#This is my first time writing ianthe

[sluggydrabbles]

FLUFFBRUARY 10 - SELF CARE TOGETHER

“So I just put the wet sheet on my face?” The dead girl who was sometimes called Gideon and sometimes called Kiriona was skeptical.

“Yes, it's not that hard.” Ianthe sounded only slightly exasperated. She demonstrated, holding the sheet over her face. The eye and mouth holes looked disconcerting, like Ianthe had flayed the face off of a person made of cloth. Knowing her, that was part of the appeal.

They were in Ianthe’s bedroom on the Cohort flagship, having a ‘slumber party’, as Ianthe called it. So far it had involved Ianthe demanding a truly obscene number of pillows be brought to the room and creating a comfortable nest on the large bed. Gideon’s—Kiriona’s hair was pushed out of her face by a soft headband and Ianthe declared it was time to finally address her ‘moisturization problem’.

Kiriona had always thought that her face was too oily, but when she said that, Ianthe had given her a look that made her feel like an idiot, so she stopped protesting.

“Just lay it on and smooth it over your face like this.” Ianthe said, oddly eager. She was uncharacteristically enthusiastic about this whole thing.

Gid—Kiriona couldn’t help but laugh at Ianthe’s mask-covered face. “You look ridiculous.”

To her surprise, Ianthe smiled. “You’re so stupid.” For once there was no bite in the words, only a wistful sort of affection. Kiriona’s heart felt warm. She could get used to nice Ianthe.

She put the cold, slimy cloth against her face. It smelled floral, which made the whole experience more pleasant.

“No, no.” Ianthe said, grabbing her wrist as she tried to smooth out the mask. “Like this.” Ianthe’s cold finger—a flesh one—ran along Kiriona's jaw and under her eyes, smoothing the cloth. It felt nice to be touched like this, even if it was Ianthe. Her dead skin wasn’t as sensitive as it should be, but it still felt good.

“Thanks.” She mumbled as Ianthe took her hands away.

“Corona always wanted me to put the mask on her.” Ianthe said by way of explanation.

Oh. It should have been obvious. That was why Ianthe seemed different. She was a replacement for her precious sister.

Her conflicted emotions churned in her stomach. She didn’t like Ianthe but she had been happy that Ianthe had wanted to spend time with her. Knowing she was just a replacement should have made her feel worse, but the idea that Ianthe had considered her to be a good enough candidate to replace her sister was gratifying. Even if Ianthe didn’t want her around for herself, she still wanted her around in some capacity.

“Why did you two even need to do this?” She asked as Ianthe laid against the mass of pillows, her eyes closed.

“Hmm?” She asked, not opening her eyes.

“Couldn’t you just…” She waved a hand. “Flesh it up to make your skin softer?”

Ianthe’s eyes opened. “‘Flesh it up’?”

If Kiriona could, she would blush. “Yeah. Why use the masks? Unless there’s necromancy in them.” Maybe they were made of flayed skin.

Ianthe rolled her eyes. “Your simple mind astounds me.” Once again, the words were said more gently than their contents would imply. “It’s not about the skin, not really. Well, in the case of you, you need all the help you can get. I don’t think necromancy alone could solve your break outs.”

Kiriona frowned, but Ianthe continued before she could protest the likely accurate statement.

“It’s about the relaxation. You put the mask on, close your eyes, and relax.” She demonstrated by laying back down on the pillows. “So fucking relax, okay?”

Kiriona felt silly as she lay back down. She had the strangest feeling like she wasn’t doing it right. “Like this?”

“Do you really need my help to figure out how to lay down and close your eyes? Is that what you’re asking me right now?” Her eyebrow raised and moved the top of the eyeholes of the mask up, making the expression look more exaggerated.

Maybe not being able to blush was a good thing. She closed her eyes and breathed in.

This was kind of nice. The mask smelled good, and it had stopped feeling so slimy and cold. It felt wet, but pleasantly so. It felt indulgent. She was starting to see the point.

She wondered if she would like it. She could use some relaxation after all. Maybe Kiriona could—

She shook her head. Nope, not thinking about that.

“This was a good idea,” she said, to distract herself from her thoughts. She was laying in a comfortable bed with a girl—because despite her flaws, Ianthe was a girl and Kiriona did like that about her—experiencing luxury for the first time in her life. She should focus on that.

“Of course it is. All my ideas are good.” Ianthe said smugly, reaching for Kiriona’s hand and intertwining their fingers—dead flesh against gilded bone.

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

i love how as you read more into tlt, the ninth house seems more and more normal. Like if i'm at an immoral evil government competition, and i use human fat as soap and animate skeletons to do menial labor, i'm gonna LOSE if my competition is the third house, represented by ianthe "who HASN'T eaten human flesh and fucked a corpse" tridentarius. My weird skeleton thing seems normal, suddenly. Well-adjusted, even. It's recycling. They're using resources in a sustainable way. Normal and regular and productive for a post-climate change apocalypse universe.

People go on and on about how Muir drops you into gtn hearing from the person who knows the least about whats happening, and does not hand hold the reader through the crazy shit that occurs, and that's all true. It truly is a crazy writing decision to make your first pov character come from the universe's equivalent of amish fundamentalists. But the reader is actually done a huge favor being dropped into the ninth house first, because we already understand that space is cold and what catholic nuns are, and what goths look like, and what lesbians are. Very little time is wasted in the first chunk of gtn ripping hair out of your head wondering what the fuck is going on, because for all of its strangeness, the ninth house is already the most familiar thing we're gonna get.

Because THEN we learn that this whole universe's medieval chivalry system is designed to groom people from CHILDREN to not only be exploited and used as human batteries for necromancers, but to LIKE it. to wax poetic about it. to confuse it for love, to write fucking academic papers about it! Then we learn about planet flipping, an act so horrific and violent it turns the planet's soul into a massive vengeful monster capable of killing GOD. Like what do you MEAN the animals "change"? Is this why noodle has six legs? I would MUCH prefer to wear skeleton makeup and repent forever if the alternative was to witness my family dog grow TWO EXTRA LIMBS because the planet he lived on fucking died. Suddenly, living in the asscrack of a planet where no light gets in seems like a sweet deal when the whole solar system is lit by a sun that MAKES YOU GO CRAZY. The ninth house's WORST sin, killing 200 babies to make Harrow, a waste of resources and an act so terrible it haunts Harrow for the entire span of her life, is like a BLIP compared to the death count Jod's empire. God even hears about it and he's like, no big deal! The cohort probably kills that amount of people in a DAY.

And its ALSO tragic because you realize that all of this trauma and abuse that Gideon goes through is not really because of the ninth house at all. It's really just an individual skill issue that she wasn't treated with compassion. Nobody hated her because she's jesus or a bomb, nobody even KNOWS she's a bomb. It's just Priamhark and Pelleamena being deeply guilty and scared people that motivates her treatment, and absolutely nothing else.

They did something bad, and they know it, and Gideon survived it, and they can't kill her to cover it up, and that's IT. They killed themselves for pride, because they were afraid of the consequences of their actions (both the baby killing and Harrow opening the tomb) coming back to bite them. You can argue this is the catholicism of it all, and I wouldn't say you're wrong, but compared to the cavalier system, where exploitation is in the very lining of the house's institutions, the ninth house is really removed from the space empire's blood factory. This is compared to the fourth house where they have tons of children to be CANNON FODDER to join the cohort at fucking 14, compared to the eight house uncle nephew fuckery, even the fifth house which actually does seems nice to live on but also seems to have the fourth house in some sort of fucked up political bear hug??? (maybe the fourth house has so many kids in order to fight the fifth's battles? which is EXACTLY what jod's whole empire is about; politely stirring your tea and acting nice while you destroy everything) compared to ALL OF THAT, the cruelty that Gideon faces is really more a bug of the ninth's system than a feature.

There's nothing baked into the culture and everyday life of the ninth house that necessitated that cruelty; in fact, for such a pragmatic and resource-scarce place, it's WEIRD that a strong able-bodied young person was treated like a waste of space and resources. It could just have easily not happened, if Harrow's parents had been different people. Maybe they were products of their environment, but so was Harrow, and she values Gideon's life SO MUCH that she'd literally rather carve out parts of her own brain than exploit her. Gideon grows up knowing really NOTHING about cavaliers, so remote from the horrors of the empire that she develops an idea of what the cohort is from porn magazines. And in a lot of ways, that upbringing was desolate and terrible, and in a lot of other ways it literally DID NOT HAVE TO BE.

Gideon's MAIN THING is that she wants to be useful, to be needed, to be loved and it SUCKS that she couldn't even get it in the one place where she was actually an invaluable resource, where the death empire had the weakest reach. Gideon can't even blame her lack of love on the fucked up chivalry system like everyone else can because it JUST WASNT REALLY RELEVENT!?!?! This is like if i rolled up to the trauma competition and everyone else was raised in a nuclear warzone by wolves or something and i grew up in like, the suburbs and was raised by teachers and i somehow STILL WON. truly what the fuck guys.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn't seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr...but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

What is a "Speaker to the Dead"?

Actually, Magnus Quinn isn't terrible at sword fighting

Imperial complicity: Abigail the First

Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate

Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?

What does the Fifth House actually do?

The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family

Cytherea's political observations at the anniversary dinner

Abigail Pent's affect: ghosts and autism

Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?

Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children

Magnus Quinn's very understandable anger

Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy

Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?

"Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her" (the Fifth in TUG)

The Fifth's relationship dynamic

The Fifth's relationship is unconventional in a number of ways

The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus' relationship

Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River

Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?

Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)

How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?

Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

The politics of the anniversary dinner

Was Magnus born outside of the Dominicus system?

Overthinking John Gaius:

The one time John was happy was playing Jesus

Is Alecto's body made from John's?

Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?

Why isn't John's daughter a necromancer?

The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto 'what have you done to me?'

Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs

What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)

John's conference call with his CIA handlers

Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror

Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)

When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?

Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)

The 'indelible' sin of Lyctorhood and John's shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism

Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?

What was Jod's plan at Canaan House?

John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path

The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows

When was John Gaius born? (And another)

John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

John and Jesus writing sins in the sand

John and Nona's echoing chapters

John's motivations

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics'

Funerary customs and the violence of John's silence

Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time

The horror of the River bubble

Every instance of 'is this how it happens' in HTN

Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive

How do stele work?

Thought crime in the Nine Houses

The Houses have a population the size of Canada

What must it be like to fight the Houses?

You know what can't have been fun? Merv wing's megatruck on Varun day...

Augustine's very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)

Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way

Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system

Why don't the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?

How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?

How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)

What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?

Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship

The horrors the Cohort found at Canaan House

Do the Houses understand the tech keeping them alive?

Overthinking House religion:

What do the Houses believe about death?

Was M's nun a Franciscan?

Cavaliership and arbitrary socio-religious structures

Ritual scarification

Sacraments and sacramentals

What did Silas think god wanted at Canaan House?

In defense of Silas

There's no such thing as a 'good' necro/cav relationship

Veiling and shaving in Ninth House cult practice

Tongue-in-cheek thoughts on Eighth and Sixth religion

A very long deep-dive on House belief and practice

Overthinking Harrowhark Nonagesimus:

'The meat of your meat...belonged to god' and 'that is how meat loves meat'

The horror of parental touch: Harrow, John Gaius, and Abigail Pent

Why is Harrow so obsessed with Abigail's hands?

Frontline Titties of the Fifth and transgressive necro/cav relationships

Harrow, Wake, and permeability of the soul in HTN

Bible studies for weird queer necromancers:

Epiphany: revealing god's child to the wider world

The Holy Innocents and the creche massacre

The Virgin Mary and Commander Wake

John Gaius and John the Baptist

Instantiating the Trinity and the Second Resurrection

What's the significance of Paul?

St Paul's theology of gender and sexuality and the House theology of cavaliership

Maundy Thursday: consuming another for eternal life

Harrow and the Harrowing of Hell

[tomomiisasleep]

notes on Harryanthe which I am crazy about, in HtN

this dumb little interaction just stuck with me. I mean they're almost always high-strung in the detailed plot, like in almost every one of the Ianthe-centered scenes one of them is in some kind of pain

but I know they have chill moments. mundane moments. petty arguments, like the one in the post scrips of the letter. And I so badly want to read those!!

anyways. I'm gonna start collecting scraps here.

you might have given Ianthe Tridentarius the pleasure of opening the note labelled Upon the death of Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Your only hope for that note was that it contained a single sentence along the lines of, Get what joy you can from my corpse, you devious bitch, but it was written by a previous self and you could not risk a guess.

Harrow: what if I didnt hate her and that makes me wanna have a lobotomy yeah that makes sense

Once, vilely, from Ianthe; she had ensconced you in fat and rolled you down the hallway out of danger, and still laughed whenever she thought about it.

ok this is just Ianthe being a little pest, but it also means that she talks about this and laughs in Harrow's face, which makes her a little bitch, but also like it means they often chat and Ianthe would be like: Yeah today I tried the theorem on apples again, but I tweaked it by directing the flow of thalergy from- hey Harry do u remember the time I saved your life hahahahahaha

The mockery you endured for needing her proximity was exquisitely painful, but humiliation was steadily becoming your existence whole and entire.

I want to know what exactly this mockery entails

It had been very nicely matched to the original until she had ceased using it altogether, and the difference was more pronounced each day. Unconscious of your critical eye, she scratched fretfully at the line until red hives appeared.

Ianthe squirming under Harrow's gaze for once

She was in a filthy mood, if she was wearing that thing, with her arm exposed.

Harrow has been keeping tabs on the state of her arm problem ever since she first woke up on the Erobos. Same as how Ianthe has been keeping tabs on the results of her lobotomy.

she said, blue eyed, those oily little freckles glittering almost pinkly above the dress. They reflected the red rims of her eyelids. You thought that she had been crying.

yeah stare at her eyelids Harrow, and sniff her discreetly all the time, sweat musk vetiver am I right (also have I expressed how crazy it drives me that she wears masculine perfume??????????? no well IT'S SO *faints*

You got better autopsies of her encounters with Beasts than you did from your own, as Augustine was wont to explain significantly more to her than either he or Mercy did to you.

