#broken silver tree au

[modcroissant]

Can I atleast marry ONE smc?

Pick one, just be careful

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

PREY

PAIRING: Hunter!Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Werewolf!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There’s blood on your hands again.

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

WARNINGS: Intense gore, body horror, death, mutilation, weapons, firearms, knives, intended harm, violence, blood, descriptions of wounds, angst, fluff, protective!Simon, religious mentions, period time standards for men/women (1700s), etc.

A/N: The first of my reverse AUs is finally here! Enjoy!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The tale of the Werewolf extends back to around 2100 BC. It was written in The Epic of Gilgamesh, scored into a clay tablet by hands long buried—a corpse forever still in the earth so deep, the bones have yet to be found by greedy eyes. Perhaps the oldest surviving story in human history, and there is still a passage that bleeds into stories hundreds of thousands of years later.

In such, Gilgamesh, a man on the search for immortality, rejects a woman for the reason of turning her previous husband into a wolf. 

“You have loved the shepherd of the flock; he made meal-cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake. You struck and turned him into a wolf, now his own herd-boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks…”

And then, the tales spread, changed, through history and through spoken words of caution. Like water trickling from a well, down the shape of the wooden bucket delving deeper and deeper into a pit of age—of caution. 

“The Beast of Gévaudan. Man-eater.” Through France

“He has a wolf-head, you know? Tall thing—short brown hair all over him.” Through Scotland

“Beware the man that changes shape under the full moon.” England.

Now, in the late seventeenth century, it all comes to a head. Even the people in 2100 BC knew that someone who changes into a wolf, or some bastard-like imitation of one, was very much real; it is very much an affliction that overtakes sense and reason. A curse. 

Transferable down to the saliva of one entering your bloodstream.

You must never get within the beast’s sights. 

—

There’s blood on your hands again. 

Hunched over, your body quivers, and the bareness of your flesh in the moonlight is of little concern to you—trapped in a fetal position while the chilled wind howls.

Howls.

Howls.

“Get out of my head.” Your fingers grasp at your scalp, pulling; ripping. A sob jaggedly slashes your throat open. “Please,” you rattle in a fast breath, the grass snapping as you writhe. “Get out of my head.”

It had happened once more, and you can’t remember any of it. 

The forest is deathly still. No birds sing their songs—no breeze moves the long grass, patches trampled down around you as if a beast had staggered into the small clearing you’re lying in. Maybe it had. There are shadows that listen to your quiet panic, the low whines and gasping quivers of your throat; from behind the trees that speak in the way that only they could. The deep night creeps into you, and the moonlight bathing your flesh doesn’t push back the terror in your bloodstream. 

Your body burns like you’ve broken every bone twice over, and judging by the blood stuck in between every line and dip of your skin, to anyone walking past, the analogy could be very real. Fingers flexing and bending, you try to force out the venom inside of your head with desperation befitting a dying dog, spine visible out of the skin of your back as you sob all the harder. 

You tried to stop it—you had; you always do. But, just like every month when the full moon mocks you with its silver-hued face, it never works. 

It never works.

Your eyes stare at nothing as you lay here, in this place of grass, blood, and bile, of corruption as deep as a vile sin of flesh. It came over you like a wave, fingers trapping your throat and bearing it to the caress of fangs. There were different names for it here, miles from your village and the terrified eyes that search the tree line; names coming from the hunters and their black deeds. 

Shapeshifter.

Demon spawn.

Werewolf.

“I can’t take it anymore,” you shove the side of your head into the ground, pushing the torn earth away from the cuts of long claws. Tears flood the dirt until it’s wet and muddy, pushing the crimson stains on your skin away in long streaks. “It hurts, God, please, it hurts.”

The sound of your hysterics rises and falls in the stillness—the inactivity of fearful birds and beasts wondering if your fangs would rip from your gums and your claws would tear from your fingertips. Fur along your body the color of which leads to stories of their own spreading far and wide. 

The White Wolf. The Specter of St. Francis’ Village. A hound from Hell. 

More pale than snow, and sharper seen than a knife or blade through the black trees. Even if the memories of your shifts were fuzzy at best, there were flashes of those who’d seen your gargantuan form from the confines of their stone-cut homes. Those wide eyes. Yelling—screaming; sprays of blood as heads were separated from bodies—

“Stop!” You scream, your legs kicking out as your toes scrape the grass. “It’s not me! It’s not!” 

There’s a call of alarm from deep within the woods, the flash of torches and bellow of hunting dogs. They’re running you down, you’d forgotten that in the depths of your breaking mind and body, and by the time your elongated limbs had set themselves back into a more human-like appearance, your spine cracking at every vertebrae, it had slipped your thoughts entirely. It always took you a long time to understand what had happened after…everything. 

But even now, the shouts of the hunt are pointless to the visceral breaking of your consciousness, stuck between leaving bloodlust and knowledge of horror. There’s flesh in your teeth, and you wail before your fingers drag down your face, cupping over your ears. In the back of your skull, the panting of dogged breath echoes; running, blood, blood, blood. It’s a dance of fangs, of pale fur, staining every inch and flooding the back of your mouth. Drinking it down like water.

Flesh—lovely, disgusting, flesh rent and torn to the bone with smacking gums belonging to a square snout. 

Who had you killed this time?

By the time the dogs had tracked your scent to your curled body, it was already too late. 

“Here!” Male voices shift in and out on the backs of crows, hard and cruel. “It’s here!”

“Get the dogs on it!” 

“It’s not me,” you mutter incessantly, not truly understanding what you’re saying as hounds burst through the bushes, all snapping teeth and slobbering tongues your eyes widen in an instant. Panting, your jaw clenches; long whines move your throat. 

“What…?” Blinking quickly, the dogs surround you—having to be at least ten of them on their nimble legs and thin tails. Everything is distant to you; separated. A knife could be driven through your heart, and you wouldn’t even realize it until minutes later, bleeding out on the grass. 

The hounds are afraid of you. 

They dart forward and balk back, your scent driving them up a wall until rabid slobber drips from their maws. Torchlight pulls through the trees—quicker now, running. Fangs nick your shoulder and you yell, shoving up to your backside as the world swirls, shuffling away as the dogs snarl. Their eyes are red-huen. Drunk off fear and order. 

Your head darts and shifts, blood dripping off your chin to travel down the flesh of your stomach and navel—so much crimson that the whites of your eyes are violent under the moon. Hands slipping over the wet grass, your face pulls and slackens in delirious confusion as you try to stand but fail. You cry out in sharp pain, and the dogs go wild in their kill circle, nearly attacking one another in anticipation. 

You glance down and see the black crossbow bolt sticking out of your thigh. 

The scent of wolfsbane in the air only then becomes clear to you, and the realization is slow. Wolfsbane—you’d been told about it by the village priest. It makes beasts of the night dumb and weak; minds unclear. 

In a moment of clarity, the reason behind your incurable hysteria becomes clear.

Lungs heaving and eyes far-off, the hunting party bursts through to where you stay, and you look up in animalistic fear. Figures dip and slip into one another, faces becoming demons as the visages melt into twos and threes. You yell out, sniffling and sobbing, trying to back up until the hounds grapple onto your shoulder and rip a chuck out of your arm. Screaming, your hand moves back, shoving at its snout before hands staple themselves to your wrist. 

“No!” You wail, injured leg dragging as you’re forced back into a heavy chest. Hot breath fans against your neck as multiple grips pull and touch you—shackling you down with rope and chains. Your throat screams itself raw, kicking and struggling futility. “Let go!”

You’re too weak—too drugged off wolfsbane and blood loss. Rotting teeth move across the canvas of a smeared painting, you can’t focus beyond the riot of your heart inside of your ribs.  

Grubby hands snap under your chin, digging into your flesh as you cry, not able to move as the restraints are tightened. A silver muzzle is slapped over your jaw. Dark eyes shimmer as you rage—aggravating the bolt wound until fresh blood forms a puddle on the ground, which the dogs lick their lips at. 

“Look at that,” a low, lust-filled voice eases out, and hands around your body tightening as you squirm, head spinning. Silver and wolfsbane. Your eyes snap to fight the sudden flood of fuzzy heaviness in your body.  “Pretty little Hell-Beast, eh? Almost seems a bit strange to have the Spector be her. Think that hunter shot the right bitch?”

“Course,” another grunt, a hand grabs the top of your head, jerking it up as your head lulls along with the force. You can barely focus on the words being said. “He isn’t a fuckin’ twat. Killed a werewolf in the next village over, too. Heard he skinned the fucker and took its head for his mantlepiece—just like the vampire skull he wears.” A pause. The dogs are still barking—echoing out in the trees. You can’t feel your legs. “Isn’t that right, Hunter?!”

A shout is sent into trees as your panic breeds with the drug, eyelids drooping as your head is snapped and moved by your hair. Your buggy eyes don’t focus on the man until he steps into the torchlight, the crowd parting for him as the metal of your chains drags and clinks together. 

It’s as if the very blackness of night takes human form. 

The man, the Hunter, is tall—very tall. He looms like an aloof animal over most of the others here with his dark boots and his black hood, and yet, under the fabric, there is no whisper of his face. 

Only the upper visage of a pure white skull, and two long, needle-pointed teeth where canines should be. 

“Ghost,” one of the men laughs, groping at your bleeding thigh before you shriek, muffled from behind the muzzle, and weakly kicked out. “Good shot, Mate. Right in the meat of the thing. Gave a good trail for the hounds.” 

Ghost blinks slowly, grunting under his breath as the large crossbow in his hands is shifted. He stays silent as your visible pulse hurries on as if you were a rabbit and not a wolf, watching from under the cover of his hood. The darkness of his clothes is blue in the moon—silver buttons down the length of a loose shirt and pants stuffed into boots. The hood is attached to a jacket, which itself extends down to his knees and sways lightly with every shift. The silent resting of weapons and tools is not lost to anyone. 

Belt of filled vials and large knives; a firearm over his back, and two pistols hidden on either thigh. That crossbow was still in his hands.

Brown eyes openly dig into your soul, dead as a corpse, and your voice whines as your thigh is finally released with a laugh. Your vision blacks and comes back a moment later as you try to breathe from behind the muzzle, gasping. That skull on his face…you don’t like it. It scares you. 

And the Hunter only continues to watch numbly as his wide shoulders stay stationary.

“Get the cage!” Someone roars, and you flinch, shrinking until a dog with short fur comes and nips at your ankles, the man holding you grinning sharply as you sob and shake.

“C’mon—expected more of a fight from you, Spector. Getting bullied by dogs, now? Ain’t that a twist of fate, then. Bet this devil’s whore can’t even walk with all that wolfsbane in ‘er, eh?”

A grumble of chuckles as the rattle of metal is in the distance. You grow more fearful, mind flashing to a burning stake and the trials you’d seen in village after village. No—no they can’t put you in a cage; they can’t put you on trial.

They’re going to make it hurt.

“Say we try it out.” A shadow comes closer and grabs you by the arm, ruthlessly shoving you to the ground. You cry out as your spine meets the earth, arms and legs kept under chains that tangle and screech in their metallic way. The rope that holds the muzzle pulls against your neck until you can’t breathe except in ragged wheezes. 

“Go on,” they taunt, some holding back the rampaging dogs just to watch you flail and shimmy. Your face grows hot as you struggle to sit up—shaking so violently you can’t focus on anything but the quiver. “Put on a show for us, Beasty!” 

Death would be better than this.

Tears hit the ground as the cage is finally brought into view, the men all groaning and annoyed that you hadn’t even attempted a forced shift or a desperate run into the trees. 

Ghost’s fingers, you notice from the side of your blurring eye, tighten minutely around the body of his weapon. You do not doubt that he’s wondering if it would be easier to just put a bolt through your eye right now. 

“Get it loaded up,” the Hunter’s voice is accented and gravel-like. As if rotting wood is being peeled back and scraped along gravel, he stares at you for a long moment and then glances at the dogs. “And get those fucking mutts under control.”

“Which one?” Is the low-blow joke, and the ruckus of loud amusement that follows makes you want to die. 

It’s not your fault, how do you tell them that? It’s not your fault.

Your throat bobs in an attempt to speak, but you can’t move your jaw from behind the restraint of your face—held tight to you as the men come back over and grapple for you again. The priest was right, wolfsbane makes werewolves sluggish.

You can do nothing as you’re ruthlessly dropped into a silver cage, borrowed, no doubt, from the Vatican itself, and christened with holy water. But it was a funny thing, really, and the dark humor wasn’t lost to you even like this. There was nothing godly about this contraption.

Locked in, you shove yourself immediately into a corner and hunch over, grasping at your thigh as the bolt still leaks fluid in a long trail over the ground. The pain is so great in your head, that the physical agony is little—a bullet wound to a sliver. 

Your temple slams into the metal, smacking into it as your eyes shove themselves closed. 

Head hurts—hurts. I can’t think. Can’t think. It’s humming, my skull is breaking open.

Bile pools in the back of your throat, but the muzzle keeps it in, leaving you gagging as the cage is lifted with a grunt and carried by long poles; back to St. Francis' Village, no doubt, but you can’t…focus.

“Think you might ‘ave given her too much, then, Hunter,” one calls, slapping Ghost on the shoulder as the crowd follows after the panicking quarry. The large man only gives him a look from the side of his eye and the villager pulls away immediately, awkwardly chuckling before hurrying off after the others.

Brown eyes watch your bare body hunch and spasm, pupils wide as you’re carted off. 

He’d been generous with the wolfsbane, truth be told. He’d expected you to be…Ghost’s dark brows pull in from behind his grim mask…he’d expected you to be different.

Humming under his breath, the Hunter watches the torches disappear into the trees and lets his gaze linger on you. 

There was something…off.

Blinking, he turns, eyes studying the place where they’d found you with sharp attention that misses nothing—not even the birds that come back to settle into the trees again. Large boots shift through the grass, and as he’s re-settling the crossbow in his hands, his eyes find something glinting. 

Watching, Ghost takes another step and brings his body to the item in the grass, hidden, before he kneels. Digging with large digits, the Hunter’s hands loop through the chain of a necklace, dragging it through the torn earth until he can gaze at it fully under the light of the moon.

Blinking in slight surprise, Ghost finds the body of a silver bullet hanging from the confines of a leather strap. Brown eyes shifting to look over his shoulder, the man listens to the cheers and merriment of the hunting party mutely. A simmering understanding brews in his gut. It’s only one that you could know from years of experience doing just as he had—hunting and being hunted in turn with a knowledge of all things dark and unholy.

It could never be easy, could it?

A low grunt later, the man sighs out a deep, “Fucking hell,” and moves to slowly stand, slinking back into the darkness. 

—

They kept you in the cage and set it on display in the middle of town for days.

Shivering now from the cold more than the wolfsbane, you stay collapsed into yourself as people come past to poke and prod at you—even sticking knives into the slits of the cage and digging them into you like an animal until your flesh was marked and brutalized. 

You don’t remember what it’s like to not be bloody.

The bolt wound was festering; infected. You dare not touch it, because the pain only makes you want to vomit, and if you do, you’ll most likely suffocate on your own bile before the trial ever happens. 

Yet, on the fourth night of this, as your eyelids flutter and your body grows weaker, a shadow comes to visit. 

“You weren’t born one.” It isn’t a question, but the sudden voice makes you startle. 

Eyes locking onto Ghosts’, your mind flies with fear—thinking that perhaps there’s more abuse that you’ll be put through. But no…the man has no weapons on him tonight. Only a long knife at his belt. The mask stays. 

You stare, unable to speak as your fingers twitch.

Grunting, Ghost’s head tilts, gaze moving up and down as you curl in tighter around yourself. A cold breeze rips through the square, and your eyes clench closed with breaking will. When you open them again, the Hunter is kneeling by the cage, and holding up something in his hand loosely. 

“You going to behave if I take that muzzle off?” You nearly gasped at the hanging image of your necklace—a silver bullet on a leather strap; that dark and heavy thing usually kept around your neck. A reminder.

After a moment of wide-eyed staring, you nod quickly to his question, a desperate, pleading thing without the need to utter words. Please, you want to scream at him, take it off.

Ghost’s eyes are as dark as a mound of dirt, sharply intelligent and filled with an unflinching reality. He doesn’t care what you are, and he won’t until you speak to him and let him judge your character far before any courtroom can. The man knows what a lie is better than any priest. 

“Good,” he says curtly, accent far more deep as he thinks, re-capturing the bullet in his palm and standing before he shuffles it into his pocket. 

You can’t help the anxiety as Ghost moves forward, loping to the side of the cage with the side of his eyes on you incessantly. It’s obvious how his other hand lays limp on the hilt of his blade that, with only one wrong move, you’d feel the chill of the edge with no time at all. 

But the temptation of getting this muzzle off was too good to ruin, and so, you stay as still as you’re able as crows call in the distance and the deadness of the town leaks into your blood. 

Ghost moves his free hand and orders, blankly, “Closer.” 

You hesitate, body tight before you drag your face closer to the bars, angling it parallel with the metal so the tight bind on the back can be taken up. The fear can be smelt the second your eyes have to break contact with his with the turn of your head—neither of you trusts the other. 

Ghost hums under his breath at the sight of your broken body coming farther into the open light of the moon, the whites of your eyes all the more visible from under the slathering of blood and tears. He hadn’t been absent to witness the abuse you’d been put through, even if the coin from his successful hunt was feeding him at the inn, a small window allowed the tight view of your torment at the hands of the people you’d once lived around. 

But the reality was that you’d killed people—scores of them—and yet the worst part of it was that he wasn’t sure if you even knew that.

It took four nights for him to break his only rule: never get involved after the job’s done.

But the hunch he had was too important to ignore. 

Large fingers latch onto the knot at the base of your skull through the cage itself, Ghost grunting at the sight ahead of him. The rope had been gradually chafing over your flesh, peeling back hair and skin until only the bloody meat was left—Simon had to wonder if the people of this village even wanted you alive for the trial or not at this rate. You’d be dead by tomorrow if that infected bolt at your thigh wasn’t taken care of.

Despite himself, a part of his chest tightens at the sight of the thing sticking out of your leg, dripping a yellowish puss. It had been a good shot, and he had overcoated the bolt in wolfsbane. 

Ghost hadn’t expected you to be so susceptible to it—most werewolves only got slower, but you…you seemed to have a stronger reaction. He files that fact away and tilts his masked face to the side. 

Grasping at his blade, the sound of a knife being slipped out of a sheath makes you startle, jerking your head back and shoving away even as your muffed whine of pain falls out. Ghost momentarily readies himself for an attack, but the way you force your mangled body to the opposite corner has him grumbling out a hard, “Easy.” 

The Hunter raises the blade, watching you with unblinking eyes. Your body shakes; panting. It was like calming a feral dog.

“You want the thing off or not? Have to cut it.” Once more, the man rises and walks over, boots almost silent over the small raised platform the cage had been set on like a trophy, you inside are comparable to the golden coins that greedy eyes touch and run their dirty hands over. 

Your mind is a troubled thing as you watch this Hunter and his crude knife come closer, kneeling again, and motioning with two fingers to shift your head. 

“Out ‘ere,” Ghost says, brown eyes not letting you guess anything about his true motives. “Don’t have time to fuck around. Guards’ll make a round soon and I’d rather not get caught wide-eyed.” 

Your brows pull in, hands clenching and unclenching in your lap as goosebumps travel the length of every limb. You were tired—hungry and thirsty; there were open wounds that burned with infection and ones that were crusted over with dirt and grime. You can’t feel your toes, and the tips of your fingers have long since gone numb. 

The thought of getting this muzzle off was like the promise of heaven being dangled in front of your nose. Your hesitation this time is far longer than the first, moonlight glinting off the visible blade in Ghost’s hand as he stares. That mask holds death. 

The hood is gone from him—only that pale bone left and sewn into dark, dark, fabric. The sharpness of the teeth leaves your throat bobbing in a nervous swallow as your head carefully shifts to rest on the bars. Bending, you present the knot once more and try not to focus on the way Ghost’s attention is fully on your expanding lungs; the pulse that is seen through the meat of your neck. 

But he says nothing before his fingers once more grasp the rope and the tip of the knife slips up. You don’t even feel it before the sudden slackening of the muzzle, and then the thing slips from your face before it slaps the bottom of the cage with a dull thump. 

The first thing you do is vomit. 

Spine pulling in, your body jerks as the bile that had been in the back of your throat rockets out, restrained hands slapping the ground as the acidic concoction leaks from between your torn lips. Face on fire, you choke and retch for what seems like minutes before you can finally breathe in the damp air—the innate shame and disgust rolling through as you cough raggedly. 

It’s only after you’d forgotten the man kneeling outside that he seems to remind you of his presence with a grumble. 

“Breathe. It’s no use if you can’t speak to me.”

A weak, quivering glare comes across your eyes, saliva dripping off your chin as your tongue moves to lick at your lips. But the brown gaze is as immovable as stone. Finding it pointless, your hands come up and delicately touch the base of your skull, only making you flinch when the fresh blood pools down and over your neck, licking at your shoulders. Tiny droplets fall to hit the metal one at a time. 

Ghost’s fingers twitch as he puts the knife away. 

“Who bit you?” You stare at him, hands falling before your wrists rub at the aggravated skin of your jaw. He shifts his head, voice slow but heavy. “Speak.”

“...I’m not a dog,” your voice is scratchy, hoarse. You send a small glance his way, mouth open and nostrils flaring in an attempt to bring in the oxygen you’d been lacking. 

“Really?” A hidden eyebrow is slowly raised. “Hell, coulda fooled me.” 

“Damn you,” you whisper, not meeting his gaze as you shuffle back. The crossbow bolt catches on one of the cage’s bars and you bite on your lip to stop the shrill yell that threatens to exit. Head moving, you lightly slam your skull into the wall in pain. 

Breath hitched, you clench your trembling jaw tight. 

“Speak or don’t,” Ghost grunts, and he makes a move to stand. “Your funeral.” 

A spark of fear stabs you as he begins to shift, and you can’t explain why. Perhaps it was because it was the first conversation you can remember having lately that wasn’t one-sided or on the edge of a blade.

“W-wait,” you stutter, blinking through the blood. The Hunter doesn’t slow, and then he’s on his feet and fixing the gloves over his fingers, flexing his hands before his foot begins to pivot�� 

“Please, don’t go,” your voice is thin and pleading, echoing through the street. “I’ll answer your questions, any of them you want,” the sentence cracks through a dry throat, tears welling. “Please, don’t leave me here alone.” 

Ghost had half of his body turned away before it went rigid; the side of his dead eyes flash to you, swirling with specs of moonlit silver. A hunter and a werewolf lock gazes, great beasts respectively brought together in seconds that seep into slow minutes of delicate need.

Knowledge and company. Understanding and a horrible fellowship. 

The Hunter’s eyes twitch in their ever-narrow resting place, glancing away before he mutely moves back to where he was before. 

He wastes no time.

“Who bloody bit you?” 

You stifle a pathetic sigh of great relief, taking company with a man who had shot you not days before. Yet the ability to speak and be heard was a commodity that was dimming each and every day.

“It was already fully turned,” you speak quickly, tongue tripping. “A big wolf—a gray one with eyes like the sky.” 

Ghost glares to the side. Gray? There were no contracts for gray werewolves with blue eyes in the area. Only you—only Specter. The next question is just as stiff. 

“When?”

“Three years ago,” your lips move. “Only three years, I promise.” Brown eyes narrow slowly, fingers tapping the fabric of his pants once before he makes a noise in the back of his throat. Ghost’s jaw clenches, mind working through the hoops that need to be jumped. 

To you, the questions might seem pointless, but to a hunter, they were important—very important. Werewolves who are born afflicted with this moon-drunkenness are different from those turned by a bite. Not only are shifts from turned werewolves more violent, more deadly, but they rarely know their own actions from that of the frenzy under their skin; those that are born as such are rarely out of control, unlike your faction. 

The only question now was if Ghost could condemn you to death when it was obvious your human form was entirely different and you had no semblance of an idea of what was going on. Was it even his problem to care about? Even looking at you now, the man blinked away from cuts and inflicted injuries—the muzzle on the ground. 

The blood and the bolt.

He’d known it had been a foolish play to bring all of those townsfolk with him on this hunt but he needed their knowledge of the terrain; he hadn’t passed through St. Francis’ before. At the time, Ghost hadn’t been averse to assistance as long as he got the job done in his own fashion: capture or kill, the contract had stated. Rarely was he known for capture.

Maybe, deep down, he’d known something was already wrong about this.

“Show me it,” the Hunter grunts, staring you down, a deep anticipation growing in his bones. He had to make sure you weren’t lying.

You lick your lips, face pulling with every twitch and sway of your form. The black at the edges of your vision was coming back, and you blinked quickly, chains dragging before you shifted your back with a quivering breath. The punctures were difficult to see through all of the gore, but Ghost made do as he grabbed at the waterskin at his waist and the rag hanging from his belt. 

Flooding the fabric in the lukewarm water, he hums out a firm, “Don’t move. Cleanin’ it,” before you feel the press of the rag to your back. 

Gasping lightly, you almost jerk away before the sensation becomes a nearly welcomed one—the drag and slight scrape of rough material. Your averted eyes dip lower, staring at nothing as your heart momentarily slows to a normal pace. Ghost cleans the areas where the swell of scar tissue is the most obvious, and, one by one, the violent groves spread out like a slash of paint over canvas. Along the left side of your waist, the blood gives way to a dented ‘v’ shape of healed punctures. Deep, dragging; a point to where your side was almost ripped away before it broke off swiftly. 

Ghost’s dark eyes fight the need to widen, and that hidden blankness stays. 

A great gray wolf with blue eyes…

His mask tilts, head shifting as his gaze moves slowly. Gloved fingers twitch to touch them, moving in an almost examining way that befits a surgeon and not a decapitator. Your breath is held in the back of your throat, but you sag nearly entirely into the bars of the cage, growing more unsteady by the second. 

The scent of infection is so strong it makes your head burn, and you’re overtaken by it as Ghost’s presence suddenly disappears. 

You don’t know if it’s minutes or hours before you understand that you’re alone again, but when your limp neck finally turns to wonder where your silent captor is, you are greeted with nothing but moonlight. Blinking through the sludge behind your eyes, the sinking in your gut was stark and sudden—like a knife dragging itself from gullet to navel. 

But all you offer is a light whine as more blood moves to cover the places where Ghost’s rag had just cleaned. You were scared of him, no doubt. A hunter through and through down to the vampiric skull on his face and the shroud of death at every inch of his form. 

He’d shot you and drugged you with wolfsbane. Found your necklace. 

So why had he talked to you?

Your head is too muddled for this, too delicate. Like the crimson under your nails, it dries and flakes off of your brain as the lack of distraction breeds stored agony. There wasn’t anything left to focus on besides the upcoming trial, your death, and the pain that doesn’t let you sleep except for now, on the brink of not rest but unconsciousness. 

And at the sound of a key being slotted into the silver of your cage’s door, only then does your body slump with the weight of doom. 

You don’t even feel the hand that grasps at your ankle.

—

The sway of the horse makes your teeth clatter with every clop of hooves. 

Your conscience mostly comes and goes, only staying in thin seconds where you feel the press of clean bandages on your afflicted flesh and the tipping of warm broth into your mouth. Grass under your head. 

Blankets being shuffled over your clothed body when you shiver. 

When you’re finally able to speak, when the horse is moving along and hands keep your back stuck to a strong chest, it’s a low, garbled, “Ow.”

Ghost barely blinks down to your head as it slumps to the gait of his horse, glancing before his attention returns to the thin forest trail ahead of him. You’d made noises in your sleep often enough—this was no different except for the fact he felt your shoulders flex.

Slowing the horse with a pull on the reins, the dappled mare settles to a walk. 

“You up, then?” Ghost hums, his hand around your waist tightening as you groan under your breath. “Good. Thought I was dragging a corpse—would have wasted my bandages.” 

Your eyes shudder as they open into the light, having to focus on moving them before the sting of the sun makes them water. But you do, and then the confusion outweighs the numb stinging of tended wounds. 

Head shifting, you look behind you slowly with wide eyes as the horse under both of you snorts.

Brown eyes watch you before a dark brow twitches upward. “What is it?” 

You just blink, mouth slightly open. 

“Where…am I?” 

“Forest.” Ghost states matter-of-factly. 

If you had the energy to glare, you would have. Seeing that nothing will get the man into a proper conversation—he was a brick wall even now—you look down at yourself and land on the scarred forearm that keeps you secure on the saddle. Ghost’s gloves were still on, but the sleeve of his dark shirt had ridden back to his upper forearm, and in the wake of pale skin, you find the black ink of all manner of warfare. 

Werewolf skulls; vampire fangs and fire. The slash of inkish chains with skeletons. 

Your lips thin, your senses slowly becoming your friend again as you stare at the snarling face of a needle-hewn wolf. Eyes tightening as the horse moves to the left, your body follows the reactive action before Ghost’s pressure tightens once more, visibly veins behind the pale flesh. You move on, seeing the thin tunic and pants over your body—feeling under that, the bind of wrappings with the scents of mashed yarrow leaves in the fabric. 

They’d been re-applied recently, too. 

“Stay still unless you want to re-open them,” Ghost utters, eyes scanning the trees for unseen threats. It was midday by now, the sun high above the trees watching the both of you on your trek to seemingly nowhere. “We’re far enough away, but I want more distance before I take the time to close them fully.”  

“The trial,” your arm moves up, fingers grazing the side of your nose before it falls back down. Ghost can feel the air heat with unease. “The…the cage?”

“Trial was two days ago,” he draws, thighs shifting over the saddle. “Give or take.” 

The confession isn’t as shocking now that you have woken up here, but the lack of remembrance on your part of that time startles you. It’s a blank slate—just like the aftermath of your shifts. You don’t like not knowing. 

The next question comes out with a haggard cough, sweat dripping off your nose. “Why?”

“You’re going to tell me ‘bout the werewolf that made you,” the Hunter grunts. “And you can’t speak if you’re lit up like a pig on a spit. Took you the night we met in the square.” 

Through it all, Ghost barely looks at you—always his attention keeps to the trees and the shadows that linger; seeming to listen. He knows more than anyone that they do. 

The horse continues on, your pain surfaces again, and with a shuddering breath, you fall into a fitful sleep once more. The arm around your body tightens, and the warmth it lends is accented when Ghost’s shifting gaze glances at the top of your head. He wears an expression he can’t name yet.

When the throws of fever pull their curtains back for the last time, it shows you the slats of the attic above your head, wood polished and clean as the heat of fire moves over your body. Pulling a large inhalation of air into your lungs, you blink softly as if clearing away cobwebs with a broom—willing sense to return in the few seconds it had flown away. 

The furs are warm. 

In the village, you weren’t anyone of standing. A simple woman—unwed, and, thus, unimportant due to the era the world sees itself in. It wasn’t all bad…namely, it hid your affliction far longer than you could have hoped it did. You had a small piece of family land passed down to you on the edge of the village, and that was where you stayed. Nothing fancy; a hearth, a large, single-room property with a garden and a well. You were known to keep sheep, a fact that had caused perhaps a few hysterical chuckling fits when, every full moon, one or two went missing, but it gave you the ability to accumulate money and, more importantly, an alibi. 

Who would suspect a werewolf to own sheep?

But this home already had a more detached feel to it—something removed. The air was sterile, somehow. Groaning, your face tightens before you rise to the palms of your hands, muscles quivering to keep the strength your stubbornness gives to them. Half-vertical, you turn and study the area. 

Square, the four walls are stone with mortar and clay to keep the rounded blobs together. You’re on the ground floor, a staircase to the far right while the bed is stuck into the left corner; a nightstand sitting void of all except a single chamber-wick holding an unused candle. A sturdy table with one wooden chair, a stone fireplace set into the same wall the headboard is level with, and a large oak door.

There are runes written on it. 

You can’t make sense of what they mean, but when you see them, your tiny-pupiled eyes slip to the rest, all placed at windows or near some point of entry—unassuming things until you realize why they were red in color.

Your shoulders tighten, and whatever bit of magic moves through your skin lets your nose pull to the scent of human blood. 

You clear your throat and look away, licking your lips with a dry tongue. Moving your toes under the two bear furs that rest at your abdomen, you notice the lack of earth-shattering pain that accompanies it, and, shifting a hesitant hand, you grab the edge and push it back a bit farther. 

Bandages with perfect ties meet you, void of any crimson staining. 

Truth be told, you expected more of a Hunter’s home—skulls; trophies. The town always spoke of burnt bodies strung up on crosses that mark the property of those in this profession, a ward and a sign of grim hope. Vampires mostly, wasting away in the brutal sun. Others as well. Werewolf fur and witch bones shoved in blessed boxes. 

This place is almost normal, you think, thighs shifting over the dip of the bed as your finger runs the white wrappings where the bolt should be. Your mind dares not go to how he got the thing out of you, and at the stretch of sutures, you take your curious grip off of it entirely. 

Looking around once more, your brows furrowed tightly. 

Where was the man? The hunter responsible for your current predicament? Ghost. With his vampire skull mask and his black attire—a hellhound with dark ink and intentions. More importantly…

Why were you still alive?

Your memories come back slowly as you stand, bare feet moving to the floor as the tunic over your upper half falls to your knees at the verticality of your spine. They creak a bit, the bones, at the ability to stand fully upwards and not be impaired by bars of silver. A strength seeps through you slowly. 

In the deafening silence, you clear your throat tinily and lightly itch at the clean flesh at the back of your neck where the muzzle sat; rubbed raw now scabbed and healing with the spread of natural oil balms. Taking in a slow breath, you step forward with a heavy limp and watch the door, glancing at locked trunks and cupboards, eyes blinking. Your muscles ached, but the sting only served as a way to remind you that you were still here—living. Few in your position were granted second chances. 

You’re about to study the runes at the door when you’re called to with the creak of the stairs in your left ear. 

“Wouldn’t recommend it.” Your head snaps over, blinking quickly. 

Ghost carries the leather holders of his twin pistols in one hand, the bodies of the weapons in them hanging as he comes to ground level one step at a time. Brown eyes glance over through the confines of his skeletal face-covering as he walks to the table, placing down the items. 

“Keeps the spirits out—smudge ‘em and the house gets haunted,” he grunts. “Rather not bleed myself again to get the runes copied.” 

You stare in mild shock, sound sparking from the back of your throat. “...Right.” 

Side-eyeing the markings, you shiver and step back from the door, silent as Ghost seems to focus on his task at hand—looking over his weapons.

Large hands running the metal and wood, the pistols in his grip shift as the drying light of the day streams in through the curtains of the windows. He touches them intimately, knowing every grove and dip until he tilts one and rubs away a slash of dirt from the barrel with his bare thumb. 

You quickly turn awkward, looking down at yourself and the bareness of your lower legs. It wasn’t lost to you that the man was the reason you were in this situation in the first place. 

“You shot me,” you grumble—not unlike someone who had a knife to their throat. 

“Affirmative,” Ghost says nonchalantly. You get a slow, blank glance and nothing more. 

“Have you drugged me?” You ask, heart speeding up. There wasn’t anywhere to go—not without an escape plan and with Ghost in front of you.

“Wolfsbane?” The Hunter shifts his thighs, boots moving over the hardwood. “Negative. Not yet.” 

“Yet?” An attitude seeps in, lips thinning. 

Ghost sighs under his breath, slipping the pistols back into their holsters. “Forgetting about how we met, Love?” 

“No,” you huff. “Not really.”

“Perfect.” Eyelids pull down slightly. “Don’t.” Ghost nods his head to the table's chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sit.” 

“I told you I’m not a—” A sharp, numb look makes your snappy reply stall itself, and you stand there for more than a minute before you find the pointlessness of this.

You limp forward and sit in the chair.

Looping your arms around your waist, you glare to the side as your skin crawls at the unblinking eyes that stare. Ghost rolls his shoulders, tilting his head. 

“What do you know about the werewolf that bit you beyond appearance?” 

“Nothing,” you chuckle hopelessly, moving a finger in confusion. “I…I don’t know why you’re asking me about it—it’s not like I had a conversation with him.”

The Hunter blinks at your sudden confidence, unable to separate your form now from the one in the cage; blubbering ceaselessly in a grassy clearing. But lesser pains always bring out someone's true colors. As long as you told him what he needed to know.

Ghost explains with a sheen of dull annoyance. “Every turned werewolf holds a connection to the one that bit them. It’s pack mentality.” At your blank look, his brows pull in, the mask shifting. “You telling me you’ve never come back into contact?”

“...No?” Your lips dip. “For three years I’ve been by myself with this.” 

Brown digs into your face, a small sheen of confusion slipping in to tighten them, around his biceps, Ghost’s fingers twitch. 

You lick your lips, speaking up in the impending silence. “I don’t remember anything after I turn. Is that normal?”

“For you?” He mutters, still not taking his eyes off of you. “Yes.” 

“I’m not going to pretend like I know what’s going to happen,” you shrug. “But at the very least I want to try and understand why I’m like this.” You open and close your mouth for a moment. “Before you kill me, anyways.” 

“If I wanted you dead,” Ghost grunts through a half-amused tilt of his head. He doesn’t beat around the bush. “...You would be.” 

“‘Capture or kill,’” you huff. You’d seen the flyers; heard from word of mouth. “Right.” You sigh. “They’ll track you down, you know. They’re not going to just let you take me.”

“They won’t make it through the forest. Bastards would get lost on the trail.” The Hunter moves until he can grasp the waterskin from the counter, dragging it over with his hand. He tosses it to the main table in your direction after he comes back over, and you hesitantly reach forward and pull the top off. Ghost changes the subject back to his studies of your condition closely. Dark eyes slip down your front as your lips part to take up the liquid. “Before your shift, tell me what you see.”

