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kneelingshadowsalome · 9 months

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Minotaur!König x Ariadne!Reader Theseus is dead. You’re escorting the Minotaur, more beast than a man, out of the Labyrinth. The problem is, he seems to be more interested in what’s between your legs than in his mission of killing the notorious king of Crete… (12 k. Minotaur is not an actual hybrid in this fic. Reader is Hecate’s initiate. Part 1 here.) Tags/warnings: Shameless smut mdni, dubious consent, extremely possessive behaviour, abduction, first time (König & reader are both virgins), hugs & cuddles, washing blood off your monster boyfriend, awkward flirting, semi-rough sex, shifting power dynamics, sexist insults & slurs (the citizens of Crete do not approve of your choices), implied cannibalism, fluffy ending. Mythical AU.

The candle goes out before you reach the surface.

To someone else, it would be the end of the world: to you, it’s only a hindrance, a nuisance, mostly.

You’re not easily distressed. If you were, you wouldn’t be in the service of the greatest goddess of the Underworld. And you’re not mourning losing the sight of your warmly illuminated beast... You’re only worried about what he will do once the darkness descends. Whether he will forget about his vow, whether the baser instincts take over him once the darkness falls.

And darkness is not capable of making you lost: you can always follow the string in your hand. But without light, it’s difficult to predict the Bull’s moves: whether he decides to maim or fuck you against the wall, you can never tell. He hasn’t lived in the real world among people; he doesn’t know what’s right or wrong and what’s expected of him. Even the best of men can succumb to the demands of the flesh, so what power would a Bull Man have against his animal wants? No one ever taught him to respect the gods, let alone the maidens who serve them...

Then again, if a simple candle was the only thing that kept you alive, then what’s the point of lamenting the loss of it? Your life was already forfeit when you chose to descend here.

So you let it go: as always, the greatest lesson in life is to simply let go. Of control, of judgment, of fear, of hope.

He doesn’t say a thing when the light flickers, then fades. The candle goes out in silence, and you let it drop before the remaining wax burns your palm.

And it’s not the absence of light, but strength, that forces you on your knees before even an hour has passed. There’s still a long way to go, and the yarn is like a thin string of hope in your hand, but you’re too exhausted, too worn out, too hungry and too tired to go on.

The Bull Man doesn’t object to your suggestion to lay down and sleep for a while. He has walked behind you in silence the whole day. Or night… You can’t tell the difference; you lost count somewhere along the way down here. The air is stale and humid, and there’s no torch, not a single candle anywhere and even if there were, you wouldn’t do anything with them without a flint.

The horror is kept at bay only through your numerous exercises with the goddess who introduced you to darkness many, many moons ago. You were initiated during the dark Moon, the new Moon, the blood Moon, introduced to the mysteries of the maiden, mother and crone, to the secrets of both the living and the dead. You’re not afraid, but your body still warns you of danger: you just don’t know if it’s a memory from childhood or a reaction to the Bull, panting behind you – out of lust or exertion, you don’t even know. Someone who wasn’t a maiden probably could tell… At times, you curse the fact that there hasn’t been a single phallus inside you because men too possess knowledge. Taking a man into your bed would have initiated you to a different set of mysteries, but now, you are poking blind.

The Bull Man is an animal, you remind yourself. The longer you stay in his company, the more he starts to resemble a human, even if he is a man of few words. How he even remembers them is another mystery: you thought he was sent down here as a young boy. He speaks oddly but eloquently, a remnant of his noble descent, perhaps. Or perhaps he has listened to the people speaking in the Labyrinth, eavesdropped his victims an hour or two before killing them. Whatever the reason, you have to constantly tie your tongue because there’s simply no point in talking to a beast. The less you know about him and his past, the better.

You ready yourself for sleep, but the cursed cold of the tunnels keeps your body awake. Your flesh is human even if your mind is forged to withstand hunger, thirst and pain. Endurance against cold was never your strong suit, and you miss the heat of the sun, the warmth of it on your skin, even the ample light it gives. You, a lover of the moon, missing the heat of Apollo… It’s a joke, surely.

On the stone floor, it’s even colder, the rough, damp ground making your very bones ache. How on Hecate’s name has the beast survived this place?

“Bull Man,” you speak into the darkness, thick like an impenetrable wall and thin like a virgin’s veil.

“Maiden,” he echoes with a dark, low growl, slightly amused by the name you’ve selected for him.

“Are you cold?” You whisper.

Perhaps he doesn’t quite understand the question or why you asked it. It doesn’t matter: you have to swallow your pride and ask for his help if you’re going to survive this dark prison.

“I don’t get cold,” he finally responds.

“Good. I need your heat.”

The silence drags on, and you fear he has misunderstood you again, but then he speaks again, with the same slightly amused tone as before.

“Come take it.”

You’re not sure if you’ve completely lost your mind, crawling to him through the uneven floor of the Labyrinth. Who knows what he will do to you once he gets those arms of iron around you? You’re placing your maidenhood, your whole body at his mercy. And you’re not even sure if it’s a he, if this thing is human at all.

Human or animal, your hand meets the bull’s head on the way to him. He has taken it off, then... It’s not a part of him, just like you suspected. Maybe he is just a giant, daunting man, born from whatever forbidden desire Pasiphae had. Who knows if she only went to a foreign lover’s arms when her husband was at war? Who knows if King Minos has trouble getting his phallus up… These things happen: women get pregnant from their lovers, they do desperate things to pacify their husbands. And you don’t need a bull to get yourself an heir...

You feel his heat before you feel his skin: the Minotaur is verily blazing. He has gotten used to the cold, it seems, his body like a small bonfire in the clammy tunnel.

“Cold little female,” he comments when you snuggle towards him shyly, thoroughly aware of the uninviting chill of your body.

You settle next to him, every muscle in your body tight like a bowstring, your breaths shallow when he gives you a welcoming rumble. Goosebumps prickle across your skin and your throat goes dry, the thick swallow in the tunnel echoing around you like a thief.

Arms like iron go around you, and his body is taut, just like yours, but for a whole different reason entirely. He’s not afraid or nervous; he’s just… big. Pure muscle, his whole body thick, the stock and heat of him remind you of the sun. A miniature sun down here in these dark tunnels, but while you start to slowly soften in his arms, a different threat is already emerging. It doesn’t take long before his cock stiffens against you, and with the scarce clothing you both have, you can feel its every excited twitch.

Artemis… Protect me from this beast. Turn him into a dog if he tries to penetrate me. Let him rip my throat instead…

You’ve never prayed to the Virgin Goddess; you don’t know if she can even hear you from down here. But Hecate would only laugh if this Bull decided to breed you. No mercy would arrive from that direction: she would either send a disease of blisters upon the Minotaur for touching her chosen or then she would cackle like an old woman, thousand times raped.

“Thank you,” you whisper, hoping your kindness will distract him from what’s happening downstairs.

“My pleasure,” he grumbles, mimicking the words he probably heard as a child in his father’s great hall.

It sends a chill down your spine and butterflies into your heart to hear him speak like a polite man of court. And again, you think of asking him about his childhood... His mother, his father, the things he remembers from the surface. How he survived here without water, if there are underground springs here somewhere. Whether he eats humans like they say... If he ever embraced the dead women he killed.

“Can you do it again,” he rumbles against you, cutting you away from your grotesque thoughts.

“...Do what again?”

“Touch me… With your hand.”

His words are blunt now, his speech clumsy. But the way he says it is not an order. It’s an odd beg, more like. Laced with hope and wishes far away from greed. This Bull is never greedy, per se… He’s just lacking. Starved, for so many things that you fear there’s not enough time nor kindness to give him what he needs.

Your pulse flutters when you slowly lift your hand and caress the strong cords of muscle that make his neck. The rumbling returns; it turns into a low purr as the beast relaxes under your touch. Something softens inside you when he sighs from relief. His unbridled happiness tugs at your heart, trying to yank open something forbidden. It’s the softest violation you’ve ever felt: to be held by a giant killer having a roaring erection, while the said killer clearly enjoys your caress like it’s the touch of Aphrodite herself…

You even stroke his face. His jaw, unclenching under your touch; his cheek, covered with what you suppose is simply a wild, overgrown beard.

“Your hand,” he groans softly, “makes me sleepy and warm…”

The cold, uncaring goddess recedes. The burdens of past, present and future dissolve. Softness takes place in your heart; the iron locks give in like brittle brass. A smile plays on your lips as you continue to pet him softly, lulling you both to sleep with your voice.

“Then sleep, Bull of Crete...”

…

You wake up to his cock pressing against you.

Not against your stomach like when you went to sleep – that you could do with – but against your cunt, barely veiled by the thin linen of your dress.

The panic is soon wrestled down with reason: you tell yourself it’s just a cock. It’s just him. You’re simply in the Minotaur’s arms, and he’s sound asleep still; there’s no reason to buck and jerk and scream.

The darkness feels like a safe womb now, but with nothing to lock your gaze to, you have to take a moment to ground yourself into reality. And the first thing you ground into is a thick cockhead, pressing fast into your nether lips. He’s practically at the gates, and you’re lucky he’s still asleep.

It’s perhaps your fault this happened in the first place: you notice you’ve dragged your thigh over his hip; as if wanting him to fuck you in your sleep… You embrace him like Helen of Troy, and he holds you through his sleep like a man in love, perfectly content with napping on the cold ground with you.

“Mm…” The beast stirs, probably noticing how the female in his arms is tense as a rod. “You smell like you want to fuck…”

“No I don’t,” you hurry to whisper.

Gods curse this man’s ability to smell everything from miles away. Blood and humans and, apparently, a woman at her most receptive.

What if he can actually smell the wetness between your legs?

“We need to go,” you slowly remove your leg from on top of his waist, hoping it would go unnoticed that you were clutching him like a lover. You have no such luck: he grabs your thigh and draws it back, sets it safe and snug around his waist while adjusting his grip on you, now hugging you entirely like a lover would.

“I want to mate with you,” he says softly. “You want to mate too. Why go?”

He sounds so adorable when he’s still in the process of waking up to a new day. Drowsy and sweet, voice husky from sleep, body warm as can be, the hard-on between his legs happy and stiff.

“I thought you wanted to kill the king,” you try to point out.

“This is more important,” he gruffs. “Urgent.”

The cock pushes further up and against you, now spreading your folds under the dress, trying to penetrate into your heat. Your eyes go wide as thick need pools down to meet his greed. His body, his cock makes your head go dull for a moment; you feel like you’re not even capable of thinking actual thoughts.

“No, it’s not. We need to get up.”

You stiffen in his arms, push yourself away, and to your surprise, he actually lets you go. Reluctantly and with a hollow grunt, but he lets you go.

You rise with a wobble, and adjust your dress, your head spinning from his advances. You swear he becomes more man-like every day, every passing hour, even. Or is it just you who’s changing…?

The Bull Man is up before you get to ponder on that thought for too long. Your heart and head struggle to find their footing for a moment, your legs are so weak you feel like fainting. He catches you before you fall, the warm, thick arms closing around you with stout affection.

“You need more heat?” He asks softly.

You look up out of habit, even if you can't see his eyes, covered by the carcass again because his voice is muffled.

“No… I’m hungry.”

He’s silent for a moment, probably thinking what he could do to help the situation. You fear he will suggest you go back to visit his “pantry” and eat whatever horrible, half-rotten man-flesh he might have in store there, but he only holds you close to prevent you from sliding back to the ground.

“Hmm. No mice up here,” he ponders.

“You eat mice…?”

“Sometimes.”

You leave it at that: you don’t want to know what he’s had to do to sustain himself down here. You don’t even have a fire to cook the vermin, even if you would be ready to eat even those after another day or two without food.

“Not a long way up,” he says. “We will reach the sun soon. Then I’ll find you something to eat.”

“How do you know that…?”

“The air smells different.”

You sigh and search for the string, your lifeline to the outside world. You can’t wait to get out of here, and with both hurry and an odd dread, you hike for what seems like another whole day. Tension, hunger and thirst distort your thoughts, and you’re sure by now that the time flows differently here in the Underworld. With no small amount of pride, you feel accomplished to have survived this place so far. Even gods have had to do some tricks to escape the nether worlds: it is no small feat to charm the Minotaur and then walk out of here unharmed.

To your knowledge, you’re the only one who has ever escaped the Labyrinth. You haven’t even had time to think about what you will unleash with you… The demon that walks on your heels will take his revenge, not only on the king but on the city who threw him here.

Well. It’s their problem now. Minos and Pasiphae simply have to deal with their successor. The world will simply have to deal with the Underworld’s wrath.

And oh, how Hecate would laugh if she saw this monster prince of Crete escape his prison because of you – the feared Minotaur set free, only because he’s mesmerized by a woman. You suspect he would have his cock jumping for any girl, though. It's not because you're an exceptional sorceress that he follows you: it's your cunt he's after. And it shouldn’t make you feel jealous that he probably gets distracted the moment he sees a better offer walk by.

But it does. In your darkest wishes, you would keep the Bull Man all to yourself. Get him a leash, perhaps... Feed him with your own hands and let him grope you in the dark, watch him go wild from lust when you finally give him access to your cunt.

Many would hardly think you’re a virgin if they took a peek inside your head. But the things you’ve seen and done, the white bulls you’ve slaughtered for the dark Goddess, adorning them with cypress wreaths before slashing their throats open, would turn any woman bleak and twisted like this. For once, you would like to save the bull from slaughter.

When you see the first evidence of light, your body lets out a sigh it has been holding ever since you arrived here. Seeing the sun gives you more strength than any food or meal, and you pick up your pace while the Minotaur behind you begins to hesitate.

“It’s too bright,” he says before you’ve even walked out of the tunnel, now turning into a vast cave, the entrance to the Labyrinth.

You turn around to look and stop in your tracks when you see the fear in his eyes is acute. It’s mixed with wonder, the curiosity wrestling away doubt slowly but surely. He only needs a little nudge, a gentle pull, an enticing little smile and eyes that he can trust.

“You’ll get used to it soon,” you extend your hand.

He takes a step, then another, then another, until he reaches your outstretched fingers, and hand in hand you walk out of the Labyrinth and into the bright morning sun, burning over the kingdom of Crete.

He’s only a breath away from panicking, but covers it well. You wonder if it’s truly the light that’s too bright or if the feeling of being so exposed is what makes him so afraid. Clearly, the vast space opening up before him is intimidating.

There are grassy plains as far as the eye can see, little hills that dot the horizon, and skies so expansive and bright it must hurt his eyes. Goats are grazing under the sun, trees are bending in the wind, the rustling of leaves and the sound of birds calling him to look in all directions as he tries to make some sense of his surroundings.

“It’s alright,” you give his palm a soft squeeze, and the way he looks there under the sun, so big and powerful and able, and still so utterly lost, is giving you heartache you haven’t known since you were a child.

“There’s… so many colours,” he says, looking at the blue summer sky, the deep olive greens, the dirty whiteness of the goats, the flowers upon the grass. A butterfly, flying past, yellow like the citrus that people harvest from a few miles from here. A big blackbird with an orange beak, swooping down to catch a cricket, the slate grey pigeons flying so close to the sun that he has to shield his eyes even if they’re already safe and sheltered under the bull head.

Seeing his wonder and awe makes you look at the scenery so differently that it burns, it actually hurts: there’s so much beauty in the world, and you have always taken it for granted. Cursed the rain and the storms, cursed the droughts, cursed the gods for sending down another famine, when in truth, the world was filled with abundance, of colours, of life and joy… And all you’ve done is worship darkness. Now the darkness is out: it’s standing next to you, watching the view of your mundane everyday life like it’s nothing short of a miracle.

And when you turn back to look at him again, his eyes are upon you.

“What?” You ask, freshly caught in your moment of weakness.

“You are pretty,” he says, eyes wrinkling with delight under the mask.

Gods damn him…

He doesn’t know that human men don’t act like this, talk like this, or if they do, there’s usually something vile involved behind it all. He doesn’t know how to play games, he was never introduced to the lies and deceit of the world.

The Bull of Crete only looks at you with soft fondness in his stare – he doesn’t understand that he should cover that softness as well if he intends to win. Any woman could put a leash on him before another moon has passed, but he doesn’t seem to care. And it’s not even heat or hunger that makes you weak this time... It’s those eyes, looking at you with more and more warmth.

“Nonsense,” you huff without a voice, and turn towards the old road with an adoring bull on your heels.

The cold sigh of the underworld is quickly left behind you as you walk up the old carriage road, nearly grown in with weeds. The Labyrinth is located miles away from civilization, but the people living in these hills are used to the cold cave by now. They trust that the Minotaur will never escape and only turn away their heads and close the doors of their huts when the screaming, crying human sacrifices are delivered to the mouth of the cave. Little do they know that the monster is now looking at their little hills and goats with delight, not bloodlust.

For the Minotaur is fascinated with your world: he has to touch every leaf, every tree, every blade of grass, it seems. The goats are afraid of him, but one small nanny is bold enough to come and sniff his hand. Perhaps it remembers that beings walking on two feet give her apples sometimes, and the giant studies this small white animal with gentle curiosity, allows the goat to smell his hand, only chuckles when the goat gives out a little scoff when she notices there are no treats to be found there.

The vision is more adorable than when you’ve seen children play with kittens, and no matter what you do, you can’t turn your heart into ice anymore. You were taught that the Minotaur is a monster who enjoys torturing his victims, creatures far more helpless than him. Now you see him watching the she-goat with warm curiosity, rumbling softly inside his helm, far from the ravaging beast that approached you in that tunnel what seems like months ago.

You watch him with tender sadness as he marvels at the sky and remembers how he used to sit in the shade of an olive tree when he was a child. He goes to sit there now and examines how the sun filters through the massive branches of the tree as if trying to recall the memory.

He asks questions like: “How can you humans stand this heat?” or “Why is there only one road?” and listens to your answers carefully.

He says he can smell the sea, even if the salty water is miles and miles away, and gets curious about what’s behind that hill, or that one, what about that one… You wonder if he’s even interested in killing the king anymore and suggest that he could just forget about this cruel place and buy himself a sea voyage with that expensive sword. He could get rid of his helmet and ask if anyone needs a goat herd or an able-bodied man to help at construction sites or stables; he could get work from the docks any day, sail to Athens or some other big city, forge himself a new life.

But he doesn’t want to.

He says he has to avenge his mother who always cried when he was little.

More wretched tugs pull at your heart as you approach the city. The lovely summer’s day turns into a nightmare once people see who’s on his way to the heart of Crete.

You don’t understand their screams, not anymore, while only a few days ago you knew they preceded death. The Minotaur doesn’t kill anyone, mainly because he doesn’t have to. Everyone flees before his wake, people rush to their homes and bar the doors, even soldiers slip away to be with their loved ones or run to warn the king if they have any loyalty left.

You’re left to walk through the marketplace in settling dust and tense silence as the Bull Man explores the abundant samples of food on display. He has to have a taste of everything from all stands, but only after he has offered figs, olives, grain, grapes, grilled meat and fish to you first.

“Eat,” he says and shoves a handful of pine seeds your way. “You were hungry?”

“This is not the way to–” you ignore the food only through sheer willpower. “This is not right. People own these things. They sell them at the market, you need to pay for these.”

“Pay? With what?”

He looks at you for a moment, unable to recall what money is and how these things are supposed to work. He probably had his mother’s servants bring him everything he needed as a child anyway, so how could he know?

“They will take your hands for stealing,” you try to explain with softly building despair.

“I will take their heads before that.”

“The next king will hunt you down and punish you,” you rush after him, and when he won’t listen, you seize his hand and finally get him to halt. He looks down at the weak palm around his wrist, then raises his gaze to you.

“Bulls don’t have kings.”

Your attempts to tame him are futile. The things they’ve taught him to be are now being used as a way to escape responsibility, and while it’s none of your business, you refuse to let him believe that he is nothing more than an animal.

“You are not a bull,” you wail in frustration. “You’re a man.”

He hesitates, only for a moment; the gentle, loving gaze makes your legs weak.

“You’re the first to think that.”

Then he rips himself away from you, softly but sternly.

