#and get to go ‘wow I landed that??!!’

[prettydaisygirl]

hi babes. I love your James fire chiefX pregnant reader serie

Can you do one about the reader having a hard natural birth but in then all ends well? a mix of angst and fluff, please 🙏

Love your work ♡

hiii lovely! Thank you so much for your request, I can't wait to write him as a dad now too :))) I hope you enjoy this one, though I will say I made the birth vague because I have no knowledge or experience with labor lol okay hope you enjoy, lovely! <3

firechief!James Potter x fem!reader who goes into labor at the worst time ✿ 1.2k words

cw: fem!pregnant!reader, birth scene (vague), emt!Reggie helps reader give birth, unexpected birth/home birth, i'm sorry that the extent of my birth knowledge comes from grey's anantomy

james potter masterlist

°˖✧✿✧˖°

It had been a relatively easy, calm day for James and his crew at the fire station. So much so that he’s already uneasy. He doesn’t like sitting still, it makes him anxious. He’s already borderline frantic knowing that you’re sitting at home, ready to go into labor at any moment. This is his last shift before he has some time off to spend with you and the baby. 

So, despite the fact that he continues to say he’s not an anxious person, he’s worried about you. 

It gets worse when the newbie says “Wow, it’s been a good day!” 

Immediately, a sharp tension takes over the crew. James’ shoulders tighten, and Sirius says “mate.” while rubbing his temples with his fingers. 

James knows things are inevitably going to go wrong. 

They do. Almost immediately the station gets swamped with calls, and he has to split everyone up for fires at multiple locations. 

James heads to one scene, barking orders at the other men, though not in a cruel way, just loud and instructive. He needs them to move faster, always faster, as flames threaten to consume the entire building. Water sprays viscously from hoses, people run around frantically, and firefighters yell at each other over the roar of the flames. 

In the midst of all the chaos, James doesn’t hear his phone ring. Not the first time, or the second, or the third. In fact, by the time he manages to glance at the screen, there are 13 missed calls from you. His heart sinks and he immediately presses answer when you call again, raising the phone to his ear.

“Is everything okay, Angel?” He plugs his other ear to try and each better, taking a few steps away from the scene, though it doesn’t block much of the sound of his pounding heart or the commotion of the fire.

“Well, um…” Your voice is shaky, a bit strained. You take a deep breath and speak again. “I think I’m in labor.” 

He’s been expecting this call. Of course it happens at the worst possible time, and his heart leaps into his throat. “Did your water break?” 

You don’t answer the question right away, and when you do, it’s not the answer he is expecting. Or wanting.

“Well, um…” You start slowly again, a nervous habit when you have to really think about each word coming out of your mouth. “Actually, it broke a few hours ago.” 

This time it feels like his heart stops entirely, the scene around him drowned out by worry and the rush of blood to his ears.

“*What?*” He takes a few more steps away, “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Well, I- I know most women have ah- hours after their water breaks, especially with their first birth, and so I thought I’d let you finish out your shift. But now my contractions are ah- only a minute or two apart.” 

Fuck.

“Okay, Angel just… lay down, breathe through it, and I’m going to be right there.” James almost drops his phone as he stomps his way back to the scene. 

“Please don’t hang up!” You cry out on the other end, forcing yourself to breathe. He can hear it, feel your panic through each inhale and exhale.

“I’m not, I’m not, baby. Just hang on.” James doesn’t know what to do, he can’t think, he can’t breathe even though he’s telling you to. His eyes land on Sirius, and he stomps over quickly. 

“I have to go.” He kicks into Sirius’ shoulder a bit, just enough to get his attention, leaning in so his best mate can hear him. 

“Now?” Sirius glances back at the still roaring fire.

“She’s in labor!” James tells Sirius, whose eyes widen dramatically and he starts nodding and shoving James in the direction of some ambulances. 

“Go!” Sirius encourages with a nod, “Take Reggie’s ambulance, I’ll take over!”

“Thank you!” James manages to say before breaking into a run toward the ambulance, his body resisting due to the weight of all of his equipment. Reggie, Sirius’ younger brother, hops into the driver's seat without question. 

“Where are we going?” He asks as James moves to climb in the back. He tells Reggie his address and the two are off, lights and sirens. 

The whole time, the sound of your breathing and curses of pain reach his ears, he tries to calm you by whispering soothing words of his own into the line. He doesn’t know if it’s helping.

“James.” You groan, hissing an inhale through your teeth. His heart pounds, you only call him by his full name when you’re really stressed. “I think the baby is coming right now.” 

“Just- just hold on.” He doesn’t know what to do. Reggie drives faster, turning onto your street. “We’re almost there, angel, just a minute.”

“I don’t know if I have a minute!” You screech into the phone, and James doesn’t know whether you’re truly about to have the baby or if you’re just scared. 

He doesn’t even wait for Reggie to fully stop the ambulance before he hops out, running inside. He finds you in the bedroom, sweating and grimacing, and runs to your side. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” James coos softly, trying to soothe and take in the entire situation. “I have to see where you’re at baby, can I look?” 

You nod, grimacing as James lifts up your maternity dress to look between your legs. Obviously he’s been there plenty of times before but… it feels a bit different this time. 

James isn’t entirely sure what he’s supposed to be looking for initially, but it becomes obvious when he looks. Because he can see the head already.

“Reggie!” He calls out to the EMT, who darts into the bedroom behind him. He takes in the scene and quickly realizes what’s going on, that there’s no time to get to the hospital. 

“Shit, okay.” Reggie takes James’ place, and James moves up by your head to hold your hand. 

Everything happens quickly from there. Reggie is able to talk you through what to do. James feels like he might pass out, but he focuses on you. Looking at you, brushing your hair away from your sweaty forehead, letting you squeeze his hand as hard as you need.

This is definitely *not* the birth plan the two of you had made. 

But when all is said and done, when the two of you hear the baby cry and James helps you into the Ambulance to head to the hospital, he finds himself oddly calm. He holds his newborn son as Reggie wheels you into the ER. The doctors check over the both of you, and though they’d like to admit you for a few days just for observation, James still only feels euphoric.

Because everything is fine, you are healthy and safe, and you’ve given him a son. 

James can’t find it in himself to stay panicked. Like he says, he’s never been an anxious person. 

He leans down to press a kiss to your forehead, then the baby’s. 

“I love you.” He whispers to the baby, and then his eyes meet yours. “I love you.”

You blink exhaustedly, but smile, and cuddle your son tighter to your chest. 

“I love you too.” 

°˖✧✿✧˖°

© prettydaisygirl

[serveandchoke]

Message In a Bottle

Jannik Sinner x Reader

Synopsis: You ever send someone a message at 2am and wonder if it actually landed somewhere? This is that — long-distance tension, bad timing, soft yearning, and the one person you can’t stop thinking about no matter what timezone you’re in. Just two people throwing feelings into the universe and hoping the other catches it.

A/N: Hey guys! I'm reallyyyyyy sorry for not writing and publishing! College's been taking up all my time, and I was lucky enough to have the rarity of getting free time so I could write this small fic. I have a few ones in the works, so yeah look out for that one. ♡♡

The thing is — she never meant to fall for him.

Not really. Not like this.

It started harmlessly. A conversation at an event. A shared laugh over the same stupid meme. A follow-back. A couple of DMs. Nothing serious.

But somehow, "nothing serious" turned into late-night FaceTimes. Turned into missing each other’s texts. Turned into looking at the sky in two different countries at the same time, wondering if he was doing the same.

And now, she’s sitting at her kitchen table, staring at her phone, pretending she doesn’t want to text him first.

Because it’s been three days. Not that she’s counting.

(But she’s totally counting.)

--

Jannik’s on the other side of the world — literally. Somewhere between press, practice, and pretending to sleep on a plane again. He’s been running on caffeine and adrenaline, earbuds in, hood up, zoned out to music he can’t even hear.

He’s been trying not to think about her. Not because he doesn’t want to — but because it’s getting harder not to.

It’s stupid, how fast it all happened. How easy it felt. How the second he met her, something in him just… clicked.

She was all fire and charm, didn’t try to impress him, didn’t ask for photos or act like she cared that he was that guy. She just handed him a drink and said, “You looked like you needed this.” And honestly, He did.

And now, weeks later, he’s opening his phone mid-layover, scrolling up on their chat thread just to reread the old stuff.

She hasn’t texted first in days, which means he’s probably next up.

He types:

this airport is so cold it’s actually illegal

Then deletes it.

Types again:

why do all sandwiches in europe taste like regret

Deletes that too.

Jesus. What is he even doing?

---

She’s doing the same thing — hovering over her keyboard, staring at a half-written message:

I walked by a guy who smelled like your cologne and now I hate everyone else

Too much. She deletes it.

Instead she types:

hey, are you alive?

or did you marry your physio and forget to tell me

She hits send before she can overthink it. Then immediately tosses her phone across the couch like it’s cursed. Fuck.

---

He sees the message while boarding the plane.

Smiles. Actually smiles. His physio side-eyes him like he knows something.

He replies:

yes, he proposed. i'm sorry you had to find out like this.

And she fires back:

wow. not even a voice note? fake husband.

The banter slips right back into place. Easy. Familiar. Like no time passed. Like they’re right back in that weird little space between something and not quite.

And Jannik thinks: god, I miss her.

---

Weeks go by like this. Back and forth. Messages in different time zones. Snapshots of whatever city he’s in. Voice notes of her rambling while walking home from work. He saves the ones where she laughs without realizing it. And then, finally–

He has a break. Not long. Just enough.

So he books the flight. Doesn’t even tell her. Just shows up in her city, texting:

any chance you’re home tonight?

She’s confused. Texts back:

yeah?? why

And then her doorbell rings. She opens it, and he’s standing there — hoodie up, hair messy, suitcase by his side. Looking tired. And annoyingly perfect. He grins.

“Hey.”

She just stares for a second. Then hits him in the arm.

“What are you doing here?!”

“I was gonna ask if you had dinner plans,” he shrugs. “But I’ll also accept being physically assaulted.”

She’s still blinking, like she doesn’t believe he’s real.

Then: “You’re seriously here? Just like that?”

He nods. “Just like that.”

She pulls him in — into the apartment, into a hug, into whatever this thing is between them that neither of them wants to label but both of them feel.

And as he wraps his arms around her, tucking his chin into her shoulder, he says it — not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough.

“I kept thinking about you.”

She breathes in his scent. It's familiar, and it's real. It was an addiction.

Warm and kind of overwhelming in the best way.

“Me too,” she whispers.

Because for weeks they’d both been tossing words into the void. Hoping the other would catch them. Hoping timing wouldn’t win.

And now, it feels like the bottle finally washed ashore.

Exactly where it was supposed to.

[that-faerie-in-the-corner]

to my knowledge there is not that much evidence in sources from the time to suggest that Helen's abduction was a cut-and-dry Paris-dragged-her-away-kicking-and-screaming kind of kidnapping, but I think the thing that some people (looking at you, Hollywood writers, put the Gods back where you found them) forget about the situation is that Helen was promised to Paris by Aphrodite. The Judgment is, at the very least, canon to the Iliad's timeline, is it not? A major goddess made an oath to him that as reward for favoring her, this woman would be his, one way or another, that he is owed her

Even if Helen was genuinely infatuated with Paris of her own free will and totally wanted to go with him, is "no" really an option for her in this situation? Could she deny the will of a literal goddess? Like, wow Paris, it sure is convenient that the most beautiful and desired woman in the world, who a Goddess told you could have without asking her, who is the queen of a nation-state (as opposed to the princess marrying you would make her), has been married for some years (to, according to some versions, a man she got to pick! which was pretty fucking rare at that time!), has a young daughter to take care of, and generally an entire established life in the place she was born and raised just so happens to also be SUPER into you and totally willing to uproot her entire life for you and run away to a foreigner's land she's never been to and would not be welcome in (where she might not even speak the language) after knowing you for like, a week. That's really great for you, Paris. Nothing suspicious or Deus-ex-machina-like happening here at all.

not even mentioning Helen's comment to Aphrodite that boils down to "What now? You've got another boyfriend for me in Gods-knows-where you're going to whisk me off to?" Not even mentioning Aphrodite threatens Helen when she doesn't want to sleep with him after his duel with Menelaus

If she ever liked Paris in the first place, she definitely doesn't seem to like him by the time the Iliad takes place, she misses her home and her family and her life and yet she's still walled up in Troy. She certainly didn't want to be pawned off onto another random son of Priam after Paris's death. I guess you could argue that maybe she's staying out of fear of retribution, but no one asks her if she wants to go back and honestly I get the sense that Paris would not let her if she demanded it. Perhaps more importantly, Aphrodite wouldn't let her. She's not giving up her chosen woman without blood being spilled

[massiv3tr33p3rsona]

Sorry For Everything (Part II) | Sinners Multi Pairings

Home Series Finale Part II.

