#an eagle flies by to let me know hes there

[mermaids-and-dastardly-deeds]

.

[creepyclothdoll]

The Devil's Wheel

The Devil’s Wheel

“If you say yes,” said the Devil, “a single man, somewhere in the world, will be killed on the spot. But three million dollars is nothing to sneeze at, missus.”

“What’s the catch?” You squint at him suspiciously over the red-and-black striped carnival booth. You’re smarter than he thinks you are– a devil deal always has a catch, and you’re determined to catch him before he catches you. 

“Well, the catch is that you’ll know you did it. And I’ll know, too. And the big man upstairs’ll know, I ‘spose. But what’s the chariot of salvation without a little sin to grease the wheels? You can repent from your mansion balcony, looking out at your waterfront views, sipping a bellini in your eighties. But hey, it’s up to you– take my deal or leave it.”

The Devil lights a cigar without a match, taking an inhale, and blowing out a cloud of deep, sweet-smelling tobacco laced faintly with something that reminds you of rotten eggs. If he does have horns, they’re hidden under his lemon yellow carnival barker hat. He wears a clean pinstripe suit and a red bowtie. No cloven hooves, no big pointy fork, but you know he’s the Devil without having to be told. Though he did introduce himself.

He’s been perfectly polite. 

You know you need the money. He knows it too, or he wouldn’t have brought you here, to this strange dark room, whisking you away from your new house in the suburbs as fast as a wish. Now you’re in some sort of warehouse, where all the windows seem to be blacked out– or, maybe, they simply look out into pitch darkness, though it is the middle of the day. A single white spotlight shines down on the two of you. 

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” you say. “I bet the man is someone I know, right? My husband?”

“Could be,” the Devil says with a pointed grin. “That’s for the wheel to decide.”

He steps back and raises his black-gloved hand as the tarp flies off of the large veiled object behind him. The light of the carnival wheel nearly blinds you. Blinking lights line the sides. Jingling music blares over speakers you can’t see. The flickering sign above it reads:

THE DEVIL’S WHEEL

“Step right up and claim your fortune,” the Devil barks. “Spin the wheel and pay the price! Or leave now, and a man keeps his life.”

You examine the wheel. 

The gambling addict

The doting boyfriend

The escaped convict

The dog dad

The secretive sadist

“These are all the possible men I can kill?” You ask, thumbing the side of the wheel. It rolls smoothly in your hand. Then you quickly stop, realizing that this might constitute a spin under the Devil’s rules. He flashes a smile at you, watching you halt its motion. 

“Addicts, convicts, murderers– plenty of terrible options for you to land on, missus!”

“Serial wife murderer?”

“Now who would miss a fellow like that? I can guarantee that the whole world would be better off without him in it, and that’s a fact.”

The hard worker

The compulsive liar

The animal torturer

The widower

The desperate businessman

The failed musician

The beloved son

“My husband is on here too,” you say. 

“Your husband Dave, yes. The wheel has to be fair, otherwise there’s simply no stakes.”

“I know what’s gonna happen,” you say, crossing your arms. “This wheel is rigged. I’m gonna spin it around, and it’ll go through all the killers and stuff, and then it’s gonna land on my husband no matter what.”

“Why, I would never disgrace the wheel that way,” the Devil says, wounded. “I swear on my own mother’s grave– may she never escape it. In fact, take one free spin, just to test it out! This one’s on me, no death, no dollars.”

You cautiously reach up to the top of the wheel and feel its heaviness in your hand. The weight of hundreds of lives. But also, millions of dollars. You pull the wheel down and let it go.

Clackity-clackity-clackity-clackity

Round and round it goes. 

The college graduate

The hockey fan

The Eagle Scout

The cold older brother

The charming younger brother

The two-faced middle child

The perfectionist

The slob 

Your husband Dave

Clackity-clackity-clackity.

Finally, the wheel lands on a name. A title, really.

The photographer

“Hmm, tough, missus, but that’s the way of the wheel. But hey, look! Your husband is allllll the way over here,” he points with his cane to the very bottom of the wheel, all the way on the other side from where the arrow landed. “As you can see, it’s not rigged. The wheel truly is random.”

“So… there really isn’t another catch?” You ask. 

“Isn’t it enough for you to end a man’s life? You need a steeper price? If you’re really such a glutton for punishment, I’ll gladly re-negotiate the terms.”

“No, no… wait.” You examine the wheel, glancing between it and the Devil.

You really could use that three million dollars. Newly married, new house, you and your husband’s combined debt– those student loans really follow you around. He’s quite a bit older than you, and even he hasn’t paid them off yet, to the point where the whole time you were dating you watched him stress out about money. You had to have a small, budget wedding, and a small, budget honeymoon. Three million dollars could be big for the two of you. You could re-do your honeymoon and go somewhere nice, like Hawaii, instead of just taking two weeks in Atlantic City. You deserve it. 

Even so, do you really want to kill an innocent photographer? Or an innocent seasonal allergy sufferer? Or an innocent blogger? Just because you don’t know or love these people doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t. 

The cancer survivor

The bereaved

The applicant

Some of these were so vague. They could be anyone, honestly. Your neighbors, your father, your friends…

The newlywed

The ex-gifted kid

The uncle

The Badgers fan

“My husband is a Badgers fan,” you say.

“How lovely,” the Devil says. 

Then it hits you.

Of course.

The weightlifter.

The careful driver.

The manager.

The claustrophobe.

Your husband Dave lifts weights at the gym twice a month. You wouldn’t call him a pro, but he does it. He also drives like he’s got a bowl of hot soup in his lap all the time, because he’s afraid of being pulled over. He just got promoted to management at his company, and he takes the stairs to his seventh-story office because he hates how small and cramped the elevator is.

“I get your game,” you announce. “You thought you could get me, but I figured you out, jackass!” “Oh really? What is my game, pray tell?” The Devil responds, leaning against his cane.

“All these different titles– they’re all just different ways to describe the same guy. My husband isn’t one notch on the wheel, he’s every notch. No matter what I land on, Dave dies. I’m wise to your tricks!” 

The Devil cackles. 

“You’re a clever one, that’s for sure. I thought you’d never figure it out.”

“Thanks but no thanks, man,” you say with a triumphant smirk. “I’m no rube. No deal. Take me back home.”

“As you wish, missus,” the Devil says. He snaps his fingers, and you’re gone, back to your brand-new house with your new husband. “Don’t say I never tried to help anyone.”

[nthspecialll]

The fandom glorifies Arthur Morgan

Now I am not talking about about low honor, I play high honor and got it as the top at the end of every damn playthrough but my Arthur, as it is the cannon Arthur, is not a good guy. I am not going to talk about all of the murder, robbing and stuff he does, because we are majorly aware of it, I am talking his sexism, casual ignorance and disrespecfulness.

I quite often see people say that Arthur Morgan is a woman lover, and he definitely is, he is better than a lot of men from that time (which isn't hard), but he would not hold up in modern times, because he is not from modern times.

Generally speaking, Arthur Morgan is a man who believes in gender roles, he believes in the idea of "a man being a man" and "a woman being a woman." He has opinions about what a woman should do and what a man should do.

I think the biggest hint at this is his relationship with Sadie, because while he accepts her running with the boys he doesn't seem entirely happy about it. "You got a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" "You want to ruuuunnnn with the men?" and also "can Ms Grimshaw spare you?" when the girls asks if they can come to Valentine with him.

Talking of that quest, when he runs off to get Jimmy Brooks he puts Uncle, a lazy old bastard, in charge of getting the girls home even though they are more than capable of doing it themselves as they are healthy young women who knows how to handle horses.

In several antagonize lines against women performers (which are just as cannon as his greet lines) he shouts things like "That isn't very ladylike!" or "Go back to the kitchen" and "go make someone supper."

People keep saying Arthur would "treat them right" and he would, to an extent, he would care for you, he would be nice to you, but he would force those gender roles. He does have a belief women are somehow "softer" and that he as a person with a provider gene should do more of the harsh work.

So now we covered that, lets talk about the racism, or as I probably should rather call it, ignorance, because it is very commonly know Arthur does not judge by the color of skin.

The first one is that Arthur uses the whites-only saloon in Rhodes. Tilly mentions it to Arthur that they don't allow people of color into it, and yet he still supports it, it isn't a big thing but it is something of notice.

Secondly, when he talks to Eagle Flies where he "sets him in his place" Arthur, honey, you are so wrong here. Eagle Flies is being chased by the government for the mere fact that he exists with a different culture, you are being chased because you murdered so many folks, you can run across the sea and live a good life, they are fucked regardless.

When we first arrive in Lemoyne, Lenny and Arthur talks about the Lemoyne Raiders about racism and Arthur says "These boys got a manner about them but I haven't particularly noticed," Arthur of course you wouldn't, you are a tall, muscular, white man with sun kissed hair and blue eyes, you are the poster boy for eugenics.

Lastly, which will also bring me to the third point, the casual disrespect:

Arthur causally calling Javier a slur on the boat for no reason, did you really need that one-liner so badly? That goes for a lot of times in the game such as: "are you secretly normal" "what a lunatic" "we should find a better story for that scar" "But you continue to irritate me, I will kill you and make my appologies to the lady" "stick around and you might die for her as well" "oh I didn't know I was talking to a lady." All those were a slight bit disrespectful, enough to be able to annoy the majority of us if he said it to us, and they were also unnecessary.

He is also canonically chronically late, most notably we can hear Sean saying "that man will be late to his own funeral," and when you go around antagonizing characters in camp they are not surprised at all, rather they go "back at it again huh?"

All of this is just to sum up, Arthur is a pretty bad man (also counting in all the illegal stuff) and we tend to glorify him and forget some of these things, partly is also because Rockstar are amazing at hiding them, at making them seem natural, and they are because this is a historically accurate game! It is set in 1899 and this is a man from 1899 he is going to be casually sexist and disrespectful, and again, considering that he is from 1899 he is a decent guy because the majority of folk would be like Micah, not Arthur.

I definitely love Arthur, and I love Arthur exactly because the point of his character is him not being a saint but a human. His redemption is choosing to do good where he can, but even so, this is a man in 1899 and he is going to have a 1899 mindset. If you want to play a game that is set in the past but don't have that type of accuracy it is not Red Dead you want to play.

Also here is an Arthur pic as a thank you for reading all of that. I love him.

[cowboyfromh3ll]

Hcs for how each of the boys to react to "I'm pregnant"?

Any of them that you want to write for :)

So excited

English not my first language. Sorry

Van Der Linde Gang's Boys' Reactions To "I'm pregnant" (And Eagle Flies)

Hehehe this was so cute and also I didn't edit this ❤️

Warnings: none

Arthur Morgan

He'd be so fucking happy

Probably in disbelief at first but oh my God he'd be overjoyed

Ask you if you're serious over and over

Once he's convinced he's gonna ask all these questions about your physical and mental wellbeing

Celebrates with you (whatever that entails wink wink)

In his elated haze he's gonna wanna ask all these questions about your future together as parents

Is aware the gang ain't the best place to raise a kid but he'll reassure you that you'll have the whole gangs support

John Marston

Oh god

Let's just say he wouldn't be the most elated parent 😭💀

He's already got Jack and now he needs to take care of another?

If this were a revelation that came earlier in the game he's gonna be very irresponsible but I feel like he wouldn't deny that the kid was his

So at that point he's sort of forced to actually give a damn about him

And believe me he'd try but he wouldn't be the best at it, would need guidance

If this came later in the game like epilogue he'd probably be WAY more happier.

Your lives are finally settled and you can afford to have a kid

He'd be the happiest and more supportive husband and dad

Still wouldn't be sure about all the ropes but he'd try

Dutch Van Der Linde

He'd be SO happy

Like genuinely he'd shower you with gifts and praise and reassurance

I feel like part of it would be a power thing for him because not only can he lead a gang, but now he can lead a family

Also some sort of weird power symbol for him. Idk how, but it is

Wouldn't let you lift a finger

Would probably keep you in his tent to rest 24/7 and only allows a few people (Grimshaw, Hosea) to see you

He's going to hope and pray it's a boy

Charles Smith

HE'D BE IN SO MUCH SHOCK AND FEEL SM HAPPINESS IT'D BE SO CUTE

You sorta have to repeat the news to him a few times for him to fully absorb it

Literally a dream of his to start a family one day so now that he has it he's ecstatic

Probably incentive to leave the gang though, doesn't want his child growing up in that environment

Would prefer if you sit back and rest but won't hold you back if you don't want to

Javier Escuella

This is cause to celebrate

Takes you into town on a date

Offers you massages, foot rubs, hand massages

Sings to you to calm you

Holds your hair when you throw up (true love)

Buys you clothes to accomodate to your changing body

Kieran Duffy

THE SWEETEST REACTION

I feel like he'd start crying

Asks to touch your belly and would speak to it

That night he'd fall asleep while holding it

Wakes up the next morning and remembers you're pregnant and his day is already off to an amazing start

Get drunk while celebrating it and he'd boast to everyone about how he's gonna be a dad

Sean Macguire

He'd say some stupid shit I already know it

Probably crack a sex joke

He's getting stupid, fucking drunk. I'm talking black out

He's probably gonna wanna celebrate if you catch my drift HAHAHA

He'd forget to be gentle sometimes out of excitement, like carrying you around and cheering

Refuses to let you do any work

In private I feel like he'd cry

Lenny Summers

He'd probably panic a bit at first

Ask all these questions about how you guys are gonna be parents and if you're even ready

Once the two of you talk through it a little more he'll calm down and his nerves turn to excitement

I'm assuming y'all would be real young so he'd seek for a lot of guidance in the others

Constantly asks you questions about what you want and need

Bill Williamson

He'd be so flustered and nervous

Probably in disbelief for a while and asks if you're serious

I wouldn't blame you for thinking he's upset with the news at first

But he just needs time to process how his life's about to change!

He becomes even more gentle with you, more than he already is

Will argue with Miss Grimshaw about letting you rest/lightening your work load

And let's be real, she would lower your work load but he'd insist it stops altogether

Micah Bell

He'd be in disbelief, but bad disbelief

That or the sleaziest reaction

I'm leaning more towards sleazy reaction

Talks about how he's gonna raise the bravest kid and he's constantly gonna reference to the kid as he because I'm convinced he wants a boy

Brags to the others

Don't get me wrong the gang's happy for you but the way Micah uses it as a point of elevation is IRRITATING

Hosea Matthews

He's the cutest like seriously

He'd be sooo happy

Probably in disbelief that he even managed to get you pregnant

I believe he'd cry, and openly, he's not ashamed! He's happy!

Announces it to the whole gang, means for celebration

Takes you on dates to buy cute little baby items ahhh

Eagle Flies

HE'D FREAK THE FUCK OUT

Pace around the room asking if you're for real, contemplates his entire life, curses himself for cumming inside

You'd have to calm him down and talk him through it

It'd be a super emotional moment for the two of you, eventually he'd realize he's fine with the idea of kids and he's just nervous!

Would ask his dad and a lot of tribe members for advice

Over time he'd get way more excited and bring up the topic more often

[marstonsboy]

had another evil thought that spiralled out of control. indulge me for a moment:

over the years, people start arriving on a near empty plot of land west of blackwater. it’s uncertain who got there first: bessie matthews, beatrice and lyle morgan, eliza, isaac morgan, etc.— but more and more people show up until it’s something of a community. jenny kirk, mac and davey callander. then soon after, jake adler, sean macguire, kieran duffy, hosea matthews, lenny summers, molly o’shea, eagle flies, susan grimshaw. more and more in such a short amount of time. arthur morgan is the last, and suddenly the deaths stop.

after a sudden stretch of years with little newcomers, a house starts taking shape. soon enough the house is a home, and peculiar things can be found all over: a dog barking where no one can find it. echoes of campfire songs going late into the night. photos of john and abigail’s wedding, attended by what remained of their family. a taxidermy squirrel that appears back on the mantle no matter how many times you throw it out, wearing a very familiar hat. in just a few years a heartbreakingly young girl comes home, bearing a strong resemblance to one abigail marston.

then, gunshots. john marston and uncle are the next to arrive.

in the next few years, the house is eerily quiet. the residents see it falling into disrepair, but they can’t do anything about it. the dog stops barking, the campfire has gone cold and won’t relight. abigail marston is next, and though they’re happy to see her, the arrival brings up a question. what happens to jack now?

the livestock are gone, and the house is dusty, all but stripped of the knickknacks and personality that built up over the years, like someone found it all too painful to look at. john’s hat and guns, once tucked away inside a box beneath the bed, vanish the night after abigail arrives. newspapers come to the door, announcing the death of former government agent edgar ross.

soon after, a wanted poster, bearing the name “john marston jr.” and a sketch resembling the boy’s namesake so much that it has john himself stumbling back. jack was only a boy when he left, and now he’s wanted dead or alive, with a price over his head that could rival some of his uncles and aunts back in the day.

every year that passes without any sign of jack is a relief. the house doesn’t change much, still abandoned, but letters come in. mary-beth gaskill, tilly jackson, simon pearson, sadie adler, charles smith— old friends and family, checking in on him. none of them reach the recipient, as he is not home, but they’re filled to the brim with love, letting him know that he isn’t alone. that he always has a home with them, if he wants it.

one day, john spots a book he doesn’t recognize on the shelf by the piano, and he stops. “Red Dead” by a J. Marston. it doesn’t take much to figure out who that could be. he opens it, flips through, and reads it to abigail. the kinder parts get read to their daughter, ecstatic to learn about how her older brother is doing. their son did become a writer after all, even if everything he’s written speaks volumes of his grief, his anger. the loneliness he’s endured since losing his family, and killing edgar ross.

arthur morgan opens his old journal to find several entries and sketches from john, but also many new ones from jack. his handwriting is just as clumsy as his father’s, but his drawings are more refined. little portraits of the gang members that lived and scribbly sketches of what the world is becoming in their absence decorate the pages. war, cars outnumbering horses, and a very detailed drawing of a revolver none of them have ever seen before.

he’s all grown up, and good lord is he angry. he’s mourning, and hurt, and he’s lost so much, but he’s still undoubtedly jack marston. he draws dogs and writes about missing rufus, slipping strays some food from his bag whenever he sees them. sometimes he’ll write a dry, sarcastic joke that speaks of his father’s influence, or mention missing his momma’s cooking, “even though it was hardly edible,” which makes abigail roll her eyes. he hates fishing and prefers to lose hours of the day with his nose in a book. the best maintained part of beecher’s hope is the graves on that hill, which gain new flowers every week. sometimes, if they listen close, they can hear him talking, telling his ma and pa what he’s been up to, though he saves the grisly details for his book.

and when jack marston finally does walk through that door, much older than when anyone he knew last saw him but far too young to die, he is welcomed home with open arms. because no matter what he’s done, and no matter how much he may hate himself, he will always have a home here with people who love him, and who can’t wait to get to know him all over again.

[readngandweepng]

some writing practice for eagle flies. top reader ftm eagle flies 

since i’m not that confident at getting his personality down yet i’m going to call this self indulgent to excuse anything ooc lmao. short scenes with unprotected sex btw

there's just something about eagle flies with his hair down. him straddling your hips as he looks down at you with a look on his face that almost reads like he's challenging you. he looks so pretty with his hair falling perfectly into place but when you try and reach up to run your fingers through it he grabs your wrist and holds it above your head. he likes to lean down and graze his lips against yours, just barely allowing them to touch. he releases your wrist to run his hand down your arm until it rests on your stomach. he can feel you beneath him where he grinds himself against you, giving you just enough pleasure to get you hooked before he leans down once more to whisper something in your ear and finally getting up off you to go god knows where, leaving you alone on the ground with a quickened pulse and images of him circling round in your head. eagle flies would be a tease like that just because he likes the attention you give him. if he doesn’t randomly straddle you or grind his hips or his hand against your crotch when the opportunity arises he’ll be more subtle, playing with his hair in a way that mimics the way you might grip it or moving it aside to show his spotless neck. he just wants to get you to a point where you’ll wrap your arms around him to pin him in place and just take him. he doesn’t care where or how it happens as long as you rough him up a little. as stubborn as he can be he does love being put in his place by you.

god imagine him with his legs on either side of yours as he tilts your head up to kiss you. you run your hands up and down his sides, squeezing his waist and wherever else he'll let you touch. eventually he undoes your belt, and while his kisses are rough his grip is somewhat tender. he'll tease you, twisting his wrist as he works his hand up and down your dick. if he wanted to he could very well make you come undone in just a matter of mere minutes but he decides not to, instead opting to quickly remove the rest of his clothing and sitting himself down onto you. you slide in easy with eagle flies, and even though he appears stoic his cunt clenches around you on instinct following a soft sigh leaving his mouth. he rides you slow at first, rolling his hips with hard-earned expertise until he's using your shoulders as leverage to bounce himself on your cock. his eyes are shut tight like he’s already losing it, and though you’re tempted to make a comment you know better not to. for a while he lets you have your fun running your hands up his body and using his waist to roll him onto your cock, but eventually he pushes you down onto your back, the look in his eyes screaming, touch me and you won’t be cumming for a long time.

