#and stones and rocks and skulls

[allenkleinofficial]

My mom called me ‘really really tough’ and this feels like a Moment

[srlgemstone]

A cat got into this agate and ate the fish.

Has anyone seen the bones?

[maddillus]

He is so important to me (happy pride month!)

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

OVERDOSE ON ONLY THE HEAVIEST IN RETRO GRAPHIC DESIGN WORSHIP RIGHT HERE.

PIC(S) INFO: Mega spotlight on the monstrously-talented and vintage-addicted graphic design artistry of the mighty Branca Studio, a Seventies-obsessed graphic design studio based out of Barcelona, Spain. All images published in the mid 2010s.

Source: https://brancastudio.tumblr.com.

[krawdad]

Jerma said he was going to spend 4/20 watching fraggle rock and that sounds pretty amazing actually

[antalgic22]

My little heart.

[wknd-riot]

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[darksilvania]

Fossil YAMASK (Ghost/Rock) & Fossil DWEBBLE (Dragon/Rock)

This two pokemon has made their home in a vast ravine rich in fossils, the constant interaction with the fossilized remains eventually caused some changes in their physical appearence as well as behaviour.

Fossil YAMASK carries the fossilized claw of an ancient raptor like predator.By doing so this pokemon has been able to channel this predators spirit from the afterlife. Thanks to his the pokemon has started to look more like such creature, featuing feather like spikes and claw like fingers. It brandishes the Claw as a weapon and uses it to fight.

Fossil DWEBBLE has made its rocky shell using a piece of bedrock that contains the skull of an ancient ceratopsid. Somehow having such remains constantly on them has affected them on a genetic level, making them tougher and more aggresive, choosing to fight head on instead of hiding inside their shells.

This pokemon evolve by leveling up inside of the ravine into DEINORYGUS (Ghost/Rock) & STYRACRUST (Dragon/Rock)

DEINORYGUS (from Deinonychus) now posseses the fossilized remains of the original predator from wich the original claw came, still embeded in stone. Despite its looks it can move with incredible speed, and having freed the fossil's sickle like claws from the rock, it uses them to slice its opponets with ferocity.

STYRACRUST (from Styracosaurus) now carries a fully developed ceratopsian skull on top of its rocky shell. Its body now has changed to become as tough as the skull with sets of armored horns that can be used for both defense and attack. It uses the large horns of the skull to fend of predators as well as compete with other members of its species for territory.

[reddpenn]

Now that I'm back from the gem and mineral show, here are all the Cool Rocks I came home with!

A cute little coral fossil! He looks like a cauliflower.

A Keokuk geode! These geode beds aren't far from where I live, and it's always fun to have local specimens.

Phosphosiderite! This purple stone comes from Chile. It's so soft that it has to be stabilized with resin before it's cut. This one is a cross section of a botryoidial formation!

Speaking of botryoidial, this Hematite! Botryoidial means it has a bubbly shape kind of like a bunch of grapes. The faces of the bubbles on this pieces are super shiny and metallic.

Dendritic chalcedony, from Turkey! It's a white chalcedony full of dendrites - branching formations of manganese that look kind of like trees!

A cabochon for my cab collection! This one is made from a material sometimes called "ajooba jasper." The pattern is actually a cross section of a bunch of colorfully jasperized bivalve fossils!

Speaking of jasper, this one is Blue Mountain jasper, from Oregon! The circles in this stone are what’s known as an “egg pattern,” and jaspers which have them (Blue Mountain, Imperial jasper, and a few others) are collectively known as “fine jaspers,” the most valuable jaspers in the world.

Hyalite opal! This stuff forms water-clear spheres that look like jelly.

It fluoresces bright green under UV light!

Now to show off this year's haul of awesome agates!

Dryhead agate, from the Bighorn Mountains in Montana! This agate is named after the many bison skulls found in the area. A weird shaped guy with awesome red and orange bands.

Bou Lili agate, from Morocco! I like the name of this one. Soft banding and very subtle, muted colors. I've heard that this locale can produce peachy colors too.

Bear Canyon agate, from the Pryor Mountains in Montana! Agates from this locale have very stark black and white banding.

Red Fox agate, from Argentina! Sometimes this material is also called "crater agate" because the area it comes from is near the crater of an ancient volcano.

A Blue Sky thunderegg, from New Mexico! Thundereggs from this locale often have this two pointed, saucer-like shape.

It fluoresces really brightly!

Dulcote agate, from England! The bands of this agate are full of calcite, which gives them a strange, distinct texture.

Malawi agate, from Malawi! See all the cracks in it? Almost all Malawi agates have them. Frequent earthquakes due to the East African Rift cause these agates to crack and fracture.

Paint Rock agate, from Paint Rock Valley in Alabama! This agate is very rarely banded, and usually just contains swirls of red and yellow color.

A big, unpolished slab of Montana agate! This agate is known for its clear banding and black lines and spots, which are caused by manganese dendrites.

It's best viewed with some light behind it!

A smaller piece with really amazing dendrites!

Here it is backlit!

Fighting Blood agate, from Hebei Provence in China! This locale is known for its super saturated reds and yellows. This piece has purple amethyst crystals growing inside! They didn't photograph well; they are much more purple in person.

A really weird Fighting Blood agate! This one lacks the bright colors typical of this locale, but makes up for it with that super cool spiderweb pattern!

And finally, as is tradition, I came home with some Ethiopian opals! Here are the five I got this year.

And that's everything I got at the show!

[hypnagogics]

pool/beach day w/ ellie thoughts! source of pondering: i was in the pool and am never not thinking about ellie so…this is very much insane projecting LOL. (like projecting to the level of this was literally how i spent the last few hours but am writing as if it's ellie…with creative expansions obvi.) informal format, basically just thinking and not a fr story iykwim. closer to headcanons? I DON'T KNOW JUST A SHITTY YAP OF SORTS OK. loser!ellie kindaaa, jesse cameo, teeny suggestive mentions if you squint.

pool (or beach, either work) day with ellie, how fun!! let's start with her fit. she'd wear plaid swim trunks with a sports bra style bikini top, unbuttoned short sleeve button up shirt on top when out of the water, all pieces of her outfit totally different, clashing patterns. yet she somehow rocks it. and when she's in the water, she wears swim goggles because of course. she'd love wearing her outfit, and “f-boy” coded ellie would hike her bottoms down just enough so her happy trail would peek out perfectly, because she knew all the girls would drool at the sight. you included. (who wouldn't.)

in the water however, she'd be a nuisance like none other, literally turning into a teen boy. splashing you like crazy, goofing around until there's so much water in her nose you're sure you can hear it sloshing around inside her skull. at times you'd even have to act like her mother, yelling at her to reapply her sunscreen so her delicate skin didn't burn to a crisp. she finds this absolutely hilarious.

“ellie, you're gonna turn into a lobster, get over here!” you toss the bottle in the air and catch it, a fed-up look on your face. she stands up and shakes the water off her body as if she's a dog, then strides over to you, snatching the sunscreen out of your hand. she rolls her eyes, and you can clearly hear the smirk in her tone. “ugh, sorry mom. i bet i'd be delicious as a lobster though.” she chuckles at her stupid joke, a husky “heh”, but then doubles over laughing even harder once she sees your stone-cold expression not crack in the slightest. in the most bored, deadpan voice you could muster, “you taste fine as-is, dork.” cue her face turning as bright red as a freshly boiled lobster once the rebuttal properly registers in her mind. you = 1, ellie = 0.

you'd be over there away from the water on a towel trying to get some vitamin d, or hidden away in the shade with a book and cocktail with one of the tiny umbrellas in it, but your els would want you there with her, and try to drag you in the water.

as she grabs your arm to pull you to your feet, “c'mon babe, get in. just for a little bit, how aren't you bored over there?” when you don't move, she attacks your neck with cold, wet smooches, the temperature of her lips a shock against your hot, dry skin, causing goosebumps to erupt all over. finally you'd comply, following her while she's pulling you in. “see, look how nice it is!” a grin so wide it melts your insides, you can't be mad at her, and you find a floaty to lay on. you can do some relaxation like that. but ellie, she insists to be close to you at all times, and finds a floaty to lay on next to yours. can't forget she's still holding your hand, you both look like two little otters floating down a stream, swept away on beds of seaweed, hand in hand.

