#and the first thing he does when he comes to his senses as ice king is whip up a portal to apologize to her. not to exploit her and her lov

[janitorpostman]

some implying that Betty's desire to please Simon automatically make her a victim and Simon an abuser make me go 😑

[bluerosefox]

Summoning the Summoner

Another summoning/long lost family au but with twist!

So Damian and his class are at Gotham museum for a small field trip for a school project. Thing is none of them knew until it was too late that the new museum curator was part of a cult that had plans to kidnap and sacrifice this class of kids for some ancient god/deity/spirit.

Damian barely manages to send a message to one of his brothers and to the cave before being knocked out when he sees his classmates dropping from knocknout gas.

When he wakes up the preparations for the sacrifice are almost ready. Damian being the most prominent person in the class is going to be the one chosen first. He is then taken to the alter and it begins after the whole villain speech. Damian does manage to get out of his bindings and tries to fight back, does lead them on a merry little chase to get more time for his family to come, nothing to Robiny though, but is forcibly restrained again.

Just as they bring Damian back to the alter none of them notice, or rather, care that Damian was bleeding from getting hit when they recaptured him. None of them notice when the blood dropped from his chin onto the summoning circle because the Batclan (any) just dropped into the room.

They did notice however when the summoning circle started glowing beneath them however.

And none of the cultists had time to finish the summoning chant.

Meaning the summoning circle was not under their control.

And before any of them could do anything, they are all ripped away from the Mortal Realm and everyone, Damian, his class, the cultists, and the Batfam in the room are pulled into the Infinite Realms.

They are no longer in the warehouse they were about to be sacrificed in but in a throne room. Surrounded by glowing floating people and some don't even look human.

And sitting on the throne was a teenager with a shoulder wrapped cape made of stars and galaxies, a crown of ice, stars, and aurora borealis lights shifting in between them, about Damian's age, with white hair and glowing green eyes who looked rather shocked.

The reason? Both him and Damian shared the same face.

-x-x-

Danny was annoyed as heck.

Ever since his crowning it was like every magic user from legendary to mediocre got a notice that a new Infinite Realms King had been crowned and that gave them the go ahead and try to freaking Summon him!

Luckily refusing a summons was well within Danny's Ghost King rights, he's King now he does what he wants (Sam's wise words), and the only summonings Danny answered were his friends and family (Dani is such a troll with it though, butttttt it does get him out of those annoying meetings sometimes and they get to hang out wherever she decided to stop at), sometimes he'd answer the odd teenage morons just to scare them (it's always fun)

Although there were a few summonings outside of that, that he had answered. Thankfully he could sense what kind of summoner was summoning him and intent was always a huge thing. And those that didn't feel like insane fruitloops well... Danny's curiosity often took over.

So imagine his annoyance when he felt another summon happening in the middle of a meeting with his council. But also imagine his surprise when the normally tight demands on the summoning wasn't there...

That meant...

Oh Danny was going to have a lot of fun with this.

This meant they summoning but don't have control on which way the summoning was going to go. Meaning, Danny could reverse summon them to him instead.

With a wide grin he instantly waved his hand and the meeting room shifted to his throne room, might as well pull out all the stops and play the "Big Bag Ghost King"

He could see his council (and good friends and allies) raise their eyebrows at him or tilt their heads but could also sense the attempted summonings power of him and knew he had something planned.

With a short laugh, Danny raised his hand, grasped on the invisible summoning line, and pulled.

Now he was expecting a good amount of people, the summoning felt large so that normally meant cultists but he was expecting so many! Heck some looked to be teenagers his age, and a few oddly dressed people besides the cultists! Oh boy did that mean sacrifices?! Well he'll be happy to put those cultists in their place if that was the case.

But first, find the summoner. Separate them from the group and -

Oh... why... why does he have Danny's face?!

Danny took a quick look at the normally invisible to everyone but him Summoning line and almost choked when he saw it was a sibling line, a blood sibling line.

[dcxdpdabbles]

#holiday requests

i wouldn't mind more royal consort if you're willing to write it

just sent a request for royal consort as anon

There was panic all around the room, but Danny couldn't focus on anything for too long with all his senses so overwhelmed. He was suspended in the air, power rolling through and over him in busts of electricity. He can feel himself being ripped apart, rearranged, and placed back in the same way he had been when he was fourteen, but this time, the feeling is prolonged.

The portal does so again and again and again until Danny can't tell what he is anymore. Oddly enough, it's relatively peaceful. There had been no ripping pain when his necklace and portal transmitter had connected, but there had been an overwhelming sense of cold.

It was as if Danny had been plunged into iced water, spreading across his body like a tidal wave. Danny would have almost relaxed into the portal's form if it wasn't for the pins and needles that followed each wave.

Maybe it was worse for Jaz, who was fully human when they did this to her, but Danny had Phantom to fall back on. In more ways than one, given the army his future self has summoned and the insane amount of killing intent that Phantom was broadcasting.

If he could pick up on it from within this ball of semi-consciousness, he bet everyone else was likely drowning in Phantom's rage.

The dead knights fling themselves towards the portal with gusto, slamming their swords and bodies against the force field. Each strict flung Danny further from reality, drawing them back into the welcoming void of numbness, only to be ripped back by another cold wave.

"Danny, focus!" Phantom voice boomed. "You have become the key! Close the damn portal!"

Danny blinks slowly, trying to comprehend what the words mean, until a bolt of lightning zaps out of his fingertips, twisting into the outer layer of the portal. It's then he knows the horrible truth.

The world's end is coming, and Danny is the cause of it. The portal makes a strange zapping sound before it starts stabilizing and expanding. The first large ship was passing through, leaning in like a bizarre docking ship.

"Danny!" Phantom yells, more than a bit desperate. His call reminds him of the future and what will come if he doesn't stop the monsters now. He curls his hands, grabbing the power that made him King, and yanks his arms together. His forearms shake from the effort, but he holds on, willing everything to return.

The air goes boom as the portal starts dragging things inwards instead of out, as he commands the thing to call back the aliens. The ships and the few foot soldiers- lizard-looking men- are yanked right out of the air and thrown back into a new white portal.

It takes Danny a moment to realize the animalistic screaming is coming from him as the portal slowly retracts all the energy it has thrown out. He wills the portal's power to retreat into his chest, overflowing his core with energy that spins and whirls in a tornado.

He instinctively curls up, wanting to escape the pain when he feels the cracks take shape in his core. The breaking apart of the center of his soul echoes through his skull, drowning out all other noise.

"No!" Phantom's horrified screech exploded into a ghostly Wail, ripping around the mother ship, attempting to push past. Since Danny yanked the edge inwards, it pushed beside Danny instead of through him. It had turned on its primary thrusters. The rockets burn against the strain of escaping Dany's gravitation pull and force their way through the small gap in the top left of the portal.

On the deck, more lizard-looking poachers are ripped to spreads. Their screams let Danny know Phantom had wanted them to die and die painfully. The Ghostly wail was a sonic attack, but it didn't skin enemies unless Phantom purposely rolled his tongue like that.

In a sense, Phantom had turned his wailing vibrations into whip lashes at a speed that only the Flash or Superman could outrun. The aliens had no chance.

Danny peeks through one pain-filled eye, watching as Phantom's lips curl, even as the poachers are scrambling to collect their dead. He knew that his future self hated these creatures, and they had ruined Earth in two short years, but he had not realized the amount of hate that burned in those glowing green eyes.

Hate enough that when Phantom started throwing glowing punches, the ground shook. The few people the Waynes hadn't been able to evaluate shouted as the King turned off the gravity. Everything started flouting, and Danny could even spot some cars outside lifting into the air.

Phantom didn't seem to notice as his features started melting into something inhuman, sharper, colder, and green glow expanding from his pupils across his entire eyes as punch after punch hit the force field.

A few scouter ships broke away from the portal, but they were quickly swarmed by the flouting undead soldiers who aggressively sliced the smaller vessels with their blades. Danny knew why his future self hated them, not the skeleton soldiers. Maybe they just like to fight.

A loud crack echoes through the room over ghostly wails, blowing wind, screams, and metal clacks. The sound is similar to breaking glass, shattering as Danny's core falls apart.

Danny's back arches as a scream that tears at his vocal cords is ripped from his throat. The portal around them crumbles, closing at the tip of the mother ship, tearing it apart. Just as it vanishes from sight, everyone floating around the Consort can see it slowly burst into flames on the other side.

The portal slams shut just as Phantom's fist shatters the force field. "NO!"

His head feels heavy, much too heavy for his neck, as he flouts up toward the torn-up ceiling. Gravity is still missing as Phantom swims towards him; his features melt back into more human ones as he wraps his arms around him. "You little idiot. Do you have any idea of what you just did?"

"Saved...Jazz," He manages to grunt out, smiling through the pain. Phantom's arms spam around him.

"You didn't just change the future. You rewrote our fate." As if on cue, Clockwork's amulet turns into dust. Phantom's timeline was gone.

He would have also turned to dust were he still in it, but since he was outside the timeline, Phantom would now live in this one as a permanent member.

Phantom's eyes soften. "You saved more than just Jazz. I'll send our armies to kill them off now that I saw which galaxy the rats were hiding in."

Danny's shaky smile wobbles as the numbness in his body starts to retreat. It leaves licks of burning, aching pain, and he whimpers, leaning his head against his counterpart's chest. "It hurts...."

"You shattered your core." Phantom whispers, almost as if he knows the loud noises hurt Danny's head. It thumped in time with his heartbeat, sending little shockwaves of agony through his bones. "We'll have to take you to FrostBite. But I can't take you without knowing who had the portal key. We can't risk them calling the army before our men finish them off. Pandora is leading the charge against them right now."

"Okay....it was the Wayne Butler who had the key. He needs help."

Phantom's arms tighten as furry rippled under his skin. "He's a dead man."

"No." Danny attempts to shake his head, but the motion is too much for his poor shot nerves. He thinks his fingertips are smoking when he curls one hand in Phantom's cape. "He was in the containment unit. An alien took his place. I think it was pretending to be him."

Phantom hums. "That was one of their favorite tactics. I chased them across the cosmos. I saw them collect other aliens on some protected planets, so they resorted to luring people away by using familiar faces."

Danny makes the same sound, half awake. "They stripped him naked. Covered him in triangles."

"Fuck. What color were the tringles?"

"Blue."

"They weren't going to sell him as a pet. They planned on marketing him a breeding bull or an expensive meat plater for aliens that like exotic animals. Likely due to the poor guy's age." Phantom hisses, pushing a floating table away from them. "What happened to the alien that was pretending to be him?"

"Killed him"

"Good job." Phantom pats his back. "Rest now. I'll handle the rest."

"Okay." Danny is releasing the few strands of consciousness when he hears Tim Drake's desperate call from Phantom's left. It's much closer than it should be, considering they were still flouting near where the once grand chandelier had hung.

"Your majesty! Please turn the gravity back on! The surrounding fifty miles radius is in a panic, and people are flouting away!"

Phantom sighs, his cape flaring dramatically as he adjusts Danny to snap his fingers. There are clacks and crashes as gravity yanks everything back to the floor. Phantom doesn't pay them any mind as a new green portal blooms in front of him, the swirling green like a calm lake surface, a welcoming difference to the zapping one of the enemy.

Phantom steps through, ignoring the cries of the humans. The portal closes on Tim's desperate "Please allow us to help the Consort!"

Strange, Thinks the injured Halfa. He shouldn't sound so close anymore. He should be on the ground somewhere.

Danny just knows they will be panicking about him being hurt. Didn't wars start because of similar situations whenever a royal visits a different country? Danny isn't too sure. His mind is fuzzy, and he's only awake because he hasn't been surrounded by darkness yet, but he's flouting near it."

Frostbite jumps to his feet with a slack jaw. He bends in a bow, stumbling around his desk's stacked scrolls and research papers.

"My King!" He cries, his eyes swinging back and forth between the two Dannies. The yeti bows again, a little more hesitant as he mutters, "And my other..... King? What is happening?"

"We need your help," Phantom tells him. "His soul core got shattered. I think he's dying."

Danny whimpers, only half aware of how serious this is. He doesn't want to die. Not like this. Please. Everyone still thinks he's married to himself. He'll forever be remembered as Phantom's Consort instead of all his other talents.

Like making one mean salsa.

Frostbite makes a sad, choking whine, but Phantom doesn't pay it any mind. He presses Danny closer, and the human can feel the vibrations of his voice on his chest as he demands. "Prepare your operation chambers. I'm giving him my core."

"But, My King, that would mean you....."

"I don't care. I didn't return to Earth expecting to live. This is a command from your King. Do it"

Danny fades away into the darkness, unable to protest Phantom's request. He goes limb in the strong arms of his future self, aching for the version of himself that saw his world destroyed and would not be able to see the peace their actions brought.

Frostbite's grim voice echoes in the darkness. "This is another way, my King, but we need a human sacrifice."

"I'll do it." A third, unexpected voice cuts in, and Danny identifies it as Tim Drake before he knows no more.

[deadsetobsessions]

Headmaster Dumbledore is sure that the ghosts of Hogwarts were hiding something. He’d be the first to admit that he’s nosy when it came to things like these, but he simply doesn’t have the time. Whatever that lingered these halls, he’s sure does not mean Hogwarts any harm. The ghosts would not protect it if it did.

Albus Dumbledore Hummer around a lemon drop as his quill scratched over endless parchment paper.

His wand glowed green for a brief second, an acknowledgement, and settled down into its current owner’s hold.

——

Danny Phantom hadn’t thought the castle he found during the summer months in this universe would be… so full of life. Not when there were ghosts, floating around like the castle were their own home.

Magic.

They were ghosts made of magic.

His core struggled, at first, to survive. Then, it took the magic and thrived.

He floated, invisible amongst the glittering candles beneath the imitated night sky, and watched students file in.

Quite different, from his own entrance.

He had floated into the tower, having felt a hint of resistance that he knew now were the castle wards. The ghosts, what he thought were ghosts before he realized ectoplasmic ghosts existed, stopped dead. Hah.

The shades dancing and whirling and conversing froze as he entered the tower. Life and death, and the beings that walked the line, stopped at the arrival of the One Who is the Line. The boy king wreathed in black and green glanced around.

“Hello. I’m Phantom.”

“The High King,” a ghost whispered. “Our king.”

“He’s an American?” Another one asked, scandalized. Danny, surrounded by those who he recognized as his, cracked the first smile he’s had in a while.

“Who cares? He’s…” The knight sunk to his knees, bowing with his ghostly sword in front of him.

The ghosts bowed. Danny floated in further. “Can you tell me where I am?”

“Of course.”

——

Now… he’s watching the children get Sorted. Weird, for a hat to decide your classmates, but whatever.

Harry Potter’s name is called, and the whispers broke out. He doesn’t know why, but Danny couldn’t ask the ghosts. They barely know the current headmaster, as the dead generally care only for their own times.

Danny decides to visit the lake octopus. Lake squid? Something like that. The mer people beneath the waters liked him, the last time he went. The Sorting is put out of Danny’s mind. He’s dead now, too. The only thing he cares about now is to explore the vast halls of Hogwarts and the occasional visit to the kitchen to steal some food for his living body.

(Thank the Ancients he found a house elf who knew what seasoning was.)

(Sometimes, Danny flew to where his home would have been and gets comfort food at the nearest town. He missed it, but he can’t go back.)

The ghosts know by now to call for Phantom should they need something (“I’m American,” he joked at the ghost. “We’re not big on kings. You can just call me Phantom.”)

——

The third year he’s there, Danny feels the effects of Clockwork’s power. When he investigates, it’s the red headed girl he once saw leaving the library, paper clutched in her hand.

She helped save one of his subjects, so he owes her. Plus, if she’s using Clockwork’s powers, this Hermione has potential.

And… she’s using it to study.

She reminds him of Jazz.

——

A wave of ice crackled and froze the fleeing rat and the feral wolf man.

“What?!” Harry screeched to a stop, eyes wide at the ghost child in front of him.

Danny turned, and landed gently on the ground. Snape snarled at him in suspicion. Danny allowed himself to become living again, black hair and blue eyes and tan skin replacing the white, green, black thing his dead form had.

“Who’re you?” The red-headed boy, Ron?, asked him through gritted teeth.

Danny smiled at them, dimples appearing. “A friend.”

Before the trio and co. could say anything, Danny whips his head around, palm coming up.

“Stop.” He orders. The creeping sense of cold and dread shuttered to a stop. “Go over there,” he said, and the dementors, hovering at the edge of his periphery obeyed. Danny turned back to the mildly terrified and flummoxed group.

“Let’s go. You’re all going to catch a cold, if you don’t move it. Especially you, scrawny and greasy.” He pointed at the godfather and Snape.

——

“Hey, Danny?”

“What, Harry?”

“Why’d you help us? I mean, you said you didn’t want to involve yourself in stuff like that.”

Danny hummed, wisped tail curling up against him as he soaked in the sun’s rays. “Because you reminded me of myself. And in the end, you died.”

“You literally brought me back,” Harry deadpanned, remembering the place between life and death, and how the angry Danny was when he stormed onto that train platform. The King had taken him by the scruff of his shirt collar like a particularly incensed mother cat, and dragged him off away from a puzzled Dumbledore.

“You were being stupid. You’re too young to die.”

“Like you?”

Danny snorted. “Nah. I didn’t have a choice.”

[hyukascampfire]

𝒯𝑂: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝐴 𝑊𝐴𝑅𝑀 𝐶𝐿𝐼𝑀𝐴𝑇𝐸 ༉

𝓘N THIS STORY 〃 a life lived as a human among the fae is hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

wc ➳ 17.5k

pairings faerie!taehyun x human!reader

warnings violence (stabbing... twice..), a dead animal appears in a scene, fem reader, mentions of past family trauma, cunnilingus, overstimulation, unprotected sex

playlists ⑊ yeonjun ˒ taehyun ˒ series

…🪶 ashlynn's note y'all. Y'ALL. I have so much in store for you. I was hunched over my desk writing this like a crazed scientist mixing their chemicals.

← ⑊ →

It’s more difficult than you had anticipated to keep your mouth shut about what had happened, but Taehyun stays quiet, so you do too. You make yourself useful, packing up with him, hoping to ease the palpable tension.  

Insecurities whisper in your ears that the kiss was just… disappointing to him. It was your first kiss, anyway. The feel of his lips on yours is brutally seared into your mind. You hope your mouth harasses his mind as much as his does yours. You can’t let that fester for too long, though. You have a lot to do to become a useful spy. Your inadequacy is why you’re even here, traveling in silence next to Taehyun, heading north. You’re not sure why they decided to throw you to the wolves for your first assignment, but there has to be a reason. You can only throw yourself more fully into improving your skillset. 

You decide on trying to cut the nagging tension with words. You’ve walked for hours with it looming in the air. But, it isn’t easy. You open your mouth to speak, closing it to rethink your words, and repeat a few times, before finally just saying, “What are we going to even be doing, when we reach the north?” You readjust your bag on your shoulders, its thick straps digging into the bone of your shoulder. The bag is heavier than it was yesterday. Everything is heavier today. Maybe it’s the realization that you’re progressing toward your dream, but it’s all hazier than you imagined it would be. Or, maybe, it’s the awful cold shoulder Taehyun is throwing at you.

“Do you know much about the Unseelie queen?” He asks. 

You shake your head. You know that her kingdom is revered as the most fearsome in Faerie, and you know that they hold a special brew of distaste for humans. But, you do not know much more. Your school lessons had, for reasons you could infer, brushed over the ice kingdom only very briefly. The folk prefer that humans don’t see those sides of this world. Not for your peace of mind—but, because it keeps you complacent. It’s not like you don’t see it, anyway. You know the evils of this world well.

“You need to be careful when we get there. Things get rough for humans up there. You need to remember that you can’t trust the words that come from their mouths.” 

How long until snow powders the ground? The scenery around you has already grown wintry—trees are sparse, and foliage is hardier. It all is so much more muted. Probably not too long. 

“We’re going to be infiltrating The Queen’s Court. She’s always pledged allegiance to him, but The King wants eyes and ears in the north.”

