#ache away magic mud

[horsentale]

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[druidwolf21]

So I have this headcanon that space wolves pack bond whit thralls and or other humans.

With that said, I have this image (and or teeth rotting Fluff fic idea) where a space wolf stubbornly insists in doing one of the thralls in their packs hair.

I mean the lil humie help braid his hair once it’s finally washed so why shouldn’t he return the favour once in a while? Besides it’s a very good pack bonding experience :))

Eeeek I love this so much!!!!

And it gives me an excuse to write more about my Ulryk!!!

His first story is here

Here's a little rough pic of him here

Some short sweet fluff with a space wolf!

CW:one sexual innuendo, other than that, just a fluffy moment

@beckyninja @lemon-russ @moodymisty @thisuserislilsilly @jaghatai-khock @yurihasurunbara @0bananadog0

You muttered to yourself as you scrubbed at the Ceremite gauntlet perched between your knees, the dried blood caking the armour stubbornly refusing to move. Groaning in frustration you rolled your aching shoulder and flipped your hair back in annoyance before rubbing the mark with renewed vigour. The bench you sat on wobbling under you as you pushed your weight behind your cleaning.

"bloody great brute making a bloody mess of his bloody armour" you hissed as you managed to swipe the gore away. Leaning back, you smiled as the steel blue colour glinted under the harsh light of the armoury. "Finally!" You rose to your feet, and gripped the gauntlet against your chest as you heaved it back onto the rack before standing back and admiring your work. The armour shone in the florescent glow, blues and silvers ethereal under the stark light, each piece painstakingly scrubbed and polished.

All that was left was the helm.

You spun back to the work bench, tutting as your hair whipped across your face. You reached behind you and yanked the loose hair upwards into a hastily tied bun. "Throne, I swear I'm going to shave this all off at this rate" you grumbled as you stepped up to a large wooden bench and picked up and oiled cloth.

The helmet was stark against the oak, pale bone crested a burnished iron jaw lined with razor teeth. Swirls of blue stained runes tapered across the brow of the skull around the dark eye sockets, blessing gear with fenrisian magic. Your frown softened into a gentle smile as you gently ran the rag across the helmet, easing dirt away with precise touches. You leant over, eyeing a persistent spot of mud you brought the washcloth up to the hinge of the jaw and

Your hair fell across your face.

"That's it! I've had enough"

you tossed the oiled cloth across the room and stormed to the toolbox balancing precariously on the bench and reached in. Pulling out a small jagged knife, you grasped your hair firmly in one hand and swiped the blade towards your locks.

A large hand clasped your wrist, twisting it away as you dropped the dagger in shock. Reeling from the sudden contact, you tripped backwards, your weight being held up only by the hard clasp on your arm. Your eyes darted to the touch, following the muscled arm up to a broad chest layered in thick furs and a scarred and handsome face, framed by a cropped beard. A long blonde braid peppered with fenrisian beads and rings hung over his shoulder and his cerulean eyes burned into yours as he scowled down at you, lifting you off your feet slightly and setting you back down before releasing you.

"Skítja, Ulryk you scared me"

The astartes towered over you, watching you silently as you rubbed at the reddening mark on your wrist, muttering under your breath. "Your armour's not finished yet, I've just got the helmet left." You flipped a finger back at your hair. "I'd be done by now if this would stay up in a ponytail" You bent over and picked up the knife, flipping its hilt into your hand. "I'm just going to chop it off, I don't have to worry about it that way"

His head cocked to the side as you spoke before he lifted a callused hand to your face, rough fingers tracing the line of your cheek before tangling in your hair. A rare smile flashed across his face, creasing the long scar that crested his cheek and you felt butterflies in your stomach. "I like your hair" he shrugged, wrapping a strand around his index finger. "Besides, mine is longer and you don't hear me complaining"

You rolled your eyes and collected your tresses up into a bundle "I don't have a thrall to keep my hair nice and neat like someone does, it's easier to just.." you made a slicing motion with the knife. The man snorted and battered it from your hand before picking you up in a swift movement and standing you in the iron bench, ignoring your squeaks of protests as he did so. "Stop complaining, woman" he growled, facing you away from him as he set you down. You turned to question him, only to find your head roughly pushed back around. "Ulryk what are you"

You paused as you felt a tug on your hair, then another, gentler this time. Back and forth his hands moved, surprisingly softly for a man of his stature. "Are you braiding my hair?" No response as the soft pulling continued. You hummed as he wove your hair, relaxing under his touch and enjoying the comfortable silence. A soft pat on your head signalled he was finished and you turned to face him with a soft blush across your face. You pulled your hair over your shoulder and ran your fingers down the plait. "Thank you, my lord"

The space wolf shrugged, thick fur rolling across his shoulders at the movement. "It's not as good as yours, but then I doubt your little hands could lift a frost blade, drengr"

His response made you smile as you looked down at his handiwork, a clean, simple braid along the length of your hair, tied with a simple thread. Tangled in the locks of the locks was a single silver ring, wrapped carefully into the hair and engraved with a single ruin.

Gmorl

Fate

Your eyes widened in shock as you looked up at him "Ulryk this is yours, I can't keep this" at your words he bent over, face level with yours as he inspected the metal work. His fist suddenly clenched around the hair and he pulled, using his grasp to bring your face to his and placing a firm kiss against your lips. He smelt of smoke and pine forests, his canines nipped into you and your heart hammered in your chest so hard you feared it would leap from your body. He released you and you wobbled, placing a hand against his broad chest to steady yourself.

"it was mine, now it is yours, keep it, so others would know you are mine"

You stared at him with your mouth agape as he lifted you off the bench.

"besides, it gives me something to grab into whilst I..

You slapped his chest. "Ulryk no!"

He laughed, deep and sonorous as he placed a soft pat on your head and turned to leave.

"don't forget to finish that armour, there's no excuse now"

"you are the worst"

He waved his hand over his shoulder as he left, flashing you a sharp toothed grin as he sealed the door behind him.

You sighed, exasperated, before returning your gaze to the iron band in your hair. Twisting the metal between your fingers you allowed yourself a quiet giddy laugh before collecting your discard rag off the floor and heading back to the helmet on the counter.

"nearly done"

[alloftheimagines]

joel miller | don't let me drown

masterlist | taglist | ko-fi

words: 2.4k

warnings: drowning, hurt/comfort, angst, lil bit of nude cuddling for warmth reasons but nothing steamy, strong language, inspired by ep six but i changed it up so the bridge is unsteady for the purposes of *drama*. hint towards age-gap with reader in their thirties. they/them pronouns. no y/n.

synopsis: in which the reader falls into the river of death, and it's joel's job to save you and find shelter. featuring ellie. not requested!

You used to think snow was pretty. Magical, even. Now, you only think it’s a bitch to travel through, especially on foot with the harsh mountain winds blowing off the river.

Of course, you can’t complain because the fourteen-year-old and fifty-six-year-old aren’t, and you’re probably supposed to be fitter than the two of them put together. But inside… fuck. You’re exhausted, freezing, and desperate to get to your next destination so you can sleep on something other than ice and mud. 

When the bridge comes into view, relief washes through you. If you can get away from the open water, maybe the winds won’t be so biting and you’ll finally be able to feel your cheeks again. You puff out a visible breath and glance at Joel, who is both pale and rosy-cheeked from the cold. Ellie follows behind, watchful as ever. You can’t imagine what it must be like for her, trekking so far from where she began. Seeing so much. It’s been rough on all of you, but you’ve made it through together. Whatever comes next should be a breeze. 

“Keep a lookout,” Joel warns, poising his handgun and nodding at you to do the same. You’ve been warned that nothing good can be found by the river, and it’s left an unsettling silence between you since you started your journey. 

You dip your head, preparing your own gun as Ellie does the same. But if anything is here, you don’t see it — not on this side of the bridge or the other. It’s a rickety old thing, but if it gets you across… it’ll do. 

“C’mon,” he grunts. The bridge creaks beneath your feet, and you follow Joel’s footsteps to avoid any weak spots. Until gunshots sound somewhere in the distance. You all jump, but it’s you who loses your footing as a chunk of rotten wood disappears beneath your feet. Before you can find something to grab onto, you’re falling, screaming, clutching thin air. Joel yells your name with a fear you haven’t heard in a while, but his voice is lost as the rushing water swallows you up.

Freezing. So cold it makes you burn. The river turns your world grey and endless, as though you’re floating in a void. You thrash, trying to kick up to the surface, but the shock is jolting through you, making you numb, and you can’t remember how to use your limbs.

You cough and gulp down an unbearable amount of water, and that’s when you know. There’s no air, no way of making your lungs work. They just keep burning, squeezing for something that no longer exists. Your vision goes blurry and then disappears completely. 

***

Joel watches it in slow motion. The splintering bridge. The fall. The ripple in the river as it chews you up and doesn’t spit you out. He doesn’t realise he’s screaming your name, doesn’t realise he’s even running, until he reaches the other side of the bridge. 

“Stay there!” he orders Ellie with a warning finger, fear ricocheting through his voice, through the trees. You’re gone is all he can think. You’re gone, and he can’t fucking do this without you. 

His knees ache as he half-sprints, half-slips down the embankment, kicking snow into the river. After shucking off his shotgun and placing it down, he takes off his jacket in a moment of clarity, knowing you’re going to need something warm. And then he’s plunging into the river, cursing at its low temperature. His teeth chatter as he shouts your name, searching for any sign in the steadily flowing water. But there’s nothing. He dives under when he gets closer to the bridge, skin becoming ice as he searches the murky depths. 

He has to come up for air twice before he finds you sinking to the riverbed. He’s never moved so fast, snatching you up in both arms and pulling you to the surface. You’re deadweight in his arms, and panic lances through him when he finds you’re eyes closed. 

He calls your name again, urgency sharpening his words as he pulls you to the embankment. Despite his orders, Ellie waits there, eyes wide and afraid. He doesn’t have time to scold her. He’s too busy carrying you out, water pooling at his feet as he staggers to solid ground and lays you down. 

“Baby?” He shakes you, droplets falling from his face and onto yours as he kneels over you. “Come on. Come on, baby.” 

He presses an ear to your chest: finds no sign of breathing. 

“Shit.” He begins compressions then, counting to thirty before giving you mouth to mouth. Your lips are ice cold, and so are his, his knuckles reddening as he presses the heel of his hand down again and again and again. “Come on. Come on. Breathe.”

“Joel,” Ellie whispers, terror in her voice. 

He squeezes his eyes closed, unable to face what it means. What might be happening. He isn’t losing you today. Not any day. “Come on. Come back to me. Come back to me, darlin’.”

Your breath gutters, and instinct has him rolling you onto your side as you cough up more water than any person should be able to. 

“Fuck,” he’s saying, rubbing warmth into your shoulders. “Ellie, grab my coat.”

She does, and he wraps it around your quivering body before pulling you close. “I got you,” he’s whispering. “I got you, darlin’. I'm here." 

More coughs leave you, and he brushes your hair off your forehead to look for any sign of injury. Your lips are blue, and it terrifies him. Cold water shock can kill, and the way you went under… Shit, it’s a miracle you’re here, upright. 

You’re shivering so violently that he knows the worst isn’t over. Hypothermia. Pneumonia. Those are just some of the things he’ll have to watch for. He can’t take you anywhere like this, can’t protect Ellie or you, but you can’t stay here either. You need to warm up. You both do. 

“We need to find shelter. Somewhere to light a fire and get warm.” 

“I saw some rock overhangs deeper in the woods,” Ellie said. 

“Can you grab the bags?”

“Yeah.” She slips a backpack on each shoulder and then props Joel’s shotgun under her arm. Not ideal, but he can’t think about that now either. Not when you’re barely opening your eyes. 

He breathes your name and then: “Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

A faint nod. 

“Good. That's good. We're gonna get you warm.” He pulls you into his chest, hooking an arm under your knee and the other around your back. You sink into his warmth, but you’re so limp that it terrifies him as he carries you up the embankment, following Ellie’s lead. 

Sure enough, she guides you both to a deep overhang beneath snow-topped crags, and he dips his head to fit in the low space. He places you against the wall, already unravelling the bed rolls.

“Get a fire going,” he says. He’s certain that he had a few matches left last time he checked, and Ellie rifles through his bag before producing them. With shaky hands, she gathers a pile of sticks and surrounds them by rocks just like he taught her before lighting the match and letting it spread. 

The twigs are damp and produce a lot of smoke, but sure enough, an amber glow lights the dark shelter a moment later.

“That’s it. Good,” he whispers. 

Ellie glances at your hunched form warily. You’re so pale, so cold you’re practically convulsing. “Are they gonna be okay?”

“Have to be,” Joel mutters. He slips off your sopping wet coat and sweater, and Ellie turns away as he gets rid of the rest. 

“You still with me?” he asks you.

You hum in response, folding into yourself in your nudity. 

“Here.” Covering her eyes, Ellie hands him a spare long-sleeved shirt and a pair of sweats from her own pack, luckily from Bill’s stash of adult clothes. 

“Thanks,” he replies, urging your arms up so he can slip on the shirt. It’s an uncomfortable ordeal with your clammy skin, but he needs you warm. Now. Even when you groan, skin no doubt stinging painfully. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

He has to pull you up for the sweatpants, and then he’s rolling thick thermal socks onto your feet and tucking you into blankets and bedrolls. “How’s that? Feel warmer?”

You shake your head, and he helps you shuffle closer to the fire. 

“Now?”

A nod that has him relieved. He can’t help but place a kiss on your damp forehead, realising too late that he’s cold and shivering too. He only has another flannel in his backpack, though, and he can survive until he’s at least gotten you warm. Protecting you from his damp clothes using the bedroll, he wraps his arms around you to keep in the heat. 

“Gave me a damn heart attack,” he mumbles into your hair, squeezing his eyes closed to chase away the darkness creeping in. The thought of losing you. All the other scenarios where you didn’t end up here with him after the fall. He should have been smarter. Shouldn’t have taken you across that damn bridge.

The ghost of a smile crosses your flame-lit face. “Sorry." And then: "You’re… cold too,” you rasp between shivers. “Get in here.” 

He glances at Ellie. No way in hell is he going to strip off with her here. As though understanding, she raises her brows and shifts away. “I’m going to go find out if bears really do shit in the woods.”

“Don’t go away,” he orders. “Just… give us a couple minutes.”

“Yes, sir.” She disappears, and her crunching footfalls outside keep his concern at bay. 

His concern for her, at least. Your face still lacks colour, your breaths sounding watery and wrong even now. He grinds his teeth, reluctant to pull away from you for even a minute. But if he dries off, he can give you his body heat, so he quickly tears off his clothes and replaces them with the one dry shirt he owns. He doesn’t bother buttoning it up, instead crawling into the bedroll with you and enveloping you in an unyielding hold. You lean against him, eyelids drooping but shivers finally beginning to ease. 

He begins to warm up after a few minutes and can only hope you are too. When he notices your eyes closed, he stiffens. “You still with me, darlin?”

“Think so,” you murmur, your cool hands travelling across his bare chest. He tries not to flinch as he directs them up to his chest. His mouth. He kisses your knuckles before cupping his own hands around yours and blowing. Then, he rubs, generating friction. 

“Keep talking to me,” he pleads.

“‘Bout what?”

“Anything.” Anything, as long as you don’t leave me. As long as you stay. “What was your favourite book growing up?”

You were barely fifteen when the pandemic hit all those years ago, but you smile as you remember that old bookshelf your dad put together full of worn paperbacks. “You don’t read, Joel. You wouldn’t know even if I told you.”

“So tell me about it.” He’s still using his hands, pushing feeling back into your body bit by bit. 

“I’m okay,” you whisper finally. “I’m okay, Joel. I’m gonna be okay.”

“I know that.” But he won’t stop, won’t give up, even when your cheeks turn pink once more. God, he’s missed the way you glow like that, the way it looks brighter in the snow. 

You take a ragged breath. “I liked Gulliver’s Travels.”

“Yeah? Who’s that by?”

“Joel…” Your eyes flutter shut. “Please. I’m tired. I’m warm. I’m okay.”

But he can’t trust it after he’s just put breath back into your lungs; can’t trust it to stay there. He holds you tighter, placing a gentle, terrified kiss into your hair, even if he’ll never admit that he is terrified. That he can’t breathe if you’re not breathing. He realised that the moment he jumped into the river without caring if it got him killed too. 

You’re all he has to hold onto, and he could never let you drown.

“I just need… I need you to keep talking to me for a little longer, baby. Just until I know you’re okay,” he says.

“Okay.” So you tell him about your favourite book, drifting in and out of the conversation. Soon, you stop shivering against him and the bedroll warms with two sets of body heat, just as he’d hoped. The fire keeps up until Ellie finally comes back to refuel it with more sticks, offering Joel a smirk that he returns with a gentle glare. You barely seem to notice, still muttering. 

“Sounds like a great story,” he says finally. “I think Sarah had that one.”

“Yeah.” You smile, cheeks swelling this time as you nestle into his chest. But then you cough, and he frowns. God, is this what it’s gonna be like now? One cough’ll leave him frozen with fear?

“I can read you guys a great book!” Ellie volunteers, and of course pulls out her pages of puns. 

Joel groans. You chuckle, and his heart warms at the sound. 

“Tell me the one with the penguins again,” you ask.

Ellie grins and flips through the pages, and you get a million more cheesy puns that make you laugh until you can no longer hold your head up. You’re certain Joel’s bare chest ripples with stifled amusement at some points. 

“Joel?” you ask as Ellie turns the page. 

“Yeah.”

“I’m so tired.”

Another wave of dread. He masks it clearly, examining your features. You look and feel warm, and you sound like you. If you need the rest, he can’t keep asking you not to take it for his own selfish reasons. For his own pathetic fear.

Finally, he surrenders. “Okay, darlin’. Get some sleep. We all need it.”

“Night,” Ellie says, getting comfortable in her sleeping bag.

Your eyes shut instantly and don’t open again, but your chest rises and falls smoothly against your interlocked hands. He listens to it as the shelter quietens, the fire getting lower. He listens all night just to make sure you’re still breathing. When light returns the next morning, he finds Ellie has done just the same, wide awake and unwilling to tear her gaze away from the two of you. 

“They’re okay, right?” she asks. 

Joel can only hope that it’s the truth when he says, “Yeah. They’re okay.”

“Good.” She nestles into her makeshift pillow — her backpack. “You’re a real grouch when they’re not around.”

He rolls his eyes, tempted to point out that he is always a grouch, though Ellie’s right. He needs you. He will always need you. 

And god, he hopes he never comes close to losing you like that again.

[azrielsdove]

Petals and Pain: Tamlin x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Suggestive, Longgggg

The halls were dark, quiet, and cold. A stark contrast to the last time you stepped foot in this manor. You crept through the ruins, remembering how the grand place had looked before. It had been fifty-odd years since you last came here, since you last saw your oldest friend.

Everything had changed since then.

You had left Prythian on what was supposed to be a month trip to the other territories. You were to go both as a diplomat and as a tourist. Tamlin had wanted to try to better the Court with what you learned there, a task you so willingly took. You had bid him farewell and set off, excited to see what the world had to offer.

You didn’t know it would be the last time you saw him.

He sent a letter the moment Amarantha showed her evil hand, bidding you stay put. Every instinct in you screamed to run home, but you knew you could be of more help if you stayed away. Perhaps you could seek out assistance from one of the territories.

Your heart ached for the Spring Court all those years. Your travels brought you beauty, sure, yet it all paled in comparison to your home. You longed for the manor, its large windows and warm sunshine. You wished to walk through the gardens, so full of magic and peace. Above it all you missed Tamlin. The two of you had met long ago, when you were both not more than babes. Your parents were high up in the Court, trusted advisors to the High Lord. Often you were brought along as their pride and joy, their perfect little pawn. Talks of a betrothal to you and one of the High Lords sons began as you grew, your parents vying for the eldest. They knew he had the most chance of being the next High Lord. The goal was to get you in the highest position of power possible.

Your friendship with Tamlin grew as you did. He was pushed to the side more often than not, the youngest brother with no hope of ever being High Lord. Your parents were unhappy that he was the one you chose to befriend, but they couldn’t keep you from seeing him. Not without potentially upsetting his father. No, that wouldn’t do for their plan.

Until the slaughter of the entire family occurred. Your parents were unlucky enough to have been there at the time of the attack, murdered alongside Tamlins. Too quickly the manor went from a busy, full, lively place to just the two of you. Tamlin begged you to stay after that, insisting that he didn’t want to be alone. You couldn’t deny that you felt the same and gladly moved into the manor. He appointed you emissary, setting you as the first member of his court. Not long after Lucien showed up and turned your duo into a rather happy trio. You and Lucien worked together to keep the Spring Court in good favor with the other Courts.

You wondered where Lucien was now. What exactly had happened here, besides what you got out of Tamlins last broken letter. You continued further into the manor, peering into each room as you passed. There was no sign of life anywhere. You weren’t even sure if Tamlin was still here. You stuck a hand in your pocket, finger running over the edge of the letter that brought you here.

Spring has fallen.

It is all my fault.

The threat has gone.

Short, and not nearly enough information. You had raced back to Prythian as quickly as you could, trying to imagine what had happened.

Though nothing prepared you for this.

“Tamlin?” You called out softly, unsure if danger lurked nearby. A chill flew through the air, sending shivers down your back. A noise from a few rooms down the hall startled you, eyes darting towards it. You moved hesitantly towards the door, noting the dim light showing from underneath it. Slowly you pushed it open, once again calling out his name. You looked into the room, heart sinking at the sight.

You had found Tamlin.

From where he sat you could see his hair was matted, covered in mud and leaves. His once smart attire was torn and dirtied, hanging loosely off his much too thin frame. You could see his skin was pale, scratches covering most of it. “Tam?” You asked, voice shaky. He turned slowly to you and your hand flew to cover your mouth. His eyes were dark, sunk deep into his head. He looked as close to death as you could get while still being alive. “Oh Tam.” You dropped to your knees in front of him, gently wrapping your hands around his. You stared deep into those haunted eyes, heart breaking. “Let me help you.”