He doesn’t need directions to the palace: he knows he has to head for the most prominent building in the city to reach the king. The grandiose heart of Crete, white-chalked and beautiful under the burning midday sun is the pride of every citizen, even if it houses another monster.

You sigh as you watch him go: the Bull Man, the demon of the underworld, the one you thought would rape you bloody before you get to crawl out of the Labyrinth. The fact that he wanted to kill his father more than he wanted to be born again into a new life wasn’t a surprise, but that he chose to bloody his sword rather than his cock is somehow... insulting, almost.

What actually haunts you is how your insides coil and turn when you rush back to your temple. It’s not like you thought the Minotaur would take you with him. Board some trade ship bound for distant shores, and ravage you ever so softly in the belly of the creaking hull. It’s not like you dreamed of petting him to sleep while you two embark on a new life. But the way your heart twists and wails inside your chest makes it clear that losing him is even more painful than losing Theseus and the life he promised you.

You never even wanted Theseus; you only wanted him to take you away from here. His affection would have been the result of ample witchcraft at best.

He’s practically already dead, and your heart turns to stone far more slowly than you would prefer. It’s just your luck to first have the golden hero of Greece look down on you in disdain, and then witness even the Bull Man walk away from you like you never meant anything to him. Men killing each other is the oldest story in the world, and you want no part in it, but something in this beast has stirred you awake from a long, cold slumber. It’s infuriating that you can’t dispel a simple animal from your heart. Oldest story in the book, that one, too…

But oh, how you now yearn after some cruel, lowly, dirty beast… The Minotaur already owns you, and he never even had to plunge his sword inside you to prove that. Besides, you would’ve been perfectly willing had he decided to take you on the green grass, under the vast sky, while some noisy goats graze around you. You realize that that’s what you expected to happen, and when it didn’t, you’re left more than disappointed: you're left completely hollow. You always find out these things a little too late, it seems… The Bull is headed for the palace and will likely get killed after he slaughters his cruel father. There’s at least thirty spears in that building, and more will arrive when called.

You arrive at the temple, panting and with your body flushed and weak. The maidens at the entrance share a quick glance with each other before turning their fearful gazes back to you. They’re the youngest arrivals, not even initiates yet; one of them hardly even bleeds.

“The King is dead,” you announce without bothering to even greet them, and the girls huddle up together like they’re a bunch of slaves about to get slapped.

You realize you must look like an animal with your dirty robes, dishevelled hair and your wild, alive stare. No wonder they look like they’ve seen a ghost... You basically are one, coming back from the dead like this.

“What?”

A priestess arrives at the threshold like an image of Hecate herself, dressed in robes as black as the midnight sky, but you don’t shy away from her like you used to.

“Or he will be. Soon. The Minotaur is here.”

“How did you… How did it...”

You’ve never seen the priestess in disarray. She’s always composed, cold and distant, but seeing you like the wraith that you are, freshly escaped from the Labyrinth, spat back from the bowels of the earth like the dark gods didn’t even want you there, makes even the greatest of Hecate’s servants a little uneasy.

She gathers what’s left of her dignity and finds her most commanding voice. Sadly, it doesn’t have the power to shake the ground anymore.

“Where is Theseus of Athens?”

“Disemboweled… is my best guess,” you say in a listless voice, then turn your head toward the smell of fresh fruit.

Normally, you would walk these halls with dignity, but now, you simply barge in and grab the first piece of food you find. You ought to get whipped for your insolence, but no one dares to raise a hand against you. The maids and priestesses stare in shock as you eat and drink like a starved prisoner. You’re a living Hecate in certain aspects, your arrival the first toll of the bell of doom as the palace guards sound the alarm.

So…

The Minotaur has reached the king.

…

The priestesses deem it only logical that the King finally pays for his sins: the gods have been offended by the number of human sacrifices sent to the Labyrinth, and this is their way of exacting revenge. You were only an instrument of their will.

After a quick wash and some more food, you begin to feel like a human again. The maids bring you a new chiton, flowing and white: your old clothes are burned in a brazier as if that would help you forget.

And this might be the only place you don’t get blamed for unleashing a monster. You were at a crossroads with the Minotaur, and anyone would have done the same: try to talk him out of his killing spree, calm him down, entice him with a gift. No one expected that the beast could even speak, so your approach was unusual, perhaps, but it worked. Hecate guided you through the tunnels, even when the candle went out, she stilled the Bull’s loins until you reached the sunlight where the beast got distracted with other things. You leave out the Minotaur's attraction to birds, bees and butterflies because your story is unbelievable enough as it is.

But the Minotaur will be slain after he has done his deed: Minos is the one who should be punished, not the city of Crete. And it is only just to put down this beast, a mercy.

So when he appears between the pillars of temple, this time wholly covered in blood, people are bound to scream. Even the priestesses who are used to seeing blood, shriek like widows when the Minotaur steps inside the holy shrine of Hecate.

“Where is the maiden of the crossroads?”

He came back for you, after all…

The boom of his voice is familiar, and yet, you cower on the bench when you hear it. The Minotaur sounds like he’s an envoy of Hades himself, and while you’re not among those who scream and yell, it still sends shivers down your spine to hear him speak like that.

Or is it the excitement, a tiny flame of hope that makes you quiver like this?

“We all belong to the goddess,” someone peeps, the Minotaur now descending down the stairs.

The massive head turns, gaze like razor sweeping across the marbled shrine. You’re so far back that he can’t catch you, sitting behind many bodies and faces, and before you can force yourself to rise, the main priestess, the oldest, most crooked of the crones, steps forth to meet this beast.

“This is a House of Hecate,” she speaks. “No man is allowed to enter unless they are Death.”

The black carcass turns, but the priestess doesn’t waver. If anything, her spine turns into unbreakable metal before this man’s gaze.

“I am Death,” he says, far more gently than anyone would expect. Then he walks past the crone like she’s just a harmless elder. No one does a thing, because even the head of your temple is powerless now.

“She had a red string and a candle. Where is she?”

He grabs the first woman he sees, and you rise up before he decides it’s time to thrust his blade into someone to loosen the tongues of these women.

“Please,” you take a hesitant step towards your Bull. “I’m here... I’m the one you’re looking for.”

The Minotaur lets go of the frightened initiate the instant he sees you. She’s shoved aside with little interest, the blue eyes behind the corpse now solely fixed on you. The way they soften into hazy ice makes your knees weak – that’s the stare of someone who recognizes their loved one among a thick, dull crowd…

“Come with me,” he extends a hand when he reaches you, strong legs swallowing tiles like he’s in a hurry to get back to you. You open your mouth, close it, and look at his hand, the rough, enormous palm held out for you to place your own little hand in.

“You belong to me,” he says with great weight when you don’t speak. It should spark the ire of the goddess for him to dare to talk to you like this… But mostly, your body sings. It tells you to take a step and take his hand: to let him have you, once and for all.

“My place is here,” you utter, all power gone from your voice. All your dreams, all your fears are offering their hand to you with his, and the maidens, mothers and crones of this hall look upon your exchange with the Bull Man in stupefied silence.

“You were sent down to me,” he presses on. “You are mine now. You belong to me.”

Your body is singing, singing, singing.

It’s not a request… Or a proposal.

It’s a god, taking what’s his.

…

You swallow with nothing in your throat and look at the head priestess with helpless misery: she looks back with the eyes of a noxious Medusa, wholly dispassionate to the problems you brought upon yourself. And what could she even do? She’s unarmed against the claims of Hades: Death is now in love with you, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it.

He doesn’t want to stay in the city, as enchanting as it is, saying that it stinks and that he’s tired of the screams. No one wants him here; he already knows that, and the task he was meant to do is done. He doesn’t seem to be much moved by it either, only asking you if there is a place where he can wash the blood off himself.

People become more bold when they see you walk out of the city. Not even the sight of a crimson demigod makes them watch their tongues. Insults and slurs follow you through the streets, shouts such as “Kingslayer!” and “Beast!” are accompanied with curses such as “You are an abomination!” and “Go back to your lair!”

No one treats him as their prince and savior, no one sees him as the man he truly is. And because hatred thickens in crowds, you get your share of the insults as well.

What kind of a woman would follow a beast like him? Have you sold your soul to the demons of the desert, or has Hades himself forced you to be with this monster? Are you behind the murder of their king?

“Must I remind you?” You turn on your heels, standing tall and proud with the posture of a queen. “According to the old laws, the one who slays the king is the next to rule.”

“You led him out of the Labyrinth, didn’t you?” the voices ask.

“Gave him your cunt, too,” they sneer.

“You’re worse than the bloody Gorgon,” they mock, but you have a thick skin: if anything, you take it as a compliment to be referred to the mighty slayers of men.

What cuts through your heart is the filth and hate they spit at him, the man who has known nothing but loath since he was born.

“Hecate’s whore… I should kill you first,” one soldier shouts with spit running down his chin.

The citizens of Crete would never hail the Minotaur as their king, but none can say the deed didn’t prove great strength. Some would even call it justice. He is the queen’s son, after all: he’s more royal than any of these dung-stinking peasants will ever be. He should never have been sent down to those tunnels in the first place.

Before you know it, the Minotaur swoops past you in haste, diving towards the screaming crowd with hunched shoulders and a fiery breath.

“Stop,” you say, and he halts immediately, gaze still directed to the one who called you a whore. The soldiers back away along with the peasants and tradesmen, these poor, humble Cretes who act like they never meant to be so mean.

“Let us go in peace,” you command, voice unwavering and stern. “Or I will curse you all. You and your families, down to the seventh son and seventh daughter.”

That manages to shut them up. The threat of a curse frightens these poor beasts even more than the enraged Minotaur breathing fire through his helm. No one wants rot and puke to follow them wherever they go; no one wants to doom their offspring with illness, death and sorrow. They disperse in all directions and only hiss and whisper as they go.

You spit on the ground as your last gift to these people, leaving the city of Crete with the ever-adoring Bull at your heels.

“You’re even prettier when you’re angry,” he says while walking next to you, voice thick with genuine passion and awe.

You roll your eyes: any man would cower before Hecate’s curse, but this one? This one only gets more horny.

“Perhaps you are part bull after all,” you retort dryly.

“It takes more than one spear to kill me,” he boasts, but you don’t need more proof of his prowess. Surely, people have tried to kill him in the Labyrinth, but he’s survived every single attempt on his life – for that alone, he should be a decorated hero.

The only thing that makes you annoyed, however, is this childish need to prove he could’ve taken the whole city by himself just because some man happened to call you a slut.

“Mother said I’m a monster instead of a man,” he says, completely unaware that your snap wasn't meant as a compliment. He says it like he’s partly proud of it, and you finally sigh and turn.

“Your mother was heartless. And wrong.”

The Minotaur only looks at you with a building passion that goes straight to your loins.

“But you’re not.”

“...What?”

“Heartless.”

You feel stripped naked before him, the way his eyes seem to burn away your poor dress. But the fact that he unearths your most guarded secret, just like that, is a catastrophe of a far wider scale.

You’re not sure who’s tied to whom anymore… Or if you’re tied to each other, the gods now laughing in their wine as they look down at you two: a fierce and bloodied giant following the maiden he stole like it’s you who took him and not the other way around.

You reach the roaring waters of a waterfall in silence, the night wrapping the lands inside a dark blue veil. Stars will be visible soon, and with the moon creeping up to the sky, you won’t be needing candles tonight. The silver mistress gives plenty of light for you to admire your beast, and compared to the thick darkness of the tunnels you emerged from this morning, it feels like a generous blessing.

You sit on the banks of the small, clear pond, utterly exquisite at nightfall. The sun’s heat has turned into a warm, caressing breeze, and you submerge your feet into the water, giving out a satisfied sigh as the cool pond embraces your travel worn feet. The Bull sinks to a crouch some distance away from you, curious about your obvious moment of pleasure.

“Did you meet her…? Your mother?” You ask from the cool water lapping at your feet – how can a simple man make you feel so restless and shy?

“Did you… kill her?”

“She cursed me,” he says, sullen and wholly unsurprised. Time and time again, you are shocked by the hatred his own kin shows him. How can a mother be so cruel?

“How could I kill my own maker?”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “For everything.”

You swallow before such unwavering love. The same man who cursed the gods yesterday honours the womb he came from so much that he won’t raise a hand against it, not even when his own mother spits curses at him. You don’t know if it’s his greatest strength or biggest weakness, but sometimes you wonder if he’s more human than humans, this beast.

“I’m not,” he retorts immediately. “The king is dead. Mother is safe. I have you... This is the best day of my life.”

You turn to look at him. Time and again, the lack of lies and deceit in this man catches you off guard. It’s more painful than any wound, to see how the Minotaur has no protective skin against the corrupted human nature, that he is human nature before it was defiled.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” you falter.

The chiton pools around your ankles, and you wonder if the man even breathes anymore. You know your skin is glowing with the last rays of the setting sun, you’re aware that the water and moonlight play upon your skin and make you look like an illusion, powerful in its own way.

When have you ever faltered…? Back when you were a little girl, you reckon, the notion euphoric and eerie in your bones.

You rise up and undress before him nonchalantly, trying to ignore the fervid stare of your admirer. Unclasping the brooches holding up your white linen dress, you let it fall down and set you free, secretly reveling in the downright carnal stare now glued to your skin.

Ripe for plucking, you think while stepping out of the pile of cloth and into the thin evening air. His gaze feasts on you: the plump breasts no one ever loved, the vulnerable navel down below, the dark triangle between your legs, the secret power it holds.

Heat pools into your core as you watch him: everything in your body turns warm and soft when you take in the utter heftiness of him. The mean, swelling phallus between his legs, the near inhuman strength those shoulders and chest possess. Your body is the complete opposite of him, ethereal, almost, compared to the absolute brute strength before you.

His eyes linger there the longest until he rises too, stiff and dreamy, a beast entirely taken by a thrall. The loincloth is practically torn away, as if it’s only a nuisance he must get rid of immediately. His eyes never leave your shape while he bares himself, and the phallus, you notice, belongs to a human. It’s thick and wondrous, fully erect, adorned with dark curls and accompanied by a set of balls you’ve mainly seen on horses. Big, full and round but unlike animals, they’re covered in dark fur, almost black here in the evening light. Thick seed beads through the slit of his cock from simply seeing you, and the way his chest heaves makes it clear that this man is ready to mate as soon as he’s allowed to do so.

“You need to take off your helm,” you lift your chin, thoroughly aware of your power over him, even if it’s laughable, a miracle that he doesn’t fuck you on the spot like the animal he is. “You’re a man, not a bull.”

His eyes don’t betray any kind of hesitation. He doesn’t seem to be interested in whether he wears his mask or not. He just blinks as if he’s indeed under a spell and nods.

“If you say so.”

The broad muscles flex as he takes it off, and what is revealed to you from underneath the head is both a surprise and a disappointment. There’s not a monster under there, only a man, a stoic, boorish, shaggy male who’s in desperate need of a wash and a comb. He’s somewhat handsome under all that facial hair and knots, actually, not bad at all – if you like your men rugged and wild.

He lets the head drop to the ground with a thud as if it was never a part of him at all, and follows you into the pool like you’re his mother and he’s your cub about to get scrubbed clean.

He seems to dwarf you, even when half submerged in the pond, leaning back with a sigh not unlike yours. If you’re afraid, your body has a peculiar way of showing it: even in the clear, glossy water, you can feel yourself get wet. Never have you seen such strength, not in any man: in horror and awe, you realize he could be a descendant of Zeus himself. As if providing proof to these claims, he looks up to the sky, mesmerized by the myriad stars dotting the vast, unattainable blue.

Using this momentary distraction to your advantage, you reach to pluck a handful of moss from the bank. With this soft little sponge in your hand, you hope to make it clear that this is indeed a bath, not foreplay.

“They’re stars,” you say softly while slinking closer to him. “Have you ever seen them...?”

“Yes,” he rasps with his head lolled back, throat completely exposed. It always hurts your heart to see that he trusts you so fully. You are no threat to him – even if the gods changed the moss in your hand into a weapon of some sort, you wouldn’t pose any kind of challenge. And still, the way he allows you to creep towards him and wipe his rough hide with the makeshift sponge without so much as flinching is heartbreaking.

“I have forgotten…” his voice drifts off as he examines the night sky, eyes filled with distant, glass-like delight.

“Beautiful, aren’t they...?”

“Your world is pretty,” he brings his gaze back to earth and to you. “But you’re the loveliest thing I’ve seen so far.”

You almost freeze upon hearing that. His compliments always catch you off guard, but this time, something forbidden and long forgotten comes undone: a lost want, no, a need to hear such simple words of shallow praise.

“You do not scream... You do not run. Why?”

Your eyes are liquid, glass about to break as you set yourself on the task of scrubbing him clean. You refuse to get emotional in front of him: an initiate of the dark goddess, shedding tears when a horny man calls her pretty? What utter nonsense.

But then he grabs your wrist: not to seize back power, but to prevent you from escaping this fragile moment.

“You are different,” he agrees calmly, then releases you, but you reckon it’s mostly because he misses the soft rubs you were giving him.

“Perhaps I’m crazy,” you breathe while looking at the damp curls on his chest.

Yes… That’s the only explanation for this madness. It has to be.

“Is that why you took me?”

“I took you because you’re mine. I want you.”

“You can’t just take what you want,” you warn softly.

“Why not?” His head tilts a little to the side as he’s trying to make sense of you and the manners of your world. “Don’t you want to be mine?”

You lift your gaze and risk a look into his eyes, stripped from all facades as always. You even catch a passing wave of worry there: he had counted on you being as fascinated with him as he is with you. The hunger behind that want, the need to be something special to you, is a whole another issue that must wait until your head is more clear. Way more clear…

“Perhaps,” you confess.

“I have nothing to give you,” he shrugs, eyes looking slightly past you this time, out of shame or anxiety. It takes a while for you to understand he’s liking you to the goods at the market and thinks he’s expected to have money to be able to keep you.

“You don’t need to pay for me,” you smile, trying your best to disguise the soft amusement in your voice. His brows only furrow as he tries to calculate and think.

“I don’t understand the rules of this world,” he finally shakes his head.

“I’ll teach you.”

For a while, he only looks on with fascination how you rub his arms and belly, basically massaging him with the wet moss. His eyes drift closed when you scrub the back of his neck, the stout erection only getting thicker under the cool water. You’re careful with his legs, not because you’re afraid he’s ticklish but because you try to avoid touching the huge cock already jutting up from happiness. It gives a few excited bounces when you wash his inner thighs, hopeful to get its needs satiated soon.

“I can hunt for you,” he suggests. “Bring you food… Protect you.”

He’s visibly excited when figuring out a way to give you something in return. He wants to provide offerings for your company, your lore, and eventually, your cunt, too. You might be a virgin, but you’re not stupid: of course he wants the soft, wet prize between your legs. A pair of lovely tits to squeeze at night... Ears to groan hushed confessions into, thighs to nibble, bite and suck until you cry...

“What do you think?” He asks, breath heavy from the bliss you’re already granting him by simply giving him a bath. “I could give you my heat. Please you...”

“You know how to please women?”

“No. But you could teach me.”

The way he says it is not shy. Only tentative. A bear, walking on ice and hoping it would carry his weight. One wrong step and the ice will swallow him, spitting out his bones only in spring.

And then…

“Do you know how to fuck?”

The ice holds, mainly because you’re too shocked to even slap or ridicule this man. His eyes bore into you with such unbridled greed that you have trouble keeping your precious pride intact.

“Of course,” you hear yourself whisper like it would be an insult to your intellect if you didn’t.

“Teach me,” he says, ever more greedily.

“I…”

Your jaw is left open, but not a word comes out. A strong palm closes around your wrist again, this time to bring you flush against him. The water laps at your skin, a distant crow cackles somewhere. Your hand is brought to his phallus, but he doesn’t have to wrap your fingers around it: you do it all by yourself, breath locked in your throat as you feel how hard and blazing he is.

“You want my cock,” he says, mouth only an inch from yours. “Don’t you...?”

You wet your lips – a mistake, because his half-lidded gaze darts to your mouth the instant your pink tongue lashes out. You’re in a predicament, but on the other hand, what else did you expect, taking your clothes off in front of a touch-starved bull?