“won’t even humor me?” you ask, giving him a knowing smile. you buck your hips and he holds you down in response, a fleeting smirk plays on his lips as he speaks. “you haven’t earned it yet,” it makes you groan and he revels in it. he circles his hips and watches your every move. his arms rest his side as he tilts his head to admire the sight of your cock being swallowed by his cunt. your cock slips out of him for a second and he chuckles at the hiss you make. he sits on your cock again, but this time he doesn’t move. he leans over so his breath tickles your face, and only when he sees your eyes dart to his lips does he begin rocking into you again, keeping you deep inside him. in the corner of his eyes eagle flies can see your hands twitching where they rest beside you. he raises his hips to the tip of your cock before gliding back down, releasing a shaky breath from you. your hands itch to touch him but you stay still for your sake, letting him leisurely take your cock in and out of his tight cunt. he grunts when he adjusts to balance himself on your chest, using you to bounce himself with ease. slowly he unravels, his eyes haze over and he lets out soft moans as he uses your cock. your hands are at your head now, grabbing at the grass above you and trying not to buck up into him at the sight of him tilting his head back and spreading his legs as far as they’ll let him. eagle flies rides you until you cum before lifting himself off. some of your cum dribbles down his thigh and he smiles down at you, the light from the stars and moon cascading down upon him like an angel. it was early in the night, at least early enough that eagle flies was determined to keep you up a little longer as evidenced by the sight of his dripping pussy staring at you in the face, a silent demand to start getting to work.

the thought of being in a relationship with eagle flies where he feels like being with you is somehow rebelling against his father sounds really hot. like the "climbing into your boyfriend's window in the middle of the night without his parents knowing" kind of relationship where you have to be discrete, even when eagle flies will waltz around with obvious bruises on his neck and shoulders just for the thrill of it anyway. he’d get off on having to sneak out to meet with you, or even just sneaking you into the reservation and risking the chance of getting caught. it’s funny because his dad most likely wouldn’t have a problem with you but eagle flies still insists you mark him up, biting and sucking on his neck and getting his clothes all disheveled so when he returns home people (his dad) will notice. obviously he isn’t only with you to ‘rebel’ against his father, but it’s one of those things he loves to indulge in anyway. when you do officially meet rains fall, eagle flies’ cockiness tones down a bit and having sex together becomes a little softer without the need to rough each other up, even when he is actually into that. he loves being pressed close to you under the night sky in the middle of some field or camped out in an abandoned cabin where you two can just be alone together.

dry-humping with eagle flies after some sort of lustful power struggle where you have him pinned on his back with his hands above his head. he'd snuck off to find you, greeting you with a heavy kiss before you found yourselves on the ground, first with him looking down at you from in your lap and now after all the scuffling you rest between his legs with your clothed cock rutting against him. he’s impatient like usual, attempting to lift his hips up to get more friction. he huffs when you press him down, keeping him pinned under your weight. you kiss his neck and the feeling, to his chagrin, makes his legs open wider on their own. “i spoil you too much.” he grumbles, and you have to bite your tongue to not retort the statement. you hike up one of his legs and you can hear him holding in a groan as you continue grinding against him.

he can feel how hard you are, and if his pants were any thinner you would surely be able to feel how damp he was. his face is turned to the side where you can’t see his expressions, but you can tell that he’s feeling good by the way his hips faintly swirl to match your rhythm. a moan catches the both of you by surprise and his hips stop for a second so he can move his hands down to your belt. you chuckle at his impatience and he sends you a half-hearted glare. by the time you’ve unbuckled your belt he’s undressed and spread out for you until he loops his legs around your waist to pull you forward. he’s never been good at saying please but still you give him what he wants, sliding your cock into him until your hips meet. for a second he’s speechless, his head lolls back and his stomach caves as he takes you to the hilt. slowly you start to move, earning a sweet moan from eagle flies. he holds on to your shoulders as you thrust into him, his legs now having fallen from your waist to rest against the ground as best as they can before they shoot up again when your cock hits a spot inside of him that has him shaking. he moans again, and this time they just keep coming as you lift his hips up and pound him. he helplessly grasps at the grass beneath him but he can’t doing anything except arch his back and moan. over the sound of slapping skin he cries out your name, his orgasm coursing through him causing you to cum alongside him.

you fill him and soon after he collapses from your hold, his entire body going limp. inside him your cock twitches at the sight of him, his head falls to the side as his hair beautifully frames his face. his chest rises and falls as he catches his breath, and he doesn’t even have the energy to give you one in return when you lean down to place a kiss on his cheek. when you pull out of him it’s like the weight of the world just fell from his shoulders, eagle flies’ legs shake as they fall open into place, and if he hadn’t been so completely fucked out you would have offered to take him again just from the sight of your cum gushing out from his cunt. instead you lay down beside him, throwing an arm over him and giving kisses to his exposed neck and shoulder. he stirs, turning his head to catch your lips. your groan breaks the kiss as eagle flies strokes your cock, with a sparkle in his eye he says, “again.” he knows you won’t say no, not when he looks so pretty and certainly not with the way his hand works your length. “and you spoil me, you said?” he kisses you before you can say anything more and lifts his leg up over your waist to slip you back into him. eagle flies takes everything you give him and more, so why would you ever deny him? even when he’s dripping with your cum he only wants more more more. he loves being filled to the brim, and though becoming pregnant isn’t exactly ideal, he can’t help the rush he gets just from thinking about the sheer possibility. 

[crsssie]

foresight, for life

word count: 6.5k || banner art by chicll on bluesky (her prometheus art >>)

warnings: nsfw, smut (but like, one scene)

summary: the future means nothing to the titan of foresight

The future means little to nothing to the god of foresight.

Everything is known, including the nymph who has stumbled upon the gates of Olympus, eyes locked on his as he stares down.

"Nymph."

"...oh gods..." You mumble. "This was not what I saw."

He raises a hand as Aetos flies towards you, ready to end you once and for all, but you dodge, crying as you do.

"Oceanid! Not a god!"

He stares down at you as he holds a hand out back for Aetos, staring down at you as you stand there. Small. You're much smaller than he is, that's a given considering he's a titan, and when he stares at you, there are hundreds of futures that could spawn. However, the most obvious of which is the one in which you die to Aetos. You are in no shape to be dodging a second attack from an animal so fast, and he ponders if it would bring any entertainment if you were to simply pass. It would be a waste, considering that one vision goes as far as picking you up on a chariot. How strange.

"I am not... a god." You mumble. "I have been told... or seen that you simply harbor ill intent to gods and not the others."

He lets you breathe, letting Aetos soar up to scout the area, and you fiddle with your fingers behind your back, watching as the titan stares at you.

"You are lost."

"Most certainly so."

"You knew how to get here."

"Apparently."

Scary. The hand burnt from the fire for humans and the red eyes of a titan are daunting, and you are in no position to be able to beg for mercy. You are not the human he cherishes, and you are not a god that could hold their ground. The wound on his stomach is wrapped in bandage and red with tears, and for a moment you wonder if you could be able to heal him with the final bit of spring water you've managed to haul with you despite your limited foresight dragging you all the way up Olympus. It seemed to be useless against the titan himself, though. Always intriguing to see how it all seems to freeze at the sight of the man himself.

"You are a nymph."

"Minor goddess of foresight, but it matters not since I am not worshipped and neither am I treated as one." You blink. "My foresight is nothing compared to yours, Lord Prometheus."

"Then why lie upon meeting me?"

"You know, lord."

"I wish to hear it from your mouth. I know of what you could say, not what you will."

"I did not wish to die. The eagle scares me. I am in no condition to be fighting. I am on the final bits of spring water."

"You may heal me. Or, try. There are plenty chances that you would fail."

"I am aware." You pause. It isn't surprising he knew that you had entertained the thought. "But my foresight is useless when it comes to you, lord."

"Make haste."

"You trust that I will not harm you?"

"In the few in which you do, you fail."

"Ah." You fumble with the sac, and you blink up at him. "It would be best to, um, sit or lay down, my lord."

He sits as you instruct, and you whisper a quiet affirmation as you reach to unwrap the bandage, hands gentle on his skin as you let the water pour into the wound and watch as it reforms. There is a quick glow of blue and then his skin is fixed, and you stare at the scar that is leftover, but not the wound that is long gone. You close the rest of the water and reach for the bandages once more, wrapping them carefully as Prometheus stares. Delicate fingers on his stomach as you're practically shaking.

You do not wound him in any possible future.

"Is there anything beyond the gate?"

"There is not. It is simply the void for the time being." He stares. "The princess is fighting below."

"Shall she win?"

"The future lays yes."

"I see." You mumble.

You take two steps back as the Titan gets back up, staring down at you as he blinks.

"Speak. Of your reward you wish to hold."

"I have none. You must know so, my lord."

"You scale the mountain of the gods for no reason?"

"I had simply the foresight that I must be here. Seeing as I have healed you, I believe once I return back down, I will know what is next."

He stares at you as something shifts in the air, Aetos back as it tells Prometheus of what has happened, and you stare at the eagle.

"How incredible." You mumble.

"The gods were not expecting that I would befriend it."

"Yes, but it is pretty." You whisper. "The gold of the stars."

The eagle rattles its feathers as you hum.

"Well, I shall be off—"

"There is no future in which you survive the descent." Prometheus stares at you, and you blink back at him.

The titan is lying to you. That much you know simply because in a glimpse as you had seen while you were making your way up, you had spotted the very edge of Greece and the ocean where your sisters rested when you head down, but you do not pry. You are certain that he knows you know. You wonder what has caused an interest in you from the Titan, but you wonder if you are too terrified to find out. In the future you had seen, you survived, but you had also returned up the mountain with a new flask of spring water. You wonder if you only survive if you return.

"And if I return?"

"Then you survive in most cases."

"I see." You pause.

You spot a short-haired goddess with a transparent forearm, and you pass her briefly as you rush onto the eagle, and she approaches you after defeating him to ask if you are being held hostage.

"I shall... return." You mumble. "I assure you, Lord Prometheus. I am not running away. The future in which I see requires me to return in order to progress. I am, unfortunately, important as of right now."

"Make haste."

"Understood."

The futures in which you had fought back disappear from the possibilities, and he watches the princess fight. Up, die, down, live.

Up.

Down.

Death.

Return.

He knows where she resides, and perhaps it is an act of mercy or the sheer fact that in every future possible he does not touch upon the crossroads. Where the missing children of Nyx reside. The fates are in the hands of Chronos and so he, yet it seems that both he and the other daughter acknowledge that there will be change as long as the princess prevails. Change that could not be seen with the prince.

Change that can be seen with the addition of you.

You had been visible in only one possible future — the one in which you had managed to make it up the mountain prior to the princess, and somehow it had occurred. It knocked out plenty of futures with such a simple change. It was so simple, yet he would not have been able to do it. Everything moves with precision, and when you make it back up, dangled by the claws of Aetos and dropped unceremoniously into Prometheus' arms, a squeak past your lips as you scrambled out of his arms out of a fear.

You fear that he will be angered.

He lets you misunderstand. There is only one future for you.

There are multiple for him.

It is a constant shattering of the self. Prometheus understands it. It has seeped far into his bones and become a part of him. He is no longer bothered by it. He has learned to coexist with the world and its possibilities. Yet, yet it is refreshing to see a linear foresight in the form of you. A nymph who was worshipped as a god, who received snippets of the future in the form of strange flashes according to his foresight. A nymph who carried her spring water around and heals titans who were violently opposed to the gods. There is no good nor bad to you — only a future in which you can see. You continue linearly to the future that you are certain of.

He is above you to some extent, he thinks.

It's why you hide above the pillars of the chamber, peering down at the princess fight Prometheus, her moves readable to you, and you well aware of when he would win and when he would lose. It's why you let water dribble out of your flask into your palm before she arrives at certain times, fingers gentle on his skin as he stares down at you.

But he prefers the silence of not needing to fight anyone and sitting with you on the pillar to watch over the destruction of Olympus to everything else. In the quiet moments where you do not have foresight, and he simply ignores everything that he knows. The knowledge of the universe is the burden that a titan must carry. It is a burden that even you carry, even if your options are limited. There is little to be picky about. It seems you understand that just as well as he does. It is intriguing that you only know the sure future.

Foresight of all, or foresight of one.

"My foresight is nowhere near as strong as yours." You scratch your cheek, water on your fingers as Prometheus leans back against a pillar, letting your fingers smooth over his wounds. Gods and titans seldom need healing, but it felt nice to feel the coolness of water on his skin that would not burn off immediately from the flame in his right. You are also gentle, skin less jagged and gentle against his, hands unscarred and clean of all traces of labor or hardship. He doubts it is because you lack it — he knows it is not because you lack it. It is simply because the water on your hands has made it so that no jagged skin on your body would go unforgiven.

But it is not that he is enamored with you. It is not that he finds you intriguing. It is not that there was a singular moment in the future where he pictured the two of you in a chariot. No. It was not all of that. It was the sheer simplicity that despite the possibility that you could have attacked or reported, you did not. Instead, you had used the last of your water, fingers smooth against his stomach as you had healed the hole in his abdomen — restoring his stomach. You are no god. You a a simple nymph with a strange ability to see snippets of your future. He wonders if you had seen the same chariot.

You do not show it — he knows it. You have not seen that future quiet yet.

In the case that Chronos were to win, then you would be a nice trophy of war.

Though, you might go with him willingly without breaking or coercion.

But, in the linear future you see, there is no victory for his side.

"The princess is too strong." You simplify it.

He knows. He knows that is the future you see. The future you see tends to run more finite than the infinte that he sees. There is a certain sense of truth or reality that only exists in your future. The one that you see. Prometheus does not understand why he seems so fixated on knowing how you know, but he doesn't speak. He mentions not even a word to the others. Chronos needs not to know that Prometheus is hiding a nymph at the tip of Olympus, or that the future is grim for the both of them.

No.

You will continue to tell him the outcomes of his battle, and he will continue to fall for the reality in your words. There will be a cycle that continues until the princess can figure something out, he supposes.

He catches your thoughts occasionally — in the strange futures where you give into impulse and touch his hair, or in the strange futures where you grab the hand with fire, but you never act upon anything. You stay distant so that he does not feel uncomfortable. Everything you do in the present is done out of a worry that he will see a future in which the majority of possibilities end with his hand around your throat and you pass. However, it comes as not much of a surprise that you do eventually succumb to such urges.

"May I touch your hair, Lord Prometheus?"

"Be gentle." He leans his head down to you, and you reach to pinch it between your fingers, lashes fluttering as you stare in awe. Almost as though you had never had to press your fingers through his hair to heal the wounds on his skull. Yet, he stares through your soul as you still, eyes continuing to stare as you try your best to ignore the way he's staring at your skin. You're good at ignoring things. In most of the universes where you survive, you ignore the implications of taking care of him, playing innocent whenever the princess comes. As though the pouch of liquid were for yourself and not the titan.

"In case the flames injure me." you tell the princess.

But the truth is, you do not care for too much. The same way that Prometheus is at the gates of Olympus because it greatly increases the chances of the princess' victory, you sit perched up top to heal him again and again because it greatly increases the chances that he will survive if it ever comes to it. In the singular future you see in spots, Prometheus has to survive. You make that much obvious in the way you tend to him while the princess runs again and again. There is no point in fighting her way to the top when she has discovered the way to seal time for good.

It gives you a little downtime with Prometheus.

"My lord. Did you join the fight for the sake of the humans?"

"There is no future in which the humans will be happy under the rule of the gods."

"But they do not survive if the titan takes over."

"So you are aware."

You sit cross-legged across from him, blinking at him slowly as you tilt your head.

"You are here for the princess, then."

"Was."

"And what now?"

He stares at you, glow of fire too much for you as you look away to Aetos.

"I ought to keep you as a war trophy."

"That would be amusing." You rummage through your pouch, huffing when there is none else but water. "Why me, my lord? Not the eagle?"

"Aetos has become a friend."

"And I have not?"

"Not yet."

"I see."

The princess stops by on occasion in between her fights with Time to talk to you after defeating Prometheus. You hand her materials that she might need for the way down, and she offers you a bottle of nectar that you take with a light laugh in your voice. She is sweet. You admit that much. Even in the flash of the future that you see briefly when your fingers brush hers as you talk, she is wonderfully charming all the same. So, you tell her that there is really no reason for her to be gifting you nectar like this.

"I aid the titan, princess."

"Not Time. The titan who has reason to be angered." She reasons, looking behind you as Prometheus manifests.

"I see." You blink. "Let me offer you something in exchange."

You hand her a flask of spring water, waving as she rushes off now that Prometheus had returned.

"You aid us both."

"Just as you do."

Your fingers smooth over his skin like a ritual, wounds cleared and skin restored, his eyes digging into the color of your cheeks, hand gentle as he reaches to hold it, earning him widened eyes from you. You could not turn down his advances even if you had begged him. There is too much of a difference in status, and you are no foolish nymph. You let him brush his thumb over your cheek, blinking at him gently as he stares. He could snap you if he really wanted to. There is the looming threat that he could wrap his hands around your neck, squeeze, and you would pop. Yet, you can not do anything if he bores of you.

You still do not understand why he had decided to keep you alive.

A gloved hand and fire.

His palm squeezes against your cheek, and you blink owlishly at the texture of the glove.

"You can not say no."

"I dare not to." You fiddle with your fingers, staring at him through your lashes as he hums. "Forget you nymphs can die."

"We are immortal, not indestructible." You close your eyes, leaning into his touch.

He stares and stares, eventually drawing his hand from your face, your eyes fluttering open as he hums.

"You died in one future."

"I did not die in mine."

How reassuring.

The next time the princess brings Prometheus to ruin, you ask her if she has pomegranates. She offers you one of power, and you turn it down. The fruit, not the pom, and she tells you no. You offer her a handful of seeds and request that she bring only one to you her next trip upwards. A full fruit, unbruised if possible. Not that it makes much of a difference. You simply craved the fruit since you were up here anyway. Too scared to leave the titan — you tell her.

When she leaves, Prometheus returns, and you are back to your ritual.

Cold hands, warm skin. You let him wrap his fingers around your wrist this time — you don't move as he does. You blink at him owlishly, his palm warm on your wrist, your skin heating up at his touch. It's a strange sense of domesticity — no. It's just simple warmth. It had been a while since there had been any warmth at all. The land had frozen over ever since the House of Hades fell to Time. The winter is cold. It is comforting to feel the warmth of fire again after such a climb. You only hope the princess will hand you a pomegranate her next time up.

Your wrist warms from his touch, and you watch as he squeezes, hold firm as you blink slowly at him.

"It does not wound you."

"No." You blink. "It surprises me."

He squeezes harder, and you blink. Stare. You articulate your fingers, blinking at him slowly as he loosens his hold, letting you slip your wrist from his grasp, hand stuck in his as he squeezes. He stares. He knows it all, and you only know one future. It matters not. You do not know your future of him or with him, but he knows. He knows the future with you. You have to learn to trust that he will not harm you. Learn to understand that it is fine if you do not know what comes next. He will, and somehow, he will guide you.

You do not have the foresight for the Titan of Foresight.

Yet, you catch snippets of a possible separate future when you ask for things. Futures where you did not ask. There is a sense of amusement from the titan somehow when you don't. He stares at you, eyes semi-hard but still peering, cock of a brow upwards as you blink owlishly at him.

"If I may."

"If you may what?"

You dig your nails into your palms before releasing, breathing as you ask.

It is always a yes. You've pressed your hands up his arms, given them a squeeze, and he has run his palm up your bicep and rested his forehead against yours. His hair that tickles your forehead, and your skin that is cool against his. You wonder if he understands that the intimacy sends jolts down your spine, your heart racing in your chest when he touches you. He might. He might do it to get a reaction out of you. You would not know if he does.

You stare into the red of his, blinking slowly as his thumb brushes over your pulse point, pressing down as your heart races in your ears.

"You are embarrassed."