Ugh why why why in this whole book I have not seen them talk shop with each other even once??? Except Harrow showing off after making the arm. Harrow has discussions with Pal all the time in GtN. clearly she trades notes on necromancy with Ianthe frequently. but no, gloss over Ianthe's intellect and just write her freak(fond) moments

You had once been fool enough to recommend that Ianthe take them down, at which point she had rustled up another from the bathroom and hung it in pride of place above an overpainted dresser.

love her

“Oh, heaps,” said Ianthe, who appeared not to have taken offence at your rejection. It was so impossible to tell, with Ianthe. “I made it. It’s vile.”

Maybe she really doesn't care about the rejection or even likes it, but "so impossible to tell" kinda hints that, well she might be hurt,maybe, there just isn't any proof

It was not a connection formed of any mutual admiration; if anything, the more you saw of Ianthe the less likely you were to mistake her for likeable. She made herself like an overdecorated cake: covered so thickly in icing and fondants and gums that it would take serious excavation to find any bread. As a necromancer she was a genius, though you thought she relied too much on shortcuts and circumventions. She had an exceptionally fine mind. She was not afraid of rigour.

If Harrow doesn't have the hots for her at least I do.

Honestly on my first read I took stuff like "not likeable" and "“Tell me to stop breathing,” she said. (“I have, on multiple occasions,” you said.)" at face value and actually thought Harrow genuinely hates her and is forced to interact with her because there's no one else. Which is true. But she's also very attracted to her and I kinda overlooked it at because I thought those feelings were mutually exclusive. And they're not. which I'm obsessed with.

Or she won't think Ianthe's beautiful and note details about how she dresses all the time.

Seriously Harrow's special fixation on "how Ianthe's clothes make her look" is hard to ignore.

for example:

The mother-of-pearl made Ianthe’s hair a lurid yellow and threw up all the mustard tints of her skin; her face was blotchy, and her eyes were sleepless pits. She looked like shit.

The skirts and waists were all beautifully cut for someone of a different height and body type than Ianthe possessed. They were tight where they should have been loose and loose where they should have been tight. They looked like her burial clothes, and she looked as though she had emerged fifty years after that burial.

she answered after a long, scuffling minute, with sleep in her eyes and her hair in dilute whey tangles over her neck and shoulders, wearing a bewildering short garment of violet chiffon.

The back was open, and you could see the fine dents of her spine—her bleached skin bluer and sweeter against the pallid gossamer—and the twin blades of her shoulder blades looked strangely nude and vulnerable to you.

Ianthe was training in her nightgown—a grisly floor-length concoction of pale golden lace that made her long, limber body look like a green-veined mummy

a lone wax figure in pale purple chiffon, tall and colourless—except in the greasy metal of her bone arm, which the lights rendered all the colours of the rainbow.

Ianthe rose soundlessly to her feet, and the long skirts of her nightgown—a brilliant ruffled canary-yellow silk that made her look like a formal lemon—rustled restively around her calves.

Note that Harrow focuses on Ianthe's clothes for how they shape Ianthe's appearance. in contrast:

she ignored your sister, whose pallid eyebrows had shot up so fast and so far that they were in danger of breaking the atmosphere. Mercymorn wore a long slip of peach-coloured silk, and her white Canaanite robe was tucked over her forearms and had slipped entirely off her slender, aggrieved shoulders. She had scraped her hair into a merciless and shining coil at the back of her head, and she had no eyes for either of you.

Obviously Mercy is SUPER HOT here, if Ianthe's reaction means anything. But Harrow only describes her clothing and not how she looks. Same with Augustine's party outfit.

With Ianthe, it's always: she's wearing ..., which makes her look gross. And I did not understand at first but now I know and feel stongly that Harrow is totally into her gross-hotness. well at least I am. the grosser she's described the hotter she is.

[dee-writes-angst]

FORGET ME NOTS (Chapter Two)

FEATURING Eris Vanserra x pregnant!reader

SUMMARY settling into The Autumn Court is scary and intimidating especially when a certain fire-blooded male takes a liking to you.

CONTENT WARNINGS vague descriptions of smut, mentions of abuse, Beron (yeah, yall, he's mentioned), Ianthe (cough, cough), vulnerable convos, flashbacks to calanmai, pregnancy, sad Eris :(

AUTHORS NOTE I know this is much shorter than the first chapter, but when I say I struggled to write this chapter, I mean I STRUGGLED. Anywho, I apologize if you guys feel like the pacing of this chapter is kind of fast, I was trying to get a lot of information in all at once so we could move on to the good stuff. Hope you enjoy ;)

SERIES MASTERLIST

As dawn broke over the Autumn Court, the first rays of sunlight crept through the tall, arched windows of my chamber, casting a warm glow that promised a new day. Despite the beauty it heralded, my heart was heavy with secrets I carried, especially now, facing the prospect of daily walks with Eris—a constant reminder of the brother he did not know he shared with me in such a profound way.

I found Eris waiting in the courtyard, his posture relaxed against the cool morning air that whispered through the turning leaves. His presence was both a comfort and a curse, wrapped in the guise of courtly duty.

“Good morning,” he greeted, his voice carrying that ever-present hint of mischief that seemed less charming today, more a wall I needed to scale or perhaps fortify.

I mustered a smile, tight-lipped and brief. “Eris.”

He seemed to notice my cool demeanor, his eyebrows lifting slightly in amusement—or was it challenge? “Shall we begin?”

The gardens of the Autumn Court were undoubtedly beautiful, but I walked beside Eris with a stiffness in my shoulders, an invisible armor against the potential wounds of getting too close. Every step was a reminder of the line I walked, balancing between necessity and fear.

“It’s beautiful here,” I commented, a safe observation as we passed a sprawling bed of flowers, their vibrant hues a stark contrast to the muted turmoil within me.

“It is,” he responded, his eyes briefly meeting mine before returning to the path ahead. “The court has its ways of ensnaring you with beauty, all the while hiding its thorns.”

I couldn’t help but snort softly at that. “Sounds familiar,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.

Eris caught the words, though, and his smile deepened. “Indeed. But sometimes, we find that even thorns have their purpose.”

We walked in silence for a few moments, the only sounds the rustle of leaves and the distant call of court birds. I felt his gaze on me several times, curious or calculating, I couldn’t tell.

“About last night—” I began, but Eris raised a hand, halting my words.

“Today, let’s set aside the past and dealings of courts for now. Let’s walk, talk, and be unburdened, at least for a moment.”

Reluctantly, I nodded, accepting the temporary ceasefire.

Our path took us deeper into the garden, where the foliage grew thicker and the outside noises fell away. Here, the air was cooler, the shadows deeper, and the sense of seclusion more pronounced. Eris seemed more at ease in this part of the garden, his steps unhurried, his eyes occasionally catching the light in a way that softened the usual sharpness.

"This is one of my favorite parts of the garden," he shared, his voice almost contemplative. "There's a peace here that's hard to find elsewhere in the court."

I looked around, taking in the dense greenery that enveloped us, the serene quiet. "It's like a different world," I admitted.

"Yes," he agreed, his gaze lingering on a particularly dense cluster of trees. "A world apart, where one can forget, if only for a moment, the burdens waiting beyond those trees."

As we walked, the conversation slowly shifted from the impersonal — comments on the weather and the garden — to more personal territory. Eris spoke of his childhood in the court, his voice tinged with a nostalgia that painted a picture of a boy who had run through these very paths, wild and unburdened.

I listened, the stories painting a picture of a different Eris, one who had existed before the weight of the court had fully settled upon his shoulders. It was in these stories that I found myself drawn in, my guard lowering just a notch as I began to see the man beneath the prince.

Our walk led us to a secluded spot with a bench overlooking a tranquil pond, a favorite retreat of Eris’s by his own admission. "I come here to think," he said as we sat. "Today, I wanted to share it."

Something in his tone, a rare note of sincerity, made me glance at him. "Thank you," I said quietly, the weight of my secrets making the words heavier than intended.

"Everyone needs a sanctuary," he replied, his voice low, almost reflective. "Perhaps, for now, this can be ours."

As we sat together, the morning light softening around us, a part of me wanted to believe in the sanctuary he offered. But the secrets I held tightened like a noose around my thoughts, a constant reminder of the stakes at play.

For now, this truce would have to do—a brief respite in a garden of hidden thorns.

In the quiet embrace of the garden, Eris and I sat together on a weathered stone bench, enveloped by a tranquil stillness that seemed to stretch on for eternity. The morning sun had just begun its ascent, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow upon the verdant landscape around us. The delicate fragrance of cherry blossoms lingered in the air, mingling with the earthy scent of damp soil and the distant melody of chirping birds.

For what felt like an eternity, we remained ensconced in a shared silence, each lost in our own thoughts amidst the serene beauty of our surroundings. The weight of unspoken words hung heavy between us, a silent barrier that seemed to grow with each passing moment.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, casting long shadows across the garden, I could no longer bear the oppressive weight of my thoughts in silence. The chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves seemed to mock my inner turmoil, urging me to break free from the suffocating grip of my fears.

Finally, unable to endure the silence any longer, I mustered the courage to speak. "Eris?" The sound of my voice was barely more than a whisper, carried away on the gentle breeze that caressed the garden.

At the sound of his name, Eris stirred from his contemplative reverie, his eyes slowly opening to meet mine. There was a fleeting moment of recognition in his gaze, as if he had been expecting this interruption all along.

He regarded me with a cool detachment, a silent question lingering in the depths of his gaze. It was as though he were silently urging me to articulate the thoughts that had weighed so heavily upon my mind.

Summoning all of my courage, I pressed on, knowing that his patience was not limitless. "I need to speak with you," I said, my voice steadier now, though the weight of my confession hung heavy in the air.

For a moment, there was silence between us once more, the only sound the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze. Then, with a subtle nod of acknowledgment, Eris inclined his head, granting me permission to unburden myself of the secrets that had long weighed upon my soul.

(Calanmai, Fifteen Weeks Ago)

The night of Calanmai unfolded like a grand spectacle, a symphony of sights and sounds that swept through the Spring Court like wildfire. In the heart of the courtyard, beneath a sky ablaze with stars, I found myself ensnared in a whirlwind of tradition and temptation, drawn inexorably towards a destiny I could not yet fathom.

As the festivities reached their crescendo, a hush fell over the gathered throng, anticipation crackling in the air like static electricity. All eyes turned to the dais at the center of the courtyard, where Lucien Vanserra, with his mane of fiery hair and eyes that glinted like shards of emerald, stood poised to perform the Rite—the ancient ritual that ensured the flow of natural magic within the Spring Court.

I watched from the edge of the crowd, my heart pounding in rhythm with the pulsating beat of the drums that echoed through the night. Beside me, Ianthe, with her golden locks and beguiling smile, whispered honeyed words in Lucien's ear, her intentions veiled behind a facade of innocence and charm.

But I knew the truth—the truth that lurked beneath the surface, like a serpent coiled in the shadows, waiting to strike. And so, with a courage born of desperation and defiance, I stepped forward, offering myself as a sacrifice to protect Lucien from the machinations of those who sought to use him as a pawn in their deadly game.

Lucien's eyes widened in surprise and disbelief, his gaze searching mine for the truth hidden beneath the surface. And in that moment, I saw the flicker of gratitude and something deeper—a spark of hope amidst the darkness that threatened to engulf us both.

Together, we slipped away from the crowd, seeking refuge in the sanctuary of the forest that bordered the Spring Court. In the darkness, illuminated only by the soft glow of moonlight filtering through the canopy above, we found solace in each other's arms, our bodies moving in a dance of desperation and desire.

With hesitant hands, Lucien reached out to me, his touch tentative yet determined. There was a solemnity in his gaze, a silent acknowledgment of the sacrifice we were both willing to make in the name of saving the Spring Court from impending doom. Each movement was deliberate, as if he were navigating uncharted waters, unsure of what lay ahead.

As he undressed me, his fingers trailed feather-light over my skin, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. The air crackled with anticipation, heavy with the weight of unspoken words and unfulfilled desires. There was a raw intensity to our connection, a primal need that pulsed beneath the surface, driving us forward even as we teetered on the edge of uncertainty.

Our kisses were slow and languid, each one a silent plea for understanding, for absolution. And as our bodies moved together in a dance as old as time itself, I felt a sense of surrender wash over me, a letting go of the fears and doubts that had plagued me for so long.

With each touch, each caress, we explored the depths of each other's souls, seeking solace in the midst of chaos. And as he spilled his essence inside me, there was a sense of release, a letting go of the burdens that had weighed so heavily upon us.

In the aftermath, we lay entwined beneath the moonlit sky, our breaths mingling in the stillness of the night. There was a peace in that moment, a fleeting respite from the storm that raged around us. And as we lay there, lost in each other's arms, I couldn't help but wonder what the future held for us—for the Spring Court, for our people.

But such thoughts were for another time, another place. In that moment, there was only us, two souls bound together by circumstance and necessity, seeking solace in the midst of turmoil.

(Autumn Court, Present Day)

"What is it, little fox?" Eris's voice, gentle yet tinged with curiosity, pierced the tranquil stillness of the autumnal garden, drawing me from the depths of my reverie. The morning sun, a soft orb of golden light, filtered through the crimson leaves of the ancient oak tree under which we sat, casting a warm glow over the secluded corner of the courtyard.

Eris reclined on the stone bench with an air of effortless grace, his features masked in an enigmatic veil of indifference. His gaze, like liquid mercury, bore into mine with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine, as if he could discern the turmoil that churned within me with unsettling ease.

For a moment, I hesitated, the weight of my confession heavy upon my tongue, like stones in a riverbed. The memory of Lucien, his absence a haunting specter in my heart, mingled with the uncertainty of what lay ahead, casting shadows over the fragile sanctuary we had found amidst the autumnal splendor.

Yet, despite the tempest of emotions that threatened to engulf me, there was an undeniable pull, a magnetic force that drew me inexorably towards Eris, compelling me to lay bare the truth that simmered beneath the surface.

