#and the moon from the other night when we saw the northern lights

[danceguysdance]

some recent pics

[lady0ctavia]

As We Ponder Belief

(2p!Prussia x Reader) - Chapter 31

Note: This story is based vaguely during the mid 1200s in Eastern Europe where the Teutonic Knights fought the Northern Crusades to try and convert the native pagan population to Christianity. As a result, this story will have heavy religious themes all throughout. It should also be noted that, while referencing real-life events and locations, I am not striving for full historical accuracy. This is for the sake of the story I am telling.

Once again, this series will have heavy religious themes throughout, including discussions of bible stories, doctrine, and scripture verses, as well as critical analysis of Christian doctrine and beliefs. So, if you don't like that, you will want to skip out on this.

For hours, (y/n) lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, desperately trying to force herself to sleep, but to no avail. The room was dark that night, the half-moon light glowing just above, shedding minimal light into her little guest bedroom. And all she could think about was the inevitable events of the next day.

I suppose I should at the very least tell Gillen farewell. However I will admit, I fear everything may just spill out right then and there.

She glanced over at the nightgown draped over one of the two chairs, remembering that she neglected to change for bed. Though even if she did, she doubted she'd get comfortable enough to actually sleep.

The silence was broken by a light knock on the other side of the door. Who on Earth is knocking at this time of the night? Confused, (y/n) rose from her bed, slipped on her shoes, and cautiously shuffled her way to the door. Upon opening, she was scared to see a towering figure standing before her. But the fear soon gave way to relief, albeit flustered, when she saw it was only Gillen. I'd recognize those eyes anywhere.

"Gillen, you scared me," (y/n) breathed out, hand over her heart.

"I apologize. Did I wake you?" He asked, his icy blue gaze shining through the darkness, his hood largely obscuring his face.

"No. I haven't been able to sleep all night. What about you?"

"Not a wink," He gave a light shake of the head before glancing down the halls. "(y/n), do you have a minute?"

She blushed, her face growing warm. "Um, I suppose so. Are you feeling well? Is your shoulder acting up?"

"No, I just need to talk to you," He then looked past her shoulder into the room. "But we cannot do it here. A bedroom seems most improper."

"That is true," (y/n) admitted, her heart rattling within her ribcage. Keep it together, (y/n). Keep it together. But what would he have to talk about this late at night?

"Please, follow me outside," Gillen stood back and offered her his arm. Anxious, but willing, (y/n) gingerly took hold of the man's arm.

Looking up and down the halls to make sure the coast was clear; Gillen began to guide (y/n) through the fortress. He repeated the same procedure every time they were about to turn a corner, even consistently looking over his shoulder. He appeared simultaneously calm and paranoid. Something (y/n) had never quite seen before. Her imagination was going wild with all kinds of possibilities of what he had to say. Did he feel the same way? Did she do something wrong? Whatever it was, the anticipation was eating her alive.

As they walked, they arrived at a hallway (y/n) felt unfamiliar with, even in darkness. Unconsciously, she tightened her hold on Gillen's arm for protection, unaware of the effect this had on him. As he pulled her along and felt his way forward, (y/n) heard a small click. After which a door opened just before them. As if sensing her confusion, Gillen explained.

"A secret exit. In case of emergencies."

"Is this an emergency?" (y/n) inquired.

"To anybody else, no. But to me, yes," He admitted, gently pulling her along.

They exited onto fresh green grass and a lake about ten yards before them. The moons silver light shone beautifully on the landscape, the entire world painted in soft, calming hues of dark blues and silver. The lake itself seemed to shine as the moon reflected off its surface, appearing almost like a broken dish along the water.

When (y/n) turned to look back at Gillen, she noticed that not only was he wearing his hood, but his entire uniform. A white tunic with the black cross across his chest with the matching cloak and hood. Black pants, brown shoes, the belt, the only thing missing was his sword. Moon shining off of his white clothing made him look almost heavenly, vaguely similar to how he appeared in the forest the other day. And his eyes appeared to glow in the moonlight.

"Um, Gillen?" (y/n) asked as she looked him up and down, hoping it was just dark enough to obscure her blush. "Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"Just to the water's edge," He instructed.

Her heart kept hammering in her chest as they went to stand beside the lake, the faint sound of water rippling across the water's surface as a light breeze flew by.

"Let's uh, take a seat," Gillen suggested. (y/n) complied, settling herself ungraciously beside him as they sat upon the grass, letting go of his arm in the process, unintentionally leaving just enough space for a few small apples between them.

Placing her hands in her lap, (y/n) began to fidget with her fingers. Gillen sat on his behind with his feet on the ground and knees propped up, his arms resting on his kneecaps. Neither party looked at one another, as if afraid to look the other in the eye, despite having done so many times before. Finally, Gillen decided to be the one to break the silence.

"(y/n)?" His voice was low and steady, a familiar tone she loved to hear.

"Yes?" She barely glanced at him out of her peripheral vision.

"I wanted to tell you that I think you were right. About everything."

"About what, Gillen?" She puzzled, finally turning her head to look at him, though he didn't do the same. He kept looking across the water as he responded, as if lost in thought.

"Not long after we first met, you challenged one of my beliefs. Or rather, a belief held by the Teutonic Order. About how we believe our killing of the pagans to be justified. I am starting to believe that you had a good point. That you were on to something."

As he spoke, he appeared to be conflicted. But he never stuttered or mumbled, speaking clearly, confidently. Intrigued, (y/n) pressed for more information.

"Would you care to tell me what brought about this revelation?"

Chewing on his lip, he answered. "It was a couple of things. One was seriously rethinking the Lord's commandments. Another was considering my role as a doctor, in that I am to heal, not cause harm. But something happened when I... Well, when we, went to save you. It was when I saw that man take off with you into the forest, and I went after him. When I caught up to you two, I was ready and willing to kill him. I held my sword, ready to decapitate him. But then I saw the looks in both of your faces," Gillen's hands clasped together as if bracing himself for something. He continued.

"You seemed afraid, though maybe that was less of me and more of the general situation, but I don't know. But as for him, he looked terrified. Granted, he was armed, but only with a dagger. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kill that man. But I stopped myself. When I thought of what you said to me... I couldn't do it."

(y/n) took in her words, amazed by what she was hearing.

"I'll be honest, Gillen, I didn't think you were about to kill that man. When you brought your sword down, I thought it was a fake out to throw him off," She replied simply. Gillen glanced over at her.

"So, I didn't scare you?"

"No," She shook her head. "Rather the opposite. I was relieved to see you. To be honest, I was starting to think I'd never see you again. It was terrible..." Her voice trailed off as her tone became despondent, with her eyes trailing down Gillen's cape.

Gillen shifted a little where he sat, observing (y/n)'s face. If he wasn't mistake, he got the feeling that she even looked a little heartbroken. It hurt him to see her like that.

"I felt the same way," The tiniest hint of a smile came through with those words. (y/n) snapped her head upward, her (e/c) eyes shining in the moonlight. Gillen continued. "When that man took you away, I didn't just want to kill him because he had carried you off. It was because I could tell what was happening as we approached. That man sought to make you his wife. And that angered me more than anything," He gripped his arms tightly, as if experiencing the moment over again before looking back to the lake. "I couldn't bear it. The whole affair made me question my role as a Teutonic Knight."

"If you don't mind me asking, Gillen, why did this make you question your role as a Teutonic Knight?" (y/n) asked, her eyes brimming with curiosity. Don't tell me. Is he...?

"Because, (y/n)," He turned his head ever so slightly to look at her under his hood, emotion swimming through his beautiful blue eyes. "How can I devote my whole heart to the Teutonic Order when so much of it now lies with you?"

With those words, everything fell silent. The wind had stilled, and even the water seemed to pause and reflect on the moment. It was as though the earth had stopped turning, and everything was focused on this singular point in the universe.

(y/n), whose heart rate had been skyrocketing, began to steady, though her breath remained shallow. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth slightly open. Her face went pink, and she could hardly think. All she could do was feel.

For a moment, Gillen seemed worried, feeling that perhaps his words hadn't landed quite the way he wanted them to. He was about to say something when (y/n) spoke up instead.

"Gillen," Her voice was soft, a whisper in the night. Stars shined in her eyes as she slowly, with shaking, timid hands, reached forward to take hold of Gillen's hood, prompting him to lift his head and sit up straight.

The knight felt his heart skip a beat as (y/n) tenderly lifted his hood off his head, revealing his surprised, albeit hopeful expression. One that matched hers, with his mouth just slightly open as shallow breaths entered and escaped his chest. His long, snowy white hair shone silver in the moonlight, with his pale skin like porcelain. He looked positively ethereal.

Without thinking, and running solely on emotion, she leaned forward and pressed a soft, feather-light kiss upon his cheek, just under his left eye. She could feel his breath across her right cheek, warm and inviting. But she dared not move any further than she did now. As she drew away, she noticed that his eyes had closed, as though he were relishing in the moment. It took but a few seconds for Gillen to reopen his eyes. When he did so, he raised a hand and allowed his fingertips to brush the spot she had kissed. His face turned bright red, a vibrant contrast to his usual pale complexion.

His eyes pierced deep into (y/n)'s, and she was almost about to fret, now realizing what she had just done. Why did I do that? Was that alright? Should I have asked first? What must he think of me now?

But her fear disintegrated when Gillen gave her a shy smile, the corners of his lips just barely curved upward. She realized not only everything was fine, but that she didn't need to say anything. He already got the message. My heart lies with you, too. He turned where he sat to face her directly, sitting cross-legged on the grass.

"(y/n), do you recall the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve?" He asked, his voice quiet.

"I do," She replied, matching his voice and turning to sit directly in front of him, her mind still winding down from her previous bold move, still in shock that she did such a thing.

"The last time I was with Nikolaus, he quoted scripture to me. He told me about how it is not good that man should be alone, and used this to explain why I should remain with the Order. I later turned to the bible myself and found that he neglected to give me the true context of the verse. This verse is found in the book of Genesis, after God used the dust of the Earth to create the first man, Adam. Upon seeing Adam alone, God took a rib from his side to create a partner for him. A woman they would name Eve. Eve was created for Adam so that he might not be alone," He explained it slowly, but with a hint of enthusiasm behind it.

"This is true, but, I don't understand. Gillen, what are you getting at?" She responded.

"(y/n), it is often taught that, because woman came from man’s rib, that woman is inherently less than man. This is something that even Nikolaus believes. But I must say, that idea never rang true for me. (y/n), you told me your father was a student of religion, yes? As are you?"

"Yes."

"And did you ever stop to wonder why Eve was formed from Adam’s rib? Surely God could have created her body out of the same dust in which He formed Adam?"

"I suppose that would make sense, though I will admit, I've never thought about it before. I do not believe myself to be less than man, though I will say, I have always wondered about the significance of the rib," She admitted. Where is he going with this?

"Well, I believe I may have come to understand why. If you will permit me to explain."

"Go ahead."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing, as if preparing to share a controversial opinion. "I believe the reason why God took one of Adam’s ribs to create Eve is so that Adam would forever understand that he would never be whole if he did not have Eve by his side. He would awaken to find a piece of himself missing, an emptiness deep within. He could spend his whole existence looking for something to fill that empty cavern in his soul. Money, power, land, wealth… None of it would cure that ache. The only thing that can do that is the piece taken from him in the first place. The woman. Only with a woman, with Eve, could he ever hope to feel complete."

(y/n) felt her face flush red at what she was hearing, at how it all made sense. How he managed to connect the dots. And the point she could feel he was trying to make. Gillen continued his explanation, with (y/n) drinking in every word.

"Without man, a woman will be fine. She will not be able to bear children without a man, yes, but she can still live and find happiness in one way or another. But a man without a woman? He is nothing. Incomplete. A hollow shell," He paused. "(y/n), I need to ask you another question."

"Y-Yes?"

Gillen sat up straight. After giving one glance at the towering red brick walls of Malbork Fortress, he looked into (y/n)'s eyes, speaking quieter than before, his voice barely above that of a whisper.

"I truly do like you, (y/n). I care about you. Deeply. And while I think I know the answer, given your kiss, I need you to tell me; what do you feel? Because if you feel the same… I am willing to leave the Teutonic Order."

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

You guys have no idea how long I have been waiting to write this chapter! As always, please let me know your thoughts!

[justsomeonewithdreams]

The magnificent and the beast part 2

Once we reach our camp, I see my brothers putting the man in one of our little cell in the ground with a wooden door, he is still completely out and he will be for a long time.

I get into my tent and start preparing myself to go to bed after all it's gonna be a long night and tomorrow we still have to question him about who he is and who we should contact for the ransom.

I must confess that this isn't the worst man we've ever catch, he is easy on the eye and he seemed nice from the little I saw of him, he seemed respectful quite the opposite of every other noble or rich man I have seen here in Narnia.

His blue eyes, sand hair and cute dimples are not getting out of my mind as I roll in my bed trying to find sleep, I close my eyes but all I can hear is a light whisper just outside, at first I thought that it was just the wind in some bushes, but as I listen to it carefully I can now hear a voice talking.

I get out of the tent and walk slowly to the sound which leads me to the wooden cell the man is into, as I get closer he finally notice me approaching in the shadows of the moon like I was taught to.

"Hey! You! You were the girl on the road. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" he asks with worry in his eyes.

"You are in a cell and I am outside of it but the first thing that comes to your mind is to ask me if I am okay?" I respond to him disbelief in my voice due to his priorities.

"Yes, of course! I mean you didn't seemed well earlier and they could be slave merchants, so you could be in danger Lady … Excuse me but I didn't catch your name earlier" he continued.

Father always told us that we should never give our name because we would be easier to track that way, but with this man I don't know why I feel safe and I know deep down in me that he would not do anything to hurt me, so that's when I let my guard down?

"My name is Y/N, and what is yours Sire?" a small smile makes its way to his face, it isn't a cruel one or a snarky one like I am used to see, no his is warm and tender and his voice is reassuring as well when he respond.

"Y/N is a really pretty name, I have never heard before. And my name as you asked Lady Y/N is Peter."

"Peter isn't a name I have ever heard in Narnia before but my name comes from an old Narnian tale used to put the children to sleep." a spark of curiosity showed up in his eyes.

"Do you think you would be able to tell me this tale, I have never heard it before." I nodded politely, after all who was I to refuse him that, I am just gonna tell the story and then I am going back to sleep.

"This tale starts a few years after Aslan created Narnia with his roar. After a long day of working at making the world better Aslan found a little girl crying under a big oak tree he had planted in a small valley, she was all alone and no one seemed to be searching for her, so he approached her and asked. "What is wrong little girl why are you crying?", the little girl stopped her sobs for a minute and told him that with a new little sister born, her parents had thrown her out of her house because they didn't have enough money and she was their least favorite child and they would not miss her, Aslan felt the sadness coming from the girl and decided to take her on his back telling her that he was going to take her to a place where the people were nice and they would accept her the way she is. And he did because Aslan took her to the royal family he had name a few years back to reign upon Narnia, they were so grateful that Aslan give them a good life that when he asked them to take the little girl in they instantly agreed and they raised her as if she was their own daughter, making her princess Y/N of the northern kingdom of Narnia. A few years after that when Y/N got older and was coming of age to marry, her parents didn't forced her letting her choose whoever she wanted to marry because they married from true love and wanted the same for her, and one day she did, as she was out in the woods she met a man on a horse and at first sight they could say that they were made for each other. When she came back that night, her parents agreed that she marry the man, which revealed himself to be the prince of the South Kingdom on a visit the northern one. The wedding was big, lots and lots of people attended, everyone was happy, they were in love, but on their way to the castle that their parents offered them as a wedding gift, they were attacked by some bandits who tried to steal their stuff, they didn't care about the money so they let them take everything as long as they were with each other. But one bandit tried to mess with the Prince and they started to fight the princess tried to separate the bandit from her husband but that only attracted the attention of another bandit with a bow and arrows. He was ready to kill the princess but the prince shielded her with his own body making the arrow go through both of their heart and killing them as one. As Aslan felt their death he decided to give them one last place to be together and created a lake where they were killed letting them lay in peace as one for eternity below it, creating the lake of the fallen love, which is supposed to reveal when you get into it your one and only true love making everyone remember that love can never be forgotten when it's true."

When I end the tale I can see how he looks at me, as if I was some god who told him about the universal truth.

And that's when it made me realise, it wasn't really the first time I had heard the name Peter in Narnia, it was actually the second time, the first time being the Prince Peter of the Southern Kingdom, the one from the tale.

Could it be a sign ?

[velvet-games]

I went out to see the northern lights today.

I didn’t want to at first; honestly, I’ve been a little depressed lately, and even the idea of getting out of bed to brush my teeth sounds exhausting, so actually going out and walking around outside sounded like Hell.

But I remembered my regret from missing the recent eclipse, and that, along with my mother’s incessant nagging, was just enough to get me to pull on a pair of too-tight jeans and a giant black coat and hop onto the car.

There ended up being no walking. We drove to a park only to find it blocked off and went to a nearby lake instead. My mom opened the car’s roof (a feature we have probably used once prior to today) and she asked if I wanted to sit on top. An old childhood desire to climb on things with dubious levels of safety came up, and I immediately shimmied myself out of the small opening. Not my most daring venture, sure, but still just as fun as I remembered.

There were no northern lights. But I looked up at the sky and realized I could probably lie down to get a better look at the stars. It was a little awkward; I didn’t want too much of my body on the glass part of the roof, which meant I was far back enough that my head followed the downward slope of the car and had to tilt away from the little part near the back that pokes up. It felt a little dangerous. I held onto the railing on my left.

I looked for a while, and I finally realized why people wrote so many scenes of pretentious dialogue set under a night sky; it really does pull that mood out of you. I’ve looked at the stars before, obviously, but I’d never just lied down to stare at them.

I looked at the stars and had those pretentious thoughts. I was reminded of a conversation I’d had the week before with my journalism advisor, about how strange it was that some religious people felt like they were the center of the universe, or maybe how strange it was that we emphatically did not. I imagined for a moment that the night sky was made for me, that the Big Dipper (which I was finally able to identify without the help of guidelines for the first time) was arranged specifically so I could see it. It was surprisingly easy, and maybe a little beautiful.

But I like when I look at the moon, like really see it, and feel small instead of special. I like looking at it and realizing that an impossible number of miles away, there is a giant ball of rock held together by a warp in space-time that does not care about me at all. That beyond that, there are even more incredible things that I will never see up close. I like forgetting myself, forgetting judgement, and just being aware of the vast, incomprehensible network of celestial beings that exist. I started thinking of the stars that way, and wondered why anyone would look at what I saw and hope that they were being watched rather than realizing that they weren’t.

I also had a less pretentious thought about a fanfiction I’d read earlier in the day. In it, Lucifer—yes, from the Bible—created the stars. I thought about what that meant. I thought about the implications of the devil creating the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I thought about how Heaven’s clouds might cover them out of spite sometimes.

Part of me laughed at myself, imagined how I would make fun of my own words if they were in a comic book with a pretty painting of the sky, but another part of myself told me to just enjoy the thoughts. Again, I’ve been depressed lately. Maybe the stars helping me forget myself was what I needed.