Your throat bobs as you drink the water, thirsty as it soothes your dry mouth. You hum, but the inquiry makes your hair rise. Your arm wipes at your mouth as you lower the waterskin, a small thankfulness in your heart. “It’s less of what I see and more of what I hear and smell—blood; metal. River water. I…” Your chest tightens. “I feel my bones breaking and I hear howling mixing with whispers.”

“Whispers?” Ghost leans, eyes alighting with dim interest. “What’re they saying?”

“I try to block it out,” you whisper, not exactly answering. “Makes it go faster.” 

A long nothingness ensues. 

The impending night grows deeper, and then Ghost finally speaks again after you begin to shift with unease. He nods firmly, tilting his head as if it’s already been decided. 

“Next full moon, you’re going to listen to them.” 

Your horrified face snaps up. It’s a moment of stuttering before you force out a heavy, “What? No!”

He’s already turned, moving back over to the stairs and placing one foot on the steps. 

“Ghost!” You yell, face devoid of blood.

He side-eyes you. “Go back to bed. You’re dead on your feet.” 

And then the same man who shot you in the thigh with little remorse disappears into the attic.  

—

The Hunter was a strange beast.

The days the two of you spent together were mostly silent—left with tight stares and tense shoulders. Clipped sentences. 

Ghost, for what it was worth, gave you space in this small house; as much as you could get. He kept himself up above while you stayed on ground level keeping yourself occupied. You’d gotten spare trousers and socks, a jacket, and the bed was practically yours with how your scent rolled off of it now. Yet, you had never been permitted to go outside. 

You’d seen the land from the windows—careful of the runes, of course, and it wasn’t anything… ghastly. A vegetable garden, a single-stall stable with a dappled mare, and a beaten-down trail out the front. 

No livestock.

No bodies. 

It was only when you had become ever more curious about your lupine curse that you braved the stairs to the attic—one week into the impromptu stay. It’s funny due to the fact that Ghost had never said that you couldn’t go up there sooner.

You stand now in the flat room with a sloping roof and find the man making bullets. It’s a long table, parallel to the walls in the center of the room; dark and covered in all manner of books and tomes. Grimoires tied up and locked. Racks of weapons with markings and blessings tied to sheets of ribbon…it was something you’d never seen before. 

Studying it now, the contents were a dark fascination. 

Ghost fiddles with his silver shell, mixing in gunpowder into the hollowness. He doesn’t speak until you do, but he knows you’re there.

“Tell me more about werewolves,” you speak through the air, and he waits before answering. “The ones who are born with it.”

“Rare,” Ghost comments, and you’re stuck by how willing he is to tell you about this. He puts down his bullet and picks up another. “Harder to find, even harder to kill. Unlike you, they know what goes on when they’re running ‘round. Fuckin’ nightmare to pick up the pieces—bloodbath.” You thin your lips. “Not all of ‘em are murderous, but they’re unpredictable. Can’t help but make packs.”

“Instinct,” you murmur, coming a bit closer. Ghost pauses, looking at you before huffing in the form of a gruff ‘yes.’ Your wondering continues. “But why am I alone then?”

“That’s the question,” the hunter says slowly. “Need to figure out why.” Brown eyes slowly move to you. “‘Fore more people end up dead. Or turned.”

“Can I,” you stop at the table, standing opposite the man. “Can I turn people, too?”

“No,” is all you’re given. Ghost’s eyes glint. “And I’d rather you didn’t bite on me to try.”

Your face heats.

Your attention focuses for a while on how he works—prepares for something unseen. He’d said he’d kept you alive to help him find the one who bit you, but he’d also cleaned your infected injuries, bandaged you, and fed you. Kept you warm. Safe. It was far more than could be said about your village.

However, it was strange how Ghost’s stark muteness was something that you found in the darker hours, a small comfort. When the moon was coming in from the windows, and you hid from its rays as if being stalked down, he once found you sleeping under the bed on the floor because of it.

He never said anything, just offered you a silent hand and helped you back out with a slow blink and a tilt of his head.

There was a distrust, obviously, but there was also an unspoken nearness. No one would make any sense of it—you couldn’t either. It was like a wolf and a raven; something built on hesitence but necessity. You didn’t like Ghost’s mask or his brutalist profession of shooting his wolfsbane-coated bolts, and he didn’t like that once a month you turned into a rampaging werewolf. 

Comparable things, really. 

But even here, in this workshop in his attic, you saw the need for this—for hunters. If you couldn’t stop yourself, there came a time when you had to be stopped. Truth be told, you expected it to be a quick and final end. Maybe that was just a foolish hope. 

A silver bullet would have always been your final song, you believed. Perhaps the very one that had once swung from around your neck; the one you’d never taken off until now. 

But then, perhaps that would have been your own brutalist profession.

“Thank you,” you nod. Ghost pauses, fingers stained with gunpowder. He blinks at the bullet in his hand as you continue. “I know you don’t care about anything beyond your work, but if you hadn’t gotten me out of that cage they would have burned me alive. Skinned me.” Your tongue pokes out of the side of your mouth. “I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been kind. Job or not…thank you for getting me out of there.” 

“I shot you,” he utters, voice gravel. Ghost seemed confused.

Your lips flick. “I never said I forgave you for that part.”

A smooth chuckle wafts out over the attic and your own softly mirrors. Your head tilts somewhat quizzically. “But, about that…did you mean to put so much wolfsbane on it?”

Ghost shakes his head, grumbling. A small sense of honesty leaks out. “...Expected you to be bigger.”

You blink, and then, a few seconds later, a loud snort echoes like a ringing bell. 

The Hunter's unimpressed look only leads you to find him all the more enjoyable. “Shut it. Fuckin’ hell.”

A hand is waved from your party, dismissing the harsh snap. “Sorry, sorry.” You puff out amused air. “Spector not up to your expectations?”

Ghost nearly rolls his eyes, trying to focus on the task at hand. He didn’t mind your company, at the very least he knew he needed to keep an eye on you for any potentially forced shifts or hostile attitude. What he hadn’t expected was to find you so…different from your muzzled counterpart, your shared physical inhabitant. 

He could almost call you endearing if he wasn’t so numb to the sight and scent of reality. 

“Sightings were far between,” Ghost grunts. “Here-say. I took an educated guess—better to put something like you out of commission than drag my way out of a forest without legs.”

“No apology?” You try, tilting your head.

“None,” is the drawn response. “I don’t have regrets. You’re alive.” 

Your fingers touch the outside of one of his journals, tracing the bumps and grooves of age and wear. You hum, but don’t reply. Most of your pains have been pushed back now, even if you still weren’t up to full strength. Food and rest helped, but the anxiety that perpetuated only lengthened the healing process. 

When you can’t trust even yourself under the drunkenness of the moon, it only makes your fear of the sun worse. Everything made you afraid—most of all your mind; most of all, the future. 

“Why do you want to find the werewolf that turned me?” You have to speak this, have to push. Your curiosity demands it.

Ghost puts the bullet down and grabs a rag from his belt, mask turning to look your way as he brushes off his hands. He pauses, looming with that gargantuan height—natural intimidation in the span of his chest and the trunk that makes up his front. You find yourself in his shadow as he rubs at his fingers with the rag, taking it away and slotting it back into his belt a moment later. 

The man’s heat leaks into your body as he blinks over, glancing your form up and down in a single look; keeping a respectful distance but still making his attentions known. 

He stares. “If it keeps biting people, there won’t be any villages left to take up contracts from.”

“Money?” You frown.

“Principle,” Ghost counters, chest rising and falling steadily. “There needs to be a middle ground. Too many feral werewolves, too few people. Cut off the head.”

“Ominous,” your form turns to his, itching at the back of your head again—the scabbing skin. “If what you said was true, how do you know the thing isn’t already dead? If it hasn’t tried to get to me, what was the point of making me?”

“Because you hadn’t left St. Francis’ by the time I put a bolt in you.” Ghost grumbles, rubbing a hand on his bicep, itching above the fabric of his tunic. He stretches with a grunt—and you see his shirt ride up and the pale skin underneath. You gawk for a moment at the length of scars and brutal muscle.

“Charming,” you dryly utter, stuttering in a brief second of pulling back your senses, but the Hunter continues on, ignoring you.

“That was where you were turned—your territory. You stayed because your leader is still close by waiting.” Legs shift, and all of a sudden, a body is over you, hands are on the base of your skull, pushing your own away as brown eyes dig into the injury you pick at. 

Your breath hitches, tensing for a second as your spine straightens. You watch widely from the corner of your eye as Ghost runs a careful hand over the flesh. He puffs a breath, chest moving in a grunt that is both commonplace and expected, yet the brush of his chest to your shoulder is not. 

You restrain a shiver, nostrils moving to the overwhelming swell of leather and gunpowder. Bone fragments; the tang of whiskey. 

His skin as he runs a thumb over the edge of your wound.

“It’ll start cracking.” Ghost utters, and through his fabric, you feel the brush of speech. “Have to apply more balm. Stop messing with it unless you want stitches soon.” 

It takes a moment more of his surgical study and a small clearing of your throat before you can speak. Your mind changes the subject for you.

“So…if my bite can’t turn anyone,” you breathe, nearly sagging as Ghost’s fingers catch in your hair, shifting it under his attention to get a better look. He listens, you know. He wasn’t good at talking, but he always listened. “Why did they muzzle me?”

For a brief instance, you think you feel the Hunter’s fingers jerk a tiny amount—some reactionary muscle twitch that leads your body to still. 

Ghost can’t say why he did that, though perhaps it was the sudden flash of the injuries that he’d wrapped on the road back to his property that went over his eyelids. Or the cage—your pleading face aching for whatever small sliver of brutish company you can get. 

The silver bullet that he still had in his pocket, attached to that leather cord. He knew the purpose; the intent. Just as he knew the scrape of scabbing under his fingertips. 

“Control,” he grumbles, and it’s all he’ll say. 

Your burning face is somewhat down-turned, letting him do as he must, study what he can. He hadn’t made any moves to endanger you, and besides the upcoming full moon, there was nothing here that screamed imminent danger. Danger as a general, yes, of course. You were a werewolf in a hunter’s home—it would always be…your eyes flutter when his fingertips drag over your scalp…it would always be danger….dangerous.

Ghost doesn’t think you notice it, but your eyes are drooping. 

He watches after the slight shock wears off, a tiny smirk flickering the hidden skin of his lips after he realizes the reason. If you had a tail, he’d assume it would be moving in a soft arch by now. 

The man was mildly amused at that, and before he moved away fully, he had to stop himself from uttering a sarcastic, ‘like that, then?’ 

He had to remind himself not to get attached to whatever…this was. He was using you as bait, as some key to his problem. Not a companion. The distance here had to be firm and heavy-handed. 

“The balm is down in my packs,” he grunts, leaving just as his name implied before you had the chance to gather your bearings and the lack of caressing heat. You startle back to the attic room, eyes wide and face loose before Ghost’s retreating footsteps echo on the stairs. “Don’t bloody use it all, then.”

The front door opens and closes with a pull of weighted wood.

—

“I can’t do this,” you mutter, pacing alone in the middle of the night down in the living room 

The full moon was tomorrow. 

“I can’t do it,” you itch at the back of your head, peeling at the nearly healed flesh harshly. Your nails dig into the soft tissue, drilling like a knife. A bead of blood slips around your fingers, but it doesn't stop you.

It’s late—late enough to know that Ghost should be asleep by now. For days, the paranoia, just like always, builds until you are nearly as mute as your Hunter. No more curiously searching his attic; no more questions about his job or how he got into this business. Brown eyes had been lingering more as the days went by, this strange companionship growing. You knew, in his own way, he was…worried.

So silent, even he had been getting noticeably uneasy. Shifting legs and quick glances. Nights where you hid under the bed from the moon until lunch came around, Ghost speaking as easily as he could to try and coax you out to no avail. You, a feral dog with white-rimmed eyes. 

At supper, only hours before this panicked pacing, you had told something to Ghost that made him double-take. 

“If I can’t stop it…I need you to shoot me. In the head.”

He’d never answered, but his eyes seemed to get ever-sharper as the hours continued on. More tense. Ansty.

But…that was his job, wasn’t it? 

“Can’t do it,” you murmur. Blood slips down your wrist. “It isn’t right—”

“Spector?” Ghost’s voice had become so familiar to you that the only thing that made your heart skyrocket was the sudden call of it. Your gasp is sharp from behind a panted breath, hand flinching away from the crater you were steadily digging in your skull. A long string of blood trails into the air as your fingers jerk away, and it’s only then that you notice the deep pangs of pain.

Your eyes shudder for a second as Ghost’s form makes it to ground level. He comes over slowly, attention staying on the way the moonlight makes the crimson stains glint from the dripping line seeping into the sleeve of your tunic. He blinks, and you both stand.

The man’s skeletal adornment was missing, though the fabric under remained. A loose sleep shirt and pants, stained by the rays of night. 

“Let me see,” he sighs under his breath, a tiny rasp telling of the sleep he’d been awoken from.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you utter. He doesn’t seem to care, grabbing your wrist and pulling the limb away as his body takes up presence behind you. 

“Was already awake,” Ghost grunts, eyes narrowing in hidden worry. You calm down a bit at that, one less problem to worry yourself about. 

The Hunter, quietly, leaves for a second and grabs his pouch near the door. With a muffled command, he nods to the bed until you’re backing up and hitting the back of your knees off of it, sitting. 

Ghost lights the candle on the nightstand and opens his belongings with stiff glances your way. He noticeably doesn’t ask why you’ve harmed yourself like this.

“I can’t,” you say it like a plea for help. “Ghost, I can’t do it again.” 

Hands fiddle with clean bandages and take out his waterskin. The man douses a rag with the liquid and comes over, shifting onto the bed and lightly turning you so your back is to him—legs half hanging off. 

The hard press of cold water makes your breath hitch, and you bite your lip.

“It hurts,” you push out. Ghost knows you’re not talking about the newly opened wound. 

“Breathe,” he says to you, seeing the way your sides expand with heavy lungs. Brown eyes flutter from the push of his large hand to the warmth of your shaking flesh. “Tell me about your home, yeah? Heard you lived in your own place.”

The question makes you double-take.

He’s asking me that? Here? Now? Hours away from perhaps another catastrophe?

Yet, you can’t help the slippage of your tongue as Ghost’s fingers rub into your scalp. The rag is lessened, and, soon, the material is rubbed gently over the sore itch of weeping skin. You fight a whimper and reply with an addled mind. 

“It…it’s quiet. Calm. I always keep the candles going because I don’t like the dark.” Ghost works quietly and quickly. 

“There,” he grunts, glancing at the flickering light of the candle he lit. He’d have to remember that. “And?”

“I kept sheep.”

He pauses, and, without meaning to, a soft scoff bounces off the confines of his chest. It catches your attention far better than a bullet could. Ghost shifts a needle and thread out of his gathering of items, taking away his limbs only for the short while it takes him to loop the two together. 

“How many?” The masked man asks, amusement gone just as quickly as it had come. 

“Only a handful,” you whisper. Your mouth opens and closes, glancing over your shoulder as the candle-light spills out over the room; casting shadows over Ghost’s face, catching on his long eyelashes. Those browns of his glint like tree trunks covered in dew.

“Please,” your words are muffled. Eyes wide and fearful, there isn’t anything that can console you on this. “You need to kill me.”

There was a dichotomy to you—a violent thing. You didn’t want to die, no, you feared it heavily, more than the moon, but the truth was that you couldn’t keep going through this. The unknowing. The breaking bones, the blinding pain. The understanding that nothing that you do can stop it. 

“It hurts, Ghost,” your breath stutters. “More than taking off a limb, more than slicing yourself open and ripping out your intestines—it burns more than the light of the moon.”

The Hunter listens through all of it. He sits, he stares, and he hides the brimming sense of concern behind his dead eyes.

With a pulling of his eyebrows, Ghost’s free hand moves upwards and grabs your chin. Freezing, you study this phenomenon from over your shoulder, face on fire with eyes wide to the pale skin visible to your view. You hadn’t realized until now, but this was the most you’d seen of the man’s face. 

You could make out the point of his crooked nose—the strength of his jaw under the form-fitting fabric. Cheekbones and the heaviness of his brows. Wisps of hair. He had eyes like a cat, you had to admit; something sly about them despite the numbness that seemed to extend bone-deep. 

But his hands had been kind to you. 

Firmly, Ghost’s fingers run your flesh, and he blinks softly before a low sound echoes in his throat. He pushes carefully on your jaw and shifts your head back forward so he can help you. When he lets go, your heart quivers in your breast

“I’m ‘ere,” he mutters, and you feel the first stitch enter the thin flesh of your head. You take down deep breaths, focusing on the scrape of his fingertips and not the point of the needle. Ghost can understand the fear of it—of pain. It’s instinct. He tilts his head and pushes out, “I can only ask for one full moon from you, yeah? No more. I just need one.” 

“And if I can’t find the werewolf?” Your voice vibrates with emotion, staring down at your hands as Ghost’s chest brushes your spine. The scent of him was addling your brain; the rub and slide of his hands.

The Hunter’s jaw clenches softly. “...Then I let you go.”

It wasn’t what you were expecting, but anything from the time you’d gotten a bolt through the thigh was unknown territory, and, like a dog without a leash, you’d run into it. Your brows furrow, blood oozing down your neck before Ghost’s grip shifts to place the rag back again, swiping away firmly. 

“Go?” He nods, but you can’t see it. “But what about the hunt?”

“I can manage.” The stitching pauses. The air is broken up nearly a full minute later. “You’re not evil.” Before they start up again as if nothing was uttered aloud. 

The confession makes the sting in the back of your eyes start up again—a strong thing of confusion and vulnerability. Ghost continues his task, pulling together your skin one suture at a time until the injury is fully closed; clean. 

“Chin,” he lowly states, and you allow him to tap your jaw, shifting it up so the wrappings can loop above your ear and over your forehead—securing them. 

Even far after the blood has seeped through, the two of you stay.

—

Come morning, you already feel wrong.

Your body stays in bed, shaking—sweating. A large pain flairs in your chest over and over like a pulsing well in the earth, skin twitching with the spread of blood. Ghost sits beside the bed all the while, having dragged over his chair. He leans back into it, one arm over the side, hanging with the thing ever so often moving to rub at the back of his neck. 

You don’t think he’s moved since he brought it over last night; since he got another candle to stick into the holder—push back the dark. To watch, to study, or just to stave off your rising anxiety is another question. 

It’s only after the fourth time you try to rip at the stitches at the base of your skull that he finally grabs your hand and holds it silently. Now, his thumb moves over your knuckles—his gloves back on. 

At noon, he tries to suggest eating.

“Hungry?” Ghost asks. 

“No,” you say instantly, sweat dripping over your temple, your body partially buried under blankets. “No, I’ll just throw it up.” 

Brown eyes glint. “Just one bite?” 

Your mouth is already salivating—thoughts of wet flesh and blood in the forefront until you whine and shove your face into the pillow; panting heavily. 

Whispers dance in the shell of your ears. 

I’m here.

I’m here.

I’m here.

“Go away,” you whisper quickly to them. 

Ghost pauses, hesitating. After a moment, his thighs tense with the action of movement, thinking you’re speaking to him. Something swirls in his chest, but he starts to stand nonetheless.

Your eyes widen.

“No!” Both of your hands latch onto the Hunter’s wrist, fear a needle stuck in your gaze. “No, not you. Stay, please.”

A silver cage covered in blood slides across Ghost’s slightly shocked look, but he only licks at the corner of his mouth and slowly leans back once more. 

“Not going anywhere,” he says, accent dipping. “Tell me what you’re hearing, yeah?”

His hand slips back into yours, and he presses into your pulse softly, counting. The sun continues across the sky.

“I don’t like how it sounds,” you say, shaking your head. “It’s wrong.”

“Focus,” Ghost breathes, looming closer. His grip squeezes once. “It can’t hurt you.” 

You shiver, eyes tightly closed as tears burn the back of your nose. “It’s howling.”

A suddenly gloveless hand spreads up your cheek, resting there and pushing back the sweat that pools. It’s calloused—scarred. You whine, head spinning.

I’m waiting. 

Find me.

Find me.

“I don’t want to,” you utter under your breath, words an amalgamation of slurring gasps. 

“Spector,” Ghost calls, head moving closer. “Eh.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” your hurried panic is similar to a mind overdosing on wolfsbane. “Gotta go away—gotta get out—”

“Spec!” The Hunter’s quick bark makes your eyes pop open, and you lock instantly with brown orbs. 

They’re tight, unblinking just as always. They offer just a few moments of clarity. 

Ghost holds your head still while the rest of you shivers with cold sweats, you can hear the blood inside of his veins; his heart pumping. The scent of his skin was addicting to the point of memorization on the airwaves. You watch, gulping down breaths as your throat bobs. 

Eyes dart you up and down, fingers spreading out to offer what little comfort he can. The man wonders if he’s completely in over his head. 

Ghost pulls his face-covering up to his nose, and your heart skips beats at the sight of ravaged skin and stubble, scars spreading out like your own. Long ones, short ones, burn marks, and hyperpigmentation. He wasn’t pretty, but he was real. 

Oh, he was real. 

His grip on you strengthens until all you can focus on is him. 

Ghost blinks, and you see his lips move. The gravel of his voice was never more clear. “Fucking hell, keep that head on, okay? Nothing’s going to happen as long as I’m here. I’ve got you.” He sighs out a low breath, thumb running your undereye as the small dribbles of tears begin to sneak out. Ghost murmurs. “I’ve bloody got you, alright? Let it happen—we can figure it out.”

He’d grown fond of you over the course of a month. You were curious; not pushingly so. Honest. Good. You’d been dealt a bitter hand, and damn him if his stone heart wasn’t stretched thin at the raw fear on your face. This wasn’t your fault, but he needed to find who turned you and stop them before it got any more out of control than it already was. If more unstable werewolves went running through the woods, there wouldn’t be anyone left in the territory alive.

“When you turn,” Ghost says as clearly as he’s able. “Go. Don’t fight it. I’ll find you.”

“Promise?” You ask, a weak flicker coming to your lips—eyes vulnerable. 

Ghost nods once, and it’s all you need. “I’ll find you,” he repeats. “Doubt me?”

“No,” you ease, clearing your throat. “But…one more thing?”

“Anything,” the Hunter instantly says. 

“Just don’t shoot me in the thigh again.”

When the claws start protruding from your nailbeds hours later, you’re bolting to the door with only one last glance at the Hunter and his half-pulled-up mask. Booted feet hitting the wood as he stands, he lets you go even as his thighs tense in a need to run after you. Patience was his beast to tame, but it seemed to have left him in the form of a woman disappearing into the tree line. 

There is companionship in broken things.

Your body slips into the forest just as the creak of your bones begins to shift and bend. You fall into a heap, hearing the gargling of marrow under your skin like a call to sea. An urge grows to infect you; a feral need to run and hide. Biting back a shrill scream, a hoarse yell escapes instead—flesh rippling as your mouth opens, fangs breaking the supple mushiness of your gums as blood floods like a river. 

Find me. 

Find me.

Find me.

“Ghost,” you whisper, hands snapping to your head. “Ghost, please.” 

Your bullet, you want your silver bullet.

A rabid scream rips from your throat, and back in the house, Ghost’s hands tighten into fists as he glares at the open door. He growls under his breath, eyes tightening in a certain type of anger that brews in his gut. The nights your shuffling woke his light slumber were more common than when you hadn’t, and every utterance was clearly heard to his ears. It had become a curse to him—how you’d met.

A regret was seeping in, a care, and now, as he forces himself to back up and head into the attic, Ghost clenches his jaw tightly. So unaffected by the horror of monsters, he was now at a loss of sense for this growth of feelings. 

He wasn’t dull, he knew that some of the contracts he took marked him as a tool and not a person of stable mind. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of, and he would continue to do them for no other reason than they were the orders he was given.

But you had broken a piece of that off of him, somehow, someway, your face had seared itself into his retinas—speared him at the brutality that your community had treated you with. The muzzle. It was cruel, and while Ghost was precisely that, there was a limit. 

He did his job, and that was that. Anything after wasn’t his problem. 

You became his job, and the one who turned you was an add-on. Maybe if he justified it to himself, he could understand his actions better. 

But he was already sprinting to grab his gear when the first howl shattered the night.

—

A white beast prowls the forest. 

It stands on two legs, but it isn’t human—isn’t natural. It’s taller than a grown man is; snout pulled back in a soundless snarl that puts dogs to shame with rows of teeth so sharp, they look like pale knives. Its feet—large, splayed—soundlessly skate the ground until clawed fingers slam to the earth. 

A nose inhales the scent above the dirt, tongue lulling as a shaggy tail lays limp behind a curved spine. In between the erect ears, under the thick skull of the werewolf, the rolling bumps of a brain spark. A pull.

Find me.

Your eyes are tiny black dots—and they blink once before you rise once more. A great growl moves inside of your chest, the large collection of hair around your neck standing on end.

I’m waiting.

But there’s something that keeps you here—standing in the grass as the moon shines atop your head, your fur nearly glowing even with the stain of bloody injuries. The remains of clothes are about a meter away; only strips of what was. 

Your gaze looks over your shoulder, and your gargantuan frame lumbers backward until you can stoop to them—nose once more sniffing with your arms reaching.

Your fingers twitch, blackened claws digging through the ground as a near purr echoes in your throat. The scythe-like additions card across the strips.

Gunpowder. 

Leather.

Whiskey.

Something you can’t quite name, but feel drawn to despite the tightening noose at your throat. There was something there you can’t focus on…something that you need. 

Your drooling jaws snap, saliva coating the fangs until they drip off one at a time to stain the grass. Body shifting, your head lowers until your wolf-ish visage rubs against the fabric, licking at the sides of your gums as delicate grumbles slip out of your mouth. 

A far-off howl leaves your frame freezing.

Eyes slipping back into the feral-inhumanity of a wild animal, your body jolts up, gaze to the forest trees and the rustling of bushes. The swell of rain on the clouds is in the back of your nose, and the previous attraction to the ripped clothes is lost as simply as it had come. 

You were being summoned. 

Ears twitching, the entirety of your body refuses to move to the sound; tensed and ready to spring on anything that moves if only to let off the spike of anger at the lack of control. The pull grows stronger, and it feels like something is trying to drag you away into the wilds.

This was the sensation you were always trying to fight—the one that led to the aggression; the hunt. You knew that if you followed that howl, whatever was left of your human sense would be gone entirely before you could stop it. 

Yet, this time, there’s a nagging need to find the owner, and you can’t remember why.

Your large head tilts, feet spaced as the curve of your spine grows more aggressive—hunching forward as you snarl at nothing, claws shaking as your fur is more bristly than sleek. 

Like pure white spikes. 

In the back of your head, a thin sliver of a memory slips in. Fingers on the back of your head, caressing calluses and dark, dark, eyes. Clean bandages and gentle touches.

I’ll find you.

If the side of your vision picked up the shadow shifting from far off into the trees, your curled lip never turned that way. If your nose twitched to the heavy weight of a man’s sweat, it never shifted to point as a mutt would to the rustling bush.

Your body bolts after the resounding echo of a wolf’s howl, and it’s no later that Ghost slips after your clawed prints to follow.

—

Crossbow in hand, the hunter’s mask gleams in the darkness, his pale eyes twinkling. Bending down, he glazes at the long pushing tracks of your form—seeing the spray of dirt to the side and the broken branches. Ghost blinks, shoulders tense before he swiftly stands and continues on. The firearms at his thighs lightly rattle, and the bolts in his crossbow are already laced with wolfsbane; silver tips smelt a week ago. 

He passes a river with only a single glance at the tossed rocks from the bed, sloshing through the water as the bottoms of his pants get weighed down. Ghost’s mind is on one thing only: make sure this plan won’t get you killed. 

The bolts aren’t for you—the silver bullets aren’t for you. 

He grunts under his breath, the dark woods casting phantoms over the ground. The Hunter’s legs shift through tall grass, and he carries himself with the ingrained confidence a man of his station requires. If he were anything less than a monster himself, he would have died ages ago. Ghost shoots and lets others come up with the questions, but he could never be called dumb. 

Seeing what fast glimpse he had of your shifted form after the last time, he was struck by how erratic it acted. Snapping head, twitching ears, and roving eyes. If he didn’t know any better, Ghost would have called it rabid. 

Yet, your actions with his borrowed shirt were…body-stilling, to say the least about it. It had made his gut swirl.

“Give me a trail,” Ghost utters to himself, brown eyes still picking up the dash you’d taken. His agile feet splash through a puddle, the beginnings of raindrops hitting his head. 

The man grabs at his hood and pulls it up stiffly, frowning under his mask.

Rain would wash away the tracks.

“C’mon, Love,” he grinds out, body hunched. “Leavin’ me to do the dirty work, eh?” 

It’s too quiet—even a collection of minutes later of hard hiking, the trees barely move. There aren’t any birds; no animals beyond the black bodies of crows in the far-up branches, waiting, watching with obsidian eyes that don’t blink. 

Ghost isn’t off-put, but the length of his strides gets far tinier, carefully stepping over twigs and rocks like a soldier at war. Then again, he was at war. And if he was caught unawares, there wouldn’t be a bullet to pull out of his side, but, instead, a chunk missing. 

His ears were almost ringing from how hard he was focusing. 

Brown eyes shift from one area to another, and then, suddenly as if a deer, he freezes. 

Ghost’s body winds up, fingers twitching from the stark trigger discipline of his crossbow downward instantaneously. No one but him can explain what just happened, but he knows when he has to listen instead of act. Stuck in a clearing not unlike the place he’s first met you, his feet rest shoulder width apart and his eyes stare blankly into the trees ahead.

Your tracks end here.

From behind him, just as the large raindrops slap the side of his bone-ed visage, the small crack of a twig makes his ears twitch.

A low snarl sets his hair on end. 

Looking over his shoulder, Ghost is met with the same color that he’d become so accustomed to in a full month completely blacked out. Void. Lifeless to anything besides rage and bloodlust. 

Your white fur was infected with dirt, blood, and leaves—a mosaic of ferality ingrained into your body; pale fangs snapping. The beast slips through the treeline, slapping a veined hand into the soggy earth. 

Ghost only watches, eyes a mystery. 

His finger shifts over the trigger, and for the first time in his life, he hesitates. 

The man looks into your glinting orbs, the dripping saliva on your lulling tongue as your esophagus pants for breath. One hesitation, he always knew, would mean death. One mess-up. 

You’d asked him to end it, he shouldn’t feel remorse, guilt, perhaps—he was still human, despite his appearance, but remorse was deeper. It left wounds that were harder to lick clean again. 

…So why isn’t he sending a bolt into your forehead?

Ghost remembers the times he’d found you under the bed, your shaking, and the way you hadn’t allowed him to change your bandages the first few weeks you’d stayed with him; didn’t want him to touch you. The nightmares and the small smile you’d gain when he’d spew his dark, sarcastic words as if this was a joke. How you’d always thank him under your breath for the food he’d give you, hunted by his own hand. 

A silver cage. Crimson blood. The sight of your pleading eyes when you’d told him to shoot you.

Maybe the two of you were far more alike than he’d dare to admit. And he currently won’t, not even on his deathbed. Not even now.

Ghost watches, and he waits. 

He can’t do it.

Your body slinks closer, stalking with the sound of anger, nearly rib-shaking in its volume. Ghost’s jaw clenches, and his body shifts to face yours head-on. At the sight of the crossbow, your snarl turns into an air-biting rage, saliva flying through the rain.

“Spector,” he keeps his voice low, even. The sight he’d seen as you smelled his clothes had to mean something. Ghost tilts his head, moving out a hand from the side of his weapon in an appeasement gesture. “I’m not going to shoot you. We have a job to complete…get those fangs away.”

He wonders if ordering you around will even work. You had told him before—you’re not a mutt. Ghost agrees. No mutt was the size of a fucking boulder.

The werewolf’s claws drag—goring the mud as if a pig to tear apart. 

“Spector,” the Hunter tries again. But something’s different about his tone; he drops it, letting it pull on a softer string. “I’m here to end this. We’re here to end this.” He blinks and lowers the crossbow completely. “Breathe. The night can’t last forever.” A breeze whips the trees. “I made you a promise.”

There’s a second, he thinks, where he can see something shift in your gaze, pupils slightly widening above the deluge that wets down your fur into a sopping mess that hangs off muscle.

“That’s a girl,” Ghost grunts, taking a small step closer. “Never told you,” he utters, eyes locked with yours. He sees your nose twitch minutely. “But if we get this right, Spec, there’ll be no more painful shifts, hear me?”

Your dog-ish mouth is closed, hanging off every word as Ghost comes even closer.

“I kill this bastard,” the hunter breathes, gloved hand still outstretched, nearing closer to the near-silver of your form. “The moon’ll have no claim on you. She’ll let you off the leash, Little Wolf. You get to decide when it happens.” 

He thinks he has you now, back to some state of recognition in the addled brain that tries to see him as prey; as competition. Ghost’s fingers are close enough to almost touch you, but just before he can brush his gloves over your wet fur, your mouth opens in a display of untamed challenge. Your growl is enough to make the man unconsciously reach for his pistol, and in the time it takes him to realize the fault of it, you’ve already rampaged forward with an unhinged jaw.

Ghost’s eyes widen, taking a quick step back. 

Your legs push off, and you shove the hunter out of the way just before the fangs of an immense beast can clamp down on him, your own finding the shoulder of gray, thick fur.

Fighting as wolves do, Ghost only needs a moment to recover and get to his feet, though the sight in front of him can rival any that he’d seen before. His crossbow clatters a few feet away, sending the bolt off into the trees with a metallic ‘twang’.

The two werewolves roll around the pouring clearing, snapping teeth and rending claws drawing blood that’s deep enough to swim in to the green grass. White and gray meld together—blue eyes like a knife to Ghost’s chest when he takes it in from between the sound of tearing fur. 

“Bloody fucking…” the man trails, staggering as his palms slap to the pistols at his side. He blinks, shouting in more of a bark than even a dog could imitate. “Spector!” 

The wolves pull and rip the other to shreds, flesh torn and limbs grasping for purchase. Bodies are slammed to the ground before getting tossed to the side, fangs flashing in the moonlight. Ghost watches crimson stain your fur a pinkish-red.

He can’t get a good shot.

The werewolf that turned you sinks its claws into your sides, dragging them downwards as you yowl, eyes tiny with aggression before your jaws connect with its snout, biting down with more force than a horse’s hooves. The monster screams—a garbed thing of fangs and saliva. 

Just as easily as it called you here to it, as it stalked your Hunter, it bashes your body back into the earth and takes you by the scruff of your neck. Eyes wide in that lupine way, you lock on Ghost’s profile before your body is lifted, and tossed away violently. 

Spine slamming into a tree, you hear the cracking and bending of your bones in your ears just after you hear the sharp shout from the man in the clearing, body dropping to a heap into the grass and mud. Angled head flopping back and forth, black infests the edges of your vision, coughing up blood that seeps from between your gums and slips down the back of your esophagus. Fur and flesh are stuck at the base of your throat. 

Whining, your limbs drag and pull futility, eyes flooded over with crimson and fogged by rain. A great roar worries the air, sending long shivers over your spine as you try to rise to your limbs, a five-fingered hand slamming you back down. 

Just before the fangs can clamp your throat, two great booms burst through the forest. 

The wolf atop you reels back, great bellow escaping its throat when you can finally drag your head to look over. This beast was clawing at its chest, shaking its large head in an arch to try and dispel the shock of having two silver bullets entering its back—the gray head snapped around to Ghost, who held his twin pistols aloft with eyes burning with anger from behind his mask. An avatar of vengeance; a bringer of death. 

The orbs inside of your sockets widened, nose twitching wildly as you bleat a quick warning bark. 

Blue-Eyes rises, body far larger than yours would ever grow to be—on two feet more powerful looking than a bricklayer many years into his craft; tall enough to reach to the sides of black-shingled homes and pull itself up. Ghost takes one look and growls under his breath, knowing there would be no time to reload the weapons in his hands. 

So he drops them and pulls slowly at the cruel blade in his belt until the gleam winks in the low light like a curved smile. Setting it in his hands, the small flicker of a sharp smirk on his lips is lost to you. 

Yet, there isn’t a chance for some brawl between two beasts—there’s only the flash of pale fur and the final crunch of a body hitting the ground. 

You bury your fangs into the wolf’s neck; the one responsible for all of your pain and torment spanning years of isolation. You feel the body seize as it drops, the last remnants of a dying brain trying to fight the inevitable nothingness that ensues, and, you only hold on the harder, the bloodlust seeping back in with every drop of life pooling into your locked jaw.

Your throat releases tiny growls of pleasure, biting a bit to make sure there wasn’t a sliver of a chance that something living was walking away from this scene. 

Ghost pauses, and in the back of his head, he knows he should stop you. Brown eyes see the animalistic sheen of enjoyment at a fresh kill, the way you pull at the flesh until chucks peel away from a gurgling wolf. Even when the thing is long dead and the rain still slaps the earth, you barely let go until you get a hold of the meat and tear with a backward jerk of your snout.

“Love,” the Hunter sheathes his knife, taking a step forward. The blood was pooling under your body. How many of those were treatable? He had to know. “Let me see what’s—”

The eyes that lock on him are not yours. 

Up to your ears, the entirety of your face was awash with the stain of life, dripping off the whiskers at your cheeks; your chin. 

