walls, your tongue flicking out of your mouth as you breathe heavily.

"Wasn't that what you wanted, dear? This is exactly what you asked me so desperately for, isn't it? I'm just giving it to you. You will cum again. And you will do this until I decide you've had enough." Seonghwa tells you and does not give you a chance to disobey his order. His fingers are thrusting faster and faster into the sloppy mess of your cunt, and your eyes are closing in a euphoria of pleasure, and you are arching your whole body to him. The beautiful veins on his forearms are surging up as he touches your cunt. "Come on, my love, behave yourself, and submit to your prince." Seonghwa twists his wrist, his fingers sliding up and down until they come to rest on your G-spot, and you squeal in exhaustion as you squirt your cum all over his gorgeous body, soiling it. The slime pools on his palm and drips onto the inside of your thigh, and he leans down to touch his lips to your open mouth as he pulls his fingers out of your used, burning pussy. He softly massages your thighs and licks your lips soothingly in a strange imitation of a kiss.

You groan as the last waves of your orgasm begin to subside, but even so, you're still a long way from the satisfaction you crave. The distant thought of the aphrodisiac in his seed floats to the edge of your consciousness, but it disappears instantly, replaced by a burning need to be filled by his cock and a feeling that you may die if he doesn't satisfy that need.

'Please. I want you, I need you, and I want to feel you inside my body. There is nothing else that matters to me, my prince." There is pure desperation in the sound of your voice. 

Seonghwa pulls away from you and watches as you gasp for breath and shiver as you look up at him through your thick, wet lashes.

"You really are nothing but a greedy little slut. Seonghwa whispers as he digs his fingers into your thighs and lifts your body up as if you weighed nothing, manoeuvring you so that your legs are wrapped around his thin, perfect waist. The head of his hard cock touches the entrance of your vagina between your slick, swollen folds. "You're so lucky your blood isn't the only thing that draws me, my love." He begins to walk slowly along the length of the tub, carrying you in his arms as if you were a fragile doll. 

There is darkness in his bedroom; the thick, icy cold fills the room and tingles on your heated skin like a hundred needles. As Seonghwa gently lays you down on his royal bed, wrapped in silken sheets, you freeze, waiting for him to touch you. He leans over you like a dark angel that has descended from the heavens to destroy you, and you open your lips to catch his ghostly breath in your mouth as he speaks.

"From the moment you entered my chambers, I could feel the sweetness of your cunt on my tongue; you're aroused; you need me so obviously." His teeth graze the skin of your throat as he speaks. 'I can feel it in your blood...' For half a second, you feel the sharp pressure of his fangs as they press against the pre-existing wounds from his previous bite. It makes every muscle in your body tingle with the anticipation of pleasure. "It is tempting and seductive, but I have a taste for you in so many more ways, my love." There was a heavy pause between you as his gaze slid down the length of your body and stopped at your glistening pussy. 'And I'm really spoilt to choose. But are you up to it, my little servant? Can you, can you satisfy my insatiable hunger?'.

His words make your toes clench, and the pleasure in your belly grows once again, turning into a real flame that lies in your veins, and you let out a long moan, filled with longing and desperation. 

"I will do whatever you want me to do, my prince. I will be anything you need me to be...'

Seonghwa doesn't answer you but instead begins to kiss your neck, slowly moving his kisses down to your heaving, plump breasts. He raises his hypnotic eyes towards you, and his lashes flutter as the vampire teases your swollen pink nipple with the tip of his sharp tongue. Your body arches up over the bed, your breath catching in your throat as he sucks the sensitive bud into the silkiness of his warm mouth. His tongue splashes and swirls around your nipple as he sucks on your breast before he releases it from his mouth with a wet sound.

"The human body has always been such a fascination to me—so soft, so delicate, so responsive to every fleeting touch." He whispers as he continues to slowly kiss your body. Seonghwa runs his tongue over your navel and licks the skin of your belly. He takes his time; he has an eternity of time, and this knowledge is driving you crazy. You shudder as his elegant palms come to rest on your thighs and as he spreads your legs wide so that your cunt is completely exposed to his gaze. With his supernatural eyesight, you knew that he would be able to see every detail of you in the half-light of the bedroom. Your heart began to beat faster and faster in anticipation of what you knew was going to happen next. The lingering feeling of your previous orgasm was once again tingling you from the inside. 

Seonghwa sits down between your legs, and you let out a stifled cry as he brings his godlike face close to your pussy and runs his tongue between the sticky folds. 

He immediately lifts his eyes to you, the flames of the candle reflected in his dark irises, the black abyss of them pulling you down into an endless, lustful wasteland. His hands are wrapped around your hips, pulling you closer to him. The pleasure wraps itself tightly around the base of your spine. Seonghwa's tongue licks your clit hard, the exquisite taste of you tingling it, tingling it under the marble-gold skin where the black vampire blood splashes hotly in veins. 

Your juices ooze out onto his tongue and onto his lips, dripping down to where the insides of your thighs are reddened by his sharp claws. He drags his tongue along your folds in slow, teasing licks, savouring the taste of you as he feasts on your cunt, so wet and sweet, so juicy and plump under his tongue. Your hips arch forward, and Seonghwa allows you to be pressed even closer to his beautiful face. The palms of his hands slide down your thighs, and you feel how his thumbs push your labia apart, just so that he can slide his tongue deep into your wet hole. A series of high-pitched moans escape from your mouth as you run your fingers through his long black hair, your nails digging into the skin of his scalp as you do so. 

"It tastes so damn sweet; you're like a wine that has been aged for centuries, intoxicating and scorching. I've never tasted anything like it before." The vampire purrs into your sensitive cunt, burying his face even deeper between your legs, his skilful tongue and his sharp nose rubbing against your clit, giving you heavenly pleasure in all the right places.

His mouth continues to move along your overly sensitive nerves, and he smiles as you begin to twitch and shake. The sensation is overwhelming, and you begin to sob openly again. 

"My prince, that feels so good... ahh!" A particularly loud moan comes out of you as his tongue curls round and touches your g-spot.

With the pad of his thumb, Seonghwa begins to run circles over your clit, and you begin to thrash around on the silk sheet, trying to get away from the abusive touch on your painfully throbbing clit. Seonghwa growls and slaps you viciously on your thigh, which manages to calm you down, before he hides his face between your legs once more and continues to tease your essence. Pain and pleasure merge together, and you can't tell where dreaming ends and reality begins. So many nights you've spent in vivid fantasy dreams, full of images that would get you burned at the stake if the people of your village ever found out. And here you are, lying in your prince's luxurious bed while he eats you as if his life depended on it.

Feeling his tongue between your velvety walls and his thumb circling your clit, occasionally scratching it with his sharp fingernail, the sensation of your orgasm has crept up on you. With his heightened senses, he knows you're close, and he's balancing on the edge of coming. One more stroke of his tongue, one more rub of his fingers over your clit, and your walls begin to clench together in the spasms of an overwhelming orgasm.   The edges of your vision go black, your sight fading as you fly off the cliff and fall into an abyss of pleasure. Your head is thrown back, and your spine is arched in a perfect arc of sin and bliss. 

An approving purr escapes Seonghwa's devilishly beautiful lips as your cunt twitches and clings to his tongue as he continues to splash in the copious slime that pours out of you, lapping up your release, insatiable and deaf to your pleas as you begin to squirm. Any attempt to wriggle away from him is crushed by the rough grip of his hand on your thigh. The nails dig into the plump flesh, drawing out your blood. Rivers of scarlet, like divine tears, flow down your scarred skin and drip down onto the bed. 

'Seonghwa...' His name rings out on your lips as his own lips continue to press passionately and relentlessly against your pussy, sucking and licking, greedily swallowing up all the liquid that flows from you. His jaw moves smoothly and somehow lazily as your body almost rises to meet another orgasm. Your fingers clench tightly in his hair, your moans and squeals blend together in a symphony of pure bliss, and you come again on his tongue, even harder than before. 

Your body is shaking in never-ending ecstasy. Ecstasy burns your body and turns it to ashes. Tears flow from the corners of your eyes as he licks you thoroughly and gently, until your body is completely boneless and soft to the touch. 

After a few agonisingly long moments, he pulls away from your cunt and blows lightly on the inflamed, abused folds after his caresses, and you shiver as his cold, ghostly breath touches your flesh. Seonghwa's chin is wet with the viscous slime of you and his own saliva. He stares at you, enjoying the sight of your helplessness and vulnerability, all of you at his mercy. The vampire can see the sheen of your juices spreading down the inside of your thighs and dripping from your swollen, reddened centre. 

You've slowly come down from your high, still swimming in a lustful haze, and even though you've had several orgasms, you're still not satisfied. You need more. Much more. Seonghwa was absolutely right—you're nothing but a greedy human whore. 

"Please... You barely squeezed out. Please fuck me... " You desperately wanted to feel him inside you. You wanted him to writhe with the pleasure of your blood and body, as you did with his favour. 

"Do you want more? Greedy, insatiable whore." Seonghwa purred, his black eyes glowing with an almost otherworldly radiance in the darkness of the bedroom. "What are you going to give me in return, my love? Shouldn't you be thanking your prince?"

You turn your head faintly to expose your neck and hear a dark, velvety laughter licking your skin before his chubby lips find a tender spot on your throat. Weightless kisses that turn to nibbles, and you whimper under his care. He hasn't hurt your skin yet; he is playing skillfully with you, and a slight feeling of unease grips you. The lack of control over your body, over where and when he would bite you, or over how rough he would be with you, was a big part of your nervousness. 

Too quickly for you to notice, one of his hands cupped your chin to hold you in place, and then the sharp pain of his fangs pierced your throat. As he began to drink, a muffled moan escaped your mouth. The shock of his cold bite passed through your body like an icy wave. Seonghwa's hypnotic eyes closed as your thick, precious blood ran over his tongue. The sensation was a temporary respite from the incessant hunger that plagued him, dulling the cravings and soothing his stomach. His plump lips curled into a smile as he pressed harder against your skin. 

He let go of your chin and placed his hand on your chest instead, gently squeezing the plump flesh. The possessive, intimate touch of his hand contrasted sharply with the sting of his fangs. It soothed you strangely, and the tension in your body eased. You could also feel the hardness of his big, thick cock against your thigh. 

Seonghwa could feel your pulse fluttering beneath his lips; his pace was fast and weakened by the rapid loss of blood. He should have stopped, unless he wants to completely exhaust your body now. The lord pulls away from you as he feels the saturation of your blood—your life flowing through his veins—the blood thickening and becoming viscous, turning a shade of deep night darkness. A sweet moment when your life becomes his. 

You try to focus your blurry gaze on him as Seonghwa pulls away from you. He smears the blood running down his chin with his fingers and licks the residue off his pads. 

"You're perfect. The most delicious food I've tasted in centuries of my life. There's something special in your blood...' Seonghwa whispers, caressing your cheek, brushing the dishevelled hair from your flushed face, and wiping away the tears that remain on your lashes. "I don't think I could ever get enough of you."

You had absolutely no energy to answer him and just lay there, melting under his touch. He continues to touch you lightly until Seonghwa leans down to suck on your nipple, his tongue swirling over it in slow, deliberate movements. Your back arched, and your lips parted in a soft moan. For a few minutes, he just enjoys the feel of your soft nipple in his mouth. He slowly sucks your breasts, and the next moment he lifts your legs and wraps them around his slender waist. 

Seonghwa wraps his hand around his cock and runs the thick, wet head of it over your trembling, sensitive folds a couple of times before she pushes it into you. The feel of his cock stretching your walls is almost immediately the trigger for another orgasm. You moaned loudly at the long-awaited feeling of being filled. Seonghwa has stretched you out so beautifully and pressed himself perfectly against your silky, smooth walls, which are covered with your juices. 

He slowly enters you with his whole massive length; you are so sensitive that you can feel every inch of him and every vein on your walls so clearly that it's almost painful. You press your hips against his, desperate for friction. Seonghwa grins as he begins to move, dragging his cock along your quivering walls and letting out a deep moan every time the delicate edges of your hole cling to the head of his cock. 

His beautiful eyes focus on your face as he moves, narrowing with his sly smile as he finds the perfect angle to make your eyes roll with pleasure.

"Look at me, my love." Seonghwa ordered. "I want to have a look into your eyes while I fuck you into oblivion."

You force yourself to meet his gaze, and the prince purrs in endorsements as he begins to thrust in and out of you at a rapid pace, thrusting so hard into your tight, squirming pussy that you can almost feel his cock in the back of your throat. Your mind goes completely blank as his cock comes all the way out of you before he plunges back into your inviting warmth all the way down to the base of his dick. The rhythm is rough and brutal, but it feels almost like heaven to you.

"You're such a good girl. Look how well you're taking it. You know, vampires can go into a frenzy when they fuck. But you're not afraid of that, are you?" The way you're tensed up and the way you're trembling underneath him almost brings him to the brink of madness, but Seonghwa holds back his animal urges and slows down his pace instead. 

You let out a wordless cry, completely lost in nothing but the obscene sound of your copulation—the sticky slap of skin against skin. 

"I am going to fill you with so much of my cum that it will drip from you for days, my love." Seonghwa wants to mark you in every possible way; he wants to tie you up; he wants to bite you; he wants to breed you. He wants you to belong only to him—to his world, to his darkness, to his blood, and to his own kind. "Everyone will have the knowledge that you are mine, for they will have the smell of my blood and my seed on you." He breathes into your ear as his pace picks up, and he sets an agonising rhythm, each movement of his cock hitting that special place inside of you.

'Seonghwa!' Your walls squeeze against him even harder than before as another orgasm begins to creep closer to you.  The prince presses his fingers against your clit, and then presses his lips against yours in a passionate kiss. As his mouth slides so passionately over your lips, as his thumb strokes in circles around your quivering clit, and as his thick cock slides in and out of you, the heat that is building up inside of you becomes almost unbearable. 

"Mmm, you feel so good." He tells you, running his tongue over your trembling lower lip. "You will belong to me forever.".

The thought that Seonghwa could turn you into a vampire and spend the rest of eternity with you was enough to bring you to orgasm. Uncontrollable pleasure engulfed your entire body. Seonghwa moaned velvetily, resting his face against your neck as you began to come. Your silky walls squeezed his cock as your climax plunged your consciousness into complete darkness. The pace of his thrusts quickened, and before long, he was muffling your cries of pleasure with his mouth, devouring every lewd sound that managed to escape from you.

"My prince... Seonghwa...' You managed to breathe out against the lips of his mouth. 'I want to be with you forever... I want you to be inside me...'

Your words filled him with a lust that was far greater than his thirst for blood, and soon he was inside of you as deep as he could go, his cock twitching as he found his own orgasm. He came in your pussy, filling you with his thick, viscous cum as he called out your name in a hoarse voice. 

After a few moments, Seonghwa came out of you and gave you a chance to catch your breath. The mixture of his cum and your own juices slowly poured out of your used pussy and started to drip down onto the sheets. 

"And you will, my love. You certainly will.'

Dressed in an ancient coronation robe, the gorgeous vampire prince circles the precious crystal coffin, his fingertips lightly stroking the cold, smooth crystal. The sneaky light of the somnambulistic stars falls on your face like the veil of a bride. He had arranged you here in all luxury: your hair was covered with diamond powder, glittering in the lace of the moonlight; he had painted your lips a delicate scarlet, the same colour as the cheeks of the radiant seraphim in church frescoes; and under your tongue he had placed petals of black violets, soaked in his midnight blood. Your body was wrapped in the most luxurious antique lace, embroidered with mother-of-pearl tears of dragons and pearls from the bottom of the sea. 

You were so beautiful... seductive, like a deadly flower that lures prey before swallowing it whole.

As he arranged hundreds of black velvet roses around your fragile body, a shy softness tinted his godlike face. Thorny rose bushes bloomed around the coffin as the castle of fairytales turned into a tomb with only one living soul. 

"You're in no danger now." Seonghwa whispered, stroking your beautiful hair. "Nothing can harm you now, and you will always be my love. Always and forever..."

Seonghwa is seated at a small round table and is playing his leisurely game with the fates. The elegant hands of the beautiful Dweller of Darkness skillfully guide the Hand of Fate. He spreads the tarot cards, tirelessly constructing endless constellations of indeterminate probabilities. One by one, Seonghwa turns over the ancient, worn cards, the corners of his devilishly sensual lips curving slightly as he sees the familiar layout: Lovers, Death, Empress, Love, Eternity, Beloved. The gaze of his fathomless, hypnotic eyes turns to you—his majestic bride, awaiting her awakening.

It's always been this way and always will be: people avoid the village that stands by the ominous Gothic castle in the middle of a dead rose garden, where, according to ancient legend, the beautiful Midnight Prince and his gorgeous bride keep the guilty legacy of their bloodthirsty ancestors. 

[perilegs]

I'm thinking about the Dalish conversation with Zevran and how he tells of the circumstance of his birth in the most matter of fact way and calls it the oldest tale in the book. If the Warden says it was horrible, Zevran plays it off with a nonchalant "Is it?" and says it's normal, especially for the boys he grew up with. But! He approves of you acknowledging that his past has been horrible to him. He keeps diminishing his own problems and trauma, and it's interesting because there are so many little aspects of him that show themselves in that tiny bit of dialogue.

Zevran, as a crow, is trained in the art of seduction and it has been one of the reasons he's still alive to this day. He knows it's typically unsexy to lament on how terribly your past has been affecting you. If you tell Zevran you're sorry for him, he immediately turns the conversation into complimenting the Warden.

It can be read as a test of character if one so chooses. Obviously Zevran isn't going to show a weak point to a person he just met, but, he is telling about himself, on a deeper level, and it's up to the Warden on how they react. Also, It's a good way to scope intentions and such. Zevran is still sharing information on himself, but on his terms. He chooses to tell the Warden about his childhood when all they asked was a question about the Dalish. And he sets a neutral tone to it.

Zevran's childhood is not a pleasant subject and he distances himself from it. It's far easier for him to talk about it that way, and it doesn't force him to process what he experienced and how it was horrible.

But he does enjoy someone, an outsider, reaffirming that what he went through was horrible, and it wasn't okay just because others have gone through the same and worse. Was there a moment in his past, where he even mildly suggested his childhood might have been less than ideal, and gotten back the reaction that it's no different from his peers? Or that he is lucky to have been bought by the crows?

"My first victim, as it were." Is that what the crows said to him? How they reassured Zevran time and time again how he was meant to be an assassin, it has been so since his birth.

[deedeeznoots]

The Deep Woods

➺ Update: If you enjoy this story, please feel free to also read some extra headcanons that delve into your life with Sukuna in the woods during the story as well as after the story takes place!