"It goes without saying." You mumble, cheeks warm.

"The heart races."

"Yes."

"For what reason."

"You know, my lord."

"I must hear it from your lips."

Your voice loses itself in your throat, and he hums, lips in the ghost of a smile as you purse your own and close your eyes. Too much. Too honest. Your heart threatens to break out of your chest and end your immortality right there, and you blink slowly when you finally do open your eyes, the titan still staring.

You would not dare to confess that you like him. It would be inappropriate for a mere nymph to do so.

"Will you say it?"

"I can not, my lord."

"Then learn to accept it." He presses his palm to your cheek, thumb brushing your bottom lip as he leans in.

Aetos screeches above the two of you.

You bounce off immediately, back upon the pillar, heart racing as you hold it, hiding your face in your hands with a battering heart as you feel Prometheus' gaze linger on your hiding self. The red of his eyes dig into the flushing of yours, and you peek through your fingers when you hear the arrival of the princess, staring down. He would win this fight, unfortunately. She is wounded quite harshly from Strife, and it would be hard for her to survive without the revivals she leaned upon in order to defeat the titan.

Your words hold true, especially when you watch the princess cling onto her final moments, the bong of doom shaking over her head as she yells for a quick pause, holding out a pomegranate before she returns.

"For... the nymph."

Prometheus takes the pomegranate from her hand, and you hop down as you hold your hands out for the fruit.

"I refuse to participate." He stares.

"Alright."

You reach to peel the pomegranate, surprised when Prometheus does it instead, fingers digging into the fruit as he cracks it open for you, offering you the fruit as his hands stain red. You thank him, fingers brushing his as you take the fruit, red seeping onto your own to match his as you squeeze it for the juice, seed pressed to your nails as you stain. The red becomes so much more apparent with the nails and fingertips, humming to yourself quietly as you peel out the seeds, fingers gentle as you offer them to the titan. Instead, he slides them past your lips, staring as your lips part to take his offering, your fingers tugging at Prometheus' belt to have him bend down.

"I must heal you." You whisper.

"Offering me the spoils of effort." He mumbles. "How strange of you."

You blink, brushing his bottom lip with your thumb when he lowers, and you have him sit once more. Rest up. You tell him, water cold in your hands as he stares at the glow of blue. A strange dynamic the two of you have evolved into, he thinks. You're so breakable like this, nimble and pliant, skin softer under his palm as he grabs you. You're incredibly easy to break. But it's not that it matters. He can not break you. You do not need to be broke. You would listen to him if he asked out of fear. Fear or affection, he wonders.

What is the future that is visible in your eyes? You do not know your future with him.

He knows that you do not. Each step you take has a million other possibilities. You obey his word because of the hierarchy. He digs his fingers into your skin, skin soft and arm small. It matters not this or that. It matters only that it seems you only seem to care about him. You fear things that you do not speak upon, and you learn to accept his motions. His hands are gentle when he holds you, and he tells you when the princess or Aetos is to arrive to avoid scaring you. You're jumpy when he's affectionate with you.

Like a fawn caught in the wild.

In a way, you learn to accept his affection, still insisting on occasion that he would bore of you and that you should not reciprocate — you dare not to. Heavens knows how many lovers he has had or how the gods do not devote themselves to someone or something. You worry of trivial things. He does not see a future in which you will not be by his side. Regardless of what form of companionship you take, you are there in every future.

You are shyer with your affections, offering fruit to him when the princess defeats him and brings you items from her garden. You offer her seeds in return. requesting that she bring only one or two items from the seeds you've given her. You do not know how many times it has been since you've been handed grapes to enjoy. If she notices that you take care of the titan, she does not mention it. You would prefer that she just ask you upright, but you find it endearing that she lingers past the gate and peeks at the two of you as Prometheus sits down for you to fix him up.

She's quite cute — that goddess.

Prometheus whispers for you to rid of her, but you do not listen, hand smoothing up his abdomen and over the clots of gold that have formed. The intimacy tears at your skin, raking down your back in ripples as you whisper to end it all, begging him quietly to simply let the goddess pass. It would not hurt. Unless it would hurt his pride. She is visibly a sensible person. It would not hurt to let her go once or twice considering that Chronos could not know.

He tells you not to worry about it.

"When it all ends, I will return to my punishment."

"I expect it to be different this time." You whisper, fingers smoothing against his face as he sits you in his lap.

"My punishment? The chances are minuscule, nymph." He closes his eyes, melting into your touch as you hum.

"My foresight says change."

"Then your foresight we will depend on." He closes his eyes, letting your fingers scratch at his scalp, your skin cool against his as he rests his forehead on yours. "Do not break, dear nymph."

"I will not under your care, my lord." You mumble.

"Am I still all that is to you?"

You jump in your skin when the sound of the princess approaching breaks through the silence.

"You did not warn me." You frown.

"Prefer to see you squirm."

You stay seated on the top of the pillar as you blink slowly, hiding your face from the embarrassment, praying that it will pass.

When the princess wins, she leaves you with the message that Chronos is to fall soon after a while.

"I am in the process of sealing him away for good."

"I see." You whisper back as she hands you a handful of figs.

"More than one?"

"I believe you share these with the titan."

You laugh, cheeks warm as you send her off, sound of Prometheus' return behind you as you turn around to make the offering, handful of figs in your hand as he stares down.

"Feed me, dear nymph."

You take one from your palm, pressing it to his lips as he eats it, and you press one to Aetos' beak as it squacks at you. Then, you press one to your own, biting down as the meat of the fruit rips in your mouth, sweet against your tongue as Prometheus stares, wounds fresh on his skin, gold staining his body as you place the figs in your pouch.

"Chronos shall be falling."

"I am aware." He closes his eyes as you run your thumb under his eyes.

"Will you let the princess go next time if she succeeds?"

"If she succeeds."

"I'm sure she will."

"Not certain?"

"She has that kind of charm." You hum. "May I?"

"And what would that be?"

"I dare not to ask outright."

"Then kiss me, dear nymph." He leans down, lips brushing yours gently.

You kiss him, lips hesitant as yours brush his once more, shaking slightly as his hands find your face, palms rough against your cheek as you close your eyes and lean in, head tilted back slightly as he leans over you, body swallowing yours as his lips swallow yours, and you shake gently. His hands steady themselves on your cheek, and eventually your mind spins with the lack of air — there is no lack of air for a nymph, but your chest burns and your head spins, heat pooling in your lungs as you whimper for air, whimpering into his lips as he makes not a sound.

You gasp, pulling back as he chases, one hand sliding down to wrap around your neck delicately, fingers hot against your throat as you swallow, muscles flexing under his palm as his lips find yours again. He's parched, you think. Hasn't had a sip of water since his chaining in the sea, and saltwater is no good to drink. He tastes like the heat of the fire you had observed when curious, peering quietly at the flame that he had been chained over. It burns and scorches your throat but your head boils beautifully at the feeling of his lips on yours, sparks sparkling down your spine, your eyes closing once more. Death is frozen in time — it no longer matters. You can not pass.

When Prometheus finally lets go of you, the warning sound of the princess' footsteps light against the marble stairs and vision of the future in his eye as he tucks you behind him gently, eyes meeting the princess as he lets Aetos land on his hand. The princess locks eyes with you as you offer a shy smile.

"Time has been weakened."

"I lack one final item."

"Then fetch it. Do not disappoint, agent of change." Prometheus stares, watching as the princess rushes past the three of you.

"You let her go." You whisper.

"You should have known."

"I do not know your future, my lord."

"Then of yours?"

"That, I know."

Prometheus tells you that he is to fight the princess one final time when she returns after defeating time.

You understand it as well, circles drawn in his palm as he sits down, free hand resting on your thigh with an occasional squeeze, gentle smile on your lips as you trace the lines and scars, humming quietly. The flame in his hand is warm against your fingertips, and he controls the fire as to not burn you — but you like it. He knows you do. He knows you flush not from embarrassment but from affection. That much is apparent. If anything, you appreciate the warmth that his body brings to yours.

"The princess returns in a while." You mumble, flushed as he pulls you closer, forehead pressed to yours as his lips part, skin of your neck pinched between his canines, hard enough to draw gold. You whimper from the tearing of skin, squirming in his grasp as he bites harder, Aetos soaring off to aid Chronos' troops as Prometheus traps you in his arms, tongue out as he laps at the dribbling blood. You hold back sound, neck craned to the side as your lashes flutter.

"My lord."

"It does not hurt, does it?"

"No, but it is a strange sensation." You whisper, heat melting down your spine and pooling between your legs, and Prometheus bites.

It's hard to not bite when you look and sound so sickeningly sweet, hands flying to your face that he has to pry away with his much larger ones, panic rising up your throat when he towers over you, and he thinks that perhaps you should not be taken on the marble at the end of the rebellion, but foresight be dammed. His mind is overdriven with the sound slipping past your lips, your bottom lip quivering as he lifts both your legs lifted up as he measures out himself, hips flush against yours as you gasp and cry about it not fitting.

"My lord—"

"Prometheus." He pinches at the skin of your collarbone, and you scramble to ground yourself, fingers pressing into the marble until the blood drains and it is the same shade of white, eyes wide as you shake your head.

"L-lord Prometheus. It won't—"

"You are immortal, dear nymph."

"I am immortal, not indestructible." You whimper as he nudges himself against you, thumb finding your pebble of nerves, brushing gently as you flutter around nothing.

"You crave it."

"I fear it."

"It coexists." He presses a hand to your chest, and you inhale. "Breathe for me, dear nymph."

You exhale, drawing a breath in when he pushes past your entrance and into you, your throat suddenly full and lashes wet at the sudden intrusion. He reaches down to wipe at your tears, forehead pressed to yours as he syncs your breathing with his, deep breaths past his lips as you follow, sheen on your body glistening as the moon hangs in the sky. His free thumb wipes at the tears, and you paw at his chest, nails dug into your palms to not tear the wound on his chest, and he brushes your bottom lip.

"It won't hurt, dear nymph."

"Does not—" You furrow your brows, closing your eyes. "change that I wish not to hurt you."

"It takes more than a nymph to tear a titan." He reaches for your hands, unclenching them as he has you press them to his chest. "Worry not."

"Can't see your future." You whimper, voice broken as you breathe. "Don't know if—"

"Then trust that I do." His thumb at your clit gives it a gentle nudge, and he holds back a groan at the way you flutter around him. "Dear nymph."

"You can—" you swallow, panting, sweat trickling down your forehead as you exhale. "move, dear... Prometheus."

"I will not hurt you."

"I trust that."

You're sickeningly sweet under him. He moves slowly at first, trying to keep you comfortable, foresight in hot flashes before his eyes, stilling when he needs to, moving when it seems you are comfortable again. Eventually your heavy breathing turns into jagged syllables of what resembles his name, and his mind stills with the way his hips drive into yours, and your nails dig at his forearms, still too scared to rip his chest, and he grunts when you do spill over the edge and cry his name with beads in your eyes and a vice between your legs. He follows shortly after, and he rakes his mind for a future in which perhaps he could fit all of himself in you, but when you reach for his neck, he pushes it back.

"Well done, dear nymph."

Your eyes close from exhaustion.

You stay that way. Your mind turns off and you are not awake when Chronos is sealed. You are, however, aware of it all, flashes of the future in your mind as you see a chariot of gold, startling you awake. You stay in the embrace of Prometheus, rubbing your eyes tiredly as the future is revealed to you sweetly. You lean on his chest and close your eyes once more, matching your breathing to his as he rubs at your forearm.

"The princess is coming."

"Yes."

"And Time has been sealed."

"Correct."

"And you are to be punished once more."

"It is inevitable."

You laugh a little when you remember what Prometheus' punishment ends up being.

"You are aware?"

"We will be alright."

There is a sense of urgency this time, Prometheus thinks. He is not so much of a coward as to run off since Chronos himself has been defeated, but he worries of what will happen to you if you were to be captured. Too many possibilities, and you refuse to share the one that has been revealed to you. Yet, he is no match for the princess, defeated once more as you watch his body disappear. He must be back to nursing, but his body returns immediately, unable to access the rest that Chronos had once provided him. The titan is defeated, and he is next.

"You must not trap him, princess." You land on the ground of the chamber, hands gentle as you take hers and stare at the coughing titan. "I shall take him to my spring if I must. He must not go back."

"Nymph, you must not be—"

"I shall steal him if that is what it takes." You whisper. "His wrath has been justified. It always has been. Both of us are aware of such a small fact."

"Then the olympians. It does not justify what he has done to the gods."

"The gods are simply prideful. After all, did he not purposefully weaken himself for your sake these fights? He had been punished for offering fire to the humans." You offer. "I am not saying that he must get away free of all punishment. I simply ask that you are to request for a simpler punishment. Perhaps something less gruesome than what was previously sent for him."

"And what do you propose?"

You whisper into the princess' ear, but you know Prometheus knows what you have said.

"How does that sound?" You look up at the titan as he stands up, Aetos back on his hand.

"What a hit to my pride."

You grin, lips curling upwards as you laugh.

"Will the gods know?"

"Not with the fates back where they belong."

"Very well." The princess nods. "Do invite me, yes?"

"Of course." You hum, cheeks warm as she's gone from the door.

"It will occur?"

"My foresight says yes."

Prometheus learns to trust you.

And, well, if the princess hears news about a new chariot being in the works by Hephaestus, then it is not her place to tell for whom or for what.

[jiubilant]

ao3 (2800 words)

In Betony, she had flown goshawks with eyes like coins of fire. In the frozen north, she flies stranger birds. When the enormous sea-eagle beats its beak thrice against her windowpane, insistent as a door-to-door peddler, she stands calmly from her desk to let it in.

“Well?” she asks, unsmiling.

The barbarian of air wings in on a gust of wind and snow that whips through her papers, scattering some Synod tract and an adept’s treatise on runestones. Its talons clack on the back of her chair. Beneath the fierce, hoary brows of old men and birds of prey, its mismatched eyes—one brown, the other bluish-green—flash with a question of their own.

She gestures, eyebrows raised, to the cloak hung by the door. Then she turns to close the window. When the click of claws on tile becomes the slap of bare feet, she repeats herself. “Well?”

“He’s as stubborn as ever,” a querulous voice grumbles at her back. Cloth rustles. Her spare chair scrapes across the floor, then creaks. “Heard me out and sent me off. It can’t be done, Mirabelle.”

“If it couldn’t be done, Tolfdir, I wouldn’t ask it of you.” Mirabelle Ervine, Master Wizard of the College of Winterhold, thumbs a smudge from the stained glass. It squeaks. “I would do it myself.”

She would have harsh words, under any other circumstances, for a mage foolish enough to alter his own shape—but her Master of Alteration has walked the world as wolf and otter, elk and wild boar, since she was a child struggling to cast colored lights. When she turns from the window, she almost smiles to see him hunched hawkish in the cloak: a frail old man who, in three days, has flown a journey that would take her several sennights.

“You ought to have gone yourself,” he says anyway, patting his windswept beard back into place. He seldom looks weary after his adventures. The light in his eyes—one brown, the other bluish-green—is the light of one who has outraced clouds. “He never listened to old men. But to old friends, my dear, he may yet unbar his door.”

Mirabelle waves a hand. The sheafs of strewn paper stack themselves on her desk, probably out of order. “I’m needed here. I can’t be long away.”

“Phinis could.” Tolfdir helps himself to her tea. Miraculous, she thinks, that all his flapping hadn’t sent the cup skidding to Atmora. “I remember the three of you knocking about as prentices. Couldn’t separate you.”

Mirabelle tries to picture poor Phinis, who pales when asked to venture into town, on the next karve to the Hjaal. When she surfaces from the fancy, less plausible by far than the Synod’s treasure-maps, the old man’s welkin eyes are watching her.

“Why now, Master Wizard?” he asks, not ungently.

His tea, now, Mirabelle thinks. She goes to the shelf for another cup. “Pardon?”

“Falion left us years ago.” The eagle looks out at her from Tolfdir’s face. “You let him go. Why ask him back now?”

Mirabelle’s fingers pause in midair. Most of her clayware is chipped. Ancano, when she’d interviewed him last, had lifted the cup she’d set out for him with near-imperceptible amusement—as if, she’d thought then, he were indulging thoughts of dropping it.

“It seems to me,” she says, her voice hard for all its softness, “that we have invited enemies into our house, and shut friends outside.”

“Ah.” Tolfdir’s cup clinks on her desk. “I saw a knarr sailing this way, you know, while I was up.” He pauses, then clears his throat. “East Empire Company, I thought.”

* * *

When she takes the stairs of the Archmage’s tower two by two, wound tight with the news, Ancano is already in yarak. Perhaps he has his own eyes in the air.

“No good will come of a Haafing ship testing these waters,” he’s saying when she slips into the Archmage’s study. She’s come to know Ancano better than she’d like; whenever he’s pressing a point, as he’s doing now, his voice takes on the high, humming urgency of a kite’s whistle. “We must signal at once for it to turn about.”

“Turn about?” Savos Aren’s hand is already tangled in his beard. The bewildered crease in his brow unbends when he sees Mirabelle, but does not disappear. “The College of Winterhold is not a port authority, Emissary. Nor is it a lighthouse.”

“Indeed,” says Mirabelle crisply, taking a stand beside his chair, “I should think that much good will come of a merchant ship, under the circumstances—this is the first,” she points out, “since the leads opened in spring.” They’d lasted the winter, as usual, on lutefisk. Even she is beginning to tire. “Our stores are running low.”

Savos, heartened, tries weakly for a joke. “Much goods?”

Ancano’s golden eyes glint up at Mirabelle. He and the Archmage are at table, lit blue by the drifting magelights: Ancano leaning forward, Savos huddled in his robe of office like an old man in his shawl. He never drinks anything stronger than the watered-milk tea favored so far north, where vegetal life is scant. His cup sits untouched. Ancano has supplied, from some shelf of his own stores, a jug of wine.

“Mistress Ervine,” he says with a courteous smile. The magelights chase a shadow across his narrow face. “You must sit.”

She must do nothing. She holds her face immobile.

“I was sharing my concerns with the Archmage.” If Ancano sees the pack-ice in her eyes, he gives no sign of it. He waves a black-gloved hand. His servant, an ancient elf with a blotch like a winestain on his cheek, hastens forward to fill a third cup. “I fear that this vessel, if it persists in its course, will be seized by the Jarl as a prize for the Stormcloak fleet.”

Mirabelle ignores both the wine and the servant, who always smiles in terror when acknowledged. “Korir lacks the men.”

“Then the ship will blunder into Ulfric’s blockade.” Ancano’s smiling again, close-lipped and motionless as an Aldmeri bust. “That it hasn’t already is miraculous.”

“The College is not party to the recent—rising tensions, shall we say, between Haafingar and Eastmarch,” says Savos, who has as many euphemisms for civil war as a skald has kennings. “I fail to see how the requisition of a knarr—by either fleet, Emissary—is a matter in which we have any right to intervene.”

Ancano’s face falls into a prim, prudent frown. “You must see, Archmage, how a disturbance in Winterhold’s waters would endanger the College’s neutral position—”

* * *

“—and on it went, like that,” Mirabelle finishes, stoic. “The Archmage remains undecided.”

“Of course he does,” says Faralda, reaching for the pitcher. “More blaand?”

She’d come to Faralda’s gatehouse to compare admission records—and, she admits, to cool a headache in the courtyard’s frigid wind. She’s stayed for supper. Her Master of Destruction is the terror and delight of the village’s braver children, who rattle her gate and barter foodstuffs for feats of witchery: fountains of sparks, sky-whales shaped of smoke, magefires juggled from hand to hand. One small petitioner had traded a fat square of blubber, now cubed and salted in Faralda’s only bowl, for a field of ice on which she and her siblings could play stickball.

Faralda refills their cups with the Vetrings’ creamy whey-wine, then takes another morsel from the bowl—with finger and thumb, as the villagers do. Her elbows brace the table like an old salt’s. “Company knarr, Tolfdir said?”

“Yes.” Faralda had been a ship’s mage, once. Mirabelle studies her for a moment—her hair that musses in all weather, the rigging-lines of laughter in her face—then rubs her forehead, resolving to drink no more blaand. “This ship. Why would it—”

Faralda, looking pained, says, “She.”

“—why would she sail into Stormcloak waters?”

A pause.

“You seek counsel,” says Faralda, a slow smile sharpening her face, “from your future Master Wizard—”

“Faralda.”