Pairing (s): Elijah ‘Smoke’ Moore (Sinners) x Lucinda (Black Fem OC) (Woman in Top Middle Left: Yseult), Valerie (Black Fem Vampire OC) (Woman in Bottom Right: Nicole Beharie) x Sammie ‘Preacher Boy’ Moore (Sinners) x Pearline (Sinners), Valerie x Elias ‘Stack’ Moore (Sinners) and Valerie x Lucinda

Summary: After Stack escapes after being reborn as a vampire with Valerie revealing herself as one and being on their side, the group is now preparing to take on Remmick’s growing vampire cult amongst their ever growing harassment.

Warnings: 18+ (MINORS DNI!), a bit short, angst, vampirism, emotional feelings, death/rebirth, self sacrifice, violence, blood, breastfeeding (seeing the other side), mentions of racism and slavery, cursing, smoking

Dividers Made By: @cursed-carmine

Parts: I • II • III • IV.I • Epilogue • Prequel

A/N I: I do apologize for taking forever with this again. But Wow. We got two more after this. And it’s all over. Wow. And yeah, I reused Yseult’s pic because her other ones are a little too modern.

THIS IS MY WORK, SO PLEASE DO NOT STEAL IT.

The quartet gets closer to the door as they hear screams from below them, causing them to pause.

Slim’s painful cries fill the room as he lets the vampires tear him apart, sacrificing himself.

This sent a chill down everyone’s spine, with Sammie looking away to hide his tears.

Smoke close his eyes, saying a quick prayer before bringing the gun up to protect himself, checking his surroundings.

“Coast is clear.” he said, looking at them.

Valerie nods before grabbing the doorknob and yanking it open, getting ready to walk out until she stops.

Startled by the presence of the devil himself.

“Sammie!” Remmick said in a demonic voice, shoving everyone back hard.

Lucinda falls into the pole as Pearline and Sammie fall to the ground, leaving Valerie standing up.

She swings at him quick, connecting with his nose, which makes him screech and fall back, grabbing his face.

“Get him, Pearline!” she yelled, seeing the latter get up quickly, taking out her stake.

She attempts to stab his heart, but misses by an inch as he moved quickly, brushing past them.

“Come to daddy, if you want.” he teased, heading towards Valerie.

Smoke shoots at Remmick a few times, knocking him out to the entrance, where he falls down.

As Pearline looks around, a returning Stack pops up from the shadow, biting her neck while holding her body against his.

“NO!” Valerie yelled in a gut wrenching tone, trying to attack him but Lucinda holds her back, shielding her.

Pearline screams from pain, trying to push him off as Stack moaned, enjoying the taste of her blood going down his throat.

“Mm.” he mumbled, feeling her body shake under his hold.

“Pearline!” yelled Sammie, cracking Stack in his head with the gun, which scares him away, dropping Pearline to the floor.

“Sammie, no!” she said tearfully, grabbing her neck to stop the blood from pouring out.

“We can help you.” as he tries to touches her, but she holds up her hand, stopping.

“Go! You can’t stay here!” she added, coughing hard.

Sammie nods fearfully, running to the other women as Stack tries to get him.

Valerie throws a hidden jar of garlic water at him, watching him stumble back in pain.

“You fucking bitch!” he utter, looking at her with rage.

Smoke appears behind him, putting him in a chokehold before they fall to the ground, tussling.

“Jump down! There’s no stairs.” he yells.

The trio looks down, seeing a stack of hay near Smoke’s car.

“That’s a long way down.” said Valerie, looking at the others.

Sammie looks at both women, taking a deep breath before jumping down, landing on the hay safely. He falls to the ground hard as he got up, making both women gasp.

“You okay?!” asked Valerie, watching him get up before picking up the guitar.

“I’m..fine.” he said, grabbing his stomach in pain.

“I’m not jumping down.” said Lucinda, looking away.

“Lu, don’t be hardheaded. It’s not that far.” said Valerie.

“Well, unless someone picks me up and brings me to the ground, I’m not ju—“ is what she was saying.

She’s cut off when Valerie, much to her surprise, lifts her up, holding her tightly before jumping down, both landing on the hay.

“You can do that now?!” yelled Lucinda.

“Just as shocked as you. Now come on!” as Valerie steps down, hitting the ground.

Her and Sammie help Lucinda down, with them getting into Smoke’s car as fast as they could, watching more vampires entered the juke joint.

Lucinda hands Valerie the keys quickly, who starts the car up.

The engine cuts on, with Valerie pushing the pedal to confirm it.

Before they could take off, the door where Sammie was sitting opens, with him screaming as he yanked out of the car by his face.

“Sammie!” Valerie yelled, getting out quickly to hunt whoever dragged him out down.

“Valerie, wait!” said Lucinda, trying to get out.

Turning around the corner, Valerie is struck in the face, causing her to fall down hard, slightly unconscious.

“Just where I want you: on the ground, beneath me.” said a familiar male voice.

She looks up, seeing Remmick watching her, blooding all over his mouth and eyes glowing red.

“Don’t worry. When I’m finish with him, I’ll get back to you.” he said, sniffing her, which makes her back up.

“Besides….your sweet cinnamon scent mixing in with your fear is making me a little hard right now.” as he turned, laughing.

Valerie groans as she feels a bit of burning on her nose, making her grab it and rubbing it away.

As he walks toward Sammie, a group of vampires, controlled by him, walk to them, watching him taunt a very afraid Sammie to the lake.

Whose face was bleeding and scarred from Remmick’s hand burning him.

The group includes a now reborn Pearline, eyes now a bluish colors and fangs very sharp, smiling gleefully.

Lucinda gets out of the car, tending to Valerie, who is now getting very light headed

“What happened?!” she asked, helping her to the car.

“He….he took….Sa…” was all Valerie could get out before passing out, falling onto the seats.

Lucinda gasps, trying to wake her up, but nothing works.

She turns around, seeing Remmick dunks Sammie’s head into the water a few times, citing something she can’t hear.

“What am I gonna do?” she questioned herself, trying to figure out how to stop it.

The dagger, said Valerie, the memory of her, handing it to her playing again.

Looking at the floor in the car, the dagger laid there, shining from the moonlight.

Picking it up, she turns back into Remmick and Sammie’s direction, eyeing her aim to make sure it’s perfect to hit him.

“Àwọn baba ńlá, tí ẹ bá gbọ́ tèmi… jọ̀wọ́ jẹ́ kí èyí kọlu àwọn ènìyàn búburú (Ancestors, if you hear me….please let this strike the wicked ill out).” she said a few times, pricking the tip of her finger with it.

Taking in a deep breath, she throws it really hard and fast, watching it fly.

And fly.

And fly.

Then, SPLAT.

The blade penetrates Remmick’s neck horizontally, watching him groan loudly as he lets go of Sammie, grabbing his neck.

The vampires scream in pain, grabbing their necks like he did, feeling his pain.

“Oh my god…” Lucinda whispered, watching in horror.

Then, Sammie gets up, swings the guitar at Remmick’s head, hitting him clean. The guitar breaks, leaving him with the neck.

Remmick and the vampires scream more, the stinging harming them.

Pearline collapses to the ground, holding her head.

While making sure no one sees her, Lucinda runs towards Pearline, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her to the car, in which she tries to bite Lucinda.

“Woman, if you don’t sto—“ she began, but is cut off by Pearline’s scream, grabbing her chest.

She hears more splashing from the water, seeing Smoke running to pull Sammie out of the water as Remmick screams again, a stake now through his chest.

“You did that?” she asked, watching him nod quickly.

“Yeah.” as he examines her. “You okay?”

She nodded quickly, a small smile coming omto her face as Sammie gets in the car, helping Valerie lay up.

They are interrupted by Pearline trying to bite them, but she is knocked out by Lucinda’s punch, immediately becoming unconscious.

“What are you doing with her, girl?!” asked Smoke, getting mad.

“V needs someone, right?” as Lucinda drags Pearline’s body to the car, with Sammie helping her in.

“You don’t know that. She might wake up and attack all of you since he’s controlling her mind.”

“Not for long.” as she points to the sky, seeing the sun slowly rising, beginning to burn Remmick and them.

He watches in fear, his arm shaking a bit as Lucinda closes Sammie’s door, turning his head away so he doesn’t see it.

“We have to go before it’s too late.” as she runs to the driving side, getting in.

“Lu, I don’t think it’s a good idea to take her with the rest of y’all.“ as he pops up at the window.

Just as she was about to reply, the vision returns, but this time: it’s a different feeling.

Like Smoke is hiding something that he didn’t want her to know, but she could feel it off him body.

“……You didn’t kill Stack, did you?” she asked, eyeing him down.

Smoke pauses, not saying anything as Sammie overhears the exchange, looking at the vampires burning more.

“…..No. No I didn’t.” he admitted, not looking at her.

Lucinda rolls her eyes before starting the car, hearing it come on.

“I almost got him. But I couldn’t do it. Cause my whole life, I’ve been running with him, searching for freedom.” he began, looking at the juke joint.

“Went to war. Ran Chicago. Shaking motherfuckers up. Doing whatever we could. While loosing some important people.” as he looks at Lucinda, seeing her with a disappointed look.

“If it makes you feel better, I made him swore that he won’t bother you, the baby, Val, or Sammie for the rest of his life.”

She shakes her head, sighing at she looks at him, hurt all over her face now.

“I get that he’s your brother. But he also took our Annie.” she said, tears forming.

“She was the love of our lives who did a lot to make sure we were both safe….and he took that. I know he had to do it cause Remmick wanted Preacher Boy, but wow. Could’ve saved her.” she added, sniffling.

“And it’s not even my life he ruined. He ruined theirs too.” as she looked at Valerie, Pearline, and Sammie.

“Had he done right with Valerie, she wouldn’t have killed herself and became a vampire. But maybe my great grandfather knew she deserved another chance. Which is why she was here.” she added, tracing over Valerie’s face.

“Sammie wanted to play the blues and be away from his terrible home life. Same with Pearline. Now she has to spend the rest of her life as a vampire while he goes on to do what he love to do.” she said, seeing Sammie looking at her instantly.

“So yeah. I’m saving her a lifetime partner and him a chance to start his new life because she saved my life. She saved his life. And she saved our baby’s life. So an eye for an eye.” as she looks at Smoke with pity.

Smoke nods, not saying anything for a while as she watches him.

“….fair.” he added, giving up.

Lucinda grabs his face, examining it before leaning in to kiss him quickly before hugging him.

“See you on other side.” she whispered, kissing his cheek.

“Take care, Lu. Take care, Sammie.” he said, looking over at the later.

Sammie nods as he examines the head, not looking at him as Lucinda pulls the driving stick down.

“Don’t make too much of a mess. You know we have to come back and clean it.” she said, driving off slowly.

Smoke nods, watching the car run over a few decaying vampires along the way, finally exiting onto the road.

He turns around, watching the vampires burn as the sun shines over them, their skin sizzling as Remmick turns into dust, finally gone.

After a few minutes of standing there, he walks to the hidden truck, pulling off a box. He opens it, revealing a machine gun and taking it out.

He takes out a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it up as he accepted his fate is near, puffing out smoke.

“Let’s kill some white motherfuckers.” he mumbled, beginning to set up.

As she speeds as fast she could down the road, she leans over, grabbing Sammie’s hand to hold.

“We did it. We survived.” she said tearfully as her and a shaken up Sammie smiles, the latter holding the piece of guitar to his chest.

“Now let’s get my girls some time to recover.” he said, rubbing Valerie and Pearline’s faces as he looked out of the window.

He sees the sun rising behind the trees, feeling the car moving a lot more faster.

13 Hours Later

A truck pulls up to the juke joint, cautiously creeping up.

It parks just a few feet away from the others, turning off.

The doors opening, with Lucinda, Sammie, a now recovered Valerie, and a now recovered Pearline stepping out, examining the area.

“Jesus…” said Valerie, taking in how awfully quiet it was right now.

Just a day ago, everyone was drinking, partying, talking, dancing to music, and just having a good time with being free from whatever they had going on.

Now it’s a ghost town, with parked cars that no one is going to touch anymore, the opening showing the lights still being on with dead vampire bodies laying there, and the dead bodies of the KKK laying all over the lot.