“I’d give it to you happily,” he insists. “No female ever wanted to spread her legs for me.”

Or a leash.

Your fingers tighten on their own, they mould around him. Like a bond…

“Really?” You breathe. “What fools they were...”

The cock gives a full throb inside your palm, exalted to be yours. But only a moment later, the dreaded Minotaur moves.

You find yourself under him before you can even gasp for air: the soaked, hot body of a giant now pinning you on the grass and crushing you under it with ease. The weight of your error is fully pressed against you: he was never tamed, and you were a fool to think you could put him in chains.

The raw scent of earth and musk fills your nostrils, making the stars above you spin. His cock is trapped between your bodies, giving another rich pulse against your thigh. Gods, if he were throbbing like that inside you…

“You make my skin burn,” he growls into your ear, the heat of his skin now unbearable, the coarse hair prickling your skin from neck to thigh. “My loins, ache…”

“Are you a witch?” He asks, and you finally allow yourself to breathe.

If he only knew… But hexes and charms are of no use for you now: the only thing you can do is moan, apparently, as he dives for your neck, planting barbarous kisses on your skin.

Down, down, down he goes, pure avarice driving him to feast on every part of you. You’re too weak to stop him when he searches for the source of your intoxicating scent. Discovering it between your thighs, he dives nose-first into your sex, meeting your core with a hungry grunt.

Your back arcs with pleasure, your nails sink into his back: a funny thing to do when he’s already as close as can be. The trail of crude kisses leads him to your breasts, and you try to keep your whimpers in control, but a gasp erupts when he drags a hot tongue across your nipple. Massive palms close around your tits while you squirm in his hold: he doesn’t seem to be driven by the need to please you; rather, he wishes to study you first, examine how your body reacts to his groping. He leaves your breasts aching and sore, every bite and suck managing to make you wetter and wetter, your cunt screaming for attention by now.

“Gods...” you wriggle on the soft earthen bed, not expecting him to take you with his mouth first.

He withdraws, only a little, but his voice is surprisingly soft.

“Do I hurt you...?”

“No… But this is not mating…”

“Even I know that much,” he says darkly, and grabs you by the waist, moves you around like a doll until you find yourself on your belly.

He looks at you from between your thighs, demonic and keen. The broad shoulders force your legs wide apart when he’s seated there, waist-deep in the water, with you hauled to the shore like a siren.

Not a moment is wasted as he pulls you back to him by the hips: you’re drawn to all fours, a hot streak of cum dragging on the inside of your thigh from the cock that meets your skin. He grabs and steadies it with an annoyed grunt, and the fat tip is shoved straight into your folds, your nether lips parted with brute force almost.

“Guide me.”

His voice is demanding, impatient as he drags the fat head up and down the entrance of your hole, coating his cock with your slick in the process. You wonder if it’s instinctual, if he knows that this is where he should poke and that it will hurt you less if he’s well-oiled. He’s about to rut you into oblivion the instant you tell him where to shove his cock, and the prospect only sends more sap flowing down your thigh.

“There…” you stutter when he finds it, the aching spot that’s leaking profusely. He pushes the head in, not by teasing but by bullying, almost forcing it inside from how tight and unreceptive you are.

“Tighter than my fist,” is his only comment, and it makes you shudder. “I will not last long…”

You wince from the burn, but the rest of it glides in like a dream, and suddenly you’re filled, to the capacity, one could say. He grunts just from the way your womanhood is hugging him, not sure what this foreign object inside you is – is it a good thing or a threat?

“Easy then,” you breathe a huff into the sweet night air, filled with fireflies and night birds who know nothing about the fucking you’re about to go through.

He doesn’t move – inside you, that is. Outside, he crawls forward until he moulds around you, heavy body enveloping you completely. The hairs on his thighs tickle the back of your legs, his chest scrapes your back just so as he demonstrates how you belong to him in every way. But when your cunt starts to squeeze him again, he swallows thickly.

“Does this feel good to you too…?”

You catch faint confusion and concern in his voice, astonished that such a soft, frail body like yours can take his cock just like that. Little does he know you’re still adjusting to his size, thanking all the gods that he doesn’t move yet.

“Yes,” you confess because it does feel good: his thickness inside you, stretching you both gently and violently, studying how it feels to be inside a loving, wet heat.

“Then I will fuck you every day,” his lips come to brush your ear. “Many times...”

You hear yourself whimper, more humble now than ever. No man would dare to take you on all fours, but here you are, like a bought bride about to get stuffed…

He withdraws a little, asks, “Like this?” when he returns with a rough, nasty thrust. The balls meet your mound, heavy on the tender nub you’ve flicked when you’re lonely, covering your mouth while you do it. Both your hands are planted on the ground now, your legs spread before this beast, cunt filled to the brim with his cock.

“Not so rough,” you warn, and he heeds your instructions to the letter until he’s moving in and out with a slow, delicious pace that allows you to feel every thick bump of him. Soaked now down to your thighs, the sounds of your mating is utterly sloppy and slick, and of course he’s curious.

“Are you always like this…?”

“Like… what,” you huff in between the slow, torturous thrusts.

“Soft,” he rasps. “Tight… Wet like rain.”

“No. It’s just when…”

“When you want to fuck?”

You whimper for an answer, mostly because he starts to slip from the agreed sluggish pace. His cock invades you with more urgency, chasing the eruption that must be generous from those thick balls that should belong to a horse.

“I knew it…” he says dreamily behind you. “Some women want to mate with bulls...”

He punctuates his newfound pride with a full, deep thrust, and you wince.

“You’re not a–”

“Keep telling yourself that, little maiden.”

He exhales a hot smile next to your ear, and you’re neck deep in love. Your mouth hangs open, your lids half closed and fluttering from the way he pounds into your poor, abused cunt. Heavy balls slap your swollen nub with careless abandon, making you squeeze his thickness every time he hits the end of you. His grunts become more animalistic with every thrust, and your cunt is a wild thing, leaking and weeping and throbbing until you fear there’s something wrong with you – no woman is supposed to be this needy for a beast…

I’m going to come… You realize in horror as the slick sounds of fucking overthrow even the coursing roar of the waterfall. The knowledge shoots your body full of dark, hot ink; it explodes inside your core like a liquid star, throbbing through your cunt currently being ploughed like you’re nothing but a needy, sloppy hole for him. You’re swimming in so much pleasure that it’s almost painful, the revelation some secret of the gods, no doubt.

He growls when you moan, heavy arm snaking its way around your middle to keep you in place for him. The purr is eager and low, the rumble erupts from his chest like a thick, loving volcano, a statement of how perfect you are. He nuzzles his nose into your neck and rubs his scent all over you while fucking you through it, the divine rapture that leaves your throat dry from moans.

He doesn’t need to be told what it means when you’re crying like that: he doesn’t need to be explained that his cock is giving you ample pleasure. It’s so desperate, how much he wants to both fuck and please you, just own you and fulfill you, that you start to shake, your frail body not capable of handling the orgasm he just gave you.

Your strength fails, and you find yourself on your elbows, cunt even more exposed to him now, the cock pistoning into you with a relentless pace. He’s like a titan upon you, taking pleasure from your quivering, weak frame and the tight wet hole that belongs to it. You’re still in rapture when he starts to sound like broken, wounded man.

“You were made for me,” he huffs. “You were made...for me…”

His voice evaporates along with your thin, adoring mewls, just before he fucks himself over the edge. You can feel the hot, thick spurts, filling you as he roars into your hair, balls pressed flush against your sex, thighs meeting yours in a moment frozen in time.

They can probably hear him all the way to the city, hear what a cunt like yours does to an invincible beast like him… But his cries are only met with silence; the night sky looks back with disinterest, the birds continue their songs when they notice it was only the roar of a mighty beast that filled the land. Before long, he’s groaning above you, using your hole more softly; loving it until the last drop is milked.

When he stops, his whole body is trembling from release, but you’re not given a moment of reprieve. He forces you to the ground with him on your back, the rough, thick body never leaving yours. Coarse beard chafes your neck, his body trapping you completely under him, he even opens his jaw to take your shoulder between his teeth and bites you while his cock is still pulsing fat inside you.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he pants into your ear, angry, almost.

“Good,” you breathe a smile, but he’s not satisfied.

“You couldn’t get enough of me too… I noticed.”

“You gave me pleasure,” you agree. “Lots of it.”

“That was a lot of seed… I haven’t spilled in days.”

He huffs into your ear, astonished and proud that he could do such a thing. You feel him shift to take a better look at you, fingers arrive to graze your temple as if to make sure you’re real, as if having his cock inside you wasn’t enough proof of that. They’re a little shaky, a little uncouth, but the touch is gentle enough, and sweet.

He's boasting again perhaps, you don’t know, but you give him a soft laugh, notice how he stops breathing momentarily when hearing the bright sound.

“I am filled to the brim with you, yes… It will take a while before I can take more.”

“...You have other holes in you,” he offers after a while, quite seriously, in fact.

“Get off me, you beast,” you huff and squirm to get out from under him, but there’s a luscious grin on your face, a smile that tells him you would more than approve of his obscene ideas later.

“This feels good,” he murmurs into your hair. “This feels right...”

He allows you to leave from under him, only whines when his cock gets exiled from your cunt. He misses the wet heat like a newborn child misses the womb, but you need to recover from the recent invasion. Seed gushes out from your hole, making a mess on the ground as he pulls you against him, wanting to cuddle you next.

You wonder if he even knows what cuddling means as you lie there with a sticky mess between your legs and the heat of an entire sun on your cheeks. You smile into the coarse, sweaty body hair tickling your nose, deciding it doesn’t matter whether he knows or not: the most important thing is that he wants to hold you like this.

“Yes,” you smile. “This feels right…”

Something blooms in your chest. An odd flower, persistent and sweet.

The stars above are cold but motherly as they look down on you two: born again into a world that doesn’t want either of you. The only things that accept you now are flowers, birds, the wind and the rain, bees and salty sea, but that’s aplenty. That’s more than the whole of Crete could ever give you.

“Are you thinking about your hero,” he asks above you.

“What? No…”

“Good,” he rasps, so softly now that you start to fear he’s about to cry.

You are more than capable of lying, but Theseus hasn’t crossed your mind in hours: the last time it did, the memory was received with loath and disdain. Thinking about Theseus while you’re draped all over your Bull, his seed flowing out of your womb... What a ridiculous idea.

The reason for his hardly disguised anger is laid out plain before you: he's just jealous like any other man. Somehow, it makes you feel even more glowy inside.You’re my hero, you want to say, but have no courage to spill out the words. He was balls deep inside you mere moments ago, but telling him this intimate truth seems to be too much.

It never occurred to him, then, that you would enjoy copulating with him. He fucked you with the impression that you needed thoughts of another man to make you wet… That perhaps with the help of the image of Theseus in your mind, you were able to come with his cock inside you.

“My Bull,” you whisper. “Tell me your name. You must have a name…?”

His breath stops only for a moment, the heart in his chest gives an arduous beat before he answers.

“Asterion.”

Starry one…

Of course.

All monsters have names, usually the opposite of what they’re claimed to be. His birth is in heaven, in the stars; he belongs to the company of heroes and gods.

“Asterion,” you whisper it out into the night air while the animal an man both find their new home in your arms. “Your birth is written in the stars. Did you even know…?”

“Does that make me a hero?” He snorts, more old wounds torn open right before your eyes.

You wriggle yourself out of his hold, but he avoids your stare. You lift a hand to bring those beautiful Olympian eyes back to you.

“It makes you immortal.”

Perhaps you should’ve known he would be enticed with an apple instead of tethers and deals. Or with a palm, held out with no intent to strike…

It’s lovely, how he blinks every time he’s confused. You’ve yet to see him shy, but if he ever is, this might be the moment… You even catch him swallowing under that wild facial hair, an awkward blob right after that blink when his birthright is acknowledged.

But even more dumbfounded he becomes when he realizes you’re truly and veritably admiring him. When you whisper it to him – you’re my hero – and watch something shatter in him that was supposed to wrench itself free, that’s when he’s truly granted divinity.

Perhaps it was all about becoming animal again, allowing the other to have a sniff. Baring your throat and embracing the instinct to trust. Marrying your wild soul… The deepest magic of all.

#könig x reader #könig cod #könig x you #konig x reader #könig mw2 #konig x you #könig smut #könig fanfiction #konig smut #cod könig

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hermesmoly · 2 months

Note

rate all the greek mytho married couples from most to least interesting (or your favorite to least favorite, depends on you!)

For fun I’ve split them into four categories:

The Really Interesting category, made their relationship everyone’s problem:

- Zeus and Hera (duh)

- Helen and Menelaus (happy ending)

- Helen and Paris (oof! ending)

- Odysseus and Penelope (has a whole word dedicated to their like-minded thinking)

- Rhea and Cronus (tragedy and cannibalism)

- Jason and Medea (tragedy and filicide)

- Clytemnestra and Agamemnon (tragedy and filicide and mariticide and matricide and misogyny and and OH gods-)

- Peleus and Thetis (the arranged mortal marriage blues, but in my head Thetis immortalized Peleus somehow by force and keeps him in her attic) (Because gods be damned if she will be the only one doomed to grieve Achilles)

- Orpheus and Eurydice (mf really went to hell for her and still didn’t get her back :<)

- Hector and Andromache (relatively the most normal ones in this category but still very tragic. Like don’t even ask.)

- Hecuba and Priam (them too)

The Really Cute couple category, bonus if it took them long to get there:

- Hephaestus and Aglaia

- Eros and Psyche

- Dionysus and Ariadne

- Perseus and Andromeda (they kinda remind me of Prince Philip and Aurora which is cute)

- Hebe and Heracles (listennn. they’re cute and important to the Heracles-Hera feud ending)

- Hippomenes and Atalanta (RIP Meleager)

- Philemon and Baucis (one of my fave Zeus myths)

- Alcestis and Admetus (Orpheus and Eurydice but with a happy ending thanks to the interference of Apollo)

- Iphis and Ianthe (trans man rep is good someone PLEASE write about them)

- Tethys and Oceanus (placing them here idc they are cute in my head!! The only titan couple who survived rip to Coeus/Phoebe and all the failed marriages thanks to the Titanomachy)

The Uhhh… Okay Category

- Hades and Persephone (placing them here because while I do think their relationship is interesting AND I find good various retellings of them (excluding LO) like Hades Supergiant, Hadestown, etc I long for more neutral/nuanced takes on the kidnapping, not just by their romance (or lack of romance) but Demeter’s role in the story to be more respected. (It also can’t be helped that HxP has the most over saturated greek mythology content everywhere that people get tired of seeing them, especially portrayed as the “only good greek myth couple” like okay get outta here)

- Gaia and Uranus (I like them, their relationship is clearly important for Cronus’ succession story, but their conflict to me seems so.. short lived? Like you have your son castrate your husband for imprisoning your less appealing babies but now the strife is gone and you work together to tell your son he is destined to be overthrown by his son and telling your grandson to cannibalize his wife as good advice??? Like good for them ig but Rhea and Cronus just do it better imo)

- Hypnos and Pasithea (getting ur wife from a deal with her mom that makes you commit treason by inducing your king with sleep… nothing sketchy about this at allll) (but maybe they’re cute and functional besides that who knows)

- Ceyx and Alcyone (in one version they didn’t do it, in the other they’re just… very dumb to call themselves Zeus and Hera.)

- Procris and Cephalus (eos RUINS lives)

- Hephaestus and Aphrodite (lets be glad it ended bc while they are interesting and Hephaestus did make their marital strife public, I just think they had a better relationship after the divorce)

The Kinda Boring category (to me, subjectively, put down the pitchforks)

- Poseidon and Amphitrite (do they have one myth together that isn’t the Delphin seduction myth… Amphitrite is nice to Poseidon’s worst son. That’s. That’s kinda it. I wish we had more, like how they are with their children or literally anything else to depict a dynamic between them. Especially since they ARE supposed to be the king and queen of the sea. But nope. At least with Oceanus and Tethys they’re both obscure in their personalities so headcanoning stuff is fun to me. Poseidon having a well established personality and Amphitrite… oh dear Amphitrite…)

- Cadmus and Harmonia (they’re a couple in order become ascendants of more tragic humans like Actaeon, Semele and that’s it. They become Snakes in the end to repent for Cadmus’ mistake. Nothing really about their relationship with each other)

- Deucalion and Pyrrha (The Greek rendition of Christianity’s Noah’s Ark and yeah. Thats it)

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the-girl-wh0-cries-w0lf · 1 year

Text

You're waiting for a train...(15)

Come Back To Reality

Robert Fischer x reader

description - Y/n and Cobb are finally able to come back to reality. But Y/n worries if her and Robert in the dream was just that; a dream.

word count - 1.6k

warnings - just way too much fluff!

a/n - why am I actually getting sad how close we are to the end! I know this one feels like the end but we've still got one more chapter left ;)

Previous Part Series Master list Master list

If you want to be added to the taglist - here

3…2…1.

My eyelids fluttered open with the weight of a thousand hours. My body laced with grogginess. I crack my bones and felt the comfort of the plane seat under me.

I smiled.

We did it.

I giggled.

I turned to my side and greeted each member with giddiness. We all sat back and relished in success.

I felt a hand grip my shoulder from behind. I turned to see Arthur shooting me a wink. I placed my hand over his and squeezed it in acceptance.

I looked over and failed to meet Robert’s own gaze as he was locked in contemplation. I realised his mind must be flooded, the overcrowding shocking his sense into silence.

But my eyes trained on my father’s still sleeping form. My breath stuck in my throat. His eyes fluttered ever so softly and when they finally opened, they were tired enough for a lifetime. But they were still bright. And they still pleaded love once they landed on my form. As I squirmed about in my seat unable to hide my excitement. He laughed at the freedom of my movements.

Saito followed soon after. He reached into his jacket to pull out his phone.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

I stood by my father in the queue for passport control. The others had separated off but we stayed together.

His hand slipped into my mine and gave it an affirming grip.

He was next in line.

He turned to me, his face flushed as he was about to divulge everything he could, fearing this could be his last chance. Saito could have screwed him. The clearance may not have been successful.

He struggled to find the words so I decided to help him out.

“I guess you’re healed now. Whatever happened down there it was definitely some form of catharsis.”

“For you and me both.” He breathlessly laughed out.

“I don’t know about that.” His face fell at my sad tone. “I’m gonna need some time. A lot of things have happened down there. I just don’t think I can do it yet.”

“I understand.” He delivered a swift kiss to my hairline. But pulled away with his hand still clasped around mine. “But now we’ve got all the time we need. We’re not running against the clock anymore.” A tear escaped in relief. But I brushed it away before I became noticeable.

“Next.” Was shouted down our line. Dad nervously looked to the awaiting officer. We came together in as miniscule a hug as we could muster before he was sent along first.

He offered up his passport and the officers eyes passed over it intensely. A minute drudged on. We never stopped for a single gasp.

“Welcome to America, Mr Cobb.” His passport was stamped and shoved back to him across the counter. I could see my dad’s frame melt and relax. He moved on more spritely than I’d ever seen. This meant it was my turn and as I approached no worries plagued me. But as my passport was shoved back to me, I remembered there was still just one. And he currently stood at the desk to the side of me.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

I shucked my suitcase off of the carousel. I slowly paced my way back down to the exit, following my dad’s silhouette.

I passed each member and acknowledged them with minute appreciation.

I nodded at Yusuf.

I waved at Ariadne.

I winked at Eames.

I smiled at Arthur.

But I was struck in my place when I saw Robert waiting for his own bag. His eyes were locked on his phone but they briefly flitted up just enough to recognise my frame. Fearfully, I scampered to the side. Taking solace behind Arthur’s frame. He looked down at me and couldn’t help but giggle.

He looked up to Robert. He then nodded in understanding.

He turned around and gripped me by the arms so I couldn’t run from what he was about to say.

“We both know what you promised yourself, but we both know how you feel. After everything,” He trailed off and looked over to where Robert was searching for my frame in the crowd. “I think you finally need to take something for yourself” He patted my shoulder and then unceremoniously shoved me towards Robert. I stilled but then ran back to place one last kiss on Arthur’s cheek.