Before he can utter another word, he finds himself on his back with a snapping snout right in front of his face, two dead eyes staring deeply into his own. Ghost sucks down a quick breath, hand snapping to the large wrist shoving down on his chest.

He pants out, gravel accent far more deep than it was before. 

“Easy, Spector. Easy. Eh—focus on me.” Your tongue licks at your fangs, body shaking. Ghost pushes out, “That’s it, then. It’s over, yeah? You did it; let's pack it up and head back home.” He grunts. “Recon even dogs get cold in weather like this—the bed’s waiting. Get a nice fire going.”

Ghost sees your face move closer, and his hand minutely shifts to the vial of wolfsbane on his belt. It wouldn’t kill you, but it could put you out of commission until your body shifted back into its proper form. He could carry you back—that wouldn’t be a problem at all. 

But he was worried about your injuries. Even now the droplets of blood roll off of you faster than the water can. 

Too much.

Brown eyes crease, darting a look down. 

“Fuck,” he growls, seeing the carnage and the open meat. “Sweetheart, we need to get you checked out—you need to listen to me. Can you do that?”

He can see the conflict; the internal fight. 

Your mouth moves with fast pants, claws stuttering over his gear futilely. You blink rapidly, shaking your large head in fast increments with small snarls. 

“C’mon,” Ghost says slowly, fingers looping the vial. “Keep listening. Know my voice is utter shite, but only you can tell me it.” 

Your head drops to his chest just as the wolfsbane is popped open, and, for whatever reason, Ghost pauses. He waits. 

You take a long inhale of his gear—of the leather and the gunpowder, and just before the Hunter can dump the vial over your skin, the long blackish claw on your finger loops the bottom portion of the fabric under his bone attachment. 

The man’s breath hitches as you let it rest along his nose bridge…holding it there as you drag your head upwards as if it were an impossible chore. Your mouth dribbles out gore to his cheeks, but the Hunter stares upwards into your eyes as they soften in a lupine way. 

Inexplicably, you let out a bone-rattling sigh and slump into oblivion. 

—

Come morning, you sleep under the spread of large fur blankets—clean bandages over your bare frame as the man has tended to you for hours. He mutters for you to slip your arms into a spare shirt after he finds your eyes open, not uncomfortable by your nakedness, though he wants you yourself to be at ease. 

His brown eyes are creased, and you can’t remember what you’ve done. 

You comply with small grunts and moans; more sore and cut up than you can recall ever feeling as a large tunic is slipped over your head by scarred hands. 

Gunpowder. 

“What did I—?”

“You finished the job,” he says, sparing you a glance as he shifts back with his eyes averting themselves from your visible legs. The sun seeps in through the windows. “It’s morning.”

You blink slowly, and the man eases you back down into the furs. 

“I’m tired,” your voice yawns out—weak and brittle like the hope you’d had that this plan of his would work. Eyes half-closed, they blink at the hunter with a soft kind of care that you can’t remember showing before. Whatever pain medicine he’d given you, it was working. The underlying itch was still as strong as ever, though. 

“Tired is good,” Ghost nods slowly, standing still until he crosses his arms and sets his feet. He’s in a fresh shirt and pants. There’s blood under his fingernails; traces smeared over his flesh. “Means you accomplished something.”

“Don’t think that’s entirely true,” you breathe. A pause. “...Why is your mask like that?”

It was half pulled up—showing off his lower jaw and the stubble. The scars that you already have memorized. Ghost shrugs, blinking those dead eyes of his. 

“Ah,” he grumbles. “Forgot. Here.”

He reaches up and slips the thing off in one motion. Your loose brain takes a moment to realize the entire face you’re staring into, but the second it does, the image is engraved into your mind forever. You make a noise in the back of your throat. 

“Better, Little Wolf?” 

“W—” Your lips stutter, new sutures pulling tight. “Why would you…?”

“Hungry?” Ghost asks, quickly changing the subject. “Know you like that venison that I caught.”

“No,” you breathe. “No, I’m not…I’m tired, Ghost. My head hurts.”

A hand sweeps over your forehead, staying as you sag into it with a hum and a fluttering of your eyes. 

“Bloodloss,” the Hunter murmurs. “Normal. Go back to sleep; take however long you need. I’ll be here.” 

The bond between the two of you has strengthened to that of a silver rope.

“Stay,” you plead under your breath, already slipping back into nothingness with no promise to wake up again soon. “Hold me, Ghost?”

“Simon,” he grunts to only himself, knowing that the words are lost to you. Perhaps that makes him all the more eager to share it with you when you’re better. “Stay still.”

It wasn’t like you could protest.

The broad man slips in, shifting the furs until you’re covered back up and your forehead is to his chest—keeping himself closest to the door where the runes still sit in their bloody glory. If he listened hard enough, he could even hear them humming him a tune.

No song was better to him than the one of your breath at this very moment. Alive. Moving. There were many times in the night that he thought...hm.

“Better, then?” The dry tease slips out. 

A kiss to the side of his mouth is what he gets in answer, and he doesn't say a peep more until he knows you’re back in the clutches of a dream—a good one, he knows, because he watches your expressions like a loyal guard dog would.

Ghost, Simon, rests his lips on the top of your head, and in a delicate murmur, eases, “You did good, Love.” 

There was much to do, but for now, all he had to do was hold you a little bit tighter and let his stone heart beat a little bit faster.

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[apothe-roses]

Dance of the Sugarplum Prince

Nutcracker!Aemond x Clara!Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: violence, character death, smut, tiddy sucking, oral (f-receiving), uncle-niece incest, unprotected sex, piv sex, breeding kink, possessive Aemond, obsessed Aemond

A/N: I may not be the first nor the last to do a nutcracker au, but I’m doin it anyways! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. All rights go to HBO and George RR Martin

The snow falls heavy and thick outside the window. You watch the snowflakes dance to the ground while your family makes a ruckus behind you. The adults Gossip amongst themselves while your brothers laugh and joke amongst themselves. You love your family, but you’ve grown tired of your overbearing aunties trying to set you up with “nice boys” they know.

You notice a figure making their way towards the front door, making your own way towards it to greet them. Right after the doorbell rings, you open the door, smiling at the woman on the other side.

“Aunt Alys,” you smile and embrace the older woman.

“Forgive me for my tardiness, but it’s nearly impossible to make one’s way through that,” she replies, indicating to the storm outside. Other family members come to greet Alys, so you move to the side and let them. She pulls a large case out from under her coat. She reveals several beautifully made dolls, winding them up and letting them dance across the carpet. Your family is in awe. While they’re distracted, Alys approaches you.

“I have a special gift for you,” Alys says. She opens her bag, gingerly pulling out a final doll. He was a beautiful man with long silver hair and black armor accentuated with gold.

“This,” you aunt explains, “is no ordinary knight. He is a prince of a faraway land.”

“Oh Alys, she’s too old for dolls!” your mother calls from across the room.

“Oh, but he’s so beautiful!” you rebut. “Couldn’t I just put on on my shelf and admire him?”

“You can put these dirty dishes in the kitchen,” your mother tells you. You sigh, setting your doll on the windowsill. Alys follows you into the kitchen.

“Perhaps you should’ve brought me a real prince. That would’ve made mother happy,” you laugh. Alys simply smiles at that.

Suddenly, a loud crash sounds from the sitting room, followed by your mother shouting “Luke!” You rush into the room. Your doll is lying on the floor at your brother’s feet.

“It was an accident!” Luke explains. “I only wanted to get a closer look!”

You rush over, picking your doll up off the ground. One of his eyes is broken. Luke apologizes profusely while you carefully extract the broken pieces. Alys approaches.

“I couldn’t find a spare eye, but this should fit,” she says, handing you a small sapphire. You slip it into his empty socket; it fits perfectly. She provides a small strip of black fabric that you use as a makeshift eyepatch.

“Thank you, Alys,” you say, giving the older woman a hug. You don’t notice the worried look she gives your doll.

BONG

BONG

BONG

Was it midnight already? You must have nodded off at some point. You look down at your prince, admiring his handsome face. Perhaps it’s the dim light, but it looks as though his mouth twitches.

You’re about to go to bed when something moves at the edge of your vision. A small man walks out from under your Christmas tree! For a moment, you think it’s your prince. However, this man has two eyes and looks older. He wears a crown that looks like it’s made of wood. He’s looking around, clearly searching for something. You stay as still as possible, hoping he doesn’t notice you. Theres a possibility you’re still dreaming, but you’re not willing to take that risk.

“Looking for someone, Daemon?” a voice calls out. Both your heads snap to the corner where it came from. Your mouth falls open. It’s your prince! But he’s alive! He approaches the man, sword drawn.

“Aemond,” Daemon greets. “It appears you’ve suffered a horrible accident. Shame. I was hoping for a fair fight.”

“And you’ll get one,” Aemond snaps. At that moment, more figures storm into view. You recognize them as your brothers’ toy soldiers.

“Alright. Two can play at that game,” Daemon raises a hand, and several mice scurry out from nowhere. You clap a hand over your mouth, trying not to scream. Daemon and Aemond draw their swords, circling one another. Daemon strikes first, but Aemond is quick to block. The mice and toys launch at each other. You’re enthralled. Though bloodless, the battle is intense.

Suddenly, Daemon strikes Aemond’s blind side. He’s sent flying to the floor, his sword clattering away. Daemon smiles viciously, standing over his nephew. He raises his sword to strike the killing blow and—

WHAM!

A giant slipper knocks him off his feet. Aemond glances at you, noting you are now missing a slipper. He grins, then springs into action. He draws a dagger, races to his uncle, and plunges the blade into his neck. Daemon never had time to regain his senses before he bleeds out, choking and clasping at his throat. The battle stops. The now leaderless mice scurry off, and the toy soldiers return to where your brothers left them originally. Aemond walks over to you. As he does, he grows until he’s the height of a normal man. You stare up at him, lips parted. He’s tall, and even more handsome as a man.

“You saved me,” he states, kneeling at your side.

“I-it was nothing,” you stammer, blushing. “I didn’t want him to…kill you.”

Aemond’s lips curl into a smirk. “Such a sweet thing you are,” he muses. He reaches out, winding a lock on your hair around his finger. “It’s not every day a man can say he was saved by someone so beautiful or kind.”

Your blush deepens. “You’re too kind,” you whisper.

“You must come back to the castle with me. My family will want to meet the girl who helped defeat my wicked uncle and his wretched mouse army,” he stands, extending a hand to you. You look around the empty sitting room, wondering what to do.

“It’s only for tonight. I promise to have you back by morning,” he assures you. You bite your lip, not noticing the way his gaze darkens. Then, you smile and take his hand. When you stand, you notice how much taller he is. you look down shyly, but he tucks a finger under your chin and tilts your face up to his. For a moment, you think he’s going to kiss you. But then he says, “let’s be off then,” and leads you to the Christmas tree. With each step, you shrink until you can easily walk under the branches.

You spot a castle in the distance. A beautiful red fortress perched on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a sprawling city. The faint ringing of bells can be heard.

“It seems word of our victory has spread,” Aemond observes. “I imagine the celebration is well underway.

“Oh, but I’m not dressed!” you realize.

“Look down, little one,” Aemond replies. You do, and you gasp. Your simple nightgown had been replaced with a beautiful white dress, tied by a large red ribbon. The skirt floats in light layers down to your calves. Your feet are covered by red slippers with ribbons wrapped around your legs.

“How…?” you start to ask, the question dying on your lips when you look up and see Aemond had changed as well. He’s wearing a black and red jacket adorned with golden epaulettes, and also matching breeches and shiny black boots. His hair is loose, and the swath of ribbon covering his eye is replaced with a proper eyepatch.

“Come,” he requests, extending his hand. “We don’t want to miss out on the festivities.”

The walk to the castle is filled with merriment as the small folk throw flowers over your heads and dance and cheer. Inside the castle is even more merry as ball is in full swing. You spy the king and queen at the end of the hall, their matching silver hair catching the light.

Aemond leads you to the middle of the dance floor and leads you in a waltz. The night passes in a series of twirls and lifts, until a hush falls over the crowd.

The king leads his queen off the dais into the center of the crowd. Everyone pushes back, forming a wide berth around them as they lead a solitary waltz. You feel a large hand on the small of your back.

“Come with me,” Aemond whispers. His breath tickles your ear.

He leads you out of the room. The two of you race down the halls. You haven’t felt this exhilarated since you were a child chasing your brothers outdoors.

You’re lead into a bedroom that you presume is his. You don’t have time to take in the decor, as he grabs your face and kisses you hungrily. You kiss him back, hands tangling in his soft hair.

He deftly undoes the bow on your back. He tries to untie the laces, but he gets impatient and just tears your dress open. You gasp as your dress falls from your body.

Aemond scoops you up and lays you on the bed. He looks over you like a lion about to devour his kill.

“Have you ever been with a man before little one?”

“N-no,” you stutter, causing him to chuckle.

“Well,” he starts, “allow me to show you.”

He tears the rest of your underthings off, leaving you bare before him. Without breaking eye contact, he takes one of your nipples into his mouth. Your head rolls back as he sucks on the sensitive flesh, kneading your other side.

“So beautiful,” he gasps, switching to the other tit.

“So perfect.” He trails kisses down your torso. He fingers swipe through your folds. He brings them to his lips and sucks them clean; his eyes roll back and he groans.

“I knew you’d taste sweet,” he purrs. He lowers his head to your mound and drags his tongue through your folds. You gasp and instinctually shy away, but he pins you with this hands on your hips. You can only moan as he relentlessly devours your cunt.

“M-my prince…”

“Aemond. Call me Aemond,” he breathes, sending a shiver through you. You feel your peak approaching, closer and closer. It’s just about to wash over you when he pulls away. You whine at the loss of stimulation.

“The first time I make you come, it will be on my cock,” Aemond states, once again leaning over you. He sheds his clothing with ease. He’s truly one of the most beautiful men you’ve ever seen. His cock is long and thick, and already leaking. He strokes himself as he gets into position.

“What if it doesn’t fit?” You ask innocently.

“It will fit.” He replies. “I’ll make it fit.”

He angles his cock and enters you with one sure thrust. You gasp loudly, clinging to his shoulders.

“Gods you’re tight,” he whispers. He begins to rock in and out of you, setting a steady pace.

“So wet, and I’ve barely touched you. Such a needy little thing. Absolutely begging to be fucked.”

You babble incoherently in response. Aemond chuckles and starts playing with your pearl.

“Already cockdumb are we?”

He pinches your pearl.

“I could keep you here you know. Fuck you—breed you— day and night, until your belly swells with my child. You’d like that wouldn’t you? My perfect little princess. My broodmare. Mine.”

You’re a little frightened by his declaration, but you’re to overwhelmed by pleasure to do anything about it. You can only lay there as you climax, the pleasure melting your bones and heating your blood.

“That’s my girl. That’s my good girl,” he groans, and you feel his cock pulse followed by a sense of warmth. He keeps his cock plugged inside until he starts to soften, then he pulls out. You feel a mixture of your fluid and his seed leak out. He hold your legs open, admiring the sight. Then, he lays down, pulling you into his arms.

“You’ll want for nothing. I’ll make sure of it,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your hair.

You lay against his chest, and it isn’t long before sleep claims you.

“Sweetheart, wake up!” you hear your mother call. You reluctantly open your eyes. You’re in your own bed, in your own room.

“I don’t mean to rush you, but we have some surprise guests waiting downstairs,” she pulls open the curtains, and you wince at the sudden brightness.

“Get dressed quickly! I need to get back downstairs!” she rushes out of your room, closing the door behind you.

At first, you don’t move. There was a heaviness in your chest. It had all been a dream. Of course it had been a dream. Mice soldiers, living dolls, and princes could only be the product of dreams. This is the real world, and there are guests waiting for you.

As you get dressed, you realize your prince doll is nowhere to be found. You must have left him downstairs.

Voices could be heard in the sitting room as you make your way downstairs. Unfamiliar voices. You round the corner and freeze. Sitting around the room are three very familiar faces.

“Darling, these are my half-siblings.” She leads you to the Sugarplum King. “This is Aegon,” then to the Queen, who smiles sweetly at you, “Helaena,” then finally to the most familiar of them all, “and this is Aemond.”

He takes your hand in his, planting a kiss on your knuckles. You stare up at him with wide eyes. He’s wearing an eyepatch. Over the same eye your brother broke. Was he hiding a sapphire under there?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” you breathe.

“Please, the pleasure is all mine, niece,” he purrs, looking at you in a way an uncle should never look at a niece.

“What happened to your eye?” Luke asked abruptly. Jace whacks him on the shoulder, admonishing him.

“Ow!”

“It’s alright. It was an accident long ago,” Aemond replies.

“Oh, let’s not dwell on unhappy memories,” your mother says, turning to Helaena. “How is Alicent? It’s been too long since I’ve heard from her.”

The conversation carries on, but you’ve stopped paying attention. You’re not looking at him, but you feel his gaze on you. Just as intense as it had been when he made love to you in your dream.

A dream.

It had only been a dream.

Right?

[periwinklemoonlight]

desperate for a minute in the light ⋆ boatem knights au

my third short story set in bee @applestruda 's boatem knights au and canon to the plot written by zera @hopepetal !! this is a big one!

cw: death, graphic injury, body horror

if you prefer, you can read it on ao3!

⋆⋆⋆

It all was a bit of a blur. Pearl wasn’t sure if she could recount how exactly she had stumbled across the ancient temple in her journey, if she was honest. She had just been wandering around the forest on the outskirts of camp, and maybe travelled a bit too far in when she’d broken off from the others. She was sure that she would’ve seen a structure as big as this one earlier, though. Or that someone else had seen it, at least. The thing practically towered over the treetops around it.

Pearl tiptoed around fallen tree branches, fluttering her wings curiously. The structure sat in the middle of a small clearing, lush with tall grass and decorated with small, vibrant purple flowers. They were in sharp contrast to their surroundings, a stark colour among greens and yellows. She made a mental note to remember to pick a few from their stems when she was on her way back. There was a slightly older girl in her flock that she knew had garnered a great interest in botany recently, and Pearl had thought it a good idea to ask her to identify the flora. She’d also found herself rather interested in plants as of late, though she was always most enamoured with those that matched the lustrous gold colour of her wings. 

There was a small path of scattered rocks leading up to the entrance of the temple, barely visible between the blades of grass that hiked up to her waist. The Sun was high in the sky, and at just the right angle for the building to now be casting an ominous shadow over her as she approached ever closer. Its intimidating stature did not deter her; Pearl stepped deeper into the darkness.

It was extraordinarily odd, she had decided, that something like this had been here for what she presumed had to be centuries, if not millennia, and not a single person had ever mentioned it. It was a tall thing, to be sure, although as she looked closer she saw it did not seem to actually be very large beyond its generous entrance. It appeared to Pearl as more of a facade, as if the idea of a structure was all that remained. She wondered what the need for such a building may once have been before time and disrepair had taken hold of it and its architects.

Speculation aside, it was in a terrible state to be sure, with massive chunks of rock missing and an assortment of unidentifiable vines and mosses nearly entirely encompassing what was left. They seemed to crawl in between the cracks of stone and twist into each other like knots. Frail-looking columns teeming with fractures were all that remained to hold it all in place among crumbling walls, though evidently not without much difficulty. All things considered, it was a miracle it was still standing. 

The absolute disarray the structure was in made it all the more intriguing that a crescent moon symbol at its forefront was still completely intact, and subsequently, all the more imperative for Pearl to investigate. Or at least, that was how she had reasoned it out in her mind. 

Pearl crossed the threshold inside. 

She wasn’t expecting to find anything of value inside the old temple when she had entered, much less the prettiest thing she had ever laid eyes upon. There, resting on a crumbling pedestal at the other end of the temple was a beautiful silver crown, adorned with twinkling jewels and iridescent pearls. All her other curiosities were instantly thrown away the moment she saw it. It was magnetic: how she was instantly drawn to the item, and utterly sure that her finding it was no mistake. 

Sweet sunlight poured into the temple through half shattered stained glass windows, coating the crown in an alluringly bright glint that made Pearl’s heart swell with excitement. It was perfect. Her flock mates would come back from their search and see her wearing the gorgeous object, shinier than anything any of them had ever seen before, and be unable to resist showering her with praise for her expert find. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t already deeply accustomed to it, though. Being her flock’s golden girl had its perks, undoubtedly, especially in terms of popularity among the other children. The meticulously woven crown of sunflowers in her hair said as much. 

Something dark began to build in her as she approached it, however. The closer she got to the object, the more she could swear she smelled something rotting. Every eager step she took was soon punctuated by a feeling of dread that was quickly overtaking the initial exhilaration. Still, she persisted. She couldn’t give up the opportunity of retrieving the crown, couldn't shake off the feeling that something about it was just so right. Something so meant for her, and her alone. 

Pearl held her breath as she reached the final steps, though at that point she couldn’t tell whether it was in anticipation or to momentarily relieve herself of the nauseating smell that exuded from every crack in the stone and permeated all her senses. It was wholeheartedly disgusting, but Pearl had never been one to flinch at a little muck. The crown was just as beautiful up close, every jewel shining in a vibrant technicolour that by all accounts should have been impossible. She wanted nothing more than to take it for herself, place it upon her head and declare her rightful place as queen of this old dilapidated structure. 

She reached out to grab it, and gasped in shock at the intense burning sensation that instantly spread from the metal’s surface to her fingertips. Then, it all went dark. Though it was midday, the light that had been streaming into the temple vanished at once, as if someone had forcefully put the Sun to rest and brought upon night. The only light now was a faint, ghoulish glow emitting from the crown as it continued to singe her fingers. 

Pearl screamed in pain, though it only fell on the deaf ears of the dark. The sound reverberated around the temple walls, surrounding her in a claustrophobic cacophony of her own agony as the smell of flesh burning filled the air.

She watched in frozen horror as the skin on her fingers began to melt and rot before her eyes. Flesh bubbled and sloughed off as the burning spread down her palm, then her arm, until it creeped into her shoulder and threatened to seep into her wings. Pearl cried out again, bony fingers trembling uncontrollably as the rot began to trace her spine. Chills wracked exposed bone as warm blood ran down her back. Her feathers withered into ash as quickly as hair catching flame. As the pain began to paralyze her body entirely, Pearl thought, while she still had the capacity to think, anyone, anything, please, help me.

Her vision began to fizzle out entirely, and what was left of her collapsed on the temple floor as she finally let go of the wretched item, fingers fully limp. It was far too late, though. Seconds, maybe minutes, maybe years of agony seared through her body as she lay helpless, the crown fallen somewhere just out of reach. And then, it all stopped. 

Pearl wasn’t anywhere, and she was everywhere. 

A new type of darkness encapsulated her, this one deeper, more primordial than the first. No, not the absence of light as it had once been, but rather the essence of darkness itself. Although she knew it was dark, she could not see. No senses passed through her as she drifted meaninglessly, unsure if she was falling or rising or even moving at all. 

It was peaceful, yes. It couldn’t be anything but. Nothing around her, nothing against her, nothing for her, she was nothing just the same. All that was left was a deep, insurmountable emptiness. The emptiness that held the fabric of the universe together, the negative space to fill the gaps to keep it all from falling apart at the seams. Pearl might have felt fear, being surrounded by nothing and everything, if she had still been capable of anything at all.

Pearl spent forever in the silent nothingness, and no time at all had passed when she first heard it. A faint single tone, low but not deep, floated around her. Pearl clung onto the sensation desperately, trying to grasp at it, take it for herself and hold it tight to her chest. Instead, she followed it as it slowly became louder, more solid. The pitch increased, then dropped and mellowed out in the middle once more. The melody was the brightest thing she had ever seen in a long, long time. 

She followed its lead, doing something akin to opening her mouth to sing along, wanting to join this light in its song. She did not, of course. She had no mouth to sing with, and no voice to produce noise. She was just Pearl. Still, she chased the tone, which had since then evolved into a simple melody, repeating itself patiently, taking care to never get ahead of itself or change its pace. The melody had all the time in the world. It knew Pearl did, too. 

She felt herself be guided by the song, mirroring its tones with her movements. When it dipped, she dived down with it. When it rose, she soared. The vocalisations carried her like a current, weaving Pearl through its highs and lows. 

And then, all at once, nothing was dark or ever had been dark. A brightness enveloped her, so purely light that darkness would never dare step close to it, lest it cease to exist entirely. It knew better. The melody had evolved too, the chiming tones teetering on the edge of resembling words. Pearl could not make them out. 

Instead, she allowed the song to engulf her as well, feeling two blankets of light drape across something that could have been her back. Gently, the song washed over her and flowed like a lullaby, rendering her into something akin to sleep. Suddenly, after spending eternity in absence, she was something again. The light became brighter, heavier, thicker, until it was no longer encasing her. It was her.

The light was as bright as it ever could be, and suddenly it was dark again.

And cold. And wet. And sticky. And gross. Pearl opened her eyes, and found herself exactly where she’d ought to have been. Collapsed before the pedestal, yet bathed in the same warm light of midday. Except, something was very, very wrong. She lifted herself weakly off the temple floor onto her elbows, finding her hands covered in a black sludgy substance. Brown, wilted petals and leaves lay where her head had been. Pearl’s vision blurred and spun, and she blinked it away as best as she could, trying to orient herself to having a body again. 

She wiped the sludge off her hand on something white and soft, a fuzzy substance resting gently underneath her as if it had broken her fall all this time. Its edges appeared torn and frayed. She attempted to raise herself up further, and was met with an intense ache in her back that caused her to double over again in pain. She inhaled sharply — she was breathing, she could breathe— and tried again, this time successfully balancing onto her knees. 

She made a half hearted attempt to flutter her wings, feeling panic start to surge through her when they felt wrong. Lighter. The familiar weight of hollow bones and strong muscle on Pearl’s back was replaced with something featherlight and delicate, though she would bet that whatever was there wasn’t feathers at all. 

With trembling hands, Pearl reached up over her ear to feel the texture of the small wings that resided there, the panic bubbling inside her as she felt nothing but smooth skin and clumps of wet hair where soft feathers should be. No, no, no. 

Her hand traveled higher, threading through her hair and stopping at her forehead. No, that wasn’t right. Her hand was stopped. By an antenna, sticking out of her head just where her bangs began. She grasped it, and promptly cried out in pain at just how sensitive it was, her nerves on fire. And then it hit her. She was feeling what it felt. It was a part of her. 

There, sitting covered in sludge-like black goo and on top of a silk cocoon, at the crest of a worn down temple in the middle of nowhere, Pearl screamed. And this time, it was heard.

She had only just managed to get herself to stand on her own two feet again when she heard twigs snapping and familiar voices chattering nervously, getting closer. Pearl balanced herself with great difficulty, the lightness on her back still disorienting. Slowly, achingly, she stepped forwards off of the silk and onto the cold, gritty temple floor once more. 

“Pearl?” an approaching voice called out, stretching out her name. “Where are you? Are you okay?” Pearl opened her mouth to speak and screamed again as black sludge poured out and trailed down her chin, evidently not yet all spilled on the floor behind her. The noise alerted her flockmates, though, and the footsteps drawing near increased in speed tenfold as she spat out the rest of the sludge, feeling utterly disgusted. 

“Pearl!” they called again. “Are you in here?” A flurry of voices accompanied the cry, getting closer and closer until Pearl could finally see them approaching her. The leader of the search party, a girl with dandelion coloured wings, was the first to enter the temple, and the first to see her. The others quickly appeared at her sides as the girl cried out in shock, clasping her hands over her mouth and stumbling backwards. The rest of the search party followed suit similarly, gasping and yelling as they laid eyes on her. 

Panic quickly returned to light Pearl’s nerves ablaze and replace the small shred of hope that had been building when she’d first heard them approach. She tried to speak again once more and found that her throat, terribly dry despite being choked with sludge moments ago, could only produce a croak that tore into her vocal cords like shards of glass. Tears formed in her eyes as another drop of sludge fell to the floor in front of her. She could see on their terrified faces and through their hushed whispers to each other that she had only moments to plead her case.

Desperately, Pearl gestured behind her where she knew the silver crown had dropped from her hand, unsure what she expected to happen but hoping they would notice it nonetheless. Something, anything. Instead, what she said was a conveniently placed pile of ash that just so happened to create a perfect ring shape. Pearl wailed in frustration, the sensation ripping through her throat. 

“Oh my void, she’s a monster!” one of her flockmates, a girl about her age with pretty amber wings, shrieked through tears as she clung to her friend. As soon as Pearl took a single step forward, she knew it was over. The other girls all screamed and ran as fast as their feet could take them out of the temple, each clamouring to be the first to escape. 

On wobbly legs, Pearl followed them, chasing just as desperately she did that melody in the darkness. She couldn’t let her hope run away from her. 

One of the slower girls dared to look back and screeched to the others, “She’s following us!” Those who had exited the temple now scrambled to take flight, pausing only to pull the last of their flockmates along with them into the sky. They had already risen high into the sky by the time Pearl made it out, the tall grass beneath them entirely trampled in their haste. Purple flowers lay pathetically: half-lodged in dirt, disregarded. Pearl’s eyes darted upwards at her fair-weather friends and she grit her teeth, determined to fly after them despite her badly aching body.

Pearl jumped and flapped her thin wings uselessly, embarrassingly unacquainted with the new protrusions on her back. She managed to hover in the air for only a moment before she came crashing down onto herself, her already bruised limbs now meeting solid ground. She didn’t try to get up again. 

Instead, Pearl lay there in the dirt, shivering and crying unabashedly into her arms as her flitty wings twitched, unable to do anything as her flockmates abandoned her as quickly as they’d found her. When she’d finally mustered up the resolve to lift her head up, she was greeted with a single amber feather that had fallen just inches away from her.

⋆⋆⋆

Pearl had gone silent in front of Grian, her words now replaced with shaky breaths and sniffles. He finally let go of her hair and let it fall against her back, having finished braiding it long ago. 

“Pearl?” He asked gently. “Are you okay?” She didn’t say anything for a moment, and he used the opportunity to slide himself beside her. Soft blankets crumpled around him. A simple glance revealed what he already knew: quiet tears were streaming down her face. She turned her head away from him to wipe them, suddenly aware he could see them now. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright,” Pearl breathed. She faced him again, unable to hide the smile that creeped up into her cheeks when she saw his silly worried expression. “Honest.”

“Are you sure? We can stop now if you want-”

“Griba,” Pearl interrupted. “I want to tell you. I don’t think there’s anyone on this planet who deserves to know more than you. Will you let me do that?” Grian’s shoulders relaxed.

“Of course, yeah.” He looked sheepish. “Sorry.” Pearl elbowed him playfully.

“It’s alright, mate. Really. It’s been on my mind for a while now.”

“So… what happened next?” Grian asked. Pearl took a breath before continuing.

“Well, for starters, I had to get all that muck off me. So I took a little dip in the nearest river. I don’t blame them for not recognizing me at first, now. It stained my hair and clothes black for a while. I still looked like a completely different person by the time I went back to camp.”

“You went back?”

Pearl laughed. “What choice did I have? There was no place for me there anymore, I knew that, but there wasn’t exactly a place for me anywhere else, either. So I went back. They… I’m not quite sure they knew what to do with me. They tolerated me, which was all I could have ever asked for at that point. Well. Pretended to tolerate me. But that was all I needed. I could tell as soon as I got there that everyone already knew everything they needed to. How the other kids had found me, that I was a… moth.” She paused for a moment, sniffling again.

“Everyone was gathering up to leave camp. By the time I got there, they’d already begun to pack their things, so I did the same. We always travelled light, of course, but I can’t tell you how happy I was to finally get myself a change of clothes. I was wearing my favourite dress that day, you know? Green, with lovely droopy shoulders and little bits of gold to match my wings. And it was ruined, covered in nasty muck and drenched in river water, just like the rest of me. I think I burned it. The night they all left.” 

Grian tilted his head to the side, trying not to intrude on her space but wanting to be closer nonetheless. He thought of the choice he had made all those years ago, the look on his little brother’s face when it happened. A hand grasped tightly in his own, wings wrapped even tighter. He imagined Pearl in his place. To be loved one minute and left behind all the same. “You didn’t have any family in your flock?” As soon as the question left his lips, he regretted it.

Pearl winced, her face scrunching up. Another tear dropped down her cheek. “I did.” 

Grian looked as though he was about to give her a million apologies, but instead, he silently wrapped his wing around her, brushing his feathers against her shoulder as if to say, I’m here now. And I’m not leaving.

Pearl continued. “I did try to leave with them, don’t get me wrong. By then, I had actually figured out how to fly a little with these things.” She spread her wings out for a moment before flattening them out again. 

“But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep up with them normally, not by a long shot, and especially not in the middle of a storm like the one that was raging that night. I would have never admitted it to myself back then, but I’m certain now that they left when they did very much on purpose. They wanted to make sure there was no way I could follow. And they were right, I couldn’t. I did make it farther than I thought I would’ve, higher too actually, but void, was the wind strong. I was tumblin’ around like a leaf in the air trying to keep up. I tried for a good long while until I just couldn’t anymore. And then I fell.” Grian pressed his lips together, his mind suddenly conjuring up another familiar image. Yellow feathers stained red, caught on tree branches and littered in the grass below. He knew all too well the consequences of an avian falling. 

“I was one of the lucky ones, I guess you could say. My wings, flimsy as they were,  — are  —, were okay for the most part. It was my leg that took the blow the hardest. The break was pretty bad, I won’t lie to you. It was only another stroke of luck that saved me. There was a village nearby, barely visible from wherever I’d landed. But it was there. So, one more time, I chased it. I propped myself up on my good leg as best I could, and I was going to drag myself over to that darn village if it was the last thing I did.” Inexplicably to Grian, she giggled after she spoke. His expression said it all, and Pearl laughed again.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just thinking about it. I must’ve been quite a sight to those poor village folk! Covered in mud, leg twisted all the wrong way, soaking wet in the storm! I think that was the beginning of my whole ‘wet cat’ shtick, honestly.”

“Pearl, you could’ve died, I don’t think-” Grian began.

“I know I could’ve died!” she squawked, throwing her hands up. “But it just, I don’t know, it didn’t really scare me anymore. I didn’t want to die, mind you, but I had just kinda thought, well, I was going to live, or I wasn’t. Simple as that. And hey! Look at me now! I’m still kickin’, aren’t I?” 

Grian couldn’t imagine it. All his life, above all else, he had been determined to survive. There wasn’t any other option. He'd tell himself he would live to see the Sun rise another day, and somehow, he would. Death was not something to come to terms with, shake hands with, tell I’ll see you later. It was something to fend off, teeth and soul bared, and triumph against despite all odds. There was simply too much life had to offer to him, and he would be a fool to refuse it. 

“That you are, Pearl,” he smiled, poking her with his knee. Pearl returned the favour with an exaggerated kick to his shin with the leg she’d been swinging back and forth off the edge of her bed. Grian yelped dramatically.

“And don’t you forget it! Where was I? Oh, yes yes, the village. Well, I did make it over there in the end.” Pearl looked wistful. Grian waited patiently for her to continue again, but the moment never came. After a good long while, he spoke.

“...And then?” He asked.

“And then?” Pearl slinked her braid over her shoulder. It really was nicely done, each strand placed with clear care. “And then I met you, doofus. And Jimmy. And it was the best darn thing to ever happen to me.”

[thepixelelf]

Band of Silver, Remember my Vow [Teaser]

Based on and inspired by the Sanskrit play, Sakuntala; or The Ring of Recollection, by Kālidāsa, which dramatizes the story of Sakuntala as told in the epic, the Mahābhārata

genres: romance, angst, past civilization au (set in a made up land inspired by joseon and influenced by other asian (and hints of european :/) cultures), subtle magic, not e2l just people who annoy each other at the start to people hopelessly in love w each other pairing: healer reader x lord scoups. platonic reader & soldier dino teaser word count: 2.2k estimated fic word count: ~15k teaser warnings: injury by weapon to an animal (hunting). animal attack. estimated fic warnings: descriptions of blood, injury, and illness. (possibly) sex but not smut. animal gore. notes: this was meant to be for caratlibrary's fall collaboration, but I flubbed it on the deadline (no surprise there!). I'm still not done, but I wanted to post this to see if people are as interested in the story as I am! I will not be making a requestable taglist, however I will be tagging people who comment/show interest in the tags of reblogs

In the story of Sakuntala, the king Dusyanta ends a hunting trip before he comes across the beautiful Sakuntala in a nearby hermitage. He is immediately captivated by her, courts her, and marries her soon after. However, he must return to his royal duties in the capital. He leaves his signet ring with her, promising to return. While distracted with her love for Dusyanta, Sakuntala forgets to greet a visiting and easily irritated sage. Angered by her disrespect, he curses her by making Dusyanta forget her existence. He is later convinced to lighten her punishment, and revises the curse so that the king will remember everything upon seeing the ring he left behind.

teaser under the cut!

The bowstring pulls taut as Seungcheol draws his arm back. His aim is unwavering— it better be, with all the years of training his breath to even at will, all those days spent shooting arrows at dyed targets and skittering rabbits. He kneels in the grass, still as a corpse, and waits for the stag to lift its head from where it’s dipped at the base of a tree.

Wait. Patience. That’s what he was taught.

Patience. Wait. Wait. Breathe.

But — air huffs through Seungcheol’s nose — why isn’t it lifting its damn head? The entire forest surrounding him is quiet. Nothing is here to disturb this perfect moment. This almost perfect moment.

Seungcheol fills his chest with air again, even and silent.