“You think Smoke survived?” asked Sammie, beginning to walk around.

“Would be a miracle if he did.” said Valerie, holding Pearline’s hand as they walked around.

“I’m hungry. Are any of these men safe to eat?” asked Pearline, taking in the fresh scent of dead bodies.

“They are. Just making sure none of them are still alive.” she said, letting her go.

Lucinda moves further away, trying to find Smoke in hopes that he did survive his shootout against the KKK.

“One thing I can say: I see why he got the nickname Smoke cause damn, he lit their asses up.” as Pearline leans down to one Klan member’s body, picking at his flesh.

As Lucinda gets closer to the opening, she sees a black male body laying near, wearing the same exact clothes Smoke was wearing last time she saw him.

Holding her breath, she walks to it, kneeling slowly as she examines his face. He looked peaceful with his eyes closed, not worry about anything going on.

As she looks further, she sees a fresh patch of blood his undershirt was covering near his left waist. She wraps her hand around his wrist, checking for a pulse.

There wasn’t one, confirming his death as Sammie, Valerie, and Pearline walk up, seeing her let go of his wrist.

“Smoke’s dead.” she said somberly, looking at the group.

They look down, feeling bad that they have lost another important person in their lives.

“Any Klan still alive?” she asked, standing up.

“Nope. All dead.” said Sammie, looking up.

“Good.” as she nodded. “Cause we got a lot of to clean up.”

“How bout y’all leave that to me and Pearline? Since it’s a lot of them.” asked Valerie, looking around.

“I don’t know….might take y’all a while.” said Sammie.

“A while?! Baby, we vampires. We move fast now.” said Pearline, smiling a bit.

“You know….I’m enjoying this new side of you quite a lot.” as Valerie wraps her hands around Pearline’s waist.

“Cause you got your perfect companion for life.” said Pearline, leaning in close to kiss her.

“So fuck me huh?” said Sammie, making both women turn to look at him.

“Now, you know you can’t be with a vampire while you going around, being a rising blues star.” said Pearline, examining his fresh scars on face.

“Might make things worse if they ever found out what me and Val were, being around you.” she added, gently touching it.

He winces a bit, removing her hand softly before placing soft kisses on it.

“I know. And I’m glad it’s her you’re staying with.” he said, kissing her hand again.

Pearline blushes as he lets go of her hand, stepping back.

“Alright. I’ll do the left, you do the right?” as she looks at Valerie, tossing her scarf off.

Valerie nods, with both women getting in position.

Then, POOF.

They took off at high speed, each collecting bodies with each pass, tossing them in the lake.

Lucinda and Sammie watch in amazement, feeling their breeze blowing at them. The women stop when they came to Hogwood’s body, noticing the numerous bullet holes in his body.

“You can tell which one he wanted to killed the most.” said Pearline, tracing over his arm.

“And he got it.” said Valerie, walking towards the juke joint.

“Eat him, Pearl. He would be major evidence that might get more of Clarksdale harmed. Sammie and Lu, come with me.” she added.

Lucinda and Sammie followed her as Valerie began mauling through Hogwood’s body, ripping out and eating his flesh.

The trio looks around the well lit room, which was once filled with everyone having a good time and music playing under the low hue lights.

Now lays the charred bodies of Bo and Grace at the opening.

Annie’s lays in the middle of the floor.

And Slim’s, whose body was 50% gone, laid on the stage.

Lucinda covers her mouth, trying to prevent her emotions from coming out as Valerie walked towards the stage.

“Sammie, go get those blankets Smoke has on his truck. Bring extra just in case.” said Lucinda, following Valerie.

Sammie nodded, walking out to the truck.

Valerie examines Slim’s upper half, noting the open flesh and multiple scratches all over his arms, chest, and neck. His bruised eye, nose, and sliced jaw.

Almost similar to how their people were brutally killed or harmed by Klan.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen to this place since they’re not here anymore. Hell, I don’t know if I can run Annie’s shop on my own.” Lucinda began, looking around.

“Don’t say that.” as Valerie looks at her.

“She taught you everything you need to know about Hoodoo and witchcraft. You did sales on your own. All while loving her.” she added, watching her smile.

“Plus….you might have ownership of this place.”

“Doubt it. He just met me yesterday. Don’t think he even knew about my existence to even added me to the paper.” said Lucinda.

“Yeah. Until baby Smoke is born.”

“Even that won’t be enough.”

Sammie returns, carrying the blankets and placing them in front of the women.

“You can’t let them take back something that was paid for.”

“And even if I did, what am I going to do with this place? Can’t run a juke joint while raising a baby.”

“Why not move Annie’s shop to here?” asked Sammie.

Valerie picks up a blanket, dragging it to the stage, laying it next to Slim’s body.

“You’ll have enough space for the products. A garden to grow some. Maybe a farm. Just need some people.” said Sammie, following Valerie.

They carefully lifted Slim’s body and placed it on the blanket, wrapping it carefully.

Lucinda watches them carefully carry out his body to the truck as Pearline enters, chewing on a heart as her dress is covered in blood.

“Damn, girl. Did you get enough?” asked Lucinda, looking her up and down.

“Not my fault I haven’t eaten all day!” said Pearline, swallowing a piece.

Lucinda chuckles as Sammie and Valerie returns, heading to Annie’s body now.

Unfolding the blanket, they lay it down carefully before going to Annie, with Lucinda following them.

“Pearline, we might need your assistance.” said Valerie, looking at her.

Pearline tosses the heart out, following Valarie’s directions to where to lift her up at.

“Wait.” Lucinda said, stopping them.

She kneels down, tracing over her face, her skin very cold under her touch. She places a kiss in her forehead before getting quickly, turning away.

“Okay, you can take her.” she said, coughing a bit.

They carefully lift Annie up, wrapping her and carrying her to the truck.

“Alright. Just Smoke is all we have to do and we’ll be on our way.” said Valerie, grabbing one from the truck.

Sammie nods, watching her drag it to Smoke’s body, laying it next to him.

As they began to move his body, Lucinda hears a baby cooing, making her slowly look over towards the lake.

She sees Annie standing there, dressed in a white dress and baby breaths. She’s breastfeeding Analise, rocking her as Smoke comes from behind, kissing her face.

He rubs Analise’s arm, watching her little hand wrap around his finger, smiling.

“Pa and Mama’s here. We’re here, little Ana.” he said, hearing her coo.

They both look at Lucinda, sending her a smile before slowly fading away into the dark, leaving Lucinda astounded.

She gasps, feeling her heart beating fasting as she kneels down, beginning to wail loudly.

Valerie, Pearline, and Sammie run over, comforting Lucinda as the latter brought her to his shoulder.

“They….they were holding her.” she began, sniffling.

“All happy….at peace.” she added, smiling a bit.

The trio nodded, not saying anything to that.

40 Minutes Later

Lucinda arrives back to the shop in the truck, backing it up. Pearline arrives in Smoke’s car, Valerie in the one she stole from Harold, and Sammie in Stack’s car.

The women get out, but Sammie stays in the car, patiently waiting for them to go in, catching Valerie’s attention.

“How bout you go in and rest for a bit while we talk to Sammie, Lu?” she said, grabbing Pearline’s hand.

Lucinda nods, waving at him before walking into the house. The women walk up to Sammie, who was adjusting his seat.

“You about to leave?” asked Pearline, leaning against his door.

“I is.” as he nodded.

“Where you gonna go?” asked Valerie.

“Smoke told me about a little black town called Mound Bayou. Said it houses the upper middle and more, along with other talents.”

“You’re gonna play out there?”

“For a bit. Until I get enough money to head north.”

“And what’s your plan after that?”

“….hopefully someone sees my worth and gets me a deal somewhere.”

Valerie nods, kissing his cheek before backing up.

“Good luck on your journey. Hope you do well.”

Sammie smiles, looking at Pearline. They lean in for a long, steamy kiss, breaking away before it went over.

“Take care, Preacher Boy.” said Pearline, stepping back to stand with Valerie.

“Take care, Pearline.” he replied, shifting the stick low.

He pulls onto the road, driving off to chase his dreams as the women, and Lucinda from the porch, watch.

They turn to the latter, seeing her holding a basket of many different items, flower petals, and powders.

“What’s that for?” asked Pearline.

“Their graves.” as Lucinda walks down, heading to Analise’s grave.

The women followed, seeing her kneel to place it on the ground before heading to the truck.

“Come help me take them down.” she said, pulling at the first body.

They obliged, helping her take down all three bodies and placing them on the ground.

Pearline and Valerie grabs shovels, beginning to dig up holes for Annie and Smoke respectively, before coming together to dig up one for Slim.

After finishing, which only took an hour for them in comparison to four hours, they safely lowered the bodies into their graves, burying them.

Finishing the top layer, Lucinda begins to assembled each one, adding items that represented them just like the ones on Analise’s grave.

For Slim, she left a harmonica, a jar of white carnation petals, a gold ring, and a bottle of whiskey.

For Annie, she left a jar of dandelion petals and garlic, variety of green herbs, rosemary and cinnamon powder, her Mojo Bag, and a silver ring.

Lastly, for Smoke, she left a jar of rose petals, a cigarette box of lavender cigarettes, his lighter, his pipe, and his military tags.

She stood up, looking at the graves standing out on their own before turning to the women.

“Let’s bow our heads.” she uttered, lowering hers.

Valerie and Pearline followed, lowering theirs.

“Jẹ ki gbogbo yin ni irin-ajo ailewu. Ki gbogbo yin ni aabo (May you all have a safe journey. May you all be protected).” Lucinda said, closing her eyes tightly.

Silence fell upon them as soft breathing came out of their mouths, taking in her saying.

Lucinda lifts up her head, exhaling quietly.

“Well. I guess it’s time for you guys to get ready to leave.” she said, watching them look up.

They nodded, walking to Harold’s car.

Pearline gets in the passenger as Valerie stands in front of Lucinda, leaning against it.

“You sure you don’t want us to stay to help raise the baby?” she asked, watching Lucinda shake her head.

“Eventually, people are gonna question the missing folks soon, so I don’t think it’s safe for you two to stay.” she replied.

“So what are you gonna do?”

“Call my people in Louisiana, tell them to come live with me. Cause I got a lot of things to change. Lay low as best as I can.”

“Mm. Good idea.”

“What are y’all gonna do?”

“Think I’ll take her back to Chicago.” as Valerie looks at Pearline.

“Live there for a few years before we relocate to somewhere else.” as she looks back at Lucinda.

“Thinking about coming back?”

“Maybe.” as she shrugged. “If you’re comfortable with me being around the baby.”

“…I am.” as Lucinda smiled. “I think he’ll like you a lot.”

Valerie nods, opening the door.

“Hope he’s healthy.” as she stepped into the car.

“It was nice meeting you.” she said, holding her hand out.

Lucinda shakes it, sending her a small smile.

“Nice meeting you too. Wish things didn’t go the way they did.”

“….not everything turns out perfect. But in the end, just dwelling on the *good.”

Pearline lays her head on Valerie’s shoulder, earning a quick peck on her forehead.

“Take care, Pearline.” Lucinda said, stepping back.

“Stay safe, Lucinda.” replied Pearline.

Valerie starts the car, shifting the stick.

They wave goodbye to Lucinda as she pulls, heading onto the road to begin their long journey to Chicago in the dark.

Lucinda watches for a few minutes, the cool air blowing on her and accompanying her growing blues.

“You know, I always wanted to go to New York.” said Pearline, tracing over Valerie’s face.

“Maybe in the future, my love.” as Valerie squeezes her thigh, hearing her moan quietly.

“But for now, I have to train to act exactly like how I do. Just so you don’t easily expose yourself when we’re out at night.” she added, looking at her.

“Is it rough during the first phase?” asked Pearline.

“…..very. But you’ll get use to it eventually.”

Pearline nods, lying back as she looks out of the window, enjoying passing by trees.

Valerie smiles, having a lot of hope in their future of the rest of their lives together.

A few minutes later, Lucinda gets into Smoke’s car and drives back to the house, the sole resident.

Entering and turning on the lights, she looks around the living room, where Annie usually sits, reading books of teachings on the couch or practicing a new spell.

She enters the kitchen, where the faint scent of Smoke’s cigarette lingered, revealing that he stopped by here before coming to the shop.

Looking at the counter, she sees piles of paper laid out, all addressed to him as she pours herself a glass of water, spilling some over it.

“Shit.” she mumbled, getting a towel to clean it up.

As she dabs it across some of the papers, she sees one that had the name of the building and address on it, making her pick it up.