"I—" I began, my voice trembling like the leaves that danced in the breeze, the words caught in the tangled undergrowth of my uncertainty. With a trembling hand, I reached for my tiny bump, a silent testament to the life growing within me, the fragile thread that bound me to a future fraught with peril.

"Eris… I'm scared," I confessed, the admission hanging heavy in the crisp autumn air, a fragile offering of vulnerability laid bare before him. Tears welled in my eyes, their crystalline trails reflecting the kaleidoscope of emotions that churned within me, a tempest threatening to tear me asunder.

It was a truth I had not yet found the courage to share, the truth about my unborn child, about Lucien, about the tangled web of emotions that threatened to ensnare me in their grasp. And yet, as I spoke the words aloud, I felt a sense of liberation wash over me, as if the act of vocalizing my fears had lifted a burden I had long carried in silence.

“I know,” Eris continued after a moment, his voice tinged with a quiet sadness. “When my mother would give birth, my father would have meetings with his counsel and continue about court like nothing important was happening, too caught up in his ambition to even consider loving her. He would leave her to suffer alone, to be in pain, awful pain, alone, while she brought his children into this world,” he took a breath, watching the branches of the great tree sway before looking back to the fountain sitting before us, water streaming softly and glinting in the light of the sun.

“So, once I was old enough to see how wrong it was, I joined her in the birthing rooms. I didn’t care how many times a nurse advised me against it, how much I was beaten afterwords by my father. It wasn’t about any of that. It was about her, it was about not being alone in a time of need, to not be consumed by darkness without a twinkle of light. My mother deserved better. Still does,” Eris sighs, resting his warm hand atop mine on the bench, giving it a small squeeze. “I can not promise profection, I can not promise relief, and I can not promise life, but I can promise that you will not walk in the darkness alone, that I will be right there, by your side as you scream and claw and cry until your babe joins this world. Just as I did for my mother.”

As he spoke, his warm hand found mine on the bench, offering a reassuring squeeze that spoke volumes more than words ever could. "I can't promise perfection," he continued, his gaze steady and unwavering. "I can't promise relief, or even life itself. But I can promise that you won't walk through the darkness alone. I'll be there, by your side, every step of the way."

As the last words of our shared confessions lingered in the air, the atmosphere seemed to soften, infused with a sense of understanding and acceptance. The ancient oak tree above us rustled gently, its branches swaying in a silent dance with the breeze, as if nature itself bore witness to the fragile bond we had formed in this secluded corner of the autumnal garden.

In that moment of quiet introspection, my gaze fell upon a delicate forget-me-not that had nestled itself amidst the fallen leaves at the base of the oak tree. Its petals, a soft shade of blue tinged with hues of violet, seemed to shimmer in the dappled sunlight, a beacon of fragility and resilience amidst the earthy backdrop of the garden.

A sense of recognition washed over me as I regarded the flower, its presence a poignant reminder of the vulnerability we had both shared in this fleeting moment of connection. Like the delicate bloom that dared to flourish amidst the harsh realities of autumn, we too had found strength in our shared vulnerability, forging a bond that transcended the barriers of fear and uncertainty.

With a gentle smile, I reached out to pluck the forget-me-not from its resting place, cradling it in the palm of my hand as a symbol of the bond we had forged amidst the chaos of our intertwined destinies. And as I turned to meet Eris's gaze, I knew that in this fleeting moment of shared vulnerability, we had found not only solace but hope, blooming like the delicate forget-me-not that dared to thrive amidst the changing seasons of our lives.

TAGLIST

@purple-writer8 @defnotlucienvanserra @cherry-cin @julesofvolterra @mirandasidefics @mandziaaa @lilah-asteria @littlestw01f @skylarkalchemist @babypeapoddd @daardyrnitta

[autumnshighlady]

Yes, sir

Eris x female!reader

part of The Professor Series

summary: you've been trying to impress Dr. Vanserra for weeks, and an opportunity presents itself when he offers you private study sessions ;)

warnings: smut, power dynamic, name calling, oral sex (f receiving), thigh riding, face sitting, fingering, inappropriate use of mirror, tw: Ianthe

word count: 6.7k

request/prompt: Eris would undoubtedly be a history teacher, sarcastic at times and rigid

a/n: i got my degree in medieval history so there's a bit of rambling in this fic about my area of study since Eris is a history professor, figured i spent 4 years researching it so may as well incorporate it into this fic lmao feel free to breeze past the reader's monologue about the study material (or read it if you're interested hehe)

series playlist on Spotify here

DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE

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“Does anyone know why this manuscript was significant to political theory at the time of its creation?”

A few hands raised around you in the lecture hall, yours included. Political history professor Dr. Eris Vanserra paced slowly across the floor, his amber eyes scanning the rows of students for someone to pick on. His red hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, a look that had more than a few of you swooning. His red button up shirt complimented the brown tweed jacket on his shoulders, an outfit that no doubt cost you more than you made in a month. Dr. Vanserra always had the nicest outfits out of all your professors, never coming to class with a thread out of place.

Over the last few weeks, you had come to terms with the fact that you were harbouring an intense crush on him. You couldn’t help it – he spoke with such elegance, explaining the most boring concepts in a way that had you utterly entranced. Frequently, you found yourself staring at his slender hands, which he often gestured with as he spoke. He was a strict professor, who had no patience for any fooling around during class. But his dry jokes were laced with sarcasm, adding to his charming wit. Everyone tried to impress him – Dr. Vanserra was a distant male, often brushing off students in his office hours as if he wanted as little interaction as possible. He never complimented their work either, a simple head nod being the closest anyone has gotten to positive feedback. He was quick to point out what you did wrong, never beating around the bush.

And so you moved your seat from the back of the class to the front, always making sure to be the first student in the door and the last one to leave. It was tough, with other students just as eager to gain a minute of his attention. But you welcomed the challenge, craving to be the one who broke his rigid exterior and get him to show that he at least had a heart. That included always being ready to answer any questions.

Eris’s glowing gaze landed on you, and your heart fluttered. For a moment, you were sure he would call on you to answer the question. But his gaze came as quickly as it left, landing on the blonde female two seats down from you, Ianthe.

“They’re important because they were written by a woman,” Ianthe said proudly, her annoying voice raising three pitches higher than what you knew was her normal voice. “The only one of its time, too. Proof that women in the elite class were learning to read and write just like the men.”

Ianthe proudly lifted her chin up, satisfied with her answer. Dr. Vanserra took a single step towards her, and she crossed her arms together and leaned her elbows on the table, her big eyes wide as she batted her lashes at the professor. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes at her lack of subtly, noting how ridiculous she looked trying to push her breasts together to show off her cleavage.

“A weak and shallow take, Ianthe, as per usual.” Eris said, sarcastic disappointment lacing his voice. 

You had to cough to conceal your laugh. Ianthe was always trying to suck up to Dr. Vanserra, always humiliating herself along the way yet failing to recognize how foolish she looked.

“Is there anyone who can answer my question with a point that’s actually worth my precious time to listen to?” He continued, surveying the hesitant class.

Your hand shot up once again, and this time the professor’s gaze landed on you. He nodded, his stoic face revealing nothing as he waited for you to make your point.

“It’s the only manuscript we currently possess that’s written by a woman in its time,” You began. “That doesn’t mean it’s the only one to have existed. And the author being our only example of a body of literature written by a woman in its era doesn’t mean all elite women were doing the same. Her husband was a close friend of the emperor’s, acting as one of his closest counsellors. It’s highly likely that her husband’s unusually high status is the reason she was able to read and write.”

Dr. Vanserra nodded. “Carry on.”

You tried to ignore the intensity of his gaze as you scrambled to remember your information. “Well, the manuscript itself gives us insight into the political strife of the realm. Many of our other sources from that era never address the problem because they don’t want the history books to remember the bad times. Not only does she directly address the political issues at hand, but she also inserts herself into the narrative, something no other source from its time does. So while it’s written as a book of advice to her son who’s a political prisoner in an enemy court, it gives us insight into 3 aspects of family in that era: feelings, authority, and consciousness. Which also links back to what we talked about last week regarding the connection between the theme of consciousness within this era’s literature.”

You let out a breath, trying not to shake. The professor continued to stare at you, expressionless, leaving you unsure if your points were completely bogus or not. Finally, Dr. Vanserra dipped his head. “Good.” He said plainly, and Ianthe audibly huffed. “Now speaking of last week’s material…”

Dr. Vanserra continued his lecture, and you felt Ianthe shooting daggers at you with her eyes. But you didn’t care, you were too busy riding the high of your first ever praise from the instructor – anyone’s first ever praise from him, now that you thought of it. You happily scrawled down your notes for the remainder of the period, until the clock struck 9am, indicating class was over.

“I will expect the first draft of your midterm essays in three weeks, do not forget.” Dr. Vanserra said as students began packing up. “It’s going to take me a hundred hours to go through them all, so make them worth the headache it will cause me.”

Students began scurrying out the door, and you were grateful that you had no classes for the rest of the day. You packed up your things more slowly, your books and notepads stacked in an organised pile, just how you liked it. You stepped around the front of your desk and scooped them up in your arms, but quickly collided with a blonde female carrying a very full mug of coffee.

“Oh my goodness!” Ianthe squealed, her voice sweet as honey. “Your notes! I am so sorry hun, let me help you clean that up.”

Anger boiled in your blood, and it took everything in you not to yank her by her blonde hair and drag her face through the spilled mess. “It’s ok,” You forced yourself to say through gritted teeth. “It was an accident.”

“Oopsies!” She chuckled, her blue eyes glittering. “See ya!” She skipped away, miniskirt bouncing with every step. Gods, you hated her.

You looked down at your fallen pile of notes, now drenched in caffeine and completely illegible. Kneeling down, you tried to see if anything was salvageable, but nothing remained. Tears welled in your eyes – weeks of hard work, just gone. You felt your white t-shirt sticking to your chest, now strained with brown.

You hadn’t even noticed Dr. Vanserra approach. His pale, slender hand appeared next to yours, picking up a drenched piece of paper. You looked up, seeing him crouched down in front of you.

“Can any of it be saved?” He asked, her voice still stoic but slightly softer.

You shook your head, not trusting yourself to speak without crying yet.

Dr. Vanserra clucked his tongue. “Unfortunate. You’ve worked very hard on those.”

“Those are all my notes from the last few weeks,” You said quietly, lip wobbling. “Sir… I have nothing to work with for my essay draft now.”

He merely hummed as if deep in thought before grabbing the soaked papers from your hands and standing up. You heard him stride over to the trash bin and lift the lid, tossing the remains of the material inside. His expensive shoes clicked on the floor as he walked back over to you. His hand reached out, coming into your lowered field of view.

You looked up at him through teary eyes, confused. 

“Come on, get up.” Dr. Vanserra said, sighing. “She wins if you sit like that, just sulking. So get up and come with me.”

Trying not to tremble, you grabbed his hand. He pulled you up with surprising strength, his hand warm despite the freezing temperature of the room. Wordlessly, he grabbed your bags along with his own, walking out of the lecture hall with long strides. Puzzled, you scrambled to follow, too nervous to say a word. This was the most Dr. Vanserra had ever spoken to you, you didn’t want to risk screwing it up by saying something stupid. 

You followed him all the way to his office, shutting the door behind you as you entered the space. Rich tones of red, amber, and green adorned the room, expensive looking furniture and decor scattered everywhere in an organised manner. The office was filled with more candles than you could count, their orange flames flickering gently. Dr. Vanserra set your bags down on one of the chairs before finally speaking.

“Twelve lectures worth of your notes are gone, and you cannot do anything about that.” He said sternly. “So do not cry over it. However, I do not want to see you fall behind and try to redo the notes off of memory alone. You will fail the course if you do so. Therefore, for the next two weeks, we will meet in my office every day at 5pm. Each session we will go over one lecture, and you will redo your notes. We can go slow to ensure you do not miss anything, and you may ask me any questions you need. That will give you only a week to complete your draft, but at least you will not be lacking half the material needed for it. Does this work for you?”

Your jaw went slack. One on one review with the professor? It was the golden ticket you needed to succeed in this course, and you were going to make it count. “Yes, sir, absolutely.” You replied quickly, letting out a breath. “Thank you, Dr. Vanserra, thank you.”

“We are going to be spending a lot of time together over the next two weeks, my dear. You can call me Eris.”

Your heart flipped. “Eris.” You corrected yourself, testing his name on your tongue.

He smirked. “Excellent. Now that we are on a first name basis, I can comfortably tell you that the coffee has rendered your shirt see through.”

The blood drained from your face, and your arms shot from your sides to cover your chest. As luck would have it, you weren’t wearing a bra that day, meaning your nipples were likely visible through the wet white shirt. “Oh god, I’m so sorry.” You stammered, cheeks flushing red.

“It’s quite alright.” Eris strolled towards a small dresser in the corner of the room, opening up the middle drawer and pulling out a cream coloured polo sweater with a v-neck. “Put this on, I won’t have my student walking around campus with her tits in plain sight.”

You blushed deeply, taking the fabric from him. It was the softest thing you’d felt, and smelled strongly of the cologne you frequently caught a whiff of whenever the professor walked by you. The plainness of his words made your brain go haywire, and you stood there dumbly.

“Unless you want to give me a show, I suggest you turn around and change so I can put your shirt in a bag for you to take home.” Eris said, a hint of mischief behind his amber gaze.

You turned around, reaching down and pulling the ruined t-shirt over your head. You shivered, feeling those eyes burning into your bare back as you carefully held your arm out behind you with the shirt balled inside your fist.

Eris took it, and you heard him turn around and walk away, presumably to grab a bag. You quickly pulled the sweater over your head, ignoring the butterflies in your stomach that danced happily at the thought of wearing your professor’s sweater.

“All done.” You said, turning around. “I’ll get this dry cleaned before I give it back.”

The male only shrugged as he tossed your shirt into a spare grocery bag. “Clean it, keep it, shred it, it matters not to me. I have three more identical to that one.”

“Uh, ok.” You muttered. The idea of keeping his sweater felt wrong, but you were secretly thrilled that he suggested it.