He gave no response, just continued to stare at you in that dead sort of way. You began to doubt there was anything of your friend left. You quickly busied yourself with all the healing remedies you brought from your travels. You weren’t certain what sort of state Tamlin or the Spring Court would be in when you arrived, so you brought as many fit into your bags. A good thing too, for several of these were desperately needed. You gently poured a few different vials into his mouth, watching carefully to make sure they took. You wanted to heal his body and mind as much as you could, in hopes that he could explain what had all happened. You administered one final draught for the night before gently leading your friend to lay in front of the damp fireplace. “Sleep should kick in soon, will you lay here for me?” You asked, laying down the cloak you wore as a sort of sad attempt at a bed. Tamlin laid on it with no comment, the horrid blank stare still on his face. You waited until he was asleep to go scrounge around for some wood, leading to a rather pitiful fire in the great stone fireplace. At least it was better than nothing.

You settled down in the least damaged chair you could find, watching Tamlin. Your mind was racing with questions. You were completely lost on how your once witty and charming friend had been reduced to this husk of a male. And where was Lucien? You were struck with a chilling thought, one that you didn’t wish to dwell on. You shook your head, shooing it away. Lucien had to be alive, something just must have come up. There was a perfectly logical reason for why he wasn’t here, and why the Spring Court lay in ruin. You just had to wait for Tamlin to wake and you could get some answers.

***

It was days before the High Lords eyes opened once more. You spent your time forcing water and various medicinal mixtures down his throat, exploring what was left of the manor when you felt up to it. Your heart ached at seeing what was once your beautiful home in such disrepair. It shattered completely when you made your way to your old rooms and found that they were the only place untouched. Dusty, yes, but otherwise just the same as you had left them. You had quickly brought Tamlin to them after your discovery, setting him up in your grand four poster bed. A reminder of a life that feels so long ago now.

It was soon after that Tamlin came to. He still looked close to death, but there was a minuscule brightness to his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He murmured your name, a hand reaching out for yours. You grasped it tightly, tears pricking at the back of yours eyes. “Tam,” you whispered, “what happened?”

He gave a sad smile, shaking his head. “It was all my fault, truly. Everyone left. I let them all down. I allowed war to come to these lands, I allowed terrible things to happen.” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “All in the name of love. Love. What do I even know of it?”

You were confused, and a tad bit hurt at the mention of this so-called love. “Tell me from the beginning.”

And so he did.

He told you of what Amarantha had done, how she had tricked the Courts. How she vied for his hand and when he denied her she cursed all of Spring. He told you how she cut out Lucien’s eye, wincing as he did. He talked about the rules of his curse, how the only way out was to get a mortal to fall for him.

He spoke of Feyre, the love he had mentioned before. You could feel the pain in his voice as he did, as he explained how he tried to save her. “I was ready to sacrifice my entire court, just so she would be safe. A fool I was. A selfish, horrid fool.” He told you how they were all taken Under the Mountain, how Feyre came to try to save him. What she suffered in the months down there. How he didn’t know what to do, besides send Lucien to try to help her.

He talked about Rhysand, who you remembered all too well. He explained how the other High Lord assisted Feyre Under the Mountain, how Tamlin had thought it all a nasty trick. His voice broke as he recalled Amarantha killing her, but Rhysand and the other High Lords worked together to bring her back.

You had no words, shocked at the amount of respect they all had for this girl. Truly, you couldn’t help but be in awe of her yourself.

Tamlin continued, telling you how they were supposed to wed. How Rhysand had crashed the wedding, whisking Feyre away. He told you how Lucien and him thought Rhysand was nothing but evil, mind controlling Feyre to hate them. “Of course, she had every right to hate me. I didn’t know how to treat her after Under the Mountain. I allowed her suffering.” You squeezed his hand reassuringly, urging him to continue.

On he went, explaining that Rhysand and the Night Court were never truly evil, that there is a goodness there. He spoke of the war with Hybern, of what he had done to Feyres sisters. He told you how Feyre had turned the court against him, but it was his own actions that lead them to believe her.

He talked about Lucien, how he had fled with Feyre in the end. “I couldn’t even keep one of my oldest friends. I have done irreparable damage to everyone I cared about. It is good you were away, otherwise you would’ve been hurt too.” His gaze was faraway, eyes shining with untold pain.

You sat in silence for long moments, processing everything he had told you. Lucien had left him. That was no small fact, that what Tamlin had done was bad to have driven him away. Yet as look at the male in front of you, you struggle to see that he is truly evil.

“I believe your heart was in the right place, however your actions were a bit extreme,” you said slowly, careful with your words.

Tamlin laughed. “Just a bit?” You looked up at him, his eyes shining bright as he smiled at you. For just a moment you could see the old him in his face, the strong High Lord you once knew.

“Okay, perhaps a lot. I do not see why that should mean you must live like this now. It is not too late to make amends to your Court, and to Lucien. I am home now, Tam. Let me help rebuild our home.” And you, you thought, looking over his sickly state once more.

He nodded, agreeing. “Yes, yes. You always know what to do. For now, I will rest. I tire too easily these days.” His eyes were closed before he finished speaking, exhaustion taking over once more.

You sat in the quiet room for a while longer, still holding his hand. Your questions were answered, but in their place were a million more. For the first time you began to doubt if the Spring Court and its High Lord were truly fixable.

***

You spent the following days cleaning up what damage you could from the manor while Tamlin regained his strength. You took notice of how most of the destruction seemed caused by a rather large animal, piecing together what must have happened. What sort of a state had he been in to destroy his home in such a way? You had paused your questioning for now, focusing on his healing first. You did find where Lucien now resides and sent him a letter as quick as you could. You weren’t entirely sure what had all happened, but you hoped he would return once more. If not for Tamlin, then for you.

You were busy cleaning in the grand entry when a rather cold chuckle came from behind you. You turned quickly, holding your mop out like a weapon.

“Oh relax, it is only me,” a silky voice said, purple eyes glittering. You frowned.

“Rhysand.”

He placed his hand dramatically over his heart at your cool tone, feigning being stabbed. “Ouch. How long has it been since we last spoke, then? Welcome back to this side of the world. Noticed I didn’t see you in the war.”

You rolled your eyes, setting your mop down. “There could never be enough time in between our meetings. I wasn’t a part of the war, as I was unaware it was happening. The last I heard was the day Amarantha played her nasty trick, and I was told to remain away.”

“Lucky you. Away on your travels, galavanting around while the rest of us suffered.” Rhysand scowled at you, eyes narrowed. “You seem not any worse off for it.”

You crossed your arms tightly in front of you, anger flooding your body. “I did only as my High Lord commanded.”

Rhysand scoffed. “Some High Lord he is. Do you not see the state of your beloved Court? Do you truly believe an innocent male allowed ruin to befall your home like this?”

You took a step closer, ever defensive of your old friend and home. “What I have found is a hurting male, trapped all alone in a nightmare of his own creation. I have heard his regrets and his helplessness. I came back to find my home a dark shadow of itself, my High Lord, my friend, not more than a shell of who he was.” You looked Rhysand up and down. “I have found you, the male who won it all. You have your mate, Rhysand. You have your grand Court, your faithful family. I’ve heard you even have a perfect little son. And yet here you stand, coming to do what, may I ask? Taunt Tamlin? Kick him some more while he’s down?” Your fists clenched, anger tight in your chest. “I admit I do not know all that has transpired in my absence, but I know enough to say what you’re doing is wrong. I do not argue that he has hurt you, has hurt your mate, but to what end must he suffer? Will you not be happy until his heart has ceased beating? What more can he give you?”

Rhysand stood as still as death, eyes studying you carefully. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “You show a devotion I do not often see. If you ever come to understand there’s nothing for you here, i’d be pleased to see you in Night Court black. As I said so many years ago, Tamlin will never give you what you want.” He was gone in a dramatic swirl of darkness, nothing but a grandiose show of power. You frowned deeper, ever unsettled by the High Lord. He had always been condescending to you, deciding that you were worth hating just for being close to Tamlin.

As I said so many years ago, Tamlin will never give you what you want. You scoffed as the words played again in your head, picking your mop back up. Rhysand had convinced himself long ago that you only stayed close to Tamlin in hopes of being his bride. You’d laughed in his face the first time he said this, completely taken aback by such an accusation. You can admit a part of you would not have been unhappy with such an arrangement, but you had your position in Court on your own. Rhysand never saw you as more than a lovesick puppy that followed Tamlins every move.

When you returned to Tamlin you mentioned the meeting rather briefly, not wishing to upset him any further.

“Rhysand was here?” He asked sharply, eyes scanning you as though for injury. “Did he hurt you? What did he want?”

You sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at him. “He did not do anything, Tam. I assume he came to make sure you were still miserable. He wasn’t very pleased to find me instead.” A teasing smile danced across your face, an attempt to lighten the situation.

It didn’t work. Tamlin frowned deeply, clearly upset that this happened. “He comes every now and again to remind me i’m worthless and alone. He laughed himself silly when he saw how sickly i’d become last time.”

You forced your anger down, not trusting yourself to speak. While you understood why Rhysand would be so full of hate for Tamlin, there has to be a limit before it becomes just pointless cruelty. You took a deep breath, looking intently at your friend. “Whatever he has said to you is irrelevant now. You are healing, as is this Court. That is all that matters. Do not dwell on the events of the past, not now.” You reached over and grabbed the warm tea you had made, filling his cup with it. “Now drink, and rest. I gather soon you’ll be up to a walk around the grounds.”

***

Tamlins healing came slowly, and not without challenge. The first day he got out onto the desolate gardens surrounding the manor he fell into a darkness deeper than before, pained at seeing what his home had become. The physical healing was only part of the battle, the healing of his mind was what truly ailed him. You had brought him back to bed, forcing him to eat and rest. Once you were certain he was down for the night you made your way back outside, sitting on the cracked grand steps leading up to the entry.

And you cried.

This task was more than you expected. Tamlin was in worse shape than you ever imagined, the Court was nothing more than a few dead plants. You had no idea where to go from here, how else to aid in his healing. Even when he was healed, how were you going to go about healing the Court? Bringing the fae home? You’d heard how it had fallen, the poison Feyre had spewed, the ways in which some of what she had said rang true. You knew how Tamlin put his faith in the wrong beings, how his focus on her lead to his destruction. This was beginning to feel like all too much on you, but you refused to give up on him.

Someone spoke your name softly.

You shot up from the steps, eyes narrowing as you took in your surroundings. Your heart stopped when you realized who was standing in front of you.

“L-Lucien?”

His name was enough to have him running up to you, wrapping you tight in his arms. You sunk into his embrace, tears taking over with a new force. You allowed yourself to let out all you had been holding back, safe in the arms of one of your closest friends. Lucien held you close, body shaking with his own emotion. The two of you stood that way until your eyes were dry. When you finally pulled back enough to look up into his face your heart ached. One hand came up to gently touch the scarring left by Amarantha, anger and pain in both of you. “I’m so sorry I left.”

Lucien shook his head vigorously. “None of that. I stood by Tamlin when he decided you should stay away. I do not regret that choice for a moment.” He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, giving you one last squeeze before letting you go. “How is he?”

You sighed deeply. “He’s bad. I am starting to lose hope.” You were ashamed to speak the words out loud.

Lucien reached out and grabbed ahold of your hand. “Take me to him?”

You nodded, leading him through the desolate manor. You heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in the destruction, even with your pitiful attempts at fixing it. You paused outside of your rooms, looking up to Lucien. “He has not told me all that transpired between you, however he has told me enough. I am sorry for the pain you have suffered at his hand. The male you are about to see is but a shell of the one you once knew. If it’s too much I do not expect you to stay.”

Lucien squeezed your hand reassuringly. “At the end of it all, Tamlin was one of my greatest friends. And you are worth more than any pain he has bestowed upon me. I do not wish to see either of you suffer anymore than you already have.”

You gave him a watery smile and pushed open the doors. You felt his hand go slack as he took in the sight of Tamlin tucked into your bed, how sickly he still looked. You stayed close to the doors as Lucien approached him, allowing him to process what he was seeing. “Oh, Tam,” he whispered, a hand running across his face. “What have we done?” He stood there for a while, looking over his old friend. You went to him when you noticed the gentle shake of his shoulders, tears falling slowly down his cheeks.

“Come,” you whispered, wrapping an arm around him. “He will not wake until well into the morning. I’ll make you something warm to drink and you can rest until then.” You led Lucien down to the kitchens, fixing him up a cup of tea. He sat in silence while you did, staring blankly at the wall.

“I should not have left him in my anger,” he finally spoke, looking up as you handed him the cup. “I was so hurt by how he had acted, but I was not innocent in all that happened. Even when I disagreed with his actions I still followed him, up until the end. I’ve allowed him to fall into this state.” You knelt down in front of him, wrapping your hands around his.

“You must not think like that. We all have our own guilts and pain, but we must come back together now. Everything has changed and yet so much is the same. I have missed you, Lucien. I have missed the both of you more than I can say.” You looked down at your hands around his, taking a deep breath. “We need to come up with a plan to help him, to save our Court. Otherwise it will remain dead for eternity.”

***

Weeks went by. Lucien stayed and helped you, the two of you fixing up your home. Tamlin had improved greatly in the physical sense, but his mind was still riddled in guilt. Your pain at seeing him struggle had slowly turned into anger. “What else can we do, Lucien? Do you expect me to sit and wait decades more for him to move on?” You seethed, pacing back and forth in front of the grand fireplace. The two of you spent most nights in the newly refurbished study, the favorite of the rooms you’ve redone. The estate had been mostly repaired to its former glory, aside from the missing staff and High Lord.

“You know how long it can take. You saw the state he was in. I know it is frustrating to continue waiting but what else do you propose we do?” Lucien was as exhausted as you were, but his own guilt at letting Tamlin fall this far kept him slightly more amicable. You paused your pacing, turning sharply to look at him.

“I’m going to tell him off. We have let him deal with everything in private as much as we can. He needs a wake up call, and so help me I will do it.” You made your way from the room before Lucien could stop you. You knew you should calm down before you get to Tamlin’s rooms, finished only days ago. Your hands were clenched tightly into fists at your sides as you stormed through the manor, trying to decide what to say. All you knew was that you were angry and tired of watching your dearest friend lose himself.

You reached his doors rather quickly, shoving them open without a second thought. They clattered against the walls, alerting Tamlin to your presence. He looked over at you curiously, eyes scanning over you. “Has something happened?” He asked, sitting up in his bed. You crossed your arms tight in front of you.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Something has happened.” You watched his expression change slightly at the pure rage in your voice, as if he knew what you were going to say. “You. You, Tamlin. I am sick and tired of watching you wallow in self pity. I understand, you were hurt. You are ashamed of how you acted in your own rage. But how long must this go on? I am home, Tam. I am here, for you. Lucien and I have repaired this estate and you have done nothing but sit in this godforsaken bed and pout!” You couldn’t help the increased volume in your voice, all your hidden frustration bursting free from you. “I want you to get up. I want you to get out of this bed, put some damned clothes on, and come to work. Do you understand?” You stared him down, breathing slightly heavy.

Something strange flickered through his eyes, an emotion you had never seen in him. His voice was deathly cold when he responded. “Are you making demands of your High Lord?”

An exasperated sigh rolled off your lips. “At this point I’m more High Lord than you are.” You knew that was cruel, a direct attack to his already hurt pride. The rational part of your mind was screaming for you to calm down, to take a step back. But your anger was winning. “I came here to help you, Tamlin. Have I not done so? Have I not devoted my life to yours?”

His scoff cut you off. “No one forced you to do that,” he spat out, leaning back against his headboard. “You did not have to come back here. You shouldn’t have come back here.”

You rolled your eyes. “This is my home. You are my home! Don’t you get it, Tam? It has always been you!” The anger rushed out of your body at your confession, a sudden lightheadedness coming over you. “It was always you,” you whispered out, a hand coming to rest on your forehead. The strength left your body, your legs failing to hold you up. The floor was coming up fast, blessedly fast. You hoped you would hit it hard enough to forget this moment, your embarrassing confession.

Then you stopped. Strong arms wrapped around you, pulling you back up. One stayed tightly around your waist while the other cupped your chin, forcing you to look into the perfect green of Tamlin’s eyes. “Say it again,” he whispered, breath ghosting over your lips.

“It is you. You are my home,” you murmured, brain foggy at his proximity. In all the decades of loving him, you had never been caught in a moment like this.

Tamlin took a deep breath before moving a millimeter closer. “How long?” He asked, each syllable causing his lips to brush against yours.

“Since we were children. My father pushed for me to marry one of your brothers, but I never held any interest in them. My heart has always called out for you.” Your body was on fire, every slight brush of his lips against yours a lightning strike under your skin. “I waited. I waited for you to choose me at Calanmai.” You felt his nails dig slightly into your waist at that, a shuddering breath running through him. “I waited for you to seek a wife once you were more comfortable as High Lord. I waited and waited. Then you sent me away.”

The hand under your chin moved to hold your face, thumb running gently over your cheek. “I sent you away,” he began, voice heavy, “because it was getting too hard to focus with you around. With the constant need running through my veins.” His hand dropped to the back of your neck, squeezing ever so gently. “Every Calanmai my body sang for yours. It took insurmountable control to not drag you in that cave with me each year.” You couldn’t help the noise that came from you at that. Something in Tamlin snapped, his pupils blown wide before pressing his lips fully against yours.

The kiss was harsh, unleashing decades of pent up desire. You cried out when he bit your lip, canines sharp. The taste of your blood on his tongue was positively sinful, making you feel a way you never had before. His lips moved from yours, running down your neck before his teeth sunk in to your shoulder. You moaned his name loudly, throwing your head back in a silent plea for more. Tamlin growled, the arm around your waist moving to slide down between your thighs. His fingers teased the waistband of your pants, your skin burning in the wake of his touch. You had half a mind to grab his hand and force it where you needed him the most, when Lucien decided to make his presence known.

“I see we kissed and made up?” He cooed, a smirk on his face as he leaned against the doorframe. Tamlin turned sharply to him, elongated nails and teeth on full display.

“Leave. Now.”

***

One year later

The Spring Court was alive once more. In fact, it was more beautiful than it had ever been. The flowers bloomed bright and big, their pleasant perfume filling the lands. The grass was the richest shade of green, the trees sang in the wind, and the air ran fresh. It was a paradise. You were admiring the peonies in the garden when two arms wrapped around your waist, tucking you close. You leaned into Tamlin’s hold, a content sigh escaping you.

“How are the flowers today, my love?” He asked, pressing a kiss behind your ear.

“They are perfect,” you said with a smile, resting your hands over his. You looked down at the glittering emerald set in gold on your finger, a matching golden band circling his own. “How is my husband today?”

“Mmm,” he groaned, pressing more kisses down your neck. “Greatly improved now that I have you here. The other Courts are being rather obtuse about answering our letters.” You turned in his arms, resting your hands upon his chest.

“Do you wish for me to deal with them again? You know they rather like me,” you teased, playing with the fabric of his shirt. Your husband rolled his eyes, leaning down to kiss you sweetly.

“They do seem to prefer you, High Lady.” You smiled at the title, a name you were still getting used to. You caught his lips with yours once more, threading one hand up through his hair. He sighed into your mouth, pulling you tighter against him. You lead the kiss, allowing his mind to grow muddled under your touch. You tugged on some strands of his hair, relishing in the guttural sound he made before pulling away from him and out of his grasp.

“Come on, High Lord. Let’s go convince the other Courts that a Spring ball is an excellent idea, planned by their very favorite High Lady.”

***

Ahhhh I LOVE this one. I hope you all do too! This took me agessss to write, but I am ever so thankful for your patience with me. <3

Note: If you do not like Tamlin, that is fine, but do not come here to argue. Just scroll on <3

[ink-through-her-veins]

Arthur stumbles upon the dragon purely by happenstance, but by gods is the beast a chatty thing. It goes on and on about destiny, Albion, peace, and Arthur’s favorite part how the once and future king (himself) and his fated other half (Emrys) are two halves of the same coin, and everything will become clear when they realize this. Then the beast tells Arthur that Emrys not only has magic, but is magic, and Arthur’s head begins spinning—not with fairy tale romance where he gets swept off his feet as he’d been imagining moments before—but how anyone could have magic and not be evil.

‘Merlin could do it,’ he thinks wistfully, his unrequited crush upon his manservant rearing its ugly head even as he contemplates his soulmate.

He’s pulled from his daydream by said crush ambling clumsily into the cavern, gaping wildly, and then blurting out, “I can explain!”

The dragon laughs. “I already have, Emrys.”

And Arthur’s head starts spinning again. He pushes himself off the ground, takes a single step toward Merlin, and pulls himself back as a landslide of realization clobbers him like a thousand stones. “You knew?”

Merlin looks completely broken when he says, “I didn’t want anything to change between us.” I didn’t want you to have to choose between me or your father.

Arthur’s heart aches. Tears burn behind his eyes. “Of course,” he bites out, but all he can think, is what kind of man can’t be loved by his own destiny? What kind of monster must he be?

Things do change. Merlin’s stiffer. Arthur’s quieter. The dragon beneath the castle becomes one of Arthur’s closest confidants even if it speaks in riddles and leaves Arthur’s clothes smelling so strongly of smoke even his father notices.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin whispers one night as the smell of Kilgarrah’s sulfurous smoke fills his nostrils as he prepares Arthur for bed. He misses the smell of Arthur’s sweat, and the combination of leather and grease that clings to his armor. He misses the way Arthur used to look at him, joke with him, befriend him before he knew about the magic. “I’m sorry I’m like this.”

I’m sorry I’m me, Arthur thinks as he silently raises his arms to let Merlin drop a sleep shirt over his head. He only grunts in response.

Months pass, and as the ground thaws so do Merlin and Arthur, because though he may speak as clearly as a mud puddle Kilgarrah isn’t wrong: one cannot truly hate that which makes it whole. Arthur clings to Kilgarrah’s promises. One day. One day. Hopefully one day soon.

And the day comes in late summer when Merlin’s nearly skewered by a bandit while he and Arthur are on a hunt. Arthur’s checking him obsessively for any signs that the blood on him is actually his, while Merlin swats at his hands insisting he’s fine.

“Why wouldn’t you use your magic!?” Arthur screeches shoving Merlin’s hands out of the way so he can look over every inch of him.

“So I could be burnt upon a pyre? No thanks.” Merlin manages to push himself free of Arthur and stalk away.

“We’re meant to marry one day. We’re two sides of a coin, soulmates. Do you truly think me so monstrous?”

Merlin’s eyes are big as eggs. “What? Married? Soulmates?”

