#a mortal is more of a saint than any god

[rin-hanarin]

「Forgiveness for a sinner」

[stvolanisinvenus]

Your lover, Lestat, was sickening in every way possible. Sickeningly charming. Sickeningly cunning. Sickeningly handsome. He was the master of manipulation, with his charismatic tendencies aiding him. Lestat, controlling in every sense of the word, seemed to control everything and everyone around him—except for you. And God, did it drive him absolutely mad.

Lestat was so used to getting his way. Torturing peoples bones till they bended to his liking, before meeting their inevitable doom and snapping. Rubble at his feet. He had a way with words, that was no surprise and was well known by those who knew him and lived. He was a greedy, narcissistic man, but you—you were his remedy. The right to his wrongs.

Lestat bowed for no one, yet he’d fall to his knees in your presence if you’d ask. He was an evil man, yes, he knew this to be a fact. But that didn’t matter to him, when little ol’ you peered up at him through those bashful lashes of yours like he was nothing but a saint. How could someone so devastatingly beautiful be the devil himself?

Lestat was madly in love, madly obsessed, and madly captivated all in one. An ambush of tiny angels plucking at the dead strings of his unbeating heart in a chilling melody only you knew the chords to.

Sex was an otherworldly experience. He was your first everything, including your first time. He was gentle, loving, and tender with each thrust he’d give you. Strings of praise slipping past his lips in his native tongue, accent thick and heavy as sweat dripped down his forehead. He was holding himself back, afraid his power would hurt you. He’d laid with mortals, uncaring of their comfort—but even as you were a vampire, he treated you like you would accidentally break at any moment. More fragile than human.

“Our beings as we know them are tied for eternity now, mon cher. I am yours as you are mine.”

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[halcyone-of-the-sea]

To Hunt a Silver Stag (I)

AU MASTERLIST || PART II

PAIRING: Knight!Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Fae Princess!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 6.9k

WARNINGS: Arranged marriage, talks of childbirth, traditional views of women & men in medieval times, talks of war, death, heavy religious imagery/symbolism, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You wore a crown of deer antlers atop your head. Charms were woven into the gaps between the tines, attached to golden thread; jewels of starlight strung like teardrops from the moon. Your feet, staying still on the hard stone of the Great Hall, are bare though attract no dirt or dust—it is as if the very ethereal aura that coats your gown of pure white repels any such thought of uncleanliness or corruption of this mortal plane. 

You are so very far from home.

Standing in the center of your soon-to-be husband’s court, your eyes seem not to be on the man himself, who watches you greedily from the throne of black iron, but instead behind him. Blank of any emotion, your long lashes blink in the direction of the stained glass windows with a horrible longing. Whispers from the multitude of court attendants go in one ear and out the other—useless to you. Their time would be gone in a blink, and yet here you would remain, immemorial. Their words were nothing, and their utterances would turn to dust faster than their bodies would.

You can’t help but wonder if those colorful depictions in that glass window, of God and his valiant angels, are mocking you as you blink at them slowly. Not only for what you are and where you now find yourself in the kingdom of your enemies but for being so full of the very qualities that would normally resign a woman of this age to the stake. 

Independent, confident, and curious, among others. 

A voice raises above the rest, and your eyes blink elegantly, the silver hue to them unnatural in all senses. Yet, you do not look away from the mighty white stag, its soldered bits of thin glass a patchwork of an overwatching Lord. Saint Eustace is there, staring at it, just as was told from generation to generation.

A pagan man converted to Christianity, the symbol of a cross set between antlers very much like the ones adorning your head. Humming under your breath, your eyes dip down, chin moving. Below the window, there stands a tall knight, and your gaze locks with his softly. 

“Today,” the King’s voice echoes over the crowd as brown orbs stare at you, blinking. “We are here to celebrate the joining of two great bloodlines!” He stands with a grand cape over his shoulders, falling to the floor as his boots stand at the top of the stairs to the throne. Yet, this knight holds your attention more than your Promised does as the cheering starts, loud; making your ears twitch.

At your waist, a golden belt is engraved with expert attention, stories woven into metal that even seem to move with the magic embedded into it. It seems to hum with an energy that makes your eyes narrow in confusion upon this stranger.

He had brown eyes, the knight, and the hues reminded you of brown that you could see in the trees of your home—those old beasts that grew still with the magic of your line and your gentle touch. Surrounding him, there was silver armor and a strip of red fabric that went over one shoulder, hanging beside the items of his station; a sword and a dagger on a brown leather belt.

Brows furrowing, your head tilts slowly, unblinking, as the eye contact persists. 

A bold man, it seems.

The knight’s eyelids slightly widen, as if realizing he had been staring, and his face swiftly moves to the side, his short hair close to his oval skull. You hear the faint clearing of a throat come into the shell of your pointed ears.

Sighing, your focus returns to the matter at hand, the crown’s adornments clinking together as your head rotates. The speech. 

King Michael spreads his hands out, a man far into his older years but still had the gleam of malice in his eyes. Those beady things. They remind you of a rat—a small creature, while intelligent, that cannot win unless through tricks.

“We all know that magic has slowly been disappearing from the lands,” the King utters, voice echoing off the walls. Your hands are holding themselves near your abdomen, grace embedded into your bones. Watching how he speaks, you can’t deny he was influential. But influence didn’t matter when you had no wife—no children. He has a dying line, and that means weakness…which is why you’re here, after all. “And in that time, our war with the Fae has fallen into a stalemate.”

Your expression sharpens, fingers twitching. Stalemate? There were humans in your lands—spreading their fires and swinging their defiling iron swords. There was no war here except the one that this King was perpetuating. 

But you held your tongue, even if your silver eyes narrowed in an ancient, bitter, anger. Your head raises itself higher, hanging gemstones swinging. The knight near the stained glass is back to watching you—his feet shifting from under him, hands behind his armored back with loose shoulders.

“...Today, myself and the King of the Fae have come to an agreement in confidence, and in the fashion of old, I am to be wed to his daughter, a princess!” Gasps, cheers, clapping. They spring up from all corners of the Hall, bouncing. Your body longs for nature, to be away from rock and metal, these suffocating walls that close in with the gaggle of wretched corpses walking. “Peace shall be beholden to all of us! Magic shall come back into my bloodline through our many children, and all will share in its wealth!” 

You had compared yourself to a broodmare when your father had given the news of your journey here. A womb to be filled until you could give no more; restrained to a bed—away from any privilege and right.

And you’d been sent here anyway. A price needed to be paid, your father had told you. A daughter to stop the war. A child to bring back mortal magic and keep the peace through generations. Was your head to be put to the block for that? Who was to say that children would bring peace? That there weren’t more conflicts to come?

This was a momentary sacrifice, and here you were wearing white.

You hum under your breath and feel shackles tie themselves to your ankles; tying you to this place. But what other option did you have?

Your ears listen to the loud rapturous cheering, the exclamations of love that mean nothing to you—you do not love these people, do not love their need for violence and their pride. You want to go home, to find where you can rest among glades and grass. Converse with the birds and the beasts to learn of their news of far-off lands; run your hands through clear streams and watch plants grow where you walk.

As your stone body stays still, silver eyes unblinking, the knight near the window is the only man in the room not gazing at you like he wants something from you. While Lords have their eyes filled with lustful envy of your age-less skin—your finery and wealth; the promise of strong children, the knight is the only one with an open expression. 

He only watches, handsome face holding the whispers of stubble and eyes that would make many moral women wish to be his wife. 

Admittingly, your attention keeps going back to him, just as his own is stuck on you even as he tries to look professional. Back straight, armor glinting, sword pommel fiddled with by long fingers. 

The King is walking down the stairs, one withered leg at a time. You don’t offer any help.

“My bride,” Michael licks his lips when he’s in front of you; but he’s more fixated on your stomach than all else. What it will hold for him. “My beautiful Fae bride. My wedding will be known through history for ages to come.”

My. 

The world holds its breath. The knight’s jaw clenches, though no one sees it. 

You take a heavy breath into your lungs to hold back your snapping tongue. As the words meet the air, they come out as unemotional as a wave at sea. Wind holding mist.

“Certainly.”

—

As it turned out, the castle itself was even less homely than the material that was used to build it. You walk slowly through the halls, hands behind your back and your crown glimmering—the trail of a thin and flowing gown making you look like a specter. One crudely carved window after another passes by your right shoulder, and you look out of every slit; seeing the silver shades of moonlight. In contrast, everything on your left was washed with firelight from the blazing iron sconces, your ears twitching to the pop of wood and fabric saturated in animal fat. 

Everything here was horrible.

A prison, you think, slowing near one of the larger windows in the hall. A cage.  

Staring outside, trying for only a moment to understand the disgusting castle and adjoined town you look at, there’s a faint noise from far down the corridor. 

Wasting no time, your head moves slowly to the side, blinking. There isn’t anyone to be seen, but yet again, your slightly pointed ears twitch. 

A firm heartbeat. 

Bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump.

Staring at nothing, you listen for a moment, taking it in as your visage fights with blue and red light, shadows littering the small cracks and the marks of stone—your hands slightly tighten, but you hold no fear. 

You refused to be afraid here; you would go to your spiritual death with a high head, and nothing less. 

“It’s unbecoming to stalk as if a wolf,” you call, voice smooth and even. A beat of bird’s wings. “Four-legged beasts have perfected it, yet, the same cannot be said of you.” 

There’s a lapse of silence—a swirling of slight tension that comes not from you but another. The heartbeat in your ear lightly skips. Startled. A shadow cusps one of the connected hallways, a gleam of silver armor. You blink slowly.

“Apologies, Ma’am.” The Knight. The one from the Great Hall. “I…didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

His lithe form doesn’t try to hide from your accusation, instead, his body moves to the middle of the stone floor and straightens—one hand going to his heart and the other behind his back; bowing. The darkness of his complexion seems to glow in the light, smooth skin besides the marring of small scars along the left cheek. Tiny things, only two lines.

For no reason at all, your body lightly turns towards him, watching.

“I’m not nervous,” you respond. “Please, stand straight.” 

He does so without hesitation, though his eyes are avoiding yours. A guilty pull is to his lips that you can’t help but quirk a brow at. Yet, you remain emotionless, and outside the shadows of flying birds shift past.

“What is your name, Knight?” You see his expression slightly tense at the question, but you continue easily. A test, perhaps, if this man was worth your time. “I recall your face.” 

“I can’t give you that, My Lady.” Brown eyes go to meet yours, and the silver flecks in your orbs glimmer. “My orders were clear.”

“And were those orders also to follow me?” 

He clears his throat, feet shifting. “...Maybe.”

You hum, moving your body slowly and walking forward to him. The man blinks in surprise, straightening even more but a firm set to his eyes. His attention never wavers, unless it’s to glimpse your crown and belt, perfect pieces of artistry lost to this section of humanity. No mortal craftsman could imagine making something as such. He liked them, you notice at the light impression of awe in his gaze.

Anyone with sense would.

Stopping just a few feet away, you tilt your head. 

It was common knowledge that you never gave your name to one of the Fae, your betrothed would have told everyone close to him to avoid doing so. Just as you would never tell your real name to anyone—not even under dire circumstances. Names hold power, and no person in this castle would make you even more of a prisoner than you already were. 

You know the names of beasts and plants, flora and fauna—they bend to you, let you manipulate them to your will, though you often find no need to. The animals from any land prefer your company, anyway. The castle’s hunting hounds have already become well acquainted, just as the messenger birds had. 

But mortals? No. No, there were no names that you knew besides the King himself, and even then it was a fake one. Second names and such, are common. 

“Your title, then,” you say to the Knight. “If you’re to be a constant face to me.”

“Gaz is just fine, I’d say.” He nods his head, a slow smile moving his cheeks. Your brows furrow. Strange fellow. “A pleasure. I really do need to say that I wasn’t following you for long—I was only concerned you might have lost your way.”

You stare. 

“Lost?” Owlishly, your head shifts.

Gaz makes a noise in the back of his throat, one hand coming up to rub at the base of his neck. “Yeah—lost. It’s, uh, it’s a big castle, My Lady—”

“Stag.” Wide eyes blink, this meeting is only awkward on his part and not yours. In fact, for how humans go, he was acting far better than most. Usually, there was iron being brandished by now.

“What was that?”

“My title,” you explain, your crown’s gems bright in the light. The fire crackles, popping. “Stag. I do not need my status stated. I know what I am, Knight.”

“Then I’d say the same,” your fingers twitch, liking the word game he plays. Inside of your sockets, the unnatural makeup of your eyes shimmers. 

“Very well,” you pause, picking your words. “Gaz. A strange choice to be sure.”

He chuckles, nodding in a very stoic-like way despite the nearly boyish nature of him. “Well, Stag isn’t exactly common, either.”

You hum in your throat, unblinking; staring. Your intrigue grows the longer the man talks. Just like in the Great Hall, his form attracts all of your attention to it, against all laws that you seem to know in your soul. 

“Pray tell,” you shift, moving back to the window with your feet not making a single sound. Gaz watches on, eyes flickering between the hanging gems and how you tread over the stone as if you had wings. Your form slips back to the window, and your focus once more goes outward. “Has the King told you to spy on me, Gaz?”

The title, even if not the one of his birth—not the one written on his soul like a brand—still made the air quiver with might. You were older than most of this kingdom, the Knight knew. Older than the oak trees of the nearby forest; older than rock and wind and air.

Power dripped off your tongue like water to a leaf. 

But it wasn’t your influence that made the man answer you. It was his own nature. 

“Yes,” Gaz says, taking a few steps to where you stand, watching a flock of birds dance above the courtyard, silver moon-drips illuminating white feathers. “But I wouldn’t call it spying. Officially, I’ve been put in place to keep you safe, Princess.” His dark brows crease when you don’t pay him any mind. “I take my job very seriously, yeah?” 

“I can see that,” you utter, eyes still on the birds. “The only thing I need protecting from is the iron ring on your right hand.”

He startles, blinking for a moment. 

“...Parden?”

Silver eyes pierce him, watching; waiting. 

Gaz looks down, locking on the hand that has been resting on the pommel of his sword. Cape swishing, he makes a noise in the back of his throat. His sigil ring—the one that had been given over at his dubbing ceremony sat on the first digit, the engraving of his King’s coat of arms glimmering back. 

A wolf; a snake caught in its fangs. 

Brown eyes dart back, and he sheepishly smiles, huffing a chuckle of sorts. 

“Comes with the job, unfortunately,” yet still, his other hand easily grasps and slips the thing off, tucking it away into the leather pouch swinging from his belt. “I thought that was a myth—the Fae being harmed by iron. Conjured up to give people something to cling to.”