The King thinks that she’s going behind his back? There’s more in this world that you are oblivious to than you imagined. You’ve been under the impression that the Northern Queen was starkly allegiant to The High King. It makes sense, though. There isn’t much incentive to keep humans in the know on faerie politics when you’re just here to be working bodies. “Does he have any reason to believe that?” you ask. It would be nice to have some more information. 

Taehyun explains, “The Northern Court and High Court have had a history of tension. It’s why it became a tradition to send their children to intermingle with each other’s courts. However, the Queen hasn’t upheld that tradition for at least the past hundred years.” An extra chilly breeze licks at your cheeks, and you shiver. You are definitely making progress northward. 

“So, he risks the lives of his heirs?” you ask, pursing your lips. If the northern court is supposed to be so vicious, you cannot imagine why The King would even consider it, especially if relations are supposed to be so strained.

“The Queen would not outright harm them. She values the power that his alliance gives her too much, and she would lose the war that would follow. She is the scheming type.” Taehyun tugs up the hood of his cloak to keep the wind from chapping his skin, and you do so with yours as well. “Which is why we’re going up there in the first place.” 

You acknowledge his answer with a nod. The wind whips past you, and you have to fight it to keep your eyes open. You would appreciate the accompanying snowfall if it was not blowing wildly down on you and stinging your cheeks. With a flex of your fingers, you confirm that they’re still mobile, but they’re lethargic and locked up in the cold. A powdery layer of snow builds on the ground, and you curse it for the way it has your toes freezing through even your leather boots. 

“Can,”—Your teeth chatter—“Can we get a fire going, or something?” 

You catch a glimpse of his face under his hood as he turns to you. His nose and cheeks are rosy, but it seems that the cold affects him less than it does you. The snow is high enough now that you have to drag your feet through with each forward step. Is the rest of the way going to be like this? You might freeze to death, then. 

“We’ve got a bit of time. Let’s get as far as we can, before stopping.” 

You roll your eyes. Maybe he wants you to freeze to death, and then he could be freed from any trace of what had happened last night. You bring your hands to your mouth and let out warm puffs of air as if it would thaw out your poor hands and nose. 

Your mouth struggles to even form words.“I would appreciate living to see tomorrow,” you say slowly. You still lace it with plenty of attitude.

Taehyun doesn’t respond. 

❆

Taehyun curses as visibility wanes to only a few feet. All that lays in your path is whipping snow and haze. 

Your boot catches on something beneath the snow, and you tumble. Frigid snow and ice shards greet you on the ground, biting your skin. Looking up, you find Taehyun gone. He has to be at least somewhere in the gray haze around you; it’s only been a few seconds. If you can’t find him, you’ll die here. That isn’t up for debate.

 “Taehyun?” you shout, your voice muffled and carried away by the howling wind. 

You stay where you are, but lift yourself from the ground. You can’t start wandering blindly, you’ll end up separating further from him.

He calls your name, but it’s distant. 

“Here,” you say, “I’m over here!” 

There are many ways that you do not want to die, but you especially do not want to die like this. Your throat tightens the longer he doesn’t respond. 

“Taehyun?” 

He appears through the veil of snow and haze. A cry erupts from your throat, your voice breaking with relief. He takes you by the arm and tugs you behind him wordlessly, searching for something.

“I thought I was dead,” you say to the air, but it mostly drowns you out. 

“I know.” His voice is thick. “I did too.” 

He finds whatever it is that he seems to be searching for, and you might cry as you recognize the rocky opening to be a cavemouth. You won’t be dying today, at least. 

“I’m going to start a fire,” Taehyun announces only moments after you both duck under the low cavemouth and step into the refuge of the cave walls.

“You’ll get lost.” It’s true, but you also just cannot stand the idea of sitting in this cave alone for any extended amount of time. Your hand is barely visible in front of you, and it’s only getting darker as the blizzard grows thicker outside. 

“I’ll be fine. You’re going to freeze to death without it,” he says, before he dips out, leaving you alone and shivering. He could’ve at least given you a second to protest.

You’re not usually too scared of the dark, but you do press your back to the wall, decorated with liverwort, and sit. Getting separated earlier nags at your mind. You have to remember that you aren’t safe. A line of work like this guarantees it. You could easily have become a body losing heat out in that flurry of wind and snow. You would’ve died before ever seeing the fruits of what you could make of yourself; would’ve died living an insignificant life. Some jaded part of you wonders what Taehyun might’ve felt if you had. Would he move on with this assignment without delay?

At least the wind is no longer circulating about the cave and producing the howl that has been haunting you. There are no such wintry winds to freeze up your extremities in here, but it’s still cold enough to have you shuddering and tucking your hands underneath your knees to ration your warmth. 

Will you even be able to make it all the way to the Northern Court? You imagine telling Taehyun that you can’t handle it, or that you’re going back, and you imagine the look that would fall over his face. No. You’d become a statue of ice, frozen forever at a crossroads between a meaningless life and new beginnings, before that. 

The cold beckons you to sleep, and the aching in your tired back and limbs say that sleep is a splendid idea, but you resist. You need to see him return so that you know that a fire will warm your aching bones to sleep. But you are so cold, and sleeping it away sounds so nice… 

Your eyelids are heavy, and it’s harder to keep them open than it is to just let them fall. Your veins are sluggish with the cold.

When your head drops, you’re brought back to consciousness, but it’s so, so cold when you’re awake. It’s so cold that it burns. Even your lungs are slow and weary. 

You are so cold that you can no longer shiver. 

Something is muffled and shuffling beyond your huddle, but you can’t rally the energy to worry about it. You hang suspended between dream and consciousness. You want both so badly.

Taehyun curses. “I need you to stay awake,” He says. You can only muster a nod for him. Your eyes protest as you hold them open, watching Taehyun hastily sparking up a fire. He strikes rocks against each other, growing more frustrated each time a spark doesn’t catch. When one does, the flame starts slowly on the snow-wetted wood. Your skin tingles under the warmth radiating from it. The roiling flame is intense, having been cold for so long. 

You bask in the fire’s flickering light. Movement comes easier to your limbs as you defrost. Taehyun produces a few hardy roots and skins them with a dagger that glints in the low light, then sets them to roast over the flame. 

“How did you find those?” you say. It was hard to even walk out there, and you’re sure it had gotten worse while he was out. How would he even find them under the snowpiles, unless he knew where to look?

He gives you a long look, as if considering something. “Just got lucky digging through the snow while I was looking for the wood.” 

That explanation doesn’t make sense; finding three subsurface roots underneath thick snow is different from finding hunks of wood protruding from it. It might be the truth, but you decide to ask, “Under the snow?” 

Fire crackling is the only sound to fill the silent moment as he doesn’t answer. Well, if you weren't already iffy, you are now. He watches the flames prance around for a charged moment, the reflection of it shimmering in his dark eyes. 

“I’m from the north,” he finally says. You frown. Why hadn’t he just said that in the first place? 

“Is that why your ears aren’t pointed?” you ask, sitting up a bit. He pulls the roots, lightly toasted, off the fire. 

His gaze rips away from the flame, landing on you. His eyes are a little too intense for such a simple question. “No,” he says.  His behavior tickles a curious part of you; if you’re going to be on this assignment together for so many weeks, then it’s best to get to know each other. You also have been intensely curious about his ears from the moment you noticed their curvature. It’s odd to see fundamentally human features on a faerie. 

You don’t mean to be overly invasive, though, and you feel bad for prodding so much as his face hardens. You hadn’t thought too much about why it might be a sensitive subject for him; you just wanted to satisfy your curiosity. You’re seconds from telling him that you like his ears, but he speaks before you can. 

“My mother was human,” he says, his eyes trained on the cave floor in front of him. He’s half human? That’s why he’s so averse to mentioning his ears—he’s embarrassed by his human mother. You stew over that. If he dislikes his mother for her humanity, it explains how he has acted concerning you. You pity him, though. It would be difficult to belong anywhere with that specific mix of blood: humanity fears him, and Faerie does not treat half-blooded faeries as truly its own.

“She hid herself away when she found she was pregnant, and gave birth to me where she thought she would be safest. She knew what my father would do. He found her eventually. He killed her because she was dirt on his name. He couldn’t kill me, though.” Your stomach does a sickened flip. You know that, by faerie honor, he would have to raise Taehyun.

“I’m so sorry, Taehyun,” you say. He just presses his lips thin and hands you a roasted root to eat. 

“I hated him for it more each day, so one day I took a blade to my ears and made sure I never resembled him again. At least, in that way.” Your heart lurches. The thought of him carving off the points of his ears to spite his dad… He had maimed himself, and you’ve been poking and prodding him about it. You wince.

You want to apologize again, but you have a feeling that he doesn’t want any more apologies, and you don’t know him well enough to comfort him in any meaningful way. Instead of saying something that you’re sure will ring hollow, you say, “The faerie that stole me from my parents was a seamstress. She wanted a human girl to work her shop for her, without having to pay wages like she would for a faerie. It was taxing work, even when I was this tall,”—you denote the height of a child six or seven years old with your hand—“Maybe she just didn’t know what it means to raise a human child, but she wasn’t the best replacement for parents. She knew that I needed to be fed at least regularly, and provided everything I needed for hygiene, but she didn’t know that I needed a mother. She gave me an education, and I know that humans here don’t usually get that. I’m grateful for it—I really, really am, but it’s just… The fact that it was more for her own benefit than out of the goodness of her heart…” 

Taehyun listens, his eyes reflecting the oranges and yellows of the fire. You know that you’re rambling. “Sorry. What I’m trying to say is… I guess…” You hope the yellow glow of the flames is enough to disguise your embarrassment, and also that he doesn’t think you’re trying to upstage him. You just feel wretched for putting him in a position where he had to surrender such dark memories to you.

He doesn’t say anything, taking a root from the fire for himself and biting into it. 

You bite into the fat, tuber-like root too, appreciating its nutty flavor, and you embrace the silence that grips the cave. Only the garbling of the fire speaks, but it is a comfortable quiet. 

❆

The snowstorm must’ve died down while you slept, because the snow isn’t too much higher when you and Taehyun set back out the next day. It’s a bit of a drag to fight the mountains of snow it left with each step, but you don’t complain. 

Sunlight shimmers off ice crystals and sends droplets down from snow-dusted branches and to your cheeks. Every breath into your lungs is crisp, but you have bundled yourself in the thermal clothing from the bag Taehyun had packed for you, so you’re mostly comfortable. At least your fingers and toes are mobile now. 

Taehyun says that you have less than a day until you’re there. You repeat that like a mantra in your head as your feet ache with the strain of traveling so far by foot. He hasn’t said much else since, though, and you wonder if it has anything to do with last night’s topics of choice. His shoulders are as tense as his demeanor. 

It’s getting boring walking for hours on end, and Taehyun isn’t the most talkative. The most you get for entertainment is your thoughts and watching the scenery change. So, you decide to put this time to use. You apply the silent walking technique that he had taught you despite how awfully your feet ache. It’s harder in the snow, but you’re better off knowing how to do it even in extraneous circumstances. You don’t know all that you’ll be facing in the north. Sliding your sword off your back, you realize how much it had been dragging your back down. No wonder your spine aches…. You practice swings and jabs, still sloppy with inexperience. 

Taehyun hears you, and says over his shoulder, “Don’t push yourself today. You were close to freezing to death last night, just recharge your energy.” 

Was it so bad? You know you had gotten pretty cold, but you feel fine now. “I was just exhausted, not freezing. We walked forever yesterday.” 

You continue trying to get used to the weight of a sword in your hands. 

Trees start coming fewer and farther between, and though the snow on the ground grows lower, it is crusted over in an icy layer that you have to break through with each step. Everything is sharper and more icy, less fluffy and light. Icicles drip from trees so sharp they could substitute for a weapon. You put away your sword; the ground is slick, and you’ll fall if you don’t think your steps through. You’ve got to be in the Northern Kingdom, now. 

You walk like this for a while longer, only sparse trees and shrubbery, until an estate standing tall on the snowy flat peeks through the midday haze. An ancient and gnarled blackthorn tree sits proud on the estate’s grounds. Its spiny branches, bare of any fruit or leaf, twist among themselves. They remind you of impish claws.

Taehyun is heading straight for the estate. 

“Are we about to meet somebody?” you ask, closing the distance between you with a little jog. 

He shakes his head. “It’s my father’s residence.” 

You stop, and he makes it a few steps ahead of you before he realizes. “We’re meeting your father?” you say. The thought turns your mouth to cotton. He had killed Taehyun’s human mother. Faerie hospitality doesn’t seem to mean much to him, and you don’t think he’ll like you much.

Taehyun’s brow creases. “What? No,” he says, looking back at the estate. “He’s been dead for a while.” 

You reign in the relief that you feel, but that tidbit of information renders you curious again. Faeries don’t die of old age. How had he died? Is Taehyun pleased that he’s gone?

“Oh,” you say, not pushing it. You learned that lesson yesterday. “Good, ‘cause I’m not in any shape to be meeting anybody right now.” You drag your fingers through your knotty and tousled hair to make a statement. It’s wet in some places, where snowflakes found their way to your head and melted there. You’re sure it looks even worse than it feels. “Are we staying here, then?” You could use someplace to make yourself look less like you’ve just traveled three straight days, and it’s relatively optimistic that the sizable estate ahead of you has what you might need. 

Taehyun hums in confirmation. 

You approach the heavy ironwood front doors, and you gape at the wood interior and high ceilings. Nut-hatch’s humble cottage was more than the roaming life the wilder fae prefer, but it pales next to this. Charcoal-black banners hang down from the mezzanine and are embroidered with silver into a family crest that resembles the blackthorn tree that sits on the grounds outside.  

“Who, exactly, was your father?” you ask, running fingers along the top of the dusty dining table that sits center of the estate. The sight of the empty chairs that encircle it is almost mournful.

Taehyun doesn’t answer, and when you look for him to see why, he is planted to the floor. A muscle feathers in his jaw as takes in the estate.

“He was general of The Queen’s guard. And, I guess, also a lord in her court.” There’s icy distance in his voice.

This is absolutely the estate of an esteemed general and lord if you’ve ever seen one. 

“Anywhere for me to clean up?” you ask. You don’t want to intrude on whatever he’s dealing with returning here.

He nods, pointing up to the mezzanine floor where the walls are lined with doors. “There should be some stuff left over. You can use whatever you find.” 

You follow him as he leads to a room. As you draw yourself a bath with water warmed over a fire stove, you cannot help but wonder what awful memories this place might hold for him in its ornate, wooden walls.

❆

Waking up in the warm sheets of a plush bed was a soothing balm for your aching joints and bones. Your hair is fresh and perfumed with the soaps and powdery-scented oils left over in the bathing room. You delighted in brushing out the tangles. The estate is full of pleasures that only the gentry could find mundane; you, on the other hand, are only left scheming how you might make this life your own. 

You don’t see much of Taehyun all day, until he pokes into the bedroom you’re staying in and informs you that you’re attending Court tonight, and though you’ve known for a while now, a thick ball of nerves coils up in your stomach. 

You unstring your travel bag, worrying that you’ll have to wear what you arrived here in, but Taehyun had packed accordingly. You tug out a mute dress, beige in color, and embroidered in the bodice and skirt of it with bronze threads. The short, puffed sleeves are pretty. There isn’t much to decorate yourself with, no pretty pins or silk shoes in the dressing tables or wardrobes, so you just wear your hair as it is and lace up your traveling boots for footwear. You find yourself in the mirror to be prettier than you’ve ever looked. Any dresses you’ve had access to in your life have been largely unspecial, and they marked you as a human servant. Even nakedness, in the land of Faerie, is more ornate than those kinds of dresses.

You hold the skirts of your dress up and above your feet so that it does not tread on wet snow and dirt as you and Taehyun leave the estate for Court. The knots in your stomach don’t let up any. You know you’ll stick out as a human, that’s a given, but you are deeply terrified you’re going to make a fool out of yourself by forgoing some unspoken faerie revel rule. You can’t compromise your assignment. Does Taehyun know you’ve never partied alongside the fae? Humans often attend faerie revels in the High King’s court, but are they even allowed to do so here?

Taehyun is dressed lavishly, clad in black from head to foot, and he wears a sleeved doublet encrusted with shimmering black beads and threads that glitter in the moon’s light. He wears the black fur pelt of some beast around the collar of his neck. He resembles entirely the son of a general. You feel plain, next to him. 

“What do I do when we get there?” you ask, stepping around a puddle encased in a thin layer of cracked ice.

“The King wants to know if anything is going on, so you need to just listen. Look around a little, talk to people you think are interesting, and go from there.” 

Sounds simple enough. 

A thick forest surrounds the snowy flat that Taehyun’s estate sits on, and as you approach it, Taehyun says, “When we’re there, you can’t dance, no matter how badly you’ll want to.” 

“I won’t.” You reassure him, but you’ll just run on the hope that Taehyun sticks near you. Faerie celebration is untamed, and if a human happens to dance among them, they will not be able to regain control over themselves until a faerie takes pity and pulls them out. That isn’t usually the case, though. The folk delight in seeing humans lose themselves to the abundance of faerie delights. 

Taehyun accepts your answer, but he stops at one of the many wax-leaved holly trees and plucks a few jewel-red berries from their branches. Holly berries are faerie wards, and humans often carry a handful of them in their pockets to protect themselves from simple faerie glamours. 

“I don’t have anywhere to keep them,” you say, taking the berries he drops into your hands. You feel around your dress to reaffirm that it doesn’t have any hidden pockets or pouches. None. 

He produces a needle and some twine thread, offering it to you. 

“What?” you say, a little lost. Obviously, he wants you to do something with it, because the berry’s juices would burn him, but you’re not exactly sure what. 

“String the berries on it, and then I’ll show you.” 

You purse your lips and do so as you continue on your way to the revel. Some squish as you do, but you tug them down the thread anyway. The thread seems long enough to wear as a necklace. 

When you’re done stringing the berries, you look up to find that you’ve arrived. You admire how The Queen’s hall of revelries is not even a true hall, and is instead formed with tree trunks for walls and their branches for ceilings. Off-kilter faerie music twists and turns and floats alive in the air; the lilting flutes urge your limbs to move. Maybe it’ll be more difficult to stay off the dancing floor than you had initially anticipated. 

Taking the strung berries from your hands, Taehyun gives you a look that you yet again cannot decipher before walking around you. He takes the top section of your hair into his hands. 

“What are you doing?” you say. 

He sections the hair into two and spins the pieces before pinning them in place. He continues fiddling with it for a bit, tugging something around and in between the hair, and then steps away. You feel your hair. He had pinned the hair into a half-updo with an ornamental hair comb and braided the berry string through it as a ward that doubles as a pretty hairstyle. It’s a fairly intricate hairstyle.

“How’d you learn to do hair?” you ask, spinning to face him. 

He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s intuitive.” 

You laugh a nose-crinkling laugh for the first time in a while and take him by the elbow to drag him toward the reverie ahead of you. 

❆

You stand eating fruity delicacies and glazed meats off banquet tables, to curb your anxieties. There is plenty to enjoy—throngs of faeries dancing like nobody's watching to the rich song of the fiddle, long tables surrounded by chatting folk and rendered full with the plumpest of fruits and blocks of various cheeses. You had worried that you would stick out as a human attending Court in the north, but you have quickly realized that most are more worried about sinking in the debauchery than ogling you. There are so many conversations to listen to, but you don’t have the slightest clue which to even begin with. The Queen does not make an appearance today, but you don’t know if she ever even does. 

You stand here, though, because Taehyun suggested it was best you split off and try to cover the most you can. You’ve been trying your best to strain your ear, but it all blurs into Court jargon to you. You inspect each of your snacks for the poisons Taehyun had taught you. It’s not like anybody cared enough to poison you, but Faerie courts are fickle. 

A tap on your shoulders has you turning around to face the most beautiful faerie man you have ever seen. His brown eyes twinkle under the chandeliers hanging from branches overhead as he regards you, as do the plethora of crystals sewn into his extravagant white get-up. You gulp down the last of the cheese block in your hand.