“What do you think Kilgarrah meant?”

“He’s an overgrown lizard!” Merlin shouts suddenly feeling too warm and too confined despite the mild weather and endless amounts of fresh air. “That…He…Is that what two sides of the same coin means?” He’s pacing the meadow, ignoring the dead bandits scattered in the tall grass. “I’m sorry, Arthur, I am. I…I don’t think you’re a monster, and I’m sorry you have to choose between your father and I. I’m—“

Arthur sees something then in the way Merlin tugs at his hair, eyes full of concern when they swing toward Arthur. Fools, Kilgarrah had called them, and fools they absolutely were.

“There’s no choice,” Arthur murmurs, sidling up to Merlin to take his hand. “It’s you. It was you before I knew of our fate and your gifts, and it’ll be you no matter what stands in the way.”

[cressidagrey]

The Starlight Princess - Chapter 5

Summary: 

There is a Pool of Starlight in the Spring Court. A piece of the Night Court that has no business being in the land of Eternal Spring. So how did it come to be?

Or: How the Spymaster of the Night Court starts hearing a voice, realises that no, he is not insane after all, frees a princess, kills a High Lord…and finds his mate all at the same time.

Warnings: Definitely NSFW

She screamed. 

And into the world, she poured all her pain and her anger and her fury, her magic lashing out to the world that had taken so much from her. That had kept her prisoner for centuries and now threatened to take him from her. 

Seren wasn’t sure what she was doing, she only knew that the only thing she wanted was vengeance. 

Vengeance. Death. She wanted him dead. 

And she did that. 

Azriel plunged the knife and Seren was the one who pointed him in the right direction. 

The wards broke. The curse shattered. Her magic exploded.  

For just one single moment she felt like she was being flayed alive. 

And then…then she was back. Back into her body that she hadn’t felt in centuries. Back to having arms and legs and hands and feet. 

Back to feeling cold mud underneath her knees, the wind on her skin. 

She looked up, her eyes wide…and then she stared at him. 

She felt something inside her snap.

Seren had no idea what it was. She didn’t understand what was happening, couldn’t understand what was happening as it felt like the magic in her body swirled…

She didn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t understand what was happening to her. 

The only thing…the only thing that she knew was that he was hers. 

Hers. 

She had never in her life felt anything like that. She had never in her life felt anything like him. 

The only thing in her mind that mattered at that moment was he…he mattered. 

He mattered because he was hers. 

Mate.

Mate. 

Her mate. Hers. Hers and hers alone. Her mate. 

It was there. In her brain. 

And it was the truth. She could feel that in every fibre of her being. Mate. He was her mate. Her mate. 

Mate. 

Her eyes met his. 

Mine. Mine. Mine. 

She covered her body with her own, unable to think, unable to do anything but cling to him…

Her mind reached out, without her permission, unable to even recognise about the dangers she put both of them in as she threw herself against the comfort of his mind with everything she had. 

She needed…she needed…

The rhythm of his mind that she knew better than her own…the feeling of it under her mental touch, the love, the power it projected…it was the only home she needed. 

And so she blanketed it with her own, wanting to cradle it in safety, needing to feel it, needing to…

*Home. Safety. Protection,* he seemingly chanted. And while she agreed, she needed him first. She fit her mouth over his with a growl, needing him to touch her, needing his attention on her like she needed air to breathe. 

She tasted his blood and the salty and iron taste soothed something inside her. 

One hand cupped the back of her head and she shuddered, leaning her forward against his, breathing in cedar and mist and something that was irrevocably him. 

Mate. Mate. Mate. 

He kept a tight grip on him, even when she could feel the magic swirl, grabbed her and they hit the stone floor in a house. 

Not that it mattered. 

Nothing mattered, but him. 

She straddled him, the need rising to a fever pitch, her nails scoring against his warm skin, stretched over rock-hard muscles, and she pushed away the leather falling off his shoulders in rags, the fabric disintegrating under her fingertips. 

Her lips pressed against his again, her tongue tangling with his as she needed to have him bare underneath her. Now. 

She needed him. She needed him as close to her as she possibly could, her body nearly aching, heat curling low in her belly, burning her from the inside out. 

Her instincts were screaming at her, to take and fuck and claim and have him. 

She needed him. She needed him. 

*Seren.* Her name in his mind only fanned the flames, only made her fingernails score against his skin, his skin slick with blood and sweat and she didn’t care. 

He pulled back from the kiss and she growled, staring at him. “Seren, wait.”

“Why?” It was a guttural sound ripped from her throat. Wait? Wait for what? Why should they wait? 

If she was going to wait, she would die. 

She couldn’t wait. 

She attacked his throat instead, nipping the delicate skin there with her sharp teeth, tasting salt and sweat and Azriel and wanting, needing more. Her hands slid over his torso and she could feel him shudder underneath him, could feel the arousal thrumming on his side of the bond…she bit back a smile. 

 *I need you,* she cooed at him. Hers. She needed him. She needed him. 

She could feel his mind, could feel him hover in indecision, could feel him get ready to push her off but she clung to him even tighter. *Please, Azriel.* 

Desperation bled through her, as she shifted…and the flames built into an inferno, as she could feel him notch against her there, even with layers of clothing separating him…She could feel him, rock hard and ready for her, ready for her taking. 

Her instincts shot into overdrive. *Big. Strong. Will give me strong children,* something inside her purred, pure undiluted need rushing into the cradle of her thighs, her body growing slick and warm in seconds, a throbbing pain making itself a home there. Empty. She was so empty. 

She needed…

That’s how far she came. 

He twisted them, her body suddenly buried underneath him, before he flipped her over, and dragged her hips up into the air until she was propped up on her knees. 

A thin, needy whine escaped her at his manhandling, the arousal suddenly at an even worse fever pitch than it had been before, one broad, scarred hand, shoving her head down, her hands squabbling for purchase against the rough stone. 

She fought against him, but she had no chance. Absolutely none, against the pure muscle mass and bulk off him as he leaned over her and pinned her to the floor, one hand grasping her hair, and twisting it around his hand like a rope, yanking her head to the side, his teeth against her neck. 

She could see him, could see the dark eyes, the snarl on his face as he buried her body underneath his, her heart thumping inside her chest, like a rabbit caught in the snare of an apex predator. 

Seren wasn’t scared. That didn’t even cross her mind. 

He growled, the sound feral, a warning.

She whimpered in response, her thighs growing slick with her wetness. 

Azriel’s nostrils flared and she knew the moment he caught her arousal. 

“Mine,” he snarled at her, magic enveloping them once again, her whole body trembling… enveloping the

And just like that she was at his mercy, her heart pounding in his chest as suddenly he was bare, the thick line of his cock dragging against her cunt, her whole body trembling at the shocking touch, her breath catching in her throat.  

His other hand, the one that was not buried in her hair, slid over her hip…pressing his fingers between her thighs, finding that needy, throbbing bud there that was driving her to the brink of insanity. She couldn’t help but jerk as he circled it, a whine escaping her. 

She was caught between the insistent press of his cock, still sliding slowly against her, never entering her, and the touch of his fingers that were…

He clucked his tongue at her as she tried to get away from him, the hand in her hair pulling her back sharply. *You’ll take what I give you,* he snapped in her mind, the order like a whip crack and she had no choice but to submit. 

Not that she wanted to. a part of her mind was purring in response, more than pleased by him taking control. 

*Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate will take care of me,* her mind purred, her trembling only intensifying. 

She whimpered, pushing back against him, his fingers having ceased their slow circled

*I will. I will take care of you. What does my mate need?* he purred into her mind. *Do you need my cock?*

Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe that would finally help against the incessant emptiness that was gaping inside her, maybe then she would no longer feel quite as…

He pulled back and that was all the warning, she would get as he plunged inside her, ripping apart her maidenhead with one deep stroke. Her back bowed, a scream escaped her, at the pure size of him, the width and length that was forced inside her with brutal pressure. 

Her walls fluttered helplessly against him, straining and failing.

She tried to shift away, and bucked her hips against his, as everything hovered over the knife's edge of being too much, whimpering pitifully. 

He kept her pinned underneath him, so easily it would probably been amusing under any other circumstances. Panic clawed up into her chest, but as she could feel a low growl rumbling from his throat…He forced her body to adjust, to submit, and suddenly something inside her relaxed. 

Her body grew lax, no longer fighting him. 

But something…something inside her slid into place… something inside her relaxed at the biting heat and pressure and pain and pleasure that this brought her…something inside her slotted right where it should, the bond between them flexing and shifting…

*Such a good little mate, princess,* he purred into her mind and she wanted nothing more than to hear that every day for the rest of her life. 

Her instincts purred, satisfaction turning languid…like a cat stretching out in front of a fireplace.

Her thoughts grew hazy, heat pooling low inside her belly as her cunt clenched around him, against the sheer size of him…pinned into place between him and the floor. She wriggled, but she didn’t really want to escape his grip…just wanted to see if she could move…and she couldn't. 

Desire pulsed through her at that, at how helpless she truly was in the face of his strength…how heavy and big her mate was as he pinned her to the floor, surrounded her…utterly and completely. 

“Mine,” he growled against her throat and she felt his teeth prick against her skin. 

“Yours,” she agreed, the words coming out of her mouth in a soft whine, just as he went back to circle that nub begging for attention…

He pulled back slightly and snapped his hips forward, making her gasp. She was quite sure that he was going to bruise her, and she couldn’t fucking care less. Seren could hardly draw breath to scream, her nails scratching against the stone floor as he fucked her hard and mercilessly. It was almost too much to bear. 

Almost. 

But she revelled in it. She loved every fucking second of it, every second of gasping for breath, her body aching, climbing towards that peak that she was barreling towards too. 

This was…this was more than simply taking pleasure from each other, this was a claiming. 

And she gave each other over to him with every fibre of her being. 

“Mine,” he snarled once again, his teeth snapping closed against her neck and she arched into that sweet pain, as she choked out an affirmative, a high-pitched cry escaping her mouth, as he picked up the pace. 

He was ravaging her. 

“My mate. Mine.”

Hard punishing thrusts, until finally, her body hit that point where…that point everything went white surrounded her, a wordless high-pitched scream on her lips. 

He didn’t stop. 

She didn’t stop either. Her body started clenching around his again and again and again, and she wasn’t sure when one climax ended or another began. Peak after Peal, rolling into each other, again and again, until it was one constant cresting wave that destroyed every last bit of her sanity.  

She was a prisoner to the pleasure he gave her, every thrust of his giving her another peak or maybe just lengthening that one until her body violently shook in his grasp. 

Her mind reached out on its own accord, cracking open, every bit of pleasure he was giving her, pouring out of her and into him and into the world, sharing it, making it stronger….

Two, three thrusts later, he came with a roar. There was no other word for it. 

His fingers imprinted on her skin with the force of his touch, bruising her and she sobbed with pleasure as she could feel his pleasure pouring all over her, the molten heat that he poured deep inside her as his cock twitched. 

She was utterly surrounded by him, inside and out, his scent covering her. 

He collapsed on top of hers, and she could feel that ravaging need deep within her subside slightly. 

For just a moment, she only existed, catching her breath, her mind blissedly empty as the only thing she felt was Azriel’s weight on top of her, the mating bond thrumming between them into one golden bond. 

Seren was safe. Seren was home. 

And then suddenly, Azriel’s feelings poured all over her, shock, horror, an absolutely ridiculous amount of self-loathing, fear and…

“Gods, I am so sorry, Seren,” he choked out as he lifted off her and she managed to crack open one eye, not understanding what he had now. 

“Hm?“ She couldn’t even manage to build a complete sentence. To blissed out. 

Too…pleased. 

“Seren,” Azriel’s hands fluttered around her, not daring to touch and she managed to push up on a pair of shaking arms, her body still thrumming with aftershocks, to catch his hands. 

*What’s wrong? Why are you sorry?* she demanded. What was...

“What’s wrong?” Azriel asked her incredulously. “I fucked you like some kind of animal! I bit you!”

“Yeah, and you don’t hear me complain,” Seren shot back, somehow managing to sit up, flinging a blob of mud from her shoulder down onto the floor. She really wasn’t going to complain. Not when she had loved every fucking second of this. 

“I can smell your blood,” Azriel choked out and she stared, watching the self-hatred that made himself a home on his face. 

*Azriel,* she said pointedly, pushing her mind against his, pushing into his mind, showing him exactly how it had felt…the pleasure he had wrung from her. How much she had loved. 

*I am so sorry,* he whispered into her mind and she somehow managed to drape herself half over his lap, pressing herself against his body. 

*You don’t need to apologise. There is nothing that you did wrong. But if you need to hear it: I’ll forgive you,* she whispered into his brain. Quite frankly, their first kiss had been her nearly biting off his tongue, so…maybe this wasn’t quite the first time she had expected but that didn’t mean that she didn’t enjoy it. 

*This was your first time,* Azriel realised weakly. 

*And it was perfect,* she cut him off before he could start it up again. *Though I could use a bath…I do not enjoy being covered in mud.*

He bit out a laugh at that, weak and thin and still lifted her into his arms like she weighed nothing. She was quite certain that they trailed mud and blood all over this house as she tipped her head back against his chest, feeling his heartbeat underneath her touch. 

*Where are we?* she asked idly, taking in the comfortable furnishing of wooden furniture and thick carpets over the rough stone floor. It was a far cry from the luxurious appointed House of Wind where she had grown up. Or even the Moonstone Palace on top of the Hewn City. 

It was…home. 

She quite liked it. 

*My house in Velaris,* Azriel answered as he pushed open the door to the bathing chamber. His home? 

He had lived in the House of Wind before. Since when did he have that house? 

But that question went unanswered, as Seren blinked twice at the absolute massive pool that doubled as a bathtub. 

*Makes it easier to wash my wings,* he admitted unashamedly and she grinned as he carefully put her down, dragging him in with her. 

Not just his wings. Her wings too. 

He indulged her, as she pressed a soft kiss against his mouth, stepping into the steaming water behind her as the pool filled magically. He cradled her face, soft and sweet and languid as the pool filled with warm water and she could feel the mud washing away from her 

*You deserved it to be courted like a princess,* he still thought weakly at her as she cupped the water in her hands and gently started to wash him, taking in the sluggishly bleeding scratches on his chest as she cleaned them carefully. She was sure they would scar, disrupting the Illyrian tattoos that marked his skin with scars gained for her. 

*Well, I have never turned down a gift,* she quipped, making him bark out a burst of laughter. *You can just make it up to me.* She suggested brightly. *You can be as sickening sweet and doting as you want after we have cleaned up. I am prepared to endure your thorough attentions.* 

[anto-pops]

The Serpent's Paramour - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: For the past five years, you've been traversing the Highlands in pursuit of ancient magic sites to master the all-consuming power from the repository. In the midst of your travels, you find yourself forced into an uneasy alliance with none other than Sebastian Sallow. He wants your help, but you want absolutely nothing to do with him.

At first, that is.

While the two of you learn to coexist in the same space again, you’re left wondering if you truly will be able to aid one another, or if your past mistakes will finally come to head after all these years and ultimately lead to your long awaited downfall.

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: 18+. aged up characters, canon-typical violence, kidnapping

Chapter 1 can also be found here on Ao3

You were getting really tired of running for your life. 

During your fifth-year turning tail and booking it was often heavily warranted, especially because it was usually being done as a result of you waking up hordes of Inferi, or stealing important artifacts from dark wizards that would then be out for blood. You liked to think you had grown out of that habit, but tonight was proving to be something of a trip down memory lane. 

You were being chased. Again. 

Tucking your knees to your chest, you ducked down and rolled through mud at the same time a Bombarda curse blew up a chunk of the tree ahead of you. It was a close call, but you could hardly stop to survey the extent of the damage when you could still hear the thugs behind you giving chase. 

“You daft idiots, grab her!” 

Another spell struck the ground where you’d landed moments before, but you were already on the move– dipping and weaving in a bid to dodge the attacks that were fired blindly at your back. It made no sense; you had never been intercepted at an ancient magic site before, and as far as you were concerned, there was no reason for anyone to take interest in a dilapidated ruin. Aside from using the crumbling fortress as a makeshift base, no Ashwinders or poachers had ever been lying in wait in what was otherwise deemed an unremarkable location. 

They had been this time, though. To make matters worse, they were looking for you specifically. 

Your name had been like a battle cry from their lips as you’d exited the rundown site, and you hadn’t bothered to stick around to find out whatever the hell it was they wanted with you. If you weren’t so tired and weary, you would have apparated yourself to safety in a heartbeat, but splinching yourself as a result of your carelessness wasn’t exactly at the top of your to-do list. So, you had bolted straight for the edge of the forest, doing your best to avoid colliding with the low hanging branches that scratched at your cheeks and ripped at your cloak. 

There was more yelling from behind you, only this time it sounded distinctly farther away. Chancing a look over your shoulder, you discovered that there was now ample distance between you and the goons chasing you, and you pivoted on your heels to head north for the river that separated the Clagmar Coast from Cragcroftshire. If you could reach the water, you would have a better chance of getting away and concealing your tracks in the process. 

At least, you hoped you would.

Lungs aching, you pushed yourself harder, your arms pumping at your sides as you lept over a fallen log in your path, and though you stumbled a bit upon landing, you remained upright and pressed on. Another spell whizzed past your head– the heat from the Confringo curse nearly singing your matted hair– but you ignored it and focused wholly on running. It felt like an eternity had passed when you finally reached the colossal ravine, immediately trying to formulate a plan that would result in you on the other side with your pursuers left behind. There was no bridge to repair, no loose boulders to form into a levitating staircase, nothing. Panic began to fester in your mind for a heartbeat before you steeled your nerves and banished the feeling entirely. Hysteria wouldn’t help you right now– it never had. 

“There– up ahead! Move your asses, dammit,” came the same voice from before. You turned to watch as a handful of masked assailants slid down the muddy embankment roughly fifty feet from you, and that sight alone spurred you into action. 

Your wand was ripped from the holster on your thigh, and you channeled every bit of magic in your body into it as you aimed for the largest tree across the daunting trench in front of you. The Accio charm wrapped around the top of the monstrous trunk, and with every ounce of strength you possessed, you pulled. It seemed impossible at first, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and the foreign power from the repository surged to life to give you the assistance you gravely needed. There was a deafening crack as the wood began to splinter and give way under your ministrations, muting the onslaught of footsteps that grew nearer and nearer. With one final pull your efforts were rewarded, and the massive evergreen tipped towards you slowly before gravity caught up to it, sending it plummeting towards where you stood. 

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? It was a philosophical question– one that you had never thought about much before– but you had always assumed that with no one around, there would never be any way to know. Presently there were multiple people around, and as it turned out, a falling tree did make a sound. 

As you dove out of the way, the pine covered top of the tree arched past where you had been standing, stretching over the shrinking space between you and the encroaching strangers behind you. Most of them saw the gargantuan tree heading straight for them and jumped out of the way, their shrill screams echoing throughout the forest and bringing a small smile to your face. A few others weren’t so lucky, and you watched as the peaked top of the tree swallowed them whole and buried them beneath a heavy thicket of pine needles. 

Seizing your opportunity, you ran for the makeshift bridge and hauled yourself on top of the rough trunk, shoving and kicking at the spindly branches that stood in your way as you practically clawed your way through to the other side of the ravine. You didn’t dare look back, keeping your eyes trained ahead as you focused on maintaining your footing and not getting thrown off balance by your satchel. 

It looked like a hurricane had torn through the earth when you finally emerged at the base of the tree. You hopped down and landed in the deep, root-riddled crater that had previously held the evergreen upright before running to the side to gauge where your attackers were. Most were still gathering their bearings while others attempted to drag their comrades out from under the suffocating weight of the branches. You hardly spared their survival a second thought as you pointed your wand at the center of the tree and cast, “Confringo!” 

The flames grew rapidly and without mercy, frantic calls of “hurry” and “get them out of there” reaching your ears as you spun towards the forest and disappeared into the treeline. There was no knowing how much time you had bought yourself, but you weren’t about to squander any of it for a second. 

You ran, and you did not look back. 

***

One would assume that after two years of living in abandoned hovels and scrounging up scraps to eat with your bare hands, you’d be used to being cold, wet, and miserable. Hell, you had learned more about yourself since leaving Hogwarts than you’d ever thought possible, including just how resilient and resourceful you could be. Rain storms, stale bread, and a lack of clean water had never deterred you for long, and through all the trials and tribulations you found yourself facing, you always managed to pull through. 

Tonight, however, you allowed yourself to be sullen. 

The torrential downpour you’d been caught up in somehow managed to slip through the canopy of trees overhead, and as a result, you were encased in a cold, wet, dreary darkness. It had been two hours of trudging through mud and frigid temperatures, and by now you were caked in a thick layer of grime that you desperately wanted to rid yourself of. Charming away the mess was pointless– it wouldn’t be long before you were covered in muck once again– and you’d learned long ago that using magic while in the middle of a void forest was a bad idea, especially when you were trying to remain undetected. 

After the events from earlier in the day, you had decided to head straight for the next site marked on your map to make camp and settle down for the night. However, you were still a day away from reaching the location, no thanks to the dark wizards that had chased you in the opposite direction. Your stubbornness and desire to reach your destination is why you currently found yourself on the outskirts of civilization, trying and failing to fend off the elements to get the journey over with, but the bone-deep chill that wracked your body was beginning to weaken your resolve. 

You were exhausted. 

Thunder rumbled overhead, long and loud amidst the sound of raindrops pelting against the dirt, and with a disappointed sigh, you made up your mind. If memory served you correctly, the town of Bainburgh was roughly a two mile walk west of the forest. Your paranoia told you it was too risky to set foot in a legitimate establishment, but your numb limbs and wet boots squashed your fears before they could come to head. Staying outside for the entire night would likely leave you dead, and there were few other options to choose from. 

So, you marched. It took roughly forty minutes to traverse the jagged, rocky landscape in the dark, slowed down by the stray roots that stuck out of the ground and worked to trip you in your haste. By the time you made it into town, you were soaked to the bone and shivering violently enough that you were certain passersby could hear. The tavern was helpfully the largest building at the end of the road, and you headed straight for it without sparing any of the town’s denizens a second glance. 