I started thinking again, but I was broken out of my reverie by the car shaking. My brother had brought ice cream, and he shoved a cup of it in my face. It was half melted, chocolate and vanilla hugging each other, but I actually like melty ice cream. I enjoyed the sweetness as I looked at the surface of the lake. There were no northern lights.

I looked up at the stars again, and there was the Big Dipper, still clear as day. The star at the base of the handle was a little dimmer than the rest.

[ceciliatan]

The Unexpected, the Sublime, and the pastime of looking up.

Welcome to my latest monthly newsletter! If you'd prefer to get this directly in your email each month, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/TEWfvor you can join my patreon to get not only posts like this but other writer-y stuff and fiction as well.

Thinky Thoughts: The Unexpected, the Sublime, and the pastime of looking up. The last thing I expected this month, after just having seen the total solar eclipse in April, was an even more mind-blowing celestial event! But a Coronal Mass Ejection resulted in spectacular auroras at both poles of the Earth, and with little to no warming I decided to abandon other plans and hop in the car late Friday night to chase it. Seeing a really spectacular aurora has been on the "bucket list" for most of my life. I have seen the Northern Lights twice before, technically, once on a red-eye flight from LA to Boston in 2004, and with the naked eye once in 2015, but we really only saw it the white shimmers for maybe ten minutes before it clouded over. That time I had bookmarked several helpful websites, though, which I checked before leaving the house (including the ClearDarkSky map of New England amateur observatories, NOAA Space Weather Prediction, and SpaceWeatherLive.com). The solar flare was strong enough that some feared it would knock out GPS, so I set my downloaded map data for a place called Cumberland, Maine, just inland from Portland, where it was predicted to have clear skies after 11pm. On the drive, a tiny copper sliver of moon, the fingernail clipping of a god, was setting. Once it was gone, any light I saw in the sky I knew had to be either the glow of a city (or shopping mall...) or the aurora. As I headed north, I could not really watch the sky and the highway at the same time, but at one point I looked southeast and I could see clouds that were lit up white with a dark sky behind them. And when I looked to the north... I could see the clouds were DARK with a light sky behind them! That could only be one thing, then, aurora! I resisted the urge to just pull over then and kept on toward my more northerly destination. It was just about midnight when I made it there, and fortunately Google maps was working just fine. I quickly found a place listed as a park "open 24 hours" where the map photos showed it was a large flat open field. Five minutes later I pulled in to a small parking lot and pulled out my camera. The photo you see at the header of the newsletter was the first shot I took to the north. At first it was the most visible through my phone's camera, but as I stood there, the aurora continued to brighten. I decided to try heading north to see if I could get somewhere with no trees in the way. Google pointed me to something listed as a fairground on "Bald Hill Road." A bald hill sounded ideal, no? So off I went again, but I hadn't even gone five minutes north before I pulled over again and shot this one:

You can see that even with the blinding light of an oncoming car, the aurora is still visible. I pulled over by the fence and just watched the curtain wall thicken and shimmer. At this point it was easily visible with the naked eye, although the phone camera could still see more color. (Not just on long exposures either: just looking through the phone screen.) I decided to press on to the Bald Hill on my map, another 15 minutes north. When I got there, indeed, the fairgrounds were an ideal viewing spot, with a parking area for the car where it was safe to exit the vehicle. And this is when it turned extremely magical. I had been about to head for home, but I decided to check the space weather one last time and it showed I had actually been in a relative lull, and the strongest burst of the night was about to arrive.

The curtain wall seemed to be getting higher and higher in the sky. What I wasn't expecting was that instead of looking at an aurora happening somewhere north of me... I was soon looking at an aurora that was happening all around me. The colors turned to pink and lavender and the pillars, instead of all in a row to one side in the sky, instead encircled the horizon and met above my head like a giant, flickering circus tent. In the one spot where there was still a little doorway of dark sky I could see flashes of lavender-white light as if I were watching the actual solar wind blowing a gigantic gas flame around. Here's what it looked like directly overhead:

Merriam-Webster Online says the following for "sublime": "implies an exaltation or elevation almost beyond human comprehension."   I am having a hard time coming up with a better description. And to think, without certain properties of our planet, we would see no aurora at all. The magnetic field and the atmosphere are both necessary to create aurora... and to sustain life capable of seeing it. It makes me wonder... in the most wondrous sense of the word "wonder." I'm writing this a week later and I'm still floating on air from it. And to think, if I hadn't checked Twitter, I might have missed it entirely. But I didn't. I was at the right place at the right time to experience something sublime. ------------- Here are a few more shots from that night. Stunning. With the naked eye the colors were more subtle than what the phone camera captures, but they were definitely discernible once I got away from other light sources. --------------- Meanwhile, I'm proofreading like mad... When I haven't been looking up at the sky, every other waking minute that hasn't been taken up by other work has been spent staring at PDFs of various volumes of Daron's Guitar Chronicles. Volumes 1-3 are live on Amazon (and in KU!), with Vol 4 coming June 1. I just proofed volume 8. Cover art for books 7, 8, and 9 is almost finalized! So excited. My goodness, so f***ing much happens in these books, I had forgotten, and yet they are really not about "plot" so much as they are about changes in the human heart and the changes we make in ourselves as a result of our experiences and the choices we make in the wake of our traumas. Daron tests the bonds of found family, questions definitions of both queerness and masculinity, and examines art, music, and creativity as a reason for living. I'm still kind of amazed I wrote over a million words of that, and grateful every day that people read it, and continue to read it. Here's hoping KU helps even more folks discover it?

Upcoming Appearances TONIGHT! Wednedsay, May 22, I'll be reading something queer and chit-chatting on Neon Hemlock Live (on their Instagram). But I just added a new virtual event to this September: Kink Between the Lines! KBtL, as it's known, is an event specifically by and for members of marginalized groups who crossover into kink. I'll be teaching my online "How to Write a Sex Scene" class and also hosting an erotica reading. (Stay tuned for who else will be joining me at the reading! I only just found out and haven't herded any cats yet.)

2024: - May 22: Neon Hemlock Live! - June 6-9: SFWA Nebulas Conference (in person!) - July 11-14: Readercon, Boston area - August 7-11: SABR National Convention, Minneapolis - September 27-29: Kink Between the Lines - October 16-20: World Fantasy Con, Niagara Falls 2025: - August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WA   Works-in-Progress Report But I know, I know, what you really want to know is... how are my writing projects coming along? I have a bunch of short stories & poems out on submission, but... I'm focusing the most right now on Windmark, the working titles of the so-called "dragon romantasy" book, while the aforementioned DGC proofreading takes up most of the rest of my time. I'm honestly not sure if it is going to be "romantasy" in the end, since that definition seems to be a moving target? But it's definitely fantasy (with dragons) and there is definitely romance. I started at the end of January. The word count just passed 32,000, which is a lot more than I've done on anything else in such a relatively short period of time! I know, I used to write that much in a single month, but since 2016, not so much. I'm planning to put a sneak peek of it on my Patreon on June 1st, for paying patrons only. (So if you'd like to take a gander, and you're not already a member at the $2 level or above, now would be a great time to do that...) Among the tropes that have fallen into this one like dominoes into a wicked cauldron of twisted eroticism: - love-hate triangle (that's like a love triangle... except they all hate each other) - enemies to lovers - palace intrigue - telepathic bonding with dragons (eventually) - dragon breeding - royal companions - third-gender dragons (and people) - one person's poison is another's medicine - masochistic gladiators - everyone's probably bi - did I mention dragons?   No book recommendations this month... Because ALLLLLLLL of my reading time is going into proofreading Daron. But I did just bring home a haul of books that includes Justinian Huang and Olivie Blake... so maybe by next month I'll be able to recommend one of those...?   Con Report: RomCon at the Ashland Library This past Saturday was the annual romance celebration at the Ashland Public library, with panels and autographing all day. It was really fun to catch up with some writers I haven't seen in a long time, like Loretta Chase and Caroline Linden, whom I used to cross paths with regularly at NERW and RWA, but also to meet some new folks! Unfortunately Kosoko Jackson had a family emergency come up in the morning and could not make it. He and I did a virtual Romance Bookstore Day event back in 2022 so I had been looking forward to meeting him for real! Oh well. It was fun to talk to Kathryn Ann Kingsley who writes "villain" romance (The Unseelie Prince), Jessica Martin who writes small-town with a Shakespearean twist, and Kate Canterbary who puts a high spice factor into contemporary series set in Rhode Island. I also got to briefly say hi to Tori Anne Martin who has a sapphic witch romance out now entitled This Spells Disaster. Head organizer Meena Jain says they'll be doing it again next year, so keep an eye out!  Me with Kathryn Ann Kingsley, who came to my rescue when I had brought gun to a knife fight, I mean, a pencil to an autographing.   With Meena Jain, the delightful organizer of the event in Ashland. Kate Canterbary (In a Jam), Cecilia Tan, and Jessica Martin (For the Love of the Bard) about the speak on a panel on contemporary romance at the Ashland Public Library.   A Recipe: Kaddo Bowrani One of my favorite recipes from the internet used to reside on the Chowhound boards, but of course Chowhound was recently shut down, then sold and restored, except the bulletin boards no longer appear to exist. But fortunately, my favorite recipe was also several other nerds' favorite, and copies of it exist, including here and here. The recipe is for the Afghan national dish, Kaddo Bowrani, which is on the menu at the Helmand restaurant(s) here in Cambridge and in San Francisco. Imagine a bed of basmati rice topped by a layer of deliciously caramelized roasted pumpkin, topped by a rich and tomatoey ground beef sauce (or "impossible meat" for vegetarians), which is itself topped by a dollop of garlic-yogurt. Yum. The thing that has always kind of weirded me out about the recipe is that everyone on the internet seems to make it with "pumpkin," and they use the common October "sugar pumpkin." Far as I can tell from grilling the waiter at the Helmand restaurant here in Cambridge, this is not at all the "pumpkin" they use. The vegetable used by the restaurant is much more like a Kabocha than like an American, thin-walled sugar pumpkin. When we started getting a farm share many years ago and rather large kabocha were showing up on a regular basis, I started making this recipe with it, and it is nothing less that carotene-laden deliciousness. So my first tip is don't use sugar pumpkin, use kabocha. My second tip if you are using kabocha, is that you DO NOT actually need the full quarter cup of sugar that the original poster insists on. Two tablespoons is great. My third tip is do NOT overdo the garlic. One clove and one only. If you want to snazz up the yogurt sauce more, sprinkle it artistically with paprika. Final tip: you can make basmati rice in the rice cooker, but cut down the water and toss in two pats of butter.   One Featured Backlist Book Mind Games A Paranormal Erotic Thriller PB $14.95, Ebook $3.99 Bookshop • Amazon • Audiobook on Everand • This was the very first romance I wrote back in 2009! It was put out by to a "digital first" publisher and got really excellent reviews from the romance blogosphere (back when people read blogs). That publisher went under a few years later so I republished it myself. I brought a few copies with me to Ashland and they all sold! So I thought, hey, maybe this book is worth reminding folks about. What happens when your stalker can enter your dreams? Ever since she foresaw the death of her parents, Wren has suppressed her latent psychic abilities. Avoiding strong emotions, Wren leads a placid but lonely life until her quiet is shattered by her sister Abby going missing... and the private investigator searching for her. Derek Chapman isn't what Wren expects. He's young, handsome, and immediately protective of her. Wren is attracted to him right away, but fears that deepening any connection with Derek-emotional, spiritual, or sexual-will open the floodgates locked in her mind. A mystery man appears in Wren's dreams, dealing pain and pleasure. Is Wren's subconscious warning her away from Derek, or longing for him? When the search for Abby leads to a secret sex club, it seems fate is pulling Wren into Derek's arms, whether she is ready or not. ------------ Okay, that's it for this month. Next month I'll let you know how the Nebulas conference in Pasadena went! And, no really, I'm getting some stuff ready to serialize on the Patreon. I just have to get this proofreading done first! -ctan Read the full article

[hearthandheathenry]

so I’m not sure if this is a sort of ask you’d be able to help with.

I’m very much a believer in mundane before magic. Things like do I have a headache from the lights or is the energy bad in a room? yknow

Anyway- in my head I know it’s silly, and that it’s just my hormones from being on my period- but a part of me thinks that’s it a bit of an interesting coincidence that the peak of my period was on the solar eclipse. This month I’m a few weeks off than regular and it sucked wayyy worse than usual. I was running hot all day and the eclipse was awesome but at night I had a bad fever. I was feeling my emotions worse than normal.

And- again here’s the part that I doubt the most/ think it’s probably just my brain making it up- I cannot for the life of me stop dreaming and daydreaming and thinking about this person I’ve not seen before. Now I’m no stranger to dabbling in more casual manifestation and attraction of friends and good opportunities. I’ve prayed to different gods or left offerings while asking for a friend or someone who could be a partner. The god I’ve been recently making offerings for and researching is a lesser known one from antiquity. Very much fertility and weather- I wonder if now my periods will just be worse since starting my worship lol.

In the back of my head I sorta wanted to do something on the eclipse anyway. It’s not a specific person, but I can’t stop thinking about this gorgeous person. It started when my period started but it’s continued after it. Again this is where I doubt the most since duh I just keep thinking about my ideal guy etc, but, I also had some weird dreams, a lot of imagery of Set from kemetism and birds and this person all jumbled together. Plus while out and about I saw a lot more Egyptian imagery and birds and romantic symbols and shit. It’s just in the very back of my head that I’m thinking maybe my past manifesting/spell work efforts are gonna pay off. Or maybe even someone is doing something and attracting an energy and I happen to be more sensitive to it. Idk just weird coincidences that have been irking me.

Sorry if this ended up being a weird ramble but I really wanted to write out how I was feeling and thought fuck it might as well send in an ask since I never really have much to say.

feel free to not respond if u don’t wanna 👍

also props to ur blog it’s very informative much luv :)

I didn't realize I received an ask, so sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience! I'm always happy to chat or give my 2 cents about anything!

First, I absolutely believe the eclipse can affect your period, so no worries there and it's not crazy or anything. Our menstrual cycles are based on the lunar calendar, every 28 days or so (some are just slightly longer or shorter, but the average is 28 days) and if the moon can affect the tides so completely, it absolutely can affect us humans who are 1 made up of a bunch of water ourselves and 2 are also energetic beings that can be sensitive to magnetic changes like any other being. There's some really cool research videos from NASA showing the magnetic fields around earth moving with the eclipse, feel free to check them out! Everything around us, especially large things with massive energy like the sun or moon, can absolutely affect our bodies! I'm not sure if you were in the path of the eclipse at all, but I'm in northern Illinois and we were at about 93% totality by me and even with that, you could absolutely feel it whether you were inside or not. My husband, child, and I all got huge bursts of energy and it was very overwhelming. My husband described it as an anxious feeling as he's not yet super in touch with his bodily feelings and energy and didn't enjoy the experience, but I could tell for me it felt very neutral but overwhelming, so I leaned into it and used to get excited and get things done. It was again though, very overwhelming, which is why a lot of people don't enjoy eclipses or claim they're chaotic energy. A huge burst of energy will always feel weird! Everyone around us and anyone who we spoke to absolutely felt the same. SO, in conclusion, absolutely could your menstrual cycle be affected.

Now, in regards to the imagery you've been experiencing and you looking into kemetism, I did a little digging myself since I'm not super familiar with kemetism and I found some pretty interesting things! I started off researching the God Set(Seth) since you mentioned him, and noticed the egyptianmuseum.org had mentionrd him being associated with eclipses, not just storms and such, but even more than that he had a long-standing tiff with the God Horus the Younger who ultimately bested him and took over his late-fathers throne. Horus the Younger was represented by a falcon and associated with healing, protection, the sun, and the sky. I'm not sure if this is the God you were making offerings to, but perhaps he is the one answering your calling and you are getting glimpses into a little about him and his journey to steer you towards recognizing who is answering you. They do say that if we focus on something we want, we begin to see it everywhere, even if we don't want to, but also many spiritual people who reach out to their Gods and Goddesses report seeing representstions and messages from them before they realize who is trying to communicate with them. So, perhaps Horus the Younger is the one trying to make contact with you. Or, if you've been manifesting a good partner for yourself, perhaps the man you've been seeing is closely tied with Horus or perhaps follows him spiritually. Or maybe he even just embodies the good characteristics of the God and your brain is choosing to represent him in this imagery. There's a lot of "what ifs" from an outside perspective, and only you will know what rings true to you and your situation. Hopefully some of my ideas and such will spark some clarity on your situation and you will figure out what messages you're receiving from the universe to continue on the path you want to lead. I definitely implore you to open your heart to the messages and synchronicities that appear to you in your life, as our guides are always walking along side us in our journey and the universe whole heartedly supports you in every decision you make. Not everything is a sign, but if it feels like it is, then it probably is. Learn to trust your gut and lead with instinct and be open to the energy around you, and just use your brain to keep you in check from becoming too far gone so that you can still be safe within your reality, instead of held back by anxiety or worry about simply being weird.

On another side note, just with the period and everything, I personally implore you to also maybe use this as a sign to learn more about your menstrual cycle if you've been working with fertility gods and your cycle was suddenly changed by the eclipse! There is so much us women aren't taught and we usually find out ourselves as adults doing research. Understanding the phases of our cycle, what's going on in our body and with our hormones, etc are all things that can lead us to better health, better periods, and a better understanding of ourselves biologically AND spiritually (you'd be amazed at how much power a woman holds thanks to her cycle). There's also so many cool unexplainable things that happen in regards to a woman's body and our ability to create! Did you know at the moment of conception when a sperm meets an egg that there's a flash of light scientists can't explain? Did you know that breastmilk is so complex and tailored to each baby and feeding that we can't reproduce it in a lab? Did you know that your energy levels directly follow your menstrual cycle and affect everything you do from weightlifting or exercise to needing to eat more or less to needing more or less sleep? Theres so much knowledge we've lost that women are now reclaiming and teaching and I love every part of it. I think every woman (and man tbh) should go on a journey of learning about their own fertility cycles and such.

Hopefully this was at least a little bit helpful for you! Best of luck on your journey!

[thecandywrites]

Monster March 2024 Day 25 - Harpy/Moura Part 1

Moonlight Moura Part 1

Moonlight Moura

Part 1

It was the winter solstice and you giddily  yet anxiously got ready to fly in the aurora borealis around the world’s southern pole whose colors were very different from your own since you were from a colony by the north pole. The north pole’s aurora borealis was always blues, teals, turquoises, greens and yellows. The tradition was to follow the moon around the world, flying in the aurora borealis as it did the same. The colony you were staying at was near the southern pole. And it was your first time flying in the southern skies since your colony was in the northern hemisphere. And most of you had come a few days early to stay with extended family here and you were still in a state of awe and amazement. Because the aurora borealis was the other half of the rainbow’s colors. Yellow was the same, but now it was yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, magetas and purples. It was absolutely stunning and breathtaking. Like a sunrise never fading into the day as the sunset still danced under the stars of the night. 