She reads it, which assigns Smoke and Stack as the owners of the building, with cash as the payment to the seller, Hogwood.

All three now dead.

Well, Stack is still moving around.

Going down, she sees a category that had the title, INHERITORS, which is a list of people that can own the place incase the both of them and an inheritor died.

And two names, making her pause a bit.

Reading on, the first one was to Annie Moore.

His wife. His sister-in-law. Her girlfriend. Also deceased.

The second one was to…..Lucinda Tureau.

Her name.

Making her look at it over and over in shock, trying to figure out how he knew about her before they even met.

She looks at the counter, seeing multiple papers mixed in.

Until she landed on an unopened blue envelope with her name on it, picking it up.

Picking up the paper again, she flipped to the last page, seeing both of the twins signatures, Hogwood’s signature, yesterday’s date, and the time of 10:45 AM.

Three hours after they left for the shop.

Lucinda cries, very heartbroken that she is doing this on her own without either one of them being here for her.

Only way to keep their presence known is by telling her unborn child about them, hoping he understands everything.

And hoping one day, she sees Valerie and Pearline again before she goes.

A/N II: Wow. We just have Don’t Let Go and Runner left, concluding the Home series 🤧.

🏷️ : @iloveekeiarah @childishgambinaax @ziayamikaelson @ssamm1984 @turbulentvoids @fadingcherryblossompeach @angryflowerwitch @amethyst09 @motheroffae @cerya @thatitbitch @darkfairymoon @j0ysyndr0m3 @theogbadbitch @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @dollys-world224 @blaqueberryk

[dragonzfanfics11]

«★Another nightfury?²★»

Hiccup x reader (w nightfury!)

Summery - hiccup decides to show you berk and trys his best to learn more about you! you also meet one of hiccups friends! along with staying the night at hiccups hut! (In a guest room 😅)

Warnings - nothing major besides possible spelling errors, reader is said to not want to reveal the hidden nightfury home, your nightfury is very untrusting twords Astrid and hiccup still, let me know if I miss anything :]

New character speech colors - Astrid

Part 1 ★ Part 2 ★ Part 3? ★

Here's a part 2 for y'all! Hope you like it!! :] I tried to add more romantic tension (idk what exactly to call it) plz tell me if it's good or not I've never done like slow burn before 😭

→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→

~Reader background to clear any confusion!~

~You grew up in a place similar to the hidden world except it's full of nightfury's! You do your best to make sure nobody finds out about it to protect the nightfurys from hunters (I should've added this in the first part 😅)~

♪

After quite a bit of convincing hiccup managed to get you to go back to berk with him

Currently you were riding your dragon while he rode toothless

"so..there's been an entire village we're vikings and dragons live in peace? This whole time?"

"Well not the whole time it's been a few years since we befriended dragons"

You nod slightly to his words and your dragon lets out a small huff twords toothless, who seemed super excited and kept trying to interact with your dragon playfully

After a few moments of tense silence, other then the two nightfurys chirps and grumbling sounds, hiccup breaks it

"so where are you from? I've never seen many other dragon riders or anyone who's lived out where we found you"

You tense at the question, you weren't supposed to tell people about about where you grew up, to make sure the other nightfurys won't be discovered, quickly you make up an excuse on the spot

"oh uh- I'm uh not really sure, I travel a lot y'know? Ever since I was young.."

Hiccup notices the way you tensed at the question but decides not to comment on it, "maybe they just have a rough past or something?" He thought to himself

"You travel a lot? We do to! Me and toothless here love to explore new places don't we bud?"

Toothless lets out a happy snort in response before giving his dragon smile twords nyx who gives him a slightly odd look before attempting to do it herself

"that's neat, there's lots of beautiful islands all over that have no vikings around, just dragons and other small critters everywhere"

You smile slightly at the thought, the first time you've smiled since you've met hiccup

He didn't even realize he was staring until you turned you head to look at him for not responding and he quickly looked away, his face turning red from embarrassment

"oh thor, why was I staring?? All they did was smile for-"

Hiccup mentally panicked before you spoke again, interrupting his thoughts

"are you ok? Did I say something wrong or-"

"no!"

Hiccup said way to quickly, before he quickly trys to compose himself, clearing his throat awkwardly

"uh- I mean no, no you didn't say anything wrong, it's just- it's nothing"

You look at him confused before he glances ahead and recognizes the familiar island of berk, he silently thanked the gods for giving him an excuse to end this awkward moment-

"oh! There's berk!"

"that's your home?"

You were both still some distance away but the place was definitely big, and full of people along with dragons, but the people caught your attention more since it was a lot more then your used to seeing compared to the ships you've seen from a distance.

"wow that's....a lot of people..."

"yea, berk is definitely not a small village"

He chuckled softly to himself before glancing over at you, noticing you seemed a bit nervous

"we can land down at my place if you want, we don't really have to go straight through berk, meet a few people at a time if your more comfortable with that"

You look at him mildly surprised, not expecting him to give you the option to avoid the huge crowd of people

"uh, yea...that be great actually.."

"Ok, follow me"

He smiles at you slightly before urging toothless's to fly a bit further ahead, you and your dragon not far behind

You and hiccup both land at the front of his hut and dismount your dragons, toothless buddies your dragon to show them some random things in which she slowly follows but never leaves your line of sight , still seeming to not fully trust hiccup

"she really doesn't like me huh?

Hiccup spoke up after noticing your dragons glares that has yet to fully leave him

"yea...she doesn't really like people"

"she likes you"

"Well I practically grew up with her"

"You-"

Before he could even ask more about anything, which he really wanted to- for reasons even he didn't know, Astrid interrupted him while riding stormfly, landing a few feet away

"hiccup! There you are! Where have you be-"

She stops instantly when she sees you, not yet noticing your dragon who was being distracted by toothless's for the moment

"oh Astrid! Hey, uh this is y/n, y/n this is Astrid"

Hiccup piped up while vaguely waving a hand towards you with a smile

"uh hey.."

You wave slightly in somewhat of a greeting, your definitely not used to talking to many people in general, let alone the normal greetings for a simple conversation

"hiccup what's she doing here? We have enough mouths to feed as is and how do we know we can even trust this stranger?"

"relax Astrid we can trust her"

"how do you know that? She could be a dragon trapper or spy for all we know!"

"I'm not-"

By now the small commotion has caught your dragons attention and she quickly tried over, toothless's following with confusion in the dragons sudden shift

It wasn't long before your dragon was at your side, sitting on her back legs to look taller and wings slightly extend to look more threatening, glaring at the blond girl

"Whoa! D/n no! Calm down!"

You quickly stand in front of your dragon, arms raised to try and calm her down, stormflys spikes stood defensively behind Astrid but didn't look ready to actually strike

Astrid on the other hand- stook completely baffled

"and uh- Astrid this is y/n's dragon, a-"

"Nightfury.."

"Yea...."

You stand awkwardly next to your dragon, who still wasn't giving an inch of trust to Astrid or hiccup but you had at least calmed her down enough to not be ready to attack the nearest person

"I can't believe it..another nightfury after all this time? How'd you find her? Is there more out there?"

"uh- I um-"

You barely have much time to try and think of any comeback to her questions, trying to think of any believable excuse to hide the truth

"Astrid don't overwhelm them, they just got here and needs time to get used to the place"

"get used to the place?-"

"yea, that'd be nice actually"

-time skip to hiccups hut-

"here's where you can stay tonight, I know the spare room doesn't have much but it at least has a bed and some extra clothes that hopefully fit you"

Hiccup says with a slightly awkward chuckle as he shows you the guest room

"it's nice actually, I don't normally sleep in places like this..y'know with traveling all the time"

"why do you travel so much anyways?"

"uh- it's just....nicer to see new things I guess.."

"do you even have a place to call home?"

You paused slightly at the question, you want to tell hiccup about the hidden nightfury home, I mean he has a nightfury that practically his best friend and he seemed nice enough

But you also didn't want to let your guard down and risk the nightfury home being discovered by the wrong kind of people

"I'm sorry that was probably rude to ask.."

You snap out of your thoughts and look up at him, realizing you must've zoned out

"no! No it wasn't rude it's just hard to explain exactly.."

He just quietly looks at you for a moment before deciding it was best to change the subject

"uhm- d/n can sleep over here, toothless's spot has enough room for-"

Before he could finish, your dragon pushed past him and into the guest room, laying down next to the bed with a huff

Toothless lets out a disappointed snort and waddles over to his own spot

"nevermind then"

Hiccup says with a chuckle and you laugh a bit with him

"yea, we usually sleep near eachother most nights, kinda just habit now"

You and hiccup stand in silence for a few moments that lingered between awkward and strangely comfortable..

You were first to break the silence

"well uh, goodnight hiccup"

"yea, goodnight..see you in the morning"

"You to"

Then you and hiccup both went to your respective rooms for the night

→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→♪→

Sorry for such the long wait for this!! 😅 I'm not exactly sure how much I like this but I thought the same for the last one and y'all loved it so hopefully it goes the same for this chapter!

Next chapter will probably have hiccup finding out about the other nightfurys 🤔

I do have some voting that I would really appreciate if you participate cuz it'll help me get a better idea what to do next chapter!

★Taglist★

@fries11 @staygoldsquatchling02 @teeesthings @fvckiminthecloset @agsggebhzgehkfisnx

(I'm sorry if I missed you or tagged the wrong person!! I'm still new to tag lists)

[clockworkreapers]

Hey Hey Hey- I can show my contribution to the 2025 HS fan calendar! I did the art for February and got to work on it with a ton of really amazing artists- if you'd like to see everyone's work and keep this going be sure to get yours here! https://hsfancalendar.carrd.co/

[geniemillies]

gonna start prythian fashion pieces where i draw court royalty in very nice very whimsical very traditional fae attire befitting their court bc fashion design is my passion

[blackbatofel]

SuperBat but they're 2 complete strangers stuck sitting next to each other on a 16-hour long flight ✈️

This is a really fun idea! I imagine it would go similarly to what we see in Superman/Batman annual 1, which is, of course, the precious annual that gave us the wonderful "there's only one bed" situation.

But back to why I think it would be similar. The thing is, if they're forced to share space for so long while they're still strangers, I'm sure they wouldn't stand each other in the beginning. In this annual they only share a room (and a bed he he) for a few hours because of a booking mistake, but that's enough to have Brucie Wayne and Clark Kent throwing pointed comments at each other and bantering like they're the worst of rivals (and they don't even know they're Batman and Superman yet!!)

So yeah, those first hours of the flight would be... interesting, to say the least. But of course, they would eventually come to (reluctantly) enjoy each other's company. I believe that in the course of those 16 hours they would end up showing more of who they truly are and, well, things would go from there. By the end of the flight Bruce would for sure find himself infatuated with the smart and stronger than it seems reporter from Kansas who refuses to take any of Brucie's shit, and Clark would realize that this rich boy from Gotham isn't as bad as he tries to appear.

After all, the annual ends like this, so I don't see a 16-hour long flight ending any different:

[presiding]

you'll never guess which level we're up to in this dishonored 2 rewrite

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Full Tech Day One pic today from kiko laureano (denizen of skid row / ensemble) & video (that's four seconds of "ya never know" playing over the static image) from & ft. marcia milgrom dodge (director / choreographer) double captioning "there might be puppets in this musical ;)" & "Well Shake my hand! Come see LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS @guthrietheater featuring @actually_will_roland's hand!"

[mushroompollution]

gonna b real w you all I do not understand how Pandora couldn't find that sealing stone

[theinfinitedivides]

I SAID IT BEFORE BUT I MEAN IT NOW. GIVE THIS MAN HIS F*CKING BAEKSANG ISTG HE ATE THAT SH*T AND LEFT NO F*CKING CRUMBS

[assmundr]

"Because we all know that a woman is not a woman until pregnancy/childbirth/motherhood/rape/infertility/other uterus related topics, is an integral part of her story" lol preach

If I had a penny for every time I encountered this in a story, I would have enough money to be able to quit my job and fully focus on the second part of the Asmundr/Home review lmao

Little tangent under the cut

I am honestly so tired of this still being an issue in the year of our Lord, 2025. It's even worse then the writer/artist are attempting to portray something "progressive" through their writing, but still somehow end up doing this.

Like, Andy Weird for an example. I loved The Martian and Project Hail Mary is honestly one of my the most favourite books I have ever read (read Project Hail Mary PLEASE I'm begging you I AM BEGGING ON MY KNEES-) but his second released book, Artemis? Atrocious. I have no idea what possessed him after he wrote the deliciousness that is The Martian to then spit out the kind of lukewarm mess Artemis was. I couldn't get past 60 pages, and I only got that far because I loved his two other books and wanted to push through. But I couldn't.