➺ Characters: Ryomen Sukuna, Fem!Reader 

➺ Word Count: 9.6k

➺ Genre: Slow Burn, Smut, Fluff

➺ Content: Fairy Tale!AU, True Form!Sukuna, Princess!Reader, MDNI, Arranged Marriage (not to Sukuna), Abusive Family (not super heavy though just average royal family bullshit), Swearing, Double Packed Sukuna, Oral (M!Recieving), Teasing, Begging, PiV, Unprotected Sex, Creampie, Stomach Mouth used so Oral (Fem!Recieving), Reader Stabs Someone

➺ A/N: This is the perfect time to confess that the reason I started watching JJK was because of all the Disney Princess ships that were going around and I'm not ashamed at all, those ships were unironically cute. 

➺ Synopsis:  Far beyond the kingdom walls in the darkest parts of the forest, there’s said to be a monstrous beast with two faces and four arms. As the only princess in the kingdom, you ignore these rumors and explore among the trees anyways. Unfortunately, it seems curiosity got the best of you, and you come face to face with this exact beast. Though… after meeting him, you begin to question who the true monsters of the kingdom actually are. 

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

Your footsteps can be heard echoing throughout the castle walls as you walk on the decorated marble floor. You take a moment to take in your surroundings. Beautiful pieces of art and architecture surround you as you walk through the place you call home. Despite living in the castle your whole life, you always found something new when you walked around. This time, you notice the tiny angels at the top of the pillars, seemingly staring down at you. Were those always there? You thought. It didn’t matter, but it was interesting to take note of. You had to take note of these things if you didn’t want to go insane. It was a good thing the castle was so large and had all of these tiny details, otherwise you would have put up more of a fight to leave than you already do. Sometimes though, you just wished your company wasn’t so terrible.

Taking a deep breath, you open the heavy doors leading to the dinner room. There, you’re met with two awfully familiar faces. 

“Father… Mother…” you say softly, bowing as you enter the room.

“You’re late” your mother curtly states. You look down half-apologetically, “I’m sorry” you mumble. 

She isn’t finished. “Your hair is disheveled as well, did you think this was the proper way to greet us?”. Of course, you haven’t seen either of your parents for the entire day, and during the small window of time when you did see each other, it’s surrounded with criticism. If it wasn’t your hair, it was your clothing, and if not that, it was the way you walked or talked. You’d be more angry about it if you weren’t so used to it. Nowadays, you simply pull up a chair at the comically large dining table where your family sat and quietly eat your food. Your father–the King– would follow suit. Either looking down at his food, or around the castle, or speaking with your mother. He did everything but look you in the eyes. In some ways he was worse than your mother. At least your mother criticized things in your control. Yet, your father’s distaste of you seemed to stem from nothing more than the cardinal sin you committed of being a woman. Your parents have no other children, so it seemed that your very existence continued to be a reminder of their failures– no, your failure to bring an heir to the throne. 

You finish eating your food, but it’s not over yet, because unlike previous dinners, you were on a mission this evening. Setting down your fork to grab their attention, you look at them both and ask “I’d like permission to go to the village”. 

Both of your parents simply stood in silence before laughing. In fact, this was probably the happiest you’ve seen them. “Oh please, what could you possibly get from the village?” your mother questions you, still with a stupid smile on her face. Trying to hide your offense, you straighten your back “I’d just like to see what’s outside of this castle”. 

Realizing you’re serious, your parents stop their laughs, and their faces contort into one of anger. “Don’t put such things in your head,” your mother says “There’s nothing outside of this castle that is of interest to you, a different Princess would already know that”. What she really means is a better Princess would know that. You already knew that they probably wouldn’t agree, but you were unable to stop yourself from wanting to put up a fight anyways. Irritated, you stood up from your chair “Please just– let me see what’s out there, one hour tops, and I’ll never ask again”. 

In anger, your mother abruptly stood up as well and said “Absolutely not. Who knows what the people may do if they find a Princess near their filthy surroundings. Especially those peasant men who could–” 

“You know what. Never mind” you begin to walk away, turning your back on your mother. She didn’t like this very much, “How dare you turn your back on the Queen! Come back here you damn woman” she yells out, but you’re already at the door. You push the door open and slam it closed behind you as you make it outside the dining room. There, you find your Lady in Waiting next to the door, listening into the conversation. Realizing that you caught her, she stood in stock. You simply looked at her before scoffing and turning away to go back to your room, and she scurried trying to follow behind you. 

As you two are walking, she begins to speak up. “You know Princess, maybe it’s for the best that you don’t go outside” she takes a short breath, tired from having to chase after you. “There really isn’t anything in the village that would be of interest to a noblewoman such as yourself” she laughs, but you simply ignore her and keep moving, walking even faster this time, to her dismay. She wasn’t getting to you, but she kept trying anyway, “Also…I’ve heard about a beast roaming the forest near the village. The people say he’s almost 9 feet tall, and has four arms! Isn’t that terrifying?” Now that made you stop, and you turned around to look at her. Yes! She thought, had she gotten through to you? 

“Don’t be stupid” is all you say before you make it to your room and abruptly close the door, leaving her outside. 

In your room, you peek through the large window showing the outside world. There, you’re also able to see the forest that covers the perimeter of the Kingdom. A 9 foot tall beast huh? You thought, oh to be able to see that. Maybe it was stupid to wish for such a thing, but you would be willing to see anything so long as it was outside the castle. You weren’t blind to your privilege, of course it probably wasn’t going to be the stellar experience you expected, but at least you would know, that would be more than enough for you. 

Still, it didn’t matter what you thought because you probably would be staying in this same castle every day for your entire life regardless of your thoughts about it. Turning back to look outside one last time, you walk to your bed and flop down, dozing off to sleep. 

The morning rays of sun stir you awake and nearly blind you as you open your eyes. Somewhat groggy, you slowly get washed and dressed as you make your way to the garden for breakfast. The gardens were the closest to the outside world you could ever get, and as such they quickly became your favorite place to spend your day. You say hello to some of the gardeners as you make your way to the gazebo where your breakfast is already prepared. Your mouth waters as you see the combination of scones and fruit laid out for your breakfast. You get lost in thought as you eat, thinking about how you’ll spend your time for the day.

Your thoughts get disturbed when your Lady in Waiting comes to greet you. You look at her, about to apologize for your behavior last night when she begins to speak “Your Highness,” she lightly bows, “The King and Queen have asked to meet you after breakfast, they say it’s important”. As she raises her head, you ask her what it might be about. Your parents didn’t usually ask to meet with you outside of dinner. You thought for a moment, hopefully this wasn’t about what happened last night. When she tells you that she isn’t sure what the meeting is for, you simply nod and tell her you’ll be there soon. 

Once she leaves, you finish up breakfast and make your way to the throne room. This was the place your parents spent most of their time, and where they held their endless gatherings and meetings. As such, you made it a point to avoid the place outside of times where they specifically ask for you such as this one. 

When you make it inside the throne room, you walk to your parents and give them a bow “Your Majesties” you say, greeting them. Your parents don’t waste any time, and get right to the chase. “We have good news” your father starts. “You’re to be married” he says, gleeful, you on the other hand were anything but. Slowly standing up from your kneeling position, you utter a small “What?”, not fully comprehending what’s coming out of his mouth. “It really should have happened before” your mother begins, “You have been more than old enough for a long time” she scoffs. “Wait!” you yell out suddenly, “I’m not getting married” you say, mostly out of shock at the revelation. 

Your mother sighs, not hiding her disappointment. “How many times do we have to say that it’s your royal duty to provide this family with an heir” she lectures. You simply look down. Damn it, you think, you really didn’t want to do this, but you suppose you had no choice, so you ask, “Who is it?”. This confuses your parents and they look to each other in confusion, so you clarify, “Who am I getting married to”. The fact that you have shown the signs of being willing (or at the very least, compliant), nearly makes your mother jump up with glee. Your father says “This young Prince in the neighboring Kingdom, his father has lots of good things to say–”

“What about you guys?” you ask. It wasn’t that you particularly trusted their judgment, but you trusted them more than some other King who most definitely had a conflict of interest, “What do you guys think of him?”. This makes your parents pause for a moment before your mother goes, “Well… we haven’t quite met him yet”. 

Now, you weren’t very particular about who you were going to marry. You knew it was going to come eventually due to the nature of your family, but this made you angry. To not even know who they were marrying you off to? Have they truly stooped to this kind of stupidity? “So you don’t even know who he is and you want me to marry him?” you question, now somewhat aggressively. 

“We can take care of all that later my dear–” your mother starts again, but you aren’t having any of it “No! Getting married to someone I don’t know is bad enough but someone you guys don’t even know? That’s just absurd!” you yell out, which makes your father angry. “What’s absurd is not having an heir to the throne!” he yells out, his voice booming throughout the throne room. “You are to be married to this man regardless of your personal feelings on the matter” he yells out again. You can’t look at him. You can’t look at either of them. Your brain is starting to hurt and you can’t do anything. So you take one last look at them before silently leaving the throne room. 

Making it back to your bedroom, you spend the rest of the day looking out your window, watching as the sun sets and the moon shows its full glory. Thankfully, no one bothers you for the rest of the day, but you still have a pounding headache from the conversation. Various thoughts fill your head, from I can’t believe they would do this to I don’t think marriage would be that bad, right? All the way back to I shouldn’t even have to question whether it would be bad or not. You eventually decide that you need to clear your head and get some fresh air. Fresh air outside of this damn castle.

Looking out the window, your eyes focus on the forest ahead. The luscious green leaves sway from side to side as you look out at them, as if to call you towards them. Surely, it would be nice to walk through those woods. 

What? No! That’s a stupid decision, you could get lost. Or worse, killed.

…

Well… dead people can’t get married off to strangers.

That thought in mind, you grab a cloak from your closet and open up your window. The cold breeze of the night hits your face as you look out toward the forest, toward freedom… at least for a little while, that is. The only issue that stands in your way is how to get down. Looking down at the ground from your window, you definitely wouldn’t be able to jump without dying or getting injured. Not liking either of those options, you look around your room for anything that might help when you eye a pile of blankets in the corner of your room. Perfect. 

Man, these blankets are long as hell you think as you tie the pieces of fabric together. Once you finish, you securely tie one end to your bed frame and bring the other end out the window. The end of the makeshift rope hits the floor, and you have a mini celebration of your success. 

Feet hitting the ground, you’re able to slip past the guards and make your way out of the castle walls. You aren’t scared, far from it. For the first time in your life, you’re free. You’re giddy for a while and that joy only grows as you get further and further away from the castle. You’re finally able to take a breath, even if only for a mere few hours in the night.

There are no lights in the forest, and you didn’t bring a candle with you, so you only had the full moon to guide you. This was alright though, and you bathed in the moonlight for a while, being at peace. 

Your head is finally clear, and you’re able to stay in meditative thought as you walk through the woods.

Then, you hear a growl. 

You snap out of your thoughts and turn to the direction where the growl was heard. 

You hear another growl behind you. 

Then another. 

It’s a pack of wolves. 

And they’re surrounding you. 

You’re able to see their faces as they step into the moonlight out of the shadows. Their hungry eyes showing you that they do not intend to free you. The beasts give you no path of escape as they inch closer and closer to you. You had no other choice, you were going to be their dinner. Knowing your situation, you simply crouch down and close your eyes. Hopefully, it’ll be a quick death you think as you hear their excited growls and howls around you. 

One of the wolves prepares to lunge at you, but just as it’s about to, another force tackles the animal. 

“Huh?” you audibly say as you slowly open your eyes. When you look around yourself again, there are no more wolves to be seen, all of them taken away by a mysterious force. You are frozen in place. What in the world just happened? 

You can’t think for long though, as you realize…You sense someone else’s presence. 

You slowly turn around to find a large beast in the distance. No, that’s no beast, that’s a man. Except… Why does he have four arms? 

You think back to your conversation with your Lady in Waiting the other day. 

Shit. 

He’s slowly inching toward you. 

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

The better part of your brain knows to run, but you remain crouched and unmoving, frozen in fear. Eventually, he stands in front of you, looking down at your small form. 

They say he’s 9 feet, huh? You weren’t fully sure if that was correct, but he definitely looked like it from the way he was hovering above you. 

This feeling. It’s pure fear. You weren’t even this afraid when surrounded by the wolves, whom you were fully expecting to eat you. But this, you aren’t even able to breathe. Hell, you can’t breathe, you don’t know what’s come over you. He did save you, right? Maybe he isn’t so dangerous. Though, maybe he’s simply saving you for himself.

The clouds in the sky that were previously covering the moon now moved past, allowing the moonlight to shine on the man’s face, and you’re able to see four bright red eyes looking down at you. 

Not knowing what else to say, you just scream out “P-Please! Please don’t hurt me!”. It was different with the wolves, they wouldn’t have stopped no matter what you said. With this though… Was he more man than beast? Maybe he understood language? You were going to take all your chances, so you continued begging for your life. 

He seemed to have no reaction to your qualms, and simply slowly raised up his hand, getting ready to strike you. He took his time, as if you were so small that he didn’t even need to fully put in any effort to try to catch you. You didn’t give up, you continued to beg for your life until the last moment, hoping to get through to him. You kept on screaming. Kept on begging for your life until the very last moment when he swiftly brought his hand down to your face and–

You knocked out. 

“Princess! Oh Dear– Princess!” 

The voice of your Lady in Waiting wakes you up. Your head is throbbing with pain, and her frantic tone certainly wasn’t helping. 

“Huh?” you groan, you feel the grass from under you, you’re in front of the castle. You begin to slowly remember the events of the night before. Right… you left the castle, but how’d you get back here?

You suddenly remember the wolves and that man that saved you. You begin to frantically look around. Did he bring you back? 

Your Lady in Waiting makes it to you and begins to help you up. She decides to ask “Why are you on the floor?”. She’s picking the stray pieces of grass off of your hair and as you’re about to explain what happened, you realize how incriminating against you the story was. So, you simply tell her, “I’m not sure…”. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t question you any further, and simply goes “Let’s go give you a bath” as she takes your hand and leads you inside the castle. You turn around for a moment and look toward the forest. What the hell happened? 

The hot bath was more than needed to help clean off the dirt on your skin. The steam also helped to relax you as you organized your thoughts. You remember the four-armed man, and his bright red eyes. You think about how he saved you from death. You sounded ridiculous. Was that… a dream? You thought. No… it couldn’t be, it felt too real to merely be a dream. Though, if that was true, why did he save you from the wolves, and why did he bring you back to the castle? Ignoring all that, a man of that kind of build is something out of children’s books. 

It was going to bug you for the rest of your days, you had to go back to find out what on Earth happened last night. It would just be a short trip to confirm, you remembered most of your steps from that night. Plus, it was broad daylight now, surely there would be no predators roaming around.

If anyone heard you, it would sound like you had a death wish. Hell, you probably did… but there was something calling you to go back to investigate that man, and you’d be damned if you didn’t listen. 

Letting the water drip down your body as you leave the tub, you dry yourself off with a towel and pick out a dress. You went for something simple, as you needed to be able to move in case the worse happens and you get attacked by another animal. Or worse, if your new “friend” turned out to not be so friendly after all. 

You’re able to sneak your way through the guards again, and it was actually much easier this time. Turns out, your parents were away from the castle, meaning not as many guards stuck around to keep watch. 

“If I knew it was going to be this easy to leave, I would have snuck out before” You thought out loud in a quiet whisper. 

You find your way back to the forest and try your best to follow the path you remember going on the night before. You walk for a while before you see something of interest. 

Red blood stains paint the dirt coupled with scratch marks, no doubt from wolves. You look around your surroundings. While brighter now, they definitely looked familiar. There was no doubt, this was the place where your life nearly ended. 

So it wasn’t a dream. In your heart you already knew that, of course, the extra confirmation definitely helped. 

You think about your savior. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to look for him, right? You look around once again, as if he would be standing in the same spot. You start to walk down the path further into the forest. You should be able to run into him eventually, right? Wait, why were you even looking for him? 

Against your better judgment, you call out to the stranger, “Um… excuse me sir but I just wanted to thank you for saving me last night”. Nothing. “If you can hear me please come out, I promise I mean peace”. Still nothing. 

After what felt like walking for hours, you nearly give up and decide to cut your losses and go home. That is, until you see a stone figure in the distance. Looking closer, you realize it’s a well. Curious, you walk towards it. Your fingers touch the rough stone of the abandoned well, and you wonder about the last time it was used. You decide to sit for a while and ponder near the spot. You think again about your marriage, and slowly begin to accept the reality of the situation. Hopefully, in the best case scenario, the Prince isn’t so bad. Hell, you’d accept halfway bearable. At least now, you know that when times get rough you’re able to go to the forest to think. 

You ponder a bit more and as you look down at the well, various things cross your mind. Whether they were good or bad, it didn’t matter to you. You were simply allowing your mind to roam wherever it saw fit. You were officially lost in thought. In fact, you were so lost in thought, that you didn’t even notice the giant form standing just behind you…

“Are you stupid?” You hear a gruff voice coming from behind you. 

Shocked, you forget that you’re near a well and jump up, screaming whilst you flail your arms out. This causes you to lose your balance and you fall into the well, causing you to scream even louder. You brace for your fall but it never comes. Instead, you find yourself caught between four large arms. 

“‘Tch, idiot” you hear, though you’re just glad that you’re alive. You’re brought back down to the glorious land, and you’re able to look up at the man in front of you. Looking at him, you see the obvious signs of your previous savior. The iconic four arms and four bright red eyes. Though, now that he’s in broad daylight, you notice some more things. Like the markings on his arms, his slicked back pink hair and a large mouth directly where his stomach is. Forget about children’s books, this man was unequivocally a monster. Though, you couldn’t help but think about how handsome he looked despite this. A stoic expression painted his face, despite showing clear annoyance toward your antics. Yes, handsome was the word to describe him. 

“Don’t stare. It’s weird” he says.

Then again, maybe you simply haven’t met many men. 

You’re about to respond with a comment of your own, when you feel a sharp sting on your leg. Wincing, you look down and you see blood trickling down your thigh. You must have gotten scratched while falling down the well. 

“Ow…” you say quietly, lifting up your dress. The man heard your pains, but didn’t pay it much mind. Rolling his eyes, he simply turned around to another side of the woods and said “You’ll live”. 

“Wait!” you reach out, grabbing at his clothes. This annoyed the man and he attempted to pull your hand away, you don’t budge though. “It hurts!” you yell out at him. He continues to try to get your hand off of him, and he yells out, “Not my problem!”. Finally, he’s free from your hand and pushes you away, causing you to fall backwards. “Owww…” you say, again. Today was certainly not your lucky day.