“I can name a million things that men and women like you consider myth,” you mutter, starting at that pouch, deep in thought. You hadn’t expected him to give in that easily. Your shoulders loosen their rigidness, but your chin never drops its high pride. “Every story comes from somewhere—be it reality or wives’ tales. Who’s to say that the words don’t give them life in one form or another?” 

“Bloody hell. Not a discussion to take up with me, I’m afraid,” Gaz huffs a chuckle, smirking. While still hesitant around you, the conversation wasn’t anything that made him want to not be around you. Everyone deserved to have their character shown, and what he was seeing so far wasn’t ringing any alarms. “Sound more of a scholar than a Princess, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Your lips quirk. “I prefer philosopher.”

“And what’s a Fae philosopher doing out in the middle of the night, then?” A breeze wafts through the window, blowing on your dress and making Gaz’s cape flutter in its bloodish tint. The torches whip and dance. You take a low breath, bird chips coming closer. 

“Speaking with an old friend.”

A white dove lands on the stone opening of the window, fluttering wings coming to fold along its sleek form until it shakes and settles all at once. 

“Lysander,” you say in greeting, nodding your head. Gaz watches, barely moving as his lips part in astonishment. 

Your hand extends itself, bearing no rings or bracelets. All you needed was your crown. Tiny eyes blink as an angular head turns to the side, tiny coos sparking from a rounded breast. Pale feet grasp your perfect flesh, such a tiny weight settles before you lift effortlessly; wings flapping to keep balance. 

“What news, then?” You ask in a whisper, bringing the beast to your crown. Lysander settles on one of the tines, head dipping down as feathers puff. Into your ear, words take shape. 

You hum in answer, blinking at every clicked sentence; tapping talons. 

Gaz stares blankly, eyebrows pulled up on his head and unable to articulate himself.

So many stories about your people—he hadn’t thought half of them to be true. While he’d been stationed in many places during the duration of this war, he’d never actually encountered one of the Fae before. Gaz had been told they were like a plague; they came in when you weren’t looking, spoke magic into your ears, and forced you to come back to their home and live as mindless beasts. Cupbearers and entertainment. 

Of the countless knights he’d been in line with, he knew the true names of none of them. A precaution. Forethought. 

Yet…you don’t look dangerous. 

But the man is far from stupid. 

“He says the fires from your forges burn his eyes,” your voice snaps him back to you, and he straightens, fingers twitching. Gaz finds your face already turned his way, owlish in its movements. “The smoke makes his throat ache.”

“I,” he pauses, mouth opening and closing. Brown eyes dart to the sharp-beaked dove; the thing very much like you in the way it watches him. “I’m…sorry?”

Your lips pull in a frown, sighing with a shake of your head. 

I can never survive here, you find yourself thinking. I believed this is what I had to do, but if this is how I’m going to live…

“Tell me about your King, Gaz,” your body swiftly turns, feet carrying you down the corridor once more with long, even, steps. “If I’m to marry him, I will know of his nature.”

The man clears his throat and follows after, where you hear the clinking of silver and the scabbard against his thigh. He glances over at you, walking if not a bit behind yourself in proper fashion. 

“What do you want to know, Ma’am?”

Your unnatural orbs shimmer, and the bird on your crown hunkers down; puffed contently and eager to rest his wings from a long flight. 

“Everything. I will not be unaware of my fate.” 

“Well,” Gaz sighs, rubbing at his chin with his opposite hand. He licks his lips, mind running to answer the best he can. “You’ll not want for anything—finery and wealth will—”

“I do not care about mortal revelry. I need neither fine things nor wealth.” Your voice curtly moves along the open air. The Knight’s boots connect with stone while your bare flesh emits nothing. “His character, Knight. Is he fair—just?”

Gaz’s face tightens, glancing from you to the hallway as he takes a moment to think.

“My King has…become troubled with the turning tides of the war. I’m sure when your marriage is official, he’ll go back to how he was before.” He doesn’t seem certain, but loyalty is a trait that a knight knows well. You had been set as his charge, of course, not under the best of circumstances, but he would do his job how he believed would benefit all parties. Even if his guts were stiff at the thought of a forced marriage. 

“My Lady Stag?” He asks, and your heart jerks unexpectedly at the muttering of your title. 

Blinking in confusion, your hand coming up to rub at your collarbone like a willow branch, you almost miss the question entirely. 

“Where you come from, if I can ask, of course, what’s it like?” Your mind strays from marriage ceremonies and consummation—momentary peace slipping in on waves of this man’s smooth accent. 

Mouth opening, only to close once and open again, you decide to indulge this man with your answer. If only because he speaks of your home. 

“Green,” is the soft utterance of your answer to him. “It’s green. More trees and rivers than you can count in your lifetime. Animals each more fantastical than the last; all of which your people now call nothing but hearsay.” 

You can sense his attention, sucking up knowledge as if he had the years to know and understand it all. 

Lysander coos, shaking his feathers out, and you glance upward without moving your head. You chuckle like a blade of moving grass. 

Blinking, Gaz slowly begins to smile, cocking his skull to the side boyishly. “What’s so funny, then?”

Your high nose twitches. 

“He says you’re as if a Wyvern hatching. A curious thing.” Brown eyes drift to your companion, whose peaked eye pierces like black fire-stone. Gaz’s mouth releases a puff of a chuckle, chest jerking. 

“Hell, never thought I’d get insulted by a bird.” 

“Humans have not the ability to speak with beasts,” you ease out, walking on. “On that, I have to say you are at a sure disadvantage.”

“What?” Gaz’s amused voice is in your ear. “Minus the whole immortality thing?”

You side-eye him, visage calm with decades of understanding. “Not everything is built to last forever.”

A momentary silence falls between the two of you. Eyes locked, you both stare, legs carrying bodies across the unfeeling stone until the area Lysander had told you about takes form. You shift a slow right and exit into the inner courtyard, large stone walls making a small square of patchy green grass and dying plants. A fountain sits still. 

“If this is to be a game of equal exchange, Knight, I desire to ask the next question.” Your eyes take it all in, hand moving out to capture the blackened leaves of a Medlar tree. Frowning at the dead fauna, you hear Lysander take to wing, flapping until his ghostly form lands on the far-off fountain’s edge. 

“Alright,” Gaz nods, looking around at the dying place with a frown as well. He’d never come here before, but the state of things was…sad, really. “Ask away.”

“When you leave the castle—the town,” you let power move to your fingertips, and you feel the tingles of it running the lengths of your arms like ice and fire; taking a low breath. “What do you see? I admit, I’m not used to having company with humans. I know not how their souls feel.”

Gaz walks into the small enclosed space, humming as he taps the pommel of his sword. His shoulders shrug as his head tilts up, blinking at the stars. 

“I wouldn’t see it as you would, I gather.”

You look over your shoulder, amusement in your face mixed with a slice of intrigue. “That wasn’t my question. But, no, you would not.” 

“Figured,” he chuckles, nodding at you. Gaz articulates himself dutifully. “I see a place far more peaceful than the one here. Outside the stone and smog—it’s beautiful, truly. Calm. You can actually think above the noise, you know? I usually find myself wanting to get out more often, but my duty ties me here.” 

Your eyes soften slightly, thumb running the face of the leaf as you take in his words. Lysander stoops to take a sip of water. 

“You’re…” You lack the words, only humming and stopping yourself. 

“Why are we here, Princess?” Gaz asks you, gazing around. “I had only expected you to walk to the kitchens—the library, even. Don’t get me wrong, you can go as you wish, but I’m not sure this is the most…” He grunts. “Sightly place to end up. Everything’s dead.”

“Nearly,” you whisper, a tiny smile taking over your flesh. “Not quite.” 

Gaz’s frown is lost to you, as is his comment that he mutters, “Looks it.”

Leaning forward, you press your lips to the leaf you hold as if a precious object. Into its blackened and shriveled form, you whisper its name—its true name, one you had learned through years of patience and trust that bordered on an entirely trance-like state. A Medlar is a tough and stubborn thing, like the fruit it bears, it will hang on until all else is gone to dust. Its roots are strong, and from them, you had listened to the earth sing its songs one buzzing note at a time.

All things speak, you just have to know how to listen. 

There’s a surge of wild order, a dichotomy of will and freedom; the sing of an axe and the memories of young saplings just gracing their leaves to the sun. A circle of death and rebirth as old as the stars that still shone in a sky of black. 

You know many names, but those of the trees were the first to come to you, and it was only proper. Before anything, there were trees. 

The Medlar shakes, its leaves dropping down one at a time until they come in groups, in clusters—bare branches shiver like dogs do until creaking ballads move over the air. 

Starling, Gaz had taken a large step back, hand snapping to the handle of his sword, the blade half drawn. Lysander flies past his face, blunt talons skating the close-cropping of his hair before the bird grapples to your crown. Flinching, the knight watched with a mixture of horror and pure wonder.

The tree was sprouting new greens. 

You step back, and from your feet, the dead grass quivers, before the smell of groaning earth makes his nose twitch; fresh blades show themselves anew. The dove atop your crown jumps from one sharp tine to the next, dodging lines of gold—eyes glinting and wings flapping excitedly. 

Life is in the very air. 

You smile to yourself, silver eyes moving as a nearly ancient-looking spark flares to life in them—a long breath entering your lungs. 

Gaz’s face begins to heat as he watches, his heart pounding with something he can’t understand. He stares at your bright face before his fast-blinking eyes move to the grass growing all around; the bushes dancing, flowers opening up and turning to you. Birds gather on the edges of this verdant and fertile land, darting one by one to the fountain and to the trees. Singing.  

The knight steps back, feet dancing over the ground with an airy laugh stuck in his throat. 

“Holy hell…” he breathes, nearly panting. 

Wide eyes move back to you, expression open, innocent. This was a moment when you truly believed you’d never seen a face more bare than this; more giving. 

“You…” He laughs. “You’re tellin’ me you could always do that?” You chuckle, and it is a sound that could make roots grow in his heart, flowers bursting from his lungs. “I…I’m speechless, really. This is,” he laughs once more, turning a full circle, with his hand going to the back of his neck in shock. It was entirely new—all of it. Ivy climbed the stone, and the animals spoke and flew in the air; excitement something that transcends species. “This is extraordinary.”

You were something incredible. 

Chuckling, you raise a slow brow, feeling a foreign heat move over your cheeks. It’s a moment before you speak, taken aback by the reverency.

“My thanks, Knight,” your head nods his way, a simple dip of your chin and nothing more. “But this is only a small courtyard. A fraction. If I so wished, forests could grow from ashen ground.”

“How?” He asks you, eyes glittering more than the moon. 

Smaller birds join Lysander on your head, finches, perhaps, and sparrows. They tweet and chip, speaking their thanks. You reach up and let one move onto your finger, bringing it back to eye level as you move to softly connect your forehead to its own. Moving back, you hum and watch the bird fly off.

“Ages of practice,” you elegantly tip your head his way, careful of your cargo. “Quite verbatim.” 

Gaz is speechless, unable to recall something in his life that had made him feel so special to be able to witness it. Magic to humans was a dying thing—you’d be surprised if he’d ever even seen it in this magnitude before. 

“...Amazing,” he utters under his breath, smiling like a fool.

For all of your Fae trickery, your games, you had to be honest. “I don’t believe I thought you’d be this moved by it.”

“Really?” He blinks at you, a boyish twist to his face. “How could I bloody not be, Love?”

Your air gets stuck in your throat, eyes minutely widening. 

Gaz quickly comes back to himself, straightening and clearing his throat as your face suddenly blazes in a way that startles you. Heart pattering like a horse’s hooves not only at the…different title but his awe at your magic as well. 

“Forgive me, My Lady,” you choose not to correct him. “I overstepped.”

His body bends forward in a deep bow, hand to his heart, resting over his armor as the cape drapes its crimson fabric to the now vibrant grass. 

It had briefly eluded you that you were to be married soon. A comment like that could get the Knight and his tree-bark brown eyes put to the sword. You hold back a long sigh, eyelids fluttering shut softly. 

“Is he kind?” Your question is small, but it moves like a knife.

Gaz stares hard at the ground, once dead and nothing but a reminder of nature. He clenches his jaw, a worry swirling in his gut. The man knows who you’re asking about, and he holds the same dread he did in the Great Hall as you were led like a sacrificial lamb to the altar. 

Maybe the Knight was broken, but even if he’d never met one of your kind before, he knew that no person deserved to be bartered for the illusion of peace—forced to give children like they were only objects. But maybe he was also just a man not meant for this lifetime.

It was the way of things.

Gaz swallows the tension in his shoulders. He will not lie. 

“...No.”

—

This tall knight had become a constant at your side. Officially, he’d been placed for your protection, but you knew it was because the King didn’t want you to cut and run. 

But unless there was a very good reason to, he should have known that you were not the running type. It was a battle of wits, and even into your marriage, you would always come out on top.

It started easy enough—Michael would invite you for tours of the castle ‘making it a home’ he’d said in front of his court. It was a power trip. 

He’d talk about his wealth like it would make you swoon; like you cared at all. You could only hide your sneer for so many hours, even with your infinite amount of patience. Time had mellowed you like the rocks of the ocean, but even they cracked when the storm was strong enough. 

Yet still, you considered yourself too intelligent for baseline insults.

“My palace was much the same, your Highness. Our towers rose high—nearly gracing the clouds themselves.”

“Oh, lovely, my King. Pray tell, do you also have pet dragons? Oh…unicorns, perhaps? My, I had the most lovely unicorn companion when I was just shy of my two-hundredth birth year. A little thing—all legs and neck. Beautiful creatures.” 

“Gorgeous little trinkets. Tell me, do you have a coffer for fallen stars? They create the most magnificent illumination for late-night reading.”

Gaz nearly lost his composure at times, even if no one else could tell except for you and your pointed ears; twitching at every breath that was fought to keep still. The over-the-lip huffs and chuckles. In fact, you found yourself perpetuating the back-handed insults just to hear those noises. Such small and meaningless things, in the grand scheme. 

You took…enjoyment from it.

Seeing the effect it had on the King was also a bonus—his raging eyes, snapping tongue held back for only his reputation and little more. He wanted to take you by the arm and shake you, you knew, yell in your face. 

Kind, King Michael was not. Gaz had been correct. 

In the nights, you would discuss with the Knight—sitting in the dense and growing courtyard with your body comfortable on the grass; Gaz’s on the fountain’s edge.

You have much of the same confidence in one another as you do tonight. 