The warmth that greeted you as soon as you entered was beyond welcoming, and you tugged the door shut behind you before beelining straight for the firepit in the middle of the room. Your hands were so numb that you practically had to submerge them in the flames to feel any semblance of reprieve, and a few onlookers cast wary glances your way. Between the mud that coated your lower half and the water that dripped from every fiber of your clothing, you realized you had to look like a walking disaster, and that sobering thought had you tucking your hands under your armpits as you hurried to the bar at the back of the room. 

The older gentleman wiping down the counter turned to face you, his aged face showing obvious alarm and concern when he caught sight of you. “Merlin’s beard girl, you look like you’ve been dragged straight through hell.” 

You flashed him a bashful smile, though you were certain it looked like more of a grimace. “You could say that. You wouldn’t happen to have any rooms available for the night, would you?” 

With practiced efficiency, he tossed the rag he’d been holding over his shoulder and shuffled over to the cabinet at the edge of the bar, opening the squeaky glass panel that housed the keys for the rentable rooms. “Ordinarily the answer would be no, but that damned storm blowing through has business movin’ slow. I’ve got two rooms left, one with a bath and the other without.” 

Your heart soared as you hastily replied, “The one with the bath, please.” Without missing a beat, you snatched your weighty coin purse from your belt and dropped it on the wooden surface. The barkeeper raised his white, bushy brows in silent surprise as he tentatively picked up the drawstring sac, plucking ten gold pieces from within before handing it back to you. The bronze key he deposited in front of you had a wooden tag dangling from the end that read ‘13’, and for the first time in nearly two weeks you found yourself genuinely smiling as your fist closed around the cool metal. 

“Up the stairs and on your left,” he instructed you. “Kitchen is open for another hour if you’re tryin’ to grab a bite before bed, but I’d wager you’re more interested in the runnin’ water.” The way his eyes fell to your soiled clothing didn’t escape you. You almost felt bad for tracking all the mud and water through the lobby.

Twenty minutes later, you had a warm loaf of bread and a small wedge of cheese tucked away in your bag as you ascended the rickety staircase. The decor within the aged tavern was modest, save for the silver plaques that adorned each door with their respective room numbers. Finding your own was a non-issue, and as soon as you were inside the sanctity of the rented space, you let loose a breath that you’d seemingly been holding since setting foot into town. Now wasn’t the time to let your guard down, but you weren’t about to turn your nose up at clean linens and running water. 

Moving quietly, you stripped down to your undergarments and tossed your ruined clothing in the corner of the bathroom, then cranked the tub’s faucet to the highest setting and left it to fill. The bread from the kitchen had cooled some, but it hardly made a difference to you as you ripped off a piece and ate it with the cheese you’d purchased. Fresh food was a rarity for you these days, and you savored every bite as you paced the length of the room. With your hunger sated and your looming bath just around the corner, you allowed yourself to think back to the last few weeks, and you pondered just why dark wizards were looking for you.

Understandably, the whole situation reminded you of your fifth-year. Suddenly you were fifteen again, being hounded and hunted by Ranrok and Rookwood alike for simply existing. At that time they had wanted something from you; your abilities, your information, and most prudent of all, your silence. You’d known too much back then, but those times had passed, and both Ranrok and Rookwood were now dead– at your hands, no less. 

So why would anyone be looking for you? Who were they to you? What did they want? 

It wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest to discover that you had more enemies lurking in the shadows. The stunts you’d pulled and the things you’d gotten away with back then were bound to catch up with you, but you hated not knowing. The whole reason you’d left Hogwarts after graduation without so much as a word to anyone was precisely because you didn’t want your whereabouts known. The line between friend and foe had started to blur towards the end, though you acknowledged that it was mostly your fault.

You hadn’t turned Sebastian in, but you also hadn’t moved to stop Ominis from doing so. 

With him imprisoned in Azkaban and Ominis reeling from the decision, it was no wonder the two of you had drifted apart in the years that followed. Anne’s curse worsening had only exacerbated Ominis’ feelings, and you’d graciously stayed out of his way anytime you saw him around school. Natty had never fully recovered from Harlow’s use of the Cruciatus curse on her, and your guilt had in turn driven you further away from her. Poppy was the only person you’d stayed in touch with for the remainder of your academic life, but she was too good a person to drag down with your… issues. You’d ultimately been the one to cut contact with her following your seventh-year, and while you’d felt bad about it at first, you knew it was for the best. 

After tonight, that decision had proven to be the right one. If you really were being tracked, were any of your former friends targets for information? Did this impromptu, wild goose chase have anything to do with your volatile abilities from the repository? Had you unwittingly put them in harm's way simply because they knew you? 

The bread in your mouth had gone soft, and you shook the pointless thoughts from your mind as you finished off your mediocre dinner and made for the bathroom. The warmth from the water was divine and single-handedly chased away any lingering doubts about holing up in a public place for the night. For just this once, you would gladly trade sleeping in the cold, wet dirt for the pending restlessness and paranoia that was bound to greet you, and greet you it did. 

After climbing under the itchy but clean blankets, you stared wide eyed up at the ceiling for what felt like hours. Every squeak of a floorboard, every booming laugh that echoed up the stairs, every shadow that darted past your window, all had your heart racing. Even after checking twice that the two points of entry were indeed firmly locked, your nerves wouldn’t steady. Your skin crawled with unease at the prospect of being blindsided in an unfamiliar place, and at one point you even began pacing the length of the tiny room just to tire yourself out. 

Eventually, you came to a grinding halt at the foot of the bed, your hands curling into fists as you sucked down a slow, deep breath. “You’re fine,” you murmured to yourself. “You’re fine. It’s okay, you’re safe, you’re fine.” 

Maybe if you repeated it enough times you would start to believe it. 

The second time you crawled beneath the prickly sheets your brain was still running in overdrive, but you were far less fidgety than before. You had no clue how you managed it, but eventually your eyes drifted shut– and even if it ended up being a fitful bout of sleep, you would be grateful for the few hours of shut eye you managed to acquire. 

Gratitude went right out the window, however, when you were startled awake by a whispered, “Petrificus totalus.” 

Your body locked up– stiff and unable to move an inch below the scratchy covers– and before you even had the chance to glance in the direction of the disembodied voice, they whispered a different sort of charm. 

One that made your world go dark.

[justbelievinginmagic]

ariadne's thread ⎯ pt. 12: forgotten.

pairing(s): hyunjin x fem!reader, ft some jeongin x reader. series summary: when tempted by an intoxicating offer by hyunjin the goblin king of the underground, you fight against him to find your own sense of self once more while in his labyrinth. glimpse: you awaken in your childhood-home bedroom. with strange desert sand in your shoes and wounds decorating your body, you wonder what exactly happened to you and why couldn't you remember anything? warnings/tags: inspired by the 1986' movie Labyrinth, follows majority of the movie's plot points with lore divergence, 3rd person POV, use of Y/N, mature, suggestive adult content, faerie lore, fear, world-building, explicit language, canon-typical violence, toxic relationship, uneven power dynamics, manipulation, magic usage, brainwashing?, body horror (not super descriptive), blood, one-sided affection, obsession, memory loss, lots of physical affection/touching, fire, injuries, let me know if there are any other tags needed. word count: 12.4k previous chapter <- -> next chapter series masterlist

Her eyes fluttered as she awoke, peering up at the ceiling. Her back ached for a moment, and Y/N couldn’t stop the groan that escaped her. Turning over, her face buried into a pillow. Her pillow that smelled of home, like warm linen from a tumble in the drying machine, like her favorite detergent from the local grocery store. Huffing, she moved to rub her back with one hand awkwardly. Digging into her muscles, she groaned. The work shift yesterday really must’ve tweaked her back; it radiated with an aching pain. She’d have to get some medicine. Which meant getting out of bed. Ugh.

Blinking, she finally pulled herself out of her lethargy enough to take in the sight of her room. Her bedroom’s bedside light was on, gleaming a soft-yellow orange glow from a too-old light-bulb. She had fallen asleep on top of her duvet apparently with her shoes still on. God, how tired was she yesterday? She usually does better. Eyes bleary and half-shut, unseeing, she moved and shifted to sit up. Y/N gritted her teeth as she hoisted herself onto the edge of her bed. Toeing her shoes off, she sat for a moment, head flung back as she tried to pry herself from sleep’s embrace.

Her feet hurt, too… and were those grains of sand in between her toes? Wiggling her toes, the sand fell aside, landing on the floor. Her head shifted to look at them. Real sand on her rug. Not just a trick of the eye or her sleep-addled brain.

Huh?

Blinking slow like a cat, she gazed over her legs. Dirt, mud, even blood coated her clothes!

What?

Her heart picked up. What was going on? She stood quickly, her bed creaking familiarly as she looked around. There was no sand on the ground; no dirtied footprints tracking on the rug in front of her bed. Her bed was barely rumpled, just the vague shape of her body on its fluffy duvet. What had she been doing before she fell asleep? Where had she been? There was no sand anywhere near her small town. Dirt, yeah, but not this sort of yellowed desert sand that sat in a mess on her carpet.

In a flash, she remembered a hazy image - when she had sat on a cobblestone floor, dumping sand from her shoe into a pile beside her. A shadow blocked out hazy light; a blonde-haired man with dimples grinned at her, hand outstretched, words on his lips – but, like déjà vu, the memory was chased away no matter how quickly she tried to grasp at it.

What was that? Who was that? Where had she been?

Why can’t she remember?

This was scary.

“Mom? Dad?” she called out instinctively, reaching for the door knob of her room.

Opening it, she was greeted with not the hallway of her childhood home, but what looked like a trash heap.

Piles of garbage, of old things, and of rotting things were in large stacks under a hazy orange sunset? Fire? Light? Its glow didn’t look natural.

A squeak escaped her as she slammed the door shut. Both hands pressed against the door to keep it pressed shut. Heaving out a panicked breath, her mind raced. 

What was that?

Did she just see that?

Was she still dreaming? This was a dream, right?

That wasn’t her home. That was—she didn’t know what. A landfill? But why? HOW?

Turning, she looked around at her room. Everything was so still like it was frozen in time or from a photograph. There was no flicker of her old posters from the air conditioning. No wind pressing through her window tickled the curtains into a rustle, no air conditioner rumbled, her bedside lamp didn’t flicker. But everything was in its place, perfect as a picture.

Her vanity mirror reflected her visage back at her. A rumpled, bandaged, and still-bloodied version of herself was there. Back pressing into the door, she raised a hand to her neck where a make-shift bandage wrapped around her skin like a choker. Her neck tugged with a sting as she touched it.

She’d remember that, surely?

Her breath trembled as her gaze settled back on her door, still being pressed shut by her own shoulder. Things didn’t feel right. She didn’t feel right. Her head ached she noticed, and her mouth felt heavy and heady with a taste of something rottenly sweet. Her fingers felt sticky like she had spilt juice or soda on them.

What had happened? Something had happened; she just couldn’t remember. Her head felt heavy, sleepy like it was full of cotton. Blinking, she raised a hand to bang at her own skull as if she was an old computer chugging too slow to process information.

“C’mon, this is a dream,” she murmured. “Whatever’s behind this door… it has to be. That wasn’t real – it couldn’t be real.”

Breathing out in a huff, she gathered herself once more and reached for the door knob.

Opening it, tentatively, she peered out of the small crack she made. A somehow familiar orange-red hazy hue engulfed her gaze. The glow made the entire trash heap look aged like it was a polaroid left to rot in the sun. Nighttime felt like it was only a blink away, as if the entire exterior was trapped in a sunset’s golden hour.

But that wasn’t the only thing she noticed. No, what she saw in front of her made her eyes widen.

A goblin.

Yellow-eyed with bright red pupils. Fangs. Small downy feathers covered her face like it was fur. A pile of junk resting high on her back like some sort of severely overpacked, over-piled backpack. It looked like a turtle shell with how the lady squeezed back into it at Y/N’s shocked face.

(Y/N could hear echoes of laughter and the feeling of eyes on her own back… as if she had seen a creature like this before.)

The goblin gasped at the sight of her, but it didn’t have fear. No, it was almost excited.

“Oh, better to stay in here, dear,” she chattered as she pushed her way in.

The door slammed back into Y/N; she was surprisingly strong for such a small creature. The goblin’s voice was aged and scratchy like a record player long defunct. The clutter on her back chimed and clattered as it hit the doorframe, and some fell to the floor. Scattered remnants of dolls from long ago, paper advertisements that read ‘enlist in the military,’ and old photographs, yellow-aged and brittle, trailed after the goblin.

“Nothing out there that you want, trust me!” she added with disdain before turning to her. “Oh, but look at you, all better, huh?”

Her attitude reminded her of a grandmother’s, a bit rough around the edges but, when geared towards her, it became kind. Sweet like those ancient coffee taffies you can only find at a grandparent’s house.

“Better?” Y/N queried carefully as she backed away from the goblin as it approached her.

Her hand wrapped around her bed’s banister as if its support could protect her. She couldn’t help her gaze from darting all over the other’s form. Dancing over her animalistic facial features – she had rows of fangs that were small and sharp, a scrunched leathered nose, and hair like a puff ball of grey yarn. The junk that tumbled over her shoulders and back towered high above her almost, crushing the goblin’s small figure. How could she walk with that? How was this possible!?

“I found you a few hours ago – you looked all bruised up and battered; don’t worry, I helped treat the wounds.”

The goblin’s words seemed kind even as she began to prowl around her bedroom, or… was it her bedroom?  How was it here? The goblin picked up her hairbrush and sniffed at it before hissing a bit and placing it back down.

Rubbing a hand across her face, Y/N tried to remember what she had been doing last. It was strange – it felt like there was a cloud over her head. Like when you wake and couldn’t shake off sleep as you got ready for the day. Groggy and slow-minded. All she could remember was running, running, and running. She was trying to get somewhere?

“Where am I?” she asked quietly.

There was a pause as the goblin sorted and hummed about this and that in her room. If she had been paying attention, she’d see that the goblin had almost inspected everything – even placing a thing or two in her pocket.

“Huh, what was that, dear?” The goblin replied as she stared at a pretty water-globe high on a shelf.

“Where am I?” Y/N repeated.

“The City of the Forgotten, of course,” she cackled out before reaching up with a spindly arm to grasp the water globe in her hand. “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”

“Hey, don’t touch that,” Y/n scolded, rushing over to grab it.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she cowered. “It’s so pretty, though. And it’s just collecting dust – we should use it, hmm?” She crooned. “Treasure should be admired, lovely!”

“It’s mine,” Y/N countered placing it back on the high shelf. “Now, you said the Forgotten City?” she clarified.

So, she wasn’t at home? Nothing made sense. And she had this aching headache pulsing behind her eyes. The goblin was already on her way somewhere else in the room, oooh-ing and aah-ing as she went.

“Please, can you listen to me?” Y/N pleaded.

“I am, I am – look at this, this is such a treasure,” she was looking at an old calendar that Y/N had placed in a drawer. It was years old by now.

“I’m trying to understand. Where is the Forgotten City?”

“It’s the City of the Forgotten and, well, it’s forgotten, dearie.” She chuckled as she flipped through the calendar before shoving it onto her back against some sticky used chewing gum.

“Please, I’m trying to find out where I am!” Y/N cried out. “I feel like I was doing something, looking for something!”

“Aren’t we all looking for something?” the junk-goblin cackled. “I found lots of things, just look closer, dearie.”

She was now going through her clothes’ drawers, pulling out this and that. “Oh, look at this,” it was a far-too old pajama shirt – something that used to be a day-shirt from an interest long past before it got stained or too stretched out. With holes and washer-softened cotton that felt soft like spider-silk. “Isn’t this darling? You haven’t worn this in ages. You know you could wear this; wait, wait, I’m sure there’s something even better.”

The goblin clawed through the drawers with vigor.

“No, no, I don’t have time…” Why didn’t she have time? It felt like something in her was tick-tick-ticking away in her heart, like she had to go, go, go. “I was going somewhere. . . I can’t remember.”

It was like it was juuuust on the tip of her tongue.

“Can’t remember what you were looking for?” the goblin crooned, pausing in her search as if she had just heard Y/N’s laments for the first time. A messy sprawled pile of clothing surrounded the little goblin in a semi-circle. “Oh, oh, oh, maybe it was to see Mister I.N. Yes, yes, Mister I.N can help you!” It was a sudden crow.

“Mister I.N?” What a strange name.

The one-eyed goblin beamed a fanged smile. “He is good with forgotten things. He will help. But first, you must look presentable – look at you, muddied and messy. He wouldn’t like that. No, no, yes, yes. This will do.”

She had tugged out something far too flashy. Her old Prom dress she realized. It was something of iridescent softness; something a sixteen-year-old who loved romance books and fantasy too much dreamt about. Her legs felt like they were tangled up as she stared at it. Y/N sat down on her bed with a plop.

“No, no,” she stared at the dress, furrowed browed. Flashes of ribbons, lace, and satin. Masked figures whirling in a blurring waltz. A kiss that engulfed her senses. She blinked, and the images were gone. Her mouth tasted of sweetness like a remnant of a candy and iron like she had bit her tongue.

“Okay, okay, what about this?” The goblin-lady presented a pair of trousers and a clean blouse.

“I-“

“Now, now, now!” The goblin chirped, pushing the items into her lap as she backed up. “Must look nice. Hurry up, dearie.”

The woman had crept back outside, shutting the door with a slam that had Y/N jumping. Her eyes blinked deliriously towards the door before she looked down at the clothes in her lap. Their soft white, clean linens could distract her for long as she spotted her injuries once more. Her hands were bandaged and, with careful fingers, she unwound the fabric to look upon half-healed injuries she didn’t remember attaining. It was frightening. How did she get so hurt in the first place? Re-wrapping it quick, she stood and looked in the mirror of her vanity. Mulch and blood stained her clothes. Pollen stuck to the ends of her hair as if she had laid in a flower field. She wiped it away only for sparkling glitter to tumble away in a flurry. On her hip, she had a collection of magical-looking gems and jewels. She lifted them up. They were heavy and precious looking. Her wrist jingled with a fake-metal charm bracelet, and her favorite ring was no longer on her hand.

What had happened?

Distress welled up in her throat as she examined the injuries she had obtained as she shimmed off the dirtied clothes and stepped into a new ensemble. Bruises decorated her skin in watercolor green-yellows-and-reds. Y/N tied the gems and jewels to her hip once more and the tinkling of the bracelet distracted her once more. Large boba eyes filled her mind as she eyed the jewels once more, but like everything here it faded into nothing but into the few large gems of amethyst on her hip. She rearranged them. YN then let her fingers brush over the plastic charms of her bracelet that jingled against the jewels. Strange…

Sitting on the floor, she slid on her shoes, after knocking the extra sand out of them. Tying them tightly, she remembered a voice chiming a bright “Annyeong!” She looked up to see a figure, shading her from the honeyed light of her room

“Ready, dearie?”

It was just the goblin lady with a wolfish grin on her feathered face.

“Aw, look at you. You look like a shiny new penny,” she complimented as she urged Y/N to her feet. “Let’s go. I’ve let him know we were coming. He’s so excited to meet you properly.”

The little creature took her by the hand and tugged her out of her bedroom into the strange world outside. A dumpsite of a world. Piles upon piles of things engulfed what looked like a desert landscape. Wicker chairs, drums, lamps, wrenches, candelabras, this and this, whoitz and whatitz galore. Every few mountainous piles, there was a creature much like the goblin lady digging through the trash, trying to find something that sparked its fancy. Like a racoon digging through a trash can. Other creatures, tall and short, all bearing their own weight in junk whether it was like the layered upon layered shell like the goblin lady or simply a draping of this-and-thats on their person, stood around burn barrels. Warming their hands, shivering. Why were they out here? Actually, now that she looked around, Y/N noticed something. There were no homes. No buildings. Where did they live? Her eyes glanced back at them.

Their eyes gleamed in the firelight as they looked up to see Y/N and the goblin lady scurrying in and around the make-shift town. Figures peered out of half-made tents of dirtied fabric; sparkling dust sprinkling down over them as they did so.

Whispers, chortles, gossips. She felt fingers, thick and grubby as well as thin and skeletal, prod at her as she passed.

“I.N will help, yes, he will, he will,” the goblin lady leading her hummed.

“She’s going to I.N,” a whisper sparked through the crowd, spreading like a wild-fire.

“What is she?” another voice graveled.

“Why does she get a room?” a small voice cricketed.

The large trash heap they approached seemed different from the others. It was huge like they all were, but more structured. In fact, as they approached it, she realized there was an organized chaos in it all. It wasn’t a pile; it was a dome! The junk stacked upon one another to form a tall structure. As they ducked under a canopy of yellowed lace, they entered the burrow of a building of sorts.

In the darken shambles of the structure, there were so. many. things. Layers upon layers of things piled up to form crowded corridors and impossible arches made of books, chairs, cups, and what not. Lost things like torn-up toys, rusted bikes, and fine jewelry alongside melting grand candles that glowed an unearthly shade of teal linked together to create the grand interior of what had looked like a small shack on the exterior. It was like nothing she had seen before, a brain-child of a hoarder’s fantasy house and an art installation.

“This way, this way,” the one-eyed goblin crooned, ducking her turtle-like back full of mismatched items to pass under an archway safely.

“Mister I.N will help you, yes, yes, he will.”

She’s muttering frantically, almost bubbling with enthusiasm. Y/N wasn’t sure how she could bounce and walk so quickly with the load on her small form. Her back must ache.

“Come on, come on, come on.”

There was no door way or grand entrance to where the man sat. It simply opened into an atrium where bright sunlight shined down into the dome, a large opening in the ceiling acting as a skylight. There was a pile of things unlike the layered arches, walls, and columns of junk. It wasn’t the mismatched lost thing, but instead fine furs that looked well loved, polished-clean silver and gold finery, silken pillows of differing colors that gleamed in the sunlight, jewels and gems and coins and pearls. Star-shines flickered about the room, casting rainbows here and there. There were clear ledges and inlets where one could sit amongst the things, little alcoves to curl up in between layered leathered goods or velveteen dresses of glamour. Despite the strangeness, there was order in the large nest with an obvious golden-coined path down to the main floor. It almost looked like a throne as she took in laid back form at the peak of the hoard. A man. He looked different compared to the creatures outside of this dome. There were no objects clinging to his skin like mussels; instead, his attire was clean-cut. Cared for. With bright white-ash hair and a heavy coat of fine fur, his shirt was a silky laced up white thing and his pants smooth leather that seemed to gleam as if scrubbed recently with a polish. Amongst the junk and trash, he looked to be a jewel in the rough.