He’s about to walk away from you when he turns around for a second. Looking at you, he saw your pathetic display, covered in dirt, crouching down afraid to touch your minor cut. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Groaning, he walks toward you and picks you up, easily carrying you over his shoulder. “Hey what are you–” 

“Quiet.” he says, “Don’t make me regret this, brat”. You do as he says. You weren’t afraid of him anymore. How could you be? If he wanted to kill you, he had several chances to do so. Hell, there were multiple instances when nature nearly did the job for him. So you decide to trust him as he carries you through an unknown part of the forest. 

He places you down inside an open cave. Based on the various items around, you assume it’s where he lives. You look around and see makeshift weapons and pieces of cloth sprawled about in the area. It definitely could be better, but it was pretty good for someone who lived in the wild. 

You see him as he takes one of the clean pieces of cloth and pats it on your leg. It stung like hell every time he padded the white cloth onto your skin, but he didn’t seem to care much about your tiny reactions. After a bit you both settle into a quiet, almost intimate feeling as he caresses your thigh, trying to clean the blood off your leg. You were used to getting taken care of, but this, this felt different. 

You take your chance to speak. “Thank you, again…” you say. 

He doesn’t say anything back, only muttering a soft “Whatever” to himself as he continues patting the area.

You continue to try to initiate small talk, saying things like “So… this is your house, how nice” and “The woods are lovely aren’t they?”. This doesn’t earn much of a reaction from him, and it seems that the small smidge of a reaction that you do see, is one of annoyance. You decide to give up, but not before asking him one more question. 

“What’s your name?” you ask. 

He stops for a bit, hesitating, and you assume that he won’t answer, when he says “Ryomen”. 

Pleasantly surprised that he actually answered you, you excitedly ask “Ryomen what?” with a smile. 

He gives a short groan in annoyance and mumbles “Ryomen Sukuna” as he rolls his eyes, still trying to focus on padding down your wound. You no longer mind the pain, instead you’re happy that you’re able to get him to open up. 

“That’s a nice name” you compliment him, and he just gives a low hum in response. 

He finishes patching you up and begins to walk away as he stands, “You’re a big girl, now scram” he tries to be intimidating, though it no longer works on you. You thank him profusely and it seems to do nothing but make him more annoyed as he focuses on anything else but you. 

“Oh I have one more question!” you say as you stand up from your spot. 

“‘Course you do…” he says, you take this as an invitation to keep talking, and you ask him the one question that’s been bugging your mind, “How did you know I lived in the castle?” 

He simply looked at you and gave you a blank stare and said, “You’re asking me that when you go out dressed like… that? It’s obvious”. He looks you up and down as he says the words, causing you to look down at your choice of wear. Oh yeah… of course, you couldn’t hide it if you tried. Though, it at least helped bring you home. Getting your answer, you simply walk away, not wanting to press him further. 

His peace doesn’t last long, however, as you come back. Then, you come back again, and again, and again. 

It started with you bringing a basket of food to him. Something simple, such as some fruits. “I wanted to give you this to thank you for all you’ve done” you said. When you offered him the basket he took the food and left, planning to leave you alone. He didn’t even say a word to you, let alone a thank you. Somewhat offended, you yelled out a “Wait!”, which caused him to turn around. “I thought… we would be eating together” you said, looking down at the floor.

He stopped for a moment before sitting down, grumbling as he took an apple and bit on it. Well… bit is an understatement, he absolutely ravaged the apple, leaving not even the core. 

“You… you eat the core?” you ask him, genuinely concerned for what it might do to his health. 

He just looked at you, chewing on a seed, and said “I don’t waste food” before going back to abusing the rest of the fruits on the basket, all while you stay content with your single bunch of grapes. 

Outside of that short conversation, you two don’t speak to each other. When he finished eating, Sukuna got up and left, not even uttering a single goodbye. However, this was far from the last time you two spoke. 

Every day, you brought him food from the castle. Every day, you insisted that he sit with you to eat it. You weren’t exactly sure why you did all this, maybe it was an excuse to get away from the castle, or maybe you were simply intrigued by the man you visited. You two hardly ever spoke at first, how could you? Sukuna hated your presence, not for any particular reason, he just wasn’t very fond of humans. However, he loved food more than he hated you, so he never complained and was never outright malicious. 

One time though, after a few weeks of you two meeting, he snapped and said, “Stop coming here, brat”. You looked up at him, the bread you brought in hand, and gave him a simple “No”. This response caused him to growl under his teeth, but he didn’t push it. He didn’t want to admit it, but he started to enjoy being around you. It sucked being alone, and most people didn’t want to go near him. Plus, the small number of people who were brave enough to face him were in it to kill him, so he was willing to accept having you around, as simple minded as you were. Finishing the food, he got up as usual, except this time he said “You’re lucky this food is good”, before walking away. 

That small interaction seemed to open the doors for you two to get closer. Eventually, you two began speaking as you ate. Mostly small talk, sometimes you’d touch on your arranged marriage, but it was a topic you wanted to avoid as much as possible. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind brushing over it. 

Even after you two ate, you continued to speak to each other. Mostly walking around the forest, you would ask him about the various plants and wildlife. Something that he seemed highly knowledgeable about, always diligently explaining everything around the forest to you. 

You two sometimes met at night as well. You would steal some food from dinner (something that allowed you to actually look forward to the occasion) and bring it for the two of you to have. While eating, you would look up at the stars together, basking in the light they give off. 

“I can feel you staring at me” you say, looking at him through the side of your eye. He doesn’t let up, in fact, he grows more confident, turning his entire body around to face you. “Sorry, I just couldn’t help but notice something about your face”. You turn around to face him, curious about what he might say. “I swear to God if you say something stupid I will personally poke one of your eyes out–” 

“Your eyes shine more than the stars do,” he cuts you off. You look at him, his face is as calm as it usually is, he’s serious. You aren’t sure what to say, and you stutter around your words, until you hear a hearty laugh and Sukuna’s face scrunched up in a chuckle “Oh man– I can’t believe that corny ass line got you… you really do need to go outside more” he says as he laughs some more, crossing his four arms over his head. Your face is flushed and red from embarrassment and you tackle the man “Ryomen Sukuna!” you yell out, “That’s it, I’m poking your eyes out!”. Sukuna is able to fight you off with his superior strength, and when your embarrassment cools down, you’re able to have a bit of a laugh as well. 

“Well lookie here…” Sukuna says, looking down at you as you struggle being tangled up between some long plants. “Ain’t this a sight to see… so early in the morning too” he chuckles. The food you brought him for the day now on the floor, you continue struggling before you yell out “Ryomen stop staring like a weirdo and come help me!”. He laughs again and goes “I don’t know… there’s no more food so I can just leave you here” he pretends to turn around to leave you. You know he isn’t being fully serious, but in frustration you swing around and begin yelling his name some more. “Okay fine, fine…” he says, as he cuts the plants with his nails “Waitwaitwaitwait—” is all you say before you fall to the floor. It wasn’t a huge fall, but it was enough to hurt. “Ow…” you say, your arms absorbing most of the fall, and thus, most of the pain. Sukuna keeps laughing, “Oops…Hahahaha” he smiles as you stare daggers at him. 

You’re able to get up on your own and pat most of the dirt away. “You know man I’m not really in the mood today” you say as you try your best to look a little more proper. “Oh? What’s wrong?” he asks, still half-joking based on his tone. Still, you answer seriously “I’m meeting my husband today… my family’s holding some stupid party”. You say it like it isn’t a big deal, but Sukuna can read in your face that the thought seriously upsets you, so he lightens up a bit. 

He pats you on the head with one of his hands and goes “Come on… it’s about time I give you some food, yeah? Let’s go hunting”. He begins running, slow enough for you to follow, but fast enough for you to have to catch up with him. You mindlessly follow him before going “Wait… hunting? Wait, I don't wanna– RYOMEN!”. 

Ballroom music plays as you stand amongst the crowd of people, trying your best to keep up appearances. This was technically your engagement party, but with how far you and your future husband seem to be from each other, no one would be able to guess. That, and your “fiancé” flirting with every woman he could lay his eyes upon. Every woman but you, of course. You didn’t miss the way his face dropped the moment he laid his eyes on you. You didn’t mind this, as you weren’t too pleased with his appearance either. Still, the least he could do is suck it up and take it for the day the way you were expected to. Alas, it seems his favorite course of action for the night was to humiliate you by having a public display of his flirtation before you two are even married.

You try to use this to your advantage, “Look at him, mother…” you say to the woman standing next to you, she’s giving out her brightest and fakest smiles to all the guests “You can’t possibly expect me to marry him” you tell her. “You can and will…” your mother says through smiling teeth, she isn’t done though, she never is “If you took better care of yourself, maybe his behavior would be different” she drops her act for a moment, before going back to greeting guests. 

You let out a sigh of sadness and anger, everything felt horrible. Suddenly, the dress you’re wearing is a tad too tight, the music feels a bit too loud, and there’s too many people. Your mother’s comments as she watches your future husband embarrass you doesn’t help either. You need to leave, and you need to leave fast. You somehow find a way to slip out of the party without many people noticing and try to make your way to the only place you felt safe– the forest. 

You somehow make it to Sukuna’s resting spot despite the way you’re dressed. Your feet have blisters all over from your shoes but that doesn’t matter. You’re finally safe here… 

Sukuna immediately notices you and is prepared with a joke, “Woah who let the–”

“Shut up” you cut him off. You knew his comments were mostly in pure fun, and you enjoyed them for the most part, but today was not one of those times. 

Sukuna understood this, and simmered down. “Bad day?” he asks, though he already knew the answer. 

Tears stinging your eyes, you simply look down at the floor and nod. Sukuna pats down a spot next to him and goes “Tell me about it”. 

You take the invitation, and tell him all about your woes. The full story of your forced marriage, the pressure to have an heir, the humiliation you felt as you saw the man you were publicly marrying flirt with as many women as he could right in front of everyone. You were like a river on a broken dam. 

Sukuna didn’t say anything until you were finished, and even once you were, all he said was “Man, what assholes”. It seemed like a mindless comment, but to hear someone else finally say it was enough for you. You two sat in silence for a while before Sukuna looked at you and went “You don’t deserve any of that, I’m sorry”. He was actually fully serious for once. You two locked eyes for a while, not saying a word. You took a while to study his face. You realized this while first meeting him, but it really hit you now. His ever calming facial expressions, the way his eyes looked at you, the way his hair was perfectly slicked back, it was without a doubt, he was devilishly handsome. 

You kissed him. You weren’t sure why. Maybe it was frustration from this terrible day and you weren’t thinking straight, or maybe, just maybe, it was something more. Sukuna seemed shocked from the sudden kiss, but he held no complaints as he kissed you back. Opening your mouth, both your tongues intertwined for some time… a long time, before both of you pulled back for air, with only the string of saliva connecting your two lips serving as proof of what you did. 

Forget not thinking straight, this was the clearest your mind had been for a while. You reach your hand out toward his groin, he knew what you were trying to ask him… but still, you go “Please?” as you rub him through the thin cloth. He’s hard. 

Thankfully, he keep you waiting, and he stood up as you got on your knees. Before he let you pull down his clothing though, he said “Don’t be too shocked at what you see, alright?”. You simply nod, not understanding what he meant at first. However, pulling down his thin robes, you came face to face with exactly what he meant as two, almost comically large, penises slap against your face. You stare at him wide-eyed for a moment before you fully digest what’s in front of you. It should’ve been obvious, really. He had twice as many of almost every feature on his body, why wouldn’t he have two cocks?

Fully composed now, you take your tongue and drag it across his bottom shaft, licking all the way up to the tip of his dick. You try your best to suck as far down as possible while also jerking off his top shaft to keep your attention at both. Sukuna seemed pretty happy with this treatment, as you hear various moans and groans from the man standing above you. You try your best to interchange your mouth between his two cocks, trying to find just the right spots for his pleasure. You’re able to get his cock even deeper down your throat with Sukuna’s help, as he brings his hand to your head and begins fucking your mouth.

“D-Damn… Hah… You learn this in the castle?” he laughs in between his moans. You glare up at him, though all you can really do is give him an angry groan with his dick stuffing your mouth. This doesn’t deter him however, as he feels your mouth’s vibrations throughout his cock. Still, he sees your angry face as you suck him off, so he smiles and says a small “Sorry… hehe” as he pulls your mouth off his dick. 

You pant for a while, saliva coating both your face and his dicks. He lets you rest for a bit but not before bending you over. “There we go,” he says, as he rips the fabric of your dress from your body. You don’t care though, you didn’t care for anything else anymore, you just needed him inside of you and you needed it quick. He aligns his bottom cock with your pussy, but he doesn’t move. You try to move back, but he keeps your hips still to stop your movement. “R-Ryomen… what are you doing?” you ask, halfway begging for him to just put it in. 

He chuckles for a bit before he tells you “I want you to beg for it” as he rubs his tip against your slick folds. 

Right. 

He might be horny right now, but he’s still the same asshole. 

You play along, willing to basically do anything to get him inside you. You go “P-Please?” in the softest voice you could. This wasn’t satisfactory for Sukuna, however, as he slaps you ass and says “You can do better than that! Come on– try harder”. 

You’re getting frustrated, and you had half a mind to force his dick inside yourself, but with his hands still on your hips, you just keep begging “Please please Ryomen, please put your dick inside of me…please pleas– ahh!” 

He slammed his full length inside of you all at once, shocking you as your body tries to quickly get used to having him inside of you. “Ryomen! That was mean!” you squirm out, looking at him from behind you. He looked back at you and went “Shh… I’m sorry, it’s okay though, yeah?” he smiles softly as he begins to slowly thrust in and out of you. “It doesn’t hurt too bad, right?” he asks you, and you nod in approval, silently asking him to go faster. Almost as if he could read your mind, his thrusts get faster, and he goes “Yeah… Let’s go give those assholes the heir they want so bad, yeah?” he laughs as he abuses your pussy with his dick. 

He flips you around after a while, and you’re able to face him as he fucks you. You looked down at where your genitals met and saw as the dick that wasn’t inside of you stood resting on top of your body, almost as a way to show how deep in you he was, as if you couldn’t already feel it. It also rubbed against your clit every so often as Sukuna continued thrusting. You began to jerk him off as he thrusted against you. In and out, in and out, you were in bliss, it felt perfect, it was absolutely perfect. 

Perfect. That was the word Sukuna kept repeating as he kept fucking you, almost as if he wasn’t absolutely ruining you. No man was going to ever match him, you knew this just by feeling him. Still, he kept on going on about how perfect you were “You and this perfect fuckin’ pussy, hah, it’s going to be the end of me” he says as his thrusts get sloppier and faster. He’s close. It’s okay though, you were as well. 

Both of your moans and skin slapping against skin are the only things that can be heard as you both came. Both of his cocks came simultaneously, with one spraying cum all over your body as the other coated your insides. You were unequivocally his now, but that was okay, everything was okay. You were too fucked out to care about anything anymore, the world seemed so small now that you felt this pleasure.

You're getting dizzy, and your vision slowly goes black as you pass out from exhaustion. 

When you came to, you found yourself back in your room wearing a nightgown. You don’t recall ever coming back, so he must have brought you back on his own and changed you. You would have thought it was all a hazy wet dream, but looking at your night stand, you saw the little bit of ripped fabric from last night’s dress. Definitely not a dream. 

“You’ve embarrassed us!” your mother’s yells boom throughout the throne room. Turns out, going missing at your own engagement party is a big no-no to a lot of people. Your mother goes on and on about how no one was able to find you, and how you seemed to vanish out of thin air. How guards looked everywhere throughout the castle to no avail until someone found you sleeping in your room. 

“Thankfully…” your mother sighs, “The Prince is willing to give you another chance, and is still going to marry you”. 

Your stomach boils with rage at this, they weren’t worried at all! They just cared about the marriage, once again. With all the might in your soul, you yell out a big “No!” toward your parents. This shocks the King and Queen, and the latter slowly walks toward you, going “No? What do you mean…no?”. 

You stutter for a bit, before you go, in the bravest voice you could, “I…I’m not going to marry him”. 

SLAP. 

Your mother strikes you across your face before she turns around, almost as if she’s too disgusted to even look at you. As if you said something so treacherous. She doesn’t say anything, but calls for the guards. As they grab at your arms she goes, “Make sure she doesn’t leave the room, use any force necessary”. This makes your eyes go wide. The marriage was one thing, but not being able to leave was another. “Wait–Wait no…” you yell out, struggling against the guards “Stop! Mom! Stop them! Wai–”.

The doors slowly close in your face as you see your mother walk back to her throne. You continue to try to struggle against the guards to no avail, they throw you into your room and slam the door shut. You attempt to climb down the window but you see the guards posted out there as well. They must have realized what was going on you thought.

You begin to sob. Your first thoughts are of Sukuna. What’s going to happen now? You think back to all your memories of the past few months together, how you felt happy. It wasn’t the fake, saturated, happiness you were used to in the castle, it was real, and you might never get the chance to feel it again. 

Weeks pass…though they feel more like years. You spend your days looking out the window toward the forest, you think of Ryomen and wonder how he must be. You think of your last day together, how you never even said goodbye. Every so often you see him in the distance, and you wave to each other, but even he notices the guards by your window, you see a faint sadness in his face. It was alright, these brief few seconds waving to each other was enough to keep you sane at least, and you needed it as your wedding day inched closer and closer. 

On your wedding day, you saw yourself in the mirror. You looked beautiful, wearing a gorgeous white dress and a tiara filled with what seems to be a thousand jewels. Though, it’s hard to truly look at yourself and not feel the least bit upset. The jewels… They looked like the stars. You remember the time you and Sukuna laid under those very same stars, and sadness once again paints your face. 

You dreaded this day, but now that it actually came, you don’t feel many feelings toward it. You only feel numb as you try to dissociate as much as possible. You simply try your best to get the day over with, holding out hope that after the day is over, your restrictions are lowered and you’re able to sneak out into the forest again.

Making your way to the altar, you face your husband. He looks bored as ever, clearly wanting to do this as much as you did. You were okay with this, this means that he wouldn’t bother trying to find out your whereabouts if you suddenly disappeared in random spurts. As the marriage ceremony began, you zoned out. As they go through the traditions, you’re simply thinking about all the things you’d do if you’re finally freed. That is, until you hear the head guard interrupt the ceremony. 