“Do knights marry for love?” Your voice wafts out, petting Lysander with a single finger in your lap; itching at his neck as he coos. “Do they get to choose?” 

Gaz fiddles with his cape’s clasp, fingers dancing over the silver make. He has made a motion to always take off his ring when it’s just the two of you, easily slipping it away until he was forced to put it back on. He doesn’t know if you feel it, but he believes the two of you to be well-off acquaintances—perhaps even friends. 

The man enjoyed speaking to you. He reveled in the limitless knowledge that spilled from your tongue, your stories and tales. Gaz, unlike so many others, enjoyed your company not for the power that it offers in a physical sense, but for the words that you freely give. Often your sentences were like honey to him, seeping into his head.

A princess speaking with a knight? Unheard of. A Fae princess? Blasphemy. 

It was easy to forget that you were older than many generations of his family line. 

“No,” he says, glancing over. “All knights take a vow of chastity when they commit to service. None of those alive in this kingdom will wed unless they willingly break their oaths.” 

Your head tilts, crown resting comfortably a small distance away on a rock.

“That sounds lonely.”

Gaz smiles, “Worried about me?” 

You stare, eyes traveling the little deaths on his face—the lines, the scars. “If it’s what you wish to do with yourself, who am I to tell you any different?” 

The man’s face softens, lips pulling as his cheeks heat under the moonlight. “Figured you’d have some opinion of it.”

You hum, raising a brow. “It’s your life—it’s so fleeting. Tread it as if water between your fingers. Before you know it, it’ll be gone.” Lysander leans into your flesh, shivering. “Live it.”

“For someone who says they don’t know humans that well,” Gaz grumbles, though his chest is light. “You sure know a lot about them.”

“Intuition,” your mouth twitches in a smile. “And a bit of reality.”

Delicate looks are shared. 

You do admit, you liked these conversations with Gaz. The long nights and the feeling of grass under your flowing dresses; the horrid contraptions that your betrothed had tried to make you wear stuck far back into the wardrobe of your room. Heavy items—suffocating corsets, unlike the simple but elegantly sewn one you wear now. You could feel it trying to sneak in when the days drew on. 

Control. 

It was all becoming more and more apparent. You did not want to live like this. 

Your face goes troubled as the calm silence moves over the Medlar with its reaching branches. Fireflies hang like miniature stars as you take your crown and slip it back on; to feel the comforting weight of antlers. 

The knight pauses as he slips his cape off of his shoulder, blinking over at you in a slow confusion. You look troubled. He’d never seen that expression on your face before.

“Stag?” Your head swivels, as if in another world.

“Just thinking,” your voice moves into his ears, making them hum with energy. Gaz’s brows furrow, a frown taking over. After a second, he stands, moving closer on quiet feet. 

You watch him as he goes to kneel near you, one arm moving over the bent nature of his leg while the other holds fabric—letting it cascade over the earth. Brown eyes narrow, and a joking tease moves with the undertone of slight concern.

“I’m usually the talker, I know, but when you look a bit like that it makes me nervous.”

You frown. “Look like what?”

“Like someone’s got a sword to your neck, Princess.” The air is cool here, the deep throws of night taking you by the breath in your throat. A smooth smirk. “It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen, yeah?”

If you leave, if you find a way out of this…the war will never end. It will go on until stone cracks like glass and generations forget why it even started in the first place. 

But why were you put to the axe because of it? Why must you take the blade to the stomach—an object of greed? 

Gaz’s amused voice moves lower at your immobile lips, going serious. 

“Hey,” a hand outstretched to your arm, hovering. “Really, is everything alright?”

“Gaz,” you pause, voice still level despite your heated pulse. It’s like a snake curls itself in your guts, roots growing in your veins. The courtyard seems to shiver all by itself, leaves curling into themselves from bushes and trees. Lysander’s feet shimmy, head moving about. 

This knight had been kind to you as well as honest about his intentions. Chivalrous. Such qualities are hard to come by anymore.

“I don’t believe I want this.” It’s a breath more quiet than a lapping of waves. Gaz stills, fingers above your flesh twitching. “I can’t live in a cage. I refuse.”

Silver meets brown, holding it firmly. 

“I will not be a prize to be chained to a birthing bed.” 

The man’s face pulls at that, tightening. 

You don’t know what to expect. It isn’t fear in you—no, nothing like this could make you afraid. Apprehensive? Perhaps. Age made you cautious. At any moment he might flip his tune; run off to tattle to a King he, seemingly, likes just as much as you. Which is to say, very little. But there’s still the possibility, the knowledge stacked over ages and ages of strategy and mind games. 

A knight of a tension-ridden kingdom, swearing fealty to a King whom you’re betrothed to. You’d just expressed treason, in a way. It could put you to the sword; to the rope. To irons. Your mind runs through the millions of possibilities, not able to settle on a single one before—

A cape settles over your shoulders, startling you. 

Hand snapping to grab the front, your head snaps up, eyes wider than you can remember them ever going. 

Soft browns meet you, a thin smile. Fireflies buzz about, and a dove sits under your still finger, watching with beady orbs intently at the scene. A Medlar quivers. 

A stag and a knight breathe the same air. A godly creation and a saint ensnared in a song far larger than they intend, as the world shifts past all around them. Silver starlight leaves long reflections breaking from the hanging glory of your gems, but the patches of light on Gaz’s face capture yours in that instant far more than they should have. 

Impossibly so. Unnaturally so. 

Does this mortal have magic of his own, perhaps? You have to ask yourself. There was no other possibility. 

And when he speaks…it’s like whatever ice has been layered over your antediluvian heart breaks into fire. There wasn’t even a fight from him.

“Then tell me what you need.”

TAGS:

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[the-greatest-magic-of-all]

With such a God-focused season, one day, once Junior Year is finished and I have both the time and energy to do it, I want to make a Fantasy High God AU zine. It'd be from the pov of a mythologist/theologian in Spyre who's found strange links between minor deities throughout different regions' pantheons.

Half-Elves have a God of Dance and Flames who has been said to have defeated a Tiefling vagabond (and tamed his Hellhound mount) and charmed Fire itself with only a dance and his silk battle sheet. And if you look deep enough into his history there are rare depictions of him wearing an oddly shaped pendant and riding into battle with a sling-wielding Goblin peeking out of his rucksack. Interestingly enough, there's a minor Goblin God of Justice and Mysteries, the son of a Goblin Folk Hero and the Goblin Goddess of Knowledge, Laws, and Justice, who famously wields his father's enchanted sling. Though he and his father are often shown with angelic wings. So, why would he dally with a God so closely associated with Fiends?

Tieflings have a trickster Goddess of Music, Rebellion, and Devotion. The daughter of an Archdevil and a Wood Elven Goddess of Archery & the Wilderness. She's said to be a paramour of a Half-Phoenix Pirate Goddess of Wizardry and Knowledge and once toured the lands, performing with a Half-Orc companion. A lot of artistic recreations of that tour depict the Half-Orc companion with flower motifs that correspond with a Gnomish/Half-Orcish God of Tinkering and Rage. One that once outwitted a Sphynx and regained his spurned Saytr paramour's love by speaking to/reaching the stars with the help of a band of Tinkerer Gnomes.

There are tales of a Twice Risen Goddess who was once the chosen one of the Demigod Helio, but took one look at him and thought she could do better. With the wisdom to raise Gods from the dead and remove unholy rites without any divine power other than her own, this God-Saint of Doubt travels across Spyre not to spread her own religion but to inquire about others. This deep curiosity is probably how she ended up in some Fallinel depictions of the First Elven Oracle, who upon death ascended to becoming the Goddess of Sight, Intelligence and Righteous Fury. There are even short hymns written about the Oracle foreseeing the God-Saint's rise (against the Elven Moon Goddess' wishes) and of the God-Saint banishing some dark entity from possessing the Oracle with only a profane curse of its name.

And even more stuff connecting them all. Like the fact that all of them have tales of them defeating an Ancient Red Dragon. Or the tales of The Festival of the Crab King: a strange, delirious story of mortals witnessing a euphoric revelry of the deific kind that involved all these Gods from different pantheons.

[muxshwriting]

take me to church

Aleksander Morozova x reader

summary: after you get hurt, Aleksander begins to pray to a higher power he lost faith in long ago || warnings: injuries, angst, questioning faith || words: 581 || masterlist

"Bring her in."

Aleksander watched as a broken and bloody body was dragged into the room by two guards, his face turning thunderous. They threw you to the ground just in front of the him and stood back as you groaned in pain.

"Found this one in a West corridor, trying to break into your chamber General." One of the guards spat.

"Do you have any idea who this is?" Kirigan's voice thundered through the hall. No one had ever heard him so angry. Ivan stepped forward from his post, intent on making the guards suffer. Fedyor, on the other hand, approached you on the floor and wrapped a hand around your wrist, steadying your rapid heart.

The guard swallowed nervously. "She was breaking in to your rooms sir."

Aleksander seemed to only grow angrier. "Regardless of if she was or was not breaking into my rooms, why was this not reported to me?"

"We are reporting it to you now Sir- General. She was taken into custody this morning." The guard seemed to trail off as he realised the hole he had dug for himself.

Aleksander glanced back at Ivan and nodded his head. Within an instant, the two guards were on the floor, dead. He knelt by your side, catching sight of all the cuts and bruises you were sporting. The anger rose once again. They had you for less than four hours and had done immense damage.

"Get me a healer. Now!" Without another word, he gently brought your head onto his knees. He moved a piece of hair from your eyes and cupped your face gently. "How is she?" He whispered to Fedyor, almost scared of the answer.

"She's strong." He reassured. "Her heartbeat is steady and it's getting stronger by the minute. She'll be waking up soon."

He moved his hand from her wrist and let Aleksander's replace it. He clung to your wrist like a lifeline, holding his fingers in to feel your heartbeat and pressing a brief kiss to your knuckles. You stirred. A low groan escaping your lips as you try to shift your battered body.

Aleksander was quick to shush you. "It's alright. Don't move, okay. You're going to be fine."

"Aleks?" Your eyes slowly peeled open, staring up at Aleksander and immediately meeting his gaze, your eyes filling with tears as you did. "Sasha..."

A small smile graced Aleksander's lips as the door opened and Ivan came rushing in with a healer. It truly was a sight to see; the General of the Second Army was kneeling on the ground beside a beaten girl.

"I’m tired." You whispered. A tear slipped down your face.

"It’s okay." Aleksander whispered back. "You’re gonna be fine. Just go to sleep, okay? I’ll be here when you wake up."

To fall in love is to create a religion with a fallible god. And that's exactly what you were, fallible and mortal.

With the reassurement, you fully relax and let your eyes slip shut. Aleksander ran his hand through your hair, the movement sending you to sleep. Even after the healer began to work, he stayed. He watched as your brow furrowed, then relaxed. He would stay from now on.

For the first time in a while, in a long, long while, Aleksander prayed. He had been around to see many Saints rise and fall. Because of that, he had stopped believing long ago. But maybe he should have believed. He would believe now, for you.

if you want to be added to the taglist for these, let me know! as always, likes and reblogs help me grow and inspire me to write more xx

[pyrrhiccomedy]

the one thing I have heard probably the most consistently, from the most people, since being diagnosed with breast cancer, is that I have a "good attitude;" meaning, that I make jokes about having cancer, which makes whoever is listening to me feel better about the fact that I have cancer.

Here's the thing - the worst part of having cancer (so far, in my experience - I'll update as this progresses) is having to live with the constant, oppressive dread that right now, somewhere in my body, a cancer cell is taking root in my bones, or in my lungs. That it will silently grow, and spread, and eventually become rampant and untreatable, killing me decades before my time, and I won't know that I'm on that course until it's too late to do anything about it. That I will have to leave my wife alone, that she will have to watch me die painfully and without dignity, and that I will leave this world without having had the time to see so much of what makes it beautiful and strange.

this is not a funny thought!

However, the second worst part of having cancer is - okay, so they removed the tumor, right, and at the same time, they also removed a clump of lymph nodes in my armpit. They do that to test whether or not the cancer has spread. So coming out of surgery, I have two incision sites: one above where the tumor was, and the other one on my trunk right about where your bra passes under your arm.

And that means I'm not allowed to wear deodorant for ten days.

Imagine me: stinky, in my bed. I am an adult woman with a beating heart. I will not claim I have any greater share of dignity or wisdom than a typical example of my cohort, but I have lived and learned and erred, and amassed a small collection of accomplishments which I would not be ashamed to present to God at my reckoning, should such a being exist, and should such a reckoning take place. Times when I have shown meaningful kindness to someone when it would have been more convenient or popular to do nothing. Times when I have told a necessary truth to my own painful detriment. Things I have made that possessed, to at least a meager measure, a glimmer of genuine beauty. Trust I have earned, and not betrayed. I'm not a saint, but my soul is not nothing, and as I am forced to reckon with my own mortality in a way that few people my age ever do, I, like - I smell pretty bad? And like - my armpit is, like, clammy. I mean, how long has it been since you didn't wear deodorant for multiple days. There's a change in texture that I was not expecting. Just in the right armpit! The left armpit is fine, she gets to have deodorant.

But like, stress makes the B.O. situation not so hot, and I'm medically prohibited from doing the one thing that would rectify the situation. I own deodorant. It's right over there. I can see it from where I'm sitting. I am sure you understand of course that I am immersed in greater miseries. Even aside from the existential dread of having cancer - the incisions are painful. I'm very tired. I have two blown-out veins from when the anesthesiologist struggled to find a workable injection site before the surgery, so I have some wild bruising, and I can't really bend my left arm. But these are afflictions with some dignity. To have pain or fatigue after surgery is rather ennobled in the common discourse. But - do I have to smell like ham, too?

Must I smell like rank ham?

Of course the solution to the ham smell is just to take more showers, but bathing after surgery presents its own category of woes, which are also not particularly dignified. And it's here, caught betwixt the Scylla and Charybdis of 'smelling like old meat' and 'unwinding my boob from its surgical sling to take another ride around the wet room rodeo' that I find the humor in my situation. The feeble ape rails against her trivial but intractable stink!

And that humor spreads - much like cancer! - to everything else that it touches. It is, actually, very funny to tell someone that the joke Christmas gift they got for me is probably what gave me cancer. It's funny, when people find out I got my diagnosis on January 2nd, to blandly follow that up with "--So, 2024, not off to a great start, but 2025 is going to be my year." It's funny, when someone invites me to something we both know I probably don't want to go to, to suck air between my teeth and go, "Ooh, I would, but, you know--the cancer. Yeah, I can feel it flaring up right now. Maybe next time."