He smiles, the corners of his lips turned up in a cheeky tilt. “Are the snacks any good?” he says. 

It feels a bit odd that he’d be worrying what a human thinks of the food, but you reply anyway, “The cheese is fantastic.” 

He laughs, having just watched you gulp down the last bit of it. His honeyed laugh compels laughter from you, too. And, so quickly that you don’t notice it, the rest of the revelry fades around you. 

“Do you want to dance?” he says, gesturing over at the whirling sea of faeries. He holds himself with grace, down to his posture.

Your lips tug down into a disappointed frown. There are quite a few things you’re better off not doing here, but that is what you should do the least. “I don’t think I should.”

His eyes flicker with understanding, but his smile doesn’t falter any. “I’ll pull you out if it becomes too much,” he says. “I promise you that.” He presses a pristine hand over his chest, right at his heart, in testament to his sincerity. 

Well, his words are plain enough to know that he isn’t lying. But you’re not here to dance; you’re here to perform your duties. 

He can tell that you’re not convinced as he studies your face. “We can always stay here and enjoy these,”—he pops a cube of cheese in his mouth, so his next words are muffled—“No problem.”

His quickness to compromise is unfamiliar to you.“Let’s have some cheese.” You try to emulate his smile with your mouth, but you’re sure it looks better on him because he throws his head back and laughs. 

The more you study his features, the more you realize how reminiscent of a fox they are. “Can I ask your name, pretty?” he says. The sugary-sweet words taste good in your mouth, and they rot your inhibitions. You shouldn’t be sitting here twirling your hair. Where is Taehyun under this canopy of branches? You wonder if he’s catching any useful stuff. Guilt digs its claws at your skin. 

You flounder and try to catch your name as it seems to slip away from your mind and into the air. You’re not always this ditzy, it’s just that his sharp eyes and mouth confuse you. You tell him your name. 

“Are all human names as pretty as yours?” he says. He thinks your name is beautiful? Human names are unspirited and prone to repetition, not singular like a faerie name. 

You’re not sure how to respond, so you deflect. “What’s your’s?”

His black hair slides over his eyes as he tilts his head, eyes alight. He wears so much on his face. You’re wary, though. Maybe he is cunning like the fox, maybe his face tells you a different story than his mind. You worry again why he is sitting here making conversation with you.

“Yeonjun,” he says, and you try to remember when he had gotten so close.

“Well, Yeonjun,” you say, trying his name in your mouth. “I’m not the most interesting, so if you’re looking for entertainment, I don’t think you’ll find too much here.”

His eyes roam your face for a few heartbeats. “I think you’re plenty interesting. Maybe the most interesting lady this court has had the pleasure of keeping.” His use of the word lady, addressing you, feels good in a bittersweet way. You’re a far cry from a lady, but the sound of it settles deep in your bones and warms you. 

The way he sees your burning cheeks, and seems to delight in it, should alarm you. You know his words are saccharine. But, his attention is delicious. You find yourself hoping he’ll stay here and keep you company until the night is over. 

“Okay, now I know you’ve got to be up to something,” you say. 

He grins and, stepping back, says, “I’m going to go get something for you. Don’t move.” He slips through the gaps of chatting revelers before you can tell him that you won’t move; that you’ll be right here all night because you should be. Taehyun trusts that you’re doing your job. You sigh a breath, trying to force down the guilt that gnaws hungrily at you again. 

You make an effort to tune your ears into the conversations around you. There was so much you could’ve missed in the time you spent talking to Yeonjun. 

As you do, pair of frilly and silk-draped faerie girls, one with skin like white snow and crystalline wings at her back, and the other with hair inlaid with glittering strands of gold, approach the banquet table arm-in-arm. You hate the way their eyes land on you, and then on your awful dress. You hate the look they share, and the way one hoots at something the other says. Your skin burns with how you become something to laugh at. 

You don’t notice Yeonjun’s return until he steps in front of you, his hands full with a bounty of bonbons and indulgences from various tables throughout the hall. 

“I want you to try these,” he says. You shoot him a skeptical eye, raising a brow, to which he scoffs and says, “I just wanna know what you think. They’re my favorites.” 

You take a sweetmeat and place it in your mouth. Your brows shoot up at its full, mallow flavor. 

“You have a sweet tooth?” you ask, chomping on another. 

“You could say that,” he says. The flip of his words and the facetious raise of his brows make you feel that he isn’t just talking about confectionaries. You squirm a bit under his heavy gaze. 

You continue taste-testing the sweets he brought, but your mind keeps cruelly spinning the jeering of those faerie girls. You scorn your inadequacies; your inability to be a worthy spy, and your inability to ever fit in. It would be easier to act as one with the court and to coax out meaningful secrets if you look at least like you belong. However, Yeonjun seems like the only place you have to start. 

“You meant what you said about pulling me out if it becomes too much?” you say. 

Yeonjun doesn’t look at all taken aback by your words. He must’ve seen the way your eyes flickered over to the rambunctious dancefloor. “Of course. I won’t let you lose yourself, and nobody will touch a hair on your head.” 

“Let’s dance,” you say, and giddiness blooms wide in your chest. Is dancing among the faeries as enchanting as it's said to be? 

Here’s to finding out.

Yeonjun brings you to the dance floor, and he smiles down at you as you begin moving. Your limbs are heavy with hesitance. His hands find your waist, and the touch soaks up the stiffness right from you. Suddenly, you are alive in ways that you hadn’t known you could be before. Your boots slide over the packed earth, and he guides you to a rhythm that you can feel thrumming in your bloodstream. Yeonjun’s eyes are on your face. You can feel the other dancers all around you, and you brush up against some here and there, but you don’t mind much. You feel the music in your heartbeat. His fingertips dig divots into your skin, and it’s the only thing you can really feel. 

He leans in over your shoulder. “I heard what they said. Do you want dresses? I can give you dresses more beautiful than those girls could dream of wearing.” 

It takes the words a bit to cut through the fog in your head, but you narrow your eyes at him. “Is this one really so bad?”

He squeezes his eyes shut in a laugh, as if that were ridiculous, and then opens them to look you in your eyes. “Pretty, you’d look delightful even in your bare skin.” He tugs your bodies impossibly closer, melding them together into one spinning thing. “But, if what they said hurt you, I will give you whatever it is you ask for.”

Even in your hazy state, you know that doesn’t sound right. But, you don’t ask why he would bother with that, you only lose yourself further into his eyes. They devour you.

The music grows faster, and faster, and faster, coiling itself up and around your legs, willing them to dance for you. Yeonjun’s hands grab here and smoothe over there, exploring. Mapping. 

“Do you love it?” he asks.

“Yes,” you breathe. Your head is swimming, crashing through the throes of waves, and the undercurrent of panic only thrills you into dancing more. 

His eyes rove over you in a languid pass, before he kisses you like your lips are the sweet delicacies he so loves. You are as lost in his lips as you are the spirit of the dancefloor. His hot tongue explores and licks at your lips. The world swirls behind your eyes even as they are squeezed shut, but you welcome the dizzying nature of it. Your heart jumps from its cage in your chest as he brushes a hand along your collarbone, sliding it up the side of your neck, and then places it at the back of your head, pushing you further into his kiss. A vignette blurs your vision, lungs burning for air, but you can’t find it in you to care. 

You’re abruptly pulled from the messy tangle of galavanting bodies. Like if someone were to just halt the Earth’s spinning on its axis, your body reels. Your mind comes back to you, but it’s scattered, and your heart pounds like drumbeat in your head. 

Someone speaks. It’s Yeonjun’s voice. He situates you in between two of the pillar trees that make the walls of the hall, and you drag in the night air. It’s so fresh it burns your lungs a bit to breathe. 

“I feel like shit,” you say. Your heart is still running amok in your chest. 

He snorts. “Yeah, I bet. I’m sorry I didn’t notice that you were slipping earlier.”

You’re unsure how long you two danced, but the sky is breaking into day, so it had to have been for way longer than you remember. You groan. Taehyun has to be looking for you. Or, perhaps he left without you.

“Something wrong?” he asks, watching you recover.  

“No, no, I’m fine,” you say. “Thank you for that. I’ve never done anything like it.”  

His eyes crinkle. He really, really, is beautiful, down to the points of his ears. “You don’t need to thank me. Seeing you enjoy yourself like that was a sight for sore eyes.” 

You laugh a little, looking out at the way the sun crests over the horizon from your little hiding spot. The breeze does wonders in brushing up on your blazing skin and placating it. The thrill still lingering in you makes you wonder if you could claim such a life for yourself.

The sound of Taehyun’s voice saying your name rips out that seedling of hope, and stomps it down into the ground. It was a useless hope, anyway. As he approaches you, Yeonjun nods his head in greeting. Taehyun’s face is drawn, but he bows low at the waist. It’s quite a formal greeting. 

“It’s time to go,” Taehyun says, addressing you. His eyes are searching yours like he’s trying to find some answer in them. It seems he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. 

A crooked smile tugs at Yeonjun’s lips. “Is she under your care?” he asks. It’s a less direct way of asking: does she belong to you? 

Taehyun’s face morphs into something hard, but his words remain cordial. “Yes, she is.” You know he says it because it’s the best way to explain why a human would be attending Court, but for some reason, you had expected Taehyun to answer that a little differently. 

Taehyun gives you a meaningful look and tilts his head to the side in a silent way to say let’s go. You curtsy a farewell to Yeonjun, letting a soft smile onto your lips before you depart with Taehyun. Yeonjun doesn’t say anything at all, but you feel his eyes following you. 

You walk without words until you clear the hall and reach the forest, where the thicket can muffle your sensitive words and keep them just for you. “Did you find anything?” he says. His attention stays ahead, and his jaw is a bit strained. Here it comes; he saw you wasting time. 

“Nobody around me was talking about anything other than gossip until I ran into him. His name is—”

“I know who he is.” Taehyun snaps. “Please, enlighten me. What did you learn of him?” 

His words feel a bit like he’s spinning you a web. A trap. You don’t even have anything to offer him, because you hadn’t learned anything about Yeonjun.

“You made a promise to me. You promised you wouldn’t dance at all, and I find you dancing with The King’s son.” The world trembles underneath you at his words. You were flirting with a prince all night. You kissed a prince.

The dam of guilt and embarrassment and shame that has been filling you throughout the night crumbles and washes over you. “I didn’t mean to waste time, Taehyun. He just seemed like the most interesting person to talk to. I thought that maybe I could hear something interesting from him.” Your legs protest as you lift them to step over a tall bush. Dancing had exhausted you down to your marrow. “A prince seems like a pretty good place to find information, though.” 

“Does kissing him entail hearing something interesting from him?” His words are spat, and when he looks at you, his eyes hold distaste. So he saw that, too. 

You sigh. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, either.” 

“You didn’t mean for it to happen,” he echoes, scoffing the words. “You are nowhere near serious about this. Why are you even here? Well, let me tell you this; you did not come here to suck the faces of pretty princes. This life is not yours.” 

His words are everything you don’t want to hear, and they antagonize the anger in your chest where shame had previously sat. “It’s a little hard to do what you’re asking of me when you send me in looking like this,” you say, gesturing down at your get-up. 

“This is about a dress?” Taehyun says. “You don’t need all that. They’re just putting on a show.” He doesn’t say them, but he dances delicately around the words: You’re human.

You get up in front of him so that he has no choice but to look at you. “You know that I’m going in there at a disadvantage! You know that I can’t just blend in, and it’s so much harder when I look like this.” You point your finger at him accusatorily. “And, did you even get anything? You’re sitting here, picking me apart, but really, what did you do?” 

He doesn’t respond. 

“Oh, that’s rich,” you say, tone mocking. 

“The difference,”—he says his words slow—“Is that I didn’t use the night to enjoy myself in snacks and courting ladies.” 

“That’s because you spent your night watching me,” you snap. If he was even trying to pick up information, he wouldn’t have had his eyes on you the whole time. “You just wanted to catch something to give me shit about. Can you not see any value in following this thread? If Yeonjun is the king’s son, and he’s taken interest in me, imagine what I can catch hanging around him.” The estate appears on the snow flat as you two clear the forest. The sun hangs well in the sky, now. Ugly hurt twists in your chest. Yeah, you could’ve been more alert, but you can easily turn whatever you’ve got going on into something. 

Taehyun shakes his head at you. “I want you to remember this one thing, if you’re going to remember anything I tell you at all. The folk will never fail to make you into a spectacle. Your duties lie in The King, and only that.”

You walk the rest of the way to the estate, and then split off to your rooms, in an awful silence that sits itchy under your skin. It’s always silence, with Taehyun.

❆

Taehyun’s accusatory voice wakes you up from a hard slumber. You don’t have time to even blink out the sleep from your eyes as he roars, and you listen.

“You had him send you dresses?” There is a scorching flame blazing in his eyes, and they blister you.

“Huh?” 

His face is pulled into a sneer. “You had the prince send you dresses because you decided you wanted pretty things? What are you doing?” He holds a silvery, glittering gown in one arm.

His words remind you of what Yeonjun had said to you last night, and you curse. How would he even know where to send them? 

“I didn’t ask him to do anything,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest. 

“Don’t lie to me.” 

“I’m telling you that I didn’t, and I mean it! I didn’t ask him to send me dresses.” You slink out of the mess of a bed, the wood flooring cold under your feet.

“So a royal errand runner shows up at the door, with a pile of dresses directly addressed to you, and I’m supposed to believe that it’s random?” 

“Why don’t you just believe me?” you ask, and the words sound pathetic even to you as they leave your mouth. “We’re supposed to be partners. You’re supposed to believe me.”

Rage dissolves from his face, but his features don’t soften. No, instead, they harden into stone. You almost wish they would twist back into fury. You can work with anger. But, whatever this thing that he does is, it leaves you unable to crack through his hardened exterior. 

“Take your shit,” he growls, tossing the dress in his arm at you, and then spinning around without care of where it lands. 

“I don’t want this, send it back to him,” you say. You go to throw the dress back at him, but his words stop you. 

“I already sent them back.”

You watch him storm out. That means that the dress in your hands is not from Yeonjun; it is from Taehyun.

❆

You hold up the gown in front of you. Looking at the sheer material of it, embellished with beads and crystals that remind you of snowflakes in the sky, feels bitter. It only reminds you of the nasty terms you and Taehyun are on. 

You haven’t seen him once today, and you assume you’re going to be heading to Court alone, too. All you can feel is resentment. 

You go about getting ready with a ten-pound weight in your mind, and Taehyun is as absent as you had imagined he’d be when you leave the estate for Court. The walk feels a bit longer this time. Though you didn’t talk much last night, the presence of Taehyun just being there was enough to ground your nerves.

All is the same as last night in the hall. The tittering of folk and the lovely aroma of burning incense spices the air, and the music is just as inviting. You find that secluded spot Yeonjun had taken you last night when he pulled you out of the crowd and lean into the tree. Tonight, you’re going to just watch which faeries interact. The more you know about who associates with who, the more you’ll be able to dissect your priorities. 

Your eyes fall over the throngs, and a majority you remember from last night, but some are new. These folk all have to be important in some capacity; they wouldn’t have a place in Court otherwise. If you look hard enough, maybe you can find who is the most important. It doesn’t help, though, that you’re not familiar with important figures in the Northern Court. Taehyun forgets that he was born into this Court, and you are a foreign human girl. You may be better off playing into your ability to lie; maybe you should spin up a good falsity and ask around with it. 

You’re halfway to the crowd with the intent to poke around when Yeonjun steps into your line of vision. His wry smile is inviting, but you can’t do this again. 

“You look beautiful tonight,” he says. “But, I don’t recognize that dress.” He looks you over. 

“You didn’t tell me who you were, last night,” you say, crossing your arms. 

Yeonjun’s suave falters. “Ah. He told you. Did he also not like me sending you those dresses? You sent them back.” 

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Please, I don’t appreciate being toyed with.” 

His lips tug into the first frown you’ve seen worn on his ethereal face. “You wound me. I don’t just send gifts like that to anybody. I’m not toying with you. Not even a little bit.”

You’re not sure what to make of his words. He seems like the type that, even when his lips can not form the shape of lies, he would hide them in between the gaps of truths. But you do see sincerity shining in his eyes. 

“I didn’t even get to see the dresses,” you say, relenting to the conversation. If he insists on making your company, you’ll entertain him. You wouldn’t dare shoo a prince away, anyway, and his words are a soothing balm to every thought that tugs at your mind. 

“Did he give you this one?” he asks, looking down at the glittering thing. 

You hum, nodding your head. You wonder if Taehyun has made it here tonight, or if he is even here at all. You’re going to put all your eggs in this basket. If it leads you nowhere, you’ll deal with that when you get there. You don’t know where else to start. 

“They’re all yours, whenever you decide you want them. Just come and ask me, sweet thing. I’ll even send you more if you want.” 

His words shoot a thrill through you, for whatever reason. It’s hard for you to imagine a life where those kinds of things can be given away so easily. 

“Do you want to dance tonight?” He says. His fingers are warm against your skin as he takes your upper arm into his hand. Each time he rubs his thumb over the skin there, it makes you shiver more than it soothes you. You don’t remember much of the time you had spent dancing last night, but you do remember his kiss.

You really can’t do that. You need to do something that keeps you present so that you can pick up on stuff. 

You tilt your head to one side and offer, “How about you show me around? I wanna see your hiding places. I know you’ve got some.” You smile a heart-felt smile; running around the hall and discovering the nooks and crannies Yeonjun hides away in actually sounds like fun. It’ll familiarize you with the layout of Court, as well.

Yeonjun agrees, his face lighting up. He brings you around to alcoves and hollows that you wouldn’t imagine even existed unless he was showing you. Leave it to a faerie to find little places to hide.

“How often do you come to the north?” you say. Taehyun had said that The King sends his heirs here for foreign relations. It must be why he’s here. 

Yeonjun pauses his touring. “Most of the year. My father prefers me here, so he sends me out often.” You’re a bit taken aback by how generous he is with the information. You had expected to sly-foot it from him. 

The King sounds like a paranoid, centuries-old man. Maybe you and Taehyun will find something in your time here that proves his fears right, though. It’s just as probable that tensions run deeper than you think.

“Why doesn’t he have The Queen send one of her children to his domain if it’s for diplomacy? It’s a bit strange that she swears fealty to him, but he’s the one sending his heirs out.” Also, why does he have you and Taehyun here, undercover, when his son is here already?

Yeonjun shushes you with a finger over his lips, and it reminds you that you can’t just say all that comes to your mind here. He doesn’t seem to take any offense, though. 

“The Queen doesn’t send her children out as emissaries.” His words take on a rueful, bitter note. The look plastered on his face says what his words don’t: The King does, though.

Yeonjun is good company, and you don’t notice how night bleeds into day. 

“I should probably go now,” you say. Your dress itches and your feet ache in a way that calls for the lush bed waiting for you back at the estate. The revelry is still very much alive and kicking, and the crowds haven’t even begun thinning, but they’re so drunk on pinot wines and faerie spirits that you doubt they even feel the toll the night is taking on their bodies.

He nods. “Let me walk you home?” He offers you an arm, his smile so very sweet. You would like nothing more than to have someone to accompany you on the trek home. The walk here had been dreadful in your loneliness.

You pretend to think about it for a minute, a teasing smile playing at your lips, before you say, “Why not?” 

He swipes a baked good topped with sweet fig from a platter for the journey, and begins heading for an exit between trees.

 “But!” you say, and he halts. Your eyes scan the crowd.

“What is it?” he asks, rejoining you. 

“I need to find Taehyun.” 

He offers you the delicacy in his hand. “Do you?” 

“Yeah. I need to tell him if I’m going to be leaving.” 

Yeonjun scoffs at that. He takes you by the arm and points out Taehyun in the crowd. He appears to be in conversation with a spindly, feather-skinned hob. “He’s right there. But, you’re not going to be doing all that. It’s not right that you have to report your every move to him. C’mon.” You know that he’s only saying it because he thinks that you’re Taehyun’s human servant, or something, but his words are simultaneously gratifying for your current woes.