Eris took a seat behind his desk, pulling out books from his briefcase. “Now be gone with you, I have research to do. And remember, 5pm tomorrow. Do not be late.”

“I won’t.” You promised, grabbing your bags and making your exit.

Maybe it was a good thing Ianthe spilled her coffee on you.

************************

ONE WEEK LATER

You tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep hours after your study session with Eris. At first, they had been gruelling. Eris would grill you for every answer you gave him, making sure you could confidently back up your claims. Your brain was exhausted by the end of it, but you were happy. Eris had also given you helpful anecdotes that he hadn’t mentioned to the class. You had twice as many notes as before, and they were twice as helpful.

He was different than when he taught in class. More patient, less demanding. He spoke slower, allowing you to catch up if you fell behind. His strict persona was as rigid as ever in class, but you found he was calling on you more and more to answer questions. It delighted you.

At first, you had sat in the chair in front of his desk. But today, the chair was moved beside his. More than once, your leg knocked against his muscular thigh, and you’d murmur an embarrassed apology. Eris never acknowledged it, only smirked before returning to the material at hand. You still felt the tingling sensation on your own thigh from earlier when he gently squeezed it. You had gotten a tough question right, and Eris had reached down and put his hand on your thigh, quickly squeezing it before retreating.

Your face had gone bright red, and there was no way he hadn’t noticed. Just that one simple action had made your core throb with need. It didn’t help that he had begun calling you pet names, such as ‘my dear’ and ‘love’. You drank them up, his silver tongue making the nicknames sound just right. Every time he said them, it went straight to your core. 

Studying with your professor had suddenly become incredibly hard.

You rolled over in your bed once more, hoping that perhaps this side of the sheets would finally bring you sleep. But every time you closed your eyes, all you could think about was Eris’s touch on your thigh, and how it would feel if his hand was higher up, right where you had dreamed about it being. You imagined his slender fingers pumping inside you, filthy words falling from his lips like the first snow of winter, red hair falling in your face was his body moulded over top of yours–

“Get it together.” You scolded yourself. “He’s your fucking professor. It was nothing. Stop overthinking.”

But that didn’t stop you from sneaking your hand between your legs in a last ditch effort to ease yourself into sleep.

************************

A few days later, you checked your outfit in the bathroom mirror at 4:55pm before heading to Eris’s office. You hadn’t slept well last night, so you opted for a casual pair of soft, flowing green pants paired with a simple cream coloured button up. You’d be lying to yourself if you claimed you hadn’t deliberately chosen the pants that seemed to be Eris’s favourite shade of green. It was hard to sleep when all you could think about was how close you were going to be sitting to him the next day.

At 5pm on the dot, you opened the door to his office. “Good evening, sir.” You greeted him, locking the door behind you. It was something he insisted on, claiming he didn’t want his other students barging in thinking you were getting special treatment.

“Hello, my dear.” Eris said. “We’re covering lecture 10 today, I assume you brought the material.”

You nodded, setting your bag next to the desk before making your way around to Eris’s side. You paused, noticing something was missing. “Where’s my chair?” You asked.

“Oh, that thing,” Eris tutted, lips drawn into a faint smirk. “I gave it to my brother for the week. His office chair broke, and he has fifty students lined up outside his office every day who need it more than I do.”

Your mouth was dry, unsure of what game he was playing. “Where am I supposed to sit?”

“I think there’s enough room over here for you.” Eris’s voice was velvety and laced with smugness. His brown eyes glowed, like a viper approaching a small creature to make its first strike.

“Oh, do you want me to stand?” You tried hesitantly. No way this was going where you think it was going, right? 

“For two hours? I wouldn’t do that to you. Come here.” He beckoned you forward with a come here motion and spread his legs ever so slightly, making your stomach do a somersault. Your body obeyed him without question, stepping forward until Eris grabbed your hand and pulled you down, causing you to fall onto his lap with a yelp. Strong hands gripped your hips, adjusting you so you were perched on his right thing, one leg on each side.

You bit your lip so the whimper that had built in your throat didn’t slip through. Your throbbing core was pressed right into the hard muscle of Eris’s thigh, emitting a heat you were sure he would feel.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” He purred, his lips dangerously close to your ear. His breath was warm, sending shivers down your spine.

You stuttered something incoherent in response, but Eris cut you off casually, reaching forward and opening your book. His knee hiked up a bit, pushing his thigh further into your core. This time, you couldn’t stop the noise you let out.

“Are you alright, love?” Eris asked innocently. You gritted your teeth – he knew what he was doing, and was trying to get a reaction from you. As much as you wanted him, you were stubborn.

Two could play this game.

“Just fine.” You quipped, attempting to keep your composure.

“Wonderful. Let us begin.”

************************

An hour later, your lip had indents on it from your teeth. It was the most torturous study session you’d ever had in your life. It was less than 10 minutes in before Eris took it up a notch. He had rested one hand on your hip, a simple gesture as if to steady you. But his thumb found its way underneath the fabric of your shirt and began to rub small circles above the bone. 

The more questions Eris asked you, the closer he leaned into you. His lips began grazing your ear as he spoke, driving you wild. He didn’t sit still either, casually moving his leg from time to time, causing you to slide forward, clit grazing the sinewy muscle.

It was a slow torture.

“You seem distracted.” Eris murmured in your ear, readjusting himself again and sending another wave of pleasure through your core. You couldn’t help it, a quiet moan leaving your mouth as you felt yourself giving up.

He chuckled darkly, sliding the rest of the hand under your shirt fabric and resting it on the skin above your hip bone. “You’ve been working so hard my dear, I can’t have you unfocused.”

The rest of his fingers began tracing lazy, teasing circles against your flesh. You arched into his touch, tears from the lack of stimulation to your cunt threatening to form in your eyes if he didn’t touch you soon.

“Please.” You murmured quietly.

“Please what?” Eris asked, feigning cluelessness but letting his teeth scrape the shell of your ear. “If you need something from me, you need only ask. And I will be happy to oblige.”

The bastard was really going to make you admit it. He knew what he had been doing for the past hour, teasing you subtly to the point where you’d beg for more. Your earlier determination was gone, replaced by a pathetic neediness for his touch.

“Touch me, please.” You whined, not caring how weak you sounded.

Eris paused for a second. “No.”

Your eyes shot open in surprise. If this was some sick game to humiliate you, you were going to kill him. “What do you mean–”

“You know what you want to do right now,” He cut you off, his voice low. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you staring at my thighs for the past few days. This is your chance to take what you want, sweetheart. Only once you grind yourself into my thigh to show me how desperate you are for me, will I finally touch you.”

Humiliation burned through you. No matter how stubborn you were, it was no match for Eris’s. There was no way you’d be able to convince him to put his hands on you without first doing what he asked.

You leaned forward, placing your hands on his knee for support as your clit finally made contact with his thigh. You began rocking your hips, moaning at the relief it brought you. 

“Come on, I know you can give me more than that.” Eris remarked from behind you.

You groaned and ground your hips harder into his thigh, pleasure intensifying. You swivelled your hips back and forth and in circular motions, trying to find a path to the release you had been craving.

“Fuck.” You moaned, glancing sideways at the mirror that was propped against the wall adjacent to his desk. The sight nearly made you gasp. Your face was flushed, blissed out as you grinded into Eris’s thigh, a small wet patch having formed on his light brown trousers. Eris was leaning back in his chair, his eyes hungrily drinking in the view from behind of you riding his thigh. His face was dark with want, and his knuckles were white as they gripped the side of the chair.

You continued your motions, grinding into your professor’s thigh in his locked office, coming so close to building that familiar coil in your stomach but never quite getting there.

“Eris…” You moaned.

“Yes, my dear?” Came his reply.

“I need you. Please, sir, I need you to touch me.”

One glance in the mirror and you knew you were victorious. Calling him ‘sir’ seemed to have softened his determination to make you grind into him until you couldn’t take it anymore. “Aw, can you not get yourself off on my thigh without help?” He mocked, stroking your hip again. “You need me that badly, don’t you? You know how unsatisfying it would be to cum without my touch.”

He spun the chair around, lifting your hips with one hand and peeling your pants and underwear off at the same time. The two of you were now facing the mirror, able to take in the sinfulness of the situation in full view. Eris adjusted you on his lap so that you were sitting atop his bulge, legs spread over each of his legs. Your needy cunt was on display, and you leaned back into his solid chest.

“Such a greedy little thing.” Eris said. One of his hands reached down and stroked your clit, while the other wrapped around your other hip and began to tease your entrance. For a second, you thought he was going to cruelly pull away, leaving you high and dry. But moments later he plunged a finger inside you, increasing the speed and pressure on your clit as well.

Your entire body twitched with the sudden wave of pleasure, ten times more intense than anything you had given yourself. Your moan this time was loud, echoing throughout the vast space of the office. His hands worked you in all the right places, confidently finding the perfect pleasure spots as if he had been given a map to your body and spent years studying it.

“Is that better?” Eris cooed, running his lips up and down your neck. “Is this what you’ve been fantasising about, being completely at my mercy as I make you feel good?”

“Gods, yes.” You cried out, arching into him.

“There are no gods here to help you, my dear,” He chuckled darkly. “Only me.”

Eris bit down on the juncture between your shoulder and neck, causing you to gasp. But you welcomed the sting of it, sighing as his silver tongue caressed the indents in your skin. Your legs began to tense up, feeling the orgasm you had been so desperately craving building up. The wet squelching sounds of Eris’s fingers on your cunt sang in harmony with your moans, as you watched the scene in the mirror through half-closed eyes.

“That’s it, love.” Eris murmured, sucking your neck just below the curve of your jaw. “Cum all over my hands.”

Your body obeyed, erupting into a burst of flaming pleasure as your orgasm hit you hard. Eris’s fingers continued to work you through your high, intensifying it tenfold. You were a whimpering, twitching mess in your professor’s lap. Finally, he removed his hands from between your legs, giving you a merciful break. You slouched into him, panting.

Your professor had just given you the most intense orgasm of your life.

After a few minutes letting your body recover, Eris picked you up with ease, bridal style in his arms. He settled you both down on the couch, placing his hand on your inner thigh and slowly sliding it back towards your core. You whimpered as his fingers grazed your sensitive slit, causing him to chuckle.

“Oh you poor, sweet thing,” Eris mocked. “You didn’t think that would be it, did you? I’m not nearly done with you yet.”

Your mind reeled as he adjusted himself, laying back flat on the couch and pulling you on top of him. Luckily, you caught yourself with one arm on his chest so you didn’t land flat on his body. Eris’s hand reached behind your neck, grabbing you firmly and pulling your lips into his. You groaned, shifting on top of him so you were straddling his waist to get more comfortable. Eris’s grip was tight, putting you at the mercy of his kiss as his lips consumed your own. You melted into his mouth like butter, sighing as his tongue danced with your own.

His other hand reached down and squeezed your backside, pushing your hips into his crotch and causing you both to moan into each other’s mouths. The noise that emitted from Eris’s lips was the most delightful thing you had ever heard, you decided. It filled you with determination to see what other sounds your professor could make. So you ground your hips into his bulge again, causing him to groan.

“Careful,” He growled, nipping at your lip in warning. “You’re playing with fire here, my dear. Did I say you could grind on my cock like a desperate whore?”

You paused, heat rushing to your core at his filthy words. You’d always loved the sound of Eris’s voice, and hearing him say such sinful things to you brought a fresh wave of arousal.

A hard smack landed on your ass, making you yelp in surprise.

“I asked you a question.” Eris said sternly. “Did I give you permission to grind on my cock, yes or no?”

“No.” You answered sheepishly.

“No is right. Sit up. You’re going to make it up to me.”

You frowned in confusion, but did as you were told, propping yourself up and sitting back down on Eris’s hips, trying to ignore the way his cock dug into your backside. You took a second to admire Eris’s form laying on the luxurious couch beneath you. His red hair was fanned around his face like the morning rays of sunshine, a beautiful contrast with the dark green of the sofa. His expression was relaxed, but calculating as always – angular cheekbones made more prominent in the light of the candles, his amber eyes glowing with desire. It was a sight you wanted to commit to memory forever.

“Remove your shirt, and come ride my face.” Eris said plainly. You baulked, having expected him to tell you to get on your knees and take his cock down your throat. You were supposed to make up for disobeying him by… letting him eat you out? Most males you had been with had been selfish, only going down on you if you sucked them off first. But Eris was different.

“I would suggest you listen and do as I say, unless you want to be bent over my knee and spanked until you cannot walk, and are ordered not to cum for a week.” Eris’s voice was less patient this time, noting your hesitation.

Something dark in his eyes told you he meant it, so you obeyed, unbuttoning your shirt and pulling it off your shoulders, followed by your bra. You were now completely naked on top of Eris, who remained fully clothed. Under any other circumstances, you’d have insisted he at least partially undress first. But you knew his patience was wearing thin, and as much as you secretly wouldn’t mind being spanked, the thought of not coming for a week was something you couldn’t do.

You crawled your way up his body, seating a knee on either side of his head. You lifted your hips, core inches from his face. The male was practically salivating beneath you as you gingerly lowered your cunt to skim his lips.

“I thought I told you to sit.” Eris said.

You gawked. “But I don’t want to suffocate–”

Your sentence was interrupted by a frustrated growl from your professor. He gripped your hips firmly and pulled you down hard, seating you fully on his mouth. You cried out as his tongue expertly stroked your folds, flicking your clit as he ate you out with precision that made you weak. Instinctively, one hand came down to grip Eris’s red locks, causing him to moan into your cunt. His hair was soft in your fingers, and you relished in the feeling of it.

You felt Eris’s hands guide your hips back and forth, encouraging you to rock them against his face. Moans left your lips as you obliged, grinding into his face like you had on his thigh. Evidently, this pleased Eris and he groaned, which sent delicious vibrations through your core.