Wait. Patience. Breathe. Lift your damn—

“What are you doing?”

Startling at the sudden whisper in his ear, Seungcheol swerves to the side, his fingers slipping and releasing his arrow into the air. It slams into a tree, right where the stag’s neck would have been had it lifted its head. The sound echoes through the forest, and it spooks the stag. It dashes off out of sight, and Seungcheol curses under his breath.

“Why would you—” He whips his head around and finds you crouching next to him, a woven basket resting on your hip, held there by one hand. For only a moment, he is distracted by your face, and the way the sunlight, broken through the leaves of the forest, dances on your cheeks. He clears his throat. “Do you know what you’ve just done?”

You blink and tilt your head. “What have I done?”

Abruptly, Seungcheol stands, gesturing his bow towards where the stag disappeared. “My— you…” He huffs, then looks away, returning the bow to its spot on his back and tearing off his gloves in muted frustration.

He came here for a distraction, but you are closer to an annoyance, albeit a not unattractive one. He prefers to lose himself in the concentration of the hunt.

As he moves to follow the deer, your voice stops him.

“Where are you from?”

When he turns, you’ve already stood up, and you regard him with slightly furrowed brows.

“You must be from rather far,” you say without giving him much chance to respond. “Were you planning on shooting him?”

“Him?” Seungcheol echoes. “You’re referring to that animal?”

You hum, nodding to yourself. “Rather far indeed. He may very well have been the patron spirit of these woods.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a terrible dishonour to harm an antlered one in this forest. A dishonour to what this place provides, and the vast life within it,” you explain, though the words mean nothing to Seungcheol. You step closer to him, tilting your body to peer at the quiver of arrows on his back. “You’d be a fool to attempt to kill one, and invite grand misfortune by doing so.”

His jaw clenches, and air comes out of his nose hot. “Who are you to call me a fool? Do you know who I am?”

You straighten. “Am I supposed to? You’re quite far from home.”

“I am Lord Choi Seungcheol,” he announces with pride, though it tastes of the arrogance his mother always tutted at on his tongue. “General of the Four Peak Soldiers, and— and future ruler of the Eastern District.”

You make a face, and it only makes the anger in Seungcheol burn hotter.

“A lord, huh?” you taunt. “Or a general. Which one is it? Or does it not matter?” Leaning back slightly, you study his face. “Certainly, it doesn’t matter to me. I am neither a Four Peak soldier, nor a citizen of the Eastern District, so I will say as I please. A fool is a fool.”

Seungcheol raises his hand, and you flinch, but only slightly. Your eyes remain firm on his.

He lowers his hand, tired of your presence and of having to listen. If he and you were in his district, you’d have serious punishment awaiting your next sunrise. However, he was out on his own, alone on a rogue, spontaneous hunting trip far away from home because he wanted some space to get his thoughts together. It’s something he’s done before, two or three or nine times. His mother shows contempt for this habit of his, but she does not try to stop him. All she asks is that he not bring home trouble.

You seem like trouble.

How was he supposed to know that the woods he ventured into had such trivial myths to abide by?

He is Choi Seungcheol, damn it. Your silly fairy tales won’t deter him.

Deciding to spare you this time, Seungcheol breathes out and turns away, walking now in the direction of where he tied his horse. Perhaps this trip was a failure. To expect to clear his head the same way he has done before was foolish — though he would never admit that. What is on his mind now is much heavier, much more inevitable than the other things he would run away from in his youth.

A marriage to the country’s princess.

His marriage to her.

Seungcheol’s hands twitch, and he yearns to draw his bow again.

“Lord General,” you call out, the tone of your voice itself a warning. “Don’t be a fool.”

He ignores you.

=

Ricecake seems to have had a much better experience in this forest than Seungcheol. He finds her munching on the lush, untrodden grass, and he almost feels bad for interrupting her meal. However, that feeling lessens when he remembers that if he were successful in his hunt, she'd have to carry the spoils all the way home. At least she has that.

Seungcheol rides for not half an hour, following the river, before another stag dashes alongside his path. He spends no time thinking. Pulling his bow from his shoulder, he notches an arrow and lets it fly. A second arrow leaves his fingers before he blinks.

The stag rears on its hind legs, one arrow in its thick neck and one pierced directly through its eye. It shrieks, haunted and low.

But it does not fall.

Seungcheol dismounts from his horse and draws another arrow, aiming again for its neck so it cannot escape far before it dies. He expects it to run in the opposite direction.

Its hooves dig into the dirt beneath it, and the stag charges towards Seungcheol.

He has no time to react, his arms moving instinctually to protect his head, before pain blooms fiery red from his torso. An icy cold engulfs him, and everything goes dark.

=

Pain is what wakes him up, dull and aching, but when he attempts to right himself, Seungcheol winces. A fierce pang rings in his body from his stomach to his right ear, which sparks a jolt of pain throughout his head. He falls back again, though his head doesn’t hit the hard earth. Instead, a steady hand catches his head, and another gently touches the front of his shoulder, as if to calm him.

“Easy there, Lord General.”

Your voice, and the way you patronise his titles again, make Seungcheol frown. It hurts to breathe, but he can’t help the annoyance that refills within him. What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow him? Why are your hands so gentle?

Though his headache may worsen with sunlight, Seungcheol pries his eyes open. His eyelids are heavy, and for a moment, he thinks he must not have opened them fully. He can barely see you, even though it was midday when he’d been knocked unconscious. It then registers that he is no longer outside, in the woods, but in a room, lowly lit with sparsely strewn candles.

The realisation makes him want to jump up again, but the pain in his torso forces a groan from him, and he falls back onto the support of your hand. He strains his head to assess his surroundings. “Where am I?” he grits out. It hurts to speak.

“Be careful,” you say, concern sewn into your brows. “You may have broken your ribs.”

He demands, though perhaps sounding weaker than he likes, “Answer the question.”

Your lips settle into a straight line, and you breathe out through your nose. “You’re in my home.”

“Why?”

“I found you nearby,” you begin to explain, pulling your hand out from under him to cross your arms. He feels a thin layer of folded cloth under his head. “You were washed up on the riverbank, unconscious. Bloody…bruised…” You tilt your head. “Perhaps even more bruised now, since I practically had to drag you here, though the balm should help with the scrapes.”

“Balm?” Seungcheol echoes. Now that he thinks about it, there is a strange warmth seeping through the skin on his face. “You’re a healer,” he concludes.

You nod, and for the first time, Seungcheol sees a smile on your lips. In the candlelight, it only adds to the warmth.

“You’re lucky it was me who found you. Who knows how long you were lying in the cold water.” You sit back, eyes thoughtfully gazing over Seungcheol’s blanket-covered body. They pause around where Seungcheol’s left hand is. “I was able to save almost all your fingers.”

Seungcheol’s eyes widen, and he jerks his hands out from under the blanket to hold above his face. The pain this causes is in the background compared to his panic, but that fades soon after he sees all ten fingers, wiggles them, then glares at you.

You’re smiling wider now. “That was a joke, Lord General.” At his glare sharpening, you let out a small laugh. “Your fingers are fine. They might be stiff for a few days, though.” Your expression shifts to a more serious one. “Your ribs, on the other hand… You’re severely bruised. I suspect they may be fractured.

Breathing in again, Seungcheol watches the way you eye his chest as it rises and falls. It hurts like a bonfire has sparked in his lungs.

“What happened?” you ask, no residual hint of playfulness in the simple question.

“I…” In the back of his mind, Seungcheol sees the stag again, sees the blood rivering from its eye and neck, sees its antlers as they bouldered into him. He sees you, and how you spoke to him in the forest. An enchantingly bright bad omen.

Don’t be a fool.

Yet here he is, under your care in your home, for doing the very thing you warned him not to.

"...I fell," he says after a moment of quiet. It’s only a half-lie. He did fall, even if that wasn’t how he sustained the injuries to his ribs.

One of your eyebrows rises up your forehead. “You fell.”

“...Yes.”

You hum, doubtful. “Off your horse, I assume. I’ve seen similar bruising and fractures when people are kicked. It happens to someone around here at least once a year; there’s no shame in getting unsaddled.”

He’s never fallen off Ricecake — she’s the perfect companion, but Seungcheol grits his teeth and says, “I suppose there’s not.”

A triumphant grin appears on your face, and you turn slightly to reach for a small notebook. “Well, Lord General—”

“That is not my title,” he interrupts on principle, though he instantly regrets it with the waking pain in his chest. Still, he cannot stop himself from correcting you. “You will address me as Lord Choi, or ‘my Lord’.”

Your eyes don’t leave your notes. “Alright Lord General, it—”

“You can’t—”

“—is my professional opinion that you should be on bed rest for three days, though your full recovery could take two to three moons. I’ll need to monitor your breathing until it regulates.” You speak as if Seungcheol is just anyone, not someone with power or higher standing. To you, he is just a patient.

Why does that thought not continue to anger him?

“I need to find my horse,” he tells you. “There are healers in the Four Peak fortress that can oversee my recovery.”

You shake your head. “Riding is out of the question. It will only worsen your condition.”

“I can’t stay here. I am needed as their leader.” And his mother is going to kill him for being gone more than a few days without a word.

“Do you have a palanquin?”

Seungcheol frowns. “Do I look like I have a palanquin with me?”

“Could you send for one?” you rephrase.

He ponders on that. It is rare for him to ride a palanquin, even back home. The cart is used more decoratively these days, reserved for events like longevity parades through the city, and no longer for extended trips over uneven ground like the forests he travelled through to find himself on your land. 

Still, he can’t stay here. Certainly not for three moons. “I’ll write a missive.”

“Alright,” you say with a nod. “There’s a merchant group that travels every two weeks between here and a city in the Eastern District. You can send it with one of them.”

“When are they travelling next?”

“You’re lucky, Lord General. They leave for the east in five days.”

Not as soon as he’d like, but at least the merchants hadn’t just left. Then he would have to stay here for one full moon before he’d even be able to send for help.

“For now,” you continue, “you should rest. It’s late, and your body needs time to recover.”

do not send an ask/reply just asking to be on a taglist!! I will only be tagging people who reblog and comment in the tags!!

[cookierunauprompts]

AU Prompt #6 💓♪

Time slowed to a full stop around you as you focused, the chaos surrounding the silver tree all brought to a halt. Not even Pure Vanila Cookie or White Lily Cookie could move a singular fiber of their being. Such is the perks of having Dungeon Master Cookie as your patron. And, speaking of your patron, she stared down at you with her huge, white eyes. " So, the seal upon the silver tree has broken, thus releasing the five Fallen Heroes into the land of Earthbread once more. Now, Reader Cookie, I suspect you want to do something before I have you roll initiative, yes?" " That's correct, Dungeon Master Cookie." You reply, staring up at the holy, towering figure. However all the seriousness of this moment was thrown out of the window with a few, simple words. " I'd like to roll to seduce the Jester." Your patron seemed... unamused? Yet also as if she were expecting this. After all you did the exact same thing with Dark Enchantress Cookie, but that was just for the funny(plus, you got a nat1 that time). You were completely serious about attempting to woo Shadow Milk Cookie, maybe even another one of the Beasts if they showed themselves. " Are- Are you seriously doing this again?" She asked exasperatedly, to which you eagerly nodded. With a sigh and a wave of her hand, a D20 appeared in your arms. " Fine, fine, give me a Charisma check." And once again, fate blesses you. With a natural 20. " ... NAT 20 LET'S GOOOOO!!!!" You can feel the tired aura from Dungeon Master Cookie. " Alright, alright... I'll let you have this." She sighed as the world faded back into motion. You stood tall and proud next to Pure Vanilla Cookie + Gingerbrave and Friends before you stepped forwards. You're pretty sure that you gave PV war flashbacks with the expression on your face. " Reader Cookie for the love of the Witches-" He attempted to plead, but it was already far too late. " Shadow Milk Cookie, hm?" You began, your tone flirty as it always was when you did shit like this. " What a fine name for such a clearly ever so powerful cookie~" You hummed flirtatiously, batting your eyelashes at the gigantic jester before you. " Oh?" Shadow Milk Cookie hummed, leaning down to get a better look at you. " My my! I didn't think I had such an adoring fan of mine waiting for me here~!" He chirped, a subtle yet bright blue hue taking over his face. " Lord have mercy on us all..." Pure Vanilla Cookie mumbled to himself almost desperately. If both you and Shadow Milk Cookie are flirts... then you'll probably be here, locked in a battle of the heart for a while.

....

Or, You, Reader Cookie, have a Patron named Dungeon Master Cookie. Cue DnD shenanigans brought to the world of Cookie Run. And of course, the natural chaos a nat20 brings when you decide to flirt with the bbeg of the current adventure.

[saradika]

— BLEED FOR ME | part iii

[masterlist]

mand’alor!vampire!din djarin x f!reader

rated e - 2.4k

haunted hoedown prompts: vampire!au + “i would burn the world for you.” + vampire has a taste for specific blood + revenge + (one-sided) enemies to lovers (+ 1 to be revealed!)

tags: vampire!au, drinking blood, reader has scar on shoulder, mentions of death, shared memories, light angst, references to seduction, sexual innuendo and thoughts, references to violence

The days until the winter solstice tick down. Early Autumn days start to cool at night.

You sleep under the last warmth of the sun, with windows drawn open after he leaves. The canopy is wrapped around your bed, letting in the afternoon breeze but mimicking the darkness.

And still, you feel adrift. That funny feeling is still settling in your stomach. Rolling with the sway of your step as you follow at the Mand'alor's - Din's - heels.

No longer seating across the room in the throne room. Now next to him, in a golden seat that matches his silver one.

Listening as he conducts his business. Trades and agreements, settled firmly and carefully. A disagreement, broken up without violence.

It’s fascinating.

But it feels... wrong. Your own task seeps into the honor of being at his side, polluting it. You're expected to enjoy it, to look happy, and it's become all too easy to forget what happened - why you were here.

Too wrapped up in the quiet questions he asks, in those moments of dusk and dawn. Half truths becoming whole as you guard slowly lowers. As you begin to learn about him, as well.

Things he tells you. Things you pick up, absorbing greedily without thought.

It feels like a betrayal, later.

How could you forget what happened? How could you forget your promise?

His kindness only extends because you are physically keeping him alive. You should have ended things by now.

But, you haven't.

The guilt gnaws at you. Seeping into your dreams, into those moments of connection, when your eyes can't help but close.

The images so much more vivid, now. Almost a tangibility to them - the quick, blurred edges coming into focus. Repeating, growing longer.

So much seems to focus on that night. You think it's because it still haunts you. Replaying how the shouts had awoken you. That startled feeling as you crawled out of bed.

The shadows on the walls, the weak and watery grey sky. Soon turning red, and then black - with flame and smoke.

A glint of gold. Your grandmother's necklace, lying on the bedside table. A photo of their wedding day inside, painted with such care.

Something you wish you could have saved - one of the few relics from your family, a gift from when you had left them to find your purpose.

You had always wished for a love like theirs. A fated connection.

There’s a throb as you remember the collision - something solid that knocked you to the ground. Fingers coming back sticky, your mouth tasting of copper. The visions always swim, then.

Parts you've never been able to remember, before. Always growing dim, until you'd been woken up under the tree, and it was over.

But lately, there's more. As if you're outside your own body. The limp sway of your arm, dangling as you were carried. The murmur of a low voice, though you can’t make out the words. Dark eyes looking down at you, almost brown in the morning light.

There's a sharp edge of a knife that you always walk.

Torn between pressing, nudging - trying to get get a glimpse of the vampires, the destruction. A way to remind yourself what has happened, why you are here.

And then, not wanting to see.

What if it's something you can't take back? What if it disgusts you so much that you can't help but act in that exact moment - ruining your chance?

So, you don't.

You let the images pass - carefully collecting them. Pressing them lkke flowers between a book, something to come back to layer. Not even realizing that deep, deep down...

You’re really just hoping that you don't see him.

You really shouldn’t have gone down to the kitchens.

A heat still burns in your cheeks at the thought, when you finally made your way back to your room. Your treasure procured - a freshly baked pastry with homemade jam clutched in your fingers.

The food here is the best you’ve ever had. You can admit that, at least. All the Companions are well-fed, with treats and delicacies always left out downstairs.

It’s here, that you had found a few others.

Beautiful men and women, all gathered around a smoldering fire as the sun had begun to rise. Their other halves flitting off to hole up until nightfall.

But just like you - there was a desire to see the sun, at least.

You had joined them, half out of loneliness and half intrigue. They had accepted you quickly, stifled laugher and glances over their shoulder as they had whispered questions.

“So how is the Mand’alor? I’ve always wondered.”

“You don’t have any marks. Does he drink from your-”

An elbow then to her side, her words had cut off with a giggle. A head turned- an aside to her friend.

“Lady Kryze is always so thorough. I haven’t slept in days.”

Someone else had sighed.

“What I wouldn’t give to be Lord Fett’s Companion.”

You had realized there’s desire in their words. That none of them were afraid, that there was a sense of private camaraderie and knowing amongst them.

That unsettling, confused feeling comes back. They were human, like you. Did they not know what the vampires did? Were they so shallow that coin and finery had bought their loyalty?

Their eyes were on you, expectant. You had no choice but to shrug with embarrassment.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

They were quick to set you straight.

“It’s like, a feeling, you know?”

“You have to lean into it. That connection.”

“The first time I tried it, I had marks up and down my thighs by morning.”

There was an eagerness that laced with jealousy, leaving you even more bemused than before. Faking a prior engagement as you had left them, promising to give it a try.

Privately, you told yourself you wouldn’t.

You couldn’t.

Looking back, you can’t even remember the taste of the jam, what fruit it was. All you could think about is this new facet of their relationships.

Wondering if that will be expected of you. Wondering why you weren’t warned.

Wondering if you cared.

Wouldn’t that be a good way to get closer?

The thought makes you uneasy.

You’d put an end to this. But you weren’t so cold-hearted to stoop to seduction. That wouldn’t be fair, to Din.

But as the sun rises, when he comes back.

When his mouth is pressing against your wrist, when you’re looking at the bow of his lips and the wide breadth of his armor, that wondering comes again.

The thoughts creep in.

For he is handsome… the parts of him you have seen. A rich voice and the breadth of his shoulders in his armor. The little upward tick of his lips in a rare smile.

And you are human, after all.

You find yourself imagining marks on yours thighs, on the soft curve of your neck.

How your blood would throb, rushing down to pool beneath heated skin - wet and swollen. The thud of your heartbeat kicks up a notch, as your thighs press together. As you squirm in your seat.

You don’t know his face but you do know his mouth. It’s his teeth you picture sinking into your skin, your mind nudging curiously at the thought.

It sends a jolt down your spine. Pricking at your skin, heat licking at your chest and down to your belly. Then slipping lower. Your breath catches in your throat-

His grip on you tightens, then. It’s almost painful - startling you. A hushed cry rattles from your lungs as he pulls back with a rough gasp.

“Ulyc, cyar’ika.” Din’s voice is ragged, as his hips shift upward - letting go, as you pull your wrist back to your chest, “I’m sorry. But you can’t-”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his thought. A knock at the open doorway, Boba’s face grave as it turns your way.

“Mand’alor.” His voice is low, his brows drawn together. “The city, it calls for you.”

Din’s chest still heaves, his hand dragging across his mouth as he composes himself. The helmet sliding back into place as he stands, but still keeping himself close to you.

“Wolves?” He asks.

Boba shakes his head, “Raiders, from the looks of it. Like before. I can send someone, or go myself.”

You forget about the pain, about everything, for just a second. The thought of the town below in ruins sends you back to a year ago, sorrow twisting through your chest.

It has you half-standing, but Din’s hand is pressing against your shoulder, carefully easing you back down.

“I’ll go.” His voice is firm, “This has gone on long enough.”

A second, as he turns to you, “I need to take care of this. Boba will look out for you while I’m gone.”

Something like worry creeps in. Aware of the weak light that slips through the cracks of your curtains, how soon it will be morning.

“The sun…” You begin hesitantly, and he’s stepping closer.

“I’ll be fine.” His fingertips touch your jaw and that has you looking up - wishing once again that you could see his eyes.

Giving him just a small nod, instead.

From your window you watch him leave. The glint of his silver armor in the morning sun, now - his movements practiced as he swings a leg over the slate-grey horse.

Drawing his sword - the metal dark and gleaming and looking almost alive, even as far away as you are.

Watching as he gallops down the path, racing off to ward away the threat.

Leaving you inside the castle, to wait.

You worry turns into something else, as the hours pass.

Anger, at the thought of him rushing off to save this town, when he had launched an attack on yours. Did human life mean so little?

Did he even think about the bodies that had lied littering the streets, the memories that has been torn down?

Was it only because these humans were complicit, that they were spared?

You had awoken to screams. You don’t know if your town had even been asked.

The mark on your wrist stays red, unhealed. A reminder while he is gone. That you’ve slipped too far, that you need to get over the tender feelings you’ve pretended not to notice.

They fester inside your chest. You dream about him while he’s gone, as the day bleeds into another.

His face bare, features blurry above the lips and nose you know so well. Leaving you to wonder if his eyes are red, like the glimpses you’ve gotten of Lady Kryze? Are they burgundy, like Boba’s?

Replaying the sound he had made, the morning that he left. The edge his voice takes just after he feeds, lasting through the few moments he stays afterwards. That pulsing, thudding beat that leaves you squirming, when you’re alone again.

Leaving you with the urge to sink your own teeth into something.

Those thoughts are ruled by your heart, not your mind, not your logic. Another betrayal, your eyes unable to help flicking towards the window, again and again.

Looking to the others throughout the day, checking for any news or weakness.

A sign that he’s fallen.

None come.

You try not to think about the relief that follows. Or why you feel listless, your eyes dragging over the same words in the books you pick up, in an attempt to pass the time.

Your enthusiasm for the food waning - more in tune than ever with the hours that pass.

Still wondering about the town, below.

You had spoken to some, in your journey here. They had been good people, honest folk.

Maybe along the way, there had been a mistake. An itch in your brain that you haven’t been able to scratch, irritating you since you arrived.

You’ve decided to ask Fennec about it.

Not about anything that would raise suspicion.

Just why the Mand’alor himself would feel the need to go alone. What sort of promise he had made, to go rushing off with such intensity?

Maybe then, you could understand.

You find her by accident - in a large ballroom that you often cut through.

The ceiling painted in a wash of colors, accented in gold. Seraphs lying on clouds and sprawling gardens and somehow always feeling bright, even in the dim room.

Liking the way your feet echo, in the empty room. A swing in your step as if you were dancing too, even if just pretend.

But you’re not alone today - she sits in one of the plush alcoves. Arms bared where her shirt pushes up, a dark jerkin slung over one of the marble statues that line the walls.

"I'm sorry-" You manage, attempting to back out of the room. The moment looked private - your question could wait.

Her eyebrow lifts, looking unbothered, "You can come in, I'm just preparing."

The way she lounges is casual, as if she does this regularly. Propped up against a nest of pillows, a book opened against her bent knees. An arm draped to the side, an ooze of red that drips down to a half-full goblet below.

A jar of that same salve Din had given to you sits in the open windowsill, for after. A means to wipe the mark from her skin, to knit it neatly together again.

The sight makes your stomach turn, even after all this time.

"Are you leaving, too?" Your head nods towards the cup, as you linger in the doorway - thinking about what Boba had said about her ferocity.

Her brows pinch in question, as you gesture to her arm.

"No," Fennec's head shakes, as she understands. "This is our arrangement."

"I didn't know you could do it another way." You say this without thought - wondering if this had been what Din was offering, that first night. An alternative to biting - another small attempt at adjusting to your comfort.

"I tried the usual way." She shrugs, eyes dropping down at the text, "This is better, for us. It's tedious, for certain. But I've never enjoyed the connection. Boba's memories are..."

Fennec searches for the word, as you go still, "...Unpleasant. And I am sure mine are worse."

His memories.

Is that what you've been seeing? Those flashes of thought that blend with your own, when his teeth sink into your skin?

But how can they be, when you are in them?

"But, I am sure that's different for you." Her expression is sly, lips curving in a small smirk. A sharp glimmer replacing the far-away look in her eyes, coming back from her own evocation.

"What do you mean?" You ask, your voice sounding far away.

Dazed, as if the words are taking their time on their trip from your thoughts to your tongue.

That look comes back. As if you're on two different brainwaves, as if she isn't understanding what you're asking.

"Well, I thought that would be obvious. We’re not like you…" Fennec frowns, her head tilting. A breath, as she clarifies.

"Boba isn't my mate."

Ahh and the last Secret Prompt from the list is soulmates / fated mates! 💕 thank you so much for reading! If you’d like a tag for the last 2 parts, please let me know!

Ulyc, cyar’ika - “careful, beloved”

(Tags: @dameron-grant-spector, @sugadolly, @writingsofestella, @spaceydragons, @-ohsolovely-, @survivingandenduring, @queenquazar, @alitaar, @dindjarinsslut, @avarkriss)

[namusthetic]

The Writers' Series

Who wrote you, based on your aesthetic?

British Edition

---------🖋️

Oscar Wilde

"You can never be overdressed or overeducated."

Irregular sleep schedule

Sprawling on a sofa quoting poets long gone

The forbidden sweetness of guilty pleasures

The gently whispered name of a lover

Losing oneself to sensations and feelings

Writes poems for their lovers

Dressing up only for the pleasure of doing so

That dizzy feeling of late night adventures

Procrastination and unsent letters

An old silver framed broken mirror and forgotten withered roses

Sitting alone late at night. The thick, stuffy air in the room is making you dizzy and dulls your senses

Virginia Woolf

"How many times have people used a pen or a paintbrush because they couldn't pull the trigger?"

The soft first autumn breeze

Spending winter afternoons in hidden library corners

Taking long walks along the riverbank in the early afternoon

Gives good advice but doesn't follow it

Scented candles and gentle nostalgia

The furious, quiet calmness of the ocean before a storm

Orange blossoms and sea salt

The texture of paper under your fingertips and the sound of chirping from outside the window

Wants to change the world one word at a time

Never forgives, never forgets

Reads poems in the golden afternoon light

Romantic but won't talk about their feelings

William Shakespeare

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Wine stains on victorian shirts

The sound of footsteps on marble floors

Scribbling random Latin sentences in other people's notebooks

Dark, alluring, and a little bit occult

Writes poems on random scraps of paper and then forgets about them

The line between dreams and reality starting to blur

Loud, contagious laugh

Sword fights back stage

A lone flickering candle in the night

Laughs and cries at the same time when overwhelmed with emotion

Believes in the power of the unsettling and the forbidden

Sprawls on any available surface just to read tragedies and drink wine

Mary Shelley

"When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?"

The sound of your heart beating in your ears when waking up from a nightmare

Anatomy and science illustrations

Equations and formulas scribbled everywhere

The touch of cold metal on warm skin

The clap of thunder and insistent drumming of heavy rain on the windowpanes

The muffled sound of cracking thunder from outside

Organized shelves and absentminded humming

Cold gravity and solemn silences

The cold shudder of realisation

Pacing back and forth trying to solve grave problems and unexpected results

Empathizes easily

Agatha Christie

"Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking."

"An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it."

Hot chocolate on cold winter days while people watching inside an old Café

Sitting down in parks and reading the paper

The scent of clean laundry

Windswept hair and sharp looks

Spontaneous conversations and smiling at strangers

Could prove anyone wrong solely for their own amusement

Wet pavements glinting in the sunshine after a rain shower

Apricot jam, fresh baked croissants and café au lait while reading the newspaper in the early morning

A glint in their eyes and a spring in their step

Peppermints and vanilla hand cream

Sarcasm and condescending smiles

J.R.R. Tolkien

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Early morning dew sparkling on spiderwebs

The awareness and clarity that comes with crisp morning air

Daisies, gingerbread and warm comfy clothes

Really into folklore

Snail shells and acorns kept in a jacket's pocket

The scent of fresh homemade bread in the morning

The gentle murmur of the wind blowing through the trees

Nothing could make them miss their afternoon tea

Knows the name of every plant or bird species

Presses flowers in their notebooks

That spark for adventure glims constantly in their eyes

George Orwell

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

The smell of cigarettes and the sound of steps on the wet pavement

Long night walks around the city

The cold winter wind howling against the windows

Cheap black coffee drank in a small almost empty 24/7 coffee shop

Tired eyes and vivid dreams of liberty

Messy, rushed writing

The condensation on a cold window

Minimalist notebooks and black ballpoint pens hidden everywhere

Trying desperately to be free, to feel alive

The deafening silence of loneliness and the gentle quiet of solitude

T. S. Eliot

"For I have known them all already, known them all / Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."

Coffee and ink stains

Tiny scribbled notebooks carried around in worn out messenger bags

Reads to escape the real world

Reading on public transportation and almost missing the stop

Falls in love five times a day

Strong coffee and dark chocolate

Feels like nobody can truly understand them

Doesn't take care of themselves

Stacks their books randomly around their house, forgetting empty coffee mugs and notepads on top of them

Flopping facedown on the bed and listening to the sounds of the life out the window

[midnightsilverchelly]

Hey so Chellen (me) made another AU because it's been rotting in her mind

Nutshell; What if Shadow Milk split himself in the past with one half being good + the other evil.

As well Shadow Milk's good side possessed Pure Vanilla's body; preventing the evil side gaining control.

Name of the AU is Fragmented Knowledge AU

In the past; Blueberry Milkshake used Dark Moon Magic when he realize he was heading into the same fates as his friends whom became corrupted from their power. He hoped the magic would get rid of the corruption as well as allow him to help his friends; bringing them back to their senses however this had dire consequences.

Instead of getting rid of the corruption; His soul was split into the good side which was shoved into the subconscious whilst his darker side (Shadow Milk) took in charge of the body. When they were sealed away and their body were destroyed; they were separated further as they didn't have the body to keep them together.

Blueberry Milkshake accidentally landed in Pure Vanilla's body when the seal on the Silver Tree was broken; falling unconscious due to the seal being shattered and feeling the effect of it.

Shadow Milk tried to possessed Pure Vanilla when White Lily repaired the tree in hopes of not being sealed away however failed due to Blueberry Milkshake already being there.

As simply put; Shadow Milk just bounced off Pure Vanilla which left everyone confused and Shadow Milk enraged when he realize what had just happened. This resulted in Blueberry Milkshake waking up as well as he felt something or rather someone slam into him.

It takes awhile for the group to figure out what happened however Pure Vanilla was the first one due to seeing Blueberry Milkshake which caused both of them to freak out.

It also takes the group awhile to warm up to Blueberry Milkshake as they didn't know if Blueberry Milkshake was being honest or if it was a trick being played by Shadow Milk. Although Blueberry Milkshake was able to prove that he is genuine.

Pure Vanilla and Blueberry Milkshake can swap around with one of being in charge of the body whilst the other is ghostly. Whenever Blueberry Milkshake is using Pure Vanilla's body; the eyes appear like this.

As well that Pure Vanilla take on a ghostly like appearance (similar to Shadow Milk):

Usually Pure Vanilla will gives a head up to the people whenever they need to swap (aka whenever Blueberry Milkshake wants to talk and it's easier for him to swap with Pure Vanilla to talk rather then have Pure Vanilla pass the message along.)

Only Pure Vanilla can see Blueberry Milkshake and vice versa (when Blueberry Milkshake is in charge) although Blueberry Milkshake can appear before the others HOWEVER this takes ALOT of energy from him and he can only do it for a hour before he needs to recharge his energy.

He has a easier time if there's Dark Moon Magic presented as he can use the magic to stabilize his form easier.

When tired; Blueberry Milkshake will retreat to Pure Vanilla's mind and rest there... Although he can be rudely woken up by Shadow Milk due to the darker side being able to reach both Pure Vanilla and Blueberry Milkshake from the Dark Side of the Moon.

Whenever Pure Vanilla is asleep and Blueberry Milkshake is awaken; the latter will protect the other from nightmares caused by Shadow Milk despite the danger that comes from it.

Shadow Milk CAN ONLY interact with them from the Abyss (much to the jester's annoyance.). He can also physically hurt Blueberry Milkshake and can even kill him which is the Jester's objective as he wants his good side gone.

When Blueberry Milkshake is injured; his form becomes fragmented and if he's damage too much; he will shattered which will destroy him completely. Although lucky for him; Pure Vanilla can heal him with his magic.

[cherryredstars]

1K Prompts

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x fem!reader

Warnings: Gods AU, Sprinkled Fluff, Mentions of Injured Animals

Summary: It is as the prophecy foretold.  

Word Count: 1.2K (Not Edited)

The light is a golden white. 

The monument is beginning to form cracks in its delicate marble, foreshadowing the crumbled state it will begin to take as time rushes forward. The night air is warm, chased with the occasional breeze. Footsteps echo in the hollowness, a cloaked figure descending the steps of the shrine. The wind comes to greet the figure, playfully trying to detach the pure white cloth from their form. The moon comes to greet them too, lighting the path to the village in silver. From a distance, the figure seems to glow with the moon.

The village is silent, warm from the late night candles that are now extinguished. It is shielded in darkness, but a bittersweet taste is hanging in the air, just like the townspeople said. It is familiar, bordering on fearful and comforting. Under wooden doors, light teases to escape from the homes but thinks better of it and stays to warm the residents. As the figure walks through the empty dirt road, scattered randomly with stones, the crickets and night owls quiet. 

A dog, skinny and wobbling on a broken paw sits in a dark crevice between two homes. The figure walks to the entrance of the small slit, staring down at the animal. Instead of cowering and running away, the dog tries to crawl forward. Its body is too heavy to support itself, protruding ribs weighing down its skinny legs. It tires easily, barely moving a foot before it shifts its head up to look at its cloaked savior. A pitiful whimper rumbles from its throat, silencing when the figure brings a finger to its mouth. The figure bends down, their hand hovering over the dog’s face like they are closing its eyes. The dog's eyes grow heavy, head lowering to rest on its paws. The figure gets up, leaving the dog in its place before continuing their journey. A few seconds later, a puppy of the same moonlight silver follows, tripping over its paws. 

The puppy weaves around the figure’s legs yapping in a pitch only they can hear. The puppy seems excited and nostalgic, tumbling and chasing fireflies. The two make it to the edge of the village. They stand at the entrance of a thick forest. The leaves and trunks are dense, preventing the shining of the moon. The figure walks ahead, stopping as the puppy hesitates and gives chase once again. It is colder in the forest, but the figure continues weaving in and out of trees. They do not seem to have an exact location in mind.

Suddenly, cold and deadly arms wrap around the figure’s waist. The figure stills momentarily. Then, they reach up. They grasp the material of the cloak’s hood delicately, pushing it off their head as they look over their shoulder. 

The figure--a woman--has shiny skin. Her hair flows from her head and her eyes shine with a comforting warmth that feels like you are coming home after a long and cruel journey. Her aura and face promises protection and all that you’ve been secretly longing for. 

“Cariño, you always know where to find me,” the second figure hums. 

It is a man, his dark apparel contrasting with his lover’s white clothes. He seems harsher, more final. But, matching with his other half, he gives a subtle comfort. It can only be found in a darkness, revealed to those who are brave enough to enter it. His features are sharp and defined, instead of soft and rounded. 

“I brought you a present, Miguel,” the woman responds. Both turn to the ground, watching the glowing puppy who tilts its head in curiosity. 

“I see,” Miguel murmurs. 

His arms unwind from the woman, crouching to the ground. He holds his hand out, slightly translucent and resembling bones. Hesitance engulfed the small dog again, put it steps forward and sniffs Miguel’s hand. Its tail begins to wag as it realizes what is to come. It yelps excitedly, spinning and jumping in circles before pushing its head into Miguel’s hand. Both gods chuckle, eyes softening as Miguel scratches behind its ear. The puppy pulls away, looking at the two of them one last time before licking Death’s hand. A strong breeze comes through the trees and the dog disappears with it. 

They stay paused for a moment, giving nature and its spirits their moment before Miguel gets up again. The two gods face each other, the woman holding her hand out. Miguel takes it, winding his arms around her waist once again. The Guardian throws her arms around Miguel’s neck, delicate fingers ghosting up and down his back. A dark rumble escapes his chest, his face falling to her neck and nosing at it. She giggles at the gesture, turning her head so her lips hover over his ear. 

“The village smells of death. You scare them.”

A deep sigh leaves Miguel, pulling away slightly to cup the Guardian’s cheek. He presses a soft kiss to the opposite cheek, stalling. The woman is patient, basking in the moment and not rushing Death. He is thankful. 

“They scare themselves,” he whispers back. “Something, a plague or a… hero, perhaps, is soon approaching. Something is stirring, mi luz.”

His goddess hums in thought, eyes glazing over as she peers somewhere behind his shoulder. Her hand on his back stills, hands readjusting to grasp his shoulders. His hands squeeze her sides in comfort, resting his forehead against hers. Her eyes return to his, clearer now. Her beautiful features are marred by a frown, and Miguel’s hand comes to smooth her frown lines away. 

“The temple… it is beginning to crack. It grows colder. The oracle foretold it, but it is too soon.” 

Her voice is calm, but it holds a bit of alarm. Her body grows stiff and Miguel comforts her in a way only he can. He hums in agreement, but there is little else the either of them can do. 

“I know, but we know better than most that time is unforgiving. It does not wait for God or man.”

The Guardian huffs and sinks into her lover’s hold. Some of her warmth seeps into him and he smiles. His hand goes to the small of her back while the other pets her hair. After some time, he pulls away and takes her hand. He guides her back out through the trees, returning to the forest’s edge. The night sky is beginning to lighten, and the moon begins to melt into the sky. Miguel presses his front into her back, kissing the curve of her shoulder. They are silent for a few minutes, watching as the sky clears to make way for the approaching sun. 