as you're listening to the sounds of the water around you, the gentle rocking as a gust of wind passes by, you feel ellie's grip on your hand go limp, and you look over at her to see the fucker's dead asleep. “hey, ellie?” you ask, and are met with silence, her head lolled to the side with her mouth slightly open, she was out cold. it seems all that silly splashing around had made her tired, and that in combination with the comforting, warm environment had rocked her to sleep. you float there next to her peacefully for a short while, resting your eyes. then out of nowhere, you hear her yelp, and sit up to see that her friend, jesse, had made an appearance and threw a volleyball at her, which hit her smack-dab in the face. “what the fuck man!” he's looking smug, proud of his aim, and waves hi to you. ellie throws the ball back at him, but unfortunately she misses. and by a long shot at that, seems she was still drowsy. you're tuning them out and have returned to floating in relaxation, vaguely hearing them yelling profanities and “your mom” jokes to each other. in no time at all ellie bolts out of the water and dashes over to him, and you take a deep breath, happy to get some quiet, but also enjoying watching them from afar as they toss the ball around. ellie gestures for you to join them, to which you yell to her that you'll join in a bit, watching from the sidelines was proving to be better entertainment than you thought it would be, you loved observing her athletic form, whatever she's doing.

and so the evening continues like that, you two make it back home as it gets dark, and crash into bed immediately. bla bla bla...

yeah i dunno. had to write SOMETHING don't yell at me if it's crap idrc. ig i shall tag peeps anyway cuz that's what yall do! wrote while listening to tsp, especially 1979 which is a very summery song imo. sunset drives with friends blasting that song...UGHHHH

everything everything: @andersonfilms @fleshunger @ch6douin @aouiaa @sapphic-ovaries @astro-cat2

ellie everything: @flowrmoth @srooch @liddysflyer @fortune777

wanna be tagged in my fics? fill out the form!

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Cannibals [Chapter 3: Mist and Bricks]

Series summary: You are his sister, his lover, his betrothed despite everyone else’s protests; you have always belonged to Aemond and believe you always will. But on the night he returns from Storm’s End with horrifying news, the trajectories of your lives are irrevocably changed. Will the war of succession make your bond permanent, or destroy the twisted and fanatical love you share?

Chapter warnings: Language, a tiny bit of sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, dragons being weapons of mass destruction, King's Landing gets some visitors, Larys gets alarming news, Alicent gets an idea, Red gets a shock.

Word count: 7.2k

💙 All my writing can be found HERE! ❤️

Tagging: @themoonofthesun @chattylurker @moonfllowerr @ecstaticactus @mrs-starkgaryen, more in comments 🥰

🦇 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🦇

There is a chilly steel-grey mist on Blackwater Bay, and another in your skull, your thoughts slow and muddled, the past bleeding into the present. It’s weeks later, the longest you’ve ever been away from Aemond, and the pebbles on the shore needle your shins through your velvet gown the color of cinnabar as you kneel to claw seashells from the muck. Helaena is here with you, and while you haven’t told her your plans for your next mosaic, she somehow knows what color shells to drop into your basket: dark green like Vhagar’s scales, shimmering white like Aemond’s hair. Sometimes there are still creatures hunkered inside, and Helaena can never bring herself to pry them out. She passes the doomed crabs and snails to you for a swift exhumation that you deliver with your bare hands, and then you wash the vacated shells in the surf. Mother and a flock of maids are playing with Jaehaera and Maelor farther down the beach. You can’t go near them, or Maelor will start screaming.

Grandsire comes plodding down the stone steps carved into the cliffside, carrying a plate laden with lemon cakes and slices of fresh bread slathered with butter and blackberry jam. “Helaena, you must eat,” he says.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Helaena, please.” And his voice is gentle in a way it has never been with you. “My gods, why are you wrist-deep in wet sand?”

“We’re collecting shells.”

Grandsire gives you a familiar look: disapproval, frustration. The he turns back to Helaena. “I can’t watch you disappear. You must eat something, I’m not leaving until you do.”

“You like blackberry jam,” you encourage her. But she flinches away when Grandsire offers her the plate, and suddenly you understand, you feel the thought as if it is your own. “It’s the color,” you tell him. “The jam, it’s like…” Like blood, like gore. Like the night Jaehaerys died.

“Oh.” Grandsire is quiet for a moment, remembering. “The lemon cakes, then.”

Helaena reluctantly rinses her hands in the seawater, takes a single lemon cake from the plate, and sits on a nearby rock to nibble on it, gazing blankly out over the inlet. You attended Jaehaerys’ funeral procession in her stead—an act of mercy, of penance, while Helaena spent that day sobbing in the Dragonpit, clinging to Dreamfyre, a pale blue century-old monster with infinite patience. The people of King’s Landing saw the dead prince, his head crudely stitched back onto his tiny body, and howled for vengeance. They burned white-haired effigies of Rhaenyra and Daemon. They gave rare autumn flowers to you and Mother. It’s always strange when you leave the Red Keep to interact with the smallfolk. They call you by your real name, something your family seldom does; they seem to believe you are righteous and wise. Perhaps they even pity you: no husband, no children, no dragon.

Mother has left Jaehaera and Maelor with the maids and is venturing closer. “Are there any new letters?” From Criston or Aemond, or even Daeron in the Reach. The Hightower army has been delayed there, cutting through the treasonous soldiers of House Rowan and House Caswell, Tessarion burning them alive in their armor.

“Ravens,” Helaena says thoughtfully from her rock, and no one knows why.

Grandsire shakes his head. No letters today. Butterwell, Stokeworth, and Rosby have bent the knee; the defiant lords of the Crownlands are being put to death. By now the Green forces will be marching on House Staunton at Rook’s Rest. When Aemond does write, you are not mentioned. With each passing day you find yourself thinking: Has he forgotten me? Does he truly love me? Perhaps this is not so irrational a question. Aemond has never used the word love to describe what you are to each other.

Grandsire frowns at you. You gaze mournfully back. He snaps: “And what’s wrong with you?”

Mother’s reply is hushed and sympathetic. “She’s lonely, Father.”

“Lonely?! She still has us here. Don’t we matter? No, I suppose not, she prefers arrogant fools who imperil the realm with their self-obsession. Perhaps she’d like us more if we wore silver wigs and eyepatches.”

Mother is distressed. “Father, please.”

He waves an irritated hand at you. “I better not find out you’ve been keeping the cats away from your chambers again.” Grandsire had a hundred cats brought to the Red Keep to do the tasks the dead ratcatchers left unattended.

“They scare my babies,” you say.

“Your vermin, you mean. Revolting creatures. Flying pestilence.”

You rise from the sand and pick up your basket, now full of shells. Your head is beginning to ache. Maester Orwyle removed your stitches this morning, but the wound in your chest still pains you more or less constantly, a gnawing sensation like an animal chewing on your ribcage.

“Where are you going?” Grandsire demands. You don’t answer him as you ascend the stone staircase, the waves growling behind you and gulls squawking in the foggy air.

In your chambers, you leave the basket of seashells on the floor and call for wine. The maids fetch it and you drink straight from the pitcher, staring at the little wooden figurines on your dresser until they turn blurry. Among them is Vermithor. You recall what Aegon said when he gave it to you years ago, when you were so stung by the dragon’s rejection: You might not have the real Bronze Fury, but you can keep this one.

Your bats are beginning to scrabble out of their roost and vanish through the window. As the sun sets and the room spins, you crawl into bed and lie there in the darkness clutching pillows, your pulse thudding just above your left eye. You doze in and out of consciousness. Aemond told you to think of him when you are here, and you do whether you want to or not: Aemond spilling red wine down your bare chest and then licking you clean; you straddling his lap and stroking him as he reads myths aloud to you in gloomy alcoves of the library, dust motes wheeling in the air, grinning victoriously when you make him lose his focus; the five game pieces racing around the wooden board, Aegon’s green snake, Helaena’s yellow butterfly, Aemond’s blue wolf, your red bat, Daeron’s purple shadowcat before he was sent away to Oldtown and the rest of you never played again.

Then something hits you, not like a vision but like knuckles that could crack teeth, and you are besieged by what Aemond is seeing in the Crownlands. There is flesh, horribly and ruinously burned, sheets of it sloughing off as Aemond peels away scraps of charred fabric, and the smell of it—like blackened pork, oily and stomach-turning—is in your nostrils, and you can feel the calamitous heat rising off the man who must be dying. You can feel Aemond’s terror, disbelief, desperation; you can feel his tears on the right side of your face.

Dragonfire??

The dreamscape abruptly disappears like a candle blown out. Your head throbs, your eyes are squeezed shut as you whimper into your pillows. Your fingertips go instinctively to the scar on your chest.

Who was burned? Criston? Gwayne?

But now the dire portents are here in your room, and they are real: the ringing of bells, smoke, shrieking, scorched flesh.