Your laughs bounce off the darkwood trees as you walk shoulder-to-shoulder. Yeonjun has a way to him that makes you feel like you’re really living. Maybe you can let this hope fester. Maybe Yeonjun is genuinely courting you. And, you foolishly let yourself think, maybe you don’t need to be a spy to make something of yourself. 

When you make it to the door of the estate, Yeonjun is behind you, peppering warm kisses up and down your neck. You pry yourself from him to open the door, and you stumble in. You then stagger up the stairs and to your room. Yeonjun doesn’t make it any easier, roaming his hands everywhere they shouldn’t be. 

Yeonjun clicks the door shut behind himself, and your stomach drops seeing the unabated hunger written into his face as he turns and looks at you. 

You fizzle under his gaze. “Thanks for walking me,” you say. “That walk is scary alone.” 

“Turn around for me, pretty,” he says, his voice glazed with honey and sugary syrup. You do, heart thundering in your chest. Something in the deep pit of your mind feels guilt, but you don’t pay it enough mind to sort it out, you just suck in a breath and hold it as Yeonjun steps so close behind you that you can feel his breaths on your neck, and he starts working at the laces of your dress. He doesn’t lean forward and press any more kisses to your neck like you wish he would; he just undoes the ribbon, until the dress loosens on your body, and you have to hold it onto yourself. Should you drop it? Does he want you to drop it? Is he just toying with you?

A puff of air on your neck makes you shiver as he laughs softly, his face hovering over your shoulder. You wish you could see his face right now.

“You’re so tense,” he says into your ear. He takes the top of the dress into his own hands, sliding them under yours. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you breathe. Your heart is thrumming in your chest and your neck so hard that you hear it in your ears, and maybe even he can, too. He rubs a thumb over the skin where the dress starts to slip. 

“Tell me you want it.” 

You suck in a breath. “I want it.”

He begins letting the dress down, and you let him. Chills rise on your skin, both at the cold that meets your skin as it is freed to the air, and at the kisses and scrapes of his teeth at your now exposed shoulder. “Yeah? You want me to make you feel good?” he says, and you can hear the tease in it. His words douse you in flame.

“Yes, Yeonjun, please,” you say, and it sounds pathetic to your ears. He makes it so hard to sound like the confident spy that you’ve been trying so hard to convince yourself that you are.

The dress droops lower and lower on you, releasing your skin in tantalizingly slow increments. He’s in no rush. He just continues to pamper your skin with his tongue, nipping your ear here and nibbling at your shoulder blade there. Your mind unravels a bit more with each. 

The fabric finally pools at your ankles, and the both of you sit in an electrically charged moment. 

“Turn around. Let me see you.”

When your eyes meet his, your breath catches at the way he takes you in, but mostly at the way his eyes come back up and fix on yours with such depth that you feel it in the way your heartbeat skips. You resist every urge to cover yourself, ignoring the tensing of your muscles that tell you that you should run and hide yourself away. You can’t believe that such a beautiful creature is devouring you with his eyes like this; like he wants you, like it doesn’t matter one bit to him that you are so much less than him. And maybe it should. He’s a prince. A prince of the king that you are supposed to be serving right now.

He guides you by an arm around your waist to the bed, and then stands at the foot of it, looking down on you with hazy eyes. Your stomach flips, and your knees and thighs are pressed together. He drags his bottom lip into his teeth.

“Open your legs, baby. I want to see how much you need me.” He reaches down, patting at your knee.

You hesitate, but slowly pry your knees apart, letting him see the mess that had been brewing there. The cold air immediately brushes at the wetness, and it makes you feel impossibly more exposed.

“Fuck,” he says, dragging out the word like a hiss. The raw, ravenous look in his eyes reaches deep into an unwanted part of you, that had for so long believed that you’re not worthy of anything like this. You know that you’re still not worthy of it, but you’ll happily bask in its warmth while you have it.  “So wet,” he growls, eyeing your center without ceremony, as if those aren’t the most lewd words you’ve heard spoken aloud. “Pretty, you’re dripping all over your bedspread, and I haven’t even really touched you yet. Makes me wonder if you’ve ever even been touched before.” 

Your cheeks flame the more he stands over the foot of the bed, lazily drinking you in. You haven’t. You had your first kiss in the woods somewhere a few days ago. Flashes of those memories plague you for a second, of bark on your skin and Taehyun’s hand in your hair, and that guilt that you can’t seem to place tugs at you again. You need to forget about it; Taehyun doesn’t seem too caught up on it, so why should you be? Where is Taehyun right now?

“Has he touched you? Did you let him put his hands on your skin,”—he brushes a whisper of a touch on your inner thigh, so close to your center, yet not actually paying any attention to it—“like this?” The rush that shoots up your spine is lethal. He draws such intense feelings from you with the simplest of touches in a way that borders on scary. 

Oh, yeah. Yeonjun still thinks that you’re Taehyun’s human servant, or something. You decide to just lean into it. “Why would he?” you ask. 

“Because I saw the way he looked at me yesterday,” he says, and the plush of the bed dips as he settles his knees into it. He hovers over you, notched between your thighs. You knew the truth behind that look, though. Taehyun was livid at you, at how you had shirked your duties and danced all night. You don’t know how to convey that to Yeonjun, though. Any explanation would just lead to more questions you couldn’t answer. 

He plants a line of kisses up the length of your inner thigh, just where his hand had ghosted, and you wiggle your hips in anticipation as if it would move him any faster to where you need him most. It doesn’t, he only continues to antagonize your skin with his tongue and lips. 

“Please,” you breathe. Yeonjun’s lazy eyes flick up to yours from his place between your legs, and the sight makes the blood in your veins sing. 

“You want my mouth?” he says, sitting back up onto his knees and running a smooth hand from the wet patch of skin on your thigh up and over your hip bone, and then the softness of your stomach, and then he brushes a thumb over your breast. You struggle to breathe a bit as he does, and it’s exponentially harder to as his words ricochet in your ears, cutting through the fog of your mind. 

“Yes,” you say. You can’t muster anything else. A satisfied, lopsided smile plays at his lips, and he lets his thumb over your nipple, rolling it. 

“Do you realize how badly you’ve got me?” he muses. His gaze leaves your chest, opting for your eyes as he says it. “I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I’ll do anything, if you ask it of me.” The alarm bells ringing in your ears sound more like music than warning. It should sound like too much; you’d met him yesterday. He’s a faerie, you’re a human. His words are cloying; he’s lying. He’s lying.

But, he can’t lie.

He settles his head down, a breath’s-width from providing you with relief from the burning that he so cruelly kindled there. “Here? You want my mouth here?” The words puff onto you. You can feel your ears reddening; he seems to enjoy seeing you debased. It’s like he wants to be the source of your ruination.

“Yes, right there,” you say, toes curling in anticipation. He hums, taking the back of your thighs into his hands and pressing them up. It leaves you even more exposed to him. When the first contact of his mouth to your cunt comes, it’s with a barely there roll of your clit with his tongue, but it spreads like alcohol through your system. You mewl as he holds eye contact as if entranced with the way you react to him, and swirls his tongue around it. Your hands find perch in his hair.

He is wholly overwhelming you: his hands dig divots into your thighs to hold you open for him to eat, his eyes make sure you’re watching as he does, the sound he makes into your cunt. You don’t know what else to do, other than squirm on the sheets and chant nonsensical words. The more his mouth consumes you, the more it consumes your thoughts, until you are tunnel-visioned, only able to feel his touches. He runs his tongue down, and you gasp as it prods at your entrance, but he brings it back up, and then suckles at your clit some more. 

“More,” you say. 

He detaches from you for only a moment, just to ask, “More what?”—he pushes your thighs further up, molding them to your body—“More this?” He pushes his tongue into you, and then out. 

“Mhm!” you cry, digging your hands into his hair harder. He makes a low hum of satisfaction, slurping you up, lazed, as if you were a sweet sugarplum liqueur. A tense knot settles in your belly, sending your legs jittery even as he presses them, and your toes curling in the air. Your hips roll up and into the bed wildly, chasing that knot. “Yeonjun—”

Yeonjun knows what your cries mean, pulling from your hole, if only to suction his lips around your clit. It halts every thought and word in your mind, and the knot tightens so intensely with it that it snaps. You seize up in his hands and then explode in shakes and desperate whimpers. Your body rages, but your mind is suspended somewhere in the sky, removed from you. Yeonjun lavishes you through it, despite the way his tongue bumping into your sensitive spots has you jumping. His mouth follows your hips everywhere they go as you writhe to escape it; he isn’t letting you float down, he keeps your body on that high and builds on it. Your breaths come panted and whimpered. 

“Slow—slow down, ‘jun,” you say, pushing at his head. When he pulls off of you, the sight of you all over his mouth draws a moan from you. His tongue swipes at his lips. 

“You’re divine,” he purrs. “Did that feel good, sweet thing? Do you want more?” You lay, catching your breath, trying to let the waves of aftershock dissipate so that you can articulate yourself. You feel it still thrumming in the hollows of your bones. He skirts his thumb oh-so-lightly around your throbbing clit, and it’s no help in your efforts.

You nod. “I want to make you feel good, too.” You can’t fathom letting him please you like this without returning the favor. It would be so nice to see him fall apart, too.

“Yeah?” He drinks in your state. He stops circling his thumb to press it to your bud. You let out a surprised sound, your muscles coming back to life to jolt. He acts as though he’s thinking it over, but you can see the teasing lilt on his face. “Say my name again, pretty. It sounds loveliest on your tongue.”

“Yeonjun,” you indulge him. A content sparkle in his eyes tells you that he’s gonna give you what you want. He lets your thighs down, instead resting his weight on either side of your head, leaning down to capture your lips in a sultry kiss. He tugs your bottom lip into his mouth. The scrape of his teeth is dizzying. He’s freeing himself with one hand when he pulls back, and your spine tickles with anticipation until you see the look on his face.

 Is he suddenly disgusted with you? You can feel the color drain from your skin as you ask, voice thin, “What?” He climbs off of you, and you could throw up. “What is it?” 

“I think your friend is here,” he says, adjusting his clothes. Oh. Your mind wars between relief and terror knowing that, if Yeonjun knows Taehyun is here, Taehyun knows Yeonjun is here. Damn their superior hearing. 

You curse. “Go,” you urge, slipping out of bed with sticky thighs and stumbling to the wardrobe to source a shift dress to slip into. Yeonjun thumbs your chin, tugging your face to him, and presses a parting kiss into your lips. It lingers on your lips as he lets out a soft laugh, shoving open the window and disappearing through it. You roll your eyes, finding the image of him clambering down the tree to escape quite humorous. 

You clean up and settle into the bed. Is whatever you have going with Yeonjun sustainable? Echoes of Taehyun’s voice, vicious and tart, tell you that you should get it together; that you should nip this in the bud, and focus your energies elsewhere. You want so badly to make the little girl, snatched from her home, proud. You want to fulfill her dreams. But, you can’t shake yourself from whatever hold Yeonjun is securing over you. He so casually promises to give you everything you ever ask for; would you be stupid to ignore it? Is it naive to imagine that a man would say his words and mean it? A faerie, no less? 

You sink further as sleep calls you. If Taehyun knows that Yeonjun was here, or what you had done with him, he doesn’t show up to chew you out for it. You wish he would.

❆

The next few days blur into hours of Court spent around Yeonjun and his courtly friends. You try to glean as much information as you can from it, but really, it’s mostly nothing of any importance. You begin to think that Taehyun is right; that you shouldn’t be sticking your nose into the business of a prince. If Yeonjun were to ever find out your reasons for even attending Court… Your stomach does a sickened flip. He might hate you for lying, maybe even begin thinking that you have been using him.

You really do like Yeonjun, though. It’s not just that he’s an interesting thread to follow; he treats you like you’re no different from him. Your bruised and beaten heart clings to him, hoping he’ll soothe over all the years you spent insignificant and unloved. If anything ever comes of all of your stolen nights and kisses, he’d have to know eventually. It can’t be shoved down forever, though you truly wish it could. 

You sit at the ornamental vanity in your room, combing through your hair, when Taehyun makes an appearance at the door. You haven’t had even one conversation with him following the morning Yeonjun had those dresses sent to you.

“We’re not going to Court today,” he says, his arms crossed over his chest. His face is steely. 

“Oh?” You place the boar bristle brush down. “What are we doing, then?”

He studies the room you’ve been staying in. It looks an awful lot like he’s searching for something. His eyes linger on the bed. “I think I got something last night. We’re going check it out. You’re gonna need your weapons.” 

He’s gone from the room with that. The conversation was terse and majorly discourteous, but it’s the most you’ve seen of him in multiple days. You’ll take it. Maybe you’ll even have time to plead your case today, or some way to show him that you’ve been practicing your fighting stances and memorizing poisons on the days sleep doesn’t find you as easy.

You’ve armed yourself to the teeth by the time you meet Taehyun at the bottom of the stairs. He’s armed much lighter than you.

“Did I overdo it?” you say, slicing yourself some cheese to eat on bread.

He adjusts the blade sheathed at his hip, shaking his head. “That’s just fine.” 

You frown and bite into your breakfast. What kind of information could he have gotten yesterday? The need for weapons worries you.

You like to think that you’ve adjusted to the chill of the north by now, but as you break through an untrodden forest with brambles catching your legs in each step, it does nip at your skin. You’re still only human, after all, no matter how hard you pretend yourself to be a faerie lady in the Court. You’re still only a spy, you’re reminded, as the two of you come across a mound of packed dirt sitting atop the snowy ground. It’s marked as an entrance only by a hole that looks hand-dug. You’ve lived long enough in Faerie to know that it’s more than just any old dirt hill or foxhole. The folk dwell in odd places like these.

“When we get in there, I need you to pretend that you’re a human servant. Can you do that for me?” he says. You’re unsettled, but you nod.

 You head for the entrance first. It’s just big enough for you to slip a leg into, duck under, and wiggle in. The entrance opens up, and you’re sent sliding down a chute of twigs and dirt. It takes every bit of your willpower to not make a ruckus of shouts and gasps in your descent. When your feet meet the ground you stumble to steady yourself, you know you look a mess. Taehyun makes a much more graceful descent, and you explain away any mortification with the notion that Taehyun had been anticipating it.

A throaty voice hoots almost immediately, “So, great Lord Taehyun thinks to show his face at this honkey tonk?” 

So, this is that kind of place, then. The reek of ale and wilder spirits tells you enough. What does he think he’ll learn from a place like this? Clearly, he’s known in this place, too. You’re always left with more questions about Taehyun than answers.

Taehyun doesn’t pay the barkeep any mind. “Fetch me a drink,” he says, before leaving you as he cuts through the measly crowd of revelers drowning in their merriments. You narrow your eyes and brew with distaste at his words, but you know he needs you to play the part of demure servant. You don’t know exactly why, but you can do it for him; you’d lived the role your whole life.

You scurry off, shoulders curled in, to the barkeeping hob that stands pouring foamy goblets of honey mead from barrel taps. He eyes you. “Pity you, girl,” he says. “That one’s a real brute.” 

You infer that his words are about Taehyun. Really, you should just grab a drink and go, but curiosity compels you. The faerie laughs at the questions brimming in your eyes. 

“A real, stone-cold killer,” he drawls, twisting open a different barrel. You resist the eye-roll tugging at your eyes. He’s just looking to entertain himself off of your human fright. You feign hesitance in your limbs when you accept the goblet full for Taehyun. He goes to fill another, from a third barrel. “The House of Blackthorn are all such a frightful bunch. The late Lord even more so, but he sowed a good seed of wicked into his son, regardless.” The worry you let your features into is real this time. There’s so little you know about Taehyun; this is the first you’ve ever heard of him that isn’t directly from his mouth. Should you be scared of Taehyun? Ice runs in his veins, sure, but you can scarcely imagine him as a brutal Lord. 

“One mead for the Lord, and one sugar-sweet liqueur for the lady,” the hob says, handing the drinks to you. You offer him a meek, “Thank you.” 

He shoots you an unsavory, toothy grin. “Welcome to The Hovel.” 

You find Taehyun in conversation with a sweet-faced faerie boy who strums at a lute. Their conversation tapers off as you approach. You hand Taehyun’s drink off to him. 

“You’re sure of it?” Taehyun says to the boy. 

“Yup. Just last night,” the boy says. His waved mop of blonde hair moves as he nods. You see the cogs of Taehyun’s mind turning behind his eyes as the exchange comes to a close. So, the information he was following from last night came to fruition, then. You kick yourself for your lack of any real results.

“Who was that?” you ask, voice hushed. You tilt your head at the faerie as he rejoins the other musicians, and the stream of lute song intermingles with the other instruments once again. You pretend to sip from the drink the hob had given you for free, tipping it into the dirt when you think nobody is looking. You know it’s bad manners, especially in Faerie, but you have bigger fish to fry. Taehyun hadn’t paid that boy for that info, nor had he paid the tavernkeep for his drink. You recall the hob’s words of warning. They fear him. 

He shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here, first.” 

When fresh air meets your lungs, you realize how stale and muggy the air inside the little burrow is. You pull yourself out through the exit, following Taehyun. The two of you begin your battle against the wild forest again. 

“So…?” you say. 

It’s getting colder as night arrives. His breath puffs from his mouth, furling like smoke into the air as he says, “Apparently, there were some lackeys there last night asking around about me and a human girl in cahoots with The Prince.” 

Your mind launches into a frenzy. Do they know that you’re spies? How would they even know? It’s not like the two of you have even done anything to garner any suspicion. Whoever has had their eyes on you and Taehyun has also noticed that you’re running around with Yeonjun. Is Yeonjun in danger? You gnaw at your cheeks. This person had to have been hovering around you two for days and days—not once had either of you noticed.

“Did you find out who it could’ve been?”

He shakes his head solemnly. You can tell he’s unseaming and picking apart every moment leading up to this one—you are, too. Nothing sticks out. 

You freeze in your tracks. A pretty magpie sits dead on the forest ground, its blood decorating the snow in patches. No arrow pierces it, nor is it caught in any sort of trap. It lays with its little legs in the air. The imagery is unnerving. 

“Poor thing,” you say, crouching down by it. 

Taehyun pays you and the bird no mind, but you feel that something is off when he turns to you with his limbs and shoulders stiff. “What?” you ask.

His eyes survey the forest around you. He must be hearing something that you can’t. The hair on your skin prickles. Are you being watched? Taehyun narrows his eyes, looking over the surrounding forest for a few long moments, before continuing on his way, and so you decide that you should too, despite the feeling buzzing at the back of your neck.

 Somebody comes crashing out of the foliage, securing your arms to your side before you can process that they’ve got you. They hold the point of a dagger to your chest.

Metal hisses as Taehyun frees the blade from his hip, but he doesn’t make any advancements. Your heart beats under the point of the weapon, chasing breaths as fear paralyzes your chest. 

“A little birdie told me,”—your captor says from behind you—“that I’d find you two here.” 

“Let go of her,” Taehyun says. He stands with so much restraint in his limbs.

A patronizing laugh hurts your eardrum with its proximity. He sounds like a cawing crow. “No, I don’t think I will, Lord.” He spits the title out like it is bitter in his mouth, letting the blade dig the littlest bit into your skin. You don’t even feel it with the way adrenaline buzzes in your gut, leaving your limbs shaky.

Taehyun can’t move, so you begin wiggling your fingers for your dagger. Fear chokes you. 

“You won’t miss this one, right?” the man says. He uses the metal to point up at your face, before replacing it over your heart. You’ve almost made it to your thigh, and still, he hasn’t taken notice. “I’ll just get this over with, and then we can talk about this more comfortably.” You may throw up. 

You bunch up the hem of your dress with the littlest of movements to free your thigh and slide out the dagger hidden there.

“Who told you where to find us?” asks Taehyun. Your palm is sweaty around the metal of the dagger, and you readjust your grip a few times, trying to muster the courage to swing it up.

“I told you already,”—the man readjusts his hold on you—“a little birdie.” There’s a sneer to his words. He points the tip of the dagger up to your chin, ghosting it down the column of your throat. Repressed whimpers of terror bubble to the surface. 