“Apologies for the intrusion, but my men and I have a special gift for the newly-wed royals…” as he says this, the gates open showing a group of guards, and they’re dragging… no. 

“Behold! The four-armed beast! Can you all believe he was sitting right by the castle… how stupid of him to believe he wouldn’t be caught by our men”. 

The audience gasps as Sukuna struggles against his chains, the two of you lock eyes. If he weren’t in such danger right now, you would run to him in an instant to hold him close, making sure to never let go. 

Looking at the Prince, the guard asks “How does the future King feel about slaying this monstrous beast?” 

Shit. Fuck. 

You needed to think fast, you had to somehow stop this from happening. The Prince accepts the offer with a sinister smile, and he reaches for his sword as Sukuna continues to struggle. In your panic, you grab the sword of one of the guards and stab the Prince directly in the chest.

Blood trickling down his chest… he looks at you, no… he glares at you. Everyone stops for a moment in shock, as if this was the last thing any of them ever expected to happen. Suddenly, someone yells “TREASON!” pointing at you, and guards begin to surround you. Taking advantage of the messy situation, Sukuna is able to break free from his chains and run to grab you. Fighting off guards, you and Sukuna run as fast as possible to get away from the crowd.  

You’re both somehow able to outrun the people, mostly thanks to Sukuna’s speed, but this doesn’t stop people from trying to chase you both. Looking behind you for a quick second, you see nothing but a crowd of people yelling with weapons. Wanting to get away at any cost, you followed Sukuna into the shadows of the forest. 

Despite making it to the forest, you two continued running as fast as you could to the opposite direction from the kingdom. Thankfully, Sukuna’s stamina seemingly never runs out, and he’s able to run far. You two only stop after what feels like hundreds of miles, and you aren’t able to hear any people nor see any outline of the kingdom. 

You’re not sure if it’s the adrenaline from running, or if it’s the fact that you two haven’t seen each other for weeks, but the first thing you two do when you stop is make out. The two of you haven’t even uttered a single word to each other yet, but that didn’t matter right now. All you needed was his touch, for him to fully mark you as his. 

He seamlessly ripped apart your wedding dress as he kissed you. The very same dress that served to show the ownership your future husband would have over you was now in pieces on the floor. 

He carefully dropped both of you down on that same floor as you both continued locking lips. Taking his own clothes off, he wrapped your legs around his hips as he aligned one of his cocks with your needy pussy. Wordlessly, he began thrusting against you like a man starved, and perhaps he was starved. He thought he was never going to see you again, now that he had you, he had no intentions of letting go.

You still had your tiara on, though not for long. As with every thrust of his hips the tiara slowly slipped away. Eventually, it fell off with a loud clunk on the floor. This didn’t deter either of you, though, nothing could deter the two of you at this point. 

You continued holding him tight while moaning and giving him sloppy kisses until at one point, you felt something wet rubbing against your clit. Confused, you look down and see his stomach mouth in its full glory, its long tongue flicking against your clit over and over, making a moaning mess out of you. You held Sukuna tighter, making sure to not abandon his other cock and kept jerking him off as he went in and out of you.

“I missed you” is the first thing he says to you in between the pants of exhaustion and pleasure. You moan at him to let him know you heard. Looking at your face, he notices tears coating the corners of your eyes. Still feeling him in your guts and your emotions all over the place, you try your best to choke out a sentence, “I— I thought you were going to die” you finally begin crying out, fully digesting the terrible situation you two were in just a few moments ago. 

“Shh…” Sukuna coos, holding you tight “I looked for you at your window every day, you saw that, right?” He asked you, and you nodded, holding him even tighter. 

“Every. Damn. Day” he says, thrusting in your pussy in between each word. “I couldn’t believe that fucker was going to be married to you” he scoffs, looking away for a moment before looking back at your face “Pissed me off”. Still lost in pleasure at the combination of his lower tongue and dick, you aren’t able to respond.

He doesn’t mind this though, as his thrusts simply get even faster and even more desperate. He’s close, and you were too. “You’re mine… only mine” he growls in your ear as he cums all over your body once again. You follow suit not far after, still the same mess you were before.

It was in this bliss that he said it, the words that you both already had at the tips of your tongues…

“I love you” Sukuna whispered into your ear. He whispered it so softly, in fact, that you might have missed it if you weren’t paying attention. You grab his face and cup his cheeks, looking at the gorgeous man in front of you, and with all the love in your heart, you say it back “I love you too”. 

He let out a sigh of relief at your words, as if he almost didn’t expect you to say them, and touched your lips with his own once again. “You’re mine” he repeats, and you had no intention of proving him wrong.

The next few hours are spent with the two of you cuddling on the forest floor together and giving each other sloppy kisses. You knew in your heart at that moment, holding Sukuna’s large body against your own, that you had no intention of ever going back to that cold and lonely castle, and Sukuna wasn’t going to let you go either, with his four muscular arms holding you against him as you both laid on the floor.  

Once you both cooled down, you looked down awkwardly at your naked body. Sukuna noticed and asked what was wrong. Looking down at your wedding dress, you go “Uhh… those were my only clothes”. Sukuna chuckles, and picked up a ripped up piece of fabric, tying it around you to make a new makeshift “dress”, “There ‘ya go, perfect” he pecks your lips as he gives you a toothy grin. You both simply laugh and you lean into his arm. 

“Well… what do we do now?” Sukuna asks you, he was willing to do anything that you wanted. Hell, he’d run thousands more miles to the edge of the Earth for you if you really asked him to. You think for a moment, before going “Well I can’t go back now… I’m probably charged with treason.. Haha”, you say half-jokingly, though you most definitely would be dead if you went back. 

So… the two just kept walking, camping out in different spots of the forest. Thankfully, Sukuna had great survival skills when it came to this, and you turned out to be a quick learner when it came to having to live in the wild. 

Eventually, you two stumbled upon an old abandoned cottage, and were able to live there permanently after fixing it up a bit. At first, you two were worried at the prospect of people possibly coming around, but that fear disappeared as the days went on. You only had each other in these deep woods. Though, that was all either of you truly needed in this world. 

He was a monster. Though, at this point… you were probably one too. 

You never did find out what happened to your kingdom after you ran away. It no longer mattered though, as you were now finally free to live life on your own terms. 

There were no more duties to attend to, no Kings and Queens to please, no marriage to be forced into, all that was left to do was live Happily Ever After. 

–

A/N: I poured out my soul to this story so thank you so much for reading :,) 

[dhampling]

little love girl!dadstarion, <1k

He doesn’t consider himself a clingy parent.  He just endeavours to spend every waking moment he can with her. - dadstarion watches dhampling sleep for a lil bit and has some thoughts about life. floof. wc: 724

Astarion watches her as he sits, legs tucked up under him; with a chalice on the endstool to his side. 

Despite his current book being one he’s looked forward to indulging for a while, he can’t lose himself in the pages quite yet. His eyes skim and reskim now familiar paragraphs while flitting to the small child asleep on the lounger. 

The room is full of impossibly green tangling plants, and glows shades of orange in the late candlelight; incense blooming from the clay holder on the sill. A small trinket dish full of corvid gatherings. The boarded shutters, the curtains parted at either side; the painted mural in place of the window. Lanterns of coloured glass spilling forest greens and oranges soft.

Elven-pointed ears twitching, the occasional small shuffle. Each and every sleepy inhale and exhale from her tiny little body feels like a victory.

He doesn’t consider himself a clingy parent. 

He just endeavours to spend every waking moment he can with her, hence her resting here now; in the den room, instead of her own well-loved bedroom. A wayward spider on the ceiling had turned into an evening of storytelling - a journal filled with tales of Grizzle the Arachnid in her spiky young hand. 

She’s swaddled in a big patchwork throw he’d made early into his freedom following the fall of the Absolute, just as the idea of tailoring had come to mind. The stitching is a little skewed in places but the untrained eye would glide right over it, he’s sure.

He could carry her up the iron wrought spiral staircase and tuck her in - and likely will soon - but being able to sit and just observe feels like an indulgence. A rare treat. 

A small part of him - he would never admit - was hopeful before her birth that she’d be his little nightling, although any lingering wants were blinded by unbridled joy at her ability to bask in the sun. He’d never expected the gaping hole in his undead heart at being unable to pick her up from a day of schooling, though. 

He trances through it every time, or he fears he’d disintegrate trying it on big occasions. Her first day, missed. Many more to come. 

He frowns. 

He does stay awake to do her hair each morning before she heads off, though. Before she’d even reached her first birthday he’d sequestered away a book on Faerûnian Braids from the Night Market; her ringlets barely presenting then now flourishing atop her dozy head.

You. She looks like you.

Astarion’s heart pangs. 

He misses you terribly. Dramatically. Wants to creep up the stairs in the style of Nosferatu and bite you in your sleep, fondly; doze the night away with his incisors reverently just beside your neck. His paramour. His well-bitten darling. 

Sometimes, he reads the gaudy vampiric fiction novels slighted from the market and hidden away in one of the rafters when clients leave the shop earlier than expected. He thinks one day he’ll play into the notion - the skulker, the grand gestures, the one who stole his heart - then realises his life is wholly a mirror of the pages.

Gah. He’s a cliche. A horrid cliche. He shakes his head yet can’t find it within him to do anything but smile.

Nothing about this feels horrid. 

It feels normal. Real. Home is home and it is the safest place in the world.

The dhampling stirs, stretching among the throw and rolling her tiny wrists. A small yawn tumbles from little lips.

“Darling?’

Astarion shuffles his leg from under him and turns his book, resting it on the lounger. Moves to kneel beside her.

‘Sweet thing. Come along, now.”

Her eyes open slowly. She looks at him with reverence. Her father. The balm of rest settles as a haze in this cosy room and nothing has ever felt so good.

Father. Him. Awful, nasty, terrible him. She could’ve been one of them, roaming the underdark in eternal childhood in another lifetime. He decides he won’t allow the thought to pass.

“Can you carry me?” She whispers, lifting her arms above her head.

“If I don’t; I fear we’ll be traipsing those stairs all evening, little love.” He speaks softly and gently lifts her sleepy self onto his hip.

She doesn’t understand his quips yet. She will, one day.

[colin-becher-death-countdown]

I think the only time so far Protocol or TMA has genuinely 'scared' me was, in episode 13 'Futures' one of the first things we here about Darrien is how:

"I'm not a bad person all right."

Darrien who we get to hear tell his tale from his own mouth, we get to see just how wrong this self-assessment is never taking any accountability for who he is.

Then in episode 18 'Solo Work' we get to hear from a different Darrien —except Chester is spinning this yarn— one who knows how angry he can be. But then he meets an even worse version of himself who has terrible skeletons in his basement. He assumes this old worse Darriens life—

and then Chester's voice becomes more and more robotic as he speaks—

"I'm really not a bad person."

And that's what scared me, the feeling that someone who shouldn't know you've heard something repeating it back to you, but it's wrong the voice is robotic and it's not just a repetition of what he said it's a reinforcing of a statement that someone made from an entirely different world at an entirely different time.

For the first time it felt like something knew I was listening, it wasn't as direct as some of the audience callouts in TMA, it may not have even been intentional. But I felt watched. Because it was so small, such a tiny insignificant change to show that he's really still the same person deep down.

[bekmadethis]

Here’s a bunch of stuff in the MM Tales of the TMNT comic-con sneak-peek I thought about too much!

They’ve cared so much about showing how differently they each react to and process the same situation.

Through the scene Raph is excited to tear things up and true to every iteration ever tries things his way until it doesn’t work, Don’s flight response pings into analyst mode and you just know he’s figuring out how to break stuff, Mike is thriving in team-mode and keeping them all on track, and Leo flails around like a giant ball of chronic anxiety before figuring out a plan. They’re original formula with gently new toppings and I’m ready for this slice.

Raphael

This guy! We get so much. He’s rearing to do some fighting that isn’t sparring and be free to do some actual damage. So we know he’s bored fighting is brothers and wants a challenge. He can’t handle this one and in figuring that out is “open to suggestions” which is quite the overlooked Raph quality, he’ll listen he just has to work through that impulsive reactive streak first. He’s strong and knows it, and that robot gets a harder fight. The Raph highlight for me was taking time while fighting to honour the time-old tradition of making fun of Michelangelo. <Sobs in last ronin.>

Donatello

This kid, man! It’s a long standing opinion of mine that everyone should be more scared of Donatello. His interest in understanding the threat overrides most of his fear. Cerebral af. This is his face most of the time while a robot programmed to obliterate him is directly behind him. On the surface it looks like he’s running away a lot, but he can’t exactly press pause on it to figure out how they work. His gentle heart characterisation is well intact, apologising to the robot when he damages it having already personified the thing. I honestly believe he would take it home like he’d found a new pet if that were an option.

Michelangelo

What a show of Mikey magic. He’s got the comedy relief on a casual setting with subtle jokes and unintentionally antagonistic observation style. Mike has a tiny attention span but is 100% in every moment and they draw a lot of attention to his speed and agility. He shines doing what Mikey is known so well for; keeping the family together. It was awesome to see him effectively orienting his brothers into the situation, and see them listen to him so readily. He still calls to Leo for guidance when he feels out of control, but we might be in for a more surprising personal arc than ~nobody takes me seriously~ this time around.

Leonardo

This is a blessing for Leo fans because MM Tales Leo sucks /srs. Not in the way Raph fans say it on Instagram posts, in the way that his flaws are so disparate from other versions that a mastery arc is screaming his nervous muppet name. The giftedness is still sewn in; even flailing around he has more advanced weapon control, is observant enough to be the right level of stressed when a threat shows up, and jumps into strategy finding a vantage point to make a plan like a good little Leo, but instead of our usual Leo trauma ball we (at least for now) get to watch a Leo with the confidence of a processed cheese slice be terrible at things because he’s just some kid…

Pfffffffahahhhahhahba

The Mutant Mayhem kids are the most realistically green (and by that I mean inexperienced) we've ever seen them and it's continued into Tales. With detaching from source origin and establishing a much more grounded reflection of teen life in the current world, the growth arcs over Tales and the next MM movie have such immense unburdened potential that it really could lead anywhere and I don’t know what to expect.

(Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will air in August 9th 2024 on Paramount+)

[silence-burns]

The Death of Me //part 1

Fandom: Aquaman

Summary: (very small spoilers for the movie) Finding Orm on your doorstep was not something you expected. Having him move in was even worse. But the effect he still had on every part of your life would be the death of you.

The sun was blinding, but unfortunately, not enough to make the man standing before you disappear.

“You're in surprisingly good shape for a dead person,” you said.

“And you look terrible for someone supposedly alive,” said Orm.

You shrugged and immediately regretted it. The tight bandages keeping your shoulder in place worked as a poor reminder it was out of commission for the next few weeks.

“How I've missed that princely charm. Piss me off some more and, half-dead or not, I'm gonna kick your ass back into that desert I got it from. It might be the last thing I do, but if I become a ghost, I'll brag about it for eternity.”

Your mood soured further with every minute you remained conscious. Surprises and resurrections, you could deal with, but your ability to be polite left long ago. There were a lot of impolite and certainly unprincely words bubbling in your chest, but they all disappeared when the most magical, impossible, and straight-out-of-fairy-tales thing happened.

Orm, of his own volition, smiled.

The sun was still doing its best to blind your already red and swollen eyes—it failed yet again. You examined the strange occurrence, with the furrowed brows and all the small wrinkles and tiny folds in the skin that usually accompanied a person’s smile looking perfectly normal on his face. It was a genuine smile. You could only blink at him for a moment

“I thought scowling was the only expression you had. Like a factory setting, you know.”

“I'm glad to hear you are as sharp as ever, despite your current shortcomings.”

“Excuse you, I'm in great shape.”

The man in front of you politely didn't argue. It was rather clear from his expression that he had some serious doubts about not only the state of your body, but also about your mental capacity of acknowledging said state, but he made the wise choice of keeping these thoughts to himself.

Wise was your middle name; therefore, you allowed the silence to confirm your words. At the same time, you shifted more of your weight against the doorframe, hoping your grimace came across as menacing rather than painful. Your leg needed a bit of rest, nothing serious. It totally wasn’t almost crushed to pieces a few weeks ago.

The smile on Orm’s face, an expression you could get used to seeing, started to shift into a look of concern as he watched your eyes. You looked away, afraid of how much he could see. Before you could react, he picked you up and carried you inside the house.

It was a pretty house, very spacious, just like old rich men tended to enjoy—which might explain why Batman bought it a long time ago as a safehouse far from any prying eyes, and why he allowed you to occasionally use it as such.

Yet, despite all the initial spaciousness, it was rather easy to clutter if the person living inside had a few cracked bones, general lack of energy to move, and never invited anyone around to see the mess.

Orm raised an eyebrow when he noticed a sofa dragged into the kitchen area and the amount of empty, crushed packaging laying around it. You hated how much could be expressed without saying a word.

“Put me down.”

Your words came out weaker than intended. Orm held you in a bridal carry which put immense pressure on your cracked ribs and sent flashes of pain every time you inhaled. But he was so warm and close that your anger sizzled and faded.

With your head on his shoulder, you had the perfect view of his perfect profile and the perfect frown deepening the wrinkles between his brows.

“So, this is how you live now?” was all he said, in a controlled tone.

“I know you're not deaf and heard me the first time. Put me down. Preferably on my beautiful and completely normal kitchen bed, thank you.”

You sighed with relief once he finally listened. Even though the pressure of his arms around you disappeared, somehow you still felt his warmth, as if it seeped into your battered, bruised flesh. You felt your face getting hot and decided against following that train of thought.

Your heart, for a reason you also chose to ignore, skipped a beat when Orm turned on his heel and walked back to the front door. It took him comparatively less time than when you had to drag your ass to open it a few minutes ago.

But rather than walking outside and disappearing from your life again, Orm only closed the door. And then turned the lock too.

“I don’t like where this is going,” you said, in vain hope that all of this was just a bad dream you'd soon wake up from.

“What a shame,” Orm said with no shame whatsoever in his voice.

“Why are you here? I might be a little late with that question, but I'd still love to know the answer.”

Orm took measured steps to the kitchen table, assessing the seat with the least amount of trash surrounding it, and sat down. He sat upright, posture uncompromised in the face of a backless stool, and folded his hands on the table. How he looked royal surrounded by trash and cold leftovers was beyond you.

“As you have witnessed, thanks to Arthur, after that final battle I got a way out of my old life. I enjoyed it for the most part, and even wandered the surface world for a while. And then I heard about your accident and came to settle my debts.”

“You don't have a debt to me.”

“When I was awaiting sentencing for my crimes, you were the one that took care of me. And not so long ago, you helped Artur break me out of that prison. That alone guarantees my utmost respect.”