You open your eyes, and your bats are soaring back inside through the open window; but they have been turned to comets. They are on fire, squealing as their fur is singed off and the fragile membranes of their wings melted from their bones, herding around their roost as they try in vain to seek shelter inside. The dark blue velvet cover has been engulfed in flames.

“No!” you scream, bolting off the bed.

Your door is thrown open and Mother rushes in, dragging Jaehaera behind her. Helaena waits in the doorway holding little Maelor in her arms. He hasn’t seen you yet, but he is already wailing. The horror is back. When will it end?

“We have to go!” Mother shouts, grabbing your hand and pulling you away from your bats. You know you can’t save them, and yet you are compelled to. They are pieces of you, pieces of Aemond. They are burning to death in the house you built for them.

“What’s happening—?!” And then you hear the screeches of dragons, not Vhagar or Sunfyre or Dreamfyre or Tessarion. Through the window, you see an inferno bloom in the night sky. You get a firelit glimpse of a beast you do not recognize: dark, angular, very large and covered with jagged spines. People are screaming. Rooftops are ablaze.

A wild dragon? Claimed by who?

“We’ll go to the beach,” Mother says frantically. She’s thinking of the escape hatch in Aemond’s bedchamber, the only secret passageway in Maegor’s Holdfast. The king known as “the Cruel” wanted no spies or assassins in his walls. But one door was enough for Daemon’s executioners to kill Jaehaerys. “Helaena will try to get to Dreamfyre.”

But you won’t be able to fly away with the rest of them. Dreamfyre would sooner reduce you to ashes than let you touch her.

Mother knows this. She tells you, low and fierce, her coppery hair like glowing embers: “I won’t leave you. You and I will find another way out of King’s Landing.”

“You should escape on Dreamfyre if you have the chance.”

“Never,” she says. And then again: “Never.”

In the hallway, Grandsire has arrived, panicked and urging everyone towards Aemond’s bedchamber. He wheezes, breathless from his sprint through the castle: “I saw Syrax and Caraxes, and Vermax too I think, or maybe Moondancer, a small dragon…but who is the other one? It’s not Meleys. It’s a hideous creature, it looks deformed.”

“I don’t know,” Mother says. Hordes of yowling cats careen past your bare feet.

“Could Rhaenyra be finding new riders?” And Grandsire, a man who is afraid of very little, is petrified down to his bones by this.

I should have a dragon, you think, forlorn. I should be able to help fight this war. And instead I am worthless.

“I don’t know, Father,” Mother says again, and you follow her through the threshold and into Aemond’s abandoned bedchamber, illuminated only by the moonlight that streams in through the windows. You have not been in here since Jaehaerys died; the stone floor is still stained with his blood. Helaena begins sobbing, clutching Maelor closer to her chest. Downstairs, you can hear swords clanging and men groaning as they die.

You hurry to the hidden door and ram it with your shoulder, but as the passageway opens, you see red-orange torchlight approaching through the blackness like fire boiling up in the throat of a dragon. Rhaenyra’s soldiers are already here. You try to close the door, but now knights in armor are forcing their way inside the room. And Grandsire, who has never liked you, pulls you away from the breach and puts himself between you and the intruders.

“The hallway, back to the hallway!” he booms, giving you a shove, and that is the only place left to go. You, Mother, Jaehaera, Helaena, Maelor, and Grandsire flee from Aemond’s bloodstained bedchamber. But your captors have climbed the Grand Staircase—the place where you once waited for Aemond to return from Storm’s End, so convinced that he would not fail you—and now they are here.

Under the torches carried by her guards, Rhaenyra alternates between firelight and shadows. Daemon marches beside her, his face severe, his sword Dark Sister drawn. Mother pushes you, Jaehaera, and Helaena, still carrying Maelor, against the cold stone wall. Grandsire stands in front of Mother. Jace is walking behind Rhaenyra and Daemon, you notice, dressed in red and black, his cloak billowing behind him. The last time you saw Jace, you were smirking when Aemond shoved him off his feet at the last dinner King Viserys ever attended. Now you are trembling with thunderstruck terror.

Rhaenyra is supposed to be bedbound on Dragonstone. Daemon is supposed to be in the Riverlands.

Daemon points at you with the tip of his blade. “You should have that one executed,” he says to Rhaenyra. “Isn’t she Aemond’s whore?”

“They were never married,” Mother tells him, her dark eyes huge and reflecting the torchlight, her arm thrown in front of you.

“I didn’t say wife, I said whore.”

“Daemon,” Rhaenyra warns, and she studies you, Helaena, Grandsire, Mother. Her blue eyes are sharp like fractured glass, edges that glide effortlessly through arteries and veins; there is a queenlike composure in her face, but beneath that wrath, wrath, wrath. After a moment, she says to her guards: “Take the adults to the dungeons.”

Mother and Helaena are shouting and protesting, trying to stop the guards that rip Jaehaera and Maelor out of their grasps. Grandsire is attempting to negotiate. Rhaenyra and Daemon ignore them, continuing on down the hallway, taking possession of the rage-red castle where they first fell into their peculiar, destructive breed of love.

As he passes by, Jace glowers at you and you glare back, and when he reaches for the hilt of his sword you bare your teeth at him; but before Jace can draw his blade—to threaten you, to frighten you, to spill your blood the way Aemond spilled Luke’s—the guards have dragged you away.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your head is very bad now. The pain is almost impossible to think through; you are sick with it, retching into a wooden bucket until there is nothing left to expel. If Aemond was here, he would be holding you, murmuring to you in High Valyrian, pressing a cloth soaked with cold water to your forehead. But Mother is here instead, and she is doing the best she can.

It’s the next day, cold grey light tumbling in through cracks in the walls. You are imprisoned on the second level of the dungeons, reserved for highborn captives; you and Mother are in one cell, Helaena and Grandsire in another on the other side of the aisle. Helaena has been weeping constantly, worrying for her children. Grandsire and Mother try to console her as you lie pitifully on the floor, wishing the pain would knock you unconscious. You need Orwyle and his milk of the poppy. The guards have brought bread and water, but nothing else.

There is a creaking sound from several cells away, and then a slow shuffling accompanied by the tapping of a cane. Mother keeps one hand on your shoulder as she cranes her neck to see her visitor. Grandsire and Helaena move to the front of their cell, their fingers gripping the rusted iron bars.

Larys Strong appears, his hands resting on the handle his cane. Unlike Maegor’s Holdfast—the residence of the royal family—the other buildings of the Red Keep are rife with secret passageways, a latticework of corridors that one unfamiliar with their paths could get lost in forever. Surely Daemon and his confederates are in the process of searching them, but it is a task that could take a week.

“Lord Larys,” Mother says, relieved. “They have not found you.”

“Not yet, Your Grace,” he replies docilely. “Though I’m sure it will not take much longer.”

“Can you retrieve some milk of the poppy?” For you, she means.

“I will try.” Then he stalls, as if he does not wish to share what he has heard through his clandestine chain of whispers. “Something has happened at Rook’s Rest.”

Mother’s brow furrows. “Where?”

“The seat of House Staunton,” you tell her from where you lie on the floor, remembering it from the maps in Aemond’s bedchamber. He would tell you things, show you things, sometimes kindly, sometimes tauntingly, sometimes as he undressed you. He would quiz you and if you got an answer wrong, he would put your clothes back on.

“In the Crownlands?” Mother says to Larys, alarmed. “Is Aegon alright?”

Larys takes a moment to decide how to proceed. “The castle was captured without much difficulty, but a maester there must have gotten a raven out, because Dragonstone received word of the attack and was summoned to defend Rook’s Rest and retake it from the Greens. It is located very close to Dragonstone, and thus cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy.”

Larys pauses and looks at his audience. Grandsire asks: “So who answered the message?”

“It seems that Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Jacaerys were already preparing for an invasion of King’s Landing and were elsewhere,” Larys says. “The other dragon, the large brown one, is called Sheepstealer and is ridden by a peasant girl that Daemon found. There are rumors that he has grown somewhat…attached to her.”

Mother grimaces, tugging on the seven-pointed star necklace she never takes off. “He’s a beast.”

“The girl is a Targaryen bastard?” Grandsire says, confounded. “Whose? She’s not a child of Viserys, surely. Where the hell did she come from?”

Larys is apologetic. “I could not tell you, my lord. If I discover anything else concerning her origins, I shall share what I learn. She is known as Nettles.”

“Nettles?” Grandsire snorts.

Larys continues: “When the raven reached Dragonstone, Baela received the letter. It appears she was told that Sunfyre was the only dragon guarding Rook’s Rest at the time, and that Vhagar was away feeding. She must have thought she could best the king, or at least chase him away from the castle.”