“East Empire Company,” says Faralda, as if that explains everything. She waves a hand that shines with grease in the firelight. “The Imperial Fleet can fit in a puddle. Mede could float out his toy ships to be rammed to flinders by Ulfric’s drekar—or,” she says, longships burning in her eyes, “he could let Cousin Vici and her mercenaries defend their searoads.”

Mirabelle frowns. “With one knarr?”

“A maiden to lure out the dragons, perhaps.”

Always evocative, Faralda’s fancies. Mirabelle pictures a line of dragon-headed longships gliding to the knarr, their oars churning, their painted snarls crusted with ice—and their hulls splintering, brittle as kindling, beneath the bolts and prows of a host of Company ships.

“Let us not speak of dragons,” she says, reaching wearily into the bowl. Since the recent news from Helgen, she’s caught herself eyeing the sky every time she crosses the quadrangle. “Ancano has the right of it, then, that this ship is likely to stir trouble.”

Faralda sniffs. “You ought to do the very opposite of whatever he suggests.”

“His counsel is often sound. That’s the trouble. If it weren’t, Savos—the Archmage,” Mirabelle corrects herself, “would not entertain him.” She thinks of dragons settling on the ramparts, crushing the crenels between their toes. “What can he want with us?”

“Remember how he tried to cram that monstrous desk up the stairwell? The one he brought out of Valenwood?”

“Solid graht-oak.” Enthir, pacing her office, had almost wept with rage. She can’t laugh, now, recalling how the thing had rained drawers on several Aldmeri attachés.

“He wants what that knarr wants.” Faralda’s smile is thin and taut. “Something costly to bring home.”

* * *

Evening creeps early, on misty feet, into the lumber-town of Morthal. The watchmen have been jumpy, of late, as well they should; their torchlights bob past the wizard’s window in twos, like great eyes gleaming in the dark, as they creak up and down the bridge. The fog muffles their steps. The wizard, going about his evening chores, smiles and listens.

“Is he in there?” asks one of the watchmen.

“Aye,” says another, and spits.

If he were out, they’d spit at that, too. The wizard raises his eyebrows, nonplussed, and scrubs a crust of pottage from a pewter plate—

Falion.

The plate clatters to the floor. When the wizard whirls with a spell on his lips and a washrag in his hand—anticipating fiends, fire, fool neighbors with pitchforks—he finds his hearthroom empty.

He stares about him at what his sister, with twinkling eyes, calls his instruments of sorcery: the great cookpot, the garlic-strings, the besom and staff by the door. Then he sighs and flicks the rag aside. “You would bespeak me while I’m scouring dishes.”

The voice, cool and familiar, rises in his mind like a wry notion of his own. I trust I did not catch you unawares.

“I will tell you what I told Tolfdir, and no more.” Things stranger than Mirabelle Ervine have spoken into Falion’s mind. He stoops for the plate. “My talents are much needed here. Much maligned, as well, but no matter—I have found in the marshes of Morthal my masters, my mystic tomes, my métier.” His own stern, seamed face frowns back at him from the pewter. “If Aren himself groveled at my feet, I would not return.”

Apprentices had been awed, once, by his dire proclamations: heed my words, and meddle not with each other's summoning-circles, and so. Never Mirabelle. Perhaps I wished only to speak to you.

“Speak to me, then, of the sorcery of Winterhold.” The face reflected in the plate would make a bitter meal. He sets it aside. “Of the marvels its mages have wrought. Of Mirabelle Ervine”—his voice gentles, then—“and her miracles.”

He can almost see her desk, cluttered with distractions of all description, and her terse smile. She strikes back. How is Agni?

“My young ward,” says Falion, after a pause, “shows some promise.”

To clasp one's mind with the mind of another mage—master, pupil, friend—is to do more than converse. He’s known Mirabelle since she was a prentice; the keen and steady stare that had followed him in his youth passes through him now, insubstantial, searching his mind for the child. The byre in which he’d found her—the reek of damp, the rotting straw. The murrain she’d spelled from Eivor’s cattle. Her first magelight, bright and startled as her smile. His terror that he’ll teach her ill, that she’ll end like his last pupil—

That, says Mirabelle softly, was not your fault.

“I know.” Falion flicks a taut hand. The fire in his hearth bursts up; the dishes, clattering like a draugr’s mail, stack themselves on the shelf. “And you know. And the rest of you, chasing shadows and squabbling over chairs—Mirabelle,” he murmurs with ferocity, sweeping his arm in an arc that rattles every shutter, “how can you stay?”

A pause.

These are tempestuous times. Mirabelle’s voice, to his surprise, is tinged with weary humor. If a dragon lands in the forecourt, who will remind it that we wizards are beyond worldly affairs?

Falion blinks. Then, despite everything, he smiles.

“If you need me,” he says to the empty room, “truly need me, my old friend—I will come.” He shakes his head. “But not before.”

“Falion,” calls a small voice from the doorway, “are you talking to dwarves?”

He turns. The child, picking sprigs of heather from her hair, greets him with a hesitant smile; she’s been in the marshes again, loosing coneys from his snares. The presence in his mind, with mingled frustration and warmth, flickers out.

“Agni.” He’ll scold her later. He raises an eyebrow and plucks a twig from behind her ear. “I was speaking with—a former colleague.”

“A wizard?” Her grin has a gap in it; the loose tooth must have come out. “A College wizard?”

“Were the snares empty again?”

“A College wizard, Falion?”

She’d been baking bread with Jonna when Tolfdir arrived. Small mercies. “Perhaps not for much longer.”

His apprentice still believes, somehow, in wonders: need-fires and marshfires, fish that grant wishes, wizards in the north that make the skylights dance. She frowns as if betrayed. “Why?”

“If you saw the College, child,” says Falion, kneeling to help her with her boots, “you would know.”

* * *

On the deck of the Valravn, the knarr creaking through the ice off the Vetring coast, a man in shabby furs smiles in surprise. His eyes have frozen shut.

“Sten, lad,” he calls to the steersman who’s been kind to him, kinder than he deserves, on the long, careful journey through the leads: a young man, quick to laugh, whose brothers have all gone south to war. They could be in his daughter’s centuria, he thinks, joking with her over a supper of mashed grain. They could be heads on spears. The wind saws his face like a carving-knife. “My pipe’s out.”

“Here you are, then, Master Clerk,” says a good-natured voice by his ear, followed by the mineral clack of struck flint. A hand swathed in fishskin turns his face for inspection. “Kyne caught you a nip, has she?”

“Don’t fuss.” His face is nearly too stiff to force a smile. “It’s only the lashes.”

“Well”—the hand tugs gently at his sleeve—“come away from the side. You’ll have your last cold bath, sir, if we meet a floe and pitch. And I want to watch you sell snow to those Vetrings.”

Lumber, in fact, and gruit, meal, mead. None are why the clerk is here; someone else will get rid of them, in due course. He doesn’t move. “In a moment. I want to see the school.”

Sten brushes the snow from his shoulders—fuss—and bustles off to haul some line or other. The wind that freezes men solid in their sleep closes around the clerk, whirling away the creak of rigging, the grumble of ice, the boatswain’s busy shouts. He’s alone with it again. When he breathes in deep, it burns on the way down like a clean, destroying flame; when he holds his pipe-bowl to his eye and waits for the lashes to thaw, the warmth is no different than the chill.

The dead in their doorways of fire, he thinks, must feel this way: blind, bright, with all that they love behind them. He leans forward a little. Let this sermon be consolation to those—

Something trickles down his face. His eye unsticks.

“Ai, cardehni,” he says, appalled. A great grin cracks the ice of his face. He steps back, leaning on his cane, and cranes his head to better see. “Sten, lad—what happens if a wizard sneezes?”

The boy’s laugh bursts over the ice. High above them, rearing out of a screaming cloud of kittiwakes, towers the wizards’ school: a fortress leaning, on its chunk of frozen rock, as though a sudden noise might knock it over.

[omgahgase]

Charthur short

Charles breaks his bow and Arthur gets him a new very special one 🥰

hello there! sorry this lil ask took too long, and sorry that it's not short haha. i love the idea of arthur doing anything for charles bc He's In Love, so here's my take of their relationship before getting together. i hope you enjoy!

It’s a well-known fact in camp and by his friends and by just about anyone that’s asked Arthur for any help making anything outside his expertise of shitty knives:

Arthur ain’t no craftsman.

Yeah, he can chip away at a rock and wrap it around a stick then call it an arrow, and he can weave a basket—nothing else, though, that’s about as far as he can get without Jack or one of the girls aiding his helpless fingers—and, sure, he can tie up a piece of line to any broken branch and head on down to the lake with the world’s most God awful fishing pole, but the truth still stands.

If Arthur had to choose between crafting someone an item and not having it fall apart after its first use, or getting shot in the mouth…Well, then, Arthur’s making sure that bullet goes straight through his throat and out the back of his head.

So why, in God’s green Earth, is Arthur making a new bow for Charles after he broke his old one?

‘Because you love him,’ Arthur thinks, gentle in the same way his cheeks redden at the mere thought of Charles, in correction to Eagle Flies’ snarky, “I don’t know, you asked me for help,” that lights up a spark of irritation in Arthur’s gut, makes Arthur want to shove him off the log he’s perched on.

“This may be the most foolish thing I’ve ever done,” Arthur says, twirling the knife in his hand that’s speckled in his own blood.

He stares at the piece of chokecherry wood in front of him, the branch now thinner than when Arthur chopped it off and whittled it down to a poor, uneven shape that hardly resembles a stick let alone a bow. It took a little over a month to get the wood and then season it, this process he wanted to do himself because it’s special, Eagle Flies said, to put your emotions into a piece of Earth and ask the land if it’s okay to take a piece of its tree for his own desires—for Charles, his mind keeps saying. So he can’t screw it up unless he wants to start all over again. Arthur can’t afford mistakes, but his project laughs at him, it seems, and Arthur, finding himself comfortable in his frustration, wants to burn it.

“A fool in love is stronger than any beast or man he encounters,” Eagle Flies says, crafting improved arrows to Arthur’s right. He holds one up to his eye and stares down the line of it. “Your affection for Charles is deep, therefore, your actions are foolish.” He shrugs, and motions for Arthur to keep whittling. “Keep going. You're nearly there.”

“I almost lost a finger.”

“Your lover will thank you.”

Arthur feels his cheeks go from warm to uncomfortably hot. He tips his hat down over his eyes to hide the deep blush spreading over his face. “Charles ain’t my lover,” he mumbles, a correction to a hopeful assumption.

Eagle Flies only hums as he places his arrow in his pile and Arthur kinda wants to fire all of them into the distance just so his friend can feel an inkling of his annoyance. Arthur does understand that Charles will be grateful, however, no matter how shitty his new bow may turn out. Sadie gave Arthur the suggestion, said that it’ll take Charles months to construct a new bow while Arthur can figure something out and get a new one in his hands in less than that, and Arthur—with his squirrel brain that as of five months, two weeks, and six days ago (but, really, who’s counting?) hasn’t been able to keep Charles Smith out of his head—ran with it. He overestimated his abilities in the fine art of craftsmanship (and thinking with any logical parts of his brain when it comes to Charles) and damn near killed himself gathering everything he needed to make a bow.

Arthur sought out Eagle Flies not too long after Sadie planted the seedling of the thought in his head, asking him what it’d take to trade so he could get his hands on any materials ready for bow crafting. Eagle Flies, with a light in his eyes and a kick in his step, rattled off a list of items his tribe needed. Fresh berries from the West Grizzlies, wolf and cougar pelts, big game from The Heartlands, eagle feathers from the highest cliffs of Donner Falls. He even had to wipe out a few rowdy stragglers who were camped up too close to the tribe, something Eagle Flies said about his father not wanting to wander into outlaw affairs so Arthur best get the job done because it won’t be too suspicious if a Van der Linde boy does it.

After choosing his tree and setting it out to dry, Arthur spent the better half of the week hunting and gathering, putting his neck out on the line for anything that can make Charles a bow as good as the one he made himself, and by the time he had everything he needed in his possession, he was more bruised and bloody than a shitty bull rider at the state fair.

Arthur knows it’ll be worth it, though. If it means he can do something for Charles—and maybe crack a smile outta him, Arthur’s a greedy bastard down to his core and he needs to be on the receiving end of just one of Charles’ rare grins—then Arthur will gladly do it all over again.

He huffs, loudly, and gathers up the remaining incentive to keep going. Eagle Flies said he's almost done whittling, then all that's left is to string the sinew, and add little decorative designs along the shape of it because every bow is different, none is ever exactly the same. That’s what Eagle Flies told him when Arthur first started this journey.

‘Every bow is unique in its own way. Make it your own.’

‘But it’s not for me,’ Arthur had said. ‘I’m makin’ it for Charles.’

Eagle Flies only looked at him, wearing the same face Sadie wore when she gave him the idea. ‘Make it for him, then, but give a piece of yourself into every step. Put your emotions into your craft, and make it yours. Both of yours.’

‘Make it ours,’ Arthur reminds himself as he gets back to work.

---------------------------------

One month, twenty-six days, and seven hours. That’s how long it took him to make a bow.

Arthur has more scars on his hands now than he ever did before he set out to make this gift, which granted him the full understanding of the saying ‘putting in the blood, sweat, and tears’ into something you love. Arthur loves Charles more than he thinks is capable of a man like him, so why wouldn’t he put in all his effort?

He’d do just about anything for Charles, that’s been established a long time, maybe even back then in Colter when Charles suffered from a burnt hand and Arthur did everything in his power to make sure he didn’t injure it any further. That was the start of it all, Arthur believes, and now in the present time, Arthur isn’t tending to his wounds anymore, instead, he’s tending to the ache in his chest telling him to do grand displays of affection. Like crafting an entirely new bow when Arthur is the shittiest craftsman from here to Blackwater.

Arthur sucks in a deep breath to steel the jitters in his hands, his fingers clutching at the leather wrapping of the bow like a lifeline, and walks a little way down to the lake’s shoreline. Flat Iron Lake ain’t that much to look at it in the daytime, the heat of Lemoyne making the sand feel like hot rocks and the water like a warm bath, but in the evenings, when the sun’s setting just right, a blaze sparks across the horizon, makes the bright blue of the water’s surface turn a flower petal pink, then a dusky orange.

It’s pretty, hell, Arthur would even say it’s beautiful, but he won’t. Nah, the most beautiful thing about the lake is when Charles stands at the water’s edge, his features painted in the ever-changing color of the sky, his hair long and wavy down his back, the outline of his frame strong, sturdy like a mountain, and just as gorgeous. He just stares out into the water, soaking it in, eyes soft in the setting sun, and Arthur can’t think of anything prettier.

Arthur swallows down the nervous lump in his throat, then, “‘Scuse me, Mr. Smith,” he calls.

Charles turns, his fair falling in front of his eyes when he sees Arthur, and, suddenly, it’s only them. Call it Arthur’s tunnel vision—hell, even call him crazy if it fits—but at the moment Charles fully faces him, the barest hint of a smile on his face (is he surprised? Arthur hopes so), the lake, camp, everything around them falls away.

“Hello, Arthur,” Charles greets, meeting him halfway along the shore’s edge. He stops just shy of a foot away, and Arthur has to resist the urge to pull him closer. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on that stagecoach job with John?”

“Nah, Martson can handle it.” Arthur clears his throat, then, before his brain can tell him to high tail it back to his tent, he thrusts out the leather wrapping. “I got somethin’ for you.”

Charles’ eyebrows knit together quizzically before he looks down as if just realizing it was there, his lips going all pouty in that way he does when he doesn’t understand something. “What’s the occasion?” He asks, gingerly taking the wrappings and undoing the ties.

“No occasion, Mr. Smith. It’s just—well, I thought that um—” Before Arthur can stop himself, his mind going from overly polite to ‘Don’t say anythin’ stupid,’ his mouth kicks into overdrive and rambles a string of words in a single breath.

“I know you broke your bow last time you went huntin’, and it’s hard tryin’ to find somethin’ like that in any ‘ol store, so I made you a new one—it ain’t as pretty as your last one—shoot, it probably don’t work much better neither, but I made it—for you—so I hope it gets the job done.”

Arthur’s head swims woozy by the time his words fall free, and his gut churns with anticipation as Charles looks upon the bow, his expression hidden by the shadow of the descending sun. Arthur’s feet are leaden to the ground, his hands trembling a shake so violent he hides them behind his back, and after a few seconds of agonizing silence, of Charles tracing the curved line of his new weapon with a delicate finger and tweaking the sinew strings, he lifts his head. Arthur’s heart jumps into his throat.

“You made this?” He asks, marveled, eyes the softest shade of brown Arthur’s ever seen on him.

Arthur clears his throat, manages a croaked, “Yeah.”

Charles just continues to feel it, grips over the leather wrapping of the middle part, and then, as if in a trance, his eyes land on the engravings just above. His thumb runs over it, gently, as if the bison might disappear if he’s not careful.

“You did this too?” His voice is so deep, so soft as if he’s speaking to Arthur in a dream that Arthur almost misses his question.

“Yeah. Eagle Flies helped, a ‘lil. Actually, he’s the one who taught me how to make it. I didn’t—I wanted to do it right.” The ‘for you’ threatens to barrel roll from his lips but Arthur swallows it down, forcing it to the back of his throat. “Bison are important to your family. So,” he shrugs, trying to pass it off as nonchalant when his body’s buzzing like a hummingbird.

Charles’ eyes land on the second engraving, a buck that sits just below the leather, and something in the way he spoke, like a gentle rustle in the grass, shook Arthur to his core. “Is this you?”

Arthur nods, steps a little closer so he can brush his fingers over the buck too, just shy of Charles’ own. “The lines took the longest. Almost lost a finger while doin’ it.” Charles chuckles, endeared, and he’s smiling, a small barely there upturn of his lips that Arthur wants to sketch and keep in his pocket forever. “Eagle Flies said to make it special, to, y’know, make it my own. It’s yours, though, but I still wanted to have a ‘lil bit of myself there. So it’s—it’s kinda like ours—in a way, I guess.”

Arthur bites his tongue, stopping himself from saying anything else that will make his face redder than a fire ant’s ass. He hopes the flaming rays of the sun can cover his blush, but even his luck can’t make miracles.

“It’s beautiful,” Charles says, so earnestly that Arthur’s heart drops from his throat and does a can-can number in his chest. “It’s like you’ll be with me wherever I go.”

“I’ll go anywhere with you, Charles,” Arthur counters, baffled by the thought that he wouldn’t follow Charles to the end of the Earth. If he asked or not, Arthur’s with him.

Charles stares at him, then, equally as mystified. “You will?”

As if Arthur would be anywhere else. “Always.”

It’s Charles’ turn to surprise him, then, by lunging into Arthur’s person with the force of a bolder. He hugs him tight, squeezes around Arthur’s shoulders, and tucks his face close to his ear. He doesn’t say anything, not until Arthur’s body catches up to his brain and he wraps his arms around Charles’ middle, holding on just as close.

“Thank you, Arthur. No one’s ever given me something like this, or ever treated me this nice before.”

“I will,” Arthur says, his voice muffled by the fabric of Charles’ shirt, but still holding so much weight to it that Charles steps in until the entirety of their bodies are pressed together. “You’re my friend, Charles. I would do anyin’ for you.”

Charles sucks in a sharp breath. “Thank you.”

They separate far too quickly for Arthur’s liking, the sun nearly gone behind the mountains and the moon already high in the sky. Charles continues to stare at his gift as if he can’t believe it’s actually his like he can’t imagine someone going out of their way to give him something as heartfelt.

(In the back of his mind, Arthur vows to break that train of thought, to make Charles believe he’s not just put on this Earth to hurt, but to live, and, hopefully, to love.)

But still, even if Charles likes it, Arthur still has to say, “Sorry if it ain’t as good as your old one.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Charles scolds, his eyebrows knitting together. “It’s perfect.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “You and I both know my craftsmanship is shit. You don’t even know how it shoots.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Arthur. You’re more of a wonder than you think you are.” He smiles, then, closed mouth and so sweet that his cheeks bunch up under his eyes, and Arthur officially goes dumb. “Come. Practice with me while we still have light.”

He brushes past Arthur, up the little hill towards the small clearing near camp. When Arthur doesn’t move because he’s too busy reeling at granted something so small and special, something no one else in camp gets to see, Charles calls out to him.

“You coming with me, cowboy?”

Immediately, Arthur is next to him, standing so close their knuckles brush and a spark shoots out somewhere in the distance.

“Always.”