Things are funny when they subvert your expectations. People expect you to treat your cancer diagnosis very gravely, and so it's funny - to them, and to me - when I don't. And then they tell me I have "a great attitude."

"You'll be fine," I've heard over and over again. "You have a great attitude. That's the most important thing, in this kind of a situation - keeping a great attitude."

I certainly hope that's true! There is definitely plenty of science to support the idea that a positive mental attitude has an impact on health outcomes. I think the effectiveness of modern chemotherapy drugs, and the extent to which my particular cancer responds to them, will have a significantly larger impact; and that moreover, it's probably prudent to remember that people with great attitudes die of cancer every day. But I will not turn my nose up at a percentage point or two perhaps coming from the willingness to crack jokes about all the cancer I've got, and how surprised I was to learn that I'd got it.

As I suggested up top, I know that when people say "you have a great attitude," they sometimes genuinely mean that they are pleased to find me in a mental state that might increase my chances of recovering from a deadly disease, but mostly they mean "thanks for not being a huge bummer about your cancer. I appreciate you for not ruining my day about it." And I'm completely okay with that. Like, yeah - I am deliberately sparing you from the burden of having to Take Seriously my life-threatening condition. You're welcome. I, too, would rather avoid this conversation on one of the finite number of Thursdays God has seen fit to grant unto the measure of our lives. What the fuck are you supposed to do about any of this?

(Shout out to my one good work buddy who, on hearing the news, instantly responded with "Oh my god, Geri Hallwell aka Ginger Spice also got breast cancer young! You're like twins!" Thus far he is the only person who has said something in response to the news that actually made an immediate, positive impact.)

So anyway, obviously all I ever say in response to "you have a great attitude" is "Thanks! I'm just focusing on the positives and taking it a day at a time." Because that's true, and moreover, it's all anyone needs to hear.

What I'd like to say - not to them, because there's no point in burdening them any further than the embarrassing reminder of death burdens anyone - but maybe to someone, maybe just to You, maybe that's why I'm writing this -

What I'd like to say is: dogg, you have no idea how subverted my expectations have been lately. How could I not find this funny?

How profoundly alienated from the absurdity of death would I have to be to not laugh about this?

Like - I know this is so stupid, but listen: I could die. No, no - listen - no I know everyone dies - but like - are you listening? Are you actually listening? I could die. I could die. I could die. I could die.

Isn't that so funny? Isn't that actually so funny?

And this - this attitude that I'm in, right now, this one right here, where shaking my head ruefully and marveling at the - maybe belated, but I think probably actually quite premature - realization that oh no, 'everyone dies' means for me too, huh - and laughing at myself for never, apparently, really grasping that until now, and laughing at the incredible statistical unlikelihood my cancer - I've never won anything before! - and laughing at how woefully ill-prepared most people are to respond to news like this, and laughing about how, of everything terrible about cancer, the actual number-two-on-the-list worst thing about it so far is that I can't put on deodorant -

Is this the great attitude you're talking about?

I'm not angry, I'm not resentful, I'm curious, I'm really curious. Do you understand why I'm laughing?

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

@smoozie okay!!!!! i just finished figuring out every hermits godly origin so.

the basic premise of the AU is that every single hermit is a god, or a being of similar power (except for Xisuma, who didn't intend to be admin of a server of mostly gods and DOESNT UNDERSTAND HOW THIS HAPPENED TO HIM GODDAMNIT.) together, they make up a pantheon thats occasionally worshiped by members of other servers, which some of them lean into and others find very, very uncomfortable. It's also a "being worshiped makes you more powerful" setting so there's that.

specifics as to their origins:

BDubs - A living saint of the sun and its light. Inherits some small amount of divine power from this, and says that this makes him a god. The other gods, especially Gem (who helped to grant him this power) think this is very cute of him.

Beef - A semi-omniscient demigod who mostly acts in service of other, greater gods. His latest patron is Big Salmon, a "higher power" that he claims controls the concepts of the water, consequences, and commerce.

Cleo - All Cleos across the multiverse have been left in mental contact with each other after the Time Witch's ritual. They form a powerful network between them, altogether controlling the flow of time and space across the servers they intersect with.

Cub - Through blood sacrifice, poorly understood magic, and worship of Vex gods, rendered himself functionally immortal. This was a science experiment for him, but he'll take immortality if it's what the end result comes to.

Doc - Achieved code-warping levels of power after the successful slaying of a Developer in single combat. Xisuma frequently enlists his help in keeping the server stable, because surprise surprise, 26 gods in the same place of vastly different origins makes the code a bit unstable.

Etho - Shapeshifting trickster god. Old, though not the oldest member of the server. Sometimes claims that he's following a script handed down by beings above him, though most other members of the server think he's saying that to dodge responsibility for his mischief.

False - False and her sister Symmetra were natural-born deities, worshiped as counterparts. False is worshiped as goddess of victory, art, and the water, while Symmetra is worshiped as goddess of defeat, industry, and the earth. False hasn't seen her sister in hundreds of years, and over time their worshipers combined their iconography into a single god.

Gem - Gem is a dimension-hopping, shapeshifting celestial being with domain over nature and sunlight. She pretends not to know what other members of the server are talking about when they bring this up, and mostly uses her powers for LARP purposes.

Grian - Watcher. Has claimed the server as his own, and thus sustains himself on high-intensity emotions of its occupants. To sate this hunger, he regularly starts wars, games, and other server events.

Hypno - A mage who ascended to demigod status through feats of arcane prowess. Longstanding enemies, dating back to their mortal days, with Wels. Their feud has become more amicable recently, thank god.

Impulse - He and Tango have the same origin, having ascended as part of the Rule Our World challenge they were placed into. After the forces of the universe were done subjecting them to whatever whims crossed their minds, Impulse became the embodiment of achievement and industriousness, while Tango became the embodiment of chaos and games.

Iskall - Part of the first group of players that Developers ever made. Escaped the purge of the first players, and has been dimension-hopping and stealing power from different servers ever since. Technically still mortal, but has been alive longer than any of the other server members.

Jevin - A demigod, and champion of the demigod Wels. Jevin was granted some of Wels's power under the condition that he helped Wels bother Hypno, which Jevin is more than okay to do. When he's not using divine power to prank Hypno, he's using it to prank everyone else.

Joe - Has, on separate occasions, claimed to be both "the most powerful of the Hermits" and "just an average guy." When pressed on what made him more powerful than the gods and eldritch beings he kept as company, Joe just smiled and said "I'm Joe Hills, recording as I always do in Nashville, Tennessee." Nobody knows what this means.

Joel - Joel Thundercheeks of Stratos, an 11-foot tall deity of lightning, lore, and the skies. His abrasive personality and tendency to throw power around made some question whether he should be invited, but Gem and Pearl advocated for him hard. He's used to being the only god around, so he's a bit surprised that throwing his power around doesn't always work now.

Keralis - Fragment of an eldritch being, and the conduit through which most of its power expresses itself. Bridges dimensions, and travels through time as easily as it does space. Unclear whether he is aware of any of this.

Mumbo - Was a mortal, though he has rendered himself immortal through animancy. His own soul is bound inside of a golden heart inside of his S7 base, and he has supplemented it with a fragment of Grian's, making him part-Watcher.

Pearl - Santa Perla, goddess of flowers, the harvest, the summer solstice, and the noonday sun. Thought she was mortal until the Empires crossover, when she remembered her past queendom. Her life force is tied to the lands she cultivates, so she has taken careful effort to ensure all her bases are verdant and flourishing.

Ren - One day declared himself "the king of all gods" despite not having been a god before this. None of the other Hermits were particularly willing to challenge him on this since it seemed harmless. Somehow, though, news of it spread, and he has established a fairly thorough following across other servers as a god of leadership, trade, travel, and theater.

Scar - Ate God. Which one? He never elaborates. Oh, sure, he'll go into detail about, say, the recipe he used to cook God, but ask him which God he ate, or how he killed it first, and he just brushes right past it. His power can't be denied, though, so he must be telling the truth.

Skizz - Suffused with Withering Energy, and acts as a bringer of doom and despair because of it. Oh, sure, he's a really nice and supportive guy, and everybody loves him, but also things tend to collapse around him in dramatic and spectacular fashion. Hermitcraft has only survived because of the power of 25 other gods crushing any disaster before it happens.

Stress - Goddess of hope, beauty, and love. Unfortunately, she was cursed a long time ago by Iskall when they first met, adopting a monstrous form, which is worshiped as a deity of doom, evil, and hate. He's been very apologetic about it since and offered to help her reverse the curse, but she's overall very happy with the state of things. They've become very close friends.

Tango - See Impulse. Unlike most gods, who become more powerful the more they're worshiped, Tango draws power directly from the souls of those who perish inside his games, which has made him somewhat giddy about the concept of death in general.

Wels - A knight and folk hero who ascended to demigod status from the pure gratitude of those who he saved. Considered a patron of justice and protection. Over the years, he's become bored with this, and gotten into quite a bit of mischief. See also Jevin and Hypno.

XB - A mortal godkiller. He ruthlessly hunts gods outside the server in order to make them answer for their crimes against mortals. Within the server, he also occasionally kills the others, just for funsies.

Zed - Avatar of Death. Controls the process of respawning, though he often gets so distracted that he forgets to actually pay attention to it, leaving some players in limbo for quite a while before he remembers he has to pay attention to their souls.

[blogdemocratesjr]

Statue of Joan of Arc in the spot where she perished

That, to me, is the fascination of France's national saint—not just the subject of a biography, not merely a picturesque figure in armour and a scarlet cloak, but a figure who challenges some of the profoundest tenets of what we do or do not believe. More, perhaps, than any other military figure in history, she forces us to think.

She makes us think, and she makes us question; she uncovers the dark places into which we may fear to look. We read, and, having read, are left with the essential queries: Does God on occasion manifest Himself by direct methods? Is the visible world the only world we have to consider? Is it possible for mortal man to get into touch with beings of another world? Is it possible that unearthly guidance may be vouchsafed to assist our human fallibility? Is it possible that certain beings are born with a sixth sense, a receptivity so far beyond that of their duller fellows that in order to explain it we take refuge in such words as "miraculous" and "supernatural"?

—Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc

[nunalastor]

Zelda au

Similar to the Zelda's royal bloodline, Alastor in this AU has the blood of the goddess running through their veins. Alastor is female in this au and is the descendant of a mortal who is reincarnated from a goddess. The goddess could be the sibling/daughter of God that created this world. When Lucifer gave Eve the apple in this AU, it caused a chain effect where Roo/Demise was released unto the world. In order to stop the spread of malice and evil, the goddess sacrifice herself to seal the evil away and banished it to the deepest pit of hell.

Like any Zelda game, seals don't last forever and needs to be renew every once in a while. So the goddess chose to be reincarnated as a human, and whenever it seems the seal is about to break, the descendant of the reincarnated human will be able to perform a sacred ritual on earth to re-seal the evil. The bloodline is almost 100% guarantee go to heaven. Especially the one that perform the sacred ritual, they are practically saints.

However, Roo/Demise has gotten smarter over the thousands of years of being seal and re-seal away. They hatched up a plan, they would trap the latest descendant that would be performing the latest sacred ritual in to hell. This would allow them to corrupt the descendant and use their divinity power and bloodline to free them from their prison. Unfortunately for Alastor, she was the one who will be performing the sacred ritual that year. After Alastor performed the ritual, she can feel something is wrong. The seal is renewed, but something is very wrong. She can feel it in her soul.

This is proven correct, when after she died, she ended up in hell. Alastor was very confused at first but since it's Alastor she just rolled with it. Cue her being an Overlord very quickly, with divinity power and all. By the time Hazbin started, everyone has the impression of Alastor of being super evil and probably has very dark magic, ironically.

Meanwhile, Heaven is freaking out because their latest saint is missing and no where to be found and the seal on Roo/Demise is acting very strange. I can also see Lucifer freaking out when he first meet Alastor. Like this woman is reeking divinity but is also very hot?!!? Why is she in hell?? Is heaven planning an attack??? And again, why is she so hot???

Anonymous asked:

Zelda Au

Since Alastor is a descendant of a goddess in this AU, she is willing to give redemption a benefit of a doubt. Make no mistake, she still thinks sinner should be damned for their lives and deserved to be in this pit of cesspool for the rest of their afterlives but she can also see that there are people who just made mistakes and can get better. Whether or not is up to them, after all you can't get better until you choose to want to get better. After seeing Charlie commercial on TV, she figured why not? It's not like she has anything better to do and the princess redemption plan does have merit no matter how disastrous as it is.

When Alastor show up at the Hazbin Hotel, she is met with somewhat hostility. This is due to her divine blood causing the demons/sinner to subconsciously trigger their flight or fight instincts. Everyone seems a little on edge with her with the exception of Vaggie who seems a bit more relaxed due to being an angel. After the partnership is established, Alastor summons Husk and Niffty.

Husk and Niffty is a bit different in this au with Alastor being different and all. For Husk, he is still the same but can tell something is different about Alastor. He can sense that Alastor is not a normal sinner and probably not even a normal human to begin with. Alastor won Husk's soul like in the canon. But in this au, Alastor saw there is Husk can be better. So in a mess up way to help Husk, she leash his soul so that she can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't lose himself any more further than he's currently is.

As for Niffty, she just saw this crazy sinner and decide "Yeah, this is my daughter now". Lots of cute mother-daughter fluff (Charlie is somewhat jealous. Mommy issues.)

[mxlissaliss]

Gleam Reaper (RoR Hades x Fem!Reader)

⚠️ TWs/CWs: Mentions of drugs , harassment , dead bodies , implied suicide and manipulation ⚠️

Words: 4,4K

Part: 1/3

Notes: Reader here is far from a saint. Here lays a twisted woman with too much power and little to no supervision. It's okay, Hades loves y'all anyway and is all in for the chaos.

Also, it's a kind of platonic-ish relationship at the moment. Might need to see how I lead it to a romantic halt in the near future. First time writing something like this btw, hope you like it if it even reaches anyone :P

***

Red lights, obnoxious music, sweaty people and drugs; that's the perfect recipe for either a great party, or a disaster. And in most cases, it's both.

When you are the God of the Underworld, you grow familiar with the many ways mortal lives end, especially young ones. Tragic to most, any other Tuesday to Hades. After all, eons of experience can toughen anyone's heart and make even the most appalling situation just an everyday occurrence, and a party like the one he had just sneaked in was full of these fateful events.