Well I guess there was no turning back now.

I skipped up hoping speed would remove my desire to turn back. I tapped his shoulder and he turned around.

“I just wanted to say I heard about your father and I wanted to offer my sympathy. You must miss him?”

Our eyes finally met unadulterated and we both were allowed to show as much desire as we could.

“Have we met? You look awfully familiar.” The question no longer filled me with dread. I tucked my hair behind my ear and giggled at his dulcet tone.

“I’d like to think I’d remember someone like you.” I flirted back. He laughed but his eyes still raked mine for familiarity. I shook out to start again. “The plane. I was the wall you crashed into.” He laughed in memory and seemed to relax upon this declaration.

“Robert Fischer.” He held out his hand and I shook it. I couldn’t believe how soft his skin was. “But seeing as you already mentioned my father you already knew that so forget what I said it was stupid.” He broke his hand away and mimicked shooing. His body was racked with nerves. So I clasped his hand once again.

“Y/n Cobb. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” He breathed out through a smile. “Beautiful.” He whispered before his mind could catch up.

“I’m sorry?” I questioned, thinking I had misheard.

“Oh sorry it’s just that I think you’re very beautiful but there were more eloquent ways to express it.” He once again began to flap his hands about. He seemed embarrassed but I found it endearing.

“Anyways it was lovely to meet you.” I declared and quickly turned, secretly hoping he would stop me.

“Wait!” Told you. “Can I get your number?”

I turned back around but didn’t stop walking as I shouted back.

“I gave you my name. If you’re as powerful as you look you’ll find me by tomorrow.”

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

I caught up to my dad as he conversed with grandad. I fidgeted as I approached, nervous about meeting his eyes for the first time in years. Instead he took my hands away from their movement and pulled me into a bone crushing hug. Tears burst out and it was the only conversation I needed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

We arrived back to the home I had struck from my memory. Fearing it would sting too much.

We both got out, our steps tipping on the edge.

The walk inside felt a lifetime and it seemed the buzzing of life resumed within my mind once again.

We stood as strangers in our own living room. My eyes flitted over every surface to commit it to my mind.

Grandad approached the garden.

“James! Philippa!”

The two innocent frames finally turned from their play and I laughed through tears when I got to meet their beautiful eyes once again.

They ran forward. Jumping into the awaiting arms of their father and sister. James launched into me whilst my dad swung Philippa around. I sunk my head into James’ neck and just relished in feeling him close. We eventually swapped and I offered Philippa the piggy backs she had loved. She began playing with my hair from behind, slicking it through into loose braids. But she gave up and instead felt she’d be more at peace with her arms locked tightly around my neck and her cheek next to mine.

A thousand photographs could never capture the love of that single moment.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

I awoke and stretched in the sheets that had been left since my last day. They had been washed, obviously, but grandma had tried to keep my room as untouched as possible.

My bones melted from the deepest sleep I had ever had. For the first time I had slept unaided and it had cured every ache in my chest.

Suddenly my door was thrown open and I looked up in time to see James launch himself onto body. He cuddled into my side and I threw my arms around him, squeezing him.

“Good morning, Jamesy.”

“There’s a man here.” His voice, ladened with sleep, informed. I tensed.

“He’s got a really fancy car and suit and he asked for you.”

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

My bare feet plodded across the cold wooden floor. I shuddered in my shorts and tank top. I opened the door. And there I was greeted with Robert, in his perfectly tailored suit, stood in front of his car, that I am assuming he didn’t drive himself due to the man stood to the side.

A smile brushed across his face when I finally entered his sight.

“Do you have any idea how many Y/n Cobbs there are in L.A.?” He declared with perfect practise.

“Well, I didn’t want to make it easy for you.” I teased back whilst carefully making my way to him across the stones.

We were now inches apart. Just gazing into each other.

“So did I pass the test? Am I powerful enough to take you out on a date?” He toyed using my previous taunt. I blushed under his intense gaze. My hair fell in front of my face but he carefully brushed it back behind my ear.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked and he smiled so brightly.

From inside the house my dad watched on from the kitchen window. His morning coffee clasped in his hand. Like me, his previous attire was forgone for a soft pyjama top and checkered pants. He looked onto his daughter but once he recognised the light which oozed from her frame, he merely relented, well as much as any father can, and smiled.

“You would’ve been proud of her, Mal.”

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

taglist: @jonsncws @h-l-vlovesvintage @theethy @fashionki11a @felicity1994 @bearchermer @idkyoutellmesmh @mimimarvelingmarvel @butterfly-lies-chase-them-away @neotanpopper @deliriouslybi @folklorde24 @thefandomdiaries07 @viarosemcmissile @noirrose21-blog @thepoeticfirefly @xoxo-gothic-girl @skeletonwrite @jellyzelek @kaylamarie306-blog @bloodcanbehot @lazybot @raineeace @thearieunhinged @multifans-things @queenofterrasen418 @bey0ndne0 @justanotherkpopstanlol @iamliterallyspidergwen @frozenhuntress67 @alice2612

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mercurytojupiter · 8 months

Text

the labyrinth - chapter one

a/n: do you guys have any idea how hard it is to get my friends to beta for saltburn?

warnings: farleigh being farleigh, which includes underage drugs, drinking, cigarettes and sex 18+

fic summary: ariadne gavin and her childhood best friend turned enemy return to saltburn for the last time

Ariadne is twenty-one now, and can hardly recall the last civilized conversation she had with Farleigh Start while sober. Everything about him is grating. She can't even imagine how he used to be her best friend.

He bites his lip as he throws an arm around his girl-of-the-week, whose name has come and gone from Ariadne's mind so quickly it was like she'd never heard it at all. Alicia? Felicia? She doesn't know and doesn't care. She doesn't. And she absolutely cannot smell the mix of his citrus and sandalwood cologne - a signature scent that they had picked out together when they were twelve, and yes, hers was the matching, feminine version of the same collection - and the sharp tang of cigarettes. She is not looking at his hair and thinking about how he's using the wrong conditioner because it's frizzing, and probably not even wearing his durag since he's waking up in a different bed every morning.

She's not paying attention to any of that.

She sits comfortably on India's lap, laughing breathily at whatever joke the girl just made. She doesn't know and doesn't care, but India tightens her grip and presses a red lipstick print into her neck, she takes another hit off of her blunt and waits for Farleigh to fade away.

Ariadne and India aren't dating, but they are fucking. Poor replacements for the two boys at the table, but replacements nonetheless.

Besides, if Ariadne had learned one thing during her education, it was that boys got off on girls making out. She liked it personally, but she knew some girls did it just to catch Felix's eye. Their loss, Felix didn't find Ariadne hot so he found none of the girls she kissed hot either. India has yet to learn this lesson.

Felix is talking about how some nerd was his hero or something because of the flat tire on his bike, Ariadne doesn't know and certainly doesn't care when the nerd himself catches Felix's eye.

Ariadne takes one look at the man and knows that Felix is going to string the poor boy along for months without even realizing it. Or, maybe he did. Ariadne doesn't care. She doesn't care much about anything these days, and when she does, she takes another hit, another shot, another something until the world fades again.

When she's sober and has no homework, she remembers to care about Farleigh, so she makes sure those two states never occur at the same time.

Against her will, she notes the way Farleigh's jaw tightens when Oliver Whatshisface approaches the table. This must be Oliver "Thus" Quick from his tutoring sessions.

Ariadne snorts as Farleigh shifts in discomfort and sinks back again as the conversation turns to who Ollie is, what college he's in, and other shit she wouldn't even care about sober.

Her attention tunes back in when the shot chant begins.

"Jagerbombs!" She and Farleigh demand at the same time. She shoots him a look of annoyance.

Farleigh makes a low rumble in his throat that only she knows to watch for. "It's your round, man!"

"I should go to bed," Oliver mumbles, suddenly green.

Farleigh shakes his head and curls entrancingly, so much so that she almost forgets to pay attention to what he's saying. "No, no, no, no. You can't snake out of your round."

Oliver squirms in his seat. Something about him is offputting, now that Ariadne's finished her blunt and is coming down from the high. "I'm not," the boy mutters.

"It looks like you are." Farleigh laughs, but Ariadne knows he's not joking. She knows that the alarm bells in her head are going off in his, and even more so, she senses his competitive streak flaring up.

The table boos except Felix, who seems to sense Oliver's unease. Ariadne rolls her eyes. Ever the angel, their Felix.

He's going to get himself killed that way. It's unnatural to Ariadne that anyone could be as trusting as he is.

"Okay, okay." Oliver concedes. Maybe Ariadne's imagining the way he seems to sneer at Farleigh as he gets up.

Oliver manages to get to his feet and heads for the bar, and Ariadne's final assessment begins to click into place. This kid was a gold-digging little weasel, but probably too weak to do any real damage, except for Farleigh, who seemed to be pissed off by the dude's very existence.

"Farleigh," Felix scolds.

"What?" Farleigh fakes innocently. She sees the way his round eyes widen and his lips open just enough that even India's head falls onto her palm in adoration. There's no denying that Farleigh is pretty.

"Just cut him a break, mate." Felix pleads.

It's not going to work. Whenever Felix asked any of them to be nice to his strays, they always got meaner. Her and Venetia included.

For example, poor old Eddie last year.

"What?" Farleigh repeats lower.

He'd never liked receiving orders from the Cattons. When they were younger, she might have soothed him back down, but it was no use now. She couldn't even if she wanted to.

The crack had become a canyon, just like her dad had foretold.

"That round's gonna cost a fucking fortune." Felix continues.

"Pub rules, Felix." Farleigh grins.

Silently, she agrees, but she decides she can't be here anymore. Farleigh's pretty, white and fox-like smile, had very suddenly become too much for her.

"I'm off." She declares suddenly, sitting up. The group groans and complains good-naturedly, and she watches Farleigh stare at her with an intensity she had grown used to.

She sits in her car for twenty minutes, smoking a cigarette and trying to pretend every time she's with Farleigh she can't feel him in her skin when she hears a tap-tap-tapping on her passenger window.

The man himself, grinning his evil grin.

She can't help herself. She unlocks the car.

"There you are, pet! I looked out the window and I saw you hadn't even driven away! How weird is that, hm?" He teases in that tone which he only takes with people he can't stand. She'd never imagined she'd be on the receiving end of it.

She takes another long drag of her cigarette. "You used to hate when they called me that. You almost broke Felix's nose over it."

"Pass." Farleigh demands. She hands him the cigarette and he puffs it gently. "You gave a shit about me then too. Venetia called me a dog and you fucking bit her. At fourteen."

"I was a weird fucking kid," Ariadne mumbles.

"What the hell happened to us?" Farleigh asks. His long fingers twist a ring, which she deciphers as nerves. She hates that she knows that. Because she wonders, if they aren't friends, and they aren't lovers, why does she know him better than she knows herself? Why does she think about the little things he's done since they were children and worry about his health? Why does she make sure with a glance that he's eating well?

What the hell happened, indeed.

Ariadne knows exactly what happened to them. She had a crush on someone incapable of loving her back and took the lowest of all low roads in her envy. She doesn't say that. She just shrugs. "I dunno, Far. I really don't."

Farleigh leans across the console, palm resting on her cheek, and kisses her.

For a moment, Ariadne sinks deep into the feeling. How many years had she craved his affection? How many times had she let him ruin her life just for a chance of this? His soft, plush lips on hers, their foreheads pressed against each other, his hot, warm tongue twirling with hers. It felt beautiful and religious and, above all else, right. Just fucking right. Like this was how it ought to have been all along.

But then she realizes that this isn't what she was waiting for. She pulls away, gasping.

"My dorm or yours?" Farleigh asks breathlessly.

Ariadne wants to cry. She doesn't want this. She wants him, but she wants all of him, not a night like he gave everyone else.

She shakes her head. "I can't. I can't, I-"

She scrambles for anything to say that isn't "I like you, and I've had a crush on you since we were seven."

"You can't cheat on Alicia." She settles on instead.

"I don't give a fuck about Alicia!" He huffs.

Ariadne sobs. "I know! I know and that's the problem, Far. You used to be so sweet. You used to love everyone and you would never hurt someone's feelings without a reason and I don't even recognize you anymore!"

Farleigh stares at her. "Is that why you stopped talking to me? Because I'm too mean, because newsflash, princess, you're not exactly all sunshine anymore either."

"I stopped talking to you because of Arabella Vaillancourt." She whispers before she can stop herself. Why would she say that? He's going to know exactly how immature and obsessed she is and-

Farleigh scrunches his nose. "Who?"

Ariadne bangs her head against her steering wheel. "You don't even remember. You shattered my worldview and it was so insignificant you don't even remember."

"I-"

"Get out of my car, Farleigh," she begs. She wishes it had venom in it. She wishes she had yelled or something. Instead, all there is left is exhaustion and heartbreak.

He doesn't argue, and that hurts even worse.

She doesn't speak to him again until graduation. Steals glances at him sometimes, after he breaks things off with Alicia, and shares twin looks of annoyance every time Oliver does something irrevocably stupid, but never words.

She misses it. Even arguing with him had been better than not having him at all.

Until, suddenly, on the last day of term as she packs her things, Farleigh bursts through her door.

"Felix invited Oliver to Saltburn." He says like he's announcing a death.

Ariadne groans. "You've got to be fucking kidding me, Start."

"He's worse than Eddie from last year," Farleigh complains, throwing himself on her bed like they're fourteen again.

Ariadne nods. "Like, times ten. Am I the only one who can tell that this kid is fucking insane?" She whines.

"No," Farleigh hums competitively. "I know it too."

"Shut up, this isn't about you," Ariadne commands.

Farleigh holds his hands up in the air in surrender before he gets distracted by her bookshelf.

"Is this that old copy of Pride and Prejudice I got you?" He asks.

Ariadne shrugs. "Yeah. I wasn't going to get rid of a perfectly good novel just because I was mad at you."

"Was?" Farleigh grins.

Ariadne sighs. "Am." She amends. "You are a mistake and a scourge on the earth."

"And," he licks his lips, "The first friend you ever had."

She doesn't dignify that with a response and sets about finishing packing her clothes.

"Do you ever miss Bel-Air?" He asks suddenly.

Ariadne closes her eyes and can almost smell the sea salt of Malibu Beach. Remember the small staff of her home rather than the expansive staff at Saltburn.

She also remembers her and Farleigh's mothers at the mini-bar drinking themselves into oblivion and her father yelling at her to be perfect and finds she even misses that too.

"Every day. You?"

"Yeah," Farleigh says, suddenly sounding very small.

He perks back up. "Arabella Vaillancourt was the girl I lost my virginity to at prep school," he declares proudly.

Ariadne bites back a smile. "Good. Now prove to me you've changed since then."

Farleigh practically skips out of her room.

Later that day comes the six-hour night drive back up to Lowick from school. Ariadne cherishes the drive. It's the only time she spends with the Cattons now when all of them are sober.

Venetia stretches her arms, as catlike as ever. "So, what're we going to do about the O-word?"

"Orgasm?" Ariadne guesses.

Venetia smirks. "Maybe for Felix, but I meant Oliver."

"Dad didn't get you the flat in town so you could be a bloody spy, y'know." Felix huffs.

Venetia pats his cheek. "But he never said it wasn't."

"I don't want to fuck him," Felix says sternly.

Venetia raises an eyebrow. "Then why the fuck did you invite him?"

Ariadne sighs. "I wish I fucking knew, Vee."

"Ari and I agree; the dude's a fucking creep," Farleigh says.

"I swear to god I saw him watching me change. And did you know he almost fucked Annabelle but he kept bringing you up and that's why she stopped hanging around?" Ariadne complains.

"Wait, what was that?" Farleigh raises a hand.

Ariadne doubles back. "He tried to fuck Annabelle. Little weasel-freak."

"I think he meant the part about Ollie watching you change, Pet, which I don't believe. He's gone through a lot. Did you know his dad died last week, right before exams?" Felix sighs sadly.

Ariadne rolls her eyes. "He's such a little snake I wouldn't be shocked if that was a lie. And I'm not kidding, I straight up saw him outside my bedroom window just staring at me."

"God, he deserves a good fuckin' punch, maybe it'll set him straight," Farleigh mutters. He's seething, and for once, Ariadne can't even tell why.

"Well, clearly not straight if he's hanging off Fi like you guys say," Venetia snickers.

They all laugh - even Felix- and the topic shifts to god-knows-what.

Ariadne scoots closer to Farleigh in the backseat, feeling like she did that first summer on this road.

On the first day at Saltburn, while they await Oliver-the-Golddigger's arrival, Ariadne holes herself up in her room to avoid running across the Weasel.

Ariadne only ever reads Pride and Prejudice at Saltburn. It is her yearly reminder that love is fickle and takes time and sometimes cannot be seized at all.

On her eighteenth birthday, she had gone with Vee to get the words "from admiration to love; from love to matrimony," along her wrist. Once, she had told Felix that the only people who understood her were him and Elizabeth Bennett.

A knock at her door has her scrambling up. "Dinner's in an hour."

She's shocked Farleigh came for her instead of Vee or Felix.

Farleigh leans against her doorway, already in his slacks and button-down, though his bowtie is disastrously loose.

"How'd you know to get me?" She hums, opening her closet.

Farleigh shrugs. "You always read when we're here. Figured you might lose track of time."

Sometimes she thinks that he must observe her as much as she does him.

"Is this a part of me telling you to show me you've grown?" She asks, pulling her tee-shirt off to slip on the black, floor-length dress for dinner.

Farleigh whistles lowly. "Maybe. Or maybe I thought it was unfair that Oliver saw you naked before me."

"You jealous bitch." She snarks. "Zip me?"

He strides across the room towards her - it doesn't take long, because he's always been much taller than everyone except Felix - and slowly zips her dress up. His fingers barely ghost over her skin and her whole body shudders.

"You look good, Gavin." He mutters.

She turns and fixes his bowtie. "Back at ya, Start. Y'know, you'd be gorgeous if you could keep your mouth shut."

"How will I lick Uncle James' boot, then?" He hums sarcastically.

She kisses his cheek. "You're improving, you should know." She pats his chest.

She walks past, but she knows he pumps his fist in the air from the sound of his clothes rustling.

Loveable damn idiot.

Dinner is an absolute bore. Elspeth gushes over Oliver, Poor Dear Pamela retells her sob story, and Venetia takes two bites of her dinner. Oliver is wearing one of Felix's suits. she can tell, the arms are too long, and the cufflinks are some old ones he had gotten for his sixteenth birthday.

She says nothing but shares a long glance with Farleigh. He rolls his eyes and she snickers.

Farleigh follows her up to her room. She was expecting it, to be fair.

He undoes his tie and throws it across the room before releasing the top few buttons of his shirt.

"Zipper." She reminds him. His lithe fingers are skimming her waist and her back, all the way up to the top of the zipper, and then back down again.

She throws on a tee shirt. "Go grab some house clothes from your room." She huffs. "Your hair has been bothering me since Oxford 'cause you've been doing it alone, I've got to do something about it."

He exits and returns in a tee shirt of his own and a pair of Fila sweatpants.

Ariadne missed this more than anything. The feeling of churning her fingers through his scalp. The way he simply relaxed into her palms. She loves it. She loves him.

Oh. Oh fuck. She loves him. She doesn't just like him, or have a crush, or want to fuck him out of her system, as she had been insisting since she was a kid. She loves him.

She breathes deeply, finishes his hair, and wraps it up in his durag. "When your curls pop back tomorrow, you'd better thank me."

He snorts. "Yeah, sure. Night, Ari."

"Night, Far." She watches him close the door to his room across the hall and scrambles over to Venetia's, swinging the door open.

Venetia is on the bed, painting her nails. "What?"

"I'm in love with Farleigh," Ariadne whispers, still shocked.

"Sorry," Venetia said automatically.

Ariadne slows her breathing to be heard. "I'm-"

"No, I heard you." Venetia interrupts. "I just think it's unfortunate."

Ariadne lays down beside Venetia and allows the girl to pet her hair. "What am I going to do?"