[moeitsu]

The Tie Which Linked My Soul To Thee

Ch 26 - I Care Not To Repeat

Summary: Arthur’s unexpected act of kindness sets the stage for a fragile alliance between two men shaped by loss and loyalty. Upon returning to camp, they must work quickly to prepare for yet another journey.

Ao3  Wattpad Masterlist - All Chapters Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

AN: I really enjoyed writing this chapter, I can't wait for you guys to meet Eagle Flies. 10.7k words, lot's of feels and dialogue. Enjoy!

Tag List: @photo1030 @ariacherie @thatweirdcatlady @ultraporcelainpig @marygillisapologist @eternalsams @lunawolfclaw  @yallgotkik @sawendel

**please let me know if you would like to be tagged in future chapters!

Story Tags: Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Emotional Sex, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Sexual Tension, Friends to Lovers, Trauma, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Survivor Guilt, Caretaking, Period-Typical Racism, Anxiety, Emotional Constipation, Self-Doubt, Men Crying, Sweet/Hot, Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff

Eagle Flies strained against the ropes binding his wrists to the wagon wheel, the coarse fibers digging deep into his skin. His arms ached from the unnatural angle, muscles screaming as they fought against the restraints. The bindings stretched his chest taut, leaving him exposed and unable to twist away from the brutal blows. Each punch and kick jarred his body, the pain carving fiery paths through his nerves. But he swallowed it, crushed it, and turned it inward. His pain was fuel. His anger, the fire it stoked. 

He would not give these men the satisfaction of hearing him cry out.

Rage simmered beneath the surface, dark and seething. These men—these white men—thought they could break him as easily as they had broken the land, the rivers, the trees, and his people. They came with their laws, their machines, and their greed, carving scars deep into the earth and tearing apart lives without a second thought. His hatred for them burned as hot as the sun over the plains, scorching and absolute.

A fleeting pang of guilt pierced through his fury, unwelcome and bitter. What would his father think? No—what would his father do when he found his son’s broken body, lifeless and abandoned? There would be no surviving this.  

The two men who had come with him—boys, really, no older than Eagle Flies. Were dead already. Their youthful pride and reckless defiance had crumbled under the weight of reality. They had believed, like him, that they could strike a blow for their people, that their small acts of resistance could echo louder than the roar of a train engine or the bark of a rifle. They had died for that belief, their lives snuffed out like embers.  

And now, he was left alone to face the consequences of his own pride. He had thought himself strong enough to fight back, to make these invaders pay for what they had done. For the children left starving, for the elders forced to watch their homes burn. For the rivers choked with filth and the sacred grounds trampled beneath boots. 

Someone had to fight back. Something had to be done.

His father’s endless talks of peace felt hollow to him, a dream clinging desperately to a world that no longer existed. The People had tried peace, and what had it brought? More death. More land stolen. More humiliation.  

Another fist connected with his chin, snapping his head to the side. Pain shot through him, but Eagle Flies spat a mouthful of blood onto the man’s boots, glaring up at his captor with a defiance sharper than any blade. The man said something, mocking and cruel, but Eagle Flies didn’t bother to listen. The words were muffled under the ringing in his ears, and even if he could hear them clearly, he wouldn’t care. 

English was their language—an ugly, foreign thing forced down his throat in his youth. His father had insisted he learn it, calling it a necessity in a changing world. But to Eagle Flies, it was a language of lies and theft, of broken treaties and empty promises. It didn’t belong to him, and it never would.

The two men who had been beating him paused their assault, muttering to each other in low voices. They thought he was hiding something—an ambush, a larger group of savages lying in wait. The thought made him laugh. The sound was hollow, like dry thunder across a dark sky. If only that were true. If only there were more of his people ready to strike back. If only they had more warriors. But there weren’t. He was alone, the last of his group. A pitiful excuse for a warrior who had let his anger carry him too far from home.

One less mouth to feed. Eagle Flies thought with resentment, already bartering with what would come of his pointless death. 

His father would never know the truth of his death. Rain Falls thought his son was off seeking the spirit world’s guidance, healing from the wounds of his soul. Instead, Eagle Flies would die here, tied to a wagon wheel, far from the burial grounds of his ancestors. His bones would be left to the vultures and scavengers.

And his soul would be condemned to wander this earth, alone—untethered, for all eternity.

When his tormentors finally left, replaced by two guards who barely spared him a glance, Eagle Flies slumped against the wagon wheel, his body betraying his rage by giving in to exhaustion. The smell of roasted meat wafted through the camp, his stomach growling in rebellion. A cruel reminder of the basic needs that tethered him to life, even as his spirit burned with the weight of despair.

He refused to let himself slip into unconsciousness. Pain and anger anchored him, a stubborn refusal to succumb to the humiliation these men sought to inflict. Just as his head began to droop, he noticed movement by the firelit tent. A shadow slipped inside, barely discernible in the flickering glow. Moments later, the muffled sounds of a struggle reached his ears—fists meeting flesh, air being stolen from lungs. 

Death had come calling. 

The sounds were all too familiar. He strained to listen, each nerve alive despite the ache in his body. The scuffle ended abruptly, and silence hung heavy in its wake, broken only by the crackle of the campfire.

Before he could process what he had heard, a low whisper shattered the stillness behind him. Eagle Flies flinched, instinctively yanking at the ropes.

“Easy, kid,” a deep, calm voice murmured. “M’gonna cut you loose. Once I do, you get those horses ready while I deal with the guards. Understand?”

Eagle Flies froze. The accent was unmistakably white, but the tone carried no venom. Suspicion flared in his chest, but he nodded stiffly. A moment later, he felt the cold bite of a blade slicing through the ropes. As the bindings fell away, he rolled his wrists, wincing at the painful rush of blood back into his numb hands. When he turned to look at his rescuer, the man was already gone, swallowed by the shadows.

Staggering to his feet, Eagle Flies forced his battered body toward the horses. His movements were fueled by nothing but adrenaline and sheer defiance. Fumbling with the saddles, his hands trembled from exhaustion, but the rhythmic task gave him a sliver of focus amidst the chaos in his mind.

The faint sounds of a fight echoed nearby—grunts, the dull impact of blows. A new surge of anger roared within him, hot and volatile. Part of him yearned to join in, to finish what the stranger had started and exact vengeance on the men who had brutalized him. But his legs wobbled beneath him, his strength already stretched thin. He would only be a liability. With his clenched jaw, and swallowing his frustration, he tightened the final strap on the saddle. 

Footsteps crunched behind him. Instinct took over. Gripping a knife he had pulled from the saddlebag, Eagle Flies spun around, his arm raised to strike.

“Don’t come any closer,” he growled sharply, despite the exhaustion weighing it down.

The figure stopped, raising both hands in a gesture of peace. The man stepped into the dim moonlight, and Eagle Flies studied him. Strong, rugged, a man who looked like he could wrestle a bear and win. Yet his eyes carried no malice—only a calm sincerity that gave Eagle Flies pause. He replied slowly, as if speaking to an animal prone to startling. “S’alright now. Those men are gone, I took care of it.” 

“Who are you?” Eagle Flies demanded, his tone wary. “Why did you free me?”

“Arthur.” The man sighed, rubbing a hand over his face as if the weight of the world rested there. “Name’s Arthur Morgan,” he said. “You’re Rain Fall’s boy, ain’t ya?”

Eagle Flies stiffened, shame and anger bubbling beneath his bruised skin. “Did my father send you?”

Arthur shook his head, stepping closer to take the reins of one of the horses. “No, he didn’t. But I’m guessin’ he don’t know you’re here, does he?”

Eagle Flies glared, his pride refusing to let him answer. Pulling himself into the saddle with a wince, he felt Arthur’s steady gaze on him, unyielding but not unkind.

“Your father asked me to help with the peace talks,” Arthur continued, voice calm but firm. “He’s tryin’ to stop Cornwall from takin’ more of your land.”

“I remember you now,” Eagle Flies scoffed, his bitterness spilling over like a dam breaking. “Father thinks you can stop a man like Cornwall? A man who burns our homes and kills our people like it's some kind of sport?”

Arthur shrugged as he mounted his own horse. “Don’t know. Maybe not. But I do know dyin’ out here, tied to that wagon wheel, won’t help him none. You alright?”

“Sure,” Eagle Flies replied bitterly. “I enjoy being tortured. Clears the mind.”

Arthur let out a low chuckle, shaking his head as his horse shifted beneath him. “Well, you’ve still got your tongue. That’s somethin’.”  

Eagle Flies frowned, spurring his horse to follow as Arthur turned toward the shadows of the forest. His body ached, every movement a reminder of how close he had come to death, but his mind was sharper now, hyper-focused on the man leading him away. The man who saved his life.

Arthur Morgan. He’d heard that name before. He and his father met with this man some weeks ago, when they were trying to renounce the new oil rig on their land. After pleading with the mayor of Saint Denis at his garden party. It struck him how he didn’t recognize him sooner, though the darkness and his swollen eyes made that nearly impossible. There was something different about the man he encountered tonight. There was something in the way Arthur carried himself, a weight to his words that hinted at a deeper story.  

“You don’t look like the kind of man who sits at peace talks,” Eagle Flies said after a stretch of silence. His voice was edged, testing.  

Arthur didn’t turn, his broad shoulders framed by the faint glow of the moon. “I don’t. But your father asked, and I reckon he deserves someone listenin’ to him.”  

Eagle Flies narrowed his eyes. “Why? What do you owe him?”  

Arthur glanced back briefly, his face unreadable. “Nothin’. But he’s fightin’ for his people, not just himself. That’s rare these days.”  

The young warrior mulled that over, his thoughts tangling with his anger. This man, this stranger, didn’t sound like the others Eagle Flies had encountered. There was no patronizing tone, no false sympathy laced with disdain. But there was something else—a quiet fury, buried but unmistakable. 

It was in the way Arthur carried himself; the tense set of his shoulders, the way his jaw clenched when he spoke, as though keeping a dam from breaking. That anger wasn’t directed at Eagle Flies, but it lingered like smoke around a fire that refused to die. This was a man who had fought battles, more than one, Eagle Flies could tell. He had carried the weight of those fights long after they were over. He recognized it because he felt it in himself: the simmering frustration of a world that seemed to grind down anyone who dared to stand against it.  

That anger, though, was different from the reckless fury Eagle Flies often saw in his own reflection. Arthur’s wasn’t the kind of rage that exploded outward in wild defiance; it was sharper, tempered, like steel forged in a relentless fire. And yet, Eagle Flies couldn’t ignore the fresh bloodstains on Arthur’s hands, the faint tremor in his breath that spoke to the violence he’d unleashed moments ago. This was a man who had killed with purpose, not for glory but because he had no other choice. Eagle Flies didn’t need to ask how Arthur killed those men back there—he could see it in the haunted look buried deep in the older man’s eyes. 

Whatever Arthur Morgan was shouldering, it was more than just the bodies left behind. There was a pain too, a grief bound so tightly to his anger that it had become inseparable. And for reasons Eagle Flies didn’t yet understand, that made him trust this stranger just a little more.

“You’re angry,” Eagle Flies said bluntly, watching for a reaction.  

Arthur glanced over his shoulder again, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What makes you think that?”  

“Because I know what it looks like,” Eagle Flies replied. “What it feels like,” he explained. “I saw it back there. It’s in the way you carry yourself. Like you’re always holding it back.”  

Arthur was silent for a moment, guiding his horse through the underbrush. When he spoke, his voice was deep, and deliberate. “Maybe I am. But anger’s a dangerous thing, kid. It’ll burn you up inside if you’re not careful.”  

Eagle Flies bristled at the comment. “You think I don’t know that? I have nothing left to lose, my anger’s all I’ve got. It’s the only thing that keeps me fighting.”  

Arthur sighed, “I reckon you got much more to lose than that,” he muttered. His posture slumped slightly in the saddle. “Listen, I get it, kid. But fightin’ just for the sake of fightin’ doesn’t always get you what you’re after.”  

Eagle Flies clenched his fists, the reins biting into his palms. “And what would you know about it? You’re not the one losing your home, your people—” He caught himself, his voice thick with emotion, and looked away, ashamed at the crack in his defiance.  

Arthur slowed his horse, turning to face him fully. “You’re right,” he said simply. “I’m not. But I’ve lost plenty. And I know the kinda pain you’re carryin’. It ain’t gonna go away, no matter how many people you kill or fights you win.”  

The sincerity in Arthur’s voice threw Eagle Flies off balance. He studied the older man again, searching for something, anything, that would betray insincerity. But all he saw was exhaustion, a heaviness in Arthur that mirrored his own.  

“We’re not far now,” Arthur said, breaking the silence. “Come back to my camp. We got good people there. They’ll help you get cleaned up, get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out how to get you back to Wapiti.”  

Eagle Flies hesitated, his pride warring with his fatigue. He hated needing help, hated being vulnerable in front of a man he barely knew. But the promise of rest, of even a brief reprieve from the weight on his shoulders, was too tempting to ignore.  

“Fine,” he muttered, keeping his tone clipped. “But don’t think this means I trust you.”  

Arthur smirked faintly, nudging his horse forward. “Wouldn’t expect you to. But maybe you’ll change your mind after you’ve had somethin’ to eat that ain’t your own tongue.”  

Despite himself, Eagle Flies almost smiled at the dry remark. He followed Arthur into the night, his thoughts still clouded by anger but now tinged with something else—curiosity. For the first time in a long while, he wondered if he’d met someone who might actually understand his pain.

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━

As Eagle Flies followed Arthur down a narrow path, the oppressive darkness of the bayou pressed in around them. Branches clawed at his legs and snagged on his clothes, while the undergrowth brushed against his knees, damp with dew. The air was thick and heavy with the tang of earth and decay, each breath feeling more like a drink of swamp water than air. He could barely make out the figure in front of him, relying instead on the steady squelch of Arthur’s horse’s hooves in the mud and the occasional clink of tack. The bayou was alive with sound—frogs croaking in the distance, the buzz of insects too close for comfort, and the occasional rustle that hinted at unseen creatures moving through the murk. 

True to Arthur’s word, the camp wasn’t far.  

The faint light of a campfire came into view, flickering weakly through the tangled trees, its dim orange glow struggling against the overwhelming dark. Arthur glanced back briefly, muttering that it was late and most of his gang would be asleep. He would take the lead so as not to startle them. 

Along the way, Arthur spoke sparingly, revealing glimpses of himself. A bandit, an outlaw, a murderer—on the run from the law. I ain’t a good man, he’d said plainly, his voice rough with something between regret and resignation. Eagle Flies hadn’t offered judgment; he understood what it meant to take a life, to spill blood for survival, justice, or rage. 

Whether in defiance or desperation, they both knew this world’s truth: it was eat or be eaten.  

As they approached the camp, two figures emerged from the shadows, their voices cutting sharply through the night.  

“Stop right there!” a woman barked, her gun aimed squarely at them.  

“Who are you?” demanded a man, his voice steady and firm.  

“It’s Arthur,” the cowboy called back evenly, his tone calm and familiar.  

The tension melted almost instantly. Relief swept over the pair as they lowered their weapons and rushed toward him. Arthur dismounted with a grunt, and Eagle Flies, now able to see more clearly, studied the two strangers. The man had long black hair and dark brown skin, clearly one of his people, though his expression was softened with relief rather than suspicion. He clasped Arthur in a tight embrace, patting his back with a mix of joy and disbelief, while the woman—a fierce-looking figure with determined eyes—spoke rapidly about thinking he was dead.  

Eagle Flies slid off the horse, his legs nearly buckling as he hit the ground with a dull thud. He grimaced, unable to stifle a pained grunt, and the sound instantly drew their attention. The native man, Charles, took a cautious step forward, his brows furrowing as though he recognized Eagle Flies.  

“Arthur, is that—?” Charles began, tinged with surprise and concern.  

Arthur raised a hand to cut him off, sighing heavily. “Yeah. Charles, this is Eagle Flies. Chief Rain Falls son.” He turned to the younger warrior, nodding toward the others. “Eagle Flies, this here is my friend Charles. And this,” he gestured to the woman who still regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, “is Mrs. Adler.”  

Eagle Flies straightened as best he could, taking in their faces. There was something grounding about Charles’ presence, a quiet reassurance in his steady gaze. The woman, Mrs. Adler, radiated a sharp intensity that made him wary but also curious. These weren’t just Arthur’s companions. 

They were his people. 

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━

Arthur felt a wave of relief crash over him as he caught sight of Charles and Sadie, their presence grounding him in a way he hadn’t expected. They were still here—alive—at this battered little camp they’d been calling home for the time being. He had no idea if any of the others had made it back, but just seeing their familiar faces eased some of the tension coiled in his chest. His heart pounded as his thoughts drifted to Kate, asleep in one of the cabins. She was safe, and for now, that was enough to keep him steady.   

He’d been through hell to get here, but he’d walk through that fire a million times if only to see her again. 

Charles looked between him and Eagle Flies, his brow creased with concern. Arthur could already feel the questions burning in his mind, but he got to the most pressing one first. “Found the kid tied to a military wagon,” he said briefly  

“Were there others?” Charles asked, his tone sharp and urgent. His dark eyes flicked to Eagle Flies, searching for an answer.  

Arthur hesitated, glancing at the young man. Eagle Flies gave a slight nod, the weight of it speaking louder than words. Arthur shook his head. “Just bodies.”  

Charles sighed and looked at the ground, “I’m so sorry.” He said quietly. 

The air grew heavy, the unspoken horrors filling the silence. Sadie cleared her throat, breaking the tension with a softer tone. “Looks like Arthur caught you at the right place at the right time. He’s good at showin’ up like that, when folks need him.”  

Eagle Flies shifted uneasily, his jaw tight as he scanned the faces around him. He didn’t speak, but his reluctance was written in the way his shoulders hunched and his fists clenched at his sides.  

Charles stepped closer, his voice gentler now. “Eagle Flies, I know this isn’t easy, but we need to know what happened. Where were they keeping you? How many soldiers were there?”  

There was a heavy pause before Eagle Flies finally spoke, his voice rough and barely above a whisper, “Near the river. West of here. There were more when they captured me... but only four on duty when Arthur came.”

His words hung in the air, the weight of them like the dampness of the bayou, thick and suffocating. Charles turned to Arthur, his gaze sharp with unease, the question lingering with all the dangers they had faced to get here. “Were you followed?”

Arthur shook his head, weariness etched into his every movement. “Not unless the dead start walkin’,” he said, carrying the faintest edge of dark humor.

“Good,” Charles said flatly, though his tone carried the kind of finality that didn’t invite further reassurance.

Sadie stepped forward, her voice like sunlight breaking through a storm. “Well, you’re here now,” she said, her smile warm but deliberate. “Let’s get you somethin’ to eat and cleaned up. You’ll feel a damn sight better after that.” 

Arthur nodded toward the fire, his tone softer. “She’s right. Go with Mrs. Adler, kid. She’ll fix you up somethin’ proper.”  

Eagle Flies hesitated, his eyes flickering between Arthur and Charles, as if gauging whether this was another trap or a rare moment of genuine kindness. Finally, he gave a small nod. Sadie motioned for him to follow, her steps and voice were steady as she coaxed him away from the smoldering tension of the conversation.

When the sound of their footsteps faded, Charles turned to Arthur, his eyes narrowing as he searched the man’s face. Arthur felt the scrutiny like a weight pressing into his chest.

“What happened back there?” Charles asked in a low voice, careful, but tinged with an urgency that betrayed the steady calm he was trying to maintain.

He hesitated, his gaze catching on the hollowness under Arthur’s eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the way his shoulders carried an unbearable weight. “Arthur, are you okay?”

Arthur exhaled shakily, his gaze darting away as he nodded, though they both knew it was a lie. “Hosea’s gone. Lenny too,” he said abruptly, the words cracking the air like dry lightning.

He cleared his throat, trying to disguise the tremor in his voice, but there was no masking the way the grief clawed at his neck, choking him from the inside.

It struck him how casually the words had left his mouth, like spitting venom that burned on its way out. The weight of them wrapped around him, suffocating, as their faces flickered in his mind; Hosea’s fatherly wisdom, Lenny’s fierce loyalty. Their final moments haunted him like ghosts clinging to his battered soul. 

How could he face Kate now? How could he ever explain to her that it was all because of him—because of his failure—that her life had been put in danger, that Hosea and Lenny were dead? He had promised her safety, promised her that they would survive together, but instead, he had dragged her into a war she never asked for. He had been the one to bring danger to their doorstep, to shatter whatever peace they might have had. And now, as the weight of their deaths settled like a stone in his chest, he couldn’t help but feel the crushing truth: He had failed them all. He couldn’t face Kate, not like this. 