It absolutely is because of the main character, who is a woman (unlike the main characters in The Martian and PHM) and just kinda written as if an alien once did a Google search on what a woman was, spent 20 minutes reading about them on Reddit, then wrote a book about one. Nearly on every page, the reader gets reminded that the main character has boobs and has sex, because it's the most progressive thing ever to say women fuck!!! The MC has "not like other girls" vibe that obnoxiously overtakes over everything else happening in the book itself.

One of the worst books I have ever read, The Spectres, has many issues, but the biggest one gotta be how Every. Single. Female. Character. in it's story is defined by what male character they're currently attracted to. Every. Single. One. No matter who's POV it is, if it's a woman, her internal monologue and their actions will always circle back to the man she's into, completely defining her by her attraction to them instead of, you know, defining her by her personality like a regular person should be. And yes, this book was written by a man, if you were wondering.

It's even funnier when other people call this shit out, but then write it into their stories themselves, either being completely oblivious to it or bending back over backwards to excuse why it's okay if they do it. I once knew a person who heavilly criticised the badly handled sexual assault/rape in Home but then they had their own character raped/taken advantage of MULTIPLE TIMES for the sake of cheaply written drama and also have them have like seventeen miscarriages, too, because we all know the story of a person with a uterus isn't compelling until something like that happens to them. They also had a character they used as a clown and a comic relief in their writing that they were weirdly attracted to, while they were also a rapist (who assaulted several characters. Yes, it includes the previously mentioned one as well) All of this while they called out Home and Kique for misusing these topics for cheap drama/trauma/shock value.

I'm just. I'm so tired of this. I'm tired of seeing women and female presenting characters in media that's not even of this niche be written this way. Have rape, assault, pregnancy/birth related trauma thrown in left and right as if those are the traits that define women. I am tired of having to research the media I wanna engage with, whether it's a movie, a game or a book, to figure out if something like this will be a part of it's story. I don't mind at all reading about this, mind you. What I do mind, however, is when it's cheaply used as a sterotypical "female" trauma authors throw into stories so they can then label them as dark or provoking or some other shit. A woman is more than her uterus, a woman is more than a vessle for some cheap drama, and I am getting really tired of seeing this writing so often.

[fellhellion]

Ngl, I’m not entirely sure where the “Miguel and Hobie hate each other” reading comes from, when from their like. One interaction i don’t personally get the impression they think much about each other at all shdhdjfjf

Miguel seems kind of exasperated with Hobie sure, but the tone of that interaction is relatively lighthearted. It’s more of a joke that by virtue of Miguel being a stringent rule follower, Hobie not caring overly much about those rules exasperates him. And Hobie knows it annoys Miguel and thinks that’s funny, thus prodding him again with the “I’m not even here/nah still here” routine. But there doesn’t seem to be like, genuine personal anger on either side. Just an ideological divide that actualises even further when Miles’ very existence provides another answer to the overhanging stakes.

[saetiate]

okay i ran out of space in the tags when i was almost finished sorry for the additional short comments here :') please read the tags first and then this comment ahaha i have been commenting as i go through!!! tldr this is a beautiful fic i have been so excited to read it and your writing is brilliant!!!

OHMYGOD THE WAY THAT MYDEI WAS CAPTURED??? omg this plot twist... waugasf;jds i cannot believe this i am jaw dropped fr

WAHH IM SO EXCITED TO READ THE NEXT PART!!! i love that at the end he allows reader to feed him :') I WANNA KNOWW what the conditions are and how he gets out and i wanna see him and reader's relationship progress!!! im so excited ahaha this has been so fun!!! thank you for sharing your writing w the world!!!

Series Synopsis: When the husband you’ve never met returns from the war you’ve never understood, he comes bearing a strange and inexplicable gift — a prince in chains who he refuses to kill.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Mydei x F!Reader

Chapter Word Count: 10.2k

Content Warnings: pls check the masterlist there is. a lot. and i’m not retyping all of that LOL

A/N: I AM SOO SCARED TO POST THIS NGL LMAOAO like i said in the warnings i literally. have not played amphoreus yet. idek anything about mydei SDKJH i am so worried i will disappoint everyone who's expressed interest in reading this HAHA i was also. not expecting anyone to do that tbh. BUT thank you all for your kind words on the masterlist and i hope this lives up to expectations at least a bit!!

You spent the day of your wedding with a man made of marble — a stand-in for your new husband, who was off fighting in a war of the kind which had neither cause nor, seemingly, end. The statue was carved in his image and sneered down at you as you whispered to it, swearing vows of duty and obedience and docility, but, in spite or maybe because of its detached lifelessness, you found its presence to be a kindness. What did it say of your husband, that you preferred the company of that dead stone to him? Perhaps very much, or perhaps very little. 

He is a generous man, the servants assured you, giggling amongst themselves, exchanging knowing looks as they dragged you into the foreign palace where you would spend the rest of your days. You will want for nothing.

It was draftier than your home, the wind bouncing off of the white walls and nipping at you skin. You spent your time buried under seven-and-twenty layers of furs and fabrics, lying in an unfamiliar bed and flinching away from the shadows upon the ceiling. This was an idle and dull way to waste away your existence, and yet you could not bring yourself to do anything else, trapped in the mire of waiting and waiting for your husband’s return.

He came back in the third month, which was as auspicious as anything. They loved that number here, you had come to find: three, the symbol of fortune and fate, of magic and mischief, of power and punishment. Three vows sworn; three blessings granted; three months passed before you finally met the man you had married.

There was much fanfare about his arrival. When you peered out of the window, you saw that the streets were stuffed to the bursting with throngs of people shoving one another around, hissing and biting as they craned their necks. At first it surprised you — was he truly so loved here, even when he was elsewhere despised? — but then you realized that it was not your husband upon his charger that they were all lined up to meet. Rather, it was the procession following him which captured their interests, the spoils of war which he displayed with a juvenile, worthless pride.

A triad of elephants covered in finely wrought armor, their heads hung low and resigned, their plodding walks spiritless and lame. A herd of sheep with silver wool, dotting the dark cobblestones like a cluster of stars, stumbling along at the prodding of a soldier-turned-shepherd. A wagon filled with spears and swords, ostensibly once neatly stacked, now a matted mess of steel and bronze. Vases carried in the arms of the younger men, overflowing with coins that trailed after them like breadcrumbs, snatched up by the most daring of the onlookers, who did not fear rebuke. And, finally, in a place so honorable it could only have been mocking—

“Lady,” a soft voice said. You drew your coat tighter around you, although today was, by all accounts, warm for the season, and pretended like you did not hear the girl. She sighed and then tugged on your arm insistently; perhaps it was improper, but there wasn’t anyone who would chide her for it. “You have been summoned by his majesty.”

Hadn’t you known this would happen eventually? Hadn’t you expected it? You had had your time to come to terms with it, which was more than most got, and so there was no excuse for the reluctance which choked your throat and stilled your footsteps. This was your duty, this was what you had sworn, and so — and so you could not hesitate.

“Lady…” the girl said with another sigh. You pretended to be all-consumed with the action of closing the curtains, your back to her as you struggled to force a smile onto your face. When you deemed your expression acceptable, you spun around and nodded at her.

“It will not do to keep him waiting,” you said, motioning for her to lead the way. She did so without complaint, perhaps relieved that you were not giving her further trouble; even now, the servants did not know what to think of you, could not quite fathom what category of being you were. Some were fond of you, but most treated you with a careful distrust that you could not blame them for, even though you sometimes wanted to.

The grand entrance hall of the palace opened to the mouth of the road, which swelled out into a sprawling courtyard. Its centerpiece was an enormous fountain which sprayed a fine, cool mist into the air no matter the time of year, and it was by this fountain that you waited, wringing your hands as your husband drew nearer and nearer. Belatedly, you thought that you should try to conceal your distress, but there was nothing to be done about it now. The best you could do was say, if you were asked, that it was simply the joy of a bride faced with the prospect of a reunion with her beloved. Nobody would question that, although then again, nobody questioned you very much in general, so it was doubtful that you’d even have to use the quick excuse.

Your husband’s warhorse was a sprightly, slender beast, its coat the dappled grey of royalty, its face pretty and dished in the way of the Eastern breeds. When it paused in front of you, it shoved its black muzzle into your shoulder, nearly knocking you down, and then it stomped its hoof when your husband tightened the reins, pulling it back before dismounting and handing it off to a waiting stableboy. 

“My apologies, dear lady,” he said, bowing before you with as much gallantry as you had been told he possessed. His voice was gentle and amused, his face even more handsome in flesh than it had been in stone; you should’ve, by all rights, felt pleased. You were married to this man. You belonged to him. How many women wished to be in your place? Yet all you could muster was fear, throttling and all-consuming. He was beautiful in the way of a snake, and you knew without knowing that he was poised, in some way, to strike.

“It is alright,” you said, disguising the tremble of your voice with a broad, false grin. “I am glad to finally make your acquaintance…my lord.”

The address was unfamiliar on your tongue. What would your younger self, that girl who had never known subservience nor strife, say if she saw you ducking your head in defeated compliance? How she would laugh! How she would pity you! My lord. But he was exactly that.

“The sentiment is returned in full,” he said, and then he extended his arms in a grand, sweeping motion. “Indeed, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I have arranged for you a gift!”

“A gift?” you repeated. Certainly, you had asked for no such thing, and you did not have the time to school your face into neutrality, naked surprise flashing across it. Your husband chuckled at the sight, nodding at you.

“I have brought the finest of plunders for you, dear lady,” he said, and your stomach twisted into knots at the familiarity with which he spoke to you, as if you were affable lovers instead of strangers. “Even your father’s treasures, vast and bountiful as they may be, cannot compare to this!”

The mention of your father stabbed at your heart, and hidden in the folds of your coat, you clenched your fists. Your father, the richest man in the world…and yet your husband dared compare his meager gift to that? You wanted to spit in his face that for your third birthday, your father had gifted you a villa made of gold, the walls inlaid with gemstones and painted with flowers. Indeed, you might’ve goaded him in such a way if you had the capabilities, but then you noticed what the army-men were bringing forth and your mouth suddenly refused to move.

It was the prisoner, the one kept in a place of honor by your husband and his soldiers, the one who the entire empire had ridiculed as he had been paraded through it like a champion hound. He was tall, towering over the army-men flanking him, and although his eyes drooped nearly shut, there was a heat to his demeanor, a severe, ferocious anger which shone through his exhaustion. He seemed like more of a half-tamed jungle cat than a man, and indeed when he halted before you, you half-expected him to snarl, to bare bloody fangs and lunge at your throat with fingers like claws, like swords, tearing through your neck as if it were paper.

“When he’s like this, you almost forget what a monster he can be,” your husband mused, reaching out and flicking the man on the forehead with a snicker. “Isn’t he all but lovely? Oh, don’t worry, dear lady, he can’t do anything to you. He’s under the influence of a sleeping draught at the moment, and anyways, those chains are thrice-blessed. It’s perfectly safe.”

The chains he spoke of were as gold as the man’s hair, looping around his wrists and forearms, curling over the red marks emblazoned on his shimmering skin, weaving in between his legs and around his torso. They were sturdy and gleamed with the power of their three blessings, and although you still understood little about this strange place with its strange power, you could tell that it would take a great force, greater than was possessed by any mere man or deity, to break them.

“He’s the prince of Kremnos,” your husband said when your shock stretched on. “A right beast, I’ll say. We almost fell to his efforts, but in the end, we bested him — as you can see. What do you think? Do you like him?”

“He’s — it’s — horrible,” you said, your skin crawling the longer and longer you stared at the prince, your words a jumble, your head spinning. You wanted to be anywhere but in this courtyard, in front of this fallen man, who was kept alive for — for what? For amusement? For play? As a gift?

“Isn’t he?” your husband said, patting you on the shoulder with a grim smile. “And now he is yours.”

The thrice-blessed chains flashed in the sun, and you shook your head, both in refusal and to clear your vision of the blinding, searing spots they left in it.

“I have no need of a prisoner,” you said, and although your tone remained ever-muted, you spoke as cuttingly as you could manage to. “What will I do with him? Why do you torture him so? You bested him; if he was as fierce an opponent as you claim, then the least you owe him is a death with dignity. Kill him and be done with the matter. Why have you brought him all this way? I don’t want him.”