“Now, just remember, just east of here, around the small island of the southern pole there is actually the ring of Neveahan islands. And then there is the largest fo them, surrounded by many other islands that stick up like fingers and the main large one has a ring of fog by day, but a ring of thunderstorms by night that the finger islands conceal. The aurora borealis usually splits into two, so half the group will go either north or south of it to stay in the aurora borealis." He instructed.

"It also has its own dragons. Some of which have come to call this colony home. The dragons call it the Kingdom of Neveah. And while there are people who look like us on the islands, the dragons have warned us to be very weary. Because the natives are very aggressive and violent towards outsiders. With dragons and dragons only being the only beings to pass in and out at will because the Neveahns don't even leave their native lands which the dragons insisted came in it’s entirety from their homeworld. The native Neveahn dragons from their homeworld cast the spells of the fog and storms to protect the largest of the Neveahn homeland from any invaders since the convergence. So we can not land there. And I would encourage all to not land at all during the flight. We'll be safe the higher up in altitude we stay. Stay in the southern lights and in the flock and we'll all get home safe and sound.” The flight leader- Corraine reminded all of you as you all got the last bits of sunlight as it set in the west.

Then within moments of the sun setting, the full moon rose in the east and everyone cheered while everyone seemed to glow in the moonbeams as each’s moura marks surrounded them like a halo around their bodies. The southern lights soon bloomed and stretched out in the sky. You could do little except sigh dreamily, feeling like you would never tire of this sight as you looked east and saw how the aurora borealis did indeed join back together as you realized, the yellows and oranges stayed north, it was the pinks and purples that stayed closer to the south. Which was funny to you because it was always the darker blues and indigos and violets that stayed closer to the true north pole and then the greens and yellows that stayed closest to the equator. So just like a rainbow. If you had put where the south pole started, it would color the whole spectrum by the time it would get to the north pole. 

With everyone eating the last of their desserts, it was time to fly as you kissed your younger cousins goodbye and left your leftover desserts with them before you took to the skies. As you and all the almost countless others began following the moon as it rose in the east and would continually set in the west and the trip would be done when you landed back down here in only a short 8 hours as opposed to the longer 16 hours of pure flight that was spent flying around the equator. Small circle around a pole vs a larger one around the supersphere’s equator.  

The winter solstice and summer solstice was a moura’s coming of age ritual. When an individual felt they had fully matured into adulthood, they took part in the flights. Usually between flying either for the first time in either the summer solstice where the group followed the sun around the world, or in the winter, following the moon and flew within either the southern or northern aurora borealis near the poles. 

The summer solstice was always held in the colonies closest to the equator. The winter solstices tended to volley which pole they would take the winter solstice flight on. 

You had started your adulthood flight with the north pole flight. And after this one, you would hopefully find a mate among those who had either taken up this flight with you, or joined and ended between the three you had done. 

But not always. 

Because moura’s genetics had a half life here in this world. Not all mouras had the moura collar. And not all mouras could use said collar to transform into any bird form they wished to and enjoy the other magical properties of moura abilities. So those that did not, depended on either friends or family members to fly them to the host colony where the host colony would literally party all night during the flight and dance until their shoes fell apart or until their feet were sore and swollen, but never to the point of bleeding or breaking any bones. 

But so far, you were disappointed when no other seemed to catch your eye or your fancy. But there were still so many new people joining this flight, just like there had been with the summer solstice. Maybe one of them would by the end of it. 

But looking up at the sky, you rather loved the differences in the stars in the southern border and maybe a man from this very colony would finally be what you felt you were looking for all your life. 

You transformed into a missile hawk, because such birds could be the fastest fliers. And they were light and easy to fly and attain altitude but once you would be at a good soaring altitude, you would change into an albatross. Because they were the masters at soaring flight which, for this flight of endurance you would need that form because the strength you got from the moon reflecting the sun’s light was only half of what the sun was at full strength during the day. 

You had learned this the hard way. While missile hawks were best for fast, acrobatic, aerial and almost as dexterous as a dove or even a hummingbird, they weren’t the most efficient for soaring. You had spent your first flight in the northern lights as a missile hawk doing every aerial dynamic stunt and trick you knew of and learned many more from the others and even in the summer solstice flight. But you barely made it back to the host colony on that first flight and it was only because you were following the sun on the summer solstice as a mega phoenix that you had the energy from the sun to make it back and you had lost weight on both flights. And a moura underweight or skinny, was not a good thing. Mouras were meant to be plump but powerful. 

Perhaps it was that, that had the others showing disinterest in you. Because you were still young enough that you wanted to have fun, but lacked the maturity to realize that while having fun was good and important, when the end goal was endurance, wasting energy on stunts and tricks was perhaps immature and foolish. 

You followed the leaders who took up the skies to make sure everyone flew in one flock, with many V’s so that the tips of the wings picked up the updraft from the others in the front. While the younger juveniles practically flew in a ball behind them with the other half of the leaders taking up the rear, making sure that no one got left behind or got lost or separated. 

You realized, you had seemed to get the same idea as everyone else who had gone through the first two flights with you. To finally get into the form of large gliders, synchronizing wing beats so that all of you stayed at that perfect altitude which was the sweet spot for this flight. 

“So how long have you been a flight leader?” You asked Corraine as you gradually traded places with others in the V until you were right on his immediate left side. 

“Ever since my wife and I stopped having kids and retired from being parents in our last rebirth. My wife is actually in the rear. Most of the mates of the female leaders take up the rear to keep a motherly eye on the youngsters.” He answered. 

“Oh, that’s awesome.” You smiled fondly. He had looked like he was your father’s age but to know he was on his last rebirth, meant he was a few hundred years old already.

“Have you had the same wife this whole time?” You asked. 

“Yes.” He laughed. 

“And it’s been a wonderful 435 years being married to her.” He added. 

“Wow, so you were from the homeworld. Any advice you’d wish to share about being happily married for so long?” You asked hopefully. 

“Yes. The first bit of advice I can give you is to not expect it to be happy all the time. Finding a mate in life is just that. A mate. Someone to love you for you and for you to love them as them. As perfectly imperfect as they are. If you both come from different colonies, then that’s two cultures of traditions that you both have to respect and choose which traditions you wish to uphold and pass down. That it’s not just two people that are being united, but two families as well. There will always be inlaws, and friends and family. Hopefully you will be able to get along with them, and if not, try to find peace and balance. Find an equal in all respects. Do not let one have more power over the other. Do not give loyal love and devotion to one who won’t mirror that back to you.” He began. 

“And do not judge others based on their appearances or who they are, what they are, wherever they are. And do not feel that you have to pick a mate from others who are on this flight with you. And that if you don’t pick one by the end of the flight, you won’t find one at all. I get more panicked singles in the last flight than anything else because they feel desperate to pick a partner because they don’t want to be alone or be single forever and they want a mate more than anything else and they are desperate for any mate instead of the right mate for them. You have at least 500 years of life ahead of you. Don’t feel you have to find your mate to spend it all with- on this flight over the next several hours. Hell, take two or three years, go to every colony in the world if you want to or need to. Take as long as you want and as long as you need until you meet every single member of our brethren. Who knows? Your mate might be in the most unlikely of places and may be of a different peoples altogether than moura. Don’t limit yourself now that your horizons are fully opened up. You have your moura collar and your abilities. Your own possibilities are endless.” He encouraged you as you felt a calm and a peace fill you and wash over you with such tender loving reassurances from him, like you were a granddaughter or even a great, great, great granddaughter to himself, 

“Thank you for your wise counsel, I will take it to heart.” You thanked him graciously before you switched places with another, hoping they too could receive the same advice as you now stayed on the southern most edge of the flock to enjoy the pinks, magentas, purples and violets of the southern most portion of the aurora borealis. Because mouras flying in it looked like little white fireflies as they moved with the winds and the waves of the southern lights. 

Over the flight, instead of doing everything you could to meet everyone taking the flight with you. You just stayed on the edge of a V and really enjoyed the southern lights. You really loved the different star constellations that twinkled in the southern hemisphere’s night sky above the southern lights. You were told by the others who were native to this hemisphere, what the names of them all were as you put each one in your memory, paying the ground hardly any mind at all as you did so. 

“Ok, everyone fly tighter now, either pick a group, left or right. We’re about to pass over Neveah’s largest island and we need to fly higher to fly over the storms!” They urged you as you watched as storms seemed to encircle the island nation that glowed with it’s own electric light in the middle. Looking like it’s own little constellation of stars surrounded by storms. 

But apparently you flew too close to observe such things because before you knew it, you were engulfed in fog then storm clouds as you realized, you were now all alone and surrounded by a storm cloud before a lightning bolt struck through you. Only an instant later, the thunder clapped around you and you fell like stone out of the sky. 

Thankfully, just as you regained consciousness, you realized you were about to impact with an craggy rocky outcrop and immediately transformed into your angelic state, a human with angel wing form and curled the wings around you and turned all your outer feathers into plate like armor to protect the rest of you and the force of the impact crushed and broke both of your wings as you bounced and rolled from one outcrop to the next like a ball during a carnival game, trying to land into a basket from being thrown or dropped down an obstacle course. 

You finally landed and stopped moving before you faintly felt the downpour of rain and managed to drag yourself with your broken wings behind yourself to a cave before you collapsed on a bed of moss just inside the cave.  

[rrasado]

Anon who requested ghost, divine, and only child reader:

Fairly short prompt, but a powerful one.

Diluc, Kaeya, and Childe with a siren!reader, whose mermaid sibling is currently frozen inside a Snezhnayan museum. They definitely have the means to infiltrate and escape by their own means, but the question of how to melt the ice without also melting their sibling remains unanswered.

⸢ Siren's Call ⸥

Other notes ➽ Not me kicking my feet and giggling as I write this. I think I got carried away with Childe but overall this whole thing was 3.2k words. This wasn't by any means proofread.

Featured Characters ➽ Diluc, Kaeya and Childe

Spoilers ➽ Diluc's profile story lore, Kaeya's profile story lore, Childe's story quest

Trigger Warnings ➽ Glass breaking(?) Nothing truly major

Summary ➽ When he aids you in answering a Siren's call

Diluc met you long before the events of the current story, during a time he traversed the seven nations in retribution.

It came to his attention that your countenance against the cold and melancholic scene of Snezhnaya felt odd, it's not that you stood out but there was a different sense of cryptic to your aura. Snow didn't fall in line with the cold gaze you cast, and even then your eyes held so.eyhing deeper so to speak.

However he didn't have time to dwell on your enigmatic display. The young Ragnvindr Master turns his heel to investigate the cold nation further until night came about.

Taking a break at at some no name pub, Diluc calmly walks though the streets with his gaze unmet by the few who were present in the hour. That's until he saw the soles of your shoes.

If you didn't intrigue his curiosity earlier then you sure did now. What were you doing idling in front of the capital's museum?

"And what would warrant my trust comrade " Diluc didn't like the way the word felt slipping from his tongue, such a pure term of allyship but it became too synonymous with this northern nation. Your form was barely visible under the golden hues lights illuminating the streets, given how determined your hands were in clutching the hem of your cloak. Had Diluc been none the wiser you could've been mistaken as some beggar.

"I havn't done anything to warrant your distrust, have I?" A rhetorical answer but he took it. In the end he had to admit that most of his intelligence networks are composed of the most mundane personnel in the eyes of the public; so perhaps you had something under that distressed expression of yours. It took a bit of mental pep talk to withstand his scarlet gaze but eventually the Mondstat master slowly nodded as he uncrossed his arms.

"Let's give eachother what we want, you understand that right?"

But what Diluc didn't understand, was how far fetched your request was. Who knew you'd be a descendant of Fontaine’s older court, a kindred of those troublesome oceanides nonetheless? Perhaps aquatic lineage runs deeper than one first perceives it to be.

That aside, he had a few qualms before reluctantly agreeing to help. After some surveying there was a broke ventilation screen at the second story window. Logical foresight brought you two to a bird's eye view of the museum and its stellar displays.

What caught his eye immediately was the upside down visage of a close eyed being, Scales cascaded down the sides of their faces whilst their body charred into an elongated fish like tail. Webbed hands reached for the bottom of their icy confinements— implying it's last minute resistance to being taken. That's when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

"That's them... it's faint but..." Diluc doesn't miss.the way your very human ear twitched, for a moment the moon light's glint showed a more aquatic body part but the mirage went away as soon as it came. "He's still alive, his hymn is subtle but I can hear it perfectly clear"

"Hymn you say?" Natural songstress is what he perceived your kind, along with murderous hunters of the depths but that was an opinion for another time. "Yes maybe it's time's effect but his voice is weaker compared to before... I could've taken him out myself but that wretched ice...and no way to transport..."

"Who said you needed to bring the whole block?"

A high risk plan was conducted, Diluc was to melt some part of the ice where you'd immediately use your hydro inclined abilities to manipulate the residue; evidence of your presence should be minimized at least that's what he stated.

You must have valuable information if you're going this far in convincing him your cause is worthwhile. You two took turns in Melting and cleaning the material until finally the younger siren kindred began to breathe; chest rising and falling as it slowly un arched his tail to relieve the long due tension.

The uncanny trio escaped the way it came, Diluc had to bite the insides of his cheek whilst carrying your sibling on his back— in all archon's fairness you did offer to help but he told you to be the rear look out (and to clean up any dripping water from the aquatic being you two were breaking out.

"Mondstat, it's the God of Freedom's nation isn't it..?" At this point in time your brother had fallen asleep, resting in a wagon with their body well wrapped by Snezhnayan cloth. You two immediately made a beeline towards the outskirts of Snezhnaya where the borders slipped against its neighboring nations. Diluc slowly nodded as he looked straight into the fire you started.

"I did what I can, now I think you should give your end of the bargain." A dry chuckle chided his hearing, looks like he was a man of efficiency.

"Fatui camps aren't random nor are they formed for a process. Rather... they're stationed as a result of some interesting discoveries."

Your tip was gently elaborated rye longer your campfire burned into the night, the moment Diluc had woken up, he saw no sign of your nor your sibling. His guard rose at an alarming speed until he saw the Snezhnayan cloth torn and sprawled on a naked tree next to the ice-cold river.

It didn't take much for the redhead to put two and two together, such an instance did provide him the necessary guide to pinpointing his course of action. That run-in with you was a mere hectic memory...or so he thinks.

"A glass of fire water please." That withdrawn smile on your face was as clear as the moonlight he'd often remember when recounting your whole being. Perhaps today would finally put his slumbering curiosities to rest.

Forget the little mermaid, his interaction with you made that otherworldly fairy-tale nothing but a childish whim. Kaeya's meeting with you was slow if anything. The first time he laid eyes on you was during a treasure hoarder interrogation.

Cider lake was vast whether it's day or night, you weren't very clever hiding under the crystal clear water but perhaps you assumed the cavalry captain was too preoccupied to even notice how you idled near the shore, what was your motive?

And so it became a routine, his patrol's coverage suddenly expanded to Mondstat's outskirts. Every day he'd do his job and when night cascades the sky he'd observe from one of the cliffs, sure enough, you'd always be there.

So it went for days, days turned to weeks but before it became a month you suddenly stopped showing. Odd... he'd think you'd stay now that there were barely any people on shore- assuming that you were hiding then it occurred to him that you went off someplace else to find prey.

A sarcastic chuckle Kaeya, with how mesmerizing your kind was- he almost forgot that there was a use to the beauty you possess, and so he set off tracking you down. He wasn't about to do paperwork on siren killings at the Favonius headquarters no not on his watch.

It wasn't unusual for him to idle around the streets at questionable hours, he wouldn't be the infamous cavalry captain if he wasn't, yes? He wasn't about to bother the others with his siren hunting, especially with how chained their hands are with their own work, besides its just one person who somehow clutched his attention for four weeks give or take how hard can finding you be-

"Sorry!- excuse me" it's a wildly unfamiliar voice, he thought. It didn't take more than a second for Kaeya to snap his gaze at your now much more human form, persistently scurrying away towards...the Goth Grand Hotel?- instincts urging him to chase you a gloved hand wrapper around your wrist.

"Uh uh uh~ I'd start explaining if I were you... now what's a fish doing on land, hm?"

Older sister trapped inside that fatui-marked hotel huh... and here he thought those troublesome fatui have made comrades among the inhumane, but knowing that sirens aren't their friends felt oddly relieving to the Cavalry Captain.

That new Snezhnayan attraction as you heard fatui called it was to be sent out at the break of dawn tomorrow right? Well, then you'll just have to make a move tonight. By you, he meant we—

By archons hearing him admit he's been observing you the past weeks felt iffy for the most part, but that just cut your little storytelling short by telling him why you were at Cider Lake in the first place. Oh had he been late maybe Keya wouldn't have had any treasure hoarders to arrest at all—

"Aren't you supposed to be hypnotic singers, my siren?" The word 'my' had no right throwing you off guard, not in the slightest. Stifling the choked 'what' from your mouth a hand made its way to the lower half of your face before you peeked from the corner of the hotel, at this point in time the fatui stationed at the front door had left to deal with some bathroom business so you and your little cavalry friend managed to get in with no qualms... it's still questionable how you had fatui masks at the ready— but Kaeya knew better than anyone about secrets and resources.

"Yes but I'm not risking your arse getting snapped under it.." He rolls his eyes but you did have a point, before you two could continue the debate a low alto tuned humming seeped from beyond the reception's door. Kaeya knew without a doubt that it's your kindred after observing you body tensing.

"You owe me a a lot of words and a tune after this, song bird—"

He took you by the hand and confidently strided towards the door, the fatui might've been too laxed recently. It shouldn't be this easy judging from your observation of the Snezhnayan natives but Kaeya made things easier than expected.

Sure enough once you two and reaches that door, your older sister was there with her finned arm reaching for the top of the once unfrozen tank. The sides were hinged with unknown metal and the ice inside was clean and cut you could clearly see the other side of the tank with ease.

Before you can even turn to the knight about your plan Kaeya was a bit eager in getting this over with. His vision flared with specks of cryo radiating off of the gem before his hand hovered in front of the ice tank. You had to wonder what he was doing until it struck you that he's manipulating the ice's shape itself.

Ten minutes later your sister's hand finally twitched alive, the ice was cracking indiscriminately but with Kaeya not letting it fall and your hydro like abilities refilling the gaps while pulling out your sister- it was a tedious full proof plan.

"Don't ask, there's an uneven plank of foundation by that wall corner..." With your sister in a bridal carry Kaeya gestured for you to interact with that blind spot, sure enough there was a hollow space. "Tap it until it creaks, it should open. Now as charming as you look under the candle light I think it's best we make haste don't you agree?"

There he was again with his roguish charm. You tried to not let it get to you especially with your sister needing immediate attention but you can feel your cold blood rising to your face- how is that even possible?

Contemplation aside you three got out from a hidden nook behind the hotel, Kaeya led you all to headquarters but it seems you had other plans.

He left you and your kindred for a few minutes to fetch something only to not see you in his office? How fast were you to even carry your sister- the trail of dripping water led him to where he assumed to be Starfell Valley. So that's where you two are fleeing...