“Shut up,” he spits.

Taehyun challenges him. “Do it, then.” Blood roars in your ears.

“You think I won’t?” your snatcher says. 

“Do it,” Taehyun repeats, and you almost let your life flash before your eyes until you see that Taehyun is not looking at the man as he speaks; he’s looking at you. He’s telling you to do it. You tighten your grip on the dagger, before driving it behind you. It makes contact, and the faerie man bellows. You use his shock to free yourself. 

You had driven the blade deep into the man’s shoulder. He thrashes, ruby-red blood inking his fingers as he holds the wound.  

“Bitch!” he howls. “You’re fucking dead, anyway.” 

What does that mean?

Taehyun plunges his sword through the faerie before you even notice he had approached, or ask the man what, exactly, he means. He drops to the floor, mouth filling with blood. You can see it when he opens his mouth to scream and is only able to burble. His own blood chokes him. Your fingertips feel numb, and so does your face.

Taehyun turns to you. “You did good.” 

You did good? You don’t feel good.

You nod. “Thanks.”

 Now, on the forest floor of white snow, lies both a dead faerie man and a dead magpie. You feel the sensation of his skin breaking under your dagger reverberating in your hands, twisting in your mind. His blood paints the ground a nauseating shade of death-red.

“Are you okay?” Taehyun asks, eyeing you.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, I am.”

❆

You and Taehyun attend court the next day skittish. Taehyun delegates you a new role, now; make as big of a scene with Yeonjun as you possibly can. The goal is to throw attention to that, rather than to Taehyun as he continues snooping around. 

It’s not hard to make a spectacle of you and Yeonjun when everybody is already noticing. He doesn’t hide the way he showers you with luxuries, nor does he want to. You can’t help but wonder why he’s making such a show out of it. At some point, his father will hear of him courting a human. Word flies fast in Faerie. You can’t imagine The King would be pleased.

A hand curls around your hip, and you know it’s Yeonjun’s. 

“You weren’t here yesterday,” he says. 

You frown. “No need to state the obvious.”

 He laughs and thumbs your cheek, and you swear the butterflies that flutter in your stomach are nearly painful. “I missed you,” he says. His eyes glitter with the words. “Did you go somewhere with him?” he asks. You don’t miss the way the word him curls in his mouth, much like how a person of the court would speak of something more unfavorable in a sickly-sweet way, to keep up a mask of indifference. 

“We just ran some errands.” You shrug it off. It isn’t the truth, but it also isn’t so far removed from it that you feel uncomfortable about lying to him. Lately, the guilt lays more heavily over you. With each dress and bejeweled trinket Yeonjun sends your way, the more you want to get this big lie out of the way. You should’ve done it before Taehyun set you out to do this; at least then, you could face him and not feel so deceitful. Is there a way to tell him that still conveys that you aren’t using him?

Yeonjun’s eyes flicker to your mouth, and back up to your eyes so quickly you could’ve missed it with a blink. “I see,” he muses. “I could take you under my care, you know. He wouldn’t have a say in any of it.”

Your expression sours a bit, and you know it’s not the reaction Yeonjun had expected if the look on his face says anything. 

“I don’t want to just become a playtoy,” you say. 

He looks taken aback. “You wouldn’t be a playtoy,” he says. “Ever.” He searches your eyes for something. “Why would you even think that?” 

Because you’re a prince, you think. Because I’m a human. Because that’s all we are to your kind. 

“Then why don’t we just stay as we are?” you say. There would be no real reason to even go through with such a thing—not when nothing would come of it. Princes of Faerie don’t marry humans. You’d become a mistress, and that’s being optimistic.

“Taehyun is not a good man,” Yeonjun says. His voice is stripped of its usual playful inflection. Why does everybody seem to keep telling you that? “I would feel better knowing that you’re safe.”

Safe? He thinks Taehyun would hurt you? “I’m okay, Yeonjun,” you say, if only to placate him. He doesn’t look convinced at all. “He treats me well,” you laugh. You meet his hand on your cheek with your own, curling it around his. While he doesn’t know the truth of everything, or why you stay with Taehyun in the first place, it stitches some old wounds inside you seeing that he cares for you.

His jaw tightens. “My offer will still stand if you ever decide otherwise.” 

He brushes his thumb at the plush of your bottom lip. Your mind goes fuzzy. When he presses it fully to your lips, you suck his thumb into your mouth, tasting the imprint of his fingerprint with rolls of your tongue around it. He looks as though he could moan standing there watching you, so you make a point of not losing contact with his eyes. You feel multiple burning stares on you, but you shove them out. 

He watches your tongue and his gaze comes alive with hunger, tugging your lower lip down before taking your chin into a hold and molding his lips to yours. His kiss conveys every thought plaguing his mind in its raw nature.

Their eyes are on you; so many eyes are. You know they look, but for the first time, you don’t falter under the weight. He tastes like broken shackles and weightless limbs. He tastes like salvation.

He roams his hands dangerously. When your mouths part, despite your shortage of oxygen, you say, “I’m sure you had many courtly ladies to entertain in my absence.” Your head buzzes. 

You’ve never seen Yeonjun so much as interact with another woman, but you still worry that he doesn’t only have eyes for you. 

His face turns sly again. “They’re honestly all quite dull.” 

Maybe, one day, you’ll join those ranks. You remind yourself that you won’t be here forever—that this moment in time is finite. Hopefully, you won’t be here long enough to see that happen. You’re not sure your self-worth could handle that hit.

“Are you really so superficial?” you ask. You stay playful in your tone, peeling from him to waltz toward an entree table. He follows. The way he trails you like a puppy on a leash does a bit to bloat your ego, despite your worries. “What’s so special about me?” It’s cheap, you know, but you crave his praise. You’ve found yourself thriving off of Yeonjun’s sweet words like oxygen. The question had been plaguing your mind since he had first spoken to you, anyway.

He looks as if he can’t articulate what he’s thinking. Or, maybe, he’s just concocting some words that’ll sound nice to your ears. “This life has become tiring. It drains you, and I am surrounded by it. Endlessly.” He pops a treat off a platter into his mouth. “You’re like a breath of spring air to my lungs.” 

You’re his distraction. He saw a human and decided it would be the biggest spectacle he could find to distract from his princely woes. You draw back. What do the faeries in this court think of you? Do they snicker when you turn your back? Do they laugh to see you think that you’re more than just entertainment to him? Does he join them? 

“What’s wrong?” Yeonjun asks, seeing the way you retract into yourself. “What is it?” 

You have to keep this act up; the well-being of your mission relies on it. You should’ve never gotten your feelings so entangled. 

“Because I’m human?”

A frown etches into his porcelain face. “No. Maybe at first, but…”—he releases a measured breath—“No.” Selfishly, you’re thankful that his kind can’t lie. 

You and Yeonjun find the dancefloor, more packed with cavorting faeries each day, and you accept the distraction from your dreary thoughts. The wild nature of it strips you of such things, leaving you bare to just your happier feelings. It leaves you just as breathless as the first time had. You kick and whirl and flail your limbs freely. 

When Yeonjun inevitably tugs you from your trance and out of the throng of folk, you’re dazed. Exhausted. Your hands itch to be all over him. 

“Breathe,” he reminds you, smoothing over the wild tousle that your hair had become. You focus on steadying your erratic breaths. “You’re a wild one,” he says, a pleased grin on his lips. The flush on his cheeks mirrors your own, despite his teasing. 

You lean into him to support your legs of jelly. You must’ve danced for hours. 

Yeonjun looks down at you, and his features are soft. “You wanna rest?” You nod. He laughs and then takes your hands into his. He guides you away from the soiree, out from the canopy of trees, but not toward Taehyun’s estate. You don’t question where he leads you, even as cold air makes you realize how bare this dress leaves your arms, even as the unfamiliar path catches at the hem of your dress. He notices how you don’t care to lift it from the ground, snorting, before lifting you into his arms.

“Woah!” you protest, feet off the ground in seconds. “I can walk.”

“Ah, but, only a fool would let a pretty lady like you soil her dress in the dirt.” 

You scowl at him, but it doesn’t change the way your belly swoops. He treats you so delicately. 

He carries you until you arrive at a mini palace that is no doubt royal—it towers over any surrounding trees. And, you had thought you had seen luxury. This is luxury. This is a life spent fed off of only crystal spoons. You admire the lush interior as he carries you into the palace. 

“This is where you stay?” you say. 

He hums, and you can feel the rumble of it in his chest. “For one half of the year, this is my home.”

You notice how utterly empty it is. You had expected advisors and permanent guards and bustling servants. “It must get lonely here.” 

“I prefer it here,” he says. You can sympathize with that. You had spent the entirety of your life in the land of summer, but you had found more warmth than ever here in the north. This place was supposed to be a death sentence for humans, and though you had briefly met the danger that the north could present yesterday, you almost dread leaving. Maybe you just need more time, and then you’ll be so overtaken by fear that it’ll make it easy.

Yeonjun carries you through a door, and into what you assume is his room. A bed so large it would swallow up a third of the room you’re staying at in Taehyun’s estate sits in the middle of his room. He sets you down onto its velvety, rose-petal coverlet, before he climbs in next to you, propping himself up onto an elbow so he can admire you.

Your skin sighs as he rubs sweet circles over your bare shoulder with the pad of his thumb. The two of you settle into a long, comfortable silence.

“Do you believe that I don’t care for you?” he asks into the quiet. Do you hear hurt in his words? 

You meet his gaze and struggle to find words. Is it wrong to lie, just because you can? 

Your hesitance tells him enough. His fingers on your skin stop. “I am not so shallow, if you actually meant that.” Your words from earlier must’ve been gnawing at him. 

“It’s not that,” you say, avoiding contact with his eyes. It was exactly that. He doesn’t allow you to look away from him, sitting up to cut straight back into your vision. 

“What is it, then?” 

Your heart thrums. You want to tell him that you’re a liar, and that he should spit in your face and tell you to get out. You want to ask him if he’d still care for you the way he does if he knew your truth. You want to ask him if there’s any way that this can play out where the both of you end up together and unscathed. Your mind beckons you to ask him about every little doubt that has harassed your mind concerning him so that he can comfort you and assure you that they are just doubts. 

You ask none of those. 

“How can I show you?” he says. He climbs over you, knees straddling each side of your legs. “What would it take to prove to you that I mean it when I tell you that you make my heart ache? What will it take to make you become mine?” He lines a kiss up on your forehead, and then your cheek, and then onto the corner of your mouth. “This?” he asks, and then he hikes up the length of your dress, bunching all the fabric above your hips. He draws back so that he can plant a kiss on your clit, and he makes sure you’re looking at him while he does it. “Or is it this?” 

You breathe in the sensation, gasping his name like prayer and making room for him between your thighs. 

“Is that what it is, pretty? You need me to make love to you? I can do that,” he says. “I can do that, no problem.” 

He works at his clothes with one hand and brushes touches to your cunt with the other. Eventually, his needlessly extravagant Court shirt is off, and he’s holding your hip down as he prods the tip of a finger at your entrance. Your hole flutters in anticipation, his eyes catch it, and he breaks into a lousy grin. He finally begins pushing the finger into you, watching as you gasp at the way he curls into you. 

Pleasure whorls in your belly, rendering you increasingly dumber. “I need you,” you say. The muscles in his arm strain as he fingers you, and his black hair falls into his face with the movements. Your heart clenches.

“Slow down, baby. I need to do this, you’re not ready for me yet,” he says, pressing a soft kiss into your temple. “I want to make you feel good.” He slides another finger in, and you suppose he’s right, because it stretches you. He pumps and curls the both of them, and you dig your nails into his forearm as it all starts building in your belly. 

Yeonjun tugs his lip into his mouth, biting it, as he watches you grow restless under his fingers. Your peak feels so close, but his pace is so leisurely that you’re worried you’ll never reach it, as if caught in a limbo of torturous delight. “Faster,” you cry. “Faster, please.” It amuses him, and he abandons his casual pace for sloppy curls that have you whimpering into the air of his bedroom.

 “Yes, yes, yes!” A crescendo looms over you, until it crashes and your back is arching off the bed and you’re making embarrassing sounds. You dig crescents into Yeonjun’s arm when he continues to finger you. Your insides protest his stimulation, tugging and clenching tight in a way that borders tastefully on discomfort. 

“Fuck,” you hear Yeonjun say through the haze. “Just like that. Doesn’t it feel good?” he purrs. His fingers plow you through this peak, hurling you toward another one brutally. “I know it does; you’re clenching around my fingers so hard.”

Your hand covers your face. His words are lewd, and he says them like it’s nothing. It makes your insides burn. You can tell that the orgasm he beckons you into with each deliberate thrust is going to be explosive, frantically squeezing your thighs around his arm to staunch the intensity of his movements. Wet sounds punctuate each curl of his fingers. You can hardly believe that those sounds are coming from you.

“You want another one?” he says. You only answer him with pathetic whimpers. “Keep making those pretty noises for me.” 

You do, and he rewards you with his thumb on your clit. It drives you utterly wild. The blend of his fingers inside you and each bump against your nerves is exactly what you need to explode, and so you do, bucking. You’re worried he’s going to try and have you cum again when his fingers don’t stop, but he brings you down gently with small swirls. 

You catch your breath while Yeonjun adjusts you on the bed, tugging you down by your hips and sliding one of his thinner pillows under the bottom of your spine in a way that lifts your bottom half into the air. You laugh through ragged breaths; it feels a tad ridiculous.

“What’s that for?” 

He massages your inner thigh, soft humor twinkling in his eyes, but also so much more. “You’ll see,” he says. He hovers over you, bracing his weight into one arm at the side of your head so he can look right into your face. His free arm lines the tip of him up with you. Before making any moves to slide into you, he kisses you and takes your bottom lip with him as he pulls back. It exhilarates you; everything he’s ever done to you is exhilarating. You’re swept into a ripwave of emotion. Do you deserve all this? Is this life yours?

His hand rests on your hip, brushing over your hipbone with great gentleness, as he pushes into you. It’s slow and full of peppered kisses all over your face and neck, and then he’s in you to the hilt, and then he’s pulling back out of you so that you’re just so empty, but of course, with just a thrust he’s filling you back up. He falls into a swift pace, but each time he ruts up into you, it’s calculated and well-placed. Maybe it’s the pillow, or perhaps it’s just expertise, but he’s plunging into a sickeningly soft spot inside of you that makes your legs that are locked around his waist shake each time. Your eyes flutter close, but your mouth drops open in a soundless moan. 

“No, open your eyes. Look at me. Do you feel it? Do you feel my love for you?” he says, voice raw. “Is this what you needed?” 

Yes, this is exactly what you need. You feel so far removed from yourself that you can’t even feel your hurt or worries. You nod your head frantically. 

“Please, open your eyes,” he repeats, pleading in his tone. His face is right in front of yours when you do. His eyes flicker between both of yours. The intimacy of it is as consuming as the flames licking your insides, winding you up so tight that you might explode into a ball of blazing fire. The rolls of his hips turn into short, needy ruts. His mouth drops open, but he won’t close his eyes. He wants to watch you. 

“Yeonjun—” you breathe. Your muscles are tense all over, especially in your core, where he winds you tighter. The impending orgasm whispers into your ear that it will swallow you whole in its wake, and you believe it; you can’t breathe. 

“I know,” he says. When you squeak, face screwing up, Yeonjun reads you like letters on paper. “I know, it feels so good.” He’s just as much of a mess as you, panting while his free hand grabs at each of your curves to ground himself. You hold back your climax; it’s so hot in your belly that you fear how it’s going to wreck you. The hair on your skin prickles and rises. 

He feels how tightly you clamp down on him. “C’mon, pretty.”

Your nails rake paths down his biceps. “I can’t” you gasp. “Can’t—”

“Yes, you can.” 

Warm tears pool in the corners of your eyes and you shake your head. You do everything you can to urge it back; wriggling under him to escape his thrusts, pushing at his chest, biting into your poor lip until you fear it’ll bleed. Pressure builds all over you, your eyes burn and your muscles burn, like a thousand pounds of ecstasy pressing on each square inch of you and begging to be released.

“Stop running from it,” he says, pushing your hips into the mattress, pinning them so that he can deliver pointed thrusts up into that place that is so sensitive. It works wonders. “Let go, baby. Let it happen; I promise you it’ll feel so good.” 

You crumble, crying out into the air and clenching wildly around Yeonjun. 

“Yes, fuck!” he growls. He’s chasing his own peak now, leaving you no time to breathe through your own. 

You chant his name.

 “Squeezing me so good—you’re driving me up the fucking walls, pretty.” 

The sounds he rips from you are errant the more he pistons into you, and your hair sticks to your neck. For the third time, you cum, circling him in your arms and keeping him close while you try your best to ride this one out.

With the encouragement of you sporadically tightening around him, he stills over you, abdomen tensing up, before cumming into you, producing strangled sighs. He collapses down to his elbows and drops his head into your neck, delivering shallow rolls as he rides it out. Breaths puff onto your skin as he peppers warm kisses over every inch of your exposed skin. He stays like this, intertwined with you, for a while, lazily delivering thrusts until you’re both able to breathe fully again. 

When he pulls out of you, you feel him dripping from you. You should’ve told him to pull out; you must have no fears. It’s hard to worry too much about that, though, with the way he’s looking at your cunt as if the sight of his seed oozing from you was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He takes your ankle into his hand from where it hovers in the air, dusting a smooth and chocolatey kiss there.

“Do you see now?” he asks, bringing his eyes up to yours. 

“Yeah,” you say. “I do.” 

…🪶 ashlynn's note there she is! I wanna see who y'all are more attached to this far.

﹙🏷️ ﹚ @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[jweekgoji]

kind of headcannons about yanderes, so basic warnings about kidnapping, manipulation, unhealthy dynamics, obsession, overprotective behavior.

I kind of lied about Fern being the best yandere of AT, IMO Betty would be the best choice, girl freaking holds her man like her wifey, punches weird magical creatures she saw for the first time and she doesn't give a F about some big ass red boss baby , ALL FOR A MAN!!!

as for yandere potential, I would have ranked them like this. ↓

Betty/Golbetty is a really dedicated, ruthless and determined person when it comes to saving and protecting people she loves, even as a regular human she does really scary stuff against some powerful beings, all for beloved! I also really like Magicwoman Betty, I like insane yanderes losing their mind over how to save s/o , especially if they were really sweet and caring before all the crazy stuff happened.

Lich is kind of underrated tho, his voice actor really serves, a good villain which would give me god-like yandere villain/human beloved vibes which would be like a pet for Lich. The power difference is tasty, not to mention the size difference. Would wish to extinct all the life in the universe only for you to be all alone with him :P

Simon is not like Betty, even though he totally would do the same as her, sacrifice everything he has only for his s/o, without them he is nothing and pathetic to watch. but I see him as some kind of father figure with fucked up mind. Hates himself for it, thinks he's too old for you, you totally deserve better than someone like him, but not like he is against the idea of you being around him.

Scarab, The Star somehow like Lich, if you are human or just weaker than them, they would treat you as some sort of pet too. Maybe Scarab would taunt you more, calling you pathetic, ugly and disgusting, at the same time he would be the one who bathes you all the time. He thinks he is superior, but actually freak deep inside. But I would give bonus points for the reverse dynamic, s/o who treats Scarab as a bug he is, not caring about him begging for a job as a wishmaster. step on him, squish him like a bug, but he would run to you for more.

Ooo Finn is himbo, funny guy, actually average yandere, but Jake's death really changes his view on life. It's canon that he waits for the day he dies just to see his brother again. I think he would be a really overprotective one, always on your side whenever you go, helping you with whatever you have to do even if it's something simple. I love the idea of the good loyal hero being a little too protective towards their s/o. Most of the time Finn actually can't understand what he is doing wrong, so if you tell them about it, he would laugh it off.