“Your debt is paid, you owe me nothing.”

“That's not how it works.”

“I don't need a nurse, especially one who isn’t wearing a sexy costume.”

“I'm afraid that part is not negotiable.”

“Wait.” You squinted, doing your best to focus your thoughts despite a rising migraine. “This cottage is in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest town a few hours on foot and only if you already know the way. And the only people that knew I got… a little roughed up, were those in the Justice League. Did Artur give you a ride here because he felt guilty he didn’t stop that building in Venice from falling on me?”

“Every day I am thankful that I don't know the inner workings of my brother’s mind.”

“So he did.”

You let your head fall back onto the makeshift kitchen-bed. It was too much for you.

You grabbed the pills from your secret under-the-pillow stash of meds and swallowed some painkillers.

“I'm going to kill your brother.”

“May you have more luck than I did. Now, do you even own any clean clothes?”

[ellastone-olsen]

The Legend of Sleepy Valley - Wanda Maximoff (part 1)

★Pairing: Vampire!Wanda Maximoff x f!reader

Summary: no one had ever seen the family members living in the huge estate nearby. maybe this is not just the case and they are hiding something. legends surround this place and soon you will find out for yourself where is the truth and where is the lies. this is the first time a vampire will not kill her victim.

★Warnings: NSFW 18+ (in future parts), dark au, blood, stalking, mentions of murders, nightmares, slowburn

★Word count: 2.6k

★AN: I decided to re-read Dracula and an idea came to me. this is my first series fic and the first part is preparation for the most interesting things. maybe there will be one or two more parts, I don’t know how much my imagination will suffice.

The small village of less than one hundred fifty people could not boast of special wealth, but as they say, human blood is not water, this is the true wealth that these people had. If only they knew about it.

Away from the crowd of dilapidated houses stood the old estate of the Maximoff family, whose history dates back to ancient times. No one could say exactly how long ago they settled, but every generation of people who lived here knew who lived in the ancient “castle” as the locals called it. Family members did not often catch the eye of the village residents, preferring a secluded life without “good neighbors” nearby. All you knew about them was information gleaned from the legends that parents told their children, passing on these terrible stories from generation to generation.

One of them said that it was the Maximoff family that was behind the disappearance and fatal diseases of ordinary peasants who lived in these parts. If someone’s livestock died, it means that people’s turn will soon come. No one could explain exactly how they were involved in this, which is why they were legends. Some said that all the troubles began with the arrival of the first ancestor - Konstantin Maximoff. As soon as this man set foot on the dead, poor soil of these regions, terrible things began to happen.

But who are you to believe in stupid old legends? Now is not the time when people rely on fairy tales. This was the age of computer technology and the Internet, so you could read horror stories on Google. It’s a shame that the stories turned out to be true, what’s even worse is that you learned this from your own experience.

“Why did you kill me? Why did you kill me?" You looked in horror at the doorway in which stood a man... no, a child, judging by his height, about 7 years old, but his face was not visible. Only glowing beady pupils and a dark silhouette, that’s what you could make out in the pitch darkness of the tiny room. “I didn’t do it, I didn’t kill you.” You tried to move, but it was all in vain. The body froze like a heavy marble stone. The brain was already awake, but the limbs were stuck to the mattress of the bed. Heart beat out a fast, ragged rhythm, threatening to jump out through ribs. No one would come to the rescue, you knew. “Why why did you kill me.” The hallucination repeated these words like a prayer in the temple of the Lord God, to which you were ready to go any minute. What to do, what to do, probably the same as always. Scream.

An eardrum-breaking screech escaped from your chest, maybe someone will hear it? But absolutely everything that happened was only in your head. Together with the scream, flashing flashes began to hit eyes, a good sign that the method was working. If anyone had heard the screeching, they would probably have gone deaf.

You suddenly sit up in bed, breathing as if you had run a marathon and won. It was all over, but the fear remained. Sleep paralysis was never limited only to the state of paralysis itself; even after them, anxiety was with you, sticking to the subcortex of consciousness like soft molasses. You turned on the light in the room and picked up the phone. The clock showed 3:42 am, if you are lucky, within an hour you will fall asleep again. Your finger clicked on the messenger icon and you entered a chat created specifically for communication between people living in your village and surrounding area.

Your eyes quickly scanned hundreds of messages and ads for old junk when photos of the scene caught your attention. It was talking about another cattle killing of one of your neighbors. People, as always, wrote that these were wolves or pumas, which often live in these parts. At least the claw marks were definitely not left by a human. A terrible bloody mess, what more can you say. Soon panic will sweep the village again, because everyone knows that this will be followed by the death of one of the residents. Damn it, sitting at home all day long again was the first thing your sleepy brain generated. Well, let it be, but you will get some sleep for the first time in the last couple of months.

The phone slowly fell from your hand onto the soft, fresh sheets and your lead-filled eyelids fell into your eyes. Finally the long-awaited dream. You saw your past, but more exaggerated. Winter frost, a scarf that covers half of your face and you don’t know where to go. The picture changed and you found yourself on the red carpet, walking towards the door at the end of a hundred-meter corridor. There are white walls and camera flashes all around. You didn't know where you were going, but it seemed like a good place. The door opened revealing a round room with a bunch of people and animals. A ginger cat similar to yours came up to you and you extended your hand to pet him, but the animal grabbed you with its teeth, biting over and over again. The claws passed along your forearm, leaving red droplets of blood, the wonderful dream again became a nightmare and you opened your eyes.

Your room again. The lights were off. It's strange, you didn't seem to turn it off. Perhaps mom woke up and walked past the room. Your gaze could not focus on anything, you looked around, blinked a couple of times and looked into the doorway. Someone was standing there again. A woman with long hair, you would think it was your mother, but she had short shoulder length hair. Again, hallucination is the first thing that came to your mind. You tried to bend your leg to make sure that this was the case, but the movement was easy and you sat down in fear. The figure was still standing in place and eyes accustomed to the darkness could discern clothing in the form of a knee-length dress, boots and a jacket, it seems? The head of the unknown woman in your room tilted to the side, she was also looking at you. She studied, as if deciding what to do next. It seemed that being noticed was not part of her plans.

"Who are you?" the vocal cords did not produce anything louder than a whisper. And only now did you notice a strange pain in your hand, in the same place where the cat scratched you in your sleep. You grabbed the forearm of your left hand, feeling the moisture under your palm and lifted it to get a better look. You couldn’t see anything in the darkness and you licked your palm to feel the metallic taste. Liquid scarlet blood was streaked and still leaking from the scratches, not deep enough to leave scars.

In response to your action, the stranger loudly sniffed air and seemed to... growl. But people don't know how to make SUCH sounds. “Did you do this?” you extended your palm to her, but instead of answering, the dark figure disappeared outside your bedroom. You wanted to catch up with her, but got tangled in the blanket and fell to the floor, cursing under your breath. When you went into the common room, no one was there anymore. Not a trace of anyone else's presence.

The morning greeted with the rays of the sun, which lay softly on your face. The smell of homemade pancakes wafted from the kitchen, the recently returned birds chirped on the tree branches as if they were wound up.

The phone was still lying next to you and the clock on the screen showed noon. Among hundreds of notifications overnight, you found a message from your friend Lily, which read: “I’ll pick you up at one o’clock in the afternoon.” Well, at least you had an hour to get ready. Surely, after those messages about the murder, your parents would lock you at home, and you wanted to have time to take a walk in the first days of spring.

While you were sitting in the kitchen and looking at one point, while finishing breakfast, your thoughts returned to this night. There was no doubt that the first thing that happened to you was sleep paralysis, but what happened then? How could someone sneak into your family home so silently and without a trace, why did this woman need to watch you, and even more so... You could write off the incident as another nightmare, but your forearm still stung. Raising your hand, you saw scratches that were already covered with a blood crust and were in the process of healing. Oh no, it wasn’t definitely a hallucination. When you got out of bed, the first thing you did was check your room for missing valuables, but everything was there. Apparently the only thing this strange woman touched was you. Today before going to bed you need to check all the locks in the house, all the windows and make an impregnable fortress out of it.

“Are you sure you want to go there?” The question hung in the warm spring air. Your friend was dragging you by the hand to the so-called Sleepy Valley. The children of your village were not allowed to go there, firstly because flocks of sheep usually grazed there, and secondly...

“Y/N, do you know why this place is called that way?.” Of the two of you, you knew more about local folklore, so you easily found the desired legend in the memory archives. The legend of the Sleepy Valley.

“My mother told me that there were always sheep grazing there, but one day a shepherd came into the valley and the whole flock was lying on the grass. It looked like someone had thrown cotton balls around. It looked as if the animals were simply asleep, but when the man approached one of the sheep, he realized that it was dead. They were all dead. Some maniac or animal ripped out the throats of the poor animals. This is where the name comes from.” You finished the story and were walking through the wild forest when you saw an opening. Perhaps there were such stories around this place, but there was no other place for walking cattle in the vicinity.

As the tall trees retreated, a majestic field stretched around, with a herd of fluffy white sheep as usual. Lily pulled you by the arms a little away from the animals to sit on the fresh green grass looking up at the sky. The two of you just lay there and listened to the chirping of tits, voluminous white clouds rushed above you, forming bizarre shapes. Life seemed unreal at that moment.

Only in the forest from where you came out it was watching you. Red eyes scanned everything that was happening, and acute inhuman hearing caught your conversation even at a distance of twenty meters. Your night visitor did not miss the chance to follow the first person whom she, for some reason unknown to her, did not kill during close contact. Wanda was patient, even too patient, and something about you caught her attention that night. Maybe your peace of mind or... No, it’s too early to think about that. In any case, she spent the rest of the night waiting for you to wake up and leave the house.

For so many years that she lived on this sinful earth, the daughter of the Maximoff family could tell a lot from a person’s blood. She drank dozens of people dry and each was unique in their own way, from the first sips one could understand what kind of life a person lived and what it was like, blood for her was a thing in which the essence of human nature was hidden. None of her victims had aroused an iota of interest or compassion in her, until that day.

Once every few months, Wanda’s family could afford such a delicacy as a few people from the village for whom no one would grieve. She liked to stretch out the pleasure and start with cattle, leaving human lives for dessert. Then she decided to watch the future victims and find the most tasty morsel in her opinion; in the end, her choice fell on a young beautiful girl like you. When life is in full swing, taking it away is many times more pleasant and sweeter.

That night, her plans included killing you, drinking to the last drop like everyone else before, but standing right next to you, she froze. Something was wrong. Why were your eyes open but you didn't move? She heard your heart that was ready to jump out, but it was not because of her. It seemed like you saw something that she didn’t see and she became curious. The woman walked into the darkness of the room, to the farthest corner, and watched. So you woke up, jumped out of bed and nervously turned on the light. Wanda sensed your fear, but did not understand what it was connected with.

Waiting for you to fall back into the world of dreams, she turned off the light that was blinding her and came closer, running her sharp nails along your arm to collect a small portion of blood for testing. When the first drops touched her tongue, her pupils dilated, covering the irises of the vampire's red eyes. The blood was saturated with adrenaline and was even sweeter than she expected and your personal taste. There was something about it that she couldn't place, something familiar. She took a closer look at your calm face, noticing what a cute little thing you were in her hands. No, killing you was too great a loss, she turned on her heels to hide as quietly as she appeared, but a rustling was heard behind her.

Wanda stood in the doorway and watched as you woke up for the second time that night. It’s surprising how you didn’t notice her right away, but when she saw your wet, rough tongue running over your palm, licking the scarlet substance, something clicked in her. “Did you do this?” your voice, hoarse from sleep, has long since become a spring deep inside her being. She needed to leave right now if she didn't want to kill you or take you by force.

The woman silently left the house and sat down nearby in the wild raspberry bushes. "She was beautiful, but who the hell was that?" Thoughts were heard in her head, but they were not hers. She heard your thoughts and her eyes widened, remembering what her stepmother told her many decades ago. If her memory did not deceive her, and it did not deceive her, then when sampling a person’s blood, if they arent killed, she will be able to hear all the thoughts associated with her. Then, being a recently converted vampire, Wanda did not attach any importance to this, because she did not think that something would happen that she would not complete the job. Apparently this was very arrogant on her part.

But since this has happened, why not entertain yourself for the first time in the last two hundred and ninety-seven years. From that moment on, she had her own personal human.

Part 2?

[johnbrand]

Fathering Normality

“And then I just shoved it right in!”

Luke grunted as he thrust forward, drawing a laugh out of his friend Colton. Luke had been recounting the entire night before to him, going over every detail. How it started as a boner, how that boner led him to a bar, how that bar led him to rubbing up against some girl, and how that girl led him to shooting multiple loads directly into her tight pussy.

“It was exhilarating!” Luke recalled, the natural masculinity giving his voice a gruff, dense texture. “And all I can think about now is…doing it again…and again!”

Luke thrusted once more, trying to relieve the pressure building up in his thick cock. Colton could not help but happily smile along with his friend, very familiar with the experience of breeding a woman himself. In fact, his girlfriend had recently found out she was pregnant. When Colton had first received the news, he had been ecstatic. When Luke had received the news from Colton days later, he had not been.

Just a week ago, Colton and Luke had been in the same positions; Luke dramatically recounting some tale while Colton laid back and listened. Although, that time had been more violent. “What do you mean she’s pregnant?” Luke cried. “What are you two going to do? You’re too young, neither of you have secured jobs. We all just barely graduated from college a few years ago!”

Argument after argument flew by, but eventually Colton could not handle it anymore. His friend was supposed to be supportive, happy for the couple as they were with the situation. Then a strange thought came to Colton’s head–maybe Luke would be more supportive if he was able to see his side of things. 

Colton had shot the bullet directly into Luke’s head without hesitation. There was no way his gay friend could have understood the joy of breeding, fertilizing, and bearing fruit other than by being converted to try it himself. Of course, Luke did not remember the sound of the gun firing, dropping to the floor, or his limp body being handed over to local enforcement. Colton did not even think Luke remembered the past version of himself. And now that Colton had met the new model, he hoped he would soon forget too.

Gay Luke had been fun. A little bit on the shorter, skinnier side, but still a ball of energy. He always had a theatrical flair, and he kept himself well-maintained, but he had commitment issues and terrible spending habits. This Straight Luke though, had nearly made the equally heterosexual Colton blush. He was now much taller, more muscular, with that ball of energy transformed into sheer masculine confidence. Luke still held that capacity to put on a performance, but now it was powerful and captivating. 

Colton had contacted Luke at the end of the incubation period, not knowing what to expect. Yet he would have never predicted the stacked body-builder in a plain, short-sleeved button-up and dirty jeans appearing at his door. Sure, there were some things Colton felt a little guilty about. Luke’s former luscious locks had thinned out and shortened into a tiny quiff afflicted by male pattern baldness. His hygiene had definitely taken a hit; Colton had smelt the new funk as soon as those massive shoes had come off at the door. But the conversion affected everyone differently, so because Luke appeared obliviously overjoyed with heterosexuality, Colton felt that he could be too.

“So I just started countin’ as I rammed in. ‘One, two,’” Luke continually thrusted to display his point. “And eventually, it had to be like on 15 or 16, I felt that first burst of ecstasy. After that I lost count, I just went into hyper-mode.”

Colton chuckled, getting up to grab us some beers. He tossed one to Luke.

“Thanks bro,” Luke cracked his cold one open. “By the way, what did you call me over for anyway?”

“Oh man, I thought I already told you,” Colton half-lied. “My girl’s pregnant: I’m gonna be a dad.”

Luke’s eyes lit up, “DUDE! That’s awesome! Congratulations!! God, if only I could be so lucky, right?” 

Colton cheered to that, smirking at the possibility. He had been right when he had chosen to father normality. Thanks to him, one could metaphorically say he would soon be fathering twice the amount of children as a result of Luke’s conversion.

[galedekarios]

gale as a professor at blackstaff academy

i have to say that at first i wasn't too sold on the (then still fanon) idea of a professor ending because of gale's own prior anecdote about being irked by his previous students and their inadequacies.

i thought it might not be a good fit for him as far as professions go.

but reading the epilogue files, i have come around on it.

i think it's just one more way in which he's really grown into himself, become content with who he was in the past, the mistakes he made and what he has learned from them, and the person he wants to be in the future:

Player: You? A teacher? I'd hardly say you set the best example for impressionable young wizards... Gale: I think it makes perfect sense. devnote: Surprised you wouldn't recognise this, a tiny bit offended you don't trust him to do this Gale: Who better to warn of the perils of misusing magic than someone who was once only a wayward sneeze away from destroying a mid-sized settlement? devnote: playing up to his past a bit, you can imagine this is how he acts with his students Tara the Tressym: Don't remind me of those terrible times, Mr Dekarios. My blood pressure has only just recovered.

a few more cute banters & things we learn about gale and his new teaching position:

tara swipes at students who fall asleep in gale's classes, which he himself doesn't mind. he, too, slept through some of them (like his calishite lessons):

Player: Perhaps that's a good thing. I'm sure they're far better students than I was... Gale: Ah, so you still remember our little lesson? devnote: A little bit bashful, it was a vulnerable moment for him Gale: 'Teaching' you was hardly an effort at all. Not like my present cohort of apprentices. devnote: Complimentary, pulling the thought back to the teaching element after getting lost in the memory of the moment Gale: They try their best, of course - when they can manage to stay awake. devnote: Not upset by this - he slept through his fair share of classes as a student Tara the Tressym: The cheek of them! Nothing a well-placed swipe from Tara can't fix, though.

2. gale offered to teach more subjects than illusion via simulacra:

Player: Only a professor? With your expertise, I'd have thought you could teach every kind of magic going... Gale: I did offer, as a matter of fact. devnote: Secretly glad the player thinks so highly of him Gale: However, the Blackstaff insisted I couldn't teach every subject, nor could the simulacra of myself I offered to create for that purpose. devnote: Reluctantly accepts that this was the right decision Gale: So, I've settled for teaching the art of illusion. Magic to confound the senses, to render the impossible into reality, and to allow expression of that most magical attribute of all - imagination. devnote: Selling it a bit - he wants to make sure you appreciate how cool this is

3. gale has told his students about the player's adventures and will invite a player to be a guest lecturer:

Player: I found the love of my life. I'd say I'm pretty happy. Gale: And I couldn't be happier for you. A fitting reward for the sacrifices you made in getting here. Gale: I've told my students plenty of tales about our escapades. You're something of a hero to them, you know. Gale: I'd be delighted to introduce you to my current cohort - as a guest lecturer, perhaps? I'm sure they'd have plenty of questions for you. Player: It would be my pleasure. Gale: Excellent. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist the allure of sharing your expertise. Gale: Of course you'll be most welcome to stay with me in my tower- Tara the Tressym: Ahem. Gale: My apologies, Tara. That would be our tower.