The night was occupied with him dispersing that trail of hydro, it should be perfectly gone by dawn and by then he'd be ready to listen to fatui distress over morning coffee.

Sometimes he idles during patrol whenever he goes near Cider Lake, you still owed him that song and information did you not? Then he hears a lighter humming...it wasn't your older sister. When Kaeya rushed to Starfell lake he saw a piece of parchment rolled up and sealed wight seaweed.. Not letting any word unread he'd keep that farewell close. Afte all it contained everything you knew of the treasure hoarders after observing them for a while.

Calling it now he met you before either of you can even make memories. The young Snezhnayan boy often went ice fishing and at one point he may have seen your form beneath the icy waters (or maybe I'm just a sucker for forgotten childhood acquaintances to lovers who knows-)

Ajax often wonders whether the webbed hand reaching up for contact was some fever dream he formulated after falling into the abyss but he never looked back on that memory until today. Pantalone was going on and on about this rare find he's planning on donating to Snezhnaya's Museum— in honor of all things classically expensive nonetheless.

He had no interest whatsoever until he saw it to be a preserved siren. Upon further inspection he saw two of them forming a perfect circle like yin and yang- the ice did a splendid job displaying their aquatic majesty but their closed-eyed despair expression left a daunting pit in his stomach.

It felt wrong no matter how gorgeous they looked or how soothing their humming was...humming? Are they calling for someone? The youngest harbinger stayed behind as Pantalone went on with his little tour around the warehouse, leaving the boy to observe what happens until- the glass pane behind the display made a tapping sound.

He'd look back to see if he was alone before walking over to the window, it's odd seeing as it leads to nothing but the ice-cold ocean where fish of behemoth sizes would swim to be caught. That's when he stared eye to eye with your slitted eyes.

"Family huh... it's obvious comrade." "Don't, I swear on the divine if you do anything to them—" "Y'know... I think I saw a bottle of Fire Water here somewhere."

Your sudden desperation didn't go unnoticed by him. Childe saw you in his peripheral vision but he didn't catch your tail easily shifting into legs. The bottle of fire eater sitting pristinely next to the crate was soon in his hold, turning back to see your ragged cloaked visage standing in front of the block of ice in meesely defense. Childe simply raised both hands in defense still holding the liquor, if it'd stop you from making a commotion then so be it.

"I can tell for care for them,and I can tell you they won't really bring much honor to her majesty the Tsaritsa... how about it. I send you three home in one piece, deal ?"

By the time he's finished elaborating his plan he was already a mere one foot before you, you had no choice but to accept- it wasn't like you had a better plan. You can't melt the ice without harming them nor you could just push the block of ice without making a sound. What did the bottle of Firewater have to do with your dilemma?

Childe gently carried you, it was rather easy despite your weight and he didn't seem to be bothered by the water staining his uniform- it can be easily covered by his coat anyways. Your confusion and embarrassment were answered when he placed you on his shoulders, handing you the bottle in the process.

He told you to gently pour it over the ice? Strange... even so what if it was toxic? Your train of thought was cut when he squeezed your shins dangling over his shoulders. Who knows when would Pantalone and his lackeys would come back— Childe wasn't in the mood to deal with that discourse yet.

"It's fire water, comrade. It's enough to thaw ice but the most it does on your skin is send an eery warmth." "And you're sure it won't be a different case to my twin siblings..?"

Your question trailed off into a focused silence. Holding your breathe before tipping the bottle and watching the substance run over the block of ice, the first few moments were nothing but by the give minute mark the ice was loosing its solid shape. While you were occupied in thawing the ice Childe was using his own vision by transporting the residue into the ocean through the window.

"Almost just- a bit more-"

The bottle slipped from your moist grip, it crashed down on the planks turning your discreet atmosphere into one of urgency. By archon's mercy your twin siblings were mostly out so all Childe had to do was manipulate the remaining rime.

He placed you back on the ground before catching the twin sister— the brother limped in your arms and in the spur of the moment the four of you jumped out the window. Childe made sure to bring the remaining block with your group- leaving the room in the warehouse bare and void of treasure.

You're more worried about the harbinger— seeing as your twin siblings regained their strength once they began to move in the ocean. At this point in time your form reverted to that of a siren and with your inhumane senses you managed to see a struggling fatui amidst the murky waters.

"Sir your clothes- they're drenched." "Ahah..so they are comrade. I'll wait it out here on the beach, I know someone in Liyue who can get me an overnights refuge. I gotta say- swimming from north to south in an hour sounds useful."

Your banter with him would've continued had your sister and brother not whined for your attention. It was a bit annoying seeing this man casually flirt (that's what they think) with their older sibling. Childe can only chuckle as he adjusted his posture over the harbor docks.

"So that's it... well, I did my deed. Word of advice, comrade." He stared down at you and your siblings, the way the Liyue lights reflected off your patterned skin and most of all- your eyes. It was then did he felt some sort of closure with himself. Childe bent down to place a hand on yours.

"Steer clear of the north, I heard they have kinder waters here.."

From that day onwards Childe would avoid idling too close to the docks, he can't tell why but for some reason he doesn't want his connection with the fatui to affect you or your family.

He was in denial, he just doesn't wanna face you after having an intense reunion. There was no doubt about it- you were that friend that desperately tried to swim after him when he fell into the abyss.

The least he can do right now is assure your safety and by extension your kindred's wellbeing. Until the day he's sure he can safely meet your gaze once more he'll simply treasure the torn cloth he got from your cloak, safely tied to his vision's ring.

Taglist :: @luvielle @citirusu

[esther-dot]

Moonmaid is came in Jon, Jaime and Arianne chapters. With Jon it's about stealing a girl, with Jaime it's about saving a maid and with Arianne it's about crowning a girl who she took away with her.

That is definitely an interesting set of references to the Moonmaid, anon. It all feels very Girl in Grey/Jonsa reunion, doesn’t it? 👀

Here’s the initial mention in a Jon POV:

We look up at the same stars, and see such different things. The King's Crown was the Cradle, to hear her tell it; the Stallion was the Horned Lord; the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief. And when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, that was a propitious time for a man to steal a woman, Ygritte insisted. "Like the night you stole me. The Thief was bright that night."

"I never meant to steal you," he said. "I never knew you were a girl until my knife was at your throat." (ASOS, Jon III)

Here’s Jaime’s:

Jaime lay on his back afterward, staring at the night sky, trying not to feel the pain that snaked up his right arm every time he moved it. The night was strangely beautiful. The moon was a graceful crescent, and it seemed as though he had never seen so many stars. The King's Crown was at the zenith, and he could see the Stallion rearing, and there the Swan. The Moonmaid, shy as ever, was half-hidden behind a pine tree. How can such a night be beautiful? he asked himself. Why would the stars want to look down on such as me?

"Jaime," Brienne whispered, so faintly he thought he was dreaming it. "Jaime, what are you doing?" (ASOS, Jaime IV)

The Arianne quote:

The moon had crowned the Moonmaid as they set out from the dust-dry ruins of Shandystone, striking south and west. Arianne and Ser Arys took the lead, with Myrcella on a frisky mare between them. Garin followed close behind with Spotted Sylva, whilst her two Dornish knights took the rear. We are seven, Arianne realized as they rode. She had not thought of that before, but it seemed a good omen for their cause. Seven riders on their way to glory. One day the singers will make all of us immortal. Drey had wanted a larger party, but that might have attracted unwelcome attention, and every additional man doubled the risk of betrayal. That much my father taught me, at the least. (AFFC, The Queenmaker)

I haven’t paid enough attention to the discussion of stars/constellations to offer real insight, but I did find these quotes that, if we’re running with the girl in grey theory are pretty interesting:

“I might be. I never knew my mother, or what became of her. Maybe I was born too big and killed her. Most like she was some whore or tavern girl. You don't find highborn ladies down in Flea Bottom. And if she ever wed my father . . . well, what became of him , then?" Dunk did not like to be reminded of his life before Ser Arlan found him. "There was a pot shop in King's Landing where I used to sell them rats and cats and pigeons for the brown. The cook always claimed my father was some thief or cutpurse. 'Most like I saw him hanged,' he used to tell me, 'but maybe they just sent him to the Wall.' When I was squiring for Ser Arlan, I would ask him if we couldn't go up that way someday, to take service at Winterfell or some other northern castle. I had this notion that if I could only reach the Wall, might be I'd come on some old man, a real tall man who looked like me. We never went, though. Ser Arlan said there were no hedges in the north, and all the woods were full of wolves." He shook his head. "The long and short of it is, most like you're squiring for a bastard."

For once Egg had nothing to say. The gloom was deepening around them. Lantern bugs moved slowly through the trees, their little lights like so many drifting stars. There were stars in the sky as well, more stars than any man could ever hope to count, even if he lived to be as old as King Jaehaerys. Dunk need only lift his eyes to find familiar friends: the Stallion and the Sow, the King's Crown and the Crone's Lantern, the Galley, Ghost, and Moonmaid. But there were clouds to the north, and the blue eye of the Ice Dragon was lost to him, the blue eye that pointed north. (The Sworn Sword)

Obviously, this isn’t a strictly Sansa thing, but there are several references to using the blue eye of the ice dragon to go North/to the Wall…

  "Osha," Bran asked as they crossed the yard. "Do you know the way north? To the Wall and . . . and even past?"

"The way's easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the rider's eye." She backed through a door and started up the winding steps.  (ACOK, Bran V)

 No roads ran through the twisted mountain valleys where they walked now. Between the grey stone peaks lay still blue lakes, long and deep and narrow, and the green gloom of endless piney woods. The russet and gold of autumn leaves grew less common when they left the wolfswood to climb amongst the old flint hills, and vanished by the time those hills had turned to mountains. Giant grey-green sentinels loomed above them now, and spruce and fir and soldier pines in endless profusion. The undergrowth was sparse beneath them, the forest floor carpeted in dark green needles.

When they lost their way, as happened once or twice, they need only wait for a clear cold night when the clouds did not intrude, and look up in the sky for the Ice Dragon. The blue star in the dragon's eye pointed the way north, as Osha told him once.  (ASOS, Bran II)

 Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, but above him the clouds were breaking up. Jon searched the sky until he found the Ice Dragon, then turned the mare north for the Wall and Castle Black. The throb of pain in his thigh muscle made him wince as he put his heels into the old man's horse. I am going home, he told himself. But if that was true, why did he feel so hollow?

He rode till dawn, while the stars stared down like eyes. (ASOS, Jon V)

So, it’s possible the idea of following the stars will come up in a Sansa chapter and Jonsas have speculated. I’m thinking @fedonciadale was the one who came up with the theory that Jon may rescue Sansa while she’s fleeing Ramsay in the woods. None of us want Sansa to have a brush with that monster, but the idea of stealing a woman has always seemed like something that would come up in a positive way in a Jon chapter, and such a rescue would work with a loose translation of “stealing.” All these references to the Thief in the Moonmaid would work as a build up to a pivotal point in the series if it were to make an appearance during this scene. Martin even brought up again in ADWD:

   "No," said Jon. "Bring them. I have a use for them."

They had no moon to guide them home, and only now and then a patch of stars. The world was black and white and still. It was a long, slow, endless trek. The snow clung to their boots and breeches, and the wind rattled the pines and made their cloaks snap and swirl. Jon glimpsed the red wanderer above, watching them through the leafless branches of great trees as they made their way beneath. The Thief, the free folk called it. The best time to steal a woman was when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, Ygritte had always claimed. She never mentioned the best time to steal a giant. Or two dead men.

It was almost dawn before they saw the Wall again. (ADWD, Jon VII)

A moment when Jon successfully rescues a Stark girl feels inevitable because of how Martin likes to have the text talk to itself with patterns, parallels and contrasts, and Jon rescuing a Stark girl is a positive version of R/L (abduction).  Fedonciadale has speculated that the rescue may happen while Jon is warged into Ghost, and we have an interesting little tidbit about Ghostie near the raven calling out “thief”.

 It was still dark when Jon returned to his chambers behind the armory. Ghost was not yet back, he saw. Still hunting. The big white direwolf was gone more oft than not of late, ranging farther and farther in search of prey. Between the men of the Watch and the wildlings down in Mole's Town, the hills and fields near Castle Black had been hunted clean, and there had been little enough game to begin with. Winter is coming, Jon reflected. And soon, too soon. He wondered if they would ever see a spring.

Dolorous Edd made the trek to the kitchens and soon was back with a tankard of brown ale and a covered platter. Under the lid Jon discovered three duck's eggs fried in drippings, a strip of bacon, two sausages, a blood pudding, and half a loaf of bread still warm from the oven. He ate the bread and half an egg. He would have eaten the bacon too, but the raven made off with it before he had the chance. "Thief," Jon said, as the bird flapped up to the lintel above the door to devour its prize.

"Thief," the raven agreed. (ADWD, Jon VIII)

This quote made me squint because the raven is just repeating the word, it’s innocuous becuase it often does, except, several of the more famous raven lines are about Jon’s identity and the most popular of those happens in ADWD:

The day had come. It was the hour of the wolf. Soon enough the sun would rise, and four thousand wildlings would come pouring through the Wall. Madness. Jon Snow ran his burned hand through his hair and wondered once again what he was doing. Once the gate was opened there would be no turning back. It should have been the Old Bear to treat with Tormund. It should have been Jaremy Rykker or Qhorin Halfhand or Denys Mallister or some other seasoned man. It should have been my uncle. It was too late for such misgivings, though. Every choice had its risks, every choice its consequences. He would play the game to its conclusion.

He rose and dressed in darkness, as Mormont's raven muttered across the room. "Corn," the bird said, and, "King," and, "Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow." That was queer. The bird had never said his full name before, as best Jon could recall. (ADWD, Jon XII)

 We don’t need the raven shouting “thief” at Jon to mean anything, Jonsas have talked a lot about how Bael the Bard features prominently in Jon’s and Sansa’s story so there’s ample reason to believe that one way or the other, he will “steal” (rescue) her, but, this section felt familiar and that’s for two reasons. First, Martin started referring to girls as “prizes” a lot and here are some interesting quotes about that:

He glanced at the letter again. I will save your sister if I can. A surprisingly tender sentiment from Stannis, though undercut by that final, brutal if I can and the addendum and find a better match for her than Ramsay Snow. But what if Arya was not there to be saved? What if Lady Melisandre's flames had told it true? Could his sister truly have escaped such captors? How would she do that? Arya was always quick and clever, but in the end she's just a little girl, and Roose Bolton is not the sort who would be careless with a prize of such great worth.

What if Bolton never had his sister? (ADWD, Jon VII)

and

 "Beyond the Wall."

Septon Cellador sucked in his breath. "The king's prize. His Grace will be most wroth to find her gone."

"Val will return." Before Stannis, if the gods are good. (ADWD, Jon VIII)

and

Jon sighed. He was weary of explaining that Val was no true princess. No matter how often he told them, they never seemed to hear. "You are persistent, Ser Axell, I grant you that."

"Do you blame me, my lord? Such a prize is not easily won. A nubile girl, I hear, and not hard to look upon. Good hips, good breasts, well made for whelping children." (ADWD, Jon X)

Hhhmmmm…Bolton never had Arya, but the theory is, Ramsay could be pursuing Sansa in the woods, and Sansa is kinda a princess… and we’re getting references to Jon as king and now a “princess” as the king’s prize...nothing solid, but it is all very interesting! Especially when we think about this passage:

His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke. He swallowed another gulp of wine and watched his direwolf devour the chicken.

Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls. One of them, a black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a scent of the chicken. She stopped and edged under the bench to get a share. Jon watched the confrontation. The bitch growled low in her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent, and fixed the dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge. She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not move. He stood over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his fangs. The bitch tensed, barked again, then thought better of this fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last defiant snap to save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal. (AGOT, Jon I)

Idk anon, you may be onto something!

[moonbaby26]

Title: The Man from the Sky

Pairing: Loki x Goddess!Reader

Summary: You were a Greek sea goddess, just enjoying a typical day of nothing when a strange new god dropped into your land.

Warnings: None yet. There is smut in future chapters already written. Will post more soon.

Notes: I’m aware that what we’d think of as ancient Greece well predates who we’d call the vikings and their like cruising around the seas. This doesn’t take place at the height of the Greek pantheon worship, but old enough in human history that some men still believed in both sets of deities.

Chapters: Next Chapter Here

My Masterlist

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You dipped your feet a little deeper into the warm water as it lapped the edges of the rock you sat upon. The sea was calm today, and the wind gentle as the nymphs chatted around you about the usual things. A bit of gossip one had heard from a local river nymph, a new shipwreck one had found, status of a fish migration from another.

You wouldn’t exactly call it boring though, you specifically chose these more remote areas when you came ashore for this very reason. It was so much more unlikely for you to run afoul of mortals here, or even others of your own kind that you may not feel like putting on airs with at this very moment.

It was so quiet in fact, that you were considering getting up to go lay in the sand on the beach in a few minutes and enjoy a nice nap in the sunlight.

That was before the boom which echoed through the air all around you. Somewhat like thunder, but not quite as all the nymphs fell silent.

When nothing came after, you felt all their eyes then turning to you. Their voices piped back up soon enough, though the tones in them changed to all nerves now.

“Do you wish to leave, milady?”

“Could it be Zeus?”

“But it didn’t sound like him.”

“Is there a volcano nearby?”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know what it was, I’ve never heard that sound.” You finally said, though now looking inward to the land. You were at least sure that the sound was not of the sea. But you refused to give in to the nymphs’ skittishness too quickly. And without real reason to leave, eventually you all did start to relax again.

Yet then came the cries. “Goddess, mistress please!” That cry absolutely was from the land as you looked in time to see the river nymph you’d met earlier in the day now running from the tree line and down onto the sands. She stumbled slightly, just before reaching you where the sea met the rocks.

She was panting, clearly having run some distance as she continued. “I’m so glad to still find you here,” She bowed slightly, only because she didn’t know you well enough to realize you didn’t require this.

“What is it?” You asked simply, honestly more curious now than anything else. What could she have seen that would strike her so alarming? Any nymph worth their ilk would know every creature, every natural occurrence, all that existed within their lands.

“There is a man in the forest, he came from the sky!” Yet she continued quickly, sure you would only think of Olympus. “But I do not recognize him as one of your own family. And his clothing, he is not of our territory. This I am sure, my goddess. I watched him only long enough to see that he was very angry. I am afraid of his intentions here.”

A man? But not truly a man. Mortals did not come from the sky.

“An angry god?” You said, now standing as you then stepped down from the rocks. The forest belonged to Artemis truthfully. But being this close to the sea, you thought that the older goddess would forgive you this if it came down to it. She would rather the nymphs be protected you were sure from any childish acts of a god’s wrath that may now come into play here.

You had brought no armor, the possibility of battle so far from your mind when you’d come ashore today. But that didn’t mean you travelled completely defenseless. “Bring me my spear please.” You requested of the sea nymphs.

Though they were still anxious, they responded dutifully, one sinking beneath the waves before reappearing with the glinting weapon in hand. It shone a brilliant silver, sea foam still running off its blue spear tip as she handed it to you out of the water.