"Seduce him," Venetia says simply, petting and swirling a curl off Ariadne's head.

Ariadne groans, rolling away. "It's not that simple and you know it! I don't just want to fuck him, if I did I would have said so."

"So what, you want to marry him? Because I'll tell you now that's a bad idea." Venetia hums.

"No! Well, maybe? I don't know!" Ariadne whines

Venetia pins Ariadne to the bed. "Do not do anything stupid until you've decided what you want from him. I mean it, Pet."

Ariadne shrugs her off. "I'm not going to hurt him." She mumbles.

Venetia giggles. "Wasn't him I was worried about, Newmo."

Ariadne climbs off the bed, flipping off Venetia. "I'm going to sleep. Night, Vee."

"G'night Pet!" Venetia grins.

When the morning rolls around, Ariadne stretches out of bed at first light, throwing on a pair of house shorts and a cropped tank top. She would never have the old money urge to waste her nice silken robes on a simple breakfast at Saltburn.

She waves hello to Miss Portia, the maid, as she makes her way down.

"Morn' Liam, Joshie." She grins.

The two footmen wave to her. "Good Morning, Miss Ariadne."

Liam clears his throat. "Your boyfriend's already at breakfast."

"Oh fuck off, you nosy little-" Ariadne starts, but silences before Felix can pass them.

"Enjoy Breakfast, Ma'am," Liam grins.

Ariadne scrunches her nose and blows a raspberry at him before she makes her way to the table.

Farleigh's curls look decidedly better, she notices smugly, and she knows he's aware. He's already holding a cup of coffee and is probably the only one in the house who takes coffee instead of tea beside her.

"G'morning, guys." She hums. Everyone gives her similarly apathetic greetings. Felix looks like he fell out of bed.

She's halfway through her scrambled eggs when Oliver makes his way down the stairs. "Morning."

She waves, zoning out. Weasel.

"You sleep well, mate?" Felix asks, leaning a little over the table to look at Oliver closely. From an angle where she knows at least Farleigh and Felix can see her, she pokes her cheek with her tongue and pokes her finger in the air, mimicking a blowjob. Farleigh snorts so hard that coffee almost shoots out of his nose.

"Uh, yeah," Oliver mumbles. He's so mumble-y. It's grating.

"Hey, Oliver, have some breakfast." Felix coaxes.

Ariadne looks at Farleigh and rolls her eyes hard. She watches him smirk and feels a flutter of pride at the effect.

Duncan places Felix's boiled eggs on the side of his breakfast platter and retreats quickly.

Ariadne raises a hand and awkwardly points to her coffee cup, and a maid - Amelia, she thinks, the nice ginger one - pours her a new cup and then places the appropriate amount of creamer in it.

Ariadne silently mouths thank you and shakes her hands in a prayer-like stance. Amelia blushes and disappears from the room as if she were never there at all.

"Can I have a full English breakfast too, please?" Oliver asks quietly.

Ariadne looks at the table housing the food, and then to Farleigh, and then at Oliver the Weasel, and then to Farleigh again. She watches his eyes follow the same path and dip down to the magazine in his lap to keep from laughing again.

"Breakfast is on the side, darling," Elspeth says helpfully. "Just help yourself."

"How would you like your eggs?" Duncan asks, returning.

"It’s fine. I can get them." Oliver stammers. She rolls her eyes. Didn't he just see Felix's eggs delivered onto the plate?

"Not the eggs. The eggs are made for you." Farleigh corrects.

Felix gives him a sharp look, but in Farleigh's defence, he wasn't even being mean that time.

"Exactly. And everything else is on the side." Auntie Elspeth finishes.

"Fried over easy, please," Oliver says queasily.

"Ollie, we were just talking about the Shelley biography." Felix interjects, sweeping in to rescue the weasel.

Ariadne was sure they were, but she surely wasn't paying the conversation much mind. Until Oliver's arrival, she had been at peace, shockingly enough.

"Shelley who? Shelley, Belinda’s sister Shelley?" Poor, dear, idiot Pamela asks. Ariadne looks at Oliver. Pamela was Oliver's best future. A leech and an idiot who couldn't help but overstay their welcome.

"Oh, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poet. The Romantic poet." Sir James explains as though speaking to a child.

"Oh." Pamela says simply because she is simple.

"Do you know the story about Shelley’s doppelgänger?" Venetia hums, hidden eagerness just below the surface of her tone.

Ariadne rolls her eyes. She couldn't count the amount of times Venetia had brought this up since she'd learned it.

Sir James, clearly sensing his daughter's nefarious tone, looks at her warily. "His doppelgänger?"

"Mmm. Shelley’s housekeeper was cleaning one of the rooms when Shelley walked past the window and waved at her. So, she waved back before she realized that Shelley was in Italy. And she was on the top floor of the house." Venetia had always had the perfect voice for telling a scary story.

"Oh, Vee. Stop, stop, stop. I won’t sleep." Felix balls up his fists and covers his ears.

Felix had always been a bit of a wimp, though Ariadne meant it in only the most loving of ways. Over countless summers they had held bonfires and told scary stories, and without fail, every time they did, All of them had to sleep in Felix's room because he was too scared to go to sleep. Ariadne is never annoyed by it though. It's a reminder of how sweet and pure their dear Felix is.

It was a stark contrast to Venetia, their resident investor in the macabre and overall gloomy and grotesque.

"A few hours later," Venetia continued, undeterred, "he drowned."

"Oh! Oh, that’s just given me goosebumps. Look, Pamela." Elspeth says dramatically.

"Oh, no." Pamela sighs in the same dull tone she says everything else.

"Look, Fi, the only important thing about Shelley was that he was married to the mother of science fiction." Ariadne comforts.

"I heard he fucked his sister, so there's that too," Farleigh adds helpfully.

Ariadne snorts, and so does Venetia.

"Oh, for God’s sake!" Sir James chides.

The weasel pokes his evil little head up. "I think that was Byron."

"Fucking English majors." She mouths to Farleigh. He gives a slight smile and nods.

Pamela and Elspeth talk nonsense about people Ariadne doesn't care about, so she reaches over the table, snatches Felix's apple from his plate, and bites in.

"What the hell, pet?" Felix whines.

Ariadne rolls her eyes. "You don't even like apples that much!"

Duncan delivers the eggs to Oliver's plate. "Thank you so much," he says, big blue eyes darting around like a frightened animal. then, the eyes peer down, and Oliver grimaces at the eggs.

"Is everything okay, Ollie?" Felix asks, that sweet, tentative sound in his voice that, when directed at the right person, could make you spill your deepest secrets and greatest fears.

The way he calls him Ollie, the way the Cattons always take to nicknames for their pets, makes her jaw tick. It's such an odd but effective way to claim possession over someone, and it didn't even occur to them that they were doing it.

"Er, ‘course, yeah. It’s just. Runny eggs. I get a bit sick from them."

Ariadne can't resist the urge. she whistles, quietly. Duncan is going to be pissed. The Cattons, especially Elspeth, will be horrendously embarrassed. The whole kitchen staff will have their asses handed to them.

"Sorry." He says as Duncan clears his plate of eggs, and again when Duncan leaves for more.

Farleigh smirks into his magazine. "Well, I'm goin' up to my room." He declares.

Venetia nods. "I'd like to head back to sleep an hour more."

Ariadne snorts. "I'm sure you can show Oliver to the pool by yourself, right Fi?" She grins wickedly, making a good show of yawning.

Farleigh waits in the doorway for her, and she flicks him in the chest as she passed him. He sets to follow her, undeterred. "Later, losers." She hums as she swings out.

#farleigh start x black!oc #farleigh start x original female character #farleigh start x oc #farleigh start smut

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dootznbootz · 3 months

Note

Which Greek mythology character would you like to see talked about more?

OHoho. you all already know this.

It's Penelope.

And I am being so fucking serious about it. I'm also sleepy and angry and mother nature is stabbing my gut so I'm putting a lot of my emotions into this ask.

BUT her fangirling, angry, bitchy rant of mine, I will save for the end. (and I'll explain it more down there) Not gonna lie, I will probably be mean. Don't take it too personally. (Some folks I know genuinely love her and have stuff for her. Y'all are fine :D )

I have many other characters I wish would be seen more, but hers rant is ooooh. it's been boiling angrily for a long time and this is the perfect ask to let loose.

Take note: This is more about characters who I feel are either underrated and/or not really given love. It's a whole other can of worms about characters who ARE given a lot of attention but are either fandomized to the point of being unrecognizable or people just...really see them wrong.

Ariadne:

A young princess who helped out Theseus to end the cycle of violence against the youth of Athens. Despite the fact that she was going against her family by helping Theseus she did. When he left her, for whatever reason, she was rescued by Dionysus. In which these two have a loving and healthy marriage. There is so much potential here and it makes me sad that she gets butchered and/or just ignored.

Danae:

She was locked up by her father because of a prophecy that happened anyway. She is now pregnant with Zeus' child. She is then locked into a chest in which she is sent floating in the sea. She washes up on Seriphos. Her son is sent on an impossible quest in order to keep her from a forced marriage. Her story is inspiring and ugh sdkf j badass mama! ;~;

Telemachus:

Got that right here :)

Sthenelus:

Fucking love this lil hotheaded cheerleader man. Go boy, go! He got yeeted by Athena from the chariot. Diomedes and him tell each other that they love each other. Tells off Agamemnon for mocking Diomedes' and his dad. He was a child soldier alongside Diomedes. I love this weird lil guy.

Hephaestus:

It makes me sad how people only see him as the "cuck" of Aphrodite and Ares. (no hate to them. do not hate either of them) He's badass in his own right! He does that bigass fire in the Iliad! And one of my favorite scenes in that epic, is him welcoming Thetis! I think he's neat :D

Hebe:

Ganymede isn't the only cupbearer on Olympus you know.

Menelaus:

I love me a goofy wifeman...But if that's all you see him as, I'm sad. What about the sealy man? (aka him wrestling a god for a while and making him tell him answers) The exiled prince? The younger brother? The angry charioteer who yelled at Antilochus? The man who interfered with his brother's letter to his wife to warn to not bring their daughter? Being the sweet uncle figure for Telemachus? (he and Penelope get a lot of the same treatment in a way. with the whole "just the spouse" ;~; )

Psyche:

I think she's pretty popular, but shout out to her anyway :D Because I love her story a lot.

And last but absolutely not least,

Penelope

Heads up once more, but I'm going to be so fucking mean right now. I'm very tired and runnin on 4 hours of sleep and my tummy hurts. This is all over the place and I'm sad.

I think some of you treat the fact that Odysseus is (rightfully) obsessed with her and adores her as if that's HER personality trait... as while it's adorable to see him simping over her as he does, she's not just there for him (and me) to simp for. In the same vein, I think some of y'all only see her for her love of Odysseus and nothing more. Some folks don't see her as anything more than what she is for Odysseus.

AS IF HER HUSBAND ISN'T JUST AS INTERTWINED WITH HER AS SHE IS WITH HIM!

And yet, there is so much stuff with him about the other people in his life. The other Achaeans, Polites and Eurylochus, Athena, etc. You know Penelope has people in her life other than her husband and her son, right?

Even stuff that's just her, it's usually her weaving the shroud...That still ties back to Odysseus. If you wanna have her weave, maybe have her weave something happily. Maybe her chatting with Anticlea or Athena while she does! Or Helen! or her sister!

There's the saying of "the characters respect women but the author does not" and I'm noticing that a LOT in this fandom. I don't think it's intentional, but it's very telling with what people prioritize in their creations how they feel. (and no, I'm not talking about Homer. He wrote incredible women.)

I'm not saying you're not allowed to have favorites. But even if Odysseus IS your favorite, if you have Penelope so one note or with such weak characterization while having so much for Odysseus, FOR THE MEN WHO HE IS NEAR... It's just really telling.

I've even seen some shit with "Well, there's not much to do with her." as if y'all don't make OCs with less. I've seen people give Astyanax, an AU baby, more characterization than her. (Have him alive in your AUs but if you give him more character than Peenlope, I am side-eying you so hard.)

It genuinely pisses me off how overlooked she is. I hate how her tags are basically empty (honestly? I might start tagging my silliness for her correctly because it has so lil.)

Hey, why do followers of the other tags show up but not for #penelope of ithaca? It's clearly because she has SO many followers/fans that she broke tumblr! Especially with the fact that you can scroll all the way to the bottom pretty quickly! /sarcasm

(btw, before you say something, I know there's no consistent tag for Penelope. I follow many of them. #penelope odyssey is kind of the best bet I believe. #penelope of sparta is mostly about that new show that's coming out and hyping about it. still not about HER. #penelope mostly has some bridgerton character. so yeah. Not much on tumblr)

(shoutout to the artists who got their art on front of the tag! That's exciting! I'm being a mean bitch right now but that's fun and exciting!)

I hate how people see her as so one-note. I hate how she's often just "Odysseus' wife". MOST CONTENT OF HER IS HIM SIMPING OVER HER. (that's something I'm guilty of too! I plan to fix that soon. I have so many wips and so lil time and too high of personal standards because since she has so little content of her, I WILL make it good. I'll TRY to make it good.)

EVEN HEADCANONS! SO MUCH OF FANDOM STILL ONLY HAS HEADCANONS THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ODYSSEUS OR TELEMACHUS. GIVE ME SOMETHING ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD. GIVE ME LIL QUIRKS SHE HAS. What does she struggle with? What's her favorite color? Does she like dancing? ANYTHING.

Feelings about how fandom sees her are also summed up by this and this.

...Do you see my problem? Just one of my problems?

So many people genuinely read the Odyssey and just see her as the "crying wife". People diminish her character and her intelligence all the fucking time. You wanna know something I've noticed? PEOPLE ONLY TALK ABOUT HER INTELLIGENCE WHEN ODYSSEUS IS THERE. Like with how she tricks him and how she tricks the suitors. Nobody talks about the moment when Athena appears as her sister in her dream and she is immediately like "hey, if you're some god, is my husband still alive?" she clocks her as Athena RIGHT AWAY.

People constantly forget her violent thoughts against the suitors! Or when she sasses Telemachus and Euryclea. When she scolds and threatens the maids. (she's not always nice y'all!) Do you really think Odysseus would be obsessed with someone who isn't on his level?

We all know that he loves her. BUT WHY?! "Because she's smart like him." Yeah, we know. WHAT ELSE?

They are Likeminded! Thinking and acting alike! You know how fun that is?!

Homer, you absolute mad lad genius. You made her a mystery to the narrator, Odysseus, and for some reason, people see that as her just being a straight up mystery. You wrote her so wonderfully and so complex with how she is so sneaky in her own way that people are literally tricked by her as readers as well!

Or sadly, more likely, people fucking blackout when she's in the scene and there's no Odysseus. 🙄

Look, even if you have Penelope be the "braincell" who keeps her husband in line, MAKE SURE SHE'S NOT ACTING LIKE ODYSSEUS' FUCKING MOM. They're both grown ass adults for fuck's sake!

Also...please...PLEASE have her be more than a prop for the men around her. I've read some things that could literally have her be replaced by Euryclea, as Penelope is sometimes just used as a sounding board.

I'll be even more bitchier. Even in the OT3 she's commonly in. It wasn't a NOTP until I noticed most creations of that ship was just "Odysseus and this person for 6000+ words... Oh, and Penelope making an appearance in the footnotes." If it's an OT3, they all love each other right? Where's the PenDio fics/art, cowards?

I have a weird theory about how people treat her that way. (other than fandom prioritizing men)

So there's "girlbossing" and "uwu sad victim" that fandom can never seem to leave. I think People do this with Helen and Clytemnestra and that's why THEY are "blorbo-able". (not saying they shouldn't be but they definitely get more love than Penelope)

Helen, despite not always being a victim in her story, has been through so much. Kidnapped and some people blame her for it (irl and some people in canon do blame the war on her). Very easy to cling to. I cling to her too! (she's on the "UwU always victim. tragic blorbo" end)

Clytemnestra, is a victim in the sense that she's a grieving and angry mother and wife. And so she killed Agamemnon. Her violence and anger is seen as "girlboss" despite all the horrible stuff she also did to her children. (she's more on the "girlboss" end)

Penelope, is not a victim to the same degree as Helen nor does she murder anyone (how could she? it was 108 people against her and the Odyssey shows that the suitors' parents were enraged. Even Odysseus was skeptical he could beat them.)

She's not on either end of the "scales" for people to find her "blorbo-able". She doesn't murder her husband or the suitors by herself or is a victim to them in the same way Helen is.

And that's just for people who know her husband didn't cheat. I think with people who think Odysseus did cheat, they hate her because "she let it slide". That she's "weakwilled" for knowing her husband went through literal hell and wanting him to be happy and safe.

Idk, It's a little lonely being one of the few "Penelope crazy" blogs.

I sometimes wonder if people kind of come to my blog in a "Hey, can you love her for me? Can you think about her for us?" as I have seen very little on her childhood for example. It's STILL mostly in relation to others.

It's not even the "sharing ideas" that bugs me. it's the feeling of people not wanting to come up with headcanons/ideas for her OUTSIDE of canon.

"She was in Helen's shadow." Okay, well, how did she feel about it? What did she do about it? Did she hide away? Did she internalize that? Did she find that freeing? To not be the center of attention?

Stuff like that. Dive DEEPER. PLEASE

It makes me happy that people love my Penelope as I love her too, clearly. But I really fucking hope you love the CANON Penelope too. If you think I made Penelope "better" or anything like that, then leave. She's already fantastic on her own.

I want to talk about her more. I want her to be seen more.

#lol so pathetic that I'm all weepy about this right now. fucking hormones and cramps and bullshit #I'm allowed a few mean sad rants right?#I'll probably regret this later. as I know I'm swatting a hornet's nest #this is like. a fandom in general rant. like people do this to other female characters too #I almost want the Penelope part to be it's own post? because I think it's important. at least to possibly make people just...SEE her.#i dont know #penelope of ithaca #Mad rambles #shot by odysseus #my headcanons #ask #anon #penelope #Water Wife #<-I love my Water Wife but I sometimes regret it. As I think some people actually think it's the only way she can be interesting.#when she's interesting without it. at least y'all SHOULD be thinking of her like that.#penelope of sparta #Mad rants #essay #odyssey

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vivie-enne · 4 months

Text

Charles Leclerc : Lies

Pairing : Charles Leclerc and named character (Ariadne)

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Synopsis : charles wants ariadne to attend his races and she wants to spend that time at the hospital, doing her work. But someone has to give one of their desires up and ariadne chooses to be that person. Except it doesn't go as she planned, she terribly misses her work and that only gets in between her relationship with charles. Will it work out? Or will she continue lying about her feelings to him?

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Tags : angst-so mentions of yelling, crying, lying, hurt/comfort, happy ending though, f/mc is a neurosurgeon but nothing much about it mentioned per say.

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A/n : just a starter.

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Charles : why can't you so much as attend at least one of my races, huh? You barely even call me or talk to me anymore when I'm halfway across the world from you! Are you seeing someone else, ariadne?

Ariadne let out a breath as she rubbed her hand against her face tiredly before muttering

Ariadne : do I have to keep repeating the same thing over and over to you, charles? I am a neurosurgeon, I have serious work and I can't be throwing that aside every other month to travel 16 hours from here with you to watch a race.

Charles : I understand that! All I'm asking is maybe just one or two races per season? That's all I'm asking!

Ariadne : charles those race dates happen at inconvenient times for me! I have patients who are this close to dying without a surgery and I can't just leave them be to go watch a race that can well on happen without my presence there.

Charles : and are you the only doctor there?

Ariadne : they are my patients, charles. So yes! I am the only doctor there for them!

Charles let out an angry huff as he said

Charles : you are being so selfish right now. It's always about your work, your life, you being busy, everything is about you! It's never about me, never about celebrating my win, or comforting me when I lose! Everyone else's girlfriends are there at the paddock to support them, ariadne. Every time they have a win or lose, they have someone to hold them while I'm all alone in the fucking hotel room-

Ariadne : are you comparing me to the other ladies right now, charles?