4. his students find him somewhat intimidating due to his backstory with mystra and the orb:

Gale: Well, that was quite lovely. I'm glad you're as pleased to see me as I am you. Gale: I have to say, I'm quite grateful to just be 'Gale' for the evening. Gale: I fear my students find me somewhat intimidating, due to my erm, explosive former reputation. I seem to put the fear of the gods into them. devnote: He plays up to his reputations a bit, so he isn't overly surprised Gale: Or the fear of Mystra, to be more specific. Gale: I surrendered the Crown of Karsus to her, as I told you I would. And in return, she cured me of the orb at last. Gale: Even now, I struggle to put the feeling into words. It was like exhaling for the first time, after holding my breath for so very long. Gale: Of course, I haven't clarified with my students that the orb is no longer a threat. The legend of my explosive capabilities is an excellent means of controlling a classroom. Too good, if anything.

5. he wants to teach his students that there is fun in studying magic:

Gale: I spend most of my time trying to convince them how much fun the study of magic can be, but it'd be easier to crack a smile on an intellect devourer than some of my pupils... devnote: Despairing a little, doesn't understand why they aren't all as passionate as he was Player: Or on a mind flayer, perhaps... Gale: Smiling may no longer come easy to you, but I've seen how your tentacles twitch at my jokes. Even the ones I'm not entirely certain I was trying to make... devnote: Last sentence a tiny bit self-conscious, aware that people sometimes find him ridiculous. Gale: Still, I hoped my students might be a little more open to the playful side of such magic.

anyhow, i hope this was insightful to someone! 🖤

[slowd1ving]

EAT MY HEART, I'LL EAT YOURS ⁺ 　 . ✦ MOZE

Seek the answer ‘neath the tides,  Madness shall prosper, forget her wiles,  The moon grins once again tonight.  He hates you. He hates your plans, how you talk, how you work. He loathes being stuck with you: detests it to his very core. But that's great, because the feeling is mutual with you! Tied to an ill-omened crow of your own, what's there not to abhor? continuation of tales of a disgruntled corvid art by @ RMavio on x!! pairing: moze + male reader warnings: blood, death, violence, yall HATE each other bro, v slow burn, pre established relationship (if you don't count the relationship of HATING each other's GUTS) wc: 6.3k

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

Copper defiles the carefully manufactured oxygen that circulates this tiny starship. Its stench pervades the past the clean air, past the distinctly alkaline tang of bleach, and past what little protection your visor affords you. In fact, the clear nanocomputers pick up on a distinctly sanguine hue to the air: labelling tiny crimson specks as biological matter—human blood (tentative). 

“Adult Foxian male, died approximately forty hours ago,” the man crouched before you narrates, oblivious to the you who stares up at the ceiling of the small room—as if the gesture could possibly shield you from the horrifying reality at your feet. No matter how many times you’ve stepped into a situation like this (too many to count ever since your career path practically merged with the Shadow Guards’), you don’t think you’ll ever get used to this. This is Moze’s sphere of knowledge: Moze’s work that intimately twines and dances with the very cesspit of vice and umbrage. 

“Died from presumably loss of blood caused by the deep lacerations across his abdomen and throat,” he continues—the details, unfortunately, seep into your brain as you try your best to tune him out. Thank you, Captain Obvious, you’d bite out, but unfortunately opening your mouth in these conditions would make you sick. “Or at least, that’s what the perpetrator would want us to think.”

There’s viscera splashed even on the very walls. Messy streaks of scarlet contaminate the aged wallpaper in the small room: capricious strokes, as though a child painted them, form characters and seemingly random lines of verse that register as unusual on your visor. That’s your area of expertise. 

Like clockwork, your gaze remains unwavering on the riddle presented on the structure. That’s how you’ve dealt with being in such proximity to Reapers: by pretending the wall is a block of stone and its red ink is precisely that—ink. That’s how you separate yourself from the victims of these gruesome cases; bit by bit, you’re slowly growing accustomed to the nauseating reek of metal that wafts before you. 

And so, when you finally glance down at the glazed-over eyes of the latest victim, it is with startling impassiveness that you assess his cadaver. He’s gone, you accept. Your little ritual has worked, as it oft does. 

“Same sigils as the other bodies.” You finally regain your voice, and the silver-haired man turns his sharp gaze up at you. “But the last line to the verse is different.”

Seek the answer ‘neath the tides, 

Madness shall prosper, forget her wiles, 

The moon grins once again tonight. 

The characters rest heavy on your tongue—foreign meanings straightening themselves out as you slowly sound out the snippet. It’s a verse from a children’s book of poems: a short tale about an obsolete, oceanic planet and its restoration by few brave souls. 

“The moon slumbered tonight,” you mutter the original line to yourself. This ancient script doesn’t suit the naïve phrases, but it’s commonly used for rituals—both antique and modern, you’ve unfortunately found. 

With a heavy sigh, you pull out the gun in your holster; it’s warm, humming to life which seems terribly ironic to you, considering where you are. You’ve not used the weapon for quite some time: the flickering it emits seems both familiar and unfamiliar. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” His clipped speech warily assesses the ease with which you handle the arm you never seem to use: preferring the glassy, almost invisible blade currently strapped across your back when in combat. 

“Xiaoze,” you sigh tauntingly, infusing the firearm with quantum energy that briefly glows indigo in this dim room. “Shut up and let me do my job.”

“Ew,” his face sours almost immediately at the nickname, embittered by both how it drips with condescension and no real affection, and how off putting it is for you of all people to be adding things to his name. “Don’t do that.”

“Then shut up.” You line the sights experimentally, having successfully blackmailed the Shadow Guard into keeping mum for a few minutes while you turn the qualitative verse into quantitative data. Perhaps he does feel threatened by the promise, for you only feel his heavy stare on you and not his words. 

The bullet careens and phases through the wall where the verse is located, and with a shimmer of data, the strings of numbers behind the verse reveal themselves: meaningless to all but yourself. It’s a temporary display, containing important information about the very foundations of this riddle. Or, at least, it’s a shortcut since the verse has already been decoded. 

Seek the answer ‘neath the tides: a reference to where the power ‘current’ of Madam General Feixiao is absent. Or at least, these murder locations point to that; they’re in the areas least looked over in the Alliance: namely, not aboard the Flagship. 

Madness shall prosper, forget her wiles: a crude depiction of Moon Rage, as well as the shedding of a ‘Foxian’ identity. Considering all these victims have been Foxian, it’s no far-fetched assumption to think that these have all been building up to something sinister. 

The moon slumbered tonight: a reference to the plaguemark hung over the Yaoqing—a moon left behind by Yaoshi. Past tense. Sleeping.

But that had all changed with this particular murder. Whatever goal the perpetrator hoped to achieve was finally coming into fruition with the awakening of this ‘moon’. 

The data transmitted onto your visor is as elapsed: the time of writing, the exact coordinates relative to the Flagship at the time of writing, as well as some background noise of little relevance to this current predicament. These numbers are duly inputted into one of your pre-created ‘equation’ sheets: linking abstracts together in their own relationships to receive a divinatory variable. It’s one of the few successes you’ve had with qualitative equations; linking energy and mass and speed is easy, but linking feeling together is not. 

In this case, tying down the exact time and coordinates to a specific intention. Any organic creature or ingenium leaves behind a trace of intention, whether it be through actual thoughts or a pre-programmed function. But in this case, the result comes out void. 

Thirty-two hours since verse was written. 

“How long did you say the man has been dead?” you ask, urgently. Moze snaps back to attention at the specific tone in your voice. 

“Forty hours,” he answers. When it comes down to the bloody aspects of this job, he returns to his laconic, reticent ways—it’s truly a shame he can’t keep it up in other aspects. 

“You’re sure about that,” you probe, half a question in your voice.

“It’s my job,” he deadpans, and you scowl as he uses your words against you. 

“Well, this verse appeared about eight hours after the man died,” you comment wonderingly. The strokes of the characters for grins once again appear a bit messier than the rest—almost like a map. Well, it’s not a deduction; your visor picks up on the strange wording right before you do. “Unlike the others that were written manually by a perpetrator.”

“So, this sacrificial lamb was finally the success,” he mutters darkly. 

“But the trail is no longer dead.” You sheathe your pistol back into its holster with a touch of relief, because finally this set of murders is coming to its conclusion.

⁺ 　 . ✦

You take back whatever compliments you had of him focusing on his job when it came down to it. As you pilot the star skiff along the trail of data outputted from your visor and the crude map from the bloody drawings, he’s practically talking your ear off about the garbled string of answers you sent him from your visor. 

“And what is beef’s relevance to this case?” he asks, each syllable drawn taut with what could only be mockery. 

“Typo,” you grit out, tilting the control wheel starboard. Now is not the time. 

“Egg, too?” he taunts. 

Your eyes flick to the top left of your visor, where you did in fact merge the contents of your grocery list with the file meant for him. 

“Use your common sense,” you bite on the inside of your cheek, hard, to prevent any insults from slipping past your lips. “You do still have that, right?”

“So what’s for dinner tonight?” He leans back against the co-pilot seat, and you can feel his gaze prick your face—much like you feel the tiny, irritating smile he wears. 

“I will crash this skiff if I have to, and you’ll have to explain to the General why the cryptologist exploded into itty-bitty pieces, Xiaoze,” you seethe. 

“Not if they don’t find your body,” he returns—far too accustomed to the patronising name for someone who blanched at its usage just an hour prior. Worst part is, he’d definitely make do on this vaguely-worded threat. 

“Madame General and A-hua would know it was you.” You propel the stern forward, if only to feel his hands grip the sides of his seat tighter. He courts death daily as an assassin, but wouldn’t it be a treat to die because of reckless driving. It’s not like you can entrust the programmed visor to him (and it’s not like you want to send the decoded map to the skiff). 

“Would they, though?” He pares away the dirt beneath his nails with his knife, and you hope the sudden jolt in the vehicle gave him an injury. 

“Jump.” A single syllable, gracing the space with your tender command. His brow raises minutely. 

“No one will miss you,” you add. 

“Since you’ve got no friends,” you tack on with an air of finality. 

⁺ 　 . ✦

He hates you. He hates you: hates the way your hands deftly turn the control wheel on the skiff; hates the way you trip and stumble through life, leaving countless messes behind yet still managing to have Feixiao’s approval to work with him; hates your facetious and conniving and sly insults. But most of all, he really fucking hates your plans. 

“This is so stupid,” he mutters in your ear; invisible to all but the tell tale outline on your shrunken visor. You’d reply, but you’re already conspicuous enough in the tailored suit you’ve donned—all sharp lines and a cut too bittersweet for your home planet. So actually, fuck that, then—there’s no point in being all Spy-like and Inconspicuous any longer. 

“Shut the fuck up,” you hiss, adjusting the cufflinks beneath the rich jacket—then subconsciously running a thumb along the edge of your fake identification card that’s pinned to your collar. Unlike that weirdo, you can’t turn invisible—so you’re left firing quanta bullets at the hull of this rig right outside Yaoqing airspace (or technically, space-space) and gleaning whatever information you can to assemble a persona for yourself. 

 <Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> how do I look < 1:34

The message pings to him from your visor, and you know he’s seen it—from the caustic sigh that leaves his lips, because if he ever blows his cover while he’s invisible, it will have been because of you.

< Weirdo > 1:34 > Focus on the damned mission.

Lukewarm, you scoff, brain sounding out your response. How… do… I… look, you type out once more.

1:35 > Terrible. 

Aggravated, you clench your fist, and you swear you can hear the space behind you warp and distort when he snickers. Terrible! What a joke, you seethe—jabbing the code into the airlock that you’d worked out by the little tones left on the verse, as well as reading the intentions left by people at this door. 

Your job is simple—getting to the bottom of these long-standing murders while also planting a bug on the ship that would allow the Seat of Divine Foresight of the Yaoqing to monitor the situation. Nothing more, but maybe something less if something went wrong. This was only a two-man operation, after all. 

Of course, you neither kept optimistic nor pessimistic. Though there were only two objectives,  those that underestimated the simplest missions oft suffered the brutal brunt of defeat. And of course, the former term being negotiable showed just how difficult it was. Or at least, if you managed to find the office of the higher ups, the data you stole would allow you to reconstruct the space virtually—though what you needed were concrete files that pointed to clear motives. 

No—not the office. 

You squinted as a rough plan of the building popped up from the continuous data you fed your visor—a general prediction of where the lab and computer room would be located, which were simulated as being in the same wing as the office. Perfect. 

<Weirdo> 1:40 > Done all your shopping already, or are you just tired of steak?

You grind your molars as you travel past the small throngs of borisin and humans alike: you don’t look entirely out of place as they’re dressed in a medley of different outfits, from IPC uniform replicas to Penacony garb to even the long robes found on Herta’s Space Station. Point is—your Earthwear doesn’t stand out, and there’s enough people that your badge does not go noticed. 

<Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> gonna shoot you how about that < 1:40

It takes the time of twenty-seven heartbeats to stride through the corridors (tunnels) that make their way around the aircraft. Twenty-seven heartbeats, three checkpoints and one smile shot at presumably a ‘coworker’—before you finally make it into the final stretch. He knows, though you don’t, because he’s counted: listening to the rhythmic beat of your organs as you calmly navigate the ship like you know what you’re doing. 

It’s devoid of souls, except for the two of you as you pad down the corridor. Even the very lab and big office seem abandoned—but Moze’s urgent text alerts you of the presence of someone in the office, just not the lab. 

Guess we’ll start there then. 

A quick swipe of your falsified keycard, and you were in—slipping on one of the freely available lab coats and extending your visor to cover your eyes at the entrance. You do respect lab etiquette, after all; erasing even your thoughts about food and drink as you press through the automatic glass doors. 

<Weirdo> 1:43 > You almost look like a scientist now.

You can hear his exhales—they’re so obviously deliberate, because no way would he blow his cover by accident. He’s snickering, that sod is. 

I am a scientific doctor, you senile fuckwad. < 1:44 

1:45 > Thought your default display name was just a joke. Did you hit your head and hallucinate some credentials?

You seethe, since you can’t exactly scroll through endless files to locate your dissertation on ancient science and qualitative formulae. Over sixty-thousand words, reduced to mere mockery by this cretin. 

It’s a triple entendre < 1:45 And I’ve got the creds < 1:45 prick < 1:45 

1:45 > moron

He types this lightning quick, not even pausing to stop walking—not even pausing to capitalise and punctuate his stupidly mocking text like normal—and you can still hear him because he’s letting you hear his normally silent steps, he’s letting you know he can fulfil the mission while shit talking you to your own face.

this is why you have no friends < 1:46

1:47 > this is why you don’t have friends outside your job. no one actually likes you

You rummage around in the large filing cabinet besides all the gleaming equipment: large centrifuges, safety cupboards, fume hoods, and weird display cases filled with samples of what can only be blood. Swiftly, you snap several photos of the evidence with your visor, then mindlessly write a response. Talk about a call coming from inside the house, you think. 

name two people who voluntarily spend time with you < 1:49 [<Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> sent index.finger.pointing emoji] < 1:49 [<Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> sent laughing.crying emoji] < 1:49

He’s no longer in the peripheries of your earshot; so you know he’s gone off to investigate the other areas of the small lab—beyond the equipment and into the computer room. Good, you exhale—at least he respects lab protocol. 

1:51 > name a time feixiao actually talked to you outside of work

I will…. lend you… my gun so… you can shoot…. yourself, you type, then quickly hit backspace before you can send it by accident. 

yesterday. eat shit xiaoze < 1:52

1:52 > that was charity work don’t flatter yourself

Hastily, you scan any files in the weird stronghold that look even remotely related to borisin and Foxians and especially the one you cradle: labelled only with the icon of a moon and containing eerily similar rituals to the crime scenes you found. 

oh you want to talk about charity work? lets ask the crowd bro < 1:55 everyone who interacts with you is doing charity work.. < 1:56

1:57 > ok at least my job wanted me

Wow. Wooow. You stare incredulously at the message—he’s dragging the Intelligenstia Guild into this, knowing you got put on leave for ‘engaging in querulous behaviour’ and ‘lacking in real life experience’. Low blow. 

…and no one else did so what now < 1:58 name a single friend you have < 1:58

1:58 > .. 1:59 > Jiaoqiu 

Jiaoqiu. How cute, you scoff, resuming your hate typing while you flick through the last few files hidden around in drawers and cupboards. 

idk how to tell you this but you are NOT the friend bro you’re the test subject… < 2:00 I think he pitied you or smth.. < 2:01

2:02 > ew 2:02 > don’t call me bro it’s sickening 2:02 > we are not alike

it’s exposure therapy < 2:03 since you don’t have any friends you don’t and probably never will be called anything endearing < 2:04 aren’t I so nice < 2:04

Pausing, you glance up at where the glass doors lead right to the computer lab; a dim glow washes over the space. Nothing much to worry about, you think—copying data is a far less burdensome task than rifling through pages upon pages of reports and then arranging them back into their rightful place. Though, if you were worried about anything, it was that the virus and bugger installation would take longer than they had to. 

Maybe it’s the paranoia getting to you. 

Or maybe, maybe, it’s the faint click of footsteps against linoleum floors—getting louder and louder and louder. As does your heartbeat: thundering deafeningly in your ears. You can’t turn invisible. You don’t get the luxury of slipping into the shadows like your colleague (to put it very politely) does. 

And so you swallow—tongue thick and leaden within your suddenly too-dry mouth. There are two courses of action you can take (hurry, the steps are getting louder): the first being to hide away in the little storage cupboard and take the escape from there. You will not be able to fool a scientist who knows their colleagues far more intimately than the grunts in the lobby. Moze has worked alone before. He’ll figure out how to get the virus downloaded and the data copied before the person even gets close to noticing him. 

Or—and your eyes flick to the computer room clearly visible from the lab—you could put on an act to save both your life and Moze’s time. You could… probably do that, right?

Heart moving renditions…. Never mind that your heart was pounding right out of your chest—never mind that your glassy sword could not be wielded in this narrow hallway, never mind that flipping the switch on your gun was not quite something you were prepared to do. 

They were almost at the corner, and you made your decision to step out into that narrow corridor. One hand in your pocket and the other raking across your face as you yawned. The epitome of casual. 

And Moze’s ears pricked as he watched you; though you’d never know, and he’d never admit that he did so. He heard the sound of sharp shoes, and was honestly expecting you to turn tail. 