The man’s face was shadowed by the sun as he looked down at her; his hair was an electric white like a flame. The whites of his eyes weren’t white but instead gleamed a golden-vibrancy as he observed her. Sniffing the air, he paused before smiling a close-lipped grin pleasantly.

“Hello,” he spoke; his voice was soft and gentle.

He didn’t seem threatening, and, while she was confused to where she was exactly, she wasn’t a fool. He had power here, certainly. She had enough sense in her bones to know to not fully trust this man…fae she reminded herself.

Fae. . .? Yes, he was a fae. Goblins and fae exist. Obviously. She blinked at the realization that it was just something she had forgotten, and not new information.

She didn’t greet him yet, simply stared at him from far below his stockpile of wealth as he leaned back upon the makeshift throne. There was a creaking sound, a tumbling of metal things with the action.

His lips curled in a fox-like smile, sharp and mischievous, as he took in her face.  

“You’re afraid, Y/N,” he commented. “It’s okay; I have no wish to hurt you.”

He extended a pinky finger in a pinky promise, almost childishly so. She stared at it before meeting his medallion-yellow eyes once more. Distrustful. Her glare hardened as she tried to remember what she had been looking for.

It wasn’t him, was it? Why would she need him? Surely, she’d remember that.

“Mister I.N, she wanted to meet you. She did, she did, she did!” the goblin chattered, drawing his gaze to her. His eyes flickered with recognition as if he had forgotten the other was in the room. “She’s lost; she can’t remember what she was looking for. She was asking for you.”

No, she hadn’t. But the sing-song tone to the goblin’s voice made Y/N’s cheeks redden regardless. I.N only seemed to brighten, his form glowing in the down-pour of light.

“Oh, did she?” he crowed as he stood.

“Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm,” the one-eyed goblin bleated.

“Well done, Prelle,” he praised and the goblin crowed an excited sound like an animal, the sound a tie between a bird and a wild-cat.

“You can borrow what you want – but not from my center hoard.” he warned with a serious tone.

The one-eyed goblin – Prelle – preened with thankful huffy happy sounds coming from her small mouth as she shuffled about, completely forgetting about Y/N and I.N as she scurried deeper into the hut. Leaving her and him alone.

“Forget abo-- ignore her disruptions,” he encouraged, waving haphazardly towards the direction Prelle hobbled. “She’s sweet. Likes childhood memories; dolls, toys, games. She lost a little one in the past.”

He hopped down his hoard, gold coins and pearl necklaces tumbling down with the motion. Leathered boots landed in front of her with a stomp.

“You’ve forgotten something?” he chirped, peering into her face. “I can help with that. I’m the best Finder-Keeper of Lost Things.”

“Finder-Keeper of Lost Things?” Y/N couldn’t help but repeat.

His eyes were alit with excitement at hearing her voice for the first time. He sighed out, breathlessly.

“Pretty voice you have. Glad you didn’t lose that, hm?” He teased.

Now, that he was closer, she can see there are fine scales on his cheeks, sparkling with golden iridescence in the over-head light. His ash blonde hair tickled his neck, hiding some of those scales. He smiled; his teeth were pearly white with two fangs on his bottom canine teeth. His cheekbones were prominent, highlighting the planes of his face in a sharp shadow.

“What does Finder-Keeper of Lost Things mean?” she retorted.

He waved it off. “Just a title I have. I’m the best scavenger,” he gestured about. “Got a skill for finding things, figuring things out, keeping things in order.”

And keeping them, she assumed. He was boasting, but he still settled his attention on her fully.

“Let’s see if I can help you,” he offered his hand to her.

He smiled at her, the thing wide and almost cat-like with his sharpness. Taking his hand carefully, his sharp smile only grew, his eyes falling shut into slits. He guided her up his hoard of expensive things. Around crowns of old, jewels that gleamed in the dim light, and soft fabrics. The pile felt oddly secure and full as they climbed. How many things must’ve been piled up here to make it so sturdy?

He plopped back down on his throne, a comfortable pile of velvet, cotton, and silk. There was a small inlet beside him that he brushed gold coins and pearls and silver things away from to reveal an emerald velvet cushion – for her.

“We should start with what you do remember. Do you remember your name?” he queried as he helped her settle into the spot beside him on his junk-throne.

“I’m Y/N,” she said simply. His smile beamed at her introduction before settling into a fox-like close-lipped curl, his chin resting on his other hand scrunched into a fist. “I know where I grew up… where I live…”

He listed off the places easily, like it was where he grew up too. “And… my room… I woke up in it.”

“Oh, did you like it?” he grinned straightening up a bit, like a pup with his ears alert at the call of ‘treat’. He glanced aside, sighing out nostalgically. “It’s a fine room, full of fond memories.” 

“Yes, yes, it is,” she murmured. Her head felt fuzzy as if she was still half-asleep.

He hadn’t let go of her hand, thumb grazing the back of it slowly. His gentle gestures made her ever-more comfortable like a house cat in front of a fire.

“That answers that question though. Y/N. You know your home, your address, your room-” he recounted before he refocused. “That room is there for your comfort you know. Magic works in strange ways. Do you remember how you ended up here?” he asked.

Y/N squinted down at her lap, eyeing her bandaged hands. His thumb stroked the back of her hand again soothingly.

How did she end up here? Her head ached, a strong pain in-between her eyes, stinging her teeth with its force. She winced into herself, her hand escaping his to press against her furrowed brows. He hummed out a soft sound that sounded soothing, deep in his chest. Something warm - like it had just come from a laundry dryer - tumbled around her shoulders. His fur coat was draped around her comfortingly.

“I know; it’s hard,” I.N reassured. “It was hard for all of who were forgotten.”

His presence was comforting, she had to admit. The air felt pleasantly warm around him like he was a furnace. The animalistic sounds that escaped his chest weren’t frightening but more like a big cat’s purrs. Content and warm. She wanted to curl up in the softness beneath her and fall asleep again; she hadn’t realized how tired she was.

“Is there anything you remember?” he asked again.

She tilted her head up, trying to recall anything she could. She squinted as she tried to recall blurred sparkling memories. There was a blonde-haired man. His face blurred in between angered and soft. A man with curls and the biggest eyes she had ever seen. Jeweled eyes. She could see someone smiling bright at her, a scar across his nose. A muscular man with a pout on his lips.

“There were people?” she murmured. “Men…”

Every moment she tried to grasp onto their face, it was like the memory was running away. Water pouring from her fingertips; she couldn’t catch the droplets. Then, she couldn’t even recall what she was trying to remember. Was it a person? A place?

It was frightening. Frustrating.

I.N breathed in deeply, his hand going to smooth over the fur around her shoulders.

“Shhh,” he soothed.

Her chest heaved, and Y/N realized she was crying. Why was she crying? When did she start to cry?

He moved from his seat to her small spot at his feet, joining her in the small space. Long limbs reorganized her form until she was bundled in his furs, cradled in his legs and arms. Her tears dripped onto his hoard. I.N’s hands cupped her cheeks almost tenderly. He wiped them away with strong thumbs. He cooed out a sound of fondness, squeezing her cheeks gently.

“I don’t want you to overexert yourself,” he warned. “We have all the time in the world for your memories.” His smile was there again – even as she sniffled - before he tugged her close to him.

He smelled of fire – volcanic-fire rather than fire-smoke that tickled the back of your nose. Like the remains of something long burned away. He smelled of metal – like aged coins and used metal compasses pointing towards home. He smelled of ripened tropical fruit – like dragon-fruit on a hot day.

“You are so interesting,” he admitted in a breath, brushing a hand over her hair as he pulled away. “Let me just take a longer look.”

Her nose was stuffy, and her eyes ached as she looked up at him. Confusion flickered on her features. His smile remained. His hands grasped her jaw, tipping her head back as he stared into her eyes. She saw for the first time how his eyes blinked. Yes, his fox-like eyelids fell over his dandelion-bright eyes, but there was another milky-white transparent lid, closer to his eyeball that closed vertically like a crocodile’s eyelid first before his human-like eyelid shut. It reminded her how inhuman the man in front of her was.

With gentle precision, he pulled her face closer and closer til his forehead pressed against hers, gentle soft. His skin was scaley, almost frighteningly ocld as it kissed her forehead. Far too Intimate for strangers, yet, with him she felt so ooey gooey comfortable. Like they were long-lost friends.

There was a deep hum in the air, almost like a rumble in his chest. That warm comfortable feeling only grew, tickling the tips of her toes all the way to her nose. It was like falling asleep in a warm bed next to a lit-fire place. Safe. And then, her ear stung with a sharp zing. Like bee stung her forehead, like a claw dug into her brain. Painfully stabbing and sudden. She jerked away, and shut her eyes tighter. A wave of discomfort, a wave of fright, flooded her body, making her tremble and jolt in his grasp. Her eyes flashed open, and she stared at him.

His eyes were still shut, furrowed brow. He kept their foreheads pressed together, forcibly. Clawed nails pressed into her cheeks inadvertently. It took a moment too long for him to realize her discomfort. When he did, his eyes widened impossibly large. His grip eased and he immediately cooed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed, thumbs brushing over her cheeks gently. “You’re okay, Treasure.”

And suddenly, she felt okay. She felt like she was in her backyard on a holiday. Like when you finished a large meal and felt content, full bellied and safe. Relaxed, heart calm, skin warmed by the sun. Nostalgia seeping into her bones so much so she couldn’t help but sag against him. It felt like she had known him her entire life. Her fear was gone. And he was the reason.

“See,” he cooed. “It’s all okay. I’ve got you.”

He tentatively pressed his forehead to her temple. There was another zing of pain, like a cramping of her brain. He quickly pulled back with a twitch of snarl. I.N didn’t look at her then and instead brought her back into his embrace. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, tugging her into his chest. I.N’s heart did not pound and thud; it roared like a fire was in-between his ribs. It crackled and sparked and warmed her cheek.

“Magic is in your soul,” he muttered. “No wonder you are so out of it, human.”

Humans. He said human. Was he not human?

Wait… wait… she had already remembered that. He was fae-blood or goblin-blood or troll-blood or some other bloodline. Not human.

“Rude, I look way better than you humans. Besides, mind your business. Its rude to ask a stranger their bloodline.” Han’s voice was teasing and whiney in the way he always spoke.

Han. His name flooded her mind like a tsunami. No, that wasn’t his real name…It was…It was… As fast as the tide rushes in, it rushed away as if sucked up by a straw. Leaving nothing but her grasping at grains of empty sand. Empty thoughts. There was a strange feeling left, an emptiness like a phantom pain. What was she thinking a moment ago?

“Lord Han,” she swore she heard I.N growl out. His fingers stroked over the warm bare skin on her back in a circle – when had his hand slithered beneath her shirt?

“Who?” she breathed, looking up at the fae holding her close like she was a stuffed bear.

Her own mind reminded her of how it felt to hold her stuffed bears in her room. Oh, her room which was so close. Wasn’t it so safe? She was so safe here.

“Nothing, Treasure,” I.N purred out, his reptilian gaze settling on her with a glassiness. “Let’s think some more, yes?”

His other hand moved to rub up and down her fur-coated arm.

“Let’s think – what could someone so special like you be looking for?” he inquired, his hand shifted to trail up and down her arm, gentle and calming.

“I was... I’m just trying to—I’m trying to,” she trailed off, feeling like the word was on the tip of her tongue. Mouth sticky like it was full of peanut butter.

He smirked now. His fangs showed up, lining his bottom rather than top teeth. But she couldn’t see that buried in the softness of his chest.

“I know,” he soothed, a hand going to pet her arm comfortingly. His voice was almost hypnotic, like a lullaby. “Hmm, let me think. You are looking for something important. You’ve talked only about home, your address, your room. Maybe you’re looking for some place safe… I keep this place safe.” He reassured.

Yes, she was looking for something important. Important… maybe it was safety.

“You awoke here for a reason, you know. It felt safe I’m sure – when you woke in your bed.”

“Y-Yeah,” she replied, leaning back to look up at him. She wiped at her dampened cheek.

“Your room is so cute,” he grinned, his cheeks hid his eyes cutely. “I love lace and fluff, too. Soft things. It was a struggle to find everything so quickly, but you were worth it.”

Find everything. . .

“What?” she murmured, dazed and her temperature climbing into a hazy, too warm fever underneath the fur coat.

He found those things for her. It hadn’t just appeared by magic? Hadnt he said things were brought by magic? He was confusing her.

“Hm, did you remember something, Treasure?” I.N queried emptily, diverting the conversation again.

Blink. Blink. His nails trailed over her back in patterns. In little upward and downward strokes almost like he was writing something on her back.

Wait, what had he just said? It felt like there was a gap – like a DVD skipping dialogue in a scene, a song jumping a chorus. Missing portions of things he had just said. They were talking about safety… about…about…

“Oh, did you remember you were looking for somewhere safe, far from home? You were so special you ended up here.”

How did she end up here again? Wasn’t this a place for lost things? Not special things? Wait? Why was he telling her stuff now? She didn’t remember that. She hadn’t said any of that.

“I.N, I-I didn’t-“

There was a pause as she heard a clatter of junk far away. Both their heads spun to look in the direction of the noise. His hands moved to press her into the hoard, almost protectively. I.N’s head seemed to move unnaturally too far as like an owl.

Without his focus on her, she felt like she could think for a moment. It was like she was pulled up from a dark ocean and finally could breathe. Her brain wasn’t as hazy, but the headache was still there. Pulsing behind her eyes. Restlessness crawled at her skin. She felt too hot under his coat suddenly. Shifting in his embrace, she pushed at the furs on her shoulders.

“Treasure,” his attention was brought back to her immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked insistently.

Treasure, he called her that again. He knew her name yet called her that. He didn’t know her… but it felt like he did.

“I just need some air.” She mumbled, trying to stand.

His arms fell away as he stood with her. “Oh, oh.”

There was another noise. Was that crying she heard? A soft sobbing, mournful, fearful. Her eyes widened as she turned towards the sound.

“What’s that?” she murmured.

“The Forgotten folk are loud sometimes; you’ll get used to it,” he reassured, hand going to grab hers as he helped her balance upon the hoard. “You have me too if things get difficult. I always help.”

Help… how was he helping now? She felt the dichotomy of calm and utter discomfort clash in her chest. Like gaining consciousness in a dream, she knew this wasn’t quite right. Nothing felt right. Not this place, not him, and not herself.

“What are the Forgotten?” she turned to look at him now. Questions on her tongue rather than him questioning her. “Who are they?” she corrected.

“Oh, it’s just those who were, as the name implies, forgotten or banished – like you and I,” I.N sympathized, his yellow eyes soft as he squeezed her hand. Which was he? Forgotten or banished? “Anything that is lost or forgot end up here – for some reason. We’ve made do regardless. It’s the way of the Underground.”

Underground. She latched onto that name like it was water in the desert. It fit like a key into a grand door; snapping in easy. Her hand left his.

“The Underground. That’s where we are.” She whispered in understanding, looking up at the skylight above them. There was a gaping maw of light pouring down from the cavern sky. She realized she’s seen it before. The tumbling sunshine in the darkness. Casting shadows over endless walls. Endless road, footfalls against cobblestone, infinite walking. Circles and circles. Row after row, it was a repeating maze.

“There was a Labyrinth.” She murmured.

A Labyrinth. Yes, she had been in a Labyrinth. Why was there a Labyrinth in the first place though? An itch at the back of her brain. Her throat closed up in frustration. She was trying to do something. Escape? Win? Complete it? Why?

She took a step forwards, down the large pile of things. Her jewels and gems jingled with the movement. Her gaze flickered to them. They were vibrant in the sunlight. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, moonstones, and amethysts. Amethyst eyes. Jeweled eyes. Dark waves of hair.

“Hah,” I.N let out a soft laugh that sounded more like air than a laugh. “Look at you, you remembered that all by yourself.” 

Turning, she saw him reaching for his discarded coat, his hands trembling. She swore she saw smoke billow from his nostrils.

“Where is the Labyrinth? Is it far?” she asked.

I.N’s fists balled up in the coat.

“That’s not important,” he muttered out. He licked at his fangs. “You are in the City of the Forgotten now. You are a Forgotten.”

It was final sounding. Demanding. Like a child making up rules during make-believe. Her brows pursed, looking up at I.N. He turned his back to her for a moment, placing his furs aside with the perfectionism of a mother bird making a nest.

“The Forgotten are my kin… my responsibility.” he continued after a moment, tucking items just right into his hoard. His words were spoken fondly. “They’re, in a way, my family. I was abandoned and I take in any who faces the same fate. Like you. You are my responsibility, YN.”

Despite his fond tone, she remembered walking through the so-called city. It was decrepit. The folk looked cold and swallowed up by things, junk. They didn’t look happy.

Y/N!

Her head turned towards what she swore was her name.

“Did you hear that?” she exclaimed.

I.N rose, stepping to the level above her looking out in the direction she was. Over towering piles of junk and mess. Trash heaps of toys and broken furniture and forgotten records and rotten books.

“It was probably nothing,” he commented. “Pernella or something…”

Her name hadn’t been Pernella. It was Prelle. He didn’t even care she realized, staring over at him in surprise. She watched him for a moment before turning away, listening, and trying fruitlessly to remember more.

The fae’s face turned stoney as he listened closely. His eyes were distant, glowing their haunting yellow-tone as he listened, listened, listened. He could hear her heartbeat (oh, so interesting how it gurgled and pumped), but also her name called far into the distance. Not just one voice, many. Even his.

This Runner had help. This Runner was not forgotten yet. How did she end up here? His gaze slid over to take in her visage. Greedily. He blinked once, twice, three times before her gaze rose to meet his reptilian pupils. He smirked, fangs and all.

“He’s looking for you,” I.N murmured, hushed like telling a secret. “So many people are looking for you, little Treasure. Oh, you must be so very coveted.”

His eyes held a different look than before. His lips spread into a wide smile. It felt predatory rather than the helpful light hearted smiles he had thrown her way earlier. Sharp. Full of teeth. She took a step away, her foot creaking as it met the corner of an old oaken furniture piece that was buried amongst his hoard.

“And you’re all mine!”

He grasped her hand before she could tumble away. Her eyes blinked in surprise as she took in the man holding her like a ragdoll. His large shadow cast over her, shielding her from the bright sunlight. His form loomed over her, as well as his large scaley wings. They jutted out of his shoulder blades, out of his now-torn white silk shirt, almost grotesquely. Sinewy, twisted greenish flesh that was had the same scales as his sharp cheekbones. Amongst its divots and skeletal curves were things embedded into his scales. Jewels, coins, bits of metal. Flesh grew around it as if the very jewels and finery was becoming him. The large tips of his wings had a fine webbing of spider-silk and sparkling magic dust as if they hadn’t been used in decades.

“Don’t. Don’t be afraid,” he hushed, looking hypnotically caring. Almost pouting as she stared with large scared eyes. “Don’t be afraid. Please. I’ll take the best care of you, Treasure.”

“What?” she replied, horrified.

Why was he speaking like she was some object, a pretty thing to keep on a shelf? Like a child pleading for a new toy. All he did was smile, condescendingly. With a tug, he pulled her upright once more. Her hands pressed into the muscular planes of his chest. He was so hot… literally. He felt like a hotwire beneath her palms.

His eyes flickered to her fingertips before meeting her gaze once more, smiling a grin full of fangs. One hand went to brush over her hand with his claws, soothingly. This time she felt what he had been tracing over her skin. I. N. I.N. I.N over and over. As if branding her.

Her hand jolted away from his chest.

“Who is looking for me? Who is this he you keep saying?” she asked, the uncomfortable twinge in her throat reminding her that she should know. She should know. Who was it? There was another phantom call of her name like a tug to her very soul.

“I need to go,” she finally said, trying to pull from his embrace.

His hands felt harsh then. They shifted from holding her around her waist to digging into her hips. Holding onto her too tightly like a child pulling a toy doll from another in jealousy.

“No.” The Finder-Keeper of Lost Things glared down at her petulantly.

“They didn’t protect you.” He argued. “Cherish you. Why go back to them?”

“I—” she tried to find her words as he hugged her tight, hugged her like she was nothing but a stuffed bear. His stuffed bear. His thing. She tried to shove him away, but he simply grabbed her wrists in his to stop her struggling.

“I will,” he promised wholeheartedly. He tugged her this way and that as he began to trek up his hoard. Her feet slid against gold coins and silken things; he held onto her tighter still.

“I’ll take good care of you – you’ll see. I’ve seen what you’ve been through – what you wanted… I can be more than him than them” He was murmuring. “If he comes…. No, no, this is perfect.”

She felt like a ragdoll as he plopped her down beside his makeshift throne, in a pile of prettied velvet dresses and soft lace curtains. YN shifted to stand immediately but he placed a hand on her shoulder as he sat down, pushing her to kneel.

What was happening? This wasn’t what she had expected when she had come into his lair. Prelle, that little goblin, seemed so intent on helping. This didn’t feel like helping. Who was he? Who were they? They hadn’t cherished her? What did that even mean?

Who even was I.N?

No, she needed to get out of here.

“I.N, stop,” she yelped, pushing his hand away. “I’m confused and-“ 

“I know you are, but I’ll help you,” he replied like second-nature, grasping her wrist again.

“No. I think I need to leave. I need to go,” She insisted. “I need to think - alone.”

It was like someone shot a bullet through her brain. Like fingers dug into them with nails, no, claws.

“Leave?” he breathed as she heaved out a gasping silent scream. “No. No.”

It was then she felt it. Not the pain she had felt race through her temple but the strange emotions that crashed through her like deep dark ocean waves. There was the comfort of sleeping with one leg over the mattress, but it mixed with the dread of a monster grabbing your ankle. There was the familiarity of the night sky full of stars, but it mixed with that feeling of being watched as you walked to your car at night. There was soft ooey gooey warmth, but it felt almost like being suffocated by a pillow. Her head heaved with a dizziness.

I.N had her other wrist in his grasp once more, clawed hand wrapping around it fully. He looked petulant.

“You can’t leave.” He declared. “You haven’t remembered anything. I was helping you remember. I promised.”

Remember. All this talk of remembering yet as they stared at one another she could feel her memories drain from her. Who had walked her here? When had she come to sit here? Where was the fur jacket that had just been around her shoulders and why was it gone? How was she forgetting everything?