“An understandable error,” Grandsire says, and you scowl at him between fruitless retches into your bucket. The thrumming in your skull is like blows from a hammer, rhythmic and disorienting. Your face is hot with fever; it radiates off of you in waves. Mother rubs your back—although somewhat cautiously, as if she is afraid that barbs might split through your skin to prick her—and offers you sips of water.

“Baela left Dragonstone, likely without permission. Rhaenys followed her on Meleys, but Moondancer was faster.”

“Meleys?” Mother says, startled. “Meleys was there too?”

Larys nods solemnly. “Aegon and Sunfyre attacked Moondancer and broke her neck high in the air. Baela perished when her dragon fell to the earth.”

“Daemon’s daughter,” Mother exhales, wondering what the retribution will be. “Jace’s betrothed.”

“And one of Rhaenys’ only two trueborn grandchildren,” Larys says. “When she arrived at Rook’s Rest and saw Moondancer’s carcass smoldering just outside the castle walls, she pursued the king before he could retreat. And Sunfyre…he was no match for a dragon as large as Meleys.”

“Aegon, he’s…?” Mother cannot bring herself to speak the words aloud. Tears gleam in her eyes. “Is he…is there no hope…?”

The ruined flesh, charred and raw, you remember from your horrifying glimpse into Aemond’s mind. It wasn’t Criston or Gwayne. It was Aegon.

“He was burned,” you whisper, and Mother stares at you.

“Aemond returned on Vhagar, and they slayed Rhaenys and her mount. But not before the king and his dragon were engulfed in Meleys’ flames.”

“He’s dead?” Grandsire says, emotion you’ve never heard before in his voice.

No, you think. Not yet.

“Aegon and Sunfyre are both gravely wounded,” Larys replies. “It is uncertain whether either will survive. The Blacks received the news just before their assault on King’s Landing.”

“Where is Aegon now?” Mother says.

“I’m not sure, Your Grace. He was still at Rook’s Rest last I heard, but they might move the king elsewhere to keep him hidden. I would imagine Aemond and Sir Criston Cole are requisitioning maesters from nearby houses to treat him.”

“Burns,” Mother sobs. “He must be suffering terribly, the pain…the disfigurement…”

Grandsire drums his fingers on the bars of his cell, his rings clinking against the rusted steel. His expression is remote, somber, resigned. “So we have two dragons capable of combat, one of which is young and small and pinned down by battles in the Reach, the other is on the far side of the Crownlands and trapped there while Aemond tries to keep our king alive. And Rhaenyra is here in the capital with Syrax, Caraxes, Vermax, and this new dragon Sheepstealer, larger than any of her others, and her faction seeks vengeance for not one but three royal deaths.”

In reply, Larys Strong only bows his head. Mother swipes tears from her cheeks and tucks your hair behind your ears as strands escape your braid.

“Well,” Grandsire sighs. “I believe we might be losing this war.”

There is the distant noise of a door’s hinges creaking, and Larys hobbles out of sight, retreating to the secret passageway he previously emerged from. A minute passes, and then footsteps echo down the corridor. Daemon strides into view, swinging Dark Sister in his right hand, and you are suddenly reminded so much of Aemond’s mannerisms that the absence of him guts you all over again, vital parts of you excavated like the organs of a slaughtered animal. Daemon is accompanied by several guards and a group of noblemen who you assume are members of Rhaenyra’s council. You recognize among them a tall man with short grey hair, Lord Bartimos Celtigar.

Daemon says: “Princess Helaena, the queen has taken your tiny, traitorous children to ward. Perhaps one day you will see them again. Perhaps not.” She gazes out from her cell vacantly, her face bloodless with shock and fear. Then Daemon turns to Grandsire. “Otto Hightower, you orchestrated an unlawful rebellion and therefore you will be put to death.”

Grandsire gapes at him. “What? When?”

“Oh, immediately.” Daemon steps back and the guards unlock the cell, seize Grandsire, knock him over and drag him wriggling on his belly into the corridor. Mother pleads for his life. Helaena shrieks and claws for him, trying to keep him with her. The guards fling her roughly away and slam the door of her cell shut before she can escape.

“No, no, do not mourn me!” Grandsire is bellowing as he is hauled away. “I am an old man, I have lived a good life, do not think of me, think of the living and what you can still do for them!”

“Father!” Mother wails, reaching through the bars of her cell though she knows she will never touch him again.

“I am ready to see your mother, Alicent,” Grandsire says; and then he is gone. The men of Rhaenyra’s council begin to file out of the dungeon.

“You followed us across the Narrow Sea, Lord Celtigar!” you shout after him, crawling across the floor and pressing your face against the bars of your cell. “House Targaryen saved you from the Doom, and now you rip it down from within by aiding a usurper. We will not forget your treason when the war is won. We will visit you on Claw Isle and bring with us fire and blood. And you will have no defenses. You are no dragonrider.”

“Neither are you, princess,” he says cooly, and leaves you in your prison.

Daemon is the only man still standing in the aisle. He peers down at you with shadowy deep-set eyes and twirls his Valyrian steel sword again. He grins, humorless, hungry, burning up inside with fury. “Perhaps I’ll be back soon.”

Mother yanks you away from the bars, and you can see what she’s thinking etched into the desperate lines of her face: How can I save her?

“I’m going to behead your father now,” Daemon tells Mother, then sweeps down the corridor. There is the sound of a heavy door closing when he reaches the end of the hall.

“Do not speak to them,” Mother hisses to you, and you are in too much pain to respond. Now you can hear men jeering out in the courtyard of the Red Keep. Daemon is listing Grandsire’s crimes. Crows are cawing.

He’s going to die too? you think dizzily. When does this end, how do we stop it?

The door at the end of the hallway opens again, and Mother stands and places herself in front of you; but it is not Daemon this time, relishing his chance to drag another Green to their death. It is Rhaenyra and Jace. The Blacks’ queen stops at your cell, her son a few paces behind her. He looks at you with heartbreak, with hatred, and of course he does; one of your brothers murdered Luke, the other killed Baela. And he does not believe you to be blameless like Helaena. You are a very different sort of woman.

“Alicent, your degenerate son’s insurrection is over,” Rhaenyra says. “I have taken the city and—”

“Jace needs to strengthen his claim,” Mother interrupts. Outside, men are cheering; Grandsire’s head has been struck from his shoulders. In her cell across the aisle, Helaena sinks to the floor and sobs quietly into her palms.

Rhaenyra studies Mother, incredulous. “What did you say?”

“There have always been people who doubted his parentage, as you well know,” Mother says, and you can see her hands are trembling; but her voice is steady. “And there are many who favor my line. They fear Daemon’s recklessness, and perhaps yours as well.”

“You speak so boldly for a woman who stands behind bars.”

Mother is unflinching. “Perhaps you imagine that you will kill every last Green, and all of our loyalists throughout the Seven Kingdoms, millions of people, and therefore you will have no use for bricks upon which to build a lasting peace. But I think that would be a mistake.”

“And you wish to help me?” Rhaenyra mocks.

“I wish to safeguard what is left of my family.”

The woman who calls herself queen considers this. Surely the same hope lives in her ribcage as well, the same catastrophic fear that it will prove impossible.

“One way or another, the war will be won,” Mother says. “And whichever side triumphs will have the other at their mercy.”

“I will have you at my mercy, yes.”

“Aemond and Vhagar are still out there. Underestimate them at your peril.”

“And what is your suggestion?” Rhaenyra demands. “To bolster Jace’s claim, to save your own skins?”

“Baela is gone and he is unspoken for. You once offered to unite our bloodlines by marrying Helaena to Jace. Perhaps if I had accepted that, I could have spared us this torment. I was wrong to dismiss your proposal so swiftly, Rhaenyra. I did not give you the respect you deserved. And I have reconsidered.”

Rhaenyra is puzzled. “Helaena is already married. Unless you have proof that Aegon is dead, which would be welcome.”

“No. I have another daughter.”

Both you and Jace begin to object at once; your mothers silence you with fearsome glares.

Rhaenyra is aghast; her sharp blue eyes dart to where you are slumped on the floor of your cell and then back to Mother. “This is a sickening insult.”

Mother seems calm, measured. It cannot be easy for her. “Willingly marrying my daughter to Jace is accepting his legitimacy. She is a Green, and very close in age to your son, and from what I have heard of Jace’s temperament I believe them to be well-matched.”

“I don’t,” Jace says.

Rhaenyra shakes her head in disbelief; but is there a ripple of uncertainty across her regal face? Yes, you think there is. “Aemond has already bedded her.”