FW Finn is such a cherry. I would pick Ice Finn and adult FW Finn for this. Ice Finn is scary, before he goes crazy, he is a polite and cute young man, but like other crown users, he has a really deep sense of love for the one he loves enough to put that cursed thing on his head just to save them. I see him more like a creepy guy, not like Ice King tho, Ice Finn would be kind of scarier since all those buildings made of frozen people would scare off everyone. He would be a clingy guy seeking human warmth since his body temperature is too low, but don't run away from him or you will add to his frozen collection.

Adult FW Finn are much cooler in both senses, like Ooo Finn he is overprotective, might be even more since Destiny Gang is always around and he can't let his s/o to be killed by them, he already had to lose his wife, so you would be guarded 24/7. Canonically, Finn would totally hear you once you try to leave him, so don't try it. He won't hurt you, but you would lose your privilege to walk.

Minerva just like her son is the one who wants to help people all the time. Even though they don't really want her help. It will be short here, but like I said about Finn before, she is an overprotective one, and her being everywhere literally would make your life a living nightmare since it would be hard as hell to leave her.

I already made headcannons about Fern, so will be short here too. Fern>Finn in yandere behavior, Fern is violent due to grass demon influence, he has low self-esteem, he doesn't think he deserves you since Finn would be much better at protecting you from harm. But his mind is constantly changing, so in the moment of trying to prove himself, he will kidnap or kill whoever stays on his way to get you, not to mention that if you are the person who's in good relationships with Finn, he would not hesitate to take care of Finn and take his place.

Winter King is a weirdo who has too much power. He is affectionate and could mess with the brains of everyone with his charm. Look at him, such a nice and powerful King! How could you not love him, dude?? Money, knowledge, power, love, all he has and he will give it to you. Well, if you are smart enough to see him playing, his mood will turn into a more angry one, showing some traits of the Ice King. So yeah, same old kidnapping Ice King stuff...

For PB&Candy Queen it's obvious, just like Ice Kings, she is a crazy girl, the definition of yandere, but her blender thingie is actually impressive. I don't think she will be all lovey dovey with her s/o, like she could play her songs for you, keeping you trapped, but one day you will be mixed with her together. PB from the vampire world is kind of like a much cooler version of OG PB, I like her character design and how she is portrayed, I just like strong women who would dominate you, that's all.

Can't say much about Hunter, Fionna, PB, Marceline or Phoebe for now. They're kind of chill and too cute, I can't see them doing crazy stuff (for now). For Huntress Wizard, my love, I see her cool and chill too, but this girl would give you some wild presents like when she gave Finn an animal's heart 😭 well, she is a lonely wolf type, kind of don't know what couples are supposed to do and would try to express herself in her own style which would weird you out a little but she still tries!

Peppermint Butler is kind of underrated too, he's a freaking funny guy, no one would actually believe you if you say that this candy guy would do some creepy shit. I mean look at him! Kind of like more the idea where his s/o is some really powerful entity like Death or Vampire King, he would daydream about you, giggling and kicking his feet making weird fanfics about you in his journal~~~

For Uncle Gambald and Patience, I would say they're pretty strong and violent. Don't disobey those two unless you want to die or something, are you stupid?? Patience at least would try to appear like she's actually trying to be good, she wants to know you more and teach some stuff, or tell stories about the past, just don't ignore her. Uncle Gambald is a creep, stay away from him!! He's gonna make you dumb candy citizen too!!

I actually love Prismo so much, but as for yandere he would be really tied up to his work. I mean, he can't do anything with you when you are outside his time room. He is helpless. He can't touch you or feel you like others would, he can't be around you 24/7 like them, he can't give you what most people need from their partners and it is really sad. Of course, he can make you appear in his time room whenever he wants, he can make everything you wish for, hoping that maybe you will stay with him a little longer. I don't think he would appear angry or annoyed by you, he's too sweet and caring. If you want to leave just go, but he would feel like shit without you around, his work is boring as hell, people who came for making a wish are annoying him, his time room is full of garbage. But Prismo's attention focused totally on videos of you from different universes, the only thing keeping him entertained.

[animeredhead101]

Dad Phantom DP x DC Crossover

Completed

Bask in Our Cosmic Insignificance by DisillusionedDanny :

After Lady Gotham sends a lost and alone King Phantom to check on a little boy Danny Fenton finds himself the new guardian "angel" of a six year old boy. Tim Drake. Word Count: 33,632

The Devil Wore a T-Shirt by DisillusionedDanny :

After a one-night stand, Danny finds himself pregnant with Red Hood's kid. Now he finds himself as a dad to a small child with an important decision to make. Does he tell Red Hood he has a child? Or does Danny raise the kid by himself?

Word Count: 24,778

Who's Old Now? by LiraBuswavi :

“Am I your dad!!?” Billy shouted. Danny paused. Took a deep breath in and out before turning to him. “I’m gonna need you to back up, and explain. Please.” Or, what happens when a twelve year old masquerading as an adult superhero calls his guardian, an adult who can also turn into a child superhero, on speaker phone, in front of the Justice League. Word Count: 36,017

Of All the Things My Hands Have Held by DisillusionedDanny :

Upon learning that her son is in a relationship, Talia decides to create a clone to gift to her son as a gift to celebrate finally settling down. Now Damian and Danny are stuck trying to figure out how to raise a baby when neither of them had the best examples growing up.

Word Count: 17,066

Mourning a Young Soul Leads to Shared Custody by Olive_of_Vanders :

Danny was given a choice. Become King or parent a ghost kid. Ghost kid sounded a lot more easier to him. Word Count: 41,929

It's Not Sugar by ConspiracyCrows :

Ellie is destabilized and nearly killed by Vlad while trying to make another, "better", clone of Danny. In order to stabilize her she was de-aged to about 7, and now has chronic issues balancing her ecto the same way a type one diabetic has issues balancing blood sugars. In fact that's the cover story the pair use when Danny enrolls Ellie at Gotham Academy. The one favor he will allow Vlad to do for them. While Vlad seems to have finally come to his senses about Ellie, Danny won't let him anywhere near her ever again. Which is why they moved to Gotham in the first place, Vlad won't step foot there. It also helps that Lady Gotham is more than happy to have the Realms' Ambassador to the Living in her streets. They settle into Crime Alley, and Danny may or may not have forgotten to introduce himself to the Haunt owner, assuming Gotham would handle the niceties as he gets Ellie settled, and handles the pressing issues of the negotiations between the city, the realms, and those denizens of both who want or need one thing or other.

Word Count: 23,052

On-going

Deadly Assumptions and Their Consequences by Silver_star_06 :

The Justice league believes that Phantom is Captain Marvel‘s dad and tells the hero to summon him to help them with Darkseid. They weren’t expecting the cryptic eldridge being to start hanging around the watch tower. Danny couldn’t help but feel a kinship with the pre-teen that ended up as the current Captain Marvel. A scrappy black haired and blue eyed child vigilante, that only became one because of circumstance. Danny was going to help this child whether he wanted it or not. Word Count: 25,977

My Dad is Dead to Me by GhostInGotham :

John Constantine was fourteen when he set his house on fire. John Constantine was fourteen when he realized his father was still inside. Word Count: 19,573

Phantoms and Foes by Zylev :

Krypton was dying long before it exploded. After a lab accident at 14 gave Danny ice powers, he used them for good to try and stop crime as the first hero of Krypton. But when thousands of years of mining the core of Krypton finally caught up to the planet, General Zod evacuated Krypton to the Phantom Zone before it exploded. Little did Zod know he led the Kryptonians to a slaughter. Years later, Danny is the only Kryptonian left alive when Kal-El finds the Phantom Projector and brings him to Earth. Danny must now adjust to having new powers and life on a planet that is completely different than Krypton and the Phantom Zone. Word Count: 121,723

The Human Prince of Ghosts by AceFace98 :

Danny has been King for a few centuries now, but he's still half-ghost, immortal or not. So every now and again, Clockwork likes to kick him out of the Realms to go play human for a decade or two. It's usually pretty boring. This time, though, he meets a small child with a camera and a lot of pointed questions and immediately has Dad Instincts about it. Word Count: 65,300

Phantom's Progenies by Makuro767 :

progeny /ˈprɒdʒɪni/ noun plural noun: progenies a descendant or the descendants of a person, animal, or plant; offspring. A drabble collections of Danny Phantom as the father to several kids that are both his and clones of him from several different realities. Fluff with doses of trauma. ~ If you think you can write a full story from each drabble, be my guest. Word Count: 79,111 This is a HUGE multi-crossover fic FYI

[thedevillionaire]

Above and Beyond

A “day in the life of” sort of thing - with a few complications, of course. Always and all ways, thank you SO much for reading. 💝

---

And it’s raining.

Again. 

Or, perhaps more accurately, still, Cerberus thinks bitterly, wiping his nose with a tissue barely up to the task. First the Ice chambers and now this absolute nonsense. He hasn’t visited the mortal plane for some time, too long ago to recall precisely when, but he does remember one thing clearly – it was raining then too. Heavier, not this…endlessly drizzling drip-torture affair, but raining.

Again. Still. 

“This damnable weather,” he mutters, more to himself than either of the two awestruck, hapless Demon novices looking up at him. And he can’t for the life of him work out what led to this situation in the first place. Sheer incompetence, apparently. How is it even possible for a basic possession to go so far awry? Just vacate the damn vessel, it’s not complicated, it’s a mortal. Honestly. Ridiculous pastime, possession, anyway. He’s never understood the appeal.

It's all frankly well beneath his station, and ludicrous that he’s here. Why the hell did he agree to this? He's not been thinking clearly all day. And it’s freezing. He’s freezing. The biting windchill whips through the steady, relentless damp, embellishing it, driving it bone-deep. Of all times for both Therion and Suspiria to be away. Who schedules these things? Nobody checks anything properly, he doesn’t…even… Damn it, he is not going to sneeze again. He presses the back of his hand against his nose with significant force in an attempt to quash the rising urge. And…who the hell is this now? He sniffles.

The unexpected and unrecognised arrival doesn’t waste time introducing himself as he starts to deliver his message. “Lord DeVille. I apologise for the intrusion, but if you cou…” 

A swiftly raised index finger halts his sentence.

“Ah-HEHTSHhuu!”

“Gesundheit, my lord.”

Upon receiving an irritated, perfunctory thank you, excuse me and an impatient signal to continue, the emissary nods once in acknowledgement, and does so.

“If you could attend the Healing wards as soon as practicable. I’m afraid there’s been an incident involving Kia.”

A moment of stunned silence as the world and everything in it falls away, irrelevant, meaningless, replaced by a purity of focus vehement and singular. Cerberus, eyes newly incandescent with every bit of that infamous green fire, flicks some stray damp hair back from his face, and wastes no further time.

“Anyone attempting to contact me will burn,” he says, and in a flash of flame is gone. 

---

His arrival at Healing is of course expected, and Riviera's well prepared for it. Less prepared, perhaps, for the usually imposingly stylish Demon king looking…well, more than a little sodden, really. Verging on bedraggled, she thinks, though she’d never say it. But with the look in his eyes as fiercely intent as she's ever seen, that is clearly of no priority right now, and she needs to hurry up and get down to business.

"Okay, well, the first thing you should know is that nobody hurt her, she did this to herself," she begins, adding a hasty, "Not on purpose!" at the expression that received. "No, she attempted a Media skill but unfortunately she was a bit out of her depth, and..."

Cerberus partially hears Riviera's words, taking them in as a wash of information—

...sort of like a concussion, shaken up, disoriented...

partially loses himself to trying to make sense of how things could have come to this—

Kia’s independence, her always pushing through her fears, her trust in herself, and more than that, her trust in him, he's never doubted her but she's...it's gone wrong and gods it stings that she didn’t come to him for help but he knows of course she wants to prove herself, prove she can do this on her own, that any successes would be truly hers and not due to the privilege of his assistance, but...but...

—and partially tries to resist any further surrender to...this damn...

hh-HH...

He recognises when the cause is lost quickly enough, though, turning away to cover an unstoppable, urgent couplet of sneezes in tightly crooked elbow, desperate need recurring.

“Hh-TSCHH-uu! Ah-TSSCHHhuu!"

"..thought she'd be able to manage," continues Riviera. "So we're just keeping her overnight for..."

"Huh-AHSSCHuu! *SNF!*"

"..observation," she concludes, offering him a casual blessing as he curses sotto voce, excuses himself and gathers several tissues from the box on the countertop. “You sound worse than she does, you know. Need anything for the cold?”

"I am cold, I don’t have one," Cerberus says, exasperation bringing a touch of sharpness to his tone even as encroaching congestion rips away the clarity of his consonants. It's beside the point, anyway. He blows his nose and incinerates the tissues. "Pardon me." A quick, soft sniffle. "I'm fine."

He still, for the most part, believes it. Though it would certainly be nice to be less...damp.

"So, no?" Riviera shrugs amicably. "Hm, okay." She’s not about to press him on the matter, despite the ambient temperature in Healing being notably and comfortably warm. “Anyway, um, Kia’s in – just a moment, let me check – yeah, chamber 3," she confirms, pointing down the relevant corridor. “She’s on some meds, so she might be a bit loopy, if she’s even awake.”

Cerberus acknowledges this, sniffling again, and takes another tissue from the countertop box to once more wipe his recalcitrant nose.

“You know, you’re in the right place if you change your mind about…” Riviera gives a little nod towards the tissue box. "Just saying."

“As I said, I'm fine. Thank you.”

He claims a couple more tissues as he leaves, all the same.

---

His beautiful bonded looks disconcertingly fragile, impossibly delicate, in these clinical surrounds - like she's some sort of precisely crafted porcelain imitation of herself, her mass of rich chestnut waves arrayed over the pillow, framing her in a dark halo stark against the too-bright white bedlinens. She's an illusion, a transience.

She doesn't belong here. She's far too vibrant, too irrepressible for this.

Or just irrepressible enough.

Cerberus sighs and ignores the chair provided, sitting instead beside Kia on the bed, and softly caresses her face.

“I understand why you’d have wanted to try this without me, but…” His voice tender, heartfelt. Confident that whatever the problem had been, he’d have been able to fix it. “Oh, love. I wish you hadn’t.”

Kia stirs, slightly waking to his touch, or sensing his presence on some deeper than conscious level, perhaps, and with a small mm of hazy recognition, reaches out to take his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers as she does so.

He rubs his nose and sniffles again, as quietly as he’s able, and frowns slightly at the very unwelcome thought that maybe he is coming down with something after all. Can't be. It’s just too much time spent being practically refrigerated, and for no good reason. Nevertheless, surely this...overreactive ridiculousness should have settled down by now, despite everything. Does his throat hurt? He's not sure. Possibly.

His breath catches softsharply, urgently – once, twice and twice again – and with no time to extricate his hand from Kia’s, he turns as best he can to smother a rapid, desperate triplicate of sneezes, each more insistent than the last, against his shoulder. “HUHschuu! Hhh-TSSCH-uu! Hhh...hh-HH… hhAHTSSCHUU!”

Kia fully awakens to that.

“Bless you,” she purrdrawls, her voice still thick with sleep and the Healing concoctions she’d taken earlier. She gazes up at him through a mix of delight, relief, devotion, gratitude, and desire, her lucidity mutable, unpredictably shifting.

“Gods, sorry, love. Excuse me,” Cerberus says from behind the tissues he’d grabbed earlier. “Not quite the greeting I’d intended.” He sniffles, and pushes some still-damp, disarrayed hair from his eyes. “Spent almost an entire day in the Ice chambers and then an utterly senseless trip to the mortal plane in all its – *snf!* – frigid delights, and now I… *SNFF!* Well, this. If you’ll – *snf!* – pardon me a moment…” He turns aside to blow his nose.

Kia props herself up against the bedhead a little. "Not a great day for the DeVilles, huh," she says with a gently wry smile, one which Cerberus mirrors, adding a hm of accordance as he immolates the spent tissues.

"Soooo, um...you know what happened here, right?" she checks.

He confirms it with a brief nod.

"You probably think I’m crazy."

"I think you’re wonderful." The sincerity in his voice is absolute, souldeep.  “You’re so brave, darkling.”

Kia smirks. “Incredibly brave,” she quips with a flourish, recalling a very earliest time between them, and a question he’d posed that they playfully revisit every now and then.

The two complete the quote together: “Or incredibly foolish.” They both laugh about it, as they’ve done many times before.

“Yeah.” With a smile verging on wistful, Kia gently strokes Cerberus along his forearm, her expression becoming more serious. “Babe, I know you’ll always go above and beyond for me, but sometimes it’s… It’s just… I mean… You can’t always help me. You can’t just give me everything.”

“I want to.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I know.” Kia presses a loving kiss to the back of her bonded’s hand. “And I’m sorry I scared you. But I’m okay, really, I…I very am, really very really, and I’ve had lots of…” She waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the treatments on the bedside table. “..the things, and I’m not in any pain or anything so you don’t need to be here and I…I guess you should probably go home.”

A wickedsoft chuckle of refutation. “No, I’m afraid I’m going to make rather a nuisance of myself, darkling.”

Kia laughs. "Good." She grins, a little woozily. "I didn't mean it, anyway. Hmm…" She takes a section of his shirt sleeve between her fingers, briefly rubbing. "You're more wet than usual," she asserts, peering at him as if she's cracked some secret code. “Wait, did we talk about this alrea…”

She breaks off as her beloved's breath sharpcatches staccato anew; without intent she inhales deeply alongside him, her fascinated focus almost as captive as his.

“HXXTchu! Ugh…” He groans, lightly coughing convulsively from the effort of stifling. And it was doomed to fail – he knows it, and he inhales again, deep and immediate, and doesn’t bother trying it a second time. “Huh-TSSCHH-uu!” Or…or apparently a third, and after a knife-edge pause and an escalated hitching of breath, he surrenders entirely and sneezes again – powerful, ferocious. “Hhh… hh-TSSCHH-uu!” With a fierce sniffle, he presses the back of his hand against his nose with a determination verging on brutal, but the insistent itch still unsated has his breath catching again. Brow creased, he gives over, capitulating altogether to the demanding need. “AAHHTSSCHHUU! Gods, fuck.”  

Kia loses herself to assorted altered states for a moment. "Bless you, you’re so gorgeous, oh my god,” she effuses, rush-of-energy lustlaced, and sends Cerberus a Mindsent doubled-up :Bless you bless you I love you: as he excuses himself, apologises and takes a very necessary moment of recovery.

A realisation occurs to Kia, watching him now, and she voices it: a soft but matter-of-fact you’re getting a cold.

Cerberus almost manages to begin some sort of unconvincing rebuttal, but Kia holds up her hand in a gentle interruption. “It's alright, you're very sexy so you’re allowed to be a bit dumb about some stuff," she says.

She gives a light giggle at his raised eyebrow and wry shake of his head, smiling, in response. Gazing at him both sweetly and covetously for just a little longer, the spike of energy rapidly fading, the state she’s in, she mumbles you work too hard, you know as she passes him the bedside tissue box with a kiss, before closing her eyes and curling up against his chest with a soft sound of contentment.

Cerberus strokes her hair, kisses the top of her head as he embraces her.  “When you’re well, we can go through the Media process of your choosing together, if you’d like,” he murmurs.

“Nuh-uh.” She taps his arm twice in drowsy correction. “When you’re well, we can.”

A knowing, indulgent smile curves her lips, and she curls up closer still.

---

[amaltheas-garden]

What if Jon's sweetness in the bittersweet ending is his short lived love with Daenerys?