Charles : that is not what I-

Ariadne : no that is exactly what you meant! How many of them are surgeons again, charles? How many of them are out here trying everyday to save someone's parent, someone's sibling or child or partner? Huh!

Charles : why are you bringing that in! Maybe they just know how to manage time between their work and their boyfriends! Maybe they just want to support their boyfriends!

Ariadne let out breath in disbelief as she said

Ariadne : you think I don't want to be with you, charles?

Charles : well that's what you're making it out to be right now ariadne! You’re making me feel worthless in this life of yours!

Ariadne stared at charles as he breathed heavily from all the yelling and fighting, rubbing his hand against his now teary eyes before looking away. Those tears, those tears that ariadne was the cause of, she hated them. Charles looked away as he sighed and said

Charles : you know what, this is all useless anyway. Maybe after this you'll come back to me, hugging and kissing me, telling me that you're sorry and you'll do better. But it'll all go back to the same shitty cycle again. I'm tired, pretend this never happened.

Charles turned to go back to his room as ariadne suddenly said

Ariadne : I'll quit my job.

Charles froze on his tracks, his eyes widening in shock

Ariadne : you want me to be with you, and my patients need immediate surgeries to so much as live. I cannot do both together anymore, it's either you or them. And I choose you.

Charles turned around to face ariadne as he said, shaking his head

Charles : no, ari I don't need you to choose-

Ariadne : yes you do. And if you don't then, those patients do. They have a family to live for, charles, a life to live. And if I can't be putting them as a priority, then I'd rather they get another surgeon that can. So I'll quit my job, they'll get a better surgeon and you'll have me at your races all the time. It's a win-win situation.

Charles walked closer towards ariadne, holding both her hands in his as he whispered

Charles : and what about you, chérie? You love your job, you've worked so hard for it-

Ariadne : I love you more, charles. And I know you need me more than I wish to work, so it is alright.

Charles opened his mouth to say something when ariadne cut him off with a hand against his lips

Ariadne : it'll be done tomorrow, I do not wish to argue about this now. I'm tired.

Ariadne gave charles a tight smile before kissing his cheek, walking past him and heading towards their bedroom to sleep. Charles let out a sigh, plopping down against the couch as he ran his hands through his hair.

Now he felt guilty.

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Ariadne drove her car towards their house as she felt her thoughts wander elsewhere, to past memories. Memories of her always dreaming to be a doctor as a child, studying hard for it and throwing every other high school party away to stay at home and study for her tests. She’d done so much, given up so much of her teenage life to get into Harvard med. And when she did, she gave up her early 20’s to study even harder to become a surgeon. She rarely attended parties, rarely went outside except to study. And when she finally became a neurosurgeon almost 10 years later, she had been so proud of herself. Her parents and her family had been so proud of her. Her work meant the world to her, it always had.

Until she met charles at the hospital she worked in, and then her entire life had changed. He had loved her passion for her work, refusing to give it up even when he told her he’d make enough to support them both.

But now…now she’d just given it all up. She’d sent in her letter of resignation and said her goodbyes to her patients and colleagues.

She felt like her world had come crashing down.

Ariadne parked her car as she stepped out of it, entering their manor as she heard the TV playing from the living room indicating that charles was home. Ariadne walked up to where he was sitting as she smiled at him, keeping her bag away before sitting down on the couch next to him

Charles : back so early?

Ariadne nodded, letting out a deep sigh as she buried her head in her hands. Charles frowned at that, sitting up straight as he asked

Charles : ari? Are you alright?

Ariadne nodded, not wanting to tell charles the truth as she said

Ariadne : yeah, yes.

Charles : is this…is this about you quitting your job? Have you done it already?

Ariadne : I told you I’d do it today morning, and so I did.

Charles felt his heart drop at her words, he knew she was a woman of her words but he'd still thought that maybe she wouldn't do it after all. She'd worked her entire life for this job she…she couldn't give it up so easily for him, could she? Turns out he was wrong. Charles pressed his lips together as he whispered

Charles : I’m so sorry, ari. I’m a terrible person for this.

Ariadne frowned as she lifted her head from her hands, looking up at charles as she said

Ariadne : no, charlie this isn’t your fault. This was my choice-

Charles : but I caused this. I didn’t…

Charles trailed off as tears filled his eyes, causing ariadne’s eyes to soften as she quickly held his cheek before saying

Ariadne : love please, I’ve done all this so I don’t have to see this. So you wouldn’t cry, you can’t be doing exactly that after all this. Please, Charles, please don’t cry.

Her words only caused more tears in his eyes as ariadne let out a struggle noise before saying

Ariadne : I’m the one who gave up my job, why are you the one crying charlie?

Charles : because you had to give it up because of me and I feel terrible for it.

Charles’ voice broke from the tears, his hands clenching against his lap as ariadne sighed and shook her head

Ariadne : darling, look at me.

Charles shook his head, making ariadne hold his cheek again before lifting his face up to look at her

Ariadne : look at me, beautiful.

Charles’ cheeks turned red at that, his lips pressed together as he finally brought his eyes to hers. Ariadne smiled, kissing his cheek before saying

Ariadne : you and your feelings mean more to me than my job, okay? I’ve said that to you before and I mean it when I say it now. There is nothing in this world that I wouldn’t give up for you and our love, charles. Nothing.

Charles : but your parents-

Ariadne : shh, my parents will understand.

Charles : are you-are you sure you wouldn't resent me for this?

Ariadne felt her heart drop at how guilty charles sounded, and so she promised herself never to bring this topic up ever again. She leaned forward and kissed his tears away before whispering

Ariadne : I love you, charles. I could never resent you for anything, ever. I promise.

Charles stared at ariadne with teary eyes, making her chuckle as she spread her arms for him before whispering

Ariadne : come here you big baby.

Charles sniffled as he wrapped his arms around ariadne, his head rested against her chest as she ran her hand through his hair. Charles felt his eyes close as ariadne whispered

Ariadne : shh, it's okay.

Charles : I love you so much, ari.

Ariadne smiled sadly as she kissed the top of charles' head before saying

Ariadne : I love you too, baby.

____________________________________

A week later :

Ariadne let out a breath as she turned the TV off for the 6th time that day, feeling bored out of her mind. She'd finished reading 7 books this past week, cried 4 times over missing her work, and pretended every single time charles was with her as if she was happy and as if quitting her work hadn't left a huge empty void in her life that he couldn't fill despite all the gifts he'd bought her.

A G-wagon wasn't going to give ariadne back the thrill of working on a patient and making their lives better, a Van Cleef bracelet wasn't going to give her the happiness the tears of joy that her patient's mother cried when she told her that her son would live to 60 instead of 30. Nothing charles bought for her could fill that void in her heart but she pretended anyway. Anything to keep that beautiful smile on his face.

Charles : mon cœur I'm home!

Ariadne let out a breath as she sat up straight, switching the TV on again as she pretended to watch some show. She smiled at charles as he rushed up to her, leaning down and hugging her before giving ariadne a kiss on the cheek

Charles : I missed you.

Ariadne : I missed you too, my love.

Charles looked at the TV as he sat down next to ariadne on the couch before asking

Charles : how was your day?

Ariadne pressed her lips together as she said, trying to be as cheerful as she can

Ariadne : very good, and yours?

Charles : oh you know, the same team meetings and practice considering my next race is in barely 3 weeks.

Ariadne : oh yes, the one in Paris?

Charles hummed as he rested his head on ariadne's shoulder before closing his eyes. She smiled at that, running her hands along charles' hair as she whispered

Ariadne : do you want to go have dinner from outside today, charlie?

Charles frowned as he looked up at ariadne before asking

Charles : I thought you didn't like eating from outside? In the past whenever I'd ask you, you said we should just have something from home.

That was back when ariadne had an actual job and worked every single day of the week, she'd just prefer resting at home and having food in her own comfort zone after all that she'd do during the day. Except now it was different, she just wanted to at least get out of this house and see the world once again.

Ariadne : yeah, I know. I'm just feeling something different tonight, but if you don't want-

Charles chuckled as he shook his head and said

Charles : I want whatever you want my darling. Go get yourself dressed, I'll book us a reservation.

________________________________

3 weeks later :

Ariadne looked outside their jet window as she stared at the clouds with blank eyes, her mind elsewhere. Charles was going to have his race tomorrow and they were flying to Paris, ariadne should be happy. She was getting everything any lady would want, a loving boyfriend, expensive gifts, a free pass to watching F1 from the VIP area, fame, money, everything. All her needs were met without her having to so much as ask. But it wasn't enough.

Nothing was ever enough because none of this belonged to her, it was all charles'. The only thing that belonged to her was her job and that she had lost.

Charles : ari!

Ariadne flinched as she quickly looked towards charles, a frown on his face as he asked

Charles : where are you, love?

Ariadne : I'm sorry I was just…I zoned out. What were you saying?

Charles sighed, he had noticed how far off ariadne had looked this past month. She wasn't the same, she didn't have the same energy around her anymore.

Charles : darling is…is something wrong?

Ariadne : what, no. No of course not, everything is fine charles. You were saying?

Charles sighed as he mumbled lowly

Charles : I was just saying that I'm nervous about the race.

Charles' barely audible mumble was enough proof to ariadne that her not paying attention to him earlier and refusing to tell him the truth had caused him annoyance. She laid her palm against charles' cheek as she made him look at her before saying softly

Ariadne : I'm sorry love, did I upset you?

Charles shook his head as he looked away, that was again an answer to her. Ariadne let out a breath as she made him look at her once again before saying

Ariadne : look at me, baby. I'm sorry, okay? I was uh…I'm sorry for not paying attention-

Charles : that's not what this is about ari, I don't want your apology I…I want you to tell me what's going on. Is this about work again-

Ariadne : no it isn't, it's nothing about work. I was missing my mom, it's been a while since I met her. That's all.

That was a lie, ariadne wasn't even thinking about her mother but this was the only proper excuse she could find. Charles frowned as he asked

Charles : you miss your mom?

Ariadne hummed, praying charles would believe her lie, and he did. He chuckled, resting his head against her shoulder as he said

Charles : you could've just told me earlier, ari, I would've booked a flight for you to London immediately.

Ariadne : yeah um, you were already busy with your race so I didn't really want to bother you.

Charles : chérie how many times do I have to tell you, nothing is more important to me than you. You are never a bother to me.

Ariadne stared at charles, feeling her heart drop at how genuine charles was with his love for her. And she was just here lying to him, lying about being happy still. She wished it were different, but she couldn't do anything about it for now.

And so ariadne smiled again and nodded, not wanting to ruin his energy for the race by telling him about her stupid feelings.

____________________________________

A day later :

And just like that ariadne was back in the paddock, watching her boyfriend race past as the crowds cheered for their drivers. She had missed a part of this, watching charles in his realm and how stressful it was to watch him and pray everything goes well. She wanted him to win, like she always had. And as she watched the race she kept her own worries aside as she focused only on charles.

The camera would pan towards her sometimes, considering that she rarely ever attended races before this but she would just smile and shy away, not wanting much attention. She always hated attention.

As the final lap approached ariadne stood up from her seat, her hands clasped together as she saw that charles was leading. And just like that he had crossed the finish line, emerging first as the crowds roared for his victory. Ariadne let out a laugh in relief as she clapped happily, moving towards the edge as she saw charles getting out of his car. Just as he removed his helmet he looked around for her, making ariadne's heart melt as she waved proudly at him.

Charles smiled and waved back, ariadne chuckling as she felt tears in her eyes from how happy he looked at his win. She blew him a proud kiss and waved at him again as he smiled at her one last time before he was surrounded by his team. And just like that charles was swooned away from her view, the people engulfing him and celebrating his victory.

Ariadne smiled as she stepped back, letting out a sigh as the people around her began to congratulate her as well. Soon she had finished with that, picking up her bag as she stepped outside to try and find charles. And she did find him, talking with an interviewer on the side. She waited for that to get over and was about to move closer when it did, but then another interviewer rushed up to him.

And just like that one interview led to another, ariadne finally letting out a sigh as she walked away from the area. She went up to the area where they were going to give away the trophy, hoping she could at least talk to charles there. But even then as he approached the place, he did not seem to look for her in the large crowd.

Which, ariadne supposed made sense considering that it was a really large crowd but it still hurt her. And as charles got up the stage, accepting the trophy while having the biggest smile on his face ariadne hated herself. There was the love of her life, glowing and being so happy about winning the race. The race that he'd worked so hard for to win. She should he happy and proud for him as well, she should be clapping with the others with tears in her eyes and smiling at him.

Instead all she could feel was her heart dropping as she stared around, feeling people push against her. She felt unwanted, she felt out of place. Another reason she'd disliked attending his races. She always felt like it wasn't her place to be.

As charles started with his speech ariadne turned and quickly left, small tears in her eyes. Oh she was a terrible girlfriend, a terrible terrible person. Charles deserved someone better.

As ariadne rushed out of the place she went up to a nearby pole, grabbing onto it as she breathed heavily with tears streaming down her cheeks. She stood like that for god knows how long, the cheers being heard from inside the stadium but ariadne could only cry and cry from the guilt and pain. Charles didn't deserve this, he deserved better.

Maybe he'll break up with her, maybe he will.

??? : ariadne!

Ariadne flinched as she heard the yell behind her, quickly wiping her tears and fixing herself so that he wouldn't know that she'd been crying. Ariadne turned around just as charles rushed up to her, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes worried as he held her arms

Charles : ari! Why are you here? I've been looking all around the place for you. Is something wrong? Did I say something wrong during the speech or something?

Ariadne felt a lump form in her throat as she realized that she hadn't even stayed back enough to hear his speech, oh she was a terrible girlfriend.

Ariadne : ch-charles…

Charles' eyes turned even more worried at her voice as he asked

Charles : yes? Chérie you have to tell me what's wrong, you're scaring me-

Ariadne : there were too many people.

Fuck it, she was lying again.

Charles : too-too many people? Ari if you'd told me that earlier I could've had them bring you up to the stand-

Ariadne : no that's alright, really. I just needed a breather, I'm okay now.

Charles scanned her face as he rubbed his thumb against ariadne's cheek before whispering

Charles : are you sure mon cœur, you look a bit pale.

Ariadne chuckled as she shook her head and said

Ariadne : that's just from the lack of sun that I've been getting.

Charles sighed, figuring he ought to just trust his girlfriend as he said

Charles : well in that case…

Ariadne yelped as charles suddenly picked her up in his arms, her eyes widening as he said

Charles : let's head to our hotel, shall we.

Ariadne stared at him in utter confusion

Ariadne : charles, what? But you have an after-party within half an hour or so-

Charles : that party can go on without me.

Charles started walking towards his car as ariadne said

Ariadne : charles it's your after-party.

Charles : my billboard self shall keep them entertained enough. Plus, I'd rather spend that time sleeping with you.

Ariadne frowned as she asked

Ariadne : sleeping with me? You're sleepy?

Charles laughed, looking at her as he said cheekily

Charles : yes mon amor, I am very, sleepy for you.

Ariadne gasped as she realized what charles meant, him chuckling as he opened his car door and lowered her down to the passenger seat before leaning down and whispering against her ear

Charles : don't you think I deserve a good reward for my win, mrs Leclerc?

Ariadne whacked charles' arm as she said, a blush on her face

Ariadne : I am not mrs Leclerc yet!

Charles smiled and kissed ariadne's forehead before saying

Charles : well you soon will be.

__________________________________

Ariadne stared down at charles who was now lying fast asleep against her bare chest, his arm wrapped around her waist as he breathed peacefully. He looked so serene like this, so unworldly, as if she was undeserving of him.

And maybe she was, because she couldn't sleep. She kept thinking of what she'd thought when he'd won, how she still missed her work despite all that he'd given her. She was so ungrateful, so undeserving of him and she hated it.

The more she thought about the amount of times she'd lied to him this past month, running away from his speech just because she felt like she was out of place, the more she felt the need to cry. She needed something, some outlet. Keeping it all inside was killing her.

And so ariadne slowly pushed herself out of the bed, being careful not to wake charles up as she quickly put her nightdress on before rushing towards the balcony. She slid down the railing as soon as she shut the balcony door behind her, the Eiffel tower glittering in a distance away from her as tears slid down her cheeks.

She hated this, she hated herself. Why couldn't she just be like everyone else? Why couldn't she just love charles and support him as he was, why did she keep getting her stupid feelings in the way of their love? Felt out of place when charles had just won an important race? And then proceeded on to lie to him about there being too many people.

Ariadne sobbed as she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to muffle her cries, her face scrunching up as tears continued flowing down her eyes. She wished she was different, she wished she wasn't like this. She wished she could go back to her job, she had worked so hard for it so why didn't she deserve it? And the more she thought about it, the louder her cries became. Not realizing that it was loud enough to wake charles up.

Charles stirred slightly in his sleep as he heard faint cries, his eyebrows frowning as he let out a sleepy groan. But as soon as his ears focused more on the familiar sound of cries, he sat up straight, his eyes turning worried. Ariadne wasn't in bed.

He quickly got off the bed as he put his sweatpants on, rushing towards where the sounds where coming from as he called out for her

Charles : ari?

Charles soon walked up to the balcony before opening the door, his eyes widening at the sight of ariadne sobbing with her back pressed against the railing.

Charles : ariadne!

Ariadne flinched as she saw charles, her eyes widening as he rushed up to her and kneeled down before holding her face in his hands

Charles : love! What's going on? Are you hurt somewhere? Is something wrong?

Ariadne cried more at how concerned charles sounded, shaking her head desperately as she said in a broken voice

Ariadne : I'm so sorry.

Charles' worry deepened at her words, her cries scaring him as he asked in a softer voice

Charles : what are you sorry for, chérie? Why are you crying so much?

Ariadne : I-I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this from you charles, please.

Charles shook his head firmly as he rubbed his thumb against her tear-stained cheek before whispering

Charles : ari what are you saying sweetheart? Why would you not deserve me?

Ariadne : because I lied. Oh charles I'm so sorry, I'm so very sorry I…I don't know what to do-

Ariadne cut herself off with another desperate sob as charles let out an exasperated breath, not understanding what this was

Charles : you're not telling me anything here, baby. I can't understand you. Put it in words that make sense to me, yes? Please?

Ariadne didn't know how to put it in words that wouldn't make charles hate her, she had no idea how to even bring a sentence out when she was trembling so much, crying and whimpering. But even then she tried, because she felt undeserving of charles' time

Ariadne : I…I st-I still miss my job.

Charles' face softened at that as he whispered

Charles : oh, ariadne-

Ariadne : and I didn't hear your-your speech charles because I was so…so obsessed with myself that I felt-felt out of place with all those people screaming for you and you were…you were looking at them and not me. And I felt unwanted and then I left because…charles I am such a selfish person you don't deserve this from me-

Ariadne cut herself off with another sob as her chest heaven in pain, small hiccups falling from her mouth as she could barely even see charles anymore from how blurry her vision was.

Ariadne : I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I-

Charles : sweetheart…baby. Look at me.

Ariadne whimpered as charles held her face tighter and lifted it up to make her look at him, his eyes now teary too as he whispered

Charles : I was looking for you, ari. I did look for you, but as you said there were so many people and I couldn't find you and for that…for that I am so sorry.

Ariadne shook her head quickly as she said

Ariadne : n-no. no no you mustn't apologize-

Charles : ariadne, love, you are not selfish for wanting the attention of the man you love. You are not selfish for feeling out of place in a world that you are not really familiar with yet. And most importantly, you are not selfish for wanting to work for your passion. That is human nature, chérie. It is not your fault, please.

Ariadne : but I am not supposed to be thinking that when you just won a race, charles! I'm supposed to be feeling proud of you, happy for you-

Charles : and are you not proud of me? Happy for me?

Ariadne sobbed as she said weakly

Ariadne : I am but-

Charles : then that's all I need from you, ari. I don't need you to always be happy, you are human and you are allowed to feel things other than being happy and proud. You can feel them and still be loved, sweetheart.

Ariadne lowered her head, tears streaming down her cheeks as charles held her head and pressed it against his shoulders before asking

Charles : why didn't you tell me this earlier, ari? Did you not trust me enough?