“A new age is upon us, mi luz,” Miguel whispers faintly into her ear. “It will be our turn to rest soon.”

A strong breeze comes again, her hair trying to follow. When it settles, the coldness at her back is gone. The Guardian stares at the horizon, that small frown still on her face. With a heavy sigh, she pulls her hood back over her face. Her feet move back through the village, growing further away from the trees. She passes the crook where the dog’s body lays, the crickets and night owls sleeping now. 

An echo comes again from marble steps, a cloaked figure in white disappearing through the column. The sun rises, washing everything in a golden white before the world is silent again. 

Then, the village people open their doors and live as they always have for the last time.

I love God AUs.

[toasttt11]

my au’s favorites and facts

carter hughes

favorites

loves sushi and pasta the most

coffee but more so iced coffee

strawberry blueberry spinach peanut butter smoothies

loves maple and chocolate donut bars

kangaroos and dogs

favorite season is winter

favorite flowers has always been tulips

any shade of green is her favorite

hiking, loves finding new places to hike especially with Connor

facts

always had red nails, secretly for her brother jack

whenever she does wear makeup almost always wears a red lip

loves rings and a lot of them are meaningful from friends and family

she dresses up a lot for hockey and she doesn’t really mind it but she would rather be in a hoodie she stole from her brothers or boyfriend

enjoys just sitting down on the sand at the beach watching the waves crash

has really curly hair but hates doing it so her hair always ends up into a messy bun or braid

has to have a heated blanket

definitely a silver jewelry person

has always gotten really bad migraines and headaches

allergic to coconut

she loves reading and ended up making quinn start reading more, now they end up reading the same book together

has a few screws and a metal plate around her cheekbone from when it got broken

doesn’t really have a movie or show that’s her favorite as she usally would choose to read or sleep instead

charlotte hughes

favorites

loves the french toast her dad makes

cookies her nana always makes her

if her dad cooks, it’s automatically one of her favorite things to eat

loves carmel frappe from all the times her dad gets coffee before games and she got a frappe

has a orange tree in her back year so loves anything orange

really enjoys macarons

favorite seasons are winter and summer

favorite flowers are blue bells

favorite color is blue

loves german shepherds

facts

arts and crafts is hobby outside of hockey

enjoys making things to give to others

always has a hair ribbons in her hair, especially on game days she has her hair in braid and a ribbon at the end

always will have spa nights with her dad

quinn and elias end up coaching the Canucks together when their kids join the team

luke has always been her best friend and they end up getting play a little bit together in the NHL

plays with her uncle jack’s number when she joins the NHL

begged for her dad to get her a dog and after a few years she got a german shepherd for christmas, the dog became her all time best friend for the next 15 years

loves sitting in her backyard with her dad stragazing together

loves making her own earrings and loves any type of jewelry

she’s always watching new shows and movies with her dad, doesn’t really have a favorite

vera hischer

favorites

favorite meal is definitely spaghetti and garlic bread

anything her moms cooks her

loves swish chocolate

brownies are her for sure her favorite dessert especially the ones nico makes her

favorite season is spring especially when she is home

favorite flowers are alpine flowers that grow in switzerland

her favorite color is yellow

dogs has always been her favorite animal

facts

loves her two dogs as her own children, also was very interested in greek mythology when she was younger hence their names aries and apollo

played a few seasons of hockey when she was younger and was an incredible player but figure skating is her passion

helped a lot in teaching Jack how to cook, something Luke is very grateful for

enjoys designing clothes, so started making her own athletic wear when she was young and it became a huge hit, she made her own clothing line

loves LA, it became another part of home especially with the friends she made there

a gold jewelry person only

she loves the cold and but usually is always very cold so always wearing sweaters

is a really good cook and baker

enjoys getting her nails especially since she can’t have anything but nude during competitions

always ends up watching the sad dog movies and cuddling her dogs crying

alexandria zegras

favorites

a bit of a picky eater, well more of someone who doesn’t like a lot of foods, sticks to mostly pasta, veggies and meat

loves chocolate chip pancakes

hot chocolate or chocolate milk

favorite season is absolutely summer

favorite flowers are sunflowers

her favorite color is red

photography has always been a favorite of hers

criminal minds is her favorite show

facts

if she could she would have chocolate in every meal

her favorite place to be is at the lake house with everyone she cares for

doesn’t like to drive and would honestly rather be the passenger princess always, something Rutger is more than happy to do

gets cold really easily unless she is playing hockey so she does not like winters, even though she’s from Bedford

tends to give nicknames to everyone she knows

is a big morning person and loves to start the day with a run, something quinn will always join her in the summer

a very great photographer since a young age and has been very passionate about photography

has a small scar through her eyebrow from a hockey accident when she was young

more of a gold jewelry person but sometimes will wear silver

kensington hughes

favorites

Açaí bowls!

absolutely loves cookies, basically any flavor

matcha! anytime of matcha is her favorite

benignets are one her favorite treats

favorite sweet is ice cream!

favorite season is fall and summer

favorite flowers are marigolds

she loves ever colors but pink is her absolute favorite

plants, she always has plants

loves every type of animal

she’s always watching new shows and movies with Will, Gabe and Ryan, her favorite movie ever is the Disney movie Bolt

facts

without a doubt she always has some type of headphones on her to listen to music

loves all animals and if she could would have a house full

she’s always loved jelly cats making most of her family and friends always get her new jelly cat stuffed animals

loves clothes and fashion and enjoys having bright colors in her outfits

is actually really smart and has a pretty easy time in school

has a very very curved hockey stick

always has a tiny braid in her hair for games and important days

is very picky about how her tea is made and doesn’t really like anyone making it but will ask Will to make it because he makes it the best out of anyone

allergic to walnuts

loves anything nature and has a lot of plants in her apartment and some at her parents house that her mom loves to take care of

definitely doesn’t care if her jewelry is gold or silver

is a big sweets person

octavia hughes

favorites

a good piece of toast

baked goods, especially ones her mother made

pumpkin pancakes in the fall

strawberry cupcakes

would literally drink coffee only if she could, doesn’t care what type of coffee just wants coffee

chocolate covered strawberries are her favorite dessert

her favorite season is winter

favorite flowers are roses specifically octavia roses

favorite color is any shade of purple

favorite show is the 100 and has rewatched it many times, favorite movie is mazer runner or hunger games

facts

is a really great artist especially with paints

comes off colder and sassy to most but has a very big soft spot for her family and the ones she cares for

always loved leather jackets and most of the time is always wearing one

learning slovak so she can talk to Simon more

has always loved the moon since she was baby, and eventually got the moon cycles tattooed onto her

she was named after her mothers favorite flowers, octavia roses

her name also means eight, she was born eight minutes before Luke, hence why she plays with the number 8

genuinely doesn’t care for her fashion besides her leather jackets and sneakers

has always wanted a long hair dachshund puppy

not the biggest jewelry person but if she wears any she likes silver

clementine bedard

favorites

tea specifically peppermint tea

peppermint candys

mac and cheese

loves all seasons as long as she is near the beach

sunglasses! always wearing them

loves her moms homemade cinnamon rolls

favorite flower are daisies

favorite colors are red and black

favorite animals are cheetahs

favorite show or movie to watch is probably anything on netflix

facts

has a peppermint candy before ever game

if she could she would live on mac and cheese and peppermint tea

always wear her sea star necklace she never takes off, a gift from her siblings

she’s a great surfer and could of competed if she didn’t go to the NHL

always has her hair in two braids for games

the only active player in the NHL with a no curve blade

she tapes her elbow before ever practice, workout and game not feeling comfortable without it

a really big formula one fan

she has a few screws left in her elbow after her two surgeries, the rest of the screws and plates were removed

she’s a big trinket collector, loves collecting little trinkets from all diffent places

allergic to peanuts

maddox hughes

favorites

black coffee.

simple flavored macroons

fettuccine alfredo specially his moms

avocado toast

favorite color is olive green

favorite season is winter

has always loved violet flowers

the arctic monkeys is all time favorite band

the snow and rain is his favorite, amy cold weather he is happy

facts

loves fixing up old cars and has many old cars he’s fixed up

a really big reader and always has a book with him

cat person doesn’t really like dogs

absolutely despises waking up early would happy sleep all day

not a big sweets person, very slight sweet things he’s okay with

he didn’t like living in tampa bay hating how hot it is and how much sun there is

has reading glasses from how much he strained his eyes from reading all the time

has always been very tall and it wasn’t that surprising when he was the tallest out of the family by inches

has had a best friend since they moved to toronto named sophia, and they have always been platonic soulmates

grey thompson

favorites

breakfast food! loves all breakfast foods especially waffles

fruits has always a been her favorite foods

chocolate covered strawberries

banna bread her dad’s recipe

hamburgers

crêpes from monaco

sunny weather

summer is her favorite season

magnolias are her favorite flowers

blues are her favorite colors

facts

never liked playing hockey but she can still skate really well and always enjoys watching hockey

hates fish, as she is allergic to most fish

always is wearing her set of rings and two necklaces that are very important to her

use to ride horses when she was younger in competitions

likes to be very organized especially with how much she travels

loves animals but knows her lifestyle isn’t good for one

whenever she is away from luke she always sleeps in his hoodie

loves to design new designs for her race helmets she always has something for her brother on her helmet no matter what

[modcroissant]

Heres more Shadowvanilla.

A few Hcs in the Broken Silver Tree Au:

Shadow Milk made the Animatronic of Truth just so his other self (aka the Animatronic of Deceit) can stop hogging Pure Vanilla

Pure Vanilla continues to wear the old bandages that is over his left eye, not because the injury hasn't healed but rather he's unsure how others would react. The only cookie he shows his eye to is Shadow Milk

Shadow Milk absolutely hate it when some pathetic excuse of a cookie is even 5 feet near Pure Vanilla, the only ones he makes exceptions to are the other beasts and the clowns in the Deceit Kingdom

Their staffs are fucking gay

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Blood-Stained Wool Spun At Midnight (III)

AU MASTERLIST || FINAL CHAPTER

PAIRING: Werewolf!Ghost x F!Tailor!Reader (Set in Van Helsing Era/Aesthetic)

WORDCOUNT: 12.0k

WARNINGS: Blood, intense gore, body horror, horror, angst, mutilation, violence, wounds, blades, death, many religious imagery/references, nudity, protective!Simon, NSFW, soft/loving smut, fingering, mating press, implied virgin!reader due to time-period standards, pretty vanilla, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

Simon’s skin is bare to the moon, and he can taste your blood on his tongue. 

Eyes wide, the man’s lips are loose; jaw slackened at the horror that lays below him as crimson drips down the swell of his Adam’s apple and between the dip of his chest. He can’t move, even as the chill sets into his spine, the hair over his arms and on the back of his neck standing on end. 

All he can see is your body. 

You don’t move, you don’t smile or send him that stern look of stubbornness—the snow falls to your head, it collects on the side of your face and limp corpse. Your torn clothes show the weeping wounds and jagged remains of flesh. 

But none more so than one on your neck. The gaping tear made from his fangs. 

Not me, Simon’s fingers twitch at his sides, your body in a pool of red. Not me. 

It was him, though, wasn’t it? 

He doesn’t remember what happened, cannot recall the memories in his brain—a demon, the Lord of this forest, and a prisoner all in one. You hadn’t killed it, no, there was no way to do that. Silver could only do so much.

But it had done something to you, to make your scent twist and rot. Your soul didn’t smell right.

“I…” Simon’s voice fails him. 

His body is broken and bent, his entire side burning with pain, but none of that matters. Brown eyes quiver, and the man goes to lick his lips only to gag at the taste of copper, snapping his eyes away to pant quick breaths into the tree line. 

Simon’s hand raises to hover above his stomach, shaking. 

“I didn’t bloody do that,” he mutters, the evidence on his chest and stuck in his pores. The forest is silent. “I didn’t do that.” The man says it louder. 

You stare forward numbly with a broken neck and a torn-out throat.

Foot twisting him around, he levels his back to you, hands coming up to his head as his jaw clenched so tight his molars scream at him. What had happened? What had gone on? Simon closes his eyes and hunches his shoulders forward. 

“No,” he growls. “No, I didn’t fucking do that to you.” 

The night continues to keep him in its black hold, the snow absorbs the blood and black liquid. He can smell the rot—the infection under your skin as it brands your corpse. 

This forest was like a beacon to every monster in its vicinity. It called them here and made them lose themselves. Under the light of the moon and sun, whenever its branches told him to run and hunt as a beast, Simon Riley had no option but to obey. He would come here on a moment's notice when he felt the change coming over him, to his hut and his glade. 

There were few times he could predict it, and no matter how much he wanted to stay with you, that just wasn’t how it worked. 

Every monster that was called here was bait for that demon, and no monster had the ability to wield anything that could kill it. No silver. No holy water. 

But a mortal could. 

Every hunter entering these dark bounds had been hunting the wrong colossus and never had the chance to know it. 

Simon bends slightly forward to hold his head tighter, grunting out whimpers as if trying to keep his brain from falling out. 

“Fuck,” he breathes. Then louder than a scream and longer than the first, “Fuck!” The trees shiver. 

Simon harshly pulls at his hair, feeling the strands snap before he slides his hands up and down his face; trying to push off the crimson yet he only succeeds in spreading it. He can’t hear your heart beating anymore, can’t hear the swell of your lungs. Nothing. 

Hand lashing out, his knuckles connect with the hard bark of one of the tree’s trunks and he sends it back and forward three more times until his fingers crack and bend. When he’s done, the man doesn’t even notice the tears freezing on his cheeks as his breath puffs out in clouds. 

Simon silently stifles a ragged inhale and sags forward, unable to turn back and look at you—he can’t bear it after everything he’s been through. Forehead tapping the rough bark, his pain-filled body flaring, the blond clenches his fists like an angry child.

He should have told you in the glade—in the safety of consecrated ground where holy men and women had been buried for time immemorial. He should have explained why it was only you that made him whole.

But Simon was a silent creature; a creature of silent glances and hidden softness that borders on a fear of abandonment. He would never tell you until you happened to figure it out yourself or if it became undeniable.

Oh, you should have stayed away. 

His knees threaten to give out, so he lets them go until he can move his body to the side and lean against his tree. Barely breathing, he cares not about the cold. As he did when he was a child, all those years ago yet still shrouded in pain and hate, he loses any and all expression from his face—brown eyes dark as they stare at nothing. 

There had been a moment that he’d come back to himself as the Ghost. A brief moment. 

Simon wants to hang for the memory he now holds. 

Your eyes, blood-burst, looking into his own as his fangs rend your flesh in two. The feeling of your neck snapping under his jaws. Tongue lolling in blood and licking its muzzle; whiskers dripping.

This time Simon gags, but he also hurls up his guts, too. 

Bending his aching spine, his forearm keeps him up, bare thighs tensing and nerves quivering as his abdomen bunches. Simon pants staring blankly at the bile in the snow, saliva pooling in his mouth. He still can’t look at you. 

With little left for him, the man curls up in the snow and resigns himself to freezing to death, arms loose around his waist and injuries screaming at him. 

He’d killed you—is death not the only option left for him as well? 

Simon lays there until his eyelids grow heavy, only thinking of you and how you had been. Your kindness, your wit. He enjoyed your loudness, and there was no one to perfectly challenge him but you. 

From the first time he’d seen your form, it had only ever been you. He was yours, utterly; wholly. He should have told you to stay away.

“M’sorry, Love” he whispers into the ground, shivering violently, lips blue. His head is turned away as the trees hold their breath. “All my bastard fault—should’ve been me. It…fuckin’ hell,” Simon breathes, clenching his jaw. “Should’ve been me.”

He mutters his self-hatred until he falls silent and his chest rattles. Until the forest listens. 

Until it answers.

Simon’s eyes snap open to the sound of a world cracking in two and finds your body gone. 

—

This place isn’t real. 

You sit in a mirror vision of your shop, but nothing is correct. Looking into the corners, shadows slip away with quiet laughter, and the door rings but no one walks through. It’s…repetitive. It never stops, but you can’t seem to leave. 

You think it’s been days, weeks, even. Always it feels like there’s something watching you, and the window of your shop shows nothing but black night outside and flickering lamps. 

It doesn’t feel right to speak. 

If you speak, whatever is standing out in the street will know you’re here. 

You shake as you watch it now, silent and swallowing down saliva. Its eyes have been ripped out, and the chains along its wrists drag so loudly you can hear them even through stone and wood; they make you flinch and shiver. For whatever reason, the phantom of the man cannot find you, though he has been looking. 

He even knocks on the door.

It was a clanging, dead, thing. With a slam of a gnarled wrist and a raspy cry of your name on his slit tongue. You don’t want to ask how it knows your title, so you only hold your hands to your mouth to stifle your sobs. But for all of this, you still contained self-awareness.

You’re in Hell, or some strange, twisted version of the middle point. Purgatory. 

But why? Why here of all places—your soul had been branded, you heard that curse and felt the blackened nectar in your flesh. Had known what Simon had…

You blink quickly, looking away from the twisted man and taking down a shaky inhale. 

Whatever this place was, you and this shade were the only ones here. The only once-human ones, anyways. You didn’t exactly want to go out and meet him. 

“Please!” It bangs on the door again and your head snaps up in panic, hand whipping to your mouth to hide the sharp gasp. If you ever got out of here, you never wanted to see your home again. This version ruined it. “Please, let me in. I can’t see—it took out my eyes! Please, please I need my eyes.” 

Your eyelids close tightly, your heart clenched and beating fast. 

All of this terror lets you think about Simon. And so you do, and try to not blame him for what he did even if you know in your heart it’s not his fault. 

You remember the first time you met him, and you think that’s perhaps one of the best memories you hold. 

“If you expect me to fix this, you’ll need to hand over half of your soul and a blessing from God himself,” you frown at the remains of a pair of tweed pants, blinking with your mouth agape. “I’d ask what happened, but I think that would put me on a list of some kind, Sir.” 

Simon stares.

“How much?” You sigh and shake your head. 

“Really, there’s very little I can do here short of just offering you a new pair.” Placing the scraps on the table and lightly pushing them forward, the man moves his large hand out to take them from you. 

Your fingers touch, and you blink as a slight spark makes you flinch. Simon as well, you remember, had snapped his hand back to him, his eyes slightly widening and his throat holding down a breath. 

“Woah,” you mutter, touching your head as you suddenly go lightheaded. “S-sorry about that, I don’t know what—”

“Both.” Simon slides the fabric back to you. 

Your senses come back in a slow sweep and you clear your throat. “...Both?” 

“Fix the pants and sell me another, yeah?” A quirked brow, but something else swims in that dark gaze, something that fights with itself. “I’ll pay. Money’s no problem.” 

“Oh,” you blink, taken aback. The both of you stare at each other. 

You’re struck by the thought that this man’s eyes are far more deep than anything you’ve looked into before. 

“Of course, if that’s what you want.” He grunts, tipping his head and looking to the side for a moment. He wears that strange covering, too. The one that sits on his nose. 

“Good.” Simon backs up a step before pausing. “You have a name, then, Tailor?” 

You tilt your head and cross your arms, eyes narrowing carefully. “Just as you do.”

That silk fabric twitches, gaze sparking. 

“Simon Riley.” Your smile slowly pulls at your muscles, and for the first time throughout the day, you truly mean it. 

You don’t know how time works here, but you also can’t really understand that you’re dead. Of course, the thought of an afterlife crossed your mind in your living hours, but you’d never thought you’d go to one so soon. 

But every time you blink, you don’t think you’re meant to be here.

So, again, why? The question was mulled over incessantly after every memory of Simon, and you start to believe he’s the catalyst. 

What were you missing? 

The man himself had hinted at it, talking about how your scent to him was opium—like a drug. It kept him…him even when a monster. 

“Please!” You’ve discovered that all of the windows are bolted and the front door is locked, but it never becomes daytime here. A perpetual night and a pleading soul guarding you. In the long hours where you sneak from one empty room to another, so similar to real life that it makes you sick, you wonder if this place is an exact replica of the city you called home.

If some of the other houses are not so vacant after all; the inhabitants hiding like you are. Purgatory sounds about right.

Chains drag and there are garbling sobs and you stare at the door without the key to open it. 

The thing was blind—if you could sneak past it…your eyes looked out the window to Simon’s home across the street. There was a pull to all things that included him. A sanctity. Despite how your life had ended, how you’ll surely still think about it and sob out of pain, you can’t blame him for it. 

He didn’t have control.

You begin to think of a plan to break out without making any noise as you close your eyes tightly, hands clenching at your sides. 

“Back again, Mr. Riley?” Your bell rings and you glance at the intimidating figure walking through. He takes a deep breath when he enters, nodding in greeting before lumbering to the counter. 

“Any trouble?” He had a habit of asking this when he’d been gone on a longer trip of his, always back disheveled and with bags under his bloodshot eyes. As if he gets back and the first thing he wants to do is come see you.

The thought didn’t bother you. 

You laugh, “I’m happy to report the only thing that happened was that a pigeon ran into the window.” 

Brown eyes glance over his shoulder to blink at the impression of feathers on the front glass.

“Poor Bastard,” he huffs, amusement in his accented tone as he slips his hands into his pockets. “Get any feathers out of it? New pillow if you’re lucky.” He tilts his chin. “If you know how to pluck a bloody corpse, that is.”

“You’re incredibly strange, Mr. Riley,” you laugh, nodding your head at him. “I’ve never heard a man state such things.”

“I wrong?” Simon grunts, but you hear his slight smile in his tone. 

You only roll your eyes. “I highly doubt a pigeon would give you enough feathers for a pillow.”

“Well, you’re just not fuckin’ trying hard enough then, yeah?” 

“Are you here for a reason, Sir?” You can’t stop smiling, holding back your loud laugh as happiness is plainly stated on your face. “Or are you just here to speak to me about the feather-quantity of the local birds?” 

Simon’s eyes are crinkled slightly, and you try very hard to imagine him beaming just as you do, though you know it’s slim. 

You want to make him smile; you want to be the reason he does. And you don’t even know why. 

Your very soul leaps when you see him from across the street, it tightens and calls out like a reaching hand desperate to grasp into another counterpart. You’d never felt like this about a man before, much less one you barely knew anything about on a personal level. 

You liked Simon Riley.

“I was thinking ‘bout a new undershirt. Black.” A hand moves up and a pile of money is placed on your counter. “Anything’ll be good, just need a new one.” 

“Of course,” you easily slip into business, not bothering to look at the sum. “Special occasion?” You pause before fake laughing. “A lady to impress, perhaps?”

Your heart sinks more than it should; nearly hurting. Did Mr. Riley have a courtship? 

He blinks at you carefully, long lashes caressing his scarred cheeks. You swore his lips under the silk twitched. 

“No,” is all he says, blunt and casual, thighs shifting. 

You stare, hands touching themselves on the counter as heat burns your cheeks. 

“Okay,” you mutter, embarrassed, though you don’t know why. “That should be no trouble at all. I’ll just need your measurements.” 

Simon nods once, staring at your hands before he takes off his jacket and places it on the wood. You grabbed your long measuring tape and slipped to the front, asking lightly for him to hold out his arms. 

Heart hammering, he does so; great torso flexing and face blank. 

You begin with the chest, sliding your hands along his clothed body to flatten out the tape until you can see the mark it rested at. It would be false to say you didn’t lose your breath slightly, being so close and able to freely feel the swell of his muscle. Under your fingers, his pulse was like a hammer, and he was so large you actually had to give him a hug to connect the other side around him.

“S-sorry,” but Simon’s eyes are entirely blown, body tense and slightly shivering as your hands feel him. 

“Don’t be,” he breathes, and you feel the push of his lungs to his ribcage; molten heat. 

Your lips tingle, and heat seeps into your stomach as you shift your thighs to quell it. 

Simon grunts, and his head turns down incredibly fast. 

You blink. “Mr. Riley?” 

“Nothin’,” his lips flinch, and his brown eyes, more like black now, dart to your lips. “M’fine. Keep going.” 

You do so, oblivious to the coil in the man’s gut that mirrors yours, flaring with every gentle poke and prod.

It was when you’d almost given up that there seemed to be something else on your side in this god-forsaken place. You found your knife. 

It was in the same drawer where your tape measure should be, just sitting there where all else was absent. You stare and slowly reach for it, sliding your fingers over the hilt and the glint of the blade before picking it up. 

But you’d checked this drawer a million times over, what had—

There’s the sound of a fluttering of wings outside of your shop, and you’re unimpressed with yourself at how your mind immediately goes to a helpful pigeon spirit. You hold a hand to your lips to stop yourself from laughing, despite it all.

A spark alights in your heart. 

“Thank you,” you whisper to nothing, turning the blade over in your hands and smiling. 

Walking slowly, you avoid every creak in the wood—unlooping your belt for the small prong that would come in handy. Placing the blade into the slit of the lock, you insert the prong above it, twisting and waiting to hear a series of clicks; putting your ear next to the wood. 

The dragging of chains is far off, the loud wailing distant. 

Now or never. 

You hold your breath and listen to the sounds of the lock, sweating and grimacing. It’s so very silent outside—you’re so used to the clanging of metal and the clop of hooves that it scares you more than the monster. Like you’re standing out in a field but there’s no wind, no air even. Unnatural nothingness. 

So hard at focusing, when the click of the door lets you know it’s open, you don’t notice the heavy breathing on the other side. Standing and taking out your knife, you silently celebrate plucking your belt away just as the handle jiggles. 

Only you’re not touching the handle. 

Blood leaving your face, you can only skitter to the side as the hinges squeal like a dying animal, the barrier slowly opening as your back flattens against the wall. At first, nothing happened. 

The door is open and you stare wide-eyed as no sound enters your ears. Lamp-light seeps in, creating a long glow along the floors. 

A ragged breath makes you want to shrivel up, and then the wailing starts. 

“Please, please, where are my eyes?” Too close. 

You flinch wildly as chains are dragged into the room, the scent of dead wood sticking to your nostrils. Up close, the man’s skin is dripping water—seaweed over his shoulders and hanging off his restraints. 

He walks inside and the gaping wounds of his eyes make you nearly gag. “Where did you take them? I want them back, please, let me borrow yours until I find mine again.”

He drags his heavy silver chains far into the shop, stumbling and groaning through sobs. Those things seem to have no end to them, and he bumps and walks into the back room right as you slip outside. 

Immediately, you rush out into the street, crossing the cobble and hopping the long metal ahead of you as you re-loop your belt with one hand and grip your knife tightly. Getting to Simon’s house, you grasp the handle of the door and pull.

It jerks with a bang of metal.

Locked. 

“Shi…” you trail your curse and bite your lip. Silently, you take a step back to quickly think as the warden still calls hopelessly from your shadowed shop. Where else would you go? The inner city? The town?

Your eyelids blink. 

The forest. That had to be it—there had to be answers there, right? 

You were beginning to grow more fearful that you would be stuck here forever, in between life and death. A branded soul and yet, you weren’t in Hell. Or, at least, you imagined Hell far more hot than this. 

Turning, you slip down the steps and speed walk down the road, not running for fear that your shoes would make too much noise. That was also strange—all of your clothes were mended here, stitched back together as if never cut; wounds healed and nonexistent. You weren’t one to complain.

“Where are you going?” The Warden is on the steps, and he falls down them in a shattering of bone and a slurp of wet skin. “Please, give me my eyes! I can hear you running away—I can smell your souls! Let me have what little is still free! Let me see!” 

Souls?

You start sprinting as the great wail of chains lets you know you’re being pursued. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Your lips expel, skirts swish, and muscles tense all at once. Like a race, the man’s panting breath is almost felt on your neck, bare feet far faster than he should be. “I don’t have your eyes—I’m sorry, but you’ve really got the wrong person! T-try down the block?!”

You call loudly behind you in hopes that it will get him to give up on you, legs pumping harder as he screams with rage and you curse yourself with every breath. He’s gaining on you, somehow, this blind beast is gaining on you.

There was no way you were making it to the forest.

In a split-second decision, your shoes skid over the street, and, steeling yourself with what little sanity you have left, you turn with your knife at the ready. 

Hell, you’d already died once. 

But you’d never forget the image of this beast running towards you with a wailing mouth and dragging chains, the things so heavy they wrench back his arms. You falter for a moment, but shake your head and raise the knife in one hand, gritting your teeth despite your unimaginable fear. 

Bravery was far too hard at this moment, but there was no more running. You take down a shaky breath and will your arm to stop vibrating with its sweaty palm.

“My eyes!” It screams. “Give me your eyes!”

Seven feet, five, four, three—

A familiar rageful roar takes over, and a black shadow covers the street lamp light from above as if a storm of vengeance. You watch as the gargantuan body flies over you and wastes little time for pleasantries.

The Ghost slams its body into the Warden, and they go down in a flurry of feral snarls and wails. You watch, frozen still with shock, as black claws can be heard tearing through flesh and rending meat, a slick slapping of pig slop as black blood spills to the streets. 

In the utter absence of all else, you listen with a quivering body, the fear extending down to your spine. Not of the other thing on its back, wailing and sobbing about its eyes even as its gut is invaded by a large muzzle and ivory fangs, but of that muzzle-owner itself.

You didn’t realize how much of a shock it would be to see Simon again. Like this. 

Your eyes stare blankly at how an arm is ripped from its socket, shredded from a shoulder, and tossed to the sidewalk with a rabid jerk; the body of the Warden lifted as the Ghost rises to his back paws and grips tightly. Hands on the lower half, mouth on the top, your jailer is torn in two with nothing more than a tear and a sound of vertebrae popping. 

Black splatters over your cheeks, but you make no move to swipe it away. 

Simon drops the body to the ground, and it twitches—it speaks as it bounces. Brown eyes dig into its mangled face, ears erect. 

“My eyes…M-my…eye—” A large paw pad is pressed into its head, and pressure is leveled. Brought down like an anvil. 

The Ghost crushes a skull under his foot and the resounding pop is enough to make you snap out of your frozen terror. He turns to you seconds later, mouth stopping its snarling and going silent all at once. 

The beast blinks slowly, ear twitching once.

Averting your gaze, you completely give up in light of this new arrival and clench your eyes shut. Your neck hurts—burns—like it’s being ripped open over and over again, snapping, and the light getting sucked away. 

Great feet take lumbering steps forward; you take one back. 

“I…I don’t,” you shudder and shake, hand holding your knife. Your mind can’t comprehend him being here—in this void with you, leaping in a great bound to tackle the monster to the ground. No, no, this was another phantom. He was going to kill you again. 

Wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t his fault.

You back up some more until there’s a soft huff. It’s tiny, small as if coming from a lap dog that Mrs. Ida would own. Your eyes are firmly shut, yet he tries again. 

A wet nose is leveled to your forehead, pressing in and tapping you lightly. A chuffing noise echoed in the back of his throat, gruff and low as he breathed you in. You hide a whimper as that nose dips to your neck, imagining the ways he’s going to sink his teeth in and how your bones will—

The Ghost sags into you, and with a flick of his ears, the large head begins to rub into your flesh as he grunts. Your eyes snap open as his gargantuan hands circle your waist, anchoring you to his chest as he leans back on his haunches; small noises bouncing from his breast as he curls his head behind yours. You’re lifted gently as you squeak, hands snapping to dig through fur and, like logs, your feet dangle from under you. 

You don’t speak as Simon begins running out of the city, down the black outskirts. Into the midnight shadows the two of you disappear in the direction of the mirrored forest, your body in his grip and the side of his head never failing to lean into yours. You can feel his eyes roving, darting down and around, before always coming back to you regardless of the things he smells here. 

Like a candle in the dark, he had already scoured the bounds of this purgatory for you—waiting for that small flicker of something to grasp onto that would let him find your light. And it hadn’t been your scent or the way you’d yelled. It had been the very call of your soul, or, at least, souls. 

Because that was what it was. 

The reason you were here instead of Hell was because that corruption had only marked your soul. Not realizing that half of it didn’t belong to you. 

Simon knew little about how it worked, but sometimes people are only born with a fraction of their soul as theirs—the other pieces snapping into place when a match is met but still not held as theirs. Your other half, the reason you stayed here, was because Simon’s soul had held you up like a rope to an anchor.  

That spark in the tailor’s shop; the longing and the insatiable pull to be near you—marked as two pieces of a puzzle sitting right next to each other, the image leaking from one to the other. 

A Fated Pair.

The Ghost breaks through the treeline and you curl into him as he covers you with his arms, eyes watching the black trees and the void of space above him. There were no stars here—no moon. You can’t see anything, but he can. 

Simon rushes your intertwined souls back to the place he had dragged himself through; a great fissure in the earth that had opened and swallowed your body who knows how long ago. Weeks, months—years, even. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. 

His instincts brought him through, and his guilt had kept him going; this all-consuming and deathly guilt. He’d never forgive himself, but he can’t leave you here. 

Simon finds the fissure as great screams begin to wail out from the city, echoing off the trees and over the air. A scream and a plea. Hundreds, thousands. 

He doesn’t bother to stay, because you’re in his arms and his nose breathes in your scent. You grip onto him tightly, shaking with a fear-bathed quiver to your lips, and those large arms hold you ever closer; a large grunt and a rub of his chin. 

Simon stands on the very edge of a void, and he jumps. 

—

You wake to the large dog curled around you, softly breathing and using his body to shield you from the gentle snowfall. So warm does his blood run, that you don’t even feel the cold on you, only the brush of silk and the hard press of his hands. 

Simon’s breath ruffles your hair, his spine shaped in such a way that not a sliver of you is visible to the world beyond your head in his neck, resting on the swell of his softness like a pillow. As if he was a swan, keeping you in a bed of feathers.

Your eyes flutter open, and you take air down to bathe in the scent of earth. 

The Ghost shifts, grunting and not letting up on his grip. 

You’re in the very same place you died, yet there’s no evidence of that—the blood is gone, the broken trees are surrounded by young ones, and the snow is deeper than it had been before. But your clothes are…

You shift, and the beast lets you go easily, though his eyes don’t leave your face. He stays on the ground as you sit up, looking down at yourself. 

While the forest may have moved on, you, it seems, have not. 

Your clothes are back to the state they’d been in before—torn and ripped open, long gouging marks and stains that would never come out. You tense at the sight, swallowing saliva down as if wine with a grimace. Like a magnetic link, your eyes slowly turn up to meet Simon’s. 

He waits. He watches. That muzzle of his closed and his breath slow. If you told him to get away, there would be no doubt that he would—he would disappear and never come back to you, a memory that fades into a dream and then farther on. 

Your fingers twitch as his large claw lifts, a finger pointed and slowly coming up to your face. You try not to balk away as it draws near to your nose, where a tiny snowflake rests. The blackened sickle pauses, Simon’s chest expands, and then he slightly brushes it away with little more than a twitch of his finger. 

The knife is only a foot away, sitting bright and glinting in the morning light. You look to the sky to distract from your burning cheeks; your internal war. 

Light. Real and glowing above you from a globe set into the heavens. 

Gazing at it with wide eyes, your sockets fill with stinging tears, blinking until they slip down your cheeks and you put a hand over your mouth as a small sob wafts out. You bend your spine forward and cry, gasping. 

Simon keeps himself away, unknowing if he should reach out or if he would only make it worse. His great body is tight with agony, souls raging with pain. Everything in this form was more instinctual, more in tune, he wanted to comfort you—to make it alright again, but even as a human, when had he ever been good at that? 

The Ghost watched, body wound up but still deathly still; ears pointing straight. His hands twitch. 

You sob until your lungs hurt and your head feels light, not knowing how to process this in the slightest. When you’re done you numbly stare at the ground below you, trying to rid your mind of death, demons, and wool. 

A human hand on the top of your head makes you startle. 

Snapping your red eyes up, you meet tight orbs of brown, a face twisted with remorse and a deep inner hatred. 

“I…” Simon’s lips utter out, his voice low and pale skin in the snow. “M’sorry, Sweet Girl. I can never fuckin’ give you an apology that matters, eh? But I need to say it—I need you to know.” You stare and feel his fingers caress your scalp. He looks away, breath small. “It’s all my bloody fault, yeah? So don’t you dare think for a second that anythin’ comes back to you.” 

The hand threatens to leave you, to slip back down and return to his side, but with a small noise of alarm—one that had Simon’s eyes widened in concern—your body darts forward. 

Connecting with him, you make him grunt as his biceps press into your side, shocked as his first reaction is to make sure you don’t fall. 

“Get me out of here,” you plead. “Please, Simon, get me out of here.” 

There’s no hesitation as he lifts you upward, a bridal hold like the same he had used to lift you above the thorns and mutters into your hair as he quickly walks into the trees. 

“C’mere, I’ve got you. Don’t cry, c’mon now, you’re back. You’re back.” The knife is left far in the past, and there it will stay—far away from the two of you. “Breathe, then.” 

You bury your head into his neck, breathing hard and shaking not from the cold but from memories; things you shouldn’t know. 

“M’sorry,” Simon says again, voice cracking. “Christ, I’ll never say it enough.” 

If you hated him he understood—would welcome that Hell in its own right. Of all the things he’d done, this was the worst sin he could have ever committed. He’d spend the rest of his life thanking whatever power was out there that had broken the earth for him; had led him to you. His tailor.

You sob through a panicked chuckle. “Y-you already have, you brute.”

Simon rubs his face into your hair, holding your quivering souls together and opening his mouth in a shaking exhale as his eyes flutter. 

“Breathe,” is all he says, repeating everything like a record and an order as you hone on the stiff tone—getting you to focus. 