“He will die, eventually,” my husband said. “I shall execute him myself when it comes to it, but the time is not yet right. I don’t expect you to understand such matters, and neither should you trouble yourself with doing so…but know this, dear lady: you cannot give back a gift once it has been freely given. You can do what you’d like with him now that he is yours, but you cannot refuse him. Perhaps that is how affairs were conducted in your backwards land, but here it is not so.”

You wanted my land, you longed to say. You took me from my father and wed me to a statue in search of it. And still you call it backward? But you could not, so instead, you turned away — away from the prince, who was close to crumpling and only remained standing out of sheer will, and away from your husband, who beamed as if he had done something great or wonderful.

“I will retire now,” you said. Do not follow me. This remained implied, unsaid, but a fool your husband was not, and so he only hummed in agreement.

“Be well, dear lady,” he said. “My messengers have told me that you are having difficulties adjusting to the climate here. I shall be sure to pray for your feeble constitution.”

“Thank you, my lord,” you said, stiffly, primly. It scratched like bile and you hated every minute of it, but you had no recourse for the matter, so you swallowed it down, as you always did and always would.

“And what of the prisoner?” he said. “Shall I send him to a jail? Do you think he is better suited for deprivation or pain?”

They meant to make him shatter, to methodically yank him apart until he faced death with the dull eyes and swayed back of an over-aged broodmare. You supposed to them it was meaningless — why should they show consideration or kindness to a man who would never show them the same? — but you were no warmonger, and that apathy did not cling to you yet. The prince was a beast born of sun, a wild, vicious creature, and if he really was slated to die, then you wanted him to meet his end as just that, nothing less. 

“Leave him be,” you said. “Treat him as well as you are able.”

“He would’ve killed me,” your husband said, a low note of warning in his voice. You shrank into the safety of your clothes, as if they were a shield against his vexation.

“But instead you will kill him,” you said. “So how does it matter? You said I could do as I like; well, this is what pleases me. Don’t prolong this anymore than necessary.”

You darted back into the palace without waiting to hear his answer, your jaw burning and your footsteps heavy against the mosaic floor as you ran all of the way to your chambers and slammed the door shut behind you.

For three days and three nights you did not leave your room, taking all your meals in seclusion, refusing any visitors that might attempt entry. You could not help it; the thought of seeing your husband or any of the soldiers made you want to weep — you! Who never wept, even as a baby! So you claimed that you were terribly unwell, that you could not stand for fear of collapse, and that managed to ward away your husband without incurring his wrath, even though it was only a temporary solution.

As the sun set on the fourth day, there was a knock on your door, and you were about to call out that you had no interest in conversation when someone hissed through the crack in the entrance: “Lady, I come not on your husband’s behalf but another’s. There is trouble, and you must attend to it.”

“What?” you said, scrambling to your feet, crouching by the entrance, pressing your ear to the wooden door without opening it. “Who is this? Who are you? Speak plainly, so that we may understand one another!”

There was a shuffling sound, and then an exhale. You worried with the collar of your shirt as you waited for them to continue, your arms pulled tightly around yourself, your brows furrowing together as you chewed on your lower lip.

“The prince of Kremnos,” they whispered. “He calls for you.”

“Are they mistreating him?” you said, straightening and flinging the door open. “The prince, are they — hello?”

The hallway was devoid of life. You peered down it, craning your neck this way and that, but it was placid, showing no signs of having been disturbed. Shutting the door slowly, you leaned against it, holding your head in your hands. Was this place driving you to insanity, then? And if it was, then why could you not have thought of something more pleasant than summons from a prisoner — prisoner!

Wasn’t it your duty to make sure your husband had held good on his word? The prisoner was yours, though the notion of ownership sent unpleasant shivers down your spine and didn’t feel quite right — perhaps a better way to think of it, then, was responsibility. He was your responsibility, and maybe the strange vision had been nothing more than a reminder of what you owed the man.

You waited until it was midnight, when you could be certain that your husband would not rise from his slumber at the sound of your activity, and then you donned a pair of slippers and a cloak, throwing the hood on and retreating into the billowing depths of the fabric, so that your face was obscured from prying eyes. Of course, there would not be very many of those, not at such a late hour, but you did not want to risk even one person recognizing you and reporting back to your husband, whose reaction to this escapade you could not foretell.

Although you were not so familiar with the palace’s layout, as you had never spent much time exploring it, most constructions of this nature followed a similar plan, and you had grown up in exactly such a grand, sweeping home, so you found the doorway to the cellar in record time. As the palace had no towers, the cellar was the only logical option for the keeping of such a dangerous prisoner, and you had no doubt in your mind that this was where you would find the prince, if he was still somewhere that you could find him.

The half-moon was your only witness as you fumbled with the lock, trying every key in your possession until one finally slotted into place and turned. Wincing as the door heaved open with a profound creak, you yanked it shut behind you quickly, without ceremony, lighting a small candle and using it to guide your way down the dark stairs, rushing so that you were out of sight in case someone came to investigate.

You did not know how long you walked for, but eventually the stairway ended, giving way to cool, damp earth. The must of uncut stone permeated the thick, heavy air, and the adjustment of your eyes to the surrounding blackness was slow, the pain of it only alleviated somewhat by the little candle’s valiant flame.

“Come to toss scraps at me?” The voice was rumbling and low; in spite of its weakness, you could hear a sneer in it, a disdain in the rough baritone. “You needn’t try again. Like I told you, I won’t eat your trash.”

“No,” you said. “I’ve brought nothing with me.”

There was a brief pause, and then: “You sound different than the others.”

“This tongue is foreign to me, as it is to you,” you said. “I cannot speak it in the same way as those who were born here. Verily I have been instructed in the art since I was but a child, for my father must have known in that manner of his what would eventually become of me, but I will never lay claim to it the way that a native of this empire would.”

“You’re his wife.” Chains clanked, the harsh drag of metal against stone reverberating in the cellar, and then you felt more than saw his looming countenance, filling what you had mistakenly believed upon arrival to be an empty room. Swinging your candle before you so that it was close to your heart, you gasped when it reflected in a pair of eyes glaring at you from mere paces away, the irises possessing a hollow and impossible brilliance in the way a pair of fading embers might. 

The chains now only encircled his left leg, binding him to the wall but leaving him otherwise free to move as he liked within the length of his confines. He had been stripped of armament and adornment alike, his mane of hair tangled and falling lank about his broad shoulders, yet for all of these injustices, you had no doubt in your mind that he was anything but a prince. He had a dignity to him, a hard-won pride to the straightness of his back and the firmness of his gaze; before you could chase it away, the thought came to you that there was far more intrinsic nobility to this man than there was even your husband.

“I suppose that I am,” you said.

“Have you come to gloat about your craven lord’s cowardly victory, then?” he said. The chains were pulled taut, so he could come no closer to you than he already was — you were sure of this, but you were still a slave to your instincts, which urged you farther and farther from him with every second. He watched you go with some measure of delight, like he was relishing in this power which you had inadvertently gifted him, and when you skittered to a stop, he huffed. “There is nothing to be proud of, and you look a fool for suggesting there might be.”

“I was just…” you trailed off, because it suddenly felt entirely absurd to suggest that you were inquiring after his wellbeing. What did it mean, the wellbeing of a doomed man? What reason would he have to believe your intentions? “What is your name?”

“My name?” he said with a brittle, incredulous laugh that rapidly descended into a cough. “Why? Do you wish to curse your husband with it? Does your language not have gods you can swear on?”

“You’re sickly,” you said, frowning and ignoring his jabs.

“You have torn me from the sun and chained me in this dingy room, and yet you have the gall to be surprised by that?” he said, scoffing. “You’re more of an idiot than that husband of yours.”

“I did no such thing!” you said. The defiance took you by surprise. You had forgotten what it felt like to defy someone, to disagree and resist their words, to feel alive with resentment and bad-temper. “I didn’t wish for this. I didn’t wish to keep you here anymore than you wished to be kept!”

“Is that so?” he said, and then he grinned at you, but it was less of a smile and more of a threat. “Then free me.”

“What?” you said.

“If you don’t want me, then free me,” he said.

“You’ll kill me if I do,” you said uneasily, shifting from foot to foot. 

“I give you my word that I will spare you,” he said, placing a solemn hand over his heart. 

“Not the others?” you said.

He did not respond, which in and of itself was a response. It was one you shouldn’t have liked as much as you did, but in truth the prospect of such a slaughter made your fingers twitch towards him. Only for a moment, and immediately, you shoved your hands behind your back, but it was too late — he had seen, and he raised his eyebrows at you in return.

“Well, anyways, it doesn’t matter,” you said hastily, hoping to distract him before he could comment on the treason. “I couldn’t free you even if I wanted to. Your chains are thrice-blessed. I didn’t know what that meant until recently, but now that I do, I understand why you have been kept without even a permanent guard.”

“Blessings,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t tell me you put genuine stock into that drivel.”

“Perhaps the gods of other lands have forsaken their subjects, but this empire is known as the birthplace of every divine act, and so deities still sometimes glance upon its people and offer up their favor. Thrice-blessed chains are one such offering, for they are in fact more like contracts than they truly are chains,” you said. When he did not interrupt you with any snide remarks, you were emboldened to continue. “They can restrain anything, even a god, but this strength comes at a cost: they are conditional. If their captive can understand this condition and meet it, they will crumble into dust, but until then, the chains remain unbreakable.”

“What is it?” he said insistently, reaching out his hands like he was going to grab you and shake the answer out. He fell short, grasping at empty air, his muscles straining against the chains which, true to legend, did not falter. “This condition. Whatever it is, I will do it. You only need to tell me and I will do it!”

“I don’t know,” you said. His lip curled, and you shook your head frantically. “No, no, I’m telling you the truth, I really don’t know! Only the wielder and the gods he prayed to can know for certain. The conditions are decided arbitrarily, without trend or reason. It could be anything from singing a song to moving a mountain! At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the little I’ve read on the topic.”

“The wielder — your husband, then? That’s easy enough. Bid him to tell you, and then relay to me his answer,” he said.

“Easy enough? Not in the slightest. He would just as soon do your bidding as he would mine,” you said. The prince squinted at you, and evidently he must’ve determined that you were serious, for he broke into that awful laugh again, the one that must’ve once been handsome and full-bodied but now was little more than a rattling plea for air. 

“You are pitiful,” he said. “I thought that you must be some great, fearsome empress, as wicked as your husband, but you are just a frightened mouse of a girl. You would not survive a day in Kremnos, you know. It would crush you.”

Duty. Obedience. Docility. They were branded onto you, swirling letters that you had unwittingly carved into yourself with every wedding vow you spoke, and you could not escape them any more than the prince could escape his chains. If only you could argue with him, tell him that once upon a time, you had been someone unrecognizable from who you were now…but already, you had tested their limits. Your tongue was frozen in your mouth, refusing to move in anything but accordance with your oaths, and so you only clasped your hands together.

“If you say it is so, then it really must be the case,” you said. “Farewell, prince of Kremnos.”

“Farewell,” he said, but it was clear he did not mean it. “Dear lady.”

“Don’t call me that,” you said, recognizing the provocation for what it was. “You are not my husband, nor do I wish for you to be.”

“Then what should I refer to you as?” he said. “Your excellency? Your grace? Your most exalted highness? Your holiness, the saint of the realm?”

“Here, I am only known as lady,” you said quietly. “But I bore a different name before. I cannot…I cannot say it anymore, but if you ever come to know of it by other means, then please call me as such.”

Morning brought with it a freezing palm pressed to your brow. It startled you to consciousness both because of its temperature and its temerity, for you could not fathom who had dared to enter your room without your permission, and while you were asleep, at that! In the haze of your sleep-addled mind, a rebuke rose to your lips, but then someone clicked their tongue and you fell silent even as you clambered to a more alert state.

“Your fever has finally broken, dear lady! You do not know how overjoyed I am to hear it,” your husband said, helping you into a sitting position, one hand cradling the back of your neck and the other holding up a glass. You blinked, trying to clear the fog from your vision, swallowing down the water he poured down your throat without objection.

“Fever?” you said.

“The ailment you have been suffering from,” he said. “I was told it was a fever of some sorts. I bore it quietly, the prospect of your malaise, but today I could not stop myself from checking on you. I had some dreams of playing the nurse, but here you are, entirely well! Such a miraculous recovery.”

His grandiose words masked suspicion with affection, but he did not make any further accusations, for just as you had sworn to heed him, so too had he promised to trust you. His vows had been made to a portrait of yours, as well as written in pig’s-blood and sent to you in a sealed envelope. You could recall them with perfect clarity, the way the stench of iron clung to the parchment as you unfolded it and rang your fingers over the lines, which were grouped in stanzas of three. 