You let your head fall back, shamelessly riding Eris’s mouth as you pulled on his hair. If your grip caused him any pain, he gave no indication of it. Whenever you tried to lift your hips to let him breathe, his grip only tightened and firmly held you in place. It wasn’t long before you climaxed again, letting out a choked cry as your juices covered his face. After catching your breath, letting Eris wipe his face with his fingers before sicking the digits clean, you climbed off of him, collapsing into a sitting position on the couch as Eris sat up next to you. His skilled fingers began undoing the buttons on his shirt, and you hungrily drank in the sight of his bare chest as he pulled the expensive material off.

“You did so well, my dear.” Eris purred. “I think you can cum one more time for me. Ride my cock this time, love, make a pretty mess all over it just like you did with my face. And my fingers… and thigh.”

Your mouth went slack. After two orgasms, you weren’t sure if you could handle a third. But the desire to please him outweighed any reservations you had about your sensitive body, so you reached down and unlaced his breeches, making eye contact as you did so. Eris smirked, letting his head fall back onto the couch cushion as you pulled out his long cock and stroked it once. The tip was red and needy, leaking with precum and making your mouth water. You swung your leg over his hips, straddling them. One of your hands reached towards Eris’s cock, grabbing it and lining it up with your entrance. You took a breath, and began to sink down.

You stopped after getting just the tip in, trying to catch your breath. The stretch stung, and you weren’t sure how you were going to fit the rest of it in, especially being so oversensitive still. Eris simply watched with his hands behind his head casually, a smug look on his face. He did not help you, seemingly content to watch you struggle to take his length.

You forced your body to relax, sliding to about halfway down before stopping, moaning dizzily. All of your senses were completely overwhelmed, and you felt so full with only half his cock inside you. 

“Aw, are you finding it difficult to take me, love?” Eris mocked. “Maybe you can’t handle it–”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence, for his teasing tone filled you with sheer determination and you slammed yourself down onto him. Eris was cut off in a strangled moan, eyes widening as you impaled your cunt on his cock. The force of it knocked the wind out of you, but you didn’t let it stop you. You swirled your hips, pulling yourself up his length before falling down on him again, bracing your hands on his shoulders for support. Gods, he was so deep inside of you, touching places that made your head spin.

“Fucking hell.” Eris groaned, his voice rough as you slid up and down on his cock at a relentless pace. You twisted and swivelled your hips as you did so, your cunt squeezing his cock at new angles that made your professor gasp. You threw your head back, and Eris took the opportunity to lean forward and wrap his arms around your back, pulling your chest closer to him and taking your breast in his mouth. 

The new sensation made you cry out, but you refused to let your pace falter. Eris’s teeth scraped your nipple, sucking harshly before moving to your other breast. His hips began slamming up into you to meet your own, making the coil in your belly tighten.

“Eris…” You whined, tangling your hands in his hair again.

“That’s it, love, say my name,” Eris reached one hand down to roll your clit with his thumb, while the other gripped your throat and squeezed. “Let everyone know who’s fucking you dumb right now. Let them hear you scream for me as your tight little cunt takes my cock.”

You rode him with a vigour you didn’t know you possessed, shamelessly moaning his name over and over again. “Eris… Eris…. Eris!” It was overwhelming, your professor’s cock slamming in and out of you, his hand rolling your clit while the other held you by the throat. You kept your grip on his hair, yanking as you climaxed one last time, the action of your fingers pulling his red locks making Eris cry out too. His hips stuttered as his cum shot through you, your cunt clenching around him as you rode out your own orgasm. It was the most intense out of all the ones you had so far, the warmth of Eris spilling inside you making you dizzy with pleasure. 

You leaned forward, dragging your lips up Eris’s throat as he moaned with you clenching around him. He cursed, the slip in his control filling you with pride. His skin tasted like rich autumn spices. You pulled his cock out from inside you and collapsed into his chest, panting. You didn’t realise how exhausted your body was until now. Every cell in you was completely spent, leaving you unable to move. You fought the sleepiness, but the warmth from Eris’s chest was too comforting and darkness overcame you.

************************

A few hours later, you opened your eyes. For a moment, you expected to be in your own bed, the whole thing having been a dream. But you took in your surroundings, realising you were still in Eris’s office. The professor was sitting at his desk, quietly grading. You scrambled upright, the blanket that had been draped across you falling onto your lap.

“I’m so sorry.” You stammered. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Eris looked up at you, smirking. “You have nothing to apologise for. I take pride in your passing out, actually. Means I did my job well, not that there was any doubt based on the noises you made.”

You blushed furiously, but then looked down at your body. You expected to be sweaty and gross from the sex, utterly naked and exposed. But you felt clean, as if you had been wiped down with a wet cloth and then dried. Your old clothes were neatly folded on the ground next to you, and you were dressed in a pair of soft, forest green sweatpants and a white crew neck sweater. They definitely were not Eris’s size. “You keep women’s clothes in your office?” You asked, confused.

“I keep a spare set of attire for all the female students I fuck in here.” Eris’s voice was dry, and you whipped around to stare at him with wide eyes. “That was a joke, my dear. I had them picked out last week. You know, in case Ianthe decided she wanted to spill more coffee on you in the future.”

You snorted, heart fluttering at the surprising thoughtfulness of his actions. While you had hoped he wouldn’t just toss your clothes at you and send you on your way without a word, given the professor’s rigidness it hadn’t been entirely out of the question. “You’re not funny.”

“On the contrary, I am terribly funny.”

“You got these clothes last week, was it really because of Ianthe or was your plan to fuck me all along? Is that why you offered to help me in the first place?”

Eris rolled his amber eyes, giving you a stern look. “No. My offer to help you was, and is, genuine, and with your best academic interests in mind. I may be a prick, but I am not cruel. Fucking you was a delightful bonus, not an expectation.”

His words reassured you. Despite his strict reputation, it seemed Dr. Vanserra had a heart after all. You checked the clock, realising it was almost 9:30pm. “Shit, I have to get home now. My roommate is going to think I fell off the face of the earth.”

You hastily grabbed your things, giving Eris a quick kiss on the mouth before hurrying to the doorway. You had no idea what this meant for the two of you, if it was a one time thing to satisfy both your needs, or something more. Regardless, you didn’t want to think too much about it, content to bask in the aftermath of the best sex you’ve ever had.

“Same time tomorrow.” Eris piped up right before you opened your door. “Don’t be late.”

“Yes sir.” You smirked at the twitch of his face at your words.

“(Y/N)?”

“Yes?”

A sadistic grin crossed Eris’s face. “When you get home, I’m positive you will be reminiscing about the mind blowing orgasms you just had. But you are not to touch yourself until I see you tomorrow night, am I clear? There will be… repercussions, if you disobey me.”

You baulked, embarrassed that he had seen right through you, but nodded anyway. As the door closed behind you, you wondered if you were going to last the next 20 hours without breaking his rule.

[shadowqueenjude]

My relationship with SJM characters

TOG:

Sjm: Hey look there’s a hot teen assassin and look! Sexy dark-haired prince? Isn’t he hot? Me: *falls for the captain of the guard* Sjm: wait what? lemme fix that. *writes crown of midnight* Me: Nope, still love Chaol and WHAT?!!! YOU RUINED MY SHIP????! Sjm: Not to worry! Big fat hot Fae males will make you forget all about Chaol! Me: Ew who is this stupid Rowan. Bring back Chaol. Sjm: … *writes Queen of Shadows* Come on you HAVE to hate Chaol now, choose a big Fae male! Rowan, Fenrys, or Aedion. Not Lorcan though, he’s a big ass amirite? Me: NO! CHAOL WAS COMPLETELY VALID. Sjm: *takes Chaol’s mobility* Me: NOOOOOOO *cries* Sjm: Ha, he won’t even be in the next book. So you HAVE to choose somebody else to like. So who will it be? Rowan, Fenrys, or Aedion? Me: Fine, I’ll pick someone else *chooses Lorcan* Sjm: NO. YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT. *writes ending of EOS* Me: NOOOOOOO ELIDE HE DID IT FOR YOU *sobs* Sjm: Aelin is in a coffin and you’re worried about Lorcan? Anyway here’s a Chaol book for you. Me: YESSSS CHAOL IS FINALLY HAPPY Sjm: Nice nice ok. Now here’s some pain. Me: FLY FARASHA FLY FLY FLY *sobs* Sjm: FINE! I’ll convince you next time! ACOTAR: Sjm: Look hot Katniss wannabe! Hey look, hot male High Lord! He’s sooo hot amirite? Me: *falls for courtier and emissary* Sjm: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FALL FOR THE PRINCE NOT THE LOYAL FRIEND. Me: What can i say, I have a type. I’ll still ship Feylin tho, it’s pretty good. Sjm: Oh you’re gonna forget all about Tamlin and Lucien. Look! Hot bat boys! Me: BITCH! YOU RUINED MY SHIP AGAIN?!!! AND WHERE IS LUCIEN?!!! Sjm: *retcons Tamlin* you must hate him now?! Me: DUDE EVEN WITH RETCONS HE CAN’T BE WORSE THAN THESE SLEAZEBALLS. WHERE IS LUCIEN???!!! Sjm: You’re gonna hate him now! *writes Lucien scene at night court in ACOMAF* Me: YES. SAVE HER LUCIEN. YOU GO HONEY!! Sjm: ???? *writes end of ACOMAF* Me: YES POSSESSIVE FERAL LUCIEN STEP ON ME. Sjm: …FINE. if you can’t beat em, join em. *writes ACOWAR* Me: *sighs* Feyre and Lucien would’ve been so good together. Sjm: yeah but rhysand is better amirite Me: NOOOO IANTHE YOU BITCH Sjm: *writes Ianthe’s arm breaking scene* Me: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS Sjm: so you like Feyre again right? Me: What? No! Lucien was the better friend! Sjm: … *brings Lucien to night court* Me: NOOOOOO LULU IS DEVASTATED HIS MATE IS HOLLOW Sjm: But look, elriel! Three brothers three sisters amirite? Me: FLOWERS NEED SUNSHINE. ELUCIEN FOREVER. Sjm: Yes yes i was just joking. Anyway, sending off Lucien to find Vassa. Me: We’ll get his POV tho right? Sjm: … Me: right????? Sjm: *writes ACOSF* THERE. He’s barely in this book. So you HAVE to pick somebody else to love. So, Cassian is hot too if you don’t like Rhysand. Me: FINE. I’ll CHOOSE SOMEONE ELSE. *picks Eris* Sjm: …I have learned my lesson. CC: Sjm: Look! Hot sorority girl who’s also an illegitimate princess! And her loyal knight! Hunt is sooooo hot amirite? Me: I’m too smart for you. He’s the first love interest so he’s NOT endgame. Don’t get attached. Sjm: wait he’s endgame this time I swear! Me: NOPEEEE NOT BUYING IT. Sjm: I’m fr this time. Isn’t he so hot? Me: *falls for the tattooed warrior prince* Sjm: … Sjm: I give up

[lemon-natalia]

The Locked Tomb Reaction - The Unwanted Guest

it’s taken a while, but finally I’ve been able to get around to liveblogging this! my understanding is that The Unwanted Guest takes place in that period of time where Palamedes is ousting Ianthe from Naberius’s body? so i’m intrigued to see what actually happens, as well as how Muir writes in a new theatre-play format

‘kissing or feeding; we can’t be sure’ haha what the fuck. we’re really going in right off the bat with the surrealist horror here. i had a feeling that Ianthe’s mindscape might be a disturbing place, and apparently i was right

ok so i’m willing to suspend my disbelief that this is just a description for the reader to understand the concept but … does either Palamedes or Ianthe’s subconscious know what a 20th century English butler is?

ohhh my god Ianthe’s in a French maid costume, is this because Palamedes considers it sexy. this is so cursed. once again suspension of disbelief, but do either of these characters know what France is?

i am very much enjoying the dynamic between the two of them here, especially how unimpressed Palamedes is with, well, everything Ianthe 

oooh okay thats intriguing, there’s another person’s voice here. my first instinct is that it’s Camilla, given Palamedes is currently in her body

wow Palamedes’ immediate response to a game of essentially 20 questions is to immediately get philosophical and start a debate about whether the soul can be changed. he sounds like the kind of person who would be absolute hell to play Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit against 

what they’re talking about here is very interesting though. i like the little glimpses we get, primarily through the Sixth and the Fifth, about what academia and science looks like in a world with necromancy. whether the soul can be changed is kind of a big hypothetical in the real world, but in TLT where you can literally summon or ‘consume’ a person’s soul it would be much more directly relevant 

also a very interesting point (at least what I think he’s saying?) from Palamedes here that just because the Lyctors lived for 10,000 years doesn’t necessarily mean that the thanergy powering them is perpetual, it could just be declining very very slowly

okay so the Voice just started talking about ‘Camilla’s idea’, so presumably not her unless she’s talking about herself in third person? it could theoretically just be Palamedes debating with himself? 