But you didn’t. 

You’re taking lazy strides as he hears the researcher approach—counting on the secrecy of this organisation being tight enough to operate on a need-to-know basis. In other words, you’re operating on the high-risk gamble: that this particular person would be unaware of changes in personnel. There’s no time to read the data streaming from their steps. Ordinarily, from their intention you could figure out their rank in the pecking order—but you are plumb out of luck. 

He rounds the corner: wearing a suit far more well cut than yours, though his tie sits loose at his throat and his jacket is slung over one shoulder. From one glance, you can tell immediately. You’re screwed. Still, it’s too late to run now: far too late to leave Moze to figure out how to download the data faster. 

“Who are you?” The drawl is heavy with a cadence far too confident. Just your fucking luck, you momentarily scowl—of course the lab would be frequented by some clear higher-up. Not a regular degular scientist you could simply sweet talk, but someone not in the lower strata of this shady organisation.  

He’s handsome: black hair that sheens prussic, eyes glinting practically amber even in the frigid lighting that washes over this space. Something you’ve unfortunately learned while traversing the galaxy is that this guy cannot possibly be a grunt; and if he is, there’s something seriously wrong with the corporation. He’s eye candy—which makes this situation so terrible. You are screwed. In that moment, your lazy smile wavers somewhat; you are utterly and irredeemably fucked. You could shoot him, but that would no doubt put the rig on immediate lockdown with the sound of the gun. 

Fuck. You want to slam your head against the glass, but that would no doubt screw you over even further. 

You’re not built for this. 

“Oh, are you part of the research team too?” Naive. Your qualifications have just landed you this position, and you’re not quite capable of discerning if you should be divulging that information or not. That’s the mindset you centre this particular character around: just some random guy who’s a bit gullible. 

“Just got transferred,” you lie through your teeth, shamelessly. It’s a sin to lie, but you’ve committed bigger ones before. 

“No wonder I’ve never seen a cutie like you here before,” he murmurs—leaning in as though to inspect your face. And so, you freeze; naturally, this was not the direction you thought this conversation would take. Maybe sweet talking is not entirely off the table, but you sincerely doubt you’ll actually get away. 

You swallow. How much longer do you have to stall for? Is Moze done? What the fuck do you say next?

“Uh.” Thanks? I guess? You’re pretty cute too? You find your hand inching towards your holster—minutely, of course—while potential replies whirl through your mind chaotically. Miniature storms wrapped up in slimy brain matter and miniscule neuron connections. 

It’s only when he lets out a short laugh that you realise that you might’ve let out your thoughts, and you curse at yourself in your mind. 

“Wow, you’re bold,” he comments, closer: until you can almost taste the lingering iron and manufactured scent he has. Like wood. Earth pine. A bitter pang goes through your heart at that: someone from the surviving fallout of Earth, here of all places. In a clean, sterile lab dedicated to sacrificing Foxians—for what? Money? Stupid credits? Humans are rotten creatures, cut from a cloth macerated in cesspits. On Earth, it was no exception. 

Still. Your lips press into a line at his clothes, the particular way the tie is knotted. You’ve never seen another survivor prior to this. 

You may also be completely mistaken. Penacony and doubtless others have the same strands of fashion—but this. This is wholly Earth. 

“People do tell me that,” you return, unbuttoning your lab coat since you’re no longer in the lab boundaries. Moze, hurry the fuck up. You’re already regretting it, but you need to confirm it. Alien everywhere, what other choice do you have?

His eyes don’t widen like you expect, and you feel a stupid ache at the realisation that you’re once again alone. But rather, they flicker to your breast pocket, where your falsified keycard peeks out. Closer. His fingers pluck the plastic as though it were a flower, and you’re much too astounded to stop him. 

“What a shame…” he murmurs, and only the nails digging into your palm remind you fitfully of just how near he is—practically tasting the fucking lies on your breath. 

“Sir, back up a bit,” you grimace. This sucks. The perks of keeping the guy from witnessing the glow in the computer room is slowly fading away the longer you keep this up. Should’ve left Moze to get caught. 

“O strange doctor, do movies of the bygone era really interest you so?” 

You freeze. Shit. Shit. You’d let down your guard—attempting to gauge his reaction to your attire and getting caught out yourself. Really, was there any spy worse than yourself? The falsified card was hastily put together with the help of your visor; of course it autofilled that stupid alias. 

It’s not the first time your mistakes have cost you. 

“You…” This guy. You should’ve run. You suck at gambling. 

“How odd. I should’ve been aware of one like me being transferred.”

“Who the hell are you?” Cautiously, you take a minute step back. He notices—of course he does. 

“The head of the research department, who else?”  Fuck, fuck. Your heart is entering arrhythmia: pounding flush against your eardrums like some goddamn hammer against piercing nail. You’re dead meat. 

“It’s unfortunate that I can’t buy you a suit to replace that cheap one—if you hadn’t infiltrated, we might’ve been good friends.” He’s still putting up a front, but you can tell he’s close to a fight. It’s the snarling instinct of a cornered human—fight or flight activating almost immediately at every minute movement of his. Each shallowed breath, each minute shift in sinew. All of it. 

“No, definitely not,” you retort in disgust. “Most people from that planet sucked.”

It’s true, but your heart twinges blue just the same. Millions of years, all for that stupid molten iron planet to just cease. None but you—all alone amongst the cold, dead stars. 

It was a graveyard of the giants: hulking Jupiter, so wretched and broken; stars slowly winking out one by one. Even the massive silhouette of the Sun had finally been conquered. Had the universe ever been so lonely for the wandering?

“Even you?” And now his fists punctuate the empty space with his words. 

“Especially me.”

How foolish. How foolish, as he’s barely breathing on the floor beside you. How foolish, as you let your teeth grind in stupefied frustration. How foolish, that you wanted to communicate with a remnant from that obsolete planet. 

You’re an idiot as you clutch at your side: warmth seeping between your fingers as you prop yourself up against the wall. Shallow, heaving breaths come ragged—though the fight didn’t last even five minutes, courtesy of your visor working overtime to electrocute that fool by your feet. He looks fried, but you don’t look much better: being stabbed does that, after all. 

You don’t know what you’re doing here. 

What were you trying to accomplish?

Iron tastes especially caustic today. Ah, you realise with a start—this stupid endeavour was all to buy time. Maybe it was all pointless. Maybe you’ll slip into slumber here—tripping over the sleeping man at your feet and seeing your planet once more, if only in your dreams. 

The flicker of lights reminds you of your wretched childhood apartment. All concrete and dilapidated structure, but it was your home. A cruel and cold home—though it was also one where the sun touched the horizon just so, in a way that erased pain for a singular moment in time. 

Stupid. All this to fulfil your stupid mission. 

Your legs wobble, and you would’ve slammed right into the wall were it not for the cold arms wrapping around your ribcage—gelid hand splayed on your chest. 

“Idiot.” Moze’s voice is low and angry; practically shaking while he supports your body. He’s pressed right up against your side—making the smell of blood ever more pungent. Slippery, metallic copper—all coming from you and ruining that stupid suit for good. “Are you illiterate too?”

“Huh?” You don’t know why he’s upset; he got the job done, didn’t he? Maybe he’s mad he has to prop you up while navigating the dim tunnels of this building��his teeth are gritting, after all, even if you can’t see him. You can hear the molars grind together. 

“Are your eyes just for show, or do you occasionally read your messages?” he seethes. Your trembling heart is far too loud to register the final death rattles of the man left behind in the corridor—courtesy of a blade thrown right into his jugular. 

“Hah. Muted them to not read your irritating texts anymore.” You close your eyes as he guides you past the chemicals, past the cleaning supplies in the closet that leads to a hidden path outwards. He’s more… gentle than you would’ve expected; grip firm on your arm slung over his shoulders rather than constricting. 

“I didn’t need your help,” he informs you: tone boreal as ever. “You blew our cover.”

Still, you cannot see the furrow in his brows as he peers down at you; neither can you see his lips pressing together. His heart’s pounding weirdly: focused on you rather than leaving this stupid place far behind. 

“I didn’t do it for you—” you grit out, stumbling the last few steps to the concealed star skiff while alarms blare on the ship the two of you leave behind. And he’s grasping your waist as you lean against the rocking vehicle—but you were not going to fall. Blood seeps onto his clothing, though he pays the mess no heed for once. 

“Don’t need your help either,” you scoff, returning his words back to him as you lean against the worn seat. It’s cold. So cold, but you’d rather die than admit it hurts. “Get off me.”

“I’ll drive.” His rich voice finally has a body once more as he settles into his copilot seat. He can visualise the path back to the Yaoqing already—back to the messy, warm place you call home. Where you linger on all those stupid trinkets, the decorations you put up, and the food simmering in the pot on your stove—he knows the route like the back of his scarred hand. 

“I’m fine. It’s not that deep, and Jiaoqiu will take a look at it anyway.”  Jiaoqiu. His lips curl into a sneer as the dashboard lights up—flipping switches with such harsh precision it’s much too apparent that he’s in a terrible mood. 

“Or A-hua,” you add, and his heartbeat becomes something twisted and wretched as he hears the dimmed affection in your voice. You’re tying off the bandage tight around your side—very rudimentary first aid, but the priority is to get as far away as possible from this facility while their systems go down.

“Neither of them will be in when we report to Feixiao.” 

He doesn’t quite know why he lies: syllables rolling off his tongue like a blunder, yet he manages to keep his voice steady. 

“Then I’ll give myself stitches.” So damn stubborn, he thinks. He’s irritated, for reasons unclear to him. 

“No, this was because of me. I’ll treat you.” He doesn’t know why he insists either; one thing he knows for sure though, is that he can’t help but cling onto the scent of your embodiment. Blood and sweat, laundry powder and soap. You. It’s nothing like the damp of his cell. 

“No thanks. You’d probably—hah—use this opportunity to get rid of me,” you wince out. Well, he cants his head in thought—you’re not wrong. He might’ve left you behind: no regrets, no more dead weight. 

“You think so little of me?” 

“Yes. Why else would you come close?” On edge—that’s what he can hear in the tremulous pulse beneath the flesh, all torn and never at ease. It’s not fearful, precisely, but gone is the casual annoyance in your tone—it’s more of a void acceptance, as though you’re stating the obvious. 

To answer your question, he doesn’t know. He’d normally recoil at the sight of the dried blood on his clothes—scrubbing at his skin the moment he could—but he’s absent-mindedly pulling at the threads laved in you with a hand not preoccupied by steering. 

“Anyways. If you keep pushing it, you’ll be permanently dubbed that nickname you so hate.” 

“Don’t care.” He meets your eyes through the reflection of the glass window. One gaze—flinty and stubborn. The other pair of eyes—silent and unyielding. “I’m treating you before we report to Feixiao.”

“Little A-ze is all grown up now, huh,” you mutter, and the prefix you put in front of his name is cold and distant. It tastes quite bitter, and for that reason he doesn’t deign to speak for the rest of the flight. 

For once, he’s truly living up to his description of being reticent. 

⁺ 　 . ✦

“Why’d you do such a stupid move?” With each agonised beat of your heart, the needle jabs into one side of your flesh and extends past the other. This may have been taken as to mean he’s fast with your treatment—but your pulse is as sluggish as barely molten lava, burbling and gurgling like you’re on your last legs. “Look after yourself first.”

The towel he painstakingly placed on your couch is spattered with sanguine. Unfortunately, you’re a bit too lost in delirium to realise the gravity of this situation: Moze, kneeling by your side as he carefully stitches you back up. So delirious, you don’t notice his heavy gaze and scarred hands that reverently handle the tools that pierce your body. 

“A-ze,” you slur, half-conscious as you bring a scalding hand to press against his boreal face. He freezes, like he really is made of ice. But alas, your hand falls back to your side just as quickly and his expression settles back into a scowl. 

“I could’ve escaped,” you murmur, eyes heavy with slumber. “But then you would’ve been in trouble.”

I wouldn’t have been, he wants to say back. You and your idiotic plans. He’s thought it before and thinks it now—he really fucking hates them. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” he instead grits out, tying off the last stitch with the scissors with a clinical professionality that you’re quite astounded then. “Look after yourself, and I’ll do the same.”

“Shut up and get out then,” you retort—and he plucks the roll of bandages you were planning on winding around your side. You blink: taken aback once more. 

“No.” 

No? 

“Fuckface,” you comment bitterly, though there’s a certain decrease in volume as he winds his arms slowly around your torso to wrap the cloth around you. Like this, his silver tufts of hair brush past your chin—strangely clean smelling for an assassin. And when you rest your palms on his upper back to alleviate the tension in your side, you swear he freezes. 

“Idiot,” he slams back; though, there’s a certain rapidity to his pulse as your chest is right in his eyeline. It’s steady, rising and falling with each even breath you have: naked muscle just about grazing his nose. For the first time in ages, his fingers waver in his task. 

“Call Jiaoqiu then,” you shrug. He’s tucking the ends of the bandage into itself, so you miss how the faint flush on his face immediately fades. 

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. 

“Call who over?”

The foxian stands in the doorway with a pleased, close-eyed smile—much like the cat that finally got the cream. He’s grinning, Moze realises with horror; he saw the vulnerability in his shoulders, even if for a brief second.

Shit. He didn’t even notice. 

“Jiaoqiu?” You take your hand off his shoulder to wave; the man can no longer suppress the irritation in his expression. 

“In the flesh!” 

“Wow, you really don’t look good,” he continues, voice drawing closer as he inspects your bloodied torso. 

“Yeah, because I’m stuck with the fucker who lied about you not being—”

Moze presses his palm against your mouth—heart erratic at the feeling of soft lips against his hand, though it has nothing to do with you. More of the fact that he’s never been so close to someone like this. Yeah. That’s the reason. 

“Why are you here, Jiaoqiu?” he replies in your stead, ignoring how incredulously your gaze pierces into the side of his face. 

“So cold! You two are late to report even though you arrived half a system hour ago! But I totally understand, Moze.” Jiaoqiu’s smile does not quite reach his eyes as his gaze flitters between you and the assassin. That, perhaps, would be the usual description of how the foxian smiles regardless, but especially so today. “He’s injured, after all. Why not let me treat him before the two of you report to our Arbiter-General?”

“Pah–!” With a gasp, you finally wrench his hand from your mouth—glaring at him all the while. “That would be great, Jiaoqiu, thank you.”

Thus, the assassin is left simmering on the other side of your living room: daggers jabbing right into the other man’s back as he finishes your treatment off with a bowl of scorching hot broth. And though he doesn’t outright say it, Jiaoqiu is evidently amused by this turn of events—much like he’s amused with every irritated tell of Moze’s as he inches ever closer to you with his sly smile. 

Sorry, friend, he surmises. Not much of a chance you’ve got. 

It’s a great day for the fox, but not so much for the crow who seethes in the corner. 

⁺ 　 . ✦

[themotherofhorses]

When handmaid!reader was pregnant, did Aemond ever suck on her titties? Did Aemond do the thing where the husband is behind na pregnant woman and carried the weight of the baby?

oh of course he did. c'mon, aemond's totally a boob guy (do not argue with me on that). in fact, here is a small drabble over that:

pairing: aemond targaryen x handmaid!reader

warnings: tiddy sucking and simp aemond.

his handmaid's tales | main masterlist

She’s begun to tire more easily as the children grew within her.

Twins, the maesters and midwives alike had declared, while pouring over moon charts and estimations. She is carrying twins- maybe two boys, maybe two girls, or maybe one of both. The latter would be absolutely lovely, she decides.

Prince Aemond’s dismissed her back to his bedchamber with strict commands to rest abed. In truth, a day of rest is most welcoming to her. Her poor feet feel so swollen, and she’s taken to waddling like a little pond duck around the Keep, heavy and aching with her first hatchlings.

The courtiers pay her special attention too, as she feels their eyes on her everywhere she goes. No doubt their comments are much worse. Alas, her Prince Aemond can only do so much to protect her.

So safe within his room, she lays atop the cool, clean sheets, curled on her side and cradling the dragon egg her prince had chosen for one of their children in the hollow between her swollen belly and tender breasts.

It is a beautiful thing, with a deep purple shell, speckled with tiny golden flecks on its scales that shined like gold, and holding it close made her feel a lot better- stronger and braver. Perhaps her babies sense the dragon inside, a siren call only the golden blood of Old Valyria could hear. Or perhaps she’s turning into a dragon too.  

“Oh, but I really am carrying little dragons,” she giggles to herself, brushing her fingertips against the tight swell of her belly. Saying those words aloud makes her feel giddy and proud and beyond anxious to meet them. “Two sweet little dragons…”

“Indeed you are, my love.”

She startles, glancing up to see Aemond looming over her with a small smile. There is a fierce pride in his violet eye as it rakes over her breasts and the curve of her bump. “I sent you back to find sleep, not strike up a conversation with the dragon egg...again.”

“The babes enjoy feeling the egg near them,” she shrugs. “That is why I do it.”

Aemond clicks his tongue, crawling alongside her onto the bed. “Did they tell you that?” he asks, voice thick with teasing.

One hand rests on her bump, fingers drawing small circles as she hides her head within his neck, feeling the children suddenly stirring in her womb. “Ah, seems my babes know their father is now here.” And the other drifts down to her breast, cupping and giving it a gentle squeeze.

She sighs.

Her dear prince, he’s taken quite the fancy to her breasts, now heavy and swelling with milk. Most nights Aemond sleeps with his head pillowed comfortably on her chest, face buried between her tits. They bring him comfort, he says a lot. He enjoys fondling and nursing from them too- as hungry for her soft gasps and moans as he is with her milk and cunt (his words not hers).

She cannot understand why, nor can she ask around for an answer.

A baseborn servant carrying royal babies is enough scandal for a terrible headache, and she can do without that.

She closes her eyes and shivers when he leans to kiss her clothed breast ever so tenderly. “I suppose this is good practice,” he murmurs as he tugs down her neckline, eye darkening at the delicious sight before him, “-for when our little ones finally arrive.” He then blows on her swollen nipple, smirking at the cute little whimper she lets out.  

"Look at you. Gods, you are so fucking gorgeous."

“Aemond-”

Aemond shushes her before taking her nipple in his hot mouth. Her head flings back on the pillow as he suckles, flicking it back and forth with his tongue. “Ach! My prince…!” she cries, hips grinding down on the bed, desperate for some release, while her pretty face scrunches up in sheer pleasure. “Please- please- please…!” Yet all her lurching, to his delight, just brings her breasts closer to him.