While I do think the show is probably accurate to what we'll get in the books in the broadest of strokes, there are still a lot of other plotlines to get through before Jon and Dany can even meet. For how long his books are, grrm really doesn't cover all that much time, meaning in just two books, Jon has to be resurrected (which I suspect won't happen until around the halfway point in Winds, since there's no point in Jon dying and coming back just a few chapters later), Sansa has to make it to the Wall, Arya has to return from Braavos and confront Lady Stoneheart, Littlefinger has to be taken care of, Jon and Sansa have to retake Winterfell, and the Starks have to reunite all amidst the growing threat of the whitewalkers. On Dany's side, Aegon has to get to King's Landing, Dany has to become leader of the Dothraki, fulfill all the bits of her prophecy (the 'to go West you must go East' one), and rally her armies to cross the narrow sea, and resolve ALL the loose ends in Essos since whence Dany leaves, that will be the last time we see it. And that's not including all the other stories, like the Dorne plot, Cersei/Jaime/Brienne, and Stannis/Davos/Melisandre, or accounting for the characters still very separate from everything (Sam off in Oldtown and Bran doing three eyed raven stuff). And all this is build up for the final cataclysmic conflict, the song of ice and fire. Now, that is a lot of content to get through, and when you start laying out every single thing that needs to be resolved, it becomes rather apparent why WoW is taking so long. The point is, Jon and Dany are not meeting in Winds, and it would be a miracle for them to meet even in the first half of Dream of Spring. That's why I highly doubt the relationship between Jon and Dany will be a genuine romantic one. Grrm is not the type to do a quick, star-crossed lovers plotline that ends tragically all within the span of a few hundred pages. A Jon x Sansa romance makes more sense, seeing as, if we accept Sansa as the girl in grey, she and Jon will spend the majority of two books with each other.

As for the show, there was nothing bittersweet in Jon having to kill his lover after she becomes a tyrant and threatens to murder his sisters, and for him to end the series by leaving his family for a lifetime of solitude. If book!Jon is destined to go beyond the wall after DoS, the 'sweetness' will be in knowing he did everything in his power to protect his family. No short-term love affair with Dany could ever replace the love Jon holds for the Starks.

Book wise, I doubt the Jon x Dany relationship will be one of genuine romantic love on Jon's part (see pol!Jon theory), and while Jon could end his story alone, I don't think a relationship with Dany is enough to fulfill a 'bittersweet' ending. I also recommend this incredible meta on Jon's ending (it does skew heavily Jonsa-centric) FedonCiadale — Sometimes scrolling through the Jonsa tag, I find... (tumblr.com) and they also have some other amazing answers on the bittersweet ending.

[dragonbarbie]

𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍

aemond targaryen x prostitute!reader

rating: 18+, minors dni

summary: jealous!aemond x prostitute!reader; aemond finds himself being pulled in by the most famous woman of the street of silk, but tempers flare when he sees her pay attention to other lords

word count: 2.5k

tags: mature content, sex work, mentions of past chocking, reader being handled slightly roughly in places

note: this is technically a continuation of my one-shot riding a dragon, but can be read as a standalone tbh

it was rare for a woman of the street of silk to actively look forward to a particular client’s visit. love or affection were things to be sold in this part of town, on a per night basis. those moments spent being so utterly naked, vulnerable with someone, were not supposed to signify any real connection between the parties involved. the women simply played whatever role that was the desire of the one paying, and come morning the reality would set in, leaving behind only a pouch full of coin as evidence. and there was no actress more adept at this theatre, than y/n.

she could tell instantly if a man needed her to be adoring or dominating, have her bat her doe eyes at them or a wicked smile. but the dragon prince had been an enigma to her that first night he had visited. his expression was unreadable, but he was prone to a high temper clearly. there was ice in those veins, yet fire behind that eye. she could sense that associating with him was dangerous for her, for he was not the kind of man who would offer her sweetness and warmth, he was fire she risked immolating herself with.

yet, the next night she was entertaining the brothel’s visitors, she found her eyes searching for silver hair in the crowd. though like most nights, that night too there was a line of men showering her with praises for her beauty, her grace, her charm, and yet she felt unsatisfied. she played her part though, ever dutiful. but as the lord who’s name erased itself from her memory as soon as he tied his pants back on, left her after a tedious session, she stood by her window and stared in the direction of the red castle that loomed over the city.

she wondered if he was sleeping in there, probably on a large, comfortable bed, made up for him by a small army of servants. she imagined he had had a full supper complete with wine, before letting sleep come to him. perhaps he was tired from whatever work had pulled him away from her that morning. or perhaps, she thought with a twisted smile, he was lying in the arms of some fine lady, her fine jewellery placed on a table next to his bed, and her fine clothes discarded to the floor.

she chuckled at her own foolishness, for forgetting where she stood, what part of town, what building. how could she have thought for a moment, that a prince would revisit her? he had his dragons, crowns, and ladies. he had no need for her. he would remain a pleasant memory, a story she would tell the younger girls when they ask her about her heyday, about days when her name decorated the tongue of every noble lord in king’s landing, she thought with a humourless smile.

as she slept that night, she dreamt of dragons, castles and bright fire. seven nights passed, until she no longer held hopes of any prince gracing her with his presence.

those seven nights – aemond targaryen was being torn apart from the inside.

on one end, pulling him, was his desire to remain the dutiful son his mother believed him to be, to stick to that code of a knight that cole was always talking about, the desire to be strong – and strong men were not beholden to the charms of a whore.

on the other, was her scent. he could smell her perfume everywhere. it was strong, sweet, it reminded him of flowers that lined his mother’s gardens. it clung to his clothes, to his skin. he found it inescapable, days passed and yet he felt stuck in the memory of her perfume.

he found himself less focused in those days, a fact which infuriated him even more. eventually he decided that perhaps if he fucked her one more time, he could get this longing out of him.

so he donned his nondescript cloak once again, and his feet took him back towards the brothel.

he did not have to waste time looking for her.

he entered the big salon where he had seen her dancing last time, and sure enough – she stood before him on the same raised platform. she was not repeating her movements from last time, he noted as he hung back in the crowd that was intently watching her. but rather than feeling captivated by the way her body moved, as he had originally been, he was infuriated.

the curves of her body were barely veiled in her dress, and on display for every man present to leer at. he was painfully aware that he was not the only one with a right to see her like this, no, he had no right on her at all. then why did he feel like it was something of his which was being stolen, with the way her hips were moving?

he wanted to pull her off that stage and drag her somewhere far from these men, and was fantasising about doing just that, when he saw one brazen lord rise and approach her. he was instantly on alert, but this did not seem to faze her at all, she only gave the lord a mirthful smile. then, the prince saw the silver coin in the lord’s hand, and when he realised that he was approaching to place it in between her breasts – he saw red.

the next moment the transgressing lord’s face was pressed against the wall, blood spewing out of his mouth since the force with which the prince had grabbed him had most certainly broken a teeth or two. there were shrieks that followed at the scene, patrons scrambling. but the one-eyed prince did not pay heed to any of it. his eye remained on her as his hand dug deeper into the lord’s neck.

she stood frozen, taken completely by surprise at his presence. her breathing had become shallow, her feet planted to the ground as her wide eyes stared back at him. somehow his expression seemed to be telling her that she was in fact lucky it wasn’t her who was being pinned by the prince so brutally.

in his eyes, in his twisted logic, she was equally to blame for this, he determined. she was clearly going to allow this other man to grope her – she had been smiling, seven hells.

the commotion had caused for the madame of the institution to come running to inspect the scene, “my prince! you cannot –” she was a firm woman, had it been anyone else causing her customers to panic, she would have told them off immediately, but how do you do that to a prince of the realm? she seemed speechless.

aemond simply shoved the man to the ground, before reaching for y/n. she did not back away, partly because she knew there could be no escape. but what scared her, was that she also wanted it.

he’d come back for her. against all odds, he had come back.

he grabbed her forearm and took off in the direction of the stairs that he remembered her taking him up last time, throwing a bag of coins in the direction of the madame with a heavy thud.

the tightness of his grip, reminded her of how his hand had felt around her throat last time, and she was guessing that this time too she would be left with a bruise to deal with. she did not protest though, as he dragged her to her room and then threw her to the bed.

he was on top of her, knees on either side of her and one large hand holding both of her own down above her head. when his other hand reached down, she thought he was going to chock her again. instead, it reached to place a few strands of her hair behind her ear.

“that was a wonderful performance. it’s remarkable that you have the stamina to practice after allowing all these men to fuck you every night.” he never had to raise his voice at her, but the danger in his tone was evident regardless. as was the jealousy. “i’m a hard worker, your grace.” she refused to let the fear in her heart show on her face.

“‘your grace’” he mocked her, “not many women of low-birth would know the proper way to address a prince. but i assume having fucked lords all your life, you’d have to be incredibly dense to not pick up a few things at least.” he was speaking the truth, plain and simple. and yet, his directness was cutting at her. but there was something more to his tone, she realised, something more accusatory, as if she had offended him by being a woman of the street of silk.

“noble lords such as yourself are very particular about titles, and i’m a fast learner.”

“yes i know, always looking to please. you did a brilliant job at it that first night, saying and  doing all the right things.” the memory of her insisting he remove his eyepatch when he fucked her was fresh in his mind. that one moment had seemed more intimate to him than lying inside her. she had kissed his scar, pretended to be so…affectionate. “but all of it is for show. the accent of a highborn woman, the exquisite clothes, the sweet words, the tender touches, they all hide what you truly are – a woman rotten to the core.”

“a whore.” she agreed. she had heard much worse insults in her life, but this one twisted inside her like a knife. when he had last been with her, he had treated her with more respect than she had known in her life. he hadn’t used her like an object, to be discarded once its usefulness was over. he had been curious about her, careful in his inspection and not hurried by his own desire. where had that man gone?

“yet that fact did not seem to trouble you when you fucked me last time?” her tongue was bolder than she had ever allowed it to be in front of a patron, but a wounded animal would instinctively fight back. “not all of us were born inside castles, or grew up being spoon-fed by servants. my world is leagues beyond yours, you cannot even begin to comprehend the dangers of it and i do not owe you an explanation as to how i survive in it.” she was suddenly very aware that he already had her pinned down on her bed with his body, and beating her senseless for her impertinence would be like child’s play for him. yet all he did, was stare down at her, his eye cold and emotionless. under its harsh gaze, she finally looked away, turning her neck so she wasn’t staring up at him.

“besides,” she felt a few hot tears roll down her cheeks, “if you cared so much about me fucking other lords, perhaps you should have shown your face here earlier.” if he could display his jealousy in such manner, then she decided that she would not hide her grievance at his seven night long absence either.

aemond knew that he could not have this right over her, the right to feel jealous, possessive. she was not his wife, she was not his in any way that mattered. and he was not hers, either. yet, he realised as the corner of his lips turned upwards, she was trying to claim this right over him, by being upset at his absence. he realised she felt it too, this unspoken pull they had towards one another.

“how many?” he coolly asked, causing her to turn back towards him, confused, “how many men… did you fuck… since i was last here?” he slowly repeated. she swallowed at his question, fearing that one wrong answer could earn her more than barbed words. “nine.” she replied, voice quavering. “and how much did you charge them?” that question threw her for a loop. “5 golden dragons each.”

to her surprise, he bent down at her response, and kissed her neck. “i will break–” his lips trailed further down her neck, “—five bones each—”, grazing her collar bone, “—of every man—”, her chest, “—who took what was mine.” a shudder ran down her back as he sealed his promise by pressing his lips to hers.

this time when he lay with her, she noted that something had changed. their first time, he had been less sure, his inexperience showing. now he was more confident, demanding, rougher with his movements. when his mouth laid kisses on her body, she knew she would find herself littered with bruises the next day. when he gripped her hips as he thrust into her, she felt his grip down to her bone. it was as if he we were attempting to touch every part of her skin that another might have lingered on, and leave his own imprint on each inch.

she too, committed her own small transgressions. she found herself moaning for him by name, with each thrust. gone were the chants of ‘my prince’, replaced with her whispering ‘aemond’, delicately as if revealing an ancient secret. if the prince minded such insolence, such disrespect to his station, he did not say.

neither of them attempted to move once they were spent. clothes long discarded, the prince remained slump with his head lying upon her chest, arms enclosing around her. she stared up at the ceiling, fingers absentmindedly playing with silver hair. “i can’t decipher” she suddenly began to say, more to herself than him, “whether you’re the noble knight, brooding, righteous and disciplined; or, the cruel prince, domineering, violent and selfish?”

most days he couldn’t decide where he lay on that scale either, aemond realised. but he answered instead, “for you, a bit of both.” her lips twitched upwards at the response. that, she could live with, she thought. as he shifted to remove his weight off of her, a small whine involuntarily escaped her. she wordlessly watched him pick up and wear his tunic and pants back on, knowing that to ask him of his plans to return would be of no use. but she did have something to clarify.

“it’s not an act.” he stopped tying the string to his pants, and looked down at where she laid. she was refusing to meet his eye, still staring upwards. “you said my “sweet words” and “tender touches” were an act. they’re not an act when it’s you.” her heart was hammering away at her chest as she confessed. she slowly turned to look at him and add “surely, you must know that.” how could he not see right through her, see how vulnerable he made her? she wondered.

when he looked inside those eyes, he saw an unabashed sense of sincerity. but his expression gave away neither acceptance nor rejection of her claim.

he put on his boots and gathered his things. as he stood by the door, he turned to her, “if i hear of you dancing, or entertaining another man for a single night, i will burn this place down and you with it.”

she smirked at his declaration, “is that a promise?”

note: i love this concept so so much not me already having plans for a next part thats maybe?? a touch of fluff? i need it after the angst

[geekgirles]

"I would've preferred it if Amalia were our Queen instead."

"Like many others, sweetie, but you can't say that right now."

"Where did Amalia go, Mum?"

"She's gone explore the world, like she usually does."

Okay, but this little piece of dialogue is crucial to understand so many things about the Sadida and their opinion on their royal family.

And we stan that little girl. Yes, baby, I, too, wish Amalia was queen instead. I don't trust Armand and Aurora as far as I can throw them.

It's already been established Armand resents his sister not only because of her wanderlust or the fact that their father seemed to favour her, but because so does their people.

The fact that there are apparently many who support Amalia, the younger princess, over her brother, the Crown Prince, comes to show that for the Sadida actions speak louder than words.

There is no denying that both royal siblings care immensely about their kingdom. Armand was in the front lines when Nox attacked alongside King Oakheart and many of Amalia's best, most mature moments were in relation to her wanting to protect and serve her people. Like when she decided to stand up against Armand and inform their father of Nox's attacks back in season one, or how she was more than willing to forego her chance to marry for love and marry Harebourg instead if that meant her kingdom would survive Ogrest's Chaos in the OVA.

The difference between the two of them, however, especially in the eyes of their people, is their actions or, more accurately, the consequences of said actions.

Armand is the Crown Prince, and he remains in their kingdom carrying out his duties while Amalia went off to explore the world and have fun, away from her duties. At first glance, that should make Armand the better choice in the eyes of the Sadida, except that also means they've probably been far more subjected to his less pleasant moments.

Having to watch your tongue out of fear of severe punishment or even death just because the prince is sensitive over his bad breath is overkill, plain and simple.

Not to mention, every time Amalia left her kingdom, her adventuring evolved into a life-or-death mission to save the world.

With Nox, the fact that she ran away allowed her to gain the intel needed to go back home and warn them of the upcoming attack. Something Armand refused to do anything about until King Oakheart entered the picture and took matters into his own hands, all because he couldn't believe his sister would ever be more than a spoiled brat trying to run away from her responsibilities.

With Quilby, what at first was a simple, humanitarian mission to retrieve his dofus and welcome the Eliatrope children eventually turned into a desperate battle for the survival of their world.

Again, in the OVAs, the entirety of the Sadida kingdom was aware and celebrated Amalia's sense of responsibility and selfless decision to enter an arranged marriage for their sake. I haven't watched beyond the Throne of Ice, so I don't know if the Sadida ever found out Harebourg's true plans for their forest, but if they did, all the more reason to respect Amalia for refusing to put her people in jeopardy.

Finally, people talk. In season 3, it's made apparent that since Aurora entered the picture (at the very least), the royal siblings' relationship has strained practically to the point of no return. And while Amalia isolated herself and mourned her father's deteriorating health, it's very likely the castle guards and servants bore witness to how the prince's treatment of his sister worsened each day. So I wouldn't be surprised if word got out and the rest of the kingdom sympathised with Amalia either.

Now, it is true that while Amalia does have a sense of responsibility and duty to her kingdom and a deep love for her people, despite her royal upbringing, she is not really made for the stifling life of royalty. Hence, her constant wanderlust. In that regard, Armand is indeed the most reliable of the two.

It just so happens that when it comes to personal flaws and his treatment of others he is wholly unreliable. It's his way or the highway. And that is a very terrifying quality for a king to have, to be unable to compromise.

But most importantly, what really sets these two apart in the way their people perceive them is that while Armand is a prince, Amalia is a hero. And she has proven time and time again that she will do everything in her power to assure everyone's safety and well-being.

And that alone speaks volumes of a ruler's true character.

[inbarfink]

Goddam, just seeing Simon in these last two episodes is really flooding me with so many conflicting emotions.

Because, on the one hand, after his lowest point in Episode 4 - resigning himself to death in the hands of the Scarab - he’s clearly finally doing better. Just look at him making plans

And showing off his smarts

And finally genuinely smiling and feeling happy

And being so glad to meet the alt versions of his friends

And getting excited about his nerdy shit for the first time in glob-knows-how-long

And cracking goofy geeky jokes

And offering others the same grace and kindness he was given when he was trapped under the curse of the Magic Crown

And trying to be comforting and fatherly and give Fionna advice and cheer her up

He’s so clearly doing a lot better now, he’s rediscovering aspects of himself that his depression has torn away from him, he found a meaning and purpose in his life again. And it should warm my heart, and on some level it does....

But it also sends a chill down my spine knowing that this purpose that brought back the light into Simon’s eyes, the purpose he finally found is sacrificing his mind and identity again for the sake of Fionna’s happiness and her world.

He’s throwing himself right back into the miserable existence and the trauma he tries so hard to move forward from. He’s dooming himself because he honestly believes now that he’s always going to be miserable and lonely and fucked up so he might as well have be the kind of miserable and fucked up that is not lucid enough to know how miserable he is all of the time. The kind of misery that at least fits into his world.

Because he started to romanticize being the Ice King in a twisted kinda way, and now he has found the excuse to turn it into a selfless, noble act. Because the only way he feels like he’s useful and like he has worth is by protecting and helping and sacrificing himself for the sake of others.

(And like, especially in light of how he was trying to resign himself to death just moments before coming up with his plan. Not to get extremely dark, but.... suicidal people often seem to ‘get better’ just before the try to kill themselves. Because they feel like they’re finally ‘doing something’ and their misery is almost over. That kinda feels what Simon is going through right now? Becoming the Ice King again is not literally death, but it is a sort of death for Simon Petrikov’s identity.)

And this new sense of purpose in saving Fionnaworld by dooming himself is clearly blinding Simon to so many obviously telegraphed signs that this is a horrible idea.

He saw hints of just how badly Farmworld Finn has been dealing with his own Magic Crown Related Trauma

and maybe if things would’ve been different this could’ve been something they could have commiserated over. Simon could’ve had someone who understood a bit of what he has gone through, and seeing a version of Finn, of all people, face similar struggles - maybe could’ve helped him feel a little less Uniquely and Irredeemably Fucked Up. (For bonus points, they're ALSO both dealing with the grief of losing their Significant Other)

But his newfound obsession that Everything Will Be Better Once He’s Cursed again was making him totally ignore all of this.

And then there’s their little adventure in the Winter Kingdom. Which had both the Candy Queen/Princess Bubblegum as a perfect reminder of the suffering and pain involved in being trapped in the Madness of the Magic Crown

And the Winter King as a reminder of the harmful and twisted things he was capable of doing as the Ice King.

But instead he basically refused to learn any lesson from that Universe that’s not just ‘Fuck That Version of Me Specifically’ and tried to advice Fionna to do the same.

But well, while I am still worried about Simon’s mental state, his improved disposition does give me a little bit of hope. Hope that maybe he himself will notice that he is doing better and won’t be quite so eager to sacrifice his own sanity. Or maybe more likely, hope that now that he’s not just a miserable sadman screaming at their faces

Fionna and Cake are growing to appreciate Simon Petrikov for who he is and will simply refuse to let him sacrifice himself for their sake. Because, yeah, Simon tried to tell Fionna to not worry about all of that Winter Kingdom stuff, that it was just that Simon was ‘messed up’ - but since when does Fionna Campbell do what she’s told?