“Show me the way, and I will investigate this stranger.” You spoke plainly, hopping down onto the sands as you strode barefoot towards the forest, spear in hand. “We will keep our distance as best we can, we don’t seek conflict, understood?”

“Yes, milady.” You heard, the sea nymphs staying behind you as the river nymph moved in front to lead you upward, the sand transitioning to rocky soil and the sparse vegetation and trees beginning to increase as you climbed the hillside.

For the sea nymphs, you could hear them losing their footing here and there in the loose soil, themselves of course far more adapted to swimming the ocean’s depths at your side rather than hiking up into the forests.

You did hope you were not putting any of them in danger. But if you felt they truly were in harm’s way, you would have no qualms in telling them to retreat back to the water at once.

“Up ahead,” The river nymph whispered to you, pointing towards a clearing you could now see leveling off in the distance. But the opening looked so strange with the density of the other trees now around you.

“Was that always there?” You asked her, knowing something unnatural when you saw it, even when this far from the water.

“No,” She confirmed. “When the sky opened up, it carved out the land as well. He appeared when that force receded.”

“Understood.” You replied, though in truth not really understanding at all as you motioned for all the others to proceed no further. You’d never seen something like this. “I will go alone. If he should attack me, please return to the sea to seek help.”

They fidgeted, looking unhappy but not arguing your choice. “Please be careful, goddess.”

You nodded, but kept on slowly. You tried to remember what you’d been taught as a little girl about stalking and hunting on land. So many moons ago, running through the forests with Artemis and at times Pan, being mentored before returning to the sea to your father, mother, and so many siblings.

But the closer you came, the more you realized that the stranger would likely not notice any sound of light footsteps approaching or ground shifting. As you neared, you saw his form pacing back and forth in the clearing, seemingly cursing to himself in a language that was not your own.

Yet it still sounded familiar. Abruptly you knew where you had heard a dialect like this before. It sounded so much like those voyagers from the northern seas. The ones with their longboats and course beards, sometimes with hair as red as fire as they fished and sang and fought.

And he did look as pale as them as well. But with hair like black of night, and a frame far more slender than the burly mortals you’d seen rowing those northern boats along. And just as the river nymph had warned, his clothing confused you as well. Rich green robe, but with black and gold as well. It was wholly foreign and exotic to you in its styling, as was he.

When she’d said a strange man had arrived, honestly you had also expected someone older in appearance. He looked quite youthful to be honest, even as his brow remained furrowed and his fists clenched at his sides.

And just when you thought his feet may actually cut a path in the earth from his agitated pacing, he finally slowed, then stopped all together.

This is when you froze as well, knowing you now had a decision to make. Should you keep to your hiding, just to hope he should eventually leave in whatever fashion he came? Or should you reveal yourself to question his identity and purpose here?

“Done spying yet, or do you intend to actually do something with that spear?” A cutting voice spoke abruptly to your side, so suddenly that you almost lost your footing, shocked as the same man emerged from behind other trees only feet from you.

But you still saw him in the clearing as well, at least you did momentarily before the image of him there dissolved, leaving only the form now nearest you.

“You speak my language?” Was all you questioned instead of answer him though, as he had said those last words only in your tongue. You also kept focusing on backing away as you chose to keep a safer distance. He was some sort of illusionist at least then, which could escalate the danger here very quickly if he made you lose your bearings.

And he was starting to circle you a bit you realized as he began to walk again. But you willed yourself to keep your spear at a neutral position, rather than aim at him, still not intending to provoke attack if it could be prevented. You had no idea what other strengths he might have, and your primary goal was still to keep the nymphs from getting caught in any crossfire.

“Not all of us are so uneducated,” He snapped back at you, still in your language, though you could detect that foreign accent underneath.

You were not wholly unused to rudeness though, yet it had been a very long time since you could recall being spoken to directly in such a manner. It was more the bickering between others in the palace that you were sometimes forced to be party to. Which was only another reason you often favored the relative isolation of the mortal world.

“You need not be so offended, stranger. I only came to see who had entered our land, and to protect my friends if need be.” You answered as reserved in tone as you could.

“Then you have done your duty, girl, and can now be gone. I came here to be alone. If I was actually intending to plunder this wasteland of nothingness, your little cohort never would have made it back to you to begin with.”

You stared, a little coldness entering your eyes then. So that was what had given you away. He’d already been aware of the river nymph to begin with, and had been waiting for someone to return the entire time while leaving that illusion of himself still in the clearing as distraction.

And he’d actually referred to you as ‘girl’. Did he really think you just one of the nymphs then? It was hard to say if he was intentionally trying to goad you, or if he really was so unfamiliar to not realize you for what you actually were.

You straightened a bit, replying, “Insults to our homeland aside, I will leave you to this quiet then, if you should at least tell me your name. You are clearly not of Olympus, and we still have right to know who it is who traverses into this particular land of mortals which we hold sovereignty over.”

He scoffed, clearly wishing to not speak to you even a moment longer. But in the way his chest puffed slightly, you thought it was only pride then that made him physically incapable of denying his identity.

He actually moved closer to you as well, that agitation still rising further in his voice. “Little fool, you stand before Loki! Son of Odin the Allfather. I am god of mischief, prince of Asgard. Your witless mortals should count their blessings that an Asgardian should ever see fit to even set foot here!”

You didn’t know if you’d been quick enough to mask the true surprise from your face. You had already assumed him a god. But never...never had you actually laid eyes on an Asgardian. They never came to this part of the world as far as you knew. And was he telling the truth? Was he really a son of Odin?

This stranger’s arrogance aside, if he were a child of Odin, you knew your own father would be furious with you if you were intentionally insulting now. Asgard and Olympus had never had the closest ties, but you were not enemies either. Asgard was honored by the mortals of the north, and Olympus still honored by those of the south, though perhaps not quite as much as the true olden days.

It took real will, but you bowed graciously to him in return. “It is an honor to meet you then, Loki, son of Odin.” As you straightened up, in his eyes you could see he was trying to judge you as sincere or not. But you just continued smoothly. “As promised, I shall leave you to your thoughts then. But I would be unmannered to not offer my assistance should you need a hostess in your time here as a guest in our land. My name is (Y/N), daughter of-”

You hesitated only the briefest moment, “of the sea,” is what you decided on though. Unlike Loki, you preferred a little anonymity with strangers. You didn’t wish to be targeted just for your lineage.

And with that, you turned, beginning to walk back towards the beach, even as you finished talking. “If you should need me, you need only find the sea’s edge and call for me. One of our creatures will hear you soon enough and seek me out.”

But some odd part of you regretted not being able to see his expression as you left. You wondered if you only would have seen more disdain and condescension at your offer.

Regardless, he said nothing else and soon enough you were back on the sand, the nymphs chittering in a mix of horror and awe around you.

“Who does he think he is, speaking to you that way!?”

“Do you really think he’s of Asgard? Shouldn’t we alert your father?”

“Why would he even come here? He seemed so bitter. Do you think they cast him out?”

“I’d cast him out, with a dirty attitude like that!”

You looked to the horizon, just taking a breath. “I don’t think we need to rush and tell my father just yet. But I do know where I want to go now.” You looked to the river nymph briefly though, “Please have those in the forest keep a distant eye on him. Should he leave or do anything else of note, please let us know.”

You glanced back to the sea nymphs then. “The rest of you return to the oceans. I’m going to Olympus, to the libraries there. I want to find out more about Asgard, to see if he is who he says he is. I’ll return to the water soon.”

They all nodded, “Yes, milady. Please let us know what you find!”

“I will,” you agreed, just watching them dissolve back into the waves.

Were you excited perhaps? Or just very curious? Nothing interesting in this way had happened in ages. You were determined to learn all you could on this new arrival.

—————————

The Olympians had been a little surprised to see you gracing the halls there. So many of your cousins had dropped in time and again to say hello, curious themselves of why you were out of the water this long and seemingly such a bookworm all of the sudden.

And you did read for days. All you could find on Asgard, on Odin, the Norse mortals, and their language. You found record that Odin had born two sons, honestly an oddly low number you thought in comparison to the many children of your own kings.

But there in these tomes, were those two names, Thor and Loki. Thor, god of thunder, amusing of course in comparison to Zeus, king of all, including lightning. But also Loki, god of mischief, just as he’d said.

You were surprised, but enthralled as you actually found a drawing of Loki within the book. Though not completely accurate you thought, you still recognized that type of clothing. The green and gold, and the pale skin and black hair with his icy blue eyes. You tilted your head a little, looking at the gold helmet he wore in the artist’s depiction, with long horns curving from it like those of a great beast.

Was he really a beast? Or just a too arrogant manchild? And why did you increasingly wish to find out?

—————————

(Continued in next chapter here)

[onyxheartbeat]

Dear HIM/Ville Valo fans,

this is a long post but I must discuss this.

________

I came across this interview of Kat Von D from a few days ago. Before I get into my thoughts, below is a passage from her old book “Go Big or Go Home” which you may or may not have read. She wrote about Ville:

________

“I only knew his music, and I loved it on first listen. It was dark and it was beautiful. It was metal and it was poetry. It was love loaded into a gun, and I wondered about the man behind the songs.  Two years later, our paths crossed, and like the majority of the connections I’ve made in life, tattooing brought us together. Through our first tattoo sessions, we began to get to know each other. For the next few years, I just thought of him as my friend from overseas, and that was all. Then, after knowing him for six years, something changed. It could have been the wine, the music, or the moon. Most likely it was just perfect timing. Just one kiss, and he changed my world. We were both sad back then, and lost. I was depressed, having finally ended a marriage that had been doomed from the beginning. I was also dealing with the pressures of filming a television show, which was totally new to me - and drinking my way blindly through it all. His story mirrored mine, and he had been feeling just as low. We had been waiting for something to happen, for someone or something to come along and save us from ourselves. And when it suddenly seemed that that someone was each other, it took us both by surprise. We shared darkness, and doing that bought light back into our somber worlds: for once, we didn’t feel alone.He’s the reason why I wanted to write music to begin with - and learn to sing. I remember the exact moment I made up my mind about making music. It was something I felt I needed to do, not for any reason other than a way to respond to him. It didn’t matter if the songs I’d write never saw the light of day, as long as he was able to listen to my music, my message to him. He had told me to look for a package at my door step, prefacing the delivery of the contents, his new album, saying, “These are all of the things that are easier sung than said.”I knew what he meant, but never imagined that each song would be filled with direct messages to me. I put the album on, and the music rushed out of the speakers and filled my house. His voice rang all around, making it’s way to the core of my heart with every word he sang. As cryptic as those lyrics may have been for anyone else, I knew exactly what each word meant and recognized every event and place he referred to. The songs were so beautiful, I just wished so badly that he could have said everything out loud just once to me. How should I respond to something like this? Where do I even start?The first time I saw him after I got sober, he was in town working on music. We sat in my office at the shop until the late hours of the night, talking and catching up about everything - music, home, art and work. Did we talk about love? No. We constantly danced around our past instead. What happened to us? I couldn’t find the courage to ask because I was scared of the answer I already knew. We decided to draw, with pencils and paper in front of us, we sat at opposite ends of the table. He pulled my three-minute timer from one of the nearby shelves, and placed it at the center of the table. He suggested we draw each other, and I was game. With a flip of the hourglass, the grains of sand moved from one vessel to the other, and we began.Sketching these timed portraits forced us to stare at each other, making it practically impossible to focus on the drawing itself. I had almost forgotten how beautiful his face was. He has a combination of eyes, lips, and a darkness to his looks that makes him look almost otherworldly. With him, I felt like I was at the center of an orderly, tranquil, magnificent universe. For those short three minutes, there were no questions about life or purpose. It was as if we never needed any more from each other than this.Like all people, I’ve suffered from love sickness and tasted the pain of love. The theatrical director of my mind, the one who staged all these versions of him and my life with him, seemed to be unaffected by reason. I was finding myself constantly day dreaming of the past.His eyes, his hands, his crooked smile - I’d ruminate over his features. Things he said. Things he did. Things he wrote. Things he drew. Things he sang. Over and over again, I’d sift through these images and memories as if they somehow contained the answer to my prayers. But I was living with a long-age memory of him; living so far away from the present moment.If we had spoken about what we were or what we thought we were, back when we got sober, I wouldn’t have been so confused, wandering what if, and writing the rest of our story in my mind. What did I expect? For him to magically not hear about me being in a relationship? And to not be bothered by it? If only he would have asked….. I would have….. If we could have only talked….. then things would be….. if we allowed ourselves to transform our fears of being open, vulnerable, then, I’d convince myself, we would be together. I realized that none of that mattered now. If I wanted to be free of this unrequited longing, I would have to make peace with the past and finally let it go. There was no way around it. But did I want to be free of it? - and him?I listened to one of his songs the other day. Out of all the songs he wrote on that album, this one was the most direct. He sings my name in the chorus. By the time the song is over, I’ve felt a range of emotions - I’m sad but happy, frustrated but calm. He sings about how I alone bring him to a place of stillness and peace within when we are together. What a victorious feeling - to enter into a place with him where no one else has been. To be able to bring goodness to and draw it out of someone. Those sweet thoughts were interrupted by  an e-mail from him. Impeccable timing as always. It’s just a short note, letting me now he’s somewhere out there, thinking of me. He ends the message by calling me “Star Face” - his pet name for me from long ago that no one else uses. At that moment, I loathe him for it. I loathe him because I love him. Sometimes it feels like it would be so much easier to walk away from this if he’d just tell me that he hates me, that he wants nothing to do with me. But instead he calls me “Star Face.” There is no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not letting go, either.‘Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.’The silver plane hurtled over Newfoundland, over the Labrador sea. Someone told me I might see the northern lights as I fly east and north, but I wouldn’t have noticed as I was deep in writing the letter that I had already mentally composed long before I decided to make this trip to see him over New Year’s Day. I didn’t have to edit myself this time, I knew exactly what the letter would say.I reread the note to myself before sealing the envelope. Then I drew out the first letter of his name in pencil on the front. What a beautiful letter it was, probably my favorite out of the entire alphabet. A letter I was so used to writing myself. With ease the swirls and curves of each arch seemed to flow from my heart, my mind’s eye, drawn in and through my arms to my hands, releasing themselves onto the pale ivory paper envelope. My plane landed soon after.I had missed this country, I had missed him, too. I wondered how time had treated him ,for it had been a few years since I had last seen him. I wondered if I still had the ability to quiet his heart when he was feeling manic. He always said I had a way of doing that when I was near. And I wondered if he even needed me in that way anymore.When we met up, he looked just as beautiful as the day we saw each other for the first time, almost ten years before. And as if no time had passed, we started right where we left off - hours flew by in the comfort of each other’s presence. Talking. Catching up.He asked if I was getting sleepy, and my attempt at concealing the tiredness was transparent. I looked at the clock; maybe it was the jet lag or the clock hands pointing to midnight, but I knew it was time to say good-bye. Reluctantly, we both stood up and tried our best to part ways. As good as it felt to be near him again, I gave him the letter I had written letting him know that I was letting the nation of us go. He took the sealed envelope, and then I watched him walk away for what I assumed would be the last time.My heart didn’t belong locked up in a tower across the ocean from my home. It belonged in my chest, beating, living, feeling, sometimes hurting, but always loving. I deserved to be free, and understanding and needing that more than a dream, I was finally able to let him go.”

_________

Now, let me start by saying, I’ve never understood this and I still don’t. I’ve had that passage saved in my drafts for years because I keep almost anything pertaining to Ville. 

I’ve been a HIM fan since I was about 15 years old, and have followed Ville’s life and work closely. The friendship between them was always apparent to HIM fans in those days, because we saw her in photos with the band often. I used to watch Miami Ink and LA Ink as regularly as pretty much anyone in those days, and I remember when this particular passage of her book was brought to light, the HIM fan base read it and we all had our thoughts. We were all aware of Screamworks being written about Kat (it’s obvious in the lyrics of the album) even though Ville never specifically said Kat’s name when asked about it in interviews.

I remember being baffled back when we as HIM fans discovered this passage from the book. I couldn’t imagine not making that relationship work if it was true love. I’m a bit biased because I adore Ville and he’s like a dream to me, but I just couldn’t understand it. It seemed like she took the relationship for granted or she didn’t love him enough to make it work; but I digress. I get it; love and relationships are complex.

Still, flash forward to this recent interview (the screenshot), she says it was unrequited love, and I’m still not understanding it. Why release all the songs now? Why didn’t she make it work if it was true love? Who is she trying to say was the one not reciprocating (as the word “unrequited” suggests) in the relationship? I don’t understand any of it. More than anything, I’ve had so many questions that I wish I could ask Ville about it all because he only spoke briefly about it all, and it was always rather cryptic. 

I’m only writing this as a HIM fan, and because I love Ville and his lyrics on Screamworks so, so much (it’s an extremely underrated album in the HIM discography, in my opinion) so I’m letting any fellow HIM lovers know she wrote an album in response to it, in case you’re interested. I haven’t followed Kat or her work in many years, so I don’t know what to make of all this, but it’s always been extremely apparent to me when listening to Screamworks that a lot of heart went into it and even pain, not that his lyrics on other albums aren’t like that too, but I felt it more on Screamworks. I feel that Ville was the one who was truly heartbroken.

You all probably know from following my blog that I’m obsessed with love and unrequited love. Any romantic stories, bittersweet letters, heartbreak, longing etc. is just my favorite thing in the world so please excuse the long post, haha.

[apocalypticgargoyle]

𝘽𝙐𝙍𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙀𝙔𝙀𝙎. ҂ 𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢

back by popular demand! xx thank you for supporting my ramblings! this is kind of filler.. sorry...

pairing: dream x fm!reader

warnings: blood, slight angst, using ccs real names, guns

← previous chapter | ao3 | request |

Clay pushed himself to sit away from the wall, dragging you up with him. “How can you not hear that?” He urged mildly. Fear began to pick at your nerves as you noticed the same reactions filling the shelter. Nick stood up, following some of the other guys who heard whatever they were talking about. Clay slipped from your grasp. “I’ll be right back,” he muttered and you grabbed his hand. His eyes flashed a different color as he looked at you.

A few of the women followed the group, attempting to get their companion’s attention before one of them opened the shelter door.

Your eyes grew wide as the crowd moved from the shelter. It seemed that only the women in the bunker were protesting against leaving the shelter, the men focused on shrugging out of their hold. The night sky was lit up by a foreign object you had yet to lay eyes on, Clay’s figure blocking most of your vision as you were sandwiched between him and Nick. You could feel your heart beating in your ears, your grip tightening around Clay’s arm. 

The crowd spread out in the field near the bunker, gaze cast towards the northern sky where a large planet hovered on the horizon line. You covered your mouth in shock, slinking backward as a few of the women screamed. The bright spots on its surface reflected in the eyes of the men across the field from you. You yanked on Clay’s arm, attempting to pull him back into the safety of the bunker with you. 

He turned, an amazed smile flashing to his face as he looked down at you. It was only then that you noticed the crimson lines of blood draining from his ears. “Can you hear that?” He asked, voice raspy and verklempt. You furrowed your brows, your chest rising and falling unevenly as your mind raced to figure out what was happening. Clay’s soft hair moved in the night breeze, his features looking sharper as the light from the planet cast shadows across his face. 