“You’ll feed my sons so well, my pretty girl,” and he slaps her breast, “I’ve known you’d give me fine heirs the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

She pants. “-want them, ah, to grow nice and strong like their father. All for you, my prince, tis what you deserve…!”

His other hand squeezes her other breast, tweaking and pinching the nipple until little beads of milk fall and she’s withering beneath him, a putty mess of cries and moans and shudders. Aemond smiles, her tit dropping out of his mouth with a pop.

“My lady- my sweet girl,” he tells her, lapping up the milk around her chest. “Pretty, pretty girl, all mine.”

By the time he's finished, his handmaid is fast asleep, with a sweet smile twisted across her pink lips. Her chest, now bruised and marked, heaves up and down with slow breaths. Aemond lays there, kissing her nipple and listening to her steady heartbeat. He swears it matches his.

"Mmm, works every time," he chuckles to himself.

tag list for "his handmaid's tales": @aemondsblog @dc-marvel-girl96 @neobanguniverse @missalycat21 @enchantingcupcakecollectionfan @padfooteyes @alexizodd @avidreader73 @the-common-cowgirl @inlovewithhisblueeyes @elegantsplendour @katzarantos @fan-goddess @okfashionista @randomdragonfires

[qqueenofhades]

Having seen what's currently happening in Venezuela, I feel so terrible for everyone to tried to vote Maduro out, and I worry about the US election. Will Trump and the GOP be able to do the same thing??

I agree that what's happening in Venezuela is bad and scary, but it's also not unexpected (unfortunately), and it doesn't correlate to the US election. It is very much a cautionary tale for us, but in the case of what could happen, not what has happened yet (and which we could and MUST still avoid). Here's why I think that.

First, Maduro is the heir of 25+ years of dictatorship (first the Chavez regime and then his), and that political machine has had a full generation to fix/control everything in Venezuela just as they want it. They've collapsed the economy, driven mass emigration/purges/brain drains, installed corrupt systems and destroyed civil society, staffed the government with cronies who will only ever do what Maduro personally says -- etc. In other words, exactly what Trump and the Republicans aspire to do here in America, but with 25 years' head start, so all those fixes are well entrenched. Outside observers were also warning well ahead of the Venezuelan vote that even an overwhelming majority for the opposition candidate might not be enough, because Maduro and co. can just fix the result however they want with imaginary fantasy numbers. (See Putin's "win" in the Russian presidential "election.") Because dictators all draw from the same playbook regardless of their professed ideological temperament, they always use the same tools.

Next, voting in Venezuela is all-electronic, which is obviously the easiest kind of voting to jigger, and which means that whatever the people actually select has little to no relevance to what gets published, recorded, or proclaimed. Now, despite the Republicans' constant screaming about ELECTION FRAUD, the 2020 elections in America were widely hailed as the safest, most accurate, and fraud-free in the nation's history. (For that matter, multiple investigations afterward have re-confirmed this, and the tiny handful of cases of election fraud that were found were committed by, you guessed it, Republicans.) This did not happen because of the Orange Fuhrer and co., who were busy trying to commit election fraud on their own behalves, but because America, however flawed, is still a participatory liberal democracy and citizens have the right to engage and to do so in a meaningful fashion. We had the entire investigation about how Russia meddled with the election in 2016, and changes were made. Cybersecurity experts were brought in; redundancies and failsafes were introduced; etc., and even the Russian campaign focused on psychological influence rather than actually, physically changing already-cast votes, because that is very, very hard to do in America. We are not an all e-voting nation; there are paper trails, hard-copy ballots, hand recounts, poll observers, election lawyers, and multiple other safeguards that exist. The Republicans have been attacking them as hard as they can, but they're still there.

Thirdly, the Evil Orange tried to fix the elections when he was the sitting president (don't forget the infamous "find me 11,780 votes" phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State that got him slapped with felony charges), but he couldn't do it even then. He also tried a coup as the sitting president, with full discretion as to whether, for example, the National Guard should be deployed to the Capitol on January 6, and that didn't succeed. As such, when he's a disgraced jobless felon who is not the commander-in-chief of the American military and holds no official or political role, he's definitely not getting it done now. There were reforms made to the Electoral Count Act to prevent another January 6, Biden and not Trump would be the president at any other attempted attack on the counting of electoral votes, and I can guarantee Biden would not sit around for three hours watching Fox News and cheering the rioters on if such a thing happened again. Trump has been threatening violence again because that's the only move in his playbook, and he wants to intimidate people into voting for him out of fear that he'll attack them if they don't give him what he wants, like any other psychopathic bully. But that does not mean he actually has the tools to successfully carry it off, and honestly, motherfucker? Try it one more fucking time. I double fucking dog dare you. Biden has 6 months left in his term and total immunity, according to your own SCOTUS. So.

Basically, Venezuela has already been a banana republic for 20+ years, the dictator has had a full generation to destroy it/remake it/turn it into his personal fiefdom, he allows elections only because he already knows they won't change anything or actually remove him from power, and that is precisely what Trump wants to do in the US -- but, and this is crucial, has not done yet. Which is why it is so, so important to Orange-Proof America and get rid of him once and for fucking all on November 5th. We can do it. So yes.

[threepandas]

Bad End: Soldier A

I'm pretty sure you know the story. Everybody does. Chosen Hero, Demon King, they fight, save the day, yada yada. Everybody supposedly lives happily ever after. Everything sunshine and roses. Puppies and farting rainbows. But... but it's NOT.

It's really fucking NOT.

I used to love reading stories like that. They were escapism. Grand adventures in a terrible, grey, slowly crushing hellscape of a world. But... but, FUCK. At least there weren't drauger! No demon wolves or skeleton soldiers! Or the FUCKING little flying bastards. God. I HATE those ones the most.

They have sharp, needle-y little claws and teeth like a SHARK fucked a TREE THRESHER. And they scream. Just... yowl and yowl in this ear splitting high pitch like they're trying to DEAFEN you ON TOP of trying to rip you apart.

That life was peaceful.

I was a fool to wish for anything else.

I am not the Chosen One. I'm not even a supporting character. I remember this bullshit little yarn, and I? Am NO WHERE fucking in it. I am just... just some rando, in this struggle of demons and Gods. The child of Some Dude. We... we had chickens. Fat, happy, lil hens.

I remember being ENTRANCED. I had lived all my life, before, in suburban sprawl. So chickens? Strutting around and chasing bugs? Tiny me was hypnotized.

It saved my life.

I half wish it didn't, some days.

That I died, sudden and without the chance to truely comprehend, along side my family. That my neighbors eldest hadn't seen me by the coop. Grabbed me desperately as he ran for his life. Our entire FUCKING village...

There were six survivors.

I was one of them.

And it's... it's all just? FLAVOR TEXT for the Chosen One's tale of Glory. A reason for why she's so NEEDED. So BELOVED. Look how AWESOME she is! Saintess, because when are they NOT? Hero, because it's all about HER. A god damned LOVE STORY thrown in, because THAT'S important, while people are suffering! Dying!

Are? You? KIDDING ME!?

Legends speak of a "Hero's Party". I know damn well it's true. That it WILL succeed. But FUCK that. FUCK waiting for her to "be ready"! To gather allies and turn from some sheltered little rose, into the warrior we ACTUALLY NEED. It's my world too. I was the one who had to help dig out survivors! Tend to the wounded! Fight off swarms! Hold back the dead!

I...! I was the one who had to LOOK PEOPLE IN THE EYE and... AND-!

B-Because sometimes? SOMETIMES?! Those bites DON'T HEAL. Can't heal! They are filled with so much demonic power, that the only thing they CAN do is corrupt. Fester. Poison. Sometimes you're already DEAD and nothing short of the oh so precious SAINTESS could possibly save you.

But she's not HERE... is she?

So you have a choice.

If you're lucky? It's JUST a limb. A chunk of flesh. But more often then not... well... The lucky ones have time to say goodbye. The unlucky ones get to be twisted and used against their friends. Their family's. And if you care. If you CARE AT ALL? You put them down before that happens.

Because they wouldn't want that.

It... it feeds a HATE in me. An ANGER.

No, that's not right... it's more like? It feeds...

A RAGE.

An ugly, burning thing. That's hollowed out my chest. Wrapped around my bones. Fueled by the memories of every innocent I failed to save. By the fear and the suffering, that just keeps dragging on and on and ON. An endless slog that seems designed to break men down. Destroy us.

I feel like it's killing the humanity in me. The kindness I once had. Like I am burning away everything but purpose. And will have nothing left when I am done. IF I am ever done. It... it used to scare me.

Now I am to angry, too tired, to be afraid.

Let me die. I do not CARE. So long as I TAKE THEM WITH ME. Burn them ALL. My brothers in arms, my sisters of war, those that fight and fight and FIGHT? They feel the same. We didn't fucking WAIT. Refused to watch the slaughter. Gaining ground only to lose it, losing ground only to claw it back.

Holding the line.

We can't actually KILL him. We know that. Only the Saintess can actually fucking END this nightmare. But his monsters? Those still fall too steel. And if we are to die regardless, why NOT in defense of our homes?

We've managed to push a path, deep into the Demonic lands. A spear point to stab the heart of HIS damned empire. We... we can hold it. MUST hold it. At all costs. For that flimsy, weak willed, half trained NITWIT of a child. So when she FINALLY gets off her ass and stops making goo-goo eyes at her trainers? She can come and finish the job.

Then get crowned queen of forever or something.

I don't know, I don't CARE. I'm going to buy some damn chickens. Fill a yard with them. Honor my parents and be the best damn farmer this world has ever SEEN.

Another crash against our shields. Screams as someone's arm breaks. As someone else is savaged through a crack in our barrier, as something probably gives. I slam my spear forward. Vital point. Vital point. Ignore the strain. The way your arm feels like a giant is stepping on it. Like some is trying to rip the shield from your grip. Hold... HOOOOLD!

Go for the eyes. Aim for the throat. Kidneys. Arteries, arteries, heart! The spear is wretched from my grip. I shout for another. Reach blindly, trusting my countrymen. I feel the grip of another one pressed into my hand. I slam my spear forward.

The fight goes on.

For hours.

It was some sort of ape-bear chimera things this time. But bigger and with spikes. No ones quite sure if they're in the "fucked up monstrosities" book yet. I'M certainly too dead on my feet to check. I sit an eat some fucking soup. Mmmmm, rations soup. Technically edible! My favorite flavor.

In the distance, sits the Demon King's fancy ass doom castle.

Any closer? And HE might be inspired to actually "deal" with us. I can't wait for the day it-An explosion of noise from the command tent. Everyone's heads whip around to stare, alarmed. But... but that didn't sound... BAD shouting. It takes us a long, long moment. It had honestly been YEARS since some of us had HEARD such a noise. But...?

W...was that?

Excitement?

I passed off my soup to a newbie. He honestly needed it more anyway. Told him to eat. Then got up and headed for command. Something was happening. As I got close, the flap was all but ripped open. A commander, actually? Smiling!? What the fresh hell?

A commander looking for someone. Spots me. Waves me over and in. I jog over. The tent is practically HUMMING with excitement. And there, on the tabke with the war map? Is an old, OLD dagger. Very... magical girl, in design. Flourishes, sparkling, and lovely dispite being what must be... what, centuries old? Worn to hell and back? What IS that?

It's the weapon of a previous Chosen One.

A Holy Blade.

Holy Shit. HOW. Where?! Where AND HOW!? I thought the royal family snapped all those fuckers up too show off! If not them, the Temple! I'm met with seni-hysterical laughs of disbelief.

A PRIEST stole it.

Nearly DIED doing so. Temple's probably FURIOUS. Gonna come to get it BACK, most likely. We're gonna have to move FAST. We're gonna only get ONE chance at this. I nod. Ready for whatever command needs me to do. Hold off some holy knights? Punch a priest? I'll get... SUPER excommunicated, but? Fuck it. If it saves lives.

No.

No they need me to wield the blade. I'm sorry?? WHAT.

It's apparently Maiden Locked. Fucking... Maidens Only! Got lucky? No holy weapon for you! Married but a virgin? Weaponless! Oh, fffffuck yooooou, creepy perv deities. There are LIVES ON THE LINE, in this, a GOD DAMNED WAR, and you LOCK the import weapons behind "mint condition pu-"!!!

The commander cuts of my, frankly, VERY understandable rant.

Hands on my shoulders. Looks me in the eyes. Will I Do This? I would have to take the knife and sneak behind enemy lines. Into the demon kings castle. And try to get the jump on him. NO ONE would be able to go after me. Help WOULD NOT be coming. If I fail... that's it. Game over. The demons would have me.

I laugh.

It is... not a cheerful sound. Not like it once was.

Is it even a choice? Of course I am. Frankly? I hope it hurts. I hope it's slow. Hurts every second and feels like eons. That he BURNS from the inside out. I'm gonna make him EAT IT.

Waiting until night would be suicide. They get stronger at night. Can blend in to the shadows. But they're cocky. They won't expect an attack just before that. So twilight is when I'll strike. Afternoon, when I head out. I... I leave my gear behind. Say my goodbyes.

I'm not the Chosen One.

Just some farmer's daughter with a grudge.

It don't think I'll be making it back. Don't really expect to even succeed. But by the gods... I plan to HURT him. Every piece we chip away, is one the soul behind us doesn't have to fight. I do this not for me. But for the child who will never know the FEAR that I did.

I will die so they don't have too.

The castle is dark. Humming with power I can FEEL but can not understand. Grand and sweeping architecture. Great windows that should let in far more light then they do. A blood red carpet upon bone white floors. The walls are black. It... some how merely stepping inside, seems to suck all color but red from the world. All heat.

I see no one here.

But I hear whispers.

I tighten my grip around the weapon. The only thing that feels WARM. These hallways are designed to make you feel small, I can tell at a glance. I refuse to give in. I am a farmer. A soldier. I do not CARE about your damn castle! I dig deep into my memories, keeping to the walls, and try to remember where the hero found her foe.

I trace the path in my head. Cut out the lost wandering as best I can. Right slightly, then forward, I think. If I am wrong, I can double back. Follow the book's path exactly. I move slow. As quite as I can.

Still... I find no one.

No servants, no gaurds, no resistance of any kind. Something like fear sighs like a specter down my spine, cold and vague. Something is not right. I do not let down my gaurd... but the longer it persists? The worse my paranoia grows.

Finally. The throne room. Magnificent beyond measure, in blood red and monochrome. Rare touches of gold glint and catch the eye. Stained glass giving it all a surreal scene from high above. The runner at my feet plush enough to render my foot steps silent. It is red... so very, very red.

The Demon King leans against one fist, resting on his throne, magnificent and beautiful like a statue brought to life. Carved of pale ivory and obsidian. Just as feeling as stone. A monster. Living testament that what's inside counts most of all. For inside him? Is nothing but a void. A malicious PIT.

I will see him dead.

On silent feet, I sneak forward. Only to freeze at the foot of the stairs to his dais, my eyes locked on his face. Horror seeps through me.

An amused smirk.

"Oh don't stop NOW, you're so close." Breaks the silence. Golden eyes open, lazy and entertained. "By all means. Try."

My grip on the dagger felt almost painful, for how hard I was gripping it. He... he wasn't even bothering to move. Didn't even see me as a threat. F..Fine. Fine then! If it was a mistake on his part or NOT, I would TAKE IT. Any chance. Any chance at ALL.

The pressure of that gaze felt immense. But I tilted my head up, put my shoulders back, and moved. One step. Then another. Up the stairs. Onto the dais. Forward, slowly. I paused, just beyond his immediate reach. Not that it was anything like real safety. I stared. Shaking. Knowing I was shaking and unable to stop.

He sat splayed. Reclined and leaning against his fist, robes rich and arranged just so. The very picture of indolent decadence. It was deceptive. I KNEW it was. A trap. But to get too him... I had to step closer. My eyes moved from the splay of his legs back up to his face. His smirk had grown teeth. I... I refused to run. I would finish this.

I stepped forward. Between his long legs, feeling distinctly like I was balanced over a bear trap, and lifted the dagger. I refused to hesitate. Wait to see if he changed his mind. I slammed it forward. Right through his heart. Glaring, as I looked him right in the eyes. The blade HISSED. Like acid meeting stone.

He laughed.

Grin full of unhinged glee, a vice in the shape of a hand clamped around my wrist, and the world SPUN. I slammed against the floor, the Demon King straddling me, at the foot of his thrown. He loomed. Behind him, above me, shown a magnificent window the lit him from behind. Like a halo.

"You didn't even HESITATE. You'd rip my heart out, if you could. Wouldn't you?" He says. Almost an whisper, nearly a groan, filthy with something that terrifies me and shouldn't BE there. "I KNEW I sensed something. KNEW you were out there."

I desperately try to push the knife deeper. Use everything I can to... to just-!

All I want... All I NEED? Is to see it come out the fucking OTHER SIDE. Please. Gods, PLEASE! End this! I'm gritting my teeth. Snarling. This BASTARD. I HATE him! I HATE HIM!

"Ah~ That's it, little one." He groans. Not even bothering to hide that he's apparently getting off on this. I'll kill him. I'll FUCKING KILL HIM! "Good~, that's right. Just like that. Give IN~♡ I'll take SUCH good care of you. I've always wanted a little pet. Focus it all on me. Give it ALL to me~"

My brain feels like it's on fire. My lungs filled with ash and flame. I hate. I hate and hate and HATE! I can't think. Something is... wrong? Wrong! The blade hurts to hold. Like it's rejecting me. No. NO! I HAVE TO KILL HIM! I may not be the Chosen One but-!

It finally becomes too much. The pain of holding the blade out weighing my hate. It's like ACID. My hand spasming away like I was trying to touch a hot stove. My palm is an ugly red. Wounded.

In one fluid movement, my wrist is released, the blade pulled free, tossed aside, and my wrist recaptured, before I can claw his fucking eyes out. I grit my teeth. Fangs grinding togeth-... wait.... what?

I stare at my hand.

At the black talon like nails where normal nails were, just this morning. And feel... horror. My... my teeth feel weird. My eyes hurt. Sides of my head too.

"Got you~"

He throws his head back in a triumphant laugh. The sound echoing like a nightmare. Even as I watch, the pigment of my skin is changing. Draining away to something even. Something almost too pale. Unnatural.

"I'm so glad you've decided to join me, darling." My hands are slammed down on either side of my head. His face inches from my. Eyes burning with something terrible. "I haven't had a bride in SO long~ following your progress has been FASCINATING. And now! Oh little thing, I get to KEEP you all to myself. Make you GOOD for me. Learn every inch of you. You should be excited, darling~"

"I'm going to make you a Queen."