“And who has said this?” Mother asks. “Daemon, who hates my family and has no mind for strategy or alliances? Rhaenys and the Sea Snake, who hungered for the Iron Throne all their lives and saw a chance for their descendants to possess it through Baela?”

Rhaenyra is looking at you again. “I’ve seen the way they watch each other. The way they move.” The dinner, she means. The night that Viserys died.

“She is a maiden,” Mother insists, but she gives you a transient sideways glance. Are you? “They had a flirtation, yes, as is so common for siblings of your foreign house, but nothing more. I would never have allowed fornication or the use of moon tea to disguise its consequences under my roof. They are grievous sins. You know me. You know my devotion to my faith.”

“She will submit to a maester’s examination to make sure?”

“Did you, Rhaenyra? Before you and Laenor Velaryon were wed?”

Rhaenyra raises an eyebrow. And you have the sense—vague and dreadful—that perhaps it is dawning upon her that taking something Aemond holds dear might have its advantages. “What do you want in return?”

“We have both lost innocent people,” Mother says. “There has been enough bloodshed. It must stop somewhere, or all the Targaryens will be dead and their dragons too, and this dynasty will vanish from the earth, and our ambitions will be for nothing. If you do indeed win the war, I want my surviving children and grandchildren spared. And my brother Gwayne, and Sir Criston Cole.”

“I cannot give you Aemond.”

“If you swear that you’ll pardon him, we shall do the same for Daemon if it is our armies that triumph.”

Now the hope is unmistakable on Rhaenyra’s face. “And my remaining sons will be allowed to live? All of them?” Even Daemon’s?

“Yes.”

She muses on this. “You make tempting promises, Alicent. But I don’t have any conviction that Aemond will heed you if Aegon dies and he is made regent until Maelor is grown. I don’t believe you can control him.”

“He’ll listen to his sister,” Mother swears. “He will not do anything that would bring her despair. And if she is married to Jace, she will come to love his family as her own. All the more so if they have children together.”

“She might not be trustworthy,” Rhaenyra says.

“She is of no threat to you. She is untrained with the sword, she rides no dragon. And you have her mother, sister, niece, and nephew held captive. She would not endanger us.”

“You have great confidence in her. Your hopes for survival are in her hands.”

“She is spirited, but she is clever, and she loves deeply and enduringly. She will do whatever is required to protect her own.” Now Mother’s voice breaks. “I want her sent away.”

“Mother, no—”

“Far from the war, far from Daemon,” she says, ignoring you.

Rhaenyra is nodding. “Somewhere secluded and peaceful…all the better for her to quickly give Jace an heir. The Riverlands, yes? Perhaps House Footly of Tumbleton.”

“No, not far enough. The Westerlands.”

“The North,” Rhaenyra counters.

“The Stormlands.”

“The Vale,” Rhaenyra says. “There will be no battles there, winter has already begun in the mountains and the roads are treacherous. She will be tucked away in obscurity until the war is won.”

“The Vale,” Mother agrees. She looks down at you and smiles, soft and sad and merciful. At last, after eighteen years, she has saved you.

Jace is whispering furiously to Rhaenyra, but she holds up a hand to stop him. He is exasperated. The supposed queen tells Alicent: “I shall think on this tonight.”

“She needs Maester Orwyle,” Mother says, kneeling beside you. “She is ill, she gets headaches. This place is bad for her. It’s the cold and the dampness. And the fear.”

“I’ll consider that,” Rhaenyra quips, and then she leaves, the hem of her black gown displacing dust on the floor of the aisle. Jace gives you one final glance—seething, appalled—and stalks after her. At the end of the hallway, he slams the heavy wooden door.

“I won’t do it,” you snarl, sick in body and soul. “I won’t, I won’t. I don’t care what you say.”

“We are in a fucking dungeon,” Mother says, grabbing and shaking you, and you’ve never heard her curse before. “Do you want to try to save your brothers’ lives? Or do you want to surrender to the destruction of our house? If you care for Aemond, as I know you do, you will give him a chance if he and Criston cannot win on the battlefield. You will earn Jace’s affection and convince him to spare us.”

You look at her, weak, stunned, at war with yourself. Jace can’t touch me. Only Aemond.

She asks you something; it takes great effort. “You are still…you haven’t…you’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

You hesitate. “In the literal sense.”

“In the…? Never mind, stop, I don’t want to hear any more.” Mother takes a deep breath. “Good. Then we haven’t lied to them. Jace might be able to tell. Sometimes there are…signs. Pain, blood.”

“He’s a bastard,” you hiss.

“He’s Rhaenyra’s son, and so he is a Targaryen and a dragonrider. And if Jace’s side wins, he will one day sit the Iron Throne. He can be proud, but no one says he is cruel. I don’t believe he would harm you. Your brothers are warriors, but you’ve never killed anyone.” Then she goes soft and hushed, and she cups your face with her gentle hands. “I know you’ve always thought you would marry Aemond.”

“Mother, I love him.”

“My darling, my brave girl, what you and Aemond have is…” She shakes her head, her large dark eyes grim and glistening. “It’s strange, and violent, and obsessive and profane and…and…unnatural.”

You are defiant. “If we had grown up in a true Targaryen court, we would have been expected to be this way. We would have married years ago, and no one would have condemned us for acting exactly like what we are. We aren’t First Men or Andals. We are the blood of the dragon.”

“It’s an affliction that brings nothing but sin and suffering.”

“You wed Aegon to Helaena!”

“And it has been a source of tremendous sorrow for them both,” Mother says, and now she is weeping again. “I should have stopped their marriage. But I was young, and I had already refused Rhaenyra’s offer of a match with Jace, and Viserys was so adamant, and I thought…maybe…maybe it’s not an offense to the gods. Maybe it’s just something I don’t understand. It was my husband’s custom, and so I deferred to him, as I had been taught to. But I was wrong. It’s too late for me to undo the pain I’ve caused Aegon and Helaena. It’s too late for me to mend Aemond’s eye or his soul. I can’t spare Daeron from the horrors of war. But I can still save you.”

“I belong with Aemond.” I belong to him.

“You don’t know better. You never had a choice.”

“I’m not you, Mother,” you say. “I’m not a Hightower or a Lannister or a Baratheon. I’m not like them, and I don’t want to be. I want to be Visenya.”

“You’re not going to be anyone if Daemon convinces Rhaenyra to have your head hacked off your shoulders.” Her vast eyes, dark like the mouth of a well, plead for you to understand. This is not a punishment; it is tenderness, it is compassion. “I would do anything to save you and Helaena and your brothers. Anything. You marrying Jace unites the realm. It provides a cornerstone around which to build a peaceful resolution. He will protect your kin. When the battles are past, we can negotiate a divided Westeros, or a line of succession, or exile to Essos or banishment to the Wall, or anything else that will preserve the lives of the people we love. And if Aemond can still win somehow…” She shrugs, and you know whatever affection she once had for Rhaenyra is dead now. “Then he can do whatever he wants with the Blacks who are left.”

I don’t want them to die. Aemond, Aegon, Criston, Daeron, Mother, Helaena, Jaehaera, Maelor.

Mother asks: “Will you do it?”

Aemond, Aemond, Aemond.

Again, desperately: “Will you do it?”

And you cannot look at her when you answer. “Yes.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Maester Orwyle appears an hour later to dose you with enough milk of the poppy to kill the pain in your skull, and when you sleep it is deep and dark and dreamless. Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Jace arrive at first light, dreary grey dawn trickling into the dungeon. You know what she has decided. Both Daemon and Jace are scowling, and you think, somehow knowing that it is true: The more they try to dissuade her, the more convinced she is. She feels the need to remind them that she alone was Viserys’ heir, that she is a queen in her own right.

“Just marry him to Rhaena!” Daemon is ranting.

“Rhaena brings nothing to our cause that we do not have already. And she will always feel second to Baela. She knows Jace loved her sister. It is perverse.” Then Rhaenyra collects herself and asks Mother: “She consents?”

“She does.”

Rhaenyra turns to Jace. His reply is toneless. “I will do as you bid me to, Your Grace.”

“She will be in the keeping of House Corbray until the war is over,” Rhaenyra says, nodding to you. “They are an honorable but old and modest house, and of little strategic importance. No one beyond who is absolutely necessary will know where she is, for her own safety and that of the children she bears. Jace will fly her to Heart’s Home.”

House Corbray. You remember their banner, Aemond once taught it to you: three black ravens, three red hearts. You have a memory of being in the library with his lips on your throat, his fingers skating up the inside of your thigh, whispering for you to keep quiet as maesters stock books on the other side of the shelf.

“She cannot ride a dragon,” Mother says.