Trust. Favor. Companionship.

You spent the entire day with your husband, although you had neither the desire nor the will for it. You hardly ever had the desire or the will to do anything, of course, not nowadays, but this was the worst of all, because your husband was not just a reminder but the very reason for everything which had happened to you. Still, you could not refuse, so you trotted along at his side, motionless as he showed you off to his officers, his advisors, and even, at one point, his cousin, who could not be less interested in you if he tried.

“Brother,” he said boredly, for indeed he and your husband were the only children of their respective fathers, and so were more like siblings than anything, “you have better things to be doing than showing off a woman who doesn’t bear showing off in the first place.”

“Are you saying that she is somehow deficient?” your husband said, swelling up with righteous indignation. Anyone else might’ve lost their head for the statement, especially given how blandly he had said it, but his cousin was above reproach, being the only person he really loved.

“I’m saying that she looks ill with misery,” his cousin said, and then he sighed, returning to his book. “I’m not so sure the lady has recovered from her illness. You ought to be more cautious with her, that’s all.”

His cousin was younger and handsomer than he, and as the two of you walked away, you thought that you would not have minded marrying him as much. Though perhaps this was a paradox — after all, if he had taken you in the manner that your husband had, then you would have hated him, too. It was your lot in life, then; always you would detest whoever you wed, whoever stole your freedom in that way and bound you to them with the cruel ropes of matrimony.

The hall where you took your dinner was like an enormous cavern, so large that you felt like your voice might echo if you spoke. You and your husband were the only ones in it, which heightened the effect, and every clank of his silverware against his porcelain dishes resounded in your ears like discordant bells.

“My prisoner,” you said after a long time had passed wherein the two of you discussed nothing. Your voice was dry with disuse, and you pushed the food on your plate around without attempting to eat, although it was all appetizing and you were certainly hungry.

“What?” your husband said, covering his mouth with his hand as he chewed.

“My prisoner,” you said, clearing your throat but keeping your gaze trained firmly on your food. “The prince of Kremnos. Is he well?”

“You’re asking after his health?” your husband said with a chuckle. When you did not laugh or otherwise indicate that you were joking, he frowned at you. “You needn’t fret. As you requested, I am treating him as well as I am able. Far better than he deserves.”

The image of the prince, chained and kept in darkness, the only sound his persistent cough and unsteady breathing, given scraps for sustenance and mice for company, flashed across your mind. 

“I wish to see him,” you said. There was a warning in the back of your head — duty, obedience, docility — but you ignored it as best as you could, stabbing oversharp fingernails into your thighs, hard enough to draw blood and distract you from the dangerous line you tread. “My lord, I wish to see the prince and ensure that he is alright with my own eyes.”

At this your husband did not even pretend to humor you. He burst into a raucous fit of cackles, his fork and knife clattering to the table, his eyes watering at the corners. You waited for him to stop, picking your own cutlery up in vain before setting it down and folding your hands in your lap.

“No,” he said. “I am afraid that I cannot allow that, dear lady.”

“You cannot—” you began, but it was too much, you had stepped over that precarious boundary, and now you were frozen. Gulping, you counted to five before continuing. “He is mine. He is mine, you said it yourself, so why — can’t — I — see — him?”

Each word dug into you like gravel, and you knew that you had lost this argument before you could even attempt to have it. How could you ever win? When you had sworn thrice over that you would be tractable, how could you ever try to be anything else? Your intentions did not matter as much as the execution, not to the number three and the power it lent this empire.

“How obstinate,” your husband said, appraising you with a new eye. “I am sorry, dear lady, but as my cousin said, you are still weak. It will do you no good to be faced with such a base creature. You can see him again on the day of his execution.”

“Yes,” you said through gritted teeth, which was not as much as you wanted to do but was as much as you could, at present, manage. “Might I be excused?”

“Excused? You haven’t eaten anything,” he said, pointing at your plate. True to his word, it was untouched, and you picked it up, holding it close to your chest as you stood. 

“My stomach is protesting,” you said. “I will take it to my room and eat it later. If it pleases you.”

“Very well,” he said, waving at you. “I shall pray for your health, dear lady. Sleep as late as you’d like tomorrow, but once you are awake, I implore you to join me in my preparations. There is a grand celebration in the afternoon, as a marker of our victory against Kremnos, and I have been summoned to speak; if you could muster some words as well, it might hearten the people and warm them to you.”

“Yes, my lord,” you said. “I shall think of something.”

“See to it that you do,” he said, watching you with an unreadable expression on his face as you left, your footsteps growing faster and faster until you were all but racing to your room, your head spinning and palms clammy like you had gotten away with some great crime. 

Tonight, there were no strange voices beckoning you, but that did not stop you from staying awake far past the moon’s rise, waiting until it hung over the clocktower before picking your way back to the cellar, your heart pounding as you crept back down those dark, endless stairs, an actual lantern in one hand and your plate in the other.

The prince was still there. You had half-expected him to have disappeared, to have turned out to be some figment of your imagination, but he was leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his chest and his lips pursed as he watched the light of your lantern approach. When he realized it was you, his eyes narrowed, and he tucked his chin to his chest in what you could only assume was a stubborn display of the meager strength he had left.

“I brought food for you,” you said, setting the lantern on the last stair and presenting the plate before you. “Please eat it.”

“What do you think I am?” he said. “Some kind of a dog, such that I am eager for  you to foist your refuse on me? Hardly. Take it and leave me at once.”

“You’ll waste away,” you said. “You are only doing yourself a disservice! This is my own dinner, which I have gone without so that I could bring it to you. Does that make it easier to stomach?”

“Shall I sit on the floor, then, and eat it with my hands?” he said with a disparaging smile. “Will that amuse you? Is that why you’ve come? I heard your husband, you know. ‘Do what you’d like with him now that he is yours.’ How joyless your life must be, to think that this is what you entertain yourself with!”

“It is joyless,” you bit back, and your eyes widened at the freedom of the declaration. “It is! But you are not my — you are not some kind of amusement, I resent that you — I even spoke against my husband for you, and you say that! Fine, then. Starve, you thoughtless simpleton! Starve and die for all the good it’ll do me!”

You turned on your heel and stomped towards the stairs with the graceless irascibility of a child, not even sparing a glance over your shoulder at the prince. He was quiet, but you knew from the heavy weight of his stare on your back that there was something like turmoil brewing in his mind, a turmoil which weakened your resolve with every step you took away from him.

It was to your credit that you made it all of the way to where the lantern was sitting before you wavered, your stride shortening until you halted in place. Scrunching up your face, wondering when you had developed this love for punishment, for strife and conflict, you allowed your shoulders to sag in acceptance.

“Dispose of this before anyone comes to see you,” you said, shoving the plate into his hands before he could protest. “I suppose it matters little how you do it, but you must, or else I will be convicted of treason, and where will that leave us? Imprisoned side by side and left to rot together.”

He did not respond until you were almost out of earshot entirely, and then he coughed. You could not tell whether it was to capture your attention or to clear his voice of any residual hesitance; regardless, he accomplished both objectives, as you lingered for a moment longer than you would’ve.

“Ten,” he said. “That’s how many times I could’ve killed you in the time you’ve been here. But I—”

You continued walking before you could hear the rest of it.

You woke up the next day in better spirits than you had in some time, and in fact when a servant announced that you had a visitor, you opened the door with a new vigor. Upon realizing that the man in front of you was not your husband but rather his cousin, you thought that you might die from the glee of it all. Taking his arm, you allowed him to escort you to where the imperial contingent was setting up for the festival, at a grand stage which took up most of the square and was already laden with visitors at its base.

“It is a relief to see you recovering so well,” your husband’s cousin said. “The rumors in the palace are that you’ve contracted some illness of the chronic variety; in truth I believed them, especially after our meeting yesterday, but today I see that you have been revitalized. Did you rest well last night, then? I heard that you did not eat your dinner, but you must’ve taken it in your room, yes?”

You had done neither of those things, and his questioning did make you pause. What was the cause of your good mood? You had gone to sleep for only a short time, without much of anything in your stomach, and your situation had not improved any, so why did you feel, even if only marginally, as if you were something like yourself again?

“I suppose it must be something like love,” he mused, without waiting for your answer. 

“Ah, pardon?” you said, startled from the winding turns and byways of your thoughts at the strange declaration.

“To think that even a day in your husband’s presence has cured you to such an extent,” he explained. “Surely it is love? I cannot think of any other name for it…but I apologize! It is not my place to inquire, nor to speculate. I trust you will not tell my cousin about this?”

He had, in the taken-aback blink of your eyes and the pinch of your brow, found what he was seeking: a demure shyness which he could only comprehend as a lack of affection. You knew, then, that you had passed the test of the man, who had not believed any more than your husband that you were truly ill.

“I will take your leave,” he said, and then his palm clamped down on your shoulder. “But I trust you know this: however much you may love your husband, he is a difficult man to be loved by in return. If ever you are in search of solace…there are places you may turn to, dear lady.”

“What did he say to you?” your husband said, appearing at your side with his expression arranged into something like a frown. “I could not hear. Was he bothering you? I am sorry if he was. He has always been headstrong.”

“He was not bothering me,” you said, incapable of lying to your husband with any great skill but remaining certain that it was absolutely imperative you did not divulge his cousin’s secrets to him. “We spoke as family members might.”

If he recognized your evasive language, he did not comment on it. Instead, he stroked his chin in thought, and then he directed his attention towards the stage, where one of his generals was beckoning him — and, by extension, you.

The sun hung high in the sky as you ascended to the podium, though its rays did not dare touch you, disguised in your husband’s shadow as you were. Your vows tied more than your tongue, after all; your entire being, everything but your heart and your mind, were trained and twisted into the picture of submission, and soon those, too, would fall, leaving you a husk which could do nothing but nod and follow along.

Your husband did not need to start with any address. His mere presence was enough to silence the gathered empire, every single onlooker leaning towards the stage in eager anticipation of his words. From your vantage point, it was like the swell of a tide, crushing and suffocating, inescapable in its overwhelming intensity, but where you withdrew, your husband brightened at the weight, lifting his head and squaring his shoulders.

“Mydeimos,” he said, over-enunciating every syllable. The word, unfamiliar and foreign to your ears, had a rhythmic, marching cadence, more suited to a battle-cry than a formal declaration, and it seemed you were not alone in your thinking, for it had all the effect of one on the crowd.

A heckling clamor burst from them, the individual words indecipherable but for brief snippets. Demon. Monster. Warmonger. Kill. Curse. Blood. Kill. Kill. Kill! Your husband waited for them to quiet of their own volition, and only then did he venture to continue, this time with a wide, beaming grin.

“Mydeimos has fallen. The prince of terrors is no more!” he shouted, raising his fist in the air to thunderous applause. “Without him to lead the army, Kremnos will surely follow suit. Their lands will be ours within the year, of this much I assure you! Our empire will soon be the most prosperous in all the world. Even the great lands of the Southern Sea will pale in comparison!”

Your heart twinged at the mention of the Southern Sea. You could envision it even now, the streaks of salt left on the cliffs where the water lapped at them, the ripples in the placid blue where the balmy winds skimmed along the surface, the moon-white sand as it clung to the crevices of your feet and hands.

When you were younger, your father would take you on his boat and dip his fingers into it, urging you to do the same. You would ask him why and he would answer, always with a laugh or a smile: of all the jewels in my treasury, my darling, the Southern Sea is the second-loveliest. Then you would ask him which could be the first, if even the sea was not its equal, and he’d press his damp hands to your cheeks and kiss your hair and say you, my darling, you and only you.

“What a horrible thing he was,” your husband said. “Mydeimos. That wretched excuse of a man…the world is all the better now that he is locked away. I watched him — watched him, good citizens, with my own eyes — tear out a man’s heart with naught but his nails and teeth! Even now I can imagine it…the tips of his canines dark with pierced flesh…bits of entrails coating his fingers…the heart still beating in his palms…he looked the proper part of a devil, and I was certain that I had died and found damnation!

“But as I said, he is no more. Our army prevailed, as we always have, and as we always will; I made Mydeimos beg for mercy with my sword at his throat and my foot upon his inhuman heart, and then I dragged him back so that all of you could see what he has been relegated to — a chained puppy, given to my dear lady as a pet and kept as a servant until the day of his execution.

“For the surest way to kill a Kremnoan is to destroy their pride, and the prince of terrors has more pride than most, so we must endeavor to strip him of it, systematically and fastidiously, until even a child can cut him down!”