Palamedes briefly trying to play bad cop/Ace Attorney and intimidate Ianthe is hilarious 

Ianthe’s insistence that she didn’t murder Naberius because it was his job to die for her anyway is an … interesting perspective

‘she and I both understand that the goal is always worth the cost’ ngl i think Harrow herself would have something to say about that, given she literally gave herself a Claire’s lobotomy in the hope of saving Gideon. it wasn’t so much Harrow who decided that Lyctorhood was worth defeating Cytherea, but Gideon deciding for her 

once again i feel horribly bad for Naberius Tern, whose worst crime was pretty much just being an asshole

hah has Palamedes picked up a cigarette habit from Pyrrha. i’m enjoying the insight into his thought process here given that he generally comes off as knowing more than other people all the time, so it’s nice to see him actually in the process of figuring stuff out 

‘She wandered around like she was the protagonist’ HAH Ianthe i have bad news for you 

aww it’s sweet to get Pal’s view on Gideon here, namely that he thinks she’s smarter than even she gives herself credit for and that he was initially jealous of her dynamic with ‘Dulcinea’ but came to like her anyways

‘My problem was reminding myself you were a child’ ohhh my god the mysterious voice is Dulcinea! i can’t believe this is literally the only time we’ve seen Pal and Dulcinea actually interact. and isn't this possibly the first time that they've had an 'in person' (so to speak) interaction since most of their relationship was sending letters to each other?? oh i am not okay

okayy i’m interested in what Dulcinea’s saying here about how she seems to have died again and ‘something awful’ happened to her soul … it doesn’t seem to totally line up with what happened at the end of HtN, especially with her mention that there are two shores on the River. again everything seems to point to the nature of the River playing a big part in AtN 

woooh Magnus Quinn reference, my beloved 

oooh i love the contrast between Ianthe’s descriptions of her relationships with Corona and Babs - despite Babs being the one who was actually the cavalier, the kind of co-dependent relationship she has with Corona is much closer to the relationship between the other cavaliers and their necromancers. which is why the fact that she’s apparently the only Lyctor to outright murder their cavalier vs her admission that she wouldn’t have used Corona is very interesting to me

‘Coronabeth herself is part of your goal’ i’m very interested in the long-term goal of Ianthe in general. obviously one part was becoming a Lyctor, but i do wonder if she has something else planned, i doubt she’s content to just sort of do what John wants her to do forever

‘Jeannemary Chatur regaled me with the story at breakfast’ woooh Jeannemary reference. also this is such a cute detail

ooooh Palamedes's newfound cigarette habit is from Ianthe not Pyrrha, that's very fun

and Palamedes’ final point here that the soul is permeable is not just very satisfying against Ianthe’s general smugness, but has very interesting implications for all of the Lyctor characters, especially the fact that their titles are named after their cavaliers. for example, how much of Mercy’s devotion originally came from her versus the fact that Christabel pre-Res was a literal nun. and what does it mean for John and Alecto exactly - how much of the same person, or even human, is he after literally eating the soul of a planet

ok this isn’t to do with the Unwanted Guest exactly but i am very concerned by the notice at the very end that ‘Hell Will Break Loose’ in AtN. it already sounds ominous enough without considering that the previous notice, ‘Gideon will return’ at the end of HtN was done in the most painful way possible 

overall i really enjoyed this! what i really like about the additional short stories Muir writes for TLT is that you get to see little character moments and explore bits of the lore that would have dragged the main story down a bit, so it was very fun to see Palamedes and Ianthe interact one-on-one and debate a bit

and now i really have run out of stuff to liveblog about these books rip my sanity

[babybemydownfall]

things that shimmer in the dark Part I: Feyre ( Part II ) After their visit to the Weaver's Cottage, Feyre needs a bath - and a friend. But two lonely souls can only get so close before they collide. NSFW, as always. Notes under the cut. Or read on AO3.

Notes: I wanted to write Feysand's first time, and I was re-reading ACOMAF and this came to life. It's set during chapter 21, after Rhys has flown her back from the House of Wind and filled her a hot bath. He makes her try to enter his mind and then shows her the memory of Ianthe trying to seduce him. Then he disappears - but not in my version. Just that morning, he knelt before her and called her his salvation. But so far, Feyre hasn't flirted with him at all. She's still broken over Tamlin and UTM. So it was quite fun to try and get her from point A to point B in this story... I hope I've managed it. Oh, and there are lots of much-needed apologies. I really hope you enjoy! Part 1 is Feyre's POV. Part 2 will be Rhys...

things that shimmer in the dark part I: Feyre

II

“Rule two,” Rhys finally went on, “be prepared to see things you might not like.”

He started to turn, to leave, but the word came out of my mouth before I could stop it: “Stay.”

He went very still. I watched his gaze slide from me to the bath and back again.

“You can look away,” I went on before he could speak, before he could draw the wrong conclusion. “Or sit right across the room. I just… After this morning, after her… I don’t want to be alone. Please.”

Rhys was completely unreadable. After a very long moment, he said: “Give me five minutes and I’ll be back. One of those bottles-” He waved his hand at the line of potions and soaps alongside the bathtub, “Should make the water opaque.”

I nodded, and he disappeared into thin air.

After I had peeled off my clothes, struggling with the buckles and straps he’d put on me just an hour or two ago, I sank into the hot bath with a blissful groan. I wanted nothing more than peace and quiet but my mind would not be still. The Weaver, the ring, Ianthe… Rhysand. How he flirted and pushed me and pissed me off. How his strong hands had gripped my thighs as he knelt before me. How he had been used, abused, hunted down his entire life…

I had only just remembered to add the contents of one of the bottles, which smelt like lavender and did indeed turn the water milky and soft, when he reappeared in the bedroom. He knocked on the arched doorframe and I invited him in, even as I dipped beneath the water to wet my hair. I still felt disgusting, despite Amren’s cleaning spell.

When I emerged for air, I rubbed my hands over my face and looked at Rhys - who had changed in the time he’d been gone. No more wings or fitted fighting leathers: instead comfortable pants and a loose cotton shirt, black as always. I could see most of his tanned, tattooed chest where he’d left several buttons undone. He sat gracefully on the floor, leaning back against the wall beside sink, just a across from the bathtub. I realised his feet were bare, and that I’d never seen them before. Just like the rest of him, they were unreasonably attractive.

When my gaze eventually travelled up to his face, I briefly noted that the ends of his hair were damp before realising he was smirking at me.

“See something you like?” 

I rested my forearms on the edge of the tub, my chin atop them. “Not particularly. Why are you wet?”

“I took a quick dip too. When I whisked you out of the forest, I got a nice amount of grease on my clothes.”

I grimaced. “That was revolting.”

“It was.”

“There are a lot of monsters in your world, aren’t there?”

“Yes. Does that scare you, Feyre?”

I considered him. Was I scared? Of course. But with Rhys and his Inner Circle by my side, and when I had trained my powers and my body, I could envision a day in the future when I would no longer be so afraid. I only hoped that day didn’t come too late: that I was ready by the time war came to Prythian.

“Yes,” I admitted, unashamed. There was very little he didn’t already know about me, except perhaps the full extent of my brokenness - but after our visit to the Prison, he was learning. And yet I had never, ever felt judged by him.

“Do I scare you?” he asked, his head tilting slightly to the side. “Because I am a monster, too.”

He seemed calm as he watched me but I noticed that he was playing with his fingers, subtly twisting them together in his lap. It was one of the most human things I’d seen him do, and I realised that something about this conversation - or perhaps our current situation - was making him… nervous.

“You aren’t,” I said, my voice firm. “You are many things, but you are not a monster Rhys. I am not scared of you.”

His face softened around the edges, just a bit.

“And I’m sorry,” I went on more softly. “For the memory you shared with me. Ianthe. She shouldn’t have… You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. You didn’t deserve...” I couldn’t say the other female’s name. It still made me want to throw up. “Under the mountain - what happened to you. She abused you and it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t deserve that.”

His violet eyes contained a thousand storms. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and the emotion in his voice made my throat tighten unexpectedly.

I held his gaze, sensing there was so much more he wanted to say, just waiting beneath the surface - like my power, crawling beneath my skin. I didn’t know how he’d survived so much and was still able to smile, to flirt, to live. I was just being dragged along beside him, everything moving so fast I had no time to dwell too much - which I was grateful for, because it was the only thing keeping me from sinking down into oblivion.

But in truth, we still barely knew one another. Over the long span of his life, our few months together in the Night Court were just a speck in time. I suspected he hadn’t opened up to anyone about the horrors he’d endured at her hand, not even his closest friends. So why would he confide in me? Did I even want to know? I wasn’t sure if I could handle any more trauma.

Although… I couldn’t deny that there was something drawing me to Rhys, even though I tried to resist it. It had only been a few months since I’d been with Tamlin after all; about to be married - no, shackled - to a different High Lord.

I finally closed my eyes, shutting out that thought and the self-inflicted insults that followed - trash, harlot, betrayer - before retreating back under the hot water again. Gods, it felt good on my aching muscles. I brushed my fingers through my hair several times, letting it fan out around me before breaking the surface again, taking in a deep breath of air. Then I began to wash it with shampoo, scratching my scalp with my fingernails, trying to rid myself of every last speck of putrid dirt from that awful cottage. I could sense Rhys watching me still as I piled my soapy locks on top of my head and moved on to clean my body with my favourite orange-scented scrub. I didn’t look at him, didn’t feel the need to fill the quiet, but I was pleased he was there. It was like having a friend for company, reassurance - which, I supposed, he was.

The High Lord of the Night Court. The most powerful in history. My friend.

When I had scrubbed my limbs, chest and face until the skin was pink and tingling, I finally turned to him, holding up a cloth. “Please can you do my back?” It was an innocent question - I needed to feel completely clean, and the water was deep enough to keep the rest of me hidden.

He didn’t respond for a long time. His impeccable mask was back in place and I had no idea what he was thinking. But when he finally spoke, his voice was far deeper than I was expecting - and it made all the hairs on my arms stand on end.

“Feyre. I… don’t think I should.”

“Please? I need to get all the grime off. And anyway, you’ve practically seen me naked before. Many times.”

His eyes burned into mine and I didn’t need to be inside his mind this time to know we were sharing the same memory: of my painted body, barely covered in strips of flimsy material, as I drank and danced for him, losing time and sensation and my dignity.

Rhys didn’t look away as he moved elegantly across the space between us, kneeling up beside me. His hands gripped the edge of the tub so hard that I felt it shake. “I am so sorry, Feyre. I should never have done that to you.”

He was so near I couldn’t see anything but the sorrow and pain in his gaze.

“It’s okay,” I told him honestly. Everything that had happened in that place was fucked up. I had killed innocent Fae. I had died and been Made again. My evenings of embarrassment were so insignificant in comparison.

But Rhys contradicted me. “It’s not okay,” he said forcefully. “I was playing such a dangerous game and we were close - so close - to the end. I knew that you would free us, but I needed to have you near me so I could keep you alive. And I needed Amarantha to keep trusting me, and…” He sighed, his breath caressing my lips. “I needed to make Tamlin angry.”

“Rhys, it’s fine.”

“It’s not. Even though I was desperate, I should never have drugged and humiliated you. I should have found a better way. And I will be sorry for that until the day I die.”

I took in his face, from his sculpted brows to his long straight nose, his sharp cheekbones and the beautiful shape of his mouth. He really was the image of perfection. No sign of the monster he claimed to be - or rather, feared he was.

And then I nodded and said truthfully: “I forgive you.”

His entire being seemed to relax. “Thank you. I don’t deserve it, but thank you.” He took the cloth and lathered it with soap. “Turn around.”

I knelt so that most of my back was out of the water, leaning forward slightly and using my arms to keep my breasts hidden. My eyes fell closed again as he washed me, much more slowly and carefully than I’d expected. Then he asked, “Do you want me to scrub you?” And once I’d said yes, I was even more surprised to feel his hands on me.

Surprised - and aroused.

Mother above. It was like I’d been asleep for the past few months and he was only just waking me up. Firstly he smoothed the scrub over my back, working it in circles with his strong fingers. They moved so confidently over my bare skin, as if he’d done this a thousand times before; as if we were lovers, and my body was his, and this was our norm. It was those unbidden thoughts, alongside his electrifying touch, that made desire plume somewhere deep in my belly. It sank down slowly, like warm honey, settling deliciously between my thighs.

I moaned. I couldn’t help it.

Behind me, I heard Rhys’s breath catch in his throat and I knew - with as much certainty as I knew my own name - that he was turned on too. I wondered if this was why he’d been hesitant to wash me when I’d first asked; if he had suspected what might happen if he did.

But he didn’t stop - and I didn’t want him to.  

Instead he rinsed me off with handfuls of water and then started to work the muscles along my spine and shoulder blades in long, firm strokes. Occasionally he paused over a knot, pressing firmly until it eased, and I tried not to moan again but it felt so good that I was powerless to resist. His fingers and thumb travelled up my neck, briefly kneading out some of the tightness there before he took down my soapy hair and began to massage my scalp. He found all the right pressure points and it was so exquisite that I leaned back helplessly into his touch, endless sounds of pleasure now falling unhindered from my lips.

His breathing was rough and uneven; occasionally a soft groan escaped which made my core throb. I could feel the heat of his body radiating towards mine, growing in intensity with every passing minute, every new inch of me that he discovered. And then his hands slowed; he twisted my hair back on top of my head and I thought he was done. But a moment later, I felt his fingertips running feather-light down my back, leaving shivers in their wake. They kept going, slipping below the water to my lower spine, my waist. This was no longer him cleaning me; nor was it a continuation of the massage. He was exploring - and I was letting him. I was enjoying him.

When he trailed his touch up my sides to my ribcage, my arms lifted of their own accord, leaving my breasts exposed, unprotected - as if my body knew what it needed long before my mind. If he were to slide his hands forwards just a few inches, he would be holding them. They ached at the very thought, and I stopped breathing altogether. I had never wanted anything as much in my entire life as I wanted him in that moment.

Rhys.

My friend. My saviour, in so many ways. We were both so similar - damaged, broken, alone. Perhaps we both needed this. Perhaps we both deserved to be distracted, to have something good in amongst all the badness of the world.

He finally took his hands away and I was aware of him sitting back, putting space between us. He didn’t say a word. I rinsed off my hair and looked around to find he’d gone. But I could feel him through the bond, just the other side of the door. Giving me privacy to get out of the bath. And maybe to come up with an excuse to leave, to reject me.

I wouldn’t blame him. I was damaged goods: empty on the inside, and a murderer to boot. And probably still in love with his immortal enemy, although I doubted for much longer. Those feelings were falling away by the day.

Freeing me.

The water sloshed as I stood and wrapped my hair and body in a towel each. I climbed out of the bath and brushed my teeth, studying at my face in the mirror. My skin was still flushed from the heat and the scrub; my nose and cheeks freckled by the sun. My blue-grey eyes were, for once, not dull and hollow but bright - alive. From the outside I didn’t look broken at all. I looked healthy. Beautiful, even. And just a few feet away was a staggeringly handsome male who liked me, who called me his darling and annoyed me on purpose and flirted with me… And gods, when he did, I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel empty. I felt… like myself. For the first time in a very long time.

And so I rinsed my mouth, ran my fingers briefly through my damp hair and tugged on the bond. Come here.