“Sure she can, if he puts her on Vermax.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Mother insists. “Dragons hate her. She cannot go near them. They will attack her, they will kill her. She and Jace will have to travel by ship.”

Rhaenyra is taken aback by this. Daemon scoffs: “What the fuck kind of Targaryen repels dragons?”

“The kind that will never be able to fly to battle against us,” Rhaenyra mutters, and you think: She is angry with him. He has done something, he has displeased her somehow. And you wonder about the girl who rides Sheepstealer.

Your eyes drift to Jace, you cannot stop them. He stares back from beneath dark curls, his gaze hard like the cold stony earth of the Vale, his fingers tapping on the hilt of his sword.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s the very first time.

You are at your vanity, and you are supposed to be getting ready for dinner: choosing your earrings and bracelets, combing out your hair before you braid it, a silver river that shimmers like moonlight in the mirror’s reflection. You have bathed, and steam still clings warm and dewy on your skin. You wear a silk robe the color of ripe cherries and nothing underneath it. Candles flicker, cool evening air breathes in through the windows…and your mind is wandering.

For years, you have felt episodic pangs of longing, an indistinct need, a deep untouchable hunger, and you have never found a way to satisfy it. It waxes like a moon growing full and then wanes into nothingness, but it always reappears again, and tonight you are feeling restless, occasionally shifting on the cushion of your chair, seeking the pressure that gives you a taste—and only a morsel, a nibble, a drag of the tongue—of what fulfillment might feel like. Lately, when you are like this, you find yourself thinking of Aemond. He has never spoken of it directly, but you have noticed the way his eye catches on your chest and your hips, how his hands linger when he grabs or shoves or embraces you. You can’t stop wondering what it would taste like to kiss him. You can’t stop imagining which positions he would fuck you in, remembering the lustful figures on the tapestries that hang from the walls of Aegon’s bedchamber.

Your hand settles in your lap, and there—over the glossy blood-colored silk of your robe—presses down tentatively. You sigh, you writhe, you picture Aemond forcing your thighs apart and gazing transfixed at the rare pieces of you he’s never seen.

How do I satiate this craving, how do I make it go away?

Your bedchamber door opens and Aemond stands in the threshold, black leather and silver hair. “Are you ready yet—?” Then his eye drops to where you snatch your hand out of your lap, not quickly enough to escape him noticing. There is a stretch of silence that seems very long. Then Aemond’s scarred forehead furrows and he asks: “What were you doing?”

You consider lies; they dangle in front of you by the dozen, so many ways to deflect or deny or even to disparage him, those prickly games of wordplay. But when you speak, it is not just the truth. It is an invitation. “Thinking of you.”

And Aemond steps into your bedchamber and shuts the door behind him. He crosses the room, kneels in front of you, reaches beneath your robe to hook his arms under your thighs and yanks you halfway out of the chair. You yelp in exhilarated shock as he buries his face between your legs, and then your fingers knot in his hair, and then you are pushing him closer, shaking, awestruck.

Is he really here? Is this finally happening?

You cannot stay quiet when the pinpoint ecstasy opens, blooms, drags you to places you never knew existed. It is something too powerful to be found in the world of mortals. It is bloodmagic, it is shade of the evening, a poison so sweet you’d let it ruin you.

Afterwards—collapsed and gasping on the stone floor, your robe open and your body laid bare for him, flesh that he has claimed irrevocably, bones he owns like a dragon or a blade—you say: “What was that?”

“You had a climax,” Aemond murmurs. “It’s easier for a man, but they are possible for women too.” He smooths your hair back from your face; it is unbound and wild, spilling all around you. You think vaguely: He wants me even when I don’t look like Visenya? He ghosts his thumb across your lips and then kisses you, and it is nothing but warmth, desire, the shared minerals your blood is built of, undying affinity like the celestial kinship of stars in the same constellation. “You can always ask me to take care of you, and I’ll do it. I’m the only one who is allowed to. No one else, not ever.”

This is no sacrifice. You have never wanted another man, and now you know you never will. “Teach me how to satisfy you,” you say, smiling. “I want to see you helpless too.”

Before you dress and leave your bedchamber, you erase as much of the evidence as you can, washing your skin clean and taming your hair into a tidy braid; but still, Mother frowns worriedly at you and Aemond all through dinner.

[monsterloverxxx]

Minotaur x fem!reader

Plus sized Minotaur

MDNI

POV you have been sent into the minotaur’s labyrinth as a sacrifice, but your offering isn’t one of blood.

Monster-fucking/teratophilia, breeding kink/pregnancy kink, size kink/macrophilia/CNC

Groping, fingering, repeated PiV sex, pushing cum back in, some dom/sub dynamic.

Horror, gore

Dub-con (some non-con groping and grinding, wanted sex and consent but you’ve been put in that situation)

2080 words

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

Offering to the Minotaur:

Nobody knows how long the beast has cursed them, some say he has been there since the beginning of civilisation, others the dawn of time; either way he has always hunted these lands.

Mostly he hibernates; but every time the fire-star lights up the inky sky he awakens for 12 moons. An insatiable hunger to consume controls him, a bloodlust only slaughter can satisfy.

To contain his devastation the leaders of these lands long ago decided to gift him sacrifices, offerings to an old brutal god. Innocent souls sent to death to appeal to the mercy of the monster; a barter for their people to be spared.

_

You look up at the crimson glow in the night, an omen for the blood that would soon spill from your veins. Praying to your deities will do no good, you will soon join them in the heavens and drink moonbeams from golden chalices.

It is dark and cold inside the labyrinth; you can feel the chill in your bones; or perhaps what you feel is fear, terror that curdles your insides.

Tall walls once white marble are now green with slime, moss and mushrooms growing on water that has degraded stone for thousands of years.

It is a maze, and you are already lost. You feel trapped, claustrophobic yet overwhelmed by the infinite expanse. Each step cannot be distinguished from the last, you are roaming in endless circles.

Your legs ache from running, the breath inside your chest burns, your heart pounding. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. You turn every corner aimlessly, hoping it will not be your last.

You could hear the others, their echoed footsteps like ghosts, screams of terror and cracks of bones as they were butchered one by one. But now you hear only deafening silence, you know you're the last one standing, it’s your turn to die.

You slip and land on jagged rocks, broken off ruins. Smearing mud on the bottom of your white dress and scraping your tired knees. As you pull yourself up you see him looming over you. Eight foot tall, the head of a strawberry bull, torso of a burly fat man and solid cloven hooves.

You’re frozen in fear, your brain screaming for you to retreat but your body unable to follow. He grabs you and picks you up like a ragdoll, throwing you over his shoulder. The ground is so far below you if he dropped you, you would crack.

“Please don’t kill me” you beg over and over, tears flowing down your cheeks onto his hairy naked back.

“Your offering is flesh” he responded in a deep leather voice as he carries you to his lair

You try so much to wriggle your way out of his arms, even though you know the fall will maim you.

He grabs you around your ass to keep hold of you, his big hands up your dress gripping your underwear. You still try to escape his grasp; but how his hand rubs up against you when you move, you don’t want to admit how that feels.

You believe he’s going to feast upon you. Cook you in a stew with the others, suck sweet meat off your bones, drink your brains out of your severed skull. You pray he would kill you first.

He throws you down onto a pile of straw and furs: his nest. Your head rings from the impact, your bones jolting.

Before you can crawl away, he hops in beside you. He snuggles up next to you pulling you into him, enveloping your body completely with his, his fur and fat keeping you heated. Your face is nestled into his sweaty chest, he smells like rot, the scent of the slain is suffocating.

You wonder if he did this to the others? Gifted them comfort before pulling them limb from limb and devouring their bodies?

He falls asleep cuddling you, snoring loudly. You try to worm out multiple times to no avail. Eventually you give into his soft warmth and fall asleep. How can a creature so brutal feel so plush and tender?

Even though you have no sense of time your body wakes up naturally to the dawn. So had he, you glance around the room, he is nowhere to be seen. Part of you misses his embrace but this was your chance to delay your inevitable end.

You get up and flee his throne room, bolting as fast as your bruised legs can take you. But you do not get far before you need to stop and catch your breath.

As you lean against bloodstained bricks, you can hear him charging you, a great thunderous sound of hooves. He snatches you up, swooping you into the air and over his shoulder once more.

You know it is over now, this was the conclusion of your life, you give up. There’s no point fighting anymore, ‘just kill me quick’ you think, at least grant you that.

He places you back onto the nest gently this time “Stay” he orders

You will.

“Eat” he demands hurling you a bone; you didn’t want to know what it came from or who.

“I’m not hungry” you lie, you are famished but not desperate enough

“Eat” he repeats again “You’ll need the energy”

“For what? So you can hunt me like a hound?” you ask

“No” he responds.