You follow the pulse in his neck, lips pressing into his flesh as your head tilts. 

You’re both back at Simon’s hut as you still try to calm yourself, the man’s face turned into yours and his forehead pressing into your scalp. There’s so little for you to grasp onto besides him—how he feels, the dig of his fingers, and the sound of his breath. 

He sets you on the bed and he pauses, kneeling down slowly as his hands come to gently clutch your cheeks. 

“Can you look at me, Love?” Simon asks you, voice gruff in its low tone. You shiver, sniffling, before your eyes stutter over his features and land on those burial mound browns. He releases a tiny puff of breath—a flicker of his lip.

“Atta girl, jus’ like that, then.” The man blinks slowly, tilting. Simon looks you over with a heavy expression, one that shows the pain and the weight he carries. “Need to get these off, okay?”

A finger lightly travels to your neck, tapping the remnants of your shirtwaist as a few more tears slip out when you blink, shakily nodding. Simon’s lips tighten. 

“Want to do it yourself,” he breathes, “or is it alright if I touch you, Sweetheart?” Your hands are too unstable to do it yourself, he knows that just as well as you do. 

So, in a small broken whisper, you simply utter out, “Please.” 

Simon nods once and the topic is settled; he knows.

The man’s fingers deftly undo the buttons, one after the other as the light from outside seeps into the small square of a home. He doesn’t comment—doesn’t make a sound—just does what he can to help you and get you sorted out; Simon could hear the rapid set of your heart, feel your pulse like a rampaging storm. 

When you’re down to nothing but your flesh, the man grabs the covers from behind you and wraps you in them, his eyes not once flickering downward until you’re entirely swamped by fabric. A hand on your waist squeezes. 

By now the brush of his skin atop yours had sucked you in as if lighting had struck with every pass or small press. The glide of his scars and calluses grounded you here. 

There were very few beings that would hunt for you through life and death and fewer that stayed that course. Thumbs once more brush away the water on the swell of your face. 

“Sleep,” he utters, even if there’s light outside. 

You gaze at him, at his stubble and his pale complexion; the wind rustles outside. What would he do? Guard the door most likely, perhaps even think of how to get into town and grab new clothes for the both of you, food, and necessities. Simon’s mind was fighting itself, just as it always had but now there was the largest stain on his consciousness that he could ever remember having. 

He was worried if he handled you, you might break under him. You…you already had. Avoidance, even if it killed him inside, was the best course of action.

Your mouth is filled with wool, tongue heavy, but in your heart and whatever feeling you have burning in your chest, you know you can’t let him move away from you. Simon being this close made it…easier. Even if a piece of you was still hesitant about black fur and sharp teeth. He had said it himself, hadn’t he? 

Simon wasn’t the Ghost, but at the same time how could they ever be apart from one another? 

Yet, your lips are already moving just as he’s about to stand up. 

“Stay?” Simon’s lungs take in a silent breath, a moment of long silence as he tries to understand why you would want to be around him at all. His hands twitch, your eyes catching the way his Adam’s apple bobs with a slow swallow. “Please, Simon,” you breathe. “I don’t…I can’t be alone again.”

He grunts and is already lifting you. 

Simon shifts your body back and lays you nearest to the wall, shuffling his body until he can lie with his spine facing you; his face to the door as he stays unblinking. 

“Nothing's going to happen to you,” he says, and you turn so you can lightly rest your head into the span of his shoulder blades. Simon’s jaw clenches. “It’s safe here. We’ll figure it out when you’ve got your energy back.” 

You want him to explain, but perhaps right now sleep was the best option. For all intents and purposes—you can’t even remember when you last had true sleep. So you stay there, skin to skin, and breath to breath as the sun still shines outside; the wind travels slowly. 

As you slip off, Simon has to restrain himself from turning around and pressing you into him—leveling his head above yours and breathing you in like how he wishes he could. But no. Too much. 

He’d explain it all when you were better. 

So he settles on the fact that all he can do is watch the door with a far-off expression, his body sagging back into you as your heat meets his.

—

You slept for three days, and in that time, Simon had only left once. On day two he went into town where he’d snuck like a thief—and there truly was no better analogy. Wearing only a blanket once more, the man breaks into your closed Tailor’s shop; boards on the windows and a sign out front to set it for sale. Inside, everything was as it had been left. Dust and layers of stale air, but there was never a better place to be for Simon.

It was where he met you, after all. 

He takes everything he’s able to carry. A large trunk of clothes, personal belongings, and anything that looks of great importance; clothing himself in a simple undershirt and pants along the way. With that, he goes to his own home and grabs all manner of money. Come morning, people would believe it was a robbery, and that was perfectly fine with him. 

Mostly everything belonged to you, anyway. They could have his sparsely furnished home and its cracking foundations. It mattered not. But he knew you needed your work—your passion. 

As he grunts and lifts the trunk, a knicker echoes out behind him. Blinking, dark eyes look behind to find a meeting pair—a long horse’s neck leaning out of a stall. They stare at each other before Simon huffs a chuckle and turns to the shadows.

When you finally did open your eyes again, deep in the third night, everything was different. 

You blink at the bright roar of the fireplace, the flickering of the candles that push back any darkness—curtains on the windows to hide the blackness of midnight. There are your belongings on the cleaned table; the foot of the bed and, there, on the desk. Measuring tape, fabric scissors, and yards of materials are stacked in the spotless corners. 

There’s no doubt that the broken window is fixed for the moment as well. 

New sheets sit on the end of the bed, waiting for you to get up before he can fit them. Jaw loose, you glance all around as the fabric pools at your waist, bare body glistening in the light as your head moves like a bird back and forth slowly. Dare you say it, the place felt…homely. Warm. Small, yes, but the definition of comfort rarely mattered when speaking on size. 

There’s a shuffling sound outside the door and you realize you’re alone. 

Face stuck at the door, your sudden tension is somewhat lessened by the small grunts and puffs of a large nose and heavy, clawed, feet. Somewhat. 

An open maw bites down on your throat with a tearing of flesh before your neck fully snaps.

Your hand lightly comes up to your throat, pressing very loosely as the sounds continue, spiking your cautious curiosity. You know you shouldn’t be holding this against him, but, you had…died. You had felt your neck snap and your blood coat his fangs. 

Somehow, Simon had brought you back from that, but he had been the one to do it in the first place. 

No, you think, feet very carefully sitting on the floor. No, not Simon. The Ghost.

Yet again—aren't those the same? It was a constant question.

Your lips are thin as the dagger in your heart digs ever deeper, but it is your dagger, and it is also your heart, too. Yours. Standing, you cover yourself with the thin sheet, hearing it drag behind you as your body takes you to the door with quiet and even steps. 

So much the two of you have gone through—it seemed hard to comprehend it in this world of black fire and battling beasts; hell and purgatory. He’d tracked you down…how? As your hand meets the handle, slowly walking feet coming closer from beyond it, you tighten your hold on the fabric near your neck and breathe slowly. 

You first see crimson, and then the beady brown eyes of a large dog and a stained muzzle. Breath tight, you stare at the dead bodies of two sheep in the Ghost’s maw, limp bodies hanging from the legs out of puffed cheeks. The both of you halt your courses. 

Simon’s eyes slash down your nearly-naked form, and he drops the animals to the ground before his head darts to the side; snow splattered with blood and the imprint of large woolen bodies. He snorts and takes a single step back, seemingly hunching down lower as he sniffs the air in distraction. 

His feet pivot, one clawed foot moving away.

“Simon,” you say, breath puffing over the cold air. He waits, head only slightly tilting your way; eyes pointing down. You don’t know why you speak, why you call to him like this. 

The silence settles as you struggle to articulate, mouth opening and closing like it was a choice between speech or the metaphorical blade to your throat. You close your mouth and look to the side, the lids of your eyes tightly shut. 

Without another word, you’re setting your feet in the drowned snow and walking up to him, fingers shaking before your hand extends from the elbow. It rests above the side of his muzzle, hovering with a tiny quiver as you fight with your own fear. 

You can feel Simon’s eyes on you now, watching. Always watching. Forever watching. Eyes like hard earth; like the dirt under your nails. 

Simon’s throat grumbles, and before you can make a decision, he helps make one for you. 

He softly moves his great lumbering head down and to the side—slotting it under your hand as you gasp, feeling the strands of fur under your grip. Immediately, your eyes snap to meet his, seeing long lashes holding snowflakes. The Ghost’s so large that he has to bend low in order to give you a comfortable resting point for your hand; sitting in between his sharp ears. 

You swallow down your nervousness as the seconds draw on, your heart rate slowing until you can properly move closer and feel the waves of fur beneath your fingertips. Playing with them, you card your digits in gentle strokes, hearing the low purr that rattles your bones as a great weight is leveled into your torso. 

A tiny giggle emanates from your chest, and the beast responds by only pushing himself deeper into your stomach. 

“Easy,” you mutter, eyes light as a smile forms on your lips. 

The chill seeps in gradually as you both stand there, a werewolf and a barely-clothed tailor. Before long you’re shivering even as you feel content next to Simon and to steal some of his furnace-like heat. 

You pull back and the wolf momentarily tilts to find you, only to open his eyes when he can’t feel your sturdy body. He blinks, before slowly standing back up to his full height. 

The light from the hut seeps out to cover you, and you take comfort in that—if the door shuts on its own, you’d be left in a darkness you know you’ll fear for many, many years. With its illumination, you speak freely.

“I don’t know how you did it, Simon,” his right ear twitches. “But…but I want you to know that I don’t blame you for what happened. I should, I know I should, but for the life of me, whenever you’re near I can’t think straight. Please, when you’re back to,” you huff a tiny laugh, “whenever you’re back to walking in a man’s skin, explain it to me. Explain why I can’t think of anyone else but you.” 

Avoiding the sheep, you step back into the hut and close the door as those dead eyes follow loyally, the wolf not breathing beyond a thin line of condensation wafting into the air. 

You only make it five steps back to bed before the wooden barrier is opened loudly, hitting off the back wall and shutting closed on its own. Turning back quickly, startled, you’re met with a fast panting chest and a human hand that swipes blood away from his lips. Bare skin is close to yours, and your eyes widen at the instantaneous blown feeling of your pupils. 

Simon’s face is above yours.

“Because you own half of my fuckin’ soul,” he breathes into your scalp, accent rich and heavy with implication. “Just as I own half of yours.” 

Literal or a metaphor, you care not. 

You both stay there, hearts pumping and skin tingling as the air increases in temperature—the sheet around you held in a tight fist suddenly seems almost suffocating. Your arms itch to drop it. Drop it now and let him see you; let him feel you like no other has. Where did these thoughts come from? Or…had they always been there?

The man hasn’t moved, and you know he won’t do anything unless you ask it of him, but you can smell the sweat on his skin, the scent of blood and musk. Quick death and dragging claw. 

If he was fire, it would be a blessing to be burned. 

“Simon,” you say, voice tight. He grunts like a damn dog, hands at his sides twitching as his bare chest shines. So many scars. You want to trace them, to feel them writhe. “You’re no good for me.”

“I know,” he growls. 

You press your lips to his and breathe him down as the sheet falls from your shoulders, all-encompassing hands finding the swell of your hips and sliding behind them; gripping tightly. Your own dig at his waist, finding the bulk of his abs and the deep tapper of his v-line before you gasp at his hand kneading the flesh of your arse. 

At the motion, Simon takes the opportunity to smirk before letting his tongue slip into your mouth. You release a small noise from the back of your throat, and he groans—one hand coming up to grip the base of your skull and maneuvering your head farther upward. He pulls back and presses into you, your face growing hot as he finds your neck and starts leaving deep open-mouthed kisses as his chest vibrates. 

Lips swollen and sensitive, you whimper as he bites down at every other interval; arms around his waist and nails running up and down his spine. Simon shivers, hips lightly bucking as you press on the small of his back. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Love,” he nuzzles under your ear, pupils wide and blackened, feral-like. “The things you do to me, yeah? Drivin’ me up a damn wall whenever I caught a whiff of what I did to you.”

Your stomach is rolling in tight knots of desire, lungs heaving as his hands squeeze and travel. At your core, you can already feel the slippery effect on your folds—a stain of sin that leaks out with nothing to hold it hostage inside of you. Face tightening as Simon groans long, he leaves hickey after hickey, as if unable to not mark your neck and under-ear. 

The feeling of teeth there doesn’t even startle you, no, not now. 

You ache with need, legs threatening to close in on themselves before Simon loops a hand in your inner thigh and keeps them open. The world around you blurs as your body tingles with a yearning that almost hurts.

“C’mon now, Sweetheart,” his lips come back to yours and you let him ravish you with long, deep kisses as his hand moves up. You balk forward and shiver as you feel the deep press of his growing lust for you against your stomach. “Don’t wanna know how long I’ve been dreamin’ about this.” 

Your eyes flutter, and you gasp out through the joining of your hungry mouths, “Show me, Simon. Show it to me.” 

His teeth bite slowly into your bottom lip, easing you into this game of wolf and sheep as his half-closed eyes open and dig into you. Simon’s fingers flex but don’t move, the other still at the base of your neck; your own have been leaving crescent-shaped marks on his back for a while, absentmindedly pulsing along with the heated blood in your veins. 

There are still the remnants of sheep’s blood on his cheek—slashed up the side of his face and over his deep-set eyebrow, but you find you don’t care at all. 

With how his fingers tap so close yet so far to that sensitive bundle and the dripping mess of your insides, nothing matters. 

“My Girl wants that?” Simon hums, and as easily as if he were picking up a shirt from your shop, he lets his thick fingers push you open as you suck in a quick breath and sag into him. Into his neck you sigh, hitched airways making it seem tight. Instinctually you open your legs wider, whining at the press of calluses and scars in your clutch and sliding up your sensitive walls. 

Simon stops and waits mid-way past his first knuckle with two fingers, groaning as you tighten and flex around him at the foreign sensation. His thumb at the back of your head moves up and down, his own thighs hard with eagerness and a stain in his abdomen from the lack of attention—but he cares little about his own leaking head, content only when able to give you pleasure in the purest form. 

Your stomach as well as his are wet from his weeping tip, the chill of it making you both shiver and try to mash your bodies ever closer as the sheet below you two is tangled at your feet. The fireplace crackles. 

“Simon,” you keen, and he answers with a bite of your shoulder before rubbing his head into your neck. Like opium, he’d said. If only he could tell you your scent now was convincing enough to make him lay on a bed of burning coals if only he could smell it for three more seconds. 

Arousal. Lust. Animalistic desperation that Simon’s eager to bring you to the brink of—face sick with pleasure and eyes blown with numb satisfaction. Open and bare to him.

“Attagirl, that’s it,” he slides his digits deeper as your hips buck, making him grit his teeth to hold back a grunt as his dick is jostled. “So wet for me, fuckin’ perfect. Let me help, yeah?” 

“Fuck, Simon,” he buries his fingers at the base, wasting no time in crooking them back toward him and pulling his wrist down. You moan loudly, stretching and being played like an instrument. Simon’s fingers repeat the motion until you’re a mess of rutting thighs and shaky legs. 

The man takes down every moan and whimper—every sigh and jerk with a growing sense of pride. His dick is begging for friction, and the little bit he gets is from your stomach rubbing against it with every slippery sound of his fingers entering and exiting your core. 

Simon’s mouth is open with a tight pant for breath, mirroring yours before the pad of his palm rubs against your bundle. You arch into him, whining and pleading instantly with a burning face, half convinced something had overtaken your body to make you act in such a way. 

The man moves his fingers faster, making sure to maneuver his limb in such a way as to get your clit harder and harder with every pass, leaving you limp in his arms. Simon anchors you to him with a hand on the back of your shoulder blades, grip hard and knuckles white. 

As your face screws up and a fire burns in your core, nails leave long scratches down the back of his torso as if he was a wooden trunk to tie a horse to—a rock in a storm. 

“Simon,” you sigh out, head stuck under his chin. “S-so good, keep going.” 

He opens his mouth as he rubs his chin on the top of your scalp, mixing your scents together potently. 

“Look at me,” Simon utters, in his desperation to bring you to the edge, his accent is as deep as you’d ever heard it. “Look at me, Love. Wanna see your eyes watchin’ me as you fall apart. I’ll make it good, promise.” 

“K…” You gasp as everything keeps building up and up, teeth clenching together and legs fighting to close around his hand—Simon bullies you open through the overstimulation; the flood of your senses. “Know you will!” 

“So good to me, Sweetheart,” he grumbles, taking you by the side of your cheek and leaning back slightly so he can still let you rest on him but also watch. 

Your eyes flutter with every rapid intrusion from Simon’s digits, tight and textured walls giving in to him as he pushes and prods, searching for something as his brows crease and his abdomen bunches. The man’s biceps flex and strain, feet wide open and lips parted as he locks onto your gaze. 

“Fuck, what a bloody sight to see. Yeah, you enjoying that, then?” He mutters, and only when he pushes those teasing words out does he find a point inside of you that leaves your mouth opening and your toes curling; that he truly loses his breath. 

Holding your head forward, Simon’s jaw slackens as your face contorted with pain-like expressions of confused pleasure, sweat glistening your forehead and your lips swollen—neck nothing more than raised skin from all of the man’s biting. 

You strangle down such an instinctive and leg-shaking moan that Simon nearly forgets that he’s not even truly inside of you yet; balls tightening with building excitement and his length begging to be squeezed, used for nothing but that same expression on your face.

“Christ,” he breathes, teeth grinding and feeling you fight to keep his fingers in. Slick drips down his wrist, tapping the floor in a clear stain that could bring him to his knees. 

You can’t even speak, spine curling with such raw electric sparks. If Simon isn’t careful, your legs will entirely fail you. 

“Sim-” Your voice is high, mixed with panic as you let him hit that same point again and again like a hunter. “Simon!” You chant, fighting to meet his eyes as your vision blurs. 

Everything was too hot, the scrape of his calluses on your flesh like a knife raking through your insides with pleasurable stabs. 

“Jus’ like that, Love,” he breathes, not blinking. “C’mon know you feel it. Squeezin’ my fingers just right. Look at that pretty little face.” 

You’re building and building, standing on the precipice of a large chasm. There’s nothing to stop you from going over the edge—and you don’t want anything too. 

Your body tenses gradually, knees wobbling and your abdomen pulling into itself. A sharp claw seems to play with the string of your impending release, fiddling with it and taking it into its fingertip; rubbing it back and forth in a slow game.

Your breath comes out in short gasps, moans getting higher and more cut, Simon’s eyes are transfixed, panting like a dog, and, in an instant right before you break, moves his fingers at a break-neck pace. 

Your sharp cry is caught on his lips, sucking it down as your orgasm floods his hand, leaving it a sticky mess that he continues finger-fuck you through with firm strokes. He’s whispering praises on your lips, keeping you up as his hand snaps to your waist when your legs buckle. Your walls move like a noose, letting the man fantasize how it would feel to have you speared open in his lap as you writhe and take him down in the low light. 

All of these thoughts, this sight, make him harder by the second. 

Simon keeps moving his fingers, drawing your explosive release out until you plead quietly for him to stop from overstimulation. The sensation makes your abused clit cause your spine to arch with every touch of his wet palm. He obliged, the sound of slick slapping halting, but his fingers didn’t leave your spasming cunt as your limp head fell to his shoulder. 

Your chest heaves, aftershocks leaving your mind blank to all else but the press of skin and sweat. The air reeks of sex and hot breath. 

Simon’s head clacks yours, fingers flexing as you whimper and dig your hands into his sides. He chuckles and slowly pulls out, taking long strings of cum with him as they string his fingers together and dribble to the floor from your slit. He holds you up, uncomfortably shifting his feet when your body jostles his raging erection—making him hold back a tight gasp. 

“Good?” The man asks, gruff and casually. Your open mouth lays a firm kiss on his burning flesh as he side-eyes you waiting for a response. 

“Yeah,” your voice is far off. Simon chuckles lowly. 

In an easy sweep of his arms, you’re picked up and carried to the bed; set down to the plushness that’s down one sheet. You lay on your back, gazing up at the man as he stares down at you in turn. 

Neither of you speaks until Simon has to rip his eyes away, clearing his throat. Your eyes travel down before widening at the violent red of the man’s length—the thing twitching and dripping pre-cum down to the base in an obvious plea for stimulation. Yet Simon makes no move to do anything. 

“You should get some more rest—”

“Let me help,” you whisper, eyes widely innocent as they meet the browns that snap your way, those orbs slightly widening. “I own half your soul…right?”

Simon watches you, jaw loose. 

“It looks painful,” you ease out, pointedly moving your gaze downward with unabashed boldness. 

“Is,” he utters. If he was being honest, he was worried that he had been coming on too strong—that this part of the night might be going a bit far. You were a lady, after all, and he respected you as such. He needed confirmation. 

“Then let me help, Simon.” Your eyes blink at him, hand coming up to trace the bulk of his thigh muscles. His breath goes shallow, self-control fraying fast. Just a little more. You lick your lips. “I want to feel you take me like no one else has. I want you to stay in this bed with me until the fire goes out and the light outside peels through the curtains. Can you do that for me?”

Your wet core pulses again, wanting—waiting for something more. Something only Simon could give you. 

The man’s chest rattles. “Yes,” he relays, words low. 

After a moment of eye contact, the man places his knee on the bed, shifting so that he has himself in between your legs; hands coming up beside your head. Your lungs are heavy, fingers coming up to rub over his blood-stained cheek as his nose brushes yours. Simon’s stubble itches you, but you still sigh constantly as he kisses you once more. 

This was slower than the previous—less desperate though you don’t know how as you could feel the strain of his length prodding like a hot iron in your inner thigh. It made you slightly nervous, the size and the action itself, but you didn’t doubt who you wanted to be the one above you. 

Simon kisses the side of your lips, nipping at the skin as he grunts out, “You sure?” 

Brown eyes never waver as they stare you down. Any ounce of hesitation would be found immediately and the action would be over; Simon paraded around as a cold and heartless beast, but never had there been a man more considerate of your own safety. He didn’t want to hurt you. 

You drag your fingers through his hair and he shudders, one grip sliding to your legs as the drag of barely-there claws makes your breath hitch. Your lips mutter, quietly, “Yes.” 

“Gotta make me believe it, Sweetheart,” Simon kisses over all of the marks he left, slowly dragging the warm press of his mouth and side-eyeing you. 

You glare down at him and feel his smirk on your skin, how he hooks his hand under your knee and lightly lifts the limb. Your muscles flex at the sudden spread of your legs, your hand in his hair grasping tighter. Simon sighs low as your body shifts, shivering at the slick heat he restrains himself from rutting against. 

Face burning at your bare excitement, the man’s eyes glaze over. 

“I’m sure, Simon.” 

“Don’t wanna make you feel like you have to—”

“Simon,” you interrupt his comment, and the blond huffs, the air sliding over your heated skin.

“Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop.” You smile softly and drag his face back to yours, kissing him deeply. “Let me try…” Simon mutters on your lips, and soon both of his hands are pushing up your knees as you widely blink at the openness of your core before your legs are folded up. 

You whine at the stretch, the embarrassment of having your dripping folds on full display. This was foreign to you.

Simon hums, looking down and groaning. He taps his forehead to yours as you breathe deeply, letting him take control. 

“Okay?” He asks, and your heart skips a beat. 

“Are you going to keep stalling,” you breathe, looking into his gaze teasingly. “Or are you going to show me how you can’t function without me beside you?” 

There’s a stretch as he lines himself up, hips moving back and abdomen sliding over yours—your lungs stutter as his eyes glint at you; lips flicking in a smirk.

“You going to keep me here?” You breathe, voice breathy as Simon’s length begins to steadily press forward, your face twists as you take him down, lines forming on your forehead. “Make me,” his hands keep your legs up beside you, open as they tighten. His lids narrow in concentration at the tight vice of your walls, having to slowly bully his way into you inch by inch. “Make me tailor your clothes a-and spin your wool?”

The sounds from your joining bodies are vulgar. A slide and a coating of flesh with natural assistance as Simon’s jaw clenches, not able to help the jump of his pelvis as you moan and arch your back as he moves even farther into your clutch. 

You both writhe as he bottoms out, bodies shaking at the intensity of the moment and the sparks under your flesh. 

“Ah,” Simon strangles a whine, eyes tight shut as yours follow. Quick kisses are placed on your lips. “Don’t tempt me, yeah?” 

The great stretch of your insides leaves you sighing, tiny waves of pain pushed back by pleasurable pulsing and the scrape of veins. His head lays in the hold of your womb, slick leaking out from the ring of your core. 

“We,” your hips jerk, and Simon’s hands on your knees tighten until you know there’ll be bruises come morning. “We’re beyond temptation.”

Simon chuckles—his eyes dark and glimmering in the firelight. “Smart girl.”

He lets you adjust there for a moment, even if his dick is pleading with him to move and drive your back into the mattress; to see your face crease in rapture. But that wasn’t what his head wanted, no, he wanted this done right. 

When you look at him and your thighs stop shaking, he carefully grinds himself into you, letting your bundle of nerves meet the wirehair of his happy trail and give himself the slightest feeling of relief. You bite your lip, one hand on Simon’s cheek and the other still in his hair. 

The angle of your legs makes you feel him that much deeper, even as he simply grinds himself inside of you and doesn’t move much beyond that. 

“Feels good, y’know that?” Simon mutters as your mouth takes down a slow breath, eyes stuck on each other as the man fully begins to remove himself and softly flinch his length back into you; exiting just enough before letting him re-enter. “Tight; warm.” He shudders, gritting his teeth. “C-can smell you like this—how much you want it. Always have.” 

You whine at the words, tightening around him as he begins gently fucking you in earnest, the slap of skin and tight walls joining the crackle of wood. The scents on the air are a perfect mix of addictive pheromones—so potent even you can smell it as you try to meet every dig of his hips.

Simon’s face goes to your neck, nuzzling into it as his eyes go tight. 

“Fucking hell,” he breathes out a groan into your ear, mouth open. 

 The heat returns easily to you, the burning in your gut. Simon’s pelvis hits you, stimulating your clit every time in the perfect way, as if he’d glanced at your body once and immediately memorized what made you tick. His sweat drips and pools with your own, slick leaking out to the mattress and making you feel dirty in the best way as your cut-off sighs hit the ceiling. It's hot in here; nearly too hot to focus on the slide of skin and dig of your nails into his hair. It’s telling how fast you seem to hit that peak again, at the constant scrape of his veins and the push of your walls as if trying to force him in. 

Your back arches into him, and Simon cants his hips faster, biting on your chin and pulling at your lips as his eyes watch with eagerness. His abdomen bunches at the sheer pleasure he feels making you feel like this, chest heaving and large build all but swallowing you below him. 

“Simon,” you breathe, kissing him on his lips eagerly, growing desperate. 

“Let me take care of you,” the man grunts hard, getting harder to focus, “trust me?”

“Yes,” you say immediately, clenching your jaw as he brushes a spot so deep inside of you that your eyes go blurry for a moment. Your lips move without your brain understanding the slurred words. “Yes, I trust you. I…I…oh, fuck.” 

He sighs and bites a whimper down as your walls flex, gripping him tighter and tighter. 

“Knew I’d find you,” Simon pushes your legs harder into the mattress, form slightly shaking. You moan high into his mouth, eyes fluttering and knot growing tighter. “Knew I’d make it right, eh? Death can’t keep you away from me, not now. I’ll find you.”

You gasp, itching cord snapping and release spilling out around the plug of his dick as he continues on as you jerk and rut out of order; eyebrows pulled in. It isn’t long after that Simon follows you, shoving his lips on yours as his mouth parts with a tight cry. Inside of you the spill of his seed fills your womb and he fucks through it, hands releasing your legs to rub up and down your sides. 

Your core floods as he stays there, resting and stationary above you, his weight heavy but not crushing. The both of you stare at one another and breathe down the heated air; all of the scents and the desire there—the unspoken bond that extends life and death. 

Simon grunts and forces out, breathless, staring through blown pupils.

“I’ll always find you.”

In the morning there’s a pile of wool sitting in a cloth sack against the wall, and the sound of chopping wood outside. The curtains are drawn to the bright rays of the morning sun as they meet your softly smiling face, visage half-covered by the newly fitted sheets.

[chimcess]

→ Chapter One: Blessed Under Moonlight Pairing: Jimin x Reader Other tags: Werewolf!Jimin, Witch!Reader, Shifter!Reader, Shifter!Jimin, A/B/O Dynamics, Alpha!Jimin Genre: Supernatural!AU, Werewolf!AU, Angst, Mutual Pining, Fluff, Smut, Word Count: 19k+ Synopsis: Within the four realms of Lustra lay the Bangtan forest home to the Foxglove pack of the south and known as the “land of magic.” It is also home to the Bridd, a powerful witch from a cursed bloodline who is one of the sacred guardians of the forest. Y/N is the newest Bridd, a young girl who was given her position too early. Now a woman, Y/N is revered amongst the wolves as the most powerful witch they have ever known, but hiding under the surface is a woman who has to battle between her duty and her heart. Warnings: Cursing, panic attack, blood, self injuries, ritualistic scenes, pining, long haired jimin (this is a warning), mention of death, not much to say here A/N: Not me doing a complete overhaul of the series. Yes, it is a lot, and yes, there are a lot of changes happening, but I do think that they are good changes. This series has become more than I ever thought it would be and I wanted to make the changes I thought would line up with what I would have written back then with the knowledge that I have now- to the point that I have changed the name of the series itself. Don’t worry, nothing is changed too much. Thank you so much for reading, babes!

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It was a warm night, the gentle breeze doing little against the thick, wet air that hung around my home. Another howl echoed through the forest. Just a few more minutes. I felt the familiar itch at my ankle and quickly scratched at it before beginning to pace once more. I had to make it. They said they would wait for me. They had to. It was tradition, a tradition that they held dear, but I knew of their leader’s lack of patience. This only made my steps quicken.

For the last thousand years, my family had given their allegiance to the Gods of the Moon. It had been an act of desperation, a broken scream in the dead of the night, that had turned into a wicked curse. A generation had to pick a sacrifice, a child who would replace the old, and the next member would come along when the time was right. We were called Bridd’s, witches who were in charge of the safety of Lustra and guarded the people living in Bangtan. I was the chosen one for my family, the only girl born since my mentor, Aldara, and the youngest girl to ever feel the metal on her leg.

After Aldara’s untimely death, I had been placed in charge of the blessing ritual within the wolves’ village. It was a ceremonial occasion where they partied and danced after a long, tiring incantation process where the boys would become men. The pack was lost, and the Gods had come to me. Aldara had only been dead for six months. I was 13 when I was appointed, nothing more than a child, and I had blessed the wolves every year since. It was the only time I was allowed out of my cottage as a human.

Tonight was the celebration of Taehyung Kim’s birthday and the night he would become a man. An eighteenth birthday meant a great deal to the wolves as it marked the day one could become a warrior. Yoongi, the kitchen witch that lived deep within the trees surrounding my meadow, believed Taehyung would be nothing more than any other member of the pack. However, I had far more contact with the wolves than he did or any other witch in the forest. I was the only outsider permitted on pack land. I continued to pace. I could not be late.

Finally, I felt it. The thin, indestructible chain that kept me inside during my day began to gently tighten around my ankle. A faint, iridescent glow began to encase the silver and I felt a wave of pleasure flow through me. It was a cool sensation, and my skin was caressed by an invisible hand. The chain broke and I stepped out. It stayed open and would until I made my return at dawn. I snatched my lantern off the hook beside the door, put on my pack of magical items, slipped on my shoes, and whispered a spell to make my cottage stop doing magic. It was too draining to keep the house going while I was far away, and I would need all my stamina to get through the night. It was why I had decided against a teleportation spell and opted for meteor powder.

I heard the birds in the trees talk with one another. My friend Patto, a yellow-crowned night heron, was perched on the bird bath the pack had gifted me when I was appointed. I knew he would know if I blew him off and did not want to upset my friend. I would keep it brief and then use the powder to get to the pack quickly. I missed my wings. Patto sang a little song when he noticed me approaching.

“Human tonight?” He asked, jumping.

“It’s a man’s coming of age ceremony,” I clarified, wrapping my shawl around my head.

The winter air was crisp and nipped at my ears.

“I won’t keep you then, Y/N,” Patto took flight.

He quickly came closer, nuzzled into my cheek, and flew off into the night. He was on the hunt for prey no doubt. Patto was a spunky fellow and a wonderful hunting partner though we were often after different things. He was quite good at finding my favorite bugs.

Remembering time was of the essence, I pulled out my bag of meteor powder. It was a chalky, lavender-colored substance that was used for getting around from one place to the next. While it was less effective than an incantation or door charm, it was my best option for pack duties. I had to draw a detailed picture of where I wanted to go, something I had been working on all day in preparation along with my ritual bag, and then throw the powder onto the sheet. I took out the paper with the ritual site drawn on it and placed it on the ground, took five steps back, and threw a large handful of the powder on it. Instantly, the page lit up into a bright purple flame. I said, clearly and with conviction, the name of the place I wanted to go for good measure and hopped onto the flame.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of the ritual cave. I thanked the Gods for allowing my magic to work and started to set up the cave for the ceremony. Men and women were very similar as far as what candles were needed as well as the items I needed to collect on my nightly adventures, but there were key differences. If the Earth told me one would be a beta, the process was straightforward except for the colors of paint I had to mark them with. If they were omegas, those wolves would require the witch to finely grind pearls and mix them with the paints. Anyone who was blessed earlier than eighteen needed sage to burn while I painted them. I knew that when I helped the only blessed child in the last 100 years, Jungkook. Typically, this only occurred in the pack’s noble class. Then there were alphas.

In the Foxglove pack, there were currently 3 alphas. Jung Hoseok was the pack member I spoke with the most. He was a kind, gentle spirit who kept up with trading and pack affairs. Picking up all the pack’s goods from my home was a part of that. Kim Namjoon was the voice of the people and worked closely with Ahn to ensure their concerns were met. I only ever saw him on the odd occasion Hoseok could not make the trip to the meadow. And finally, there was Park Jimin. He was the alpha I had the least amount of contact with. We had met briefly when we were children, but beyond that he was a mystery to me. Always kind and never one to speak out of turn, Jimin was beloved and sought after by many women in Foxglove. As always, the thought put a sour taste in my mouth.

After arranging my altar, I pricked my finger with my bone knife and began to draw a circle. A wolf was made to stand in the middle before I sealed it off with salt and peonies. It was a trap and stopped them from escaping. Aldara used to chain them to the rocks, it had been the tradition for decades, but I found that to be cruel. Once I was satisfied with the circle, I knew it was time for me to paint myself. As the pack’s grand witch, I was made to follow the same customs as they did. Women were to crop their hair short if they were not human and wore specific ceremonial fabrics and colors. Sol always left a fresh bralette and skirt, the same their warrior women wore, and I slipped them on easily.

Using magic, I chopped my hair into a short pixie cut and ran my fingers through the ends to pull out any loose hairs that were left behind. I could grow it back tomorrow and I was always taught to never disrespect the elders. Then it was time for the paints. The women who could shift all wore similar face paints, however, each family had different colors and symbols that represented their family. Similarly, I adopted my version of face painting. My colors were blue, red, and black representing the raven, but it changed with every Bridd. I painted my entire face navy blue before fading the black color down my forehead. After drawing the thick black mask around my eyes and a long white line down my neck, I began to fill in my chain with red.

I hummed while I did this, imitating my bird calls, and swaying my body. I needed to begin the relaxation processes and connect with the animal within me. Tuning in with my animal side helped the ceremony move along much quicker than it had in the past. I placed ruby red and orange jewels strategically across my face to form the constellation of Aquila. After putting on my ceremonial jewels and sliding off my ring, I started to cleanse the cave with herbs and spells I mumbled under my breath.

I heard people approaching the cave but ignored them. This part was too important to skip. I had to wait for Taehyung to be sealed in the circle before I could light the candles, so I let the cave stay shrouded in darkness. None of the wolves would mind and humans were forbidden from watching a blessing. It was pack law. Luna Sol was the first person to enter the cave and I kneeled on my hands and knees before going back to the cleansing. I could faintly smell their strange, dog and pine scent, but it was easy to ignore. While each one of them could distinguish one another I just knew they were wolves.

More and more wolves flooded the cave polluting the air with their scent. My prey instincts wanted me to run, my hands slightly shaking from the spikes of fear that rippled through me, but I stood my ground. I was a witch, I could do anything, and nothing scared me. Not even predators. Finally, it had gone silent. It is starting now.

“Bless this child, Y/N,” I recognized the voice as Ahn, the pack’s Chief Elder. He was a great, big white wolf when he could still shift, but now he was a small, frail-looking man with a large beard and fluffy eyebrows. “Hunc puerum fac.”

I stood slowly, careful to not make eye contact with Taehyung. He was breathing heavily with anticipation. He was going to be an alpha. I could feel it. I made quick work of sealing off the circle before finally lifting my head and lighting all the candles with a simple lift of my hand. An orange glow illuminated everyone, and I could hear the boy’s mother whispering prayers. At these ceremonies, the men and women were to strip naked so painting the symbols would be easier. I did not pay attention to his genitals and instead focused on his eyes. I began the chant.

Taehyung was quiet in comparison to the others, and I could feel the anxiety in the room. Everyone was hopeful that he would be the fourth alpha for the pack. It would place them at the top of the hierarchy in the area. A surplus of alphas meant status in the wolf world, but in a pack this size I worried it would cause issues over territory. Still, I stayed hopeful for his mother’s sake. The woman was crying now, and I could see Taehyung beginning to grow agitated. This relieved my worries. Then it came all at once.