In a matter of seconds, he was standing in the doorway. He was the most unsure I had ever seen him, and it made me brave.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello.” He looked so wary, like I was a dangerous animal. Maybe that’s how I felt to him.

Maybe I was.

I watched him as he watched my hands go to my chest, where my towel was tucked in to keep it secure.  

“What would happen,” I said, softly but surely, “If I let this fall to the floor?”

Rhys swallowed. His eyes rose to mine and they were extraordinary: pure starlight and lust. I had seen his bedroom eyes before, when he was being playful and teasing - and I suspected so had many, many females before me. But this was different. I felt like I was looking all the way into his soul. And somehow, I knew that he had never shown himself like this to anyone else before; that I was the first, and only.

As to why, I had no idea. But I didn’t want to wait and find out. I wanted him.

“I am lonely, Rhys.”

I stepped forwards. He didn’t recoil, just stared at me, breathing hard. I continued until there was only a hand’s breadth separating us, so I had to tilt my face up to keep looking at him. “I’m sick of feeling so lonely, all the time. Aren’t you? Just for a while, wouldn’t it be nice to feel something else? To feel good? Don’t you think we deserve that?”

The air between us was hot and heavy; one spark and it would be ablaze. I could hear his heart beating hard beneath his ribs, just as mine was.

It felt like an eternity until he spoke. And when he did, his expression changed - he suddenly looked just as broken as his voice was.

“I am lonely, Feyre. So lonely. And I am sick of it too.”

II

Part II coming soon...

[quantumcartography]

Daniel and The Uninvited Guest

PALAMEDES     (As if reciting) “And her body was like the chrysolite, and her face as the appearance of lightning, and her eyes as a burning lamp: and her arms, and all downward even to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass.”

I was writing about something else entirely when I dug into the context of this quote and it rocked my whole socks. Context for those who don’t remember it: in this scene, the Voice that Palamedes has been talking to finally reveals herself as Dulcinea. After admitting his love for her and promising to find her on the shores of the River, he asks to see her “for the first time and the last.” He then has a light shone on him and he recites this quote from Daniel 10:6. After that, she asks if she was cute and Pal responds “You’re perfect.”

I am, needless to say, obsessed with this scene.

Now, the book of Daniel is one of apocalyptic prophecy (apocalypse here meaning a truth being revealed to a person by way of a divine source.) At this point in the Bible, the Jews have been captured from Israel by the Babylonians and have been displaced into Babylonian territory. The book recounts the visions of prophet Daniel that allude to the eventual restoration of the Jewish people to their homelands under the reign of Cyrus the Great. In Daniel 10 specifically, Daniel is mourning for Israel by fasting for three weeks when he is visited by an angel who tells him that he is fighting to return him and his people to their homeland. Daniel 10:6 is a description of this angel, who in the passage isn’t called an angel but vaguely referred to as a “certain man.” Only Daniel can see this certain man but all the men around him are gripped by fear and run away and even Daniel was terrified throwing himself face down and trembling at the sight of this certain man.

As a quick aside, I learned something from the magnificent Dan McClellan, a biblical scholar who is very active on TikTok and YouTube, about angels in the Old Testament. He recently posted a video discussing this in detail but I will try and do it justice. The theory among biblical scholars is that many instances where angels are present in the Old Testament were originally instances of God themself appearing before a person. That’s why these excerpts have people seemingly talking directly to God and why these angels inspire such fear because it’s assumed the only time a person would see God is when they die.

So this quote in this context, is when Palamedes is stuck inside the body of Naberius Tern and fighting against Ianthe’s soul for control. The reason why he’s doing this is to hopefully find a safe place for the Sixth House after spending months being held by Blood of Eden as political captives. While in this fight with Ianthe, he’s helped and supported by the soul of Dulcinea who he describes looking like an angel. Not an angel in terms of beauty or grace, but as unassailably powerful, perfect and righteous as dawn's first light, a face made of precious gems that cannot be cut and a body made of brass like the finest armor. This is a form untouchable by flaw or fault.

The two narratives have clear parallels. They are stories about a people's restoration and salvation. And since this takes place in the middle of Nona the Ninth, the connotation is clear that he will live to see his people saved and returned home. And he does, he becomes Paul and they guide their people back to the Dominicus system. But this also underscores just how much he loves her. He loves Dulcinea like an angel. He loves her like a homecoming. He loves her like a vision of rapture in the wasted desert of his enemy. He loves her like the promised end of death itself. He loves her like the indelible weight that love brings on one's soul.

[potatoplace]

Omega Needs - chapter 2

Feylin, eventual Feysand

chapter 1 chapter 3 series masterlist

Story Summary: Feyre presented as an omega after being changed into a high fae Under the Mountain. Her heats have been hellish, and Tamlin has neglected certain aspects of her presentation. After the disastrous wedding ceremony, how will Feyre’s omega handle being away from her Alpha?

Words: 2.7k

Warnings: not really any, just Ianthe being a dick and A/B/O dynamics and the wedding scene panic attack

Author's Note: more plot n stuff in this chapter, I have a bit more of an idea of what I'm doing for the story now. I'm excited. Again, still very rusty with the writing lol but I'm having fun writing this. Oh and not proofread, I just go with the vibes and hope I got everything right the first time. And I skip between past and present tense a bit

18+ only pls

🩵💚🩵💜🩵

Feyre's energy was waning already, and the day was barely started.

She was awoken at dawn, ushered by two maids into her bathing chambers and into the bath where they attended to her hair first. The two were excitedly talking to each other about the festivities taking place after the wedding ceremony as they massaged her head, how even the servants were allowed to take part.

Feyre knew that had been her doing, having suggested the idea to Tamlin a few weeks ago, knowing the immense amount of planning and work that all of them were putting into it. And how awful she would feel if none of them were able to enjoy the food or dancing at all, so she had pushed for it, and won.

Just about her only win in the planning itself, aside from the color red being banned from the ceremony and festivities altogether, she mused to herself as they finished with her hair, moving to wash and scrub her body. For the most part, her suggestions were not even considered.

Ianthe seemed to believe Feyre had no idea of what went into a wedding, least of all what Feyre herself would like. When Feyre had suggested lilies in her bouquet and the arrangements, Ianthe had said they wouldn't go right with the roses that they *had* to have, otherwise it simply wouldn't be a proper wedding of the High Lord of Spring. When tasting cakes, Feyre's favorite had been the rich dark chocolate one with a raspberry filling, but Ianthe had insisted they needed a light color cake to fit the season.

And when Feyre had argued that it's technically Autumn at the moment, Ianthe had simply insisted that she lives in the Spring Court, and as such her wedding would be Spring themed. No exceptions.

After that, Feyre had stopped suggesting much. Even her dress, the tulle monstrosity hanging in her room at the moment, she had no say in.

Feyre was snapped out of her ruminating by the maids pulling her out of the tub and drying her off. They guided her to a chair, where one of them set to drying her hair, while the other began plucking the hairs from her body.

Feyre loosed a sigh, her body slumping into the support behind her. She might have had a bit more energy for today if she was excited for the ceremony itself. But the dress, the flowers, even the guests... she was just looking forward to finally being married to Tamlin. And finally having his mating mark on her.

A smile came to her face at that thought, and the maid in front of her, Tonilia, flashed her a smile.

"Thinking of the High Lord, my Lady?"

Feyre's smile widened, a slight flush creeping up her cheeks as she nodded.

The two giggled, finishing up their work on her for the moment. "Would you like to have a bit of breakfast first or keep preparing you, my Lady?" Aine, the other maid, asked.

Feyre didn't think she would be able to stomach anything right now. "Just a cup of tea would be nice, please Aine.”

Aine smiled sweetly at her, nodding her head and leaving the room. Tonilia busied herself with gathering a number of bottles and jars from the counter behind Feyre, the noise drawing Feyre’s eyes to watch what she was doing.

“What all could there be left to get me ready?” She asked, knowing well that she was woken up so early for some reason.

Tonilia laughed lightly, “oh, my Lady, there’s still quite a bit left for us to do I’m afraid. But don’t worry, it’s only a few hours more until you are officially the Lady of Spring!”

Feyre nodded and smiled, but the title struck some type of fear in her. Ianthe had been preparing her for the role, but Feyre still felt as woefully inept at the job as she had a year ago after… No, she wouldn’t think of that today.

Preparing to be the Lady of Spring proved to be much like wedding planning. Almost nothing Feyre suggested was correct, but Ianthe always had the correct answer. She would shake her head at any slight mistake Feyre made, and no doubt told Tamlin of every misstep as she struggled to navigate in a new role and new body.

It didn’t help that Ianthe is an alpha, her presentation alone causing the omega in Feyre to want so badly to please her, yet always falling short.

That, paired with Tamlin not claiming her yet and general annoyance at her habits, had Feyre’s omega in a constant state of anxiety, wondering if she was meant to become the Lady of Spring, whether her and Tamlin were meant to be together.

“My Lady, the High Lord loves you. There is no need for such nerves,” Aine whispered into Feyre’s ear, bringing her out of her thoughts and back to her body. She was shaking.

Feyre turned, tears gleaming in her eyes, “but what if he doesn’t want me?” She uttered softly, giving voice to the fear plaguing her, rubbing the gland on her neck nervously.

Aine set the cup of tea down on the edge of the tub, giving Feyre a sad smile. “Is this about him not claiming you yet?” Feyre nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I’m sure that he just wanted to wait until after the wedding, Lady. He can be a bit traditional, after all,” she said, and Feyre let a small laugh slip out. Traditional didn’t seem to cover it.

“I suppose you’re right, Aine. Thank you.” She sniffled a bit, then wiped at her cheeks, putting a small smile on her lips. “What’s next to get me ready?”

🩵💚🩵💜🩵

Two hours later, and Feyre was nearly ready for her wedding. She was still clad in a robe, but her hair and makeup were complete.

The makeup, Feyre liked. It was soft and rosy, adding some needed color to her cheeks and lips with the nerves she was still feeling. And something to cover up the dark circles under her eyes, from so many sleepless nights recently. She felt pretty, for the first time in a while when she looked in the mirror.

That is, until she looked at her hair.

It was a mess, in her opinion. Pins were stuck in everywhere, a couple of spots already sore on her head from them. What had started as elegant curls before Ianthe had shown up to check on the progress had turned into a fluffy disaster. The curls had been teased to the point Feyre no longer considered them curls, just waves that were then pinned halfway to the top of her head, the rest left to hang down the back of her neck, creating an odd silhouette. Ianthe insisted that it was a style Spring brides wore, but Feyre had a hard time believing that.

Tonilia had been frowning the entire time while doing her hair, which made her think Ianthe was lying to her. But she had no proof. And she really didn’t want to fight today, she was tired enough as it is, and still had a long days worth of celebrations to go.

So Feyre kept quiet, trying to only look at her face in the mirror. Aine had truly done a wonderful job on her makeup.

Currently Feyre was sat in the plush armchair in the corner of her room, looking out the window at the back grounds of the manor. The rows and rows of chairs had been set up, an aisle covered in white flower petals leading to an altar that had a beautiful archway covered in ivy placed before it. Servants fluttered about, perfecting the finishing touches for the ceremony that would be…

Feyre looked to the clock. In just 30 minutes, her and Tamlin will be tied together forever.

A sharp knock landed on her door, and it was pushed open before she could say anything.

“Alright, Feyre, it’s time to get you dressed!” Ianthe said brightly, already dressed in her gorgeous blue priestess robes. “Alis will be helping you get dressed, I’m afraid I have a bit more preparing for the ceremony, so don’t muck anything up dear! It took you so long to get ready already, I wouldn’t want to have to delay the wedding on account of you.” The words were said sweetly, but Feyre couldn’t help but feel like she’d done something wrong.

Ianthe breezed out of the room, the door latching shut behind her, leaving Feyre and Alis alone.

Alis sighed, moving over to Feyre and wrapping her in a hug. “You look beautiful, Feyre,” she said as she pulled away.

Feyre leaned forward and pulled her into her arms again. “Thank you. Though I do wish I could have chosen my hairstyle.”

Alis chuckled, her eyes drifting up. “It certainly is… something,” she said cautiously with disapproval in her eyes, and Feyre laughed. “But let’s get you dressed, I have a feeling it will be a complicated one.”

Feyre nodded her head, untying her robe and threw it on the chair, and admired herself in the mirror for a moment while Alis grabbed the dress from her closet.

Underneath, she was wearing a soft set of white lacy lingerie, a set she had picked out specifically for this night. The bra was so comfortable, important since she will be wearing it until Tamlin takes it off, but it was still so pretty, cupping her breasts in just the right way to make them look a bit bigger, and made of a see-through fabric covered in a fine lace. The panties accentuated the swell of her ass nicely, showing off the small bit of weight she’d regained this year. She felt soft and sexy in this set, and her omega was looking forward to how Tamlin would react to how she looks when he takes off that horrid dress. Hopefully it will be all he needs to claim her.

Alis came over then, practically dragging the dress behind her.

20 minutes later, Alis was satisfied with how the dress looked, it being in the same position as the day when they’d done the final fitting.

Looking in the mirror, Feyre sighed. The dress had so many layers of tulle, Feyre felt like a cupcake. Or her wedding cake.

“You do look beautiful my Lady, the dress and hair are not your favorite, I know. But you shine through it, and I’m sure the High Lord will only have eyes for your face,” Alis tried to reassure her.

Feyre finally looked away from the mirror, and the look on Alis’s face brought a smile to hers. “Thank you, Alis. Thank you for being here for me.” Tears came to her eyes again.

“None of that, none of that Feyre,” Alis said with watery eyes as well. “We don’t want to make you late, hmm?” Feyre shook her head, smiling again. “Let’s go then, it’s time for you to get married!”

The two of them walked arm in arm through the now empty halls slowly, as Feyre was struggling a bit with the weight of the dress and her heeled shoes. They safely made it down the staircase, the one place Feyre was worried about falling. And then they were at the double doors leading out to the back of the manor

Feyre took a few deep breaths. Then a few more.