He locks a metal collar around your neck attached to a short chain “Stay, I will return, then you eat, you need energy”

As soon as he leaves you pull at the metal, it is taut and chaffing, rust from many hundreds of years crumbles off in red chunks. You don’t try to get it off, you don’t have the strength.

You wait for him patiently. It is probably close to dusk when the beast returns dragging a deer carcass behind him. The stag's mighty antlers scraped along dirt.

He tears its body apart like it is a simple piece of bread, guts spilling everywhere. He cooks it over flame and feeds it to you. You are ravenous gorging yourself on its flesh like he had done to your fellow sacrifices.

When you are done, he climbs back into his furs again and wraps you up once more. But this time is different, he isn’t there to rest, he craves another thing.

You can feel something pressed up against you, you recognise it. You realise what your purpose is, what he wants from you: something warm and tight for him.

He grinds into the outline of your ass, his face is nowhere near you, but you could hear huffed breaths from his bull ringed nostrils. The way it drags into you sends shivers through your body.

“What is my offering?” you ask

“You are a priestess” he responded petting your messy hair “Your body a vessel for the gods. I am your god.”

“Vessel for what?”

“My pleasure and my offspring” he answered

Your flesh wasn’t to consume, it was to use and abuse, to play with like a toy.

He pushes his hand up your dress, it brushes slowly against your skin, up your body until he roughly grabs one of your breasts, fondling it callously, you can’t help but sigh at his touch.

The white dress that hugs your curves so well, you now see is a wedding gown. You had been gifted as his wife, a slave to him, for his arcane desires.

Your fate is not to dance in the clouds to songs of starlight harps, it is to be split open night after night by a monster's cock, to birth his demonic calves.

He shoves you onto your back and hangs over you, he is massive compared to you, a giant. He grabs the top of your dress and rips it in half, stripping you down, naked and exposed for him.

You are scared yes, but part of you tingles, the wet between your thighs could not lie. He is a beast, he was going to tear your body apart from the inside out, but you have not felt the touch of a man since you had committed to the temple, and oh gods was he a man.

He removes his loincloth; you can’t help but stare at his magnificence. You feel a feral hunger for that huge thick rod hung between muscular legs, hard as the stone around you, dripping with tears of yearning.

“I want to mate with you my little priestess” he strokes your face; his hand is the size of your head.

You don’t know if that is a question or a statement, either way you aren’t going to try and stop him. Maybe it would kill you, but maybe it is worth the risk just to feel him inside you.

“Yes” you responded

“Beg” he ordered “Beg for your god to take you, beg for him to fill you with his seed”

“Please” you plead, pathetic “Please breed me, I am your toy, I am your slave, please use me, please ruin me, I want it so bad, I need you so bad, please”

“Good girl” he grabs you by the hips and flips you over pushing your face into his animal skins. He spreads your legs open as wide as they could go revealing the sweetness between them. He runs a large finger through your folds, gathering slick as lubrication, forcing it inside. You gasp at the penetration followed by soft mewls as he pushes it in and out, going down to his knuckles, checking how much you can take. If this is how good his hand felt, you salivate at the idea of what would come next.

You are so hungry for it by the time he pushes the head to your entrance. He struggles to fit, but he is not gentle, ramming it inside of you with great force skewering your tight cunt. He did not take time to get you used to his size slamming straight into your cervix. White hot pain clouds your head but is soon replaced with carnal ecstasy as he pulls most of the way out and rhythmically thrusts into you.

You take him so well, your walls stretching around him. It’s like your cunt is designed for his cock, the god’s constructing your body specifically for your beast husband, perhaps he had created you for this use. You do not care; you are happy with this fate.

He continues to rail into you, holding your body firm so he doesn’t break your small frame. You are full of him but only half of his shaft is inside. He wishes he could fully stuff you, that he could bottom out inside and his balls could feel your heat as well. But he has stretched you fully out, you cannot physically take any more of him, but he can still try.

He fucks you for what feels like eternity, your body and mind in the heavens. Both of your loud moans are a symphony, a song of lust for only the spirits to hear. Your eyes roll back as your walls squeeze so hard around him, he can’t stop himself from filling you up. His seed drools down your thighs as he pulls out of your spent hole. He catches it with his fingers and pushes it back inside to save it.

His digits in your bruised entrance stings, but when you whine, he starts fingering you again. You rock into his hand, 2, 3, 5 fingers work you open. His own cum escapes down his arm onto the straw.

He trades his hand with his meat again swollen from your arousal, pounding it into you until he has replaced his wasted sperm.

He takes you over and over, again and again, so many times you lose count. Your body is jelly, your mind mush, your pussy is throbbing. He stops only when you pass out from exhaustion, and you fall asleep nuzzled in him.

And then when you wake, he starts again, he’ll keep going until he knows you are with child, carrying his young. And he will use you for his pleasure until he hibernates once more. Maybe he will gift you immortality so you can be his wife for eternity, or maybe he’ll dispose of you when he grows sick of your pussy and your womb, you do not know...

[jiubilant]

“Get up,” whispers Camilla Valeria, patting the face of the stranger in her bed. “Get up! My brother’s back early from Delphine’s.”

In a few days, the woman sprawled in Camilla’s strewn sheets will be renamed by a thunderclap. Dragons will dread her. Skalds will sing of her first battle-feats. Now she twists her face, assailed by hurried hands and the light lancing in from the window, and makes a muzzy noise.

“Here,” says Camilla. “Here, your shirt, your breeks, your rock—”

The voice that will kindle fires is hoarse with sleep. “Dragonstone.”

“—your belt, your boots—”

The woman in the bed, with groggy amusement, lifts her chin. “And?”

Camilla blinks down at her. Then, with a swift, sweet shopgirl’s smile, she drops a kiss on the other woman’s lips.

“I think you’re right,” she says, breathless. “I’ll marry Faendal. Then I won’t have to put up with Sven’s mother.” She grins down at her companion. “Unless you have a farm you haven’t told me about?”

The woman who will be called Dragonborn smiles with some effort.

“No,” she says, and stretches like a dancer. Her bruises burn. “I don’t have anything."

* * *

She has the rock—the Dragonstone, she corrects herself, following the Jarl’s plodding packhorse down the switchbacks of the Hvit. She has, too, the hundred aches and scrapes suffered in Helgen—she tries not to think of the screams, the charred-meat smell, the severed heads rolling from the upended basket—and last night in the barrow of the wight. The thing had probably been interred with the rock in its frail arms. But the ages had crumbled armor to rust and bones to dust; she’d lifted the Dragonstone from the sunken cavity of its chest, choking every Khefrish prayer she knew for quieting the dead. When she ran out of invocations, she made up soothing words that meant nothing in any tongue.

Drem, she’d murmured to the corpse, prying its withered hands from the stone. Her own hands shook. In the flicker of her torch, the scratches on the walls had seemed to burn. Praan, midaargolz, vodahmaan faazselaas—

The horse tugs its lead with an impatient huff. She staggers after it through the scratchy scrub, the sap-sticky branches, the patches of shade and light. Sun dapples the beast’s flanks. The river flashes as it polishes its stones. The leaves shriveling in the foreign trees blaze in all the colors of fire.

The burning standards, she thinks, the sun hot as fever on her neck. The horse-thief with his face in the dirt, his breath a wet, punctured noise. The severed heads rolling from the upended basket.

Then she grins, forcibly, like the dragon-skull mounted on hooks behind the Jarl’s throne. She draws the parcel wrapped in oilskin from the horse’s twitching back, soothing it with the praises she’d overheard in the Jarl’s stable; she doubts the wizard will let her look at her prize later. She thinks hard of the coinpurse in wait for her, the leg of mutton at the table of the Jarl, the smiling woman who fills the cups. The folds of waxy cloth fall open.

She blinks. She is, she realizes after a moment, holding the rock wrong-side up. The obverse side stares back at her, chiseled with scratches that mean nothing in any tongue.

The wind sticks, whispering, to the sweat at the back of her neck. Something in her stirs with a rattle of scales.

“Here lie our fallen lords,” she murmurs—aloud, halting, as though one of her old tutors scowls over her shoulder still. The words flower in the back of her throat like fire. “Until might of al du in—”

The trees shiver. The horse shakes its head and stamps. A head with suns for eyes tilts somewhere, listening.

[hawkinsbnbg]

hold me tight

Written for @steddieangstyaugust Day 20: “I didn’t know where else to go.”

tags: post Starcourt, friends to lovers, requited unrequited love.

rated: T | word count: 1k4 | ao3

This was stupid, Steve told himself. Absolutely stupid. It wasn't like Eddie was his friend or anything.