The husky, woodsy scent of an alpha hit me harshly. Though I had done this three times already it never got easier. However, Jungkook had been the last wolf I guided through the change, and the sickeningly sweet scent that rolled off his young body made Taehyung’s feel like a gentle breeze. I could hear small exclamations of joy happening around us. The real party would be when this was over. I moved from one incantation into another seamlessly and braced myself for the fight to come.

I grabbed the bowl of white paint I had prepared and the bone knife. Silver was strictly forbidden to enter the village under any circumstance. I continued to sing and sliced the palm of my hand and dripped my blood into the bowl. I walked over to Taehyung and bravely snatched his hand. This was why I used the circle. I was able to get his hand out of the circle and when he went to attack me, he was unable to break the seal. I sliced his hand and placed the bowl under his wound. Taehyung howled in anger. He was in too high of a state to be in pain. I got away before he shifted, the large, sandy wolf snapping and snarling at me.

I got a new paint brush and made my way back to Taehyung. I used magic to force him to shift back into a man and moved him to kneel on all fours. It did not break my concentration. I drew the pack’s symbol on his back, two large trapezoids that ran parallel to one another, and then created the Aquila constellation on the back of his neck. I felt my hands heating up and chanted for the Gods to bless the wolf through me before touching him. Taehyung screamed in pain. I was branding him with the symbols forever and they would be a show of his manhood for the rest of his life. They went from red to white within a few seconds, the scars shining in the candlelight, and the ceremony was coming to an end. I removed my hands and lifted them to blow out the yellow candles and lit up the blue ones. I walked back to the altar and kneeled before it. Raising my arms side to side, I chanted and felt my back begin to burn. My chanting did not waver even as the black wings ripped through my back, and I was in unimaginable pain. I could not stop singing.

Two large, metallic black wings sprouted around me as blood pooled around my calf. I reached, with shaking hands, and plucked a single black feather from them. Placing it on the altar, I cupped the feather with my hands and continued to chant. It began to lift itself from the altar and spin. I moved my hands and lifted my arms straight up. The feather followed and began to glow the same way my chain did. My head felt like I was splitting in half as a blue jewel grew from my forehead and fell. I did not allow it to hit the ground and lifted it onto the altar where it joined the feather. As I said the final words of the incantation the jewel disappeared. I felt my wings start to retreat into my back and the feather floated down. Then it was over and silent.

It only took seconds before the cave erupted in cheers. I felt a tired smile tug at my lips, and I leaned onto the rock in front of me. I was exhausted but I still had one more thing I had to do before I was permitted to leave. I used the rocks to support myself and stood up before grabbing the feather. It was tradition for the wolf to keep the feather from their blessing. Before the wolves came to Lustra during the Century War, they would sacrifice birds for the occasion, but things changed once they left Korika. Bridd took the brunt of the sacrificial aspects of the rituals, so it was not necessary. Slowly I walked towards the circle where Taehyung lay in his wolf form. He was almost horse-sized, and his fur was as yellow as the flames of my candles. He looked smug and kept looking over at his younger siblings across the way. I knew the wolves could speak together without talking, but I was not sure if that was what Taehyung was doing. I forced myself to stand up straighter and walk over completely ignoring the aching in my back and the blood that spilled from my wounds.

“Taehyung Kim,” I spoke, “I present to you a feather. This represents your newfound freedom. I wish you the best in the future.”

I kneeled and used magic to blow the salt away. I placed the feather out in front of me and Taehyung hesitantly reached forward. To be given a gift from “the Bridd” as they called me was a big deal. He finally took the feather in his teeth, and I smiled at him. Waving my hand, I made quick work getting him to shift back and clothing the young man with the robes Sol had laid out beside mine. The elders would award him his alpha sash once he went to the large feast the prepared for him. Taehyung smiled at me, and I marveled at the innocent, boxy grin he had.

“Thank you,” He was sincere.

“Thank the Gods do not thank me,” I replied, nodding at him, and going to stand up.

“Are you staying for the party?” Taehyung stood up much quicker than I could presently.

I would be lucky if I could clean the cave and go home let alone celebrate with wolves.

I shook my head, “Sadly, my time is limited, and I must be going. Congratulations Alpha Taehyung.”

I finally stood up and bowed to the alpha before using magic to make quick work of the altar and tools. Wolves, like witches, were not embarrassed by nakedness so I did not feel uncomfortable undressing. The bloody clothes stuck to me uncomfortably and I was thankful to be out of the blood-stained outfit. Unlike wolves, I got cold very easily and usually never left my cottage in the winter except for ceremonies. After calling out to the Luna Sol if it was alright that I packed my candles and getting the okay, I packed those as well. I was ready to go and prepared more meteor powder and another drawing. This time it was at my home.

The few wolves left in the cave were the other three alphas. I paid them no mind. It was best to stay out of wolf affairs when possible. Even as a close and trusted ally, I was still an outsider and not welcome without permission. I stayed updated through the forest. I could find out everything about everyone on my trips and I enjoyed staying informed. Morla, a tortoise who lived just outside of the village, was a great source of information. She knew just about everything. I looked away from the alphas and untied my bag of powder.

“Excuse me, Bridd?” I would know Hoseok from anywhere.

I stopped what I was doing and looked back at the alphas. I had all their attention. I fought with myself not to steal glances at Jimin. He was so rarely seen that it felt wrong not to. However, I had self-control and would not disrespect Hoseok. You are always required to maintain eye contact with any alpha who addresses you directly. Hoseok was smiling at me.

“Alpha Hoseok, “I greeted, bowing, “Can I help you with something?”

“Both Namjoon and Jimin have lists of supplies they require.” He clarified.

Now that he brought the other alphas up, I was to meet both of their gazes and bow. I started with Namjoon since he was far more inviting. He had a mono-lid, which usually made a wolf more intimidating, but he held a gentle warmth in his gaze that calmed me.

“Alpha Namjoon,” I bowed.

I rose again and finally looked at Jimin’s. His eyes had a feline quality to them and were sharp. I knew his eyes were a warm brown in the sun but within the darkness of the cave, they were pitch black. Despite the moon being the only thing illuminating the cave his skin glowed. He was the palest member of his village, and his silver wolf matched his hair which was waist-length and perfectly straight. He, like all the other warriors, kept their hair long to show their place in society. My heart danced at the sight of him, and I forced my eyes away.

“Alpha Jimin.”

Hoseok clapped.

“So,” He began again, “Here are the lists. I’m picking up the usual.”

“Would you like a new order of paper and ink? As far as I am aware your mate is still in her homeland visiting family.” I briefly glanced at the lists.

“You are all seeing,” He joked. “Yes, I will need some again this month. Unfortunately, Hyuna is not due back for another three days. I have already factored that into the number written down.”

I nodded and placed the papers into my sack.

“I will need at least four days to prepare everything. I will be useless tomorrow and possibly the day after.”

“Of course, Bridd.” He replied. “In that case disregard the extra paper and ink.”

Namjoon hummed and chimed in.

“Our pack is forever indebted to you and your servitude. Please rest.”

“Thank you, alpha, I will rest easy now.”

After bowing again and saying my farewells, I went back to my drawing and again got my powder. I said that I wanted to go to my cottage for extra measures and threw the powder. I hopped into the flames and ended up across the clearing from my cottage. Groaning, I threw the powder into my bag and said a small spell to get me to my front door. I glanced at the sky and realized I still had two hours of freedom and decided to use it.

Going inside, I took off my shoes and put all my ceremonial gear on the small shelf by the door. I realized I left my lantern inside of the cave and quickly penned a letter to the pack to ask Hoseok to return it upon his next pick-up. I called out to Shiloh to send the letter off. She was a barn owl who lived in the tree next to my kitchen window and had become my familiar. She delivered in exchange for treats and if I told her where mice burrows were. Normally, a nice bowl of crickets sufficed. I quickly put the kettle on before going to change into something more comfortable and wash off. This was the only time I was able to change without magic and I savored the feeling every time.

As I tugged my shirt down, the kettle began to whistle, and I made my way back to the kitchen. I took it off the flame and fetched a cup from my cupboard. It was not often that I had this much time left after a ceremony. Taehyung’s wolf did not resist me at all aside from the uncomfortable parts. That was a normal reaction, however, all three of the alphas took until dusk was just on the horizon. My Gods had allowed me to finish the ceremony, but the deep wounds on my back were just beginning to scab over. I had never seen the scars on my back, but I knew they would turn purple before becoming a strange almost-silver color within the coming weeks. I was lucky my body was able to handle the abuse.

All shifters had been blessed by the Gods. While to many we were seen as slaves, I knew they were the gifts bestowed upon us. The wolves were cursed to change into beasts of the forest, sworn to protect the land from all who dared enter it, and in return, their Gods kept their village plentiful, and the people blessed. This included extended life spans. Similarly, the role of the Bridd was a sacred gift. We were hand-picked by the Gods, much like a pack's Luna, and would be at their service for all our days. In return, we were given our magic and whatever gifts the Gods thought suited us best. The cottage would be here long after I was gone and the generations after me would still be here. I would be transformed into a bird and live forever as a spirit of the forest. This was my purpose.

I placed dandelions and a large tea bag into my cup before going outside to enjoy the air. I was never allowed outside during the day. The chain kept me from leaving my small home at all. When I was a child, I could remember frolicking in the clearing and playing with the rabbits in their burrows. Those were the years I was still Y/N, and the forest was my home away from home. Auntie allowed me to play more than any other Bridd had before, but she knew my love for magic was strong. I remember her telling me that I was special and that my deep connection would serve me greatly in the future. The Gods would bless me for my love. It was hard to see how she could have been right. Afterall, she was dead, and I was thrusted into a world I had little time to prepare for. The Gods took her away from me and one day would take me away from my student. All of it seemed far too unfair to be seen as a blessing, but I held out hope for the future. Bitterness would not serve me well even if that was all I felt.

The forest came alive at night, and I submerged myself in all its glory. The sounds of crickets chirping relaxed me, and I took a deep breath. It felt nice to get all the blood and paint off my body. I realized that Hoseok and the Luna had been the only members of the pack to see me without the ceremonial gear on. No one else ever came by and the inability to wander the forest outside of my bird form, aside from the nights I was needed, made it nearly impossible for anyone else to see me as a woman. This was the life of the Bridd. A quiet one filled with solitude and being one of the forest guardians. A lonely honor only the best received. I took a large gulp of tea and sighed at the warmth it provided. I loved it as much as I hated it.

A rustle in the bushes pulled me out of my thoughts. It had come from my left and I saw two large white dots glowing in the darkness. I smiled and placed my cup down. It was a wolf, probably a younger pup who was curious about me. Many of the children were and Hoseok often spoke about the wondrous ways they described me in the town. I slowly stood up and reached my hand out.

The wolf hesitated before stepping into the light. It was hard to tell its coloring in the dark, but I knew it was light-colored. In its mouth was my lantern. I gasped before making my way toward the large animal. This was an older wolf, it was far too large to be a child, but it was not possible to know who it was for sure. I did not see the wolves often enough to tell them apart; they all smelled the same after the change. Its fur glowed in the moonlight.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the lantern.

The wolf touched its nose to my hand. It meant that they understood and were most welcome for the good deed. I patted its nose gently and laughed when it nuzzled further into my touch. They might have been a teen like Jungkook, but the white fur distanced itself from the prince. Jungkook was midnight black and less fluffy.

“I’m surprised they allowed you to leave during such a joyous occasion.”

The wolf looked at the grass and I laughed in disbelief.

“You snuck away, didn’t you? Bad wolf. What would your alphas think?” I joked.

The wolf made a chirp-like sound, and I realized it was laughing. Shocked, my jaw dropped, and I simply stared at the wolf. This made it laugh harder, flop onto the ground, and roll onto its back.

“Alpha Jimin would be very displeased with you, pup,” I mocked, bending down to rub at the fur on its chest.

The wolf hummed in satisfaction.

“That’s not very fair of me,” I mumbled. “He’s far better to be around than Ahn.”

The wolf was staring at me, and I snapped out of my trance. Wanting to forget about my outburst, I let another large grin take over my face and began scratching the wolf’s chest. The wolf wiggled happily, and its large tongue flapped out of its mouth. When I scratched at its ribs, its leg began to kick.

“Aren’t you the sweetest thing?” I laughed.

I heard Shiloh call out to me from the tree beside my bedroom window. The sun was going to be up soon, and I should get some rest while I could. I sighed unhappily before looking at the wolf. They seemed upset that I had stopped giving them attention. I gently scratched behind their ears and smiled softly.

“I have to go inside now,” I said.

The wolf whimpered and quickly paced its head into my lap.

“It is a part of my duty, little wolf,” I stressed.

It finally moved. Wolves knew the importance of duty. Their entire village ran off the duty of the pack, its members, and their devotion to the Gods. I gave the wolf another pat before standing up and making my way back to my cottage. The wolf followed and we walked in silence as the door was only a few yards away. They stood a good six inches above me when it stood on all fours, and I shuddered to think about it on its hindlegs. I picked up my teacup and used magic to open my door. I put the lantern on its hook and charmed my cup to go to the sink on its own. The little thing began to hop in the air.

“It’s time for you to go, friend,” I said, placing my hands on my hips.

The wolf came close and nuzzled its large head into my chest. I rubbed its neck and scratched behind his ear. An indescribable sadness overtook me at the thought of it leaving. I felt myself tearing up and laughed at my melodramatics. This wolf was not my friend, was a stranger, and only came here to bring me my lantern. I should not allow myself to grow fond of it or cry about it leaving. I was not that lonely, I told myself.

“Go on now,” I pushed its head away lightly. “Before the pack realizes you’re gone. Alpha Jimin begins his rounds soon.”

The wolf nosed my hand once more before running off. As I closed the door, the chain on the floor began to move towards me. I walked towards it, and it wrapped itself around my ankle once more. The cooling sensation went through my body again. I quickly did my altar ritual before heading to my room to sleep. I knew I would not be available until tomorrow and gave Shiloh the go-ahead to set my sign to closed. Sleep came easy and filled with dreams of brown eyes and the smell of smoke drifting through the air.

My shop was filled with bottles, sacks, and labels. When Hoseok said that they needed more than normal he had never said it would be this much. I was unsure if I would be able to fit much more in the room let alone if he was going to be able to carry this back to the village alone. I quickly labeled all the healing supplies and medicines, both for adults and children, and slowly felt myself losing my mind. While not complex, it was the painstaking process of making enough for all 200 wolves that became overwhelming. This was my least favorite kind of magic and grew tedious fairly quickly. Slicing my finger, I hissed in pain and put the knife I had been holding down. It was my cue to take a small break. I was running low on supplies regardless and sent Shiloh to Yoongi’s home to poke around for any extras he may have.

Namjoon had requested a new shipment of medicines. They had finally gone through their three-month supply I had sent off many moons ago and I was having to restock their entire inventory. It was what Jimin had asked for that I was dreading as it was a convoluted and, frankly, unnecessary potion. I wrote to Enver, a young witch who lived with his mother in the swamps to the north. They would have the toads I needed. With Shiloh being out I relied on another friend of mine, Delinah. She was a doe who I befriended years ago after giving her an apple. Now, she did tasks in exchange for my stash of vegetables and fruits. I enjoyed her company immensely.

Adding to the pain of the recipes was the fact that many of the supplies necessary to make it were not in the forest. He was looking for a healing potion that wolves could take without needing to shift, portable heat suppressants, and a camouflaging potion. The only healing potion that would work without a witch being there was one of the most difficult and time-consuming recipes I had ever made, and I had all my resources searching every nook and cranny of Bangtan. There were 15 wolves in Jimin’s party which meant I needed to make a surplus of it, which only served to frustrate me further. There was hardly ever an issue in the woods around us as Bangtan had a reputation for being hard on outsiders so I was sure they would never use the items. The camouflage was something I had never made before. For the first time in years, I was having to reference Aldara’s grimoire and adjust it accordingly for my purposes.

Shiloh sang and I rushed to her window to take the sack of supplies Yoongi had sent back. Yoongi wrote me a letter as well to explain why some things were missing. The sea witch coven had been taking a lot of his supplies for their month of ceremonial rituals. Shiloh would have to get the rest from someone else.

“Alright, Lolo,” I started, running my hand through my hair. “Let me get you a new basket.”

“What now?” She deadpanned.

“You need to make a trip to Seokjin’s for the remaining supplies on the list.”

“The Solar witch?”

“Yes, Shiloh. What other Seokjin do we know?”

I began preparing another sack along with a new list. Yoongi had given me plenty, but Jimin’s order was still incomplete. Delinah was due back any minute with the toads and I could begin the fifteenth, and hopefully last, trial of the camouflage potion.

“Why must you send me there?” She whined, flapping her wings in agitation.

“Because he always has a surplus of herbs and flowers and I need them to make my order for the pack,” I replied, securing the pouch around her neck.

“You know I enjoy Jin’s humor at the best of times,” Shiloh said, her voice already taking on a whine. She despised Jin’s familiar, a dog called Mannix, and I was throwing her into the deep end by sending her there. Unfortunately, I had no other choice for now. “I can’t stand that mutt,” She spat, “And don’t get me started on those bees. Devil creatures, I tell you.”

“Shiloh,” I chuckled, putting the letter inside the bag. “Seokjin is one of the most brilliant witches in the land, and I know Mannix isn’t that horrible. It’ll be quick, and tonight I’ll be more inclined to go hunting with you.”

The owl agreed begrudgingly before flying away. I went back to the kitchen and started up the flame to my cauldron again. Using magic, I charmed all the potions I had completed and packaged to sort themselves and get into their bags before beginning to brew the camouflaging potion. The toads would be the last to go in this time, so I was not worried. I knew Delinah was close as I could hear her talking with a small herd of deer just outside. As I was adding in the worm wort to the cauldron, the deer let herself inside through the open door and placed the jar on my countertop.

“Stir this, please,” I asked.

The doe nodded, walked over, and began to stir the wooden spoon with her teeth. I quickly put on a pair of gardening gloves and braced myself for the task to come. While there were many substitutions, for this potion, I was required to use three whole toads. I had tried to get around it with other alternatives however it had ended up not working, wearing off in seconds, or I needed to physically use a spell to make their form come back. I was hopeful that using the correct ingredient would help stabilize the recipe.

I quickly placed the frogs to sleep with a short spell and took three out of the jar. They were all fat, angry-looking things but their coloring was perfect. Enver followed my instructions to a T, something that did not surprise me in the slightest. The boy was an incredible witch even at 13. After making a small prayer and thanking the forest for its sacrifice, I threw the three frogs into the potion. Delinah and I traded places and I saw the potion turn grass green. I began to chant and soon enough, as was intended, the potion turned clear like water. I cheered, jumping up and down in excitement, and threw my arms around the deer beside me. She nuzzled into my neck and gave me a good lick.

“Good job, Y/N,” She said.

“Thank you, Dee,” I went to my cupboard and got out a large sack filled with cabbage heads. “I’ll have apples next time.”

Delinah happily took the sack and made her way outside to her friends. I started to bottle the potion. I knew I had gotten it right this time since it had done everything it was supposed to do in the cauldron, unlike all my other trails. I did not want to put my familiar through another potion crisis again. Shiloh loathed testing potions for me. I went to the already packaged boxes of medications and curled the ribbons with my favorite bone knife. Like many forest witches, I collected bones, and my own little hobby of knife making merged with my habit of foraging. During my nights I foraged and brought back things I thought were useful. Aldara always made fun of my “crow brain” and inability to leave anything shiny alone. My large collection of gems and bottle caps were a testament of that. Crafting was another love of mine, and my favorite thing to do was make sure my packages looked neat and professional.

Aldara did not care so much for these things but when I began to decorate boxes and bring home skulls and bones, she never stopped me. It had gotten to a point where I would sit for hours and make packaging boxes and pretty bows and stickers. However, now that I oversaw it all, I only made cardboard packing boxes lined with thin tissues of varying colors and charmed the objects to do all the work for me. I normally matched the potions within and placed a card explaining what it was for and how to use them. Then, I would toss in a magical card that would take anyone to my shop immediately in case of emergency except for the hours I was unavailable, and then it would automatically send them to Yoongi’s instead. On the outside, a stamper would stamp the box with a large bird, a brush would paint the Aquila constellation along both sides of it, and a matching-colored ribbon would wrap itself around the entire thing. However, I knew I would opt out of the decorations for Jimin’s packages. They would need to be as discreet as possible as requested but I would still place the constellation on the sides.

As I continued to place the finishing touches on all the completed orders, I heard the bell above my door ring and large, booming footsteps right after. That would be Hoseok and he had someone else here if the second pair of footsteps was anything to go by. I quickly abandoned my ribbons and dusted off my apron before going to greet the alpha.

“Good afternoon, Hoseok,” I greeted, not paying much attention to him in favor of charming the camouflage potion to begin packing “My apologies for the orders not being ready. The things Alpha Jimin was requesting are very time-consuming and challenging to make. However, once my familiar returns with some herbs I need then it’ll all be ready to go.”

I was a whirlwind in my cottage. One second, I was curling ribbons and in another, I was writing out cards for boxes. Hoseok was used to the informal way I addressed him while in my home and I was certain whomever he brought along with him was well informed of my rudeness. I was far too busy to care if some wolf believed I was not a good host.

“I apologize for the strain I have caused you,” A sweet, melodic voice spoke up.

My body froze for a moment, as did everything else in the room before it started up again. I quickly turned to the two men and bowed deeply. My heart was racing like a hummingbird’s wings.

“I am so, deeply sorry for disrespecting you, alpha,” My voice shook. “I had not realized who had come in.”

Hoseok laughed and clapped his hands together. He always enjoyed seeing me get flustered and would have a field day talking to Namjoon about this later. It seemed like Jimin was the only pack alpha who paid me little to no mind. I forced myself to look up at the man.

He was dressed casually, more casually than I had ever seen, and his silver hair was braided down his back. His small frame still towered over me and that menacing aura that always seemed to surround him was intact. Even in the daylight, Park Jimin was untouchable. And yet, a familiar longing found its way into my heart, and I knew I needed to distract myself again.

“How much longer will your owl be, Bridd?” Hoseok asked, completely unbothered.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. 

“Aren’t you lot meant to be infallible?��� The alpha joked.

All Bridd have been blessed with gifts, the first of us was the spirit responsible for selecting what the ability would be, and those spirits would become our companions as Shiloh had become mine. The Gods would then choose the gift that would best serve the forest. Aldara was unable to speak with other animals aside from owls but was gifted with a bit of foresight. The only other witch that I knew with the same affinity was Enver, but his was far more complex and accurate than Aldara’s. I had my own limitations as I was unable to perform any high-ranking spells since it depleted too much of my energy. However, my gift was as much of a gift as it was a curse.

“That would be my aunt,” I joked back, unaware of the glare Jimin had sent Hoseok’s way.

While Aldara’s gifts were more about power and the ability to foresee the need to use that power, my own gifts focused on my connection to the forest and spirits within it. I could talk to every animal in the forest no matter what form I was in, but the most important gift Lilith had given me, however, was the power of mediumship. Auntie had said it was an intense gift, one that the Gods would only give to someone who they believed would benefit from the burden, but I had never fully subscribed to the same idea. When I was a child, weak and not yet able to understand the gift, the spirits were able to possess me. I would black out for hours only to wake up at a random point in the forest. I knew they were attempting to communicate with me somehow, but I was ignorant to it. I was far more intuned with them now, but every once and a while I would get overcome once more.

Going back to curling ribbons and helping my charmed furniture with the boxing, I listened while Hoseok began rambling about Sol’s birthday. While Hoseok was not interested, he had been mated for years now, he was anxious to see which of the three alphas Sol would choose. I made small talk and reminded the man of the Gods making that choice. The Goddess of the Moon was the one who chose the mates within the wolf packs, and I found the idea of soulmates endearing. What would it feel like to be loved like that?

Every now and then I would steal glances at Jimin who had kept quiet. His eyes took in my space curiously and I tried to think of a time he had been here. I briefly remembered him helping me into my bed after my first blessing ceremony with Namjoon. I was so battered and broken afterwards I could no longer walk. Jimin was still a boy and was asked to assist me along with Hoseok who would be having his own ceremony the following month.

“I am looking forward to the Luna's blessing ceremony,” I agreed, trying to keep the small talk lighthearted.

“I’m sure it will be an interesting experience,” Hoseok commented, walking around, and touching every single box of herbs I owned. “How different is it from ours?”

The cottage had not always looked the way it was. Auntie had kept it neat and organized. She never had too much or too little and kept it cozy enough for the both of us to lay by the fire together in the winter. However, not that I was alone, I found it impossible to keep the same structure. Where we used to lay was now a large table with herbs and flowers of all kinds, huge crystals, and jars upon jars of specimens that were needed for potions. Beside it was the bookshelf filled with my spell books. The rest of the Bridd grimoires were in the cellar as there were too many to keep in the main room. My little kitchen and potion mixing station were overrun by bottles, boxes, and decorations including more magical items. My bone collection sat in a display case beside the front door and my knives hung over the mantle of the fireplace.

“I’m sure Bridd does not want to answer that,” Jimin scolded Hoseok.

I had to force myself to keep moving as though nothing had happened. However, the ruse did not stop my body from lighting on fire at the implication. Park Jimin defending me? I was unsure how much of that I could take. I had a small flame for the alpha, but I was no fool to believe anything could ever happen between the two of us. It would be too complicated, and we hardly knew one another. Still, it did nothing to stop my skin heating up under his gaze.

“It’s alright,” I whispered, “It’s very different but I am not completely sure how. I still have a month to figure it out.”

“I wonder who the alpha will be,” Hoseok got to the bookshelf of grimoires, grimaced, and then went back to digging through the boxes.

“Who knows,” Jimin answered before I could.

Shiloh returned then, angrily shouting about the “stupid dog” and his “even dumber owner.” I quickly went to tend to my familiar. She looked disheveled and scowled when she saw me. The center of her face, normally a perfect cream, was caked in dirt. I could imagine her run in with Mannix had gone as badly as she thought it would. 

Fighting back a laugh, I took the basket from the owl before taking her into my arms.

“Whatever happened?”

And just like any other time this happened, Shiloh dramatically began squawking and screeching about how much she disliked going to Jin’s house. She was on fire with anger and wanted to rip out the eyes the “stupid, barbaric mutt.” I had a feeling she was just trying to get more than a mouse hunting trip out of this. Knowing Shiloh, she would complain until I agreed to go and see Morla with her. For a spirit guide, Shiloh was surprisingly catty.

“Seokjin. Oh, that monster!” She placed her wing across her forehead. “He let his godforsaken, loudmouth, drooling like a bumbling idiot mutt out on me!”

“Mannix,” I smirked, placing a hand over my heart. “Is a puppy. He’s not that much bigger than you.”

She screeched in protest, “That dog is a giant, Y/N! At least fifty pounds and growing!”

“Oh, Shiloh, I am so very sorry,” I could not help the few chuckles that escaped.

Mannix was only a baby the last I saw him. Jin had gotten him from the market in Clarcton, and called him a St. Bernard. They were not native to Lustra, so I knew very little about the breed. I guessed they grew much bigger than I had originally thought. I would have to write Jin and let him know his familiar was too big and rowdy to play well with mine.

“It was so embarrassing,” Shiloh grumbled, finally snapping out of her melodramatic performance.

“And then the bees, I was forced into a position to ask them for them. Me! Shiloh, the Bridd’s one and only familiar, asking those mongrels for help. Never send me back there again, Y/N. I beg of you!”

I rolled my eyes, walked her to our room, and helped her squeeze her way into the small opening of her nesting box. While she usually slept in her large, cone-shaped nest outside, when she stayed awake during the day to help me, I allowed her to sleep in my room. I had built it as a child. I gathered the wood and Aldara helped with cutting, screwing, and dangerous things that a four-year-old could not do herself. It was a nice size, 4x4, and Solid wood with a hole large enough for her to squeeze through in the upper right-hand corner. The inside was filled with dirt and sticks just as the owl liked as well as a stuffed animal, I had given her when we became connected. I heard the owl sigh and she rushed to the dark side of the nest.

Chuckling, I went back into the kitchen and called out to Delinah from the window. She was still eating the cabbage I had given her. The fawn looked at me.

“Whenever you’re finished would you mind asking Nixie, she’s one of the sea witches, if she could spare a vole or two? Shiloh is being dramatic again.”

Delinah laughed. All animals do it but not many are easily detected. I had known the deer since she was a small fawn, so I knew the sounds from anywhere. Behind me, I heard Hoseok’s loud footsteps and remembered who I had in my house.

“Of course,” She responded.

“Great!”

I quickly spun back around and began to fix my hair. I had yet to grow it back, but the nervous tick was still in full force. Hoseok was still looking around completely unbothered while Jimin was rooted in the same spot he had been in since coming inside. I was worried that I had annoyed him with our antics. While Hoseok was both used to and fond of the shenanigans that went on in my home the other alpha was not. I had always been told Jimin was a stern and serious type with little patience for nonsense, but his stoic expression gave nothing away. I began to stack boxes and watch as they found their way into bags. 

“Sorry,” I awkwardly laughed. “My familiar is a bit of a drama queen.”

“How is Shiloh?” Hoseok wondered, finally breaking himself away from the hundreds of items around him.

“Spunky,” I replied, a small smile on my face.

I returned to the counter and started pulling out the items Seokjin had spared me. Just as I thought, there was what I had asked for and more within the back including a note. With the boxes of medicine packed and ready to go, I figured I read the letter before getting back into the work.

Y/N,

How splendid of you to drop by. Of course, I am aware that Shiloh had come in your absence, but I will be expecting you over tonight in return. I’ll brew your favorite tea. I’ll have the ingredients below but feel free to write any revisions you may find. I have packed everything you asked for:

2 sunflower stems

12 sunflower seeds

3 baby’s breath bundles

A small comb of honey

10 sprigs of vervain

I have also added some other goodies in return for all of the wonderful gardening tools you made me this year. I know you use a lot of mint and sage so expect plenty of it. I’ve also started to grow lavender to balance out the sea coven’s needs for Yoongi.

Tea:

2-3 cups honeysuckle flowers (whole)

2 cups water

Wild honey to taste

Much love,

Seokjin

I quickly put my cauldron on the flame and began to write back the witch. Unlike Yoongi, Seokjin was a great pen pal and a wonderful person to have tea with. He, like myself, could speak with animals so we were able to talk while I was a bird. However, he was usually asleep when the sun went down as it was his prime energy source. Without the sun, Seokjin’s magic was not as effective.

Jin,

Thank you very much for the supplies. The mint is lovely and so glad to hear about the lavender. Remember full-sun and well-drained soil are best for it. If you need any other pointers Yoongi would be the better man to ask. Everything I know from him and my inability to go out in the sun does not bode well for my gardening career. Also, neutral to alkaline soil. I’m positive they will be lovely.

You’re too kind to me. The tools were a gift for being such a wonderful person and a greater friend to me over the years. Pass my thanks on to Mannix. Shiloh came home with her dramatics again. Haven’t I told you to stop picking on her? The dog aspect already bothers her, and the bees, but cuddling is far from her preferred activity.

Tea sounds lovely but I prefer the honeysuckle crushed. No honey- you know my diet.

May the Gods bring you joy,

Y/N

“As dramatic as always,” I finally responded, folding the paper, and stamping it with a wax seal. “Auferetur,” I commanded, and the paper incinerated into a fire and was gone.

“Sometimes I forget she’s not a person,” He joked, coming to the counter to watch me work.

The alpha enjoyed seeing the process of potion making even if he did not pay much attention to the details. I used to attempt to explain what I was doing until I realized he just thought the cauldron was cool. I used to be the same when I was a child, but things change very quickly in this life.

“Well, she’s technically a spirit, but I understand what you mean,” I threw in the vervain sprigs.

The strangest thing to make were the healing potions. As soon as they were done, they were to be taken off the heat and placed into their jars. After that you needed to add very suspicious stones inside of them in order to keep the shelf life. Without the opal, the potions only lasted for two days before losing all potency. Next was the baby’s breath.

“Is everything in your world a spirit?” Hoseok cocked an eyebrow.

“Hoseok,” Jimin warned.

He did it again. Of course, I did not need Jimin to save me from the other alpha. They were both at my mercy while inside and it was impossible to imagine Hoseok ever attempting to harm me. He reminded me more of Mannix than any wolf and his heart-shaped smile only added to his puppy-like nature. Still, I was touched by the gesture. I was reminded of the poor way I had spoken of him last night and felt ashamed of myself. Stealing another look, I appreciated the way his waist tapered to a pair of long, straight legs.

“Just about,” I used my magic to get the bottles to scoop up the potion themselves and had them on stand-by hovering above the kitchen island.

“Isn’t it hard to do all of that at once?”

“Hoseok,” I slipped, forgetting my manners, “I’m the Bridd. Do you truly believe that little of me?”

“Well, no,” He laughed, “I’ve just never seen any other witch do it before.”

“Do you see other witches often?” I teased.

Jung Hoseok was a master charmer and one of the politest gentlemen in Lustra. His mate, a woman I did not know very well and only saw in passing, was very lucky to have him. It was a rarity for any alpha to mate with any other preset besides omega, however, they had grown up together and fell in love despite her beta status. Their wolves had always gravitated toward one another, but the feelings were not known until after they had both gone through the change. She would have come to help Hoseok today, but I knew she was taking care of her ill mother back in her hometown Viridi Gramine.

“Only the grumpy man who lives near the pixie coves.” I snorted.

“Yoongi?” I confirmed, amused. “The kitchen witch?”

Min Yoongi was another close friend of mine. While not as personable as Seokjin or the sea witch coven, he was reliable and ready to help at the drop of a dime. Of course, he complained more than anyone else I knew and loathed uninvited guests, but I knew it was because he had not had proper time to make them a meal. He became reserved so he would not let on how much he enjoyed company since it was so rare on his edge of the forest. It made me happy to know that Hoseok’s visits were not limited to me and the kitchen witch would feed off his great energy.

“He’s a kitchen witch? Could’ve fooled me.”

“He’s unorthodox, that’s for sure,” The potion was finally complete, and I quickly began lifting portions and filling the molds. “However, he is not a very sought-after host so he can be clueless about manners or formalities. I’m afraid you’ll have to pardon him on my behalf.”

The entire house smelled of vervain and I knew I would never hear the end of it. Shiloh was very particular, but I had grown used to her babbling. She hardly ever listened to any of my warnings until I reminded her that her reincarnation as a mortal relied on her being a good familiar. And yet, she would always find a way to make my life harder. Still, I could not deny that the owl was my best friend. Or that I would be devastated if she did not get her wish granted. I wanted more than anything for her to become the beautiful red-headed woman she had always dreamed of. Even if she liked to fly in like a bat out of hell and moan about bees attempting to make friends with her.

“What makes him a kitchen witch?” Hoseok always asked questions he never cared to learn the answer to. Anything to fill the silence.

It was a common question for non-magical people. While I would never consider a pack member a mortal, I knew better than to lump them in with us. Guardians but all of their mysticism came from their shifting abilities, and since most wolves thought that they were untouchable, they never did learn about magic regarding others. Witches, however, were expected to know everything there was to know about it. At least, that was my job., and as someone who did both- it was a tiring existence regardless.

“Well, all witches have the same base knowledge, but we can also have specialties,” I explained.

“And his is cooking?” Hoseok’s eyebrows knitted together.

I shook my head.

“Something like that. It’s how he goes about cooking. There’s a fine art to kitchen witchery,” I tried to explain.

I was never considered a kitchen witch and knew only what I did because of our friendship. Growing up together, Yoongi, Seokjin, and Wendy, a girl from the sea coven, had been as thick as thieves. Our families were close and our small group of four had gotten into enough trouble to last multiple lifetimes. Still, I knew the barebones of each of their chosen magic. I was a forest witch like the other Bridd, but it had never bothered me. Generational magic was a common occurrence within covens.

Hoseok hummed in acknowledgment. Again, I looked at Jimin but could not pick anything out of his cool expression. He was no longer looking around the cottage and instead took to looking out of the large, rectangular window that took up the entire left side of the living room wall. He looked so ethereal in the sunlight. Agitated with myself, I again went back to pretending he was not here. I could not remember when these feelings began but it had to have been years ago at this point. I could recall the warmth surrounding me during his presentation ceremony and how his wolf went frantic to get close to me. Of course, that was normal, and I paid it no mind, but I still allowed myself to wonder. My infatuation has only grown since then, a fact he had to be aware of, and I was grateful he never commented on it. Even the custos of Bangtan was a gentleman. Another wave of shame overcame me.

“What kind of witch are you?”

“I’m a forest witch,” I replied curtly, making sure to keep my eyes away from Jimin.

Hoseok did not ask about my magic, but I assumed he thought it was too self-explanatory. Once all the bottles were filled and, on the counter, I began to quickly place the stones in the center of the liquid. Soon it would become a jelly-like consistency that tasted like strawberries. It would be a week before the stones were dissolved and they would not be usable within that time frame. I moved swiftly, aware that they had been here far longer than they should have been. Hoseok never minded the longer visits, but I would feel guilty if I held Jimin up any longer than I already had.

“Are they ready to be used?”

My concentration slipped momentarily causing the bottles to drop minutely. Quickly getting ahold of myself, I lifted them back up and continued putting the stones into the bottles. I had not expected Jimin to speak a word and his silky voice threw me off. He was so soft spoken, and the tone of his vice was sweet and smooth that it was difficult to imagine him as the war leader. His cherub face only made it more difficult. Jimin was too beautiful to fight.