The music outside changed from light and airy to a purposeful beat, one that she was supposed to walk to.

“Are you ready?” Alis asked, dropping her arm to move towards the doors.

Feyre nodded. “Yes.”

Alis knocked on the door and stepped back to the side, out of the doorway. Both doors swung inward, revealing the grounds she had been looking at half an hour ago.

And along with the white rose petals that she had seen earlier, were red rose petals, the color of fresh blood.

Panic surged into her bloodstream, bile crawling up her throat.

Feyre forced herself to move after a few seconds, tearing her eyes from the petals to Tamlin’s face, his smiling, handsome face waiting at the end of the aisle underneath the icy covered archway.

She stepped forward, shaking slightly on the heels that feel too tall, making it almost halfway down the aisle. But those felt like an eternity, Tamlin still felt so far away and so that she’s closer to the archway she can see the red petals are completely covering the ground he stands on, looking like a pool of blood.

Her blood.

Hers.

She comes to a stop.

And then she’s back in that throne room, with Amarantha over her, carving her up and mocking how human and weak she is, how pathetic she is.

Her panic surges, building inside of her and she feels like she can’t breathe, like her neck had been snapped again-

“Feyre,” Tamlin’s voice cuts through it, bringing her back to her body once more. He’s staring at her, staring with that disapproving look he uses whenever he caught her trying to take a piece of his clothing for her nest, and the omega in her cries out in pain, even as he extends a hand towards her, beckoning her to where he stands with the pool of blood beneath his feet.

Feyre tries to take another step forward, but her body won’t let her. And she glances at his feet again, her panic soaring once more- she can’t do this, not today, not with blood, no, petals, beneath his feet, she can’t do it when he has that look on his face, she can’t do-

A loud crack sounds, and night explodes around them in spite of the sun.

But she can’t see the petals anymore.

“Hello, darling,” comes a smooth voice from behind her, a slight purr to the words.

And then the daylight is rushing in, most of the guests having winnowed away as soon as they could.

Tamlin is still standing under that archway, in those petals. Hand still outstretched, his face covered in rage. “Feyre, come here,” he spat, motioning for her to join him.

She didn’t move.

His eyes narrowed at her. “Feyre, come here. We can still do the ceremony.”

Rhysand laughed lowly, the sound sending shivers down Feyre’s spine. “Unlikely, as you don’t seem to have a priestess anymore.”

Feyre moved her eyes from the petals on the ground to the altar behind Tamlin, where sure enough, Ianthe is nowhere to be found.

Rhysand moved from behind Feyre to her left side, making Tamlin loose a growl at him.

“Why don’t you leave as well, Rhysand?” Tamlin asked, stepping forward into the aisle.

“I’m just waiting for Feyre to take my arm, is all,” Rhysand said with a smirk, extending his right one for her to grab onto.

“And why would she do that?”

“Oh, come now, Tamlin, you know exactly why. I’m here to collect on my bargain. The one that saved darling Feyre’s life, remember?”

Tamlin growled again, close enough now that he could grab Feyre if he wanted.

Rhysand rolled his eyes and turned to Feyre, who was staring at Tamlin’s face. “Feyre,” he said gently. “Let’s go.”

She turned her face to him, looking into his eyes for a moment, then back to Tamlin’s.

“I’m sorry, alpha,” she said, sorrow in her voice and tears in her eyes as her omega recoiled at the thought of leaving him. “I’ll be back in a week."

“No!” Tamlin yelled, panic and anger in his voice. “Feyre, you’re supposed to go into heat this week, remember? Can’t you take her after that?”

Rhysand wrinkled his nose at that, disdain in his eyes as he looked at Tamlin. “If Feyre goes into heat while in my court, I will bring her back here before her week is up if she wishes,” he said simply, with no room for argument. “Time to go, Feyre.” His arm extended once again.

“I love you, Tam,” she said, lifting her arm.

“Feyre, please don’t.”

She gave him one last sorrowful look, then placed her hand on Rhysand’s arm.

It was like she was being ripped through fabric, and then she was in a beautiful room filled with marble and open air windows on two sides.

Rhysand moved away from her, and her arm dropped back to her side, landing in the mountain of tulle she was still wearing.

“Welcome to the Night Court, Feyre darling,” he said proudly, his violet eyes locked onto hers.

It's then that her breathing finally evens out, and her heart rate lowers.

Feyre took a cautious look around, seeing the silks hanging near the open walls to act as curtains, the comfortable looking breakfast nook near one of them, then looks back to Rhysand.

"What now?"

[notedchampagne]

Pitching my two cents here: taking so many and so throughout notes is very very harrow of you BUT! that's also very sixth of her. Palamedes on the other hand strikes me as someone that doesn't takes to many notes on the moment and rather write things down at a later time (deep confidence in his and Camilla's memory and senses vs harrow's knowledge that her mind is untrustworthy)

On a similar note, I also want to go through the books again and annotate like you did. Do you have any tips or pitfalls to avoid?

i love the sixths insane memory i deeply wish i had it. id use it for useful things like remembering book quotes

one mistake i made while annotating all three books is that i did not plan ahead for what i wanted to highlight and how: the color key is vastly different across my gtn, htn and ntn books and it infuriates me how theyre inconsistent + could be made prettier via color symbolism (ex: i forgot how important of a role ortus was in this, and i wanted a separate color to denote the ninth house, But i already used purple for ianthe, so the purple highlighter ended up being used for ian, ortus, the ninth, and necromantic concepts)

my advice is to list down the characters you want to focus on for the book and determine your color key ahead of time. if you eventually add more characters, stylizing it in underlines/brackets/full highlighting will give you more options with limited colors. if youre not sure what to focus on, id reccommend tabbing your books first with a color key and keeping 'general' highlighted sections such as worldbuilding, character quotes, plot tracking, etc. then you can go back once you have a greater picture

last tip: you should expect to read slowly. i read about a chapter an hour because i scoured every line and wanted to make my things look pretty. if you want to annotate faster then read the chapter first, tabbing/dog earing as you go, then go back and highlight some sections

[katakaluptastrophy]

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn't seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr...but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

What is a "Speaker to the Dead"?

Actually, Magnus Quinn isn't terrible at sword fighting

Imperial complicity: Abigail the First

Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate

Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?

What does the Fifth House actually do?

The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family

Cytherea's political observations at the anniversary dinner

Abigail Pent's affect: ghosts and autism

Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?

Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children

Magnus Quinn's very understandable anger

Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy

Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?

"Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her" (the Fifth in TUG)

The Fifth's relationship dynamic

The Fifth's relationship is unconventional in a number of ways

The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus' relationship

Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River

Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?

Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)

How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?

Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

The politics of the anniversary dinner (and further thoughts)

Was Magnus born outside of the Dominicus system?

Overthinking John Gaius:

The one time John was happy was playing Jesus

Is Alecto's body made from John's?

Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?

Why isn't John's daughter a necromancer?

The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto 'what have you done to me?'

Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs

What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)

John's conference call with his CIA handlers

Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror

Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)

When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?

Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)

The 'indelible' sin of Lyctorhood and John's shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism

Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?

What was Jod's plan at Canaan House?

John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path

The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows

When was John Gaius born? (And another)

John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

John and Jesus writing sins in the sand

John and Nona's echoing chapters

John's motivations

Is Alecto just as guilty as John?

John's cult (and what he might have done to them)

The horror of Jod

Did John get bloodsweat before he became god?

Some very silly thoughts about John and Abigail arguing about academia

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics'

Funerary customs and the violence of John's silence

Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time

The horror of the River bubble

Every instance of 'is this how it happens' in HTN

Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive

How do stele work?

Thought crime in the Nine Houses

The Houses have a population the size of Canada

What must it be like to fight the Houses?

You know what can't have been fun? Merv wing's megatruck on Varun day...

Augustine's very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)

Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way

Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system (though perhaps the Fourth *is* on Saturn)

Why don't the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?

How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?

How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)

What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?

Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship (further thoughts)

The horrors the Cohort found at Canaan House

Do the Houses understand the tech keeping them alive?

The scions from an external perspective (sci fi baddies)

Cav cots

The Nine Houses and feudalism

The horrors of early necromantic education

[useless-prophet]

I have favorite books. I have books I think are dumpster fuel. But after reading Harrow the Ninth, I think I can confidently say that it is the most messed up book I have ever read.

Reading it felt like having an aneurysm. Reading it felt like being strapped to a rollercoaster where all the safety regulations have been merrily skipped against my will. I was asked how it was going and all I could say was “I have no idea”. I didn’t know what was going on. I finished the book and still don’t know what was going on. I forgot that Ianthe was even still alive. I was gaslit into questioning if the first book ever happened. I hate God now. I predicted Dios Apate Minor and then I was like no way that’s actually going to happen. And then it did. And this was the first time I’ve ever had to put a book down because I was *wheezing*. It feels like a fever dream.

And that’s what’s appealing about it. No other author has dared to write something as insane, as horribly convoluted and downright mad as Tamsyn Muir. I hate her for it, and I love her for it. Because it’s so messed up, and so fresh and so brilliant, and if this trend continues I don’t know how I’m going to survive Nona the Ninth.

[imogenkol]

— LAST LINE / MUSIC MONDAY (Tuesday)

tagged by @aceghosts @simplegenius042 @cassietrn @socially-awkward-skeleton @theelderhazelnut @voidika thank you beloveds! 💕

This song really hits the Valenya x Ianthe vibe before shit hits the fan. They spent a lot of time running off together for “hunting trips” when in reality they pitched a tent out in the middle of nowhere for a couple of days so they didn’t have to worry about getting caught. Ianthe always begged to go riding with Valenya on Mystrunner

The sun goes down, another dreamless night

You're right by my side

You wake me up, you say it's time to ride

In the dead of night

Strange canyon road, strange look in your eyes

You shut them as we fly, as we fly

And here’s the first little peek of what I’ve started to write for them!

When Valenya first took flight, she had gritted her teeth and used every ounce of willpower not to look down for fear that she would lose consciousness and slip right off of the saddle, plummeting to a death she would not even be present for. The Lady Ianthe had no such problem, her grip around Valenya’s waist loosened as she leaned this way and that to take in the vast landscape below them.

tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @adelaidedrubman @florbelles @tommyarashikage @simonxriley @shegetsburned @kyberinfinitygems @voidbuggg @inafieldofdaisies @statichvm @carlosoliveiraa @risingsh0t @unholymilf @thedeadthree @jackiesarch @a-treides @shellibisshe @loriane-elmuerto @katsigian @captastra @g0dspeeed @strangefable @kanos @cptcassian @nokstella

[owl127]

@ianthesmells in her endless talent and grace, drew Anubis from "Coffee & Scones" universe. So of course I had to write a drabble about it. --

There was a point of exhaustion when the letters on the Harrow’s laptop screen were an artistic display of unrecognizable forms and shapes. As her power point deck shimmered while performing aquatic dances instead of the data summary Harrow needed, she called it a night. Her phone blinked on the hotel’s nightstand, silent and ignored. Dulcinea had insisted on going to the bars with the other grad students, and she undoubtedly was sending Harrow unimportant photos to document the night’s proclivities. Harrow was not interested.

There was a lack of honor in the inebriation that Harrow despised.

Besides, she was the last presenter of the conference, and breakfast started at 7am sharp. There was no time for banal things such as “networking”.

She picked her phone to text Ianthe—her girlfriend was extremely efficient in calming Harrow’s nerves for her presentation—but frowned at the multiple pings from her plethora of diverse messaging apps; that is, all two of them.

She opened Instagram with a trembling finger.

Her first reaction wasn’t shock, since it took a good ten seconds for Harrow to recognize Anubis. Once she did, her cheeks burned with a drizzling mix of anger and amusement.

Much like his owner, Anubis was petite, a once tiny little black runt that grew into a tiny black demon. He had a history of fighting against collars, so Harrow never attempted to indulge herself by forcing him into funny little blankets shaped like denim jackets.

That was why, when she finally recognized her cat in a sheep costume framed by Coronabeth’s cleavage, she squeaked in surprise. To her horror, the little cricket looked adorable, and Corona’s massive volleyball fans had already adopted him as a mascot, with thousands of notifications in the photo. There was also a video of Anubis prancing around in the immaculate sheep uniform, his ears poking from the furry headset like sharp rocks on a field of camellias. Corona took the stage presenting the adorable cat, but Harrow knew better. She knew who was recording it, who had probably ordered the costume, and who had tagged Harrow in the viral videos.

“Hi, love. How’s the conference?” Ianthe picked up on the second ring. Harrow heard Corona’s voice in the background, and a suspicious purr that meant Anubis was around and enjoying the attention overflow.

“That’s animal abuse.”

“What do you mean?” 

Harrow heard the tilt in Ianthe’s voice. She knew exactly what Harrow meant, and she loved it.

“I left him with you for forty-eight hours and you already defamed him.”

“Harry,” Ianthe started, and Anubis meowed in the background, followed by Corona’s squeak. “The poor thing was cold, and Corona happened to snap a picture. He’s enjoying fame.”

“Leave him alone.”

“He already has his own TikTok and Instagram account.” At least there was a tinge of apology in Ianthe’s tone.

“Ianthe,” Harrow warned.

“Corona and Camilla will run it. And we can have more privacy at your place while they petsit him.”

“My place is fine!”

“Tell that to Anubis when he’s staring me down while I strap—”

Harrow hung up.

A minute later, Ianthe called. Harrow picked up after the third call.

“He’s okay, I promise,” Ianthe said as a greeting, and the background noise diminished. Harrow imagined Ianthe hiding from her sister’s enthusiasm in her room. “You know I’d never let anything bad happen to him.”

“I just want to be informed before I receive hundreds of follow requests because my cat looked adorable in a sheep costume.”

“Aww, so you also think he’s adorable?”

“You’re deflecting.” Harrow closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion from the day wash over her. “I miss you,” she whispered.

“I miss you too. You’ll do fine tomorrow. I promise.”

There was something visceral in believing a promise from Ianthe Tridentarius’ mouth. A chill ran down her vertebrae.

“Also, what are you wearing?”

She might as well use the energy into something good.