His face dropped suddenly, his brows knitting together as his breathing seemed to slow. You reached out to touch his face but instead, his eyes rolled and he collapsed into your arms. Nick dropped to his knees beside you as well, forcing you to reach an arm out so he didn’t face plant in the dirt under your feet. You swore under your breath as Clay’s weight forced you into a sitting position. As you held him to your chest, keeping a tight grip on Nick’s t-shirt, you hiccuped, hot tears beginning to stream down your face. 

You sat, waiting for them to wake up, for what felt like hours. Various women were wailing, while others smoked stale cigarettes and paced, theorizing what the planet could be doing. You drug your fingers through Clay’s hair, your other hand cramping from its hold on Nick’s shirt. You’d pulled him closer to settle his head on your leg beside Clay. You felt like a mother hen guarding her chicks against the winter. 

You hated it. 

One woman stood with her hands on her lower back, staring up at the planet. Every few minutes, she held her palm out to it, spreading her fingers out wide before biting her cheek and continuing to stare. You inhaled and attempted to soothe yourself by holding the boys closer to you. “They’ll wake up,” she said, her voice breaking into a quietness you hadn’t realized had settled over the field. You looked up at her, rubbing your cheek on your sleeve to rid yourself of salty tear tracks. “The big one, he still has eye movement.” You looked down at Clay, noticing her fact. He looked as if he were dreaming up the plot of a new Lord of the Rings book. 

You sighed in relief, pressing your cheek against his forehead as your hand loosened on Nick, fingers brushing his collarbone softly. It was then that you realized how warm he was. Your brain switched into panic mode as you touched his forehead, his skin burning beneath your hand. You pulled his hat off his head and set about pulling his hoodie off. 

The woman joined you at your side. “He has a fever. We have to-” you bit your lip as more tears threatened to spill. You were so tired of crying, but for some reason, you couldn’t help it. Especially now, as the lives of the man you loved and a dear friend were literally in your hands. “We have to get it down,” you managed, fingers yanking at the material. “He could die.” 

The woman settled a hand on your shoulder, slowing your movements. She removed Nick’s hoodie, balling it up and pushing it beneath his head. “He’s going to be okay. Obviously, his body’s fighting something off,” she assured. “You should move around a bit. So your legs don’t go completely numb.” 

You shook your head, looking back toward the two. “No, I can’t leave them,” you answered softly. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw her nod in understanding. “What were you doing over there?” You asked, nodding to where she was previously standing. 

She moved to sit cross-legged, turning her head to look back up at the planet. “I was seeing if it was moving,” she responded. “I swear I’ve seen it before. Like in a book or something.” You nodded at her words slightly. “I think it’s Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons.” 

You dragged your sleeve across Clay’s cheek, wiping away the dried blood. “Callisto…” you repeated, attempting to jog your memory if you’d heard of it before. “So NASA was wrong, huh?” You joked, attempting to be light-hearted, but your voice reflected a dark sadness from the depths of your chest instead. 

She shrugged with a small grin on her face. “Unless it wiped us out completely as this is your hell for eternity.” You snapped your eyes to her, making her laugh. “I’m joking. Unless this is my hell,” she joshed. “It depends on what you believe is real or not, I guess.” 

You shut your eyes, a shaky breath rippling through you. “Please stop talking.” 

Before she could say something else, Clay’s eyes snapped open. He muttered your name almost as if he didn’t believe it was you. He turned his head towards where Nick was laying. “Nick?” His voice cracked slightly as he sat up. He looked at you as if asking what was happening before he turned to peer up at the planet again, his eyes shifting to a more brilliant green as if it evoked something within him. You watched his irises shift towards a glowing color before he looked at you again. 

Nick stirred in your arms before shivering. You rested your hand against his forehead once again, the heat of his body becoming more alarming. Clay was on his feet, looking quickly around the field as various people woke up, startled just as he was. You gently moved from beneath Nick, letting his head rest on his jacket as you moved to comfort Clay. He pulled you into his arms and you could hear his heart beat against his rib cage. Everything was beginning to happen so quickly as you stood on your toes to peer over Clay’s shoulder, watching as various men began to act strangely. 

You heard Nick mumble Clay’s name, causing you to break away from him to look behind you. As you did so, Nick grabbed your arm gently, his hand searing the flesh of your forearm. You let out a muted scream, yanking your hand from his as his worried eyes burned a bright orange.

THREE YEARS LATER

You tied your hair back, staring back at your reflection in the dirty mirror. It was the Callisto Anniversary, therefore you couldn’t help but think of what you used to look like; practically a child compared to who you were now. You almost glared at the scars on your arms from those nights when you all thought the world was ending. You wet your lips, tugging on your jacket and propping open the door of your bedroom before carrying yourself down the long hallway. Various people greeted you from their rooms as you passed by their opened doors. 

As you trudged down the various flights of stairs, you silently repeated the words of the cultists' propaganda posters covering the walls in the stairwell. You passed them every day; hating them more each time you saw them. You’d only let them hang the posters after they threatened to burn down the hotel, thus eliminating yours and several hundreds of other people’s homes and businesses. 

After the planet, which you now knew for sure was the moon Callisto, settled into the Earth’s night sky, reports of enlightened men popped up everywhere. The male population seemed to be a favorite of Callisto’s as most of them possessed some kind of power, whether useless or beneficial. Conspiracy theorists believed it was because of the creatures in the water beneath its surface attempting to create a new generation of Poseidon's sons. With the moon ruining Earth’s power supply, it was difficult to experiment and prove various theories. 

It’s the radiation, some would say. 

It’s a government conspiracy. 

It’s an alien experiment. 

You’d heard it all. The only thing you were certain of was what Eden told you, the woman you’d met when Callisto appeared. She was convinced of the Poseidon theory; though rather scornfully. “One more thing to strengthen male privilege...” She often accounted. She’d worked as a biology professor before the day of reckoning, therefore she could tell you the chicken came before the egg and you’d believe her. She explained the phenomenon of Callisto as a result of the ocean tides and gravitational pull, yet couldn’t figure out how Callisto could travel 4.3 AUs and why Earth would be its landing place. 

Your feet thumped against the cracked linoleum of the hotel lobby, the various dividers failing to provide sound barriers between the various groups of engineers and their counterparts as they worked and chattered. After finding the hotel, you’d given most of its space to Eden and her team as well as the brutes working for you. 

You grabbed an apple from one of the food stations before following the sound of Eden’s voice as she argued with someone about the patterns of Callisto in the sky. A radio lulled from the table in the middle of her chaos. She tugged her dull blonde/gray hair back into a ponytail before massaging her aging temples with two fingers. 

The front doors opened, ringing the small bell attached to one of the handles and drawing your attention. The group of men shrugged out of their wet jackets or shook out the rain out of their hair. You scanned the group from Clay’s white ski mask, an intimidating feature that signified who he was. Just as you had given up, he pushed through the crowd, pushing his mask on top of his head. You waved at him and he brightened before walking towards you. He leaned down to press a kiss to your lips, the smell of the Earth hanging against his damp clothing. 

“I saw something while I was out, and I’ve had a rough time keeping it in my head,” he stated with a slight chuckle, mindlessly asking you to follow him to one of the tables with a few workers. You watched him silently as he fished into the barrels of spare gun parts before throwing what he’d found on the table. The people around you paused what they were doing. Clay’s eyes began to glow, the green almost iridescent as the pieces began to morph together before shaping a new kind of gun. 

That’s really what your group was known for: arms manufacturing and dealing. 

Clay built them and you had the connections to sell them. On paper, it was simple. 

Clay held the gun in his hand, turning it over and looking down at you for praise. You furrowed your blows slightly. “Does it work?” You asked, making him shrug and bump a clip into it before firing it at one of the walls. 

You sighed. “How many times do we have to talk about shooting inside?” He giggled sheepishly at your words. You examined the gun in his large hand, trying to place where you had seen it before. It was a souped-up version of whatever you had previously seen. 

“Looks like a cop gun to me, Dream,” a familiar voice stated, making Clay chuckle proudly before looking up to see Nick with his arms crossed. Clay quickly tucked it into the back of his belt and Nick rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I meant to radio in on my way but I got caught in the storm.” 

You swatted off his apology and hugged him. “It’s good to see you, Sapnap,” Clay lightened. The boys had begun using their radio call names as if they got them from their mothers. “Happy Callisto Day,” Clay charmed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as Nick picked up a gun piece. 

Nick’s eyes flashed to the burn scar on your wrist from him. The fever he had was due to his power. Clay always teases him with nicknames like Prince Zuko and Warren Peace for it. “Have you guys seen Karl? I have a friend that figured out how to make something similar to nail polish.” 

You snorted. “He should be hovering around Eden,” you answered, gesturing to the opposite corner of the lobby space. 

After Nick parted, Clay turned back to you. “I think I found a way to get supplies into the East Sector…” he mumbled, just audible enough for you to hear. You perked an eyebrow at him. The East Sector had been closed off to any kind of weaponry, but that didn’t mean the demand wasn’t high. It was a farming community outside of the city where most of the religious zealots lived and based the Cult of Callisto. 

You chewed the inside of your cheek. “How dangerous is this  way  you’ve found?” 

Clay smirked slightly. “They call him Techno. He’s a chlorokinetic. Apparently, he kills people and turns them into plant food too,” he stated, wiggling his eyebrows. “Plus, he’s an enemy of Quackity’s group.” He crossed his arms, leaning against the table behind him. 

“So, pretty dangerous, then?” You simplified. 

He smiled slightly. “In a fun way…” 

[alfredolover119]

I looooove your zukka rec lists! I recently became Avatar-obsessed, never got a chance to watch it as a kid and only just got through it all! I was wondering if you'd consider doing a specifically angst rec list? I love fluffy zukka everything, but sometimes you just gotta have your heart ripped out of your chest and put back in after being thoroughly blended.

thank you! i relate heavily to “recently became Avatar-obsessed” haha. as for the angst list, i sure can try! warning: all of these have happy endings because im a crybaby who can’t read unhappy endings. also, p much all of the fics in the completed section were featured on my other lists but this is specifically the ANGSTY ones >:^)

angsty zukka wips

first, most obviously, feels like we only go backwards by @oldpotatoe

-currently at 102k with 19/27 chapters posted; rated teen

-the amnesia fic. the amnesia fic. the amnesia fic. you know. i haven’t actually read it yet because, as previously mentioned, i’m a crybaby and am waiting for it to finish up but, from my understanding, this fic will murder you in a dark alleyway with no remorse. if u like zukka angst, you’ve probably already read this, but just in case!

An injury leaves Sokka with amnesia. His last memory is of the failed invasion, of leaving his father behind in enemy territory on the Day of Black Sun. Of hopelessness. Rage. // But then he wakes up, and the war is over. Suddenly, he must come to terms with the fact that years have passed, and that he's somehow the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador to the Fire Nation. He is also supposedly friends with banished-Prince-turned-Fire-Lord Zuko, of all people. Close friends.

Yeah, nah.

and i’ll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) by @goldrushzukka

-currently 38k with 6/8 chapters posted; rated mature

-holy shit. holy SHIT. modern au based on the “my cat likes my fuckbuddy and i am falling in love” trope(?). maybe it’s just because of how the last chapter ended, but oh my god. this one made me cry. made me want to commit violence. when it’s not angsty as hell, it’s pretty funny, but holy shit. ao3 user nebulastucky please.

It’s supposed to be a one night stand. Pick up some guy at a bar, barely remember his name and never learn anything real about him, send him packing in the morning with a thanks for the ride and a cup of coffee to-go. That’s how it’s supposed to go. // But then it’s the best sex Sokka has ever had, and he thinks he’ll hate himself if he never gets to have it again.

Violet Blossoms and Celestial Objects by @hollypunkers

-currently 15k with 2/? posted. rated teen.

-this is the sequel to blue (an angsty, zukka rewrite of book 2-- go read it if u havent!)! !! this is a book 3 rewrite. only two chapters in and mrs hollypunkers is really abusing the miscommunication tag, as zukka writers seem to enjoy doing. im excited to see how the world and story develops with the changes to the story! you should be too!! its very good! obviously spoilers for blue lmao

Having sided with the Avatar in Ba Sing Se, Zuko not only must navigate his new relationship with Sokka but returning to the Fire Nation as a banished enemy. His own journey of self discovery and personal growth must now coexist alongside the personal struggles of every other member of the Gaang as together they blaze a treacherous path toward an unsure victory against Zuko's own father and nation.

breakable heaven by @fruitysokka

-currently 71k with 9/11 chapters posted. rated teen

-swt ambassador zuko! soon to be chief sokka! fake dating ur best friend to get out of an arranged marriage! what could go wrong!!! i also haven’t read this one ((see: i’m a crybaby who is being hurt by too many zukka wips already)), but it has been hanging out in my marked for later for months. from what i understand, this fic has: angst.

With his twenty-first birthday looming just around the corner, the Southern Water Tribe Elders have decided that Sokka, next in line to be Chief, needs to get married. Sokka does not want that, but he does need to get them off his back until he can figure his way out of it. What better way to do that than to pretend to date his best friend (and newly minted Ambassador to the Southern Water Tribe) Zuko? // Seriously, this is a foolproof plan. Maybe one of Sokka's best. Absolutely nothing can go wrong.

angsty zukka fics (completed!)

(i’ll put these in wc order)

lighthouse beam by @incorrectzukka

-7k, rated g

-a modern college au!! zuko’s inner-monologue is very angsty in this fic. typical zuko. also per usual, theyre both fucking dorks. they sort themselves out in the end, but not before The Angst. zuko is semi-deaf in this fic and also he has a bit of internalized homophobia.

Sokka’s breathtakingly beautiful and he’s smart and makes other people laugh. Zuko has a half-burnt face and a deaf ear. It’s not rocket science. // Or, Zuko falls in love with the boy in his Philosophy class.

This Isn’t My Idea of Fun by @khaleeseas

-9k, explicit

-moon spirit/nwt prince!sokka, no war to be found here! admittedly this isnt THAT angsty but like. the angst IS present. zuko is still the prince. a lovely childhood friends (though they hated each other for a minute haha) to lovers story. 

If you asked Zuko, he and Azula saw far too much of Chief Hakoda of the Northern Water Tribe’s children growing up. It wasn’t until they were older, and Azula pointed out that - duh - their families were trying to set them all up, that he realized why. // He was told by his mother to be polite. These people were their friends and allies, and though their nations were as different as they came, harmony between nations was the most important thing. // It wasn’t his fault the Chief’s children were so annoying.

put your lips close to mine (as long as they don’t touch) by @celestialceci

-9k, teen

-modern au! zuko and sokka are college roommates. zuko goes to spend the summer with sokka. again,, not really that angsty but-- its there!! the detail and feeling of Home in this story make me happy. zuko is insecure as hell here too. if ur into that. 

Zuko hates his home. He likes college alright, but he likes Sokka even better, his assigned roommate turned best friend. Spending the summer with Sokka will be fun, a welcome change of pace he desperately wants. It probably won't awaken anything in him... right?

the thing about dancing by anodymalion

-9k, teen

-yes. this one right here officer. it makes my heart ache. also trans sokka! which is cool. but the zuko angst in this one. hurts me. not so much relationship angst as it is zuko learning he deserves happiness angst. i’m sure u know The Type.

The first time a attendant spills Zuko’s tea and doesn’t immediately fall to her knees, begging the Fire Lord’s forgiveness, it is not anger but a resounding warmth that fills his chest.

i could (never) give you peace by @zukkababey

-10k, mature

-OUCH. OUCH OUCH OUCH. boys please learn to communicate im begging u. also zuko.. zuko, dude. as the tags of the fic say, hes “really going through it” in this one. YOUCH. post-canon.

Zuko almost said it. He almost said the words I think I’m in love with you, but he choked them back down at the last second. // Zuko would never be able to be what Sokka wanted. They might have needed each other during the summer, when two boys with too much weight on their shoulders found comfort in each other in the only way they knew how. // But now Zuko was Fire Lord, and Sokka was leaving.

this love burns so yellow (becoming orange and in its time, exploding) by @meliebee 

-18k, teen, major character death 

-i lied. THIS is the one, officer. found family.. good mai and zuko and toph friendships.. . ozai escapes prison and tries to overthrow zuko. OBVIOUSLY angst ensues. poor boy. he Does heal in this but it gets worse before it gets better. angst angst angst angst.

Ten months after Zuko is crowned at seventeen, he faces his first coup.

Anything for You by beersforqueers

-23k, explicit

-istg. this is probably one of my favorite zukka fics. its PAINFUL. modern au where theyre broken up but sokka hasnt told his family yet so zuko goes home with him for kataang wedding. a bit smutty, but the plot oh my god ohgm y fuvk. made me cry the first time i read it. (see: crybaby!me) insert that one picture of the horse with the caption PAIN. 

In which Sokka and Zuko have broken up but Sokka hasn't told his family yet. So when Katara and Aang's wedding weekend rolls around and he doesn't want to break Gran-Gran's heart, he asks Zuko to pretend to be his boyfriend for one last weekend. // Things don't go as planned.

Moving Mountains by @thefangirlingdead

-64k, mature

-so. when i read this the first time it was in one sitting. soulmate au set within canon era / the comics, to an extent. soulmates can hear each others thoughts. i will happily say this is slowburn, jesus christ. champagne without the cham. 

Soulmates are chosen by the spirits and can hear each other’s thoughts. Sokka thinks it’s cheesy and dumb. Zuko thinks it’s poetic justice that he doesn’t have one because he doesn’t deserve it. Cruel irony is finding out that the prince of the Fire Nation (and the person currently hunting you) is your soulmate.

In the Soft Light by @voidcenturyscholar and @romancedawning

-83k, teen, graphic depictions of violence

-moon spirit!sokka living in the northern water tribe. zuko is sent to the northern water tribe as a cultural liaison. iroh is the fire lord but while he is away taking care of lu ten after his injury ozai steps up. i cannot express how many emotions this fic made me feel. background yuetara. i would almost say found family?? but. anyway. plenty of angst to spare here with a healthy dose of enemies to friends to lovers.

As the newly appointed cultural liaison to Northern Water Tribe, Zuko is the first Fire Nation Citizen to step foot inside the city's walls in nearly a century. He's determined to prove himself—to the Fire Lord and to his father—even if the Water Tribe's spirit-touched prince seems to want nothing to do with him.

That Midnight Sky by @zukkababey

-103k, teen

-now now now. tms... modern college au where sokka agrees to tutor zuko in physics because zuko has to maintain straight a’s and physics is just not doing it for him. so. thats cool but THEN azula moves in, randomly, with zuko. to hide the fact that sokka is tutoring zuko, they fake date! what could go wrong!! the mutual pining in here combined with the angst... wonderful, tasty. everyone read it rn. also SLOWBURN 

In Zuko’s strict family, needing a tutor is just about the worst thing you could do. Failing a class, however, is even worse. The only rational solution? Take up Aang on his offer to find him a physics tutor and have Sokka—beautiful, smart, handsome Sokka—tutor him in secret. // When Azula’s arrival threatens to reveal Zuko’s secret, it’s up to Sokka to convince her this definitely isn’t what it looks like. See, he’s actually… Zuko’s… boyfriend? // Hmm. There’s no way this could get complicated, right?