Desperately, she had clung to the things she had discovered, listing them over and over:

One: She wasn’t home. Not at all. He had made the mimicry of her bedroom – and she didn’t know why.

A twinge of uncertainty like the clash of cymbals suddenly in a song.

Two: She was in a place called the Underground; in a land called the City of the Forgotten. She had been in a Labyrinth before.

Like high pitched violins.

Three: People were looking for her. She didn’t know who but they were calling her name, searching for her.

Like a crawling synth.

Four: She didn’t like this feeling, feeling like a doll, feeling controlled. She wanted her own say.

Like a harpsicord being struck over and over.

Fear. Discord. Uncertainty.

Five…. Five… She had remembered things – but any time she tried to grasp at them it disappeared but if she just let it be – things came to her. The Labyrinth…. Walking through it with… Han, that was his name, yes. Han.

What did she want now? In this clash of feelings, she tried to sort and cling to anything. Home. Right? She wanted her home. I.N had said that before. It felt like a parasite biting into her skin. Her thoughts and feelings felt foreign in his grasp. I.N had a home for her. A perfect replica… that’s what it was, wasn’t it? He had said he had found the things. Finders-Keepers. No, it was strange. She didn’t want what he scavenged. Didn’t want to be his thing. Nothing made sense; even her thoughts became a jumble.

What did she want? Truly want? Without I.N telling her. A pain shot through her head in retaliation. Her eyes scrunched in pain but she kept trying.

“Stop. Thinking.” He growled out. “You’re fine, stupid human.”

“Stop. It,” she bit back, grimacing as the pain increased. Like nails in her brains. She writhed in his hold. “Let go of me.”

Her eyes flashed to meet his and, with his petulant brattiness, she retaliated by tugging her wrists away with a sharp tug. With too much force! Pettily, he let go with ease, and watched almost gleefully as she tumbled off the side of his hoard. Hitting chalices, wooden legs of chairs, sharpened corners of picture frames.

Y/N coughed as she landed onto the dirt floor, rolling until she came to a stop against one of the many piles of junk. It hurt. But it was less painful than the stabbing pain in her skull, one she realized only occurred when they touched now.

“You promised,” she wheezed. “I would be safe here.”

I.N sneered down at her from his hoard, shadow cast over and hiding her from the light. His wings flexed as he spoke, like a peacock’s feathers jittering and fluffing. “I didn’t hurt you; you hurt yourself by falling, why didn’t you catch yourself?”

Her eyes flashed up to glare at the Finder-Keeper of Lost Things. “You’ve been hurting me this entire time,” she pointed out. Glancing down, she could see the bruises on her wrists from his man-handling. “You treated me like a ragdoll. I’m not just some thing for you to control.”

“I never promised your safety; I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.” He scoffed, and this time she did see the smoke tumble from his nose. “I’ve treated you better than those who tossed you aside. Neither of them wanted you, what use are you?” He was cruel. Like a spoiled child, he spoke without thought. “I gave you comfort did I not? Look around.”

He gestured widely at the trash about like it was some palace.

“You’re nothing but a controller…a hoarder,” she spat out.

He shrugged as he began to creep down the high ground to meet her. Too tempted to play with his toy once more. “It’s my world, Treasure. I make the best out of the trash I receive and trust me,” he crouched down to glare down at her. His eyes gleamed like flames. “There’s a lot of trash out there. I hear gossip all day; pointless rattle about dumb mementos and ugly old things I don’t care about. But, I always listen and take the important pieces. Like your little memories.” His clawed finger prodded at her temple harshly.

“My memories,” she breathed in. “You took them.”

“I love shiny things and your glittering memories were floating lost; thanks to some of the King’s magic I’m sure,” he said with a scowl. “He threw them away – he threw you away.”

Keep him talking.

“And you lured me here then?”

“Lured you? No, no, I saved you. That’s what you don’t get,” I.N snarled, his wings opening full-scale. “I caught you from your fall into oblivion. I made an altar for my intrigue. It’s perfect in its replication! You didn’t even notice it was a copy of your room until you opened the door to the Underground.” His words were sharp as his fanged teeth. “You slept peacefully; you came to me peacefully. I kept you safe and soft and happy and comfortable. And you still can’t accept my words? You keep thinking and wanting and remembering! Remember what I want you to remember! Why would you want the struggle of the Labyrinth?” He growled out. “I take care of my things unlike him. I’m a far better King!”

He was just spoiled child she realized. Envious, jealous, greedy, clinging to anything that may be of worth. Anything to match the King.

“The King.” She repeated.

Flashes of a man with stormy eyes, twirling under a canopy of sparkling shimmering pearlescence, a memory of lying in bed with him, a sunrise haloing him. Memories of his prowl towards her and… and Han. The fae whose jewels rested on her hip.

I.N cursed. The room grew hot like coals were under the rickety floor boards, filling the room with tense hot air. His form shimmered and flickered like the concrete on a hot summer’s day.

“You’re remembering more and more, how? Your memories are mine; you are mine!” he growled out. “You’re a clever little Runner, aren’t you?”

Runner. Like a key unlocking a door, that word flushed her memories out. “Turn back while you still can, my dear Runner.” Hyunjin. The Labyrinth. His ethereal face. The ball. The clock chiming out another hour gone. Her task at hand.

She had to get going. She had to find the Labyrinth’s entrance. How much time had gone by?! How did she even end up here? There was the allusion – Hyunjin and her in a grand ballroom but she knew that it had been a trick. It had looked like a desert outside of I.N’s lair; was she back at the start? Her thoughts were running a mile a minute.

“Shit,” he cursed as he watched her stumble back.

“I remember everything.” She breathed.

“How?” I.N simmered. “How did you do that?”

The room grew hotter and hotter, blistering and smelling like rotten trash, like burnt ashes, like sulfur. There was no smile on his lips, instead there was annoyance gracing his face, as he began to circle her like a predator. One heavied bootstep at a time.

“You’re really getting on my nerves. You seemed so sweet at first. I’ve dealt with lost, forgotten Runners before – my mother was even one, well, not my real mom but you know, finders-keepers,” he laughed so coldly.

His smile fell as he glared at her with the ferociousness of a beast. Fae were always so animalistic at heart she had to remind herself. He stopped in front of her, leering down at her.

“So, I like you Runners; have a soft spot even. Once-human changelings are interesting folk, and I hadn’t seen a pure human in so long,” he ranted. “I was excited because I know one day he would throw you away, and I’d have a new treasure.”

“Imagine my surprise when I just… found you, floating lost!” he beamed, but the smile was vicious. “I can have you before him! Keep you hidden from him! Mold you. Lock away your memories. A perfect lost Treasure.”

“I don’t want to stay here,” she replied steadily. “I must face the quest. I want to go home. What would happen when times runs out and I was here still? Knowing him, he’d come for me. This is his and I’s game! Why interfere?”

I.N sighed, his sharp features not softening. The curl of his lips not gentling. His head swiveled like a snake as he began to circle her with long strides.

“Why would you try to fight him?” he ridiculed. “And now, you fight against me too? I am stronger than you, little human. I am more powerful than him; I know it. If he came, I’d burn him.” he snarled. Heat grew all around them like embers being fanned. “I will burn him.”

“I don’t care. I don’t trust you. Especially now. I don’t want your protection.” Her glare was fierce. “I don’t need it.”

She turned away from him, preparing to just leave. But his hand grasped her arm once ore. This time no pain radiated up her neck, and instead he flinched as a shock went through his brain. He stumbled back. I.N looked at her for a moment before baring his teeth, frustration building. His fingers curled into fists, trembling fists.

“You aren’t listening. That doesn’t matter to me. I know you humans struggle with the truth. But you are smart, Y/N. You will lose against him regardless – why go through strife? Why lose? I can make it all feel better.”

She scowled at him. His eyes were a warm orange as he took a step forward, scowl remaining on his sharp lips. He licked his lip and gave into his temptation, his curiosity, his need to control. He took another step closer and grasped her wrist again with a sharp tug. He was strong, biceps flexing beneath a soft linen shirt.

Burning pain flashed in her eyes as she locked gazes with the Finder-Keeper as he dug into her brain, like he had done this entire time.

“I can protect you. More than… Jisung,” he murmured, eyes shutting and Y/N could feel his fingers in her brain. Sorting through her head, poking and prodding. He took another step close still. “Or Changbin… Or Chris.” He added.

She felt the pain build. It felt like her head was going to explode. She heaved and huffed. Her eyes shut.

“Hyunjin…” he laughed at the reveal of the King’s true name. “…would be drawn here, and-and I could fight him. I have my own horde; his own Runner, no, his Changeling is mine; I could be king of the Underground.”

“You’re using me,” she bit out. “Let me go.”

“I won’t.” he replied; there was that stabbing pain, her mouth gasping. “You are mine, YN. Stop running.”

Her own anger bubbled up. “I don’t want to be your pawn in a power grab. I am not yours. I am not his. I am my own.”

In her declaration, all the pain that flooded her brain surged into I.N, making his eyes flash open and an agonized cry break from his mouth. Her hand snapped from his, breaking whatever power he had to look into her head. Before, she reeled back with all her pent-up frustration and shoved him back. He stumbled. The grand fae, somehow, stumbled and fell into his hoard, pathetically. Things crumbled in from his body weight, his wings flicking jewels and gold aside with. Stuff and trash tumbled down in a mini-avalanche over his form. Shaking them away, he let out a distressed cry, a yell. There was a trembling, a fragmentation around him like his form was nothing but a reflection cracking and shattering into a shimmering collection of floating shards.

“You wretched creature,” he growled, no, he heaved. There was something animalistic growing in his voice.  His anger had reached a breaking point. “I am here at the point of triumph and you dare go against me! How?” It was a screech.

“Not a creature just human.” she retorted. “I’ll do anything to get away from you, from him. You’ve seen my mind. You think I’m lying?”

He chuckled but it sounded more like a sort of clicking as he hoisted himself up.

“Stupid human resilience. You leave me no choice.” He breathed. “You don’t wish to be mine willingly?” He laughed. “I’ll make you my prisoner. Every princess needs her dragon, no?”

Her brows only pursed for a brief moment before there was a loud noise. A cracking sound reverted throughout the chamber, almost like an egg breaking into a million pieces. A burst of energy sent her tumbling back, landing on her back. I.N burst forth, no longer a man but a beast. Scaley and draconic. His form was almost as large as the atrium as he shivered and crackled into the monstrous form. Heavied clawed feet crashed into the ground; his hoard crushed by his monstrous weight. A roar broke through the lair. His attention had been dragged from her to his destroyed altar. The sound that escaped him was less angry and more mournful. A cry.

With a snap of his large, scaled head, his reptilian eyes locked on her. Her. She caused this. His claw rose up and slammed down to trap her – or it would have if she hadn’t shimmied away. Feet kicked dirt up as she clawed her way up into a standing position.

There was a growl, a plume of smoke escaped his nose in frustration.

Okay, okay, okay, this was dangerous. It felt more dangerous than the Direwoods. They had never been angry; I.N was furious. She needed to get out of here.

The Runner did what she did best. She turned and ran. A screech followed after her – it shook the room with its loudness. 

Go, go, go.

She weaved under junk-made arches; the heavied prowl of the beast crawled after her. Ramming through its own hoard, through the tall archways and piled stacks. Destruction reigned as she dodged falling debris. He let out a roar. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chanted as she sprinted faster and faster. The entire ‘palace’ was falling down; his form destroying his own things in his greed.

As she pushed aside the curtains that had shielded the grand abode, she could only see pandemonium. Creatures running back and forth, goblin figures chittering as they held onto their loved things. Trash piles trembled and slid into the make-shift roads as I.N’s draconic form shook the very earth.

“I.N, I.N, please,” there were cries of the Forgotten, pleading with the dragon to stop. Some offered the dragon their beloved objects as if it would calm him. But he didn’t care for his Forgotten. He only wanted what was new – he wanted Y/N. His eyes didn’t stray from her running form.

He simply slithered forward. His large body pushed past small goblins and fae folk easily. As she continued to sprint, she could see fae with tear streaks, with fear, with awe.

“Y/N!” she heard a voice cry out, far away. “Where are you?”

“Stop,” she swore she heard I.N’s monstrous voice growl out through embers of fire.

She couldn’t even reply as she continued to weave in between the makeshift town. All the while, I.N continued his destruction until, with a grand heaving of his wings, he took to the skies. His wings flushed open, the embedded junk in his skin coming loose and clattering to the ground. Covered in magic and gore. His form flew high with an electrifying roar.

YN couldn’t stop the shriek that escaped her mouth as a shadow covered her form, ominously. He flew high, higher, higher. He was about to overtake her, crush her, snap her up into his claws. Until, with a yank, he was tugged down to the earth violently. In his furious chase, things had tangled around his large ankles, cords of television wire, old spools of yarn, chains of old. He was grounded quickly with a thud. A dirt cloud roiled up from his form in a dusty wind that chased after with a fury. Looking back, she only ran faster, trying to avoid the destruction.

“Y/N!” she heard her name again. It was Changbin. She knew it. She knew his voice. Its squeaky confidence

“Changbin! Chris!” she yelled out. “Han!”

There was a screech of a roar from I.N. Angered, mournful, frustrated, petulant. Into the pathway, an inferno of fire erupted from his maw. The dust cloud exploded behind her into a firestorm. Y/N screamed as she turned a corner to avoid the flames. She kept running; she couldn’t stop. Especially with fire licking at her ankles. She ran and ran, dodging and jumping over junk. Until there was a large trash embankment in front of her that kept the City of the Forgotten far in the ditches below the Underground. So, with little thought, she began to climb.

A roar pierced the air and heat burned, but she kept climbing. Feet digging into who knew what. Sometimes it was spongey; sometimes it was hard; sometimes it was sticky. She heaved herself up and over junk. Climbing higher and higher, further and further. Until she was out of breath. Sweat tumbled down her temples. Hoisting herself over the lip of the embankment, she stumbled over a pile of trash, falling harshly. The little air she had left got knocked out of her as she laid face down, gasping.

She heard a roar, something unlike she hadn’t heard before. Panting, she turned over and saw the City of the Forgotten aflame. Golden in the sunlight pouring down from a skylight, the flames burned brilliantly. Precious memories and golden pieces of junk all lit in an angry red blaze. In the thick of it was a huge dragon, tearing at the junk that trapped him. There was a roar of despair, anger and want from his animalistic lungs. Flames licked out of his mouth, dripping like slime.

“Oh my god,” she muttered. Y/N hadn’t expected that. She expected I.N to be angry if she kept going against him, but she didn’t expect this.

Crawling backwards as she tried to pull herself to her feet with aching limbs and bruised knees (the tended-to-cuts on her body were torn back open as if the very City was taking back all it had done to help her.) She stumbled in exhaustion, knees hitting the dirt. Ash-covered and heaving, she tried again to stand. She couldn’t stop. She had to get out of here. Where was the Castle? Where was the path? Where were her friends?

The inferno of flames billowed up into a whirlwind until there was whoosh through the Underground. Like a burst of wind, a green flash burned bright across the lands, so bright that it made her turn her head into her arms and curl into the dirt mound she had climbed. Then, there was rain tumbling over the city in a raging storm. Lightning zapped; a smoke clung low over the City of the Forgotten in a dark cloud.

The rain wasn’t nicer than the fire. No, the rain raged as if spurred on by an angry god. Rainwater soaked her quickly, turning the dirt below her into mud. Small floods trickled over the lip of the embankment and tumbled into the Junkland below. There was another crash of lightning nearby, and she flinched away, scooting away on the soft mulch only for her hand to rest upon a leathered boot.

“I told you it would be foolish to take up this quest,” his voice growled out. “Now, you are destroying my kingdom in your attempt!”

Hyunjin was angry. Rageful. More so than I.N, even. But there was something different in their energies. One was a pretend king and the other was a King. He wasn’t just angered at her recklessness because he was. But he was angry at the harm she had put the kingdom in. When she tilted her head up with ash in her rain-soaked hair, Y/N saw a flicker of his true powers.

While he had always been dangerously ethereal – now, he looked unnatural. The gleam of the extinguishing dragon-fire on his skin made the glimmer of magic under his skin burn and sparkle. As if he was made of magic not flesh and bone. His blue eyes were wild as a hurricane. His hair, now an ink-black tone, fluttered around him like feathers. His form didn’t flicker or shudder like I.N’s did as he grew angrier. He didn’t even have the animalistic traits like the Direwood Trio. No, his body could hold his emotions, his magic, but the air around him raged on. The rain pelted her like heavy teardrops and the fire-smoke in the air smelt different than the fire of the dragon.

He seethed. “Explain yourself, Y/N.”

Thunder crashed as the rain poured on.

“I didn’t do anything,” she bit out as she willed herself to stand on shaky limbs.

Her body hurt. She didn’t know how much of her agony I.N had taken in his efforts to make her comply. Taking a breath, she leveled her gaze on him. Anger coursed through her as she realized he blamed her for this. For I.N’s anger when all she was trying to do was escape another one of his tricks.

“This is your doing. You poisoned me.” She gritted out, less of a splutter and more of a thrown accusation. Just as he had accused her. “You poisoned me and distracted me from the Labyrinth with that stupid ball – that was not fair.”

He did bare his fangs this time. They were sharp canines that were prettied and polish unlike the chipped fangs of Chris. Like he’s never used them in his life.

“I did no such thing – your friend,” the word was growled out with harshness,” Jisungie gave you my gift. He poisoned you.”

“Because of you!” She screeched. “I’m not stupid, Hyunjin.” She threw his true name at him just as he had thrown Jisung’s name. “Because of your unfair power.” she pointed at him. “Power you tried to wield over me in that place! You bastard.”

“You’re cursing me, my dear Runner?” he warned with a snarl of his lip as he approached deathly slow. “Distraction is a pathetic word for how much you enjoyed the hallucination – it was your own fantasy broug-“ His lips were curled almost condescendingly at her fantasies.

“And,” she interrupted him with ease as the rain grew ‘til all she could see was rain. His form blurred until she crept closer still in her anger. She noticed then that his form was untouched by the water as he glared down at her defiance. Meanwhile, she spluttered over the downpour as it soaked her to the bone. A hand wiped away drenched hair from her eyes as she continued.

“Then, you dropped me into this stupid city with that, I don’t know, keeper of memories! He was stealing memories from me – I bet from everyone down there! He knew what I was thinking, what my life was, everything – he was going to use me against you. What the fuck?” 

“Yet you somehow led himself to burning down his domain?” Hyunjin laughed out, disbelievingly.

After all, she was just a human. She couldn’t have… could she? What could she had done to anger I.N so?

I.N’s anger had confused her. She hadn’t meant to anger him so much into destruction just enough to give her information, enough to distract him as she left. But something about her spurred him into a draconic rage. She didn’t know exactly what – she just… was herself.

(Little did she know that few could fight against magic – if it was her status as Runner or something more, it was hard to tell.)

“You can’t win by death, Y/N. You can’t win by destruction.” He reminded. The King listed out the rules, as if it mattered, as if she was cheating. He’s cheated countless times this game.

In that moment, the human was almost to her nose to the King. If she could manipulate the Underground, there surely would be a hurricane raging.

“I didn’t start a fire; I wasn’t trying to hurt myself. I am not to blame for this,” she said solidly. “I escaped him; I outwitted him, and he was angry. Just like you will be – if this stupid Labyrinth will stop playing stupid tricks!”

“That’s the game, Y/N,” he replied, calmly. Too calm for the way his eyes crashed with ocean waves and the world drowned around them in rain. Too calm for the way he had previously seethed.

“It’s not right!” she said. “So much of this is fucked. I’m tired of the shifting walls and shifting fae folk.”

“Then give up!” Hyunjin bit out. A desperation in his tone. Almost like her agony hurt him. Ridiculous.

“After all this, I’d rather die!” she yelled. Tears burned in her eyes. “I’ve fought through your challenges, through dangers and hardships unnumbered!” Her voice broke.

Hyunjin’s skin prickled with gooseflesh at her words; words he knew like the shape of his own teeth in his mouth. He couldn’t let her finish them – ever.

“And it’s all for nothing, Runner,” Hyunjin reminded cruelly, cutting her off quick. “I will never grant your freedom, not now.”

Not when he’s finally met his match. He’s seen her devotion in their shared hallucination. He had seen her potential in brains. And now, she was the only one to stand up to him in ages. She has conquered the hearts of his Beast-Hunter, the Knight of Magic, the most fearsome of the Direwoods, and the Labyrinth’s last Dragon-Fae. Even his once-best friend.

His fascination with her now made sense with a deafening realization.

His storm began to subside; the city’s fires extinguished and the sounds of I.N’s despaired cries echoing through the air. Y/N couldn’t help but feel like it was the cries of a child, an abandoned lost child. Not the dragon that had destroyed his own hoard. Whatever I.N’s true name was – that was who was crying.

As the rain stopped, Hyunjin looked untouched by the rain – prettied curls in place, not a droplet of water on his velvet cloak or porcelain white blouse. His eyes remained locked on hers. Y/N was a different story. Rain-soaked, looking like a drowned rat, her hair dripped and clung to her anger-flushed cheeks and neck. Her eyes were red from the smoke and her tears. Red blood that smelt of sweet-iron dripped off her in rivulets. Red mud clung to once-pristine new clothes.

She looked like she had suffered through a hurricane or that she was a hurricane embodied.

“I will never let you go.”

“Try taking my freedom from me,” she bit back at him. Her mouth wasn’t full of fangs, but he swore her teeth were sharpened in this moment. “The deal is still on, Goblin King. I haven’t failed yet.”

His smile was equally sharp, fang-filled as his hand rose to pinch her chin. Nails dug into her skin, affectionately violent. He grinned wider as he heard her soft gasp as his clawed jewelry pierced her tender flesh.

“As you wish, beloved Runner,” he promised with a snarl.

His hand pulled away after a moment. Blood pearled at her chin into ruby teardrops, staining his false claws and dripping down her chin. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he sniffed deeply, taking in the magnetic lure of her blood. He waved his non-bloodied hand to their side, revealing the damned clock once more. It floated ominously in the air.

“You have two hours and 43 minutes left on the dial. Good luck.”

And he disappeared like dust in the wind, the only proof he had been there was the blood dripping at her chin – and her rain-soaked spirit.