“No,” I replied with great effort to keep my voice even. “They will need a week to be fully effective. Don’t open them until the stones are dissolved or they’ll spoil and be useless.”

“Is everything else ready now?” Hoseok chimed in.

While I was pleasantly surprised he had been listening, I did not let it show. He would most likely close his ears the second he grew bored. Boredom and silence were Hoseok’s worst enemies and his mind drifted even more when Hyuna was not around. She was one of the few people that could make him hang on their every word. The only others I had seen the same restraint with were the other alphas and his older sister. 

“Yes.”

Just as I had thought, Hoseok was back to touching things and wondering out loud. I never minded. He was unusually quiet today and I guessed that Jimin had something to do with that. He always said the younger man was far too serious and concerned about unimportant things. However, I found that hard to believe. If he were so strict, he would have demanded I move quickly and would at the very least look annoyed with how slow I was moving. Instead, Jimin seemed comfortable to wait however long I needed. Still, I did not want to push my luck.

“How do you even make these?”

The stones were all in the bottles and I charmed the corks to cork themselves. That was the worst part of potion making and I refused to make myself do that. Aldara had done it all by hand. Looking at what Hoseok was talking about, I smiled brightly. 

“Bones, sandpaper, and a lot of patience.”

My knife collection was my most prized possession only beat out by the cellar. All of them were made with bones I found while foraging and various types of leaves to make the handles. None of them were the beautiful steel that the people of Northorn used, but I adored them, nonetheless. My favorite, by far, was the small one on the very far right. It was the first knife I ever made, and while the unsightliest of the bunch, it held a special place in my heart. 

It had been made after a deer I was fond of passed on. His name had been Davian, and he was an older buck filled with fun facts and information. I was heartbroken when he stopped showing up to our playdates, and Aldara agreed to look for him after a few weeks. We ended up finding his bones, and Aldara comforted me with the idea of keeping a piece of him the way she had with a bird friend she had as a child. I took his scapula, and we came up with the idea of a knife. He quickly became my new favorite hobby quickly after. I had an entire wall in the cellar dedicated to my knives and hoped my future student would get great use out of them in the future.

“They’re beautiful,” Jimin complimented in his soft, angel-like voice.

The enchanted items made quick work of the boxing and I took my time to write the note card. Since these suppressants worked differently than the liquid version, I needed to be highly detailed in my instructions. Unlike normal healing potions, these are ones that require the wolves to shift into their human form to work, and this form requires more detailed and specific directions. If taken incorrectly they would be useless and unhelpful, and in younger children whose bodies were still adjusting to shifting, could potentially make them sick. 

“Alpha Jimin,” I spoke, my voice slightly trembling. I was not used to addressing the man directly and it made me more nervous than it should have.

“Yes, Bridd?”

“I made plenty just in case,” I shuffled back and forth, “Please make sure the instructions are read carefully. I don’t want anyone to get ill.”

A lull happened and I felt my breath picking up. My blinking became far more rapid, and I knew I was sending out waves of anxiety. As a shifter, I had a scent though I was nose blind to it, and no one had ever commented on it besides Aldara. She had said it was like vanilla and lavender, but that was long ago. I could only imagine the signals I was sending out to the two men and when Hoseok froze up, I unintentionally sent out a huge gush of my scent.

This happened sometimes. Aldara was a fearless woman but was still not immune to the rushing of adrenaline. I was a bird, and most definitely not a bird of prey, so the wolves usually made my body on high alert. I had had years of practice by now but was still prone to bouts of anxiety. Hopefully, if I was lucky, I would be able to breathe my way out of the blind panic that had swallowed me.

Taking a deep breath of air, I realized that was the worst thing I could have done. I could smell them with such potency it was dizzying. My hands trembled now, and I knew I would have to walk them out of here very quickly. I needed to sleep. I could see Hoseok approaching me, I could even hear his voice, but it was muffled. He could not get any closer. I shrank away from him, my fight or flight response on high alert, and I knew Shiloh would wake up soon if I did not calm down. Taking the hint, Hoseok took a step back.

“Are you alright?” Hoseok’s voice finally cut through the daze I was in.

I shook my head and covered my eyes. The darkness helped calm my nerves. I closed them and breathed through my mouth. I could breathe now and slowly started counting in my head. My hands still trembled, but I found it easier to think. Opening my eyes once more, I was upset to find that my hearing was sharper and the colors around me began to warp. Instead of seeing 3 colors, my vision changed, and the UV waves became visible to me.

Hoseok made another sudden move towards me, and I began to shake my neck and a loud, menacing hiss came out of my throat. That was enough to momentarily break the strange cloud of anxiety that was bubbling around me. I had never done that before, and it seemed to have frightened the two men. As I collected myself, neither wolf moved muscle. I was grateful for their understanding and hoped we would keep this between the three of us. The waves were gone, and my ears stopped ringing. I could only pray that I would not be seen as weak and fragile in the way Chief Ahn made women out to be.

“My apologies,” I finally said, breathless. My head ached and I knew this visit was over. I was far too tired for the small talk, and everything was finished. “I’m out of it today.”

“Are you alright?” Hoseok asked, his face showing his concern.

I nodded and took another deep breath.

“It happens to the best of us. I don’t really know what came over me, honestly,” I explained. “It has been a while since I’ve gotten spooked by a wolf.”

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Jimin spoke, and I turned my attention to him.

I nodded and closed my eyes. In the other room, I heard Shiloh asking if I was alright. I quickly let her know that I was fine. I had not had a response that violent in a long time. I could not pinpoint where the sudden spike came from. Was it just the fact that I had been sitting alone with two wolves for the better part of my afternoon, or had it been my nervousness over speaking with Jimin? Was it both? I was too scatterbrained to obsess over it any further.

“No, no,” I was so tired. “It’s not you. This just happens sometimes.”

Confident that I could finish packing the last few boxes, I began to move. I was slow and did not feel comfortable using magic, but neither man seemed to mind. I asked them to keep that moment to themselves and both readily agreed. Jimin told Hoseok to start placing the packed bags into the cart they had outside. The rest of the work went quickly and before long the alphas were bidding me goodnight.

“I hope you feel better,” Jimin said after Hoseok had gone outside.

“Thank you,” I replied.

I expected being alone with him to feel more uncomfortable, especially after the embarrassing spectacle from before, but as always, I was surprised by him. Jimin was perfectly at ease and the silence in the air did not feel stuffy or forced. In fact, I enjoyed just how easily he blended into the rest of the cottage. Almost like he was meant to be here. The remnants of my anxiety faded with that thought, but I was unable to look at Jimin again. Even the idea made me grow bashful. They were gone without another word, and I decided to take a nap before the sun went down.

The sun was setting when I finally woke, and I was thankful the change had not woken me up. Transforming had not always been so painful for my family, but the legend says that once Rosette became the first Brigg that her natural ability to shift had become the most painful experience in her life. Aldara told me that it was a sacrifice she had made in order to protect her sister, but I always thought this was a cruel and unusual punishment. The sun was almost completely set, and Shiloh was nowhere to be seen. She must have left already. I would have to fulfill my promise another day. 

Stretching, I decided to go into the kitchen and put down some towels. Blood was a nightmare to get out of the fabric, but I would take that over scrubbing the hardwood floors. There was already enough staining on the dark wood, and I did not like adding to it. After setting my towels down, I sat down and waited for the sun to set. 

Suddenly, I felt the metal around my leg loosen slightly and I knew it was time. I stood up and I was instantly contorting in burning pain. The world began to get bigger as I shrunk down to size, and I cried out in pain as the first feathers began to burst out of my legs. Having seen Bridd’s transformation with my own eyes I knew how horrifying it was to witness and was glad Shiloh and I were the only ones to see me like this. More feathers ripped through my skin and blood stained the floors, the feeling akin to having a hot branding iron held against my skin.

My body burned and twisted in pain. Falling to my knees, I screamed in agony as my beak began to break through my skin. Even after all this time shifting never got any easier. Aldara had said it was the only true pain a Bridd could feel. If I could, I would tell her she was wrong. Flashes of fire invaded my vision and I fell to the ground with a loud caw echoing off the walls.

It did not take me long to get out of the pile of tattered clothes that surrounded me. I was glad I was wearing something I was not overly fond of. I would use the scraps as tea towels and sew something new. Still, I should have considered taking off my clothes. I really was out of sorts today.

Flapping my wings, I was satisfied with how light and energetic I felt in this body which was in complete contrast to my weighed down human form. There were pros and cons to being a raven, but I had always wished I could be like this more often. Or, at the very least, whenever I chose to be. I was resentful for my sun and moon routine, but this was the life of my kind. There would be nothing I could ever do to change that. 

I took flight and set off toward the trees. Shiloh would have to be with Morla right now since the mice usually did not come out until the moon was higher in the sky. For her I could sit and waste away my nights listening to overdramatic and hyperbolized stories and then eat mice that never tested very good. I hoped this would ease her mind about this afternoon.

A few days later I found myself sitting at my dining table. It was freakishly large, round, and stained a disgusting teal color, but Aldara had loved it and so I did as well. None of the chairs matched, but I think it only added to its charm. I hoped all of the windows in the house would let in the fresh spring air. Beltane was a week away and I was happy to celebrate the return of summer. I would write Jin and ask if he could bring me some wood for my fireplace so I could have my own little bonfire.

The morning sun was soft, and I smiled at the smell of rain that stuck to the air. My meadow rarely ever saw the fog that covered the rest of Bangtan, but I adored the way dew smelled on the grass. Everything sparkled and shined and was only made more magnificent by the sprouting wildflowers slowly making their way through the ground. Sights like this made me even more excited for the return of summer. This year I would try to host a Summer Solstice gathering for Litha, but I would likely forget about it.

I made a mental note to write it down, but I also knew I was likely to forget that as well. Then, I told myself not to forget. I scoffed at my own internal dialogue. Taking another sip of my tea, I sighed as I stared out the window. My favorite seat in the cottage gave me the perfect view of the flower fields and I began to reminisce about playing in the grass as a child. Most of the memories I had were with Yoongi, but Jin and Wendy made their way into our little duo eventually. We were older when everyone got close enough to be considered best friends. I frowned, thinking about how complicated things got once we all reached our late teens. It saddened me to think that we would never be as close as we were as pre-teens. 

“I’m going to sleep for a while,” Shiloh’s soft voice reached my ears easily. She was in her nest, I could make out the sounds of her talons against the wood, and I knew she was exhausted. She had spent the entire night out with Morla and Patto. “Wake me if you need something.”

“You should sleep outside,” I whispered back. “I will need to use the kitchen in a little while and might wake you.”

Shiloh shuffled around some more and I heard her fly out the window. The faintest hint of tree leaves rustling made me grin. My hearing was not as good as Shiloh’s or any of the wolves, but I was pleased with what I could make out. All of my friends found it impressive when we were kids, but after Jin said I was a showoff when we turned twelve and made me cry the conversation surrounding my slightly enhanced senses dropped. 

I went through two more cups of tea before I saw the flash of white from the other side of the tree line. Squinting, I tried to make out the shape but could not see enough of whatever it was to be useful. However, its size did give me a few hints. It was a wolf and if the gentle whimpers were anything to go by it was hurt. Putting down my cup, I called out to the wolf.

“Are you injured?” I asked, knowing the wolf could hear me once the whining stopped. “If so then I can help you. I have enough supplies to get you back to the forest in a few minutes.”

The wolf seemed to think about this for a moment as it did not move towards me. I had a suspicion this was the same wolf from the other night, but I could not say with complete certainty that it was. White wolves were not a rare occurrence, Jimin was a beautiful white-silver color as was Ahn. I scowled at the comparison. That was where the similarities ended. While I was busy with my thoughts, I had not noticed the wolf getting closer until it was almost at my window.

“Come around the other side. You might need to shift back to fit through the door.”

The wolf seemed uncomfortable by this. I saw some red stains on his hind legs, but I would need for him to let me help him if he wanted them to heal nicely. Of course, wolves were able to heal scars and injuries like anyone else, but magic sped up the process and ensured a good recovery. This wolf would know that, but perhaps they felt self conscious about someone knowing them as a weak person. Wolves were too prideful.

“Or,” I sighed when I realized the wolf would not shift, “I could teleport you inside and back outside. It feels a bit strange at first but it’s harmless.”

The wolf’s tail wagged happily so I took that as my answer. I began to sing an incantation while picturing the spot in my living room. I thought about the red and white patterned rug as well as my sewing chair. I counted every single stone that made up my fireplace and the knives that hung above it. I began to think about my small kitchen with its black cabinets, too large dining table, and mix-matched chairs. My altar sat in front of the large windows at the front of the house and the beautiful, scented candles sat on it. All of it combined into one perfect picture of the cottage with a complete rendition of the rug that I wanted the wolf to walk on. Feeling confident about my image, I began to draw the shape of a door with my fingertips and pushed it open with my hands. 

The wolf looked excited by the magic show and their tail began to wave frantically. I frowned when I noticed the slight limp they walked with, but they were already walking through the door I drew outside. In the next second the door opened into my living room and the wolf walked inside. I gawked at the sheer size of the white wolf and hoped they would not break my things. I might have to shrink them down to size after all. I asked the wolf if that would be alright, and they sat down like an obedient dog. A picture of Mannix came to mind and I hid a giggle with a hand. 

The wolf was now only twice the size of a coyote. A far better size to move around in my tiny space, the wolf limped off the rug and onto the wood floors. I stopped it from going any further and asked for them to lay down so I could look over them. 

I approached the wolf with little caution. I was glad to see my anxiety from the other day was gone and I could touch the wolf’s wounds with ease. I could faintly feel my breathing get heavier but not uncomfortably so. I could help this wolf, who I was certain was the same wolf now that I could look at them closely. They had the same bright eyes and fluffy hair. Touching the bloodied fur, I scowled. These were teeth and claw marks, and I was angry at whoever had done this to my little friend. 

“You really are a troublemaker, aren’t you?” I joked, hoping to lighten the mood around us. “First sneaking out of the village and now getting into fights? What would your mother say?”

The wolf huffed but I could see the amusement in their eyes. They were beautiful and warm; the brown color reminded me of amber but a darker mahogany. What a strange combination. They reminded me of Jimin’s own eyes, but I had never seen him so bright with emotion. 

Chuckling, I stood up to get the healing salves I kept laying around. I cut my fingers and burned my hands more often than most, so I liked to have a quick fix on hand. This was the best healing cream I had ever made and would be one of the first things I would teach my successor. It was beginner friendly and very effective. The wolf waited from their spot on the floor.

“Well, little wolf,” I smiled at them. “I think we should introduce ourselves. I’ll start and the next time you see me it will be your turn.”

I kneeled beside the wolf and began to apply the salve to the jagged wounds. The healing had already started but I was hopeful I could get rid of potential scars. The salve clumped in their fur, but it would only further aid the healing once I was done. Nothing a nice bath could not fix.

“Your people prefer to call me Bridd,” I started, focusing on my fingers and where to place them. “However, if you plan on hanging around my home for any amount of time, please call me Y/N. Bridd is too formal and stiff with friends.

“Y/N was the name my aunt gave me when I arrived. I don’t know how we get here, and none of the other eight seem to understand it either, but we all agree the Gods had something to do with it. Either way, once Aldara saw me, she said she knew she had picked the right name.”

I went through the tin I picked out quickly since so much of it was getting stuck in their fur. I still had to do the other side, so I went on another search. I found four more containers and went back to the wolf’s side. They were looking at me intently and raised an eyebrow. I laughed at myself. I had started to stare without realizing. 

“I wish I could know your name,” I grumbled. “Or your gender. Either one would be better than calling you ‘wolf’ all the time. It seems rude.”

The wolf laughed again, and I was still taken aback by the weird sound. I always thought deers had the strangest laughs, but I was wrong. Wolves took the cake by far. Then again, it could just be this wolf. Grinning, I thought of trying a game.

“Shake your head yes or no,” The wolf lifted its head from its paws. “Are you a woman?”

They shook their head.

“Fluid?” I knew of four wolves that did not go by male or female pronouns, and I would feel awful if I ignored the real possibility that they were one of them. The wolf shook their head again. “So, you’re a man?”

The wolf nodded this time, his eyes dancing with humor. I smiled widely and gestured for them to turn to the other side. This side was more damaged than the other and I scolded him for making me wait to do this side. He huffed and rolled his eyes. My little wolf did not like to be babied.

I decided to pay more attention to what I was doing now. The bites and claw marks on this side were deeper and reached the underside of his ribcage. I wanted to be sure I got every scratch and puncture mark well coated. Working in silence, I pushed fur around and out of the way so I could see the wounds better. The white fur tickled my wrists as I worked, and I struggled to move it out of the way so I could see better.

I cleaned his fur so I could see the scars easier. The blood stains washed off easily and left his silky fur pristine. I found a few more bite marks after I cleaned him off and had to apply more salve. After double checking the rest of his body and both hips, I was satisfied with my hard work and rewashed his fur. The wolf’s leg kicked when I scrubbed his right side. I laughed.

“You’re good to go,” I patted his side.

The wolf’s ears pulled back, and he seemed hesitant to leave. However, we both knew he would need to hurry back to the village before they sent out a search party. As much as I wanted my friend to stay a while longer, I knew he would feel self conscious if they found him here. With the way he reacted to me seeing him injured I could guess it was worse around the others. Scooting closer to me, the wolf placed his head in my lap. Playing with his ears, I did not want him to go. It was nice to be around someone who just liked my company without strings attached.

“Don’t worry, little wolf,” I whispered, burying my hand into the fur on the top of his head. “You’re welcome here anytime.”

Today, a week and a half after Hoseok’s visit, I had started up the cauldron again to make an order. Yoongi had back orders and the sea coven was growing impatient. The potions were simple enough and Delinah had gone to secure the raw supplies he needed. I made sure to send him a letter informing him of my good health. Yoongi had sent bowl after bowl of soup he spiked with the finest healing magic around and so many drinks I had to beg him to stop before my fridge was overstocked. He would be at ease to know I was back to magic and foraging again.

I was planning on making a trip to Foxglove once the sun went down. Sol had requested me to visit her when I was well enough to do so, and I figured now was as good of a time as any. I would quickly get through my daily duties and then prepare to see Sol. I would need to groom myself and shower. I smelled horrid. After our meeting I would fly to Foxglove to hand deliver a couple of apology letters to both Jimin and Hoseok for my outburst. I knew they were not needed but I would feel better about the situation after I did this.

“You have a letter,” Shiloh called out as she came into the kitchen, a small blue envelope in her beak. That would be Yoongi again.

“Thank you, darling.”

Y/N,

I hope this letter finds you well. Now that Shiloh has visited, I assume you’re feeling well enough for her to make the journey across Bangtan. Write back so I know how you are. Can I visit you tonight? I want to make sure you’re alive.

Yoongi

I laughed while shaking my head. It was rare for Yoongi to ask for permission to come over. We were close in age, he was 2 years my senior, and his mother was a good friend of Aldara when she was alive. Back then, the two of us would play in flower fields until I got possessed and Yoongi had to do the delicate task of finding me. My power was far more unhinged and scarier during those days, but he still thought I was the coolest witch in the world. I knew that sentiment was not lost even if he was still unable to say it so casually anymore. I prepared a piece of paper and ink to write back.

Yoongi,

I’m feeling much better. Still a bit weak but your elixirs and soups have been most helpful. Seokjin helped heat them and feed me so be sure to thank him as well. Unfortunately, I have been called upon by the Luna tonight. She wants to make sure I am feeling alright and will be available for her presenting ceremony next week. How about tomorrow?

May the Gods bring you peace, your oldest friend,

Y/N

It was a windy night, my feathers ruffling with the breeze. I had just gotten done meeting with Sol. We had to meet shifted for this to work, my bird was only able to speak with fully shifted wolves. In stark contrast, while I was human, I was unable to speak with any shifted wolf. This was a limitation of my ability, but it did not bother anyone too much. The elders were also present to ensure Luna’s safety. I caught Ahn looking down at me with thinly masked disgust and had to bite back the nasty remarks I wanted to throw at him.

“I’m glad to see you are feeling better,” Sol had greeted.

“Thank you, Luna. I’m afraid I have caused quite the ruckus in Foxglove. For that, I am sorry.”

The wolf laughed and swatted her paw lazily.

“Please, Bridd, you have no need to apologize. You were already exhausted when the alphas arrived. No one can blame you for your instincts taking over. We are predators after all.”

After we had gone over our pleasantries, and I assured everyone that I would be there for Luna’s shift they bid me goodnight. Sol had sent me home with a small gift. A wolf pendant with pearls on it. When I asked her what that meant she only smiled at me before shifting back into a human. My question remained unanswered, but it quickly left my mind once I began my second mission of the night.

Hyuna had returned less than a week earlier so I would not interrupt them while they reunited. I was able to drop off the letter inside of their mailbox, but it felt impersonal. I was sure both would understand and be grateful, and I could see Hyuna’s face flushed bright red once she realized why I avoided their house. This thought made me laugh and lifted my spirits enough to fly to Jimin’s home. The alpha had tried his best to stay calm and kept his mouth shut. Hoseok had been the loudmouth of the two, but I had suspected that regardless. Still, I could not ignore the way he defended me on multiple occasions and ushered Hoseok out of my cabin once he saw that I was okay. The little bag I had carried with me felt ten times heavier now than it had previously.

Finding the alpha’s home was simple. He lived in the barracks with the copiae, the village warriors, in the largest bungalow. The outside had no personality to show unlike the rest of them which sported chairs and pieces of furniture. Jimin’s was barren and looked like no one lived there. His mailbox was a small, black box with a slit at the top. I could find no way to alert the wolf to my presence and knocking was not an option. I could see lights were on and decided to find him. Taking a deep breath, I started to make my way around the home until I spotted the alpha.

He was awake and sat at his desk. He had his hair pulled up into a messy bun with strands sticking out every which way and wore a white tank top that clung to his muscles like a second skin. On his arm was the tribal tattoo all copiae receive upon entering. Aquila stood out proudly on his creamy white neck and the tribe’s symbol was covered by the shirt. I sat there and allowed myself to enjoy his presence. I wondered how long it would take him to notice me sitting here but found that I did not care. The longer he sat there and wrote the longer I could admire his beauty. Park Jimin was truly an image.

A strong gust of wind blew, and I knew my cover would be lost. Aldara said you could smell me from a mile away. The wolf lifted his head and sniffed the air before snapping his head towards the trees. We made eye contact and I hopped onto his windowsill. It took the alpha a moment to register what was happening, but he moved to open his window soon after, a small smile on his features. He looked so young like this, and I drowned in his scent once the window was open.

“Good evening, Bridd,” His voice was like silk, and I bowed my head in greeting.

“Oh,” He chuckled, “I forgot we can’t speak like this.”

I nodded and shook the bag off my neck. Jimin smiled at me and picked it up. My heart raced. He had always been someone I looked up to, a man I had respected as much as I feared, but right now he was just the man that I cared for. The man I yearned to be closer to. I often felt foolish for wanting a man that I could never have, and that would turn into guilt for even considering having a relationship at all. Right now, though, with the moonlight on his face and candlelight on his back I did not care about either of those things. 

“Is this for me?” He asked and I nodded again.

Jimin stretched his head out and offered it to me. It was odd, his softness throwing me for a loop, but in the end, I hopped onto his waiting palm. We had never been this friendly with one another, but perhaps seeing me panic made him feel pity toward me. That upset me more than it should have but I did not like the idea. It was easier to think of this as him extending an olive branch because he wanted me to feel more comfortable. That was far more pleasant.

“I’m happy to see you flying around again. I had heard you were staying in bed the last few days.”

I cocked my head to the side, and he understood the unasked question.

“Morla,” Yes, that made sense.

Jimin placed me on his bed, and I sat down. His room was very different from the outside. While he had nothing outside, his bedroom was lit with warm lights and candles. A rich vanilla smell floated around the room, and I was surprised to see him burning sage. There were various pieces of armor hung up on his wall as well as a large scroll with his name written out and two small paw prints. Wolves did this after their presentation ceremony to celebrate their first change. His family’s sword hung above the scroll along with a few drawings of his family. Jimin sat beside me and began unpacking the bag. He opened my letter before anything else.

My dearest alpha,

I would like to formally apologize for my outburst. Truly, I have no idea what came over me. One moment I was fine and the next I was having trouble breathing. I am prone to bouts of panic, but wolves are typically not the cause. I hope you understand. I thought I would give you a gift in order to make proper amends.

I hope you like it; I know you said my knives were beautiful. The one I’m giving to you was handcrafted about five years ago, but I made the handle too thick for me to use comfortably. Hopefully, it will be put to better use in your home rather than collecting dust in my cellar.

There’s also a small container of tea leaves. Care for a cup?

Bridd

Jimin smiled brightly and I turned my head away feeling shy. It had been an indulgence on my end. Jimin quickly took out everything I had packed and carefully looked over the knife. It was made from an Elk’s scapula that I sharped into an arrow-like shape. I wrapped the handle in twine with tree sap and moss so it would have a sturdier structure. Up until that point my handles would eventually fall apart with wear. It was an older knife, but Jimin looked at it like it was forged from the finest steel for King Edward himself. My chest swelled with pride; I had made him happy.

“Tea sounds lovely, amica. I’ll make you my favorite.”

I was not familiar with the term though it sounded endearing. Wolves had many nicknames for their kin. Hoseok and Hyuna called one another caritate which meant love, but this word was new to me. It most likely meant friend or something to that degree. Or it could be bad? I would need to ask Hoseok about it the next time I saw him. 

The man stood, towering over me. While he was short for a wolf, Jimin was still two feet taller than I was and was lean with muscle. I would not be surprised if he had not a single ounce of fat on his body. Even with his muscles, Jimin’s body was slender and agile. I had never seen him fall or heard his footsteps when he walked. My eyes zoned in on his thighs and another bright flash of heat ran through me. He was divine.

“Come,” He gave me his hand again, “I want to enjoy a cup of tea with you while we chat.”

I dutifully hopped into his hand without hesitation. It felt nice to be so close to him. His body radiated heat and I was happy to bask in it. Wolves, like vampires, were unbothered by the change in temperature. Vampires ran cold and were like ice when you touched them while wolves always sat a few degrees above the average body temperature. There could be a blizzard happening outside and a wolf could be naked and not feel a thing. Jimin’s skin was soothing on a windy night like this.

The rest of his home was much like his bedroom. Personal artifacts on the walls and warm light over it all. His living room was taken up by a large sofa and table with a beautiful fireplace centering everything. The feather, my feather, from his ceremony was in a glass display case on the mantle along with other important signifiers. I spotted his alpha sash tucked away in a corner. A large bay window I had not noticed while I was outside was home to a plethora of blankets and pillows with a tall, slender bookcase beside it. There was an open book sitting on top of the mountain of fabrics, but I was too far away to see its title.

The kitchen was small, much like my own, with only the bare-bones necessities inside of it. I was impressed with his stove. It was large and black with a locking gate for firewood. It was much nicer than the one at the cottage. The only personal pieces in the small space were two towels on the oven handle and a bottle of red wine on the counter. Impressed, I looked closely at the label and saw it was made in Virdi Gramine. While not as prestigious as a bottle from Northorn, I had heard the wine made in the east was just as delicious.

Jimin placed me on one of the counters and took his big, cast-iron kettle off the stove to begin boiling the water. He looked over the tea I had taken with me. It was a favorite of mine, a lemon balm tea that Thelma always sent to me whenever I ran low. My daily cup would be black tea, and while they drank their tea ice cold and sweetened with cane sugar, I always preferred mine hot and black. Sometimes I would add flowers or agave nectar, but I liked the bitterness a plain tea could give me in the morning. The lemon balm tea was different and very strong, but I enjoyed the flavor a lot. Hopefully Jimin would find some use for it.

“Are you feeling better?” Jimin asked before laughing to himself. “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting.”

I squawked to let him know I understood what he meant. It was difficult to speak when it felt like a one-sided conversation. It was why Seokjin and I were so close. It was much easier to be around someone who did not feel awkward in silence.

Jimin put up a finger, “One moment.”

He disappeared back into his bedroom before reemerging with an ink holder and paper. I was delighted. It was rare for someone to want to speak with me when I was a bird and it felt nice to be seen. Instead of being frustrated or bothered about needing to accommodate me, he found a solution. Again, my view of him shifted and the seed of longing sprouted. Why did I have to be me? Why did he have to be him? I dipped my talon into the ink once he sat it down and quickly wrote ‘I’m feeling better’ in chicken scratch. My normal handwriting was much prettier.

“I’m happy to hear that,” He smiled brightly. “I hope you’ve been getting some sleep. I’m sorry we rushed you so soon after Taehyung’s blessing. It will not happen again.”

He went to his cooler and took out a bowl of blueberries and a single lemon. Curious, I leaned closer to get a better look at what he was doing. I was always looking for new ways to brighten up my teas throughout the year. It was hard to find things that were out of season, so I had to get creative. He zested the lemon and put it into the bowl of blueberries, then he opened the top of his kettle and threw everything into the water.

After closing the kettle back up, he poured some of the tea I gave him into it. He then went over to one of the cupboards on the wall and took out five other containers. I chuckled. Never had I seen a convoluted cup of tea before. Seokjin would enjoy something like this very much and so I paid even more attention than I had before. 

“Is this too much?” I laughed before he could correct himself.

I dipped my talon into the ink and began to write. I had to do this very often, so I was aware of what I was doing and how to write legibly. When I needed things urgently during the night, I had to write letters. Jimin gasped, excitement clear on his face, and patiently waited for me to finish.

Not if it’s something you like. My friends would probably like this tea, and I am interested.

Jimin grinned shyly, “This is something my sister-in-law taught me.”

She must be very picky if she needs all of those blends. I take it you like blueberries.

“Clever girl,” I grew shy at his teasing. “Do you not like them? I can always make you something else.”

I love blueberries.

He hummed. The kettle began to whistle and Jimin quickly got it off the flame and into cups. I admired him again. So many times, I told myself he was big and scary, but I realized that I was wrong. The times that I had seen him we were both working, and I knew he took duty seriously. He was doing right by his people, and I had a feeling he thought he was respecting me by allowing me to work. Seeing him like this, mixing in Camomile flowers, peppermint tea leaves, and hibiscus into his tea mixture, it was becoming clearer and clearer that I knew nothing about him. Jimin was a rather kind man outside of work.

“Now we steep,” He took out some empty tea bags and another kettle. He placed the mixture into two bags and filled the kettle with water and started to heat it up. I tapped the counter to get his attention before writing.

Do you add sugar?

He shook his head, removed the tea bags, and started to add the blueberries to the tea before telling me I could sit in his living room while he brought it over. I flew to the sink and turned on the water to rinse myself off before I got ink all over his home. I shook myself dry and found the alpha looking at me with a little smile on his face. I flew toward him, head down, and started to stir my drink with the spoon on the counter. After I placed it into the sink, Jimin picked up both of our cups and made his way toward the sofa. I picked up the paper and flew to the table in the middle of the room.

The tea was too sweet for my taste, but I still drank it, the process much slower than normal. I had to grab a mouth full, lift my head up, and open and close my mouth for it to go down. While not the most relaxing way to enjoy the drink, I found no room to complain when it was with Jimin. He looked at me in wonder while taking a large gulp of the drink. The heat did not bother him in the slightest. I took another sip before Jimin spoke again.

“You didn’t have to apologize.”

And I knew I did not. Something had told me from the start that any type of apology was not needed, that he would not want anything from me, that he had just wanted me to feel better, but the insecurities regarding him made it impossible to turn away. I had to make sure he knew I was sorry for putting him in that position. He had to know I thought of him nonstop for four days.

“Did you do the same for Hoseok?”

I nodded my head and began to write again. This time, Jimin stood up and got a towel from a small closet next to the bedroom door. I finished writing and gently floated so he could place the towel underneath me.

Hoseok was occupied when I flew by. I left him a note with a plate of muffins. He rather likes strawberries.

Jimin hummed and seemed pleased by my answer. I felt shy. I knew Hoseok did not need or want my thanks. In fact, he would be upset that I even though he wanted one. This man, however, was still a mystery to me. His moods gave me whiplash and I found it hard to keep up, but it was becoming a bit clearer to me now. Park Jimin was just as confused as I was, but he was trying to make up for that now. He had even apologized for scaring me. 

“Well, while I am thankful for all of this, it was not necessary.”

I did not know how to respond. He was right. I had gone overboard with everything. I should have just dropped everything off and gone home. He would have found it on his own time. Even if a snooping wolf got their hands on the tea, it would be better than making him feel guilty by dragging out this situation. Feeling like I messed up again, I stopped drinking my tea and prepared to head out of the home. This was ridiculous.

“Though I will admit, I am enjoying spending time with you. You are close with the other alphas- save Taehyung. I’m a bit jealous.”

My heart skipped a beat before beginning to race. He was… jealous? Of the others? Whatever for? It was impossible to stop my heart from soaring. Was he truly that fond of me? If so, why did he only choose now to make it known? That same part of me from earlier began whispering about his mate but I ignored it. While there was no way for him to love me back, the sprout blossomed into a beautiful flower. I loved him, I loved him; I loved him.

“I should only blame myself for that,” He placed his cup down, “I was not very good at making you feel like you could talk with me and that deserves an apology.”

I hesitated but hopped closer to him hoping he could see the forgiveness in the gesture. He did not and continued to babble out some useless apology for his “rudeness.” Tired of hearing it, I tapped the table again and started to write. Jimin immediately grew quiet. After a few seconds, he placed his empty cup next to me and leaned over the paper.

You did nothing wrong, Alpha. I promise.

“I am happy to say we are friends now,” Jimin grinned at me. “Hopefully, I can brag about our closeness the same way Sol does.”

His kind words and affectionate tone were confusing me. Jimin was always distant and cold, his gentleness only popped up for the young pups that ran through the village, and now, like him, I could brag about our closeness. I doubt I would speak about it with anyone else, though. A moment like this was meant for the two of us, and my overflowing feelings would be impossible to hide from any of my friends. Namely, Jin, who had known about my little crush since we were seventeen.

“It’s very late, amica. You should go home. The sun will be up soon.”

I squawked and quickly bowed to him. I heard a soft voice call out, “ten” and knew I needed to leave immediately. It would take all my speed to make it inside before the break of dawn. Mentally, I thanked the spirit for looking out for me and took one last look at Jimin. He smiled at me; eyes lidded from exhaustion. I squawked one more time before flying away.

Taglist: @greezenini @adventures-in-bookland @kthstrawberryshortcake-main @zae007live @jimin-neverout @nikkiordonez12 @canarystwin @yamekomz @chimthicc @michiiedreamer @amorieus​ @mima795​​

So, this is very different. After rereading the first two chapters I felt like they could have been handled so much better, and I set out to remedy this as quickly as possible. We have a new title, new banner, and even a new nickname for our MC. I hope you guy enjoy this new-ish journey we are about to embark on and I, for one, am super stoked for the future. Love you.

© chimcess, 2023. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[tpq-heritage-posts]

Our Fandom

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[horror-beeings-artandwriting]

Short story sneak peak of the au. Characters: Scarlet Night Cookie, and some others. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scarlet night once a queen of love and light, the ruler of a kingdom in the sky, her people worshiped her, as if she was a god, the witches however didn't like this, so they chose to curse her, turn her into a monster, rot her soul away, Scarlet night now broken and beaten called upon her friends. After this unprovoked attack upon the kind queen, her dear friend, the king of a kingdom made of veins and reeds and her friend a man of pure Knowledge. Started turning against the witches, The king telling his people their gods had forsaken them, while The man of knowledge told his other friends of this cruel attack, embellishing it slightly to gain sympathy from them. The woman of Volition went to her people and warned of the cruel attack but had no plan to stop it, and locked herself away, the woman of Happiness went to check on the dear queen, and help her rest, the man of Change swore he would talk to witches and have them reverse it, even if that meant a fight, and the knight of Solidarity went to the queen…to comfort her with silence so she wouldn’t worry about her subjects hearing her sobs. When the woman of happiness and the knight of solidarity saw the queen of the night…she had changed, her hair from a once deep inky black looks like the stars in the sky the universe as a whole…her eyes had changed to a deep scarlet red…and she had grown another pair of arms…she welcomed in her friends…she told them the witches had failed in their attack, that they had just made her dough stronger. That they too, should turn against the witches, it would give them freedom, freedom under her light. The first to turn was the King of reeds and veins, he wished to stay true with his friend, soon after joined the man of knowledge, then the knight…the woman, and then the man who locked himself away, and finally the man who swore to change the witches minds… they swore to tear down the witch's cruelty and take back the world…but that wouldn’t be… a man blessed to become a guardian, and two women, one made out of moonlight and the other the Sea itself, attempted to stop them... first to fall was the woman of happiness, who was trying to let everyone finally rest then was the man of change, who challenged them to a battle but he was not strong enough. Next woman of volition had strong will but not enough to prevent her from being sealed. Then the knight…protecting his queens city… the man of knowledge was trapped last in a large silver tree The final two, The king of Reeds and the Queen of the night, tried to fight together, but the Sea washed the king away, trapping him under the earth to rot away. The Scarlet Night was the last to fall, the Moonlight struck her down, splitting her in two...her soul placed into a small soul jam, while her body was layed to rest in the moon, which the moonlight swore to watch over. The queen still watches on those dark nights, where her light peaks through and her songs are heard...the queen will return soon, once she is whole again…but until then, pray for the scarlet night.

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Hope you enjoy this little short story :3