Ariadne : n-no, no I…I was scared. Scared that you might-might leave me after I told you all this.

Charles : baby why on earth would you think that, I could never leave you for something like this.

Ariadne looked up at charles as he wiped her tears away before saying in a final tone

Charles : we are going to get you your job back and you can work for as long as you want, okay? And for as long as you are not comfortable with it, you don't have to attend any of my races.

Ariadne : but charles-

Charles : ari, shh. You matter more to me, your feelings always matter more to me. Fuck mine, you're not doing this to yourself ever again.

Ariadne pressed her lips together as she felt fresh tears slip past her eyes from guilt, making charles sigh as he whispered

Charles : darling, please. Please stop crying baby.

Ariadne : you shouldn't have to do all this-

Charles : ariadne I love you, I love you what part of that do you find so hard to understand my love?

Ariadne looked up at charles as he pressed his lips against hers, giving her a long kiss before pulling back as he whispered

Charles : do you love me?

Ariadne : of course I do!

Ariadne laid her shaky hand against his cheek, rubbing her thumb against it before whispering

Ariadne : I always have and I always will.

Charles : then for as long as I breathe, you will have me ariadne. You always will.

___________________________________

#charles leclerc #charles leclerc angst #clarles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc ff #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc fic #charles leclerc imagine #f1 angst #f1 fluff #f1 ff #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 imagines #f1 imagine

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thingsphoenix21 · 1 year

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Dionysus: Why are you the custest, sweetest girlfriend in the world?

Ariadne*not looking up from her book*: What do you want?

Dionysus: Can Hermes come over for a sleepover tonight?

Ariadne: Again?

Dionysus: Please...

Ariadne: Love this is the third time this week.

#greek myths #greek gods #ancient greek #ancient greece #incorrect greek gods #ariadne and dionysus #ariadne is just tired #dionysus x ariadne #dionysus and hermes #dionysus and ariadne #dionysus just misses his bestie #hermes at this point is part of the relationship #hermes is just happy to be there

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cthulhuwritesstuff · 1 year

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Needed some poetic nonsense out of my system, so here’s my blood, flowery as you please.

Short scene: Sanji’s and Zoro’s reunion in Wano.

Minotaur

Even the sunlight pales before the golden strands of his hair. As though the stars themselves perished to become a part of him. Not a drop within the ocean can measure the depths of those azure eyes when they turn upon him. When he fixes him with his gaze, it swallows him whole, leaving naught but the prayer to drown in the seas he finds there.

Zoro wants to ask what is the meaning of love— a trite and worn-out word, a cliche that rings off people’s mouths all to easily — but he is terrified that he won’t find enough in the dictionaries of the world to sate him.

It is suffocating yet liberating: shackles and wings, stones and raindrops, and he stares, like a fool with no punchline, at Sanji’s quiet form.

It is different, now that he knows what had plagued him this whole time in Sanji’s absence.

I was angry with you.

I missed you.

Where were you?

Yet he remains quiet, tips his bottle and makes an attempt to drown any pesky little feelings with alcohol stinging his throat just right.

He knows the truth, but that rarely helps the fleeting reason in the face of emotions surfacing and taking over. He knows- of course he does. He heard everything, but acceptance remains allusive.

You never even considered asking for help.

Infuriating. No matter how logical and understanding he is and tires to be, it is infuriating, and it hurts.

You left.

Sanji stands next to the stove, nonchalant, himself, full of wind and sunlight, his sleeves hanging loosely around his elbows, his hands busy. He hums into his chin, long pipe bobbing between the lips and he looks as if he was never ripped from Zoro’s vision. Like every corner of him is whole and untouched, each line smooth, yet still pulled taut like a string on a tortured violin played by cruel fingers.

There are no signs of pain on Sanji’s expression, no proof of any battles in his movements, and that is precisely what terrifies him.

I don’t even know you.

Indeed, it is bitter. That notion, that awakening. The verity sears beneath his skin, yet he refuses to yield, daring Sanji's flames to consume him completely. He can stand the fire. But the simmer remains bitter; is a bitterness surpassing any spirit the Grand Line may offer. He recognizes that, he knows he might fly too close to the Sun, and despite Sanji's magnificence, Zoro clings precariously to the unraveling thread of his own being.

Sanji—Ariadne—patient and enigmatic, constructs a labyrinth about himself, and Zoro desires—nay, craves—to lose himself within, to find what lay in the very center of Sun’s embrace.

Theseus—could that be his role? The hero who reaches the journey's end, only to find himself at the mercy of the beast. Hero... the word does not resonate, does not taste right. It does not feel right.

Heroes have paths, yet no plans. They have valor, but no desire.

Heroes would not crave the light for themselves, to drink it up and hope it consumes them. Heroes are not the ones who want, this maddeningly, to know what lays beneath Sanji’s pale skin, to count the heartbeats at their lips and pray for it all to last forever.

Heroes mend the broken, but there’s not a single part of Sanji that needs mending.

No. Zoro is no hero.

With the last swig of his bottle, he raises to his feet, holds his breath long enough to call it courage and lets gravity take over- Sanji being the center of it all. With slow steps, he leans in over the blond’s shoulder, seeking that warmth but not daring to ask for it, and just as Sanji starts to turn, before he looks at Zoro and renders him speechless, the swordsman utters a low yet determined plea,

“Come with me.”

#zosan #zoro x sanji #writing #my writing #idk why #idk how

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greekmocha · 7 months

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I was bored so decided to write some minor stuff.

Favorite couples of Greek Mythology! (Canon and Non-Canon)

I’ll be honest some of my reasons or explanations will sound like crack. Some I actually want to make a fanfic of! (Even though I’m still in the process of writing a Non-King one, but writers block there). Keep in mind I am tired so all these are randomly explained without full reason why I like them.

Canon Mythology:

Hera / Zeus: Alright this one is probably the one that gets most trashed on, but it’s honestly great! Yes they have issues, but they do love each other. It’s complicated, but they’re gods- I can’t even explain why it’s great as thousands of thoughts run through my head about them, but yeah.

Ariadne / Dionysus: This one I found rather neat! Theseus was a prick and left her on an island, then Dionysus and his party bus came along and picked her up, then later on turned to husband and wife! I mean they’ve never even fought in any myths that I’m aware of, and just seem so chill.

Aphrodite / Ares: Ngl, this is my all time favorite one. Ares literally fought on her side in the Trojan war, going against his mother! And he’s like a devoted son, and he picked Aphrodite- love. And yes they both have their own lovers, but they just have a thing that feels like it’d be constant.

bonus ones I won’t go much into, enjoy but don’t think of too much:

- Achilles / Patroclus: Had to be obvious, but I haven’t read the Iliad in a few years so can’t explain much.

- Apollo / Hyacinthus: Love the tragedy of it all, like it seemed genuinely sweet, then the discuss came along.

Non-Canon Favorite couples of Greek Mythology!

Hades / Prometheus: Some who actually read my blog could tell this is my all time favorite pairing. Yes there’s like no myths of them together- but the concept! I personally imagine they met during the Titanomachy, and had a quiet companionship. Later on when humanity came along, Hades helped a tiny bit- gave the basic idea for a soul while Prometheus did the rest, and led to Hades making the Underworld comfortable for the deceased, since it was his beloved friends creation. And the possible angst?? Prometheus getting his wife or when he gets chained to the mountain, and Hades mourning in silence.

Demeter / Hecate: They seem neat, what can I say? Hecate helped Demeter search for her daughter, even though she’s typically seen as a resident of the underworld- she helped! I like to just imagine women tired of others bs, and if I was confident in writing I’d likely have made 100 fics revolved around them.

Aphrodite / Persephone: The two considered the most beautiful! When I read the whole myth focusing on Psyche, I immediately thought rivals to lovers for this pairing. The whole box of beauty, sending a death curse back. Just two incredible goddesses. I’d like to imagine the two of them were friends when Persephone was younger! Though of course in my AU (I’m gonna call it Mykos verse or smth) since Persephone and Aphrodite aren’t married, the two of them would have likely hung out a lot.

Additional ones I like but don’t think of often:

- Ares/Heracles: I will not explain my reasoning behind this, as it’s dedicated to a fanfic I have solely in my brain.

- Apollo/Ares: Saw a few posts of them, and thought they were cute!

- Hephaestus/Ares: Thought it’d be funny, great potential for angst, whole enemies thing, etc. it’d be so toxic, it’d be so hurt, like I could see them digging into each other and ripping metaphorically into the others heart. Like many centuries of insults, that whole cheating thing leaves wounds. (I have too many au’s and brain rots for them)

- Hera/Zeus’s former lovers: Now that one was interesting, can’t remember the blog but the whole thing and incorrect quotes was rather sweet.

- Poseidon/Hades: This is Greek mythology, definitely not the worst pairing. I read a fic of it once, and thought it was kinda nice. Besides the whole idea started when I heard of the Hadalpelagic zone in the ocean, and thought it could be a fun meeting spot between the two.

And that’s the end!

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possumsandprose · 9 months

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Secret Santa

Hello @siriusleee! Surprise, I'm your fic author for the @acotargiftexchange!

I've loved our chats about Elriel, and I was SO excited to make this for you. What I've made will be a Theseus and Ariadne inspired AU with spy Azriel and princess Elain, with a few of my own creative additions added in.

This fic is multiple parts (originally supposed to be a one-shot, but I kinda lost control and it got super long before I even hit the halfway point), but it is largely prewritten.

Below is part one, full of all of the exposition, I hope you enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Azriel stalked through the hallways swiftly, brushing past the servants who scuttled quickly out of his way, knowing better than to interrupt him in this mood.

He threw open the door to General Cassian’s office without knocking, barely registering the loud bang of the wood hitting the wall, striding in and slamming down a small stack of papers on the desk.

“Dead. Again. Every single one of them. No mentions of how or why, just the same thing on every sheet: our kingdom is unendingly grateful for the service provided by some person’s name, however we are deeply saddened to inform you that, tragically, some person’s name has perished fighting,” Azriel said to Cassian, who looked tired but upon hearing this news straightened, frowning.

“That’s the 5th stack of letters we’ve gotten in 2 months. There is no possible way the king is going through the soldiers that fast if they’re placed in open combat. At least one of them should have survived, yet within 2 weeks we receive a letter saying they died ‘fighting’. I’m starting to suspect some foul play,” Cassian said, his eyes roving over the reports, each of them, like all their predecessors, containing a name and a simpering apology.

“Agreed. But how would we stop it? Our army is nowhere near big enough to launch an attack on them, especially not with our soldiers thinning by the month due to these shipments,” Azriel responded, his brow furrowing in thought.

Cassian tapped his fingers on the desk. He had an idea, clearly, but given the way he was looking at Azriel it wasn’t something either of them would be too happy to enact.

“Just spit it out,” Azriel snapped wearily, “it can’t be any worse than shipping good soldiers off to their immediate death.”

“Well…” Cassian began, “I want to find out what’s really happening. If we can find out where all the soldiers are disappearing to, it will be much easier to make a final decision on how to handle this. For that, I’ll have to rely on an experienced soldier, not one of the fresh-faced younglings. And, more importantly, I need someone who is good at finding hidden information. If I’m right about there being more to this than meets the eye, then it will take more than a footsoldier to sniff it out. King Archeron won’t leave his plans just lying out in the open. With that said…”

He trailed off, clearly not wanting to finish that statement, but Azriel knew what he was getting at.

“You want me to go with the next batch of soldiers and find out what’s happening.”

It was a statement of fact, not a question, and given Cassian’s lack of correction, Azriel knew he was right. Cassian merely looked up at him, his hazel eyes scanning Azriel’s face for any sign of fear or reluctance. He found none.

“I will go,” the spy of Illyria said, not a hint of any cowardice visible in his voice, “and I will find out what is happening. When is the next batch of soldiers to be sent?”

“Tomorrow morning, they leave at dawn,” Cassian said, and, though he tried to hide it, the relief in his voice was clear. Despite his harsh exterior, the general was a good man at heart, and he hated to see all these deaths; not only because of the loss of soldiers in his army but also because of the loss of life.

“Then I’ll be on the boat too. More than likely I won’t be able to send any letters once I’ve arrived, so you’ll have to wait until I get back for information.”

“How do you plan on returning? The boat carrying the soldiers will leave as soon as all have deboarded, and if I send a boat to come pick you up the king is sure to have questions. After tomorrow the next boat isn’t due to come into the port of Hybern for two weeks, and I doubt you’ll be able to keep your cover for that long if all the soldiers are not sent into combat, as I suspect.”

“I’m not entirely sure yet. That’s something I’ll have to worry about when I get there. More than likely I will be able to steal a small boat and row over to one of the neighbouring islands where I can catch a trade ship or something and return on it.”

“I don’t like that answer, but I don’t have a better solution. If you’re sure you’re up for this, then I bid you farewell. May the stars listen to your prayers,” Cassian said, saying the ancient blessing for good luck.

“And may your dreams be answered,” Azriel responded, completing the saying. “I am sure of this course. I have survived worse, and I will hopefully return within a week.”

Cassian nodded his assent, saying, “Alright then. Go rest up, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

With that, Azriel turned on his heel and walked out the door, striding to his chambers. He fell asleep surprisingly quickly, given what he was being asked to do, but his dreams were full of soldiers and faceless kings ordering him to be killed. Then the dream changed.

In his mind, he saw a beautiful princess. He could not entirely make out her features, but he saw golden brown waves of hair framing her face, with doe brown eyes staring at him in concern.

He looked around, at his surroundings. The princess was in a beautifully elaborate room, decorated with the finest silks and most costly jewels. Clearly, no expense had been spared.

“Come and save me, my hero,” the princess called out from where she was sitting on the luxurious bed, piled high with goose-feather pillows and thick, warm blankets. It was then he noticed the thin golden chain. It was attached on one end to a small hook in the floor, on the other end it wrapped around her ankle. The chain was so thin, it might have been used in a necklace, and he wondered why she hadn’t just pulled and snapped it. But then suddenly the princess stood and ran towards him. She reached the end of her chain, but it did not shatter, no matter how hard she strained.

“My hero,” she cried again, this time her voice laced with pain, “come and find me. Take me. Save me!”

He reached out a hand to her but found he was just out of reach. His feet were rooted to the ground.

When he awoke the next day, he remembered nothing of the girl, or her chain, or her pleas. He dressed himself in his soldier’s uniform and departed for the dock, calmly awaiting whatever the Fates had laid out in his path.

—--------------------

The boat ride passed uneventfully. Azriel had boarded the ship, a beautiful vessel that, judging by the looks, had been made only recently, and had kept tabs on the other soldiers being sent with him. All of them were young men in their late teens or twenties, soldiers with an eagerness to prove themselves mighty heroes in war.

As he stepped onto the island of Hybern, he took in his surroundings. Azriel had never been here before, though he had given careful study to the maps and reports given to him by the spies under his command.

Hybern was a beautiful city built upon a small island, and it was very different from the large cities he was accustomed to on the continent. Canals were built all along the city, leading to a place that had more paths for water than for people. A small boat he knew was called a ploion was docked nearby, and its function was to transport people down the rivers of the city.

The architecture, however, was what truly blew him away. Since there were no real streets, all the buildings were stacked into apartments, which were painted in gorgeous, vibrant colours. Hues of red, orange, yellow, and blue covered everything in sight, from the boats to the houses to even some of the people.

Azriel had a moment of confusion. Why were so many people dressed up elaborately? Last he had known, the native Hybernians dressed rather simply for day-to-day affairs.

However, he had no more time to dwell on the scenery before he and the rest of the soldiers that were sent were herded together towards the docks, where several more ploia were waiting for them.

Soon then people appeared, Hybernians by the look of their face, and servants of the king by the style of their garments.

One stepped onto each boat, the one in Azriel’s explained that he was the doulon in charge of escorting them to the king, and then looking after their needs until the soldiers left the palace to do the king’s bidding.

When Azriel questioned him about the people he had seen in the fancy dress, the man replied,

“They’re all dressed up for tonight’s ball, of course. It’s Princess Elain’s 22nd birthday, and in a generous gesture from the agathe arche, all of the people have been invited, including yourselves.”

This was news to Azriel. He was fully aware that the king had a daughter, though he had never bothered to learn her birthday, nor was he aware that there was a ball he was expected to attend. He reasoned, however, that he could use that to his advantage, as with everyone away celebrating, he could slip through the palace undetected.

Soon the ploia were steered into the waiting harbour, and Azriel and the other soldiers were marched inside by soldiers, with the doulon following closely behind.

The corridors were full of twists and turns, but Azriel, ever the trained spy, memorized the path they walked, as well as rooms of note. He had a decent idea of the layout of the castle, but he didn’t know which room the king’s study was in, or, should that yield nothing of interest, where he might keep his important documents.

Just as he began to ponder how suspicious it would look if he asked questions about the castle’s rooms, their party suddenly came to a halt outside of a massive set of double doors, bigger than any Azriel had seen so far.

Four of the guards came forward and hauled the heavy wooden slabs open, and inside was the most breathtaking room any of the company had ever seen.

A/N: Thus concludes part 1, hope you loved it, and I'm hoping to post the next part within a few days (which will depend on how good my tech skills are with cueing as I won't have internet for a week starting Saturday), otherwise it will be posted right on the New Year. Also, if you want to know the process behind the special names, PLEASE feel free to drop into my ask box or the comments (they're based off a language I study and as @ladyartichokie, my wonderful beta reader (big shoutout to her for editing this), can confirm, I am a huge language nerd)

Merry Christmas again!

#theanonymousopossum #elriel fanfiction #elriel #pro elriel #elain archeron #elain x azriel #acotar gift exchange #secret santa #acotar

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kneelingshadowsalome · 9 months

Note

I know we're all focused on Satyr/Faun König but that bull comment... I'm quite partial to minotaur's and whats better than a darling who isn't from the area. Oh yes she's innocent of the crimes against König because she was not raised there.

Some foreign little creature just running blind in a maze trying to see where there might be a way out. It's been days after all and the screaming has gotten quieter and she wonders if she's the last one left alive. He takes his time eating his meals... this can be stretched out for such a long time as she hides herself in a dead end just a short rest... the darling is so tired unaware of the horrifyingly silent steps moving closer to her little haven. It's just her left now.

@kit-williams I've wanted to write for Minotaur!König for ages!

Minotaur!König x Ariadne!Reader Word count: 5 k oneshot Tags/warnings: Sexual tension, threats of violence and rape, implied cannibalism, power imbalance, moral ambiguity. Predator/prey dynamic, Beauty and the Beast elements, Ancient Greek religion & lore. 18+ MDNI A/N: The Minotaur in this story is not an actual hybrid. Reader is Hecate’s initiate. Merry Christmas y'all! <3

EDIT: PART 2 HERE

The screams are the worst part.

They echo through the Labyrinth while you wait and wait and wait.

Even the very stones seem to cry and wail as you place your hope on Theseus who descended to this hell along with you and the human cattle. Seven young men and seven unwed women, meant to satisfy a beast...

And judging by the screams alone, it sounds like the monster is satisfied. It sounds like it's having a ball.

Fourteen lives have been lost, their blood swallowed by the earth as if Hades himself is drinking the crimson of Athenian youth in His feast. The flesh is the beast’s to devour: an underworld demon born of tainted lust.

Half bull, half man, you always thought the stories were only tales told by the fire to scare children. Turns out that the stories, for once, are true. There's something even worse in this maze, something cursed and foul... Hecate herself would shiver if She were here, in the womb of the earth, witnessing what you’re witnessing now.

You don’t actually see the Bull of Crete cut or hack or slash anyone, and you can only imagine what the monster does to the bloody, gutted corpses of the young. The only thing you see are the hollow, dark walls carved out of soil, sand, and clay, the intestine-like route dug deep into the earth. And you don't have to see the massacre: the screams tell you enough. The silence that follows betrays even more.

Your only light is flickering, waning: the candle will hardly last an hour. If the hero from Athens won’t arrive soon, you will have to leave this place.