As he loved to say, death was always around the clock, which was a literal sentence when it came to his job. He leaned against a wall with his arms folded over his chest, an amused expression on his otherwise stoic face. The place was a complete mess, and it was easy to see.

Right next to him lied a deceased young man on the cold floor, eyes and mouth open dismally. The poor lad drank some spiked booze from a nearby table, and it seemed that he was quite the lightweight. Or perhaps he had already done drugs prior to that incident and ended up overdosing. Either way, he took note of that corpse as the first one of many to claim that night.

‘Hm, I wonder how they can talk to each other when I can barely hear my own inner monologue? It's absolutely deafening in here.’ Hades thought as the DJ turned up the music to a further level, and he swore that the speakers were about to catch on fire.

Though, more distracting than the ear-splitting tune in the background was that most of the women around would stop dancing to occasionally throw suggestive glances at him, a kind of visual language that Hades knew pretty well. No God could ever be a stranger to seduction, and he was well aware of the effects his divine appearance had on mortals; his tall stature and broad shoulders caught everyone's attention the second he stepped into the place. He was the highest individual in the room, a quality that only added more charm to his already handsome features. Perfectly chiseled chest and torso that paired up heavenly with the black, tight sweater he was wearing to appear more human-like in his attire, those well-defined arms and athletic legs that couldn't be completely hidden under his gray pants, a sharp jawline, snow-white skin that looked so soft yet untouchable, that godforsaken greek profile and moist, rosy lips. Breathtaking.

But his never-ending beauty was only enhanced by his silvery, wavy hair that looked somewhat messy despite being nearly styled. It moved graciously with each step he took, his slim fingers running through it every so often to brush it away from his forehead as his deep violet eyes searched carefully for his next victim. Oh, how divine he was, and he knew it.

“Help, someone…” The desperate cries of a young woman could be heard from the nearest bathroom, and his sharp ears caught the pitiful plea with ease even through the loud noise. The door was cracked open, and he could catch a glimpse of what looked like your local high school bullies cornering a younger couple with ease.

What a sad sight, humans really seem to not know better sometimes… Aha, there it was! All he had to do was turn his head to the opposite direction and he saw it, yet another dead person on the floor. Well, almost dead. It was a woman convulsing mercilessly on the ground as a group of panicked people tried stop the seizure by holding her limbs still. What a stupid thing to do. They were just making it worse and more agonizing for the poor lady. But it was not Hades' place to intervene, and even if he wanted to, he would not. When death knocks on your door, there is only so much any God other than Thanatos can do.

Besides, the more people that died, the more souls his domain would possess. So he smirked slightly to himself and turned back, walking away to the opposite direction. That summed up two deaths already. The night was looking good so far, and it was only starting.

But even after countless minutes of searching, he couldn't find the person he was looking for; the “Gleam Reaper”, as he liked to call you, since you were like a precious jewel shining among the dark grip of death. A gorgeous, gorgeous woman usually dressed in stylish black clothes, with fancy and neatly polished nails, always preying on mean mortals in the brink of death. You were once a human that died at a party when a group of browbeaters took advantage of your vulnerability, and then things got out of hand. A mess of a party, just like the one the King of the Underworld had just attended to with the purpose of finding you.

He had the honor of meeting you once your soul made it to Helheim. From what he could grasp, you were not the nicest person to walk on Earth and had earned a first-class flight straight to Tartarus, plan that he was about to execute. But you were awfully calm and accepting of the situation, and for someone that had just learned that their final destination would be the worst place to be in the Realm of the Damned, your peace and quiet was nothing short of intriguing to Hades.

———

“Y/n S/n, eh? Aren't you afraid of the Tartarus?” He asked in an icy tone that served well to hide his amusement. The God came off as uninterested and aloof. Nevertheless, the glimpse of curiosity in his eyes did not go unnoticed by your own sharp ones, something that you used to your favor.

“I regret nothing.” Was all you said.

And surprisingly, that was all you needed to say. You knew it when he kneeled down to cup your face with his thumb and index finger, gently pressing them deeper into your cheeks with the kind of glare you'd only see on someone that has pretentious meanings. “You have so many things to regret, yet I sense no mockery or dishonesty in your tone… Interesting.”

You scoffed, almost offended by his preying eyes upon you. It made you feel like a piece of meat under a lion's nose, and yet, that wasn't even close to enough to make you back off. “I am not afraid of you, God of the Underworld. You do what you want with me, I do not care.”

For the second time, the King of the Underworld was thrilled by your bold attitude. You were either the bravest girl to ever speak with him, or the most foolish and naive little thing he had ever seen. Whatever, that didn't matter at all. You were fascinating, to the point in which your constant way of glaring daggers at him seemed more like a ludicrous attempt of forcing him to let go of you than a move to save your already deceased existence.

And he loved it. He knew that Persephone, Thanatos and the other deities of his realm would love you and your snark.

“So that's how it is, very well. Welcome to the Underworld, Y/n. From now on, I'll make sure that you live as freely and comfortably as possible in the cold embrace of the dead.”

———

Those were some simpler times… Well, not really. It was barely twelve years ago, a pitiful amount of time in the life of an entity that has lived longer than any other among his kin. But back to reality, he shook his head in frustration and kept searching for you.

‘Where is that stubborn lady? We always bump into each other accidentally in the Underworld, yet I can't seem to find her when I actually need something from her…’ He thought again, looking over people's heads endlessly but to no avail, much to his dismay. A swamp of people would have been an appropriate term to describe his surroundings. No matter how hard he tried to set his eyes on different corners, doors or gateways, dancing drunkards were always in the middle to block his gaze, unintentionally.

Now he was starting to get irritated about the amount of individuals cramping the room. And worse of all, he couldn't feel your presence anywhere close to him.

Why did he even need to talk to the Gleam Reaper? Even after a decade of knowing each other, you had never been close enough for him to be so persistent about his urges to see you. He didn't bear romantic intentions, that much he knew, for he already loved Persephone dearly… So, what was this strange craving for amity?

Right, that was it. He wanted a friend, that's why he came here in the first place. And in an opportunity, he made his way through the people to find a not-so-crowded space in the room and slumped down on a couch, paying no mind (or, at the very least, trying) to the annoying couple next to him that couldn't keep their hands to themselves. How inconsiderate, but first, he needed to sort out his thoughts to clear his head.

It's not like you loved to wreak havoc everywhere you went. Hades himself designated you as a deity of chaos at parties specifically, and he knew the reason why; you just liked to be troublesome whenever there were bad people in misfortune around you. Bullies, tormentors, stalkers, harassers… All of them were on your death list, leading it. Similar to what happened to you in your final moments, your Grim Reaper self always lured the lads in and then showed your true colors, by making them end their own lives with their own shaky hands as you watched their lives fade away, keeping them secured in your embrace as your slim fingers stroked their hair. He still couldn't tell if you really enjoyed their misery, or if you just pitied them.

The latter sounded more accurate to him. Perhaps that's why you only went after those whose days were already counted. No point in torturing a healthy and innocent individual when you could “free” a tortured soul from their torment, and you did it because said souls also tortured others. You hated those that would cause pain to others just to deal with their own.

Even though you were pretty much doing the same thing you despised the most now as a deity, you told yourself that you were their karma. That was your twisted mindset, and he was all in for it.

And so he remembered his brief encounter with Poseidon earlier that day. Time to daydream again…

———

The Tyrant of the Seas was never fond of those pesky mortals that Gods were supposed to watch over. Those creatures were ungrateful, worthless and useless, just as much as they were unhinged. The mere thought of humans made him feel sick.

And yet, there he was, listening to his eldest brother rambling about the possibility of hiring a mortal, the lowest form of life, as an assistant to reduce the workload. Hades was never one to complain about his duties nor his struggles. As the eldest, he'd always thought that it was his duty to shoulder everything on his own to keep his siblings safe, and his domain was no exception. No burden could ever be heavy enough for him not to carry alone.

Except for boredom, that is. Though, it was more of a consequence than mere mental strain. Persephone had recently made her trip back to Mount Olympus to reunite with her mother, and while Hades was well aware that the following six months were going to be just the same as the others, a strange feeling of restlessness was keeping him awake at night.

Actually, it had gotten him so distracted lately that he had been trying to read the same book for over two weeks now, stuck in the same page. A task that would usually take him two days or three at most.

“Utterly unnecessary.” Said Poseidon in his characteristic monotonous tone, cold blue eyes piercing straight into Hades'. What his brother had just proposed came off as both ridiculous and undignified, and he'd rather be struck by lightning than agreeing with him. Physical defeat would be way less humiliating, he thought.

“I might need a companion. Not a lover, for I already have my wife, but perhaps a friend to pass the time with me while I am at my office to make the silence more tolerable.” Hades spoke back immediately, already having anticipated his younger brother's protests. He was unamused at his reaction, and yet, somewhat disappointed by his disapproval.

The younger God didn't respond to the suggestion, remaining stone-faced as his eyes were set on his brother's. Typical Poseidon.

Hades sighed, leaning back on his throne before speaking again, “An assistant would be a pleasant addition to my everyday routine, don't you think?” Asked the King of the Underworld with a tinge of intrigue, trying to gauge a better response from Poseidon this time. “Someone to sign the less important papers for me, or deliver the weekly letters when I can't do it myself.”

“You can do it yourself. You must do it yourself. You mustn't rely on anyone else,” Poseidon said sternly, showing the slightest bit of frustration at the God of the Underworld's insistence. “You are a God, and Gods do not rely on others.”

“This is not a matter about reliance, brother.”

Well, no more words were said for the next twelve minutes, which gave Hades the impression that their brief exchange had ended abruptly with no hopes to be resumed. The albino twirled a strand of his smooth, silky hair around his index finger as a reflex, deep in thought and possibly unaware of his elegant fashion.

Sure, he understood Poseidon's point, at least for the most part; Gods have always been self-sufficient and naturally independent. Hades himself had been working alone in the Underworld for as long as his immortal mind could remember, assisted only by his wife during the span of months that she spent with him in the realm of the death. He's never had enough trouble to seek for help from anyone. Not when he was younger, not during the Titanomachy, and definitely not on his daily tasks since then.

So, why was he suddenly so adamant about hiring an assistant for the mere purpose of companionship? It didn't make sense to him, let alone to Poseidon.

On the other hand, he couldn't just ignore the feeling any longer, constantly nagging at the back of his mind. What was it, even? Was the routine he'd been keeping for eons finally catching up to his wit? Hades couldn't even recall the last time he had longed to do something exciting, other than contacting Beelzebub whenever he needed something from the Lord of the Flies. And the more he tried to find a reason, the more confusing it became. It was frustrating, that much he could figure out by himself.

And the awkward silence in the throne room was doing little to quell his impatience, so eventually, the God of the Underworld added something out of ennui.

“I'll go for a human, preferably deceased. That way I won't have to drag anyone down to the Underworld, as it'd be a hass-“ But Hades was interrupted by Poseidon standing up hastily, not even turning back to bid farewell. Surprised much? No, not really, Hades was expecting that, but he hoped that the Sea God would at least listen to the entire proposal. How arid.

Though there was no point in complaining, anyway.

—————

Ah, what a pleasant talk during some wholesome quality time with his little brother. Just remembering the way Poseidon's knuckles grope harder the edges of the throne's armrests at the mere mention of a human made Hades chuckle to himself. The Tyrant of the Seas could be quite comical without wanting to, but he'd never say it aloud if he wanted to make it out in one piece.

Perhaps the younger God was right, no? Even if he made friends with the Gleam Reaper, nothing would guarantee that those feelings would go away. Maybe time would tell…

‘Time to get out of here. Leaving my domain for a whim like this was an inadequate move on my reco- … Now, just what in the old world is this?’

Just when the King of the Underworld was about to take his leave, a familiar item rolled up to his feet; a pill, and not just any pill, but a psychedelic capsule. What an intriguing sight, Hades thought, so he got off of the couch and crouched down to carefully examine it, trying to see where it came from.

Judging by the nearby people's reactions and stares, it came from the balcony next to him. The glass doors were covered with wine colored tulle curtains, which distorted the view of the folks outside that were surely enjoying themselves among their own “privacy”. But one thing he was certain of is that the ergoline in his hands came from there, specifically, from the small opening on the left door.

And that was all he needed to know.

“Gotcha.” Spoke aloud the Undead God, smirking at nothing in particular as he rose to his feet and brushed off his knees, ready to head off the balcony. Being away from the music would help a ton.

He stored the pill in his pocket and opened the door fully to the terrace, breathing in the fresh air which felt heavenly. The smell of sweat and puke was clogging his nostrils back inside and he didn't even realize it until the fresh breeze cleared up his nose, allowing him not only to think a bit better, but also admire the scenery before him.

Glass railing that supported the kissing ladies leaning against it, marble flooring that looked spotless, elegant benches made of the same sturdy material, and a breathtaking garden filled with extensive fields of Lavenders. The calming scent of the flowers reached him through the cold, gentle wind of the night, relaxing him further. It was a welcome relief from the mess happening in the party.

It was actually ironic, having thrown a party that turned into pure chaos claiming soul after soul while being right next to a Lavender meadow. That sort of duality was appealing to him. Such was life, he thought.

“Care to explain what are you doing here, King?”

That voice, that tone, those hints of sweet notes in the speech…

He had found you. Or rather, you found him first.

“The Gleam Reaper herself, what a pleasant surprise. I was looking for you, Y/n.” Hades said, smiling softly as he turned to around to look at you closely. “I knew I would find you here.”

“Oh, really? How come?” You smiled back at him, e/c eyes staring into his very soul. For a clever woman like you, Hades had always been a mystery that remained yet to solve. His mind was like a chess board, or rather, a painfully complex puzzle that always seemed to be missing a piece just when you thought you've got it figured out.

And in more ways than one, that was exciting for your deviant heart.

“A crowded room with red lights, funky music and drugs, filled with dumb women, sad girls, high school junkies and men that are desperate for feminine touch…” Hades began smugly, making you laugh.

“… The perfect recipe for disaster.” And you continued, just like the first time you two met after you had turned into a Grim Reaper, a being that collects the souls of those who have perished to take them to the Underworld, to him. Those exact words marked your first ever interaction as immortal beings, and it felt like a breath of fresh air to know that he still remembered them to the letter.

As the sentence ended, the both of you shared a soft sigh, enjoying the comfortable silence that followed for the next five minutes, just gazing over the Lavender garden. Of course, until the Undead God voiced his intentions.