They just happened to spend many sleepless nights together smoking and talking about everything and nothing. They just met up at Skull Rock almost every day so Steve could decompress by listening to Eddie's ramblings about DnD, Hell Fire Club, and Corroded Coffin. They just told each other a lot of secrets and held hands to offer each other comfort. They just shared multiple inside jokes that not even their own friends would know.

They just—

Okay, maybe Steve had downplayed it. Because at this point, Eddie might be his only real friend in this town.

And it was just Steve's luck to catch feelings for him and lose him in the process.

See, since his young age, Steve had always been self-aware enough to know what he wanted. Whether it was toys, food, or people. He just never made his liking obvious in case his parents decided to hold them over him.

Hence, nonchalance had always been his default façade. It was the "Kill two birds with one stone", helped him protect his secrets, helped him conceal his most vulnerable part, and helped him remain indestructible under scrutinizing eyes.

And for a long time, Steve thought he was so smart, hiding his true self behind the garnished mask he had created.

Until he met Nancy, until he got his heart broken that night in Tina's bathroom, until he stumbled on Eddie and realized that the mask he wore made him look exactly like what he always hated.

Bullshit.

And now, standing on the Munson Trailer's porch, Steve tried to not turn on his heels and run away or puke his guts out because he was too scared of facing rejection again.

But he also didn't want to be alone right now, and call it his moment of weakness, he just wanted to be held and reassured that everything would be alright even when he probably didn't deserve it.

Selfishly, though, he knew Eddie wouldn't say no to him, not when he was in such a pitiful state, not when they used to be good friends up until Steve ruined it all. And perhaps, it was the thought that gave him enough courage to rap his knuckles on the door.

"D'you know what time is it, man? If you're here to ask for weeds– Holy shit!"

Against his better judgment, Steve shrank in himself, ashamed that he was causing trouble for Eddie once more, making himself as small as possible and bracing for another rejection.

"Uhm, hi?" He smiled weakly.

Wordlessly, Eddie guided him inside, led him to the couch, and sat him down.

After handing him a glass of water, which he sipped slowly, Eddie started cleaning the cuts on his face, movements gentle as if afraid of hurting him.

Though it wasn't much and Steve knew any decent human being would treat him with the same sympathy, his heart still didn't get the memo and started somersaulting in his chest.

He watched the soft yellow light cast on Eddie's face, illuminating those dark brown eyes like stars, shining on the plump lips being worried between those sharp white teeth.

He glanced down, taking in the sleeveless black tee and gray sweatpants, the crimson guitar pick dangling on Eddie's chest as he leaned forward slightly, the tattoos on the pale arms, the long fingers, void of rings.

"What happened?" Eddie asked, sounding genuinely worried, after a moment of tense silence.

Instead of answering the question, Steve only shrugged and grimaced slightly.

"Sorry for waking you up this late. It's just," he averted his gaze to avoid Eddie's intense look. "I didn't know where else to go."

"You're always welcome here, Sweetheart," said Eddie kindly. "And you can wake me up whenever. We're already past that, aren't we?"

Eddie was right.

It wasn't rare for the older boy to climb through Steve's window at random hours and invite himself into Steve's bed so they could cuddle until morning. And it wasn't new for Steve to do so to Eddie, either.

Over just a few months, they had grown impossibly close and Steve would dare to say Eddie was the one who understood him the most and vice versa.

Except, it was never that simple, wasn't it?

It wasn't as if Steve hadn't kissed Eddie in a completely un-platonic way. It wasn't as if they hadn't seen each other since the day Eddie ran away from him, confused and terrified, leaving Steve with even more nightmares.

He sighed, suddenly feeling tired. Who was he kidding anyway? It was a huge mistake to come here after all.

"Yeah," he sniffed. "But I thought I wouldn't be welcomed anymore after what I did to you."

"Steve," said Eddie sharply.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he squeezed his eyes shut and raked his fingers through his sticky hair, using the dull aches to ground himself. "I– Tonight's been a lot. People died, Eddie. And all I could think about was you. As much as I regret driving you away, I'd kiss you again and again even if I were allowed to come back to that day to fix my mistake. Because it had kept you safe and away from me, from dangers. And I swear I'm not trying to make you forgive me out of pity. I know I had screwed up big time. So I'm gonna be out of your hair soo–"

Steve let out a gasp when Eddie suddenly kissed him, staring in shock as Eddie pressed another one on the corner of his mouth, tasting his blood and pain.

"What–"

"I'm aware this is far from the appropriate answer you deserve," Eddie brushed a hair out of Steve's forehead, smiling sadly. "But I couldn't find any way more obvious to tell you the kiss was never a mistake. Because I've been dreaming about it for months and you had granted me exactly what I wanted."

Steve was confused. Because why would Eddie say that? Why would he kiss Steve then when all Steve wanted was to make it right? Why would he look so sad when he had already shattered Steve's heart into pieces?

"Why?" Steve asked softly, unable to hold a grudge when Eddie was looking at him like he hung the moon and stars, overwhelming and nothing he had feared at all.

"I was scared," said Eddie bluntly without needing him to elaborate, always understanding him beyond words. "That's not an excuse for the way I acted with you. I was an ass for going radio silence and leaving you in the dark. As your friend, I should've known to communicate better. But I didn't and I caused you all this pain just because I panicked over a kiss I've been wanting since the first time I saw you."

"I'm really sorry, Sweetheart," said Eddie quietly, hand cradling his face gently like one would hold something precious. "For having been an idiot and a coward. For breaking your trust. For running away. For hurting you."

Leaning into the touch, Steve closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the smell of old weeds, leather, citrus, and cigarettes, feeling oddly homesick even though he was already home.

He wanted to get mad at Eddie, to demand some kind of compensation for his battered heart; and yet, he was tired, in pain, and about to keel over now the drug in his system had worn off.

However, he was in no shape to hold a serious conversation at the moment and he knew Eddie had noticed it too.

"Let's go take a shower first, okay?" Eddie leaned in and kissed his shoulder. It was so random but Steve still felt his cheeks warm at the intimate gesture.

Somehow, he didn't have the energy to feel embarrassed about it and ended up having Eddie wash his hair for him.

———

After making a call to check in with Robin as promised, he padded into Eddie's room and joined the older boy beneath the quilts and blankets, smiling softly as he thought about all the time he had been in Eddie's bed when he couldn't stand his parents' arguments.

When Eddie pulled him closer, he went willingly and melted into those arms, feeling warm and safe for the first time after two months of staying apart from his best friend.

"I love you," he mumbled into Eddie's chest, too relaxed and sleepy to care about the consequences. Go big or go home, right?

And when Steve finally drifted off, he heard something almost sounded like, "I love you, too."

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

THE DEAD MEETS DOOM -- BUTTS & DOOM!

PIC INFO: Spotlight on a @butts_and_doom meets "Steal Your Face" mashup piece by Australian fuzz rock/desert metal band, VESSEL, c. summer 2023. 🤘💀🍑 🇦🇺🏜🤘

Source: www.picuki.com/media/3091168568654799805.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Gemology Vocabulary

for your next poem/story (pt. 4)

Gemology—the scientific study of gemstones

Common Gemstone Shapes:

Negative crystal - A crystal-shaped cavity within a crystalline gemstone. The cavity usually shows a combination of forms which occur in the host crystal and may contain liquid, gas or solid.

Ornamental stones - Minerals and rocks which normally lack transparency and are valued for their colour and pattern e.g. turquoise, lapis lazuli, malachite, agate. Although they have beauty, not all of them are rare or possess durability.

Scintillation - The multiple and alternating reflections or twinkling of light from the facets of a polished gemstone when there is relative movement between the observer and the light source or gemstone.

Sheen - A special visual phenomena observed in gem materials due to reflection of light from the internal structure of the stone.

Skull melting - A technique used to synthesise cubic zirconia. Zirconia powder is contained within a skull of water cooled fingers, then heated by radio frequency radiation. The molten material confined within a crust of itself is then slowly cooled , forming columns of crystals.

Striations - Parallel markings on the surface of crystals resulting from oscillating growth between two crystal forms.

Syngenetic (inclusions) - Mineral inclusions formed at the same time as the host crystal and enclosed within it e.g. healed fractures in quartz, olivine in diamond.

Tenacity (toughness) - The ability of a mineral to absorb energy without breaking or cleaving. Terms used are brittle, sectile, malleable, flexible, elastic.

Translucent - Allows transmission of light but does not show a clear image of an object.

Transparent - Transmits a clear, undistorted image of an object. Most faceted gemstones are transparent.

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ Gemology