[faeriesandfolklore]

A faerie who makes himself known only through the glittering lights flashing from the depths of the forest. The townsfolk warn you against it. You live in a small village, barely even a town. Your father owns a dairy farm and you have always known the rolling hills, thick with heather. Have always seen the pale lights shining through the trees, beckoning you. 

“Do not go,” your father has always said. “The wisps are there to draw you in, but they do not let you out.”

But you have always been curious, and some tales whisper of grand riches hidden deep in the wilds, that only the wisps can lead you to. You are young, and you believe yourself to be right. So one night, during the Harvest Moon, while everyone else dances and sings- you slip away from the village. You make your way through the fields and wildflowers, slipping through the thick roots and vines that hide away the forest. 

It does not take long before you are surrounded by only the trees and the underbrush. You can see shining eyes glinting from every corner of your vision, ravens perching on the vast canopy above you. When you inhale, you can almost taste the sweetness of the air, like something out of  a fairytale. 

And then you see the lights. 

They shine a soft blue, drifting through the air. You can sense the magic wafting from them, as if they have come rippling through the veil between worlds. It is like a siren call, slowly drawing you deeper into the forest. And you cannot help but follow, tightening your bag to your chest as you climb over rogue stones and slip through thick walls of trees, following the alluring shining of the lights. 

You walk for minutes, or hours, or years. The wisps seem to be all you can think of, clouding your mind. And they whirl around you, trails of pure magic sparkling in the darkness of the moonlight. And the moon, it is fuller than anything you have ever seen. Like an omen, or a sign marking the start of something. 

By the time you reach the forest’s edge, you are exhausted. All you know is the woods, the mud on your boots, your cloak torn and clinging to your shoulders. As the wisps slowly fade away, you blink in understanding. The wisps had drawn you in. They have led you here. And here is the most beautiful place you have ever been, a winding meadow not unlike the one you live beside. Tall grasses colored in violet and gold sway softly in a nonexistent breeze, the endless black sky dusted with shining stars as bright as the sun. Birds fly high above, with wings as wide as buildings and iridescent feathers. 

And then you see him, lounging in his throne in the center of the meadow, all long legs and sharp eyes. His hair is bound at the nape of his neck, a dark blue that cannot be natural. His eyes match the shade, lined with dark lashes, his lips aching with a gentle pout. And he looks at you, a dark brow raised as he crooks a finger. Calling you. 

You are drawn into his lap in an instant, unable to do anything but listen to his outrageous beauty. A gloved hand runs over your chin, his fingers brushing your lips. He tilts his head, narrowing those eyes as he takes you in. “You are as beautiful as they have said. The wisps.”

You blink, drawn out of your stupor by his words. “What?”

He looks at you as if you are a fool. “The wisps. They have drawn you here, told me of you. The child of a dairy farmer, living in a small, poor village. What a waste. A beauty like you in a place like that.” The faerie pressed his lips to the column of your throat and you let out a tiny moan. “A creature like you deserves to be a princess. A queen. Showered in gems and magic.”

As he guides your lips to his, it is as if the world stops. He holds the back of your head firmly, drawing you closer and devouring your mouth until you cannot feel anything but him. He pulls away for a moment, trailing his fingers down your collarbone. “My pretty mortal to spoil as I wish.”

[nerdanel01]

Death

Emmrich Volkarin/F!Rook 1.5k+ wc | SFW Possibly as a result of the massive breach in the Veil to the south, the Necropolis is more dangerous than ever. When Agnes is wounded while on patrol, Emmrich is forced to take drastic measures to protect her. EXCERPT: Impossible not to feel it, then. Emmrich’s magic, coursing through her body. Emmrich’s hands, firm on her chest, pushing her spirit back into her flesh before it got too far away—pushing air into her lungs, pushing life back into her veins. 

Agnes tried to speak, but her throat was so dry she had to swallow and try again. “Was I dead?”

9:42 Dragon

High heat of summer in the west, the rashvine-in-snow just beginning to bloom—ladybugs and fireflies seeking refuge from the sun in the cool pockets of the flower’s petals. Agnes, plenty cool herself, her skirt soaked through with mud to her waist, sang an invented song under her breath, her tiny hands sculpting the mud around her into taller and taller spires. Maman towering above her, driving into the fertile earth the wooden stakes she had sharpened herself, gently girding the dahlias against them for support. Young, loved, and protected. Still wrapped in the romantic fiction mother had woven to shield her from an uglier truth: that her father had loved her mother; that he was a kind and gentle man, employed in the stable of a neighboring estate. 

“Ma chère,” her mother called her. Agnes looked up. But the noontide sun was directly overhead, silhouetting her mother’s sunhat, obscuring her face in shadow. “You are being called.”

Agnes only felt it when her mother called attention to it: a strange nagging, an unwelcome plucking feeling in the center of her chest. 

“Agnes! Agnes Gallatus!”

Who was shouting after her so rudely, when she was having such fun with her Maman? A childish, resentful pucker on her face, she cast her eyes downwards in the direction of the voice. The mud beneath her had vanished, and Agnes found she was hovering above a narrow, vaulted chamber, flanked on either side by high columns of quartz, carved in the image of skeletons holding the roof aloft. A figure was hunched over on the stone tile below her, a tempest of powerful magic crackling in the air around them. 

‘Emmrich…?’

The moment Agnes recognized him, the plucking feeling in her chest swelled and snapped.

Someone’s hands pressed too firm against her chest. 

Violent gasp of breath. 

Agnes wrenched herself upright, heaving, fighting the oxygen-starved ache in her muscles. Blinking the darkness from her vision, her eyes rolled wildly around the room as she fought for air. When her heart began to beat anew, pounding madly, the last ebb of adrenaline washed over and through her. Something was terribly, terribly wrong—

“Agnes, thank the Maker! No, dear, don’t fight it, relax, lie back down…”

Emmrich’s hand was firm on her shoulder, supporting her as she lowered herself back onto the cold Necropolis floor. His other hand bunched his leather overcoat behind her head, a makeshift cushion to pillow it against the tile. 

But Agnes could not relax. Pain wracked every inch of her body, and she could not shake an overwhelming sense of impending danger and doom. Emmrich’s words were reassuring, but his tone was anything but—she was not sure she had ever heard him sound so uncertain, or so frightened. He looked absolutely wretched, perspiration dripping down his face, his expression lined with grief and determination in equal measure. A phosphorescent flame was fading fast from his eyes, but Agnes caught it, nevertheless.

‘Oh.’

Impossible not to feel it, then. Emmrich’s magic, coursing through her body. Emmrich’s hands, firm on her chest, pushing her spirit back into her flesh before it got too far away—pushing air into her lungs, pushing life back into her veins. 

Agnes tried to speak, but her throat was so dry she had to swallow and try again. “Was I dead?” The words came out as a hoarse, thin rattle. An almost spiritual look of relief washed over Emmrich’s face when he heard her voice.

“You are alive now. That is all that matters. Keep breathing, you should begin to feel better in just a few minutes…”

Alive now. Implying quite strongly there had been a period—Agnes could not say how long—that she had not been alive. She struggled through the fog of pain to recall what exactly had happened.

The ride down into the Necropolis in the morning… she remembered that. That was how every day started, now, after all. No more weeks-long research expeditions among the crypts and tombs. Ever since the Breach had opened in the south months ago, the disturbances within the Necropolis had grown too frequent and too great for such a risk. All of the Watchers were now deployed in shifts, with the express and sole purpose of policing the halls. There had always been a risk of encountering demons in the Necropolis, but lately, the peril had multiplied.

And then, it all came back to her in flashes: the pride demon they had found prowling among the tableaus of the dead, and the fight that ensued. The demon’s lightning that had shattered her barrier and struck her square in the chest, stopping her heart. The world growing dark, the demon’s fist raised to strike her down for good. Emmrich’s shout, the glow of his eyes, the crackle of magic tingling in the air as he seized possession of his thrall.

The forceful push of Alfred’s bony hands, flinging her down and out of the way of the pride demon’s strike.

‘Oh, no.’

“Emmrich… I’m so, so sorry.”

Emmrich looked at her quizzically. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Agnes.”

“But Alfred…”

She turned her eyes pointedly to the pile of splintered bone and dust just a few feet away: all that remained of the thrall after the pride demon had struck it down, his pitiful, characteristic wailing silenced forever.

“...you had been working on him for years. Emmrich, you must be devastated.”

Emmrich’s face tightened, eyes narrowing, brows knitting together. The muscle in the corner of his jaw gave a little jump. “You cannot be serious,” he said, shaking his head. His gaze had never left her face; he had not so much as glanced at Alfred’s paltry, decimated remains. In fact he looked concerned, as though he was suddenly doubting how thoroughly he had reanimated her, for her to think such an absurd thought. “Agnes, Alfred was a project. A beloved project, to be sure, but a project nonetheless. I can begin again. Begin better, this time.”

Then Emmrich leaned over her, lifting his hands to frame her face. His palms were so warm against her skin, his thumb so gentle as it traced the plains of her cheekbones… his gaze so impossibly tender and wounded. 

“But you… if I lose you, I cannot get you back.” 

There was a terrible crack in his voice, as though he was close to tears. Agnes did not know if she wanted more to embrace him, or to sink through the floor and disappear entirely. She was so moved at how deeply he cared. She was so mortified at how her incompetence (she should have seen the lightning coming, should have reinforced her barrier before it hit) had caused him such pain and fear.

An unsteady exhale shook him. The glow had left Emmrich’s eyes entirely, now, and they were wholly brown, wholly warm, wholly honest with her.

“You are more precious to me than any experiment.” He spoke in a low whisper, as if he was afraid that if he spoke at a greater volume, he would not be able to hold himself together. “I would not trade you for one hundred, one thousand Alfreds.”

And then, Agnes saw it: how much it had taken out of him to restore her; the way it had aged him. For in all the time she had known him, Emmrich’s hair had always been dark: now, it was streaked through with white and grey—not entirely salt and pepper, yet, but markedly lighter than it had been.

He must have noticed she was staring at him. “What is it?”

‘You nearly killed yourself trying to save me.’ “You’ve lost a bit of color.”

“Oh,” Emmrich said, indifferently, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “Have I?”

“It looks good,” Agnes told him, forcing a thin smile. “Elegant. Distinguished.”

Emmrich laughed low in disbelief. “You flatter me. I look more like an old man than ever, now, I am sure.” He lifted his other hand from her face and stretched, joints cracking as he did so; Agnes repressed the urge to catch it, to hold it fast against her face. “I certainly feel like an old man after that effort. Agnes, I dearly want to get you back to the other Watchers as soon as possible—you should visit the infirmary, just to be safe—but, forgive me, I need to rest first, just for a moment.”

Slowly, wincing as he did so, Emmrich lowered himself to the filthy floor next to her, a little cloud of dust kicking up when the back of his head came to rest at last on the tile. Emmrich was not quite as draconian in his need for order as Agnes, but he liked to keep things clean; he must have been truly exhausted, then, if he felt the need to lie down in the dirt to recover his strength. His eyes slipped closed, and his breathing slowed. Agnes thought he might drift off to sleep.

“Thank you,” she said, interrupting him before he could. “For saving my life.”

Emmrich’s upper lip gave a small twitch, then his bottom lip began to tremble. Even with his eyes closed, he looked so terribly upset. Without opening them to look at her, his hand quested across the dusty tile floor until it found her own, and closed tightly around it.

“For a moment,” he confessed, “you were entirely beyond my grasp, beyond my ability to reach. I was not sure I would be able to bring you back to me. You have no idea…” his voice trailed off and he squeezed her hand. “How good it feels, now. How reassuring. To feel you, to hear you, warm and breathing next to me.”

At that, Agnes was thankful Emmrich’s eyes were closed. She could not control the emotions raging across her face; could not imagine how deeply they betrayed her, with all Emmrich’s words pirouetting through her head. How he had called her precious, held her face, was still holding her hand. This sweetness, this intimacy–she had always longed for it. Still longed for it. But each breath she took still felt like knives cutting into her lungs; a reminder with each inhale of how close they had come to losing one another for good. 

How lucky she was! To have Emmrich’s love in any capacity. For if there had been any lingering doubt in her mind that he did, indeed, love her, it was now banished. That he did not, perhaps, love her in the way that she truly desired, did not make her cherish that love any less. 

And all she wanted to do, more than hold his hand or touch his face in return, was reassure him. To remain warm, alive, and breathing beside him, for as long as she possibly could. 

“It’s alright now, Emmrich,” Agnes said, and squeezed his hand back. “Rest as long as you need. I’ll keep watch until you’re ready."

---

This piece is Part VI in a series of 11. [ Start from beginning ] [ Read Part VII ] [ Nerdanel's Fic Masterpost ]

[swordbisexual]

A Kiss

Rolan Week Day Six

In which a new, exhilarating thing begins. 1.8k words

(cross-posted to AO3)

--

He’s dead.

The bastard is dead.

Rolan would have hardly believed it possible only moments before. For all his cruelties - or perhaps because of them - Lorroakan’s power truly was impressive, and it had nearly broken him all over again to face it.

Worse, it nearly broke Shaxibis.

For all her tendency to come to his rescue time and again, Rolan has yet to actually see Shaxibis in a fight. Even at the Reithwin tollhouse he was blinded by confusion, cowering just like the shadow that recoiled from the light she cast to banish the dark. Now, after seeing how over-confident she is on a battleground, even when that ground is a library just as incongruous to battle as a bard, he hopes he never has to see it again.

For all the rest of his days, he’s not going to be able to forget the vision of her striking her sword against her palm to make it shriek. He’ll forever see her round on a fire myrmidon with little more than the shouting song in her throat and the brazenly stupid shield of nothing more than blind heroism to protect her; he’ll see the singed edges of her sleeve still smoking as she scrambled away from the myrmidon’s rebuke, and her quick, sure footing being the only thing to keep her from sliding through a mire of mud and ice that glazed the thick carpeting behind her.

He’d armored himself with a spell, at first. He should have kept the ward up, too. He can feel an ache in his chest that’s almost definitely a bruised rib, and taking in a breath too deep hurts. But when a crackling bolt of lightning came whipping through the air towards Shaxibis, he’d thrown himself towards her, heedless of the swings and blows around him, and with an arm around her waist, he’d enveloped her in the protective spell.

The rest is a blur to him after that. He recalls the aasimar calling down pure, blinding moonlight; the Nightsong, the paladin, the living woman who Lorroakan wanted to imprison, and finally, finally, Rolan gathered up his courage to tell the man where exactly he could shove that Calishite warlock’s wand, starting this whole bloody fight in the first place. He remembers the Nightsong’s cry of fury, and a sickening crack, and now…

The bastard is well and truly dead.

Rolan pushes himself up, first to his knees, sitting back on his heels until his head stops swimming. The library is still a blur of bright light, and his ears still ring, though now with the deafening silence that’s fallen all around. He looks up, blinking away with spots that dance in his vision, and fixes his eyes on a blur of color that stands at the foot of the stairs: red, and white, and violet, bright and wild as the unlikeliest tangle of flowers to spring up out of the harsh roadside dirt.

Lorroakan is dead, and he’s alive. And against all the odds stacked against her utterly senseless valor, careless to the point of sheer stupidity, so stubbornly brave that it makes Rolan’s heart swell fit to burst, Shaxibis is alive.

The knowledge pulls him, steadier by the minute, to his feet. He still takes the time to see to himself: another rip in the sleeve of his robes to be mended, hells take it, and he’s going to have to do more than a little light prestidigitation to get the mud stains out of the hem. The floor around him is in an even worse state of disrepair. He’s kept this library scrubbed and polished and dusted for the better part of the past two tendays, taking his licks from Lorroakan for using magic for some tasks, or for eschewing it in others. He looks past the knot of people in the library’s center to the twisted body at their feet, and he lets out a laugh, short and harsh and godsdamned cathartic.

Trust the bastard to have left him one last mess to clean up.

Shaxibis turns at the sound, relief washing over her face so plainly that Rolan’s heart stutters and lurches forward. His feet almost lurch forward, too, but he grips the railing beside him to keep from stumbling, and all he can manage is to stand and wait, watching her weave through the mess on the floor on legs that look to be just as shaky as his. She’s several meters away, then a few, then one, taking the low set of stairs up to meet him. “Rolan?”

He wants to say her name, wants to berate her for coming up here after he told her to stay away, wants to thank her for bringing the wrath of the Moon herself to do the impossible. There are so many things he wants to say, but all he can let out are the same words that he’s said to himself over and over in these minutes that felt like hours: “He’s dead.”

Shaxibis looks back over her shoulder to the body on the ground, and Rolan looks at the scrape across her cheek and the curve of her jaw and the long, graceful line of her neck, where a few strands of silver-white hair have come loose from the knots below her ears to stick to her sweat-slick skin. “Thank the gods for it,” she says, whipping her face back around to glare up at him with eyes full of fire. “Did you really think we shouldn’t help you?”

Rolan’s grip on the railing tightens. “I thought—”

“Did you?” Her hands are on his chest and then they’re curling into fists in the fabric of his robes. This close he sees that the shine in her eyes isn’t all anger; some of it is tears, stubbornly refusing to spill. “Was this more of your godsdamned pride, Rolan?”

Almost instantly, his relief at seeing her still standing bristles into irritation at how astoundingly thick-skulled she must be. “Pride?” He circles his fingers around her wrists, leans in closer. “Do I look proud right now?”

“You look like that godsdamned fuckwitted ballbag was smacking you around, is what you look like.” Her grip on his robes tightens. Her grimace is wide enough that her teeth are bared, and her cheeks are so hot with anger that they’ve gone fuchsia, and still, still, he has never seen a more infuriatingly beautiful creature in his life. “Elminster’s wrinkled old cheesehole, Rolan, I was ready to beat him to death myself.”

He can’t help it; he lets out another rough bark of laughter, higher and slightly hysterical now. It turns to a wave, a torrent, all the emotion he’s swallowed down for days on end let loose in a tide of sobbing mirth that he knows makes him sound utterly mad. Still, he doesn’t care. He could sound like a cackling gnoll, for all he cares, so long as Shaxibis doesn’t let go of him or try to slide her hands from his grasp.

She doesn’t. In fact, she only pulls him closer. “Rolan,” she repeats, half anger, half worry, all confounding and wonderful and here, nearly pressed up against him and warm to the touch.

Rolan lets go of her wrists in order to grasp her by the face and pull her in for a kiss.

She lets out a small gasp of surprise, but it almost promptly melts into a groan - nearly a growl - as her fists loosen and her hands slide down his chest to skim his sides and wrap around his waist. Pressing closer to him, she parts her mouth to slide the tip of her tongue against the seam of his lips; he welcomes her in, hungrily, tasting the salt-copper tang of the blood that’s trickled down from a cut on her upper lip and the sweetly warm bouquet of her, clear and rich and just as wonderful as he remembers.

He feels her cheeks warm beneath his hands; he strokes his thumbs over her cheekbones and tangles his fingers in the hair at her nape, tugging it loose from the tightly-wound buns and scraping his nails over her scalp. There’s a soft whine in the back of her throat at that, and she slides her tongue a little deeper into his mouth, licking up and drinking him in. There’s a slight pressure at his calf: her tail, slipping round his leg, tightening almost possessively to pull him closer. He responds in kind: loops the tip of his tail down and around, winding with hers, as he sighs - nearly whimpers - when her teeth graze his bottom lip and tug.

Only the sound of someone clearing their throat breaks them apart. Rolan comes up for air, reluctantly, and focuses his gaze over Shaxibis’ shoulder to find the source of the sound.

Astarion leans to the side, rubbing the back of his head as he slides his eyes sideways towards the portal that still glitters on the library’s opposite side. “Should we move the body now, or is that what gets the two of you going?”

Rolan lets go of Shaxibis’ jaw, but he doesn’t let go of her. He rests his hands on her shoulders, unwilling to let her go, though for decorum’s sake he takes one step back, or at least a step as far as her still-tight grip around his middle will allow. “How can I thank you?”

Shaxibis grins up at him, the color still high in her cheeks. “How greedy can I be?”

Heat courses like a bolt down his spine, and he involuntarily tightens the grip his tail has around hers. “I might allow a little.”

She lifts one brow. “Well, new master of Ramazith’s Tower—”

“Oh,” he interrupts, “I do like the sound of that.”

Rolling her eyes, Shaxibis continues. “—we need to break into your vault.”

From the center of the library, Gale makes a strangled noise, and Karlach guffaws as she slaps Astarion on the back. Rolan can’t look at any of them for too long - doesn’t want to, with Shaxibis still in his arms - and so looks right in front of him, at a pair of golden eyes that now sparkle with mischief that’s at once vexing and vivacious. “You are incorrigible.”

Her smile widens. “Is that a yes?”

For her, he may never say no again, but he won’t give her such satisfaction, either. “Fine,” he says, as long-suffering as he can manage. “If I must.”

She leans up on her toes to plant a kiss just to the side of his mouth. “Thank you,” she murmurs. Another kiss, this time laughably prim and chaste against his lips. “Because we would have anyway.”

Rolan laughs again, the first real, relaxed one he’s been able to manage in days. The bastard is dead, and he is alive, and the hells will take him before he lets that go. “Incorrigible,” he repeats, and kisses Shaxibis again, decorum be damned.

[horsentale]

Natural Horse Care: What Is It and Why It Matters

NATURAL HORSE CARE WHAT IS IT AND WHY IT MATTERS Explore & learn about the principals of natural horse care and the benefits of using all natural topical equine products. #horsentale #topicalequineproducts #naturalhorsecare #equine #horse

[firerose18991]

Prince! Itadori x Black femReader prt 2

Info: fluff, adventure, multi part fic

Written with black curvy/chubby readers in mind but all are welcome

Wrd cnt: 1.69k

Prt 1

As you and Yuji contemplated your impending fates a commotion was building outside the tent.

“FIRE!” A booming voice whipped through the camp.

You jumped up from the stool you sat on, the smoke was already starting to fill the air in the tent.

“Grab your shirt.” You called to him, and pulled him out by his wrist.

When you reached the outside of the white tent, now sullied from the ashen air beginning to coat all of the camp, you saw the chaos. You spotted the head nurse directing a trailer from the camp on the barren hill down into the lush forest beneath.

“Nurse! What's happening?” You ran up, Yuji in tow.

“The Barbarians! They're storming the camp!”. She ran up to take Yuji's other hand. “You need to flee and meet with your army. We can't protect you here.”