“You know, over the years, I have given you a kind of freedom that others could only wish for. You are a Grim Reaper, yet I have allowed you to be selective with your victims and even the times when you wish to work, and the others, when you just want to slack off. But I've let you rejoice in such privileges because I find you interesting and deserving of my special treatment… So, I came here to ask something of you, Y/n.”

“Then speak, and do it quickly so I can go back to minding my business.” Your tone shifted almost dramatically. One moment you were all in for a good laugh, then your intonation became serious and your words clever. That's just how things worked around the God of the Underworld.

“Alright, I'll go straight to the point.” He said, running a hand through his hair, “I want you to come visit me in my palace, specifically, my office. I've been longing for a companion for quite a while now, and I can't think of anyone else better than you to fit that role.” By the end of the proposal, the albino's violet eyes took on an almost empty look, one that you knew was not idle in the slightest. “What do you say, Gleam Reaper?”

“…” You didn't respond for the first few seconds, seemingly unfazed by his request. But that was okay, he was used to Poseidon and other Gods doing just that every time so he was willing to be patient.

Still, something about his sudden petition seemed off to you. Why would the King of the Underworld, Ruler of Helheim and the Dead, the very Dark God himself want a friend? Because you could see right through him, and whatever kind of “help me with my paperwork” crap he was most likely going to come off with didn't even stun you in the slightest. If anything, it was confusing.

“Two questions. First, why? And second, why me?” You finally answer, leaning back against the mirror-like railing with a raised eyebrow.

Hades simply shrugged, probably just as confused about his own request as you were, “First, I have been feeling quite lonely lately, dwelling in my endless work with only the company of my cockatoo, and occasionally Cerberus when he's not guarding my palace.” He explained, now twirling the same strand of silvery hair in that characteristic manner of his, which you interpreted as him being deep in thought.

“And second?” You asked again, both curious and impatient.

“I think that your presence would be soothing, but if you ask me why, exactly, I might not be able to tell you just yet. I'd rather not think of it as hope, but intuition instead, so to say, a hunch.”

“A hunch? The cunning God of the Underworld is relying on a hunch, of all reasonable excuses to seek for a friend?” Even though you tried not to, an inevitable cackle escaped your pretty lips. Now that was just too humorous to be true. Oh, but you knew that he was being serious, and that was easily the funniest part. “Fine, I'll think about it later. It sounded more like an entreaty than a request, given how humbly you asked for it.”

“I'll take that as a yes, then.” He said with a self-satisfied expression, before turning back to walk toward the doors. It was time to leave for good.

But before he did, Hades stopped in his tracks, not bothering to look back at you. “Before I go, tell me, where are they? I know for a fact that you weren't here just enjoying some alone time and a cigarette.”

“Aha, you witty God.” Just like him, you just shrugged, seeing yourself in the reflection of the doors and using that to raise a hand and point a finger to a certain direction. Hades followed with his eyes through the reflection on the glass and his gaze landed on a not so far away spot; the roof of a small house next to the building they were in, made out of red tiles that looked quite old.

And then, he saw it.

A pile of dead bodies put one on top of the other, almost threatening to slip off of the tiles and fall down grotesquely, much to the disgrace of any passerby underneath. He recognized them almost immediately, they were the ones harassing a couple in the bathroom just half an hour ago. The last bits of humanity in him felt uneasy at the sight of those people tormenting the poor lovers that just wanted to leave, but Hades was way more focused on finding you than questioning his own moral compass.

Now, their flesh was already rotting even though they had died less than an hour ago, something that he knew was only possible because of your wicked abilities and will.

And the more he stared at the scene, the more details he found, and one of those was the fact that every single corpse was holding a needle in their right hand, already used and broken needles.

So that was your doing, he must have known.

“You still prey on broken individuals that wish to find inner peace by making others miserable. They have always been your favorite kind of soul, haven't they, Gleam Reaper?”

No more words were needed, for he just waved a hand to bid farewell and walked past the doors and out of the balcony. You didn't expect any less from him, whatsoever. That's why he came here, because he knew exactly what you would be doing.

You could only watch him walk away and disappear between the crowd, and scowl lightly at his whole drama of having been searching for you when he could have easily found you among mere mortals. Still, you grinned widely knowing that your next visit to the Underworld was going to be quite intriguing. You'd never turn down such a plea, and it was exhilarating.

Then, your eyes moved back to your “masterpiece” of remains and smiled, answering his tacitly rhetorical question with opaque eyes. “What can I say, it makes me feel like home.”

With that, you knew your job was done for the night. Therefore, time to leave as well.

You could only wait in anticipation for your next meeting, and whatever it may bring to the table. Hopefully something worth your precious time.

[mister-a-z-fell]

Mr. Fell - I’d like to ask you a question, sir, but as I am a bit chagrined to be asking it, I must do so anonymously. Sir, is it improper to pray to angels?

I was raised in a religious tradition that encourages praying to saints and other “intercessors”, as that’s considered a way to get additional weight added to one’s prayers on their way to the Almighty. And I notice that the Archangel Michael is often revered as a saint, and so must also be the recipient of prayers.

Additionally, we were taught that the Almighty is busy, very busy, with far loftier things than we can comprehend. We were discouraged from thinking that we should interrupt.

As a result of these two factors, I often find myself hesitant to pray to the Highest power. I feel the need to have a…a middle-man, as it were. Someone who might not be irritated at my small, mortal concerns.

I’m sure you can read between the lines, sir, and know that I am asking if it is alright to pray to you, or to any angel.

Thank you for reading this.

I had to think about this before replying. The world is full of different beliefs and different ways of connecting with the Higher Power, as it were. And I am just one angel. Lowly of rank and — for most people — a fiction. To give you an answer that has meaning but that doesn't presume an authority that isn't mine is a fine line to walk.

But I'll try.

The God of your understanding is big. Vast in a way that is beyond even the most inspired physicist's comprehension.

There is room in that vastness for all the business of the universe, from the crash of galactic tides to the drift of a single protozoon. Your prayers and concerns are neither small nor inconvenient. You are the Almighty's treasured Creation, and you are heard, whether you shout your prayer from a mountain top or whisper it in your innermost heart.

That being said, if you find you're more comfortable asking for angels to intercede on your behalf, there's nothing wrong with that, so long as you pray through us, but not to us. We love you and we'll add our voices to yours. But it’s important that you know that we exert no influence and the answers you receive are not ours.

And sometimes the answer is 'no’.

Keep a hopeful heart and ask for whatever sustains and comforts you.

I hope you hear ‘yes’ more often than ‘no’.

[antirepurp]

i keep finding fascination in the way maria is portrayed in-universe and also in meta sense, especially the latter, because so often she gets depicted as a kind of saint or an angel or god forbid a martyr, and the palatable things about her like her kindness and "inherent" goodness get focused on. it makes her character less about who she was and more about her death i think, and i get it she wasn't intended to be much more than that. her purpose was to be shadow's driving motivation in sa2 and that's fine sometimes you need characters like that when you're telling a story. but in the wider sense it becomes kind of twisted.

like you're a terminally ill teenager. you've been quarantined onto a space ship to buy you some time, and you're surrounded by people who coddle you and tell you not to do things and have your blood taken and shit. whatever normalcy you used to have is long gone and every day you come to better terms with your own mortality, or you don't think about it, whatever gets you through. you have good days when you almost feel like there's nothing wrong with you, and days when you can't get out of bed and your body aches and you feel like today might be the day you finally die

you are kind. you've been as good of a person as a child could have been so far. but you're also tired and angry and frustrated and bored. you have barely any meaningful social connections outside of your grandfather, and maybe one or two kids you run into on occasion who are younger than you and could never truly process the kind of life you're living. you are 16 and living in a hospital gown, sick of being treated like inspiration porn when you do normal things without showing your pain. you are the furthest thing from an angel. you don't want to be seen as anything comparable to an angel

you are kind and there's so much love in your heart, enough that you take a bullet for the brother who was created for you. but would you have done it if you had known how much it were to strip you from your humanity down the line?

[mychemicalraymance]

i’m really curious to see the connections between gerard and joan of arc that people make, because their interest seems twofold, but i see a lot of people only making the connection of like gender non conformity (which is there!!! and huge). but to me, a larger part of it is like.... the intermixing of contemporary reaction and myth (and like, martyrdom) with a modern context of what was probably “going on” with her. i also think it’s important to not dwell on christian symbols TOO much when making these connections, because while the root of this is a connection from mental illness to a certain sense of spirituality that comes from ideas within christian mythology, i don’t think any of the notions here are meant to be taken as fundamentally christian concepts, or that gerard necessarily believe joan’s crusade to be righteous in the fact that it’s christian. i think we can take the baby out of the bathwater here. 

Gerard is a spiritual person, and like,  seems to have a huge relationship with christianity (obviously, and a very catholic, righteous one at that). I think in that quote where he is describing joan of arc as “probably fucking crazy” and touched by the hand of god at the same time is really important. The connection he seems to make with his own mental illness and a sort of chosen-one narrative feels directly influenced from his understanding of stuff like this, of apostles and oracles, etc. We know he later on  connected Maya the Psychic with a personal experience of auditory hallucinations (though the major source i can find on this is the genius annotation with a link to a concert video where he doesn’t actually say what the annotation is claiming, so it’s up for debate?). It feels like you can make a much deeper connection between the two (gerard and joan) when considering the fact that he seems to be overlapping and mixing the idea of being a spiritual and religous martyr with being a mentally ill person who feels so strongly about something that they make themselves a target for what is right. i feel like gerard perhaps understands or understood himself as someone who in a previous era would be receiving visions and then being persecuted for it. that makes themes of like revenge and mortality also tie in nicely to the joan narrative but that’s probably less related. 

I think it’s not uncalled for also to draw out a discussion of gerard’s gender non conformity as a sort of “martyrdom” via the hands of the popular consensus. Like to me it really feels like gerard being so sort of flagrantly a target in the public understanding of mcr in order to be a figure for gay and/or fucked up teens is like. his noble cause that he was burned at the stake for. like literally a social martyr for the cause! i think he knew that the whole time. and if he wasnt doing that he didn’t want to do it anymore. 

so like to me joan is more of a philosophy than anything else to gerard, and there’s far more loops than just the fact that the two sort of overlap in terms of androgyny or gerard has an interest in her. and gerard HAS become a myth to us just like joan. gerard did sort of burn at the stake a little bit and you can honest to god see people understand gerard either as “Gerard” or like the person he actually is day to day. and “Gerard” is Joan of Arc. the gerard that isn’t aligned with the way we see him in terms of mcr isn’t “Gerard” to a lot of people, which is why you see people reacting to recent mcr so strongly, he’s “Gerard” to them again, and it’s like seeing a dead saint. 

[ladyduellist]

Epistles of Saints & Sinners

Chapter Summary:

The group comes closer to entering Rosymorn Monastery, but first Tav agrees to let Astarion bite her with new rules in place.

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Story Summary:

When Astarion meets the humble bard, Tav, he soon finds out he's the only one between them that knows they are bound as soulmates through their marks. Deciding it's more trouble than its worth, he refuses to tell her along the course of their journey across Faerûn.

But, unbeknownst to him and their companions, Tav is harboring a gruesome secret that she only thought was nothing more than a traumatized period in her life.

As they both come to face to face with their pasts and presents, will they choose to move forward or let it consume them?

Healing isn’t linear—after all.

⸺⋘✤⋙⸺

Chapter 18: Embryonic

Ao3

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Main Page & Chapter List

Word count: 5.7k

Pairing: Astarion x female bard Tav

CW: Language, Violence, Mention of Torture Devices, Blood, Trauma, PTSD, Act 1 Spoilers

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I have settled upon four commandments in total for my future spawn.

Words to lead them through our epoch together until the moment is ripe.

Even should they try to disobey, it will do them no good. 

For I will become all they know. All they love. All they serve. All they pray to.

To the point where even the thought of being insubordinate would bring them anguish.

They have much to learn, but I will be their teacher in all things.

And they, will be perfect.

My next lesson is such:

Second, thou shalt obey me in all things.

— Cazador Szarr ‘The Avid’, journal entry 1281

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The last time Astarion genuinely smiled was before the hovel of Cazador Szarr’s dark kiss stole his last living breath.

Conditioned from the moment the seven spawns clawed their way out of their mortal burial pits, any expression on their faces—including their smiles—was to be moderated by the edict of their sire. Cazador exercised complete control, reminding his inhuman children that their deprived autonomy was the equivalent exchange for the largess of immortality. The vampire lord could have anything he wanted because he was their god! Once an unfathomable figure regaled as their martyred father, now their regent in all things. 

Astarion recalled when his Lord Szarr, with perverted glee, stringently forced him to learn the “appropriate” ways to smile under his rule: a farce reserved for luring victims, enticing the cream of the crop in Baldur’s Gate, and the master himself. A slight crookedness showing any volume of teeth was viewed as criminal peasantry, unsuitable for anyone’s gaze. If the spawn attempted to exhume an asymmetrical grin, with his mouth rising on one side and remaining static on the other, it was received with verbal battery for hours. Many would have called the latter a sneer, but Cazador called it a ploy for dominance. 

However, there was one smile that was strictly forbidden: the one of true happiness.

To flagrantly even allow the beginnings of it to form crow’s feet would incite unthinkable wrath. Any self bliss evident on Astarion’s face—or enjoyment at even the slightest prosaic object he fancied—for any reason other than what his master commanded, was banned and to be promptly expunged through means of sanguine deprivation and physical torture.

“You know that smile is not allowed.”

“I know, master. If you find it within you, please accept my apologies.”

“If you knew it was against the rules, then why did you do it?”

“I—it was a mistake, master.”

"Could it be because you still think somewhere deep inside that inferior soul of yours, that you deserve anything other than what I’ve given you?”

“No, master. You bless me everyday by allowing me to stay by your side.”

“Choose your next words carefully Astarion. Is that derision I hear in your tone?”

“I do not wish for my tone to mock you, master. Please teach me how I can improve upon my speech and my expressions.”

“The punishment will be severe, my son.”

“I deserve no less, master.”

“Who do you smile for, boy?”

“Only you, master.”

“And?”

“Whomever you command me to smile for, master.”

“Correct. Now, I want to see what type of smile you’ll make when you’re placed into the scold’s bridle and that whorish tongue is gagged.”

On more than several occasions, Astarion summoned ideations about scorching off his own lips or taking Godey’s favorite pliers to remove each tooth that represented precious solitary memories from a biological time that had slipped away. A rebellious fantastical vagary to mutilate his face, so he may heed his lord’s discretion and never smile out of joy again. 