[johaerys-writes]

Fandom: The Song of Achilles

Pairing: Achilles/Patroclus

My entry for Day 1: Music & Day 2: Deities of @patrochillesweek​ 2021! Where the Greeks in Troy celebrate Dionysus' festival, and Achilles and Patroclus spend some time alone (~4.5k words, rated E for smut, check Ao3 link for full list of tags)

Read on Ao3!

Chapter 1: With a Shuddering Gasp

The music from the lyres and cymbals drifted through the camp, mingling with the crackling of flames from the many bonfires that had been lit. The celebrations for Dionysus’ festival had been going on for most of the day and the night before, and the scent of incense and wine hung heavy in the air.

I had never before attended such a festival. It wasn’t celebrated this widely in Opus or Phthia, where I had grown up. The Dionysia was among the largest festivals in Athens, celebrated with days and nights filled with drink, dance and theatrical performances of all kinds. Here, in the Achaean’s camp, where people from the farthest reaches of Greece gathered, it had quickly become a tradition.

I had been in the healers’ tent for most of the day, and now the moon hung high over the dark sea. My fingers were red from scrubbing, my eyes were tired, and the pungent scent of astringent was thick in my nostrils. I was weary, but it was a pleasant sort of weariness. When I worked, my mind was free of thoughts, of worries. I focused only on the act of healing, on helping the wounded soldiers as best I could. A bloody skirmish earlier that day had filled the beds in the tent to bursting, yet no lives had been lost. Perhaps the Trojans had been as tired of bloodshed as the Greeks were on that chilly February afternoon.

“Your wound needs to be cleaned and dressed once a day,” I told the soldier I'd been tending to, securing the bandage around his arm. “And stay away from the thick of the fight, if you can help it. Sweat and dirt will only slow down the healing.”

He nodded and stood up, limping away. I brushed the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, letting out a soft sigh, just as Philomela, one of the healers’ assistants, approached me.

“It’s late, Patroclus,” she said. “You should join the celebrations, before they are over.”

I smiled at her. She was small in stature, with her wild curly hair bound in tight braids. She was one of Menelaus’ women, taken after an attack on one of the northern villages of Troy. She’d been brought to me one day with a cut on her thigh, her knees scraped, her eyes wide in panic and terror. I had been the first to treat her, and she had since regarded me with kindness and reserved affection. Menelaus was kind with his women, and he often let her join me while I worked, helping me, and I taught her what I knew.

“I don’t often join festivals like these,” I told her earnestly. “There's too much noise and commotion, and I am not a heavy drinker.”

“What about your prince?” she asked, her gaze darting away before settling on me again. “Achilles?”

The name was uttered quietly, almost apprehensively. It always stung, just a little, to know that the captives thought of Achilles with so much trepidation. His exploits had earned him something of a reputation, as I understood it: the Greeks revered him, while the Trojans feared the very mention of him. Philomela had visited our camp once or twice, and had seen that Achilles was quiet, almost gentle, when he wasn’t in his armour, yet a hint of disquiet was always there.

I shook my head, dipping my hands in the brass bowl that we used to clean ourselves. The water was cold and refreshing when I splashed it over my face and neck.

“Achilles does not much enjoy noisy gatherings like these either,” I said. “He... prefers being on his own these days.”

It had not always been so. Achilles relished the attention of others; he blossomed with it, and there was bound to be much of it if he joined in the celebration. His campaigns over the last couple of months had been met with overwhelming success, filling his men’s coffers with gold and riches and their camps with slaves. The leaders of the Achaeans would toast him and drink plenty of wine in his honour, the bards would sing of his achievements and his skill in battle until the early morning. Yet, boasting such as this was not always met with alacrity. There were many amongst the Danaans that envied Achilles the power of his station, and sneered at his reputation when they thought he was out of earshot.

Achilles was proud, and rarely paid attention to rumours and gossip. Yet, when he sometimes refused to grace Agamemnon’s lavish dinners with his presence, I could tell it was because the leader of the Greeks occasionally had trouble holding his tongue, especially after a few cups of wine. That was when the older man would gloat and boast, often blowing his own achievements out of proportion, in an effort to measure up to Achilles’ greatness, his promise of glory, the prophecy that had followed him since the moment of his birth, his reputation that only grew, day after day.

One does not need the blood of a goddess, he would say, his cheeks flushed from the drink, eyes gleaming, after recounting a story that was supposedly about a hero of old, if they have the favour of one. Would you not agree, Pelides?

Achilles pretended not to hear, not to know. He would smile at Agamemnon with all his teeth and toast him graciously, as Peleus had taught him, but he was still a man. He had learned to hide his true feelings from others, but I could still see how the whispers fuelled his frustration, how they turned him bitter, even when he insisted they did not.

Achilles was sharp and direct from nature; it troubled him when others were not. He wanted things to be simple and clear-cut, yet, here, they were anything but.

I sighed again, patting my hands dry on a linen towel. Philomela was by my side when we walked out of the tent, and into the festivities. The bonfires were burning high into the night, and from the lit braziers tendrils of incense smoke curled towards the stars. Soldiers and their women gathered around the heat, drinking and dancing to the rhythm of the music that the bands were tirelessly playing. Not a few were wearing animal furs, their faces darkened with soot, as was the custom.

No sooner had I walked out than someone grabbed me by the arm and thrust a cup of wine in my hands. I blinked up, startled, to see Diomedes grinning at me.

"Come," he said. "Drink. Celebrate with us."

I smiled politely and shook my head. "I really should be going back."

"What for?" Odysseus was quick to appear beside him, his usual easy smile ready on his lips. "You've been working all day. Everyone deserves a break, from time to time."

"That's right." Diomedes' wolfish grin got wider, his dark eyes sparkling. "All work and no play makes people dull, haven't you heard?"

Odysseus smiled encouragingly at me behind the rim of his own cup. "Have a drink with us. Just because he doesn't join us anymore doesn't mean you can't."

Of course he was referring to Achilles. It had not gone unnoticed that he had been avoiding gatherings such as these of late. I swallowed as I accepted the cup and reluctantly brought it to my lips. If my presence there could smooth those ruffled feathers, then a drink or two couldn't be that bad, could it?

The wine hit my tongue in a rush of heat, honey and spices. It warmed me as it glided down my throat, pushing the edges of my weariness away. I took another draught, letting its acidic sweetness jolt me awake.

My mild surprise must have been plain on my features, for Diomedes clapped me on the shoulder, chuckling knowingly. "That's it," he said, "that's a good lad. Now, drink up."

I didn't need further encouragement. The wine was unlike any I've ever tried; before long, I had drained my cup, and a servant had filled it to the brim again. The wild cadence of the drums and the flutes matched the beats of my heart, and I wasn't even thinking about my tired and aching limbs when Menelaus' arm wound around my shoulders, pulling me towards the writhing, undulating crowd.

In the smoke of the fires, in the heat of so many bodies moving close together, I forgot about my troubles, my worries. The edges of consciousness blurred, a mist that curled around me, rendering me indefinable. I closed my eyes and simply moved to the rhythm, blending into the crowd like a single petal amongst countless falling cherry blossoms, swirling with the wind.

In the depth of that mist, in the midst of that insubstantial territory, I saw him.

Achilles.

I saw him as he was once, years before, far away from the fires and blood of the war, from the intrigue, the whispers, the jealousy. I saw him running down the beach in Phthia, the pink undersides of his feet flickering. I saw the rich honey brown strands that hid in the depths of his golden hair, the wind that combed through them and brought them before his eyes when he turned to look at me. I saw him swimming in the stream in Pelion, the water running down his limbs in laze swirls.

I could see him clearly in my mind's eye, as if he were there. I could see him laughing, singing, playing his lyre in the pale light of morning, golden and vibrant and carefree. And in him, I saw myself.

I opened my eyes as the beat of the music reached a wild crescendo, as the people cheered and sang at the top of their lungs. Cups were raised high up in the air, wine swirling, overflowing, spilling from its confines and mixing with the brown dirt underfoot. Menelaus was dancing with one of his women — Aristea, his favourite, the fabric of her colourful dress tangling at her ankles as he swirled her about. Her laughter was drowned out by the noise, fading away.

I took a deep breath to center my focus, and stepped back, away from the crowd. My heart was still beating fast, and the music was hypnotic, but I knew I had to return to my own camp before it got too late.

Odysseus and Diomedes were caught in the festivities as well, so no one noticed me slipping away. Only Philomela's eyes caught mine amidst the sea of bobbing heads, and pushed her way towards me. She was holding a bowl filled with the sweets that the slaves had made earlier that day for the festival, dried fruits stuffed with nuts and drenched with syrup.

"For you," she said, smiling warmly at me, "and your prince."

~

The music and noisy chatter from the festival had dulled to a hazy, distant thrum by the time I made my way back to our camp. I was still feeling lightheaded from the drink, breathless from dancing and weaving through the endless rows of tents and throngs of inebriated, laughing soldiers. My brow was damp with sweat despite the chilly night, and my pulse still thumped in my throat in a strange sort of anticipation, a restless hunger. I clutched the bowl close to my chest, and hurried on.

The soft, plaintive sounds of Achilles’ lyre reached me as soon as I caught sight of the Phthian banners, fluttering in the breeze at the edges of our encampment.

Achilles was sitting on a bench, my mother’s golden lyre nestled in his lap. His fingers ran over the strings languidly, plucking notes that were brighter than water from a babbling stream, sweeter than honey. In the fire’s trembling halo, he seemed ethereal, very nearly transparent, yet at the same time more vibrant than I had ever seen him, dispelling the darkness of the night beyond. His hair caught the amber light on the flames and reflected it in aureate strands, his skin shimmered like polished gold, the muscles of his arms rose and fell underneath it like waves with every movement.

Beautiful, my mind supplied, as it always did when I looked at him. I had been gazing upon him since I was a child; it still was not enough for me to get used to him, to the effortless grace of his presence, the perfect symmetry of his eyes, his lips. The festivities that had been raging for a day and a night may have well been for Dionysus, yet it was Achilles, right there before me, who looked like a god, one for whom people gathered on wintry nights like this, to drink and dance and fornicate in his honour.

Would people remember him with kindness, I wondered, many years from now?

His jade green eyes snapped up to mine, and the familiar heat rushed through me, brushing away my swirling, distracted thoughts.

He set the lyre beside him and stood up. “You stayed with the healers until late tonight,” he said.

“I did,” I replied simply, standing at the edge of the fire. The bowl with the sweets was still cradled in my chest. Achilles glanced at it curiously, then at me.

“Is there something amiss?” he asked.

Of course he could tell I was different, just by looking at me, without me having to say anything. He always understood so much more about me than he let on.

“I just like looking at you.”

Achilles tilted his head ever so slightly to the side in question, a tiny fox’s smile curling the edges of his lips. He stood up and paced towards me unhurriedly, his footsteps barely audible on the soft earth.

My pulse raced ever so slightly when his finger brushed carefully under my eye. “You’re flushed,” he said.

“I had some wine. At the festival.”

“Ah.” His finger travelled higher, tracing my cheekbone. “Your pupils are larger than usual. What did you do?”

“Nothing.” I smiled. “It’s so I can see you better.”

Achilles huffed a quiet laugh at that, his features softened by pleasure. He always liked it when I gazed at him, praised him. The sound of his laughter slithered down my spine like warmed honey.

I do not know what possessed me then. Perhaps it was the drink, or the moon that hung high above us like a silver coin, or the way the firelight danced in his eyes and caressed the side of his face, but I had to be alone with him.

I took his hand in mine, walking backwards towards our tent. I could not look away, nor did I want to.

“One of Menelaus’ women gave me these sweets,” I told him. “They’re for you.”

“Is that so?” he hummed, amused. He caught on the game I was playing instantly, by reflex. “Then I’ll be sure to try them.”

We stepped in the tent together, the leather flap closing soundlessly behind us. I set the bowl on the low table that stood in the center of the place that we had come to call home, ever since we’d come to Troy.

We stood opposite each other across the table, facing each other, our breaths the only sounds. I swallowed; I did not know why I was feeling so restless all of a sudden, like it was the first time we had found ourselves alone.

“Take your pick,” I said, gesturing at the bowl.

Achilles quirked a fair brow as he glanced down at them, like a lord perusing a lowly merchant’s stall. “I will not choose at random,” he replied in an artfully haughty tone. “You must choose for me. You are my therapon; I know you will choose well.” He was in a playful mood, smiling at me like a mischievous boy; I loved it when he got like this. I didn’t often get to see him like that anymore.

I picked up one of the sweets and brought it to my lips. My teeth sank in the supple flesh of a dried fig, the walnuts within it softened from the syrup. I chewed slowly, my eyes never leaving him.

“How is it?” he asked. “Is it good?”

I shook my head. “Not good enough for you, my prince.”

Achilles bit back a grin, eyes shining. “Go on, then. Try another.”

And so I did. I picked up the syrupy fruits slowly, one after another, watching him. Every time Achilles asked me how it was, I answered in the same fashion: “Not good enough for you, my prince.”

I tried one of every sweet in the bowl, until my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth with the sweetness. When I had finished my thorough examination, Achilles crossed his arms leisurely before his chest.

“So, what is your verdict?” he asked, smirking. “Which one amongst them is the sweetest for me?”

I licked my lips, sticky with honey and spices, as my heartbeat soared. I reached into the bowl and dipped two fingers in the syrup, then slowly, holding Achilles’ gaze, I lifted them to my neck, dragging them across my skin.

“I am, my prince.”

Achilles’ eyes flashed in the half dark. There was something feral about the way his gaze honed in on me; a hunter’s gleam. He circled the table, closing the distance between us in two well-measured strides. I could smell the sweet scent of his sweat as he leaned in close, and a deeper, muskier one; the smell of his arousal. I bit the inside of my lip as his arm wound around my waist, pulling me until I was flush against him.

“Then I shall have you,” he whispered in my ear.

I shivered when his tongue brushed the side of my neck, warm and slick, velvet smooth. My head tipped backwards and I clung to him, holding him tight against me. His skin was hot to the touch underneath the fabric of his chiton, hotter than my own. Achilles’ mouth traced the hollow of my throat, the line of my jaw, the curve of my chin, before brushing over my own.

“I believe,” he hummed, his tongue flicking over my bottom lip, “this, here, is the sweetest yet.” His hands were on the base of my spine, drawing me in, and I was helpless in his hold. “You chose well.”

A soft moan escaped me, my fingers sinking into Achilles’ fragrant strands while he kissed me until my breath was all but gone from me. I followed the line of his neck, his shoulder, undoing the golden clasps that held his chiton in place. I could feel the weight of his waking interest pressing up against my thigh, and I suddenly couldn’t bear the feeling of clothes between us, or anything else; it had to be just us.

I pushed the fabric down, caressing and kissing every inch of skin I uncovered. I looked up at him when I had sunk down on my knees before him, bare as he was, his form illuminated by the shifting light of the brazier. My pulse hummed in my ears as I let my gaze follow the muscled planes of his chest and stomach, the definition in his arms, the strength of his powerful legs. He was watching me, too, through eyelashes that gleamed like threads of gold.

“My sweet Patroclus,” he whispered, thumb brushing over my lips, and in his gaze that familiar fondness lingered, unchanged through the many years I’d known him.

This. This was how I liked him best. When he was naked before me, body and heart, looking at me like this, touching me like this. This was when I knew he was mine, and mine alone; the world could not take this from me. From us.

I leaned forward and wrapped my lips around him, taking him in my mouth. Achilles shivered underneath me, his lips falling open on a quiet moan. His emerald eyes were dark with wanting, bottomless, when he reached down and threaded his long fingers through my hair. I was caught, pinned under that gaze, magnetised.

“Achilles,” I breathed, kissing the smooth skin of his navel as I stroked him, breathing in the musk of his sweat, the scent that rose from him: sandalwood, pomegranate, almonds and earth.

His hold on the back of my head tightened. He pulled me up gently and nudged me towards our bed, and I followed, half stumbling over my own toes.  

My back sank into the furs as Achilles climbed over me, hovering above me. His smile was half-obscured by the trembling shadows, framed by the curtain of golden hair that fell around his face. The scent of the oil he used wafted in the air when he opened the vial that lay beside our bed.

“There’s more I haven’t tried,” he said.

“Is there?” I whispered. I spread my thighs wider apart, sighing when I felt the pressure of his fingers between my legs.

“Yes.” He kissed and nipped his way down, glancing up at me mischievously every time his fingers and tongue drew more shivers from me. His breath was hot over me when he said, “I have saved the best for last.”

I laughed, but the edges of my laughter broke on a strained sob of pleasure. I could feel him everywhere, his hands wandering all over me, the heat of his mouth swallowing me whole. I closed my eyes and surrendered to him, to this blissful, blessed torture. I was helplessly drawn to him, in his hands a mere plaything. Like the lyre he played, I was but an instrument, his touches drawing sounds from me that were meant for his ears alone.

When my heart had been filled to bursting, just when I thought that I would unravel in his hands, he pulled back, climbing back up the length of me again. His cheeks were flushed and so were his lips, his length hard against my skin where it touched me.

I reached up and cupped the back of his neck, heart beating wildly in my chest. “Is there more you’d like to try?” I asked in a teasing whisper. “Or have you had enough?”

“Enough?” His laughter was husky, a tad breathless. He kissed me deeply, reaching for the oil once more. “I’ll never have enough, philtatos.”

I gasped softly when he pressed against me, opening me up. My arms and legs wound around him, as if by rote, clutching him hard, pulling him to me. We were flush against each other, our bodies locking perfectly like two pieces of a whole. There was no one else but him in the world; there was no room for anything else. Just my skin touching his skin, the smell of his hair and the sweetness of his mouth, his quiet sighs in the half dark, and this hunger: these endless wells of aching want that existed between us, this fire that burned eternal.

We moved and breathed in unison, the edges between us blurring once more, our bodies melting into one. I closed my eyes and lost myself in that heat, that pressure, the pleasure that built and built, yet it was still him that I saw behind my eyelids. Even when my gaze turned inward and I drifted, swimming in the deepest recesses of my mind, I could always find him there, waiting for me, his image crisp as if he were right before me. He was a part of me, as I was of him; there was no me without him.

Achilles buried his face in the crook of my neck as he thrust deeper, harder, more urgently. His brow was damp with sweat now, his fingers digging into the flesh of my thigh where he held me fast. I was pinned underneath him, legs spread open at either side of his powerful hips, my hands roaming over the taut muscles of his back. Muscles that I knew better than my own, lines and angles that I could trace in the dark, with my eyes closed.

“Patroclus,” Achilles said in a shuddering gasp against my throat as his thrusts got faster, more erratic. “Patroclus—”

Achilles often got impatient, chasing his finish like a lion locked on to a deer, yet I didn’t want this to end just yet. I didn’t want to lose this warm, melding feeling. I hugged him tightly and pushed him to the side, flipping us both around.