What words could he possibly say to her? How could he break the news of the ones they had lost, when he couldn’t even face it himself? Arthur’s mind raced with the questions, but there were no answers. Only comforting lies to offer her. He was the reason they were gone, the reason she had been imprisoned. His failures cut deeper than any mortal wound. 

Arthur’s heart ached for her, knowing the hurt she would feel, the fear she might have when she found out the truth about what had happened on that boat. How could he look her in the eye and tell her that he had failed to protect the people he loved most, that his poor choices had led to so much loss? In that moment, Arthur felt like nothing more than a shadow of the man he used to be—broken, hollowed out by his own mistakes.

Undeserving of the woman he risked everything for. 

“Dutch was givin’ ’em hell by the time I took off,” Arthur said in a rush, his words tumbling out as if trying to outrun the grief. “Think he must’ve made it into a building or a boat or somethin’. Heard the law was still lookin’ for him when I high-tailed it.” His shoulders sagged under the weight of his words, his exhaustion etched into every line of his face.

Charles closed his eyes briefly, his jaw tightening as he absorbed the news. The implications for the gang settled heavily between them like a stone dropped into a still pond, rippling outward. “And Milton? Is he alive?”

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, his voice heavy with fatigue. “Don’t know. Didn’t look back after I left Saint Denis. Been tryin’ to get here in one piece. That’s when I found the kid. Those soldiers were ready to kill him.”

Charles nodded solemnly, his voice was steady but laced with quiet conviction. “You did the right thing, Arthur. Rain Falls will be grateful for your help.”

Arthur swallowed hard, the words like a bitter pill. Rain Falls’ gratitude wouldn’t erase the losses or the guilt that churned in his chest. Eagle Flies was alive, but Hosea and Lenny were gone, and nothing could ever make that right.

After a moment of silence, Arthur turned his gaze toward the cabins, his trembling voice barely audible over the sound of the chirping night frogs and humming cicadas. “Kate,” he murmured. “Is she—?”

Charles’ expression softened, sensing the unspoken fear in the question. “She’s okay. The girls took care of her. She’s asleep in your cabin.”

"Thank you, Charles," Arthur whispered, his voice wavering as he let out a shaky breath. 

The relief that flooded him was like a warm wave breaking against the shore, but still, his feet felt heavy, as though bound to the earth itself. His heart, a drum in his chest, screamed for him to move, to run, but his body refused to obey. His pulse was a frantic, disjointed rhythm, a sharp contrast to the stillness that seemed to envelop him. 

Would she look at him with eyes full of sorrow, with disappointment? Would she be ashamed of him, afraid of the man he’d become? The thought gnawed at him—those quiet moments when their lips had met, when he'd held her close and whispered promises of a future together. Could she still see the man she had loved in him, or had he destroyed that too? The questions, each a shard of doubt, raked through his mind, pulling him deeper into a sea of self-torment.

"Go to her," Charles' voice cut through the turmoil, gentle, like the caress of a summer breeze. "She needs you, Arthur." 

The words were the key that unlocked something inside him—something raw and aching, pulling him from his paralysis. With a quiet, desperate breath, Arthur turned, his body moving almost of its own accord, his steps slow but sure. Each movement was laden with the weight of his sins, each stride heavy with the burden of loss, yet still, his heart surged with an undeniable need. 

I need her. The thought clung to him like a lover’s whisper, a mantra he couldn’t escape. No matter how much he resisted temptation, he would always lose. 

I need her. The world outside was cold and unforgiving, but the thought of her—the warmth of her smile, the softness of her touch. Was all that kept him from breaking entirely. 

I need her. And so, with that single, desperate prayer, he walked toward the cabin, toward the one thing in this world that still felt like home.

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━

The voices outside stirred Kate from her restless sleep. The stiffness in her limbs protested as she sat up, the worn cot creaking beneath her. She winced as she stretched, her body heavy with exhaustion despite the hours she had spent lying still. The first rays of morning filtered through the cracked wooden walls, mingling with the bitter, familiar scent of coffee drifting through the camp. Her stomach growled in response, a harsh reminder of how little she had eaten.  

Swinging her legs over the side of the cot, Kate stood, but the world tilted sharply around her, forcing her back down onto the blankets. She pressed a hand to her temple, willing the spinning to stop. Anemia, weak blood, whatever they called it. This sickness made her feel like she was moving through quicksand. No matter how much she rested, her strength never seemed to return. The weight of it all pressed down on her as she glanced at the blankets where Arthur’s journal rested, its leather cover worn and familiar. The sight sent tears pricking at her eyes, but she blinked them away, dragging herself upright. 

The gang needed everyone's strength right now—she wouldn’t let this weakness consume her.  

The blinding light outside the cabin made her squint as she adjusted to the day. Her gaze swept over the weathered camp, the leaning cabins half-swallowed by the swamp’s creeping vegetation, and the rancid smell of decay hanging in the air. She spotted Charles in the distance, her lips parting to greet him, but the figure standing beside him rooted her to the spot.  

Her heart leapt into her throat. "Arthur?" she called, trembling with disbelief. Her lover turned towards the sound of his name, his figure draped in sunlight like he was an angel sent to whisk her away. She didn’t wait for a response, her feet carrying her forward in a rush.  

“Arthur!” The cry broke free from her lips as she threw herself into his arms. His embrace enveloped her, strong and steady despite the weariness she could feel in him. She clung to him, her hands fisting into the fabric of his shirt as if he might disappear if she let go.  

Arthur buried his face in the crook of her neck, the rasp of his breath against her skin a sound that made her chest ache with both relief and longing. “I missed you Kate,” he murmured, heavy with emotion. 

He pulled back just enough to brush kisses against her cheeks, his calloused hands cradling her body. Deep blue eyes roamed over her as though he was trying to memorize every detail, though her pallor and dark circles gnawed at him. Even so, she was still the most breathtaking sight he’d ever seen.  

“Look at you,” he said softly, his lips quirking into a tender smile. “Still as pretty as a magnolia in May.”  

Kate flushed, the warmth of his words wrapping around her like sunshine. When he finally set her back on her feet, she bombarded him with questions, her hands running over his shoulders, his chest, searching for injuries. “How—how did you make it out? I thought Milton was going to—” Her words faltered as her eyes caught the dried blood on his shirt and the red crusted into the cracks of his hands. “Arthur, are you hurt?”  

Arthur chuckled softly, a weary sound that held a trace of his usual charm. “I’m alright, darlin’,” he said, taking her smaller hands in his. His thumbs brushed over her knuckles before lifting them to his lips for a gentle kiss. “Just a little rough around the edges, that’s all.”  

“When did you get back? Are the others with you?” Kate glanced around, her eyes scanning the camp for signs of new arrivals.  

Arthur hesitated, the question he’d been dreading hanging heavy in the air. Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. “I made it back last night,” he said finally.  

Her brow furrowed, a flicker of hurt crossing her features. “Last night? Oh, Arthur… why didn’t you wake me?”  

The crack in her voice struck him harder than he anticipated. Oh god, how was he ever going to tell her the truth now. He opened his mouth, searching for the words, but they felt lodged in his throat. “You needed the rest sweetheart,” he said softly, though his voice was rough with guilt. “I didn’t want to wake ya… didn’t want to trouble you with all this, not after everything you’ve already been through.”�� 

Little did Kate know, Arthur had gone to her last night. Every fiber of his being ached to climb into the cot beside her, to feel her steady breathing against his chest and let the storm inside him settle, even if just for a moment. But when he had stepped into the cabin, the sight of her had stopped him cold. She lay there, her features softened in sleep, her mouth slightly parted, disheveled waves of hair spilling over his old blue button-down that wrapped her body in a way that felt like a claim he wasn’t sure he had the right to make anymore. His journal was tucked protectively under her arm, as though even in her sleep, she clung to him.  

It was a picture-perfect moment, one he felt certain would shatter under the weight of his touch. Everything he had ever loved, everything he had ever cared for, seemed to crumble in his hands. His chest tightened as the thought crept in like poison: maybe her illness was his fault, too. He should have been there for her more, done more to provide for her, to protect her. Keeping her safe was the one thing he had vowed to do, and Christ, he had failed even at that.  

Arthur’s hand had lingered on the edge of the cot, fingers itching to reach out and brush a strand of hair from her face. But instead, he had withdrawn, retreating like a coward. He had spent the night perched on an overturned crate, keeping vigil as she slept. He watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, the faint flicker of her eyelids as she dreamed. And as the hours dragged on, his mind wandered to darker places, weighed down by the ghosts of his failures and the ever-growing burden of his sins.  

Now, as they stood face to face, the weight of her scrutiny felt heavier than any bullet wound. Kate frowned, her eyes narrowing slightly, unconvinced by his vague answers. “Trouble me with what, Arthur?” she pressed, cautious but insistent.  

Before he could muster a response, Charles, who had been standing nearby with the patience of a saint, cleared his throat softly. The sound was a polite interruption, but it still made Arthur flinch. As if on cue, Sadie and a young man stepped out from one of the nearby cabins and joined their circle.  

Kate’s gaze shifted to the newcomer, her brows knitting together in surprise. The bruises mottling his face made her wince inwardly, but what struck her most was how utterly out of place he looked amidst the ragtag group of outlaws.  

“Kate,” Charles began evenly, his calm voice breaking through the tension, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”  

Arthur placed a hand on the small of her back, a grounding touch for both of them, and gestured toward the young man. “This is Eagle Flies,” he introduced, as if they were old friends. “I met him and his father, Rain Falls, some weeks back. After the mayor’s party,” he added, his explanation brief but pointed.  

Kate’s lips parted slightly as she processed the introduction. “Eagle Flies,” she repeated, testing the name as though committing it to memory. A small smile touched her lips, warm but weary. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard much about your father,” she said, offering her hand.  

The young man accepted her handshake with a single, firm shake before stepping back. His eyes, dark and restless, flitted between Arthur and Charles before settling back on her. 

“What brings you this deep into the bayou?” Kate asked, though she wanted to know how he got the bruises on his face. Something in her heart told her she already knew. She could see something flicker there—shame, perhaps, or embarrassment—but it was gone as quickly as it had come.  

“We were sending a message to those men in uniform,” Eagle Flies said evenly. His tone was steady, betraying neither pride nor anger, but there was a subtle tension in his voice. “But we didn’t—” he hesitated. “There were too many of them…” His jaw was tightening as he searched for the right words. “Arthur… he saved my life last night.”  

The words hung in the air, heavy and final, as if any further discussion on the matter would only deepen the wounds of what had transpired.  Kate’s eyes darted back to Arthur, her heart twisting at the sight of the exhaustion etched into his features. The tension in his shoulders, the shadows under his eyes, the way his body seemed to sag with an invisible weight—it was all there, plain as day. She reached out instinctively, her hand brushing against his arm. Something happened last night that he wasn’t telling her. 

“What is the military doing this far south?” Kate asked, filled with unease as her eyes scanned the familiar faces of her friends. She wasn’t expecting an answer, but the silence that followed only heightened her anxiety.  

Sadie, always the first to speak her mind, leaned on her rifle with a scowl. “Been wonderin’ that myself. There’s Pinkertons crawlin’ around the muck too. I reckon they’re workin’ together.”  

Kate felt a flutter of panic in her chest, her heart beating faster as her thoughts spiraled. “Good Lord, for what reason do the Pinkertons need to get the military involved?” Her voice pitched higher, the concern clear in her tone.  

Arthur exhaled heavily, a sound that seemed to press down on his soul. “Sweetheart,” he said, low but firm, “we just made a mess of that jailhouse. Took a fortune from a bank that don’t much like partin’ with its gold. And that cavalry out there? Well—they ain’t here for the scenery. We’re the reason.”  

Kate’s stomach twisted at the blunt truth of his words, but before she could respond, Eagle Flies stepped forward, his voice laced with quiet anger. “That’s not the whole of it,” he interjected. “Since Cornwall turned his back on my father’s treaty, he’s had soldiers planting their flags all across the counties. He’s doing all he can to leave my people with nowhere to run and nothing but the wind to call home.”  

Sadie let out a sharp laugh, devoid of humor. “That goddamn velvet-vested plutocrat. Ain’t nothin’ noble about a man who climbs to the top by steppin’ on necks,” she muttered before spitting in the dirt, her disdain evident.  

Charles nodded, his face somber. “Which is exactly why you need to leave.”  

The words struck Kate like an arrow, and she blinked, momentarily stunned. “Leave? Charles, wouldn’t that just draw more attention? The military ain’t gonna turn a blind eye to a caravan, especially if they’re watching the borders.”  

She was so caught up in her concern for the camp’s safety that she didn’t immediately notice the word you. Arthur wrapped an arm around her, his thumb brushing soothing circles against her arm. His touch was gentle, comforting her in the midst of her growing panic. 

“He means the three of us,” he said quietly.  

Kate turned to him, her wide eyes filled with worry. Arthur could see the gravity of the situation racing through her mind, the weight of what this meant for her and for them. “We… have to leave? But where would we go?”  

“Wapiti,” Eagle Flies answered confidently. “You’ll be welcome among my people. I can promise that.”  

Kate stammered, voice wavering with desperation. “B-but the camp, the girls… what if the others come back? What if someone attacks while we’re gone?” Her words tumbled over each other, already imagining the dangers of the journey ahead.  

Charles stepped closer. “Dutch and the others are still out there, and we’ve no way of knowing when they’ll ride back. Sadie and I will keep watch here, but things are getting too hot for the three of you. The law’s breathing down our necks, and the military’s not far behind. It’s best you head up to Wapiti, let the dust settle some. Couple weeks should do it.”  

A couple weeks? The thought screamed in Kate’s mind, sending a fresh wave of anxiety crashing over her. She couldn’t deny that a reprieve from the chaos was needed, desperately so. But the journey terrified her. She was a wanted woman now, traveling with two men who were just as hunted as she was. A million things could go wrong, and her heart wasn’t sure it could take any more heartbreak. Not after the hours she had spent believing Arthur was gone for good.  

“We’ll ride out tonight, when the moon’s high,” Arthur said gently, but resolute. “We’ll make for Annesburg, rest for the night, then head west come the first light. Eagle Flies knows the way—the trails are old, no soldier’s foot has touched ’em in years. We’ll be out of their reach before they even know we’re gone.”  

Kate’s body trembled slightly against him, and Arthur’s heart clenched at the sight. He rubbed small circles into her back, hoping the motion would ease her nerves. It hurt to see her like this, afraid and uncertain, but there was no other choice. Charles was right—they weren’t safe here anymore. And Eagle Flies wouldn’t make it there alive on his own.

Sadie had told him about the Pinkertons’ movements while he was gone, and he could feel the snare tightening around their camp. Ready to strike at a moment's notice. He hated to push Kate like this, but it was the only way to keep her safe. The road ahead would be hard—harder than she probably realized. But once they reached Wapiti, he harbored a faint, fragile hope that the peace of the reservation might help her heal.  

And maybe it would provide the time and space Arthur needed to muster the courage to tell her the truth of what happened that night that led to this mess. 

Kate’s voice was soft, hesitant. “Do you really think it’ll be safe there?”  

Arthur cupped her cheek, tilting her face toward his. His blue eyes, tired but unwavering, met hers. “I’ll make sure of it,” he promised, heavy with conviction.  

Kate searched his face, finding something in his expression that steadied her. A flicker of trust, fragile but enough. Yet there was something else there, something he was shouldering alone. The hollow look in his eyes told a story of their own. She nodded, though her heart still raced. “Alright,” she whispered. “I’ll be ready, Arthur.”  

Arthur pressed a kiss to her temple, lingering for just a moment before pulling back. “Thank you,” he said softly. And though his words were quiet, they carried a world of meaning and relief.

The night ahead stretched like an uncharted canvas, painted with shadows of danger and uncertainty, yet amidst the darkness, a fragile ember of hope flickered within her heart. A hope that somewhere along this perilous path, they might discover not just safety but a bond so unwavering it would entwine their souls. An unbreakable thread destined to endure beyond the tricks of time.

Perhaps Arthur was finally ready to leave his outlaw life behind.

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━

The fire flickered weakly in the still air, casting soft shadows on the girls who sat around it, their spirits as dim as the fading embers. The stew Pearson had prepared for dinner, a questionable concoction of swampy fish and muddled flavors, sat untouched before them. Kate pushed her bowl aside with a quiet sigh, her stomach in knots. The stench of the stew mixed with the dank earthiness of the swamp, but starving seemed a less miserable option than swallowing another spoonful. 

“I’m really going to miss you girls,” Kate’s voice broke the silence, gentle yet heavy with all the unsaid things. 

Abigail, her face drawn and pale, looked up briefly but said nothing. Jack was curled in her lap, small and peaceful in his sleep, the weight of her grief tucked quietly in the lines of her face. Kate could see the toll it had taken on her—she had barely left Jack’s side since their arrival, and though Abigail was always a tough one, it was clear her sorrow ran deeper than words could ever express. Kate felt a pang of guilt twist in her chest. Arthur had come back, and yet Abigail's husband still hadn't. That familiar ache—a never-ending cycle of worry, of waiting for someone who may never return. Was one Kate knew all too well. 

Tilly, ever the optimist, cleared her throat and gave a small, strained smile. “Ain’t gonna be long. We’ll be back together gossiping over a wash bin before you even know it.” Her attempt to lighten the mood was feeble, but Kate appreciated it nonetheless. “Ain’t that right, Mary-Beth?”

Mary-Beth nodded, but her smile was empty, her eyes hollow with the weariness of their uncertain lives. “Sure, can’t wait for things to go back to normal,” she said, the sarcasm dripping from her words, but even that felt like a defense mechanism she couldn’t quite control. 

Kate could see the struggle in her—Mary-Beth was holding on by a thread. They all were. The days had blurred together, grief mixing with fatigue, and the weight of uncertainty was beginning to feel unbearable. Kate’s thoughts strayed briefly to Kieran, the empty space he left behind, and the relentless ache it caused. 

“I’m so sorry, Mary-Beth... for everything,” Kate said softly, voice betraying the helplessness she felt. She could apologize all she wanted, but the damage was done, and apologies couldn't heal the wounds time had carved. 

Mary-Beth sighed, her gaze distant, as she put her bowl down and wiped her hands on her skirt. “S’not your fault. Things are just changin’,” she said, her words a weak attempt at reassurance. Without another word, she stood and made her way to her cabin, “I’m turnin’ in ladies. I wish you all the best Kate.” 

Kate’s heart sank as Mary-Beth disappeared into the shadows. It was hard to ignore the feeling that their bond was slipping away, as if the very fabric of their family was unraveling. Mary-Beth’s words somehow felt final. Did they think she wasn’t going to come back? She looked around at the others, her eyes searching for some sense of comfort, but it only deepened her sense of isolation. They were all so different now. The carefree days of laughter and camaraderie felt like a lifetime ago, replaced by the cold weight of their fractured lives. And now, she was leaving too.

“Has anyone seen Molly?” Kate asked, looking between the remaining girls around the fire. 

Abigail and Tilly exchanged worried glances before shaking their heads. “She wasn’t with us when we moved,” Tilly explained. 

Kate’s heart lurched. “What?” Her voice caught in disbelief. 

Molly, always so unpredictable, so caught up in her own turmoil, had vanished. Kate’s mind chased the unanswered question—had she truly ran away? 

Karen, sitting off to the side, her eyes half-lidded from too much alcohol, let out a slurred chuckle. “That poor bird probably took off soon as Dutch left her sight. That kind of love will drive a woman mad.”

Kate’s stomach turned at Karen’s words, but there was a bitter truth in them. Molly and Dutch had been at odds for as long as Kate could remember. No matter how hard she tried to help, it had always felt like she was fighting a losing battle. But still, a part of her hoped that Molly had found some peace, even if it meant leaving them all behind.

After a long stretch of tense silence, Kate spoke again, barely a whisper. “When Dutch and Hosea come back, they’ll know what to do,” she murmured, but even as the words left her mouth, she knew they were just a half-hearted attempt at comforting herself. 

Karen’s laughter cut through the quiet like a predator, harsh and unforgiving. “They ain’t comin’ back, sweetie,” she mocked, loose and shaky from the alcohol. 

Kate froze, her heart pounding in her chest. “Why wouldn’t they come back?” she asked, though a sinking feeling in her gut already told her the answer. 

“Arthur didn’t tell ya?” Karen asked, dripping with something close to malice only exacerbated by the liquor.

Tilly shot her a sharp look, hissing under her breath, “Karen, don’t. He’ll tell her when she’s ready.”