But, Cazador was already miles ahead of Astarion. The blood from his sire that the spawn had only supped from but once, coursed through his corpse-like vessels like a blood memory. And through that wedded death bond, Cazador was able to detect the inklings in a change of thought or action that didn’t fit his ideal regime. So, the master compelled Astarion to never harm himself unless demanded otherwise because his face was to always remain the fairest. 

To lure victims. Watch scream. Prostitute out. Cum upon.

Subsequent to that moment, Astarion would wander Cazador’s barnacled castle’s halls, brothels, flopshouses, even taverns, studying paintings of people on the walls. These inanimate figures became his tutorial monstrances, with their tight-lipped expressions teaching him how to smile in a way that would please his slavemaster. Through them, he sought benediction. When the gods didn’t answer his prayers, these pictures briefly became his gods until he properly learned all he could from these individuals indentured to their frames. 

In the present, Astarion started gathering his bearings from his recent trance as he watched the soft glow from the dawn peeking into his tent. 

He thought back to the night before when the creeping smile that appeared on his face, as he viewed the stars with Tav, revolted him. Petrified, the pale elf had tried to think of anything—ANYTHING—that would prevent the smile from continuing to emerge. He felt it as it was happening, his mouth resisting against the shrill voice of his master in the back of his mind dictating him on what to do. Relaxed muscles. Cheekbones lifted. That subtle elevation of his lower eyelids as they robbed the bottom portion of his sclerae of space. 

That expression had long been deemed as selfish, a reward meant only for those who deserved happiness. But he didn’t believe in real happiness anymore. On no account did he continue to have faith in a time where his whole life was still ahead of him and he could relish in the rewards for the hard work he had accomplished. Additionally, the concept of possibly falling in love had dissipated within that first decade into his vampirism. The only two constants in his undeath were survival and hunger. Everything else seemed temporary to him, as temporary as his fading humanity. 

This he was proselytized; this he abided. 

Yet Astarion couldn’t help but to rewind the moment Tav stared into his eyes, declaring to him ludicrous admissions nary a single soul had ever bestowed him.

“But, that’s not all you are.”

But then, what was he?

He already knew he couldn’t answer the blistering question about himself without inserting the words “sex” or “slave.” Everything else about Astarion was made up of visages that had been infallibly rehearsed, manufactured, catering to the fraudulence he enmeshed into his serpentined yoke. 

Yet, could he be something more? 

That damned bard seemed to reckon so and she was the last person he would ever expect to deceive him, especially not when she made parts of his brain actually think about things whenever their conversations jumped into undesirable depths. The vampire spawn recognized he had transgressed against another one of Cazador’s rules allowing her virulent words to affect him. An infection that contested him in ways he didn’t understand. Ways he wanted to waterlog until it crashed into a seafloor. Ways he ached to hold onto.

Astarion’s fingertips gently tugged at the commissure of his lips back and forth before letting it go taut, wondering how soon it would be before Tav asked him to survey the night sky with her again.

⸺⋘✤⋙⸺

What was the meaning of friendship? 

After weeks of traveling with his companions and learning more about them, Astarion didn’t feel he was any closer to solving the conundrum. The natural bonds that seemed to form between people that held each other in such regard, was as foreign to him as what human food tasted like anymore. 

This was now the second time Tav volunteered them to take their acquaintanceship in that direction—should he decide to take her up on the offer—but he wasn’t certain of the mechanics behind the genial rapport. He thought it foolish to ask her about it, not wishing to necessarily display his weaknesses over the annoying matter, but how in the devil then was he supposed to learn? Better yet, was this even something he was willing to try? He surmised he didn’t exactly have many other options if he were to assimilate himself further into the group to maintain his security, seeing as their songbird didn’t exile him after their midnight chat.

Hours ago, he watched as Scratch confidently dashed around camp, seeking out scraps and affection from those they would relinquish them. How could a dog, of all the organic beings that existed, rolling around on the disgusting ground—probably to deposit his scent on dead worms—-manage to incite joviality and trust from those that met him? Astarion thought about procuring a ‘Speak with Animals’ scroll to talk with the furry beast about what his definition of friends could be, but chose last minute to forgo the plan after seeing Scratch plop a drool soaked ball into Wyll’s hands. 

It was like being jolted awake from a coma, this journey. Thrust back into the world of the living after decades upon decades as a revenant, slipping through silhouettes of buildings and dank passageways, proved to be exhausting. He was certainly as dumbfounded about being more personable as anyone might expect after hearing about his lack of real kith and kin to anyone outside of the Crimson Palace, yet being free didn’t instantly provide him with the tools he needed to be successful at it either. But maybe if his predator-esque sight followed someone kind like Tav around whilst she attended to her daily life, paying apt attention to her social graces, would help him start to understand how to be a proper friend—or at the very least mimic one.

However, Astarion’s pensive meanderings came to a pause the moment he, together with Tav and Lae’zel, encountered Lady Esther. 

Undaunted, bossy, with a voice like the matted ass end of a bugbear, Esther was the epitome of a pestiferous adventurer that should probably be thrown defenseless into the githyanki crèche she had been chased away from. Her padded armor smelled faintly of dried saltwater and mineral from uncooked oysters, reminding Astarion too intimately of his nightly stalks on the streets of Baldur’s Gate—which she just so happened to hail from.

“I should dispose of you for even suggesting such an atrocity,” Lae’zel indignantly replied, wrapping her steady fingers around the grip of her sword.

“And I would suggest you back off of that blade,” Lady Esther snarled, instinctively reaching for her own weapon at her hip. “‘The Society of Brilliance’ is an upstanding order in Baldur’s Gate. What we mean to do with our research is answer the long age question of ‘nature versus nurture.’ And, an unhatched githyanki egg is the perfect specimen for this undertaking. Your people could be a part of history!”

As the women’s argument surged, Astarion and Tav retreated to stand behind their gith comrade as if they were knights awaiting a command. When Lae’zel bared her teeth to Esther, he grinned, hoping the githyanki would soon plunge her sword through the older woman’s chest cavity so their group could carry on with their contemptible mission into the monastery.

Judging by the steadily growing sighs exhaling from Tav’s lungs, she felt similarly. “We really don’t have time for this,” she muffled.

Astarion pulled out a jackknife from his pocket to twirl mindlessly in his hand, an attempt to quell his boredom. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about over these gith eggs. I doubt the taste is comparable to anything that is red and leaking out of a wound.”

The bard lifted her brow, turning her neck to glare at him. “You know there are children inside those eggs, right?”

“Children?! Does that mean they lay them like some sort of amphibian?” he sputtered a tad too loud in which Lae’zel audibly called him k’chakhi under her breath. “Well darling, you know I only half listen when any of you speak.”

“That explains a lot,” Tav snidely remarked, rolling her eyes.

He canted his head to offer the elven woman at his side a jape, the balm of fresh lavender on her pulse points filling his senses, only to be temporarily obstructed by a diversion on her face. 

Two freckles, almond in color, were bound to her skin below her left eye: sacred gifts permanently bestowed from the sunlight.

Perplexed, he narrowed his eyes at the offending dots. Were those there before? Surely, he wouldn’t have missed them during the visitation of his lips resentfully kissing her near the delicate area. Committing the minute details of Tav’s appearance to memory, came as just another habitual action to secure his deceptions. Details with no need for reflection, only adding to the prickling numbness that burned throughout his body.

During those very tiresome centuries under Cazador’s thumb, Astarion would view such semblances on former liaisons with malcontent while he feigned his enthusiasm. A brush of his dark lashes against scars. Pecks upon port-wine stain birthmarks. Murmurs along the ghosts of amputated limbs. Any action to elicit the final shudder leading them to their fore ordainment. Because when it came to gaining someone’s trust, who didn’t like to be seen?

But why was he so damned rattled at neglecting to notice her meaningless freckles of all things? Was he finally losing his touch? He wanted to chase the sun, lambasting the glowing medallion as his blade tried to cut its rays in twayne for Tav’s sunspots afflicting his sight and abruptly capturing his attention.

And yet, after all the venom he inwardly spat about the bard’s two threatening marks, he couldn’t bear to look away from them.

He bit his tongue, regaining his normal frivolity. “I do so ever love food with a bit of zest!” Astarion murmured into the sheath of Tav’s ear. “Which one do you think would taste better?”

“Shush. I’m trying to listen in case Lae’zel needs our help,” she responded, trying to stifle a chuckle as she wiggled her nose like a chipmunk. “Besides, I literally just fed you last night.”

“It’s not my fault I’m feeling a bit peckish,” the vamp pouted, showing Tav one of his fangs. “And it’s definitely not my fault your blood happens to be the most exquisite dessert I’ve ever had and I can’t indulge in it as much as I’d like.”

“Now you’re just flirting,” she pointed out.

“And shamelessly I might add.”

He watched the slightest purse spread her lips as she seemed to ponder their exchange. “After we take care of this, I’ll grab Shadowheart and you can top yourself off.”

“Pardon me, but could you possibly explain to your friend here that the society’s goal isn’t to harm their young?” Lady Esther interrupted, leaning to peer behind Lae’zel.

Fibril pieces of hair were wiped away from Tav’s face as she approached, wedging herself between Esther and Lae’zel. “There’s nothing to explain. You’re trying to steal another race’s child to use as a science experiment without the child’s consent. In most places, that would be considered trafficking.”

Lady Esther sneered, adjusting her body into a defensive stance, readying herself if one of them drew their weapon. “What a brazen accusation to make!”

“My steel wants blood! Let me strike her down and be done with this offense,” Lae’zel scolded, ripping her sword off of her back.

“As do I,” Astarion slid in, throwing his knife into an intricate spin in the air before catching it.

Tav spread out her arms to the sides, quieting the multiple voices. Then, the aria of her tadpole reached out to Astarion’s, whining aggressively to connect.

What is it?

We don’t have much time before Esther suspects something is up, but do you think you can sneak behind her to knock her out? the songstress hastily implored.

Knock out? Shouldn’t we just kill her? You know Lae’zel isn’t going to be pleased about this, he chastised.

The purring vibration of Tav’s worm hesitated. I know she won’t be, but this will at least allow us time to deal with the githyanki crèche. I don’t want more blood on our hands than necessary. Please.

Ah, so she wasn’t exactly denying ending the old woman’s life could be the right call to make, but Astarion knew that that rapturing heart of hers had once again gotten in the way. He sighed—it wasn’t his choice to make anyways. 

Not even a sip?

Astarion! Tav warned.

Ruin my fun then! he grumbled. Keep her distracted, will you?

The link ruptured and he watched Tav casually lower her arms, walking a half circle around Lady Esther’s position. She tracked Tav’s movements while keeping a squinted eye on Lae’zel, who also began to shift in the same direction as Tav. He realized his two companions must’ve had a separate tadpole conversation that alerted Lae’zel of the plan to deal with Esther.

Astarion willed his respiration to stop, falling back on his less human-like qualities. Stealthily he tiptoed, like a mouse in a church searching for sacramental wafers leftover by those who refused communion. Upright, heels up, the twigs he avoided didn’t stand a chance keeping him off course.

And then, he was behind Esther, the pommel end of his dagger raised above her head and angled at her temple, waiting for Tav to administer her last rites.

“Nobody should be a slave to someone else’s ambitions,” the bard firmly said, nodding at the vampire to execute the finality to their gambit.

WHACK!

Astarion stowed the dagger, looking up from the unconscious woman laying on the ground. “Aww, I was hoping she would have put up more of a fight. How about we go get that bite to eat now?

⸺⋘✤⋙⸺

When it came to seduction, Astarion thought of himself as a professional, however, he was quickly losing at his own game the moment his garnet irises gravitated towards Tav’s neck. 

Further down the mountain trail, to an obscure area that directly overlooked the invaded Rosymorn Monastery, the bard dragged Astarion down a set of half-broken stoned stairs constructed into the ground itself. With timorous intensity and the pledge of blood, Tav led him by his arm around the corner of a boulder. She swept her hair up into a brunette nest—requesting over her shoulder for Shadowheart to stand watch nearby—when they reached the impromptu private place for him to feed with footpath dirt accenting their boots. 

It was incongruous, really, hiding behind the rock like a pair of horny teenagers that snuck off to neck each other just so he could briefly swill her crimson. Though, because his brain chose to remember the gloaming cycles when Cazador Szarr forced him to slice open his pasty tissues after he saw the cut Tav intentionally made on her arm, a regretful pang writhed within, causing him to brood over past actions that inevitably spurred her rash decision. If only he hadn’t disassociated, it would have never come to this.

Tav released his forearm, turning around with a serious expression. “Lathanyll,” she said elegantly in their elvish tongue.

Astarion’s brow lifted. “What about the sunlight?”

“Lathanyll: our new safe word,” she asserted.

“Safe word? Darling, why do we need a safe word? I’m not going to kill you—at least on purpose,” he joked, tucking his chin in ever so slightly to smirk at her.

Tav crossed her arms, turning her eyes upward. “That’s definitely comforting,” she replied sarcastically. “I’ve just been thinking that maybe a safe word could help us out. If either of us feels uncomfortable with what we’re doing, we say our ‘word’ and we automatically stop. No questions asked.”

A safe word. It wasn’t an absurd idea, maybe a bit on the tedious side should he be mid drunk imbibing her blood, but it was one of the better proposals she’d had. 

Covertly, his eyes flickered down to the soul mark he once imprisoned with his teeth, covered by the leather breastplate she chose to wear in lieu of her bard’s doublet. Should he ask her about it? Did it still hurt? Was it healed yet? 

Astarion remembered the night he violated her flesh in clear enough detail, that he found himself with bouts of pining to penitently beg for clemency from her. Teeth digging into her fibrous pulp, his master’s voice commandeering him to flay her soulmate marking, red, red, red everywhere! And her blue eyes, dulling as she realized the utter betrayal to her autonomy and the vague relationship they had begun to form. Nevertheless, she inexplicably wanted him to stay. 

He wondered if they had established a safe word much earlier, could his harmful behavior that now caused so much distrust have been avoided?

Astarion shouldn’t care. No, he wouldn’t care. Caring was full of peril, leading to feelings Cazador would exsanguinate only to reinforce his commandments in their place. He had mindlessly endeavored to obey centuries worth of orders—of lost agency—that…

Wait, what in the deadly fuck was he going on about? Cazador wasn’t there, and he sure as hells wasn’t coaxing the spawn into a choice. The tadpole must be feasting on his mind again. Back into the void he plunged it all down.

Seal his fated habits of treacherous shame, 

Blood running chill with blame.

Molted skin, bones displayed,

Reject the lord that he once bade.