I pinned his wrists above his head and held his gaze as I rolled my hips slowly, sinking down on him.

Achilles looked up at me, flushed and panting, his skin glistening, his hair spread in lazy golden swirls about his head. I leaned down, pressing my forehead to his.

“The fastest of the Greeks,” I hummed, “in all things, it seems.”

Achilles laughed, the sound vibrating through me where we were connected. “A champion in all things, you mean.” He grinned wickedly, yet it wasn’t long before his laughter turned into breathless, shaky moans again, his length stiffening within me. My name poured forth from his mouth with every breath, over and over, kissing it onto my lips, whispering it over my flushed and warmed up skin.

Achilles had never told me that he loved me, and I had never told him. It was always understood between us, a truth as natural as breathing, buried deep beneath our skin and woven in our bones. Yet when he said my name like this — Patroclus, Pa-tro-clus — repeated it like a chant, like it was holy, I knew well what he meant.

And so did he.

“Achilles,” I whispered into his hair, threading my fingers through his. “Achilles,” I gasped when he bucked, arching underneath me. “Achilles,” I breathed, when I felt the warmth of his pleasure blossoming inside me, when he melted in my arms, when his eyelids fell over his eyes like the petals of a nightflower at dusk.

We lay like this for a long while, arms and legs tangled atop the furs. I held him tight, long after our breaths had eased and our heartbeats had found their natural rhythm. The music and voices from the festival drifted through the leather walls of our tent, mingled with the trill of the crickets, the hoot of distant night birds hidden in the trees. Though I knew where we were, what lay beyond the safe haven of our small home; though the weight of a long day of healing death was quick to return to my limbs, it did not quite stir the peace between us. I had him, like this, soft and pure and unblemished like the first time I’d seen him, the first time I’d kissed him, the first time I’d laid with him. No one could take this from me. From us.  

“Patroclus,” Achilles sighed sleepily, nuzzling into the hollow of my throat, arms coming around me to hold me close.

Yes, I thought. I knew well what he meant, when he said my name like this.

“Achilles,” I whispered in return, and closed my eyes.

~

Thank you so much for reading! Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated :) If you enjoyed this one-shot, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have a great day! <3

[samhelleborewrites]

moon kiss.

hi, it's 1 am and I just saw the new champion for league of legends. and I am in love with how they look. but I did fall for the brother the most.  so my mind went into overdrive and came up with a story.  so please keep in mind I almost know nothing about him and just go of on what I know for now. I hope you still enjoy it. 

---

Watching the stars from the mountains was always a treat to behold. The moon shining at it's brightest, the stars adorning the sky aswell. But you weren't here for that, it seems like the moon was guiding you somewhere on to the mountains, little whispers, and lights guiding you. Slowly climbing up the mountains, your hands and knees red from gripping on to rocks and other stuff, but you kept on climbing. This must be it, if the universe was here to guide you to where you need to go or even needed to be, you do it happily, just to get away from your boring life. Pulling yourself onto a platform herself hitting the water, the whispers stopped, no lights seem to light your way around. 

A soft sigh left your lips, unsure of what to do. Do you have to do something... Where you here to rest? Or had the universe something else planned for you. When soft music seems to enter your head. Only to start over after some time, the music cutting itself off and start again with the same notes. Looking up at the moon, her eyes held confusion, why would the moon make her listen to music. Moving around in the water, the moon making the water seem to glow. She saw the platform in the middle.

Unknown to her she was not alone on the mountain, a young man was there as well. He was looking around for a special flower, but hearing her made him stop in his tracks. 'I heard it as well Aphelios. We should probably see who that was. If they find the Lunari she could tell the world.' The brother nods his head, slowly trying to find where she was now. She hadn't said anything for some time so he just followed where he had last heard her make sounds. 

"Do you want me to sing?" You called out to the moon, hoping for an answer to come. Silents. "I'm unsure of what to do now! You have brought me here, what now?" Your voice rings out into the silents of the night, the moon seems to glow a bit brighter pointing you to send in the middle of the platform. Now that you look around, the ground was covered in moon symbols, as two arc ways were over the platform. On the arc ways where more moon symbols, you slowly walked to the middle. when the music seems to start again. "You really want me to sing don't you..." You softly whispered to yourself.

Aphelios found her, the platform where the moon was shining down on as she moved to the center. Water dripped from her legs onto the ground, as she ran a hand through her hair. She slowly start to hum, he couldn't hear the music but his sister could. 'The moon is singing to her, it seems to want to show her something. it guided her here, I'm unsure why but we should keep an eye on her.' Once more Aphelios nob, as he looked at the girl. The light of the moon seems to make her glow, like she was a ghost. a soft sigh left her lips, closing her eyes as she slowly swayed from side to side.

As you took a breath, words seem to pop into your mind, as you slowly began to sing. "Distant moon, so big and bright. Softest silver glowing through the night. High atop, the mountain gold. Sun unseen, the world is cold." Slowly lift your hands to the moon, from your point of view it seemed like you were holding the moon. The moon seems to flicker, almost as it seems that it was happy that you were finally singing to it. "Here I wait, and here I stand. Early morning northern hour hand. Studying, in solitude. Looking for, a hidden clue." You couldn't see it but the water seems to slowly glide up onto the stone platform reaching for you.

Aphelios eyes where wide seeing the woman sing to the moon, the magic he felt coming from her seem to be so strong. 'Such a pretty voice, the moon seems to enjoy it.' His sister whispered to him, he could hear on her voice she was enjoying it too. Her hands dropped to her sides, a troubled look on her face. "I wish, to see this world through my own eyes. To calm, the elders and silence their cries. Because of you, I now gaze up and sing. The lullaby of the moon." The water reached her legs as white lines began to glow on her skin. She slowly turned around almost in a trance, as the white lines creep up her body, slowly reaching her eyes, who were closed.

Slowly your eyes opened, the world seems to be more bright, seeing everything better as the moon began to guide your way again, so you kept on singing. "Found at last, I steal away. Moving faster through the silent shade. Sea of stars, like flowers bloom. Looking for, the hidden tomb." Rushing through the thickness of the woods, but you kept on going, the powers of the moon seem to pull you to this other strong force. When a big door overgrown by the greens of the earth, was there in the middle of the woods. Moving closer you pull away at the green slowly revealing the door more and more. Moon ruins where on the door, as her hand was full pressed against it, it lite up. The green of the earth seems to pull itself away from the door.

The man followed the woman into the deeps on the woods, his sister softly talking to him, telling him the moon was guiding her to a secret tomb who none could enter unless the moon wants them to. In the tomb a crescent blade laying in wait for its owner, to help out the lunari. 'I think to moon wants her to find it.' As they see the door lit up, they knew for sure. Her glowing white eyes, but a soft smile on her face as she entered the hidden tomb. Aphelios following her inside, he felt the power coming from the moon but also the tomb. Her soft footsteps echoed through the tomb, her soft breathing seemed to come out fast, almost like she was scared.

Once entering a bigger room a nagamaki was stuck in stone in the middle of the room, the moon shining down on it. The wooden part of the weapon was engraved with moon symbols and writing, as the blade itself was shaped like a normal nagamaki, only for it to have a row of moons cut out in the middle, going from a beginning moon facing the left to an ending moon facing the right. You slowly walked to it, as soon you got close the moon to seems to glow. Pulling the blade from the stone ground a gust of power was released making your hair going everywhere. The music slowly picking itself back up in your head. A soft smile on your lips you turned around, only to see ahead pull itself back behind the door. They didn't feel like a  threat, more a welcoming person, that you have known for years. 

As the woman had turned around he had quickly pulled himself back behind to door open she hadn't seen him, only to hear her soft voice sing again. "Here I found, the crescent blade. Forged by Rakkor, surely lunar made. Shining down, upon the earth. Now they'll see, I'll prove my worth." Her soft footsteps seem to make it's way back to the door, making him jump up wanting to run away from her. 'Don't worry brother, she will do you no harm' As she slowly came into his sight, her soft eyes making contact with his. She nods to him, a half-moon appearing on her forehead, his eyes widen. She walked further past him, he was mesmerized by her beauty, the moon always seems to pick the once who were graceful and elegant.

Once outside you began to walk back to the platform, you could feel the unknown man follow you. You couldn't help yourself but let your mind wander to who he was. He sure was handsome, but his eyes seem to hold so much pain and sorrow. Returned to the platform you stand at the edge so you could touch the water if you wanted to. "I wish, to see this world through my own eyes. To calm, the elders and silence their cries. Because of you I now gaze up and sing. The lullaby of the moon." The cutout moons on the blade seem to glow as you grip on to the weapon tighter. Memories of the past came flooding into your mind, what the solari had done to the lunari. Telling you to help them, and protect them from the Solari. The moons cries made you feel so much hatred for the Solari. "Condemned me to death. With my last breath. Sorrow and anger. Fill my head." 

The water seem to move around, the wind picking up, the moons light dimming down. Aphelios felt her anger and sadness, him slowly making his way over to her. 'The moon as shown her what happened to our kind, the lunari, her emotions are taking over. Please, Aphelios help her calm down.' His sister softly whispered feeling her presents closer than ever before after her entering the fortress. "Distant moon, so big and bright. Softest silver glowing through the night. High atop, the mountain gold. Sun unseen, the world is cold." Her weapon touched the water, making it turned silver as she slowly stepped into it, the water reaching her waist. He quickly rushed over to her, pulling her from the water, the sadness seems to leave her. Hands grabbing his coat, turning her head around looking up at him.

As your eyes made contact with his again, the feeling returned once more of knowing him for years. But seeing a figure appear behind him making you push yourself out of his arms and away from him. He reached out to him but you backed away. But you slowly called down seeing a woman appear more a soft smile on her face, but her eyes widen as they made eye contact. 'You can see me..?' You nob slowly pulling yourself onto your knees, a confused look on her face. 'And hear me?' You nob once more, a joyful laugh left her lips as she turned to the man sitting in front of you. 'Aphelios, she can hear me! Can you believe it?! It's wonderful!' Now knowing his name you turned to him, a soft smile on her lips. "Sorry for pushing you away, but seeing her behind you made me back away." A small smile was on his face shaking his head. "Are you mute?" He nods, as you softly smiled moving back to him. 

Aphelios looked the woman over, the lines now gone, showing him her glowing (colored eyes) eyes, a soft smile on her pink lips. The moonlight making her skin seem to glow. "So what were you guys doing here?" 'We were looking and following where the moon leads us.' The woman softly said, as she nodded. Aphelios reached for the younger women's hand as he pulled himself up as well as the woman. "Wow, thank you" He nodded as she leaned down picking up the weapon, soon after looking out over the view over shurima land. The moon once more seems to tell her to do something. "Now I know, my chosen path. Higher calling they will know my wrath. Raise my relic blade. I will not be swayed. With the might of the moon by my side." She lifted the blade over her head the moon seems to be blinding for a second, as a moon now appeared onto her upper torso. 

Feeling a hand place itself on top of your own, making yourself look up at Aphelios. 'He says, that you did your duty, for now, tomorrow is another day.' "But seeing what the solari did to the lunari-" He shook his head, pulling you away from the edge of the platform once more. 'Rest is what comes first, tomorrow is a new day.' You nod, rolling your shoulders you softly sigh. "You know Aphelios, the first time I saw you in the tomb you felt like a year old friend, just calming and relaxing." 'Aphelios agrees, he felt like he knows you from maybe a past life. one where you where friends or even more...' You looked over to the moon, almost like it brought you together. "Do you think the moon wanted us to meet?" A silent laugh seems to leave his lips, a small joyous smile pulled at his lips as you could also hear the woman giggle. Standing on your toes, you softly kissed his lips, quickly pulling back. "Thank you for saving me from my own anger and sadness."

He felt her lips against his, quick and fast, but soft and delightful. Her words almost seem to fly over his head, as he just stared down at her. Slowly making her flustered, slowly pulling herself out of his arms and apologizing for stepping over the line. But he slowly places his hand on her cheek, making her eyes return to his. Slowly leaning down kissing her, longer them before as well as pulling her close. Strangers kissing in the moonlight, but to them, it felt they knew each other for so long. Slowly pulling back, a few seconds of silents before she softly laughed pushing her forehead against his. "Strange how we only have known each other for a good 20 minutes and here we are." She felt him laugh as he still caresses her cheek, as she leans into it kissing the palm of his hand. "Thank you." She softly whispered into his palm, her eyes looking into his. He shook his head after it nudging his nose against hers, silently telling her not to thank him anymore.

[vivilove-jonsa]

Hey for the prompt thing 'Dancing in the rain'. Also I love your work🥰

Thanks so much, Anon!

Here's a little Canon Divergent AU for you where Sansa leaves the Vale and winds up in Braavos before heading North :)

****

The plan was to take her from the Vale by ship into White Harbor. The plan, like so many others Sansa had known, has not worked out that way.

An autumn storm at sea brings her to the shores of Braavos, more drowned rat than girl. She has nothing of value save a dozen knights to assert her claim and the price on her head which will do her little good.

The men who had accompanied them find shelter though, a room for herself and Myranda upon an active square beside the busy canal.

“It’s temporary, ladies. Just until we can secure a ship with a captain we can trust.”

A fortnight passes in Braavos while Sansa Stark waits for the right ship to carry her home and hopefully lead an army, in name at least, to reclaim Winterfell and the North.

It rains here, day and night, it seems. Fog, rain, fog, rain and sometimes freezing rain. Autumn in Braavos.

One of the knights has been talking to some girl down by the harbor, a very clever girl named Cat, who speaks the Common Tongue and says she will find them the right ship for a fee. The name Cat brings her mother to mind and Sansa has asked to meet the girl but the men refuse saying the queen might have spies even here.

From her window, she waits and watches. What else is there to do? She cannot readily walk out among others, can she? Her hair is auburn once more. She’s so tired of waiting by windows like some princess locked in a tower though. She’s done more than her share of that in Kings Landing and later the Vale.

“We wait but now we’re only waiting to go to war. We can stand a bit more waiting, can’t we, my lady?” Myranda asks, her lilting tone raising Sansa’s spirits.

Sansa agrees, glad to have a friend by her side with what is to come, and returns to her watching.

There is only a gentle drizzle the evening when she first sees him.

A man of the Nights Watch, she would swear by his black cloak and clothes but surely not. Why would the Nights Watch send a sworn brother here? And isn’t his cloak quite tattered? It is only a black cloak like so many other common ones and he is just a man, no one to Sansa.

Still, she watches the stranger in the square beside the canal from her window seat as he makes his way through the sea of people. He seems to be seeking something or someone. His cloak hides part of his face but he is not an old man. His movements are too graceful and quick.

His eyes find hers, she’s nearly sure of it. His head tilts to the side and Sansa realizes that with night starting to fall and the lantern behind her, she is illuminated for him. Her hair must be quite noticeable if nothing else.

What prompts her to raise her hand and wave? She cannot say but she does.

He raises his hand as well and, by the light of the moon, she can just make out a sweetly puzzled smile. His eyes are still mostly in shadows but she decides then he is handsome.

But then, distracted by her, he bumps into another man and must beg pardon with a gesture. It will not do. The other man seems to be eager for a fight. The Braavosi love their swordplay, water dancing, they call it. Like dancing in the rain. No dance should be so deadly.

Shouts and drawn swords, the clash of steel from the other side of the glass has her covering her eyes. When the steel is silent once more, she looks. The man in black still stands while his opponent is being carried away by his friends.

He wipes off his sword with the hem of his tattered cloak, turns back to the window where Sansa sits…and bows to her.

Silly girl that she is, it makes her giddy when he does it, almost as if he was a knight fighting the other man for her favor. She nods in reply, thankful he cannot make out her blush in the meager lighting.

Six more nights, Sansa watches for the man from her window and every night he comes.

What is he looking for? Who does he seek? She makes up stories in her mind about it, about him.

And every night, when he spies her at her post, that wistful smile plays at his lips as she raises her hand to wave at him and he returns the gesture. Before he leaves the square, he always bows to her, a knight bowing to his lady. She sighs whenever he does it. She’s sure she could fall in love with her mysterious knight in black given half a chance.

But on the seventh night, he is not alone. She watches as a girl approaches him with dark hair. They clasp hands, speak and then embrace. They are clearly very dear to one another. It must be her he’s been seeking.

They are so busy holding on to one another that he never raises his eyes to find Sansa in her window. She’s left feeling most bereft over it and names herself a fool for wishing her knight would notice her. Of course, he is not her knight. She has knights waiting to ferry her across the Narrow Sea and back to her homeland and he is only a stranger.

If he loves that girl and is happy, Sansa will wish them well. She decides to close the curtains though. It hurts too much to make up stories of happy endings that can never be.

Word comes at last. A ship has been found. Cat of the Canals has come through with a trusted captain and her knights are all eager to sail off to Westeros and to war. Tomorrow, Sansa will leave her long watch of waiting behind.

“There’s a festival tonight, my lady,” Randa says, coming up with their supper from the kitchen.

“A festival?”

“Yes, down in the square there. People dancing, singing and drinking in the rain, the madness of it.”

Dancing in the rain.

She smiles at the thought until some sort of madness grips her, too.

Before anyone can stop her, Sansa slips out the door of her room, past her knights gaming in the tavern below and out into the square.

She draws a deep breath and expels it along with all the waiting she has done.

Couples in wet clothes dance and sing in the rain around her. They’re all so merry. The smell of spirits and bodies surrounds her but she does not care. She tilts her head back and tastes the rain on her tongue. She laughs and spins and wishes for a partner to dance with.

She is still laughing when someone touches her shoulder. She wonders if it might be her knight. Perhaps he was here dancing with his long, lost girl. Perhaps the girl would not begrudge him one dance with a stranger.

It is him but without his girl.

“You came down from your window.” His voice is gruff but sweet. He speaks the Common Tongue and sounds distinctly…Northern.

“I came down from my window,” she replies, too happy in this instant to think things through.

His hands find her waist. It’s very bold of him but she does not mind his touch. Carefully, she places her hands upon his shoulders. Do they dance now? Is he waiting for her to take the first step?

“I told Arya it couldn’t be you. I told Arya…it’s not that I’m not happy to see you. Of course, I am. I cannot believe it. I am so very happy. But I wanted you to be someone else because from the moment I first saw you, I…you’re so beautiful and I saw you there so many nights and…”

He ducks his chin as if he is embarrassed while her mind is busily catching up. Arya? Why is the stranger speaking of her long, lost sister? And he knows her! Is she in danger?! Is he one of the queen’s spies after all?!

Panicked, she starts to pull away. “I…please, don’t-”

“No, Sansa. Don’t be afraid.”

And it is then he pulls back the hood of his cloak to reveal himself. Her knight in black is none other than her half-brother, Jon Snow.

Joy explodes within her chest as they embrace. Jon is alive and here. Arya is alive and here somewhere. She is going home and they will come with her.

And yet…there is something inside her that feels like disappointment when she breathes in Jon’s scent and relishes the way his arms hold her so perfectly as they sway together in the rain in their happiness.

Why is that? she wonders...as if she does not know.