But Karen wasn’t done. She leaned forward, her face contorting with drunken bitterness. “Katie’s a big girl, she deserves to know!” she practically yelled.

Kate’s pulse raced as the truth hit her like a tidal wave. “Know what?”

“Dutch is gone, probably took off with the money.” Karen’s words were venomous. “And poor old Hosea and Lenny are dead.”

The world went still, Kate’s breath caught in her throat, as if the air itself had been stolen from her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, only stare at the woman who had just shattered her reality. “N-no… they can’t… wh-why would Arthur keep something like that from me?” Her mouth was dry like it was filled with cotton. Voice cracking with the sob she’d been holding back finally breaking free.

Karen gave a lazy shrug, her movements sloppy. "Don’t ask me," she muttered, slurred with liquor. "But I’ll tell ya, he ain’t nowhere near as dumb as he seems. Draggin' you outta this mess and runnin' off to play nice with the Indians. Ain’t that somethin’?" Her words hung heavy with bitterness, the sourness in her tone clear as day.

Abigail, her tired face filled with shock, snapped, “That’s enough, Karen!”

Kate’s legs wobbled beneath her, and her vision blurred with tears. She stood abruptly, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing ever was. “I’m so sorry.”

Without waiting for anyone to stop her, she turned and fled into the night, the weight of grief, confusion, and heartache pressing down on her with each step. The darkness swallowed her whole, but she couldn’t escape the pain gnawing at her from the inside out. This wasn’t how she wanted her last moments with her sisters to be. But as she wandered into the swamp, she sought refuge in the one thing she could always count on.

Lorena. 

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━

The task Arthur had given Eagle Flies was simple enough: prepare the horses for the journey to Annesburg. Yet, to Eagle Flies, every small duty carried weight. Even if only to take his mind off his throbbing bruises, though these wounds were not the worst he’s faced. He approached the task with the same reverence as if he were preparing for a hunt or a battle. Arthur’s white Arabian, Belle, would carry him and Kate on the trail ahead, as she was too weak to ride alone. That left Eagle Flies to choose his own steed from the herd.  

Arthur’s trust in him was a quiet honor, though unspoken. And Eagle Flies did not take such things lightly.  

The horses were tethered to withered fence posts in the clearing, a rare dry patch amidst the swamp’s endless muck. His moccasins sank with every step, the mud seeping in like cold hands gripping his soles. He glanced down, scowling at the state of his footwear. When he returned to Wapiti, he would ask Quick Buffalo to make him a new pair. The elder’s skill with leather was unmatched.  

With the saddle slung over his shoulder, Eagle Flies surveyed the herd. Shadows and moonlight painted their shapes in the clearing, their coats glinting faintly in the silvery glow. Most horses shuffled away as he approached, wary of the unfamiliar. A few stood their ground, indifferent to his presence. But one caught his eye—a black Hungarian mare, standing apart from the others, untethered and proud.  

She had a presence about her that was undeniable. Her midnight coat seemed to drink in the darkness, and her stance radiated strength and defiance. There was something spiritual about her, as if she were an echo of the wild itself.  

Eagle Flies felt his breath catch. Horses were sacred to his people, their spirits intertwined with their own. But this mare wasn’t just a beast of burden. She was a spirit in her own right.  

“Hinhanni wašte, good evening friend,” he murmured, low and soothing. He extended a hand, letting her catch his scent. “Taku eniciyapi he? What is your name?”  

The mare’s ears flicked forward, her dark eyes fixing on him as if she understood the question. Eagle Flies felt a pang of bitter doubt. Was she stolen from his people? Her presence stirred something familiar in his chest. It was not unheard of for their horses to be taken in raids. The thought made him hesitate, his hand faltering mid-air.  

But the mare didn’t flinch. She leaned forward, her warm breath brushing against his fingers. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.  

He set the saddle down on a nearby post, pulling a brush from its bag. As he worked, he let his thoughts drift. Arthur had saved his life—a debt Eagle Flies couldn’t repay with words alone. He had doubted the white man at first, but Arthur had proven himself to be different. Perhaps this was meant to be, the world guiding him toward a path he didn’t yet understand.  

A flicker of movement on the far side of the mare snapped his focus back to the present. A voice followed, soft and unexpected.  

“Lorena emaciyapi. Her name is Lorena.”  

Eagle Flies straightened, nearly slipping in the mud. He steadied himself against the mare’s sturdy frame, his eyes narrowing as he peered around her. Kate stood on the other side, her figure shadowed but unmistakable.  

“You startled me,” he admitted, his tone a mix of wariness and curiosity.  

Kate stepped closer, her boots squelching in the mud. Her pale face was streaked with tears, her eyes rimmed red. She looked fragile, as if the swamp’s weight had pressed on her more than anyone else’s. Yet, there was something in her voice, in the way she’d spoken Lakota, that caught him off guard.  

“Owakahnige sni,” he said, his disbelief evident. “I don’t understand. You speak my people’s language?”  

“Eya. A little,” Kate replied, her voice rasping with exhaustion.  

Eagle Flies tilted his head, studying her. Her accent was smooth, practiced, nothing like the clumsy attempts of others. There was history here, though he couldn’t piece it together yet.  

“Lena nithawa thasunke? Is she your horse?” he ventured, more curious than before.  

Kate nodded, wiping at her cheeks with a trembling hand. “Hiya. Yes.”  

He ran a hand along Lorena’s back, rounding the mare to stand face-to-face with Kate. Up close, he could see her fatigue more clearly. It wasn’t just physical, her pain clung to her like a heavy fog.  

“Lorena is owanyang wašte. Beautiful,” he offered gently. He wasn’t sure why he said it, but it felt like the right thing to do.  

Kate managed a small smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sdodwaye. I know.”  

Eagle Flies hesitated, his brush pausing mid-stroke. There was something about her that drew him in, a quiet strength beneath the sorrow. He realized, in that moment, that perhaps his path wasn’t only meant to cross Arthur’s kindness.  

“Toniktuka hwo makha? Are you okay?” he asked softly, filled with genuine concern that betrayed his usual behavior. 

Kate’s silence lingered, her gaze fixed on the ground as if the swamp mud held answers she couldn’t find elsewhere. Eagle Flies didn’t press her. Silence was familiar to him, and often more telling than words. He resumed brushing Lorena, his strokes steady and deliberate, giving her space to speak if she chose it.  

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said finally, her voice was thin and unconvincing. She wrapped her arms around herself, fingers clutching at her sleeves like they were the only things holding her together. “Wicakha. I’m fine.” 

Eagle Flies glanced at her, his hand stilling for a moment. “I don’t believe you.”  

Kate’s head lifted, startled by his bluntness. Her brows furrowed under the scrutiny, but when she met his eyes, there was no accusation in them, only calm sincerity. He shrugged lightly, resuming his task.  

“I meant no offense. You just don’t look like someone who’s fine.” Eagle Flies added after a moment. 

Kate let out a weak laugh, though it sounded more like a sigh. “You’re very observant.” 

“Not hard to see,” he replied gently. Gesturing subtly towards Lorena. “Even the strongest horses stumble when the weight is too heavy.”  

For a while, neither spoke. The swamp buzzed with the hum of insects, the faint rustle of leaves carried on the breeze. Moonlight turned the world to silver and shadow, and Eagle Flies thought of his home—the clean mountain air, the sparkling rivers, and the resilience of his people. It felt entirely far away now. 

It was once a place of laughter, stories, and unbroken connections to the land, unlike this swamp, where the earth itself felt weary under the weight of what had been taken. Much like the people who were staying here. Their fear and uncertainty was a familiar feeling, something he saw in his own tribe every day. Their suffering was the oil to his flame. He felt his anger burning bright again, like it always did when he thought of his family slaughtered, the rivers choked with filth, and the sacred places desecrated. They had taken so much, leaving scars on the land and in his heart, yet still, they always wanted more.  

His gaze shifted to Kate, and the fire softened. Her sorrow was like the sickness in her body—clinging and fierce, draining her spirit as surely as the swamp water threatened to swallow him whole. She carried her burden silently, her exhaustion as plain as the tremor in her hands.

Yet, something about her reminded him of home, perhaps it was how easily she had spoken his native language. Or how she had sought comfort in her horse, during her time of need. He could not erase her pain, but he could offer what his people had always taught him: helping each other was the greatest form of strength. 

Eagle Flies finally broke the quiet. “We have a medicine woman on the reservation,” he said, conversational and purposeful. “Her name is White Dove. She knows how to heal the wounds we can’t always see.”  

Kate’s brow softened, “thank you,” she gave a small shake of her head. “But, I don’t think she could heal this.”  

Eagle Flies knew she was referring to her grief. He shrugged a reply, “sometimes it’s something you have to decide yourself. ”  

Something flicked in her expression. It wasn’t confusion, but rather the curiosity of someone who had lost touch with such an idea—or perhaps hadn’t heard it in a very long time. She studied his face, looking at him with a new sense of familiarity.

Eagle Flies studied her face in return. Her features were hardened over the years yet softened by weariness, her pale complexion a stark contrast to the women he knew back home. She didn’t look like someone who belonged to this kind of life. Constant danger at every turn, hiding in the shadows like cornered animals.  

“Are you close to her?” Kate asked after a moment, her voice cautious. Changing the subject.   

“To White Dove?” He smiled faintly. “She’s like my grandmother. Right now, she’d be scolding me for walking in this swamp and ruining her good leather,” Eagle Flies gestured to his tattered, muddy shirt. “She would try to make me a new one, and then laugh when I tried to refuse it.”  

Kate smiled at that, though it didn’t quite chase the shadows from her face. “She sounds very kind.”  

“She is,” Eagle Flies agreed. “She’s helped a lot of people with their pain.”  

Kate blinked, slightly taken aback by his observation and insinuation. “Eagle Flies, I’m fine. Just a little stressed about the journey. That’s all.” She replied, almost pleading. Trying to hide her weakness behind a show of strength.  

“I know what I see,” he said simply. “You carry something heavy, but you don’t let it break you. You remind me of a warrior.”  

For a moment, she looked as if she might cry again, but the tears seemed to dry as soon as they came. Instead, she let out a soft laugh, followed by a warm smile that genuinely surprised him.  

“You remind me of someone,” she admitted, warmth coloring her tone. “He was a warrior too.” 

“Really?” Eagle Flies raised a brow. “What was he like?”  

She sighed. “There was never a right way to describe him.” Kate hesitated. “He was... angry, the kind that came from a deep sadness. But he taught me everything about strength and surviving.” She spoke of him like he was no longer in her life.

A faint shadow crossed Eagle Flies’ face, his jaw tightening for a brief moment before he nodded. ��I’m angry too,” he said honestly. “The world gives me plenty of reasons to be. It’s why I fight so hard for my people.”  

Kate met his gaze, her expression softening as she saw the truth in his words. While also taking in the extent of his wounds and what it had cost him.

“I lost two men because of my anger,” he continued. “But we’ll lose hundreds more if we don’t fight back.” Eagle Flies' mind thought back to last night, remembering the faces of those who are now long gone. A fate that was nearly his own. “I owe Arthur a great debt for saving my life.”  

Kate said nothing, but her eyes glistened in the moonlight. Like the mention of Arthur’s name brought her turmoil to the surface again. Whatever she was facing, it was hard for her to ignore. She wiped at them quickly, turning her attention back to Lorena.  

“And I owe you,” he added with a faint smile, attempting to lighten her mood. “For letting me borrow your beautiful horse.” 

Kate chuckled softly and Eagle Flies didn’t push her further. He knew that trust wasn’t built in a single conversation, but some burdens could be lifted by words alone. A distant voice called out to them, approaching from the cabins. Arthur was asking if the horses were ready. 

With one last brush to Lorena’s coat, Eagle Flies then slung the saddle onto her back with practiced ease. “She’s ready,” he said softly. “Are you?” 

Kate nodded, taking Belle’s reins as she followed him out of the muck and into the firelight.

Eagle Flies watched her for a moment longer, then turned to lead his own horse, Lorena. They had a long night ahead of them, and even more traveling after that. But he felt more confident with his new friends, the anxiety and fear eased momentarily. 

Kate’s voice was a whisper behind him, “Pilamaya, Eagle Flies. Thank you.” 

AN: AHH I've been waiting for soooo long to write about Eagle Flies. I can't believe it took me 26 damn chapters to get here. But I'm really excited to get into the Wapiti plot. We're so close! I was going to include the journey to Annesburg in this one, but it felt long enough already.

I hope people don't mind the use of Lakota language. I fell into a rabbit hole while doing my research and I tried not to make it too excessive. There's also not a lot of phrases that I would use, so my options were limited.

Hope you all had a great holiday, thanks for reading! <3

[hunterofartemis7]

Adopted by the gods AU pt.17

Athena: *drops Diomedes at Argos palace, his grandfather (who totally was possibly alive at that point) waiting for him*

Diomedes:…do I have to go?

Athena: unfortunately My son…

Diomedes: mother I don’t know him!

Athena: Diomedes…

His grandfather: lady Athena..if I may?

Athena:…*nods*

Grandfather: *crotches down to his level* I know you don’t remember me, but I remember you. I wish I could’ve prevented your father from doing what he did, and could’ve raised you. I’m so sorry I didn’t get that chance, but I’m hoping you’ll trust me like you did your mother. *motions at athena*

Diomedes:…..*steps back and holds Athena’s hand, trying to hide in her wings* I want to stay with mother…

Grandfather: *sighs* I know…and I wish you could. She had informed me of your time with her and I wish it didn’t have to be cut short…but you can’t defy lord Zeus.

Diomedes: *looks up at athena* mother….🥺

Athena: *trying not to cry* I’m sorry my son..

Diomedes:…*hugs her legs and cries into her side*

Athena: *crotches down and hugs him close*

Diomedes: I love you…😭

Athena: I love you too my son....* let’s go and kissed the top of his head* I will be back, whenever you need me.

Diomedes: promise?

Athena: I swear on the River Styx

Diomedes: *one last hug, than goes inside with his grandfather*

Athena:……*wipes the tears off her face and takes Odysseus to Ithaca*

Anticlea: *waiting at the doors of the palace*

Athena: *glares at her*

Odysseus: *clings to athena*

Anticlea: I’m sorry….i really am. I wanted my son back as much as any mother would, but I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.

Athena: somehow I don’t believe you.

Anticlea: *sighs* fine, don’t. Now please hand over my son.

Odysseus: IM NOT YOUR SON!!

Anticlea:….

Odysseus: *crying into Athena’s side*

Athena: *brings them into quick thought*

Odysseus: mama don’t make me go with them!

Athena: trust me, I don’t want to! If father didn’t threat to make it impossible for me to ever see you or your brother again I would’ve told him to shove it!

Odysseus: l hate this

Athena: I know…believe me I know.

Odysseus: and what if I don’t stay here? What if I run away?

Athena: you don’t think father thought of that? He’ll either strike you down or send his eagles after you.

Odysseus: this isn’t fair! All the other gods get to be happy and keep their kids why can’t you!?

Athena: *starting to tear up*…I don’t know..

Odysseus: but you know everything!

Athena: well I don’t know this!! I know the fates can fucking suck sometimes and unfortunately this is one of those times!

Odysseus: *crying* mama please…I don’t want to leave..I don’t want to be king!

Athena: *wipes the tears off his face* I know…but you won’t be alone. I’ll be here everytime you call for me, same for your brother. This ain’t goodbye forever…more of a see you later..

Odysseus: I wish I didn’t have to “see you later”. I want to just stay with you!😭

Athena: *hugs him one more time* I know…believe me I know. *brings them out of quick thought*

Odysseus: *pulls a small owl necklace out of his pocket and gives it to Athena*

Athena: *confused owl sounds* what’s this?

Odysseus: it’s so no matter where we are, we’re always together. *shows a matching one he’s wearing* I gave one to Diomedes before you took him to Argos

Athena: *holding back tears and puts it on* thank you my son..

Odysseus: …..*one last hug* bye mama

Athena: *hugs* goodbye Odysseus…

Odysseus:..*let’s go and walks to Anticlea*

Anticlea: *smiles ready to hug him*

Odysseus: don’t touch me… *walks right passed her*

Anticlea:….*glares at Athena and follows him inside*

Athena: *flies back to Olympus*

Aphrodite: *waiting in Athena’s room* …Thea?

Athena: *immediately breaks down sobbing*

Aphrodite: *goes over to her and holds her, letting her cry* sshhh..I know….i know it hurts

Athena: I fucking hate this….😭😭

[child0feden]

THE RIVER OF TIME

modern! eagle flies x reader

♡ general dating headcanons for modern eagle flies!

୨୧ for some reason i wanted to do a modern version of eagle flies! i will eventually be doing the game version of him too though… sorry for any major spelling errors, i feel kind of sick today <3

♡ related hc available here | view my video game masterlist here

reading music recommendations: the river of time flows through me by blackbraid - moss covered bones on the alter of the moon by blackbraid

♡ i believe with my whole entire heart that modern eagle flies would be a huge metalhead!

୨୧ he’s especially a fan of black metal <3

♡ blackbraid is one of his all time favourite bands, their music gets played HOURLY in your shared apartment…

୨୧ he just resosnates with blackbraid more than any other black metal band he’s found so he wants to appreciate the hell out of it

♡ eagle flies probably has a guitar that his father bought for him for his birthday when he was a teenager!

୨୧ he may have a semi complicated relationship with his father but he’s never replaced that guitar, it means too much to him and he loves it too much! it reminds him of easier times…

♡ he likes to play the guitar for you, he doesn’t play stuff like black metal though, he plays more relaxed and laid back stuff

୨୧ more often than not, his playing lulls you to sleep… he likes that, he likes knowing you feel at ease with him, comfortable around him

♡ to be honest, i can see his relationship with his family being kind of complicated… he has a lot of great memories from his childhood but when his mother passed and he got older, he began drifting away from his father and older brother

୨୧ but he still calls them every now and again and does try to answer their calls, just to know they’re okay and he does still love them, he just needs time

♡ he’s a huge fan of cassettes and CDs!

୨୧ he never had a phone as a teenager and got his music through cassettes and CDs in thrift stores but he still has all of them! when you guys first got together, his collection of them was something you noticed in his apartment and asked him about, causing him to go into a deep ramble about his favourites, he’s incredibly passionate about music <3

♡ he doesn’t really use social media for similar reasons; he didn’t have it as a teen so he never really feels the need to have it now!