“You okay?”

“Yes, of course,” he rasped, clearing his throat. “Does Shadowheart know about me? About the um, you know…” he gestured his head towards the non consensual area he previously bit.

Tav sailed her fingertips on the outside of her armor where his teeth imprints had once laid, expression softened. “No, that’s between us. I told her I’ve been having trouble recently with an old injury and needed her closeby when you fed in case the blood loss made it act up.”

Of course she would lie for him. “Wicked girl, lying to our cleric,” he smirked, crinkling his mischievous eyes. 

She bound her back against the boulder as if she were an odd wallflower debutante at a ball. “I don’t need their judgment and neither do you. If we are to be friends, I’d like for us to try and heal without their intervention.”

“So assertive!” Astarion chuckled. “You’re serious, aren’t you? About retrying this whole,” he waved his hand around ,“friendship thing.”

“You doubted I was?”

He shook his head. “More like I wondered if you would have second thoughts.”

“Trust me, I have thought about this more than I care to admit. All choices have consequences, but that’s just a risk we’re going to have to take, huh?” she coyly smiled. 

Astarion drew closer to her, the tingling discomfort in his fangs beginning to throb thinking about the moment her ambrosial skin would soon fill his mouth. How long had it been since he drank directly from her? Days? Weeks? Far too long in his book. 

“Just like the one we’re about to engage in?” he teased, now hovering over her with their few inches in height difference. 

“Careful, vampire,” she warned with a grin, likely noting the inflection of flirtation in his voice. 

“What? I’m only being friendly,” he cleverly indicated with a wink. “Don’t friends tease each other where you’re from?”

Tav chuckled. “Sure, except your teasing always has a layer of illicitness to it.”

His hands flew to his hips, staunchly pointing his chin upwards playfully. “Songbird, I’m a very pious man that is entirely devoted to all pleasures in life.”

She stared up at him, the corner of her mouth curling into a half smile as she unbuckled the right strap of her breastplate, allowing him better access. “How do you—how should we do this?”

“Don’t tell me you've forgotten already,” the vampire scoffed as he felt the side of his lip twitch in want.

“No, I meant—um, like without touching too much so we’re both respecting each other’s boundaries,” she answered quietly, frisking the side of her neck to gather up any remaining loose hairs.

Eyes widened, resembling glossy jewels, he tilted his head at her. Minimal touching. Was such a thing even possible? I—that sounds…nice. Right? A toiling inner peace fell upon him, threading into his ancient muscles at the thought.

There was a fragility present betwixt them, one that had been wholly sundered, now giving them the opportunity to repair itself like the use of gold and lacquer to seam bits of broken pottery. Pieces that eddied, tangled amidst the weight of their bedroom sins and their cursed interactions.

It was unprecedented, having the option to abstain from touch and sex like he’d been waiting on the words to finally give him the permission to do so. And it was surprisingly all because of Tav rooting the notions into his mind through her passionate homily under the swirling night air the prior night. The woman he couldn’t manage to entirely seal the access to his clandestine murkiness from. 

Astarion wasn’t sure what to do, but opted to rely upon Tav to guide them. “Any suggestions?” 

Thoughtfully nibbling the edge of her bottom lip, she proposed a solution. “How about I put my arms at my sides and you can steady yourself against the boulder behind me?”

“That could work,” he agreed. “Ready?”

The quivering from her heartbeats thudded erratically in his ear as she nodded. His deft arm reached out, leveraging himself against the cool rock. Slanting downward, he leaned in, the shadowy veil of his body covering her face from the blaze of the highnoon sun. 

With his free hand, he traced the top stitching of her upturned collar, lightly yanking it away from her neck. “Nervous?” he checked, lowering his pitch. 

Tav’s ears bloomed in tantalizing rose hues, reminding Astarion of pink quartzes crushed into lady’s brooches. “Yes. It’s been a while,” she admitted.

“It has,” he confirmed. “I’m not wont to let go of a scrumptious morsel such as yourself, but we don’t have to do this if it doesn’t feel right.” This was him offering her an out. Their untested limits for consent required full participation or he knew this would never work as intended.

“Funny. When it comes to ‘feeling right’ around you, it would seem all my senses wind up being tossed into a cyclone,” she stated almost bemusedly, vertically angling her head as a signal that he could bite.

“And yet, you can’t keep away,” he purred on the airy corridor leading to her succulent skin, crisp maw landing softly onto her thrumming veins. 

Different lengths of his curls lunged sideways, grazing her clavicle as the sirenic call in her blood sunk his eardrums into a hypnotic state. His lips receded to stimulate her neck with skimming nips barely pricking her taut flesh. She gasped, holding back a cry from his contact, when he voraciously nursed on a mouthful of salty sweat imbued skin from their flushed exchange.

He wouldn’t lose control this time. 

He wouldn’t lose control this time. 

He wouldn’t lose control this time.

“Astarion, why didn’t you want me to cut myself to give you blood?” the songstress interjected sweetly before he bit her, breathing shallowly against his neck.

Astarion shut his mouth halfway, centralizing his view—as a distraction for the flashbacks spilling into his mind—on the cacophonous pastel blue vein begging for his teeth to rupture. “When I was still beholden to Cazador’s bondage, he would sometimes compel me to lacerate myself if I displeased him. Only when my flesh was finally covered head-to-toe in cuts, caked in bodily filth, would he relent and allow the wounds to be healed without a trace that the act ever occurred.

“I don’t think I need to explain to you what I thought after I saw you had harmed yourself for my benefit,” he confessed.

A gentle sway of pulsations swelled from the mark behind his right ear, as though one of Tav’s folk songs entered their soul-fated connection with reposeful cadency. Astarion couldn’t deny he felt a tad more at ease as the melodic rhythms rippled through the token imprinted into his paleness. 

“Thank you for being considerate of my safety,” she suddenly whispered, presumptively heeding her sympathies.

He sighed, planting a cordial peck to the area he was about to sup. “My dear, I just can’t have you accidentally unaliving yourself, leaving me with no constant source for food. I mean, can you imagine me trying to convince one of the others to be my fodder?”

The vibronic ghost of her lips wisped at his ear lobe as she courteously laughed. “Point made.” She shifted under him in anticipation. “If you’d like to continue, I promise not to interrupt again.”

Then, Astarion inhaled deeply, slowly sinking his fangs into her supple neck, and it was like the first time his tongue lapped at her scarlet fluids all over again. Every shade of the world’s colors deluged throughout his body, waking his catatonic veins from their slumber.

Tav whined for him through gritted teeth, instantly muttering a quick “sorry.” Her heart was pumping thrice over trying to keep up with his feeding. He spread his palm out flat against the large rock behind her, harboring himself in place, growling away the urge to grab her hips and press her body into him. She gasped again.

But he could sense her lingering nervousness as her fists clenched tightly at her sides. Her mind was apt to processing matters, thus it wasn’t infeasible she may be worried about his episodes taking control of his hunger again. Or perhaps, she was resisting bodily natural desires she sought to eventually vanquish. He thought to rib her about it, but his moral conscience switched on, harkening back to her respect for his own needs.

Incredible, he cringed at his abrupt compassion.

Astarion glided his hand down, wrapping around her wrist in a mollifying position. His thumb lazily rubbed circles into her skin, remembering this had once briefly calmed her in the past.

For a few seconds, he withdrew from her neck, concerned he may have breached their new terms. “Is this okay?” his blood warmed breath shuddered.

“I—yes,” Tav keened, squeezing her thighs together, no longer accustomed to his touch. 

Satisfied, he bent back down to relatch himself to the puncture wounds. 

As he sucked, he could taste the absolution for his addiction to her blood in the beatific raptures exhaling from her lungs into his ear. Astarion audibly moaned into her neck, guzzling claret currents into the sanctum of his belly. The constriction from his pants smothered his hardening cock and he desperately tried to angle his lower torso in a way so that she wouldn’t accidentally nudge it. 

Gods, he wasn’t sure how he was ever able to survive without her crimson filling his gullet! He once compared her libations to vintage wine instead of the cheap plonk that derived from an animal’s circulatory system, but honestly, he diminished just how incredible she actually tasted. Her ichor was the immaculate permeation of ripened dewberries prattled upon by fresh rain in the early morn. Sweet. Tart. Bursting with wet juices inside the gulf that led to his throat. Tav incessantly prevailed as the most lavish meal he ever dined upon, never failing to cause his near rabid state. And he wanted more and more and more and more and more…

“L-lathanyll, Astarion,” she stuttered. 

The spawn gave a concluding ovally stroke to her inner wrist before withdrawing his hand completely. His tongue wagged out, licking the remaining droplets that dared to coerce him into keep sipping. He backed a few feet away from her, giving her room to recover. Maybe that word held some weight to it after all.

“Thank you for listening to the safe word; I wasn’t certain if it would work.” Tav collapsed back onto the boulder, trembling. “How was I?”

“You tasted…tense.” Astarion labored to breath. He felt a nigh fuzzy drunken effect settling throughout him.

“I tasted tense? How so?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, you’re still very delectable, but it was less sweet than usual. Like a sharp tartness had been mixed in.” He licked his lips, cleaning them entirely of her red stains.

“Less sweet,” she repeated. “Is this going to be a problem for you? For however you digest blood or whatever goes on in there?” Tav nodded at his stomach, fixing her shirt and rebuckling her leathers. 

“It won’t be a problem for me, but it may be for you.”

She looked stumped. “I’m not following.”

Astarion puckishly twinkled at her. “Only that there may come a time when you should consider relieving some of that pent up frustration on your own time.”

Her eyes bulged out. “Did you just suggest I should m-masturbate?!”

“Heavens, no! Although, that may be the quickest way to do so and we both know just how aroused—”

Blushing feverishly, Tav darted forward, cupping her palm over his mouth. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence!” 

His sight dipped, focusing on the two little vile freckles that created so much angst for him during their argument with Lady Esther, sitting on the vista of skin surrounding her eyes. A symbiotic companionship with fine lines showing her life experiences. Actually, he mused, revising his former criticism , they aren’t so bad, are they? Maybe even kind of…cute.

Astarion raised his arm, politely taking her hand ransom to peel away from his face like a mask, revealing just the sudden makings of a smile. “Darling, you should really learn how to have more fun.”

⸺⋘✤⋙⸺

Notes:

Githyanki Language:

k'chakhi = idiot

Elvish Language:

lathanyll = sunlight

[blantheia]

I just finished Jennifer Saint's Hera, and oh boy I have so many feelings. Spoilers on some of my favorite parts below:

Hera having lovers before marrying Zeus. Specifically some river gods. I wasn't expecting this to be thrown at my face as soon as I started the book but I loved it. I like this interpretation better than the one of a virgin goddess in her youth, because I believe she is very much related to sex and fertility in ancient cult.

Hera and Hestia just being sisters together. She also has an interesting relationship with a few other female characters (Klymene, Gaia, Ekhidna)

Hera's perception of her own children. It's clear from the myths that she has a complicated relationship with motherhood, but the way this book deals with it breaks my heart. She barely feels any love for them, sees them as possible allies from the moment they are conceived. In my personal hc she is a better mother than what mythology lets in, but I understand why Saint chose this route (ehem, the cuckoo myth).

That scene where she notices Ares' love for Aphrodite and feels an emptiness and longing…Why don’t you stab me in the chest, it will be less painful

When she joins the argive people against Dionysos! That was short but epic, I love my warrior queen. I also found it touching to see how the relationship with her mortal worshippers developed.

Again, what I liked least, is that Zeus is portrayed so distant. I like to imagine them as an old married couple who quarrel often and drive each other mad, here it seemed like they were strangers playing chess, not siblings who've known the other from the beginning. I love reading angst and wanted more of a direct conflict, what can I say.

Overall I think the author captured the tragedy and fierceness of Hera's character really well. It's a solid 9/10 for me.

[tastethebloodofmeatthawsmoth]

breakdown of Mormon mythology:

Everyone who has ever lived or will ever live began as the literal spirit children of heavenly parents - God the Father ("Heavenly Father" in Mormon parlance) and his wife or wives. The essential "intelligence" of these spirits, like matter, is uncreated and eternal, but the spirits are created by marital union between the heavenly parents. These spirit children were happy, but in order to advance to the next level of power and start families of their own, they had to pass through a probationary period in order to receive physical bodies.

In order to do this, a meeting was called in Heaven in order to plan out the world we currently live in. Two plans were presented for this new world, one by the pre-mortal Jesus, then known as Jehovah, the eldest of Heavenly Father's spirit children, and his brother, Lucifer. Lucifer suggested taking away humanity's freedom of choice and making himself the savior of this new world. Jesus suggested giving humanity "agency" (a major term in the Mormon lexicon), as on other worlds. The ensuing conflict caused a war to break out in Heaven, in which Lucifer convinced 1/3rd of the spirits destined for Earth to join him. Thus Lucifer became the devil, and his followers the demons, forever denied bodies of flesh and bone. Heavenly Father, alias Elohim, then created the world with the assistance of Jehovah and the archangel Michael, the pre-mortal Adam. Adam and Eve started the human race, as most of you know, and everyone who has ever lived since then was someone who made the choice to come to earth to receive a physical body and hopefully return to Heavenly Father, achieve the highest level of power, and eventually start their own universe after this probationary period. Mormons are a bit cagey about this, but Mormonism is a polytheistic religion - there are thousands, millions, maybe even billions of gods out there. Gods in Mormon mythology are sort of like dads. Dads are everywhere, you may eventually become a dad yourself, but you only have one. The cycle will continue forever. Mormons believe that Jesus was the first-born of God's spirit children, but also have their own gross take on the virgin birth. They believe God literally traveled to Earth and physically impregnated Mary; hence Jesus is referred to as "first begotten in the spirit and only begotten in the flesh." Mormon theology says that Jesus atoned for humanity's sins, not only on the cross, but in the garden of Gethsemane. After his death and resurrection, Jesus traveled to the Americas to preach to the American Indians, who Mormons believe are actually the descendants of ancient Israelites, and established his church in the Americas as he did in Palestine. Eventually all of the righteous, white Nephites were exterminated by the dark-skinned Lamanites, but not before they recorded their history on gold plates that were buried by the last living Nephite, Moroni, in what is today upstate New York. Many years later, Moroni, as an angel, visited the young prophet Joseph Smith and revealed the location of these plates, which would eventually become the Book of Mormon. And that's why we're here today. If any current or former Latter-day Saints, or anyone who simply knows more about this than me has any comments or corrections, I'd like to hear them. This is practice for me writing my book about Mormonism.