[crystallizedday]

So I have no idea if anyone else has made a post like this already, but at this point, I’m gonna EXPLODE if I don’t get this out of my system.

This has been haunting my brain for WEEKS & I am NOT having it.

So

Ice Marcy.

Lil angel.

DEFINITELY a result of Marceline dying at some point.

I mean, we have the Winter King telling Simon he can ALWAYS make an Ice Betty if Simon misses her so much, & while he SAYS that he’s joking & states how such a thing is clearly unethical…

Let’s be honest…

Bro’s a fuckin hypocrite saying that.

I mean, what he did to PB is fuckin unethical as hell, so if he’s morally fine with THAT, what’s stopping him from coping with the death of a loved one by making a living ice replica of them?

Anyway, a bunch of people already agree with that shit anyway, so that’s not what I’m here to address.

I’m here to talk about the when & how of the situation.

Cause I’ve seen a lot of people assuming Marcy died at a very young age due to her appearance as a child in her ice form & this “flashback” scene from WK’s song.

But that just cannot be the case.

Why?

Marceline’s bass.

Her bass (that in actuality is just a fuckin ax) is a family heirloom that once belonged to Hudson.

She only acquired possession of it to modify it into a bass once she met Hudson AFTER Simon had left her for good in her adolescence(?).

This means she COULDN’T have died during the apocalypse phase of Ooo.

So when could she have died?

Well, while a ton of people speculate it was right before or even right after the Winter King’s transformation into himself, I believe it was sometime AFTER, just not quite right away.

Cause ya gotta remember:

Marcy & Bonnie weren’t talking for HUNDREDS of years after their breakup.

& they only started hanging out again about two decades earlier from where we are in the present, which is still FAIRLY RECENT.

As Simon states in the episode, the Winter King had cursed PB ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

This means she & Marceline were STILL not on speaking terms by the time she got cursed.

HOWEVER

As we see in the very first Adventure Time finale, right before our two favorite lesbians kiss, Marcy admitted she was still TERRIFIED that PB would get hurt WHILE they weren’t talking.

So what does this tell us?

Lemme pitch y’all MY take on how Marcy TRULY died.

The Winter King found a way to project his insanity onto Bubblegum, reshaping himself & his kingdom with his newfound lucidity.

Sometime LATER (either soon after or even decades later), Marceline checks up on the situation after seeing the Candy Kingdom absolutely FUCKED & the Ice Kingdom flourishing, sees what happened to the two rulers, slowly puts two & two together, & interrogates the Winter King on it.

Cause like… while it’s awesome to have “Simon” back, Marceline realistically would NOT stand for it to come at the cost of Bubblegum’s sanity. Even if their relationship was still rocky, she still CARED about Bonnie & her safety.

She demanded the Winter King to undo this, telling him what he was doing was MONSTROUS…

But at some point, whether intentionally or unintentionally…

He did it.

HE killed her.

Either to stop her from reversing the spell herself or to get her to shut up so he wouldn’t have to face the fact that what he did was wrong.

He killed her, & felt such an overwhelming sense of guilt that he decided to cope with what he did…

In probably the most fucked up way possible.

As long as she didn’t know the truth, everything can be fine.

& what’s more oblivious & unquestioning than a small, impressionable child?

Much like how PB intentionally made her citizens stupid to avoid conflict :))))))

Anyway, uh

That is all.

You’re welcome for the heartbreak IWJWOWJWOSKWODK

[kerubimcrepin]

Wakfu OVA - Book 1, The Throne of Ice [PART 1]

"Finally, we have arrived to one of my most favorite parts of Wakfu... The OVAs!" <- If I said this, I would be locked up in a psyhiatric ward forever, however, there is some truth to that.

I am a big fan of uhh the bits of the second OVA that have Joris, Kerubim, and Atcham in them. Sadly, Book 1 is not that OVA. It will have Sipho posing as Joris, and, well... that's the next best thing, ain't it? At least we'll get to analyse if he's doing a good job or not.

Ecaflip demigod memory retention deniers will be like "Ush being a core member of a powerful cult at 9-10yo for multiple reincarnations is normal".

Anyway, group chats are real in this setting. And Harebourg is their discord mod I think.

Tot I'm begging you to elaborate on this, what do you MEAN by this, what do you—

STOP USING GRIMALKINE SISTERS BEING A PART OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE FORGOTTEN AS A FLEX ON THE HATERS! I'M SCARED!

Them in the Great Wave manga when they show up and say they're at fault for Jahash and Julith's whole shtick or whatever.

Ughh.

Le meilleur journal qu'il est -

boufboul

[cant make out the rest]

little text in the corner: fji de ij

Ngl considering the fact that the King of Bonta dies within the next two years, he might have a legitimate reason not to come: being in the process of dying.

They LOVE Joris in this kingdom.

I bet real Joris would like to remain silent because, uh., lying is bad? If he tries to say the situation isn't as shitty as it seems, it might seem condescending.

So, Sipho fails at being in-character moment counter: 1. Joris would not say shitfuck here.

Oh my god... His fangs... His blush... His eyes...

One of the things I really like about the OVAs are the changes to Joris's design. While yes, like most people I miss the finer details of the previous seasons — but his new design is more sleek, and a bit more... catlike. It takes a lot of inspiration from his Aux Tresors design.

It is not the intention of the authors, but the fact that he is drawn with a mouth makes sense on a character level: he is more understandable and human than he was in the first two seasons. While he used to be a mystery back then, now he is a friend to the Brotherhood of Tofu, — and, to us, the viewers, he's just a guy.

Anyway, there is a big question here — while it seems obvious that other nations are involved — Sadida wouldn't invite other politicians to this meeting, if them seizing the Eliatrope Dofus was a secret, — just how involved were other nations? Was it mainly a Bonta-Sadida project which they let others know about? Were others interested up until the moment the Dofus were stolen, and is it the reason nobody showed up?

It seems kinda too obvious to state, however: Guys, this confirms that Joris and Harebourg are enemies.

Though, let's be real, all three of the Crepin-Jurgens are kind of opposed to the Brotherhood of The Forgotten. The trio is very... god-neutral? The outlook those three have is more of optimistic-nihilism — "the gods suck sometimes, life does too, but whatever. I need to restock the store and eat a soup, why should I ruminate on this." instead of "WE NEED TO KILL AND DETHRONE GODS IMMEDIATELY", which... creates a bit of friction.

Something to note is that Joris and the Kingdom of Bonta were involved with hiding the Dofus.

So, the Dofus disappearing, the proposition, and the condition that Amalia should be accompanied only by the Brotherhood of Tofu, are already both a political incident in on themselves, and a bunch of red flags stacked together.

Just listen: the property of a nation (the Eliatropes), which was in custody of a different nation, and can be used to save a kingdom, was stolen by a different kingdom to unlawfully demand marriage and unification of two kingdoms.

If real Joris was here, I'm sure he would be quietly having a panic attack about the fact that there may be spies in Bonta, and that Harebourg was able to do this without, let's say, knocking him out after he got all the Dofus and stealing them.

So, Sipho fails at being in-character moment counter: 2. Joris would be having a quiet panic attack, and pointing out just how fucked this is. just how fucked this is.

Sipho fails at being in-character moment counter: 3. At this moment, real Joris would come in, and say "YUGO THIS IS FUCKED!! Anyway we are going to beat Harebourg to death when we get there. I didn't want to say anything objectionable because Amalia would be sad."

He already did that in the manga. When Amalia and Eva asked him about his real opinion on Jiva getting the six Dofus.

While I think that Joris is someone who very much believes that the leaders of this world make hard decisions — and for this reason he MUST keep doing war crimes in Waven times to keep Bonta afloat, he MUST keep eating pig people and using slave labour and making explosive devices out of crackler babies, because really, 90% of war criminals quit just before true peace and prosperity—-

But, Joris is canonically enough of a feminist to be 100% pro-"pregnant women on a ship during a dangerous adventure across the world", so I think that outweighs his sense of "greater good".

In my opinion, he is more likely to think "very evil of you Harebourg, to force a woman into a relationship using the lives of her subjects. You're SICK, you're SICK, you have NO sense of romance or how a person should be treated!" and say "ughh we need to beat him up for this, Yugo. This isn't a very good deal for the Sadida. He's holding them hostage, Yugo. My main concerns are definitely not the way Amalia is being treated as an object but the political implications of that, Yugo."

Sipho literally committing character assassination out here. I will count this as the 4th time he does that.

Adamai is still very pissed off about Joris not asking before taking the Dofus. I think Joris deserves this quip very much. I wish Joris could hear Adamai be a hater towards him.

Sipho fails at being in-character moment counter: 5.

At this moment, instead of ignoring Adamai and continuing to talk, real Joris would make a funny face that implied he is in mortal pain due to someone he likes making a snide remark about him.

He is shown to be very much ashamed and worried about the fallout this will bring to his relationship with Yugo and Adamai in OVA 2.

Huppermages already did this, and it kind of failed when Ogrest's Chaos hit.

[lavylesby]

The Holidays (a Mario fanfic)

There's something special about this time of year.

I'm sitting here on this thing called a laptop, celebrating this thing called Christmas, doing this thing called typing. I never thought Mario would ever have anything to teach me, but writing here's way more convenient than cracking countless pencils and pens.

But really…there's this certain air about "the holidays." Many people, across time and space, have many reasons to celebrate. Some are religious, some are traditional, some are simple, and some are, well…extravagant. I can still hear Luigi lamenting the commercialism of "Black Friday" and the holidays in general, and he yearns for the "magic" to return.

But,

what does he mean by that?

What does he mean by magic?

Christmas isn't the only holiday. In Peaches' kingdom, people smile when the first day of snow comes, and to celebrate, they make giant "winter wonders." Cakes filled with all kinds of flavors, like chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, and even potatoes. And they're all topped with some sort of "snow icing" that they REFUSE to give me the recipe for.

(It's so good. 🥺 Oh yeah, I figured out these "emoji" things. They're so silly.)

No matter the occasion, no matter the kingdom, people always seem to find this thing called joy. But where does it come from, and how do you get it? And why does it bring so much…

…union?

For years, this question confused me. Baffled me.

I thought maybe it something you could learn, like little children learning to read. But no one ever taught me joy.

I thought perhaps it was something you could buy, or acquire. But I'm one of the richest people ever, the King of the Koopas, and I've never been happy.

I thought…maybe something was wrong with me. And so, I eventually gave up, disheartened, disappointed…determined that it would never be mine.

Until Junior burst into my life.

The moment my baby boy was born, it hit me. Suddenly, everything made sense. People were initially skeptical about the origins of Prince Bowser Tortulis Jr., not realizing that Yoshis and Koopas are asexual (though not necessarily in the queer sense). But I didn't care.

I finally understood.

See, I didn't realize how insensibly foolish I was. I didn't realize that there are things that unite every living creature, every living soul. Joy was one of them, being one of the most prominent. Of course I couldn't buy it, but the things I buy can create experiences. Of course I couldn't learn it, because I already knew it even before I opened my eyes.

And as I look into the gleaming, gleeful eyes of my sweet son, watching him befriend those I once considered my sworn enemies, I'll ask again:

Where does the magic come from? Where does joy come from?

The answer, dear reader, is a bit strange, but quite simple to understand. Remember this:

Life will never be equal, because hate…will never equal love.

"Daaaad!! You're supposed to be helping with the tree!"

My son stomped up to me, indignant. Flecks of leaves from the tree were speckled across his tiny tuft of hair, and ribbons garnered his body. He looked so utterly adorable, and I couldn't help but let a chuckle slip.

"Writing diaries is way cooler than decorating trees," I teased, scooping Junior into my lap and kissing his forehead. "Besides, why would I ever do such a thing with Luigi, of all people!"

"Your dad's right. I should be mortified if his hand should even brush the ornaments!" Luigi said, joining in. Junior playfully stuck out his tongue in response.

"Well, we're only serving our Winter Wonder Suprises to our esteemed decorators!" Mario called out, followed by Peach bringing a platter of said surprises.

Junior leaped from my lap and ran, overflowing with excitement. "But that means I won't get any!" I protested.

Peach and Mario smirked, sharing a glance of amusement. "That can be easily fixed! All you gotta do is put the star on top," they said.

I squinted suspiciously. "But you're only saying that 'cause I'm here. None of you are tall enough to put up the star without getting a ladder!"

"Exactly," Peach replied slyly. Mario grinned from ear to ear.

"Oh HO, so you're bribing him! I love it," Luigi laughed.

I faked rage. I gently put the laptop down, and not-so-gently rose from the couch. "This is treachery, against the King of the Koopas!" I yelled in an over-the-top, kingly voice. "The likes of which have been perpretrated by you two!" I continued, scooping up Mario and Peach in one fell swoop.

"Help, help!" they cried mockingly. "His Majesty has captured us, Luigi!"

Luigi pretended to faint. "I could never lift a finger against my darling king!"

I stooped over Luigi, and kissed him as if he were Sleeping Beauty. "I have granted thee my royal power, my eternal might! Surely you can save these damsels and dames now!"

Luigi rose like an angel, and flexed his arms to show his muscles. "Never fear! I shall save you at once!" he cried in his fluffy pajamas.

In an instant, he grabbed the star, jumped on my back, which dislodged Mario and Peach, and placed the star on the topmost tip of the tree. His landing was actually graceful, and I did my best to hide my ruby red cheeks.

"Yaayyy!! You saved us!" Mario and Peach ran to Luigi and hugged him tightly, and I could see his cheeks had also suffered the fate of the burning tomato. Junior, meanwhile, was busy stuffing his face.

"Manf, you guyrs coork WEY bertter than Dard!" he said, crumbs cascading everywhere.

"Thanks, son," I grumbled, flopping back onto the couch. Luigi kissed my cheek tenderly.

"It just means you need to practice, Bowsie," he said soothingly, finally going to enjoy his surprise cake.

"DON'T CALL ME BOWSIE!" I growled, as Mario chuckled joyfully and Peach let out a few giggles.

Happy holidays!! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! No matter who you are, or how you choose to celebrate this holiday season, I hope you'll always remember that God is with you, and that loving our friends AND enemies is the best thing we can do, as human beings. I also hope you enjoyed my first ever fanfic! I've written things before, but never a fanfic.

@peaches2217 @akiiame-blog @blankalisek @megamagimugi @katlyntheartist what do you guys think? ^^

[luminousbug]

Making better vengeance saga climax visuals, cuz that ain't it, chief

Just a bunch of visual ideas to tie this climax into a better spectical and a more polished story, and also self indulgence

Get in the water(ft. Hades and Persephone)

So, Poseidon does his big God Move and Odysseus all but dies.

He ends up in the dark gray void where all he can see is these yellow and white eyes. The eye shape reminds him of his own. A chill, beyond anything he has ever known runs through his bones.

He can't focus on it too long before Polites and Eurylochus show up, a sudden... weight of sorts on his soul. And with the arrival of his mother comes another set of eyes, these deep purple and green. Those eyes, shaped like Penelope's, come with a body, or at least a vauge resemblence of one. It is pitch black, it reminds him of when he last saw Penelope but it is not hers. He can't put a finger on it, but it's like you took a human form and streched it just a bit, rendering it almost unbelievable. An even worse chill runs through him, pure dread, before a small amount of warmth starts building in him, like thawing ice.

By now, all his men are here, tied to him, and the darker entety extends a hand.

He takes it.

Explenations

The colors:

Hades is represented with dark gray, white and yellow. The dark gray of his 'body' is representative of the underworld, the yellow is representitive of riches, see the coin required to pass Styx and general wealth assosiation, and the white is representative of both the light one may see after clinical death(the thing Odysseus is curently experiancing) and winter, the thing that came from his kidnapping of Persephone.

Speaking of her, she is represented by black, deep purple and deep green. The black is also representative of the underworld, but darker the Hades' because in the epics, she is viewed as the more dangerous one(The Odyssey actively calls her Dread Persephone and she existed far before Hades did, he wasn't a thing in the Mycenaean period, so...), the purple is representative of power(see above) and is a nice color contrast with Hades' yellow, and the deep green is represetative of nature, as she is also a spring goddess and it connects her to her mom(Demeter is great people, stop being awful about her in the name of 'feminism', the original myth is about a mother grieving her daughter and Persephone loves her).

Motivatins for intervention:

This part is kinda vauge. Not in a bad way, it makes sense for these forces of nature to not have a clear cut motive, especially since they don't talk.

That is not to say there aren't ideas to pick on.

Maybe they watched God Games and were impressed, maybe they had a seperate beef with Poseidon, maybe they saw themselves, to some degree, in OdyPen, maybe something else entirely, maybe all of this, maybe some combination.

Lack of motif:

So, in the song, they don't get a motif.

Obviously, it wasn't written with them in mind. But that works.

While invoking any god in Ancient Greece is generally a bad move, the Death Gods are the no go of no goes, for obvious reasons. So, a lack any motif specific to them is in that vein, not calling to them. You would not know they were there unless you saw them, which feels fitting. They might not even have motifs, it might as well be silence, since, you know, death(the underworld has a motif, but this isnt the underworld, it's its rulers).

Story reasons:

First, it gives Odysseus a powerup from one of the Big 3, so the whole thing feels more even(and with the addition of a 6-8 god blessed wind bag, it tips the scale against Poseidon).

Second, it more solidly justefies Odysseus' chours, as he has the souls of his men(and mom, but she gets kinda lost in the shuffle) tied to him. This would carry over to King, as all the souls are of Ithicans, HadPer decided they might as well let them see him come home, as it was RIGHT THERE. It is a godly chours on a mortal because it was made by gods and given to him, for the time being. Also, the reason why Anticlea is there is mostly because, as Hades was collecting the soldiers to tie them, Persephone decided that if they were gonna do this, she might as well tie her too. It was right that she see her son make it home and be part of what helps him do that, after she waited so long and loyally(mamma's girl, through and through, she won't deny a mother to see her son get home).

Third, if Odysseus has Hades on his side, it explains why Poseidon doesn't attempt anything later. It takes A LOT to get HADES to interfere with mortals, basically never happens, he is not in the mood to cross his older brother.

Fourth, it would be cool as fuck, don't deny it. Hades and Persephone are very cool and to see them be part of Epic would slap so hard.

Six hundred strike

Odysseus awakes, still underwater, still sinking, before he sees the bag Hermes gave him. He relys on wit, and he wont die on it. Not today. The bag from Aeolus is why he survived last time. So he slices it open, and flies towards the surfice. As he does, the jet stream takes form of many different birds in different colors, ones sacred to the gods. As he reaches the surfice, he is surrounded, faintly, by an owl.

The WBJ is chaotic, he can barely control it, and with it releasing the storm, everything is darker. Strangely, he can still see mostly fine, but with a colored filter. No time to wonder. He flies and flies, getting a grip on how to use the WBJ most effectively, partially directing it with his sword, which is absorbing some of the storm's power, alongside the souls of the men. It also glows like it was newly forged. The imbuded power lets him hold his own, chipping away until the final blow smashes Poseidion into a rock and the WBJ deplates, making him land.

Even without the storm, he still has the power of 600 men, making the torture of Poseidon beyond anything imginable. Everything is made of blood in the end. Soon, he will be home, sleeping next to his wife. That makes him feel lighter, brighter, even as he is still bathed in blood.

As he leaves, he looks at Ithica, bathed in color, looking like it did so long ago, when he and Penelope first married. A blink returns him to the present of his kingdom, still the same color

Notes:

As Hermes said in Dangerous, they went through a lot to get the bag. Part of that was putting in other godly blessings, because while the bag was not meant for opening, Athena insisted they do it, she had a feeling it would be important. Apollo does a bit of prophecy observing and figures they might as well. Everyone(GG participants) also agrees and they VERY CAREFULLY put in blessings. One wrong move and everything goes awry.

Color is very important. The gods have thier colors, which one depending on artistic prefrences. Athena's is present as he opens the WBJ, the filter is Apollo's, the sword glows in Hephaestus', his eyes ring of Ares as he does the torture, he is faintly of Aphrodite's as he says the final line and as he looks onto Ithica as the strom leaves, it is of Hera

Feel free to take any of this for yourself.