Your husband concluded his speech and pulled you forward simultaneously, with a great flourish which invited praise and drew attention to you both. You swallowed, your mind racing at breakneck speed, far too quickly for you to make any sense of the things you were saying until you were saying them.

“I have not seen the prince of Kremnos — Mydeimos — since the day that he was brought to me,” you said. The applause that had begun faded as soon as the soft words sparkled into existence, and the many eyes of the audience blurred together until you could pretend like you were alone, like you were speaking to nothing but small, bright stones reflecting your own sentiments. “But as my lord husband said, he was proud. I feel as though I have never seen a man prouder. Even after his loss, he remained proud. Even with nothing else left, he clung to that pride, that assurance…I remember thinking to myself that it was, in its own way, admirable. That he was admirable.”

Your husband’s arm around your waist grew tighter with unspoken warning, though it needn’t have. You had said all that you wanted, all that you could, and now there was nothing left but the judgement of the collective.

“Lady!” someone shouted, the singular soul brave enough to speak. She was a woman — you wondered if this was what bolstered her confidence, a perceived kinship between the two of you for that fact alone. “Do you fear the prince?”

“No,” you said, and although you had meant it only as a vague and empty placation, you were surprised to find that it rang true. You were not afraid of him, and it wasn’t his chains or his infirmity which caused this emotion to surge in you; rather, it was what he had told you last night, that declaration he had made with the utmost of seriousness, which you had not even allowed him to complete. “I am not. He cannot harm me.”

You knew your words would be interpreted as faith in your husband and the empire, and furthermore that this misinterpretation would curry favor with your subjects and your lord alike, so you did nothing to correct it. Yet you would know, and would hold close to your heart the knowing, that it was not your husband who you held faith in: it was Mydeimos, the prince of Kremnos, who might’ve killed you ten times over but had instead let you live.

“You have much to improve in terms of your orating,” your husband said coldly as the three of you — him, his cousin, and yourself — returned to the palace.

“I thought her speech was excellent,” his cousin said, shooting you a sly smile behind his back. “Very concise, and of a good style. It’s a gift to be able to convey meaning so succinctly. You ought to nurture it.”

“She certainly conveyed a meaning,” your husband said. “It remains to be said what value that meaning truly holds.”

“Is that for you to decide? Ah, brother, don’t be a curmudgeon, I am only teasing you! You spent so much of our childhood poking fun at me, so how can you fault me for paying you back in kind?” his cousin said.

“You need some lessons in respect,” your husband said, but without any real bite behind it. His cousin snickered before sobering, shifting his weight toward you.

“Will you take your dinner in your chambers again, lady?” he said. You nodded.

“If it does not offend,” you said. 

“Do as you please,” your husband said. “Though I expect you’ll do that anyways, sworn to me or not. Isn’t that right, dear lady?”

You couldn’t think of any response which would be satisfactory, so you said nothing, allowing the two of them to escort you to your room, where you waited with bated breath until the night fell and you could return to the cellar.

The entire way down the stairs, you turned the name over in your mind, polishing it in the way waves polished driftwood, battering it with incessant worry until it shone, uncanny and unrecognizable. Mydeimos. Mydeimos. Mydeimos. The prince of terrors. The man who had torn a heart out with his teeth. What did it say of you, that you were making your way to exactly such a knave? With trepidation, of course, but what did it say that you were still doing it anyways? Perhaps very much, or perhaps very little.

“There is an odd pattern to your footsteps,” he said before you could even greet him. He stood as he always did, prepared for a battle that he would never again see. “Or perhaps it is your breathing, or something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” you said, putting your lantern and the dinner down in the space between you both. “I walk and breathe as I always have, as others do.”

“I know you,” he said, disgust mingling with the barest traces of awe in his tone. “The door to this cellar opens frequently. All manner of men come to visit me, to mock me from their places at the bottom of the stairs, lambasting me from the safety of their distance. I recognize few, and  I remember fewer — nor do I have any great desire to — but when it is you, I know. From your very step, from the very creak of the door, I know. I cannot understand how or why, but I know.”

“My husband told me your name,” you said after a pause, when it became clear he was not expecting a reaction from you. Motioning towards the food in a gesture you hoped he took to kindly, you continued: “I did not ask him, but he mentioned it in passing, so naturally now I know it.”

“I see,” he said, and although his gaze flicked towards the ground, he did not move. You remembered, then, what else your husband had said in that speech of his, the vainglorious words echoing in your ears: for the surest way to kill a Kremnoan is to destroy their pride, and the prince of terrors has more pride than most, so we must endeavor to strip him of it, systematically and fastidiously, until even a child can cut him down!

“Mydeimos,” you said, and then you sat on the floor, which was made of a cold stone that shot chills down the backs of your legs. Resting your elbows atop your thighs and your chin in your hands, you blinked up at him. “That is what he called you. ‘The prince of terrors.’”

“How unimaginative,” he said, and you suppressed a shudder at his glare, which was baleful and acute as it settled upon you. “My-deimos. Many-terrors. Yes, that is my name, though that ridiculous nickname is of his own invention. The Kremnoans would laugh if they heard it.”

“He said that he watched you tear out a man’s heart with your nails,” you said, and then you glanced at his lips, simultaneously and unconsciously wetting your own with the tip of your tongue. “And your teeth.”

He bared those very teeth, white and glinting, in a barking laugh — as much an expression of warning as it was humor. “My teeth! Your husband is one for fiction.”

“And — and he spoke of how he defeated you,” you said. At this, anything resembling mirth vanished from Mydeimos, and he grew curiously immobile — you almost thought that you had frightened him into the grips of memory, but then you realized that he was not frozen as much as he was waiting.

“Did he?” he said. “And what did your husband say of my defeat, dear lady?”

“He  made you beg for mercy with his sword at your throat and his foot upon your inhuman — upon your heart,” you said, correcting yourself for the slip of the tongue, finding no merit in telling him about that particular detail. “And then he dragged you back here.”

The longer Mydeimos remained silent, the shallower your breaths became, a cold fist forming around your heart and squeezing, the muscles in your arms and legs contracting, protesting their inactivity. You needed to run. If you were wiser, if you had anything resembling self-preservation, you would run, would flee and hope that you were fast enough to make it to the stairs before he pounced. 

You supposed you lacked both wisdom and self-preservation in spades, for you remained on the floor, peering up at him and praying that he could not read your mind, could not comprehend the depths of your thoughts.

“So that is his story,” he said. “I should’ve known he wouldn’t tell his people the truth.”

“He made it up,” you said rhetorically.

“You don’t sound surprised,” he noted.

“It is not — it is not —” You gnawed on the inside of your cheek, trying to come up with some way to circumvent your wedding vows, some way you could impress upon him what you were trying to say. “When we were wed, it was said that I loved him madly and completely, that I bawled to my father until he allowed me to come here.”

“Then it is not his first time dabbling in such falsehoods,” Mydeimos completed. When you nodded, he snorted. “You cannot speak ill of him, can you? Is it magic?”

“In the way of this land,” you said with a shrug.

“What an emperor,” he said. “So he can neither bed his wife nor win his battles without the use of tricks and obfuscation? Where I come from, they have a word for those like that, but as it is foul, I will not trouble you with hearing it.”

“What do you mean?” you said. “Ah, not by the foul word…that is, what tricks do you refer to? If the story he told is inaccurate, then how did he really defeat you? For surely he must have, or else you would not be here.”

“He did not defeat me,” he said. “Believe it or not, but that is the truth.”

“How?” you pressed, for you had already eschewed wisdom once and did not mind doing so again.

For a moment, it was as if the sun shone down upon him again. You saw him as he was on the day he met you, or perhaps even before — the prince of Kremnos, sleek and powerful and indomitable, red marks blooming in place of the scars he would never receive, eyes ablaze in his hollow face, hair as wild and untamed as his spirit.

“He surrendered,” Mydeimos said, scowling. “Our numbers were smaller, but Kremnoans have never cared for things like odds. We were winning, indubitably we were winning, and your husband knew it as well as we did. They attacked us in our own territory, fought us with our own weapons…how could we have lost? We would’ve wiped them out, but your husband and his men raised their white flags, and so we ceased to attack them.

“I went to parley with them, to negotiate the terms of their surrender. In a show of goodwill, I agreed to your husband’s request to come unaccompanied. His men were exhausted, and I found it honorable that he was putting their wellbeing first, so I ignored my instincts and the warnings of my advisors, going forth alone, leaving my armor and weapons as I was instructed to.

“That was my mistake. I should never have expected honor from a serpent, whose nature it is to bite. The surrender was a ploy; I was met by hordes of guards, each with a spear pointed at my heart. Even then, I fought. Do not think I met my end willingly, dear lady — I fought and killed as many men as he threw at me. I could’ve killed them all, I would’ve killed them all, but right as I was about to, he threw these chains at me from the corner where he hid. It should not have worked, his aim and the strength behind it were both lacking, but it was as if the metal had a mind of its own, and before I knew it I was bound.”

“As I told you, they are thrice-blessed,” you said. “Divine. They long to fulfill their purpose, and will do anything to that end. If it defies the laws of nature, well, what are those laws compared to the ones who wrote them? Those men were only a distraction. Once my husband received these chains, there was nothing which could’ve changed your fate.”

“What sort of a god favors a man who feigns surrender?” Mydeimos said. “What kind of deity loves perfidy?”

“I have often asked myself the same questions,” you admitted, half-expecting yourself to be unable and closing your eyes in relief when you weren't. “Why is it that he is the one they champion? What justice is there in that? He must have been a saint in his past life, to be treated as he is. A saint, or a martyr, or something like that. Something wonderful to the point of deserving so many miracles in this next iteration of his.”

You chose your speech carefully, injecting as much resentment into it as was needed to convey to the prince what you really meant, but not enough that you seized up into inaction. Not enough that you strained against the hold that your vows held over you.

You heard him exhale, and at this, you allowed your eyes to flutter open once more, peeking up at him and immediately wishing you hadn’t.

Whatever had briefly rallied in him, whatever fervor and fire he had briefly regained…it was gone. It was gone, leaving him fractured and bereft, forlorn instead of fearsome, prisoner instead of prince. Your husband had done that to him. Your husband had destroyed him, as he had destroyed you, and it was this reflection of your own fate which tore at you the most.

Breaking off a piece of bread, you dipped it in the long-cooled sauce pooled in the corner of the plate, and, without a word, held it out to him. He eyed it suspiciously, and for a moment you thought he might refuse it. The beginnings of an argument bubbled to the surface, but it never had the chance to take shape — before your lips could so much as part, he knelt across from you and took your proffered hand by the wrist.

Holding it in place, his thumb digging into your pulse like a reminder that he didn’t want this, didn’t want to accept your help, he used his free hand to swipe the bread from your palm. Then, his brows heavy, low over his eyes with mistrust and reluctance, he shoved it into his mouth and ate it.

taglist (comment/send an ask to be added): @mikashisus @ivana013-blog @mizukiqr @shehrazadekey @simp-simp-no-mi @reapersan @casualgalaxystrawberry @secretive3amramenmaker [if your tag does not show up in grey, that means tumblr had an issue with it, sorry! sometimes it does that sadly]

[ineedmorevat7kinmylife]

I'd like to share a few pre-odyssey stories from Odysseus's life that I think are fun.

He didn't choose to go to war. He was drafted into the war as a general. He tried to get out of it by pretending he was crazy because he didn't want to leave Telemachus and Penelope. So, when the guys came to his castle, he was out in the field pulling a plow, with the horse behind it like the horse was driving him. And most of the guys were like, "Wow, he's totally crazy!" but the head dude was like, "No, he's tricky. We gotta see if he's actually crazy. Bring out his newborn son!" So they brought Telemachus out, and put him in the path of the plow being like "If the king is actually crazy he'll run over his son!" Odysseus didn't do it, he swerved around Telemachus, and his cover was blown, so he had to go to war.

There was a prophecy that the first soldier who set foot on the beaches of Troy during the attack would die first, so when Odysseus's army were on the boats about to attack, none of them wanted to get off, in fear of dying. Odysseus was like "okay we need to get this show on the road." so he made a big show of talking about how ridiculous prophecies were, while secretly throwing his shield down on the sand. Then he was all "I'll jump down first, to prove that it's silly!" So he jumped off the boat onto his shield, and his army was like "Wow! he landed on the sand first! We've got nothing to worry about now!" So they all jumped off, and sure enough the first dude that landed was the first to die.