“But the camp is neutral, are they killing their own people?” Yuji resisted the nurses' pulls towards the escape route, though it mostly looked like her tugging a brick wall.

“If they have a target like you they would've lost those men anyway. Most of them are the ones you injured in your battle.” Yuji was taken aback.

Since he'd been injured only sparse battles have occurred which only lasted a few hours at most. He was the target of the Barbarians all along. With the line of succession open his territory would be vulnerable. Nevertheless he wasn't going to hide like a coward among the sick and injured. He finally had the time to put his shirt back on. It hung loosely around his muscular frame.

“Do you know where my sword and steed are being held?” He turned to you.

His kind amber eyes still held their warmth but focused on you to give an answer urgently.

“You can't possibly-” the head nurse started.

“The stables are by the edge of camp, close to the lake.” You pointed the way and he bolted off.

“(Y/N)!” the Nurse yelled at you as he ran off. “He’s in no condition-”

“If anyone is going to keep the encampment safe it will be him. Let’s focus on setting up a place for triage further in the forest. After all this everyone will need it.”

You helped usher the remaining patients down the slippery hills of the forest to a natural basin near another river outlet closer to Yuji’s kingdom. The screams of those fighting over the ashes of the old campsite echoed to where you had found yourselves. Your heart ached thinking of Yuji fighting, maybe being heavily outnumbered and you wondered if you’d done the right thing by sending him off.

You busied yourself by the end of the first day purifying drinking water and gathering ingredients for healing potions. Some of the patients had sustained burns and you had to quickly find natural remedies in a forest you had barely gotten to know. Others worked on using their magic to create temporary rock and mud huts for patients. When you’d found just about all you could make sense of in the forest’s herbs you headed back and sat on the river bank. The fight raged on even into the night. That gave you some hope the Yuji was still out there fighting. Enough to get you through the next day.

In the morning you were the first up. Catching fish in the river and pounding wild nuts and berries into edible porridge. You’d made a large fire to cook and were careful to cast a smoke concealment spell. The head nurse woke up to you using a giant stick to stir the massive amount of porridge and fish roasting on the sides. You looked like you’d thoroughly lost your mind.

But the smell drew everyone from their huts and away from their miserable night rest. Once everyone had eaten their fill patient daily care was still at the forefront. You directed your fellow nurses to plants with antiseptic properties whose leaves could be used as bandages for the time being and crafted potions with yesterday’s work. And in the night you repeated the same as the morning. You’d brought all the nurses up to speed and everyone fell into their roles once again. The battle could still be heard. When particularly devastating attacks occurred you’d see mass flocks of birds scattering overhead to escape the atrocities. But as long as it continued your people would remain.

The third day was uneventful and fatiguing for all at the camp. In their down time a lot of the nurses watched you pace back and forth working like someone had lit you on fire. The head nurse had to pry you off a tree you’d attempted to climb to get more leaves. But in your sleep deprived state you missed a foothold and fell down. She coaxed you into a mud hut to get some rest which is where you stayed even through dinner. At some point you’d managed to fall asleep and woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of crickets and fire crackling. For a moment you allowed yourself to take in the natural ambiance before you shot up from the ground. The fighting had ended.

“Oh gods.” you whispered to yourself as you clumsily pushed your fatigued body off the ground and out of the hut.

You stumbled out to the haunting forest. The battle was done but you couldn't be sure who won. Part of you nearly began to mourn Yuji until you were startled from your thoughts by the sound of sloshing mud and leaves drawing closer from the forest. You clasped your hand to your face and hid around the corner of the hut, if need be you would wake the others and try quietly to get away.

As the heavy steps grew closer you began to make out the figure of a lone man. The moonlight only illuminated him in slivers at a time. Once it brushed upon his bloodied face and you saw the pink hair peakout through dried blood you stepped out from your hiding spot.

“Yuji” you gasped, stepping toward the bush he was slowly making his way over. His head was bowed from exhaustion. It was a miracle he made it to your camp with his injuries. You caught him just as he tripped out into the basin front. A small part of you wanted to be mad at him for taking on such a foolhardy battle, the other was mad at yourself for letting him. But that was all overshadowed by the immense joy you felt from him having returned in one piece.

You looked up as you heard more zombie-like steps creeping through the forest towards you. You hugged Yuji's now sleeping form against yourself, not sure of what you could do. Soon soldiers wearing the crest of the Itadori kingdom began emerging from the forest. Each as bloodied and bruised as their prince. You finally placed yuji down gently when you saw commander Nobara stumble through with the last set of soldiers. You caught her as well and placed her down gently before going to get the other healers of your clan.

Everyone worked through the night to pull the soldiers through. With healers stretched thin the head nurse walked over to you wordlessly and handed you a wand. Something only the most recognized and talented of your clan get the honor of wielding. You quietly rejoiced as you walked over to the remaining horde of soldiers that needed attending to.

When dawn broke the streaks of blood from soldiers marching to their last salvation were illuminated. The camp was lively with those who’d only endured extreme exhaustion and doctors rushing to care for those in more critical cases. Once you took care of your most critical patients you whisked through the camp looking for Yuji, the head nurse had decided to take him under her care as he wasn’t at 100% to begin with. As you approached her tent you heard hushed voices.

“Excuse me.” You spoke softly before entering the tent. You looked around to see Yuji sitting in bed, some dried blood still stained his skin. And the head nurse brewing a pain reliever. “Sorry I just came to see how he was doing.” You were hoarse from exhaustion.

“Glad I'm not the only one who looks like hell.” He smiled, thoroughly wrapped in plant fiber bandages and propped on pillows.

“The leader of your enemy has been defeated, but some of his men still remain at this camp. It is not our place to get involved in these matters.” The head nurse spoke to both of you.

“I completely understand, I would never ask your people to compromise their values for my sake. I believe a short prison sentence after they've healed will be enough to satisfy me.” He really sounded like he'd been on the throne his whole life.

“Yes well that may take a while”

“After dealing with my own injuries I've learned to be patient.” Yuji's grin turned into a wince.

The head nurse shooed his hand that instinctively went to his injury and used her wand to lessen the pain.

“(Y/N) the medicine.” She nodded to you.

You made your way over to her work station and waved the supplementary wand that still hadn't been taken away over the pot to complete the medicine. It glowed like gold in the dingy wooden pot. You brought it over to where Yuji was fighting a coughing fit, for fear of displacing his ribs. Once he got some of the medicine down he wearily settled back into the pillows.

“Hopefully this time I leave him in your care he'll make a full recovery.” She winked and left the tent to the two of you.

<<<prev

[frostironfudge]

Keep My Secret - (Bucky x Reader x Steve)

Summary: The search for Bucky and Steve is shrouded in darkness, will you find the light and the loves of your lives?

my entry for @the-slumberparty 's week one i spy challenge, i had the theme isolation and setting fairy tale and this is what i came up with, hope you enjoy it! ‘Leather cuffs’ and ‘bouquet of flowers’ were also prompts.

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: dark setting, allusions to future dub-con (none explicitly described or stated), isolation, kidnapping, dark magical elements, dark character and one soft dark character (i'm not saying who is who because i don't want to give it away), allusions to torture, wounds mentioned, mind control, power dynamics, dark fae magic.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader x Steve Rogers

Main Masterlist || AO3

The scent of rain soaked mud slowly clambers up the endless walls. You do remember the word for it, the grogginess around your mind isn’t clearing. Otherwise you’re sure you would know. 

A rumble in the distance followed by a louder boom. You hear a cough followed by a groan. The presence is familiar. The darkened room seldom aids your half mast gaze. 

Dull aches finally register along your temple and cheekbone. When your fingers reach out the remembrance sets in, leather cuffs. Binds that tie you to this fate. Another groan, your head lols towards it. You whimper as you recognise him despite the state of his body. 

“B-bucky?” You call out, his head snaps up, then he groans yet again. 

Bucky shakes off the pain, enhanced vision allowing him to trace you across the circular room. Strands of his now long hair fall back. Months. Months spent locked in this tower. Months since he was gone and asked you not to follow. 

His brows furrow, there was something different today in the tower and it wasn’t the petrichor. Cobwebs still decorated the ceilings, dust settled in around objects. The table with familiar tools is the only clean surface, and there lay coated in the softest of dew drops—bougainvillaeas. Tied with a leather string. Bucky’s eyes find you again. The flowers held meaning to you. Currently the bouquet symbolises you. 

“Malyshka (baby).” 

You look back at him from the floor. The flash of lightning outside illuminates him. Blue eyes full of worry, crimson coats his skin. It felt as if eons since you heard the endearment from his lips. 

“What have they done?” You beg to know, “Bucky, where have you been? I, I—,”

“Malyshka, I told you not to follow me.” He sighs, on his knees making his way towards you. The chain tugs on his arm when he attempts to touch your face. 

“You were gone, you promised and you were gone. Just like he did. I had to find you. We’ll get out.” You assure him, you had a plan, you had the tracker. Sam would find the two of you. “Then we’ll find him, we will all return home.”

“Malyshka, we are—,”

The door opens, cutting off Bucky’s reply. 

Fresh flame torches carried in by the soldiers in black and red replace the burnt out ones on the walls. The stone illuminated with an orange glow. The flames flicker as the only window allows wind into the room. They leave the door open. 

A larger figure walks in, a mask covering his face, a mane of dark hair surrounds him. 

“Did you like my present?” he questions, the voice carries an echo of foreign familiarity, his large palm moving to cradle Bucky’s head, fisting in his hair. Bucky’s jaw clenched. 

“Hmm, this hair suits you better. A reminder of glorious days.” The man hums. 

“I have no need for presents.” Bucky spits out and the man tsks. 

“The gift of flowers was for her, you need to be more appreciative. I remember you being more affectionate.” The man sighs, fingers running through Bucky’s hair, almost intimate. Your brows furrow. The brunette turns his head away away, then a slap echoes through the room, “Be respectful, Soldat.” 

Bucky spits out the iron laced saliva pooling in his mouth. 

You look at the flowers, one of your lesser known favourites. Only two people knew the meaning the flowers held for you. 

Your eyes widen at the HYDRA symbol on the man’s back. He turns to you. The mask hides his identity and unease pools in your stomach as you stare at the void blackened eyes of the mask. 

“Tell me then,” the man squats before you, gripping your chin harshly, you cry out as his gloved fingers dig into the cut along your jaw, “I asked you a question, did you not like flowers, mo chridhe (my heart)?” 

Bucky closes his eyes as your accusing gaze meets him, then back to the masked man. The dark laughter echoes around the room and cracks your heart into pieces. 

He squishes your cheeks together, your tears pool over his fingers, trailing down the glove to his wrist. 

“Ste-Steve?” You ask, he shakes his head, taking off his mask. The beard on him familiar, his hair longer, indicating the time of him being gone. However the blue eyes you fell in love with and saw your future in are now surrounded by a thin ring of silver. 

The lips belong to Steve but the smile is no longer warm, it only sends a cold chill through you. 

“B-bucky, what—,” You sputter, Steve’s grip tightens. 

“Are you going to tell her, baby?” He quirks a brow, lazily looking back at Bucky. 

Bucky’s shoulders shake, lips trembling. He meets your eyes with tear stained cheeks. 

“He isn’t, he isn’t our Steve.” 

Your widened eyes move back to him, no, it can’t be, Steve is, Steve is supposed to, what has HYDRA done to him?

“Oh mo chridhe, your shared Steve’s long gone, but fret not. I will make sure the two of you are cared for, like my own sweet little pets. I remember everything your Stevie did and had done to him by the two of you. Mmm, wrapped around me, wrapped around Bucky. You are quite the sight.” He smirks, eyes alight with a mirth you cannot find yourself in this bleak tower. 

“Who are you?” You question as he releases you, “you aren’t Steve, Bucky, this isn’t, no. Please we have to fight him! We have to find Steve!” You plead. 

Steve shifts, you then see it, Bucky’s missing arm. How had you not noticed? You look around the tower. Flashes pass through your mind, the forest, the mist, and the torn wings. The sobbing man. Pleading for help. 

The flash of blonde and blue. The call of help from brunette and azure.

You gave the hunched over man in pain your name. 

“Why, I’m Steve Rogers of course. He’s James Barnes and you are Y/N Y/L/N. You should never give the fae your name but shh, my little play things,” Steve cups your head and Bucky’s, “Those little soldiers outside know me as Hydra Supreme. So let's keep this little secret between us three. Hmm?” He raises a brow, then chuckles at your hurt expressions, eyes crinkling and reminding you so much of your Steve. 

“Oh cmon, you look at me as if I killed your little Stevie. Maybe I did, but I will make you forget, I’ll let you rule, well atleast beneath me.” He leans closer, lips brushing against Bucky’s chapped lips and then your busted one, he licks the stray traces of blood humming, “What do you say then my pets?” 

“If you think for one second we’re going to agree with you you second rate, fucking asshole—,” Bucky’s eyes glow silver, his words cut off, “I want to rule under you, Sire.” 

“Please, not Bucky, please, don’t we, Steve, please we—we will rule under you, Sire.” Your words aren’t your own, you watch on as Steve smiles pleased with the two of you. 

“Such good pets, I will allow the two of you to feel pleasure tonight but after I’ve had my fill. It’s going to be a long night.” He turns away, releasing the glamour from Bucky. 

Bucky blinks, the silver disappearing for a moment from his eyes. He stares down at his arms, both flesh and metal and then at you with your eyes gleaming silver. 

“Steve.” He says in warning, “She doesn’t deserve this, please reconsider. I know we wanted her all to ourselves but I can’t strip her of her will.” 

The blond clicks his tongue, eyes narrowed at his lover, “I do not appreciate you disregarding every single bit of my sacrifice for you two, James. Do not force me to stoop low for you too.” He turns walking towards the table, picking up the flowers. 

“You already have,” Bucky shakes his head, gently cradling your face, your eyes vacant, “I’m so sorry, Malyshka.” 

Steve’s jaw clenches, anger coursing through his veins. The flowers fall to the floor, stems broken, petals scattered. Bucky turns, reaching for the gun in his holster. 

“You shouldn’t have given me your name, James Barnes. You little humans, your love shall be your undoing.” Steve waves a hand, Bucky lands on his knees. 

Dust rising around the two of you, gleaming collars forming around your and Bucky’s necks, chains attached and held in Steve’s palm. 

“Now, crawl to your king, my pets.” His menacing smile widens as you both fall on all fours.

-x-

[watatsumiis]

Patching You Up series (Capitano Edition)

(looks at all the other series I want/need to write more for)

(looks away)

(starts writing a new one)

Content: Capitano helps out a mildly injured reader! Gender neutral, injury is scraped knees and hands from tripping over. Light mentions of wounds, blood, etc. Reader is described as physically smaller than Capitano simply because he's a bear of a man. Reader and Capitano have an established relationship (can be read as platonic, romantic or anything in between!)

Capitano warned you, he really did. He'd informed you that the ground outside was slippery, that you should be careful and not run, but you simply couldn't help yourself upon spotting something that piqued your interest a few paces off the path.

Now, here you are, reeling as you recover from the shock of having slipped over. The pain hasn't quite begun to set in just yet, but you can see the rough scrapes and mud on your arms and legs already, and your clothing is wet from half-melted snow mush.

Capitano sighs - it's less of an annoyed sigh, and more of a pitying one. He's too kind to remind you that he told you so, and instead just walks up behind you. "Are you alright?" His voice is deep and slow, and rasps out of his helmet like slivers of wood being carved off of a branch.

"I...I..." you trail off as the pain suddenly seems to hit you all at once and you sit back on your haunches, looking down at your hands, beading with bright red blood. "I fell." You tell him in a soft voice, as if he hadn't just seen you tumble over.

Capitano makes a soft tutting noise, walking around beside you and extending his arm out, tilting his head to the side in a silent question of whether you'd like his help or not.

You reach out for him, and he's there within moments, wrapping his big, broad arms around you as he helps you up. You choke back a noise of pain as you stand and your scraped knees ache in protest, the scraped sensation feeling as if it's burning you.

To your surprise, Capitano doesn't stop once you're steady on your feet. Instead, he scoops you up, holding you bridal-style up against his chest. You shy away slightly to prevent his hard plate armour from touching your wounds and cradle your hands close to your chest.

Capitano adjusts his grip on you until you're as comfortable as possible, then turns a slow circle, observing your surroundings. When he sets off once more, it is most certainly not in the direction that you came from.

"Where are we...?" You trail off, blinking slowly up at Capitano, though you can't make out any features through the pitch darkness under his mask.

"Hunters cabin." He explains simply, and you can feel his voice reverberating in his chest.

The steady pace he walks at is soothing and repetitive, giving you something to focus on other than the pain you're in. The snow crunches beneath Capitano's heavy feet in a rather satisfying way.

It doesn't take you long to arrive at the cabin - it seems like it was once indeed someone's hunting cabin, but had since been repurposed for the Fatui to use on field operations. The door is unlocked, and Capitano lets himself in, ducking down slightly to get through the door.

The cabin is quaint and cosy, though it seems like it's been a while since anyone stayed here. Capitano sets you down on a rickety wooden seat by the small, round dining table (haphazardly adorned with a dusty, checker-patterned cloth), lighting some lanterns with flickers of some kind of pyro-magic infused device as he scrounges around for what he's looking for.

There's not really much for you to do except watch him as he bustles about, surprisingly quiet for such a large, heavily armoured man. You can feel the pain in your hands and knees throbbing, but force yourself to keep up a brave face.

By the time Capitano returns, he has a few items in hand. You open your mouth to ask a question, but the man before you is already tending to your wounds before you can get the words out.

He's shockingly gentle and careful, attentive to detail despite his thick gloves. He cleans up your hands first, applying antiseptic and bandaging them with a sort of tenderness that you rarely recall having seen in him before.

Capitano kneels down in front of you, then looks up and waits silently for your affirmative nod before rolling up your trouser legs to patch up your grazed knees - the sideways tilt to his head is almost reminiscent of a sad puppy.

"There." He hums, once the last bandage is secured around your right knee. Though it still stings, it feels better knowing your injuries are clean, and there's something about the careful attentivess he displayed when looking after you that makes you feel warm inside.

"What are we gonna do now?" You ask him, dreading his answer a little.

Capitano straightens up to his full height (so tall his head almost brushes the roof of the rather little cabin), gaze lingering on your for a few moments before he looks around the cabin slowly.

"I..." He reaches up to brush back a tightly coiled lock of his pitch black hair. "Suppose it wouldn't hurt to... Stay a while." He concedes, gaze travelling over to the food rations sitting in the small kitchenette before finally landing on you once again.

You feel small and exposed sitting here while Capitano pins you with his invisible gaze, but the gradual slope of his shoulders tells you that he's relaxing, which isn't something you often see him do. "Stay there." He tells you, his voice a little softer than usual. "I'll go see if there's any firewood."

Please don't repost, copy, plagiarise or otherwise steal my writing!!

[unhingedsquidtm]

The Eyes of the Wolf

 When Lavellan goes on a mission to follow Solas' trail, she finds a

       statue of Fen'Harel and leaves a prayer.

See the art here.

          · · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

Elusive. They'd call the Dread Wolf a cunning trickster, a liar, something to be feared... but the word that Lavellan found herself repeating in the quiet dark of night would be 'Elusive'. It was all she could do to think about the different paths she hadn't taken yet. Who needed counting sheep when figuring out how to save the one she loved from himself was enough to occupy her mind.

It was almost always like he knew where she would be, each and every time. There would be a lead, she'd go to follow it, but it would slip out of her grasp moments before she could find another clue. Informants disappearing, places of interest ransacked before she could get there, trails that would grow cold before she ever knew they were warm. 

Trekking through the Emerald Graves for their latest search, the Inquisitor found herself devoid of her bright attitude. It was already chalking up to be a bad week—they had to find something this time, anything. Solas was out there still, and whether or not he knew it, he needed help. It had been a year since she'd seen him last, and her promise still held true.

He had knelt before her, placed his hand upon her cheek and kissed her, all while saving her life. 

All while breaking her heart.

It seemed almost ironic, the way that the path she and her agents had been taking led her to a familiar sight. There, amidst the trees, lay a single, solitary statue of a white wolf. What was once a beautifully pristine coat, freshly washed from a recent storm, now lay under a sheet of dust and withering leaves. The base of it was coated in a spatter of mud and dirt, with no real disturbance save for the offering bowl.

Stepping closer to it, Lavellan could see that the bowl was not empty. In fact, in it lay a few strips of rotting meat and a few bones. A spark of pure red rage surged through her, erupting in barely-contained static around her fingers. Her staff flared once, twice, and she shook her head. With a flash of white, she sent a wall of pure force toward the display, sending the bowl cascading off the base. Her anger got the better of her, and she cried out, planting the staff directly into the sullen ground beneath her. Her healing magic rooted itself into the earth, snaking into roots and rejuvenating the withered clearing around her. 

The inquisitor wasn't all that certain as to how long she'd knelt there, crying out in frustration, anger, sorrow... all she knew was that once she was done, the statue was tangled with vines of wisteria, almost like a protective embrace. Nature preserving the wolf's honor.

She felt a stocky hand upon her shoulder and heard Varric's words of comfort, but could not process them. With a slow nod, she stood once more and stepped up to the statue. Resting the staff against her other shoulder, she reached for the vine and picked a weave of flowers off. 

"I don't know if you ever felt these," she whispered, eyes trailing up to the gaze she couldn't quite meet anymore. "These prayers. These... offerings. I don't even know if you care about them. You've probably got too much on your hands as it is."

It was only when the drops met the back of her hand that she realized she'd been crying. She wiped the tears away and placed the flower gently upon the base, giving the wolf an offering it deserved. Her hand pressed firmly against the white coat as she spoke, "I don't know if these ever reach you somehow, but if they do... if you can hear this..."

Please come home.

The elf shut her eyes a moment, taking a breath to steady the searing ache in her chest. When she opened her eyes again, that momentary weakness was locked up behind them. She stood taller once more, hair whipping around her in the breeze as she raised her chin up high. "Of course you can't. You're just a fucking statue."

Grinding her jaw, she turned on her heel and marched off, her agents and her friend in tow.

Of course, it would have been easier to get a sign from him, a word, a whisper—anything.

A whole lot easier if she knew that the wolf had indeed been watching.

That he had never even stopped.