And oh, how you want to leave… You were a fool to follow him here. Blinded by love and hope, you thought Theseus of Athens would be your way out of Crete, but it’s clear that the only thing the young hero is capable of loving is fame. The only time his eyes turned to yours was when you said you might be able to help him with a small bundle of yarn.

Red as the setting sun or spilling blood, the thin woollen string is your only way out now. It’s ironic how a heap of twine is the only thing that can help you out of this hellhole, but the Fates always did possess a cruel sense of humour. Your silly daydreams might’ve cost your life, and even if you’re sworn to the dark goddess, you would rather die anywhere but here. In the darkness, all alone, with nothing but eyeless worms to keep company to your decaying bones.

The sudden draft from the outside world is warm but threatens to blow out your candle. It’s a sign from Apollo: if you don’t leave now, you’re dead. Theseus has to manage without you because you’re not dying in this underworld prison because of some man’s stupid lust for fame.

There's only deafening silence in the maze as you scurry up, taking support from the wall as your sight darkens for a moment. You rose too soon: you can’t even remember the last time you ate. And it appears that even the sun god has abandoned you because there's a faint echo of steps in the tunnel, and they don’t belong to a man. They’re too thick, unduly heavy, and it’s not a pair of sandals that are thumping against the soil.

So, Theseus is dead...

So much for the legend, the myth, the demigod.

Heart thumping in your chest and in the hollow of your throat, it threatens to drown the sound of approaching footsteps. They’re all dead, the people who descended here with you. The only thing you are right now is prey. You're being hunted; whether the Minotaur knows you're here or not, you know you're being hunted. You can feel it in your gut.

You cover the candle with one hand, hoping that the flickering light doesn’t reach around the bend. The falling thump of the footsteps stops, and you still your breath, hoping that the beast would turn around and search the other way.

You hear it sniffing behind the wall. It's trying to catch your scent in the air, the smell of dread and terror, sweat so thick it must reach his nostrils and make them flare with lust. Your heart is thundering in your chest, and the tunnel is so quiet that that you’re certain the creature will hear that, too. (Your heart always betrays you.)

And your luck is cursed.

The beast shifts.

You can’t see him yet, but you can hear it: the scraping sound underneath his feet as he aligns himself anew, choosing the path that leads straight down to you.

“Hecate save me,” you whisper into the air that seems to grow denser as he approaches, loud thumps of feet now accompanied by metal grating against clay.

“Hear me, flame-bearing guide... Darkness, protect me…”

He’s dragging bronze against the wall, announcing that he’s carrying a weapon with him, the strength of a bull apparently not satisfying enough if he wants to break your bones with metal.

Don’t blow out the candle...

If you blow it out, you’ll die.

It’s a clear message, a knowing voice in your head that says it. It’s not young, it’s not old: just knowing. Alert. Wise beyond ages.

So you still your breath and wait.

Shadows fill the curve of the tunnel just before he emerges: thick like thunder, a darkness so deep that even the name of the twilight goddess escapes your tongue.

And he’s big. Bigger than the bulls you used to dance with, bigger than kings, or heroes, bigger than even Theseus, the man you thought was a myth walking. His head is enormous, bigger than the rest of him, awkward and rough like it’s not quite part of him even though he’s supposed to be half ox.

The gigantic, horned figure stops when it sees you. Vast shoulders tense; the fat, double-edged sword falls to his side when he settles to loom between you and your only way to escape this place. You’re oddly thankful that the horrible screeching stopped, but then you notice that his blade is drenched in blood: actually, his torso, thighs, even the buckskin loincloth – the only garment this monster has chosen to wear – is spattered with red dots.

The bronze tip drips with crimson, and the earth drinks it all. Hades is never satisfied: this beast is never full. Everyone who was sent down here is dead: everyone else has met their doom except you. You wonder if your mother would cry if she heard her only daughter died because she fell in love with a fool.

“I killed your hero,” the walls of hell boom.

His voice is thick like tar, dark and foul like it’s the God of Earth himself speaking.

The flame in your hand quivers from fear, and you slowly remove your palm, the tiny candle illuminating the beast with warm homely yellow, making the prominent muscles of his chest even bigger.

He’s carved like the statues in Athens, only, this giant is far hairier than the painted marble heroes of the city. The hair on his chest is thick and wild; it shoots down his abdomen and disappears underneath the loincloth, spreads over his inner thighs, even covers his shins in dark mats. He looks like a wild man, a beast indeed: sweaty, filthy and thick. But you never knew a beast like him could talk…

“A coward, that one,” he snarls, the voice reverberating oddly like it’s a human man speaking from under a wooden mask or inside a clay jug.

And you believe every word he says.

Theseus was strong and able-bodied, but he had built his strength just to show it off. This man’s body speaks of pure, ripe survival.

A hulking shadow with shoulders that barely fit the tunnels of the Labyrinth, with palms nearly twice the size of yours, he’s the myth walking instead of the hero whose blood now adorns that dull bronze blade. The Minotaur who survived his father’s wrath, his mother’s absence, these bleak surroundings, and all the heroes sent down to get his head… His weapon isn’t even sharp anymore, and still, he managed to cut through the sacrificial humans like butter. And what a horrific death it must’ve been to be hacked to pieces by a dull blade.

Is it evil of you to hope that the death of your “hero” wasn’t a quick one…?

Theseus was a fool and a coward, rotten to the core, but you saw all of that too late. He never cared about the human sacrifices or the king’s wrath; he never cared about digging into Pasiphae’s sorrow. He only cared about getting his face depicted on a pot or having his deeds played out in amphitheatres, his name uttered in song, accompanied by harp and flute.

“I know.”

Your voice gets sucked into the earth: it doesn’t echo from the walls like his. It’s thin, damp, and frail, just like everything else meant to walk under the sun instead of stand buried under the earth.

But the beast before you tilts its head a little. It’s curious.

Why would you say that?

Why don’t you cry from hearing the news...? Why don’t you howl out your hero’s name and beg the gods to heed your grief? Why don’t you run away from a monster?

The candlelight is puny and weak, but it’s bright enough to bring out the eyes of an animal. You draw breath in the dampness of the earth when you finally see it: the bull’s head is devoid of eyes, and yet, the beast still has them. Blue as the summer sky, stern as the death grip of winter just before spring.

There’s nothing but ripped shreds of skin where the eyes should be, and instead of looking at you from the sides, they’re greeting you from the front. The horns are sturdy, but otherwise, the colossal head is a bit skewed... Thick patches of fur sticking out as if it was years and years old, and then – you realize it’s not his head; it’s only an illusion.

There’s a man under there. A full, grown man who’s made himself a terrible helmet out of a bull’s carcass.

“You’re a man,” you say out loud, earning yourself another shift of the colossal head.

“...What?”

The muffled echo confirms it: he’s speaking from inside the bull, moving only slightly to get a better look at you.

“You’re not a monster. You’re just a man.”

His eyes are wild but intelligent; they pierce you from inside the inanimate shield. The large chest heaves, his ribs flare like sails as he draws air through what must be the foul stench of a long-dead animal.

He takes a step, and you shrink, almost dropping your candle and the roll of red yarn.

“You think talking will save you, female?”

He speaks like a man, walks like a man, but his moves are an animal’s. Shoulders slightly hunched like he’s a bull about to attack, you recognize the way his muscles quiver from the times when you used to do bull leaping. You don’t dance with Rhea’s oxen anymore: your tasks at Hecate’s temple are more suitable and less wild for a maiden your age. Back when you were younger and more agile, you used to jump from the back of one bull to the next, clouds of dust swirling around you as you showed your prowess to the priests.

But you can’t charm this ox by dancing. This one can’t be tricked or fooled: he will pierce you with those horns or his brazen sword if you take even a step.

“I can get you out of here,” you wet your lips, noticing that the blue eyes shoot straight to your mouth when you do that. “I know the way out.”

“What makes you think I want out,” he says, so tight and tense that you fear he’s either about to leap at your throat or plunge his sword into your chest.

And you should be concerned about your own safety, not about his sensibilities – if he even has such things – but hearing this beast man’s reply is like drinking bile.

Why would anyone want to stay here?

You don’t know if he eats human flesh; you don’t know if he had to in order to survive. Everyone knows why his father threw him down here, but no one knows he’s not half the things the people above say he is. And if half of it isn’t true, what other lies have been told about the Minotaur?

Even most prisoners see the sun, yet this man has been deprived of that, too. He’s been robbed of mother’s love, of father’s mercy, of friends and foes, of mentors and guides. He’s been robbed of life, of stars, of fires and summer skies, of women’s giggles, of fistfights with fellow men. Of songs and plays, of festivals and games, of bull dances, and maidens that leap…

“Have you ever been up there…? On the surface?”

You turn your voice into soft water on pebbles, a soothing pour of persuasion and goodwill. His pecs contract, strong abs under thin hair and body fat bunch like you’re about to hit him there. You take a step, and now it’s his turn to shun away. It’s only half an inch, but he actually moves away from you.

“I can take you there,” you offer gently. “Have you ever seen the sun…?”

It’s like talking to a starved predator, trying to entice them to follow you with a fresh steak in hand, hoping that the fanged mouth won’t take more than was promised if it decides to accept the offering.

And the beast accepts.

“As a boy,” he grunts, a tad more softly.

Those eyes are fixed on you, reminding you of horses when they’re slightly afraid. The glint of white and blue behind the carcass is fiercely alive, quite unlike the hollow, disinterested stare of the Athenian hero who was only interested in himself.

But this beast is interested. Oh, the Bull Man of Crete is wildly, fiercely curious about you.

“You’ll take me to the sun,” he repeats, an affirmation rather than a question.

“Yes. To the surface. I promise.”

He moves. Like an animal who learned long ago to drive others into the corner so that he wouldn’t get forced there himself, he’s primal, sensual in the way that oracles in a trance are sensual.

Approaching you in silence that’s almost eerie, the hairs at the nape of your neck stand on end by the time he’s only an arm’s length away. Why announce his coming earlier if he can move so quietly?

“You’ll lead me to my father.”

His gaze bores into you, and not even the warm draft from the tunnels can prevent you from shivering. He’s distrustful, and it’s no wonder. It must be odd that some girl with a candle and a bundle of yarn is suddenly waiting for him around the bend, and doesn’t even flee. He’s a behemoth, but he’s not stupid. A stupid man would not have been able to survive, let alone thrive in this place.

And why should he trust you? Who is he supposed to trust in this maze when every person he has seen has either run away from him or tried to kill him? His father will slaughter him if he ever escapes the Labyrinth, so what else is a priestess in his kingdom but a squealing mouse, trying to feed him lies and then guide him to the surface and into a forest of spears?

“No,” you shake your head slowly. “No, I promise I know the way. There will be no soldiers–”

You shut your mouth just before a huge palm closes around your throat.

Gods, but he moves fast when he wants to…

The candle and the yarn drop the instant his hand seizes your neck, strong fingers nearly meeting at the back as he squeezes your windpipe ever so slowly.

And he’s so close now. The carcass reeks of death, but the man underneath stinks of plain human sweat. His musk is a peculiar mix of blood, earth and soil, something both stale and invigorating, the thin sheen of sweat and dirt covering his muscles making him look like a common builder. It’s strange that the bull’s head hasn’t yet decayed in this place, that the man doesn’t reek of bodies and bones that must be scattered around like debris further down the tunnels.

Another thing that’s strange is that he doesn’t seem to want to simply silence you.

He also wants to touch you.

A wide thumb strokes the underside of your jaw as he studies you. It slides down the column of your throat, the blue eyes gleaming with fascination when you swallow against him.

He drinks in the sight of you: the lips that part with fear, the frail collarbones that breathe against the side of his palm. The promising crevice between your breasts, the enticing softness of your teats.

You can hear his breath grow heavy under ox skin and bone, the rugged, vicious helmet he has chosen to wear. What lies under, you can only imagine, wherein he has little left to the imagination when taking in the curve of your breasts, your nipples rising to peaks under the thin white linen only temple virgins use.

Seeing your reaction to his touch makes him growl -- he actually growls like an animal, a deep, low rumble of approval rising up his throat when he sees how different your body is from his. How supple and cushy it is, soft and plump like a peach, covered only barely as if to tease a best like him. You wonder if he ever took pleasure in the maidens sent here by the king… If he ever thrust the sword between his legs into their weak bodies before giving them the mercy of his actual blade. Would he even know what to do with a woman, having lived here for so long?

“Please,” you whisper, bringing his eyes back to yours, the ice in them now liquid sapphire of pure want.

Gods… You need to bring his attention back to your offer of help before he sees it more compelling to just stay here and play with his new, plump little mouse. Virgin or not, you wouldn’t survive a mating with this man.

“I swear on Hecate’s torch that it’s not a trap. You have my word: I’m a priestess soon to be.”

He’s entranced. Hypnotized by your lips. You lick them to confirm your fears true: the man grunts with pleasure, out of instinct, absentmindedly like an animal who reacts to the sight of a fat, meaty bone.

Oh, he might not know what to do with a woman… But he would try his best to find out.

“Priestess…?” He rasps.

“It’s a holy woman,” you explain. “I serve the Goddess of the Crossroads.”

He snorts, either because he’s not impressed or because he’s downright amused by your vocation. The eyes, warmer, more demanding now, are far from the eyes of a bewildered beast.

“Little female of the crossroads... You will take me to the king. And then, I will kill him.”

He puts weight into his words, tries to make you understand.

He wants you to guide him to his father.

To the King who claims his son is half bull, to the husband who claims his wife was adulterous with an ox. To the King who demands tribute as virgins so that he can send them down to hell. The dark goddess screams justice, but you're at a horrible stalemate.

The gods will curse you for this… They will smite you with a bolt of lightning or drown you next time you cross the great sea if they see you’ve helped this half-beast escape. If you guide him to Minos, you’re a participant in kingslaying, and the gods never forget things like that.

“He’s your father and the king of Crete,” you whisper in fear. “The gods will strike you down–”

“Gods?” He spits. “I piss on the gods. I fuck their corpses and leave them to rot.”

You almost choke on the blasphemy levelled at you. The shadows creep closer, the stare behind the black fur is dark and amused, burning with the crooked wrath of a thousand years.

“Perhaps I’ll fuck you too.”

It’s unnerving that you don’t find the threat wholly unappealing.

If anything, your eyes drift down to the hairs of his chest, to the two big muscles that resemble the work of the best sculptors in Athens.

“Are you a virgin, female of the crossroads?”

His eyes search for your response: they want to see your fear and disgust. You swallow again, arduously against his hand, both caressing and testing you.

The beast leans forward, as if weighing if he could somehow insult the gods by pillaging you. The rough hair of his chest meets the white cloth, it brushes against your nipples as he bends down to have a good sniff of you.

“You smell like a virgin,” he growls.

The hand leaves your throat, only to travel down your sternum. He grabs your breast nonchalantly, a little too roughly, the hot palm closing around the teat and squeezing it like it’s a toy. When you don’t react, he squeezes it again, this time hard enough to coax a whimper out of you.

“Sound like a virgin…”

Without warning, the hand dives straight between your legs next, palm forcing its way through your thighs and curving to cup your sex, moulding around it with barbaric thirst.

“Feel like a virgin, too.”

It’s thick, hot, and heavy, how he simply tries you through your dress. Fingers testing your folds, he’s clearly enjoying the subtle wetness he finds down there. You can hear another hitched grunt pushing up his throat, rugged and whiny this time, a broken groan that dissipates because of how dry his throat is.

No man has ever dared to lay his hands on you... Many have wanted, but none have tried. Even drunkards and fools respect women who belong to the dark goddess.

But he doesn’t care about the wrath of Hecate. He doesn’t give a shit about the gods. He simply takes what he wants, what falls into his lap. The fifteenth offering, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in devouring your flesh.

How easily he could simply yank that loincloth aside and drag your dress up. Force his cock into your tight, wet heat without uttering a word. You doubt that he would even take the trouble of laying you down on the ground for taking... Beasts rut when they want to: this man could fuck you against this wall if his loins demanded so, guttural groans being the last thing you hear before the candle goes out.

You don’t know if you have to spread your legs for him before this is over, but you reckon you will do even that if it means you’ll see the sun again. You’ll endure every thick thrust, and gods be cursed, you wouldn’t even be solely disgusted if this half-animal chose to breed you... As shameful as it is, you would somewhat enjoy having him rut you like an animal in heat.

And you’ve gone mad, surely.

You want to touch him too, just to test another theory.

Deciding that it's a good idea to stick your hand into the maw of hell, your fingers lift. They meet his bicep, and the lewd panting stops.

He’s not even breathing… He’s just drowsy and drunk, looking at you with a mixture of soft sleepiness and awe in his stare. Like a dog who has never been petted, even his eyes drift half closed when he forgets to threaten you, now focusing solely on your hand.

And you start to caress him, slowly, so slowly… Tracing the muscle all the way up where it meets the shoulder, you stroke even the thick cord that leads to his neck. The rest of him disappears under the bull, but the man behind it already shivers under your touch. He even bends his head a little in hopes that you would go under the mask and touch him there, and the gesture reminds you of an animal exposing its vulnerable areas, baring its very throat in submission.

Braving a quick peek down, you notice that the buckskin cloth is stretched high and wide. His whole body is tense and immobile: you could cup him through the soft animal skin and he would probably shoot his seed from a single stroke of your palm.

If this is not a virgin, you don’t know what is...

In a way, it would perhaps be wise to shove your hand down and disarm this man. That way, you would be safe for a few more minutes. Instead, you lay your palm over his chest, right over where his heart should be.

“So do you, Bull of Crete...”

His gaze flickers.

The darkness hesitates, widens, nearly swallows the azure pools whole. But he doesn’t look irate or wild... Only shocked.

It’s an impasse. A thicket. His hand on you, your hand on him.

He surrenders first: the underworld budges before the utterly pure. You bless him with grace the instant he withdraws his hand from between your legs – slowly, reluctantly, like leaving a place that belongs to him. Or to which he belongs…

“I promise I’ll help you, Minos Tauros. But I need you to give me something in return.”

You remove your hand too. Softly, slowly, like a horse master who trains and tames wild things. All words seem to have escaped his tongue: he only grunts, unsure of what a beast like him could give you in return for your help.

“You must promise to be kind to me.”

“Kind...?”

“I need you to behave,” you explain. “No bad things on the way up... No fucking.”

Everything else, he seems to accept, but during the last sentence the Minotaur blinks at you, utterly confused.

“But... You smell like you want to fuck.”

Your jaw drops open a tiny bit. Then you remember that a priestess of Hecate doesn’t gawk.

“I don’t–How would you know that…?”

The beast only shrugs. Then he leans forward and takes another sniff as if to prove it’s true that you want his cock inside you.

“You smell good,” he grunts. “Different... Female, not afraid.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to…”

He even raises his hand to inspect the slight wetness there. Fascinated by the thin film on his fingers, he rubs his thumb in it, probably thinking about bringing it under his mask to get a good sniff of your juices too.

You grab his wrist without thinking, mortified to your core by the prospect of him getting high on your slick.

“Look. We need to leave before the candle burns out.”

The obsessive stare threatens to swallow you once more, so you let go of his wrist and steel your resolve. Scooting down to grab your things, you try to ignore the violent erection still pointing straight at you.

Hecate keep you from offering yourself to this man out of your own free will...

And you don’t have a torch, only a candle and a skein of blood-red yarn, but you know the way out, so there’s hope. There’s always hope.

“I need you to promise me,” you turn at the mouth of the tunnel, seeing that he’s still standing there, in the place where he almost took you like his first whore. As if waking up from a thrall, he straightens to his full height, picks up his sword and looks like a half-human, half-bull once more.

“I promise,” comes a booming voice from under the animal skull. “No fucking… I’ll behave.”

You nod. There's a sense of trust in the air. A promise of hope... It's mutual, invigorating -- life-giving, like the sun and blood in your hands.

You don't know if the son of Minos has ever smiled in here, but from the quick glint in his eyes, you suspect that he's smiling right now, the man under that animal mask. Somehow, it reminds you of the stars in the sky.

“Lead the way, maiden.”

#könig x reader #könig x you #könig x fem reader #konig x reader #könig #könig cod #konig x you #cod konig

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