୨୧ he has a facebook profile though, just so that he can keep up with the bands he likes and upcoming events whilst sometimes posting videos of him playing his guitar… and when you guys started officially started dating he changed his relationship status, causing his older brother to find out he was now dating you and comment some really cute older sibling type shit

♡ eagle flies absolutely loves when you play with or braid his hair! you’ll play with it softly before transitioning into crafting a small braid whilst he’s supposedly focused on a horror movie that’s playing on the tv

୨୧ but he’s really not that focused on the movie anymore… the second you started playing with his hair, his attention shifted to you, enjoying the feeling of your hands running through his glossy locks

“ feels good… you’re good at braiding, you know that? ” ( you always blush so hard when he compliments you on things like that, they just hit you right in the heart! but you simply hum a response as he chuckles )

♡ a lot of the time when you finish the braid, you don’t actually have a hair tie on you so you just let it sit and slowly unravel itself which makes him kind of sad :( he really wanted to keep it in his hair because you did it

୨୧ he has a kind of tattered black denim jacket with a bunch of pins and band logo patches sewn into it! bands like blackbraid, darkthrone, mayhem, carach angren, morbid angel, venom and many more

♡ sometimes you’ll be in a music store without him and see some patches / pins you know he definitely doesn’t have and grab them for him, excitedly showing them off to him when you get home

୨୧ he thinks this is literally the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for him, he loves that you think about him and his interests when out and about without him! he always gives you a big hug and a soft kiss on the your head before taking them from you and wandering off to add them to his jacket

“ no, i don’t have these ones! thank you, beautiful… love you ” ( his deep voice is so close to your ear as he says it, still wrapped in a tight hug, you almost jump his bones but hold off for the time being )

♡ i can see him being a night owl! he’s not a huge fan of the hustle and bustle of daytime, he doesn’t like the near constant passing cars and loud noise… so you guys go on a lot of late night walks together <3

୨୧ with the roads being completely empty, he can actually hear himself think and have a conversation with you whilst walking, connected hands softly swinging between your bodies

♡ often times you’ll walk to a nearby wooded area and just sit on a bench, taking in the sounds of the trees blowing in the wind and twigs snapping under the feet of forest animals…

୨୧ you two probably sit there for a while, switching between sitting in a comfortable silence and quietly chatting about life! you’re always leaned into him, one of his arms thrown over your shoulder and if you get cold he’ll gladly offer up his denim jacket

♡ speaking of which, you adore wearing his jacket! it smells exactly like his natural musk and the cologne he uses

୨୧ when you pull the jacket on, you immediately get a whiff of things like pine, leather, oak and… bourbon… ? yeah, whenever you guys to see a local metal band perform at a bar, he always has a bourbon in hand, he’s very classy when it comes to drinking

♡ a lot of your guys dates revolve around similar trips out! dates are rarely planned between you, you’ll just kind of be sitting on the couch or laying in bed and he’ll raise his head to look at you before asking if you wanna go on a date today

“ do you want to go on a date today? the weather looks nice, no rain on the forecast, what do you think? ” ( hell, he’d still ask you out on a date if it was pouring down with rain, he thinks you look beautiful in any weather )

୨୧ you almost always do! they’re usually small picnics in extremely desolate areas of forest / plains

♡ he’s always laid back on the blanket, his combat boots hanging just off the blanket due to his height, whilst you lay back into him and eat some blackberries you’d found on the walk there, leaning up to offer him one as smiles and takes the berry into his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek after swallowing it

୨୧ i can see him being kind of a jealous person but not a loud jealous person, he won’t try to fight someone just for looking at you, he’s a quiet jealous person! responding to his jealousy by having a hand on you or an arm wrapped around you

♡ he can just get kind of super afraid of losing you :( you’re one of the best things to ever happen to him and he really doesn’t know how he’d function without you

୨୧ eagle flies really likes when you wash his hair for him, it took him a while for him to actually let you do it because it’s just a very sacred thing to him

♡ the only person he’s ever let wash his hair for him was his mother when he was younger, it was a ritual of immense love and not something done just because she was the parent and he was the child, it was a show of love

୨୧ when he feels ready to let you do it, he’s kind of shy about it! which is crazy to you because he’s not shy about anything but you can feel that this is something special to him and don’t mention it…

♡ as you’re in the shower together he pauses and takes your hands in his, guiding them up towards his hair as you realise what’s happening and try to hold in your excitement

୨୧ that’s the first time you ever wash his hair for him, gently massaging the shampoo into his head as he closes his eyes and leans into you, bending his back a little so you don’t have to reach up so high! you make comfortable small talk with him as you do it, asking him about music or movies and he’ll mumble a response back, almost falling asleep due to how good your fingers feel massaging his hair

♡ you wash his hair for him almost all the time after that night, a ritual once between mother and son now shared between lovers…

[geneviveleocardius]

rdr2 reactions to your pregnancy

feat. arthur morgan, dutch van der linde, john marston, javier escuella, sean macguire, charles smith & eagle flies

arthur morgan

arthur is taken aback when you tell him, his usual calm demeanor replaced with a rare flash of vulnerability. he’ll run a hand down his face and let out a sigh, not because he’s upset, but because the weight of the situation hits him hard.

“I ain’t no saint, and you know that… you sure this is what you want?” he’ll ask, voice tinged with guilt.

arthur is terrified of bringing a child into his chaotic world and worries about you and the baby’s safety. still, he softens, admitting quietly:

“If this is happenin’, I’ll do right by you both… somehow.” expect arthur to show his love in small, thoughtful ways—offering to hunt for you, fiercely protective of you, even if he’s unsure of how to express his feelings fully.

dutch van der linde

dutch’s reaction is intense, as with everything about him. at first, he’s overjoyed, declaring it a sign of “something greater.” he’ll sweep you into a dramatic embrace, already imagining how your child will fit into his grand, impossible dream.

“This is our legacy,” he says, his voice full of conviction. but dutch’s idealism doesn’t last long. as the weight of the responsibility sinks in, his temper flares. he’ll begin to spiral, doubting if the child can truly thrive in their outlaw life. he may even try to distance himself emotionally, justifying it as protecting you.

“This world… it’s no place for a child. For us.”

john marston

when you tell john, his first reaction is stunned silence. he stares at you, blinking like he’s trying to make sure he heard you right.“You’re… you’re serious?” he finally mutters, voice low and rough.

john has never seen himself as the kind of man who could be a father. he’s spent most of his life running from responsibility, and the idea of bringing a child into his chaotic world is terrifying. for a moment, he might even seem distant, pacing and mumbling to himself: “I ain’t no good at this stuff… I don’t even know where to start.”

but deep down, john is a man of loyalty, and that loyalty extends to you. once the shock wears off, he’ll sit down beside you, taking your hand with a quiet resolve.

“Guess I ain’t got much of a choice but to step up, huh? I… I’ll try. For you.”

john isn’t the most expressive, but his actions show his commitment. he becomes fiercely protective, even more cautious during jobs, and starts thinking about ways to give you and the baby a better life—though he’s still unsure how to pull it off.

“I know I’ve messed up more times than I can count, but… maybe this time, I can do somethin’ right.”

his love for you pushes him to grow, even if the journey is far from perfect.

javier escuella

javier reacts with shock, but it quickly shifts to a warm, sincere acceptance. he’ll take your hands and assure you in his poetic way that he’s thrilled, even if there’s fear in his eyes. “A child… ours. It’s beautiful.” javier has a romanticized view of the future, imagining himself as a loving father despite the harsh realities of their life. he’ll be more attentive than ever, singing soft tunes to your growing belly at night, but there’s a hint of sadness in him.

“The world is cruel, but… we’ll make a better one for them. I promise.”

sean macguire

sean’s reaction is chaotic and loud, as expected. at first, he’s utterly stunned: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you’re serious?!” but once it sinks in, he’s surprisingly excited, albeit in his usual over-the-top way. he’ll joke about naming the baby something absurd but quickly turns sentimental:

“A little me? Or a little you? Ah, they’ll be perfect.” sean is more terrified than he lets on but masks it with humor. he’s protective in his own clumsy way, and despite his flaws, he’s devoted to you.

it’s heartbreaking to think that sean, with all his fiery spirit and dreams, will never get the chance to meet his child or see the life he could’ve built beyond the chaos.

charles smith

charles takes the news with a steady calm, though you can see the emotions brewing beneath his composed exterior. he’ll sit with you quietly, taking your hands in his.

“I never thought… I’d have this.” charles is deeply thoughtful and starts planning immediately. he wants to ensure your safety and the child’s well-being, even if it means giving up the outlaw life. his love and devotion are clear in everything he does, from crafting things for the baby to being your unwavering rock.

“We’ll figure this out. Together.”

eagle flies

eagle flies reacts with a mix of hope and anger. he’s deeply in love with you, so the idea of creating a family together sparks joy. but that joy is quickly overshadowed by his fury at the world around him.“How can we bring a child into this… into their war?” he’ll double down on his fight for his people, becoming even more reckless as he tries to carve out a better future for your child. he’s determined but terrified of failing you.

“I won’t let them take this from us, too.”

its sad but, they actually did.

[tempting-andromeda]

Could you do some artist head canons with eagle flies and charles? (Maybe john and/or arthur too?) like they are the readers muse for most of their works?

(Sorry if this is too broad, i just love your work sm!)

Artist s/o headcanons

Characters: Eagle Flies, Charles Smith, Arthur Morgan, John Marston

Eagle flies

Likes to look at your drawings

Even if you don’t allow him to

Once he sees you small doodles of him he gets so flustered

Stares at it for hours

He’s exited you found him interesting enough to draw him

He doesn’t confront you about it but he does tell Paytah

Hes so excited to be like “yeah they draw! And they drew me!” And Paytah already knows because eagle flies has the worst tendency to just zone out and you take advantage of that

Gets embarrassed but now he’s like… conscious about zoning out

If you ask him to pose he does so without any hesitation!

Likes to watch you draw

Leans over your shoulder and watched how you know exactly where to place the shading

It’s all very interesting to him

He likes when you don’t hide some of his traits when you draw him

When you include the scars on his face, his sharp cheekbones, etc

He feels nice knowing you noticed those things about him

Charles Smith

He knows you draw and you’re quite the artist but doesn’t expect to be your muse

Likes to support your art but tries to keep himself out of it to not disturb you

Once he sees a sketch of himself he gets so flustered

He doesn’t feel so mean and large when you draw him

He feels soft

The main focus isn’t his furrowed brows or dark under eyes

It’s anything else but you still drew them

You still noticed them and didn’t pretend that he looked better without

Thinks it’s sweet when you draw him whom he’s working

He doesn’t see the beauty in it but you seem too and who is he to argue

Does ask for playful requests though

Has asked you to draw random animals doing human things just to humor you

Tries to ignore the warm feeling in his chest whenever you draw him though

He likes it but he doesn’t want to seem too egotistical

He just likes that you see him differently than he does

Arthur Morgan

He’s used to being pulled out of his comfort zone

Not once in his life as he ever thought “hmm I want someone to draw me”

But one day he catches you drawing him and his heart bursts

He knows a bit about art

He doesn’t use many nice things just a pencil and paper, not wanting to focus on anything all too much so he can get by

He knows art is difficult if you want to make it look good

So when he finds out you’re drawing him? He’s flattered

His hands feel clammy and his cheeks feel hot

So when you ask him to pose or if you can draw him he nearly rejects you but he quickly recovers and just asks that you don’t make it a habit

Truthfully he wants you to make it a habit

He wants to see how you see him

Is he mean and dumb looking or is he just a guy

It’s incredibly intimate to him and he doesn’t know why

He likes looking over then, lazily chewing on his nail as he looks at one of your paintings of his eyes

Will say that you’re painting the wrong man and that your picture is a different man than him but it’s special to him

John Marston

Can’t pose for shit

He’s stiff and awkward

But sometimes you catch him when he’s distracted

He’s whittling or polishing his gun and he looks…calm

He’s definitely someone you have to draw off guard

If he knows what you’re doing he’s making it awkward for the both of you

Will smile but it’s just teeth and his face is blank

But when you catch him off guard he looks so calm

Or when he’s sleeping

He likes looking at your drawings and looking at how you see him

He didn’t let you draw him because of his scars at first but now he liked seeing you draw them

You put in just as much detail like you refuse to forget them

It makes him feel nice

He does tease though

“Why didn’t you add my rugged muscles?”

[escapingdestiny101]

I am fully in the Polin trenches so this is probably just the ramblings of someone who enjoys meta a little too much BUT-

In the Eros and Psyche comparison, Colin and Penelope both play both roles. Hear me out:

I took Latin Prose in undergrad and we had to translate Eros and Psyche. Here's a quick and dirty summary of what I remember from Apuleius's version of the story in Metamorphoses: Psyche herself doesn't offend Aphrodite but her parents and the people of her town keep saying she's more beautiful than Aphrodite. Her sisters are jealous of her. She's so pretty that people stop going to Aphrodite's temples and start worshiping Psyche instead. Psyche never asked for this; even though everyone thinks she's beautiful and worships/desires her, Psyche feels nothing for them and knows they don't truly love her either. Aphrodite gets offended of course so to appease the goddess, Psyche is thrown off a cliff and, assuming she survives, has to marry a monster.

Aphrodite enlists her son Eros to help with this plan. Eros sees Psyche and falls in love with her too, so when the townspeople throw Psyche off the cliff, she's caught by Zephyrus and whisked away to Eros' home. Eros only interacts with Psyche in the dark; she never sees him or learns his name, she just assumes he's the beast that the goddess declared she'd marry. Psyche is sad and lonely not being able to see her husband bc even though he's a monster, he treats her really well and she does like him. She's so lonely that she asks her husband if her sisters can visit. He thinks this is a terrible idea but agrees as long as Psyche promises not to be influenced by them. Psyche of course fails to heed that warning, her sisters mock her for not seeing her husband, and for having to fuck her monster husband in the dark bc if they turned the lights on she'd probably die of fright.

So Psyche, with this new brainworm thanks to her terrible sisters, decides to wait until her husband falls asleep to light a candle (or oil lamp) to see exactly what she's been sleeping with. If it's a monster, she'll kill him. Turns out it's the most handsome man in the world, she recognizes him as Eros and falls to her knees. As she does, a drop of hot oil from her light hits Eros on the back. Eros wakes immediately, sees the light, and flies away. His last words are that love cannot live without trust.

Psyche then goes to Aphrodite and asks her to intercede with her son. Aphrodite, who still hates Psyche, agrees to let Psyche undergo three trials to prove herself worthy of Eros. Obviously, Aphrodite isn't being fair and intends to use the trials to punish her daughter-in-law. Psyche succeeds in the first two trials with the help of animals, ants and an eagle. The last trial involves going into the underworld to ask Persephone to put some of her beauty in a box. Psyche succeeds without a hitch (katabasis) and Aphrodite is furious.

The other gods step in at this point. Hermes tells Eros what his mom was doing to his wife and he's super touched that Psyche would do all that for him. Eros and Psyche get married and Zeus grants Psyche immortality as a wedding present.

So what does this have to do with Colin and Penelope?

The obvious comparisons are that Colin, with his charm, good looks, and social standing, is Eros and that Penelope, with her terrible family and bleak prospects, is Psyche. If we look a little closer though, we can flip things.

Colin, like Psyche, has people flocking to him. Ladies want his attention, to be charmed by him. Gentlemen want his stories and his presence in their "revelry." Despite this, he doesn't really feel connected to these people. It's a facade that he's learned to put up. We learn in his journal that he desires a greater emotional connection with a lover specifically but I'd argue with other relationships in his life as well. Colin's siblings are not like Psyche's terrible sisters, BUT another thing Psyche's sisters were known for was that they both married kings. They married well. Daphne and Anthony also, famously, married well. Colin is described by Violet as the most sensitive of the Bridgerton children, always willing to put others above himself. Dutiful, one might say. Dutiful like Psyche, who agreed to marry a monster because the gods willed it and underwent Aphrodite's trials without complaint.

Penelope, nearly a spinster and nearly on the shelf, who does not fit the ideal body type of the ton, is certainly treated as though she's monstrous. Cressida and Penelope entered society at the same time, but no one shames Cressida for seeking a husband in her third season. We, the audience, know that Penelope isn't a monster just as Zephyrus knew that Eros wasn't a monster. Penelope's mother is definitely as shrewd and vindictive as Aphrodite. And Penelope also has an identity she wishes to keep secret.

I've seen some analysis of the candle going out before Colin heads to the ball to stop the proposal, linking it to a small spark of love that always existed and was just starting to turn into a flame. But here's the thing, the candle goes out. It doesn't flicker and come back. It does start small and get bigger. It shrinks and dies. I would argue that this is representing two things. One, Colin's fear that he is out of time and that Penelope will accept Lord Debley's proposal. He's run out of time, hope is extinguished, so what does he have to lose? Which brings us to point two: the dark represents trust in the Eros and Psyche myth. With the candle out, all Colin can do is trust his mother's advice and trust in his feelings for Penelope.

BUT BUT BUT we are only halfway through the season, and we the audience know that a rather important detail still needs to be revealed!!!

Here's where we get into my speculations for the last four episodes. I think Penelope and Colin's roles will begin to flip again. Like Psyche's sisters sowed discord in her marriage, I think that Eloise (either intentionally or unintentionally) will be a catalyst for Colin finding out that Penelope is Lady Whistledown. I don't think Eloise will tell him directly, but she'll definitely be involved. That's when Penelope will become Psyche again and have to complete trials to prove herself to Colin. Love cannot exist without trust, after all.

I hope Lady Danbury offers a bounty on the identity of Lady Whistledown like she does in the book. Lady Danbury being analogous to Persephone would be fitting in my opinion. Although the Queen could also fill this role. The ants and the eagle could represent the lowly and the great; Penelope could accept assistance from someone of low and someone of high status. For the low, I would guess her maid (though she makes a better Zephyrus) or maybe the modiste. For the high, another Bridgerton or maybe even Cressida.

Katabasis is a hero's journey to the underworld, when a living person enters the realm of the dead on a quest and returns to the land of the living. Psyche is granted godhood after her success. I think Penelope will have to endure something equally arduous, but her reward will match as well. It would be satisfying for her to gain the ton's acceptance and even approval of her marriage to Colin, and I would especially like Lady Danbury to be involved with that (she's so much more involved in the book). I'm partial to Lady Danbury, but if it's the Queen instead her opinion would go a lot farther in shifting the opinion of the ton in Penelope's favor. That might be appropriate though far-fetched given the games between the Queen and Lady Whistledown.

The only role I have little speculation for is that of Aphrodite. I can't imagine Violet putting Penelope through a gauntlet even after finding out about her secret. It would fit Portia's character, but even she wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her daughter's marriage to a Bridgerton.

I just re-watched the trailer before hitting post and noticed that in the trailer, the candle does indeed glow brighter rather than going out. I wonder how many more misdirections are in the trailer, like Colin kissing that other girl's hand or him alone in the hired hack. I could be entirely wrong about everything of course, I'm just very excited to see where the second half of the season goes!

[verdemoun]

au where fuck john marston because playing the epilogue has me upset. let kieran and mary-beth have the beecher's hope happiness

john replaces kieran in horsemen apocalypses with obviously much more devastating impacts

abigail is completely catatonic, leaving it to the gang to take over being jack's full-time carers

it has never been more obvious john was dutch's favorite son. chapter 5 levels of instability with hosea still there to watch his downfall and try to pick up the pieces

the gang go after colm in braithwaite fashion. in the process they discover colm has been working with bronte as mules to run bronte's weapon selling operation, and it was bronte that revealed where the gang were hiding thus leading to john's death

hosea joins in the assault on bronte's mansion, seeing dutch kill bronte and making a grim comment about not being the man he knew[loved], which almost seems to pull dutch out of it

no one realises hosea had in fact been shot until he falls off silver dollar dead, his last words to dutch anger and disgust

the gang are still forced to flee to beaver hollow in the aftermath of bronte's death, which the gang were much more visible and destructive in. all that was left of the mansion was soot-covered marble

except, kieran was able to claim colm's bounty AND retrieve the blackwater money, as an unknown member of the gang with no bounty in west elizabeth. there was an unspoken tension of the gang knowing they had enough money to flee, but dutch has no plan. dutch doesn't care anymore. he misses hosea, he misses his son

as micah becomes a more vocal presence and dutch has clearly reached a point of not caring, the gang falls apart quicker. arthur, knowing he's sick, forces lenny to leave and go find the future hosea wanted for him. strauss and trelawney both leave of their own accord. charles leaves to help the wapiti earlier, while eagle flies recovers from a bullet wound acquired trying to steal back their horses alone. miss grimshaw, seeing her words have no impact on dutch, who is no longer the passionate, charismatic man she had once loved, takes karen and tilly before their alcoholism/loyalty kills them both (arthur aggressively encouraging tilly as a sibling)

mary-beth stays because kieran (who she has fallen more and more in love with, and had those feeling requited) refuses to leave arthur, who he considers a friend and is devastated to watch waste away from illness and mourning, and because she is the only one left who can take care of jack.

abigail is captured by pinkertons, but with john's death, seeing how happy jack has been with mary-beth (who saved jack during the pinkerton attack, and can read with him and seemingly be a better mother than she has ever felt she was) fights more recklessly and is killed saving arthur from milton

sadie and arthur learn not only was micah a rat for the pinkertons, but he had also been an o'driscoll and ratted on them too. milton brags how stupid the vdls had been to let micah in, with micah telling colm their every movement, only to tell the pinkertons both gangs' secrets. which means micah had been responsible for john's death as much as bronte was, and micah had also lead to hosea's death

mary-beth and kieran leave with jack, under sadie's begruding protection while arthur tries to save dutch from blindly following micah's command as micah tries to replace hosea as the one dutch turns to when he doesn't have plan.

this leads to arthur's last stand, with dutch shooting micah as retaliation for john and hosea's death, and sitting beside arthur as he took his last breath. dutch would later be killed by pinkertons, still sitting beside his last son's corpse

mary-beth becomes an author, with jack always mentioned in the dedication as the proof reader. she buys beecher's hope with her book's first cheque because living in saint denis while trying to conceal they were part of the vdls is much more difficult

jack grows up spoiled with his love of reading nurtured and kieran a patient man teaching him about horses in a gentle way that inspires passion instead of the idea of performing masculinity. jack doesn't see his role models belittle his dreams of writing or choose revenge over staying with family. with him. they get a dog and name it merlin because the legend of king arthur is their favorite story to read together. jack reads it to kieran, who does learn to read for himself but will prefer jack reading to him